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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

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.

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Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

1 See Kennedy, E.S., colleagues and former students, Studies in the Islamic Exact Sciences, ed. King, David and Kennedy, Mary Helen (Beirut, 1983), p. 44.Google Scholar

2 Ibid., p. 45.

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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, 18461871), # 400.Google Scholar

15 For a catalogue reference to this MS see Ahlwardt, W., Die HandschriftenVerzeichnisse der königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin: Verzeichniss der arabischen Handschriften (Berlin, 1982), p. 432.Google Scholar

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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19 For a catalogue reference to this MS see Karatay, , Topkapi Sarayi Müzesi Kütüphanesi Arapca Yazmalar Katalogu (Istanbul, 1966) vol. III, # 6760 E.H. 1669.Google Scholar

20 For the corresponding sections in the Almagest see Ptolemy's Almagest, English trans. Toomer, G.J. (New York, 1984), Books IV–V, pp. 173216.Google Scholar

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

24 See Ragep, Cosmography in the Tadhkira, VI, pp. 93, 96, and Shīrāzī, al-Tuhfa, fols. 80r, 81v-82r.Google Scholar

25 See Ragep, Cosmography in the Tadhkira, VI, pp. 91–3, and Shīrāzīrāzīrāzī, al-Tuḥfa, fols. 80v, 84v.Google Scholar

26 See Ragep, Cosmography in the Tadhkira, VI, p. 91, and Shīrāz¯i, al-Tuhfa, fol. 78V.Google Scholar

27 For these numbers see Ragep, Cosmography in the Tadhkira, VI, p. 99, and Shīrāz¯i, al-Tuhfa, fol. 84V. For the equivalent sections see Ragep, Cosmography in the Tadhkira, VI, pp. 91–2, and Shīrāz¯i, al-Tuhfa, fol. 84V.Google Scholar

28 See Ragep, Cosmography in the Tadhkira, VI, p. 102.Google Scholar

29 For the corresponding sections see Ragep, Cosmography in the Tadhkira, VI, pp. 101–2, and Shīrāz¯i, al-Tuhfa, fol. 87r.Google Scholar

30 See below, paragraph [13].Google Scholar

31 For the corresponding sections see Ragep, Cosmography in the Tadhkira, VI, p. 102, and Shīrāzī, al-Tuḥfa, fol, 87r–87v.Google Scholar

32 For the corresponding sections see Ragep, Cosmography in the Tadhkira, VI, p. 102, and Shīrāzī, al-Tuḥfa, fols. 87r-87v.Google Scholar

33 See Neugebauer, Otto, The Exact Sciences in Antiquity (New York, 1969), pp. 193, 198.Google Scholar

34 Incidentally, the same discrepancy is noted between the interpolation function used by Copernicus and that used by Ptyolemy, resultiong in similar graphs, See graph for c4 in Noel Swerdlow and Negebauer, Otto, Mathematival Astronomy in Copernicus' De Revolutionaibus, 2 vols. (New York, 1984), Part 2, p. 600, figure 15, and compare with graph of Ṣadr.Google Scholar

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

41 For the corresponding sections see Ragep, Cosmography in the Tadhkira, VI, pp. 104–5, and Shīrāzī, al-Tuḥfa, fol. 88v.Google Scholar

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

43 For the corresponding sections see Shīrāzī, al-Tuḥfa, fols. 90v−91v, and Ragep, Cosmography in the Tadhkira, VI, pp. 176–7.Google Scholar

44 On objections to Ptoemy's models, and on the attempts to correct them see Saliba, George, “Arabic astronomy and Copernicus,” Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Isamischen Wissenschaften 1 (1981): 7387, pp. 75–84, and Saliba, “Islamic planetary theories.”Google Scholar

45 For the corresponding sections see Ragep, Cosmography in the Tadhkira, VI, p. 107, and Shīrāzī, al-Tuḥfa, fol; 95r.Google Scholar

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

49 For an explanation and proof of Ṭūs's point see the comentary in Ragep, Cosmography in the Tadhkira, IV, pp. 274–8.Google Scholar

50 See, for example, Pedersen, A Survey of the Almageast, V, p. 223.Google Scholar

51 See Saliba, Geoge, “A medieval Arabic reform of the Ptolemaic lunar model”, Journal for the Histry of Astronomy 20 (1989): 157–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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

54 For comparison see Ragep, Cosmography in the Tadhkira, VI, pp. 164–8.Google Scholar

55 For the corresponding section see Ragep, Cosmography in the Tadhkira, VI, pp. 185–90; also for a discussion of this method see same source, VI, pp. 283–98.Google Scholar

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): 317;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