Arabic Astronomy in Sanskrit : Al-Birjandī on Tadhkira II, Chapter 11 and its Sanskrit Translation /
:
This book provides the first presentation of the bilingual textual material that illustrates the transmission of Islamic astronomy to scientists of the Indian Sanskritic tradition. It includes editions of the chapter of the Tadhkira in which the mid-thirteenth century Persian astronomer, Nasīr al-dīn al-ṭūsī discussed the new solutions that he devised to overcome certain technical problems in the lunar and planetary models of Ptolemaic astronomy and of the learned commentary composed by al-Birjandī in the early sixteenth century together with the Sanskrit translation of both made by Nayanasukha at Jaipur in 1729. An English translation of the Arabic texts and a commentary discussing their technical meanings and the deviations from them in the Sanskrit version together with a glossary of the Arabic and Sanskrit technical vocabulary conclude the volume.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004453418
9789004124752
Brill's Companion to Hellenistic Astronomy : a The Science in Its Contexts /
:
In Hellenistic Astronomy: The Science in Its Contexts , new essays by renowned scholars address questions about what the ancient science of the heavens was in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean worlds, and the numerous contexts in which it was pursued. Together, these essays will enable readers not only to understand the technical accomplishments of this ancient science but also to appreciate their historical significance by locating the questions, challenges, and issues inspiring them in their political, medical, philosophical, literary, and religious contexts.
:
1 online resource :
9789004400566
Volkstümliche Astronomie im islamischen Mittelalter : zur Bestimmung der Gebetszeiten und der Qibla bei al-Aṣbaḥī, Ibn Raḥīq und al-Fārisī /
:
This volume deals with the determination of the times of Muslim prayer and the direction towards the Kaaba in Mecca (Arabic qibla ) in a little known astronomical tradition of the Islamic Middle Ages. It presents an edition, translation, and explanation of selected chapters from three of the most important folk astronomical treatises, written by al-Aṣbaḥī (Yemen, 13th c.), Ibn Raḥīq (Hejaz, 11th c.), and al-Fārisī (Yemen, 13th c.). The first part introduces the authors and their works and describes the relevant religious and astronomical background. The second part comprises the edition of the selected - and now for the first time published - chapters of the three works and a German translation. The third part contains a lexicographical survey with basic astronomical, religious, and related information, and a commentary on each chapter. The fourth part gives an overview of the topics dicussed.
:
Originally presented as the author's thesis (Doctoral)--Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main, 2005. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [731]-765) and index. :
9789047420507 :
0169-8729 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Keeping watch in Babylon : the astronomical diaries in context /
:
This volume of collected essays, the first of its kind in any language, investigates the Astronomical Diaries from ancient Babylon, a collection of almost 1000 clay tablets which, over a period of some five hundred years (6th century to 1st century BCE), record observations of selected astronomical phenomena as well as the economy and history of Mesopotamia and surrounding regions. The volume asks who the scholars were, what motivated them to 'keep watch in Babylon' and how their approach changed in the course of the collection's long history. Contributors come from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, including Assyriology, Classics, ancient history, the history of science and the history of religion.
:
1 online resource. :
9789004397767
Head of all years : astronomy and calendars at Qumran in their ancient context /
:
Rather than being an isolated, primitive body of knowledge the Jewish calendar tradition of 364 days constituted an integral part of the astronomical science of the ancient world. This tradition-attested in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Pseudepigrapha-stands out as a coherent, novel synthesis, representing the Jewish authors' apocalyptic worldview. The calendar is studied here both "from within"-analyzing its textual manifestations -and "from without"-via a comparison with ancient Mesopotamian astronomy. This analysis reveals that the calendrical realm constituted a significant case of inter-cultural borrowing, pertinent to similar such cases in ancient literature. Special attention is given to the "Book of Astronomy" (1 Enoch 72-82) and a variety of calendrical and liturgical texts from Qumran.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [289]-307) and indexes. :
9789047424192 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Astral sciences in Mesopotamia /
:
Astronomy and astrology, or the astral sciences, played an enormous, if not a key role in the political and religious life of the Ancient Near East, and, later, of the Greek and Roman world. This is the first comprehensive and up-to-date account of the origins of the astral sciences in the Ancient Near East. Every type of Sumerian or Akkadian text dealing with descriptive or mathematical astronomy, including many individual tablets are thoroughly dealt with. All aspects, such as the history of discovery, reconstruction, and interpretation come to the fore, accompanied by a full bibliography. At that the reader will find descriptions of astronomical contents, an explanation of their scientific meaning and the place a given genre or tablet has in the development of astronomy both within the Mesopotamian culture and outside of it. Because celestial omens are intimately related to astronomy in Mesopotamian science, these are also discussed extensively. The material is arranged both chronologically and thematically, so as to help make Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia a reference work on the subject in its truest sense.
:
1 online resource (xviii, 303 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 278-292) and index. :
9789004294134 :
0169-9423 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
On Both Sides of the Strait of Gibraltar : Studies in the history of medieval astronomy in the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghrib /
:
"In On Both Sides of the Strait of Gibraltar Julio Samsó studies the history of medieval astronomy in al-Andalus (Muslim Spain), the Maghrib and the Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula. He proves that the Arabic, Latin, Hebrew, Castilian and Catalan sources belong to the same tradition whose origin can be dated in the 11th century due to the changes in Ptolemy's astronomical theory introduced by the Toledan astronomer Ibn al-Zarqālluh/Azarquiel. The book also analyses the role of al-Andalus and the Iberian Peninsula in the transmission of Islamic astronomy to Europe and justifies the fact that Eastern Islamic works published after ca. 950 CE were not accessible to medieval European scholars because they had not reached al-Andalus"--
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004436589
9789004436565
Zodiac calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls and their reception : ancient astronomy and astrology in early Judaism /
:
The ancient mathematical basis of the Aramaic calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls is analysed in this investigation. Helen R. Jacobus re-examines an Aramaic zodiac calendar with a thunder divination text (4Q318) and the calendar from the Aramaic Astronomical Book (4Q208 - 4Q209), all from Qumran. Jacobus demonstrates that 4Q318 is an ancestor of the Jewish calendar today and that it helps us to understand 4Q208 - 4Q209. She argues that these calendars were taught in antiquity as angelic knowledge described in 1 Enoch and the Book of Jubilees . The study also encompasses Babylonian, Hellenistic, Byzantine astronomy and astrology, and classical and Jewish writings. Finally, a medieval Hebrew zodiac calendar related to 4Q318 with an astrological text is published here for the first time.
:
Conference proceedings of the Institute of Jewish Studies, University College London. :
1 online resource (xxi, 533 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 461-526) and index. :
9789004284067 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Seh risāla az Thābit b. Qurra : Sāʿathā-yi āftābī, Ḥarakat-i khurshīd u māh, Chahārdah wajhī muḥāṭ dar kurah /
:
Thābit b. Qurra (d. 288/901) was a gifted mathematician, scientist and translator of many Greek scientific works, who knew Greek, Syriac and Arabic. He might have spent his entire life in his native Ḥarrān as a money-changer were it not for his chance encounter with Muḥammad b. Mūsā (259/873) of the famous Banū Mūsā brothers, specialists in mathematics and astronomy and among the most important intellectuals of Baghdad at the time. Appreciating his intelligence and his mastery of languages, Muḥammad took Thābit back with him to Baghdad, where he was trained in philosophy, astronomy and mathematics. Thābit then set out on a brilliant career as a translator and author in his own right, writing on all the applied sciences of his time. This facsimile edition of three texts on sundials, solar and lunar motions, and a fourteen-sided solid inside a sphere reproduces the well-known MS Istanbul, Köprülü 948, dated 370/981, copied by Thābit's grandson Ibrāhīm.
:
"Nuskhah bargardān bih qaṭʻ-i aṣl-i nuskhah-i khaṭṭī bih shumārah-i 948 Kitābkhānah-i Kūprūlū (Istānbūl) kitābat 370 hijrī".
"A facsimile edition of the manuscript (MS 948, Koprulu Library, Istanbul, Turkey) copied in 370 A.H (981 A.D)"--Added title page. :
1 online resource. :
9789004406360
9786002030511
Die Weltentstehung des Platonischen Timaios nach den antiken Interpreten.
: Presented in part as the author's Habilitationsschrift, Münster, 1974. : 1 online resource (1 volumes) : Includes bibliographical references and indexes. : 9789004320512 : Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Die Weltentstehung des Platonischen Timaios nach den antiken Interpreten.
: Presented in part as the author's Habilitationsschrift, Münster, 1974. : 1 online resource (1 volumes) : Includes bibliographical references and indexes. : 9789004320567 : Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Jahān-i dānish /
:
Sharaf al-Din Mas'ūdi (6th/12th cent.) was a philosopher, astronomer, mathematician and logician. A native of Marw, he spent a large part of his life in Bukhara and Samarqand, Transoxiana. In Bukhara he had a number of debates with the philosopher and theologian Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī (d. 606/1210), described in the latter's Munāẓarāt jarat fī bilād Mā warāʾ al-nahr . From among his philosophical works, his critical notes to Avicenna's (d. 428/1037) al-Ishārāt wal-tanbīhāt deserve special mention. In the sciences, he wrote a work on astronomy and geography called al-Kifāya fī ʿilm al-hayʾa . In the introduction to this work he explains that he composed it at the request of a friend and that it is based on the works of others, among then Ibn al-Haytham (d. ca. 432/1040-41) and Kushyār b. Labbān (fl. late 4th/10th cent.). Afterwards, he translated it into Persian-this time without mentioning his sources-calling it Jahāni- dānish , published in this volume.
:
1 online resource. :
9789004403383
9789646781764
In Synchrony with the Heavens, Volume 2 Instruments of Mass Calculation : (Studies X-XVIII) /
:
This is the first investigation of one of the main interests of astronomy in Islamic civilization, namely, timekeeping by the sun and stars and the regulation of the astronomically-defined times of Muslim prayer. The study is based on over 500 medieval astronomical manuscripts first identified by the author, now preserved in libraries all over the world and originally from the entire Islamic world from the Maghrib to Central Asia and the Yemen. The materials presented provide new insights into the early development of the prayer ritual in Islam. They also call into question the popular notion that religion could not inspire serious scientific activity. Only one of the hundreds of astronomical tables discussed here was known in medieval Europe, which is one reason why the entire corpus has remained unknown until the present. A second volume, also to be published by Brill, deals with astronomical instruments for timekeeping and other computing devices.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047406754
9789004141889
Zīj-i Yamīnī /
:
In Islamic science, a zīj is an astronomical handbook made up of tables and text. Between the 2nd/8th and 13th/19th centuries, over 200 such works were written, many of them lost. Famous zīj are al-Zīj al-Ṣābiʾ by al-Battānī (ca 300/900), al-Qānūn al-Masʿūdī by al-Bīrūnī (421/1030), and Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī's (d. 672/1274) Zīj-i Īlkhānī . The Zīj-i Yamīnī published in facsimile here was compiled in Ghazna in 511/1156 by a certain Muḥammad al-Ḥaqāʾiqī and dedicated to the Ghaznavid ruler Bahrāmshāh b. Masʿūd b. Maḥmūd (reg. 511-552/1117-1157). It is the third oldest zīj in Persian, after the Zīj-i mufrad of Muḥammad b. Ayyūb Ṭabarī (485/1092) and the Persian translation of Kūshyār b. Labbān Gīlānī's (fl. ca. 390/1000) Arabic al-Zīj al-jāmiʿ by Muḥammad b. ʿUmar Munajjim-i Tabrīzī in 483/1090. Al-Ḥaqāʾiqī based himself on the works of others, notably al-Battānī's al-Zīj al-Ṣābiʿ , whose data he then recalculated for the city of Ghazna where necessary. Good example of early scientific Persian.
:
1 online resource. :
9789004407305
9786002031303
Writing science before the Greek s a naturalistic analysis of the Babylonian astronomical treatise MUL.APIN /
:
The beginnings of written science have long been associated with classical Greece. Yet in ancient Mesopotamia, highly-sophisticated scientific works in cuneiform script were in active use while Greek civilization flourished in the West. The subject of this volume is the astronomical series MUL.APIN, which can be dated to the seventh century BCE and which represents the crowning achievement of traditional Mesopotamian observational astronomy. Writing Science before the Greeks explores this early text from the perspective of modern cognitive science in an effort to articulate the processes underlying its composition. The analysis suggests that writing itself, through the cumulative recording of observations, played a role in the evolution of scientific thought. \'All in all, the authors should be congratulated for this groundbreaking study. Apart from significant new insights into MUL.APIN it has opened up a new avenue for research on ancient scientific texts that is likely to yield further interesting results, particularly if the cognitive analysis is combined with other approaches.\' Mathieu Ossendrijver, Humboldt University
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004202313 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Star of Bethlehem and the Magi : interdisciplinary perspectives from experts on the ancient Near East, the Greco-Roman world, and modern astronomy /
:
This book is the fruit of the first ever interdisciplinary international scientific conference on Matthew's story of the Star of Bethlehem and the Magi, held in 2014 at the University of Groningen, and attended by world-leading specialists in all relevant fields: modern astronomy, the ancient near-eastern and Greco-Roman worlds, the history of science, and religion. The scholarly discussions and the exchange of the interdisciplinary views proved to be immensely fruitful and resulted in the present book. Its twenty chapters describe the various aspects of The Star: the history of its interpretation, ancient near-eastern astronomy and astrology and the Magi, astrology in the Greco-Roman and the Jewish worlds, and the early Christian world - at a generally accessible level. An epilogue summarizes the fact-fiction balance of the most famous star which has ever shone.
:
Papers edited from a colloquium The Star of Bethlehem: Historical and Astronomical Perspectives held October 22-24, 2014 in Groningen, Netherlands. :
1 online resource (xxii, 695 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004308473 :
1388-3909 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
New perspectives on Aristotle's De caelo /
:
This volume is the first collection of scholarly articles in any modern language devoted to Aristotle's De caelo . It grew out of series of workshops held at Princeton, Cambridge, and Paris in the late 1990's. Since Aristotle's De caelo had a major influence on cosmological thinking until the time of Galileo and Kepler and helped to shape the way in which Western civilization imagined its natural environment and place at the center of the universe, familiarity with the main doctrines of the De caelo is a prerequisite for an understanding of much of the thought and culture of antiquity and the Middle Ages. This book is also available in paperback.
:
Papers presented at a series of workshops held at Princeton, Cambridge and Paris in the late 1990's. :
1 online resource. :
"Aristotle's De caelo: a bibliography"--P. [283]-298.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004189829 :
0079-1687 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Rawḍat al-munajjimīn /
:
In the first centuries of Islam, Arabic gradually replaced Middle Persian to become the language of the new religion and the administration of Iran. Works in Middle Persian were translated into Arabic and Persian authors also started writing directly in Arabic. From the fifth/eleventh century onward, there arose a need for works in New Persian, either translated from Arabic or composed in New Persian straightaway. The work published in this volume is a product of that period. Not much is known about the life of its author, Shahmardān b. Abi ʼl-Khayr. A resident of Gurgān and Astarābād, he was a scholar who also worked as a secretary and financial officer. In astronomy, he was a student of Abu ʼl-Ḥasan Nasawī (fl. 2nd quart. 5th/11th cent.). Shahmardān's work is an accessible, popularized compilation of the works of others, among them Abū Maʿshar (d. 272/886), Kushyār b. Labbān (fl. late 4th/10th cent.), and Bīrūnī (d. 440/1048)
:
1 online resource. :
9789004403673
9789646781795
Al-Tadhkira fī ʿilm al-hayʾa /
:
Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274) was an influential philosopher, theologian, mathematician and astronomer, besides being the first director of the famous observatory at Marāghah near Tabriz as well as a man of politics. The author of a large number of works, he is especially famous for such treatises as his Tajrīd al-iʿtiqād on theology; the Zīj-i Īlkhānī on astronomy; the Ḥall mushkilāt al-Ishārāt ; his influential commentary on Avicenna's (428/1037) Kitāb al-ishārāt wal-tanbīhāt on philosophy and logic; and his Akhlāq-i Nāṣirī on ethics. Another famous work is his Tadhkira fī ʿilm al-hayʾa published here. As stated by the editor, this is one of the most important and influential astronomical works written in the pre-modern Islamic world. It belongs to the second phase of Ṭūsī's academic career and constitutes a synthesis between two earlier works by him, written when he was still working for the Nizārī Ismailis. Arabic text and apparatus, Persian introduction translated from the English edition.
:
1 online resource. :
9789004406476
9786002030917