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A Non-Ptolemaic Lunar Model From Fourteenth-Century Central Asia*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Ahmad Dallal
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Extract

As early as the ninth century, Muslim astronomers started refining the Ptolemaic astronomy which, by this time, had been fully adopted as the framework of their research. Already, in the early part of this century, refinements were based on improved observational techniques, and included a variety of phenomena such as the length of the seasons, the solar equation, mean motion parameters, and many others.

Type
Research Article
Information
Arabic Sciences and Philosophy , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , September 1992 , pp. 237 - 297
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

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12 For references to this work see Brockelmann, C., Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur (Leiden, 1937), vol. II, pp. 277–9, and Suppl. II, pp. 300–1; al-Dujaylī, A'lām al- 'Arab, II, 162;Google ScholarHājī Khalīfa, Kashf al-ẓnūn, II, 315; Kaḥḥā1a, Mu ‘jam almu’allifin, VI, 246;, al-Luknawī al-Fawā'id al-bahiyya, p. 94;Google ScholarSuter, Heinrich, Die Mathematiker und Astronomen der Araber und ihre Werke (Leipzig, 1900), # 404; Ṭāshkoprūzāde, Miftāḥ al-sa ādah, II, 182; al-Zarkalī, al-A lām, IV, 354; and Zaydān, Tārīkh ādāb al-lugha, II, 239.Google Scholar

13 The present author wishes to express his gratitude to those librarians who cooperated with him by supplying microfilm copies of the MSS in their possession.Google Scholar

14 For a catelogue reference to this MS see Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum orientlium qui in Museo Britannico asservantur, Part 2. Cod. Arab. Amplect. (London, 1846–1871), # 400.Google Scholar

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16 For a catalogue reference to this MS see ibid., p. 165.

17 For a catalogue reference to this MS see Flügel, Gustav, Die Arabischen, Persischen und Türkischen Handschriften der Kaiserlich-Königlichen Hofbibliothek zu Wien (Wien, 1865), vol. XI, p. 13.Google Scholar

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21 See Pedersen, Olaf, A Survey of the Almagest (Denmark, 1974), P. 161.Google Scholar

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23 For the corresponding sections see Ragep, Cosmography in the Tadhkira, VI, pp. 93–4, and Shīrāzī, al-Tuḥfa, fols. –80r, 81r.Google Scholar

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35 For the corresponding sections see Ragep, Cosmography in the Tadhkira, VI, p. 104. and Shīrāzī, al-Tuḥfa, fol. 88r.Google Scholar

36 For the sections discussing the first variation see Shīrāzī, al-Tuḥfa, fols. 88r-88v, and Ragep, Cosmography in the Tadhkira VI, pp. 103–5.Google Scholar

37 For an illustration of the method given by Ptolemy to prove this point see Neugebauer, Otto, A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy (New York, 1975), Part 1, p. 57. also see Ptolemy's Almagest, Book III, p. 156, and Pedersen, A Survey of the Almagest, pp. 141–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 See Ragep, Cosmography in the Tadhkira, V, p. 61; VI, p. 103, and Shīrāzī, al-Tuḥfa, fol. 88v.Google Scholar

39 SeeShīrāzī, al-Tuḥfa, fol. 90v.Google Scholar

40 See Ptolemy's Almagest, Book V, p. 238.Google Scholar

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42 See MS A, fol. 21v.Google Scholar

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46 See Ragep, Cosmography in the Tadhkira, VI, p. 170.Google Scholar

47 See Ibid., VI, p.172.

48 See MS A, fol. 23r.Google Scholar

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52 See Ragep, Cosmography in the Tadhkira, VI, pp. 156–61.Google Scholar

53 For futher discussion of the Ṭūsī couple see, for example, Neugebauer, Ancient Mathematical Astronomy, pp. 1035, 1456.Google Scholar

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56 For the earliest use of this method of homocentric spheres by Eudoxus see Neugebauer, Exact Sciences in Antiquity, pp. 153–6.Google Scholar

57 See Ragep, Cosmography in the Tadhkira, VI, pp. 175–83.Google Scholar

58 For a full discussion of the spherical couple see Saliba, and Kenndy, E.S. “The spherical case of the Ṭūsī couple”, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 1 (1991): 285–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

59 On the contributions of 'Urḍī and his influence on Shīrāzī see Saliba, “Astronomical work of al-'Urḍ”, and Saliba, , “Falakī min Dimashq yaruddu ‘alā hay’at Baṭlamyūs”, Journal for the Histry of Arabic Science, 4 (1980): 3–17;on 'Urḍī's lemma seeGoogle ScholarSaliba, “Arabic astronomy and Copernicus”, For a discussion of the lunar models of both Shīrāzī and 'Urḍī see Saliba, “Islamic planetary theories,” pp. 49–60. also for 'Urḍī's lunar model see Salina, “A medieval Arabic reform”. For Shīrāzī's discussion of 'Urḍī, and the presentation of his own model see Tuḥfa, fol. 97v–98v, and fol. 98v–100v.Google Scholar

60 See paragraph [13] above.Google Scholar

61 On the work of Ibn al-Shāṭir see Abbud, Fund, “The planetary theory of Ibn al-Shāṭir: reduction of the geometric models to numerical tables”, Isis, 53 (1962): 492–9; on Copernicus see Swerdlow-Neugebauer, Mathematical Astronomy, pp. 196–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

62 For the corresponding sections see Ragep, Cosmography in the Tadhira, VI, p. 105. and Shīrāzī, al-Tuḥfa fols. 89v–90r. This same problem is raised by Ibn al-Shāṭir in his al-Zīj al-jadīd; in this zīj the above variation, for which a table is computed, is called naql al-qamar.Google Scholar