| From: Thomas Hockey et al. (eds.). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, Springer Reference. New York: Springer, 2007, pp. 577-578 |
|
Courtesy of 
|
Isfizārī: Abū
Ḥātim al‐Muẓaffar
ibn Ismāʿīl
al‐Isfizārī
Mohammed Abattouy
Flourished Khurāsān,
(Iran), late 11th/early 12th century
Isfizārī,
a contemporary of ʿUmar Khayyām and ʿAbd al‐Raḥmān
al‐Khāzinī, constructed an accurate
balance, composed books on mathematics and meteorology, and was inclined to
the sciences of astronomy (hayʾa) and mechanics. Few details of
his biography are known. The historian Ibn al‐Athīr and the astronomer
Quṭb al‐Dīn al‐Shīrāzī
link him to the observatory in Iṣfahān
sponsored by the Saljūq king Malik‐Shāh (reigned: 10721092).
Niẓāmī‐i ʿArūḍī
reports that he met with Isfizārī in Balkh (in present‐day
Afghanistan) in 1112 or 1113 in the company of Khayyām. Finally, Khāzinī
writes, in 11211122, that he was already deceased. The most significant extant
writing of Isfizārī is his treatise Irshād dhawī al‐ʿirfān
ilā ṣināʿat al‐qaffān (Guiding the learned
men in the art of the steelyard), a two‐part text on the theory and
the practice of the steelyard balance. Three other texts constitute the rest
of his scientific oeuvre: a summary of the so‐called 14th book
of Euclid's Elements, a text on geometrical measurements, and a treatise
on meteorology in Persian.
No work
of astronomy by Isfizārī has reached us. However, he was one of
the astronomers of Malik‐Shāh Observatory in Iṣfahān,
although we do not know the exact date he joined the observatory or how long
he stayed there. This observatory was one of the most important institutions
of its kind in the 11th‐century Islamic world. Its program of astronomical
research was active for about 20 years, from 10741075 until 1092, terminating
with the death of both Malik‐Shāh and his influential minister
Niẓām al‐Mulk. According to Quṭb
al‐Dīn al‐Shīrāzī, there were eight men on
the staff of the observatory, which included Isfizārī, ʿUmar
Khayyām, Maymūn ibn Najīb al‐Wāsiṭī, Muḥammad
ibn Aḥmad al‐Maʿmūrī,
and Abū al‐ʿAbbās
al‐Lawkarī.
The collective
work done at the Malik‐Shāh Observatory was directed principally
toward the reform of the solar calendar then in use in Iran. The result was
the Jalālī calendar, which was one of the most accurate calendars
ever devised. (For more information on this calendar, see the entry on Khayyām.)
Selected References
Abattouy, Mohammed (2001). Greek Mechanics in Arabic Context:
Thābit ibn Qurra, al‐Isfizārī and the Arabic Traditions
of Aristotelian and Euclidean Mechanics. Science in Context 14: 179247.
al‐Bayhaqī,
ʿAlī
ibn Zayd (1988). Tārīkh ḥukamāʾ
al‐islām, edited by M. Kurd ʿAlī. Damascus. (Contains a paragraph on al‐Isfizārī.)
al‐Isfizārī, Abū Ḥātim al‐Muẓaffar
ibn Ismāʿīl (1977).
Risālah‐i āthār‐iʿulwī.
Tehran. (On his meteorological treatise.)
Sayılı, Aydın (1960). The Observatory in Islam.
Ankara: Turkish Historical Society.
Youschkevitch, A. and B. A. Rosenfeld (1973). Al‐Khayyāmī.
In Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie,
Vol. 7, pp. 323334. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.