Global News : Copernicus may have leaned on ancient Muslim astronomer in developing his cosmological system
New research has revealed that the cosmological model developed by Nicolaus Copernicus, the renowned European Renaissance polymath, bears striking resemblance to the one designed by an Arab Muslim astronomer nearly two centuries earlier.
Copernicus, a Polish astronomer who lived in the 16th century, is believed to be one of the early European scientists to have put forward the theoretical model that the sun was the center of the solar system, defying the church and the accepted wisdom that the Earth was the center of the universe.Copernicus's model is called sun-centered or heliocentric. In it, he challenges centuries-old science based on the teachings of Aristotle and Ptolemy, who thought the Earth was at rest at the center of the universe with other planets, including the sun, in its orbit.The research conducted at the University of Sharjah is a comparative and analytical study which examines in parallel the writings of Copernicus in correlation with the works of the 14th century Muslim astronomer Ibn al-Shatir.A recently completed Ph.D. thesis posted to the Sharjah University Library website, the research textually and critically analyzes the contributions of the two scientists to see where they concur or diverge in presenting their theories despite a historical gap of more than 200 years between them.Dr. Salama Al-Mansouri, the research's author, places Ibn al-Shatir's cosmological model at the forefront of astronomical achievements in the Islamic scientific tradition. "Ibn al-Shatir was the first astronomer to have successfully challenged the Ptolemaic cosmological system of planets revolving around Earth and corrected the theory's inaccuracies about two centuries before Copernicus," says Dr. Salama.The fact that Copernicus borrows from works of scientists and astronomers who preceded him is not new. However, the study highlights the significant similarities between Copernicus and Ibn al-Shatir, an engineer, mathematician and astronomer who was the timekeeper for the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria.Correlating the two cosmological models, the study suggests Copernicus was heavily influenced by Ibn al-Shatir's astronomy and his ideas that the Earth and other solar planets orbit the sun."Ibn al-Shatir's astronomical manuscripts, particularly his work in Nihāyat al-Sul, demonstrate planetary models that predate and closely mirror those later proposed by Copernicus, indicating a shared mathematical lineage," says Mesut Idriz, University of Sharjah's professor of history and Islamic civilization and one of the study's supervisors.Nihayat al-sul fi tashih al-usul or "The Final Quest Concerning the Rectification of Principles" is Ibn al-Shatir's most influential and important astronomical treatise in which, according to the study, the Muslim scientist corrects and refines many of the Ptolemaic models of the sun, moon, and planets.Prof. Idriz acknowledges the complexity of studies based on "historical astronomical manuscripts" as they need to combine a "unique intersection of expertise—astronomy, manuscript studies, and historiography. Muslim manuscript-based research is an intricate process that requires fluency in Arabic and Persian, the medium of writing for Muslim scientists."For more information, click here