Work A.1.3
Ptolemy
al-Majisṭī (tr. Thābit ibn Qurra)
This version of the Almagest was prepared by Thābit ibn Qurra (836–901) and is clearly different from his revision of the translation by Isḥāq ibn Ḥunayn (A.1.2). In some parts it is a literal translation with additional explanatory sentences and references to propositions from Euclid’s Elements, while in other parts it paraphrases the original text of the Almagest. The single surviving manuscript of Thābit’s version of the Almagest contains only Books I–V and Chapters VI.1–2. Every book (maqāla) starts with a table of contents listing all chapters (abwāb). The contents generally runs parallel to the Isḥāq/Thābit version with some small shifts in chapter numbers. The colophons of Books I and V mention Thābit explicitly in the form tarjamahu Thābit b. Qurra ‘Thābit ibn Qurra translated it (i.e., the Almagest)’.
Note 1 Thābit’s translation of the Almagest is mentioned in a quotation from Abū ʿAlī al-Muḥassin al-Ṣābiʾ in the entry ‘Thābit ibn Qurra’ in Ibn al-Qifṭī’s bio-bibliographical work Taʾrīkh al-ḥukamāʾ, and by al-Ṭūsī in marginal notes to his Taḥrīr al-Majisṭī (C.1.18) (see Grupe, ‘The “Thābit-Version”’, pp. 149–150). An abridgement of Thābit’s version (C.1.34) is contained in the manuscript (formerly) Tehran, Naṣīrī, 789, which integrally reproduces the preface (Chapter I.1) from the Isḥāq/Thābit translation and Chapters I.1–7 from Thābit’s translation.
Note 2 Thābit’s translation of the Almagest was first identified by Grupe (‘The “Thābit-Version”’, The Latin Reception) in the Latin translation by ʿAbd al-Masīḥ of Winchester (Latin A.1.3), which partially survives in the manuscript Dresden, SLUB, Db. 87, and shortly thereafter in the likewise incomplete Arabic manuscript Jaipur, Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum, 20 (‘Thābit ibn Qurra’s Version’, ‘Manuscript Jaipur 20’).
Text: [Jaipur, Maharaja Mansingh II Library Museum, 20]
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Bibl.: Ibn al-Qifṭī, Taʾrīkh al-ḥukamāʾ (ed. LippertAugust Müller and Julius Lippert, Ibn al-Qifṭī’s Ta’rīḫ al-ḥukamā’, Leipzig: Dieterich, 1903, p. 119, lines 14–15; German tr. KappA. G. Kapp, ‘Arabische Übersetzer und Kommentatoren Euklids, sowie deren math.-naturwiss. Werke auf Grund des Taʾrīkh al-Ḥukamāʾ des Ibn al-Qifṭī. II’, Isis 23 (1935), pp. 54–99, p. 65). — Paul Kunitzsch, Der Almagest. Die Syntaxis Mathematica des Claudius Ptolemäus in arabisch-lateinischer Überlieferung, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1974, pp. 25–26 and 33; Dirk Grupe, ‘The ‘Thābit-Version’ of Ptolemy’s Almagest in MS Dresden Db.87’, Suhayl 11 (2012), pp. 147–153; Dirk Grupe, The Latin Reception of Arabic Astronomy and Cosmology in Mid-Twelfth-Century Antioch. The Liber Mamonis and the Dresden Almagest, PhD dissertation, The Warburg Institute, 2013, esp. pp. 91–95 and 125–134; Dirk Grupe, ‘Thābit ibn Qurra’s Version of the Almagest and Its Reception in Arabic Astronomical Commentaries (based on the presentation held at the Warburg Institute, London, 5th November 2015)’, in David Juste, Benno van Dalen, Dag Nikolaus Hasse and Charles Burnett (eds), Ptolemy’s Science of the Stars in the Middle Ages, Turnhout: Brepols, 2020, pp. 139–157; Dirk Grupe, ‘Manuscript Jaipur 20 and the Arabic Translation of Ptolemy’s Almagest by Thābit ibn Qurra’, in Fahameddin Başar, Mustafa Kaçar, M. Cüneyt Kaya and A. Zişan Furat (eds), The 1st International Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin Symposium on History of Science in Islam Proceedings Book. June 13-15, 2019, Istanbul: Istanbul University Press, 2020, pp. 139–149.
Ed.: None.
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