Work C.1.17
Anonymous
تعليق 〈على المجسطي لبطلميوس〉
Taʿlīq 〈ʿalā l-Majisṭī li-Baṭlamyūs〉
Alternative title: Sharḥ Majisṭī Baṭlamyūs fī l-hayʾa (1r, not in the hand of the scribe, might instead refer to Ibn al-Haytham’s commentary in the same manuscript).
A collection of explanations of passages from the Almagest, organised in three somewhat different ways in the sole surviving copy of this work in MS Istanbul, Topkapı, Ahmet III 3329. The preface is followed by a series of basic definitions. In the first part of the main work (ff. 2r–8v) the subtitles refer to the books (maqāla) and chapters (jumla, rather than bāb) of the Almagest in their correct order. From selected chapters of Books I–III, the anynomous author presents literal quotations (of up to a length of five lines) from the Isḥāq-Thābit version (A.1.2), mostly introduced by qawlu-hu; these are followed by the author’s explanations. In the second and third parts no literal quotations from the Almagest are given anymore, although Ptolemy is frequently paraphrased (introduced by qāla), and the topics are presented in a seemingly haphazard order. In the second part (ff. 8v–13v) the subtitles indicate the topics (e.g., Fī khtilāf al-manẓar, 8v; Mithāl fī rujūʿ al-Mirrīkh, 10v) or the book or proposition (shakl) of the Almagest to which the explanation belongs. In the third part (ff. 13v–37r) the text is structured in the form of questions (indicated by faṣl, suʾāl or masʾala) and answers (jawāb). The topics that receive most attention in the second and third parts are lunar parallax and planetary latitudes. The explanations include geometrical proofs and occasionally computations; they are illustrated by more than 40 diagrams of a large variety, but have no tables. Besides to Ptolemy and the Almagest, the author refers to, and quotes from, Ibn al-Haytham’s Ḥall shukūk (C.1.10) (ff. 2r and 2v, on observations) and mentions a gloss (hāshiya) by Thābit b. Qurra (14r, on the components of lunar parallax).
Text: [Istanbul, Topkapı, Ahmet III 3329]
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Bibl.: Fehmi Edhem Karatay and O. Rešer, Topkapı Saraı Müzesi Kütüphanesi. Arapça yazmalar kataloğu, 4 vols, İstanbul: Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi, 1962–1969, vol. III, p. 783 (no. 7140); Richard P. Lorch, Thābit ibn Qurra. On the Sector-Figure and Related Texts, Frankfurt am Main: Institut für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften, 2001, p. 352; Johannes Thomann, ‘Ein al-Fārābī zugeschriebener Kommentar zum Almagest (Hs. Tehran Mağlis 6531)’, Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften 19 (2010–2011), pp. 35–76, here p. 65.
Ed.: None.
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