Al-Hashimi
Quick Facts
Biography
Al-Hashimi (full name:Ali ibn Sulayman al-Hashimi) was a Muslim scholar.
Life
His exact date of birth is unknown, but it is known that he flourished in the year 890.
Works
Hāshimī's only known major work is the Kitāb fīʿilal al‐zījāt (Book of the reasons behind astronomical tables).
Excerpts
The Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures provides the following information about Al-Hashimi:
Alī ibn Sulaymān al-Hāshimī flourished some time in the second half of the ninth century, probably somewhere in the central lands of Islam. Virtually nothing is known about him other than the fact that he wrote a rather uncritical work on zījes (astronomical handbooks) that nevertheless preserves a great deal of otherwise unknown or little known information. This book, Kitābfi ilal al-zījāt (Explanation of Zījes), was written at a time before Ptolemaic astronomy had become the dominant astronomical tradition in Eastern Islam. As such, it contains considerable material about the Indian and Persian astronomical traditions, at least insofar as they were received and preserved during this early period of Islamic science.