Muhammad al-Fazari

Abu Abdallah Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Habib al-Fazari ( Arabic أبو عبدالله محمد بن إبراهيم بن حبيب الفزاري, DMG Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad bin Ibrāhīm bin Ḥabīb al-Fazārī ; † probably in Baghdad at the beginning of the 9th century ) was a Muslim philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and astrologer. He was considered one of the pioneers in Islamic astronomy who made Indian texts accessible to the Islamic world.

Little is known about him. He may have come from an old respected family in Kufa, Iraq. He worked in Baghdad at the time of the caliph al-Mansur (ruled 754-775) and his successors. For Al-Mansur he set the astrologically favorable founding date of Baghdad (762). Around 770 he translated Indian astronomical texts (Sindhind, Sanskrit for treatise) into Arabic at the request of the caliph. They had come to Baghdad through an Indian astronomer. Possibly these are texts from the Brahmagupta tradition . His own astronomical manual (Zij) was based on it (Zij al Sindhind al-kabir), but also used other influences, and he also wrote an astronomical-astrological poem inspired by the Sanskrit literature. In addition, an astronomical handbook that was created about 10 years after his main work is known (which served to align astronomical data with the Islamic calendar) and otherwise only the titles of lost works (About the measurement of the moon, About the armillary sphere , About the astrolabe ). Most of his work as an astronomer is known from the writings of Al-Biruni , who also criticized him and his contemporary Yaqūb ibn Tāriq , who also translated the Indian texts.

According to legend, he is said to have introduced the astrolabe .

It was previously thought that Ibrāhīm ibn Ḥabīb al-Fazārī and Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Ḥabīb al-Fazārī were different people (father and son), but it is now believed to be the same person ( Kim Plofker ).

literature

• Kim Plofker in Thomas Hockey (Ed.): Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers , Springer Verlag 2005, Online