◀ ▲ ▶History / Early-middle-ages / Person: Al-Nayrizi, Abu'l Abbas al-Fadl ibn Hatim
Person: Al-Nayrizi, Abu'l Abbas al-Fadl ibn Hatim
Al-Nayrizi was an Islamic mathematician who wrote commentaries on work by Ptolemy and Euclid.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Certainly he must have been associated with this town in his youth to have been called al-Nayrizi.
- The period during which al-Nayrizi was growing up was a turbulent one in the region in which he lived.
- Al-Nayrizi must have worked for al-Mu'tadid during his ten year of rule, for he wrote works for the caliph on meteorological phenomena and on instruments to measure the distance to objects.
- It seems likely that al-Nayrizi would continue to work in Baghdad for the new caliph since the same support for intellectuals in Baghdad continued.
- It gives a full account of the Arabic literature which was available in the 10th century and in particular mentions al-Nayrizi as a distinguished astronomer.
- Eight works by al-Nayrizi are listed in the Fihrist.
- A later work, written in the 13th century, described al-Nayrizi as both a distinguished astronomer and as a leading expert in geometry.
- Al-Nayrizi's works on astronomy include a commentary of Ptolemy's Almagest Ⓣ(The major thesis: from the Arabic 'al-majisti' -- the Arabic translation of the Greek 'Mathematike Syntaxis' later translated into Latin as 'Magna Syntaxis') and Tetrabiblos.
- In dealing with ratio and proportion in his commentary on the Elements, al-Nayrizi adopts concepts proposed by al-Mahani who had worked in Baghdad, probably before al-Nayrizi arrived there.
- Al-Nayrizi wrote a work on how to calculate the direction of the sacred shrine of the Ka'bah in Mecca (to was important for Muslims to be able to do this since they had to face that direction five times each day when performing the daily prayer).
- In his work on proofs of the parallel postulate, al-Nayrizi quotes work by a mathematician named Aghanis.
Born about 865, possibly Nayriz, Iran. Died about 922, possibly Baghdad, Iraq.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Ancient Arab, Astronomy, Origin Iran
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
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- non-Github:
- @J-J-O'Connor
- @E-F-Robertson
References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
