{{short description|12th-century Muslim mathematician, astronomer and physician}} {{Distinguish|Samaw'al ibn 'Adiya}} {{Infobox scholar | image = | image_size = | alt = | caption = | name = Samauʼal Al-Maghribī | birth_date = c. 1130 | birth_place = Baghdad, Abbasid Caliphate | death_date = c. 1180 | death_place = Maragheh, Ahmadili Azerbaijan | era = Islamic Golden Age | school_tradition = | main_interests = Mathematics, Medicine | notable_ideas = | influences = Abu'l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī | influenced = }} thumb|Al-Samaw-al Polynomial. Illustration of the ''al-Bahir fi'l-Jabr'' "The Brilliant in Algebra" from the 12th century. '''Al-Samawʾal ibn Yaḥyā al-Maghribī''' ({{langx|ar|السموأل بن يحيى المغربي}}, c. 1130 – c. 1180), commonly known as '''Samawʾal al-Maghribi''', was a mathematician, astronomer and physician.<ref>[http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/174-abbas-samuel-abu-nasr-ibn Jewish Encyclopedia]</ref> Born to a Jewish family of Moroccan 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.<ref>[http://new.math.uiuc.edu/im2008/rogers/algebra.html UIMATH: Islamic Mathematics (Algebra)]</ref> His father was a rabbi from Morocco named Yehuda ibn Abūn.<ref>Medieval Cultures in Contact, By Richard Gyug, pg. 123</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Perlman |first1=Moshe |title=Silencing the Jews |date=1964 |publisher=American Academy for Jewish Research |location=New York |pages=15 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fn0dPwAACAAJ |language=en}}</ref>
==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.<ref>Katz (1992), p. 242: <blockquote>"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..."</blockquote></ref>
==Polemics== {{wikisourcelang|ar|بذل المجهود في إفحام اليهود|al-Samaw'al }}
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.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Williams|first=A. Lukyn|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/adversus-judaeos/81611E2F026DAAEC45C114561CC9AA20|title=Adversus Judaeos: a Bird's-Eye View of Christian Apologiae until the Renaissance|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1935|isbn=978-1-139-10847-8|location=Cambridge|pages=228–232|oclc=889963332}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|jstor=3622414|title=Samau'al al-Maghribī Ifḥām Al-Yahūd: Silencing the Jews / إفحام اليهود: تأليف السموءل المغربي (القرن السادس الهجري)|journal=Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research|volume=32|pages=5|last1=Perlmann|first1=Moshe|doi=10.2307/3622414|year=1964}}</ref><ref>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)</ref>
==Notes== {{reflist}}
==References== *{{cite encyclopedia | last = Anbouba | first = Adel | title=Al-Samaw'al, Ibn Yaḥyā Al-Maghribī | url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2830903831.html | encyclopedia = Dictionary of Scientific Biography | volume = | pages = | publisher = Charles Scribner's Sons | location = New York | year = 1970 | isbn = 978-0-684-10114-9 }} *{{MacTutor|id=Al-Samawal|title=Ibn Yahya al-Maghribi Al-Samawal}} * 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== *[https://www.jstor.org/stable/230950 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 * {{cite encyclopedia | editor = Thomas Hockey | last = Naderi | first = Negar | title=Samawʾal: Abū Naṣr Samawʾal ibn Yaḥyā ibn 'Abbās al-Maghribī al-Andalusī | encyclopedia = The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers | publisher = Springer | year = 2007 | location = New York | page = 1009 | url=http://islamsci.mcgill.ca/RASI/BEA/Samaw%27al_BEA.htm | isbn=978-0-387-31022-0|display-editors=etal}} ([http://islamsci.mcgill.ca/RASI/BEA/Samaw%27al_BEA.pdf PDF version])
{{authority control}} {{Islamic mathematics}} {{Islamic medicine}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Samawal, Yahya Maghribi}} Category:Astronomers of the medieval Islamic world Category:Medical doctors of the medieval Islamic world Category:Medieval Jewish astronomers Category:12th-century mathematicians Category:Mathematicians of the medieval Islamic world Category:Converts to Islam from Judaism Category:People from Baghdad Category:Year of birth uncertain Category:Medieval Iranian Jews Category:12th-century medical doctors Category:Medieval Jewish medical doctors Category:Jews from the Abbasid Caliphate Category:12th-century births Category:12th-century deaths Category:12th-century astronomers Category:Iraqi people of Moroccan descent Category:12th-century people from the Abbasid Caliphate Category:12th-century Jews from the Abbasid Caliphate