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Athīr al-Dīn al-Mufaḍḍal ibn ʿUmar ibn al-Mufaḍḍal al-Samarqandī al-Abharī (Persian): اثیرالدین مُفَضَّل بن عمر بن مَفَضَّل سمرقندی ابهری; d. 1262 or 1265 also known as Athīr al-Dīn al-Munajjim (اثیرالدین منجم) was an Iranian Muslim polymath, philosopher, astronomer, astrologer and mathematician. Other than his influential writings, he had many disciples.

Life

His birthplace is contested among sources. According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam and the Encyclopaedia Islamica, he was born in Abhar, a small town between Qazvin and Zanjan in the North-West of Iran. The claim of G.C. Anawati making him a native of Mosul in Iraq, taken from the fact that al-Abharī was educated by a scientist from Mosul, Kamāl al-Dīn ibn Yūnus al-Mawṣilī, must also been dismissed. None of his oldest biographers mentioned Mosul as his birthplace, and al-Abharī himself indicated that he had gone to Mosul for this purpose. Beside the city of Abhar, the epithet al-Abharī could suggest that he or his ancestors originally stem from the Abhar tribe.

In his youth al-Abharī was a student of the theologian Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, probably in the city of Ghazni or Herat. Beside philosophy and logic, from al-Rāzī it is likely that al-Abharī received an orthodox Sunni instruction in theology (kalām), jurisprudence (fiqh), and Qur’anic exegesis (tafsīr). When Mongol took Khwarezmian Empire, al-Abharī, in 1228 he flew to Erbil, then to Damascus, where he studied to Muḥyī al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Sa‘īd b. Nadī. Then he went to Mosul, where he studied mathematics, especially astronomy, under the direction of Kamāl al-Dīn al-Mawṣilī.

Among his students were Najm al-Din al-Qazwini al-Katibi, Abū Zakariya al-Qazwini, and Ibn Khallikān.

According to most accounts, al-Abharī died in Mosul between 660/1261–62 and 663/1264–65, during the reign of Khān Hülegü.

Works

Astronomy

• Risāla fī al-hayʾa (رساله الهیئة; lit. Treatise on astronomy).
• Mukhtaṣar fī al-hayʾa (مختصر فی علم الهیئة; lit. Epitome on astronomy).
• Kashf al-ḥaqāʾiq fī taḥrīr al-daqāʾiq (كشف الحقائق فی تحریر الدقائق), where he accepts the view that the celestial bodies do not change and maintains that stars have volition and it is the source of their motion.

Mathematics

• Several works on Iṣlāḥ (اصلاح; lit. Correction) of Euclid, one of which is an attempt to prove the parallel postulate, which was commented upon and criticized by Shams al-Dīn al-Samarqandī.

Philosophy

• Hidāyah al-Hikmah (هدایةالحکمه; lit. Guide on Philosophy): a book dealing with the complete cycle of Hikmat, i.e., logic, natural philosophy, and metaphysics.
• Isāghūjī fi al-Manṭiq (ایساغوجی فی المنطق; Commentary on Porphyry's Isagoge), a treatise on logic. Latin Translation by Thomas Obicini; Īsāghūkhī, Isagoge. Id est, breve Introductorium Arabicum in Scientiam Logices: cum versione latina: ac theses Sanctae Fidei. R. P. F. Thomae Novariensis (1625).

Notes

1. ^ Sarıoğlu 2007.
2. ^ Heidrun, Eichner (December 2008). "Al-Abharī, Athīr al-Dīn". Encyclopaedia of Islam, Three. Brill. Retrieved 20 February 2017.
3. ^ Terrier, Mathieu (2020), Lagerlund, Henrik (ed.), "'Allama al-Ḥillī", Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy: Philosophy between 500 and 1500, Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, pp. 129–139, doi:10.1007/978-94-024-1665-7_584, ISBN 978-94-024-1665-7, retrieved 2024-09-23
4. ^ "Athir al-Din al-Abhari". Encyclopedia Islamica. CGIE. Retrieved 5 February 2017.
5. Hockey, Thomas A.; Trimble, Virginia; Bracher, Katherine, eds. (2007). The biographical encyclopedia of astronomers. Springer reference. New York: Springer. ISBN 978-0-387-31022-0. OCLC 65764986.

References

• Sarıoğlu, Hüseyin (2007). "Abharī: Athīr al-Dīn al-Mufaḍḍal ibn ʿUmar ibn al-Mufaḍḍal al-Samarqandī al-Abharī". In Thomas Hockey; et al. (eds.). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. New York: Springer. pp. 7–8. ISBN 978-0-387-31022-0. (PDF version)
• Masjid Darus Salam. "al- Abharī, At̲h̲īr al-Dīn Mufaḍḍal b. ʿUmar." A Brief Biographical Sketch of Imām Athīr al-Dīn al-Abharī By Mohammad Mustafa Ali (4th Year Alim Student, DarusSalam Seminary).

Further reading

• Calverley, Edwin E. (1933). "Al-Abharī's "Isāghūjī fi l-Manṭiq"". Macdonald.

External links

• Isagoge of al-Ahbārī with Latin translation and a theological treatise by Thomas Obicini (Gallica, Bibliothèque nationale de France).

v t e Mathematics in the medieval Islamic world
Mathematicians	9th century 'Abd al-Hamīd ibn Turk Sanad ibn Ali al-Jawharī Al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf Al-Kindi Qusta ibn Luqa Al-Mahani al-Dinawari Banū Mūsā brothers Hunayn ibn Ishaq Al-Khwarizmi Yusuf al-Khuri Ishaq ibn Hunayn Na'im ibn Musa Thābit ibn Qurra al-Marwazi Abu Said Gorgani 10th century Abu al-Wafa al-Khazin Al-Qabisi Abu Kamil Ahmad ibn Yusuf Aṣ-Ṣaidanānī Sinān ibn al-Fatḥ al-Khojandi Al-Nayrizi Al-Saghani Brethren of Purity Ibn Sahl Ibn Yunus al-Uqlidisi Al-Battani Sinan ibn Thabit Ibrahim ibn Sinan Al-Isfahani Nazif ibn Yumn al-Qūhī Abu al-Jud Al-Sijzi Al-Karaji al-Majriti al-Jabali 11th century Abu Nasr Mansur Alhazen Kushyar Gilani Al-Biruni Ibn al-Samh Abu Mansur al-Baghdadi Avicenna al-Jayyānī al-Nasawī al-Zarqālī ibn Hud Al-Isfizari Omar Khayyam Muhammad al-Baghdadi 12th century Jabir ibn Aflah Al-Kharaqī Al-Khazini Al-Samawal al-Maghribi al-Hassar Sharaf al-Din al-Tusi Ibn al-Yasamin 13th century Ibn al‐Ha'im al‐Ishbili Ahmad al-Buni Ibn Munim Alam al-Din al-Hanafi Ibn Adlan al-Urdi Nasir al-Din al-Tusi al-Abhari Muhyi al-Din al-Maghribi al-Hasan al-Marrakushi Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi Shams al-Din al-Samarqandi Ibn al-Banna' Kamāl al-Dīn al-Fārisī 14th century Nizam al-Din al-Nisapuri Ibn al-Shatir Ibn al-Durayhim Al-Khalili al-Umawi 15th century Ibn al-Majdi al-Rūmī al-Kāshī Ulugh Beg Ali Qushji al-Wafa'i al-Qalaṣādī Sibt al-Maridini Ibn Ghazi al-Miknasi 16th century Al-Birjandi Muhammad Baqir Yazdi Taqi ad-Din Ibn Hamza al-Maghribi
Mathematical works	The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing De Gradibus Principles of Hindu Reckoning Book of Optics The Book of Healing Book on the Measurement of Plane and Spherical Figures Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity Toledan Tables Tabula Rogeriana Zij
Concepts	Alhazen's problem Islamic geometric patterns
Centers	Al-Azhar University Al-Mustansiriya University House of Knowledge House of Wisdom Constantinople observatory of Taqi ad-Din Madrasa Maragheh observatory University of al-Qarawiyyin
Influences	Babylonian mathematics Greek mathematics Indian mathematics
Influenced	Byzantine mathematics European mathematics Indian mathematics
Related	Hindu–Arabic numeral system Arabic numerals (Eastern Arabic numerals, Western Arabic numerals) Trigonometric functions History of trigonometry History of algebra

• 1260s deaths
• 13th-century Iranian mathematicians
• 13th-century Iranian astronomers
• People from Abhar
• 13th-century Iranian philosophers