Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Khwarizmi

Not to be confused with Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī.

Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Yūsuf al-Kātib al-Khwārizmī, also referred to as al-Balkhī, was a 10th-century Persian encyclopedist and the author of the early encyclopedia Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm (“Key to the Sciences”) in the Arabic language.

Gerlof van Vloten, the editor of Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm 1895 publication in Leiden, mentions in a preface to Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm that nothing is known about al-Khwārizmī except his name and that he is also known as al-Balkhi, but Hossein Khadiv Jam, the Persian translator of Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm mentions that after a lot of searches he has found that al-Khwārizmī "was born in Balkh, lived in Nishapur, worked as a clerk in the Samanid court for a while, and has authored the book Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm, one of the oldest Islamic encyclopedias, at the request of Abul-Hossein Atba, a vizier of Nuh II, in the Arabic language."

Further reading

• J. Vernet, "Al-Khuwārizmī, Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad Ibn Aḥmad Ibn Yūsuf", Dictionary of Scientific Biography.
• Hossein Khadiv Jam, The Translation of Mafatih al-'Ulum (ترجمهٔ مفاتیح‌ العلوم), Bonyad-e Farhang-e Iran, 1347 AP (1968), reprinted by Sherkat-e Entesharat-e Elmi o Farhangi, 1383 AP (c. 2004 CE).
• C. E. Bosworth, "A Pioneer Arabic Encyclopedia of the Sciences: Al Khwārizmī's Keys of the Sciences". Isis, Vol. 54,
• Al-Xwārazmī on the Peoples of Central Asia, No. 1 (March, 1963), pp. 97–111.