WAbu ‘Abd ar-Raḥmān al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad ibn ‘Amr ibn Tammām al-Farāhīdī al-Zahrāni al-Azdī al-Yaḥmadī, known as Al-Farāhīdī, or Al-Khalīl, was an Arab philologist, lexicographer and leading grammarian of Basra based on Iraq. He is from the Zahran tribe. He made the first dictionary of the Arabic language – and the oldest extant dictionary – Kitab al-'Ayn - "The Source", introduced the now standard harakat system, and was instrumental in the early development of ʿArūḍ, musicology and poetic metre. His linguistic theories influenced the development of Persian, Turkish and Urdu prosody. The "Shining Star" of the Basran school of Arabic grammar, a polymath and scholar, he was a man of genuinely original thought.
WAhmad ibn ‘Ali al-Buni, also called Sharaf al-Din or Shihab al-Din Ahmad ibn Ali ibn Yusuf al-Buni al-Maliki al-ifriqi was an Arab mathematician and philosopher and a well known Sufi and writer on the esoteric value of letters and topics relating to mathematics, sihr (sorcery) and spirituality, but very little is known about him. Al-Buni lived in Egypt and learned from many eminent Sufi masters of his time.
WAbū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Jābir ibn Sinān al-Raqqī al-Ḥarrānī aṣ-Ṣābiʾ al-Battānī was an Arab astronomer, and mathematician. He introduced a number of trigonometric relations, and his Kitāb az-Zīj was frequently quoted by many medieval astronomers, including Copernicus. Often called the "Ptolemy of the Arabs", al-Battani is perhaps the greatest and best known astronomer of the medieval Islamic world.
WHunayn ibn Ishaq al-Ibadi (809–873) was an influential Arab Nestorian Christian translator, scholar, physician, and scientist. During the apex of the Islamic Abbasid era, he worked with a group of translators, among whom were Abū 'Uthmān al-Dimashqi, Ibn Mūsā al-Nawbakhti, and Thābit ibn Qurra, to translate books of philosophy and classical Greek and Persian texts into Arabic and Syriac. Ḥunayn ibn Isḥaq was the most productive translator of Greek medical and scientific treatises in his day. He studied Greek and became known among the Arabs as the "Sheikh of the translators". He is the father of Arab translations. He mastered four languages: Arabic, Syriac, Greek and Persian. His translations did not require corrections; Hunayn's method was widely followed by later translators. He was originally from al-Hira, the capital of a pre-Islamic cultured Arab kingdom, but he spent his working life in Baghdad, the center of the great ninth-century Greek-into-Arabic/Syriac translation movement. His fame went far beyond his own community.
WAbū Muḥammad Jābir ibn Aflaḥ was an Arab Muslim astronomer and mathematician from Seville, who was active in 12th century al-Andalus. His work Iṣlāḥ al-Majisṭi influenced Islamic, Jewish, and Christian astronomers.
WḤasan Ibn al-Haytham was an Arab mathematician, astronomer, and physicist of the Islamic Golden Age. Referred to as "the father of modern optics", he made significant contributions to the principles of optics and visual perception in particular. His most influential work is titled Kitāb al-Manāẓir, written during 1011–1021, which survived in a Latin edition. A polymath, he also wrote on philosophy, theology and medicine.
WShams al-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Khalīlī was a Mamluk-era Syrian astronomer who compiled extensive tables for astronomical use. He worked for most of his life as a religious timekeeper (muwaqqit) at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. Little else is known about his life.
WAbu Yūsuf Yaʻqūb ibn ʼIsḥāq aṣ-Ṣabbāḥ al-Kindī was an Arab Muslim philosopher, polymath, mathematician, physician and musician. Al-Kindi was the first of the Islamic peripatetic philosophers, and is hailed as the "father of Arab philosophy".
WAbu al-Wafa' al-Mubashshir ibn Fatik was an Arab philosopher and scholar well versed in the mathematical sciences and also wrote on logic and medicine. He was born in Damascus but lived mainly in Egypt during the 11th century Fatimid Caliphate. He also wrote an historical chronicle of the reign of al-Mustansir Billah. However, the book he is famed for and the only one extant, Kitāb mukhtār al-ḥikam wa-maḥāsin al-kalim, the "Selected Maxims and Aphorisms", is a collection of sayings attributed to the ancient sages translated into Arabic. The date of composition given by the author is 1048–1049.
WAbu Bakr Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Bāqī al-Baghdadi al-Ansārī al-Kaabī (1050-1141) also known as Qadi al-Maristan, was an Arab jurist and mathematician.
WʿAbu al-Ḥasan Alāʾ al‐Dīn ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ansari known as Ibn al-Shatir or Ibn ash-Shatir was an Arab astronomer, mathematician and engineer. He worked as muwaqqit in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus and constructed a sundial for its minaret in 1371/72.
WSibt al-Maridini, full name Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Ghazal, was an Egyptian-born astronomer and mathematician. His father came from Damascus. The word "Sibt al-Maridini" means "the son of Al-Mardini's daughter". His maternal grandfather, Abdullah al-Maridini, was a reputed astronomer of the eighth century AH. He was a disciple of the astronomer Ibn al-Majdi.
WAbū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm ibn Yaḥyā al-Naqqāsh al-Zarqālī al-Tujibi ; also known as Al-Zarkali or Ibn Zarqala (1029–1087), was an Arab Muslim instrument maker, astrologer, and the most important astronomer from the western part of the Islamic world.