The Locales of Islamic Astronomical Instrumentation

Well over a thousand astrolabes and hundreds of globes, quadrants, sundials and other devices, have survived (out of which at least 150 astrolabes, a dozen quadrants and about 20 sundials are from before a.d. 1600), and more than 500 treatises written in Arabic, Persian or Ottoman Turkish on the construction and use of astronomical instruments are documented. For a checklist of Islamic instruments to c. 1500, see King David A. , In synchrony with the heavens: Studies in astronomical timekeeping and instrumentation in medieval Islamic civilization (2 vols, Leiden, 2004), ii, 993–1020.

For Islamic observatories, the classic study is Sayih Ayden , The observatory in Islam and its place in the general history of the observatory (Ankara, 1960).

I borrow the idea from a lecture delivered by Sabra A. I. in 1995, in which he considered the court, the madrasa and the mosque as the three main loci of scientific activities in Islam: Sabra, “Situating Arabic science: Locality versus essence”, Isis, lxxxvii (1996), 654–70, esp. pp. 661ff.

No attempt is made here to be exhaustive, and the account is limited to the Eastern lands of Islam.

A good illustration of this are the inscriptions on some seventeenth-century astrolabes from Safavid Iran; see e.g. my description of astrolabe AST0594 in: François Charette, “Eastern astrolabes”, in van Kleempoel Koenraad (ed.), Astrolabes at Greenwich: A catalogue of the astrolabes in the National Maritime Museum (Oxford and Greenwich, 2006), 210–335.

Ibn al-Nadīm (ed. by Tajaddud R. ), Kitāb al-Fihrist (Tehran, 1971; hereafter Fihrist), 332; for a translation see King , Synchrony (ref. 1), ii, 453–5.

Al-Fazārī wrote treatises on the use of the planispheric astrolabe, the armillary sphere and the spherical astrolabe: See Sezgin Fuat , Geschichte des Arabischen Schrifttums (Leiden, 1967–84; hereafter GAS), v, 124. That he wrote a treatise on the spherical astrolabe (which Sezgin identifies incorrectly with that on the armillary sphere) is attested in MS Leiden, Universiteitsbiblioteek, Or. 98, f. 20r. Ibn al-Nadīm attributes to Māshā'allāh a treatise on the construction and use of the astrolabe ( Sezgin , GAS, vi, 128) and another on the armillary sphere (Fihrist, 333; not in GAS). 'Umar ibn al-Farrukhān's son Muḣammad wrote a text on the use of the astrolabe (Fihrist, 332; GAS, vi, 137). We have no information about the possible knowledge of instrument-making in Sasanian Persia (cf. Pingree David , “Astorlāb”, in Encyclopedia Iranica), but it may not be too far-fetched to speculate that the above-named Iranian astrologers' knowledge of the construction and use of astronomical instruments may have originated, at least in part, from Persia, through eventual Pahlavi translations or adaptation of Greek material.

A good illustration of both points is the little-known but important figure of Theophilus of Edessa (d. 785), a Syro-Byzantine scholar who was the court astrologer of the caliph al-Mahdī (reg. 775–85). His associate Stephanos the Philosopher was also active in Baghdad in the eighth century. See Gutas Dimitri , Greek thought, Arabic culture: The Graeco-Arabic translation movement in Baghdad and early Abbasid society (2nd-4th/8th-10th centuries) (London, 1998), 16, 180–1; Sezgin , GAS, vii, 48–50; Pingree David , “The Greek influence on early Islamic mathematical astronomy”, Journal of the American Oriental Society, xciii (1973), 32–43, p. 35. The city of Harran (home of the famous Sabeans) also appears to have been a major centre of astrolabe-making, since many of the astrolabists of the ninth and tenth centuries listed by Ibn al-Nadīm have the nisba al-Ḣarrānī.

For instance the fabulous library of the Fatimid caliphs contained, according to a fanciful anecdote, “a globe of copper stated to have been constructed by Ptolemy and bearing an inscription stating that it had been acquired by Khālid b. Yazīd b. Mu'āwiya”: See the article “Maktaba” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn (Leiden, 1960–2003; hereafter EI²). The latter was the son of the second Umayyad caliph, and his name is associated by later legend with the practice of alchemy.

For example an astrolabe now in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (inv. no. AST0566), was stolen in 1844 from the palace of the King of Lucknow: See Charette , “Eastern astrolabes” (ref. 5).

See the recent edition by Lorch Richard , al-Farghani on the astrolabe (Stuttgart, 2005).

See the article “Marsad” in EI².

Sayih , Observatory (ref. 2), 57, 71.

There is some evidence that observations of the planets were also conducted during al-Ma'mūn's reign.

Ironically, the defective armillary sphere mentioned above had apparently been made by Khālid himself. See Sayih , Observatory (ref. 2), 72. But the source of this information, Ibn al-Nadīm, may have referred to another instrument.

Ibid., 72–73. Two late sources (fifteenth and sixteenth century) also mention an azimuthal quadrant in connection with early observations made in Damascus, and Sayih presumes that it must refer to Dayr Murrān.

One sha'īra, i.e. one 144^th of a cubit, which is less than 4mm. See the article “Dhirā”' in EI² (ref. 9).

Most historians of astronomy see the main reason behind the caliph's sponsorship of extensive observations in the profound malaise occasioned by the conflicting coexistence of Indian and Greek theories, and the necessity to update age-old parameters. But I find more likely that the prevalent fondness for astrology and its progressive amalgamation to an Aristotelian natural philosophical worldview created a pressing demand for accurate astrological predictions, hence the need for better computations of planetary positions. The Abbasid patronage of astrology led to a truly prodigious output of astrological writings, many of which became “classical” texts, if only because a very large number of them were later translated into Latin and exerted a profound influence on Western civilization.

His original name was Bīzist ibn Fīruzān: See Pingree , “Greek influence” (ref. 8), 39 n. 70.

See the article “Munadjdjim, Banū 'l-” in EI² (ref. 9).

On which see al-Bīrūnī (transl. by Ali J. ), The determination of the coordinates of positions for the correction of distances between cities (Beirut, 1967), 178–9; King David “Too many cooks: A new account of the earliest Muslim geodetic measurements”, Suhayl (Barcelona), i (2000), 207–41, and the references cited therein.

The first one, signed Khafīf and undated, is in the Museum for the History of Science in Oxford; see King , Synchrony (ref. 1), ii, 458–65; cf. Gunther Robert T. , The astrolabes of the world (2 vols, Oxford, 1932), i, 16–18; Mayer Leo A. , Islamic astrolabists and their works (Geneva, 1956), 54. The second, by Khalaf Aḣmadibn , also undated but made for Ja'far, son of the caliph al-Muktafī bi-llāh, is in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France: See King , Synchrony (ref. 1), ii, 466–70; Gunther , Astrolabes, i, 230.

See King , Synchrony (ref. 1), i, 232–6.

On tables (including those of al-Khwārizmī) see King David , Astronomy in the service of Islam (Aldershot, 1993), article II. On lunar visibility theories see e.g. Kennedy E. S. , “The lunar visibility theory of Ya'qūb ibn ṫāriq”, Journal of Near Eastern studies, xxvii (1968), 126–32; Hogendijk J. P. , “New light on the lunar crescent visibility table of Ya'qūb ibn Ṫāriq”, Journal of Near Eastern studies, xlvii (1988), 95–104; Morelon R. , Thābit ibn Qurra: Oeuvres d'astronomie (Paris, 1987), 93–116; and King , ibid., article III.

Gutas D. convincingly argued that this institution, far from being a “scientific academy”, was in fact nothing more than an administrative palatial library of Sassanian inspiration where, under al-Ma'mūn's reign, a few scholars such as al-Khwārizmī were also employed: See Gutas , Greek thought (ref. 8), 53–60.

Charette François Schmidl Petra , “al-Khwārizmī and practical astronomy in ninth-century Baghdad: The earliest extant corpus of texts in Arabic on the astrolabe and other portable instruments”, SCIAMVS (Kyoto), v (2004), 101–98.

Kraemer Joel , Humanism in the renaissance of Islam: The cultural revival during the Buyid age, 2nd edn (Leiden, 1992); Lapidus Ira , A history of Islamic societies (Cambridge, 1988), chap. 9.

For example his famous book on the fixed stars and his astronomical tables. He also dedicated works to Sharaf al-Dawla and Samsam al-Dawla: See Sezgin , GAS, vi, 315, nos. 3–4.

Sayih , Observatory (ref. 2), 106–7.

Bīrūnī , Determination (ref. 21), 86.

Wiedemann E. Juynboll Th. W. , “Avicennas Schrift über ein von ihm ersonnenes Beobachtungsinstrument”, Acta Orientalia, xi (1926), 81–167, repr. in Wiedeman E. , Gesammelte Schriften (3 vols, Frankfurt, 1984–85), ii, 1117–1203; Sayih , Observatory (ref. 2), 156–8.

The Russian historian Barthold V. V. claimed that “before Ulūgh Beg, the Muslim world had possessed no scholarly monarch”: Four studies on the history of Central Asia, ii: Ulugh-Beg (Leiden, 1959), 129. In this respect, the Persian historian Dawlatshāh ranked him second only to Alexander the Great.

For a description of an astrolabe dated 1291 preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, made by al- Ashraf 'Umar, a prince of the Rasulid dynasty that ruled the Yemen from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, see King , Synchrony (ref. 1), ii, 615–57. The instrument was made a few years before he became sultan in 1295. On his scientific scholarship see also Varisco Daniel , Medieval agriculture and Islamic science: The almanac of a Yemeni sultan (Seattle, 1994). For insights concerning the interaction of mathematicians and artisans, see Saliba George , “Artisans and mathematicians in medieval Islam”, Journal of the American Oriental Society, cxix (1999), 637–45.

See ref. 8 above.

See Morrison Robert G. , “The intellectual development of Niżām al-Dīn al-Nīsāpūrī (d. 1329 A.D.)”, unpublished doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, 1998, 43–64 [available from http://wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations, UMI no. 9910640].

See Berkey Jonathan , The transmission of knowledge in medieval Cairo: A social history of Islamic education (Princeton, 1992); Chamberlain Michael , Knowledge and social practice in medieval Damascus, 1190–1350 (Cambridge, 1994).

See King David , “On the role of the muezzin and the muwaqqit in medieval Islamic society”, in Ragep J. Ragep S. Livesey S. (eds), Tradition, transmission, transformation (Leiden, 1996), 285–345, repr. with minor changes in idem, Synchrony (ref. 1), i, 623–77; and idem, “The astronomy of the Mamluks”, Isis, lxxiv (1983), 531–55.

See the essays in King , Service (ref. 24) and idem, Synchrony (ref. 1), i.

The term mīqātī generally referred to any individual who practised mīqāt without necessarily holding a formal position as muwaqqit. As several muezzins were also muwaqqits it is sometimes difficult to draw sharp distinctions between these appellations.

Witkam J. J. , De egyptische arts Ibn al-Akfānī (gest. 749/1348) en zijn indeling van den wetenschappen (Leiden, 1989), 59.

For biographies of scholars in which their skills in instrument-making are praised, see e.g. Kathīr Ibn , al-Bidāya wa-'l-nihāya (Beirut, 1966), xiv, 168; al-Ṡafadī , Nakt al-himyān fī nukat al-'umyān (Cairo, 1997), 209.

Nallino C. A. , 'Ilm al-falak: Tā'rīkhuhu 'inda al-'Arab fī al-qurūn al-wusṫá (Rome, 1911); Italian translation in idem, Raccolta di scritti editi e inediti (6 vols, Rome, 1939–45), v, 88–329.

Nallino C. A. , article “Ilm al-falak”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam (1st edn, Leiden, 1913–34), i, 497–501.

See e.g. Brentjes Sonja , “On the location of the ancient or ‘rational’ sciences in Muslim educational landscapes (AH 500–1100)”, Bulletin of the Royal Institute of Inter-faith Studies (Amman, Jordan), iv (2004), 47–71.

See Kennedy Edward S. Ghanem Imad , (eds), The life and works of Ibn al-Shāṫir, an Arab astronomer of the fourteenth century (Aleppo, 1976). On the question of the influence of the Islamic non-Ptolemaic astronomical tradition in Renaissance Europe see Saliba George , A history of Arabic astronomy: Planetary theories in the Golden Age of Islam (New York, 1994), 245–305; Ragep F. Jamil , “Ṫūsī and Copernicus: The Earth's motion in context”, Science in context, xiv (2001), 145–63; and idem, “Alī Qushjī and Regiomontanus: Eccentric transformations and Copernican revolutions”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xxxvi (2005), 359–71.

See Charette François , Mathematical instrumentation in fourteenth-century Egypt and Syria: The illustrated treatise of Najm al-Dīn al-MiṠrī (Leiden, 2003), 16–17; for descriptions of his instruments see King , Synchrony (ref. 1), ii, 691–94, 712–15; and idem, Islamic astronomical intruments (London, 1987), article XII.

Sabra A. I. , “The appropriation and subsequent naturalization of Greek science in medieval Islam: A preliminary statement”, History of science, xxv (1987), 223–43, p. 241. Elsewhere he characterized ilm al-mīqāt as representing “narrowly circumscribed programs that largely developed within the confines of an institution with no commitment to ‘science’ as such”: Sabra, “Situating” (ref. 3), 669.

Charette , Instrumentation (ref. 46), 19.

Ibid., 7.

This text, titled Kashf al-qinā ‘fī rasm al-arbā’, is extant in numerous copies and has never been studied. I have recently found that Ibn al-'Aṫṫar's own commentary and elaboration on his Kashf (whose dense style makes it difficult to read) exists in a unique copy in Ann Arbor, Michigan, entitled Jawharat al-yawāqīt al-jāmi'a li-ālāt al-mawāqīt. Its study is likely to reveal new interesting information on Mamluk instrument-making.

See ref. 46 above.

A monograph on this instrument, including editions and translations of all related texts, is in preparation by David King and the present author. A brief description is in King , Synchrony, ii, 694–700.

Kemp Martin , “Temples of the body and temples of the cosmos: Vision and visualization in the Vesalian and Copernican revolutions”, in Baigrie B. (ed.), Picturing knowledge: Historical and philosophical problems concerning the use of art in science (Toronto, 1996), 40–85.

It is also interesting to note that the copy of al-Jazarī's treatise in the Bodleian Library was made by a sixteenth-century muwaqqit, Ibn Abī al-Fatḣ al-Ṡūfī; see Hill Donald , The book of knowledge on ingenious mechanical devices by Ibn al-Razzāz al-Jazarī (London, 1979).

Kennedy Ghanem , Ibn al-Shaṫir (ref. 45), 11–15 (Arabic section).

Obviously instruments and models were always important didactic tools, even in Antiquity, and this was surely the case in Abbasid and Buyid urban centres. Conversely, we may also find a few cases of “courtly patronage” relating to instrumentation in the Mamluk period; for instance al-Wafā'ī's treatise on an equatorial dial of his invention was dedicated to a Mamluk amīr: See King David , A survey of the scientific manuscripts in the Egyptian National Library (Winona Lake, IN, 1986), no. C61.

The lists in Tables 2(a) and 2(b) are restricted to Eastern Islam before c. 1600 and are not intended to be exhaustive.

See King , Synchrony (ref. 1), ii, 725–44.

Ibid., 754–65.

Ibid., 784–92.

Ibid., 792–6.