Ibn Bassal

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Ibn Bassal ( Arabic ابن بصال, DMG Ibn Baṣṣāl ), actually Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Baṣṣāl aṭ-Ṭulayṭulī , was an 11th-century agronomist and botanist in Toledo and Seville .

Ibn Bassal is known as the author of a book on agriculture, Dīwān al-filāḥa . An abridged version was published while he was still alive (Kitāb al-qaṣd wa-l-bayān). The book has no references to older authors and is based on the experience of Ibn Bassal. It describes around 180 cultivated plants.

Little is known about him personally. He was born in Toledo in the middle of the 11th century and traveled extensively (pilgrimage to Mecca, Sicily, Egypt, Syria, possibly to Persia, Iraq, Yemen, Abyssinia, northern India). Before the fall of Toledo to the Christians, he moved to Seville, where he created a botanical garden for the ruler al-Mu'tamid . His work was translated into Castilian in the 13th century.

Editions of his major work

  • Josep Maria Millàs Vallicrosa : La traducción castellana del 'Tratado de Agricultura' de Ibn Baṣṣāl ' . Al ‑ Andalus, Volume 13, 1948, pp. 347-430. Reprinted in F. Sezgin (Ed.): Agriculture. Texts and Studies 5 (Natural Sciences in Islam 24). Frankfurt: Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Sciences. 2001
    • Facsimile edition edited by E. García, JE Hernández Bermejo, Sevilla 1995
  • JM Millás Vallicrosa, M. Aziman (eds., Translator into Spanish): Ibn Baṣṣāl, Muhammad ibn Ibrāhīm: Kitāb al-qaṣd wa'l-bayān. Libro de Agricultura . Tetuan: Instituto Muley El Hassan 1955

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