Muhammad ibn Musa al-Damiri
Muhammad ibn Musa al-Damiri , ( Arabic كمال الدين بن محمد بن موسى الدميرى, DMG Kamāl ad-Dīn b. Muḥammad b. Mūsā ad-Damīrī ; also known as Damiri ; * 1341 in Cairo ; † 1405 ibid), was an Arab natural historian and legal scholar.
Al-Damiri worked temporarily as a tailor, but studied with leading scientists of his time such as Ibn Aqil. He was very religious, became a member of a Sufi school, later fasted almost every day and made six pilgrimages to Mecca.
For a long time Damiri held the professorship of Shafiite traditions at the Rukniyya Koran School and the professorship at the El Azhar mosque (both in Cairo). He wrote a large zoological dictionary: The life of animals ("Hayât-alhaiwân"). His main zoological sources were Aristotle and al-Jahiz, but he cites 807 authors. He organized a larger, a medium and a smaller edition of which he is said to have completed the former as early as 1371. The work has been reissued several times. Samuel Bochart in his Hierozoicon used this animal life. Oluf Gerhard Tychsen , Silvestre de Sacy and others have published smaller texts from it. A Persian translation of the work is in the Paris library . François Pétis de la Croix made an unprinted French translation . There was also a Turkish translation.
The animal lexicon hardly contains zoology (e.g. animal geography), but rather ethnographic, linguistic (regional animal names, etymological), legal (food regulations!) And religious relationships (doctrines of the prophet and Imans, legends, proverbs, poets' statements about animals), the Question of their edibility and usefulness for medicinal purposes, role in dream interpretations. It also contains historical information on the history of the Caliphate. Animals are described in 1069 articles, but many are listed several times (with synonymous names) or imaginary (such as the mount Buraq from the Ascension of Muhammad ), because he obtained his information exclusively from literature without his own observations. Its zoological value is low.
Alfred Edmund Brehm has the work ( Heiat el Heiwan ) of its "precursor" (Sheikh Kemal edin Demiri) in 1847 at the madrassah met from Cairo and quotes from it in "wildlife" the story of the Jews in Aila ( Eilat ) not the Sabbath and were therefore changed by God into baboons (which is already mentioned in the Koran, sura 7, 163–166). Arab natural science has never emancipated itself from religious or supernatural influences, and Brehm also fought decisively in the West at that time ( Enlightenment , Kulturkampf ). (Brehms Tierleben, 2nd ed., Vol. I (1900), page 170).
Works
- Ad-Damiri's Hayat al-Hayawan (A Zoological Lexicon) ISBN 3-8298-7013-2
- Kitab Hayat al-Hayawan ISBN 3-8298-7010-8
- Kitab al-Hayawan. Texts and Studies ISBN 3-8298-7014-0
literature
- Juan Vernet: Al-Damiri, Muhammad ibn Musa . In: Charles Coulston Gillispie (Ed.): Dictionary of Scientific Biography . tape 3 : Pierre Cabanis - Heinrich von Dechen . Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1971, p. 548-549 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Life data according to Vernet, Dict. Scientific Biography. The Encyclopedia Britannica of 1911 gives 1344 as the date of birth.
- ^ Vernet, Dict. Sci. Biogr.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Damiri, Muhammad ibn Musa al- |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Damiri, Kamal ad-Din ibn Muhammad ibn Musa ad-; كمال الدين بن محمد بن موسى الدميرى (Arabic) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Arab natural historian and legal scholar |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1341 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Cairo |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 1405 |
| Place of death | Cairo |