Did Copernicus borrow his cosmological theory from an earlier Muslim scientist? New research reveals that the cosmological model developed by Nicolaus Copernicus, the renowned European Renaissance polymath, closely resembles one designed by an Arab astronomer…
This chapter is organised in the following manner. Section one gives a brief overview about important periods in the history of Islamic Astronomy. This is done in order to highlight the significance of choosing to…
This paper deals with an optical aid named barbakh that Abū al-Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī (973–1048 CE) proposes for facilitating the observation of the lunar crescent in his al-Qānūn al-Mas‘ūdī VIII.14. The device consists of a long…
Syria in the 14th century was the scene of the most sophisticated developments in astronomy anywhere in the world. Shams al-Din al-Khalili was a muwaqqit, or mosque astronomer, in Damascus in the middle of that…