Abū Sahl al-Qūhī

Abū Sahl Wayjan ibn Rustam al-Qūhī (al-

Kūhī; Persian: ‫ اﺑﻮﺳﻬﻞ ﺑﯿﮋن ﮐﻮﻫﯽ‬Abusahl
Bijan-e Koohi) was a Persian[1]
mathematician, physicist and astronomer.
He was from Kuh (or Quh), an area in
Tabaristan, Amol, and flourished in
Baghdad in the 10th century. He is
considered one of the greatest Muslim
geometers, with many mathematical and
astronomical writings ascribed to
him.[2][3][4]

Engraving of al-Qūhī's perfect compass to draw conic

sections

Al-Qūhī was the leader of the astronomers

working in 988 AD at the observatory built
by the Buwayhid amir Sharaf al-Dawla in
Badhdad. He wrote a treatise on the
astrolabe in which he solves a number of
difficult geometric problems.

In mathematics he devoted his attention to

those Archimedean and Apollonian
problems leading to equations higher than
the second degree. He solved some of
them and discussed the conditions of
solvability. For example, he was able to
solve the problem of inscribing an
equilateral pentagon into a square,
resulting in a fourth degree equation.[5] He
also wrote a treatise on the "perfect
compass", a compass with one leg of
variable length that allows users to draw
any conic section: straight lines, circles,
ellipses, parabolas and hyperbolas. It is
likely that al-Qūhī invented the
device.[6][7][8][9][10]

Like Aristotle, al-Qūhī proposed that the

weight of bodies varies with their distance
from the center of the Earth.[11]

The correspondence between al-Qūhī and

Abu Ishaq al-Sabi, a high civil servant
interested in mathematics, has been
preserved.[12][13]

References
1. al-Qūhī, Abu Sahl Wayjan ibn Rustam (c.
940-c. 1000)
2. Suter, Die Mathematiker und Astronomen
der Araber (75-76, 1900).
3. Berggren, Len (2007). "Kūhī: Abū Sahl
Wījan ibn Rustam [Wustam] al‐Kūhī [al‐
Qūhī]" . In Thomas Hockey; et al. The
Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers.
New York: Springer. p. 659. ISBN 978-0-387-
31022-0. (PDF version )
4. Dold-Samplonius, Yvonne (2008) [1970–
80]. "Al-Qūhī (or Al-Kūhī), Abū Sahl Wayjan
Ibn Rustam" . Complete Dictionary of
Scientific Biography. Encyclopedia.com.
5. Jan Hogendijk (1984) "al-Kuhi's
construction of an equilateral pentagon in a
given square", Zeitschrift für Gesch. Arab.-
Islam. Wiss. 1: 100-144; correction and
addendum Volume 4, 1986/87, p.267
6. O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F.,
"Abu Sahl Waijan ibn Rustam al-Qūhī" ,
MacTutor History of Mathematics archive,
University of St Andrews.
7. Thomas de Vittori. "The Perfect
Compass: Conics, Movement and
Mathematics around the 10th century" .
Archived from the original (PDF) on 2
February 2016.
8. Jan Hogendijk (2008) "Two beautiful
geometrical theorems by Abu Sahl Kuhi in a
17th century Dutch translation", Ta'rikh-e
Elm: Iranian Journal for the History of
Science 6: 1-36
9. Rashed, Roshdi (1996). Les
Mathématiques Infinitésimales du IXe au
XIe Siècle 1: Fondateurs et commentateurs:
Banū Mūsā, Ibn Qurra, Ibn Sīnān, al-Khāzin,
al-Qūhī, Ibn al-Samḥ, Ibn Hūd. London.
Reviews: Seyyed Hossein Nasr (1998) in
Isis 89 (1) pp. 112-113 JSTOR 236661 ;
Charles Burnett (1998) in Bulletin of the
School of Oriental and African Studies,
University of London 61 (2) p. 406
JSTOR 3107736 .
10. John Lennart Berggren, Hogendijk: The
Fragments of Abu Sahl al-Kuhi's Lost
Geometrical Works in the Writings of al-Sijzi,
in: C. Burnett, J.P. Hogendijk, K. Plofker, M.
Yano (eds): Studies in the History of the
Exact Sciences in Honour of David Pingree,
Leiden: Brill, 2003, pp. 605–665
11. Mohammed Abattouy (2002), "The
Arabic Science of weights: A Report on an
Ongoing Research Project", The Bulletin of
the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies 4,
p. 109-130
12. Berggren: "The correspondence of Abu
Sahl al-Kuhi and Abu Ishaq al-Sabi: a
translation with commentaries", J. Hist.
Arabic Sci., volume 7, 1983, pp. 39-124.
13. M. Steinschnieder, Lettere intorno ad
Alcuhi a D. Bald. Boncompagni (Roma,
1863)

Retrieved from
"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Abū_Sahl_al-Qūhī&oldid=823978839"

Last edited 4 months ago by Aferna…

Content is available under CC BY-SA 3.0 unless

otherwise noted.