Jaghmīnī's \textit{Mulakhkhaṣ}. An Islamic introduction to Ptolemaic astronomy (Q265781)

This book is a full study of one of the most popular introductory works on theoretical astronomy in the Islamic world from the 13th to the 19th century, namely the \textit{Mulakhkhaṣ fī\ al-hay'a al-basīṭa} (Epitome on theoretical astronomy) by Maḥmūd ibn Muḥammad ibn `Umar al-Jaghmīnī\ al-Khwārizmī. This work and its translations, commentaries, supercommentaries, glosses and other derivatives are extant in thousands of manuscripts in libraries around the world, with more than 300 manuscripts in Istanbul alone. Chapter I discusses in detail a number of important historical issues related to the \textit{Mulakhkhaṣ}. Al-Jaghmīnī\ and his works have been consistently incorrectly dated by modern historians. The two widely circulating divergent dates for his flourishing around 618 AH (1221/2) and his death in 745 AH (1344/5) even led to the assumption of the existence of two al-Jaghmīnīs. The author not only traces the origin of these dates in the secondary literature, but also carefully sorts out both historical sources and chronological information in the \textit{Mulakhkhaṣ} itself to reliably date al-Jaghmīnī's production to the late 12th/early 13th century. This shows not only that al-Jaghmīnī\ predated the devastations caused by the Mongol invasion and the resurge of scholarly activity after the foundation of the Ilkhan dynasty in 1256, but also that there was substantial scientific activity in Central Asia under the Khwarizm Shahs in a period which has often been considered a Dark Age in the history of Islamic science. Chapter I furthermore elucidates the position of the \textit{Mulakhkhaṣ} in the general history of textbooks on theoretical astronomy by giving an overview that covers both Greek introductory works and Islamic ones up to the time of al-Jaghmīnī. All arguments and pieces of information in Chapter I are backed up with exhaustive references in footnotes, which on the average occupy around half of each page. Chapter II describes the editorial procedures followed. The author first explains her effective strategy for selecting those manuscripts from the numerous extant ones that allowed her to produce a text of the \textit{Mulakhkhaṣ} which she considers to be as close as possible to the original. It turned out that only four manuscripts include al-Jaghmīnī's original dedication and a poem addressed to the imam Badr al-Dīn al-Qalānisī, an author and dedicatee of several medical treatises. These four manuscripts, together with the oldest extant copy from the year 644 AH (1246/7), also include al-Jaghmīnī's original values for the maximum lengths of daylight and the geographical latitudes associated with the seven climates, which in most of the surviving manuscripts were replaced by later ones. Hence, these five manuscripts formed the basis for the editorial work, which also benefited very much from the use of manuscripts of commentaries on the \textit{Mulakhkhaṣ}. Descriptions of all five manuscripts including incipits, prefaces and colophons with English translation are provided. Chapter III, the central part of the book, consists of an edition of the Arabic text of the \textit{Mulakhkhaṣ} with an English translation on facing pages. These are followed by a critical apparatus consisting of 1,528 notes to the Arabic text as well as a list of variants found in the nine figures. The commentary in Chapter IV provides philological remarks, comparisons with other sources as well as discussions of technical issues, including useful tables of planetary parameters as found in the \textit{Mulakhkhaṣ} and various possible sources that al-Jaghmīnī\ may have used, especially Ptolemy and al-Battānī. Two appendices present a list of 12 works authored by al-Jaghmīnī\ arranged by subject (astronomy, astrology, mathematics and medicine) and an extensive list of commentaries, supercommentaries and glosses on the \textit{Mulakhkhaṣ}, as well as the Persian, Turkish and Hebrew translations and commentaries thereon. The book is completed by a glossary of Arabic technical terms, the bibliography, a list of manuscripts cited, indexes of numerical parameters and subjects, and six plates from the oldest extant manuscript. All in all, this is an important contribution to the history of Islamic astronomy which will be of interest to a wide audience of both specialists and non-specialists.