The Fragments of the Works of Al-Fazārī

Bibliographic Data

ID9070369
AuthorsDavid Pingree (corresponding author)
Year1970
Volume29
Issue2
Pages103-123
Publication date1970-04-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Near Eastern Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-2968 • E-ISSN: 1545-6978
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/372055
OpenAlexW821716856
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited2

(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.).Al-Fazâri is the name of the person most directly connected with the transmission of a Sanskrit work on astronomy-the Mahasiddhanta(l) belonging to what later became known as the Brahmapakfa-to the Arabs in the early part of the eighth decade of the eighth century of the Christian era. This was not the first infusion of Indian astronomical theories into Islam; prior to it was the mediating influence of the Zij al-Shâh in the versions of Khusrau Anushirwan and of Yazdijird III, the composition of the Zij al-Arkand and its derivatives at Qandahr Nallino is followed by Brockelmann (Suppl. I, 391) and Kennedy (No. 2). Suter, on the other hand, speaks of two personalities: an Ibrâhim Habib (p. 3) who wrote various works and constructed an astrolabe, and his son (pp. 4-5) who was involved in the translation of the Sindhind. The confusion is due to the inaccuracies of the Islamic biographers and bibliographers and to the existence of several contemporaries bearing the name al-Fazârl. There is, for instance, an Abu cAbdallah Ibrâhim Hftblb Sulayman Samura Jundab al-Fazarl (Fihrist, p. 79), who was reputed as an authority on geomancy, and a Ibrâhim al-Fazarl (Fihrist, p. 164), who was a slave poet; but elsewhere (Fihrist, p. 273; cf. al-Mas'udl, Muruj al-dhahab, 8, 290-91, and Ibn al-Qifyi, p. 57) Ibn al-Nadlm writes of an Abu Ishaq Ibrâhim Habib al-Fazârl of the family of Samura Jundab, who was the first in Islâm to make a plane astrolabe and who wrote a Kitab al-qafida fi cilm al-nujum (Poem on the Science of the Stars), a Kitab al-miqyas Wl-zawal (Measurement of Noon), a Kitab al-zij 'old sini al-cArab (Astronomical Tables According to the Years of the Arabs), a Kitab al-camal bi5l-asfurldb tea huwa dhdt al-halaq (Use of the Armillary Sphere), and a Kitab al-camal bi'l-asturlab al-musattah (Use of the Plane Astrolabe). These seem to be son and father respectively.But Ibn al-Qifti (p. 270) says of Ibrâhim al-Fazarl that he was outstanding in the science of the stars, a speaker about future events, experienced in the tasyir of the planets, and the first in the Islamic religion, at the beginning of the 'Abbâsid dynasty, who was concerned with this subject; al-Fazarl's work on tasyir is referred to by Abu Macshar as cited by Shâdhftn in his Mudhakarat (see CCAO, 5,1 ;148). And the astronomer whose fragments are here collected is called Ibrâhim al-Fazarl by Ibn al-Adaml (Frag. Z 1), by Câ'id al-AndalusI (ed. p. 13, trans. p. 46, and ed. p. 60, trans. p. 117), and by al-Blrunl (Frag. Z 15, 18, and 25 and Frag. Q 2). A reasonable solution to this problem of al-Fazâri's name would perhaps be to assume with Nallino that only one person is referred to in the passages cited above but that, in the entry on the astronomer al-Fazâri, Ibn al-Nadlm or his manuscript tradition has omitted the Muhammad ibn with which the entry should have begun.This suggestion is strengthened by the fact that the later biographical tradition refers to him as Muhammad. Thus Yaqut (Irshad, p. 268) gives a long genealogy of twentyseven generations beginning with Ibrâhim Habib Samura Jundab. Yaqut further quotes al-Marzubani to the effect that Ibrâhim al-Fazari al-Kufi was an expert on the stars; and Yahya Khalid al-Barmaki's saying that four men were without equal in their specialties: al-Khalil Ahmad, Ibn alMuqaffa', Abu Hanifa, and al-Fazari; and Jacfar Yahya's saying that he did not see more exceptional men in their fields than al-Kisa^i in grammar, al-AsmacI in poetry, al-Fazari in the stars, and Zulzul in playing the lute

Ancient history · Art · Astrolabe · Astronomy · Confusion · Islam · Literature · Physics · Sanskrit · Theology · Historical and Architectural Studies · Historical Astronomy and Related Studies · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History · Philosophy

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