Yaqūb ibn Tāriq

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Yaqūb ibn Tāriq ( Arabic يعقوب بن طارق, DMG Yaʿqūb b. Ṭāriq ) was an 8th century Persian astronomer and mathematician.

He lived in Baghdad and was considered one of the greatest astronomers of his time. He worked at the court of al-Mansur , on whose behalf he translated Indian astronomical texts (siddhānta, Sanskrit for textbook called, probably from the textual tradition of Brahmagupta ) into Arabic around 770 , together with Muhammad al-Fazari . Like al-Fazari, he wrote an astronomical manual (Zij) based on it, which is only known in fragments. They were brought to Baghdad by an Indian named Kankah. They also used Persian and Greek sources and laid the foundations for the development of astronomy in the Islamic world.

He also wrote a book on the cosmography of the Indians (Tarkīb al-aflāk) and a treatise Kitab al'ilal, in which he tried to justify the astronomical rules of calculation mathematically. Of these treatises, however, something is only known fragmentarily through the mentions in Al-Biruni , and it partly emerges from this that Tariq, like his colleague al-Fazari, did not correctly understand everything in the Indian texts.

literature

  • Kim Plofker in Thomas Hockey Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers , Springer Verlag 2005, Online .
  • Jan Hogendijk New Light on the Lunar Visibility Table of Yaʿqub ibn Ṭāriq , Journal of Near Eastern Studies , Volume 47 1988, pp. 95-104.
  • ES Kennedy The Lunar Visibility Theory of Yaʿqūb ibn Ṭāriq , Journal of Near Eastern Studies , Volume 27, 1968, pp. 126-132.
  • David Pingree : Yaʿqūb ibn Ṭāriq in Dictionary of Scientific Biography 1976
  • David Pingree: The Fragments of the Works of Yaʿqūb ibn Ṭāriq , Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Volume 27, 1968, pp. 97-125.
  • Heinrich Suter : The mathematicians and astronomers of the Arabs 1900
  • Moritz Steinschneider : On the history of translations from Indian into Arabic and their influence on Arabic literature . Journal of the German Oriental Society, Volume 24, 1870, p. 332.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Yaqūb ibn Tāriq
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Persian astronomer and mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH 8th century
DATE OF DEATH at 796