Region Islamic civilization | Role Mathematician Name Ibn al-Marrakushi | |
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Died July 31, 1321, Marrakesh, Morocco | ||
Ibn al‐Bannāʾ al‐Marrākushī al-Azdi, also known as Abu'l-Abbas Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Uthman al-Azdi (Arabic: ابن البنّاء) (29 December 1256 – c. 1321), was a Moroccan mathematician, astronomer, Islamic scholar, Sufi, and a one-time astrologer.
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Biography
Ibn al-Banna' (lit. the son of the architect) was born in Marrakesh in 1256; he is named al‐Marrākushī after that city. Having learned basic mathematical and geometrical skills, he translated Euclid's Elements into Arabic.
Works
Ibn al-Banna' wrote between 51 and 74 treatises, encompassing such varied topics as Algebra, Astronomy, Linguistics, Rhetoric, and Logic. One of his works, called Talkhīṣ ʿamal al-ḥisāb (Arabic, تلخيص عمل الحساب ) (Summary of arithmetical operations), includes topics such as fractions, sums of squares and cubes etc. Another, called Tanbīh al-Albāb, covers topics related to:
He also wrote Rafʿ al-Ḥijāb (Lifting the Veil) which covered topics such as computing square roots of a number and the theory of continued fractions. This was the first mathematical work since Brahmagupta to use an algebraic notation, further developed by Abū al-Hasan ibn Alī al-Qalasādī two centuries later.
Legacy
The crater Al-Marrakushi on the Moon is named after him.