A collection of problems concerning Ptolemy’s Almagest with their solutions. It has no direct connection to Ibn al-Haytham’s al-Shukūk ʿalā Baṭlamyūs (Doubts about Ptolemy, C.1.1032). 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 (‘The Celestial Kinematics’), Ḥall shukūk was written between 1028 and 1038 ce. The extant witnesses of this work contain two different versions of the text. The supposedly complete compilation is preserved in Istanbul, Beyazıt Devlet, Veliyüddin 2304 as well as in Istanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Fatih 3439. For the edited version that most likely goes back to members of the observatory in Maragha, see C.1.1266. The Berlin copy of this work (SBPK, or. oct. 3548) is lost (see https://www.qalamos.net/receive/DE1Book_manuscript_00019967).

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.

Part I consists of five ‘doubts’ (shukūk). First, the problem is described with a reference to the chapter of the Almagest, to which Ibn al-Haytham then gives a ‘reply’ (jawāb). All five doubts refer to Book I of the Almagest.

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 one for which the name of the author is given, namely Abū l-Qāsim b. Maʿdān (Sezgin, pp. 204 and 293–294).