Mathematical Astronomy in Islamic Civilisation

Abstract

From the ninth century to the fifteenth, Muslim scholars excelled in every branch of scientific knowledge; their contributions in astronomy and mathematics are particularly impressive. Even though there are an estimated 10, 000 Islamic astronomical manuscripts and close to 1, 000 Islamic astronomical instruments preserved in libraries and museums around the world, and even if all of them were properly catalogued and indexed, the picture that we could reconstruct of Islamic astronomy, especially for the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries, would be quite deficient. For most of the available manuscripts and instruments date from the later period of Islamic astronomy, from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, and although some of these are based or modelled on earlier works, many of the early works are extant in unique copies and others have been lost almost without trace; we know only of their titles. The thirteenth-century Syrian scientific biographer Ibn al-Qiftī relates that the eleventh-century Egyptian astronomer Ibn al-Sanbadī heard that the manuscripts in the library in Cairo were being catalogued and so he went to have a look at the works relating to his field. He found 6, 500 manuscripts relating to astronomy, mathematics, and philosophy. Not one of these survives amongst the 2, 500 scientific manuscripts preserved in Cairo today.