A Sixteenth-Century Arabic Critique of Ptolemaic Astronomy: The Work of Shams Al-Din Al-Khafri

Saliba G. , “An observational notebook of a thirteenth-century astronomer”, Isis, lxxiv (1983), 388–401. For the history of the Marāgha Observatory, and its relationship to other observatories, see Sayih Aydin , The observatory in Islam and its place in the general history of the observatory (Ankara, 1960), 187–223.

See Saliba G. , “The astronomical tradition of Marāgha: A historical survey and prospects for future research”, Arabic sciences and philosophy, i (1991), 67–99.

Saliba G. , “Early Arabic critique of Ptolemaic cosmology: A ninth-century text on the motion of the celestial spheres”, Journal for the history of astronomy (forthcoming).

I need not re-emphasise here the importance of this result. My contention is that it forces us to revise the commonly held opinion regarding the rise of scientific activities in early Islamic times in relation to the translation movement of the Greek scientific texts.

Saliba G. , “Al-Qushjī's reform of the Ptolemaic model for Mercury”, Arabic sciences and philosophy (forthcoming).

For biographical references to this author, see Suter Heinrich , Die Mathematiker und Astronomen der Araber und ihre Werke (Leipzig, 1900), 148, where he is called el-Ḥafari; Brockelmann Carl , Geschichte der Arabischen Literatur , 1. Band (Weimar, 1898; hereafter GI), 2. Band (Berlin, 1902; hereafter GII), and Supplement 1.-3. Band (Leiden, 1937–39; hereafter SI-SIII). Brockelmann refers to him as al-Hodri in the index to GII, and as al-Ḥḍrî and al-Ḥafrî on p. 509 of GI, but also as al-Hiḍrī and al-Hafarī, on pp. 926 and 931 of SI. The most extensive biography is that of Mirzā Muḥammad Bāqir al-Mūsawī al-Khwansārī al-Isbahānī, Rawḍāt al-Jannāt , ed. by Ismā'īliān Asadullah (Qom, 1392 A.H. (= 1972)), vii, 194–7, and iv, 373, where he is systematically referred to as Khafrī. Other biographers include: Riḍā Kaḥḥāla, in his Mu'jam al-Mu'allifīn (Damascus, 1957–61), viii, 257, who refers to him as al-Khḍrī, and so does 'Abd al-Wahhāb al-Jābī, Mu'jam al-A 'lām, following al-Zirqilī's work with the same title (Beirut, 1987), 671, and Ismā'īl Bāshā al-Baghdādī, Hadīyat al-'Ārifīn fī Asmā' al-Mu'allifīn wa-Āthār al-Muṣannifīn (Istanbul, 1951–55), ii, 229; Āgha Buzurg Tehrānī (Muḥammad Muḥsin), who in al-Dharī 'a ilā taṣānīf al-Shi 'a (Najaf, 1959), xiii, 144, calls him al-Khafrī, as does Muḥsin al-Amīn, A 'yan al-Shī 'a (Beirut, 1959), xliii, 281, and Ḥasan al-Ṣadr, Takmilat Amal al-Āmil, ed. by al-Ḥusainī Aḥmad and al-Mar'ashī Maḥmūd (Beirut, 1986), 374, and 'Abd al-Nabī al-Qazwīnī, Tatmīm Amal-al-Āmil, ed. by al-Ḥusainī Aḥmad and al-Mar'ashī Maḥmūd (Qom, 1407 A.H.), 119; Nūr Allāh Shūshtarī (1610/11), Majālis al-Mu 'minīn (Teheran, 1986), ii, 233–4; and Muḥammad Ma'ṣum Shīrāzī (Ma'ṣūm 'Alī Shāh), Ṭarā 'iq al-Ḥaqā 'iq, ed. by Maḥjūb Ja'far Muḥammad (Teheran ?, n.d.), 133. The last two references were brought to my attention by my colleague Professor Ḥamīd Dabashī.

Rawḍāt al-Jannāt (ref. 6), vii, 196. Shushtarī , Majālis (ref. 6), interprets these events as being an indication of Khafrī's excellence in Shi'ite and Mu'tazilite dogma.

See, for example, Brockelmann , SI, 926, where he says that al-Hafarî was a student of al-Taftāzānī, and GII, 215, and SI, 468, 508, where he notes that al-Taftāzānī died in 1389.

See, for example, Dharī 'a (ref. 6).

See for example, Suter , op. cit. (ref. 6), 116.

On the relationship between planetary theories and religious studies, see the Introduction to A history of Arabic astronomy: Planetary theories during the golden age of Islam, by Saliba G. (New York University Press, forthcoming).

Ibid., and Saliba G. , “Persian scientists in the Islamic world: Astronomy from Maragha to Samarqand” (forthcoming).

Khūrī Ibrāhīm , Fihris Makhṭūṭāt Dār al-Kutub al-Żāhirīya: 'ilm al-hay'a wa-mulḥaqātuhu (Damascus, 1969), 17, 18.

I am grateful to the officials of these libraries for supplying me with microfilms of the manuscripts in their possession for this study.

Khūrī , op. cit. (ref. 13), 18.

For a discussion of these solutions, as well as other solutions already studied, see Saliba , “The astronomical tradition of Maragha” (ref. 2), 68–80.

Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, Tadhkira, Leiden Arabic manuscript 905, fol. 47r.

For the solutions of Ṭūsī and Shīrāzī, see Saliba , “The astronomical tradition of Maragha” (ref. 2), 73–74.

Published by Kennedy E. S. , “Late medieval planetary theory”, Isis, lvii (1966), 365–78, esp. pp. 375–7.

See, for example, Saliba George , The astronomical work of Mu'ayyad al-Dīn al-'Urḍī: A thirteenth century reform of Ptolemaic astronomy (Beirut, 1990), English Introduction, 50–55; idem, “A medieval Arabic reform of the Ptolemaic lunar model”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xx (1989), 157–64.

Saliba , The astronomical work of Mu 'ayyad al-Dīn al-'Urḍī (ref. 20), 55–58.

Saliba , “Al-Qushjī's reform” (ref. 5).

Ṭūsī , op. cit. (ref. 17), folio 44r.

Saliba , “Al-Qushjī's reform” (ref. 5).

According to Brockelmann, both Nīsābūrī and Shīrāzī were students of Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī. For Nīsābūrī, see GII, 211, no. 2, where he is cited as a student of Ṭūsī, and SII, 273 where his commentary on Ṭūsī's Tadhkira is mentioned. Nīsābūrī himself, however, mentions Shīrāzī as his teacher, in Sharḥ al-Majisṭī, Asiatic Society (Calcutta) manuscript, Arabic 1494, fol. 5v, which is more likely for he seems to have lived during the fourteenth century. For Shīrāzī, see Brockelmann , GII, 211, and SII, 296.

I have demonstrated the interdependence between Shīrāzī's work and that of 'Urḍī in two articles, namely, “The original source of Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī's planetary model”, Journal for the history of Arabic science, iii (1979), 3–18, and “The height of the atmosphere according to Mu'ayyad al-Dīn al-'Urḍī, Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrazī, and Ibn Mu'ādh”, in From deferent to equant: A volume of studies in the history of science in the ancient and medieval Near East in honor of E. S. Kennedy, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol. 500 (1987), 445–65.

Kennedy , “Late medieval planetary theory” (ref. 19), esp. pp. 373–5.

Saliba G. , “A redeployment of mathematics in a sixteenth century Arabic critique of Ptolemaic astronomy”, Colloque international, perspectives medievales arabes, latines, hebraiques, sur la tradition scientifique et philosophique grecque, Paris, 1 April 1993 (forthcoming).

al-Amīn Muḥsin , A 'yān al-Shī 'a (Beirut, 1959), xliv, 234–43, esp. p. 243.

'Abd al-Nabl al-Qazwīnī (12th century A.H.), Tatmīm Amal al-Āmil, ed. by al-Ḥusaini Aḥmad and al-Mar'ashī Maḥmūd (Qom, 1407 A.H.), 119.

Muḥammad Muḥsin (Āgha Buzurg Tehrạnī), al-Dharī 'a ilā Taṣānīf al-Shī 'a (Najaf, 1959), xiii, 144.