Abu abdallah Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Fazari (d. 796 or 806) was a Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

  philosopher, mathematician

Mathematician

A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....

 and astronomer

Astronomer

An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...

. He is not to be confused with his father Ibrāhīm al-Fazārī

Ibrahim al-Fazari

Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Habib ibn Sulaiman ibn Samura ibn Jundab al-Fazari was an 8th-century Muslim mathematician and astronomer of Persian background....

, also an astronomer and mathematician.

While some sources refer to him as an Arab

Arab

Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

, other sources state that he was a Persian

Persian people

The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of...

.

Al-Fazārī translated many scientific books into Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

 and Persian

Persian language

Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

. He is credited to have built the first astrolabe

Astrolabe

An astrolabe is an elaborate inclinometer, historically used by astronomers, navigators, and astrologers. Its many uses include locating and predicting the positions of the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars, determining local time given local latitude and longitude, surveying, triangulation, and to...

 in the Islamic world.

Along with Yaʿqūb ibn Ṭāriq and his father he helped translate the Indian astronomical text by Brahmagupta

Brahmagupta

Brahmagupta was an Indian mathematician and astronomer who wrote many important works on mathematics and astronomy. His best known work is the Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta , written in 628 in Bhinmal...

 (fl. 7th century), the Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta

Brahmasphutasiddhanta

The main work of Brahmagupta, Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta , written c.628, contains ideas including a good understanding of the mathematical role of zero, rules for manipulating both negative and positive numbers, a method for computing square roots, methods of solving linear and some quadratic...

, into Arabic as Az-Zīj ‛alā Sinī al-‛Arab., or the Sindhind. This translation was possibly the vehicle by means of which the Hindu numerals were transmitted from India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 to Islam.

See also

• Hindu and Buddhist contribution to science in medieval Islam
  Hindu and Buddhist contribution to science in medieval Islam
  Hindu and Buddhist contributions to science in medieval Islam have been numerous, affecting such varied areas as medicine, astronomy and mathematics...
  
  
• List of Iranian scientists and scholars
• List of Arab scientists
• List of Iranian scientists
• zij
  Zij
  Zīj is the generic name applied to Islamic astronomical books that tabulate parameters used for astronomical calculations of the positions of the Sun, Moon, stars, and planets. The name is derived from the Middle Persian term zih or zīg, meaning cord...
  
  

External links

(PDF version)

• Cantor: Geschichte der Mathematik (I, 3rd ed., 698, 1907).