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Sahl ibn Bishr al-Israili (c. 786–c. 845), also known as Rabban al-Tabari and Haya al-Yahudi ("the Jew"), was a Jewish or Syriac Christian astrologer, astronomer and mathematician from Tabaristan. He was the father of Ali ibn Sahl the scientist and physician, who became a convert to Islam.

He served as astrologer to the governor of Khuristan and then to the vizier of Baghdad. He wrote books on astronomy, astrology, and arithmetic, all in Arabic.

His works

Sahl is believed to be the first who translated the Almagest of Ptolemy into Arabic.

Sahl ibn Bishr wrote in the Greek astrological tradition. Sahl's first five books were preserved in the translation of John of Seville (Johannes Hispanus) (c. 1090 – c. 1150). See the English translation by Holden. The sixth book deals with three thematic topics regarding the influences on the world and its inhabitants was translated by Herman of Carinthia. The work contains divinations based on the movements of the planets and comets.

• The Introduction to the Science of the Judgments of the Stars. Translated by James Herschel Holden (Tempe, Az.: A.F.A., Inc., 2008)ix, 213 pp.

There are some books by Sahl ibn Bishr in Arabic such as:

• Ahkam fi al-Nujum ("Laws of the Astrology")
• Kitab al-ikhtiyarat 'ala al-buyut al-ithnai 'ashar ("Book of elections according to the twelve houses").
• al-Masa'il al-Nujumiyah ("The astrological problems")

Notes

1. Astronomy and the Jewish Community in Early Islam January 2001, Aleph Historical Studies in Science and Judaism 1(1):17-57 Bernard R. Goldstein
2. Said al-Andalusi, Ṭabaqāt al-‘Umam, 1068 - in Catégories des nations, translated in french by Régis Blachère, Paris: Larose, 1935, p. 157.
3. SAHL called Rabban, Jewish Encyclopedia.
4. Prioreschi, Plinio (2001-01-01). A History of Medicine: Byzantine and Islamic medicine. Horatius Press. p. 223. ISBN 9781888456042. Retrieved 29 December 2014. Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari, the son of a Syriac Christian scholar living in Persia on the Caspian Sea...
5. Meyerhof, Max (July 1931). "Alî at-Tabarî's "Paradise of Wisdom", one of the oldest Arabic Compendiums of Medicine". Isis. 16 (1): 7–8. doi:10.1086/346582. JSTOR 224348. S2CID 70718474. Ibn al-Qiftî (4) renders the title Rabban correctly but with a false explanation, taking it for the Jewish title of Rabbi. So 'Alî b. Rabban passed into all historical works, until quite recently, as a Muslim of Jewish origin, although 'Alî himself, in the preface to his work, explains this title Rabban as being the Syriac word for "our Master" or "our Teacher". The late Professor Horovitz told me and wrote to me several years ago, that this was a Christian title; A. Mingana gave the proof of this in print for the first time in I922. 'Alî says in his apologetic tract "The Book of Religion and Empire", which he wrote about 855 A.D., that he himself was a Christian before he was converted to Islam, and that his uncle Zakkâr was a prominent Christian scholar.
6. "Astrology in Medieval Judaism - My Jewish Learning". Archived from the original on 29 December 2014. Retrieved 29 December 2014.
7. Meyerhof (1931), p. 7.
8. Roth, Norman, ed. (2003). Medieval Jewish Civilization: An Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge. p. 385. ISBN 978-0-415-93712-2.

v t e Mathematics in the medieval Islamic world
Mathematicians	9th century 'Abd al-Hamīd ibn Turk Sanad ibn Ali al-Jawharī Al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf Al-Kindi Qusta ibn Luqa Al-Mahani al-Dinawari Banū Mūsā brothers Hunayn ibn Ishaq Al-Khwarizmi Yusuf al-Khuri Ishaq ibn Hunayn Na'im ibn Musa Thābit ibn Qurra al-Marwazi Abu Said Gorgani 10th century Abu al-Wafa al-Khazin Al-Qabisi Abu Kamil Ahmad ibn Yusuf Aṣ-Ṣaidanānī Sinān ibn al-Fatḥ al-Khojandi Al-Nayrizi Al-Saghani Brethren of Purity Ibn Sahl Ibn Yunus al-Uqlidisi Al-Battani Sinan ibn Thabit Ibrahim ibn Sinan Al-Isfahani Nazif ibn Yumn al-Qūhī Abu al-Jud Al-Sijzi Al-Karaji al-Majriti al-Jabali 11th century Abu Nasr Mansur Alhazen Kushyar Gilani Al-Biruni Ibn al-Samh Abu Mansur al-Baghdadi Avicenna al-Jayyānī al-Nasawī al-Zarqālī ibn Hud Al-Isfizari Omar Khayyam Muhammad al-Baghdadi 12th century Jabir ibn Aflah Al-Kharaqī Al-Khazini Al-Samawal al-Maghribi al-Hassar Sharaf al-Din al-Tusi Ibn al-Yasamin 13th century Ibn al‐Ha'im al‐Ishbili Ahmad al-Buni Ibn Munim Alam al-Din al-Hanafi Ibn Adlan al-Urdi Nasir al-Din al-Tusi al-Abhari Muhyi al-Din al-Maghribi al-Hasan al-Marrakushi Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi Shams al-Din al-Samarqandi Ibn al-Banna' Kamāl al-Dīn al-Fārisī 14th century Nizam al-Din al-Nisapuri Ibn al-Shatir Ibn al-Durayhim Al-Khalili al-Umawi 15th century Ibn al-Majdi al-Rūmī al-Kāshī Ulugh Beg Ali Qushji al-Wafa'i al-Qalaṣādī Sibt al-Maridini Ibn Ghazi al-Miknasi 16th century Al-Birjandi Muhammad Baqir Yazdi Taqi ad-Din Ibn Hamza al-Maghribi
Mathematical works	The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing De Gradibus Principles of Hindu Reckoning Book of Optics The Book of Healing Book on the Measurement of Plane and Spherical Figures Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity Toledan Tables Tabula Rogeriana Zij
Concepts	Alhazen's problem Islamic geometric patterns
Centers	Al-Azhar University Al-Mustansiriya University House of Knowledge House of Wisdom Constantinople observatory of Taqi ad-Din Madrasa Maragheh observatory University of al-Qarawiyyin
Influences	Babylonian mathematics Greek mathematics Indian mathematics
Influenced	Byzantine mathematics European mathematics Indian mathematics
Related	Hindu–Arabic numeral system Arabic numerals (Eastern Arabic numerals, Western Arabic numerals) Trigonometric functions History of trigonometry History of algebra

• 780s births
• 845 deaths
• 9th-century Iranian astronomers
• Astronomers of the medieval Islamic world
• People from Mazandaran province
• Medieval Iranian astrologers
• 9th-century Iranian mathematicians
• 9th-century astronomers
• People from Amol
• 9th-century astrologers
• Syriac Christians
• 9th-century people from the Abbasid Caliphate