| From: Thomas Hockey et al. (eds.). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, Springer Reference. New York: Springer, 2007, pp. 560-561 |
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Ibn Labbān,
Kūshyār: Kiyā
Abū al‐Ḥasan Kūshyār ibn Labbān Bāshahrī al‐Jīlī
(Gīlānī)
Mohammad Bagheri
Alternate
name
Kūshyār
Flourished second half
10th/early 11th century
Kūshyār
ibn Labbān was an eminent Iranian astronomer known for his work on astronomical
handbooks (zījes) in addition to his work in mathematics and astrology.
All of his scientific legacy is in Arabic. The title Kiyā (literally,
“king/ruler”) was used in his time for the names of authorities and scholars.
His given name, “Kūshyār,” is the arabicized form of the ancient
Persian name Gūshyār, which literally means “a gift of Gūsh”
or “aided by Gūsh,” Gūsh being the name of an angel in the Zoroastrianism
religion that had prevailed in Iran before Islam. There remains very little
information about his life. He was from Gīlān province and later
moved to Rayy (near present‐day Tehran) where he met Abū
Rayḥān al‐Bīrūnī.
He then moved to Jurjān in Ṭabaristān, a province adjacent to Gīlān, where he worked
as the astronomer at the court of the Ziyārid dynasty. We know from al‐Bīrūnī
that Kūshyār learned of the Sine Theorem from the work of his contemporary
Abū Maḥmūd
al‐Khujandī and referred to it as al‐shakl al‐mughnī
(literally, “The theorem that makes the [Menelaus Theorem] expendable”).
Kūshyār's
major work in astronomy, the Jāmiʿ Zīj (Universal/Comprehensive
astronomical handbook with tables) was influenced by Ptolemy's
Almagest and al‐Battānī's zīj. It contains many tables
concerning trigonometry, astronomical functions, star catalogs, and geographical
coordinates of cities. It comprises four books (maqāla's): calculations,
tables, cosmology, (containing a chapter on “Distances and sizes” of the celestial
bodies and the Earth), and proofs. Al‐Nasawī
(10th/11th centuries), who was supposed to have been Kūshyār's disciple,
wrote a commentary on Book I. Book I was translated into Persian about one
century after Kūshyār. The entire Zīj was transliterated
into Hebrew characters, which may be pieced together from fragments dispersed
in several Hebrew manuscripts.
Kūshyār's
Bāligh Zīj (The extensive astronomical handbook with tables),
to which he refers in the introduction to his astrological treatise, is not
extant. Only a short chapter entitled “On the use of planets' cycles according
to the Indian method” remains in a Bombay manuscript.
Kūshyār's
Risāla fī al‐asṭurlāb (Treatise on
the astrolabe) is extant in several manuscripts. It consists of four sections:
necessary elements, other materials rarely needed, checking the astrolabe,
its circles and lines, and making astrolabes. An edition of the Arabic text,
prepared by Taro Mimura in Kyoto, has not yet been published, but an edition
of an old Persian translation, prepared by M. Bagheri, was published in 2004.
Al‐mudkhal fī
ṣināʿat aḥkām al‐nujūm (Introduction to astrology), also named Mujmal al‐uṣūl fī aḥkām al‐nujūm (Compendium of principles
in astrology), is Kūshyār's famous treatise on astrology, composed
around 990. Extant in numerous manuscripts, it comprises four books: an introduction
and principles, prediction of world affairs, judgments on nativities and their
year transfers, and choices (of suitable times). There are old Persian and
Chinese translations of this work, the latter having been printed three times.
There is also a Turkish commentary extant in Istanbul (Hamidiye MS 835).
As for
his mathematical work, Kūshyār is noted for his Uṣūl
ḥisāb al‐hind (Principles of Hindu
reckoning), which is extant and deals with algorithms for arithmetic operations
in decimal and sexagesimal bases. It was translated into Hebrew by Shalom
ben Joseph ʿAnābī in
the 15th century (Oxford, Bodleian library, MS Oppenheim 211); in modern times
it has been translated into English, French, Persian, and Russian.
Selected References
Al‐Bīrūnī,
Abū al‐Rayḥān (1985). Kitāb Maqālīd ʿilm al‐hayʾa: La trigonométrie sphérique chez
les Arabes de l'Est à la fin du Xesiècle, edited and translated by Marie‐Thérèse Debarnot. Damascus: Institut
français de Damas.
Bagheri,
Mohammad (1998). “The Persian Version of ‘Zīj‐i jāmiʿ’ by Kūšyār
Gīlānī.” In La science dans le monde iranien
à l'époque islamique, edited by Ž. Vesel, H. Beikbaghban, and B. Thierry
de Crussol des Epesse, pp. 25–31. Tehran: Institut français
de recherche en Iran. (M. Bagheri is preparing an edition of the original
text of the jāmiʿ Zīj with
English translation and commentary.)
——— (ed.) (2004).
“Tarjome‐ye fārsī‐e kohan az resāle‐ye ostorlāb‐e
Kūshyār‐e Gīlānī” (The Persian translation
of Kūshyār Gīlānī's treatise on the astrolabe). In Sciences, techniques et instruments
dans le monde iranien (Xe– XIXesiècle), edited by N. Pourjavady and Ž.
Vesel, pp. 1–34 (Persian part). Actes du colloque tenu à l'Université de Téhéran
(7–9 juin 1998). Tehran.
Berggren, J. L. (1987).
“Spherical Trigonometry in Kūshyār ibn Labbān's Jāmiʿ Zīj.” In From Deferent
to Equant: A Volume of Studies in the History of Science in the Ancient and
Medieval Near East in Honor of E. S. Kennedy, edited by David A. King
and George Saliba, pp. 15–33. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences,
vol. 500. New York: New York Academy of Sciences. (Berggren has translated
and discussed the materials on spherical trigonometry included in Chapter
3 of Book IV of Kūshyār's jāmiʿ Zīj.)
Cecotti,
Claudio (2004). “Hebrew Commentary Written by Šālom ben Joseph ʿAnābī
on Kūšyār's Book ‘The Principles of Hindu Reckoning'.” In Sciences, techniques et instruments dans le monde
iranien (Xe– XIXesiècle), edited by N. Pourjavady and Ž. Vesel, pp. 183–187.
Actes du colloque tenu à l'Université de Téhéran (7–9 juin 1998). Tehran.
Dalen, Benno van (1994). “A Table for the True Solar Longitude
in the Jāmiʿ Zīj.” In Ad Radices:
Festband zum fünfzigjährigen Bestehen des Instituts für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften
der Johann Wolfgang Goethe‐Universität Frankfurt am Main, edited
by Anton von Gotstedter, pp. 171–190. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. (An analysis
of two tables of this Zīj on true solar longitudes and on the
equation of time.)
Ideler, Ludwig (1826). Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen
Chronologie. Vol. 2. Berlin: A. Rücker. (Ideler has presented some fragments
of Book I of Kūshyār's jāmiʿ Zīj with a German
translation, pp. 623–633.)
Kashino,
T. (1998). Planetary theory of Kūšyāribn
Labbān Master's thesis, Kyoto Sangyo University, Kyoto.
Kennedy, E. S. (1956).
“A Survey of Islamic Astronomical Tables.” Transactions of the American
Philosophical Society, n.s., 46, pt. 2: 121–177. (Reprint, Philadelphia:
American Philosophical Society, 1989.)
——— (1988). “Two Medieval Approaches to the Equation of Time.”
Centaurus 31: 1–8. (Kūshyār's and al‐Kāshī's
methods.)
Kūshyār ibn Labbān (1948). “Al‐abʿād wa‐ʾl‐ajrām”
(Distances and sizes). In Rasāʾil mutafarriqa fī al‐hayʾa
li‐ʾl‐mutaqaddimīn wa‐muʿāsirī
al‐Bīrūnī. Hyderabad.
——— (1965). Uṣūl
ḥisāb al‐hind (Principles of Hindu reckoning), translated
into English with introduction and notes by Martin Levey and Marvin Petruck.
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
——— (1988). “Risāla‐yi
abʿād wa‐ajrām”
(The treatise on distances and sizes). Persian translation by M. Bagheri.
In Hezareh Gooshiar Gili, edited by M.R. Nasiri, pp. 107–126. Rasht:
Gilan University.
——— (1997). Kitāb
al‐Mudkhal fī ṣināʿat
aḥkām al‐nujūm (Introduction to astrology), edited
and translated into English by Michio Yano. Tokyo: Tokyo University of Foreign
Studies.
Langermann, Y. Tzvi (1996). “Arabic Writings in Hebrew Manuscripts:
A Preliminary Relisting.” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 6: 137–160.
Rosenfeld, B. A. and Ekmeleddin Ihsanoğlu (2003). Mathematicians,
Astronomers, and Other Scholars of Islamic Civilization and Their Works (7th–19th
c.). Istanbul: IRCICA, pp. 118–119.
Saidan, A. S. (1973). “Kūshyar ibn Labbān ibn Bāshahrī,
Abu‐ʾl‐Ḥasan, al‐Jīlī.” In Dictionary
of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Coulston Gillipsie. Vol. 7,
pp. 531–533. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
Van Brummelen, Glen (1988). “Mathematical Methods in the Tables
of Planetary Motion in Kūshyār ibn Labbān's Jāmiʿ Zīj.” Historia
Mathematica 25: 265–280. (Van Brummelen has studied Kūshyār's
innovative interpolation scheme in the composition of planetary motion tables.)
Yano, Michio (1997).
“Kūshyār ibn Labbān.” In Encyclopaedia of the History of
Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non‐Western Cultures, edited
by Helaine Selin, pp. 506–507. Dordrecht: Kluwer, Academic Publishers.
Yano, Michio and Mercè Viladrich (1990). “Tasyīr computation
of Kūshyār ibn Labbān.” Historia Scientarium, no. 41:
1–16. (Includes a discussion of the concept of tasyīr [prorogation]
presented in Chapter 21 of Book III.)