Tanbih al-naqqad ala ma fi al-hay'a al-mashhura min al-fasad

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By Gars al-Din ibn Ahmad ibn Khalil al-Halabi

تنبيه النقاد على ما في الهيئة المشهورة من الفساد

Treatise by Gars al-Din al-Halabi criticising the prevailing astronomy, written in 958 AH, with a chapter on the accidental motion of the spheres and a critique of the equant and eccentric deferent 1 2.

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The Gunpowder Empires

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Summary

"Tanbih al-naqqad ala ma fi al-hay'a al-mashhura min al-fasad" ("A Note of the Reviewer on the Corruption in the Well-known Astronomy") is a treatise by Gars al-Din ibn Ahmad ibn Khalil al-Halabi, written in 958 AH (1551) according to its colophon; the title shows its author's dissatisfaction with the "well-known" astronomy. 1

Contents

In a chapter on the accidental motion of the celestial bodies and spheres the author defends the older view against a newer one that may have tried to explain the various motions of the spheres by an all-embracing rotation about the axis of the universe, with the ship analogy as the guiding idea. 1 Elsewhere he rejects the equant and the eccentric deferent, cites Ibn al-Shatir and Mu'ayyad al-Din al-Urdi, finds the observed diameters of Venus and Mars at odds with the accepted theory, and reports from navigators that the inhabited north reaches 72 degrees. 2

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Authored by
Gars al-Din ibn Ahmad ibn Khalil al-Halabi
Mentions
The earth's rotation and the ship analogy in Islamic astronomy

People and things also explored

al-Hay'a al-saniyya fi al-hay'a al-sunniyya (The Radiant Cosmography)· The earth's rotation and the ship analogy in Islamic astronomy· Gars al-Din ibn Ahmad ibn Khalil al-Halabi· Pari Mahal, Srinagar· Sharaf al-Dawla's observatory at Baghdad· Qibla-finding by stars, winds, mountains and rivers· Sizes of the heavenly bodies· Distances of the heavenly bodies from the Earth

Sources

  1. Anton M. Heinen, Islamic Cosmology: A Study of as-Suyuti's al-Hay'a as-saniya fi l-hay'a as-sunniya (Beirut, 1982) , p. 31
  2. Anton M. Heinen, Islamic Cosmology: A Study of as-Suyuti's al-Hay'a as-saniya fi l-hay'a as-sunniya (Beirut, 1982) , p. 32
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islam.museum contributors. “Tanbih al-naqqad ala ma fi al-hay'a al-mashhura min al-fasad”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/work/tanbih-al-naqqad/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-11-04.

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al-Hay'a al-saniyya fi al-hay'a al-sunniyya (The Radiant Cosmography)

A treatise in which Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti (849–911 AH) collected traditional reports on the Throne and Footstool, the Tablet and Pen, the heavens and earths, sun, moon and stars, night and day, waters and winds, clouds and rain, thunder and lightning, the Milky Way and rainbow, earthquakes, mountains, seas and the Nile, in thirteen chapters; it circulated very widely.