Short Note on Suwarul-Kawakib or Uranometry
A SHORT NOTE ON A CRITICAL EDITION
of the Suwarul-Kawakib or Uranometry
of Abu'l-Husayn 'Abdu'r-Rahman as-Sufi,
(Died 376 A.H. / 986 A.D.)
Abu'l Husain 'Abdu'r-Rahman as-Sufi, the author of this unique work, was born in Rayy, S.E. Tehran, Persia, on the 14th of Muharram 291 A.H. / 8th Nov. 903 A.D. and died on 13th Muharram 376 A.H. / 986 A.D. He is one of the famous astronomers of the Medieval ages in whom the Greek astronomy had culminated. The Suwaru'l Kawakib is a complete and elaborate description of the Constellations of the heavens giving both the position of individual stars and their representation in full pictorial arrangement for each of the 48 Constellations. In fact as-Sufi's Uranometry or the Book of Fixed Stars is one of the three great masterpieces of observational Astronomy of the Medieval ages - the other two being Ibn Yunus' Catalogue in the 11th century and that of Ulugh Beg in the 15th century. This work is undoubtedly an advance on the Catalogue of Fixed Stars by Ptolemy known as the Syntax or Almagest. It has influenced several generations of astronomers from the times of as-Sufi down to Knobel, President of the Astronomical Society, London. Three translations of it in Latin, French and Persian and a Spanish commentary of it exist, but the Arabic text had not been published as yet in full as to bring out the real value of as-Sufi's genuine, independent and masterly observations. His other work, a "Treatise on Astrolabe" is a masterpiece of Astronomical Technique as practiced in those days. It has recently been discovered and is being edited and will be published shortly by the Daira.
The Suwaru'l-Kawakib or the Book of Fixed Stars was written for and dedicated to the Buwayhid ruler Azudu'd-Dawla, (949-982 A.D.) who was a great patron of Astronomy and had erected an observatory at Shiraz.
Older astronomers like al-Biruni, Alfonso X, Prince of Castile, Khwaja Nasiru'd-Din Tusi, Prince Ulugh Beg and Jai Singh II based their astronomical Tables for the cataloguing of Constellations on this authentic Catalogue of Stars, Modern scientists and experts like Pocock Steinschneider, Hauber, Dorn, Argelander, Ideler, Schjellerup and Knobel have utilized it extensively. Even Argelander in his monumental work concurs with as-Sufi in his observations, Prof. H.J.J. Winter has also rightly emphasized the importance of the Suwaru'l-Kawakib in the field of astronomy in his own observations.
As-Sufi is the first person to have observed and noticed change of the color of stars, the change in the magnitude of stars, the proper motions of stars, the long period variable stars, the Nebula Andromeda, the Nubecula Major and the Southern Constellations which have now been ascribed by modern astronomers to some later discoverers unknowingly. As-Sufi has not only corrected errors of observations in the work of his predecessors like al-Battani, but exposed many of the faulty observations found in the garbled versions of Ptolemy's Almagest, carefully defined the boundaries of each Constellation and recorded magnitudes and positions of stars by a fresh and independent observation of his own.
Thus Schjellerup, the translator of this work in French in his brilliant 'Introduction' has duly acknowledged the superiority of as-Sufi over the Medieval astronomers and shown the remarkable agreement found between the values of as-Sufi and that of Argelander in cases where Ptolemy's values are divergent. Even the observations of Ideler in his famous work agree mostly with as-Sufi's remarks.
A Critical Edition of this work collated with the oldest extant Mss. e.g. [Marsh 144] Bodleian Library Oxford, written by his son in 400 A.H. and based particularly on the Royal Codex prepared for and autographed by Ulugh Beg, the astronomer Prince himself, now preserved in the Bibliotheque. Nationale, Paris, [Arabe 5036] has for the first time been edited and published along with the Urjuza of Ibnus-Sufi by the Dairat'ul-Ma'arifi'l-Osmania, Hyderabad-Dn. Thus the text of this work is not only nearer to the author by 24 years, but approaches to the original copy of the author as some Mss. that have been utilized are said to have been copied from the author's autograph copies.
The original Arabic text covers 353 printed pages and contains 55 astronomical tables along with illustrations of 48 constellations in 96 diagrams as seen in the heavens and on the celestial globe reproduced in color on finest art paper from the unique Ulugh Beg Ms.
The artistic value of the illustrated Mss. of this work forms an interesting chapter in the history of Persian miniature painting. This has been demonstrated by experts like Blochet, Upton, Dimand and Holter in their studies and art albums profusely.
The Introduction contains a brief survey of the work from technical and artistic points of view and embodies a digest of researches done in these fields by experts and astronomers like Pocock, Knobel, Schjellerup, Hauber, Suter and H.JJ. Winter.
By Moh'd Odeh. Copyright © 1998-2006 Islamic Crescents' Observation Project (ICOP), All Rights Reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission. For more information Kindly send E-mail