IRAN, 16TH CENTURY

Nasir al-Din Abu Ja'far Muhammad bin Muhammad al-Tusi (d. 1274) was born in Tus in AH 597⁄1201 AD. He was the most eminent scholar of the medieval world in trigonometry and wrote on a wide range of topics within the areas of mathematics and astronomy as well as on logic and theology. He composed about 150 works and is well-known as the founder of the observatory at Maragha in 1259 for the Ilkhanid ruler Hülegü, which led to a major renaissance of Islamic Astronomy (Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islamic Science, An Illustrated Study, Westerham, 1976, p.105). He is considered by the medieval historian Ibn Khaldun as better than any other later Iranian scholars (James Winston Morris, "An Arab Machiavelli? Rhetoric, Philosophy and Politics in Ibn Khaldun’s Critique of Sufism", Harvard Middle Eastern and Islamic Review 8, 2009, p.286). Because of the importance of Tusi's scholarship, many commentaries on his works have been written, particularly of his most renowned texts including the Tadhkira fi ‘ilm al-ha’a (Memorandum of astronomy) and the recension of the Almagest, where he updates several of Ptolemy’s methods.
Al-Hasan bin Muhammad bin al-Husayn al-Qumi al-Nishapuri was a mathematician and philosopher, originally from Qom but who resided in Nishapur. He wrote religious works, including a commentary on the Qur'an as well as scientific works. After moving to the Ilkhanid capital of Tabriz, he studied at the Ilkhanid observatory of Maragha, under Qutb al-Din Shirazi, himself a student of Nasir al-Din Tusi (Khayr al-Din Al-Zarkaly, Al A’lam, Biographical Dictionary, 2007, vol. 2, p.216). A commentary of al-Tadhkira by Nishapuri was sold in these rooms 21 April 2016, lot 49, while a fifteenth century manuscript with both al-Tusi’s Tahrir al-majisti and Nishapuri’s commentary is housed in the University of Pennsylvania (inv.no. UPenn LJS 392).