Al-Qabisi

Originally from Qabisa in Iraq,{{cite web |title=Qabisi |url=https://islamsci.mcgill.ca/RASI/BEA/Qabisi_BEA.htm |website=islamsci.mcgill.ca}} Alchabitius later went to Aleppo where he worked for and lived in the palace of Sayf al-Dawla. He died in 967.{{cite web |url=http://www.wdl.org/en/item/9554/ |title=Introduction to the Art of Judgments of the Stars |website=World Digital Library |date=1512 |access-date=2013-07-14 }}

Al-Qabisi is best known for his treatise on judicial astrology, Introduction to the Art of Judgments of the Stars. This was dedicated to the Emir of Aleppo, Prince Sayf al-Dawla,{{cite book |editor1=Burnett, Charles |editor2=Yamamoto, Keiji |editor3=Yano, Michio |title=Al-Qabisi (Alcabitius): The Introduction to Astrology |date=2004 |publisher=The Warburg Institute |location=London |isbn=085481132X |page=2}} and survives in at least twenty-five Arabic manuscripts, and over two hundred manuscripts of its Latin translation, with twelve printed editions of the Latin work between 1473 and 1521.{{rp|1}} The Arabic text has received at least three Latin translations, which attracted several commentaries and were, in turn, translated into other European languages. In the 12th century it was translated by Johannes Hispalensis.{{cite journal|first1=David Eugene|last1=Smith|author-link1=David Eugene Smith|title=Medicine and Mathematics in the Sixteenth Century|pmc=7927718|pmid= 33943138|journal=Ann Med Hist.|date=July 1, 1917|volume= 1|issue=2|pages=125–140|oclc=12650954}} (here cited p. 126). In 1512 it was published by Melchiorre Sessa in Venice. The 1473 copy, and others up until 1521, features writing about Al-Qabisi by John of Saxony,Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, vol. 3, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1934), pp. 262-3. who commented his astrological works.

Al-Qabisi wrote a modest book on arithmetic, "Risala fi anwâ' al-‘adad" (Treatise on the kinds of numbers), in which he discusses Euclid's perfect numbers and how to form them, and Thābit ibn Qurra's theorem on amicable numbers.{{cite book |last=Rashed |first=R. |title=The Development of Arabic Mathematics: Between Arithmetic and Algebra |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jb3nCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA281 |year=2013 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-94-017-3274-1 |page=281}}

Other works include:

• Risala fi al-ab'âd wa-'l-ajrâm (A treatise on distances and bodies);
• Kitāb fi ithbāt ṣinā’at Aḥkām al-nujūm (On Confirming the Art of Astrology);
• Hal al-Zîjat (Solving astronomical tables);
• Risāla fī imtiḥān al-munajjimīn (A treatise for the examination of astrologers)
• Shukūk al-Majisṭī (Doubts on the Almagest);

The belief in the power of stars dated back to Alexandrinian sect of iatromathematicians and the more ancient cult of Hermes Trismegistos.

• Al-Biruni
• Haly Abenragel

{{reflist}}

• {{cite encyclopedia | editor=Hispalensis, Johannes | editor-link=John of Seville | last=Alchabitius | title=Alchabitius cum commento noviter impresso (Libellus isagogicus Abdilazi) | publisher=Melchior Sessa | date=1512 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Wunk47yU__YC&q=alchabitius | language=la}}
• {{cite encyclopedia | editor=Hockey, Thomas | last=Yamamoto | first=Keiji | title=Qabīṣī: Abū al-Ṣaqr ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿUthmān ibn ʿAlī al-Qabīṣī | encyclopedia=The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers | publisher=Springer | date=2007 | location=New York | page=941 | url=http://islamsci.mcgill.ca/RASI/BEA/Qabisi_BEA.htm | isbn=978-0-387-31022-0|display-editors=etal}} ([http://islamsci.mcgill.ca/RASI/BEA/Qabisi_BEA.pdf PDF version])
• {{cite encyclopedia | last=Pingree | first=David | title=Al-Qabīṣī, Abū Al-Ṣaqr 'Abd Al-'Azīz Ibn 'Uthmān Ibn 'Alī | url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2830903546.html | encyclopedia=Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography | publisher=Encyclopedia.com | orig-year=1970-80 | date=2008}}

{{Astronomy in medieval Islam}}{{Authority control}}

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Category:Year of birth missing

Category:967 deaths

Category:10th-century astronomers

Category:Medieval Syrian astronomers

Category:Medieval Syrian mathematicians

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