The Development of Astronomy in the Islamicate Third/Ninth Century: A Case Study of Planetary Sizes and Distances in Claudius Ptolemy, Ḥabash al-Ḥāsib, al-Farghānī, Thābit b. Qurra, and Pseudo-Qusṭā b. Lūqā
While the astronomers of Abbasid Baghdad were creating new methods of observation and updating astronomical values, they were also engaged in the translation movement, in which scientific texts from ancient languages like Greek, Persian, and Sanskrit were translated into Arabic. One of the ancient s...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2024
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| In: |
Journal of Abbasid Studies
Year: 2024, Volume: 11, Issue: 2, Pages: 171-200 |
| Further subjects: | B
Claudius Ptolemy
B translation movement B al-Maʾmūn B Baghdad B history of science B Astronomy |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | While the astronomers of Abbasid Baghdad were creating new methods of observation and updating astronomical values, they were also engaged in the translation movement, in which scientific texts from ancient languages like Greek, Persian, and Sanskrit were translated into Arabic. One of the ancient scientists with whose ideas the third/ninth-century astronomers engaged was Claudius Ptolemy, the second-century CE Alexandrian astronomer whose oeuvre comprises our best evidence for Greco-Roman astronomy. This article examines the work of four astronomers working in Baghdad under the Abbasid caliph al-Maʾmūn (r. 198–218/813–833) — Ḥabash al-Ḥāsib (fl. 214–50/829–64), al-Farghānī (d. after 247/861), Thābit b. Qurra (d. 288/901), and a writer we may identify as Qusṭā b. Lūqā (d. ca. 300/913) — and compares their work to that of Ptolemy in terms of their values for the sizes and distances of the heavenly bodies. The article will conclude with some evidence that someone during the Islamicate third/ninth century was undertaking new observations of the planets, based on new values for their sizes and distances. |
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| ISSN: | 2214-2371 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of Abbasid Studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/22142371-00802025 |
