Tawh.īdī, Abū H.
ayyān al- | 317
Sights). Treatise on optics containing investigations
on vision, and the reflection and refraction of light.
Kitāb al-Ṭuruq al-sanīyah fī al-ālāt al-rūḥānīyah (The
Sublime Methods in Spiritual Devices). Deals with
various mechanical devices, such as a turnspit driven
by a steam engine, and a six-cylinder water pump,
both of which seem to have been a first in history.
Sidrat muntaḥā al-afkār fī malakūt al-falak al-dawwār
(Culmination of Thoughts in the Kingdom of Rotat-
ing Spheres) (= al-Zīj al-Shāhinshāhī). These works
were prepared according to the results of the obser-
vations carried out in Egypt and Istanbul in order
to correct and complete Zīj-i Ulugh Beg.
Secondary Works
Fazlıoğlu, Ihsan. “Taqī al-Dīn Abū Bakr Muḥammad
ibn Zayn al-Dīn Ma’rūf al-Dimashqī al-Ḥanafī.” In
Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, edited by
Thomas Hockey et al. 2 vols., Vol. 2, pp. 1122–1123.
New York: Springer, 2007.
Hasan, Ahmad Yusuf al-. Taqī al-Dīn wa-al-handasah al-
mīkānīyah al-ʿArabīyah: maʿa Kitāb al-turuq al-sanīyah
fī al-ālāt al-rūḥanīyah min al-garn al-sādis ʿashar = Taqi-
al-Din and Arabic Mechanical Engineering. With the
Sublime Methods of Spiritual ­Machines. An Arabic Man-
uscript of the Sixteenth Century (in Arabic). Aleppo,
Syria: Institute for the History of Arabic Science, 1976.
Rosenfeld, Boris A. and Ekmeleddin Ihsanoğlu. Mathe-
maticians, Astronomers, and Other Scholars of Islamic
Civilization and Their Works (7th–19th c.). Istanbul:
IRCICA, 2003.
Tekeli, Sevim. 16’inci yüzilda Osmanlilarda saat ve
Takiyüddin’in “mekanik saat konstrüksüyonuna dair
en parlak yildizlar” adli eseri = The Clocks in Otto-
man Empire in 16th Century and Taqi al Din’s “The
Brightest Stars for the Construction of the Mechanical
Clocks.” Ankara: T.C. Kültür Bakanlığı, 2002.
Tekeli, Sevim. “Taqī al-Dīn.” In Encyclopaedia of the History
of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western
Cultures, edited by Helaine Selin. Dordrecht, Nether-
lands, and Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997.
Salim Ayduz
and Huseyin Sen
Tawḥ īdī, Abū Ḥ ayyān al- Also
known as ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn al-ʿAbbās, al-
Tawḥīdī (d. c. 921/931) was a renowned tenth-
century Muslim philosopher and litterateur. He
is described as “the philosopher of litterateurs
and the litterateur of philosophers” (faylasūf al-
udabāʾ wa adīb al-falāsifa), a statement that re-
flects his broad intellectual interests and shows
how his writings straddled these two fields.
Details about al-Tawḥīdī’s life, date of birth,
and death are scarce due to the relative lack of
­biographical sources for the two centuries fol-
lowing his death. According to al-Tawḥīdī’s
own writings, he must have died between 921
and 931.
Early Training and Philosophical Influence.
Born to a humble family al-Tawḥīdī grew up in
Baghdad under Būyid rule, where he worked
for a time as a scribe. This period was particularly
important in the history of Islamic civilization,
and witnessed the development of many cultural
and intellectual activities, including philosophy
which became an established field with many
Būyid viziers fostering the activities of different
philosophers.
Early on al-Tawḥīdī studied religious sciences,
including Shāfi‘ī jurisprudence, recitations of the
Qurʾān, ḥadīth, and eloquence under different ju-
rists including Abū al-Ḥasan al-Qaṭṭān (d. 960)
and Abū Bakr al-Qaffāl al-Shāfi‘ī (d. 976). He
studied the science of Arabic under Abū Saʿīd al-
Sīrāfī (902–979), and Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn ʿῙsā
al-Rummānī (d. 995), under whom he came to
­appreciate the function of grammar and its con-
nection with logic.
Al-Tawḥīdī also took an interest in philosophy
and logic. Despite his complicated relationship
with various Būyid viziers at the court of Rayy,
al-Tawḥīdī encountered there the Neoplatonic
philosopher Abū al-Ḥasan al-ʿĀmirī (d. 991) and
Abū ʿAlī Miskawayh (d. c. 1016). He exchanged
with the latter 175 questions and answers covering
various educational, philosophical, ethical, and
social issues. Al-Tawḥīdī collected these in his
book al-Hawāmil waʾl-shawāmil. In Baghdad
318 | Tawh.īdī, Abū H.ayyān al-
­ etween 971 and 981 al-Tawḥīdī was admitted to
b a­ l-Tawḥīdī did not accept the two categories of
the main philosophical schools of Baghdad, espe-
cially those of the Jacobite Christian philosopher
Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī (d. 974) and Abū Sulaymān al-
Sijistānī (d. 985), whom al-Tawḥīdī admired par-
ticularly for his interest in questions relating to
grammar and linguistics. In Baghdad al-Tawḥīdī
also encountered some scholars affiliated with
a secret Baṣra group of closely associated think-
ers called the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwān al-
Ṣafāʾ), concerning whom al-Tawḥīdī is an impor-
tant source. His study in these philosophical
circles introduced al-Tawḥīdī to Aristotelianism
and Neoplatonism. In 981 he also joined the court
of the Būyid vizier Ibn Saʿdān (d. 985) in Bagh-
dad, with whom he discoursed nightly as the vi-
zier’s confidant on various topics, such as ethics,
philosophy, and literature, and based on these
discussions he composed his famous book al-
Imtāʾ wa-al-Muʾānasah.
Major Works and Approach to Philosophy.
Al-Tawḥīdī’s book al-Muqābasāt contains philo-
sophical themes which he vividly put together
based on the study session notes in the philo-
sophical schools. Themes include ethics, the soul
and its nature, destiny, purification from worldly
matters, selfish inclinations that are incompatible
with communal existence, the effect of music on
the soul, morality, language, the actions of God
and its nature, grammar and its relations to logic,
as well as astrology and the effect of stars on a
person’s character—a matter of which al-Tawḥīdī
disapproved unlike many of his contemporaries.
Al-Tawḥīdī’s original thinking is greatly dem-
onstrated in his contribution to the discussion on
friendship. In most of his works, and especially in
al-Muqābasāt and al-Ṣadāqah wa-al-ṣadīq, he de-
veloped his concept of friendship based on his
own reasoning, and ideas developed in philosoph-
ical discussions. Even though he drew upon Greek
sources, especially Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics
and his definition of a friend as a second self,
friendship for pleasure and utility developed by
Aristotle. Enriching his concept of friendship by
religious ideas and especially the Ṣūfī concept
of ḥulūl (merging or unity), al-Tawḥīdī saw friend-
ship as composed of affinity of the soul, intellec-
tual friendship, natural assistance, and moral una-
nimity. For him friendship is higher than familial
love and other forms of relationship, and a path to
the attainment of virtue.
In Risāla fiʾl-ʿulūm (On the Classification of
Sciences) al-Tawḥīdī expressed views about the
study of philosophy that seem to disagree with
the general tendency among Baghdad philoso-
phers to separate the domain of religion from
that of philosophy. For him religion and philoso-
phy are complementary and are means to dis-
covering God’s wisdom. Al-Tawḥīdī also believed
that philosophy should involve analysis of human
conduct, seeking a form of philosophy which not
only contemplates the nature of things, but ac-
quires practical knowledge for one to live the
best life. This understanding is different from
some of his contemporary philosophers who
perceived of philosophy and virtue as belonging
to the supernal world and can only be achieved
in contemplation, indicating a disengagement of
philosophers in society’s affairs and practical
matters.
In most of al-Tawḥīdī’s writings, one can see
originality in his ethical thought and his under-
standing of the role of reason and philosophy.
These seem to have been influenced by his early
training and religious perspective of the role of
knowledge, its link to action, and the spiritual
reward in spreading wisdom. Al-Tawḥīdī rede-
fined the role of philosophers within the wider
Islamic culture, and attempted to simplify phi-
losophy and find readership beyond the confines
of rigid intellectual disciplines, an endeavor that
corresponds to that made by his contemporary
the Brethren of Purity.

Bibliography
Works of Abū Ḥ ayyān al-Tawḥīdī
Kitāb al-Imtāʿ wa-al-Muʾānasah. Edited by Aḥmad
Amīn and Aḥmad al-Zayn. Beirut: al-Maktabah al-
ʿAṣrīyah, 1953.
al-Muqābasāt. Edited by Muḥammd Tawfīq Ḥusayn.
Baghdad: Maṭbaʿat al-Irshād, 1970.
Rasāʾil Abī Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī. Edited by Ibrāhīm
Kīlānī. Damascus: Manshūrāt Dār Majallat al-
Thaqāfa, 1968.
al-Ṣadāqah wa-al-ṣadīq. Edited by Ibrāhīm Kīlānī.
­Damascus: Dār al-Fikr, 1964.
Secondary Works
Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Abū al-Faḍl. al-Juzʾ al-awwal
min Kitāb Lisān al-Mīzān. 6 vols. Hyderabad, India:
Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif al-Niẓāmīyah, 1911–1913.
Kraemer, Joel. Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam:
The Cultural Revival During the Būyid Age. Leiden,
Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1986.
Kraemer, Joel. Philosophy in the Renaissance of Islam:
Abū Sulaymān al-Sijistānī and His Circle. Leiden,
Netherlands E. J. Brill, 1986.
Muḥyīal-Dīn, ʿAbd al-Razzāq. Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī:
Sīratuhu, āthāruhu. Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī,
1949.
Rowson, E. K. “The Philosopher as Littérateur: al-
Tawḥīdī and His Predecessors.” Zeitschrift für Ge-
schichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften 6
(1990): 50–92.
Nuha al-Shaʿar
Technology and Applied Sci-
ences From the rise of Islam in the seventh
century, Muslim scientists and scholars worked
to establish a sound philosophical basis for sci­
entific endeavors. Islam poses questions about
­creation, inspiring many Muslim scholars to ex-
plore the cosmos, the human body, nature, and
the mystery of being. In the ninth century this
­tendency toward exploring natural and divine
realms, as well as encounters with other civiliza-
tions, opened the gate to major scientific investi-
gations and led to the founding of diverse philo-
Technology and Applied Sciences | 319
sophical and experimental schools in the Islamic
world.
Beginning in the nineteenth century coloni­
zation played a major role in exacerbating the
­scientific and economic decline of the Islamic
world. Following Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in
1798—in which the armies were accompanied by
a retinue of scholars, sent to carry out a subsid-
iary mission of knowledge-gathering—the gap
between European and Islamic science and tech-
nology widened. Exposure to European military
supremacy and new scientific ideas made Muslim
rulers aware of this discrepancy, and some gov-
ernments ventured to respond. Among the first
were Egypt and Iran, which sent students to
Europe and recruited European technicians.
The period between 1850 and the onset of
World War I in 1914 was marked by the extraordi-
narily rapid diffusion of Western technologies
throughout most of the Middle East, from Mo-
rocco to Iran. These included railways, telegraphs,
steamships and steam engines, automobiles, and
telephones. The opening of the Suez Canal (1868),
the major engineering feat of the nineteenth cen-
tury, reduced shipping time and distance and
generated new trade. Much of the technology
transfer took the form of government monopoly
concessions to European firms. There was little or
no concern for the development of indigenous
capabilities in technology adaptation, design, or
maintenance.
The period 1914–1945 was characterized by
slow and often frustrating attempts to strengthen
indigenous versus imported science and technol-
ogy. New universities with an emphasis on engi-
neering and medicine were established in Egypt,
Turkey, Syria, and Sudan. However the depres-
sion years reduced employment for graduates
and increased discontent over the dominant role
of foreigners and minorities.
There were faltering attempts at industrializ­at­
ion for small local markets in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and