Shams al-Din al-Khafri


Shams al-Din Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Khafri al-Kashi, known as Khafri, was a Persian religious scholar and astronomer at the beginning of the Safavid dynasty, during a period of mass conversion to Shia Islam. He wrote on philosophy, religion, and astronomy, the latter including a commentary on al-Tusi and critiques of al-Shirazi.

Astronomy

In his commentary on al-Tusi Khafri contributes some original solutions to the equant problem, three for Mercury and one for the Moon. His solution for the Moon, like Ptolemy's original model, still contains the discrepancy for the Moon's distance that was fixed earlier by al-Shatir, of whose work he was apparently not aware.