fl. 9th century

Arab mathematicians and astronomers who were among the first to study ancient Greek mathematical texts, and who thus helped lay the foundations for Arab mathematical study. Jafar concerned himself primarily with geometry and astronomy, Ahmad with mechanics, and al-Hasan with geometry, but their careers were so closely mingled that it is difficult to separate them. The brothers, collectively referred to as the Banu Musa, were all involved in the House of Wisdom, the "think tank" established by the Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun. Their most important work, whose title is translated as The Book of the Measurement of Plane and Spherical Figures, examines two texts by Archimedes.