Al-Ashraf Umar II

Umar Ibn Yusuf
عمر بن يوسف بن عمر بن علي بن رسول الغساني
Born	c. 1242 Yemen
Died	22 November 1296 Yemen
Era	Islamic Golden Age
Known for	Astronomy,mathematics
Al-Ashraf Umar II Sultan Reign c. 636 – 654 AD Predecessor Al-Muzaffar Yusuf I Successor al-Mu'ayyad Da'ud Dynasty Rasulid

Al‐Malik Al‐Ashraf (Mumahhid Al‐Din) Umar Ibn Yūsuf Ibn Umar Ibn Alī Ibn Rasul(Arabic:عمر بن يوسف بن عمر بن علي بن رسول الغساني), known asUmar Ibn Yusuf(c. 1242– 1296) was the thirdRasulidsultan, who ruled asAl-Ashraf Umar II.He was also amathematician,astronomerand physician.

Biography

Few biographical details about Al‑Malik al‑Ashraf ‘Umar are known.He was born in 1242 in Yemen,and he died in 1296.He excelled inastronomy,agriculture,veterinary scienceand medicine.

Al‑Ashraf ruled for as the thirdRasulid sultanfor 21 months from 1295, succeeding after the end of the 46-year rule of his father,Al-Muzaffar Yusuf I.According to the historianDavid King.In 1266 he commanded a military raid on the Yemenese city ofHajjah.He was made governor ofal‑Mahjam.He was in charge of the highland city ofSanaa,now the capital of Yemen. For a period al‑Ashraf ruled as governor of the flood‑irrigated lands near al‑Mahjam, which was owned by his family.

Family

Further information:Rasulid dynasty

Al‑Ashraf had six adults sons. Two of his daughters married sons of his younger brother and successor, al-Mu'ayyad Da'ud.

_{Data from theEncyclopaedia of Islam(1986)}

Family of Al-Ashraf Umar II
Al-Mansur Umar(1228-1249) Al-Muzaffar Yusuf I) (1249-1295) Al-Ashraf Umar II (1295-1296) al-Mu?ayyad Dawid (IV) (1296-1322) al-Mudjahid ‘Ali (1322-1363) Al-Afdal al-Abbas(1363-1377) al-Ashraf Isma*il(1377-1401)

Astronomical work

Al-Ashraf's diagram of the compass andqibla,copied in Yemen in 1293

Al-Ashraf wrote the first description of the use of amagnetic compassfor determining theqibla.His works onastronomycontain information on earlier sources.

In a treatise aboutastrolabesandsundials,al-Ashraf included information on the construction of a compass bowl (ṭāsa). He then uses the compass to determine the north point, themeridian(khaṭṭ niṣf al-nahār), and theqiblatowardsMecca.This is the first mention of a compass in a medieval Islamic scientific text and its earliest known use as aqiblaindicator, although al-Ashraf did not claim to be the first to use it for this purpose.

Al‑Ashraf astronomical treatise includes the names of local Yemeni star names.

Treatise on agriculture

Al-Ashraf'sMilh al‑Malâhais considered by the historianDavid Kingto be crucial for constructing the history of agriculture during the Rasulid era. The work, of which two copies are extant, is the earliest Rasulid treatise about agriculture. The exact title is not known.

The seven chapters of the treatise consider the knowledge of times for planting, transplanting, working the land and improving it; cereal crops (zar‘); pulses (qatânî), crops grown from seed (hubûb); the cultivation of flowering plants (al‑ashjâr al‑muthmira); aromatic plants (rayâhîn); growing vegetables (khadrâwâtand (buqûlât); and methods of pest control (âfât). The text would have been primarily of use to Yemenese farmers and landowners; there is evidence that Al-Ashraf obtained some of his information from other lands, although no other texts are mentioned.

Sources

• Bosworth, C.E.; Van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W.P.; Lecompte, G., eds. (1986)."Rasulids".The Encyclopaedia of Islam.Vol. 8. Leiden:Brill Publishers.pp. 456–458.
• Schmidl, Petra G. (1997)."Two Early Arabic Sources On The Magnetic Compass".Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies.1.Oslo:University of Oslo:81–132.doi:10.5617/jais.4547.ISSN0806-198X.
• Schmidl, Petra G. (2007)."Ashraf: al‐Malik al‐Ashraf (Mumahhid al‐Dīn) ʿUmar ibn Yūsuf ibn ʿUmar ibn ʿAlī ibn Rasūl".In Thomas Hockey; et al. (eds.).The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers.New York: Springer. pp. 66–7.ISBN9780387310220.(PDF version)

Further reading

• Ali, Abdul (1996).Islamic Dynasties of the Arab East: State and Civilization During the Later Medieval Times.M.D. Publications Pvt. Limited.ISBN978-81753-3-008-5.
• King, David A.(1983).Mathematical Astronomy in Medieval Yemen: A Biobibliographical Survey.Undena Publications. p. 27.ISBN978-08900-3-098-1.
• King, David A.(1985)."075 - Yemeni Astrolabe in NY Met 1985.pdf".Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften.2:99–122.
• Suter, Heinrich(1900).Die Mathematiker und Astronomen der Araber und ihre Werke(in German). Leipzig: Teubner. p. 160.
• Varisco, Daniel Martin(1994).Medieval Agriculture and Islamic Science: the Almanac of a Yemeni Sultan.Washington, DC:University of Washington Press.ISBN978-02959-7-378-4.
• "Astrolabe of 'Umar ibn Yusuf ibn 'Umar ibn 'Ali ibn Rasul al-Muzaffari".The Met.The Metropolitan Museum of Art.Retrieved2 February2023.
• "Al-Malik al-Ashraf: Milḥ al-malāḥa fī ma'rifat al-filāḥa".The Filāḥa Texts Project.Retrieved3 February2023.