Texts & cultural history
Ali ibn Ahmad ibn Ibrahim ibn Mashraf
Manuscript copyist
Also known as ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Mashraf
Who they are
Ali ibn Ahmad ibn Ibrahim ibn Mashraf is identified by the colophon of British Library manuscript Or 11209 as its copyist in Hama in 1289. His documented role is the preservation of al-Tusi’s astronomical treatise in a surviving manuscript, not authorship of the treatise or invention of its mathematical constructions.
He makes the transmission of astronomical knowledge visible: a surviving copy has its own maker and date, distinct from the original work.
Selected contributions
- Copied the surviving Or 11209 manuscript in Hama in 1289.Source ↗
Primary records
Primary text · after 1256–1274
Kitāb al-tadhkirah fī al-hay’ah (Memoir on Astronomy)
Al-Tusi’s treatise reworks Ptolemaic astronomy; the catalogued manuscript includes a diagram of the construction called the Tusi couple. Its colophon identifies Ali ibn Ahmad ibn Ibrahim ibn Mashraf as the copyist in Hama, distinguishing transmission of the text from authorship.
Composition after 1256 and before the author’s death in 1274; the catalogued Hama copy is dated October 28, 1289.
Reading scope & citation
Reused prior inspected evidence: Custodial description, transcribed colophon and folio 32v item metadata inspected. The image endpoint could not be independently downloaded; no claim of full manuscript-text or diagram-proof inspection. Reused custodial description, transcribed colophon and diagram metadata; full Arabic manuscript and diagram proof not inspected.
In the timeline
- After 1256, by 1274Al-Tusi reworks mathematical astronomy
Biography sources
- Kitāb al-tadhkirah fī al-hay’ah, British Library Or 11209 ↗British Library / Qatar Digital Library