á¹¢ÃÂÿid al-Andalusë (), in full Abà « al-QÃÂsim á¹¢ÃÂÿid ibn Abà « al-Walëd Aḥmad ibn Abd al-RaḥmÃÂn ibn Muḥammad ibn á¹¢ÃÂÿid ibn ÿUthmÃÂn al-Taghlibi al-Qà «rtà «bi () (1029July 6, 1070 AD; 4206 Shawwal, 462 AH), was an Arab qadi of Toledo in al-Andalus, who wrote on the history of science, philosophy and thought. He was a mathematician and scientist with a special interest in astronomy and compiled a famous biographic encyclopedia of science that quickly became popular in the empire and the Islamic East.
á¹¢ÃÂÿid al-Andalusë was born in AlmerÃÂa in al-Andalus during the Dhulnunid dynasty and died in Toledo. His Arab origins came from the tribe of Taghlib and his family had fled Cordova to take refuge in AlmerÃÂa during the civil war. His grandfather had been qadi (judge) of Sidonia and his father was qadi of Toledo until he died in 1057 when á¹¢ÃÂÿid succeeded him.
The early biographers ibn Bashkuwal, Abu Ja'far Ahmad ibn Yahya al-Dabbi, al-Safadi and Ahmad al-Maqqari tell us á¹¢ÃÂÿid's teachers in Toledo were ibn Hazm, al-Fataḥ ibn al-QÃÂsim (), and Abà « Walëd al-Waqshi (). He was educated in fiqh (Islamic law) first in AlmerÃÂa, then Córdoba, before graduating, it seems, in Toledo in 1046, aged eighteen. Toledo was then a great centre of learning and á¹¢ÃÂÿid studied fiqh (law), tafsir (Qu'ranic exegesis), Arabic, and Arabic literature. His teacher, Abà « Isḥaq IbrÃÂhëm ibn Idrës al-Tajibë, directed him towards mathematics and astronomy, in which he excelled.
While qÃÂá¸Âi of Toledo under Governor Yaḥyàal-QÃÂdir, he continued this work and produced several scholarly works that contributed to the Toledan Tables. He taught and directed astronomical research to a group of young scholars, precision-instrument-makers, astronomers and scientistsincluding the renowned al-Zarqaliand encouraged them to invent. Their research also contributed to the Toledan Tables.
The ṬabaqÃÂt al-üUmam (TabaqÃÂt) composed in 1068 is an early "history of science" that comprises biographies of the scientists and scientific achievements of eight nations. In the field of nations are the Indians, Persians, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Greeks, Byzantines, Arabs and Jews (in contrast to others not disposed, such as Norsemen, Chinese, Africans, Russians, Alains and Turks). á¹¢ÃÂÿid offers an account of the individual contribution each nation makes to the various sciences of arithmetic, astronomy, and medicine, etc., and of the earliest scientists and philosophers, from the Greeks,Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato and Aristotleto the Roman and Christian scholars of the 9th and 10th centuries in Baghdad. The second half of the book contains Arab-Islamic contributions to the fields of logic, philosophy, geometry, the development of Ptolemaic astronomy, observational methods, calculations in trigonometry and mathematics to determine the length of the year, the eccentricity of the Sun's orbit, and the construction of astronomical tables, etc.
The ṬabaqÃÂt al-üUmam has been transcribed and translated into many different languages in many periods and cultures. The original document is not extant and discrepancies in the translations creates problems for historians, including variations in the title of the book. Discrepancies in the content of the editions appear with some versions omitting words, sentences, paragraphs or entire sections. Some omissions or variations may have arisen through scribal error, or difficulties of direct translation, while others arose, perhaps deliberately, out of the political, religious, or nationalistic sensibilities of the translators.