Al-Jazari - possibly Assyrian?

[mrzurnaci]

Al-Jazari was a prominent Muslim polymath: a scholar, inventor, mechanical engineer, craftsman, artist, mathematician and astronomer from Mosul, Mesopotamia, who lived during the Islamic Golden Age (Middle Ages). He is best known for writing the Kit?b f? ma'rifat al-hiyal al-handasiyya (Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices) in 1206, where he described fifty mechanical devices along with instructions on how to construct them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Jazari

Is it possible that he is Assyrian? Because most Assyrians during the Middle Ages turned Muslim to avoid the Jizya tax. (Jizya is derived from Aramaic Gaziyat probably spelled ܓܵܙܝܼܵܬ.)

 

[mgh]

Well since he lived in the Assyrian heartland which had an Assyrian majority in his day it wouldn't surprise me in the least if he came from an Assyrian family that had converted to Islam.