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Abu Nasr Mansur

Persian mathematician and astronomer (c. 960 – 1036)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 29, 2026
Entity authorityQ2383120 ↗
Source-derived summary

Abū Naṣr Manṣūr ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿIrāq al-Jaʿdī (Persian: ابونصر منصور بن علی بن عراق جیلانی; c. 960 – 1036) was a Persian Muslim mathematician and astronomer. He is well known for his work with the spherical sine law.

Abu Nasri Mansur was born in Gilan, Persia, to the ruling family of Khwarezm, the Afrighids. He was thus a prince within the political sphere. He was a student of Abu'l-Wafa and a teacher of and also an important colleague of the mathematician, Al-Biruni. Together, they were responsible for great discoveries in mathematics and dedicated many works to one another.

Most of Abu Nasri's work focused on mathematics, but some of his writings were on astronomy. In mathematics, he had many important writings on trigonometry, which were developed from the writings of Ptolemy. He also preserved the writings of Menelaus of Alexandria and reworked many of the Greeks theorems.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Abu Nasr Mansur” as persian mathematician and astronomer (c. 960 – 1036). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Nasr, Mansur and Persian.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1036—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—0960-01-01, 0970-01-01—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Nasr, Mansur and Persian providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Abu Nasr Mansur”, the useful work is to connect “persian mathematician and astronomer (c. 960 – 1036)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2383120. VIAF identifies the subject as 24465144. The Library of Congress control number is nr92029163. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1036.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Abu Nasr Mansur” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.