Astronomy
Many
of the intellectual sciences were developed as a direct
result of Muslims needs to fulfill the rituals and duties
of worship. Performing formal prayers, fasting as well
as other Islamic duties requires that a Muslim faces and
visit Ka'ba, the house of Abraham in Mecca. This is known
as "Qibla." To find Qibla from any part of the
globe, Muslims invented the Compass and developed the
sciences of geography and geometry.
Furthermore,
fulfillment of the former prayer and fasting also require
knowing the times of each duty. Because the prayer and
fasting times are marked by an astronomical phenomenon,
the science of astronomy underwent a major development.
For example, the Muslim's first prayer of the day starts
at dawn. Because dawn for each part of the globe is different
a timetable system good for all parts of the globe was
invented. Similarly, the second prayer begins at noon,
the third prayer starts exactly after noon, the fourth
prayer begins just after sunset and the final prayer time
is at dusk. Time tables marking prayer times for each
region of the globe flooded the Muslims world in fulfillment
of their faith.
Proving
Elliptical Orbits
12th Century
Another major Muslim duty that was a key to develop astronomy
further was the determination of the beginning and the
end of the lunar months for fasting, pilgrimage and the
Islamic holidays. These events and many more are marked
by certain days of the months of lunar calendar. For example
Ramadan is the 9th month of the Lunar calendar. Pilgrimage
in Mecca starts in the first of Thu al Hijjah (the 11th
month)and lasts for ten days ending in the Great Feast
of Sacrifice.
The
duty of Pilgrimage to Mecca, that each Muslim must make
at least once in his or her life time, is directly responsible
for the development of the science of geography. Muslims
from as far as Malaysia and Indonesia, from Europe and
Africa found their ways to Mecca. Arab pilots and the
wealth of geographical maps and books developed in the
period from 6th century to the 15th century were the engine
from which the European discoveries of the 15th century
were made. Ibn Battutah's 14th century masterpieces provided
a detailed view of the geography of the ancient world.
Making
the Pilgrimage
As
in the other sciences, astronomers in the Muslim lands
built upon and greatly expanded earlier traditions. At
the House of Knowledge founded in Baghdad by the Abbasid
caliph Mamun, scientists translated many texts from Sanskrit,
Pahlavi or Old Persian, Greek and Syriac into Arabic,
notably the great Sanskrit astronomical tables and Ptolemy's
astronomical treatise, the Almagest. Muslim astronomers
accepted the geometrical structure of the universe expounded
by Ptolemy, in which the earth rests motionless near the
center of a series of eight spheres, which encompass it,
but then faced the problem of reconciling the theoretical
model with Aristotelian physics and physical realities
derived from observation.
Big
Dipper Illustration
ibn-Ahmad
15th Century
Some
of the most impressive efforts to modify Ptolemaic theory
were made at the observatory founded by Nasir al-Din Tusi
in 1257 at Maragha in northwestern Iran and continued
by his successors at Tabriz and Damascus.
Astronomical
Handbook
16th Century
With
the assistance of Chinese colleagues, Muslim astronomers
worked out planetary models that depended solely on combinations
of uniform circular motions.
Astrolabe
The
astronomical tables compiled at Maragha served as a model
for later Muslim astronomical efforts.
The
most famous imitator was the observatory founded in 1420
by the Timurid prince Ulughbeg at Samarkand in Central
Asia, where the astronomer Ghiyath al-Din Jamshid al-Kashi
worked out his own set of astronomical tables, with sections
on diverse computations and eras, the knowledge of time,
the course of the stars, and the position of the fixed
stars.
Essentially
Ptolemaic, these tables have improved parameters and structure
as well as additional material on the Chinese Uighur-calendar.
They were widely admired and translated even as far away
as England, where John Greaves, professor at Oxford, called
attention to them in 1665.
The
Dragon (Tanin)
An example for a Muslim astronomer is Abu
Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni (973 - 1048), who
was a Persian Muslim polymath of the 11th century, whose
experiments and discoveries
Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn
Ahmad al-Biruni (973 - 1048)
were as significant and diverse as those
of Leonardo da Vinci or Galileo, five hundred years before
the Renaissance. Al-Biruni was well-known in the Muslim
world. He was a scientist, an anthropologist, an astronomer,
an astrologer, an encyclopedist, mathematician, pharmacist,
philosopher, and historian. George Sarton, the father
of the history of science, described al-Biruni as:
"One of the very greatest scientists
of Islam, and, all considered, one of the greatest of
all times." - George
Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science, Vol. 1,
p. 707.
A. I. Sabra desribed al-Biruni as:
"One of the great scientific
minds in all history." -
A. I. Sabra, Ibn al-Haytham, Harvard Magazine, September-October
2003.
Encyclopedia Britannica said this about
al Biruni:
"...in full Abu
ar-Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni Persian scholar
and scientist, one of the most learned men of his age
and an outstanding intellectual figure....Possessing a
profound and original mind of encyclopaedic scope, al-Biruni
was conversant with Turkish, Persian, Sanskrit, Hebrew,
and Syriac in addition to the Arabic."
Here is some of al
Biruni's work regarding the moon eclipse.
An illustration
from Beruni's in Persian. It shows different phases of
the moon.
Today, on the moon
there is a crater named after al-Biruni.
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