Probably of Iranian origin, al‐˓Abbās Ibn Sa˓īd al‐Jawharī was one of the court astronomers/astrologers of Caliph al‐Ma˒mūn (r. 813–833) in charge of the construction of astronomical instruments. He participated in astronomical observations carried out in Baghdad in 829–830 and in Damascus in 832–833. He is said to have composed an astronomical handbook (Zīj), which is lost, except for indirect references (Sezgin 1973). In his house in Baghdad, meetings were held at which the participants discussed Ptolemy's Almagest, Euclid's Elements, and problems derived from the two books. A not yet studied manuscript, Kalām fī ma˓rifat bu˓d al‐shams ˓an markaz al‐arḍ (Speech about the Knowledge of the Distance between the Sun and the Center of the Earth), might be an extract of his Zīj or an independent astronomical treatise. In astrology, he was considered an expert at horoscopes determining an individual's length of life.
His main achievements in the mathematical sciences are in geometry. He...
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References
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Brentjes, S. (2008). Al‐Jawharī. In: Selin, H. (eds) Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_9393
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