Persian vs. Arabic: Language as Determinant of Content in Shīrāzī’s Works on Hay’a

Niazi, Kaveh

doi:10.1007/978-94-007-6999-1_5

Kaveh Niazi²

Part of the book series: Archimedes ((ARIM,volume 35))

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Abstract

This chapter examines several extended sections that are present in Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī but missing in Nihāyat al-idrāk fī dirāyat al-aflāk (and vice versa) in order to dispel the notion of Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī could as a translation or popularization of Nihāyat al-idrāk. Though a clear characterization of these companion works, completed within 4 months of each other, awaits the critical edition of both, it should be noted that the Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī displays the features of a commentary – a commentary in Persian, that is, on the Arabic Nihāyat al-idrāk. Of particular interest in this chapter is a discussion of Shīrāzī in regard to an original conception of the prosneusis point. This account, for which the reader of the Nihāyat al-idrāk is referred to the Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī, appears to be closely tied to Shīrāzī’s conceptualization of his Conjectural and Deductive Hypotheses, a scheme that he was forced to abandon in al-Tuḥfa al-shāhīya. This chapter demonstrates that it would be a mistake to dismiss as uninteresting or unimportant works on hay’a that were composed in Persian. Based on the evidence from Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī, the content of these works may well prove to be what their authors considered most compelling or critical.

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Notes

1.
The illustrious Bīrūnī (973 – c. 1048 C.E.) who was born in Khwārazm, states his preference for Arabic in his book on pharmacy and materia medica, Kitāb al-ṣaydanah fī al-Ṭibb, by describing what was his first-hand experience of writing a scientific treatise in Khwārazmian with inadvertently humorous results: The ill-fated work appears to have elicited astonishment as that of “a camel at the rain-gutter or a giraffe at the stream.”
Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad Bīrūnī, Āl-Biruniś Book on Pharmacy and Materia Medica (Karachi: Hamdard Academy, 1973), 12; D. Boilot, “al-Bīrūnī (Bērūnī) Abu’l-Rayḥān Muḥammad b. Aḥmad,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition (Brill Online, 2011), http://www.brillonline.nl/subscriber/entry?entry=islam_SIM-1438.
2.
Marshall G. S Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, vol. 2, 293.
3.
Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, vol. 2, 293.
4.
Kennedy, “The Exact Sciences in Iran under the Saljuqs and Mongols,” 678.
5.
Kennedy, “The Exact Sciences in Iran under the Saljuqs and Mongols,” 678. Writing on the life sciences, alchemy, and medicine, S. H. Nasr places the peak of scientific activity in Persia at an earlier date: “The Islamic conquest of Persia enabled the Persians to become members of a truly international society and to participate in a worldwide civilization in whose creation they themselves played a basic role. A homogeneous civilization which spread from the heart of Asia to Europe, possessing a common religion and a common religious and also scientific language, facilitated the exchange of ideas and prepared the ground for one of the golden ages in the history of science, in which the Persians had a major share. Islamic science came into being in the 2nd/8th century as a result of the vast effort of translation which made the scientific and philosophical traditions of antiquity available in Arabic. This early phase of activity reached its peak in the 4th/10th and 5th/11th centuries just before the Saljuq domination. During this period, which is among the most outstanding in the history of science, Persia was the main theatre of scientific activity, and although there were certainly many Arab and other non-Persian scholars and scientists, most of the figures who contributed to the remarkable philosophical and scientific activity of the age were Persians.” S. H. Nasr, “Life Sciences, Alchemy and Medicine.” In The Cambridge History of Iran, Richard Frye Ed. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999), vol. 4, 396.
6.
Storey, Persian Literature, A Bio-Bibliographical Survey (London: Luzac & Co., LTD., 1958) vol. 2, 1:35–117. These works, as a rule, await scholarly studies.
7.
It should be noted here, that a potential problem of writing hay’a works in Persian, the availability of technical terminology in Persian, was likely not an issue (at least by the fifth century A.H.), as demonstrated by Bīrūnī’s work on astronomy Kitāb al-tafhīm li-awā’il fī ṣināʻat al-tanjīm, which was completed in both Persian and Arabic versions in 1029 C.E.
8.
As with the vast majority of scientific texts from the Islamic world, neither of these works have been edited or translated at present, and thus each awaits a full and in-depth study.
9.
Saliba, “Persian Scientists in the Islamic World.” in The Persian Presence in the Islamic World, 126–146. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. It should be noted here that this essay serves primarily as a survey rather than an in-depth study of the hay’a texts it lists.
10.
Saliba, “Persian scientists in the Islamic world,” 138.
11.
As was adopted, for instance, by the aforementioned study by Kennedy.
12.
Saliba, “Persian scientists in the Islamic World,” 127.
13.
The key claim is that the Persian hay’a texts are secondary works as far as their technical merit and significance. Saliba, “Persian scientists in the Islamic World,” 138.
14.
Ibn Khaldūn, The Muqaddima (Cairo: Matba’at Mustafa Muhammad, 1945), 543.
15.
Ibn Khaldūn, The Muqaddima, 545.
16.
Storey, Persian Literature, vol. 2, 1:64; Saliba, “Persian scientists in the Islamic world,” 141.
17.
Saliba, “Persian scientists in the Islamic world,” 138.
18.
Saliba, “Persian scientists in the Islamic world,” 141.
19.
In addition, unlike the other two works of Shīrāzī that we examined in Chap. 4, Shīrāzī does not include in the Tuḥfa a preliminary list of planetary models that he considered obsolete, instead limiting himself (generally speaking) to a presentation of the models that he accepted as legitimate. The Tuḥfa is a generally more compact book than either the Ikhtīyārāt or the Nihāya, and it would be difficult to see how this work could serve as the source of a further summarized rendition of the same material.
20.
We have already commented in Chap. 4 on how the differences in the two books are primarily in the relative orientation of the various axes of rotation for the orbs of the superior planets.
21.
An example of this is a fragment that provides an alternative explanation for the necessity of existence of an epicycle, and appears in the Nihāya but not in the Ikhtīyārāt. “And as for the [possibility] of retrograde motion and all that it entails, without the presence of an epicycle, though [referred to previously] in the Fourth Hypothesis, we will [nonetheless describe it in a different manner, which will include benefits that the aforementioned [discussion] lacked.” Shīrāzī, Nihāyat al-idrāk fī dirāyat al-aflāk, Köprülü MS 956, 54r. As this fragment is a short elaboration of a point that Shīrāzī had already made, it is not terribly interesting. Examples of more substantial variations in these two works are presented in the three sections following the current one.
22.
Pedersen, A Survey of the Almagest, 266–267; James Evans, The History & Practice of Ancient Astronomy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 357.
23.
Ptolemy, The Almagest, 480.
24.
Evans, The History & Practice of Ancient Astronomy, 358.
25.
Evans, The History & Practice of Ancient Astronomy, 358.
26.
Shīrāzī, Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī, Ayasofya MS 2575, 116r.
27.
Shīrāzī, Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī, Ayasofya MS 2575, 116r.
28.
Shīrāzī, Nihāyat al-idrāk fī dirāyat al-aflāk, Köprülü MS 956, 60v.
29.
Shīrāzī, Nihāyat al-idrāk fī dirāyat al-aflāk, Köprülü MS 956, 60v.
30.
Amir Mohammad Gamini and H. Masoumi Hamedani, “Al-Shīrāzī and the Empirical Origin of Ptolemy’s Equant in His Model of the Superior Planets,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 23, 1 (2013): 47–67. I am most grateful to Dr. Gamini and Professor Masoumi Hamedani for providing a copy of their paper prior to its publication.
31.
Shīrāzī, Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī, Ayasofya MS 2575, 116v.
32.
Indeed, Gamini and Masoumi Hamedani demonstrate the existence of an error in Shīrāzī’s derivation. Shīrāzī does not include this derivation in the Tuḥfa. (See note 30).
33.
Shīrāzī, Nihāyat al-idrāk fī dirāyat al-aflāk, Köprülü MS 956, 58v.
34.
Shīrāzī, Nihāyat al-idrāk fī dirāyat al-aflāk, Köprülü MS 956, 58v.
35.
Shīrāzī, Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī, Ayasofya MS 2575, 112v.
36.
Shīrāzī, Nihāyat al-idrāk fī dirāyat al-aflāk, Köprülü MS 956, 59v.
37.
Shīrāzī, Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī, Ayasofya MS 2575, 115r.
38.
Shīrāzī, Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī, Ayasofya MS 2575, 115r.
39.
Shīrāzī, Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī, Ayasofya MS 2575, 115v.
40.
Shīrāzī, Nihāyat al-idrāk fī dirāyat al-aflāk, Köprülü MS 956, 58r.
41.
Indeed in the Ptolemaic system, the Moon and the other planets all feature “equant,” that is a point about which they exhibit uniform angular motion and that is distinct from the center of their deferent orb. As far as the alignment point, i.e., the point that serves to define the mean apogee, they are different. In the planets other than the Moon, this point is defined to be identical to the equant, whereas in the Moon it is a distinct point, the so-called “prosneusis point.”
42.
Shīrāzī, Nihāyat al-idrāk fī dirāyat al-aflāk, Köprülü MS 956, 58r.
43.
The coincidence of the alignment point and the equant holds true for the Ptolemaic configurations for the superior planets, but not so for the Moon.
44.
Shīrāzī, Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī, Ayasofya MS 2575, 67v.
45.
Shīrāzī, Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī, Ayasofya MS 2575, 68r. Shīrāzī appears to be quoting Ṭūsī directly. See Ḥall-i mushkilāt-i mu‘īnīya, Majlis MS 6346, 219r.
46.
The models presented here correspond to the ones that he presents in the chapters for the Moon and the planets in the Nihāya.
47.
Shīrāzī, Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī, Ayasofya MS 2575, 69r.
48.
Shīrāzī, Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī, Ayasofya MS 2575, 69r.
49.
Shīrāzī, Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī, Ayasofya MS 2575, 70r.
50.
Shīrāzī, Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī, Ayasofya MS 2575, 69r.
51.
Ptolemy, Almagest, 227.
52.
Ptolemy, Almagest, 227.
53.
Pedersen, A Survey of the Almagest, 192, 287, 303, 317.
54.
Ptolemy, The Almagest, 227, Pedersen, A Survey of the Almagest, 189–193.
55.
Shīrāzī, Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī, Ayasofya MS 2575, 70v. In describing the point chosen as the origin of motion as “stationary” Shīrāzī appears to be echoing al-‘Urḍī. See al-‘Urḍī, Kitāb al-hay’a, 110.
56.
Shīrāzī, Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī, Ayasofya MS 2575, 71r.
57.
Shīrāzī, Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī, Ayasofya MS 2575, 71r.
58.
Shīrāzī, Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī, Ayasofya MS 2575, 72v.
59.
Shīrāzī, Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī, Ayasofya MS 2575, 72 v.
60.
Shīrāzī, Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī, Ayasofya MS 2575, 72v.
61.
Saliba, “Arabic Planetary Theories after the 11th Century AD,” 99. Tellingly, in Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī, Ayasofya MS 2575 Shīrāzī has written near the end of his geometric proof, “Yet, I harbor further considerations in this regard.” This line is missing in Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī Majlis MS 6398.
62.
Ṭūsī, Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī’s Memoir, 59.
63.
Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance, 240.
64.
Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance, 244.
65.
Saliba, “Persian scientists in the Islamic world,” 141.
66.
Saliba, “Persian scientists in the Islamic world,” 140.
67.
Saliba, “Persian scientists in the Islamic world,” 141.
68.
Saliba, “Persian scientists in the Islamic world,” 141.
69.
Ragep, “The Persian Context of the Ṭūsī Context,” 119. See also Ragep, “Ibn al-Haytham and Eudoxus: The Revival of Homocentric Modeling in Islam,” 786–809; and Ragep and Hashemipour., “Juft-i Ṭūsī (the Ṭūsī Couple),” 472–475.
70.
Ragep, “The Persian Context of the Ṭūsī Couple,” 119. Professor Ragep states “There is nothing in the Ḥall that was not promised to his patron Mu‘īn al-Dīn in the Mu‘īnīyya; in particular, he presents his solution for the Moon and planets using the rectilinear version of his couple …, and, most significantly, he does not offer any solution of his own for the Moon’s prosneusis problem nor for the planetary latitude problem, which he much later solved with his curvilinear version of the couple....”
71.
As did Kennedy in his survey of the zīj literature. See note 4.
72.
See Bīrūnī, Āl-Biruniś Book on Pharmacy and Materia Medica, 13, and Ibn Khaldūn, The Muqaddima, 543.
73.
See Bīrūnī, Chronology of ancient nations; an English version of the Arabic text of the Athâr-ul-Bâkiya of Albîrûnî, 226, and Ibn Khaldūn, The Muqaddima, 543.
74.
Bulliet, Cotton, Climate, and Camels in Early Islamic Iran (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 128.
75.
Bulliet, Cotton, Climate, and Camels in Early Islamic Iran, 128.

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Kaveh Niazi

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Niazi, K. (2014). Persian vs. Arabic: Language as Determinant of Content in Shīrāzī’s Works on Hay’a . In: Quṭb al-Dīn Shīrāzī and the Configuration of the Heavens. Archimedes, vol 35. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6999-1_5

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6999-1_5
Published: 30 July 2013
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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