during the medieval period scientists in the islamic world made many contributions to the field of astronomy there are an estimated 10 000 astronomical manuscripts and close to a thousand astronomical instruments preserved in libraries and museums that were created by muslim scientists but why was their work so important to the science of astronomy ancient muslim scientists began updating methods for measuring and calculating the movement of heavenly bodies as early as the medieval period inheri
ting knowledge from ancient sources from greece iran and india they continue to develop models of the universe and the movement of planets within it the math required for astronomy was also advanced in large part by islamic scholars they developed a spherical trigonometry and algebra two forms of math fundamental to precise calculations of the stars one of the major reasons for muslims curiosity in stars was largely because of the specific requirements of islam it might be interesting to know th
at in islam it is important to accurately determine the time and direction of mecca for daily prayers also for example correctly predicting sunrise and sunset for fasting during the month of ramadan is necessary not only that but they created a new clinical system by refining scientific instruments that will help observation methods of the appearance of the moon which was the start of the new lunar month in islamic calendars developments in the science of astronomy were sped up during the 8th ti
ll 9th century when there was a huge promotion for translating scientific text in the muslim world among the early books written about astronomy is elements of astronomy on the celestial motions written by alfred ghani around 833 this textbook provided a mostly non-mathematical presentation of ptolemy's almagest updated with revised values from previous islamic astronomers later on it became the primary reference that european scholars used to study ptolemaic astronomy this book was largely resp
onsible for the emergence of the greek astronomical system of ptolemy in the west it circulated in several latin editions and was widely studied in europe between the 12th and 17th centuries through the 9th till 11th centuries islamic astronomers focused on criticizing and improving the geometrical models of ptolemy al-sufi in his the book of the fixed stars combined ptolemy's work of mapping constellations with arabic astronomical traditions written around 964 the book contains extensive illust
rations of constellations al sufi's illustrations were used for centuries afterward as canonical representations of constellations in europe his works were translated and widely circulated it's interesting to know that al-sufi was also the first astronomer to observe the andromeda galaxy and the large magellanic cloud these observations would have been made purely with the naked eye since the telescope hadn't yet been invented of course he didn't know it was a galaxy at the time and marked it do
wn as a cloud in his notes another interesting tidbit about ancient muslim astronomers is that they were the first to build observatories such as the shamsia observatory in baghdad built in 828 they also devised instruments and tools crucial for studying and measuring in astronomical researchers one of the most well-known astronomical tools the astrolane was created by the ancient greeks but later perfected by mariam al-astralabi a syrian female scientist and astronomer who made astrolabes in th
e 10th century through such instruments and further calculations of the stars and their positions many great topological and geographical discoveries were also made possible the mathematical theorem named after prominent medieval astronomer altoussi called the tusi couple is considered by historians of astronomy a key element of copernican heliocentric system building off of altusi's work astronomers like eben younis and eben al-shateer in the 14th century discovered major faults in ptolemy's ca
lculations which changed the landscape of astronomy forever the heliocentric model eventually proposed by copernicus in the 16th century which proved the earth revolved around the sun was built on this body of work
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