Ibn al-Shatir

Ibn al-Shatir or Ibn ash-Shatir (Arabic: ابن الشاطر‎‎; 1304–1375) was an Arab astronomer. He worked as muwaqqit (موقت, religious timekeeper) in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus and constructed a magnificent sundial for its minaret in 1371/72.

His most important astronomical treatise was kitab nihayat al-sul fi tashih al-usul ("The Final Quest Concerning the Rectification of Principles"). In it he drastically reformed the Ptolemaic models of the Sun, Moon and planets, eliminating the eccentric and equant by introducing extra epicycles.

Although his system was firmly geocentric (he had eliminated the Ptolemaic eccentrics), the mathematical details of his system were identical to those in Copernicus's De revolutionibus.^[1] It is unknown whether Copernicus read ibn al-Shatir.

See also

Ibn al-Shatir's model for the appearances of Mercury, showing the multiplication of epicycles in a Ptolemaic enterprise

• List of Arab scientists and scholars
• Islamic scholars

Notes

References

• Fernini, Ilias. A Bibliography of Scholars in Medieval Islam. Abu Dhabi (UAE) Cultural Foundation, 1998
• Kennedy, Edward S. "Late Medieval Planetary Theory." Isis 57 (1966):365-378.
• Kennedy, Edward S. and Ghanem, Imad. The Life and Work of Ibn al-Shatir, an Arab Astronomer of the Fourteenth Century. Aleppo: History of Arabic Science Institute, University of Aleppo, 1976.
• Roberts, Victor. "The Solar and Lunar Theory of Ibn ash-Shatir: A Pre-Copernican Copernican Model". Isis, 48(1957):428-432.
• Roberts, Victor and Edward S. Kennedy. "The Planetary Theory of Ibn al-Shatir". Isis, 50(1959):227-235.
• Saliba, George. "Theory and Observation in Islamic Astronomy: The Work of Ibn al-Shatir of Damascus". Journal for the History of Astronomy, 18(1987):35-43.
• Turner, Howard R. Science in Medieval Islam, an illustrated introduction. University of Texas Press, Austin, 1995. ISBN 0-292-78149-0 (pb) ISBN 0-292-78147-4 (hc)

Further reading

• King, David A. (2007). "Ibn al‐Shāṭir: ʿAlāʾ al‐Dīn ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm". In Thomas Hockey; et al. The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. New York: Springer. pp. 569–70. ISBN 978-0-387-31022-0.  (PDF version)

External links

• Science in Medieval Islam by Howard R. Turner
• The Lights of the Stars

Mathematics in medieval Islam
Mathematicians (Works)	9th century 'Abd al-Hamīd ibn Turk Sind ibn Ali Al-Abbās ibn Said al-Jawharī Al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf ibn Maṭar Al-Kindi De Gradibus Al-Mahani Banū Mūsā Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-Khwārizmī The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing ibn Qurra Na'im ibn Musa Sahl ibn Bishr Habash al-Hasib al-Marwazi 10th century Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi Book of Fixed Stars al-Būzjānī Abū Ja'far al-Khāzin Abū Kāmil Shujāʿ ibn Aslam Abu'l-Hasan al-Uqlidisi Abu-Mahmud Khojandi Ahmad ibn Yusuf Al-Nayrizi Al-Saghani Brethren of Purity Ibn Sahl Ibn Yunus Ibrahim ibn Sinan Muhammad ibn Jābir al-Harrānī al-Battānī Sinan ibn Thabit Al-Isfahani Nazif ibn Yumn Abū Sahl al-Qūhī 11th century Abū Ishāq Ibrāhīm al-Zarqālī Abu Nasr Mansur Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī Ibn al-Haytham / Alhazen Book of Optics Ibn Muʿādh al-Jayyānī Al-Karaji Al-Sijzi Alī ibn Ahmad al-Nasawī Avicenna The Book of Healing Ibn Tahir al-Baghdadi Kushyar ibn Labban Yusuf al-Mu'taman ibn Hud 12th century Al-Khazini Ibn Yahyā al-Maghribī al-Samaw'al Omar Khayyám Jabir ibn Aflah Abu Bakr al-Hassar 13th century Muhyi al-Dīn al-Maghribī Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī Zij-i Ilkhani Shams al-Dīn al-Samarqandī Sharaf al-Dīn al-Tūsī Ibn al‐Ha'im al‐Ishbili Ibn Abi al-Shukr 14th century Yaʿīsh ibn Ibrāhīm al-Umawī Ibn al-Banna' al-Marrakushi Ibn al-Shatir Kamāl al-Dīn Fārisī Al-Khalili Qotb al-Din Shirazi Ahmad al-Qalqashandi 15th century Abū al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī al-Qalaṣādī Ali Qushji Jamshīd al-Kāshī Qāḍī Zāda al-Rūmī Ulugh Beg Ibn al-Majdi 16th century Al-Birjandi Muhammad Baqir Yazdi Taqi al-Din Ibn Hamza al-Maghribi Ibn Ghazi al-Miknasi
Other treatises	Almanac Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity Tables of Toledo Tabula Rogeriana Zij Zij-i-Sultani
Concepts	Alhazen's problem Islamic geometric patterns
Centers	Al-Azhar University Al-Mustansiriya University House of Knowledge House of Wisdom Istanbul observatory of Taqi al-Din Madrasah Maktab Maragheh observatory University of Al-Karaouine
Influences	Babylonian mathematics Greek mathematics Indian mathematics
Influenced	Byzantine mathematics European mathematics Indian mathematics