An extremely popular recension of Ptolemy’s Almagest, which relies primarily on the version of Ishāq b. Ḥunayn revised by Thābit b. Qurra (A.1.2) but also includes a number of references to al-Ḥajjāj’s translation (A.1.1) and to the version by Thābit b. Qurra (A.1.3). According to the authorial colophon, the treatise was finished on 5 Shawwal 644/13 February 1247, which falls in the period when al-Ṭūsī resided in the citadel of Alamut. He dedicated the treatise to an otherwise unknown Ḥusām al-Dīn al-Ḥasan b. Muḥammad al-Sīwāsī, who was wrongly assumed to be the author of a commentary on the Taḥrīr by Sezgin (cf. GAS VI). With more than 170 known manuscript copies, this commentary outranks the Arabic versions of the Almagest by far and appears to have entirely replaced the study of the stand-alone translations, especially in the Eastern Islamic world.

Origin: While the original of al‐Ṭūsī’s Taḥrīr al-Majisṭī may be lost, there are numerous manuscripts that claim to be based either on the autograph or on an early copy made by Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī. A codex of the Taḥrīr said to be in the handwriting of al‐Ṭūsī himself was in the possession of Shaykh ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn al-Tehrānī (d. 1285/1868-9) and apparently later found a new owner in Europe (see Ansari, p. 25 and Āghā-Bozorg Tehrānī). Al-Shīrāzī produced one copy from al‐Ṭūsī’s 644/1247 autograph before 678/1279; this copy is lost but was transmitted through students of al-Shīrāzī in the manuscripts Paris, BnF, ar. 2485 and Cairo, Dār al-kutub, K 3822. Further copies by his students, preserved in Istanbul, Süleymaniye, Ayasofya 2583 and Dublin, Chester Beatty, Ar. 3637, may be based on the same exemplar (on early copies related to the autograph and to al-Shīrāzī, see also Parra, pp. 311–312). A note dated Shaʿbān 684/October 1285 by Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī’s hand is preserved on the title page of Istanbul, Nuruosmaniye, 2941 (f. 1r; cf. Fateme Savadi, The Historical and Cosmographical Context of Hayʾat al-arḍ with a Focus on Quṭb al-Dīn Shīrāzī’s Nihāyat al-Idrāk, PhD dissertation, McGill University, 2018, p. 22 and n. 63, and al-Shīrāzī’s hand in Istanbul, Topkapı, Ahmet III 3455 as well as his reading certificate on the title page of Millet, Feyzullah Paşa 300); Quṭb al-Dīn states that he requested a copy of the Taḥrīr for the library of a certain Jamāl al-Dīn, but excuses himself for not having enough time to collate and correct it thoroughly. Only in some extant manuscripts from the 13^th century, the Taḥrīr is transmitted together with al-Ṭūsī’s Mutawassiṭāt, his collection of revised treatises to be studied between Euclid’s Elements and Ptolemy’s Almagest, which was likewise repeatedly copied in the Maragha environment; see Istanbul, Topkapı, Ahmet III 3453, Tehran, Sipahsālār, 4727, Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds, 5456, and Tehran University, microfilm 2885.

Content: The Taḥrīr al-Majisṭī closely follows the structure of the thirteen books (maqālāt) of the Almagest as found in the Isḥāq-Thābit version (A.1.2). Thus it contains, overall, one hundred and forty-one sections (referred to as fuṣūl rather than abwāb) and one hundred and ninety-six figures or propositions (ashkāl), which are numbered with abjad numerals in the margins.  Structural differences in the version by Thābit b. Qurra (A.1.3) are mostly indicated in the margins in the form ‘ḥāshiya – wa-fī nuskhat Thābit sabʿat ʿashr bāban’.

In the preface of the Tahṛiṛ, al-Ṭūsī states that the work is intended for himself as well as his students, and should be considered as a reference work for scholars who come together to discuss its problems. He formulates the aims of his work as follows: to simplify difficult passages, to offer solutions for problems (ḥall ishkāl) and to include what the moderns (al-muḥdathūn) invented or what was adopted by later astronomers (al-mutaʾakhkhirūn) in order to make Ptolemy’s theorems more elegant; in doing so he puts an emphasis on brevity and conciseness. He finally advises his readers to correct any mistakes they may find in his recension (see Saliba, pp. 5–6 for a translation of parts of the preface).

On the basis of a comparison of various text versions and commentaries, al-Ṭūsī rephrases, corrects, and updates Ptolemy’s text, sometimes omitting or adding a paragraph, diagram or table. Thus he includes, for example, a sine table and a tangent table in addition to Ptolemy’s table of chords and converts dates from the Almagest to the Yazdigird epoch (see further Saliba, pp. 7–10). Al-Ṭūsī claims to have distinguished in colour the lines and lettering for diagrams which he added, thus emphasising his deviations from Ptolemy. This can still be witnessed in the early manuscript tradition: diagrams copied from the Isḥāq-Thābit version of the Almagest are presented with red lines and geometrical points in black, whereas the diagrams taken from other versions have black lines and red lettering.

Appendices: The majority of the early copies of the Taḥrīr al-Majisṭī that claim to be based on an exemplar in Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī’s handwriting include at the end a set of three short appendices on aspects of the planetary models (C.1.18a, C.1.18b, and C.1.18c; first noticed by Parra, who divides the transmission in ‘Type A’, manuscripts without appendix, and ‘Type B’, manuscripts with appendix). These appendices are missing from early copies based on al‐Ṭūsī’s autograph, such as Tehran, Sipahsālār, 592 (662/1264, with one of the three appendices supplemented by a later hand), Istanbul, Ragıp Paşa, 913, and Tehran, Majlis, 3853. Also several manuscripts that claim to have been collated with the 644/1247 autograph do not comprise the appendices, namely Tehran, Dānishgāh, 1352 and Istanbul, Millet, Feyzullah Paşa 1361. It thus seems probable that the appendices originated in al-Shīrāzī’s circle, and that they were copied as a set at the end of the Taḥrīr by 678/1279 at the latest. Note that C.1.18c already appears on its own in the copy in the hand of al-ʿUrḍī’s son in Cairo, Dār al-kutub, hayʾa Talʿat 43 (670–673/1272–1274), while C.1.18a and C.1.18b are found together (but without C.1.18c) in two copies based on a manuscript from Maragha dated 663/1265, namely Cairo, Dār al-kutub, hayʾa 17 and Berlin, SBPK, Sprenger 1838. Although an annotator of Istanbul, Köprülü, Fazıl Ahmed Paşa 933, finished in 918/1513, attributes C.1.18a to al‐Ṭūsī himself, it seems more likely that the appendixes stem from Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī or one of al-Ṭūsī’s other students at Maragha. We know of only a single manuscript that contains one or more of the appendixes without the Taḥrīr, namely the very late Tehran, Majlis, 1189 S; however, since this manuscript also contains several of al-Ṭūsī’s recensions of the Middle Books, it may stem from the same tradition. The fact that none of the commentaries on the Taḥrīr, nor later translations, include the appendices strengthens the assumption that the set was not perceived as part of the original work.

Glosses: A set of marginal annotations that has survived in many of the early copies appears to stem from al-Ṭūsī himself or from the scholastic environment of the Maragha observatory. The glosses are typically introduced with ‘ḥāshiya’ in red ink and refer to Almagest versions by Thābit (‘nuskhat Thābit’) and al-Ḥajjāj (‘nuskhat al-Ḥajjāj’) as well as to a Syriac and a Greek copy. This set of marginalia also reflects material from various other sources, such as Theodosius’s Spherics, an unspecified work by Eratosthenes, an autograph by Abū Rayḥān (al-Bīrūnī), and al-Nayrīzī’s apparently lost Almagest commentary. Al-Birjandī believed that the annotations marked ‘ḥāshiya’ stem from al-Ṭūsī, which ultimately led to their partial inclusion in the main text of his supercommentary Sharḥ Taḥrīr al-Majisṭī (C.1.42). Some of the glosses furthermore found their way in a supercommentary by Qāḍī Zādah al-Rūmī (C.1.39).

Translations: A Persian version of the Taḥrīr produced by Khayr Allāh b. Luṭf Allāh, an engineer from Lahore and grandson of the architect of the Taj Mahal, was finished on 24 Muḥarram 1160/5 February 1747. The text was revised shortly before Khayr Allāh’s death by his son Muḥammad ʿAlī al-Riyāḍī and became known under the title Taqrīb al-Ṭaḥrīr al-Majisṭī (see also Storey). Khayr Allāh’s personal copy of the Arabic version is preserved in Rampur, Raza, Arabic 3694. In 1732, an expanded translation of al-Ṭūsī's Taḥrīr into Sanskrit (entitled Samrāṭ Siddhānta or Siddhāntasārakaustubha) was made by Jagannātha Samrāṭ (d. 1744) on the order of Maharaja Jai Singh II. This version is extant in at least 25 manuscripts and also includes references to Ulugh Beg and Ghiyāth al-Dīn Jamshīd al-Kāshī (see BEA (Achar), Pingree). For an edition of the Sanskrit text, see Sharma.

Text: [ Istanbul, Nuruosmaniye, 2941]

[author’s preface] (1v–2r) أحمد الله مبدأ كلّ مبدأ وغاية كلّ غاية ومفيض كلّ خير ووليّ كلّ هداية وأرجو حسن توفيقه في كلّ بداية ونهاية. — وأقول الكتاب مشتمل على ثلاث عشرة مقالة ومائة واحد وأربعين فصلًا ومائة وستّة وتسعين شكلًا على ما في النسخة التي نقلها إسحق بن حنين وأصلحها ثابت بن قرّة كما سيجيء مفصّلًا.

[Book I] (2r–13v) المقالة الأولى أربعة عشر فصلًا وستّة عشر شكلًا ا صدر الكتاب استحسن فيه بطلميوس من الفلاسفة أفراد الفلسفة النظريّة عن العمليّة مع كون العمليّة قبل العمل أيضًا. — ونحن حسبنا بهذا الوجه لعشرة عشرة من الأجزاء إذ لا يتفاوت فيها دون ذلك بسبب التفاضل شيء بعتدّ به فواجدناها هكذا وسائر الأنواع كهذا الربع تمّت المقالة الأولى.

[Book II] (13v–22v) المقالة الثانية ثلاثة عشر فصلًا وخمسة وعشرون شكلًا ا في جملة المسكون من الأرض عندنا لمّا ذكرنا في المقالة الأولى حال الكلّ على الوجه المجمل. — أقول قيل وكأنّا الكتاب الموعود هو جغرافيا تمّت المقالة الثانيّة .

[Book III] (22v–30v) المقالة الثالثة عشرة فصول وعشرون شكلًا نريد أن نبيّن فيها أحوال الشمس. — قال ووسط الشمس لأوّل تأريخ مختصر كما مرّ في الحوت ع مه وموضوعها المقوم في الحوت ج ح ومطالعها بالمستقيم شله طل فلنستعمل عند الحاجة. تمّت المقالة الثالثة

[Book IV] (30v–40r) المقالة الرابعة أحد عشر فصلًا وتسعة أشكال ا في تعيين الأرصاد التي منها تعرف رموز القمر الكلّيّة لمّا لم يكن بعد فلك القمر من الأرض بعدًا يكون الأرض عنده كنقطة. — فهذا سبب الاختلاف الواقع في حسابه وزاد من ذلك الثقة بأصولنا تمّت المقالة الرابعة بعون الله وحسن توفيقه.

[Book V] (40r–51v) المقالة الخامسة تسعة عشر فصلًا وعشرون شكلًا ا في صنعة آلة يقاس بها الكواكب وهي ذات الخلق لسنا نجد الاختلاف المذكور. — وبقي من الأوضاع كون القمر في هذه المواضع عديم العرض وكونه على دائرة عرض إقليم الرؤية ذا عرض أو عديم العرض وقد مرّ به حال الاختلاف فيهما.

[Book VI] (51v–61v) المقالة السادسة عشرة فصول وسبعة أشكال ا في الاجتماعات والاستقبالات النظر في الكسوفات متأخّر عن النظر في الاجتماعات والاستقبالات الحقيقيّة. — وإنّما أقامها مقامها في سائر الأوضاع تساهلًا وتفصل على الأمر الجليل ولتبير في دائرة جرم القمر موضع المحاذاة بحسبها من الأفق

[Book VII] (61v–67v) المقالة السابعة خمسة فصول ا في أنّ الثوابت حافظة لأوضاعها أبدًا من الصواب تسمية هذه الكواكب بالثابتة. — صور نصف منطقة البروج الشماليّة.

[Book VIII] (67v–74v) المقالة الثامنة ستّة فصول وأربعة أشكال ا في جداول النصف الجنوبي صور نصف منطقة البروج الجنوبيّ. — لأنّ هذا سبب إجماليّ لا يؤثّر تأثير تشكّلات النيّرين الجزئيّة إلى شايئ الأسباب تمّت المقالة الثامنة بعون الله وحسن توفيقه .

[Book IX] (74v–86r) المقالة التاسعة أحد عشر فصلًا وعشرة أشكال ا في مراتب أكر السيّارة نبدأ في الكلام في أكرها المتحرّكة بكلّيّاتها على قطبي البروج. — فحاصل الخاصّة الأوّل يزدجرد ه كا نج حاصل الأوج و يد يح تمّت المقالة التاسعة حمد لله ومنّه.

[Book X] (86r–89v) المقالة العاشرة عشرة فصول وثمانية عشر شكلًا ا في البعد الأبعد للزهرة لم نجد للقدماء أرصاد الأبعاد العظمى المتساويّة التي في جهة واحدة. — تشتمل على بيان مثل تلك الأحوال للمشتري ثمّ لزحل إيثار للاختصار وتجنّبًا من التكرار.

[Book XI] (89v–96v) المقالة الحادية عشرة اثنى عشر فصلًا وأربعة عشرون شكلًا ر من مقالة ي وا ه من مقالة يا في مقدار خروج مراكز العلويّة ومواضع أوجاتها كما استخرجنا مقدار اختلاف القمر وموضع بعده الأبعد من ثلاثة خسوفات. — فما حصل فهو بعد موضع الكوكب المقوّم الحقيقيّ من أوجه.

[Book XII] (96v–101r) المقالة الثانية عشر سبعة فصول وثمانية عشر شكلًا ا في المقدّمات التي تحتاج إليها في رجوع الكواكب ممّا يتّبع العلم بالحركات الطوليّة أن تتمّ مقادير الرجوع المختلفة لكلّ كوكب من الأصول المذكورة. — فبهذا الوجه حسبنا لسائر البروج ورسمنا جدولًا ذا اثني عشر سطرًا أو خمسة صفوف أوّلها مبادئ الكوكبين وهو هذا.

[Book XIII] (101r) المقالة الثالثة عشر أحد عشر فصلًا وخمسة عشرون شكلًا بقي علينا من أمور الخمسة البحث عن عروضها وعن أبعاد ظهورها واختفائها.

[Explicit] (108r) أقول: وإذ وفقني الله تعالى أيضًا لإتمام ما قصدته وإنجاز ما وعدته، ولأقطع الكلام حامدًا له على الآية ومصليًّا على جميع أوليائه، خصوصًا على خاتم أنبيائه، والبررة من آله وأحبائه حامدًا الله ومصليًّا على رسوله وآله الطاهرين.

Bibl.: Hājjī Khalīfa, Kashf al-ẓunūn (ed. FlügelGustav Flügel, Kashf al-ẓunūn ʿan asāmī al-kutub wa-l-funūn. Lexicon bibliographicum et encyclopaedicum a Mustafa ben Abdallah Katib Jelebi dicto et nomine Haji Khalifa celebrato compositum, 7 vols, Leipzig: Bentley / London: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland, 1835–1858, vol. V, pp. 385–386; ed. YaltkayaŞerefettin Yaltkaya and Kilisli Rifat Bilge, Kashf al-ẓunūn ʿan asāmī l-kutub wa-l-funūn li-... Ḥajji Khalīfa ..., 2 vols, Istanbul: Maarif Matbaası, 1941–1943, vol. II, col. 1594). — Moritz Steinschneider, ‘Die arabischen Uebersetzungen aus dem Griechischen. Zweiter Abschnitt: Mathematik’, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 50 (1896), pp. 161–219 and 337–417, here p. 205; SuterHeinrich Suter, Die Mathematiker und Astronomen der Araber und ihre Werke, Leipzig: Teubner, 1900, pp. 146–153 (no. 368); DharīʿaĀqā Buzurg al-Ṭihrānī, ʿAlī Naqī Munzawī and Aḥmad Ḥusaynī Ishkawarī, al-Dharīʿa ilā taṣānīf al-Shīʿa, 26 vols, Najaf / Tehran, 1936–1985, vol. III, pp. 390–391; Charles A. Storey, Persian Literature. A Bio-Bibliographical Survey. Vol. II, Part 1: A. Mathematics. B. Weights and Measures. C. Astronomy and Astrology. D. Geography, London: Luzac, 1958, vol. II, p. 37 (§70.2); GAS VIFuat Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, Vol. VI: Astronomie bis ca. 430 H., Leiden: Brill, 1978, p. 93; EI²P. J. Bearman et al. (eds), The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition, 11 vols plus supplement and index, Leiden: Brill, 1960–2004 article ‘al-Ṭūsī, Naṣīr al-Dīn. 3. As scientist’ by F. Jamil Ragep; ENWCHelaine Selin (ed.), Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1997 article ‘Almagest. Its Reception and Transmission in the Islamic World’ by Paul Kunitzsch; MAOSICBoris A. Rosenfeld and Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, Mathematicians, Astronomers, and other Scholars of Islamic Civilization and their Works (7th–19th c.), Istanbul: Research Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture (IRCICA), 2003, p. 215 (no. 606, A1) and p. 375 (no. 1181, A1); BEAThomas Hockey (ed.), The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, 2 vols, Dordrecht: Springer, 2007 articles ‘Jagannātha Samrāṭ’ by Narahari Achar and ‘Ṭūsī’ by F. Jamil Ragep. — Eilhard Wiedemann, ‘Beiträge zur Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften. LXXVIII. Naṣîr al Dîn al Ṭûsî. Nach einem vom Verfasser hinterlassenen Manuskript bearbeitet und herausgegeben von Julius Ruska’, Sitzungsberichte der Physikalisch-Medizinischen Sozietät zu Erlangen 60 (1928), pp. 289–316, esp. p. 304; Sharma:1967; David Pingree, Census of the Exact Sciences in Sanskrit, 5 vols, Philadelphia, 1970–1994, vol. III, pp. 57–58; George Saliba, ‘The Role of the Almagest Commentaries in Medieval Arabic Astronomy: A Preliminary Survey of Ṭūsī’s Redaction of Ptolemy’s Almagest’, Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Sciences 37 (1987), pp. 3–20, esp. pp. 7–12; F. Jamil Ragep, Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī’s Memoir on Astronomy (al-Tadhkira fī ʿilm al-hayʾa), 2 vols, New York: Springer, 1993, vol. I, esp. p. 13; Salim Aydüz, ‘Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī’s Influence on Ottoman Scientific Literature (Mathematics, Astronomy and Natural Sciences)’, International Journal of Turkish Studies 17 (2011), pp. 21–38, here pp. 30–31 and 37–38; Dirk Grupe, ‘The ‘Thābit-Version’ of Ptolemy’s Almagest in MS Dresden Db.87’, Suhayl 11 (2012), pp. 147–153, here pp. 150–151; Mohammad Sadegh Ansari, Wīrāyish-i intiqādī, tarjama wa sharḥ-i maqāla-yi nuhum-i kitāb-i Taḥrīr al-Majisṭī taʾlīf-i Khwāja Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī, MA thesis, University of Tehran, 2014; ParraMª José Parra, ‘A List of Arabic Manuscripts of Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī’s Taḥrīr al-Majisṭī’, Suhayl 16–17 (2018–2019), pp. 251–322; F. Jamil Ragep, ‘The Origins of the Ṭūsī-couple Revisited’, in Alexander Jones and Christián Carman (eds), Instruments – Observations – Theories. Studies in the History of Early Astronomy in Honor of James Evans, 2020, pp. 229–237; Sajjad Nikfahm-Khubravan, The Reception of Ptolemy’s Latitude Theories in Islamic Astronomy, PhD dissertation, McGill University, 2022, pp. 671–684; M. J. Parra Péréz and D. Grupe, ‘Arabic Commentators on Ptolemy’s Almagest’, Qatar Digital Library: https://www.qdl.qa/en/arabic-commentators-ptolemys-almagest. Islamic Scientific Manuscript Initiative: https://ismi.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/index.php/text/122359. Databases: ISMI.

Ed.: Ansari edited Book IX (including the tables) and translated it into Persian. An edition of Chapters XIII.1–3 together with a short analysis of the eight early manuscripts used was published by Nikfahm-Khubravan.

Arabic commentaries

• Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Samarqandī, Sharḥ Taḥrīr al-Majisṭī (C.1.37)

• Niẓām al-Dīn al-Ḥasan al-Nīsābūrī, Tafsīr Taḥrīr al-Majisṭī (C.1.38)

• Qāḍī-Zāda al-Rūmī, 〈Ḥāshiya ʿalā Sharḥ al-Majisṭī〉 (C.1.39)

• al-Birjandī, Sharḥ Taḥrīr al-Majisṭī (C.1.42)