Abu Abdallah Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Yusuf al-Khwarizmi (أبو عبد الله محمد بن أحمد بن يوسف الخوارزمي), also referred to as al-Balkhi (البلخي), was a tenth century encyclopedist and the author of the early encyclopedia Mafatih al-'Ulum (“Key to the Sciences”) in the Arabic language. Gerlof van Vloten, the editor of Mafatih al-'Ulum's 1895 publication in Leiden, mentions in a preface to Mafatih al-'Ulum that nothing is known about al-Khwarizmi except his name and that he is also known as al-Balkhi, but Hossein Khadiv Jam, the Persian translator of Mafatih al-'Ulum mentions that after a lot of searches he has found that al-Khwarizmi "was born in Balkh, lived in Neishabur, worked as a clerk in the Samanid court for a while, and has authored the book Mafatih al-'Ulum, one of the oldest Islamic encyclopedias, by the request of Abul-Hossein Atba, a vizier of Nuh II, in the Arabic language."
References
- Hossein Khadiv Jam, The Translation of Mafatih al-'Ulum (ترجمهٔ مفاتیحالعلوم), Sherkat-e Enteshaaraat-e Elmi va Farhangi, 1383 AP (circa 2004 CE).
- C. E. Bosworth, "A Pioneer Arabic Encyclopedia of the Sciences: Al Khwarizmi's Keys of the Sciences". Isis, Vol. 54, No. 1 (Mar., 1963), pp. 97-111.
