Islamic Astronomy - Assignment Example

Islamic Astronomy Islam and its scholars have had a great influence on astronomy. One of the major driving factors for the growth of astronomy in Islam came from the observations made due to religion. In the pre-Islamic Arabian period the knowledge of astronomy was based on what they observed with regards to the setting and rising of stars. “Of supreme importance in launching new Islamic science were the translation activities in Baghdad in the late 8th and early 9th century associated with the early Abbasid Caliphs Al-Mansur and Al-Mamun” (King 9). It is an Islamic tradition to sight the new moon for holy occasions such as Ramadan. The Caliph Umar, around the year 638 AD, introduced the Lunar Calendar, which was based on Islamic views. The Lunar Calendar has 12 months which are determined by sighting the crescent moon, it is also about 11 day less than the Solar year. Muslims across the globe still follow this calendar for religious purposes. Many historians have put forward several observations that have developed the growth of Islamic Astronomy. Among these the closeness of the Islamic scholars to ancient teachings. During the ninth century many Sanskrit, Greek, and Persian texts were translated into Aribic which was the language spoken by the Muslim then. Another step forward in the field of astronomy by Islamic scholars was the problems they discovered in the existing mathematical astronomy. In the process of solving these problems, the Muslims scholars went way beyond the mathematical methods of Greek scholars. The Greek scholars followed a tradition of keeping mathetical astronomy separate from phlosophical cosmology. The Islamic scholars on the other hand, created a program which would seek a real physical configuration of the Universe, such a configuration would consist of both physical and mathematical priniciples. When Islamic scholars introduced this system, they began to question the details of the Greek Ptolemic System of astronomy. “As early as the ninth century, Muslim astronomers started refining the Ptolemic astronomy which, by this time, had been fully adopted as the framework of their research” (Mahbubi and Dalal 1). Islamic scholars like Nasir Al-Din-Al-Tusi and Abu Rayhan Al-Biruni, investigated whether the Earth was in motion, and if it was then how this movement was in line with the physical systems and astronomical computations. “Al-Biruni was one of the prodigious minds who lived during the period of the most intense scientific work in the Islamic Civilization” (Mohamed 63). Many other Islamic astronomers, most importantly the astronomers who followed the Maragha School of Astronomy, created non-Ptolemic planetary models which were within a geocentric aspect. These models were later used by the heliocentric context of the Copernican model. Medival Muslim astronomers were the first to discover the transit of Mercury and Venus. Avicenna, a Persian polymath discovered the transit of Venus of the Sun when he noticed it as a mark on the face of the Sun. This observation helped him come to the conclusion that Venus was sometimes below the Sun. Ibn Bajjah, an Andulusian astronomer, in the 12th century observed the planets Mercury and Venus as two black spots on the Sun, where it became evident that it was because of the transit of Mercury and/or Venus. Later in the 13th century Qotb Al-Din Shirazi, an astronomer from Maragha continued research on Ibn Bajjah's theory and cam to the conclusion that the black spots on the Sun were due to the transit of both Mercury and Venus. Beg in the Zij-i Sultani determined the sidereal year’s lenght with an error of +25 seconds to be 365 days 5 hours 49 minutes 15 seconds, which seems a bit more accurate than the error of +30 seconds made by Nicolus Coopernicus in his estimate. The determination of the Earth’s axial tilt by Beg as 23.52 degrees holds good till today as the most accurate measurement. It matches the current accepted value and is much authentic when compared to the values given by Tycho Brahe and Copernicus. In the 16th century, anouther well known astronomer was Taqi al-Din , who was an Ottomanian astronomer. In 1577 he built the Istanbul observatory of Taqi al-Din, for three years that is till 1580, he carried astronomical observations from this observatory. He produced many astronomical catalogues and ‘Unbored Pearl’ which was a Zij, his work was considered a bit more authentic than Copernicus and Brahe. “This Zij exerted a deep influence on Islamic astronomy, especially in Spain, even after the Almagest came to be known and its superiority appreciated” (Kennedy 7). The first astronomer to use a decimal point instead of sexagesimal fractions in astronomical observations was Taqi al-Din, however his predecessors and peers used the sexagesimal fractions. From the year 1556 to 1580, he invented many astronomical tools and instruments, one of the most notable were the accurate mechinical astronomical clocks. When compared to the greek astronomers who had based their work and relied mostly on the abstract calculations, the Islamic astronomers used the actual observations of the heavens form a basis to their work. The first institution for specialized astronomy was the Islamic observatory, which had astronomical programmes, scientific staff, a campus building and large astronomical instruments. In order to improve accuracy of astronomical work, the Islamic observatory was the first to install large astronomical instruments. Importance was given to group research instead of individual research in the medival Islamic observatories.And theoretical investigations went together with the observations. In a way these observatories were like the mordern scientific research centers. The muslim astronomers invented a number of their own new astronomical tools as well as improved the instruments that they were using and which were used before their era, they improved on them by enlarging them and adding details or new scales to make sure that the observations and measurements were authentic and to avoid errors in their work. The most enormouly large sientific apparatus in this context was first built by the muslims inorder to improve on their study and measurements. Most of the time these devices were usually used for their religous purposes such as determining the position of Qibla and the time of prayers. The muslims have enormouly contributed to the developement and intvention of astronomical instruments. ‘Almanc’ which is an Arabic word means calendar related to astronomy. Modern almanac tables are different from the earlier astronomical tables, “the entries found in the almanacs give directly the positions of the celestial bodies and need no further computation” (Glick and Livesey 30), which contrasts the common auxiliary astronomical tables which were based Almagest presented by Ptolemy. The Almanac of Azarqueil is the earliest known almanac in the modern sense; this almanac was written by Abu Ishaq Ibrahim Al-Zarqali, which was written in Al-Andalus and Toledo. From 1088 to 1092, his work gave the accurate position of the planets, moon and the sun. In the 12th and the 13th centuries a Latin translation and adaptation of the work appeared as the tables of Toledo and Alfonsine tables respectably. Muslim astronomers in the 20th and 21st centuries, have made improvements and developments in moon sighting, on the other hand the Islamic rocket scientists and astronauts are active in the subjects of space exploration and astronautics. Works Cited -Kennedy, Edward Stewart. A Survey of Islamic Astronomical Tables. American Philosophical Society: USA. 1956. -Mahbubi, Ubayd Allah Ibn Masud, and Dallal, Ahmad S. An Islamic Response to Greek Astronomy. Brill: Netherlands. 1995. -Mohamed, Mohaini. Great Muslim Mathematicians. Penerbit UTM: Malaysia. 2000. -King, David A. World-Maps for Finding the Direction and Distance to Mecca: Innovation and Tradition in Islamic Science. Brill: Netherlands. 1999. Read More