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Concept
Thābit ibn Qurra
Summary
Thābit ibn Qurra (full name: Abū al-Ḥasan ibn Zahrūn al-Ḥarrānī al-Ṣābiʾ, أبو الحسن ثابت بن قرة بن زهرون الحراني الصابئ, Thebit/Thebith/Tebit); 826 or 836 – February 19, 901, was a polymath known for his work in mathematics, medicine, astronomy, and translation. He lived in Baghdad in the second half of the ninth century during the time of the Abbasid Caliphate.
Thābit ibn Qurra made important discoveries in algebra, geometry, and astronomy. In astronomy, Thābit is considered one of the first reformers of the Ptolemaic system, and in mechanics he was a founder of statics. Thābit also wrote extensively on medicine and produced philosophical treatises.
Thābit was born in Harran in Upper Mesopotamia, which at the time was part of the Diyar Mudar subdivision of the al-Jazira region of the Abbasid Caliphate. Thābit belonged to the Sabians of Harran, a Hellenized Semitic polytheistic astral religion that still existed in ninth-century Harran.
As a youth, Thābit worked as money changer in a marketplace in Harran until meeting Muḥammad ibn Mūsā, the oldest of three mathematicians and astronomers known as the Banū Mūsā. Thābit displayed such exceptional linguistic skills that ibn Mūsā chose him to come to Baghdad to be trained in mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy under the tutelage of the Banū Mūsā. Here, Thābit was introduced to not only a community of scholars but also to those who had significant power and influence in Baghdad.
Thābit and his pupils lived in the midst of the most intellectually vibrant, and probably the largest, city of the time, Baghdad. Thābit came to Baghdad in the first place to work for the Banū Mūsā becoming a part of their circle and helping them translate Greek mathematical texts. What is unknown is how Banū Mūsā and Thābit occupied himself with mathematics, astronomy, astrology, magic, mechanics, medicine, and philosophy. Later in his life, Thābit's patron was the Abbasid Caliph al-Mu'tadid (reigned 892–902), whom he became a court astronomer for. Thābit became the Caliph's personal friend and courtier.
Official source
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