Alternate Name
BornDenia (Spain), circa1068
Died Bejaïa (Algeria), 23 October 1134
Abū al-Ṣalt was an accomplished, though not innovative, astronomer whose most important works dealt with instruments. These were read both in the Islamic world and in Europe. He may further be considered a polymath, having also written works in medicine, philosophy, music, history, and literature.
Abū al-Ṣalt’s father died while he was still a child. In Denia he studied under al-Waqqashī (1017/8–1095/6), a well-known poet, mathematician, historian, philosopher, grammarian, lexicographer, jurist, and traditionalist, who had emigrated from Toledo. Later, it seems that Abū al-Ṣalt also studied in Seville before leaving al-Andalus for Alexandria and Cairo.
Abū al-Ṣalt arrived in Alexandria, accompanied by his mother, in 1096, during the reign of the Fatimid ruler al-Mustaҁlī ibn al-Mustanṣir, in the epoch of the powerful minister al-Afḍal ibn Amīr al-Juyūsh Shāhanshāh. Al-Afḍal accepted Abū al-Ṣalt...
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Selected References
Comes, Mercè (1991). Ecuatorios andalusíes: Ibn al-Samh, al-Zarqālluh y Abū-l-Salt. Barcelona: Universidad de Barcelona. Instituto de Cooperación Con el mundo ārabe.
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Comes, M. (2014). Abū al-Ṣalt: Umayya ibn ҁAbd al-ҁAzīz ibn Abī al-Ṣalt al-Dānī al-Andalusī. In: Hockey, T., et al. Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_12
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