|
NASIR-ED DIN (Mohammed Ben Hussein), the son of Hussein, Al-Thussi (of Thous), from the place of his birth, was a Persian astronomer of the thirteenth century. He was a favourite of Holagou Khan, grandson of Zingis, the great Mogul who overran Persia, and destroyed the Abbasid dynasty in A.D. 1258. The chief fixed his government at Maragha, where he collected men of science and built an observatory, over which Nasir-ed-Din presided until 1271. He there constructed hydraulic and engineering machines and a variety of improved astronomical instruments, described by Delambre and collected a fine scientific library.
He also wrote on Philosophy, combining Aristotle with Plato, and made a Persian translation of the Almagest of Ptolemy. And he translated into Arabic the Elements of Euclid. He compiled a body of Tables of astronomical observations, taken over twelve years. They were dedicated to the Mogul Sultan, were known as the Ilkanic Tables, and enjoyed a great reputation in the East. He also wrote on geography, determining longitudes and latitudes.
Purchase books on Astronomy
| This biography is
reprinted from The New Calendar of Great Men. Ed. Frederic
Harrison. London: Macmillan and Co., 1920. |
|
