Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Khwarizmi

Al-Khwarazmi is a somewhat obscure figure.[2] He was born in 935 in Khwarazm, the birthplace of his father. His mother was a native of Amol in Tabaristan.[1] He periodically refers to himself as al-Khwarazmi or al-Tabari, while other sources refer to him as al-Tabarkhazmi or al-Tabarkhazi.[1] Al-Khwarizmi may have been a nephew of al-Tabari, the prominent Persian historian.[1] For a time, al-Khwarizmi worked as a clerk in the Samanid court at Bukhara in Transoxania, [3] where he acquired his nickname, “al-Katib’’ which literally means “the secretary” or “the scribe”.[4]

While at the Samanid court, he compiled his best-known work, Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm [The Keys of the Sciences], an early Islamic encyclopedia of the sciences, intended as a reference work for court officials. It was produced at the request of Abū l-Ḥasan al-ʿUtbī a vizier in the court of Amir, Nuh II.[5] and the work is dedicated to al-Utbi which establishes a date for its completion of around 977.[6] In Nishapur, Al-Khwarizmi wrote a number of rihla (short, humorous accounts of a journey; partly written in verse and partly in literary prose), of which only fragments survive.[7] Locally, he achieved great fame as a leading scholar and writer. However, his reputation was eclipsed following the arrival of an aspiring young scholar and writer, Badi' al-Zaman al-Hamadani in 383/992. Hamadani composed a new form of prose that gained enormous popularity firstly in Nishapur and later across the Arabic speaking world. This innovative genre that became known as maqama. Al-Khwārizmīand Hamadani fell into competition with each other, exchanged insults and they eventually fell out.[8]

Al-Khwārizmī authored a work on Arabic grammar, Kitāb kifāyat al-Mutaḥaffiẓ [A Classified Vocabulary of Rare of Difficult Arabic words]. However, he is best known as the author of Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm[The Keys to the Sciences], an early Islamic Encyclopedia of the Sciences.[9] A monumental work, Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm is part lexicography and part encyclopedia.[10] Scholars regard it as the first attempt to document the Islamic sciences.[11] The work includes sections on mathematics, alchemy, medicine and meteorology.[12]

• Sadeghi, Maryam; Tehrani, Hamid (2008). "Abū Bakr al-Khwārazmī". In Madelung, Wilferd; Daftary, Farhad (eds.). Encyclopaedia Islamica Online. Brill Online. ISSN 1875-9831.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

• J. Vernet, "Al-Khuwārizmī, Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad Ibn Aḥmad Ibn Yūsuf", Dictionary of Scientific Biography.
• Hossein Khadiv Jam, The Translation of Mafatih al-'Ulum (Persian: ترجمهٔ مفاتیح‌ العلوم‎), Bonyad-e Farhang-e Iran, 1347 AP (1968), reprinted by Sherkat-e Entesharat-e Elmi-o Farhangi, 1383 AP (c. 2004 CE).
• C. E. Bosworth, "A Pioneer Arabic Encyclopedia of the Sciences: Al Khwārizmī's Keys of the Sciences", Isis, Vol. 54, No. 1, Mar., 1963, pp. 97-111
• Al-Xwārazmī on the Peoples of Central Asia, No. 1 (March, 1963), pp. 97–111.
• Gerlof van Vloten, the editor of Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm 1895 publication in Leiden, mentions in a preface to Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm that nothing is known about al-Khwārizmī except his name and that he is also known as al-Balkhi, but Hossein Khadiv Jam, the Persian translator of Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm mentions that after a lot of searches he has found that al-Khwārizmī "was born in Balkh, lived in Nishapur, worked as a clerk in the Samanid court for a while, and has authored the book Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm, one of the oldest Islamic encyclopedias, at the request of Abu'l-Husain Utbi, a vizier of Nuh II, in the Arabic language."
• Hämeen-Anttila, J., ‘’Maqama: A History of a Genre’’, Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2002 (especially see pp 35-47 for a discussion of al-Khawarizmi’s maqamat)
• C. E. Bosworth and Gerard Clauson, “Al-Xwārazmī on the Peoples of Central Asia”, The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, No. 1/2 Apr., 1965, pp. 2-12