Abū Ḥātim al-Muẓaffar al-Isfazārī | |
Native Name: | المظفر الاسفزاري |
Native Name Lang: | ar |
Era: | Islamic Golden Age |
Main Interests: | Mathematics, astronomy |
Abū Ḥātim al-Muẓaffar al-Isfazārī (Arabic: المظفر الاسفزاري; fl. late 11th or early 12th century) was an Islamic mathematician, astronomer and engineer from Khurasan. According to the historian and geographer Ibn al-Athir and the polymath Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi, he worked in the Seljuq observatory of Isfahan. The Persian writer Nezami Aruzi met him in Balkh in (in present‐day Afghanistan) in 1112 or 1113.
Al-Isfazārī was a contemporary of the Persian polymath Umar al-Khayyam and the Persian astronomer Al-Khazini. Al-Isfazārī's main surviving work, (Guiding the Possessors of Learning in the Art of the Steelyard), sets out the theory of the steelyard balance with unequal arms. His other surviving works include a summary of Euclid's Elements, a text on geometrical measurements, and a treatise in Persian on meteorology.
Al-Isfazārī's corpus of mechanics is composed of two sets of texts, which have been published as by the Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation.