Nasir al-Din al-Tusi

@Writers, Family and Life

Nasir al-Din al-Tusi was a Muslim Persian scholar and an author of numerous books on various subjects

Feb 18, 1201

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Biography

Personal Details

  • Birthday: February 18, 1201
  • Died on: June 26, 1274
  • Nationality: Iranian
  • Famous: Architects, Philosophers, Mathematicians, Writers
  • Nick names: Nasīr al-Dīn Tūsī, Tusi
  • Known as: Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Tūsī, Nasīr al-Dīn Tūsī, Tusi
  • Discoveries / Inventions:
    • Tusi Couple

Nasir al-Din al-Tusi born at

Tous

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Birth Place

He married a Mongol in 1256, after being accepted by Hulagu Khan.

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Personal Life

In 1274, he went to Baghdad with a group of his students, where he died on June 26, at the age of 73.

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Personal Life

A lunar crater, measuring 60-km in diameter, on the southern hemisphere of moon has been named as ‘Nasireddin’.

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Personal Life

Khwaja Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Tusi, or Nasir al-Din al-Tusi for short, was born on February 18, 1201, in Tus, medieval Kharasan (now north-eastern Iran), into a wealthy and learned Twelver Shi’ah family.

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Childhood & Early Life

After losing his father as a child, he devoted his entire life in accomplishing his father’s dream of becoming a learned scholar.

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Childhood & Early Life

His education started in Tus where he was taught physics, logic and metaphysics by his uncle, while he learnt mathematics under other teachers.

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Childhood & Early Life

He moved to Nishapur, a prominent learning center, as a teenager to study more advanced topics in mathematics, philosophy and medicine. Thereafter, he went to Mosul to take mathematics and astronomy lectures.

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Childhood & Early Life

While studying at Mosul, he completed a small booklet of philosophical Sufi compositions ‘Awsaf al-Ashraf’ (The Attributes of the Illustrious).

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Career

After completing his education in the early 1230s, he took refuge from the Mongols, who had invaded Tus, at the Isma’ili fort, where he spent the next 25 years researching on philosophy, astronomy, logic and mathematics.

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Career

In 1247, he authored ‘Tahrir al-Majisti’ (Commentary on the Almagest) as an introduction to trigonometry and showed various methods to calculate sine tables.

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Career

While he was at the Isma’ili capital, Alamut, in 1256, the Mongols, led by Hulagu Khan, invaded and captured him. However, he was appointed Hulagu’s scientific advisor due to his knowledge, talent and abilities.

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Career

In 1259, he began the construction of Rasad Khaneh Observatory in Maragha, after seeking Hulagu’s consent and served as its director till his death. It was equipped with the best instruments and included a library and school as well.

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Career

He pioneered in building an astronomical observatory in Maragha, where he spent 12 years in producing an accurate table for planetary movements, which were used by astrologers till the 1600s.

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Major Works

He is credited with inventing the Tusi-couple, a geometrical technique for solving the problematic equant of Ptolemy. His invention was later used by famous astrologers – Ibn al-Shatir and Nicolaus Copernicus.

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Major Works

His ‘Treatise of the Quadrilateral’ is regarded as his best work on mathematics, where he differentiates between spherical trigonometry and astronomy, thus declaring trigonometry a branch of mathematics, distinct from astronomy.

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Major Works

He was the first astronomer to describe the Milky Way’s composition of numerous small and tightly-clustered stars, which was proved by Galileo Galilei three centuries later in 1610, using a telescope.

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Major Works