Flourished 9th century

ʿUṭārid ibn Muḥammad is sometimes also referred to as al‐Kātib (the scribe), but the usual appellation, al‐Ḥāsib (the arithmetician), is more appropriate. Little is known of his life. Ibn al‐Nadīm tells us that he was an arithmetician and an astrologer (al‐munajjim) as well as a man of excellence and learning. From Ibn al‐Nadīm we also know the titles of five books by ʿUṭārid:

There is also a report that ʿAbd al‐Raḥman al‐Sūfī saw a book of ʿUṭārid (in latter's own handwriting) about the 48 constellations. In addition, both Bīrūnī and Sijzī attribute to ʿUṭārid a Kitāb al‐Miḥna al‐munajjim (Book on examining astrologers), a work specifically for testing the skills of astrologers. A text with a similar subject is by Qabīṣī. None of the above mentioned works attributed to ʿUṭārid are extant.

Of ʿUṭārid's works, only two have reached us. One is an astrological work entitled Sirr al‐asrār (Secret of secrets) or al‐Asrār al‐samāwiyya (The secrets of the heavens), and also known as Fuṣūl li‐ʿUṭārid al‐Ḥāsib fī al‐asrār al‐samāwiyya. One can find excerpts in Majrīṭī's Ghāyat al‐ḥakīm that deal with the astrological topic of elections (ihktiyārāt). The other is Kitāb al‐Jawāhir wa‐ʾl‐aḥjār (Book on the properties of stones), perhaps the earliest work of its kind in Arabic, which follows the so called Lapidary of Aristotle.