Nasir al-Din al-Tusi

Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Tusi, known as Nasir al-Din al-Tusi or simply al-Tusi, lived from 1201 to 1274 and was a Persian polymath active as an architect, philosopher, physician, scientist and theologian, a prolific author writing on mathematics, engineering, prose and mysticism. He made several scientific advancements: in astronomy he created accurate tables of planetary motion, an updated planetary model and critiques of Ptolemaic astronomy, there is reason to believe he influenced Copernican heliocentrism, and he also made strides in logic, mathematics, especially trigonometry, biology and chemistry. Tusi is widely regarded as one of the greatest scientists of medieval Islam and is often considered the creator of trigonometry as a mathematical discipline in its own right; the Muslim scholar Ibn Khaldun considered him the greatest of the later Persian scholars.