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The altitude of the sun or of the star is determined by an observation through the alidade on the back; the rim of the upper two halves of the back is graduated from 0° to 90° from the horizontal diameter (horizon) to the apex (zenith). A version of this article is available in print Volume II, Fascicle 8, pp. 853-857 ASṬORLĀB (or OSṬORLĀB), astrolabe, an instrument used in astronomy for a variety of purposes, e.g., demonstration and solution of problems in spherics, measuring altitudes, and telling time. The word is derived from the Greek astrolábos (for some fanciful etymologies propos…

8th/14th century author. A version of this article is available in print Volume I, Fascicle 2, pp. 167 ʿABD-AL -VĀḤED B. MOḤAMMAD, 8th/14th century author. There is no positive proof that this individual was a Persian, though his association with Persians makes that conclusion plausible. His extant commentary on Naṣīr-al-dīn Ṭūsī’s Sī faṣl dar taqwīm or Resāla fī maʿrefat al-taqwīm (“Epistle on knowing the calendar”) was composed in 797/1394-95, while Ḥāǰǰī Ḵalīfa ascribes to him a commentary on the Molaḵḵaṣ fiʾ l- hayʾa (“Compendium of astronomy”) written by Jaḡmīnī in the e…

astronomer, fl. ca. 600/1203-04; there is a manuscript dated in that year of his revision of Helāl b. Abū Helāl and Ṯābet b. Qorra’s translation of the Conica of Appolonius. A version of this article is available in print Volume I, Fascicle 2, pp. 128 ʿABD-AL- MALEK B. MOḤAMMAD ŠĪRĀZĪ, ABU’L-ḤOSAYN, astronomer, fl. ca. 600/1203-4; there is a manuscript dated in that year of his revision of Helāl b. Abū Helāl and Ṯābet b. Qorra’s translation of the Conica of Appolonius. ʿAbd-al-Malek also wrote a Moḵtaṣar ketāb al-maǰesṭī (“Epitome of the Almagest” [of Ptolemy]); this was translate…

lit. "choices, elections"; a term used in Islamic divination and astrology in at least four principle meanings. A version of this article is available in print Volume VIII, Fascicle 3, pp. 291-293 EḴTĪĀRĀT (choices, elections), a term used in Islamic divination and astrology in at least four principle meanings: 1. It refers to hemerologies in which each of the thirty days of a month, either synodic or conventional (e.g., the Persian hemerology), is characterized as being good ( saʿd) or bad ( naḥs) for undertaking specified activities. 2. The goodness or badness of the time f…

2nd/8th century astrologer and author. A version of this article is available in print Volume I, Fascicle 4, pp. 369 ABŪ SAHL B. NAWBAḴT, 2nd/8th century astrologer and author. The family of Nawbaḵt is said to have claimed descent from the Kayanid hero Gēv, the son of Gōdarz, but it is not known from what part of Iran Nawbaḵt himself came. Nawbaḵt first appears as an astrologer in the entourage of the second ʿAbbasid caliph, Manṣūr (136-58/754-75), under whose influence he converted from Zoroastrianism to Islam (Masʿūdī, Morūǰ VII, p. 290). He was associated with Māšāʾallāh in sel…

astronomer (ca. 287/900-probably 360/970). A version of this article is available in print Volume I, Fascicle 3, pp. 326-327 ABŪ JAʿFAR MOḤAMMAD B. AL-ḤASAN AL- ḴĀZEN AL-ḴORĀSĀNĪ, astronomer (ca. 287/900-probably 360/970). According to Ebn al-Nadīm ( Fehrest, pp. 138, 250) and Ebn al-Qefṭī ( Taʾrīḵ al-ḥokamāʾ, ed. J. Lippert, Leipzig, 1903, p. 40), a commentary on the beginning of Aristotle’s De caelo was dedicated to him by Kendī’s pupil, Abū Zayd Balḵī (d. 322/934). And according to Abū Naṣr Manṣūr b. ʿErāq ( Rasāʾel, Hyderabad [Deccan], 1947, p. 45), he had correspondence w…

ABU SAʿID ḤASAN b. ʿAbd-Allāh b. Marzobān (b. Sirāf on the coast of Fārs in 280/893-94; d. Baghdad 2 Rajab 368/3 February 979), 10th century polymath known best for his work as a grammarian. SIRĀFI, ABU SAʿID ḤASAN b. ʿAbd-Allāh b. Marzobān (b. Sirāf on the coast of Fārs in 280/893-94; d. Baghdad 2 Rajab 368/3 February 979), 10th century polymath known best for his work as a grammarian. As his full name indicates, Sirāfi’s family had been Zoroastrians until his father converted to Islam and changed his name from Behzād to ʿAbd-A…

10th/16th century astronomer. A version of this article is available in print Volume I, Fascicle 2, pp. 130 ʿABD-AL- MONʿEM ʿĀMELĪ, 10th/16th century astronomer. He apparently was commissioned to build an observatory at Isfahan by the Safavid Shah Ṭahmāsp I (1524-76). The king would have been pursuing the aborted design of his predecessor, Shah Esmāʿīl I (1502-24), to restore the observatory at Marāḡa. ʿAbd-al-Moṇʿem in any case planned an observatory. About 1560 he wrote a Persian work whose title is lost in the unique manuscript; it is usually called by modern scholars the Ketāb taʿlī…

(or BARJANDĪ) Islamic astronomer, said to have died in 934/1527-28. A version of this article is available in print Volume I, Fascicle 1, pp. 96 ʿABD-AL -ʿALĪ B. MOḤAMMAD B. ḤOSAYN BĪRJANDĪ (or BARJANDĪ), NEẒĀM-AL-DĪN, productive Islamic astronomer, said to have died in 934/1527-28 (although the authority for this date is unclear). His surviving works are as follows: 1. Abʿad o aǰrām (“Distances and sizes of celestial bodies”); Persian, completed 930/1523-24. The title is not original. 2. Bīstbāb dar taqvīm (“Twenty chapters on the calendar”); Persian, completed 883/1478. …

astronomer and astrologer, born in Balḵ on 20 Ṣafar 171/10 August 787. A version of this article is available in print Volume I, Fascicle 4, pp. 337-340 ABŪ MAʿŠAR JAʿFAR B. MOḤAMMAD BALḴĪ, astronomer and astrologer, born in Balḵ on 20 Ṣafar 171/10 August 787. Abū Maʿšar (called Albumasar in Medieval Latin, Apomasar in Byzantine Greek) must have received his early education in that cosmopolitan city and acquired there his strong sense of the intellectual primacy of Iran among the nations of the Eurasian continent. He came …

a family of intellectuals, closely connected to the caliphs of the 9th-10th centuries and claiming descent from an ancient Iranian lineage. A version of this article is available in print Volume III, Fascicle 7, pp. 716 BANŪ MONAJJEM , a family of intellectuals, closely connected to the caliphs of the 3rd-4th/9th-10th centuries and claiming descent from an ancient Iranian lineage. Their genealogy is given by Ebn al-Nadīm (ed. Flügel, pp. 143-44), from whom it is in part copied and supplemented by Ebn Ḵallekān (tr. de Slane, IV, pp.…

Arabicized Kušyār; an astronomer and mathematician from Gilān, whence his nesba Jili/Gilāni (fl. late 10th-early 11th cent.). A version of this article is available in print Volume XI, Fascicle 4, pp. 407-408 GUŠYĀR (Arabicized Kušyār) GILĀNI, ABU’L-ḤASAN b. Labbān b. Bāšahri, an astronomer and mathematician from Gilān, whence his nesba Jili/Gilāni (fl. late 4th/late 10th-early 11th cent.). Next to nothing is known of his life; even his dates can only be determined approximately. Though it has been stated (Sezgin, GAS V, p. 343) that he wrote his al-Zij al-jāmeʿ in 353/964, the cat…

post-3rd/9th century astronomer. A version of this article is available in print Volume I, Fascicle 8, pp. 848 ʿALĪ B. AḤMAD BALḴĪ, ABU’L-QĀSEM NŪR-AL-DĪN, post-3rd/9th century astronomer. Like his more famous fellow townsman, he was known as Abū Maʿšar. He wrote a Ketāb al-madḵal fī ʿelm al-aḥkām al-falakīya (“Book of the introduction to the science of astrological judgments”) in seventy-three chapters (Krause, 450), and a Ketāb al-madḵal fī ʿelm al-noǰūm (“Book of the introduction to the science of the stars”) in sixty chapters (Krause, 514); there is said to b…

ḤASAN b. Musā Abu Moḥammad, 4th/10th century theologian and philosopher in Baghdad, d. between 300/912-3 and 310/922-3. NAWBAḴTI, ḤASAN b. Musā Abu Moḥammad, 4th/10th century theologian and philosopher in Baghdad, d. between 300/912-3 and 310/922-3. The son of a sister of Abu Sahl Esmāʿil b. ʿAli b. Nawbaḵt (b. 235/849-50, d. 311/923-4), who was a leader of the Shiʿites and a government official, Ḥasan’s father according to Ritter (p.8) was Musā b. Kebriāʾ, whose ancestry is traced back through six generations t…

the most prolific producer of astronomical tables in the Islamic world. He is credited with a total of six tables, all of which are lost. There are three lists of these tables, given by Moḥammad b. Abū Bakr Fāresī, Šams Monajjem Wābeknavī, and Ḥājī Ḵalīfa. A version of this article is available in print Volume IX, Fascicle 2, pp. 157-158 FAHHĀD, FARĪD-AL-DĪN ABU’L-ḤASAN ʿALĪ, b. ʿAbd-al-Karīm Šarvānī (fl. 6th/12th cent.; he is sometimes called by his father’s name ʿAbd-al-Karīm), the most prolific producer of astronomical tables ( zīj) in the Islamic world. He is credited with a t…

astronomer (16th century). A version of this article is available in print Volume I, Fascicle 2, pp. 134 ʿABD-AL- QĀDER ḤASAN RŪYĀNĪ, 10th/16th century astronomer. Apparently from Ṭabarestān, he seems to have served the rulers of Gīlān; he dedicated his Zīǰ-e molaḵḵaṣ-e Mīrzāʾī (“Compendious astronomical tables for Mīrzā,” composed in 891/1486) to Sultan Mīrzā ʿAlī (1478-1505) and his al-Toḥfat al-neẓāmīya (“The Neẓām’s gift”) to Sultan Yaḥyā Kīā. In the latter work, the first thirty sections ( faṣl) out of a total of forty are a commentary of Naṣīr-al-dīn Ṭūsī’s Sī faṣl. ʿAbd-al-Qād…

astronomer (d. 1026/1617). A version of this article is available in print Volume I, Fascicle 2, pp. 140 ʿABD-AL -RAḤĪM B. ʿABD-AL-KARĪM AL-QAZVĪNĪ AL- ʿAJAMĪ, astronomer, d. 1026/1617. Nothing further seems to be known of his life. Two of his works survive: al-Zīǰ fi’l-falak (“Astronomical tables on the sphere”), and Resāla fi’l-kawākeb al-ṯābeta (“Epistle on the fixed star”). David Pingree Bibliography Brockelmann, GAL II 2, p. 545.

mathematician, said to have died in 1332-33. A version of this article is available in print Volume I, Fascicle 2, pp. 216 ABHARĪ, AMĪN-AL -DĪN, mathematician, said to have died in 733/1332-33. He is the author of an extant text, Foṣūl kāfīa fī ḥesāb al-taḵt wa’l-mīl (“Sufficient chapters concerning computation with a pegboard”). David Pingree Bibliography Brockelmann, GAL II2, p. 273. Suter, Mathematiker, p. 160, no. 393.

Mathematician (d. 1083-84). A version of this article is available in print Volume I, Fascicle 2, pp. 197 ʿABDALLĀH B. EBRĀHĪM AL- KABRĪ ABŪ ḤAKĪM, mathematician, d. 476/1083-84. He was the pupil of Ḥosayn b. Moḥammad al-Vannī (killed in Baghdad in Ḏu’l-ḥeǰǰa, 451/January-February, 1060). According to Ebn Ḵallekān (tr. de Slane, I, p. 421), Ḵabrī wrote a Talḵīṣ fi’l-ḥesāb (“ Summary concerning computation”). David Pingree Bibliography Suter, Mathematiker, p. 108, no. 250.

Author in Persian (15th century). A version of this article is available in print Volume I, Fascicle 4, pp. 392 ABU’L- WAFĀʾ B. SAʿĪD, author of a Persian Moḵtaṣar-e moštamel bar mesāḥat-e abʿād va soṭūḥ va moǰassamāt va bar kayfīyat-e aʿmāl-e hendī (“Epitome comprising areas, distances, surfaces, and solids and the manner of the Indian operations”). The unique manuscript, in Leningrad, was copied from the author’s autograph written in 823/1420-21. David Pingree Bibliography Storey, II/1, p. 8, no. 17.