An Islamic response to Greek astronomy

by ʻUbayd Allāh ibn Masʻūd Maḥbūbī

An Islamic Response to Greek Astronomy is an edition, translation of and commentary on the astronomical work of the fourteenth-century Central Asian religious scholar Sadr al-Shari'a al-Bukhari. Sadr al-Shari'a develops the works of the thirteenth-century Maragha researchers, which set the tone for the astronomical research until the eventual demise of Ptolemaic astronomy. This work elucidates the development and achievement of the long tradition of reforming Ptolemaic astronomy. It corroborates other evidence that scientific creativity persisted well beyond the eleventh century, a period often viewed as an age of cultural decline and stagnation. Sadr al-Shari'a's knowledge of and competence in a diverse variety of disciplines is a compelling example of the state of education and level of scholarship in a fourteenth-century Muslim urban setting.