about a Christian Girl and an Ex-Muslim
Posted: 09 Jul 2012
About the book “The man who calculated”
This is a book about mathematics set in the Muslim world and that is incredibly popular in the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries.
1.It was written by a Brazilian teacher called Julio Cesar de Mello e Souza(1895-1974) in 1938,and published as “O homem que calculava / The Man who calculated / The Man who counted”.
2.He was a professor of mathematics and wanted to make the subject easy and fascinating to young people.
The literary trick used by Mello e Souza, saying that the book is a translation from another language and by another writer
He says that the real author was a Persian Muslim called Malba Tahan, a friend of a mathematical genius from Persia by the name of Beremiz Samir, known with the nickname “the man who calculates”. Malba Tahan had supposedly written his book in 1321.The book deals with the adventures of the protagonist Beremiz, who solves and explains, in an extraordinary way, mathematical problems, puzzles and curiosities.The
book contains many fascinating mathematical problems with their
solutions and even legends and colorful stories such as, for example:
1.The legend of the origin of chess.
2.The life of the Greek philosopher and mathematician Hypatia of Alexandria (370-415), who was killed by the Christians.
Other examples of the same literary trick
1.The History of Don Quixote by Cid Hamet
Cid comes from the Arabic word sidi (lord, master) and Hamet is another way of saying Muhammad.Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616), the true author of Don Quixote, the best book in Spanish, says most of the book is translated from Arabic, and written by a man called Cid Hamet,an Arab Muslim.But it is just fiction and there is the great innovation of Cervantes,it is the first time we have this kind of thing.
2.The Portuguese Letters (1699) by Gabriel Guilleragues
Guilleragues said that he translated five love letters by a Portuguese nun to a French officer.Before the 20th century it was believed to be true and that the letters were by a 17th century nun of the convent of Beja in Portugal, named Mariana Alcoforado (1640-1723),and destined to her French lover, the Marquis de Chamilly, who had come to Portugal to fight on the side of the Portuguese in their struggle for independence from Spain.
3.The Persian Letters (1721) by Montesquieu (1689-1755)
Montesquieu is the author of “The Spirit of Laws” (1748). He is also the author of an epistolary novel that contains the correspondence exchanged between two fictional Persian travelers in France, Usbek Rica,
and their respective friends in Persia. They stay in France for eight
years.Montesquieu said he translated the letters from Persian.
4.Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, English poet
This is the best-known work of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Composed of 44 sonnets, this collection is a very personal work, a hymn to her love for her husband, the great English poet Robert Browning (1812-1889). The poems are supposedly translated from another language and by somebody else.
The beginning of the career of Samir Beremiz
1.According to Tahan his friend Beremiz Samir was born in Iran and was poor and worked as a shepherd for a rich man.It was then that he started to count things in a single glance, he first counted his sheep, then birds, then ants and then even bees,all at a glance.
2.Beremiz saved the life has a wise old man called Noh-Elim, who taught him many things, including the geometry of Greek mathematician Euclid.
3.At the age of 16 his employer discovered the
mathematical skills of Beremiz and made him the manager of a
plantation.Thus 10 years passed and then Beremiz was given a vacation of 4 months.Beremiz decided to go to Baghdad.
4.Before he reached it he met Malba Tahan, a rich man who lived in Baghdad and who was very impressed by his math talent and decided to help him find a very good job in Baghdad.
The adventures of Beremiz in Bagdad
In Baghdad he met an important man, the Christian poet Yezid, who made Beremiz his daughter’s teacher,specifically to teach her mathematics Her name is Telassim
and he wanted her to learn Al-Khwarizmi’s algebra as soon possible.It
was because an astrologer had told her father that terrible things were
going to happen to Telassim after her 18th birthday unless she learned
algebra.
No other scholar would be the teacher Telassim, they said it was
easier for a whale to travel to Baghdad than for a woman to learn
mathematics. Beremiz and Telassim fall in love.
Beremiz impresses the Caliph of Baghdad al-Mutasim
In Baghdad, Beremiz quickly became famous and much sought after by
both ordinary people and the nobles, arousing the sympathy of some and
the envy of others. He is employed as secretary to the Grand Vizier Ibrahim.To test the ability of Beremiz Caliph al-Mutasim brings the wisest men of the kingdom to pose him mathematical problems.Beremiz emerges victorious and the Caliph offered him three options:
1.To receive 20,000 gold coins.
2.To have a palace in Baghdad.
3.To be the governor of a province.
The choice of Beremiz
He rejected all three and said he wanted to have Telassim,the daughter of Christian poet Yezid, as his wife.The caliph said yes but on condition that Beremiz answer a final mathematical puzzle, the most difficult yet,and Beremiz wins again and gets Telassim.
Beremiz and Telassim move to Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire
Telassim,being a Christian,preferred to live in a Christian city.Thus
Beremiz, Malba Tahan and Telassim move to Constantinople in 1255 and Beremiz leaves Islam and become a Christian, but insists that he be baptized by a bishop who knew the geometry of Euclid.Malba Tahan remained Muslim and moving to Constantinople saved their lives because Baghdad was destroyed in 1258 by the pagan Mongols.Telassim and Beremiz have three children and live happily to the end of their lives.Malba Tahan commented:
“Of all the problems resolved by Beremiz, the one he best solved was that of Life and Love.”
The end of the Caliph of Baghdad in 1258
In 1258 the Mongol army under Hulagu Khan, with a million soldiers,conquered Baghdad, the center of the Muslim world.The Mongols killed a million people and captured the caliph. There was the belief that there would be a curse if the blood of the caliph was spilled on the ground.
So the Mongols, to avoid that, put the caliph on a carpet and the carpet was rolled around him.And then horses walked on the carpet till he died.
The trick played by Mello e Souza on the reader
He said that Malba Tahan had written his book in 1321 according to
the Muslim custom and the reader thinks it is almost the same as the
Western year of 1321.Not at all. The Muslim year is 1321 + 622 (the year when Muhammad fled from Mecca to Medina), which is 1943. So it is impossible that Malba Tahan was a friend and contemporary of 13th century Beremir.
Further evidence of the literary trick used is that Malba
Tahan dedicates the book to seven European mathematicians and scientists
who lived after the 13th century.
2.Pascal, French (1623-1662)
3.Newton, English (1642-1727)
4.Leibniz, German (1646-1716)
5.Euler, Swiss(1707-1783)
6.Lagrange, Italian (1736-1813)
7.Comte, French (1798-1857)
And he finishes by saying “Allah have mercy on those infidels”.
Read “The Man who Calculated” (34 chapters)
The link has a Spanish translation,which you can translate using Google Translate:
http://translate.google.com/
http://www.proyectosalonhogar.
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