NIZAM AL-DIN 'ABD AL-'ALI BIN MUHAMMAD BIN HUSAYN AL-BIRJANDI (D. 1525 AD): RISALA DAR MA'RIFAT-I A'MAL RUB' MUJAYYA AND SHARH MUKHTASAR-I BIST BAB DAR MA'RIFAT-I USTURLAB

The second work in this compilation is a commentary on the concise [treatise] on the 'Twenty Chapters on the Knowledge of the Astrolabe' by al-Tusi. It is recorded as being by Al-Birjandi who worked in Isfahan at the courts of the Safavid Shahs Isma'il I (1501-24) and Tahmasp I (1524-76) as an astronomer and jurist. He was a pupil of the scholars al-Kashi and Taftazani, and wrote commentaries on Tusi’s Tadhkirah, Tahrir majisti and Zij ulugh beg. He also wrote a treatise on the distances and sizes of the planets, and another on the constructions of almanacs. He was considered among the great scholars of the reign of Shah Tahmasp. Copied only 23 years after the death of the author, the treatise can be considered an early copy of the work.

Another copy of this commentary is in the British Library, London (Rieu, 1966, Add. 22,752, pp.452-54). For more information see Boris A. Rosenfeld and Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Mathematicians, Astronomers, and Other Scholars of Islamic Civilization and their works (7th-19th century), Istanbul, 2003, no.938, pp.314-16).

The author of the first work, the treatise on the quadrant, is not mentioned but is perhaps most likely also to be Al-Birjandi.