Zakariya al-Qazwini

Zakariyya' al-Qazwini (full name: Abū Yaḥyā Zakariyyāʾ ibn Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd al-Qazwīnī, Arabic: أبو يحيى زكرياء بن محمد بن محمود القزويني), also known as Qazvini (Persian: قزوینی), born c. 1203 in Qazvin (Iran) and died 1283, was a Persian cosmographer and geographer of Arab ancestry.^[1]

ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt, 16th-century manuscript

He belonged to a family of jurists originally descended from Anas bin Malik (a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad) which had been well established in Qazvin long before al-Qazwini was born.^[2]

His most famous work is the ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt wa-gharāʾib al-mawjūdāt (lit. 'Wonders of the Creation and Unique [phenomena] of the Existence'), a seminal work in cosmography.^[3] He is also the author of the geographical dictionary Āthār al-bilād wa-akhbār al-ʿibād (lit. 'Monuments of the Lands and Historical Traditions about Their Peoples').^[4]

Career

 

Tile with two rabbits, two snakes and a tortoise (illustration of a scene in the ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt; Iran, 19th century)

Born in Qazvin, Iran, al-Qazwini served as a legal expert and judge in several localities in Iran. He traveled around in Mesopotamia and the Levant, and finally entered the circle patronized by the Ilkhanid governor of Baghdad, Ata-Malik Juvayni (d. 1283 CE).^[5]

It was to the latter that al-Qazwini dedicated his famous cosmography titled ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt wa-gharāʾib al-mawjūdāt (lit. 'Wonders of the Creation and Unique [phenomena] of the Existence').^[6] This treatise, frequently illustrated, was immensely popular and is preserved today in many copies. It was translated into his native Persian language, and later also into Turkish.^[7] Al-Qazwini was also well known for his geographical dictionary Āthār al-bilād wa-akhbār al-ʿibād (lit. 'Monuments of the Lands and Historical Traditions about Their Peoples').^[8] Both of these treatises reflect extensive reading and learning in a wide range of disciplines.^[9]

See also

• List of Persian scientists and scholars
• List of pre-modern Arab scientists and scholars

References

1. According to Streck 1913–1936, "He belonged to a pure Arab family which had, however, been long settled in the east." Bosworth 1987–2011 calls him a "Persian scholar", while Lewicki 1960–2007 describes him as a "famous Arab cosmographer and geographer" who "drew his origin from an Arab family [...] who had been Persianised after settling at Kaẓwīn in Persia." Both Bosworth 1987–2011 and Lewicki 1960–2007 stress that though he wrote in Arabic, this was not his mother tongue. Black 2014, p. 40 calls him "a Persian of Arab ancestry", Maqbul Ahmad 1981, p. 230 "An Arab by descent".
2. Lewicki 1960–2007; Maqbul Ahmad 1981, p. 230.
3. Maqbul Ahmad 1981, p. 230; Bosworth & Afshar 1984–2011.
4. Bosworth 1987–2011.
5. Richter-Bernburg 1998, p. 637.
6. Maqbul Ahmad 1981, p. 230.
7. Bosworth & Afshar 1984–2011.
8. Bosworth 1987–2011.
9. Richter-Bernburg 1998, p. 637.

Bibliography

Encyclopedic sources

• Bosworth, C. E. (1987–2011). "Āṯār al-Belād". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica.
• Bosworth, C. E.; Afshar, I. (1984–2011). "ʿAjāʾeb al-Maḵlūqāt". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica.
• Lewicki, T. (1960–2007). "al-Ḳazwīnī". In Bearman, P.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C.E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W.P. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. doi:10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_4093.
• Maqbul Ahmad, S. (1981). "al-Qazwīnī, Zakariyā ibn Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd, Abū Yaḥyā". In Gillispie, Charles Coulston (ed.). Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 11. New York: Charles Scribners’s Sons. pp. 230–233.
• Richter-Bernburg, Lutz (1998). "al-Qazwīnī, Zakariyyā' ibn Muḥammad (c.600–82/c.1203–83)". In Meisami, Julie Scott; Starkey, Paul (eds.). Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature. Vol. 2. London: Routledge. pp. 637–638. ISBN 0-415-06808-8.
• Streck, M. (1913–1936). "al-Ḳazwīnī". In Houtsma, M. Th.; Arnold, T. W.; Basset, R.; Hartmann, R. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam, First Edition (1913-1936). doi:10.1163/2214-871X_ei1_SIM_4034.

Secondary literature

• Berlekamp, Persis (2011). Wonder, Image, and Cosmos in Medieval Islam. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-030017060-3.
• Black, Jeremy (2014). The Power of Knowledge: How Information and Technology Made the Modern World. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-19854-6.

Editions of the Arabic text

• Wüstenfeld, Ferdinand, ed. (1848). Zakarija Ben Mohammad Ben Mahmud el-Cazwini's Kosmographie. Zweiter Teil. كتاب آثار البلاد Die Denkmäler der Länder. Göttingen: Dieterich. OCLC 1045333568. (edition of the Āthār al-bilād)
• Wüstenfeld, Ferdinand, ed. (1849). Zakarija Ben Muhammed Ben Mahmud el-Cazwini's Kosmographie. Erster Theil. كتاب عجايب المخلوقات Die Wunder der Schöpfung. Göttingen: Dieterich. (edition of the ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt wa-gharāʾib al-mawjūdāt)

Translations

• Ethé, Hermann (1868). Zakarija Ben Muhammed Ben Mahmûd El-Kazwîni's Kosmographie. Nach der Wüstenfeldschen Textausgabe, mit Benutzung und Beifügung der reichhaltigen Anmerkungen und Verbesserungen des Herrn Prof. Dr. Fleischer in Leipzig, aus dem Arabischen zum ersten Male vollständig übersetzt. Leipzig: Fues’s Verlag (R. Reisland). (German translation of the ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt wa-gharāʾib al-mawjūdāt)
• Giese, Alma (1986). Die Wunder des Himmels und der Erde. Bibliothek arabischer Klassiker. Vol. 11. Stuttgart and Vienna: Thienemann, Edition Erdmann. ISBN 9783522621106. OCLC 230831113. (partial German translation of the ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt wa-gharāʾib al-mawjūdāt)

Further reading

• Zadeh, Travis (2023). Wonders and Rarities: The Marvelous Book That Traveled the World and Mapped the Cosmos. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674258452.

External links

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Zakariya al-Qazwini.

• Islamic Medical Manuscripts at the National Library of Medicine. U.S. National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD.
• Kitāb al-ʻajāʾib wa al-gharāʼib. Full online version from the Getty Library.