Page 194 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

al-khwarizmi 79

Plutarch on Alexander
the Great

. . . The statues that gave the best representation
of Alexander’s person, were those of Lysippus, was essentially negative: He destroyed the Persian empire
(by whom alone he would suffer his image to be and with it the state system that had dominated ancient
made,) those peculiarities which many of his southwestern Asia for two centuries. It would be left to
successors afterwards and his friends used to his successors to devise a new state system to replace it.
affect to imitate, the inclination of his head a lit-
Stanley M. Burstein
tle on one side towards his left shoulder, and his
melting eye, having been expressed by this artist See also Macedonian Empire
with great exactness...He was fair and of a
light color, passing into ruddiness in his face
Further Reading
and upon his breast. Aristoxenus in his Mem-
Bosworth, A. B. (1988). Conquest and empire:The reign of Alexander the
oirs tells us that a most agreeable odor exhaled
Great. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
from his skin, and that his breath and body all Bosworth, A. B. (2002). The legacy of Alexander: Politics, warfare, and
over was so fragrant as to perfume the clothes propaganda under the successors. Oxford, UK: Oxford University
Press.
which he wore next him;... His temperance, as Cook, J. M. (1983). The Persian empire. London: J. M. Dent & Sons.
to the pleasures of the body, was apparent in Stoneman, R. (1997). Alexander the Great. London: Routledge.
Worthington, I. (Ed.). (2003). Alexander the Great: A reader. London:
him in his very childhood, as he was with much
Routledge.
difficulty incited to them, and always used them
with great moderation; though in other things
he was extremely eager and vehement, and in
his love of glory, and the pursuit of it, he al-Khwarizmi
showed a solidity of high spirit and magna-
nimity far above his age. . . . (c. 780–c. 850)
Arab mathematician
Source: Plutarch. (1931). Alexander. In Everybody’s Plutarch (R.T. Bond, Ed. &
J. Dryden,Trans.; p. 534). New York: Dodd, Mead & Co.
l-Khwarizmi’s family name gave Europe the term
Aalgorithm, and one of his books, Hisab al-Jabr wal-
view that Alexander was a vicious conqueror with no muqabalah, was the origin of the word algebra. His full
goals beyond glory and personal aggrandizement. name was Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Musa al-
The sources are only part of the problem, however. Khwarizmi. He was a Muslim astronomer, geographer,
Equally important is the fact that Alexander died before and, most importantly, mathematician. He was born in
he could develop a final plan for the governing of his the Persian town of Khiva, in what is now Uzebekistan.
empire. Instead, he improvised various solutions to the In his youth, al-Khwarizmi’s parents moved from Per-
administrative problems that arose during the course of sia to Iraq and settled in the bustling city of Baghdad. In
his campaigns. Thus, while he became more and more Baghdad, young al-Khwarizmi was attracted to the Bait
autocratic, which was encouraged by his belief in his al-Hikmah (House of Wisdom), an institution where lit-
semidivine status as the “Son of Ammon,” and he contin- erary scholars, philosophers, natural scientists, mathe-
ued his efforts to supplement the limited Macedonian and maticians, and medical doctors from around the region
Greek manpower available to him by encouraging col- worked on ancient Greek texts. Later, Muslim scholars
laboration by native elites, neither development had been passed this wonderful body of knowledge to Europe,
institutionalized at the time of his death. Paradoxically, where it sparked the Renaissance. Al-Mamun (786–
therefore, Alexander’s principal contribution to history 833), the caliph of Baghdad, who had founded the