Ptolemy, al-Majisṭī (tr. al-Ḥajjāj) Leiden, UB, Or. 680
transcribed by Josep Casulleras and Paul Hullmeine
How to cite this transcription?
This is a transcription of Books I to XIII of al-Ḥajjāj’s translation of Ptolemy’s Almagest on the basis of the manuscript Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek, Or. 680. This transcription does not include the tables of the Almagest, which will be made available in due time through the DISHAS database.
Books I to VI were transcribed and prepared for publication by Josep Casulleras. Casulleras also prepared a preliminary transcription of Books VII to X.2, which was corrected by Benno van Dalen and Pouyan Rezvani. Books X.3 to XIII were transcribed by Paul Hullmeine.
The folio correspondences between the Leiden manuscript (siglum L) and MS London, British Library, Add. 7474 (siglum BL), which contains only Books I–VI of al-Ḥajjāj’s translation, are indicated in marginal notes. Manuscript BL is in great disorder; the correct order is as follows (where every three dots indicate a missing folio): … … 1c (Book I), 2, 3 … 4, 5 … 7 … 8, 9, 11, 10, 13, 12, 14, 15 … 20, 21, 22, 16–19, 23 (Book II), 24, 26, 28–39, 114, 40–43 … 44, 45, 6, 111, 109, 47–50, 110, 113, 123, 52–54 … … … … 55, 56 (Book III), 51, 107, 57–64, 46, 127, 65–72, 126, 125, 73, 74, 76–79 (Book IV), 81, 82, 124, 87, 83, 75, 85 … … 86, 80, 88, 84, 89–98, 115, 99–105 (Book V), 106, 108, 112, 25, 116, 117–121, 27, 122, 128–154 (Book VI) – 157 … 158–183v.
Casulleras consulted the manuscript BL, Gerard of Cremona’s Latin translation of the Arabic version of the Almagest (transcribed by Stefan Georges and available on the PAL website), and Toomer’s English translation of the Greek Almagest for some difficult or ambiguous passages. However, textual variants in BL are only indicated when these occur at the beginning of a new folio in BL and, in general, corrections based on either BL or the translations by Gerard of Cremona and Toomer have not been introduced.
Transcription conventions
The Arabic has been tacitly standardised according to the PAL transcription rules, in particular in the following cases:
- the writing of hamza, madda, alif, and alif maqṣūra;
- the writing of words with final radicalsو or ي;
- grammatical agreement of case, state, person, gender, and number;
- some contractions that the scribe did not carry out systematically (عمّا، أنّهم...)
Shaddas were added, except those indicating assimilation of solar letters and those of the relative pronouns.
The versions of proper names found in the manuscript were kept in spite of the existence of modern standard versions. For example, ادطوسنانس (in Chapter I.12) was maintained for Eratosthenes rather than إراتوستينس or other modern variants.
The different variants of certain proper names found in the manuscript were unified. For example, we have:
- ثوث for Thoth (Egyptian month I), and not توث , توت or other variants than can be found in MS L;
- فامنوث for Phamenoth (month VII) and not فامينوث;
- ميطن for Meton and not منطن ; etc.
In the transcription, these standardised names are indicated between the symbols ^ and &.
The equivalent forms in Toomer’s English translation of the geographical names of Chapter II.6 are given in marginal notes.
Symbols
- || indicates the start of a new line in the manuscript.
- /…/ indicates the start of a new page, e.g.: “/2v/”.
- angular brackets ⟨ ⟩ enclose passages missing from the manuscript and supplemented by the editor. The angular brackets are also used to indicate book and chapter numbers, where Roman numerals (I, II, III, ...) are used for books and Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, …) for chapters; for example, ⟨I.2⟩ indicates the beginning of Chapter 2 of Book I.
- [ ] enclose a passage found in the text but deemed as to be deleted.
- { } enclose a passage whose reading is uncertain or conjectural.
- {…} indicates an illegible lacuna in the manuscript.
- Italics are used to indicate proper names that were standardised.
Sigla and abbreviations
- BL: British Library Add 7474 manuscript
- L: Leiden Or 680 manuscript
- Lane: Edward William Lane, An Arabic-English lexicon, (8 vols.) Beirut, 1968
- Souissi: Mohamed Souissi, La langue des mathématiques en arabe, Tunis, 1968
- Toomer: Ptolemy’s Almagest, translated and annotated by G.J. Toomer, New York – Berlin – Heidelberg - Tokio, 1984
- Wright: W. Wright, A Grammar of the Arabic Language, Cambridge UP, 3d ed. 1896-8, reprint 1986
Table of contents and links to chapters
⟨مقدّمة⟩
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
هذا كتاب أمر بتفسيره الإمام المأمون عبد الله أمير المؤمنين من اللسان الروميّ إلى اللسان العربيّ على يدي الحجّاج بن يوسف الحاسب وسرجون بن هليا الروميّ في سنة اثنتي عشرة ومائتين من سني الهجرة هجرة النبيّ محمّد صلّى الله عليه وسلّم وهو الكتاب الكبير الذي يقال له المجسطي كتبه بطلميوس القلوذي في علم حساب النجوم والحركات اللواتي في السماء وفي هذا الكتاب ثلاثة عشر قولا في كلّ قول منها أنواع من أنواع هذا العلم سيذكرها عند أوّل كلّ قول إن شاءالله أمّا