Abū Ḥātim al-Muẓaffar al-Isfazārī ( fl. late 11th or early 12th century) was an Islamic

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, g ...

and engineer from

Khurasan Greater Khorāsān,Dabeersiaghi, Commentary on Safarnâma-e Nâsir Khusraw, 6th Ed. Tehran, Zavvâr: 1375 (Solar Hijri Calendar) 235–236 or Khorāsān ( pal, Xwarāsān; fa, خراسان ), is a historical eastern region in the Iranian Plate ...

. According to the historian and geographer

Ibn al-Athir Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ash-Shaybānī, better known as ʿAlī ʿIzz ad-Dīn Ibn al-Athīr al-Jazarī ( ar, علي عز الدین بن الاثیر الجزري) lived 1160–1233) was an Arab or Kurdish historian a ...

and the

polymath A polymath ( el, πολυμαθής, , "having learned much"; la, homo universalis, "universal human") is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific pro ...

Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi, he worked in the

Seljuq Seljuk or Saljuq (سلجوق) may refer to: * Seljuk Empire (1051–1153), a medieval empire in the Middle East and central Asia * Seljuk dynasty (c. 950–1307), the ruling dynasty of the Seljuk Empire and subsequent polities * Seljuk (warlord) (d ...

observatory of

Isfahan Isfahan ( fa, اصفهان, Esfahân ), from its Achaemenid empire, ancient designation ''Aspadana'' and, later, ''Spahan'' in Sassanian Empire, middle Persian, rendered in English as ''Ispahan'', is a major city in the Greater Isfahan Regio ...

. The Persian writer

Nezami Aruzi Ahmad ibn Umar ibn Alī, known as Nizamī-i Arūzī-i Samarqandī ( fa, نظامی عروضی) and also Arudi ("The Prosodist"), was a Persian poet and prose writer who flourished between 1110 and 1161. He is particularly famous for his ''Chahar Ma ...

met him in

Balkh ), named for its green-tiled ''Gonbad'' ( prs, گُنبَد, dome), in July 2001 , pushpin_map=Afghanistan#Bactria#West Asia , pushpin_relief=yes , pushpin_label_position=bottom , pushpin_mapsize=300 , pushpin_map_caption=Location in Afghanistan ...

in (in present‐day Afghanistan) in 1112 or 1113. He was a contemporary of

Umar al-Khayyam Ghiyāth al-Dīn Abū al-Fatḥ ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm Nīsābūrī (18 May 1048 – 4 December 1131), commonly known as Omar Khayyam ( fa, عمر خیّام), was a polymath, known for his contributions to mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, an ...

and Abd al-Raḥmān al-Khāzinī. He main work is entitled ''Irshād dhawī al-cirfān ilā ṣinācat al-qaffān'' (Guiding the possessors of learning in the art of the steelyard), a relatively long text on the theory of the steelyard balance with unequal arms. His other surviving works include a summary of

Euclid's Elements The ''Elements'' ( grc, Στοιχεῖα ''Stoikheîa'') is a mathematical treatise consisting of 13 books attributed to the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid in Alexandria, Ptolemaic Egypt 300 BC. It is a collection of definitions, postulat ...

, a text on geometrical measurements, and a treatise on meteorology in

Persian language Persian (), also known by its endonym Farsi (, ', ), is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages. Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and ...

. Al-Isfazārī's corpus of mechanics is composed of two sets of texts, which have been published in ''Matn al-Muẓaffar al-Isfazārī fī cilmay al-aṯqāl wa’l-ḥiyal'' by the

Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation is a London-based non-profit institution which is primarily concerned with promoting "the study, cataloguing, publication, preservation and conservation of Islamic manuscripts throughout the world." It was ...

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