UNI 104

Understanding Nature and Knowledge

Instructor: shak Arslan, Phd Spring 2012/1

Islamic Worldview
From Cosmology to Science

Third Week

Contents

Week 1: Introduction, Outline, The Classical Worldview Aristotelian-Ptolemaic System Week 2: Transition From the Classic to the Modern Worldview, Copernican System Week 3: The Legacy of Arabic/Islamic worldview Week 4: Development of mechanistic worldview, Newtonian System Week 5: The spread of mechanistic system, positivist worldview Week 6: Transition from the modern to the contemporary

Week 7: The Special and General Theory of Relativity Week 8: Quantum Theory Week 9: Theory of Evolution Week 10: The comparison of the world views Week 11: Basic concepts of the philosophy of science Week 12: Problems of Philosophy of Science, overall summary/conclusion

Muslim World

The religion of Islam originated in the Arabian peninsula, has been permeated by Arabian culture and language. It today covers a wide area, including Middle East, Central Asia, parts of south-east Asia, North Africa, some parts of Balkans. Islam has consequently played a crucial role in world history, both as an important civilization in its own right, and as an intermediary between the civilizations of antiquity and the early modern world.

Historical Background

The journey, known as the hijrah is traditionally considered to mark the beginning of the Islamic era. (AD 622) Two years after prophets death, (AD 632) his followers built on the momentum of his teachings, and quickly achieved the task of uniting the different tribes of the Arabian peninsula. Muslims expanded their territories from Syria to the western Asia and north Africa. By AD 750 the Muslims controlled a continuous empire from Spain to the Indus. They inherited, among other things, the science of the Greeks from many Hellenistic cities, as well as the culture of Sassanid Persia. A golden age of Islamic culture emerged after the age of expansion was over. Another owering was later to occur in Istanbul. (1453)

Islamic Worldview

The basic principle of Islamic theocentric cosmology is the belief of tawhid (La ilaha illa Allah) and its conception of Allah. The principle of tawhid is the main holistic Islamic Weltanschauung. This principle implies that Allah is one in His essence (dhat), i.e., not composed of parts, one in His attributes (sifat), i.e., not being inuenced in any way by anything other than Himself. This principle together with the principle of tanzih (no compromise with the transcendent purity of Allah) might be accepted as the paradigmatic base of unity among conicting schools, sects, and tradition in Islamic history. (A. Davutoglu: Alternative Paradigms, p. 47)

Islamic Worldview

The main sources are the Quran and Sunnah of the Prophet of Islam SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT: the Shariah or Divine Law and classical schools of jurisprudence (qh) theology (kalam) the various manifestations of Islamic spirituality, Susm (tasawwuf), Islamic philosophy (falsa- fah/ hikmah), and Science

Islamic Cosmologies

Its cosmos is now the Ptolemaic structure of concentric spheres, its elements are the Aristotelian elements of re, water, earth and air, combined with the Plotinian emanations of pure intelligences and souls, transformed into or combined with he angels of the monotheistic religions, and controlled by the One Supreme Necessary Being, from whom all being is derived, being their origin and principle, and to which the whole creation yearns to return. The Muslim concept of Justice, Harmony and controlled Order is extended to the whole cosmos, all of whose elements are maintained in that state of equilibrium which is appropriate to their nature an operate in ordered hierarchy, from the ninth heaven to the lowliest minerals H.A.R. Gibb, Islamic Cosmological Doctrines, p. XVI.

Islamic Cosmologies

With the conquests of the rst two centuries of Islam, astronomical techniques were made to serve the needs of religion. To determine more precisely the hours of prayer, the direction of Mecca, the periods of fasting. The heritage of ancient astronomies was brought from Alexandria and India, from Syria and Harran and from Byzantium. Arabian Islamic scholarship were to be absorbed by Europe. The names of leading astronomers Latinized. (Jabir ibn Aah as Geber, Al Bitruji as Alpetragius, Ibn Rushd as Averroes, Ibn Al Haytam as Alhazen)

Islamic Cosmologies Al-Khwarizmi

Al Khawarizmi (AD 850) was one of the leading astronomers in the Islamic world. He wrote on astronomy, prepared a set of zij (astronomical tables) of future planetary and stellar positions. Inuenced by Ptolemys original tables, they are the rst Islamic astronomical work. Al Khwarizmi wrote an inuential work on algebra (algorithm/khawarizm) and on the astrolabe in the Islamic tradition.

Islamic Cosmologies Al-Farghani

Another of the early Baghdad mathematician and one of the famous astronomers in 9th century He wrote a general book on astronomy, a critical commentary on Al-Khawarizmis zij, and a commentary on the Almagest. He wrote also on the astrolabe, made some crucial corrections on the device. His textbook Elements of astronomy on the celestial motions, written about 833, It was translated into Latin in the 12th century and remained very popular in Europe

Islamic Cosmologies Thabit ibn Qurra

He was born in Harran, in AD 826. He inherited in his young days knowledge of Greek, Syriac and Arabic. He studied in Baghdad, wrote about the sundial, made a careful study of the Suns apparent motion across the sky. He studied also Moons motion, came to conclusion that there is undiscovered factor in their movement. (Trembling of the elliptic) This effect (trepidation) substantially affected all subsequent astronomical tables, not only in Arabia but also in Western world.

Islamic Cosmologies Al-Battani

He made observations of ellipses and other celestial movements near Aleppo and wrote his own zij (Kitab al ZijBook of astronomical tables). He constructed a sundial, o novel type of armillary sphere known sometimes as the egg, a large quadrant xed to a wall. His corrections of errors of observation in the Almagest were very valuable not only in themselves but also in the mathematical techniques. These techniques were taken up by later generations, they were quoted by western astronomers such as Copernicus, Tycho Brahe and Kepler.

Islamic Cosmologies Ibn Al-Haytham

Al Haytam (Al Hazen) was born in Basra, (AD 965). He made signicant contributions to the principles of optics, as well as to physics, astronomy, mathematics, philosophy, and to the scientic method. He was also nicknamed Ptolemaeus Secundus ("Ptolemy the Second") or simply "The Physicist" in medieval Europe. Al Hazen was the rst to discover that the celestial spheres do not consist of solid matter. He also discovered that the heavens are less dense than the air. These views had a signicant inuence on the Copernican and Tychonic systems of astronomy. In his Al-Shukuk ala Batlamyus, variously translated as Doubts Concerning Ptolemy or Aporias against Ptolemy, published at some time between 1025 and 1028, Alhazen criticized many of Ptolemy's works, including the Almagest, He considered that some of the mathematical devices Ptolemy introduced into astronomy, especially the equant, failed to satisfy the physical requirement of uniform circular motion.

Islamic Cosmologies Ibn Yunus

He was astrologer as well as astronomer. He wrote his own zij, gave details of al kinds of astronomical phenomena from eclipses to planetary conjunctions. His second work was concerned with the astronomical determination of times of prayer. Yunuss tables were excellent and extensive, containing more than 10.000 entries of the Suns position through ought the year. They remained part of the corpus of tables used in Cairo until 19th century.

Islamic Cosmologies Al-Tusi

He was born in Tus, Persia in 1201. He was well trained in virtually all branches of Islamic learning and considered himself the heir to Hellenistic science and philosophy. He founded the Maragha observatory. It was the first research institution on a large scale with a recognizably modern administrative structure. Based on the observations in this for the time being most advanced observatory, Tusi made very accurate tables of planetary movements as depicted in his book Zij-i ilkhani (Ilkhanic Tables). This book contains astronomical tables for calculating the positions of the planets and the names of the stars.

Islamic Cosmologies Al-Tusi

His model for the planetary system is believed to be the most advanced of his time, and was used extensively until the development of the heliocentric model in the time of Nicolaus Copernicus. For his planetary models, he invented a geometrical technique called a Tusi-couple, which generates linear motion from the sum of two circular motions. The Tusi couple was later employed in Ibn al-Shatir's geocentric model and Nicolaus Copernicus' heliocentric Copernican model usi criticized Ptolemy's use of observational evidence to show that the Earth was at rest, noting that such proofs were not decisive.

Islamic Cosmology

Copernicus Planetary Movement, 1543

Illustration of Tusi Couple Sharh al Tadhkira First proposed in Tusis Tahrir El Majesti, 1247

Islamic Cosmology
Ibn al-Shatir's
(1304-1375) model for the appearances of Mercury, showing the multiplication of epicycles using the Tusi-couple, thus eliminating the Ptolemaic eccentrics and equant.

Islamic Cosmologies Ulugh Beg

Ulugh Beg (1394-1449) founded the School of Semerkand. He founded an institute for higher learning. The main subject of school was astronomy. He built an observatory, the largest astronomical instrument of its type in the world, having a radius of no less than 40 m. This observatory produced its own zij, the mathematical tables were extraordinarily precise, in fact they can be comparison with todays tables.

Islamic Cosmologies Qadi Zada Al-Rumi

He was born in Bursa in 1346. Trained in
Observatory. mathematics and astronomy, he moved to Samarkand in 1383.

He appointed as a rector to the Ulugh Beg Returned to Istanbul and worked with Ali
Qushji, for Sultan Mehmet II.

Islamic Cosmology instruments

Observatory: It is a location used for
observing terrestrial or celestial events. established at the Muslim capitals During the Golden Age of islamic civilization.

Numerous observatories

Muslim Observatories
1. DAMASCUS AND BAGHDAD The rst systematic observations in Islam are reported to have taken place under the patronage of al-Mamun. Here, and in many other private observatories from Damascus to Baghdad, meridian degrees were measured, solar parameters were established. 2. ISFAHAN It was Malik Shah I. who established the rst large observatory, probably in Isfahan. It was here where Omar Khayym with many other collaborators constructed a zij and formulated the Persian Solar Calendar 3. MARAGHA The most inuential observatory was founded by Hulegu Khan during the 13th century. Here, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi supervised its technical construction at Maragha. Some of the top astronomers of the day gathered there, and from their collaboration resulted important modications to the Ptolemaic system over a period of 50 years. 4. SAMARKHANDIn 1420, prince Ulugh Beg, himself an astronomer and mathematician, founded another large observatory in Samarkand, the remains of which were uncovered in 1908 by Russian teams. 5. ISTANBUL And nally, Taqi al-din Rasid founded a large observatory in Istanbul in 1575, which was on the same scale as those in Maragha and Samarkand.

Islamic Cosmology instruments

Astrolabe: This
instrument displays a mathematical model of the heavens. predicting the positions of the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars, determining local time and direction.

It can be used for

Islamic Cosmology instruments

Sundial: a device that Sundials were
determines the time of day by the position of the Sun. frequently placed on mosques to determine the time of prayer.

Islamic Cosmology instruments

Quadrant is a rectangular divisions on the celestial sphere that is used for nding constellation. Several forms of quadrants were invented by Muslims to determine the time of prayers.

Islamic Cosmology instruments

Equatorium: The Equatorium is an

Islamic invention from Al-Andalus. The earliest known was probably made around 1015. It is a mechanical device for nding the positions of the Moon, Sun, and planets.

Islamic Cosmology instruments

Armillary Sphere is a
celestial globe consisting of metal hoops; used by early astronomers to determine the positions of stars

Armillary Sphere

Classical Worldview
Aristotle: Philosophy Ptolemy: Astronomy Galen: Anatomy-Medicine Euclid: Geometry-Logic

Islamic Philosophy

Two primary intellectual traditions: 1- Kalam: Islamic speculative theology adopts the atomistic framework. Ultimate material constituents of the wold must be discrete rather than continuous. Bodies/ the matter must be composed of a nite number of atomic parts. Universe is made up of many indivisible entities that move around in the void. Motion is colliding of atoms in the void. 2- Falsafa/Philosophy: had roots in the Greek intellectual world, namely Aristotle, Galen, Euclid, Ptolemy and Plotinus. Ultimate material constituents of the world must be continuous. Motion is an attempt to obtain the perfection (kamal) between potential and actual.

Islamic Philosophy

Muslim philosophers created their own original philosophical tradition based on Greek philosophical legacy. One of their greatest representatives and the thinkers, who gave uniformity and concreteness to this philosophical system was Avicenna (980 - 1037).

Islamic Philosophy Ibn Sina

Ibn Sina was born in AD 980, Afshana near Bukhara, Iran, commonly known by his Latinized name Avicenna. He wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived. In particular, 150 of his surviving treatises concentrate on philosophy and 40 of them concentrate on medicine. His most famous works are The Book of Healing (Shifa) a vast philosophical and scientific encyclopedia and The Canon of Medicine (Qanun) which was a standard medical text at many medieval universities as late as 1650. Ibn Sn's Canon of Medicine provides a complete system of medicine according to the principles of Galen.

Ibn Sina Cosmology

Avicenna defended the emanationist cosmology, or the doctrine which says that all things derive from the First Reality and descend gradually from the most divine to the least divine. The First Reality then, would be Allah, and everything else would be lower degrees of "divinity". He also theorized that the universe would be constituted by a chain of beings organized hierarchically, and those who were at the top of the chain would be responsible for those below. Since this chain of beings could not be innite, it would derive from a self-sufcient being which is Allah.

Philosophy of Avicenna Nature (tabiah)

Like Aristotle Ibn Sina uses the word
nature with several meanings, of which the most essential is the force responsible for moving the elements. is known by action not felt or seen by the senses This nature keeps the element at rest or makes it move.

The form of an element is a Nature which

Ibn Sina Knowledge

According to Ibn Sina knowledge comes about by abstraction The act of communication between God and the human being occurs through the intellect, as God gave us the capacity which enables us to acquire knowledge. The more knowledge we have, the closer we can get to God. Knowledge contributes to the recognition of God and goes deeply to the Truth. The act of communication between the human being and God is due to knowledge. The link in this realization is the soul. The active intellect makes the cognition of God (the pure truth) possible.