ASTRONOMERS from Iraq

Top 2

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Iraqi Astronomers of all time. This list of famous Iraqi Astronomers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Seleucus of Seleucia (-190 - -150)

With an HPI of 57.10, Seleucus of Seleucia is the most famous Iraqi Astronomer.  His biography has been translated into 22 different languages on wikipedia.

Seleucus of Seleucia (Greek: Σέλευκος Seleukos; born c. 190 BC; fl. c. 150 BC) was a Hellenistic astronomer and philosopher. Coming from Seleucia on the Tigris, Mesopotamia, the capital of the Seleucid Empire, or, alternatively, Seleukia on the Erythraean Sea, he is best known as a proponent of heliocentrism and for his theory of the causes of tides.

2. Mashallah ibn Athari (740 - 815)

With an HPI of 50.97, Mashallah ibn Athari is the 2nd most famous Iraqi Astronomer.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Māshāʾallāh ibn Atharī (Arabic: ما شاء الله إبن أثري; c. 740 – 815), known as Mashallah, was an 8th century Persian Jewish astrologer, astronomer, and mathematician. Originally from Khorasan, he lived in Basra (in present day Iraq) during the reigns of the Abbasid caliphs al-Manṣūr and al-Ma’mūn, and was among those who introduced astrology and astronomy to Baghdad. The bibliographer ibn al-Nadim described Mashallah "as virtuous and in his time a leader in the science of jurisprudence, i.e. the science of judgments of the stars". Mashallah served as a court astrologer for the Abbasid caliphate and wrote works on astrology in Arabic. Some Latin translations survive. The Arabic phrase mā shā’ Allāh indicates a believer's acceptance of God's ordainment of good or ill fortune. His name is probably an Arabic rendering of the Hebrew Shiluh. Al-Nadim writes Mashallah's name as Mīshā ("Yithru" or "Jethro"). The crater Messala on the Moon is named after Mashallah.