رسالة في الميزان للأهوازي : تحقيق و دراسة لنصّ في علم الأثقال العربي من القرن الرابع الهجري

Abstract EN

We devote this article to publish the critical edition of a scientific text belonging to the Arabic tradition of the science of weights, which represents the medieval theoretical mechanics.

This text is Risāla fī al-mīzān (Treatise on the balance) by the well-known Arab mathematician Abū al-Ḥasan Muḥammad b.

ʿAbdallāh b.

Manṣūr al-Ahwāzī, from the first half of the 4th century H/10th century CE.

Al-Ahwāzī is the author of a not-yet published commentary on the tenth book of Euclid’s Elements of Geometry, and several astronomical works are attributed to him, which were lost or not found yet.

Our publication of his short treatise on the balance is the first edition of one of his scientific works.

The article begins by a short general introduction, followed by a section on the genesis of the Arabic science of weights, its theoretical and historical context, and its historical significance.

Then we produce the complete bio-bibliography of Al-Ahwāzī.

The rest of the article is dedicated to characterize in brief the contents of the treatise on the balance, which is critically edited in full in a final section, according to the usual criteria for editing scientific texts that were transmitted in a unicum copy.