Londoni

Another scholar of Bait-ul-Hikmah

أبو يوسف يعقوب إبن إسحاق الكندي came from an aristocratic tribe of Kindah. His father was the governor of Kufa, and he educated Imam Al-Kindi to be a bright pupil.

Caliph Al-Mamun appointed Imam Al-Kindi as a scholar of Bait-ul-Hikmah because of his glowing reputation. He worked alongside Imam Al-Khwarizmi

[1] (Arabic: ‎) (c. 801–873 CE), also known to the West by the Latinized version of his name. Al-Kindi was the first of the Muslim Peripatetic philosophers, and is known for his efforts to introduce Greek and Hellenistic philosophy to the Arab world.[4] Al-Kindi was a pioneer in chemistry, medicine, music theory, physics, psychology, the philosophy of science, and is also known for being one of the fathers of cryptography

Father of Cryptography

Al-Kindi was a pioneer in cryptography, especially cryptanalysis. He gave the first known recorded explanation of cryptanalysis in A Manuscript on Deciphering Cryptographic Messages. In particular, he is credited with developing the frequency analysis method whereby variations in the frequency of the occurrence of letters could be analyzed and exploited to break ciphers (i.e. cryptanalysis by frequency analysis).[25] This was detailed in a text recently rediscovered in the Ottoman archives in Istanbul, A Manuscript on Deciphering Cryptographic Messages, which also covers methods of cryptanalysis, encipherments, cryptanalysis of certain encipherments, and statistical analysis of letters and letter combinations in Arabic.[26] Al-Kindi also had knowledge of polyalphabetic ciphers centuries before Leon Battista Alberti. Al-Kindi's book also introduced the classification of ciphers, developed Arabic phonetics and syntax, and described the use of several statistical techniques for cryptoanalysis. This book apparently antedates other cryptology references by several centuries, and it also predates writings on probability and statistics by Pascal and Fermat by nearly eight centuries.[27] Al-Kindi authored works on a number of other important mathematical subjects, including arithmetic, geometry, the Indian numbers, the harmony of numbers, lines and multiplication with numbers, relative quantities, measuring proportion and time, and numerical procedures and cancellation.[7] He also wrote four volumes, On the Use of the Indian Numerals (Ketab fi Isti'mal al-'Adad al-Hindi) which contributed greatly to diffusion of the Indian system of numeration in the Middle East and the West. In geometry, among other works, he wrote on the theory of parallels. Also related to geometry were two works on optics. One of the ways in which he made use of mathematics as a philosopher was to attempt to disprove the eternity of the world by demonstrating that actual infinity is a mathematical and logical absurdity.

The letters "a" and "I" are the most common in Arabic. In English, E, then T, then A are the most common letters. If a message is enciphered so that every letter is substituted for a different letter, then the new letter will take on all the attributes of the old letter, including how common it is. So if the most common letter in an encoded English message is W, then W probably represents E. If there are lots of Gs, then G might represent T. And so on.

but his greatest treatise, which was only rediscovered in 1987 in the Sulaimaniyyah Ottoman Archive in Istanbul, is entitled "A Manuscript on Deciphering Cryptographic Messages

What is cryptography used for?

Do you buy anything online, for example via E-bay, Amazon, PayPal, etc? Do you send e-mails? Do you chat online e.g. Facebook, Windows MSN, Yahoo Messenger? Then you're using Imam Al-Kindi's cryptography!!!

Cryptography is used to 'encrypt' (or hide) the messages and protect the web transaction (e.g. buying and selling) over the internet which is a insecure place. On shopping sites you'll see "https" where the 's' is used to indicate that the site is 'secure'. They use Imam Al-Kindi's work to do this.

Gucci, Chanel, D & K, bow to the Father of Perfume

Al-Kindi invented a wide variety of scent and perfume products, and is considered the father of the perfume industry. He carried out extensive research and experiments in combining various plants and other sources to produce a variety of scent products.

The Kitab Kimiya' al-'Itr (Book of the Chemistry of Perfume) written by al-Kindi contains recipes for fragrant oils, salves, aromatic waters, and substitutes or imitations of costly drugs.

Controversial end to life

While Muslim intellectuals were already acquainted with Greek philosophy (especially logic), al-Kindi is credited with being the first real Muslim philosopher.[41] His own thought was largely influenced by the Neo-Platonic philosophy of Plotinus, although he does appear to have borrowed ideas from other Hellenistic schools as well.

Al-Kindi theorized that there was a separate, incorporeal and universal intellect (known as the "First Intellect"). It was the first of God's creation and the intermediary through which all other things came into creation. Aside from its obvious metaphysical importance, it was also crucial to al-Kindi's epistemology, which was influenced by Platonic realism.[50] According to Plato, everything that exists in the material world corresponds to certain universal forms in the heavenly realm. These forms are really abstract concepts such as a species, quality or relation, which apply to all physical objects and beings. For example, a red apple has the quality of "redness" derived from the appropriate universal. However, al-Kindi says that human intellects are only potentially able to comprehend these. This potential is actualized by the First Intellect, which is perpetually thinking about all of the universals. He argues that the external agency of this intellect is necessary by saying that human beings cannot arrive at a universal concept merely through perception. In other words, an intellect cannot understand the species of a thing simply by examining one or more of its instances. According to him, this will only yield an inferior "sensible form", and not the universal form which we desire. The universal form can only be attained through contemplation and actualization by the First Intellect.[51] The analogy he provides to explain his theory is that of wood and fire. Wood, he argues, is potentially hot (just as a human is potentially thinking about a universal), and therefore requires something else which is already hot (such as fire) to actualize this. This means that for the human intellect to think about something, the First Intellect must already be thinking about it. Therefore he says that the First Intellect must always be thinking about everything. Once the human intellect comprehends a universal by this process, it becomes part of the individual's "acquired intellect" and can be thought about whenever he or she wishes.

Al-Kindi believed that the soul is a simple, immaterial substance, which is related to the material world only because of its faculties which operate through the physical body.

He then connects this by saying that our soul can be directed towards the pursuit of desire or the pursuit of intellect; the former will tie it to the body, so that when the body dies, it will also die, but the latter will free it from the body and allow it to survive "in the light of the Creator" in a realm of pure intelligence.[53] Al-Kindi further wrote: Our residence in this phenomenal world is transitory; it is a journey towards the eternal one. The most miserable man, is he who prefers for himself the material above the spiritual, for the material, apart from its ephemeral nature, obstructs our passage to the spiritual world. Man should not `disregard any means to protect himself against all human vices, and he should seek to rise to the highest ends of human virtues..., that is, to the knowledge by means of which we protect ourselves against spiritual and bodily disease, and acquire the human virtues in whose very essence goodness is grounded.[3]

Al-Ghazali's criticized the philosophers not for their methods, but for arriving at theologically erroneous conclusions. The three most serious of these, in his view, were believing in the co-eternity of the universe with God, denying the bodily resurrection, and asserting that God only has knowledge of abstract universals, not of particular things.[57] During his life, al-Kindi was fortunate enough to enjoy the patronage of the pro-Mutazilite Caliphs al-Ma'mun and al-Mu'tasim, which meant he could carry out his philosophical speculations with relative ease. This would change significantly towards the end of his life when al-Mutawakkil supported the traditionalists, and initiated persecution of various unorthodox schools of thought, including the philosophers. In his own time, al-Kindi would be criticized for extolling the "intellect" as being the most immanent creation in proximity to God, a standing commonly held to be the position only of the angels.[58] He also engaged in disputations with the Mutazilites, whom he attacked for their belief in atoms.[59] But the real role of al-Kindi in the conflict between philosophers and theologians would be to prepare the ground for debate. His works, says Deborah Black, contained all the seeds of future controversy that would be fully realized in al-Ghazali's book, Incoherence of the Philosophers.

He was a prolific writer, the total number of books written by him was 241, the prominent among which were divided as follows : Astronomy 16, Arithmetic 11, Geometry 32, Medicine 22, Physics 12, Philosophy 22, Logic 9, Psychology 5 and Music 7. Al-Kindi's influence on development of science and philosophy was significant in the revival of sciences in that period. In the Middle Ages, Cardano considered him as one of the twelve greatest minds. His works, in fact, lead to further development of various subjects for centuries, notably physics, mathematics, medicine and music.

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