Ptolemy's Model Of Islamic Astronomy

During the period when Western civilization was experiencing the dark ages, between 700-1200 A.D., an Islamic empire stretched from Central Asia to southern Europe. Scholarly learning was highly prized by the people, and they contributed greatly to science and mathematics. Ptolemy's model of an earth- centered universe formed the basis of Arab and Islamic astronomy, but several Islamic astronomers made observations and calculations which were considerably more accurate than Ptolemy's. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Islamic astronomy is the fact that it built on the sciences of two great cultures, the Greek and the Indian. Perhaps the most vital reason that the Muslims studied the sky in so much detail was for the purpose of time-keeping.

Aside from religious uses, astronomy was used as a tool for navigation. The astrolabe, an instrument which calculated the positions of certain stars in order to determine direction, was invented by the Greeks and adopted and perfected by the Arabs. One of the greatest Islamic astronomers was al-Khwarizmi, who lived in the 9th century and was the inventor of algebra. Al-Khwarizmi performed detailed calculations of the positions of the Sun, Moon, and planets, and did a number of eclipse calculations. He constructed a table of the latitudes and longitudes of 2,402 cities and landmarks, forming the basis of an early world map. Western science owes a large debt to Islamic and Arab scientists, whose contributions range from the Arabic names of stars which we still use today to the mathematical and astronomical treaties used by Europeans to enter our modern world of

If the practice of looking for knowledge as Islam highlights had continued, astronomy would have flourished among Muslim scholars. Thus, The Arab World would have been centuries ahead of in scientific studies. Furthermore, Greek works were translated by Muslim scholars in Arabic and added their own encyclopedias. When Europe arose from the “Dark Ages”, the Arabic works and translations of Greek were translated tables called Zij. Hence, one of mot keenest observers was Al-Battani. Al- Battani is an Iranian Muslim astronomer who was born around 858 A.D. He tremendously determined he accuracy of the ecliptic, the length of the seasons, and the orbits around the sun. In other words, Al-Battani’s thesis on astonomy was remarkably influential in Europe, with translations in quite a few languages. More importantly, his original discoveries in both in mathematics and astronomy were of great significance in the progress of these sciences. The Zij was observed in Baghdad, The Zij of Ulugh-Beg from Samarqand, the Hakimite zij of Cairo, and etc. were amongst the most well-known Islamic astronomical tables. As a matter of fact, those tables had a major impact upon Western astronomy up to the time of Tycho Brahe. However, Muslim astronomers analyzed numerous aspects of Ptolemaic astronomy, and Al-Biruni knew the likelihood