Lot 27
  • 27

Al-Tusi, Nasir al-Din Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hasan. Kitab al-Zij al-Ilkhani, Persian Manuscript on Paper, Copied by Muhammad ibn Ahmad Al-Jundabi, Ilkhanid, Persia, Dated 24th Shawwal A.H. 676/A.D. 1277

Estimate
80,000 - 120,000 GBP
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Description

  • Copied by Muhammad ibn Ahmad Al-Jundabi
123 leaves, 23 lines per page of neat naskhi text in black ink on buff paper, catchwords highlighted in red, chapter headings in bold thuluth in black ink, tables in black and red and outlined in red, later stamped and tooled brown morocco binding

Condition

In good condition, minor rubbing staining and thumbing associated with age, otherwise pages clean and ink strong, later binding, as veiwed.
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Catalogue Note

A highly important manuscript of the Kitab al-Zij al-Ilkhani, or the Zij-i Ilkhani as it is known, copied four years after the death of the author, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, and eight years after the original was completed in 1270.

Nasir al-Din al-Tusi was the leading Muslim philosopher-scientist of the thirteenth century. Born in Tus in A.H.597/A.D.1201, he studied in Baghdad and Mosul and later worked for the Ismaili rulers at Qayin and Alamut and then, after the Mongol conquest in A.H.654/A.D.1256, for their Mongol successor Hulegu in Maragha. He died in Baghdad in A.H.672/A.D.1274. Al-Tusi was a truly universal scholar and was perhaps the most prolific author of the Islamic world. He is best known to the history of science for his recensions of early Arabic translations of Greek works on astronomy and mathematics, various independent productions on aspects of theoretical and practical astronomy and mathematics and for this, the Persian astronomical handbook known as the Zij-i Ilkhani.

The Zij was one of over 150 works written by al-Tusi on subjects varying from religion and philosophy, to pure mathematics and astronomy. It was this latter subject that brought him fame as a scientist. Yet his fame as a scholar was somewhat mitigated by an infamy achieved by a shift in allegiance from his Shi'ite brethren, to the Mongol invaders and the Emperor Hulegu. Raised by a Shi'ite scholar, and having spent twenty years in the Ismaili strongholds of Alamut and Maymundiz, al-Tusi was a committed and trusted disciple of the brethren, and in A.D. 653/A.H. 1255 he was sent as chief negotiator to the khan of the invading Mongols. Faced with the inevitability of the invasion, Tusi defected to the enemy camp. In this role he sought to prevent the destruction of all that had come before, and it is thanks to his efforts that many of the Shi'ite shrines were not decimated by the Mongol invaders. Sadly he could not prevent the sack of Alamut, nor the raising of Baghdad; indeed he was a witness to the city's fall and the murder of the last Abbasid Caliph.

At the age of sixty, as a recently appointed retainer of the Mongol emperor, al-Tusi was entrusted with responsibility for the empire's religious foundations and its finances, as well as the construction of an observatory at Maragha. On completion the oberservatory's library was second to none, filled with the books of Mesopotamia and the Levant, and had become a magnet for some of the greatest scientific thinkers of the age. Built for scientific purposes, the observatory was primarily viewed by Hulegu as a means to obtain answers on astrology. This required accurate astronomical tables from which an astrologer could answer his patron's questions. For this an entire library and a highly technological observatory were built, new research was undertaken, various treatises were written and new instruments constructed; all this came to fruition in the Zij-i Ilkhani.

A Zij however is more than just a means to predict the future; it provides the astronomer with the theory and tables to calculate the position of the sun, moon and five naked-eye planets. It can predict eclipses, the lunar crescent and planetary visibility. It can be used to tell the length of twilight, the altitude of the sun at midday and the exact times of prayer. The Zij was an important handbook for any astronomer, and indeed any Muslim for these reasons. A typical Zij will contain various chapters: tables devoted to the definition of contemporary calendars; trigonometeric tables; formulae for deriving time from solar or stellar altitude (spherical astronomy); planetary mean motions, equations and latitudes; their stations and visibility; lunar visibilty; geographical tables to facilitate planetary tables for other meridians and computing the direction of prayer; star catalogues; and of course the necessary tables for drawing up a horoscope.

An early copy of the Ilkhanid Zij dated A.H. 692/A.D. 1292 can be found in Cairo. Other important copies of the Zij-i Ilkhani can be found in the following libraries, Baku (M221), Berlin (336), Bombay (43, 50/2), Cambridge (Browne 0.2), Florence (Laur. 269), Hyderabad (riyada 306), Istanbul (Kandilli 21; NO 2933; SM Hamid. 846; TK 3502/1) Leiden (1181), London (5572, 7464, Sup. 7698; II 454a), Mashhad (104-106, 5331-5333), Oxford (1513), Paris (169, 779, 2365), Rome (Vat. 83), Tehran (Univ. Adab. 165) and Yazd (Yazdi 283).

This fascinating manuscript is the result of years of work by one of the foremost scientific thinkers of the golden age of Arab astronomy.  It was completed only four years after his death and is a rare document of the Ilkhanid era.