Book of the Constellations (Kitāb ṣuwar al-kawākib al-thābita), by `Abd al-Raḥmān al-Ṣūfī
Object Information
Object Information
Description
- Object no:
- Ar 4222
- Title:
- Book of the Constellations (Kitāb ṣuwar al-kawākib al-thābita), by `Abd al-Raḥmān al-Ṣūfī
- Artist and production place:
- Unknown
Isfahan
- Calligrapher and production place:
- Unknown
Isfahan
- Production date:
- 1600-1650
- Dimensions:
- 256 mm x 171 mm x 29 mm (height x width x depth)
- Material:
- Paper (material) Pigment (material) Ink (material) Gold
- Language:
- Arabic (language)
- Script type:
- Naskh script
- Collection:
- Arabic collection
- Object category:
- Manuscript
- Object name:
- Codex
- Description:
- Book of the Constellations (Kitāb ṣuwar al-kawākib al-thābita), by `Abd al-Raḥmān al-Ṣūfī. For many centuries, astronomers in west Asia retained, reviewed and revised the same scientific models, but kept an open mind. In this book on the constellations, for example, the Iranian astronomer `Abd al-Raḥmān al-Ṣūfī (d. 986, Baghdad) referred carefully to the star catalogue recorded by Ptolemy in the second century AD (he in turn drew from his own predecessors), and also compared that scientific system to the star-names used in Arab folk astronomy. Al-Ṣūfī's book discussed the forty-eight "classical" constellations (including the Zodiac constellations), recorded their celestial longitude and latitude positions (in the star tables here), and provided two mirror-images of each constellation. These two twin images explained visually how the stars have long been imagined as fixed to a single sphere around the Earth: looking into the night sky, you will see into this sphere from the "inside". However, if you looked at the same constellation on a three-dimensional model of that starry sphere (familiar as the celestial globe), you would be seeing that constellation from the "outside", and it would therefore be a mirror image. Illustrating the two versions side by side, al-Ṣūfī labelled each to show which was "as seen in the sky" and which "on the globe". Copies of al-Ṣūfī's renowned treatise, including translations into other languages, continued to be produced for many centuries after his death. Codex, ink, colours and gold on paper, 172 folios, Arabic text in naskh script, with labelled constellation figures and star tables throughout, Book of the Constellations (Kitāb ṣuwar al-kawākib al-thābita) by `Abd al-Raḥmān al-Ṣūfī (d. 986), unsigned, Isfahan, Iran, undated, c. 1600-1650.
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