Famous Iranian Scientists

Apart from being a pioneer of Indology and geodesy, Persian scholar Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī also worked on subjects such as anthropology, math, and ethnography. It is believed he didn’t know his father. He had penned many works, such as the encyclopaedic volume The Chronology of Ancient Nations.

Omar Khayyam was a Persian polymath, mathematician, philosopher, astronomer, and poet. In the field of mathematics, he is best known for his work on the classification and solution of cubic equations. As an astronomer, he designed a solar calendar known as the Jalali calendar. His philosophical attitude towards life had elements of pessimism, nihilism, Epicureanism, and fatalism. 

Maryam Mirzakhani was an Iranian mathematician best remembered for her innovative methods and research involving different branches of mathematics like symplectic geometry and ergodic theory. On 13 August 2014, she became the first Iranian and only woman to date to be honored with the prestigious Fields Medal. Maryam Mirzakhani died of breast cancer when she was 40 years old.

Persian polymath Nasir al-Din al-Tusi lost his jurist father in childhood and then went around as a scholar, learning subjects such as math and philosophy. He made invaluable contribution to astronomy and later served as a scientific advisor of the Mongols. One of his notable written works was Akhlaq-i Nasiri.

Abd Al-Rahman Al Sufi was a Persian astronomer best remembered for his popular work The Book of Fixed Stars which he published in 964. The book was highly influential and is still extant in the form of various translations and manuscripts, the oldest being preserved at the Bodleian Library in the University of Oxford. 

Ulugh Beg was the ruler of the Timurid Empire from 1447 to 1449. He is also remembered for his achievements as a mathematician and astronomer and is credited with building the legendary Ulugh Beg Observatory in Samarkand which was the largest in Central Asia. It was also regarded by scholars as one of the best observatories in the Islamic world. 

Shahram Amiri was an Iranian nuclear scientist who conducted research on particle physics. Amiri, who worked at the Malek-Ashtar University of Technology, disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 2009. It was later claimed that he worked as a double agent alongside the CIA. Shahram Amiri was subsequently executed by hanging by the Iranian government in 2016.

Mostafa Chamran was an Iranian physicist, politician, and commander.  He served as the first defense minister of post-revolutionary Iran. He helped to found the Amal Movement in southern Lebanon. He was the commander of paramilitary volunteers in the Iran–Iraq War, known as "Irregular Warfare Headquarters". He died in the war and is known as a martyr in Iran.  

Al-Karaji was a Persian engineer and mathematician who flourished in 10th-century Baghdad. His algebra work al-fakhri fi al-jabr wa al-muqabala, which is extant in at least four copies from the medieval era, is among the most widely studied work by historians. The importance of his work was recognized only in the mid-1800s by German mathematician and historian Franz Woepcke.

Abu al-Wafa' Buzjani was a Persian astronomer and mathematician best remembered for his significant contribution to spherical trigonometry. He is credited with using negative numbers, which were unheard of at that time, in one of his arithmetic works. Abu al-Wafa' Buzjani is also credited with introducing the secant and cosecant functions in trigonometry.

Baha' al-din al-'Amili was an Arab Iranian Shia philosopher, Islamic scholar, architect, astronomer, mathematician, and poet who flourished in Safavid Iran during the late 16th and early 17th century. Baha' al-din al-'Amili was one of the first astronomers in the Islamic world to advocate the possibility of the Earth's movement before the outspread of the Copernican theory.

Abu Hanifa Dinawari was a Persian Islamic Golden Age astronomer, agriculturist, geographer, botanist, metallurgist, historian and mathematician. Thanks to his most famous work Book of Plants, Dinawari is regarded as the founder of Arabic botany.