ABŪ BAKR AL-KHUWĀRIZMĪ: SOURCES, SCHOLARSHIP AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF HIS SCHOLARLY BIOGRAPHY

Abstrak

This article examines the history of research on the life and literary legacy of Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn al-ʿAbbās al-Khuwārizmī (935–993), one of the prominent representatives of the tenth-century Arab-Islamic literary milieu, and analyzes the sources that contribute to the reconstruction of his scholarly biography. The study comparatively investigates biographical dictionaries (tadhkiras) and historical-bibliographical works compiled by his contemporaries, the author’s own writings particularly the collection Rasāʾil al-Khuwārizmī as well as scholarly studies produced in Orientalist scholarship from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. As a result, the process of studying al-Khuwārizmī’s literary heritage is divided into three principal stages, and the most significant sources for reconstructing his scientific biography are systematized. The findings of the research contribute to clarifying the methodological foundations of Khuwārizmī studies and provide an important scholarly basis for future investigations of the author’s legacy.