Shaikh Mohammad Razaullah Ansari (8 April 1932 – 25 February 2023) was an Indian historian of science, physicist, astronomer and writer.
Biography
Shaikh Mohammad Razaullah Ansari was born to a family of scholars. He got his B.Sc.(Honours) and M.Sc. in Physics from Delhi University in 1953 and 1955 respectively. In 1956, he joined as a lecturer in Physics in Delhi College, Delhi (now renamed as Zakir Hussain College). He secured a research fellowship of Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Bonn, Germany) in 1959.
He worked there first at the Institute of Theoretical Physics and later shifted to Eberhard Karl University at Tübingen (Germany), where he completed his D.Sc. (Dr. rer. nat.) in 1966 in Mathematical Physics. During his sojourn in Germany, he specialized also in the history of exact science in India and Islamic countries. He researched during 1966-1969 as a research scholar/associate of German Council of Research in various capacities.
In 1969, he was invited by the Aligarh Muslim University to join the Physics Department as a Reader in theoretical physics. There he established a research group of astrophysics. His astrophysical work in Solar physics and Interstellar Matter was recognized both nationally and internationally by his election as a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (UK) in 1972 and as a Member of International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 1973. Besides joining IAU Commissions of his specialty, Ansari joined also IAU Commission 41 (History of Astronomy) in which he became so active that he was elected as its Vice-president for 1991–1994, and President for 1994-1997. Ansari was the first Indian/Asian President of Commission 41 since its inception.
In 1997, he organized a symposium on History of Oriental Astronomy at the General Assembly of IAU, held in Kyoto, the proceedings of which were edited by him and published. Thereafter, Ansari shifted his research field to history of astronomy and mathematics, particularly of Medieval India, which, after his retirement in 1994 from Aligarh Muslim University, has become his passion for researching primary sources of history of science.
Ansari died on 25 February 2023, at the age of 90.[1]
Razaullah Ansari giving a lecture at Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (2009)
Books
He contributed many chapters on history of science in many books, but here are some of his books based on Zij, Avempace, Qotb al-Din Shirazi that he edited:
History of oriental astronomy: proceedings of the joint discussion-17 at the 23rd General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union, organised by the Commission 41 (History of Astronomy), held in Kyoto, August 25–26, 1997, Springer, ISBN1-4020-0657-8
History of oriental astronomy, Kluwer Academic Publishers, ISBN1-4020-0657-8, Netherlands
Quasi-binomial Representations of Clebsch-Gordan Coefficients, Fortschritte der Physik 1967; Volume 14, Issue 12, pages 729-751[3]
History of Science in Medieval India, Idarah-i Adabiyat-i Delli - Jayyad Press, India[4]
Science and technology in the Islamic world with a proceedings, 2002 by Brepols in Turnhout, Belgium[5]
