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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
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| Al-Zarqali | 2/2 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Zarqali | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T09:36:18.928040+00:00 | kb-cron |
=== Tables of Toledo === Al-Zarqālī also contributed to the famous Tables of Toledo, an adaptation of earlier astronomical data by Al-Khwarizmi and Al-Battani, to locate the coordinates of Toledo. His zij and almanac were translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona in the 12th century, and contributed to the rebirth of a mathematically based astronomy in Christian Europe and were later incorporated into the Tables of Toledo in the 12th century and the Alfonsine tables in the 13th century. Famous as well for his own Book of Tables, of which many had been compiled. Al-Zarqālī's almanac contained tables which allowed one to find the days on which the Coptic, Roman, lunar, and Persian months begin, other tables which give the position of planets at any given time, and still others facilitating the prediction of solar and lunar eclipses. This almanac that he compiled directly provided "the positions of the celestial bodies and need no further computation", it further simplifies longitudes using planetary cycles of each planet. The work provided the true daily positions of the sun for four Julian years from 1088 to 1092, the true positions of the five planets every 5 or 10 days over a period of 8 years for Venus, 79 years for Mars, and so forth, as well as other related tables. In designing an instrument to deal with Ptolemy's complex model for the planet Mercury, in which the center of the deferent moves on a secondary epicycle, al-Zarqālī noted that the path of the center of the primary epicycle is not a circle, as it is for the other planets. Instead it is approximately oval and similar to the shape of a pignon (or pine nut). Some writers have misinterpreted al-Zarqālī's description of an earth-centered oval path for the center of the planet's epicycle as an anticipation of Johannes Kepler's sun-centered elliptical paths for the planets. Although this may be the first suggestion that a conic section could play a role in astronomy, al-Zarqālī did not apply the ellipse to astronomical theory and neither he nor his Iberian or Maghrebi contemporaries used an elliptical deferent in their astronomical calculations.
== Works == Major works and publications:
Al Amal bi Assahifa Az-Zijia Attadbir Al Madkhal fi Ilm Annoujoum Rissalat fi Tarikat Istikhdam as-Safiha al-Moushtarakah li Jamiâ al-ouroud Almanac Arzarchel
== See also == Islamic astronomy Islamic scholars List of Arab scientists and scholars
== Notes ==
== Further reading == Puig, Roser (2007). "Zarqālī: Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm ibn Yaḥyā al-Naqqāsh al-Tujībī al-Zarqālī". In Hockey, Thomas; et al. (eds.). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. New York: Springer. pp. 1258–60. ISBN 978-0-387-31022-0. (PDF version) Vernet, J. (1970). "Al-Zarqālī (or Azarquiel), Abū Isḥāqibrāhīm Ibn Yaḥyā Al-Naqqāsh". Dictionary of Scientific Biography. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. ISBN 0-684-10114-9. E. S. Kennedy. A Survey of Islamic Astronomical Tables, (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, 46, 2.) Philadelphia, 1956.
== External links == Muslim Scientists Before the Renaissance: Abū Ishāq Ibrāhīm al-Zarqālī (Arzachel) Archived 2013-11-11 at the Wayback Machine 'Transmission of Muslim astronomy to Europe' 'An Extensive biography'