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Al-Samawʾal ibn Yaḥyā al-Maghribī (Arabic: السموأل بن يحيى المغربي, c. 1130 – c. 1180), commonly known as Samawʾal al-Maghribi, was a mathematician, astronomer and physician. Born to a Jewish family of North African origin, he concealed his conversion to Islam for many years for fear of offending his father, then openly embraced Islam in 1163 after he had a dream telling him to do so. His father was a rabbi from Morocco named Yehuda ibn Abūn.

Mathematics

Al-Samaw'al wrote the mathematical treatise al-Bahir fi'l-jabr, meaning "The brilliant in algebra", at the age of nineteen.

He also used the two basic concepts of mathematical induction, though without stating them explicitly. He used this to extend results for the binomial theorem up to n=12 and Pascal's triangle previously given by al-Karaji.

Polemics

He also wrote a famous polemic book in Arabic debating Judaism known as Ifḥām al-Yahūd (Confutation of the Jews). A Latin tract translated from Arabic and later translated into many Western languages, titled Epistola Samuelis Marrocani ad R. Isaacum contra errores Judaeorum, claims to be authored by a certain R. Samuel of Fez "about the year 1072" and is erroneously connected with him.

Notes

1. A Jewish Encyclopedia
2. UIMATH: Islamic Mathematics (Algebra)
3. Medieval Cultures in Contact, By Richard Gyug, pg. 123
4. Perlman, Moshe (1964). Silencing the Jews. New York: American Academy for Jewish Research. p. 15.
5. Katz (1992), p. 242:

   "Like the proofs of al-Karaji and ibn al-Haytham, al-Samaw'al's argument contains the two basic components of an inductive proof. He begins with a value for which the result is known, here n = 2, and then uses the result for a given integer to derive the result for the next. Since al-Samaw'al did not have any way of stating the general binomial theorem, however, he cannot be said to have proved it, by induction or otherwise. What he had done was provide a method acceptable to his readers for expanding binomials up to the twelfth power..."

6. Williams, A. Lukyn (1935). Adversus Judaeos: a Bird's-Eye View of Christian Apologiae until the Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 228–232. ISBN 978-1-139-10847-8. OCLC 889963332.
7. Perlmann, Moshe (1964). "Samau'al al-Maghribī Ifḥām Al-Yahūd: Silencing the Jews / إفحام اليهود: تأليف السموءل المغربي (القرن السادس الهجري)". Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research. 32: 5. doi:10.2307/3622414. JSTOR 3622414.
8. Samau'al al-Maghribi: Ifham Al-Yahud: Silencing the Jews by Moshe Perlmann, Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, Vol. 32, Samau'al Al-Maghribi Ifham Al-Yahud: Silencing the Jews (1964)

References

• Anbouba, Adel (1970). "Al-Samaw'al, Ibn Yaḥyā Al-Maghribī". Dictionary of Scientific Biography. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. ISBN 978-0-684-10114-9.
• O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Ibn Yahya al-Maghribi Al-Samawal", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
• Samau'al al-Maghribi: Ifham Al-Yahud: Silencing the Jews by Moshe Perlmann, Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, Vol. 32, Samau'al Al-Maghribi Ifham Al-Yahud: Silencing the Jews (1964)
• Samaw'al al-Maghribi: Ifham al-yahud, The early recension, by مغربي، السموءل بن يحي، d. ca. 1174. al-Samawʼal ibn Yaḥyá Maghribī; Ibrahim Marazka; Reza Pourjavady; Sabine Schmidtke Publisher: Wiesbaden : Harrassowitz, 2006. OCLC 63514265
• Perlmann, Moshe, "Eleventh-Century Andalusian Authors on the Jews of Granada" Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 18 (1948–49):269-90.

External links

• Al-Bahir en Algebre d'As-Samaw'al translation by Salah Ahmad, Roshdi Rashed, Author(s) of Review: David A. King, Isis, Vol. 67, No. 2 (Jun., 1976), pp. 307-308
• Al-Asturlabi and as-Samaw'al on Scientific Progress, Osiris, Vol. 9, 1950 (1950), by Franz Rosenthal, pp. 555–566
• Naderi, Negar (2007). "Samawʾal: Abū Naṣr Samawʾal ibn Yaḥyā ibn 'Abbās al-Maghribī al-Andalusī". In Thomas Hockey; et al. (eds.). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. New York: Springer. p. 1009. ISBN 978-0-387-31022-0. (PDF version)

v t e Mathematics in the medieval Islamic world
Mathematicians	9th century 'Abd al-Hamīd ibn Turk Sanad ibn Ali al-Jawharī Al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf Al-Kindi Qusta ibn Luqa Al-Mahani al-Dinawari Banū Mūsā brothers Hunayn ibn Ishaq Al-Khwarizmi Yusuf al-Khuri Ishaq ibn Hunayn Na'im ibn Musa Thābit ibn Qurra al-Marwazi Abu Said Gorgani 10th century Abu al-Wafa al-Khazin Al-Qabisi Abu Kamil Ahmad ibn Yusuf Aṣ-Ṣaidanānī Sinān ibn al-Fatḥ al-Khojandi Al-Nayrizi Al-Saghani Brethren of Purity Ibn Sahl Ibn Yunus al-Uqlidisi Al-Battani Sinan ibn Thabit Ibrahim ibn Sinan Al-Isfahani Nazif ibn Yumn al-Qūhī Abu al-Jud Al-Sijzi Al-Karaji al-Majriti al-Jabali 11th century Abu Nasr Mansur Alhazen Kushyar Gilani Al-Biruni Ibn al-Samh Abu Mansur al-Baghdadi Avicenna al-Jayyānī al-Nasawī al-Zarqālī ibn Hud Al-Isfizari Omar Khayyam Muhammad al-Baghdadi 12th century Jabir ibn Aflah Al-Kharaqī Al-Khazini Al-Samawal al-Maghribi al-Hassar Sharaf al-Din al-Tusi Ibn al-Yasamin 13th century Ibn al‐Ha'im al‐Ishbili Ahmad al-Buni Ibn Munim Alam al-Din al-Hanafi Ibn Adlan al-Urdi Nasir al-Din al-Tusi al-Abhari Muhyi al-Din al-Maghribi al-Hasan al-Marrakushi Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi Shams al-Din al-Samarqandi Ibn al-Banna' Kamāl al-Dīn al-Fārisī 14th century Nizam al-Din al-Nisapuri Ibn al-Shatir Ibn al-Durayhim Al-Khalili al-Umawi 15th century Ibn al-Majdi al-Rūmī al-Kāshī Ulugh Beg Ali Qushji al-Wafa'i al-Qalaṣādī Sibt al-Maridini Ibn Ghazi al-Miknasi 16th century Al-Birjandi Muhammad Baqir Yazdi Taqi ad-Din Ibn Hamza al-Maghribi
Mathematical works	The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing De Gradibus Principles of Hindu Reckoning Book of Optics The Book of Healing Book on the Measurement of Plane and Spherical Figures Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity Toledan Tables Tabula Rogeriana Zij
Concepts	Alhazen's problem Islamic geometric patterns
Centers	Al-Azhar University Al-Mustansiriya University House of Knowledge House of Wisdom Constantinople observatory of Taqi ad-Din Madrasa Maragheh observatory University of al-Qarawiyyin
Influences	Babylonian mathematics Greek mathematics Indian mathematics
Influenced	Byzantine mathematics European mathematics Indian mathematics
Related	Hindu–Arabic numeral system Arabic numerals (Eastern Arabic numerals, Western Arabic numerals) Trigonometric functions History of trigonometry History of algebra

• Astronomers of the medieval Islamic world
• Physicians of the medieval Islamic world
• Medieval Jewish astronomers
• 12th-century mathematicians
• Mathematicians of the medieval Islamic world
• Converts to Islam from Judaism
• People from Baghdad
• Islam and antisemitism
• Medieval Iranian Jews
• 12th-century physicians
• Medieval Jewish physicians
• Jews from the Abbasid Caliphate
• 12th-century births
• 12th-century deaths
• 12th-century astronomers
• Iraqi people of Moroccan descent
• 12th-century people from the Abbasid Caliphate
• Jewish astronomers
• 12th-century Jews from the Abbasid Caliphate