Habash al-Hasib al-Marwazi

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Habash al-Hasib al-Marwazi ( Arabic حبش الحاسب المروزي, DMG Ḥabaš al-Ḥāsib al-Marwazī , actually Ahmad ibn Abdallah al-Marwazi  /أحمد بن عبد الله المروزي / Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Marwazī ) (* in Merw probably before 796; † after 869 probably in Samarra ), was a Persian mathematician, astronomer and geographer.

Life

He worked under the caliph al-Ma'mūn (around 830 founder of the House of Wisdom in Baghdad) and his successor al-Mu'tasim bi-'llāh , first in Baghdad and possibly Damascus , later in Samarra (the 838 capital of the Abbasid dynasty). The exact dates of his life are not known, but according to Ibn an-Nadim (died 995) he died at the age of over 100. The earliest news about him comes from the Egyptian astronomer Ibn Yunus , who reports an observation of al-Marwazi in Baghdad in 829/830. Habasch al-Hasib means Habasch the calculator (theoretical astronomy is meant).

He wrote two astronomical manuals (Zīdsch) that do not yet show any Ptolemaic influence (one is in the Indian Sindhind tradition and that of Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Fazarhi and al-Chwarizmi ) and therefore probably originated before the time around 830, when the caliph summoned a group of astronomers (Ashab al-Mumtahan) in Baghdad to check the parameters of the Ptolemaic system. Al-Marwazi did not belong to her directly by his own account, but made observations in this context and presented the results after the death of al-Mamun in a third, Ptolemaic astronomical manual, the only Zīdj he had received. The latest observation recorded there (September 15, 869) shows that he only died after 869 (and only completed his main work afterwards). Assuming that he was no older than 75 at the time, he was born before 796. So his life span is roughly the same as that of al-Kindī and Albumasar . With the investigations of the School of Baghdad, the ancient Ptolemaic astronomical system prevailed against the Persian and Indian systems in the Islamic world. It is also the earliest stand-alone surviving astronomical manual from the Islamic world that follows the Ptolemaic system. However, he improved Ptolemy's parameters and introduced his own calculation methods (probably influenced by Indian sources). Its trigonometric tables are of particular importance. He was the first to set up tangent and cotangent tables, which the Arabs defined by the shadow length of sundials (with a horizontal rod on a vertical wall or a vertical rod on the plane). He also calculated precise sine tables (at a distance of 1 degree to three decimal places).

Manuscripts of his main work are in Istanbul and Berlin. In addition, smaller works have been preserved:

  • The book of bodies and distances, in which he describes, among other things, an expedition to determine the earth's radius. Information is also given about the diameters and distances between the sun and moon.
  • a book on the construction of a melon-shaped astrolabe .
  • a manuscript of an original instrument for determining sidereal time.
  • Works on the spherical astrolabe, the armillary sphere and the celestial globe.

He gave a graphic construction of the direction determination to Mecca (analemma construction), received in a letter from al-Biruni and in the main work (Zīdsch) from al-Marwazi.

literature

  • S. Tekeli Habash al-Hasib, Ahmad Ibn Abdallah al-Marwazi , Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  • Francois Charette in Thomas Hockey Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers , Springer Verlag 2005, Online
  • Marie-Thérèse Debarnot: The Zīj of Ḥabash al-Ḥāsib: A Survey of MS Istanbul Yeni Cami 784/2 , in: David A. King, George Saliba (editor): From Deferent to Equant: A Volume of Studies in the History of Science in the Ancient and Medieval Near East in Honor of ES Kennedy, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Volume 500, 1987, pp. 35-69
  • Lennart Berggren Ḥabash's Analemma for Representing Azimuth Circles on the Astrolabe , Journal for the History of Arab-Islamic Sciences, Volume 7, 1991/92, pp. 23-30.
  • Berggren Comparison of four analemmas for determining the azimuth of the Quibla , Journal of the History of Arabic Science, Volume 4.1, 1980, pp. 49-65
  • David King In Synchrony with the Heavens: Studies in Astronomical Timekeeping and Instrumentation in Medieval Islamic Civilization , Volume 1, Leiden: Brill 2004
  • David King World-Maps for Finding the Direction and Distance to Mecca , Leiden: Brill 2004
  • David King Too Many Cooks ... A New Account of the Earliest Muslim Geodetic Measurements , Suhayl, Volume 1, 2000, pp. 207-241.
  • Edward S. Kennedy, A Survey of Islamic Astronomical Tables , Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Volume 46, Part 2, 1956, pp. 121-177.
  • Richard Lorch, Paul Kunitzsch: Ḥabash al-Ḥāsib's Book on the Sphere and Its Use , Journal for the History of Arab-Islamic Sciences, Volume 2, 1985, pp. 68-98

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sindhind is Sanskrit for treatise. Around 770, the astronomer Muhammad al-Fazari translated astronomical texts brought to Baghdad from India
  2. ^ Scriba, Schreiber 5000 Years of Geometry , Springer Verlag, p. 176
  3. ↑ Y. Zvi Langermann The Book of Bodies and Distances of Ḥabash al-Ḥāsib , Centaurus, Volume 28, 1985, pp. 108–128
  4. ↑ ES Kennedy, P. Kunitzsch, R. Lorch (eds.): The Melon-shaped Astrolabe in Arabic Astronomy. Steiner, Stuttgart 1999. Translation and commentary on the book by al-Marzawi
  5. ^ Francois Charette, Petra Schmidl A Universal Plate for Timekeeping by the Stars by Ḥabash al-Ḥāsib: Text, Translation and Preliminary Commentary , Suhayl, Volume 2, 2001, pp. 107–159
personal data
SURNAME Habash al-Hasib al-Marwazi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ahmad Ibn Abdallah al-Marwazi (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Persian mathematician, astronomer and geographer
DATE OF BIRTH 8th century
PLACE OF BIRTH Merw
DATE OF DEATH after 869
Place of death Samarra