Al-Kharaqī
Abū Muḥammad 'Abd al-Jabbār al-Kharaqī, also Al-Kharaqī was a Persian astronomer and mathematician of the 12th century, born in Kharaq near Merv.[1] He was in the service of Sultan Sanjar at the Persian Court. Al-Kharaqī challenged the astronomical theory of Ptolemy in the Almagest, and established an alternative theory of the spheres, imagining huge material spheres in which the planets moved inside tubes.[1]
During his travels to the Ottoman Empire in 1536, Guillaume Postel acquired an astronomical work by al-Kharaqī, Muntahā al-idrāk fī taqāsīm al-aflāk ("The Ultimate Grassp of the Divisions of Spheres"), annotated it, and brought it back to Europe.[2]
Al-Kharaqī also wrote mathematical treatises, now lost, Al-Risala al-Shāmila ("Comprehensive Treatise") and Al-Risala al-Maghribiyya ("The North African Treatise", related to the calculus of dirham and dinar).[1]
Works
- Muntahā al-idrāk fī taqāsīm al-aflāk ("The Ultimate Grassp of the Divisions of Spheres") 1138/9
- Al-Risala al-Shāmila ("Comprehensive Treatise")
- Al-Risala al-Maghribiyya ("The North African Treatise")
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Encyclopaedia of the history of science, technology, and medicine, ed. Helaine Selin, p.478
- ↑ Islamic science and the making of European Renaissance, by George Saliba, p.218 ISBN 978-0-262-19557-7
