Ibrahim ibn Sinan (
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
: ''Ibrāhīm ibn Sinān ibn Thābit ibn Qurra'', ; born 295-296 AH/c. 908 AD in
Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...
, died: 334-335 AH/946 AD 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, structure, space, models, and change.
History
On ...
and
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 ...
belonging to a family of scholars who originally hailed from
Harran
Harran (), historically known as Carrhae ( el, Kάρραι, Kárrhai), is a rural town and district of the Şanlıurfa Province in southeastern Turkey, approximately 40 kilometres (25 miles) southeast of Urfa and 20 kilometers from the border cr ...
in northern
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...
. He was the son of
Sinan ibn Thabit
( ar, أبو سعيد سنان بن ثابت بن قرة), –943, was a medieval scholar who served as the court physician of the Abbasid caliphs al-Muqtadir (), al-Qahir (), and al-Radi ().
As the son of Thabit ibn Qurra () and the father of Ib ...
(c. 880–943) and the grandson of
Thābit ibn Qurra
Thābit ibn Qurra (full name: , ar, أبو الحسن ثابت بن قرة بن زهرون الحراني الصابئ, la, Thebit/Thebith/Tebit); 826 or 836 – February 19, 901, was a mathematician, physician, astronomer, and translator who ...
(c. 830–901).
[.] Like his grandfather, he belonged to a religious sect of
star worshippers known as the
Sabians of Harran
The Sabians, sometimes also spelled Sabaeans or Sabeans, are a mysterious religious group mentioned three times in the Quran (as , in later sources ), where it is implied that they belonged to the 'People of the Book' (). Their original ident ...
.
[.]
He also studied
geometry
Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...
, in particular
tangents
In geometry, the tangent line (or simply tangent) to a plane curve at a given point is the straight line that "just touches" the curve at that point. Leibniz defined it as the line through a pair of infinitely close points on the curve. More ...
to circles.
He made advances in the
quadrature of the
parabola
In mathematics, a parabola is a plane curve which is mirror-symmetrical and is approximately U-shaped. It fits several superficially different mathematical descriptions, which can all be proved to define exactly the same curves.
One descript ...
and the theory of
integration
Integration may refer to:
Biology
*Multisensory integration
*Path integration
* Pre-integration complex, viral genetic material used to insert a viral genome into a host genome
*DNA integration, by means of site-specific recombinase technology, ...
, generalizing the work of
Archimedes
Archimedes of Syracuse (;; ) was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor from the ancient city of Syracuse in Sicily. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists ...
, which was unavailable at the time.
He is often referenced as one of the most important mathematicians of his time.
See also
*
:Sabian scholars from the Abbasid Caliphate
Notes
Further reading
* Reviews: Seyyed Hossein Nasr (1998) in ''Isis'' 89 (1) pp
112-113 Charles Burnett (1998) in ''Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London'' 61 (2) p
406
*
*
*
PDF version
900s births
946 deaths
Year of birth uncertain
10th-century Arabs
10th-century people from the Abbasid Caliphate
10th-century mathematicians
10th-century astronomers
Geometers
People from Baghdad
Mathematicians from the Abbasid Caliphate
Astronomers from the Abbasid Caliphate
Sabian scholars from the Abbasid Caliphate
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