Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries

Sciences & Discovery

18

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Ibn Ghazi al-Miknasi

ابن غازي المكناسي

Morocco

1437 – 1513 (76 years old)

Polymathic 15th-century scholar of Meknes and Fez who held the chair of mathematics and Maliki law at the University of al-Qarawiyyin, author of the mathematical commentary Bughyat al-Tulab.

Fez, Morocco

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Sciences & Discovery

29

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Ibn Ghazi al-Fasi

ابن غازي المكناسي الفاسي

Morocco

1437 – 1513 (76 years old)

Distinguished Moroccan polymath, mathematician, and historian who served as chief Imam of al-Qarawiyyin and wrote foundational mathematical treatises and the first comprehensive history of Meknes.

Fez, Morocco

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Sciences & Discovery

34

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Al-Qalasadi

علي بن محمد القلصادي

Spain

1412 – 1486 (74 years old)

Nasrid-born North African mathematician who revolutionized mathematics by inventing the world's first modern algebraic symbolic notation using Arabic characters, dying in exile in Béja, Tunisia.

Béja, Tunisia

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Sciences & Discovery

38

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Ali Qushji (Ala al-Din Ali ibn Muhammad)

علاء الدين علي بن محمد القوشجي

Uzbekistan

1403 CE – 16 December 1474 (71 years old)

Astronomer who directed the Samarkand Observatory and later served Sultan Mehmed II in Istanbul, proving that astronomy does not rely on Aristotelian physics and supporting the Earth's rotation.

Istanbul, Turkey

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Sciences & Discovery

46

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Ibn Taghribirdi

ابن تغري بردي

Egypt

1410 – 1470 (60 years old)

Distinguished Egyptian historian of Mamluk aristocratic descent who studied under Al-Maqrizi and authored 'Al-Nujum al-Zahirah', the definitive multi-volume chronicle of Egypt from the Arab conquest to 1468.

Cairo, Egypt

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Sciences & Discovery

41

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Ulugh Beg (Mirza Muhammad Taraghay)

میرزا محمد طارق الغ‌بیگ

Iran

22 March 1394 – 27 October 1449 (55 years old)

Timurid ruler and astronomer who constructed the colossal Samarkand Observatory with its 40-meter meridian sextant, producing the Zij-i Sultani star catalog of 1,018 stars.

Samarkand, Uzbekistan

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Sciences & Discovery

31

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Al-Maqrizi

تقي الدين المقريزي

Egypt

1364 – 1442 (78 years old)

Preeminent Egyptian Mamluk historian, topographer, and economic theorist whose 'Al-Khitat' provided the definitive architectural and urban history of Cairo and whose 'Ighathat al-Umma' analyzed economic inflation.

Cairo, Egypt

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Sciences & Discovery

38

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Madhava of Sangamagrama

മാധവൻ (സംഗമഗ്രാമ മാധവൻ)

India

c. 1340 CE – c. 1425 CE (85 years old)

Founder of the Kerala School of Astronomy and Mathematics who discovered infinite power series expansions for sine, cosine, and arctangent (the Madhava-Leibniz series) 250 years before Newton.

Irinjalakuda (Thrissur, Kerala), India

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Sciences & Discovery

9

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Abu Zayd Abd al-Rahman al-Jadiri

عبد الرحمن الجادري الفاسي

Morocco

1375 – 1416 (41 years old)

Preeminent 15th-century Moroccan astronomer and chief timekeeper (Muwaqqit) of the University of al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, author of the authoritative astronomical treatise Rawdat al-Azhar.

Fez, Morocco

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Sciences & Discovery

10

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Ahmad ibn Kunfudh

أحمد بن حسن بن الخطيب (ابن قنفذ القسنطيني)

Algeria

1339 – 1407 (68 years old)

Preeminent 14th-century Algerian polymath, astronomer, and Chief Judge of Constantine whose astronomical treatises on planetary conjunctions and historical chronicles documented Hafsid North Africa.

Constantine, Algeria

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Sciences & Discovery

17

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Ibn Qunfudh

ابن قنفذ القسنطيني

Algeria

1339 – 1407 (68 years old)

Towering 14th-century polymath from Constantine who wrote seminal treatises on planetary astronomy, arithmetic, Maliki law, and chronological history.

Constantine, Algeria

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Sciences & Discovery

16

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Ibn Battuta

ابن بطوطة

Morocco

1304 – c. 1368–1369 (64 years old)

Universally recognized as the greatest traveler of the pre-modern world, Ibn Battuta journeyed over 73,000 miles across Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, India, and China, dictating the immortal Rihla.

Tangier, Morocco

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Sciences & Discovery

35

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Al-Nuwayri

شهاب الدين النويري

Egypt

1279 – 1333 (54 years old)

Egyptian Mamluk polymath, financial administrator, and encyclopedist who authored 'Nihayat al-Arab fi Funun al-Adab', a monumental thirty-three-volume encyclopedia preserving medieval Islamic science, history, and administration.

Cairo, Egypt

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Sciences & Discovery

35

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Ibn al-Banna al-Marrakushi

ابن البناء المراكشي

Morocco

1256 – 1321 (64 years old)

Brilliant Moroccan mathematician and astronomer who introduced innovative algebraic notation, combinatorial formulas, and fractions in his masterwork 'Talkhis A'mal al-Hisab', honored with a lunar crater named Al-Marrakushi.

Marrakech, Morocco

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Sciences & Discovery

34

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Ibn al-Nafis

ابن النفيس

Syria

1213 – 1288 (75 years old)

Islamic physician and polymath who spent his career in Cairo as Chief Physician of Egypt, celebrated for discovering the pulmonary circulation of blood three centuries before William Harvey.

Cairo, Egypt

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Sciences & Discovery

55

🕯️ 880

Ibn al-Nafis (Ala al-Din al-Qurashi)

ابن النفيس (علاء الدين علي بن أبي الحزم)

Syria

1213 CE – 17 December 1288 (75 years old)

Syrian-Egyptian physician and chief of Cairo's hospital who discovered pulmonary transit (lesser blood circulation) 300 years before William Harvey and Michael Servetus, refuting Galen.

Cairo, Egypt

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Sciences & Discovery

38

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Ibn al-Baytar (Diya al-Din al-Malaqi)

ضياء الدين عبد الله بن أحمد المالقي (ابن البيطار)

Spain

c. 1197 CE – 1248 CE (~51 years old)

Greatest botanist and pharmacologist of the Middle Ages who cataloged 1,400 medicinal plants, foods, and drugs in his encyclopedic Compendium on Simple Medicaments and Foods.

Damascus, Syria

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Sciences & Discovery

41

🕯️ 890

Ismail al-Jazari

بديع الزمان أبو العز بن إسماعيل الرزاز الجزري

Turkey

1136 CE – 1206 CE (70 years old)

Chief engineer of the Artuqid palace who invented the crankshaft, camshaft, suction pumps, programmable musical automata, and the monumental Elephant Water Clock.

Cizre (Şırnak), Turkey

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