Ibn Yunus

Ibn Yunus (full nameأبو سعد عبد الرحمن بن يونس الصدفي المصري / Abū Saʿd ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān b. Yūnus aṣ-Ṣadafī al-Miṣrī ; * around 951 in Fustāt , Cairo; † May 31, 1009 ) was an Egyptian astronomer and mathematician and poet .

His father was a historian, biographer and scholar of hadith (traditions about Mohammed).

His previous life and education are unknown. Before that, the Fatimid dynasty had come to power, for which Ibn Yunus worked as an astronomer for over 26 years, first for the caliph al-ʿAzīz and then for al-Hākim .

According to his own observations, he set up the Great Hakimite Planetary Tables (named after the caliph). He improved the gnomon as an astronomical observation instrument and determined the inclination of the ecliptic and the precession of the equinoxes. He also wrote an illustration of trigonometry . His observatory became part of the House of Wisdom in Cairo and was in use from 1005 until the end of the Fatimids in 1171. A moon crater in the Mare Marginis is named after him.

Works

az-Zij al-Kabir al-Hakim
Kitab al-bulugh umniyya
al-ʿuqūd walsuʿūd fī awsāf al-ʿūd ("The necklaces and the bliss of the praises of the sounds")

Web links

Individual evidence

^ Ulrich Wegner: African string instruments. Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin 1984 (= Publications of the Museum für Völkerkunde Berlin , New Series 41, Department of Ethnic Music , V), ISBN 388609-117-1 , p. 150.

personal data
SURNAME	Ibn Yunus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Yunus al-Sadafi, Abu'l-Hasan Ali ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Ahmad ibn; Yunus, Ibn
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Egyptian astronomer and mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH	around 951
PLACE OF BIRTH	Fustāt
DATE OF DEATH	May 31, 1009

[1] Ulrich Wegner: African string instruments. Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin 1984 (= Publications of the Museum für Völkerkunde Berlin , New Series 41, Department of Ethnic Music , V), ISBN 388609-117-1 , p. 150.