Muḥammad ibn Ḥusayn Bahāʾ al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī (1547–1621)
Tashrīḥ al-aflāk (Anatomy of the celestial spheres) including Sharḥ Tashrīḥ al-aflāk (Commentary on Tashrīḥ al-aflāk)
Manuscript in Arabic
Copied by Muhammad bin Fazlullah Sharîf
1072 H (1656 AD)
186pp., c. 11 x c. 19 cm.
Simple leather cover
Order No.: MSS_142
Status: available
Price: 6 200 € (excl. VAT)
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Muḥammad ibn Ḥusayn Bahāʾ al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī (ca. 1547–1621), also known as Shaykh Bahāʾī, was one of the most respected Imāmī (Twelver Shīʿī) Ṣafavid theologians during the reign of Shah ʿAbbās I (1581–1629) was probably the last scholar in the chain of universal and encyclopedic scholars that Islamic civilization was still producing as late as the 16th century. A major figure in the cultural revival of Safavid Iran, he wrote numerous works on astronomy, mathematics, and religious sciences and was one of the very few in the Islamic world to have propounded the possibility of the Earth's movement prior to the spread of Copernican discoveries in astronomy.
In his summary of theoretical astronomy entitled Tashrīḥ al-aflāk (Anatomy of the celestial spheres), al-ʿĀmilī upholds the view of the positional rotation of the Earth, arguing that no sufficient proof has been offered so far to the contrary. In expressing this view, Bahāʾī stands out as one of the very few Muslim scholars to have advocated the feasibility of the Earth's rotation as early as the 16th century, this independent of Western influences.
Bibliography
Vera B. Moreen, “ʿĀmilī, Muḥammad ibn Bahāʾ al-Dīn Ḥusayn al-”, in: Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, Executive Editor Norman A. Stillman. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1878-9781_ejiw_SIM_0002930
Behnaz Hashemipour, ʿĀmilī: Bahāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Ḥusayn al-ʿĀmilī, in: Thomas Hockey et al. (eds.). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, Springer Reference. New York: Springer, 2007, pp. 42-43