Avempace

Avempace (c. 1085 – 1138) is the Latinate form of Ibn Bājja (Arabic: ابن باجة‎), full name Abū Bakr Muḥammad Ibn Yaḥyà ibn aṣ-Ṣā’igh at-Tūjībī Ibn Bājja (أبو بكر محمد بن يحيى بن الصائغ التجيبي بن باجة), who was an Arab Andalusian polymath: his writings include works regarding astronomy, physics, and music, as well as philosophy, medicine, botany, and poetry.He was the author of the Kitāb an-Nabāt ("The Book of Plants"), a popular work on botany, which defined the sex of plants. His philosophical theories influenced the work of Ibn Rushd (Averroes) and Albertus Magnus. Most of his writings and books were not completed (or well-organized) due to his early death. He had a vast knowledge of medicine, mathematics and astronomy. His main contribution to Islamic philosophy was his idea on soul phenomenology, which was never completed. Avempace was, in his time, not only a prominent figure of philosophy but also of music and poetry. His diwan (Arabic: collection of poetry) was rediscovered in 1951. Though many of his works have not survived, his theories in astronomy and physics were preserved by Maimonides and Averroes respectively, and influenced later astronomers and physicists in the Islamic civilization and Renaissance Europe, including Galileo Galilei.Avempace wrote one of the first (argued by some to be the first) commentaries on Aristotle in the western world. While his work on projectile motion was never translated from Arabic to Latin, his views became well known around the western world and to western philosophers, astronomers, and scientists of many disciplines. His works impacted contemporary medieval thought, and later influenced Galileo and his work. Avempace's theories on projectile motion are found in the text known as "Text 71".In 2009, a crater 199k km (62 mi) from the South Pole of the Moon was designated The Ibn Bajja crater by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in his honor.