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Abu Jafar Muhammad ibn Hasan Khazini (900–971) was a Persian Muslim astronomer and mathematician from Khorasan. He worked on both astronomy and number theory.

Khazini was one of the scientists brought to the court in Ray, Iran by the ruler of the Buyid dynasty, Adhad ad-Dowleh, who ruled from 949 to 983 AD. In 959/960 Khazini was required by the Vizier of Ray, who was appointed by ad-Dowleh, to measure the obliquity of the ecliptic.

Works

One of al-Khazin's works Zij al-Safa'ih ("Tables of the disks of the astrolabe") was described by his successors as the best work in the field and they make many references to it. The work describes some astronomical instruments, in particular an astrolabe fitted with plates inscribed with tables and a commentary on the use of these. A copy of this instrument was made but vanished in Germany at the time of World War II. A photograph of this copy was taken and examined in D.A. King's New light on the Zij al-Safa'ih of Abu Ja'far al-Khazin, Centaurus 23 (2) (1979/80), 105-117.

Khazeni also wrote a commentary on Ptolemy's Almagest in which he gives nineteen propositions relating to statements by Ptolemy. He also proposed a different solar model from that of Ptolemy.

Diophantine analysis

According to mathematics historian Odile Kouteynikoff:

According to the fact that Al-Khwarizmi founded Algebra during the 9th century, it is not surprising that, when being translated into Arabic in the late 9th century by Lebanese Ibn Luqa whose native language was Greek, Diophante’s Arithmetics seemed to be considered as a treatise about Algebra since algebraic vocabulary and way of thinking were most widely shared. Only few people understood that it was actually an arithmetic treatise: Al-Khazin (900–971) did, and therefore he is one of those who laid the foundations for the integer Diophantine analysis. We know that Jean de Palerme submitted Al-Khazin’s problem about congruent numbers to Fibonacci, who then wrote Liber Quadratorum.[1]

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