From: Thomas Hockey et
al. (eds.). The Biographical Encyclopedia of
Astronomers, Springer Reference. New York: Springer, 2007, p. 12 |
|
Ādamī: Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad al-Ādamī
Flourished Baghdad, (Iraq), circa 925
Ādamī is
noted for his work on instruments. Ibn al-Ādamī, presumably his son, wrote an influential
astronomical handbook with tables (zīj)
that was based on Indian sources. The father is mentioned in Ibn al-Nadīm’s Fihrist (dating from the 10th century), where he is
called al-Ādamī. Because of the similarity
in names, the two have often been confused in modern sources.
According to the Fihrist, Ādamī is the author of a work on sundials, and indeed
there is an extant Paris manuscript by him that deals with vertical sundials
and contains universal auxiliary tables that are used to simplify calculations.
These enabled the drawing of lines for vertical sundials inclined to the local
meridian at any desired angle for any latitude. Bīrūnī tells us in his great work on
astrolabes (the Istīʿāb)
that Ādamī was the first person to construct
a “disc of eclipses” for demonstrating solar and lunar eclipses.
The son, Ibn al-Ādamī,
was famous for a zīj entitled Naẓm
al-ʿiqd, which was completed after his death by his student al-Qāsim ibn Muḥammad ibn Hishām
al-Madāʾinī,
who published it in 949/950. This nonextant work
is referred to by several later authors, including Ibn
Yūnus (died: 1009) and Ṣāʿid al-Andalusī (died: 1070). From the latter we learn that Ibn
al-Ādamī’s zīj
was based on the Indian methods contained in the so-called Sindhind,
a Sanskrit work translated into Arabic by Fazārī.
Ṣāʿid also provides crucial evidence that the theory of variable precession
(or trepidation) that became known in Europe under the name of Thābit ibn Qurra may instead have had its source in the zīj of Ibn al-Ādamī, who himself may have gotten the theory from
Thābit’s grandson Ibrahīm
ibn Sinān. Ṣāʿid also informs us that Ibn al-Ādamī was a source for the story of how Indian astronomy
came to Baghdad in the early 770s by way of an ambassador to the court of
Manṣūr.