Instruments · a Light

One line in one book records a woman who made astrolabes

In the catalogue of books he compiled at Baghdad around 987, Ibn al-Nadim lists the makers of astrolabes, and among them names the daughter of al-Ijli, saying she made the instruments and worked at the court of Sayf al-Dawla in Aleppo. That is the whole record. He gives no first name, no instrument by her is known to survive, and nothing further about her life has been found. Modern accounts often call her Mariam, which is a later addition rather than anything the source says. What the single line does establish is that a woman making precision instruments in tenth century Aleppo was worth listing without comment, alongside the men. An asteroid is named al-Ijliya after her.

Al-Ijliyya of Aleppo · named in the Fihrist, c. 987