Ibrahim ibn Sinan (

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

: ''Ibrāhīm ibn Sinān ibn Thābit ibn Qurra'', ; born 295296 AH/ in

Baghdad Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...

, died: 334-335 AH/946 in Baghdad, aged 38) was a

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 ...

and

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

who belonged to a family of scholars originally from

Harran Harran is a municipality and Districts of Turkey, district of Şanlıurfa Province, Turkey. Its area is 904 km2, and its population is 96,072 (2022). It is approximately southeast of Urfa and from the Syrian border crossing at Akçakale. ...

in northern

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

. He was the son of Sinan ibn Thabit (943) and the grandson of

Thābit ibn Qurra Thābit ibn Qurra (full name: , , ; 826 or 836 – February 19, 901), was a scholar known for his work in mathematics, medicine, astronomy, and translation. He lived in Baghdad in the second half of the ninth century during the time of the Abba ...

(901). Like his grandfather, he belonged to a religious sect of star worshippers known as the Sabians of Harran.. Ibrahim ibn Sinan studied

geometry Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician w ...

, in particular tangents to circles. He made advances in the quadrature of the

parabola In mathematics, a parabola is a plane curve which is Reflection symmetry, mirror-symmetrical and is approximately U-shaped. It fits several superficially different Mathematics, mathematical descriptions, which can all be proved to define exactl ...

and the theory of integration, generalizing the work of

Archimedes Archimedes of Syracuse ( ; ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek Greek mathematics, mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and Invention, inventor from the ancient city of Syracuse, Sicily, Syracuse in History of Greek and Hellenis ...

, which was unavailable at the time. Ibrahim ibn Sinan is often considered to be one of the most important mathematicians of his time.

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