ISMI Islamic Scientific Manuscripts Initiative

PERSON

Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Jābir ibn Sinān al-Battānī al-Ḥarrānī al-Ṣābīʾ

Name (arabic)

أبو عبد الله محمّد بن جابر بن سنان البتّاني الحرّاني الصابيء
Name (translit)

Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Jābir ibn Sinān al-Battānī al-Ḥarrānī al-Ṣābīʾ
Alias

Albategnius
Albatenius
Born

225H/840J
Flourished

280H/893J
Died

307H/920J
Lived in

Baghdad
Raqqa
Number in MAMS

137
Biography URL

http://islamsci.mcgill.ca/RASI/BEA/Battani_BEA.htm
ismi_id

97367

Authored Works

8 works:

Astrology

al-Maqālāt al-arbaʿ fī al-qaḍāʾ bi-al-nujūm ʿalá al-hawādith , المقالات الأربع في القضاء بالنجوم علی الحوادث
Kitāb fī dalāʾil al-qirānāt wa-al-kusūfāt , کتاب في دلائل القرانات والکسوفات

Astronomical Tables/zījes

Kitāb maʿrifah maṭāliʿal-burūj bayna arbāʿ al-falak , کتاب معرفة مطالع البروج بين أرباع الفلك
Tajrīd uṣūl tarkīb al-juyūb , تجريد أصول ترکيب الجيوب
Zīj: al-Jāmiʿ fī ḥisāb al-nujūm wa-mawāḍiʿ masīrihā al-mumtaḥan , الجامع في حساب النجوم ومواضع مسيرها الممتحن

Astronomy: General

Kitāb taḥqīq aqdār al-ittiṣālāt bi-ḥasab ʿurūḍ al-kawākib , کتاب تحقيق أقدار الإتّصالات بحسب عروض الكواكب
Risālah fī buʿd al-kawākib , رسالة في بعد الکواکب

Astronomy: Practical

Fī samt al-qiblah , في سمت القبلة

References

van Dalen, Benno. 2007. “Battānī: Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad Ibn Jābir Ibn Sinān al‐Battānī al‐Ḥarrānī al‐Ṣābiʾ ”. In The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, ed. Thomas Hockey, 1:101-3. New York: Springer-Verlag.
Rozenfeld, Boris, and Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu. 2003. Mathematicians, Astronomers and Other Scholars of Islamic Civilisation and Their Works (7th-19th c.). Istanbul: Research Centre for Islamic History, Art, and Culture.

Pp. 64-65 (no. 137).

Maeyama, Yasukatsu. 1998. “Determination of the Sun’s Orbit: Hipparchus, Ptolemy, Al-Battānī, Copernicus, Tycho Brahe”. Archive for History of Exact Sciences 53: 1-49.

Analyzes the sources of error in the solar observations of five important premodern astronomers.

Said, Said, and Richard Stephenson. 1997. “Solar and Lunar Eclipse Measurements by Medieval Muslim Astronomers, II: Observations”. Journal for the History of Astronomy 28: 29-48.
Casulleras, Josep, Julio Samsó, and F. Jamil Ragep. 1996. “Al-Battānī, Cosmology and the Early History of Trepidation in Islam”. In From Baghdad to Barcelona: Essays on the History of the Islamic Exact Sciences in Honour of Prof. Juan Vernet, 1:267-98. Barcelona: Instituto "Millás Vallicrosa" de Historia de la Ciencia árabe.

Argues that Battānī provided a physical–cosmological alternative to Theon's simple arithmetic theory of trepidation and therewith influenced later developments in the western Islamic world.

Said, Said, and Richard Stephenson. 1996. “Solar and Lunar Eclipse Measurements by Medieval Muslim Astronomers, I: Background”. Journal for the History of Astronomy 27: 259-73.
Brockelmann, Carl. 1996. Geschichte Der Arabischen Litteratur (GAL). 5 vol. Leiden; New York: E. J. Brill.

Vol. 1, p. 222; suppl., p. 397.

Bagheri, Mohammad. 1992. “Battâni’s Version of Trigonometric Formulas”. Taḥqīqāt‐i Islāmī [Journal of the Encyclopaedia Islamica Foundation] 7 (2): 176-69.

Edition and translation of Battānī's small treatise on the sine.

Yano, Michio, and Mercè Grau. 1990. “Tasyīr Computation of Kūshyār Ibn Labbān”. Historia Scientiarum, no. 41: 1-16.

Relates Kūshyār's method of calculating tasyīrs to those of Battānī.

Hogendijk, Jan. 1988. “New Light on the Lunar Crescent Visibility Table of Yaʿqūb Ibn Ṭāriq”. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 47: 95-104.

Describes and analyzes Battānī's method for solving the typical Islamic problem of predicting the first visibility of the lunar crescent after New Moon.

King, David. 1986. “The Earliest Islamic Mathematical Methods and Tables for Finding the Direction of Mecca”. Zeitschrift für Geschichte Der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften 3: 82-149.

Discusses Battānī's approximate method for the determination of the qibla.

Matvievskaya, Galina, and Boris Rozenfeld. 1983. Matematiki I Astronomy Musulmanskogo Srednevekovya I Ikh Trudi, VIII-XVII Vv [Mathematicians and Astronomers of the Muslim Middle Ages and Their Works, VIII-XVII Centuries]. 3 vol. Moscow: Nauka.

Vol. 2, pp. 119-20; vol. 3, p. 362.

Sezgin, Fuat. 1979. Geschichte Des Arabischen Schrifttums (GAS), Vol. 7, Astrologie Bis Ca. 430 H. Leiden: E. J. Brill.

Pp. 611-15.

Bossong, Georg. 1978. Los Canones De Albateni.. Beihefte Zur Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie. Tubingen: Niemeyer.

Edition and philological discussion of the Castilian translation of the canons of the Ṣābiʾ Zīj.

Sezgin, Fuat. 1978. Geschichte Des Arabischen Schrifttums (GAS), Vol. 6, Astronomie Bis Ca. 430 H. Leiden: E. J. Brill.

Pp. 182-87.

Bruin, Frans. 1977. “The First Visibility of the Lunar Crescent”. Vistas in Astronomy 21: 331-58.

Pp. 345-57.

Kunitzsch, Paul. 1974. “New Light on al‐Battānī’s Zīj”. Centaurus 18: 270-74.

Corrects mistakes in Nallino's edition of the star table on the basis of a treatise by Ibn al‐Ṣalāḥ, and confirms that Battānī used a Syriac or “old” Arabic version of the Almagest.

Sezgin, Fuat. 1974. Geschichte Des Arabischen Schrifttums (GAS), Vol. 5, Mathematik Bis Ca. 430 H. Leiden: E. J. Brill.

Pp. 287-88.

Swerdlow, Noel. 1973. “Al‐Battānī’s Determination of the Solar Distance”. Centaurus 17: 97-105.

Shows that Battānī's treatment is different from Ptolemy's but likewise mathematically problematic, and that it involves some Indian elements.

Gillispie, Charles, and Willy Hartner. 1970. “Al-Battānī”. In Dictionary of Scientific Biography, 1:507-16. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

With a summary of the most important results found in Nallino 1899-1907.

al-Nadīm Ibn. 1970. The Fihrist of Muḥammad Ibn Isḥāq Ibn Al-Nadīm: A Tenth-Century Survey of Muslim Culture. Ed. Bayard Dodge. 2 vol. New York: Columbia University Press.

This and al‐Qifṭī are the main sources for information on al‐Battānī's life.

Ṭūqān Qadrī. 1963. Turāth Al-ʿArab Al-ʿilmī Fī Al-riyāḍīyāt Wa-Al-Falak. Cairo: Dār al-Qalam.

Pp. 241-48.

Nallino, Carlo. 1960. “Al-Battānī”. In Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, 2ndnd ed., 1:1104-5. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
Sayılı, Aydın. 1960. The Observatory in Islam and Its Place in the General History of the Observatory. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi (Turkish Historical Society).

Especially pp. 96-98.

Krachkovsky, Ignaty. 1957. “Arabskaya Geograficheskaya Literatura”. In Izbrannye Sochineniya. Vol. 4. Moscow-Leningrad.

Pp. 100-6.

Kennedy, Edward. 1956. “A Survey of Islamic Astronomical Tables”. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 46, pt. 2: 121-77.

Pp. 132-33 and 154-56.

Al-Bayhaqī, ʿAlī. 1935. Kitāb Tatimmat ṣiwān Al-ḥikmah. Ed. Mohammad Shafīʿ. Lahore: L. Ishwar Das, Registrar, University of the Panjab.

P. 140.

Lippert, Julius, and Jamāl Al-Qifṭī. 1903. “Taʾrīḫ Al-hukamāʾ”. Leipzig: Theodor Weicher.

Pp. 280-81.

Suter, Heinrich. 1902. “Nachträge Und Berichtigungen”. Abhandlungen Zur Geschichte Der Mathematischen Wissenschaften Mit Einschluss Ihrer Anwendungen 14: 157-85.

P. 164.

Suter, Heinrich. 1900. Die Mathematiker Und Astronomen Der Araber Und Ihre Werke.. Abhandlungen Zur Geschichte Der Mathematischen Wissenschaften Mit Einschluss Ihrer Anwendungen, Vol. 10. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner.

Pp. 45-47.