ʿABD-AL-ḤAMĪD B. VĀSEʿ

 

ʿABD-AL-ḤAMĪD B. VĀSEʿ B. TORK, ABU’L-FAŻL MOḤAMMAD, mathematician, often referred to as Ebn Tork. A native of Ḵottal (north of the Oxus and west of Badaḵšān) or Gīlān, he apparently flourished at the beginning of the 2nd/9th century. His apparent grandson, Abū Barza Fażl b. Moḥammad b. ʿAbd-al-Ḥamīd b. Tork (d. in Baghdad, 27 Ṣafar 298/4 November 910; see Ebn al-Qefṭī, Tārīḵ al-ḥokamāʾ, ed. J. Lippert, Leipzig, 1903, p. 406) asserted ʿAbd-al-Ḥamīd’s priority over his contemporaries in the field of algebra. Some of the other earliest algebraists in the Islamic world were Ḵᵛārazmī and Sanad b. ʿAlī, and Abū Kāmel vehemently supported the case of Ḵᵛārazmī’s priority (Ḥāǰī Ḵalīfa, Kašf al-ẓonūn [Leipzig] V, pp. 67-68).

Ebn al-Nadīm lists two works by ʿAbd-al-Ḥamīd (Fehrest, p. 281): 1. K. al-Jāmeʿ fi’l-ḥesāb (“Comprehensive book on computation”) in six books; it is lost, unless no. 4 below is part of it. 2. K. al-Moʿāmalāt (“Book of transactions”), lost. A book with this title and a K. al-Mesāḥa (“Book of surveying”) are also attributed by Ebn al-Nadīm to Abū Barza. Ebn al-Qefṭī (Ḥokamāʾ, p. 230) repeats the Fehrest’s notice of no. 1, but in place of no. 2 he lists the following: 3. Nawāder al-ḥesāb wa ḵawāṣṣ al-aʿdād (“Book of rarities of computation and characteristics of numbers”), lost. 4. K. al-Jabr wa’l-moqābala (“Book of algebra”); ed. A. Sayili, Logical Necessities of Mixed Equations by ʿAbd-al-Ḥamīd ibn Turk and the Algebra of His Time, Ankara, 1962.

Bibliography : See also Sezgin, GAS V, pp. 241-42.

(D. Pingree)

Originally Published: December 15, 1982

Last Updated: July 14, 2011

This article is available in print.
Vol. I, Fasc. 1, p. 111

Cite this entry:

David Pingree, “'Abd-Al-Hamid B. Vase,” Encyclopædia Iranica, I/1, p. 111; an updated version is available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/abd-al-hamid-b-vase (accessed on 12 January 2014).