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Ali Qushji

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Ala al-Dīn Ali ibn Muhammed
astronomer, mathematician, physicist, scientist and mutakallim (Muslim theologian)
Born1403
Samarkand
Died16 December 1474
Istanbul
Other namesAli Qushji

Ala al-Dīn Ali ibn Muhammed (1403 – 16 December 1474), known as Ali Qushji ([Latin]]: Ali Kushgii), was an astronomer, mathematician, physicist and scientist from Central Asia. He is best known for his development of an astronomical physics independent from natural philosophy and for providing empirical evidence for the Earth's motion in his treatise, Concerning the Supposed Dependence of Astronomy upon Philosophy, in addition to his contributions to Ulugh Beg's famous work Zij-i-Sultani and his efforts in founding Sahn-ı Seman University, one of the first Ottoman universities. Sources variously tell that he was Persian[1]or Central Asian Turk[citation needed].

Biography

Early life and works

He was born in 1403 on an unknown date in Samarkand which is today in Uzbekistan. His full name was Ala al-Dīn Ali ibn Muhammed al-Qushji. His family gained this last name after the official title of his father Muhammed who was the royal falcon trainer (Qushji) of Ulug Beg at that time.

Ulugh Beg Observatory - Landmark of Ali Qushji's career

He attended the courses of Qazi zadeh Rumi, Ghiyāth al-Dīn Jamshīd Kāshānī and Muin al-Dīn Kashi. He moved to Kerman, Iran (Persia) and there he conducted some researches on the storms of Oman sea. He completed Hall-e Eshkal-i Ghammar (Explanations of the Periods of the Moon) and Sharh-e Tajrid in Kirman. He moved to Herat and taught Molla Cami about astronomy (1423). After professing in Herat for a while he went back to Samarkand and herald his works about moon to Ulugh Beg. Ulugh Beg was fascinated with the works and read the entire work while standing up.Ulugh Beg assigned him to Ulugh Beg Observatory which was called "Samarkand Observatory" at that time. He worked there till Ulugh Beg was assassinated.[2]

After Ulugh Beg's death, he went to Herat, Tashkent and finally Tabriz, Iran. While he was in Tabriz, Uzun Hasan the Khan of Ak Koyunlu sent him as a delegate to Fatih Sultan Mehmed (about 1470). At that time Husayn Bayqarah had come to reign in Herat but Qushji preferred Istanbul rather than Herat because of Sultan Mehmed's attitude toward scientists and intellectuals.

Istanbul era

When he came to Istanbul, his grandson Ghutb al-Dīn Muhammed had a son Mirim Chalabi who would be a great mathematician and astronomer in the future[3]. Qushji extended his studies in Istanbul. He wrote "Sharh e resalye Fathiyeh" [4], "resalye Mohammadiye" in Istanbul, which are in Arabic on the topic of mathematics. Qushji's work made a great impact on the scientific community.[citation needed] The work has thousands of copies in handwriting libraries all around the world.

He then finished "Sharh e tejrid" on Nasir al-Din al-Tusi's "Tejrid al-kalam". That work is called "Sharh e Jadid" in scientific community. It is considered as the most important philosophical work on metaphysics, physics, optics and mathematics done within Islamic civilization.[citation needed]

Contributions to astronomy

Qushji improved on Nasir al-Din al-Tusi's planetary model and presented an alternative planetary model for Mercury.[5] He was also one of the astronomers that were part of Ulugh Beg's team of researchers working at the Samarqand observatory and contributed towards the Zij-i-Sultani compiled there. A Latin translation of two of Qushji's works, the Tract on Arithmetic and Tract on Astronomy, was published by John Greaves in 1650.[6]

Concerning the Supposed Dependence of Astronomy upon Philosophy

Qushji's most important astronomical work is Concerning the Supposed Dependence of Astronomy upon Philosophy. Under the influence of Islamic theologians who opposed the interference of Aristotelianism in astronomy, Qushji rejected Aristotelian physics and completely separated natural philosophy from Islamic astronomy, allowing astronomy to become a purely empirical and mathematical science. This allowed him to explore alternatives to the Aristotelian notion of a stationary Earth, as he explored the idea of a moving Earth instead. He found empirical evidence for the Earth's rotation through his observation on comets and concluded, on the basis of empirical evidence rather than speculative philosophy, that the moving Earth theory is just as likely to be true as the stationary Earth theory.[7][8][9]

His predecessor al-Tusi had previously realized that "the monoformity of falling bodies, and the uniformity of celestial motions," both moved “in a single way,” though he still relied on Aristotelian physics to provide "certain principles that only the natural philosophers could provide the astronomer." Qushji took this concept further and proposed that "the astronomer had no need for Aristotelian physics and in fact should establish his own physical principles independently of the natural philosophers." Alongside his rejection of Aristotle's concept of a stationary Earth,[10] Qushji also rejected the Aristotelian notion of the heavenly bodies moving in uniform circular motion.[11]

Qushji's work was an important step away from Aristotelian physics and towards an independent astronomical physics.[12] This is considered to be a "conceptual revolution"[12][11] that had no precedent in European astronomy prior to the Copernican Revolution in the 16th century.[13] Qushji's view on the Earth's motion was similar to the later views of Nicolaus Copernicus on this issue, though it is uncertain whether the former had any influence on the latter. However, it is likely that they both may have arrived at similar conclusions due to using the earlier work of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi as a basis. This is more of a possibility considering "the remarkable coincidence between a passage in De revolutionibus (I.8) and one in Ṭūsī’s Tadhkira (II.1[6]) in which Copernicus follows Ṭūsī’s objection to Ptolemy’s “proofs” of the Earth’s immobility."[14]

His works

Astronomy[15][16]

  • Sharh e Zîj e Ulugh Beg (In Persian)
  • Resale fi Halle Eshkale Moadeleye Ghamar lil-Masir (Faide fi Eshkâli Utared)
  • Resale fi Asli'l-HâricYumkin fi's-Sufliyyeyn
  • Sharh ‘ale't-Tuhfeti'sh-Shâhiyye fi al-Heyat
  • Resale dar elm-i Heyat (In Persian)
  • el-Fathiyye fî elm al-Heyat (In Arabic)
  • Resale fi Hall-e Eshkal-i Ghammar (In Persian)
  • Concerning the Supposed Dependence of Astronomy upon Philosophy

Mathematics[17]

  • Resaletu'l-Muhammediyye fi-Hesab (In Persian)
  • Resale dar elm-e Hesab: Suleymaniye

Kalam and Fiqh

  • Sharh e Jadid ale't-Tejrîd
  • Hashiye ale't-Telvîh
  • Unkud-üz-Zevahir fi Nazm-al-Javaher

Mechanics[18]

  • Tazkare fi Âlâti'r-Ruhâniyye

Linguistics[19]

  • Sharh Risâleti'l-Vadiyye
  • El-Ifsâh
  • El-Unkûdu'z-Zevâhir fî Nazmi'l-Javâher
  • Sharh e'Sh-Shâfiye
  • Resale fî Beyâni Vadi'l-Mufredât
  • Fâ'ide li-Tahkîki Lâmi't-Ta'rîf
  • Resale mâ Ene Kultu
  • Resale fî'l-Hamd
  • Resale fî Ilmi'l-Me'ânî
  • Resale fî Bahsi'l-Mufred
  • Resale fî'l-Fenni's-Sânî min Ilmihal-Beyân
  • Tafsir e-Bakara ve Âli Imrân
  • Risâle fî'l-İstişâre
  • Mahbub-al-Hamail fi kashf-al-mesail
  • Tajrid-al-Kalam

Notes

  1. ^ G. A. Russell, The 'Arabick' Interest of the Natural Philosophers in Seventeenth-century England, BRILL, 1994, ISBN 9004098887, p. 162
  2. ^ Osmanlı imparatorluğunun doruğu 16. yüzyıl teknolojisi, Editor Prof. Dr. Kazım Çeçen, Istanbul 1999, Omaş ofset A.Ş.
  3. ^ G. Akovalı, Z. A. Mansūrov, The role of government and research institutes in the planning of research and development in some Central Asian and Caucasian republics, IOS Press, 2000,ISBN 1586030221, 9781586030223, p.230,[1]
  4. ^ [2]
  5. ^ George Saliba, "Arabic planetary theories after the eleventh century AD", in Rushdī Rāshid and Régis Morelon (1996), Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science, pp. 58–127 [123–124], Routledge, ISBN 0415124107.
  6. ^ G. A. Russell, The 'Arabick' Interest of the Natural Philosophers in Seventeenth-century England, BRILL, 1994, ISBN 9004098887, p. 162
  7. ^ (Ragep 2001a)
  8. ^ F. Jamil Ragep (2001), "Freeing Astronomy from Philosophy: An Aspect of Islamic Influence on Science", Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, Science in Theistic Contexts: Cognitive Dimensions, pp. 49–64, 66–71.
  9. ^ Edith Dudley Sylla (2003), "Creation and nature", in Arthur Stephen McGrade (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 178–179, ISBN 978-0-521-00063-5
  10. ^ Ragep, F. Jamil (2004), "Copernicus and his Islamic Predecessors: Some Historical Remarks", Filozofski vestnik, XXV (2): 125–142 [138–9]
  11. ^ a b Emilie Savage-Smith (November 2008), "Islamic Influence on Copernicus" (PDF), Journal for the History of Astronomy, 39 (4): 538–541 [541], retrieved 2010-03-25
  12. ^ a b Ragep, F. Jamil (2004), "Copernicus and his Islamic Predecessors: Some Historical Remarks", Filozofski vestnik, XXV (2): 125–142 [139]
  13. ^ F. Jamil Ragep (2004), "Copernicus and His Islamic Predecessors: Some Historical Remarks", Filozofski vestnik, XXV (2): 125–142 [139], Clearly there is more to the Copernican revolution than some clever astronomical models that arose in the context of a criticism of Ptolemy. There also needed to be a new conceptualization of astronomy that could allow for an astronomically-based physics. But there is hardly anything like this in the European tradition before Copernicus. The fact that we can find a long, vigorous discussion in Islam of this issue intricately-tied to the question of the Earth's movement should indicate that such a conceptual foundation was there for the borrowing.
  14. ^ Ragep, F. Jamil (2004), "Copernicus and his Islamic Predecessors: Some Historical Remarks", Filozofski vestnik, XXV (2): 125–142 [137–9]
  15. ^ Osmanlı Astronomi Literatürü Tarihi (Ed. Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu), İstanbul 1997, I, 27–38
  16. ^ [3]
  17. ^ Seyyid Ali Paşa, Mir’âtu’l-Âlem (Haz. Yavuz Unat), Kültür Bakanlığı, Ankara 2001.
  18. ^ Sevim Tekeli, 16’ıncı Asırda Osmanlılarda Saat ve Takiyyuddîn’in “Mekanik Saat Konstrüksüyonuna Dair En Parlak Yıldızlar” Adlı Eseri, Ankara 1966.
  19. ^ Musa Yıldız, Bir Dilci Olarak Ali Kuşçu ve Risâle fî’l-İsti‘âre’si, Kültür Bakanlığı Yayınları, Ankara 2002, s. 10–14.

References

  • Ragep, F. Jamil (2001a), "Tusi and Copernicus: The Earth's Motion in Context", Science in Context, 14 (1–2), Cambridge University Press: 145–163

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