Ali ibn Sulayman al-Hashimi (), known as al-Hashimi, was an
Islamic
astronomer and
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, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...
, who flourished during the late 9th century.
Biography
No details of the 9th century
Islamic astronomer
Medieval Islamic astronomy comprises the astronomical developments made in the Islamic world, particularly during the Islamic Golden Age (9th–13th centuries), and mostly written in the Arabic language. These developments mostly took place in th ...
Ali ibn Sulayman al-Hashimi's life are recorded, but he flourished in 890. As well as his work as an astronomer, he contributed to the development of
irrational number
In mathematics, the irrational numbers are all the real numbers that are not rational numbers. That is, irrational numbers cannot be expressed as the ratio of two integers. When the ratio of lengths of two line segments is an irrational number, ...
s.
Al-Hashimi's only known major work is the ("''Book of the Reasons Behind Astronomical Tables''"), which possibly dates from the late 9th century. It is a discussion of the astronomical ideas of the
Greeks
Greeks or Hellenes (; , ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece, Greek Cypriots, Cyprus, Greeks in Albania, southern Albania, Greeks in Turkey#History, Anatolia, parts of Greeks in Italy, Italy and Egyptian Greeks, Egypt, and to a l ...
,
Indians and
Persians
Persians ( ), or the Persian people (), are an Iranian ethnic group from West Asia that came from an earlier group called the Proto-Iranians, which likely split from the Indo-Iranians in 1800 BCE from either Afghanistan or Central Asia. They ...
, which characterized Islamic astronomy before the arrival of the
Ptolemaic tradition, and includes the basic theories underlying ,
chronology
Chronology (from Latin , from Ancient Greek , , ; and , ''wikt:-logia, -logia'') is the science of arranging events in their order of occurrence in time. Consider, for example, the use of a timeline or sequence of events. It is also "the deter ...
,
planetary cycles and equations,
eclipse
An eclipse is an astronomical event which occurs when an astronomical object or spacecraft is temporarily obscured, by passing into the shadow of another body or by having another body pass between it and the viewer. This alignment of three ...
s, timekeeping, and
astrology
Astrology is a range of Divination, divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that propose that information about human affairs and terrestrial events may be discerned by studying the apparent positions ...
.
The work lacks an organized structure or any
critic
A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as Art criticism, art, Literary criticism, literature, Music journalism, music, Film criticism, cinema, Theater criticism, theater, Fas ...
al comments about other astronomers, and is prone to technical errors made by al-Hashimi, as well as mistakes by later
copyist
A copyist is a person who makes duplications of the same thing. The modern use of the term is mainly confined to music copyists, who are employed by the music industry to produce neat copies from a composer or arranger's manuscript. However, the ...
s. It may have been copied by
scribe
A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of Printing press, automatic printing.
The work of scribes can involve copying manuscripts and other texts as well as ...
s in
Damascus
Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...
in 1288.
is extant in a unique
manuscript
A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...
now preserved at the
Bodleian Library
The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1602 by Sir Thomas Bodley, it is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second-largest library in ...
,
Oxford University
The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...
(MS. Arch. Selden. A.11). The work has no innovative ideas, but is historically important, as it cites 14 works by other astronomers, most of which are lost, and thus provides information about the history of science. It has been translated by Fuad I. Haddad and
Edward Stewart Kennedy.
Notes
References
Sources
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*
Further reading
*
External links
Record of the manuscriptheld at the
Bodleian Library
The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1602 by Sir Thomas Bodley, it is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second-largest library in ...
,
Oxford
Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town.
The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...
Further informationabout
Pingree and Kennedy's translation of ''The Book of the Reasons Behind Astronomical Tables''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hashimi
Astronomers of the medieval Islamic world
9th-century people from the Abbasid Caliphate
9th-century scholars
9th-century astronomers
9th-century Arab people