Ṭabarī: Abū Jaҁfar Muḥammad ibn Ayyūb al-Ḥāsib al-Ṭabarī

Vesel, Živa

doi:10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_1357

Živa Vesel⁹

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Flourished (Iran), 1092–1108

Ṭabari lived in Iran under the Saljūqs, probably in Āmul, and is the author of two independent treatises in Persian on the astrolabe as well as several other books, including two on arithmetic. Although several modern studies place him in the thirteenth century, he must have lived earlier based upon manuscript sources and since he is mentioned by al-Bayhaqī in his Tatimmat ṣiwān al-ḥikma (1164).

The first astrolabe treatise is known under the title Shish faṣl (Six chapters [on the knowledge of the astrolabe]), the oldest manuscript copy dating to 1176–1177. It was probably composed at the request of some students and is arranged in a question-answer (q/a) format:

1.
On the parts of the astrolabe and their names (60 q/a);
2.
On lines, figures, inscriptions, and circles on the astrolabe (77 q/a);
3.
On knowing the functioning of the back part of the astrolabe (49 q/a);
4.
On knowing the functioning of the face side of the astrolabe (136 q/a);
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Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, France
Živa Vesel

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Department of Earth Science, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA, USA
Thomas Hockey
University of California, Irvine School of Physical Sciences, Irvine, CA, USA
Virginia Trimble
Rice University, Houston, TX, USA
Thomas R. Williams
Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA, USA
Katherine Bracher
York Univesity, Toronto, ON, Canada
Richard A. Jarrell
University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA
Jordan D. Marché II
University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA
JoAnn Palmeri
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
Daniel W. E. Green

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Vesel, Ž. (2014). Ṭabarī: Abū Ja^ҁfar Muḥammad ibn Ayyūb al-Ḥāsib al-Ṭabarī. In: Hockey, T., et al. Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_1357

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_1357
Published: 24 December 2016
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-9916-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-9917-7
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