Skip to item: of 288
Information about this record Back to top
Open in Universal viewer
Open in Mirador IIIF viewer

Muḥammad al-Farghānī’s Elements of Chronology and Astronomy ‎[F-1-16] (16/288)

The record is made up of 288 items. It was created in 1669. It was written in Arabic and Latin. The original is part of the Qatar National Library.

About this item

Content

Aḥmad ibn Moḥammad ibn Kathīr al-Farghānī (flourished 861) was an astronomer who worked at the court of the early Abbasid caliphs. He appears to have been active in the court of al-Ma’mun, and he may well be the same figure who is said to have been entrusted by al-Mutawakkil with the construction of the nilometer in Cairo.  In that case, he would have been active from the early decades of the ninth century to his death in 861 (spanning the rules of al-Ma’mun, al-Muʿtaṣim, al-Wāthiq, and al-Mutawakkil). Al-Farghānī, the name by which the astronomer would have been known at the Abbasid court, and which was Latinized to Alfraganus, indicates the Ferghana Valley (present-day Uzbekistan) as his birthplace, in the Persian or Perso-Turkic cultural realm of Central Asia. Presented here is an Arabic edition with Latin translation of al-Farghānī’s influential and well-known Kitāb jawāmiʿ ʿilm al-nujūm wa uṣūl al-ḥarakāt al-samāwīya (Book of generalities of astronomy and bases of celestial motions). The Arabic title in this edition is slightly modified. The same work by al-Farghānī has various other titles in Arabic, including Kitāb fī uṣūl ‘ilm al-nujūm (Book of generalities of astronomy and bases of celestial motions) and Kitāb al-hay’a fī fuṣūl al-thalāthīn (Book on the configuration [of the heavenly spheres] in thirty chapters). The work was originally translated into Latin by Johannes Hispalensis (John of Seville, flourished mid-12th century), and Gerard of Cremona (circa 1114–87). It was also translated into Hebrew by Jacob Anatoli (circa 1194–1256). This is the first printed Arabic edition of the book, based on the manuscript at the University of Leiden, printed in Amsterdam in 1669. It has 109 pages in Arabic and 306 in Latin, in addition to the table of contents.

Extent and format
288 items
Physical characteristics

565 pages ; 20 centimeters

Written in
Arabic and Latin in Arabic and Latin script
View the complete information for this record

Use and share this item

Share this item
Cite this item in your research

Muḥammad al-Farghānī’s Elements of Chronology and Astronomy ‎[F-1-16] (16/288), Qatar National Library, 10687, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/qnlhc/10687.16> [accessed 28 March 2024]

Link to this item
Embed this item

Copy and paste the code below into your web page where you would like to embed the image.

<meta charset="utf-8"><a href="https://www.qdl.qa/en/archive/qnlhc/10687.16">Muḥammad al-Farghānī’s Elements of Chronology and Astronomy <span dir="ltr">‎[F-1-16] (16/288)</span></a>
<a href="https://www.qdl.qa/en/archive/qnlhc/10687.16">
	<img src="https://iiif.qdl.qa/iiif/images/qnlhc/10687/1047750031-0030.jp2/full/!280,240/0/default.jpg" alt="" />
</a>
IIIF details

This record has a IIIF manifest available as follows. If you have a compatible viewer you can drag the icon to load it.https://www.qdl.qa/en/iiif/qnlhc/10687/manifestOpen in Universal viewerOpen in Mirador viewerMore options for embedding images

Use and reuse
Download this image