Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi

Infobox_Persian scholars | notability = Persian scholar| era = | color = #cef2e0 |

| image_caption = Photo taken from medieval manuscript by Qotbeddin Shirazi. The image depicts an epicyclic planetary model.|
| name = Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi| title= | birth =1236AD| death =1311AD| Maddhab = Sufi| school tradition= | Ethnicity =
Region = | main_interests = Mathematics, Astronomy, medicine, science and philosophy| notable idea= | influences = Nasir al-Din Tusi, Ibn al-Haytham, Suhrawardi| influenced = Kamāl al-Dīn al-Fārisī | works = "Almagest", "The Royal Present" ,"Pearly Crown", etc|

Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi (1236 – 1311) ( _fa. قطب‌الدین شیرازی) was a 13th century Persian astronomer, mathematician, physician, physicist and scientist and from Shiraz, Iran.

Works

He and his master Nasir al-Din Tusi wrote critiques of the "Almagest" of Ptolemy. He also continued the optical studies of Alhazen. It was Qutb al-Din who first gave a correct explanation for the formation of the rainbow, which was elaborated on by his student Kamāl al-Dīn al-Fārisī.

He produced two prominent works on astronomy - "The Limit of Accomplishment concerning Knowledge of the Heavens" (Nihayat al-idrak fi dirayat al-aflak) completed in 1281, and "The Royal Present" (Al-Tuhfat al-Shahiya) completed in 1284. Both presented his models for planetary motion, improving on Ptolemy's principles. [Kennedy, E. S. - "Late Medieval Planetary Theory", Isis, Vol. 57, No. 3. (Autumn, 1966), pp. 365-378., The University of Chicago Press] In his "The Limit of Accomplishment concerning Knowledge of the Heavens", he also discussed the possibility of heliocentrism. [A. Baker and L. Chapter (2002), "Part 4: The Sciences". In M. M. Sharif, "A History of Muslim Philosophy", "Philosophia Islamica".]

Besides astronomy he wrote extensively on medicine, mathematics and "traditional" Islamic sciences.

Qutb al-Din was also a Sufi from a family of Sufis in Shiraz. He is famous for the commentary on Hikmat al-ishraq of Suhrawardi, the most influential work of Islamic Illuminist philosophy. Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi's most famous work is the Pearly Crown ("Durrat al-taj li-ghurratt al-Dubaj"), written in Persian around AD 1306 (705 AH).

ee also

*List of Iranian scientists

References