Astronomy and Astrology in the Islamic World

Astronomy and Astrology in the Islamic World PDF Author: Stephen P. Blake
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748649115
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
It was the astronomers and mathematicians of the Islamic world who provided the theories and concepts that paved the way from the geocentric theories of Claudius Ptolemy in the second century AD to the heliocentric breakthroughs of Nicholas Copernicus and Johannes Kepler in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Algebra, the Arabic numeral system, and trigonometry: all these and more originated in the Muslim East and undergirded an increasingly accurate and sophisticated understanding of the movements of the Sun, Moon, and planets. This nontechnical overview of the Islamic advances in the heavenly sciences allows the general reader to appreciate (for the first time) the absolutely crucial role that Muslim scientists played in the overall development of astronomy and astrology in the Eurasian world.

Astronomy and Astrology in the Islamic World

Astronomy and Astrology in the Islamic World PDF Author: Stephen P. Blake
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748649115
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 184

Get Book Here

Book Description
It was the astronomers and mathematicians of the Islamic world who provided the theories and concepts that paved the way from the geocentric theories of Claudius Ptolemy in the second century AD to the heliocentric breakthroughs of Nicholas Copernicus and Johannes Kepler in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Algebra, the Arabic numeral system, and trigonometry: all these and more originated in the Muslim East and undergirded an increasingly accurate and sophisticated understanding of the movements of the Sun, Moon, and planets. This nontechnical overview of the Islamic advances in the heavenly sciences allows the general reader to appreciate (for the first time) the absolutely crucial role that Muslim scientists played in the overall development of astronomy and astrology in the Eurasian world.

Astronomy and Astrology in the Medieval Islamic World

Astronomy and Astrology in the Medieval Islamic World PDF Author: Edward S. Kennedy
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
This collection of studies by Edward Kennedy looks first at questions of spherical astronomy, celestial mapping and planetary models, and then deals with astrological calculations. Throughout the author emphasises the importance of advances in mathematics for understanding the development of medieval Arabic sciences. This collection of studies based on previously unexploited manuscript sources in Arabic and Persian. They were written by authors from the 9th through the 15th centuries, whose locations reached from south China in the east through Central Asia, the Middle and Near East, and North Africa, to Spain in the west. The topics are predominately astronomical rather than astrological. The former include eclipse predictions, problems in spherical astronomy, non-ptolemaic planetary theory, and the achievements of Ulugh Beg and his observatory. Astrological subjects treated are the method of calculating the ascendant, and how to determine astrological houses and lots. An astrological history of the career of Genghis Khan is also described.

A History of Arabic Astronomy

A History of Arabic Astronomy PDF Author: George Saliba
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814738893
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
A History of Arabic Astronomy is a comprehensive survey of Arabic planetary theories from the eleventh century to the fifteenth century based on recent manuscript discoveries. George Saliba argues that the medieval period, often called a period of decline in Islamic intellectual history, was scientifically speaking, a very productive period in which astronomical theories of the highest order were produced. Based on the most recent manuscript discoveries, this book broadly surveys developments in Arabic planetary theories from the eleventh century to the fifteenth. Taken together, the primary texts and essays assembled in this book reverse traditional beliefs about the rise and fall of Arabic science, demonstrating how the traditional “age of decline” in Arabic science was indeed a “Golden Age” as far as astronomy was concerned. Some of the techniques and mathematical theorems developed during this period were identical to those which were employed by Copernicus in developing his own non-Ptolemaic astronomy. Significantly, this volume will shed much-needed light on the conditions under which such theories were developed in medieval Islam. It clearly demonstrates the distinction that was drawn between astronomical activities and astrological ones, and reveals, contrary to common perceptions about medieval Islam, the accommodation that was obviously reached between religion and astronomy, and the degree to which astronomical planetary theories were supported, and at times even financed, by the religious community itself. This in stark contrast to the systematic attacks leveled by the same religious community against astrology. To students of European intellectual history, the book reveals the technical relationship between the astronomy of the Arabs and that of Copernicus. Saliba’s definitive work will be of particular interest to historians of Arabic science as well as to historians of medieval and Renaissance European science.

Astrology and Cosmology in the World’s Religions

Astrology and Cosmology in the World’s Religions PDF Author: Nicholas Campion
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814708420
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
When you think of astrology, you may think of the horoscope section in your local paper, or of Nancy Reagan's consultations with an astrologer in the White House in the 1980s. Yet almost every religion uses some form of astrology: some way of thinking about the sun, moon, stars, and planets and how they hold significance for human lives on earth. Astrology and Cosmology in the World’s Religions offers an accessible overview of the astrologies of the world's religions, placing them into context within theories of how the wider universe came into being and operates. Campion traces beliefs about the heavens among peoples ranging from ancient Egypt and China, to Australia and Polynesia, and India and the Islamic world. Addressing each religion in a separate chapter, Campion outlines how, by observing the celestial bodies, people have engaged with the divine, managed the future, and attempted to understand events here on earth. This fascinating text offers a unique way to delve into comparative religions and will also appeal to those intrigued by New Age topics.

Astronomy and Astrology in al-Andalus and the Maghrib

Astronomy and Astrology in al-Andalus and the Maghrib PDF Author: Julio Samsó
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000946592
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 381

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Book Description
This new volume of papers by Julio Samsó deals with the development of astronomy and astrology in al-Andalus and the Maghrib between the 10th and the 19th centuries. Opening with a survey of the social history of the exact sciences in al-Andalus, the book then looks at astronomical tables: the first stages of the introduction of al-Khwarizmi's and al-Battani's tables through the school of Maslama al-Majriti, the development of Ibn al-Zarqalluh/ Azarquiel's theories in Maghribi zijes (Ibn al-Banna' and Ibn Azzuz) and the abandonment of this tradition towards the end of the 14th century. From this period onwards new Eastern zijes (Muhyi al-Din al-Maghribi, Ibn al-Shatir, Ulugh Beg) are introduced in the Maghrib and, towards the beginning of the 17th century, a translation of Abraham Zacut and José Vizinho's Almanach Perpetuum (end of the 15th century) becomes well known in the whole Islamic world, from Morocco to the Yemen. As well as zijes themselves, the author also deals with theoretical astronomy (the use of an elliptical deferent for Mercury in Ibn al-Zarqalluh's equatorium and the criticisms of Ibn al-Haytham and Jabir b. Aflah on Ptolemy's determination of the parameters of the same planet), and with the use of zijes for the calculation of horoscopes, and an experimental astrological method for the correction of mean motion planetary tables (Ibn Azzuz).

Astronomy in the Service of Islam

Astronomy in the Service of Islam PDF Author: David A. King
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
Delineates the two very different traditions of astronomy in medieval Islam: legal scholars watched the crescent moon to keep the calendar, and used shadows to keep the hours and direction of prayer, while astronomers constructed elaborate theories and mathematical tables to approach ever more precision in times and directions. The articles are reproduced from their original publication in various journals, 1982-91.

Art of the Islamic World

Art of the Islamic World PDF Author: Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.)
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
ISBN: 1588394824
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Family guide, Dazzling details in folded front cover.

A Brief Introduction to Astronomy in the Middle East

A Brief Introduction to Astronomy in the Middle East PDF Author: John M. Steele
Publisher: Saqi
ISBN: 0863568963
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 115

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Book Description
The Middle East is the birthplace of astronomy and the centre for its development during the medieval period. In this brief introduction John Steele offers an intriguing insight into Middle Eastern achievements in astronomy and their profound influence on the rest of the world. Amongst other things, the book traces the Late Babylonians' ingenious schemes for modelling planetary motion. It also reveals how medieval Islamic advances in the study of the heavens, and the design of precise astronomical instruments, led to breakthroughs by Renaissance practitioners such as Copernicus and Kepler. An invaluable introduction to one of the oldest sciences in the world.

The Great Introduction to Astrology by Abū Maʿšar (2 vols.)

The Great Introduction to Astrology by Abū Maʿšar (2 vols.) PDF Author: Keiji Yamamoto †
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004381236
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 1435

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Book Description
Abū Ma’͑šar’s Great Introduction to Astrology (mid-ninth century) is the most comprehensive and influential text on astrology in the Middle Ages. In addition to presenting astrological doctrine, it provides a detailed justification for the validity of astrology and establishes its basis within the natural sciences of the philosophers. These two volumes provide a critical edition of the Arabic text; a facing English translation, which includes references to the divergences in the twelfth-century Latin translations of John of Seville and Hermann of Carinthia (Volume 1); and the large fragment of a Greek translation (edited by David Pingree). Comprehensive Arabic, English, Greek and Latin glossaries enable one to trace changes in vocabulary and terminology as the text passed from one culture to another. (Volume 2.)

Islamic Astronomy and Geography

Islamic Astronomy and Geography PDF Author: David A. King
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781409442011
Category : Astronomical geography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This volume of 12 studies, mainly published during the past 15 years, begins with an overview of the Islamic astronomy covering not only sophisticated mathematical astronomy and instrumentation but also simple folk astronomy, and the ways in which astronomy was used in the service of religion. It continues with discussions of the importance of Islamic instruments and scientific manuscript illustrations. Three studies deal with the regional schools that developed in Islamic astronomy, in this case, Egypt and the Maghrib. Another focuses on a curious astrological table for calculating the length of life of any individual. The notion of the world centred on the sacred Kaaba in Mecca inspired both astronomers and proponents of folk astronomy to propose methods for finding the qibla, or sacred direction towards the Kaaba; their activities are surveyed here. The interaction between the mathematical and folk traditions in astronomy is then illustrated by an 11th-century text on the qibla in Transoxania. The last three studies deal with an account of the geodetic measurements sponsored by the Caliph al-Ma'mûn in the 9th century; a world-map in the tradition of the 11th-century polymath al-BÃ(R)rûnÃ(R), alas corrupted by careless copying; and a table of geographical coordinates from 15th-century Egypt.