From: Thomas Hockey et al. (eds.). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, Springer Reference. New York: Springer, 2007, pp. 39-40 |
Courtesy of |
Amājūr Family
İhsan Fazlıoğlu
Flourished late 9th/early
10th century
The Amājūr
Family includes Abū al‐Qāsim ʿAbd Allāh ibn
Amājūr al‐Turkī al‐Harawī, his son Abū
al‐Ḥasan
ʿAlī, a certain
ʿAlī ʿAbd Allāh ibn
Amājūr, and Abū al‐ Ḥasan's
freed slave Mufliḥ
ibn Yūsuf. They are known for their extensive observational astronomical
work, and for compiling the results of these observations into several zījes
(astronomical handbooks). It is said that they were assisted in their observations
by a large group of people.
There is little information about the Amājūr Family's lives
in either historical or modern sources. There is also some ambiguity about
their names and identities. Ibn Yūnus
refers to the father as al‐Turkī and mentions another person as
having assisted him in doing the astronomical observations along with his
son and his slave. Ibn al‐Qifṭī, though, refers to Abū al‐Qāsim as
al‐Ḥarawī from the city of Herat;
he informs us that the son Abū al‐Ḥasan ʿAlī was raised by his father, who had educated him in the sciences.
Ibn al‐Qifṭī
considers ʿAlī ibn Amājūr as a separate person, and not necessarily
related to Abū al‐Qāsim. Both Ibn al‐Nadīm and
Ibn al‐Qifṭī
believe that the family hailed from Farghāna.
The Amājūr
Family carried out their astronomical observations between 885 and 933; most
of their work took place in Baghdad and, to a lesser extent, in Shīrāz.
Their long‐term astronomical observations, which lasted 30–50 years,
involved work on the fixed stars, the Sun, the Moon, and the planets. There
has been speculation that there was an observatory of some sort in connection
with the Amājūr Family based on their needs for precise observations
and for recording their results. There is also a report that a large group
aided the Amājūr Family with their observations. Ibn Yūnus,
who records observations of solar and lunar eclipses and planetary positions
by the Amājūr Family, indicates that they carried out their observations
at a raised, flat place with a view, called a “ṭārum” or “ṭāruma.”
On the basis of his research, Caussin concludes that there was an observatory.
There is
little information regarding the instruments that were used by the Amājūr
Family. However, ʿAbd Allāh
ibn Amājūr mentions one he used to observe a solar eclipse on 18
August 928 with Abū al‐Ḥasan
and Mufliḥ. From the
information provided on this observation, Caussin determined that the instrument
had to be quite large given the preciseness of the measurements.
ʿAbd Allāh ibn Amājūr
was apparently well known in his time, and he wrote a number of books, most
of them zījes. According to D. King, ʿAlī ibn Amājūr
worked on improving Khwārizmī's
(9th century) prayer tables, providing the approximate times for different
latitudes. ʿAlī ibn Amājūr
also prepared a prayer table for Baghdad, based upon precise trigonometrical
calculations.
Brockelmann,
Carl (1937). Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur. 2nd ed. Suppl. 1.
Leiden: E. J. Brill, p. 397.
Caussin
de Perceval, A. P. (1803–1804). “Le livre de la grande table Hakemite.” Notices
et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale 7: 16–240, esp.
pp. 120–178.
Ibn al‐Nadīm (1970). The Fihrist of al‐Nadīm:
A Tenth‐Century Survey of Muslim Culture, edited and translated
by Bayard Dodge. 2 Vols. Vol. 2, p. 662. New York: Columbia University Press.
Ibn al‐Qifṭī.
Kitāb Ikhbār al‐ʿulamāʾ
bi‐akhbār al‐ḥukamāʾ.
Cairo, 1326 (1908), pp. 149, 155, 157.
Kennedy, E. S. (1956). “A
Survey of Islamic Astronomical Tables.” Transactions of the American Philosophical
Society, n.s., 46, Pt. 2: 121–177, esp. 125, 134–135. (Reprint, Philadelphia:
American Philosophical Society, 1989.)
King, David A. (1996). “Astronomy
and Islamic Society: Qibla, gnomonics and timekeeping.” In Encyclopedia
of the History of Arabic Science, edited by Roshdi Rashed, pp. 128–184.
London: Routledge. (See “The Earliest Table for Timekeeping,” pp. 173–176.)
——— (1997). “Astronomy in
the Islamic World.” In Encyclopedia of the History of Science, Technology,
and Medicine in Non‐Western Cultures, edited by Helaine Selin, pp.
125–134. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 130–131.
Sayılı, Aydın (1960). The Observatory in Islam.
Ankara: Turkish Historical Society, pp. 101–103.
Suter, H. (1981). Die Mathematiker und Astronomen der Araber
und ihre Werke. Amsterdam: APA‐Oriental Press, pp. 49–50 (no. 99).