Jaghmini

Sharaf al-Dīn Maḥmūd ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar al-Jaghmīnī al-Khwārizmī (Arabic: محمود بن محمد بن عمر الجغميني الخوارزمي), commonly known as al-Jaghmīnī or al-Chaghmīnī, was a Persianate Khwārazmian physician, astronomer, mathematician and author who flourished in the late 12th and early 13th centuries. He is best known for the astronomical textbook al-Mulakhkhaṣ fī al-hayʾa al-basīṭa and the medical compendium Qānūnča fī al-ṭibb, an abridgement of Avicenna's al-Qānūn fī al-ṭibb.^[1]

Jaghmīnī's ethnic background is not securely known. His nisba al-Khwārizmī associates him with Khwarazm in Central Asia. The 15th-century astronomer Qāḍī Zāda al-Rūmī stated that Jaghmīn was a village of Khwārazm, although modern geographical sources have not securely identified such a settlement. Sally P. Ragep has therefore raised the possibilities that Jaghmīnī may instead have designated a family or, more speculatively, a Turkic tribal affiliation. His surviving scientific works were written in Arabic. The Persian diminutive suffix -ča in the title of his medical Qānūnča, as well as references to Nowruz and Mehregan in the Mulakhkhaṣ, may reflect the Persianate cultural environment in which he worked, but do not establish a specific ethnicity.^[1]

Life and dating

Little direct biographical information about Jaghmīnī survives. Later commentators generally associated him with Khwārazm, and Ragep argues that he probably worked in Khwārazm and the surrounding region, possibly in the vicinity of Merv.^[1]

Older reference works often placed Jaghmīnī in the 14th century and sometimes gave 745 AH (1344–45 CE) as his death date. This led to the hypothesis that there had been two scholars named Jaghmīnī: an early 13th-century astronomer who wrote the Mulakhkhaṣ, and a 14th-century physician responsible for the Qānūnča. The 1344 dating ultimately depended heavily on unreliable later manuscript annotations and continued to be repeated in reference literature.^[2]

Manuscript and internal textual evidence instead places Jaghmīnī securely in the late 12th and early 13th centuries. A manuscript of the Qānūnča was copied at Konya on 12 Ramaḍān 601 AH (3 May 1205), showing that the work was already in circulation by that date. Ragep argues that this effectively eliminates both a 14th-century composition date for the Qānūnča and the need to posit two different Jaghmīnīs.^[3]

The Mulakhkhaṣ can itself be dated to 602–603 AH (1205–1206) from astronomical parameters given by Jaghmīnī. In discussing planetary apogees he specifies their positions for the year 1517 of the Alexandrian era, corresponding to 1205–1206 CE, apparently his own current epoch.^[4]

Another work, al-Kitāb fī quwā al-kawākib wa-ḍaʿfihā, uses planetary parameters for the preceding year and was therefore probably composed in 1204–1205. It was dedicated to a Shihāb al-Dīn, identified by Ragep as Shihāb al-Dīn Abū Saʿd ibn ʿImrān al-Khwārizmī al-Khīwaqī. Jaghmīnī later dedicated his mathematical Talkhīṣ kitāb Ūqlīdis to the same scholar; its colophon records its completion on 22 Ṣafar 615 AH (19–20 May 1218). Jaghmīnī was therefore certainly alive in 1218.^[5]

His fate after 1218 is unknown. Ragep suggests that he may have died during the Mongol conquest of the Khwarazmian Empire, when major centres of learning such as Merv and Gurganj were devastated in 1220–1221. This could explain the traditional date 618 AH (1221–22) sometimes associated with his death, although no contemporary evidence establishes the date conclusively.^[5]

Patrons and scholarly milieu

Jaghmīnī worked during the reigns of the Khwārazm Shāhs Ala al-Din Tekish and ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad. His writings indicate links with prominent scholars associated with the Khwārazmian intellectual and political establishment.^[5]

The original version of the Mulakhkhaṣ was dedicated to the scholar and pharmacologist Badr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Bahrām al-Qalānisī, who had asked Jaghmīnī to compile an introductory work on ʿilm al-hayʾa, or theoretical astronomy. Jaghmīnī also dedicated to al-Qalānisī a short treatise on the sizes and distances of the planets, apparently supplementing a subject omitted from the Mulakhkhaṣ.^[6]

His other patron, Shihāb al-Dīn al-Khīwaqī, was a prominent Shāfiʿī scholar and an adviser to Khwārazm Shāh ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad. Contemporary sources describe Shihāb al-Dīn as involved in madrasas and libraries in Khwārazm, providing a possible institutional setting for the production and teaching of Jaghmīnī's introductory scientific works.^[5]

Works

Jaghmīnī wrote introductory and technical works across astronomy, astrology, mathematics, and medicine. Ragep argues that these works form a coherent corpus produced by a single scholar rather than by two different authors of the same name.^[7]

Astronomy

al-Mulakhkhaṣ fī al-hayʾa al-basīṭa

The al-Mulakhkhaṣ fī al-hayʾa al-basīṭa ("Compendium on simple theoretical astronomy") was composed around 1205–1206 and became one of the most successful introductory astronomical textbooks in the Islamic world. It provided a concise account of Ptolemaic astronomy, including the celestial orbs and their motions, astronomical circles and arcs, planetary motions, and the Earth and its inhabited regions.^[4]

Unlike more advanced astronomical works of the period, it generally omitted geometrical proofs and did not include a systematic treatment of the absolute sizes and distances of celestial bodies. Its concise format was nevertheless not intended for completely untutored readers and presupposed some previous familiarity with astronomy and mathematics.^[8]

The text had an exceptionally long teaching history. Ragep identified 57 separate treatises written to elucidate it and at least 61 commentaries, supercommentaries, glosses and translations associated with the work. Thousands of manuscript copies of the original and its derivatives survive. It was translated into Persian, Turkish and Hebrew, and continued to be studied into the 19th century and, in some regions, even later.^[8]

Among its most influential commentaries was that of Qāḍī Zāda al-Rūmī, composed in 814 AH (1412) and dedicated to Ulugh Beg. Qāḍī Zāda's commentary itself subsequently generated numerous supercommentaries and glosses.

The Ottoman scholar Kâtip Çelebi records having studied the Mulakhkhaṣ, together with Shams al-Din al-Samarqandi's geometrical Ashkāl al-taʾsīs, under his teacher Aʿraj Muṣṭafā Efendi in 1643–1645.^[9]

The Mulakhkhaṣ also circulated beyond the immediate context of madrasa astronomy. The 16th-century Tunisian chartmaker al-Sharafī, for example, attributed a representation of the universe in his nautical atlas to a cosmological scheme derived from Jaghmīnī's astronomical treatise.^[8]

Other astronomical works

Jaghmīnī's astronomical writings also include Risāla fī aqdār ajrām al-kawākib wa-abʿādihā, a surviving treatise on planetary sizes and distances dedicated to Badr al-Dīn al-Qalānisī, and Taḥrīr al-qawāʿid li-taḥlīl astār al-farāʾid, a surviving work dealing with miscellaneous astronomical problems.^[7]

Astrology

Jaghmīnī also wrote al-Kitāb fī quwā al-kawākib wa-ḍaʿfihā ("Book on the strengths and weaknesses of the planets"). Internal astronomical data indicate that it was composed around 1204–1205, about one year before the Mulakhkhaṣ. One surviving manuscript states that it was dedicated to Jaghmīnī's teacher Shihāb al-Dīn.^[5]

Mathematics

His mathematical writings include the Talkhīṣ kitāb Ūqlīdis, an epitome of Euclid's Elements, completed in May 1218 at the request of Shihāb al-Dīn al-Khīwaqī. Other works attributed to him include al-Mūjaz fī al-ḥisāb, a summary of arithmetic; Risālat ṣuwar al-ḥisāb al-tisʿ, on nine types of arithmetic; Sharḥ Ṭuruq al-ḥisāb fī masāʾil al-waṣāyā, concerning the use of arithmetic in inheritance problems; and a 25-verse didactic poem, Manẓūma fī al-jabr wa-l-muqābala, on algebraic equations.^[7]

Medicine

Qānūnča

The Qānūnča ("Little Canon") is a concise Arabic medical textbook based on Avicenna's al-Qānūn fī al-ṭibb. Despite its Persian diminutive title, the work itself was written in Arabic.^[1]

It became an extremely popular introductory medical manual. Manuscript evidence reports its widespread use in medical instruction, and commentators described it as familiar to medical students in many regions. The earliest presently known manuscript was copied in Konya on 3 May 1205, apparently during Jaghmīnī's lifetime.^[3]

Numerous commentaries were subsequently written on the Qānūnča, helping to establish it as one of the widely used elementary medical textbooks of the later medieval Islamic world.

Legacy

Jaghmīnī's scientific works were notable for their pedagogical character. The Qānūnča and the Mulakhkhaṣ in particular provided compact introductions to medicine and theoretical astronomy and generated extensive traditions of teaching, commentary and translation. Ragep argues that his corpus is evidence for continuing scientific education in Central Asia immediately before the Mongol conquests and challenges older narratives of a general decline of the mathematical sciences in the Islamic world during this period.^[10]

Notes

References

1 2 3 4 Ragep, Sally P. (2016). Jaghmīnī's Mulakhkhaṣ: An Islamic Introduction to Ptolemaic Astronomy. Sources and Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences. Springer. pp. 7–25. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-31993-3. ISBN 978-3-319-31992-6.
↑ Ragep, Sally P. (2016). Jaghmīnī's Mulakhkhaṣ: An Islamic Introduction to Ptolemaic Astronomy. Springer. pp. 8–15. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-31993-3. ISBN 978-3-319-31992-6.
1 2 Ragep, Sally P. (2016). Jaghmīnī's Mulakhkhaṣ: An Islamic Introduction to Ptolemaic Astronomy. Springer. pp. 19–20. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-31993-3. ISBN 978-3-319-31992-6.
1 2 Ragep, Sally P. (2016). Jaghmīnī's Mulakhkhaṣ: An Islamic Introduction to Ptolemaic Astronomy. Springer. pp. 20–21. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-31993-3. ISBN 978-3-319-31992-6.
1 2 3 4 5 Ragep, Sally P. (2016). Jaghmīnī's Mulakhkhaṣ: An Islamic Introduction to Ptolemaic Astronomy. Springer. pp. 21–24. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-31993-3. ISBN 978-3-319-31992-6.
↑ Ragep, Sally P. (2016). Jaghmīnī's Mulakhkhaṣ: An Islamic Introduction to Ptolemaic Astronomy. Springer. pp. 16–19. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-31993-3. ISBN 978-3-319-31992-6.
1 2 3 Ragep, Sally P. (2016). Jaghmīnī's Mulakhkhaṣ: An Islamic Introduction to Ptolemaic Astronomy. Springer. pp. 281–283. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-31993-3. ISBN 978-3-319-31992-6.
1 2 3 Ragep, Sally P. (2016). Jaghmīnī's Mulakhkhaṣ: An Islamic Introduction to Ptolemaic Astronomy. Springer. pp. 1–5, 65–68. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-31993-3. ISBN 978-3-319-31992-6.
↑ Kâtip Çelebi 1957, pp. 141, 154.
↑ Ragep, Sally P. (2016). Jaghmīnī's Mulakhkhaṣ: An Islamic Introduction to Ptolemaic Astronomy. Springer. pp. vii–ix, 5–7, 25–26. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-31993-3. ISBN 978-3-319-31992-6.

Sources

Ragep, Sally P. (2016). Jaghmīnī's Mulakhkhaṣ: An Islamic Introduction to Ptolemaic Astronomy. Sources and Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences. Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-31993-3. ISBN 978-3-319-31992-6.
Kâtip Çelebi (1957). The Balance of Truth. Translated by G. L. Lewis. London: George Allen & Unwin. pp. 141, 154.

Bibliography

A. Z. Iskandar, A Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts on Medicine and Science in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library (London: The Wellcome Historical Medical Library, 1967), pp. 56–64.
C. A. Storey, Persian Literature: A Bio-Bibliographical Survey, Volume II, Part 1 (London: Luzac, 1958), p. 50.
Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1889–1936), and supplements.
Manfred Ullmann, Die Medizin im Islam (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1970).
Lutz Richter-Bernburg, Persian Medical Manuscripts at the University of California, Los Angeles: A Descriptive Catalogue (Malibu: Udena Publications, 1978).

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