NISĀBURI, ḤASAN

 

NISĀBURI,ḤASAN b. Moḥammad al-Aʿraj, Neẓām-al-Din Qommi, Astronomer; d. after 1311. Nisāburi composed commentaries on several works on astronomy by Naṣir-al-Din Ṭusi (597-672/1201-1274). His commentary on the Taḥrir al-mejesṭi was completed in Šaʿbān 704/March 1305; glosses on it were written by Qāḍizāda Rumi (d. ca. 835/1431-32). The commentary, entitled Kašf-e ḥaqāʾeq, on Ṭusi’s Zij-e Il-Ḵāni, was completed by 709/1309-10, when Nisāburi copied a manuscript of it (now in Rāmpur) for Saʿd-al-Din Moḥammad b. ʿAli Sāwaji. Nisāburi completed his Tawżiḥ al-Taḏkera, on Ṭusi’s al-Taḏkera fi ʿelm al-hayʾa on 1 Rabiʿ I 711/18 July 1311; glosses on it were written by a certain Faṣiḥ-al-Din. Finally, he commented at an unknown date on the Si faṣl dar taqwim, which Ṭusi had finished in 658/1260. The only one of these works that has been studied at all is the Tawżiḥ al-Taḏkera, which Jamil Ragep used in the commentary to his own recent edition and translation of the Taḏkera (see especially II, pp. 379, 381, 397, 435-436, and 484). The importance of the Tawżiḥ is made evident by the frequency with which it is used in later commentaries on the Taḏkera, and from its having been discussed at Oloḡ Beg’s court (Kennedy, p. 198).

The other two known works of Nisāburi are also commentaries, on al-Šāfiya (grammar) and on the Montahā al-soʾāl wa’l-amal fi ʿelm al-oṣul wa’l-jadal (Malikite law; an autographed copy is Dāmādzāde 682 (Brockelmann, GAL, S I, p. 537) by Jamāl-al-Din Abu ʿAmr ʿOṯmān b. ʿOmar b. Abu Bakr b. al-Ḥājeb (d. 26 Šawwāl 646/11 February 1249).

 

Bibliography:

Brockelmann, GAL I, p. 511 (674); S I, pp. 536-37, 930-1; S II, p. 273.

Suter, Mathematiker, p. 161 (no. 395). C. A. Storey, Persian Literature II/1, London, 1958, pp. 57 and 59.

Edward Stewart Kennedy, “A letter of Jamshīd al-Kāshī to His Father,” Orientalia 29, 1960, pp. 191-213.

F. Jamil Ragep, ed. and tr., Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī’s Memoir on Astronomy, 2 Vols., New York 1993.

(David Pingree)

Originally Published: July 20, 2002

Last Updated: July 20, 2002