Jamal al-Din Muhammad ibn Umar ibn Ahmed ibn Hibattullah ibn Abi Jarada (d.694 AH/1294 AD), Tajrid Musadarat al-Mu’attiyat and Tajrid Musadarat al-Manazir, Commentaries on Euclid's Book of Data and Book of Optics, Near East, circa 1300

Jamal al-Din Muhammad ibn Umar ibn Ahmed ibn Hibattullah ibn Abi Jarada was a prolific mathematician of the thirteenth century. He was descended from a prominent family of Iraqi origin who relocated to Aleppo where many generations attained high ranking positions in the office of the successive dynasties. His father, al-Sahib Kamal al-Din Abu’l Qasim ‘Umar ibn Ahmad ibn Hibatallah ibn al-‘Adim was a renowned biographer and historian who served as Qadi and Wazir to Ayyubid rulers al-Malik al-‘Aziz and al-Malik al-Nasir (Lewis 1986, p.695-6).

It is likely that our author benefitted from his family’s prominent position and gained access to important libraries. This is evidenced by a manuscript on Archimedes works, dated 1286 AD, that was copied and corrected by the author in the Fatih Library, Istanbul (inv. no.3414). That manuscript includes a marginal note referring to astronomical texts of the Banu Musa bearing the stamps of Abbasid Caliphs al-Ma’mun and al-Wathiq, suggesting that the author had access to these important manuscripts. 

The text of the present manuscript, comprising two treatises entitled Tajrid musadarat al-mu’attiyat and Tajrid musadarat al-manazir, appears to be unrecorded. The texts are commentaries on Euclid’s Data and Optics and the manuscript records that the texts were composed in 669 AH/1270-71 AD and 670 AH/1271-72 AD. In the renaissance of learning that took place in Baghdad from the eighth to tenth centuries, Euclid’s texts were translated from Greek into Arabic, and Euclid’s Data was first translated by Ishaq ibn Hunayn (d. circa 910 AD), and subsequently revised by the mathematician Thabit ibn Qurra (d.901 AD). By the thirteenth century, scholars of the medieval Islamic period such as our author, as well as his contemporary Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, were producing important editions, recensions and critical commentaries based on Euclid’s works.

The paper and script of the manuscript are consistent with a late thirteenth-century production, suggesting that this is an extremely early manuscript, possibly even written during the author's lifetime. This is supported by the use of the term ‘I say’ in the marginal commentary on several leaves (see f.10a, for example).