Said al-Andalusi

Said al-Andalusí (1029 – 1070), was an Andalusi qadi, scientist and historian. He was born at Almería and died at Toledo. He was a student of Maslamah Ibn Ahmad al-Majriti of Andalusia.

The only work of Said's to survive intact is what has often been called his “history of science”: Al‐tarif bi-tabaqat al-umm(Exposition of the generations of nations) of 1068. The “nations” here intended are those said to have had a disposition toward the cultivation of learning, such as, Indians, Persians, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Greeks, Africans,Byzantines and other Christians such as Franks and Germans; Arabs, and Jews (in contrast to the others not so disposed such as Norsemen, Chinese, Turks, and Berbers. He wrote other works such as: Jawāmiʿ akhbār al‐umam min al‐Arab wa‐l Ajam (Compendious history of nations – Arab and non‐Arab) and Maqālāt ahl al‐milal wa-l-nihal (Doctrines of the adherents of sects and schools).

The Toledo jurist Said Al-Andalusi (d.1034) reasoned that the pagan Norsemen were affected by their wintry origins: "Because the sun does not shed its rays directly over their heads, their climate is cold and the atmosphere cloudy. Consequently their temperaments have become cold and their humors rude, while their bodies have grown large, their complexions light and their hair long."

References

• Ṣāʻid al-Andalusī (1935). Livre des catégories des nations. Régis Blachère (trans.). Larose Éditions.
• Said al-Andalusí, Science in the Medieval World: "Book of the Categories of Nations" (trans. Sema'an I. Salem and Alok Kumar, 1991, University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-71139-5)