Books by Razieh S . Mousavi
Here is the table of contents and preface for my recently completed doctoral project undertaken a... more Here is the table of contents and preface for my recently completed doctoral project undertaken at Humboldt University in Berlin. The focus of the research is al-Farghānī’s Elements of Astronomy (Jawāmiʿ ʿilm al-nujūm جوامع علم النجوم للفرغاني), written around 860 CE in Arabic. I am currently engaged in the process of transforming this project into a book, with the expectation of having it published in 2025.
Papers by Razieh S . Mousavi
Manuscript Cultures, 2024
This paper explores how an interest in mathematics and alphanumerical relations led to a vision o... more This paper explores how an interest in mathematics and alphanumerical relations led to a vision of the unity of knowledge as reflected in the Numerical Riddle by the 17th-century Safavid Iranian scholar and statesman, Mīrzā Ibrāhīm, also known as the Vizier of Azerbaijan. It also examines how this perspective was coupled with an openness to foreign sciences, exemplified by his support for the construction of a church in Tabriz for the Capuchin Fathers and missionaries where he and his son could learn from them.
Failed Historical Scientific Instruments, 2024
The advantage of an instrument for determining qibla for prayers was the fact that the sophistica... more The advantage of an instrument for determining qibla for prayers was the fact that the sophistication and abstraction of mathematical operations could be masked well behind the functionality and mechanism of a tangible object. On the way to reach this goal, generations of mathematicians devised and refined diverse qibla-indicators whose story of failure and success is the subject of this study. I will follow the thread of improvement along the history of evolution of qibla-indicators and see how instrument-makers analysed their faults and upgraded their products by offering attractive instruments in sizes, shapes, simplified functions, and multi-purpose applications. This study is also a window to observe how complex mathematical instruments for qibla-finding like astrolabes and quadrants shifted progressively towards today’s user-friendly, ad hoc tools which work literally as input-output calculators.
Suhayl (International Journal for the History of the Exact and Natural Sciences in Islamic Societies), 2023
A joint paper with Petra G. Schmidl centered on al-Ashraf ῾Umar’s Tabṣira, Chapter xxiii. This ar... more A joint paper with Petra G. Schmidl centered on al-Ashraf ῾Umar’s Tabṣira, Chapter xxiii. This article explores methods for determining moonrise and moonset as evidenced within a range of pre-and early modern sources originating from Islamicate societies (time-keeping, agriculture, anwa', zījes,...). The present article suggests a categorisation of the diverse methods predicated on various factors such as exactitude, complexity, state of completeness, literary formats, and audience.
[forthcoming] From a Geometric Construct to an Embodied Agent: New Perspectives on the Symbolism of the Eclipse Dragon in the Islamic Literature (al-jawzahr - al-tinnīn - lunar nodes)
“Ṭāliʿ va maṭāliʿ (Ascendant and Ascensions)”, Encyclopedia of the World of Islam 30 (Tehran, 140... more “Ṭāliʿ va maṭāliʿ (Ascendant and Ascensions)”, Encyclopedia of the World of Islam 30 (Tehran, 1400 SH/2021), 518-521 (in Persian)
دانشنامه جهان اسلام، ج۳۰، صص ۵۱۸-۵۲۱
Shii Studies Review, 2022
With Hassan Ansari -
"This paper provides critical editions of five unstudied Imāmī credal text... more With Hassan Ansari -
"This paper provides critical editions of five unstudied Imāmī credal texts written between the late fifth/eleventh and early seventh/thirteenth centuries. The paper begins with an account of the importance of this period, as it witnessed the beginning of a pivotal turn in Imāmī thought from Bahshamite viewpoints to those of Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī. The historical trajectory of this doctrinal shift has been well explored, but it has rarely been portrayed through textual evidence from credal texts. The paper also discusses the authorship and production dates of these five treatises."
Antigüedad y Cristianismo, 2021
This paper seeks to shed more light on calendrical knowledge in the first centuries of the Islami... more This paper seeks to shed more light on calendrical knowledge in the first centuries of the Islamic era in which different administrative traditions fell under the control of a central government. Astronomy as a court-sponsored discipline in the Abbasid dynasty, undertook the pivotal task of identifying and mastering various calendrical disciplines under the reign of the caliphs to make a centralized management feasible. In the first two centuries, the domination of the Arabic lunar calendar, whose significance lies in governing the Islamic yearly festivals and occasions, led to drastic disagreements with the annual planting cycles that were followed by the farmers. Accordingly, the official taxation system faced serious problems, the solution of which was the development of a well-established solar calendar. The large concern of the ninth-century Muslim astronomers for calendrical computations acknowledges their integral participation in this executive challenge. The present study follows these practices through the lens of a ninth-century Arabic astronomical text, written by Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Kathīr al-Farghānī (Alfraganus in the west), known mainly as the Elements of Astronomy. The careful exploration of this text helps us achieve a broader image of time-keeping accounts in the early Islamic era and the need for calendrical conversions. Moreover, the author’s detailed report of the five existing calendars of the time (Arabic, Syriac, Byzantine, Persian and Egyptian) and their systems of nomenclature, opens an early window to the linguistic investigation of time-reckoning in the Islamic world.
مجله میراث علمی اسلام و ایران Scientific Heritage of Islam and Iran , 2017
Looking up towards the stars in the heavens is one of the most popular
ways of navigation from a... more Looking up towards the stars in the heavens is one of the most popular
ways of navigation from ancient time to the present. With the
knowledge of constellations, it is not complicated to spot the particular
stars in the sky and determine the locations. Among those stars, the
Polaris, for its closest position to the North Pole,
has long been the focus of attention.
In this paper, I look into the significance of the Polaris through
the history of astronomy in Islam. The various roles it plays in
navigation, constellations and folk astronomy are included in the
survey. Moreover, the importance of finding the direction to Mecca for
some of the Muslims’ ritual practices led to distinctive literature during
the history of science that is considered in detail in the last part of this
paper. Referring to the Polaris as a special sign of finding the cardinal
directions and determining qibla was widely used in traditional and
religious contributions during Islamic history. In this regard, the viewpoints of both Muslim astronomers and legal scholars are taken
into account, and historical evidence on their interactions and
oppositions has been analyzed.
جام گیتی نما Jām-e gītī-namā is an instrument for determining qibla introduced in a treatise by M... more جام گیتی نما Jām-e gītī-namā is an instrument for determining qibla introduced in a treatise by Muḥammad Riḍā Yazdī (fl. Yazd, ca. 1867). According to this text, he aimed at investigating some earlier scientific instruments found at his time, including a qibla-indicator. Although he did not describe the instrument in detail, his method of expressing its function leads us to consider it as a Mecca-centered world-map for finding the direction and distance to Mecca. As he assumed it impossible to determine the direction to Mecca through projection, he devised Jām-e gītī-namā (Jām-e gītī-numā) to stay with numerical results regardless of the underlying geometrical model. This paper examines Muḥammad Riḍā’s new instrument inspired by an older version in order to shed more light on the history of qibla-indicators, more especially, Mecca-centered world-maps.
Appeared in: Encyclopedia of the World of Islam 23 (Tehran: 1396/2018).
Encyclopedia of the World of Islam, 2018
Appeared in: Encyclopedia of the World of Islam 24 (Tehran, 1396 SH/2018), 519-521.
Appeared in: Great Islamic Encyclopedia 23 (Tehran: 1396/2018), 90-1. Available online.
(Abū ʿAb... more Appeared in: Great Islamic Encyclopedia 23 (Tehran: 1396/2018), 90-1. Available online.
(Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Yūsuf al-Kātib - خوارزمی کاتب)
translations by Razieh S . Mousavi
مجله میراث علمی اسلام و ایران Scientific Heritage of Islam and Iran , 2017, 2018
"A Letter of al-Bīrūnī: Ḥabash al-Ḥāsib's Analemma for the Qibla" by E. S. Kennedy and Yusuf ‘Id,... more "A Letter of al-Bīrūnī: Ḥabash al-Ḥāsib's Analemma for the Qibla" by E. S. Kennedy and Yusuf ‘Id, has been published in the first volume of the Historia Mathematica, 1974, p. 3-11.
Given the geographical coordinates of two points on the earth's surface, a graphical construction is described for determining the azimuth of one locality with respect to the other. The method is due to a ninth-century astronomer of Baghdad, transmitted in a short Arabic manuscript. Apart from a reproduced Arabic text and an English translation, the authors have provided mathematical relations and a commentary as well.
This is a Persian translation of "Islamic Astronomy" in Astronomy before the Telescope by David A... more This is a Persian translation of "Islamic Astronomy" in Astronomy before the Telescope by David A. King, British Museum Press, 1996. This translation begins with an introduction by the author, published in Mirase Elmi Islam va Iran (Scientific Heritage of Islam and Iran), no.7, 2015, pp. 20-54.
This is a Persian translation of " Pure Mathematics in Islamic Civilization" in Companion Encyclo... more This is a Persian translation of " Pure Mathematics in Islamic Civilization" in Companion Encyclopedia of the History and Philosophy of the mathematical Sciences, London-New York, pp 70-79. The translation appears in Mirase Elmi Islam va Iran (Scientific Heritage of Islam and Iran), no.8, 2016, pp. 5-16.
Conference Presentations by Razieh S . Mousavi
Since mathematical methods were not easily available to ordinary people and hard to employ, espec... more Since mathematical methods were not easily available to ordinary people and hard to employ, especially when the prayer was on a trip, various instruments were devised to make it more comfortable. Quadrants were among common qibla-indicators in Medieval Islam. In my talk, an Iranian quadrant presented by Muḥammad Bāqir Yazdī in 17th century is introduced that takes advantage of geometrical models for finding qibla rooted in Greeks' contributions.
This talk was given in the 35th Scientific Instrument Symposium (Instruments between East and West), Istanbul, September 2016.
I gave this talk at the International Conference on History of Science: Islam, Europe and China o... more I gave this talk at the International Conference on History of Science: Islam, Europe and China on April 27-29 2016, in Tehran. This Conference was organized by the Institute for the History of Science of the University of Tehran, and Utrecht University.
In this presentation, the main differences between Muslim mathematicians and legal scholars on th... more In this presentation, the main differences between Muslim mathematicians and legal scholars on the methods for finding qibla in the Safavid period in Iran have been approached. This talk is given in June 2013 at the Institute of Geophysics, University of Tehran, Iran.
Uploads
Books by Razieh S . Mousavi
Papers by Razieh S . Mousavi
دانشنامه جهان اسلام، ج۳۰، صص ۵۱۸-۵۲۱
"This paper provides critical editions of five unstudied Imāmī credal texts written between the late fifth/eleventh and early seventh/thirteenth centuries. The paper begins with an account of the importance of this period, as it witnessed the beginning of a pivotal turn in Imāmī thought from Bahshamite viewpoints to those of Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī. The historical trajectory of this doctrinal shift has been well explored, but it has rarely been portrayed through textual evidence from credal texts. The paper also discusses the authorship and production dates of these five treatises."
ways of navigation from ancient time to the present. With the
knowledge of constellations, it is not complicated to spot the particular
stars in the sky and determine the locations. Among those stars, the
Polaris, for its closest position to the North Pole,
has long been the focus of attention.
In this paper, I look into the significance of the Polaris through
the history of astronomy in Islam. The various roles it plays in
navigation, constellations and folk astronomy are included in the
survey. Moreover, the importance of finding the direction to Mecca for
some of the Muslims’ ritual practices led to distinctive literature during
the history of science that is considered in detail in the last part of this
paper. Referring to the Polaris as a special sign of finding the cardinal
directions and determining qibla was widely used in traditional and
religious contributions during Islamic history. In this regard, the viewpoints of both Muslim astronomers and legal scholars are taken
into account, and historical evidence on their interactions and
oppositions has been analyzed.
(Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Yūsuf al-Kātib - خوارزمی کاتب)
translations by Razieh S . Mousavi
Given the geographical coordinates of two points on the earth's surface, a graphical construction is described for determining the azimuth of one locality with respect to the other. The method is due to a ninth-century astronomer of Baghdad, transmitted in a short Arabic manuscript. Apart from a reproduced Arabic text and an English translation, the authors have provided mathematical relations and a commentary as well.
Conference Presentations by Razieh S . Mousavi
This talk was given in the 35th Scientific Instrument Symposium (Instruments between East and West), Istanbul, September 2016.
دانشنامه جهان اسلام، ج۳۰، صص ۵۱۸-۵۲۱
"This paper provides critical editions of five unstudied Imāmī credal texts written between the late fifth/eleventh and early seventh/thirteenth centuries. The paper begins with an account of the importance of this period, as it witnessed the beginning of a pivotal turn in Imāmī thought from Bahshamite viewpoints to those of Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī. The historical trajectory of this doctrinal shift has been well explored, but it has rarely been portrayed through textual evidence from credal texts. The paper also discusses the authorship and production dates of these five treatises."
ways of navigation from ancient time to the present. With the
knowledge of constellations, it is not complicated to spot the particular
stars in the sky and determine the locations. Among those stars, the
Polaris, for its closest position to the North Pole,
has long been the focus of attention.
In this paper, I look into the significance of the Polaris through
the history of astronomy in Islam. The various roles it plays in
navigation, constellations and folk astronomy are included in the
survey. Moreover, the importance of finding the direction to Mecca for
some of the Muslims’ ritual practices led to distinctive literature during
the history of science that is considered in detail in the last part of this
paper. Referring to the Polaris as a special sign of finding the cardinal
directions and determining qibla was widely used in traditional and
religious contributions during Islamic history. In this regard, the viewpoints of both Muslim astronomers and legal scholars are taken
into account, and historical evidence on their interactions and
oppositions has been analyzed.
(Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Yūsuf al-Kātib - خوارزمی کاتب)
Given the geographical coordinates of two points on the earth's surface, a graphical construction is described for determining the azimuth of one locality with respect to the other. The method is due to a ninth-century astronomer of Baghdad, transmitted in a short Arabic manuscript. Apart from a reproduced Arabic text and an English translation, the authors have provided mathematical relations and a commentary as well.
This talk was given in the 35th Scientific Instrument Symposium (Instruments between East and West), Istanbul, September 2016.