Overview
Following Ptolemy’s instructions in the Almagest that “he who comes after us throughout the epochs take measurements as we have done, and if they find an imperfection, they should correct,” Islamic works of astronomy were motivated in part with this process of minor rectifications, along with two other lines of inquiry: creation of astronomical tables (zij) and timekeeping, on the one hand, and planetary theories on the other.
Ptolemy’s Almagest remained the more influential text in medieval Islamic astronomy, along with Aristotle’s De Caelo. The Almagest provided astronomers with important tools to solve their different practical problems, and its explanations of planetary movement were sufficiently viable to allow for its continual usage. De Caelo presented a robust philosophical system explaining planetary movement but without a viable practical model. The first class of Islamic authors included al-Kindi (d. 873; explained Almagest’s first book and wrote on Platonic...
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References and Further Reading
Kennedy ES (1966) Late medieval planetary theory. Isis 57:365–378
King DA (1984) The astronomy of the mamluks: a brief overview. Muqarnas 2:73–84
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Saliba G (2002) Greek astronomy and the medieval Arabic tradition the medieval Islamic astronomers were not merely translators. They may also have played a key role in the Copernican revolution. Am Sci 90:360–67
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Ragab, A. (2014). Planetary Theories and Cosmology, Islamic Theories. In: Amils, R., et al. Encyclopedia of Astrobiology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27833-4_5188-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27833-4_5188-1
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