Thabit ibn Qurra

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Abu l-Hasan Thabit ibn Qurra ibn Marwan as-Sabi 'al-Harrani , also Tābit ibn Qurra (* 826 in Ḥarrān ; † February 18, 901 in Baghdad ; Arabic أبو الحسن ثابت بن قرة بن مروان الصابئ الحراني, DMG Abu l-Ḥasan Ṯābit b. Qurra b. Marwān aṣ-Ṣābiʾ al-Ḥarrānī ) was a Sabian mathematician , astronomer , astrologer , magician , physicist , medic and philosopher , who is known in Europe under the Latinized form of the name Thebit .

Thabit ibn Qurra belonged to the Sabians of Harran , the adherents of ancient Mesopotamian celestial religions. With reference to Suras 2:62 and 6:69 of the Koran , they were tolerated as a religion of the book . They dealt intensively with astronomy / astrology, magic and mathematics. According to the kitab Ihwan as-Safa , an Arabic encyclopedia of the 10th century, they are said to have viewed Hermes Trismegistus as a prophet. Thabit also dealt with all branches of science, esotericism and philosophy, as he saw everything as a unit. His hermetic work De Imaginibus had a great influence in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

At a young age he is said to have been a money changer in Harran. Muhammad bin Musa bin Shakir, one of the Banu Musa brothers, noticed his mathematical talent and called him to study at the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. Later he was the court astronomer of the caliph al-Mu'tadid bi-'llah .

In the Harran area, Syriac , a form of Aramaic , and Greek were preferred . Thabit ibn Qurra translated Greek works by Archimedes and Apollonios von Perge into Arabic and commented on The Elements of Euclid (of which he edited an edition based on the translation and in collaboration with Ishāq ibn Hunain ), the Almagest and the Geographia of Ptolemy , medical works of Galen of Pergamon and Hippocrates of Kos . Thabit's translation of a lost work by Archimedes on the regular heptagon was not discovered until the 20th century. He also wrote his own works on mathematics, astronomy and physics.

Thabits Arabic translation of "Conica" by Apollonios

In mathematics, he dealt with the generalization of the Pythagorean theorem , the parallels axiom , magic squares and number theory , and his theorem on friendly numbers is well known . The Theory of Friendly Numbers is a further development of the arithmetic of Nicomachus of Gerasa .

Eight books of Thabit's astronomical work have survived. He was instrumental in the development of Islamic astronomy, in particular in the mathematization of theory and the evaluation of observations. Nicolaus Copernicus took over the value of the sidereal year of 365 days 6 hours 9 minutes and 12 seconds (deviation 2 seconds) from ibn Qurras About the solar year . The erroneous theory of the trepidation of the equinoxes , which is also used in Copernicus, is generally attributed to Thabit ( On the movement of the eighth sphere ), but it is already mentioned by Theon of Alexandria .

The Kitab fi'l-qarastun was translated into Latin by Gerhard von Cremona and served as a textbook on mechanics in the Middle Ages .

His descendants were also great scholars. His son Sinan ibn Thabit was a doctor, the overseer of all public hospitals in Baghdad. His grandson Ibrahim ibn Sinan ibn Thabit is known for his calculations for the construction of sundials.

In his honor, a moon crater was named Thebit .

literature

  • Friedrun Hau: Tābit ibn Qurra. In: Werner E. Gerabek u. a. (Ed.): Encyclopedia of medical history. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 1377.
  • F. Szegin: History of Arabic literature. Volume 3: Medicine, Pharmacy [...]. Leiden / Cologne 1970, pp. 260-263.

Web links

annotation

  1. ↑ In the literature one often finds 836 AD as the year of birth
personal data
SURNAME Thabit ibn Qurra
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Abu l-Hasan Thabit ibn Qurra ibn Marwan al-Sabi 'al-Harrani
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Syrian mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, magician, physicist, medic and philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH 826
PLACE OF BIRTH Harran , Turkey
DATE OF DEATH February 18, 901
Place of death Baghdad , Iraq