Islamic Mathematics and Astronomy

All of the mathematical and astronomical work of this period was done by Muslims. It is interesting to recall that the mathematical work of the previous period had been done almost exclusively by Chinese. Some amount of stimulation had come from India. In addition to transmission of some Hindu mathematics.

Ibrahim al-Fazari is said to have been the first Muslim to construct astrolabes.

Ya'qub ibn Tariq and Muhammad, son of Ibrahim al-Fazari, are the first to be mentioned in connection with Hindu mathematics: Ya'qab met at the court of al-Mansur, a Hindu astronomer called Kankah (?), who acquainted him with the Siddhanta, and Muhammad was ordered to translate it. The physician al-Batriq translated Ptolemy's Quadripartitum. Two astrologers, one of them a Jew named Mashallah, the other a Persian called al-Naubakht, worked together to make the measurements necessary for the building of Bagdad. Al-Naubakht's son, al-Fadl, wrote astrological treatises and translations from the Persian into Arabic.

Ibrahim al-Fazari

Abu Ishaq Ibrahlm ibn Habib ibn Sulaiman ibn Samura ibn Jundab. Died c. 777.
Muslim astronomer. The first to construct astrolabes, he wa the author of a poem (qasida) on astrology and of various astronomical writings (on the astrolabe, on the armillary spheres, on the calendar). H. Suter: Die Mathematiker und Astronomer der Araber (3, 208, 1900)

Ya'qub Ibn Tariq

Probably of Persian origin, flourished in Baghdad, c.767-778 died c. 796. One of the greatest astronomers of his time. He probably met, c. 767, at the court of al-Mansur, the Hindu Kankah (or Mankah?), who had brought there the Siddhanta. He wrote memoirs on the sphere (c. 777), on the division of the kardaja; on the tables derived from the Siddhanta. H. Suter: Die Mathematiker und Astronomer der Araber (p. 4, 1900)

Muhammad Ibn Ibrahim Al-Fazari

Abu 'Abdallah Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Fazari. Son of the astronomer Ibrahim dealt with above, for whom he is sometimes mistaken (he may be the author of the astrological poem ascribed to his father). Died c. 796 to 806. Muslim scientist and astronomer. He was ordered by the Caliph al-Mansur in 772/3 to translate the Sanskrit astronomical work Siddhanta. This translation was possibly the vehicle by means of which the Hindu numerals were transmitted from India to Islam.
H. Suter: Die Mathematiker und Astronomen der Araber (p. 4,1900).
Cantor: Geschichte der Mathematik (I, 3rd ed., 698, 1907).
D. E. Smith and L. C. Karpinski: The Hindu-Arabic Numerals (p.92, Boston, 1911)

Mashallah
His real name was probably Manasseh (in Arabic, Misha). Latin translators named him Messahala (with many variants, as Macellama, Macelarma). Mashallah is a contraction of ma'aha Allah meaning "What wonders Allah has willed." (What hath God wrought.) Flourished under al-Mansur, died c. 815 or 820. One of the earliest astronomers and astrologers in Islam, himself an Egyptian (?) Jew. Only one of his writings is extant in Arabic, but there are many mediaeval Latin and Hebrew translations. The Arabic text extant deals with the prices of wares and is the earliest book of its kind in that language. He took part with the Persian astrologer al-Naubakht in the surveying preliminary to the foundation of Baghdad in 762-63. His most popular book in the Middle Ages was the 'De scientia motus orbis', translated by Gherardo Cremonese.

Text and Translation. The De scientia motus orbis is probably the treatise called in Arabic "the twenty-seventh;" printed in Nuremberg 1501, 1549. The second edition is entitled: 'De elementis et orbibus coelestibus', and contains 27 chapters. The De compositione et utilitate astrolabii was included in Gregor Reisch: Margarita phylosophica (ed. pr., Freiburg, 1503; Suter says the text is included in the Basel edition of 1583). Other astronomical and astrological writings are quoted by Suter and Steinsehneider.

An Irish astronomical tract based in part on a mediaeval Latin version of a world by Messahalah. Edited with preface, translation, and glossary, by Afaula Power (Irish Texts Society, vol. 14, 194 p., 1914. A relatively modern translation of the De scientia motus orbis, the preface is uncritical).