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Abu Hamid Ahmed ibn Mohammed al-Saghani al-Asturlabi (Persian: ابوحامد صاغانی, referred to by at least one source as Ṣāghānī, was a Persian astronomer and historian of science. His name means "the astrolabe maker of Saghan, near Merv". He flourished in Baghdad, where he died in 990.

Works

Al-Asturlabi wrote some of the earliest comments on the history of science. These included the following comparison between the "ancients" (including the ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks and Indians) and the "modern scholars" (the Muslim scientists of his time):

"The ancients distinguished themselves through their chance discovery of basic principles and the invention of ideas. The modern scholars, on the other hand, distinguish themselves through the invention of a multitude of scientific details, the simplification of difficult (problems), the combination of scattered (information), and the explanation of (material which already exists in) coherent (form). The ancients came to their particular achievements by virtue of their priority in time, and not on account of any natural qualification and intelligence. Yet, how many things escaped them which then became the original inventions of modern scholars, and how much did the former leave for the latter to do."

— Rosenthal, 1950

References

1. Puig 2007.

Sources

• Puig, Roser (2007). "Ṣāghānī: Abū Ḥāmid Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al‐Ṣāghānī [al‐Ṣaghānī] al‐Asṭurlābī". In Thomas Hockey; et al. (eds.). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. New York: Springer. p. 1004. ISBN 978-0-387-31022-0. (PDF version)
• Rosenthal, Franz (1950). "Al-Asturlabi and as-Samaw'al on Scientific Progress". Osiris. 9: 555–564. doi:10.1086/368538. S2CID 224796639.

Further reading

• Hogendijk, Jan P. (2001). "The Contributions by Abū Naṣr ibn ʿIrāq and al‐Ṣāghānī to the Theory of Seasonal Hour Lines on Astrolabes and Sundials" (PDF). Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften. 14: 1–30.
• Suter, Heinrich (1900). Die Mathematiker und Astronomen der Araber. Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der mathematischen Wissenschaften mit Einschluss ihrer Anwendungen,10. HFT. (in German). Leipzig: B.G. Teubner. p. 65. OCLC 463208459.

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

• Mathematicians from the Abbasid Caliphate
• Astronomers from the Abbasid Caliphate
• 10th-century Iranian mathematicians
• 990 deaths
• Historians of science
• 10th-century Iranian astronomers
• 10th-century people from the Abbasid Caliphate