Islamic astronomy played a significant role in the revival of Byzantine and European astronomy following the loss of knowledge during the early medieval period, notably with the production of Latin translations of Arabic works during the 12th century . Islamic astronomy also had an influence on Chinese astronomy and Malian astronomy.
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The Islamic world introduced the novel features of fixed location, large and fixed instruments, programmes of work, a scientific staff made up of several astronomers and royal patronage or affiliation with the state. These are all novel features for a place of astronomical work or observation. Nothing comparable can be found in Antiquity.
The Islamic world introduced the novel features of fixed location, large and fixed instruments, programmes of work, a scientific staff made up of several astronomers and royal patronage or affiliation with the state. These are all novel features for a place of astronomical work or observation.
The first major Muslim work of astronomy was Zij al-Sindhind by Persian mathematician al-Khwarizmi in 830. The work contains tables for the movements of the Sun, the Moon, and the five planets known at the time. The work is significant as it introduced Ptolemaic concepts into Islamic sciences.
The observatory as an organised and state sponsored activity began with in the Islamic world. Much progress was made in this area, particularly in eastern parts of the Islamic world. This article was first published in the International symposium on the Observatories in Islam 19-23 September 1977 (ed. M. Dizer), Istanbul 1980, pp.. 21-32.
Between the 8th and 15th centuries Islamic astronomers produced a wealth of sophisticated astronomical work. Largely through the Ptolemaic framework, they improved and refined the Ptolemaic system, compiled better tables and devised instruments that improved their ability to make observations.
Astronomers in the Islamic world conducted long-term observations in order to produce zījes. A zīj is an astronomical handbook with instructions and tables for creating calendars and calculating the positions of celestial objects as accurately as possible.
The math required for astronomy was also advanced in large part by Islamic scholars. They developed spherical trigonometry and algebra, two forms of math fundamental to precise calculations of the stars.
Today, more than 20 lunar craters bear the names of Muslim astronomers, including Alfraganus (al-Farghani), Albategnius (al-Battani) and Azophi (al-Sufi). The scholar Abu Rayhan al-Biruni (AD 973–1048) used astronomy and trigonometry to determine Earth's circumference to within 0.3% of today's accepted value.
Which of the following contributions to astronomy came from Islamic scholars? They preserved and added to ancient Greek astronomical knowledge. They introduced the use of algebra.
Nevertheless, Islam gives rise through the Quran to the use of astronomy, as distinct from astrology, in determining the time of the year (i.e. the determination of the Lunar and Solar Calendars) as well as compass bearings.
Abul Hasan is distinguished as the inventor of the Telescope, which he described to be a “Tube, to the extremities of which were attached diopters”. The Pendulum was invented by Ibn Yunus, a genius in science who lived in the reign of Aziz Billah and Hakim bi-Amr-illah, the Fatimid monarchs of Egypt.
Al-Biruni, Avicenna and others described the preparation of hundreds of drugs made from medicinal plants and chemical compounds. Islamic physicists studied optics and mechanics (as well as astronomy) and criticised Aristotle's view of motion.
There are exactly seven verses in the Quran that specify that there are seven heavens, "He it is who created for you all that is in the earth; then he turned towards the heavens, and he perfected them as seven heavens; and he has perfect knowledge of all things." One verse says that each heaven or sky has its own order ...
Islamic mathematicians gathered, organised and clarified the mathematics they inherited from ancient Egypt, Greece, India, Mesopotamia and Persia, and went on to make innovations of their own.
Here Hassani shares his top 10 outstanding Muslim inventions:Surgery. Around the year 1,000, the celebrated doctor Al Zahrawi published a 1,500 page illustrated encyclopedia of surgery that was used in Europe as a medical reference for the next 500 years. ... Coffee. ... Flying machine. ... University. ... Algebra. ... Optics. ... Music. ... Toothbrush.More items...•
Some have their names given to craters on the Moon, and the Arabic names they used for the stars are still in use today with 165 stars still bearing Arabic names. The 10th-century Persian astronomer AbdulRahman al-Sufi was the first astronomer to mention the Andromeda galaxy - the Milky Way's next-door neighbour.
There are exactly seven verses in the Quran that specify that there are seven heavens, "He it is who created for you all that is in the earth; then he turned towards the heavens, and he perfected them as seven heavens; and he has perfect knowledge of all things." One verse says that each heaven or sky has its own order ...
By studying the cosmos beyond our own planet, we can understand where we came from, where we are going, and how physics works under conditions which are impossible to recreate on Earth. In astronomy, the Universe is our laboratory!
The astronomer Claudius Ptolemy in his Almagest (2nd century) tabulated the celestial position and brightness (visual magnitude) of 1,025 stars.
Islamic mathematicians gathered, organised and clarified the mathematics they inherited from ancient Egypt, Greece, India, Mesopotamia and Persia, and went on to make innovations of their own.
By Ivan G. Nassar. In 1609, Galileo Galilei, Italian Mathematician, Astronomer and Physicist, credited as the inventor of the first telescope turned his instrument to the night sky and made astounding discoveries that forever changed mankind’s understanding of the grand scale structure of the Universe.
Al-Battani discovered the notions of trigonometrical ratios used today. Al-Biruni claimed the earth rotated around its own axis. Jabir Ibn Aflah made the first portable celestial sphere to measure and explain the movements of celestial objects.
This article was originally published as: “Islamic Astronomy”, in Christopher Walker, ed., Astronomy before the Telescope, London: British Museum Press, 1996, pp ...
Islam has had the most significant effect on the development of astronomy. A Muslim starts his day before sunrise in order to check for the break of dawn so he could perform the dawn Prayer. At the end of the day, a Muslim also checks the time of dusk in order to perform the Evening Prayer. Between ...
The Islamic observatory was a dynamic scientific specialized institution with its own scientific staff, director, astronomical program, large astronomical instruments and building. Islamic observatories were also the earliest institutions to emphasize group research and in them theoretical investigations went hand in hand with observations.
The early eminent Muslim astronomers include Al-Battani, al-Sufi, al-Biruni and Ibn Yunus. Al-Battani (d. 929), known to the Latins as Albategni or Albatenius, was the author of the Sabian Tables (Al-Zij al-Sabi), a work which had great impact on his successors [2]. His improved tables of the sun and the moon comprise his discovery that the direction of the sun’s eccentric as recorded by Ptolemy was changing. This, in modern astronomy, means the Earth is moving in varying ellipse [3]. He also worked on the timing of the new moons, the length of the solar and sideral year, the prediction of eclipses, and the phenomenon of parallax, carrying us “to the verge of relativity and the space age”, Wickens asserts [4].
Further advance in the construction of observatories is observed at Samarqand where Ulugh Beg founded an observatory in around 1424. It was a ‘monumental’ building equipped with a huge meridian, made of masonry, symbol of the observatory as a long lasting institution [15]. A trench of about 2 metres wide was dug in a hill, along the line of the meridian, and in it was placed the segment of the arc of the instrument. Built for solar and planetary observations, it was equipped with the finest instruments available, including a ‘Fakhri sextant’, with a radius of 40.4 metres, which made it the largest astronomical instrument of its type. The main use of the sextant was to determine the basic constants of astronomy, such as the length of the tropical year.
1009), in his observation endeavours used, amongst others, a large astrolabe of nearly 1.4 m in diameter, and made observations which included more than 10, 000 entries of the sun’s position throughout the years [9].
Belonging to the same era, Abd-al Rahman al-Sufi (903-986) made several observations on the obliquity of the ecliptic and the motion of the sun (or the length of the solar year [7] . ) He became renowned for his observations and descriptions of the stars, their positions, their magnitudes (brightness) and their colour, setting out his results constellation by constellation, for each constellation, providing two drawings, one from the outside of a celestial globe, and the other from the inside (as seen from the sky) [8]. Al-Sufi also wrote on the astrolabe, finding thousands of uses for it. En par with other learned Muslims, he also pinpointed shortcomings of Greek astronomy.
In the history of astronomy, the tradition of Islamic or Arabic astronomy was one of the most thriving and dynamic. Its contribution to astronomical knowledge extend over several centuries during the Islamic classical age, from the 8th century until at least the late 16th century. Its written corpus was mostly written in the Arabic language and the areas of its production took place in the Middle East, Central Asia, Al-Andalus, and North Africa, and later in China and India. The tradition of astronomy in Islamic science closely parallels the genesis of other sciences in its assimilation of foreign material and the amalgamation of the disparate elements of that material to create a science. These included Sassanid, Hellenistic and Indian works in particular, which were translated and built upon. In turn, Islamic astronomy later had a significant influence on Indian, Byzantine and European astronomy as well as Chinese astronomy.
Observation of the sky had begun in earnest in Islam. The observatory [13] as a distinct scientific institution for observation, and where astronomy and allied subjects were researched, also owes its origin to Islamic science [14].
One of the most well known astronomical tools called an Astrolabe was created by the Greek thinker Hipparcus but was perfected by islamic scientists, particularly women. Mariam al-Astrulabi was a Syrian female astrolab maker from the 10th century.
On the surface of the moon there are twenty four craters named after the Muslim astronomers who’ve paved the way for the modern science and astronomy.
Ptolemy was trying to find an explanation for how these bodies orbited in the sky, including how the Earth moved within these parameters. Ptolemy calculated that the wobble of the Earth, or precession as we now know it, varied 1 degree every 100 years.
Astronomy may be the oldest natural science in the world. Before humans ever took to systematically studying the skies, we were craning our necks upwards, observing the curious movements of some bright points of light, and the stillness of others. Civilizations around the world have incorporated astronomical observations into everything ...
Perhaps the most significant contribution Ibn al-Haytham gave to the world was a methodical way of conducting experiments repeatedly in order to test a theory, this became known as the scientific method, the foundation for science as we know it. He noted in his research that, “The duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads, and ... attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency.”
Asad Ahmed, professor of Islamic studies and the history of science at UC Berkeley explains, “ The purpose of this couple was to explain the apparent linear motion of certain heavenly bodies on the basis of circular motion.”. But as we know now, the motions in the heavens are continuous and not stationary.
In 859 AD the first university was built in Fez, Morocco. It was conceived of and started by Fatima al-Fihri, the daughter of a wealthy merchant. Scholars from all over the world including Christian and Jewish scientists traveled there to study astronomy, math and philosophy.
Astronomical Innovation in the Islamic World. Between the 8th and 15th centuries Islamic astronomers produced a wealth of sophisticated astronomical work . Largely through the Ptolemaic framework, they improved and refined the Ptolemaic system, compiled better tables and devised instruments that improved their ability to make observations.
In other cases, like the work of Ibn al-Hatheym's Doubts on Ptolomey, went far beyond translating and transmitting knowledge to developing an extensive critique of Ptolomey, and turned the mathematical models into a physical representation of movement in the heavens.
Above, is an example of one of the Constellations described in the Book of the Fixed Stars -- in this case, the constellation Andromeda. In hind sight, this drawing is particularly significant because the star on the right side of Andromeda' s belt is actually one of only a few galaxies visible to the naked eye. Suwar al-kawakib. (Book of the Fixed Stars) 946/ 1417. African and Middle Eastern Division
Aside from Abu Mashar's work in astrology, his translations of Greek texts, in particular Aristotle's works, played an essential role in disseminating Aristotle's ideas in the Islamic world and later in Europe. His work was translated from Arabic into Latin in the 12th century and was held in great esteem by Medieval and Renaissance intellectuals.
Written around 964 the book contains extensive illustrations of each constellation from both the terrestrial perspective, looking up from Earth, and the inverse, as the constellation would look from outside the sphere of the fixed stars. Al-Sufi's drawings became the canonical representations of these constellations.
al-Farghani (died after 861), known in the west as Alfraganus, wrote Elements of Astronomy on the Celestial Motions around 833. This textbook provided a largely non-mathematical presentation of Ptolomy's Almagest, updated with revised values from previous Islamic astronomers.
It is a potent representation of how Islamic astronomers played a pivotal role teaching Europe astronomy. Written between 833 and 857, al-Farghani's work is a thorough, readable, and non-mathematical summary of Ptolemaic astronomy.
Ordinarily, the major task of an Islamic observatory and its traditional program of work was the construction of astronomical tables. In Al-Ma’mûn’s observatories, only solar and lunar tables were prepared. But there is also a star catalogue made by Al-Ma’mûn’s astronomers, and sources contain references to planetary observations made in his observatories. These planetary observations were apparently of a sporadic nature. [3]
Al-Ma’mûn not only built the first observatory in Islam, but he arguably built the first observatory in the world or in history. The observatory made its first appearance in Islam as an organized and specialized institution for work in astronomy. Al-Ma’mûn’s observatories did not enjoy long life.
Indeed, Istanbul with its active commercial dealings especially in maritime trade and its thriving Venetian, Genoese, and Ragusan colonies, was a metropolis well suited to traffic in ideas and cultural contact between the East and the West. It was itself the foremost representative and repository of Islamic science and culture. The European mathematicians Mordecai Comtino (d. 1478) and Elia Misrahi (1456-1526) – were very familiar with the Ottoman capital, and, in fact, both died there. Comtino gave one of the early examples of the use of positional decimal fractions in Europe, and Misrahi is known to have brought from Istanbul to Basel important summation formulas used somewhat later by such mathematicians as Bonaventura Cavalieri (1598-1647) in their work paving the way toward the emergence of the integral calculus. Both Comtino and Misrahi were carriers of influence originating especially from the work of Ghiyâthuddin al Kâshi (or Kâshânî), one of Ulugh Beg’s co-workers in the Samarqand Observatory.
Europe established close cultural contact with Islam by becoming engaged in systematic and intense translation activities from Arabic scientific and philosophical works during the twelfth century, and this cultural contact did not cease thereafter. Alphonso X, Spanish king of the second half of the thirteenth century, made an attempt; it seems, to transplant the Islamic tradition of building observatories into Western Europe. But this did not succeed, perhaps because astrology was frowned upon by the Church and the perception of the utility of astronomy in the Christian World was rather weak in comparison to that prevailing in Islam.
A few observatories exceeded, reached, or even came close to this ideal, however. These were the Maragha Observatory founded by Hulagu and the Samarqand Observatory of Ulugh Beg, The Malikshah Observatory at Isfahan and the Tabriz Observatory of Ghazan Khan too may have enjoyed relatively long lives.
The Islamic world introduced the novel features of fixed location, large and fixed instruments, programmes of work, a scientific staff made up of several astronomers and royal patronage or affiliation with the state. These are all novel features for a place of astronomical work or observation. Nothing comparable can be found in Antiquity. Al-Ma’mûn not only built the first observatory in Islam, but he arguably built the first observatory in the world or in history. The observatory made its first appearance in Islam as an organized and specialized institution for work in astronomy.
This is of course partly because, beginning with the Seljuks, Turks gained political supremacy and predominance in Islam.
Islamic astronomy played a significant role in the revival of Byzantine and European astronomy following the loss of knowledge during the early medieval period, notably with the production of Latin translations of Arabic works during the 12th century . Islamic astronomy also had an influence on Chinese astronomy and Malian astronomy.
Baghdad and Damascus became the centers of such activity. The first major Muslim work of astronomy was Zij al-Sindhind by Persian mathematician al-Khwarizmi in 830. The work contains tables for the movements of the Sun, the Moon and the five planets known at the time.
The device was incredibly useful, and sometime during the 10th century it was brought to Europe from the Muslim world, where it inspired Latin scholars to take up a vested interest in both math and astronomy. Despite how much we know much about the tool, many of the functions of the device have become lost to history. Although it is true that there are many surviving instruction manuals, historians have come to the conclusion that there are more functions of specialized astrolabes that we do not know of. One example of this is an astrolabe created by Nasir al-Din al-Tusi in Aleppo in the year 1328/29 C.E. This particular astrolabe was special and is hailed by historians as the "most sophisticated astrolabe ever made", being known to have five distinct universal uses.
In the early Joseon period, the Islamic calendar served as a basis for calendar reform being more accurate than the existing Chinese-based calendars. A Korean translation of the Huihui Lifa, a text combining Chinese astronomy with Islamic astronomy works of Jamal ad-Din, was studied in Korea under the Joseon Dynasty during the time of Sejong in the fifteenth century. The tradition of Chinese-Islamic astronomy survived in Korea up until the early nineteenth century.
Celestial globes were used primarily for solving problems in celestial astronomy. Today, 126 such instruments remain worldwide, the oldest from the 11th century. The altitude of the Sun, or the Right Ascension and Declination of stars could be calculated with these by inputting the location of the observer on the meridian ring of the globe. The initial blueprint for a portable celestial globe to measure celestial coordinates came from Spanish Muslim astronomer Jabir ibn Aflah (d. 1145). Another skillful Muslim astronomer working on celestial globes was ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi (b. 903), whose treatise describes how to design the constellation images on the globe, as well as how to use the celestial globe. However, it was in Iraq in the 10th century that astronomer Al-Battani was working on celestial globes to record celestial data. This was different because up until then, the traditional use for a celestial globe was as an observational instrument. Al-Battani’s treatise describes in detail the plotting coordinates for 1,022 stars, as well as how the stars should be marked. An armillary sphere had similar applications. No early Islamic armillary spheres survive, but several treatises on "the instrument with the rings" were written. In this context there is also an Islamic development, the spherical astrolabe, of which only one complete instrument, from the 14th century, has survived.
While Abbasid era and later Muslim scholars made great contributions to astronomy, early scripture of the tafsir (or exegesis) of the Quran, and hadith (records of sayings and doings of the Prophet Muhammad) indicate early Muslims concepts of the universe were based on the appearance and movement of sun, moon, stars, and planets in the sky. and not the ideas of some Greek philosophers of the earth being spherical, the sun much larger than the earth and much more distant than the moon, etc. The Quran frequently mentions the "Earth" or "land" as "spreadout", a "bed", "carpet"; the heavens being a canopy or building (Q.2:22 binaa ( بِنَاء ) or binaan ).
A large corpus of literature from Islamic astronomy remains today, numbering approximately 10,000 manuscripts scattered throughout the world, many of which have not been read or catalogued. Even so, a reasonably accurate picture of Islamic activity in the field of astronomy can be reconstructed.
Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi’s work entitled “Figures of the Stars” is regarded as one of the masterpieces of observational astronomy in Islam. Abu Said al-Sijzi constructed an astrolabe based on the motion of earth around the sun.
The lunar theory proposed two centuries later by Copernicus is almost the same as that introduced by ibn al-Shatir. There is great probability that Copernicus was aware with ibn al-Shatir’s work through translations and followed ibn al-Shatir’s views in developing his theory.
Thabit also added a ninth sphere to the eight of Ptolemaic astronomy. Following the Thabit ibn Qurrah’s line of study, another Muslim astronomer al-Battani (Albategnius) made some of most important contributions in Islamic astronomy. “He discovered the increase of the sun’s apogee since time of Ptolemy which led to the discovery ...
Al-Tusi’s student Qutub al-Din al-Shirazi developed the variation of this model for Mercury. And in the fourteenth century, Ibn al-Shatir completed the lunar model in his work entitled “A Text of the Final Inquiry in Amending the Elements”. Ibn al-Shatir introduced a second epicycle in both lunar and solar systems.
This model, which was later completed by his student Qutub al-Din al-Shirazi, sought to lay more emphasis on the spherical nature of the heavens by placing the Earth at the geometric center of the heavenly spheres. Al-Tusi conceived two spheres rolling one within the other to explain the apparent motion of the planets.
In the twelfth century, an anti-Ptolemy trend set in to Spanish Muslim astronomers. The scholars like Jabir ibn Aflah and ibn Tufail criticized the Ptolemy model and proposed a system based solely on eccentric spheres.
Science is nothing new to Islam and our faith encourages the study of such sciences–they not only help one in worldly matters of knowledge but contribute to a greater understanding of the self within this universe. The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China, and the West, Toby E. Huff.