Al-Hamd?n
Al-Hamd?n?, Ab? Mu?ammad Al-?asan Ibn A?mad Ibn Ya?q?b
also known as Ibn al-???ik, Ibn Dhi ’l-Dumayna, or Ibn Ab? ’l-Dumayna
(b. ?an???, Yemen, 893 [?]; d. after 951 [?])
geography, natural science.
Al-Hamd?n? belonged to a well-known South Arabian tribe, Hamd?n, and his family had for four generations lived in ?an???.1 He traveled extensively, visiting Iraq and spending considerable time in Mecca. He corresponded with the intellectuals of his time, such as the K?fa philologists Ibn al-Anb?r? and Ghul?m Tha?lab and their student Ibn Kh?lawayh. Later he lived in the South Arabian cities of Rayda and ?a?da. Involvement in political struggles led to his being jailed twice.
Al-Hamd?n? passionately supported his kinsmen’s side in the incessant antagonism between the North and South Arabian tribes. He expressed this most clearly in his poem al-D?migha (“The Crusher”). Other of his poems also have a political content. His national pride may have been the source of his decision to create the two monuments to his country and to his people: the historical work al-lkl?l (“The Crown”), written in 943, and the geographical work ?ifat Jaz?rat al-?Arab (“Description of the Arabian Peninsula”).
Only four of the ten books of al-Ikl?l have been preserved. Books I, II, and X contain genealogies of South Arabian tribes, and book VIII describes the old castles erected by the ?imyarites in Yemen. of the lost books, book III is said to have dealt with the merits of the South Arabian tribes, and books IV-VI with the history of South Arabia before Islam; book VII is said to have contained a criticism of false traditions, and book IX ?imyaritic inscriptions. It is said that scattered through the work were pieces on astronomy and physics as well as ancient conceptions of the world as being eternal or created.2
?ifat Jaz?rat al-?Arab is based primarily on al-Hamd?n?’s own observations. In a few cases he uses information from other geographers, such as al-Jarm?, Abu’l-Hasan al-Khuz???, A?mad ibn al-?asan al-??d? al-Falaj?, and Mu?ammad ibn ?Abdall?h ibn Ism???l al-Saksak?. In the introduction he cites Ptolemy’s Geography, Hermes Trismegistus, and Dioscorides.3 He also cites the Indian astronomical work Sindhind and its Arabian translator al-Faz?r?, as well as ?an???’s own astronomers.4 Aside from purely geographical information this work contains observations on fruits and vegetables, precious stones and metals, and linguistic matters. The work is often cited in the geographical lexicons of Y?q?t and al-Bakr?, the latter also containing many citations from al-Ikl?l.
Before his geographical work al-Hamd?n? wrote an astronomical one, Sara?ir al-?ikma f? ?ilm an-nuj?m (“The Secrets of Wisdom Concerning Astronomy”), of which only book X has been preserved. In it he quotes Dorotheus of Sidon and Ptolemy. Al-Hamd?n? is also said to have compiled astronomical tables, but these have not survived. His medical work al-Quw? (“Powers”), also not extant, apparently was connected with his astronomical writings, for in it he demonstrated how the air temperature is influenced by the planets.5
From a trilogy concerned with property and consisting of al-?arth wa’l-??la (“Farming and Its Method”). al-Ibil (“The Camels”), and Kit?b al-Jawharatayn al-?at?qatayn (“The Two Precious Metals [gold and silver]”), only the last, written later than all of the other works mentioned, has been preserved. In it he is concerned with gold and silver in all possible aspects, including religious, literary, and linguistic. But chiefly the work is the first and most extensive Arabian account of the treatment of the metals: extraction, purification, the determination of the standard of fineness, gilding, soldering, and coinage—all built on al-Hamd?n?’s own observations in the mints of Yemen and on information obtained from craftsmen who worked there. In the theoretical part on the origin of the metals, their use in medicine, and such, he cites Aristotle, Dorotheus of Sidon, Dioscorides, and Hippocrates. Some technical terms for weights and coins are of Greek origin.
Greek and Persian influences combined in this work. South Arabia had been a Persian satrapy until 628, and Persian immigration had continued into the following centuries. The Persian influence is especially noticeable in the terminology for chemical substances and tools. Al-Hamd?n?’s work demonstrates a connected world picture, typical for his time, in which the influence of the heavenly bodies on the elements and qualities is decisive for the generation and characteristics of metals and other substances, for geography, for the conditions of mankind—and, consequently, is also a foundation for medicine.
Al-Hamd?n? built first on his own observations of what is possible in fact and useful in practice. He did not use the elixir of the alchemists to transmute lower elements into gold or silver; according to him, gold was derived from gold ore and silver from silver ore, never from any other kind of metal. “The metals were purified by a carefully described chemicaltechnical process, without magic or ritual procedures. Al-Hamd?n? was very precise in the details; some instruments can be completely reconstructed by following his description. He did not accept uncritically the theories of predecessors and he would disagree with Aristotle or Ptolemy.6 Contrary opinions on the same problem are compared: on linguistic questions the opinions of the philologists and those of laymen; the opinions of Greek philosophers and practical mining experts on problems concerning the origin of gold and silver; the opinions of Greek, Indian, and Chinese scholars on the extent of the inhabited world.7 Al-Hamd?n? was thus a good representative of the union of Greek, Persian, and Arabian culture.
NOTES
1. An account of al-Hamd?n?’s descent is given by himself in al-lk?l, bk, X, 198 and preceding pages, and by al-Andalus?. 58, tr, 114 f.
2. Al-Andalus?, 58 f, tr. 115; al-Qift?. I, 281.
3. ?ifat Jaz?rat al-?Arab, index.
4. Ibid., 27.
5. Kit?b al-Jawharatayn, 72a.
6. Ibid., 15b; ?ifat Jaz?rat al-?Arab, 29.
7. Kit?b al-Jawharatayn, 9b ff., 21a; ?ifat Jaz?rat al-?Arap, 27.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
I. Orginal Works. of al-Hamd?n?’s surviving works, the following are the principal editions and commentaries:
Al-Ikl?l: bks. I-II, facs. ed. (Berlin. 1943); M. b. ?Al? al-Akwa? al-?iw?l?, ed., 2 vols. (Cairo, 1963–1966). Bk. I. O. Löfgren. ed., 2 vols., vol, LVIII, no. 1 in Bibliotheca Ekmaniana (Uppsala, 1954–1965). An extract from bk. II is in Südarabisches Muštabih. O. Löfgren, ed., vol. LVII in Bibliotheca Ekmaniana (Uppsala, 1953). Bk. VIII: D. H. Müller. “Die Burgen und Schlösser Südarabiens nach dem Ikl?l des Hamd?n?.” in Sitzungsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien.94 (1879), 335–423: ibid., 97 (1881), 955–1050; “Auszüge aus dem VIII. Buche des Ikl?l,” in Südarabische Alterthümer im Kunsthistorischen Hofmuseum (Vienna, 1899), 80–95; A. M. al-Karmal?, ed. (Baghdad, 1931); translated by N. A. Faris as The Antiquities of South Arabia, Princeton Oriental Texts no. 3 (Princeton, 1938); and N. A. Faris, ed., Princeton Oriental Texts no. 7 (Princeton, 1940). Bk. X: M. al-D. al-Kha??b, ed. (Cairo, 1949).
?ifat Jaz?rat al-?Arah: D. H. Müller, ed., Al-Hamd?n?’s Geographie der arabischen Halbinsel 2 vols. (Leiden, 1884–1891: repr., Amsterdam, 1968); L. Forrer, Südarabien nach al-Hamd?n?’s Beschreibung der arabisehen Halbinsel, vol. XXVII. no. 3 in Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes (Leipzig, 1942); C. Rabin, Ancient West-Arabia (London, 1951), pp. 43 ff. for a trans. of al-Hamd?n?’s observations on the linguistic state of affairs of the Arabian peninsula (pp. 134–136 of Müller’s ed.); and M. b. ?A. b. B. an-Najd?, ed. (Cairo, 1953).
Kit?b al-Jawharatayn al-?at?qatayn: edited and translated into German by Christopher Toll as Die beiden Edelmetalle Gold und Silber, Studia semitica upsaliensia no. I (Uppsala, 1968).
II. Secondary Literature. On al-Hamd?n? and his work, see Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Literatur. I (Weimar, 1898), 229; 2nd ed., I (Leiden, 1943), 263 ff., and suppl. I (Leiden, 1937), 409; Oscar Löfgren, Ein Hamd?n?-Fund, no. 7 in Uppsala Universitets Årsskrift för 1935 (Uppsala, 1935); and “al-Hamd?n?,” in Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd ed., III (Leiden-London, in press), 124 ff.
See also ???id al-Andalus?, ?abaq?t al-umam, L. Cheikho, ed. (Beirut, 1912), 58, also translated by R. Blachère as Kitâb ?aba?ât al-umam (Paris, 1935), 114; al-Bakr?, Mu?jam m? ’sta?jam, F. Wüstenfeld, ed., 2 vols. (Göttingen-Paris, 1876–1877), and M. al-Saqq?, ed., 4 vols. (Cairo, 1945–1951); al-Qif??, Inb?h al-ruw?t ?al? anb?h al-nuh?t, M. A. Ibr?h?m, ed.. I (Cairo, 1950). 279–284; Ta?r?kh al-?ukam? J. Lippert, ed. (Leipzig, 1903), 163; and Y?q?t, Mu?jam al-buld?n, F. Wüstenfeld, ed., 6 vols. (Leipzig, 1866–1870).
Christopher Toll