ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Khāzinī’s Treatise Fī al-Ālāt al-ʿAjība: A short Review

The astronomers used instruments from the first century BC to observe heavenly bodies. The most of them were used to determine the angle between the ecliptic and equator circles and to find the moment of the sun’s arrival to the equinoxes. Ptolemy mentions some names of the instruments such as the armillary, dioptra and triquetrum. With the biginning of the attention to astronomy in the Islamic era and the new observations for the examination of Ptolemy’s reports, we have received reports of the construction of the instruments, although most of the essays written by the Muslims related to the construction and application of Astrolabes. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Khāzinī’s (fl. in 6th AH/12th AD century) Fī Ālāt al-ʿAjība is a small treatise in which al-Khāzinī describes the seven usual observation instruments of his era and the methods of their use and computations on the date which are derived from the observations. Currently, there are four manuscripts of this treatise available at the libraries of Majlis (in Iran), Sepahsalar School (in Iran), Manisa (in Turkey), and Istanbul University (in Turkey). In this article, we will give a brief report on this treatise and its surviving versions and the materials described therein