Al-Isfizari

{{Short description|Islamic mathematician and astronomer from Harran (fl. c. late 11th century)}}

{{Use British English|date=February 2023}}

{{Infobox academic

| image = Isfizari manuscript.gif

| image_size = 180

| caption = Manuscript of {{transliteration|ar|Irshād dhawī al-cirfān ilā ṣinācat al-qaffān}}

| name = Abū Ḥātim al-Muẓaffar al-Isfazārī

| native_name = المظفر الاسفزاري

| native_name_lang = ar

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| era = Islamic Golden Age

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| main_interests = Mathematics, astronomy

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| major_works = {{transliteration|ar|Irshād dhawī al-cirfān ilā ṣinācat al-qaffān}}

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}}

Abū Ḥātim al-Muẓaffar al-Isfazārī ({{langx|fa|ابوحاتم مظفر اسفزاری}}; 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.{{r|bea}}

Al-Isfazārī was a contemporary of the Persian polymath Umar al-Khayyam and the Persian astronomer Al-Khazini. Al-Isfazārī's main surviving work, {{transliteration|ar|Irshād dhawī al-cirfān ilā ṣinācat al-qaffān}} (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.{{r|bea}}

Al-Isfazārī's corpus of mechanics is composed of two sets of texts, which have been published as {{transliteration|ar|Matn al-Muẓaffar al-Isfazārī fī cilmay al-aṯqāl wa’l-ḥiyal}}(Text of Al-Muzaffar Al-Isfazar in the words Al-Taql and Al-Hail) by the Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation.{{r|corpus}}