Al-Kharaqī

Who is Al-Kharaqī?

Abū Muḥammad 'Abd al-Jabbār al-Kharaqī, also Al-Kharaqī was a Persian astronomer and mathematician of the 12th century, born in Kharaq near Merv. He was in the service of Sultan Sanjar at the Persian Court. Al-Kharaqī challenged the astronomical theory of Ptolemy in the Almagest, and established an alternative theory of the spheres, imagining huge material spheres in which the planets moved inside tubes.

During his travels to the Ottoman Empire in 1536, Guillaume Postel acquired an astronomical work by al-Kharaqī, Muntahā al-idrāk fī taqāsīm al-aflāk, annotated it, and brought it back to Europe.

Al-Kharaqī also wrote mathematical treatises, now lost, Al-Risala al-Shāmila and Al-Risala al-Maghribiyya.