Ahmad ibn Ibrahim ibn Ali ibn Munim al-Abdari ( ar, أحمد بن ابراهيم بن علي بن منعم الأبداري; died 1228), often referred to as ibn Munim, was a mathematician, originally from

Dénia Dénia ( es, Denia) is a historical coastal city in the province of Alicante, Spain, on the Costa Blanca halfway between Alicante and Valencia, and the capital and judicial seat of the ''comarca'' of Marina Alta. Denia's historical heritage ...

Andalusia Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a "historical nationality". The t ...

. He lived and taught in Marrakesh where he was known as one of the best scholars in

geometry Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is ...

and

number theory Number theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) said, "Mat ...

Helaine Selin Helaine Selin (born 1946) is an American librarian, historian of science, author and the editor of several bestselling books. Career Selin attended Binghamton University, where she earned her bachelor's degree. She received her MLS from SUNY Al ...

, ''Encyclopaedia of the history of science, technology, and medicine in non-western cultures'', p. 42

(retrieved 28-8-2010). See in particular the section "Combinatorics in the Maghreb: Ibn Mun'im", pp. 94–99. He is often confused with Muhammad ibn 'Abd al Mun'im, a different mathematician who worked in the court of Roger II of Sicily. Only three of his many mathematical texts are known today; one on magic squares, one on geometry and one on the science of calculation. Only the last, ''Fiqh al-hisab'' is extant. It is the first book in the history of mathematics to devote a whole chapter to

combinatorial Combinatorics is an area of mathematics primarily concerned with counting, both as a means and an end in obtaining results, and certain properties of finite structures. It is closely related to many other areas of mathematics and has many ap ...

problems.

References

Year of birth unknown 1228 deaths Medieval Moroccan mathematicians 13th-century mathematicians Moroccan writers 13th-century Moroccan people People from Marrakesh {{Morocco-scientist-stub