1st Edition
Reflections on Observational Astronomy in the Medieval Islamic Period
Introduction
Part I. Solar Astronomy
Chapter 1. Limitations of Methods: The Accuracy of the Values Measured for the Earth’s/Sun’s Orbital Elements in the Middle East, 800–1500 ce
Part II. Lunar Astronomy and Theory of Eclipses
Chapter 2. How Natural Phenomena Were Justified in Medieval Science: The Situation of Annular Eclipses in Medieval Astronomy
Chapter 3. Wābkanawī’s Observation and Calculations of the Annular Solar Eclipse of 30 January 1283
Chapter 4. Bīrūnī’s Examination of the Path of the Centre of the Epicycle in Ptolemy’s Lunar Model
Chapter 5. Solar and Lunar Observations at Istanbul in the 1570s
Part III. Planetary Astronomy
Chapter 6. Four-Point Method for Determining the Eccentricity and the Direction of the Apsidal Lines of the Sun and Superior Planets
Chapter 7. Planetary Latitudes in Medieval Islamic Astronomy: An Analysis of the Non-Ptolemaic Latitude Parameter Values in the Maragha and Samarqand Astronomical Traditions
Chapter 8. Holding or Breaking with Ptolemy’s Generalization: Considerations about the Motion of the Planetary Apsidal Lines in Medieval Islamic Astronomy
Chapter 9. Astronomical Observations at the Maragha Observatory in the 1260s–70s
Part IV. Stellar Astronomy
Chapter 10. A Medieval Bright Star Table: The Non-Ptolemaic Star Table in the Īlkhānī Zīj
Part V. Observational Instrumentation
Chapter 11. Ghāzān Khān’s Astronomical Innovations at Marāgha Observatory
Biography
S. Mohammad Mozaffari is an Iranian historian of medieval astronomy currently serving at the Research Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics of Marāgha (RIAAM), University of Maragheh, in Iran. He is also a research associate in the project of the Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus (Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Munich). His primary research focus lies in the growth and development of observational astronomy, particularly its interplay with theoretical astronomy, during the medieval Islamic period. He is an active member of the International Astronomical Union and holds editorial roles as an advisory editor for the Journal for the History of Astronomy, an associate editor for SCIAMVS (Sources and Commentaries in the Exact Sciences), and an associate editor for the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage.
‘The author is in full control of the vast spectrum of modern biobibliographical studies of Islamic astronomy and has been able to access countless astronomical manuscript sources of works that were previously unpublished or not yet studied… The book under review … represents just a small part of the brilliant contribution that Mozaffari has already made to the history of astronomy in Islam’ - David A. King, Journal of the American Society for Premodern Asia (JASPA).
‘…this set of in-depth studies of Islamic observational astronomy offers an accessible entry to some of the most advanced research on Islamic astronomy of the present century, making the collection a highly valuable resource for the field’ - Benno van Dalen, Journal for the History of Astronomy 57(1).
‘The collection of papers … is a small sample of Mozaffari’s enormous contribution to the research in the field of Eastern Islamic astronomy’ - Julio Samsó, Suhayl 22 (2025).
