A Princely Pandect on Astronomy

ISBN-13: 9783030507633 / Angielski / Miękka / 2023

Kaveh Niazi

Opis

This book presents an English-language translation of Risālā-yi Muʿīnīya, or the Muʿīnīya Epistle. Risālā-yi Muʿīnīya is one of the earliest known works of Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (1201–1274), an intellectual luminary of the 13th century CE. The work is notable for the choice of Ṭūsī’s native Persian as the language of the text. In addition, Ṭūsī organized his volume into a four-part structure, which went on to become a popular template for the Islamic astronomers who succeeded him.  This book helped ensure the patronage of Ṭūsī's courtly patrons during his decades-long stay with the Ismaʿīlīs, as well as the continuation of his remarkable career under the first Ilkhanid rulers of Persia. This translation helps make this notable treatise accessible to English language readers. It is among a handful of English translations of major astronomical works dealing with hay’a/cosmography in the Islamic world. 
Subsequently Ṭūsī was to pen his own commentary on the work (the Ḥall-i Mushkilāt-i Muʿīnīya, or A solution to the difficulties of the Muʿīnīya) and he used this occasion to discuss his celebrated mathematical formulation “the Ṭūsī Couple” (a concept that he merely hinted at in the Risālā-yi Muʿīnīya). 

Spis treści

Preface

Part I. Introduction

Chapter 1 Ṭūsī’s hayʾa

Chapter 2 Ṭūsī as a Young Scholar

Chapter 3 On the Structure and Contents of Risāla-yi Muʿīnīya

Part II. Edition and Translation of Risāla-yi Muʿīnīya

Chapter 4 Book One: On the Introduction to this Science

Chapter 5 Two: On the Configuration of the Celestial Bodies

Chapter 6 Book Three: On the Configuration of the Earth and the Difference in the State of its Regions Due to the Difference in the State of the Celestial Bodies

Chapter 7 Book Four: On the Distances and Bodies

Part III. Ṭūsī’s Commentary on Risāla-yi Muʿīnīya

Chapter 8 The Chapters. Appendices

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

O autorze

Kaveh Niazi received a Ph.D in applied physics from the University of California, Berkeley (1995) as well as a Ph.D in the history of science from Columbia University, New York, in 2011. He is the author of "Quṭb al-Dīn Shīrāzī and the Configuration of the Heavens" (Springer, 2014). His research interests include the history of astronomy, geology, and engineering in the Islamic era.