"Azophi" redirects here. For the lunar crater, seeAzophi (crater).
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ṣūfī
عبدالرحمن الصوفي
Al-Ṣūfī, as depicted inAlbrecht Dürer'swoodcutImagines coeli septentrionales cum duodecim imaginibus zodiaci [The Northern Celestial Hemisphere with the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac] (1515)
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ṣūfī (full name, Abū’l-Ḥusayn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿUmar ibn Sahl al-Ṣūfī al-Rāzī —Arabic:أَبُو الحُسَين عَبدُ اَلرَّحمَن بن عُمَر بن سَهل اَلصُّوفِي اَلرَّازِي;Persian:ابوالحسن عبدالرحمن صوفی رازی — 7 December 903 – 25 May 986) was a Persianastronomer.[1][2] His workKitāb ṣuwar al-kawākib ("The Book of Fixed Stars"), written in 964, included both textual descriptions and illustrations. The PersianpolymathAl-Biruni wrote that al-Ṣūfī's work on theecliptic was carried out inShiraz. Al-Ṣūfī lived at theBuyid court inIsfahan.
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ṣūfī was one of the nine famous Muslim astronomers.[citation needed] He lived at the court ofEmir'Adud al-Dawla inIsfahan, and worked on translating and expandingancient Greek astronomical works, especially theAlmagest ofPtolemy. He made corrections to Ptolemy's star list, and his estimations of starbrightness andmagnitude deviated from those by Ptolemy; just over half of al-Ṣūfī's magnitudes being identical to Ptolemy's.[3] A Persian, al-Ṣūfī wrote inArabic, thelingua franca of the scientific Muslim world.[4]
Al-Ṣūfī was a major contributor to the translation into Arabic of theHellenistic astronomy that had been centered inAlexandria,Egypt. His was the first to attempt to relate theGreek with the traditionalArabic star names andconstellations, which were completely unrelated and overlapped in complicated ways.[citation needed]
Al-Ṣūfī made his astronomical observations at a latitude of 32.7N° in Isfahan.[3] It has been claimed that he identified theLarge Magellanic Cloud,[citation needed] but this seems to be a misunderstanding of a reference to some stars south of Canopus which he admits he has not seen.[5] He also made the earliest recorded observation of theAndromeda Galaxy in 964, describing it as a "small cloud".[6] This was the firstgalaxy other than theMilky Way to be mentioned in writing.[7]
“Sign of Sagittarius” by al-Sufi in his bookṢuwar al-kawākib al-thābita,ArtuqidMardin, 1131 CE.[10]
Al-Ṣūfī publishedKitāb ṣuwar al-kawākib ("The Book of Fixed Stars") in 964, and dedicated it to Adud al-Dawla, the ruler ofBuwayhid at the time.[5] This book describes 48 constellations and the stars within them.[citation needed]
Al-Ṣūfī compared Greek constellations and stars as described inPtolemy’sAlmagest with Arabic ones,[11] linking those that were the same.[12][page needed] He included two illustrations of each constellation, one showing the orientation of the stars from the perspective outside thecelestial globe, and the other from the perspective of looking at the sky while standing on the Earth. He separated them into three groups; 21 seen from the north, 15 seen from the south, and the 12zodiac constellations. He included a complete set ofstar charts, that included the names and numbers of the individual stars in each of the 48 constellations, and each star'slongitudinal and latitudinal coordinates,magnitude, and location north or south of theecliptic.[5]
Scribal errors within the 35 surviving copies ofThe Book of Fixed Stars have caused the value of the magnitude for a particular star to vary from manuscript to manuscript.[13][page needed][14] Al-Ṣūfī organized the stars in each of his drawings into two groups: those that form the image depicted, and others that are in close proximity to the image. He identified and described stars not included by Ptolemy, but he did not include them in his own star charts. Stating that his charts were modelled after Ptolemy, he left the stars excluded in Ptolemy's catalogue out of his charts as well.[5]
To allow for the longitudinal placement of the stars within constellations having changed over the eight centuries since theAlmagest was written, Al-Ṣūfī added 12° 42' to all the longitudes values provided by Ptolemy.[15] Al-Ṣūfī differed from Ptolemy by having a three level scale to measure the magnitude of stars instead of a two level scale. This extra level increased the precision of his measurements. His methodology for determining these magnitude measurements cannot be found in any of his extant texts.[3]
Despite the importance ofThe Book of Fixed Stars in thehistory of astronomy, it took more than 1000 years until the first partial English translation of the book was published in 2010.[16][better source needed]
The Astronomy Society of Iran – Amateur Committee has held internationalSufi Observing Competitions in memory of the astronomer. The first competition was held in 2006 in the north ofSemnan Province,[17] and the second was held in the summer of 2008 inLadiz near theZahedan. More than 100 attendees from Iran and Iraq participated in these events.[18]
Google Doodle commemorated Al-Ṣūfī's 1113th birthday on 7 December 2016.[19]
^Al-Qifti.Ikhbār al-ʿulamāʾ bi-akhbār al-ḥukamāʾ ("History of Learned Men"). In:ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ṣūfī and his Book of the Fixed Stars: A Journey of Re-discovery by Ihsan Hafez, Richard F. Stephenson, Wayne Orchiston (2011). In: Orchiston, Wayne,Highlighting the history of astronomy in the Asia-Pacific region: proceedings of the ICOA-6 conference. Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings. New York: Springer.ISBN978-1-4419-8161-5. "... is the honored, the perfect, the most intelligent and the friend of the King Adud al-Dawla Fanakhasru Shahenshah ibn Buwayh. He is the author of the most honored books in the science of astronomy. He was originally from Nisa and is of a Persian descent."
^Winterburn, Emily (2005)."Using an Astrolabe".Muslim Heritage. Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilisation, UK (FSTCUK). Retrieved22 January 2008.
^Atbaş, Zeynep (1 August 2019).Artistic Aspects of Sultan Bayezid II's Book Treasury Collection: Extant Volumes Preserved at the Topkapı Palace Museum Library (Treasures of Knowledge: An Inventory of the Ottoman Palace Library (1502/3-1503/4) (2 vols)). Brill. pp. 161–211.doi:10.1163/9789004402508_005.
^Atbaş, Zeynep (1 August 2019).Artistic Aspects of Sultan Bayezid II's Book Treasury Collection: Extant Volumes Preserved at the Topkapı Palace Museum Library (Treasures of Knowledge: An Inventory of the Ottoman Palace Library (1502/3-1503/4) (2 vols)). Brill. p. 195.doi:10.1163/9789004402508_005.
Al-Qifti.Ikhbār al-ʿulamāʾ bi-akhbār al-ḥukamāʾ (History of Learned Men). In:ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Şūfī and his Book of the Fixed Stars: A Journey of Re-discovery by Ihsan Hafez, Richard F. Stephenson, Wayne Orchiston (2011). In: Orchiston, Wayne,Highlighting the history of astronomy in the Asia-Pacific region: proceedings of the ICOA-6 conference. Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings. New York: Springer.ISBN978-1-4419-8161-5. "... is the honored, the perfect, the most intelligent and the friend of the King Adud al-Dawla Fanakhasru Shahenshah Ibn Buwaih. He is the author of the most honored books in the science of astronomy. He was originally from Nisa and is of a Persian descent."
Upton, Joseph M. (1933). "A Manuscript of "The Book of the Fixed Stars" by ʿAbd Ar-Raḥmān Aṣ-Ṣūfī".Metropolitan Museum Studies.4 (2):179–197.doi:10.2307/1522800.JSTOR1522800.
.jpg)
.jpg)
