Shams al-Din Abu Abd Allah al-Khalili
{{short description|Arab astronomer (1320–1380)}}
{{Use British English|date=February 2023}}
{{Infobox academic
| image = Al-Khalili qibla table, Damascus copy 15th-16th century.jpg
| image_size = 220
| caption = A table compiled by al-Khalili showing the direction of the {{transliteration|ar|qibla}} from various longitudes and latitudes
| name = Al-Khalili
| native_name = شمس الدين عبد الله محمد بن محمد الخليلي
| native_name_lang = ar
| birth_date = 1320
| birth_place =
| death_date = 1380
| death_place =
| era = Islamic Golden Age
| school_tradition =
| main_interests = Astronomer; {{transliteration|ar|muwaqqit}}
| notable_ideas =
| major_works =
| influences =
| influenced =
}}
Shams al-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Khalīlī ({{langx|ar| شمس الدين عبد الله محمد بن محمد الخليلي }}; 1320–1380) was a Mamluk-era Syrian astronomer who compiled astronomical tables. He worked for most of his life as a {{transliteration|ar|muwaqqit}} (a religious timekeeper) at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.{{sfn|King|1975}}
Little is known about his life.
Work
Al-Khalili is known for two sets of mathematical tables he constructed, both totalling roughly 30,000 entries. He tabulated all the entries made by the celebrated Egyptian Muslim astronomer Ibn Yunus, except for the entries that al-Khalili made himself for the city of Damascus. He computed 13,000 entries into his 'Universal Tables' of different auxiliary functions which allowed him to generate the solutions of standard problems of spherical astronomy for any given latitude. In addition to this, he created a 3,000 entry table that gave the {{transliteration|ar|qibla}} (the direction of the city of Mecca) for all latitudes and longitudes for all the Muslim countries of the 14th century.{{sfn|King|1973|p=99}}{{refn|1=Knowledge of the direction of the {{transliteration|ar|qibla}} is essential in Islam because Muslims pray in the direction of Mecca.{{citation required|date=February 2023}}|group=note}} The values present in al-Khalili’s tables have been determined to be accurate up to three or four significant figures. It is not known how exactly al-Khalili went about calculating each of his entries.{{sfn|Van Brummelen|1991}}
Notes
{{Reflist|group=note}}
References
{{Reflist}}
Sources
- {{cite journal |last1=Van Brummelen |first1=G. |title=The numerical structure of al-Khalili's auxiliary tables |journal=Rivista Internazionale di Storia della Scienza |date=1991 |volume=28 |issue=3 |pages=667{{ndash}}697 |url=https://summit.sfu.ca/item/7911 |format=thesis |issn=0031-9414}}
- {{cite journal |last1=King |first1=David A. |author1-link=David King (historian) |title=Al-Khalili's Auxiliary Tables for Solving Problems of Spherical Astronomy |journal=Journal for the History of Astronomy |date=1973 |volume=4 |issue=2 |pages=99–110 |doi=10.1177/002182867300400202 |issn=0021-8286 |bibcode=1973JHA.....4...99K |id=|s2cid=116031361}}
- {{cite journal |last1=King |first1=David A. |author1-link=David King (historian) |title=Al-Khalīlī's Qibla Table |journal=Journal of Near Eastern Studies |date=1975 |volume=34 |issue=2 |pages=81{{ndash}}122 |doi=10.1086/372399 |jstor=545208 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/545208 |issn=0022-2968 |id=|s2cid=162253735}}
Further reading
- {{cite book | last=King |first= David A. |author-link=David King (historian) | editor1-last=Hockey |editor1-first=Thomas |title=The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers |pages=625{{ndash}}626 |date=2007 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-4419-9918-4 |url-access=subscription |edition=|url=https://link.springer.com/referencework/10.1007/978-0-387-30400-7 |access-date=|chapter=Wābkanawī: Shams al-Munajjim [Shams al-Dīn] Muḥammad ibn ҁAlī Khwāja al-Wābkanawī [Wābkanawī] |language=|display-editors=etal |doi=10.1007/978-0-387-30400-7_1433 |article-url=http://islamsci.mcgill.ca/RASI/BEA/Battani_BEA.htm |ref=none}}([http://islamsci.mcgill.ca/RASI/BEA/Khalili_BEA.pdf PDF version])
- {{cite web |last1=O'Connor |first1=John J. |last2=Robertson |first2=Edmund F. |title=Shams al-Din Abu Abdallah Al-Khalili
|url=https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Al-Khalili/ |website=MacTutor |publisher=University of St Andrews |access-date=26 February 2023 |ref=none}}
- {{cite book |last1=King |first1=David A. |author1-link=David King (historian) |editor1-last=Gillispie |editor1-first=Charles Coulston |editor2-last=Holmes |editor2-first=Frederic Lawrence |title=Dictionary of Scientific Biography |date=1981 |publisher=Scribner |location=New York |isbn=|oclc=755137603 |page=|url-access=registration |edition=|volume= |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/al-khalili-shams-al-din-abu-abdallah-muhammad-ibn-muhammad |chapter=Khalīlī, Shams al-Dīn Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad Ibn Muḥammad al- |ref=none |via=encyclopaedia.com}}
- {{cite web |last1=Roegel |first1=Denis |title=An Extension of Al-Khalīlī's Qibla Table to the Entire World |url=https://hal.inria.fr/inria-00336090/en |website=Hal-Inria |publisher=HAL |access-date=26 February 2023 |ref=none |date=2008}}
{{Islamic astronomy}}
{{Islamic mathematics}}
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Khalili, Shams Din Abu Abd Allah}}
Category:Medieval Syrian astronomers
Category:Medieval Syrian mathematicians
Category:Scientists who worked on qibla determination
Category:14th-century astronomers
Category:14th-century astrologers
Category:Scholars from the Mamluk Sultanate