lit a candle 6h agoOnly heard of this man last year, some article about how Arabic got its math words, and here I am now sad about a stranger from Damascus I never knew existed before that.
Their story
Bashir Qabil, in full Muhammad Bashir Jamil Qabil, was a Syrian mathematician, translator and university professor. He headed the Department of Mathematics in the Faculty of Science at Damascus University, wrote many of the university and school textbooks used in Syria, and served as an expert of the Arabic Language…
Bashir Qabil, in full Muhammad Bashir Jamil Qabil, was a Syrian mathematician, translator and university professor. He headed the Department of Mathematics in the Faculty of Science at Damascus University, wrote many of the university and school textbooks used in Syria, and served as an expert of the Arabic Language Academy of Damascus, helping to create Arabic terms for the mathematical sciences. He died in Damascus on 26 October 2026, aged 78.
He was born on 20 November 1947 in Jobar, a district of Damascus. A gifted student, he finished secondary school in 1967 among the ten best in the country, then studied mathematics at Damascus University, graduating in 1971 at the top of the Faculty of Science. He was sent to France for postgraduate study, earned a Diplôme d'études approfondies, and in 1978 received his doctorate in mathematics from the University of Toulouse III, specialising in topology and functional analysis, with first class honours.
His academic career was spent largely at Damascus University. Appointed a teaching assistant in 1972, he became a lecturer in 1981, an associate professor in 1988 and a full professor in 1994. From 2003 to 2007 he chaired the Department of Mathematics, and he also led the division of mathematical analysis and sat on the editorial board of the university's journal for the basic sciences. Outside the university he spent four years as a senior researcher at the Scientific Studies and Research Centre in Damascus and was seconded to teach at King Khalid University in Saudi Arabia.
Qabil was widely known in Syria as an author of mathematics textbooks for both universities and schools, and he took part in the Ministry of Education committee that developed the national mathematics curriculum. He spoke German, English and French as well as Arabic, and worked as an expert translator. At the Arabic Language Academy of Damascus he was a member of the committee on mathematical terminology, and with Khader al Ahmad, Muwaffaq Daaboul and Marwan al Bawwab he co authored the academy's Dictionary of Mathematical Terms, published in 2018.
He died on the morning of Monday 26 October 2026. Prayers were held for him the same afternoon at the Hudhayfa ibn al Yaman mosque in Jobar, and he was buried in the New Jobar cemetery. His family's death notice names his wife, Maysoun Madwar, and his son and two daughters, all three of them doctors. No cause of death was made public.
Biography adapted from Arabic Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), Marefa, Arabic Language Academy of Damascus, family death notice. Wikipedia ↗
Photos
1Bashir Qabil at the Arabic Language Academy of Damascus, 2004 (cropped)
by People Forever
same, found it through a translation forum, stuck with me too