At a glance
- Roles
- Astronomer
- Counted among
- Sunni
- Era
- Abbasid Fragmentation
- Region
- Persia & Central Asia
- Review
- Draft Completeness 1/5 · Help complete it
Life in time
Place in the story
- ScholarTradition
Roles are dated and sourced; the museum describes the act and attributes the judgement.
Overview
Abu Ma'shar Ja'far ibn Muhammad ibn Umar al-Balkhi, an astrologer and astronomer, whose nisba refers to Balkh in Khurasan. The encyclopaedia describes him as the leading authority of his age in his field, and gives his death as 272 AH (886 CE). 1
People and things also explored
Sharaf al-Dawla's observatory at Baghdad· Qibla-finding by stars, winds, mountains and rivers· Sizes of the heavenly bodies· Distances of the heavenly bodies from the Earth· The seven climates· The second motion (the planets' own motion along the zodiac)· The first motion (diurnal rotation of the heavens)· The solstices
Sources
- Mawsu'at A'lam al-Ulama' wa-l-Adaba' al-Arab wa-l-Muslimin — Dar al-Jil / ALECSO , p.34-35
Cite this page
islam.museum contributors. “al-Balkhi Abu Ma'shar Ja'far ibn Muhammad”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/person/al-balkhi-abu-mashar-jafar-ibn-muhammad/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-16.