Background
Al-Abbas ibn Said al-Jawhari was born c. 800 in Baghdad. Nothing is known about his personal life.
Astronomer geometer mathematician scientist
Al-Abbas ibn Said al-Jawhari was born c. 800 in Baghdad. Nothing is known about his personal life.
Al-Jawhari was one of the astronomers in the service of the Abbasid Caliph al-Ma’mun (813-833). Mathematicians such as al-Kindi, al-Khwarizmi, Hunayn ibn Ishaq, Thabit ibn Qurra and the Banu Musa brothers were also appointed by al-Ma'mun to the House of Wisdom, so a truly remarkable collection of scholars worked there.
He participated in the astronomical observations which took place in Baghdad in 829-830 and in those which took place in Damascus in 832-833. Ibn al-Qifti describes him as an expert in the art of tasyir (“prorogation”), the complex astrological theory concerned with determining the length of life of individuals, and adds that he was in charge of the construction of astronomical instruments. According to Ibn al-Nadim, he worked mostly in geometry.
Ibn al-Nadim lists two works by al-Jawharl: Kitab Tafsir Kitab Uqlidis (“A Commentary on Euclid’s Elements”) and Kitab al-Ashkal allati zadaha fi 'l-maqala 'l-ula min Uqlidis (“Propositions Added to Book I of Euclid’s Elements”). To this list Ibn al-Qiftl adds Kitab al-Zij (“A Book of Astronomical Tables”), which, he says, was well known among astronomers, being based on the observations made in Baghdad. None of these works has survived.
