A collection of problems arising from the Almagest with their solutions. It has no direct connection to Ibn al-Haytham’s al-Shukūk ʿalā Baṭlamyūs (Doubts about Ptolemy, C.1.11). In contrast to al-Shukūk, in which Ibn al-Haytham pointed out problems and inconsistencies within Ptolemy’s works, he here attempts to resolve controversial issues that were put forward presumably by other scholars. According to Rashed, Ḥall shukūk was written between ad 1028 and 1038. The extant witnesses of this work contain two different versions of the text. The supposedly complete compilation is preserved in four manuscripts (the Berlin manuscript is lost); for the edited version that most likely goes back to members of the observatory in Maragha, see C.1.28.

Origin: It is hard to ascertain whether the collection of questions and doubts that is extant today was compiled by Ibn al-Haytham himself as one coherent treatise. For example, in Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa’s list, this work appears under the title Maqāla fī Ḥall shukūk fī l-maqāla al-ūlā min Kitāb al-Majisṭī yashukku fī-hā baʿḍ ahl al-ʿilm, i.e., Treatise on the Solution of Doubts Concerning Book I of the Almagest, Raised by some People of the Science. Given that only Part I deals exclusively with issues from Book I, this might suggest that Part I once was an independent treatise. In contrast, Sabra argued that Abū l-Qāsim b. Maʿdān could be the author of all the doubts and questions answered by Ibn al-Haytham, which would tie the existing parts closer together than it may seem at first sight (Sabra, ‘On Seeing the Stars’, pp. 3–4). A comment on the first doubt of Part III suggests that the treatise goes back to a discussion between Ibn al-Haytham and a single interlocutor in three stages. Ibn al-Haytham writes that the first question of Part II and the first doubt of Part III are responses to his responses concerning the first doubt of Part I and the first question of Part II, respectively (for the Arabic text, see Sabra, ‘On Seeing the Stars’, p. 30:1–9). It remains unclear whether this interlocutor is, in fact, Abū l-Qāsim b. Maʿdān.

Content: The Ḥall shukūk falls into four main parts (see Sabra, ‘On Seeing the Stars’, esp. pp. 2–4):

• Part I consists of five ‘doubts’ (shukūk) each referring to Book I of the Almagest. In each case, first the problem is described with a reference to the chapter concerned, to which Ibn al-Haytham then gives a ‘reply’ (jawāb).
• Part II consists of nine ‘questions’ (masāʾil).
• Part III consists of four ‘doubts’ (shukūk).
• Part IV is a single ‘doubt’ (shakk). This is the only doubt for which the name of the author is given, namely Abū l-Qāsim b. Maʿdān (Sezgin, pp. 204 and 293–294).

Text: [Istanbul, Beyazıt, Veliyüddin 2304]

[Part I] (1v–7v) الشكّ الأوّل وهو قول بطلميوس في الفصل الثالث الذي ترجمته في أنّ السمآء كرية وحركتها أيضًا كرية والذي يرى من الزيادة في عظمها بعين النجوم — فقد أيضح المعنى الذي إشار إليه بطلميوس في هذا الفصل وصحّ وزالت الشبهة. [Part II] (7v–15r) جوابات المسائل المشكوك فيها من المجسطي. المسئلة الأولى. وهذه حكايتها في رؤية الكواكب عند الأفق — فهذا الذي ذكرناه هو تفسير قول بطلميوس لو خلطناها وما تبعه من الكلام وهذا آخر ما ذكره من المسائل. [Part III] (15r–19v) الشكّ الأوّل. من المعلوم انّ كلّ موضع من الأرض موافق لما يعدّه منه ربع دائرة وأنّ العارض في رئية الكواكب يعرض في كلّ موضع من الأرض — ونقص أيضًا من جملة الحركات حركتين وهي حركة الفلكين المائلين فهذا الذي ذكرته هو جواب ما تشكّك فيه. [Part IV] (19v–20v) جواب شكّ في اختلاف منظر القمر من شكوك أبي القاسم بن معدان. وقفت على ما اتّبعه مولانى الشيخ أنار الله برهاننه في اختلاف منظر القمر وعلى الشكّ الذي في آخر الكلام — وهذا القول هو غاية ما يمكن أن يعتذر به لبطلميوس في استعماله التقريب في جزئيّات اختلاف منظر القمر دون التحقيق وذلك ما أردنا أن نبيّن. تمّت الشكوك في المجسطي وحلّها والحمد لله ربّ العالمين والصلوة على رسول محمّد وآله أجمعين.

Bibl.: Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa, ʿUyūn al-anbāʾ (ed. MüllerAugust Müller, ʿUyūn al-anbāʾ fī l-ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbāʾ li-ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa, 2 vols, Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿa al-Wahbiyya, 1882, vol. II, p. 98); Ibn al-Qifṭī, Taʾrīkh al-ḥukamāʾ (ed. LippertJulius Lippert, Ibn al-Qifṭī’s Taʾrīḫ al-ḥukamā, Leipzig: Dieterich, 1903, p. 168). — KrauseMax Krause, ‘Stambuler Handschriften islamischer Mathematiker’, Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte der Mathematik, Astronomie und Physik, Abteilung B: Studien 3 (1936), pp. 437–532, p. 478; DSBCharles C. Gillispie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography, 14 vols plus 2 supplementary vols, New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1970–1990 article ‘Ibn al-Haytham’ by Abdelhamid I. Sabra, esp. pp. 206–207 (III 38); GAS VIFuat Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, Vol. VI: Astronomie bis ca. 430 H., Leiden: Brill, 1978, pp. 204, 258, and 293–294; Abdelhamid I. Sabra, ‘On Seeing the Stars, II. Ibn al-Haytham’s “Answers” to the “Doubts” Raised by Ibn Maʿdān’, Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften 10 (1995–1996), pp. 1–59; 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, pp. 130–138 (no. 328, A14); Roshdi Rashed, ‘The Celestial Kinematics of Ibn al-Haytham’, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 17 (2007), pp. 7–55, here p. 10.

Ed.: Partial critical edition with English translation in Sabra, ‘On Seeing the Stars’, pp. 9–59.