Among the contributions of Shaykh al-Tusi toward modern science
When we speak of Islamic civilization and its contemporary or historical achievements, we do so by way of striving to develop our reality by stirring minds, motivating energies, and knowing the points of strength and weakness and the factors of success and failure. We also benefit from such talk that Islam was never a cause of backwardness—as some promote, calling for following such-and-such a model and such-and-such a state in isolating religion from science and from life—,
. rather, Islam was in reality a principal drive and mover of knowledge and progress in the lands where it prevailed. Therefore we should look for the real causes of backwardness in places other than Islam, and this is perhaps what these people do not want, out of fear or greed. The most important thing we can reap from these discussions is confronting the culture of defeat and the culture of final surrender to the reality of backwardness and failure, even before embarking on serious attempts at change toward what is better.
When we reflect on the achievements of this nation—even if they have become rare in this age—we realize that it is not written for us to remain backward until the coming of the Hour. We are not backward by nature, we are not afflicted with a genetic defect, and the structure of our brains does not differ from that found in the heads of Westerners or the Japanese and other advanced nations; moreover, we have achievements on the ground sufficient to prove this idea.
So where is the defect, then? And what is the solution?
We are capable of discovery and invention and of racing other nations in all advanced fields if we come out of the state of belittling ourselves. The most dangerous weapon that destroys nations and keeps them at the bottom, scavenging on what the minds of others bestow without offering anything new, is psychological defeat, which kills the efforts of change and suggests remaining in the state of backwardness indefinitely.
Among the scholars of this nation who served humanity with discoveries and innovations by which they outstripped those before them, dazzled those who came after them, and made their nation the most advanced nation in the world, is the great Shaykh Abu Jaʿfar Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Tusi, known as “al-Shaykh Nasir al-Din al-Tusi” (597 AH – 672 AH) (1201 CE – 1274 CE).
Despite his eminent religious standing, Shaykh al-Tusi's output was not limited to the religious sciences such as exegesis, theology, jurisprudence and hadith only; rather, it included mineralogy, astronomy, medicine, geometry, physics, mathematics, geography, logic, philosophy and other sciences, until he became one of the most prominent thinkers of his age. What Shaykh al-Tusi is most famous for is his unprecedented achievements in astronomy, which will be the focus of these brief lines, which do not fulfill any of the due of this great human symbol, who was given the title “the Teacher of Humankind,” and whom some have counted the greatest Muslim scholar of all.
The “Maragha” observatory.. a gateway to scientific breakthroughs
The works of Shaykh al-Tusi in Alamut(1) and in the observatory he built in Maragha(2) in the thirteenth century CE opened the way for modern astronomy, as scientists say. Also, many of the discoveries of European astronomers were foretold in the researches of al-Tusi and his colleagues in Maragha. The works of Shaykh al-Tusi were built on the results of his scientific observations and notes in the observatory, and this is one of the most important points that distinguished Muslim astronomers from the Greek astronomers, who relied heavily on theoretical calculations.
Scientific observations in the early Islamic period were small and mostly tied to individual efforts; but with al-Tusi's founding of the Maragha observatory in 657 AH (1259 CE), the first large, modern scientific institute was born, in which many scientists gathered for work and teaching, one of whom was a Chinese scientist called Fao Mun-Ji (Fao Mun-Ji). The gathering of this number of outstanding minds specialized in different sciences made the manufacture of new instruments, and the operation of the observatory at a level at which calculations and observations were compiled by “teams”—not individuals—of working scientists—under the direction of Shaykh al-Tusi—something possible in reality.
The Maragha observatory was the source of inspiration for the Samarkand observatory, which Ulugh Beg built in the fourteenth century CE, and which in turn was the model and example for the first European observatories, such as the observatories used by both Tycho Brahe (famous for his precise observations) and Kepler (one of the founders of modern astronomy).
Direct observations coupled with the application of mathematics to astronomy led to new discoveries and more precise readings in many aspects of astronomy, and to the drawing up of updated star tables including many new stars; the inclination of the sun's path was also recalculated. Likewise, the computational techniques used led to new discoveries concerning the orbits of the planets, while the use of the two sciences of trigonometry and arithmetic made all these calculations more precise than those that preceded them, which lent them another scientific value.
In Maragha too, Shaykh Nasir al-Din al-Tusi founded a huge library containing more than 400 thousand volumes, collected from Baghdad, Syria, Mosul and Khurasan.
The earth's revolution around the sun.. between al-Tusi, Newton, Galileo and Copernicus
Shaykh al-Tusi and his team provided a large part of the practical knowledge by means of which both Galileo and Newton were able to refute the models built on the physics of Aristotle and the astronomy of Ptolemy.
Islamic astronomy reached its peak in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries CE, when al-Tusi and the scientists who succeeded him went beyond the limits of Ptolemy's view of the world, which had dominated the scientific atmosphere for a whole millennium of time. Among al-Tusi's achievements is his severe criticism of Ptolemy's planetary model, in which he held that the earth is the center of the universe; instead, al-Tusi came up with a new planetary system, which he mentioned in his book “al-Tadhkira fi ʿIlm al-Hayʾa.” In this planetary system al-Tusi brought mathematical theories to repair the defect in Ptolemy's astronomical configuration concerning the motion of the planets.
It was the application of al-Tusi's planetary model to the motion of the moon—at the hands of Ibn al-Shatir—that produced the lunar model which preceded the model Copernicus used by more than 100 years and was identical to it to a large extent—bearing in mind that Copernicus is the one who completely overturned Ptolemy's system and thereby opened the door to modern theories. Because of the clarity of the effects of al-Tusi's system on the work of Copernicus, Western scientists gave the name “the Tusi couple” to that system, that is, the couple of al-Tusi and Copernicus.
The model of al-Tusi and his assistants succeeded brilliantly in determining the longitudes of the moon and its distance from the earth, and this new planetary theory was considered the most important achievement of the Muslims in astronomy. This theory reached European scientists in the age of Copernicus through the Byzantine scholars who translated many of the works of Muslim scientists, as some researchers believe.
An achievement before departing
Only six months before his departure from this world, Shaykh al-Tusi finished another scientific achievement, work on which had taken more than 12 years, and which contained a revised set of astronomical tables. This achievement was copied under the direct supervision of Shaykh al-Tusi and became known as “al-Zij al-Ilkhani”; it gained great fame among scientists and remained, until a recent period, relied upon in astronomical studies in Europe.
This manuscript is divided into 4 sections dealing with: chronologies; the motion of the planets and their positions in latitude and longitude; the determination of times and of the zodiac signs; and the workings of the stars.
Shaykh al-Tusi departed and left behind for humanity great achievements that changed the face of the world and the course of science forever; he also left behind many outstanding scholars in various fields, such as al-Shaykh Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi, author of the manuscript “al-Tuhfa al-Shahiyya fi al-Hayʾa,” which accorded astronomy the best regard in the Islamic world, and al-ʿAllama Ibn al-Mutahhar al-Hilli, who “was one of the luminaries of jurisprudence and the sharia, and one of the most prominent thinkers of his age in theology and philosophy.”
We pray to Allah, the All-exalted, the All-powerful, that recalling some of the biography of this great scholar be an incentive for us to rise and progress, that He grant the scholars of this nation in all fields success in serving humanity, and that He grant us success in appreciating them and supporting them, so that the nation may reap their fruits.
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Notes:
(*) All the scientific information and analyses are taken from the sources mentioned below.
(1) A fortress located south of the Caspian Sea in northern Iran; it was the center of the group of the Assassins, a sect that carried out political assassinations of leaders of the Abbasids, the Seljuks, the Crusaders and the Ayyubids. Shaykh al-Tusi had declared that he was taken to it by force and against his will.
(2) A city located in present-day northwestern Iran
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From the Arabic and foreign sources:
(1) Arabica journal, a study entitled “The Astronomical Manuscripts of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi”
(The Astronomical Manuscripts of Nasir al-Din Tusi- Arabica)
(2) The American newspaper The New York Times, an article entitled “How Islam Won and Lost the Lead in Science”
(How Islam Won and Lost the Lead in Science. New York Times)
(3) The website of the Qatif Astronomical Society (http://www.qasweb.net/news/item.php?id=692)
(4) The website of Dr. Yusuf Zaydan for heritage and manuscripts: (http://www.ziedan.com/publication/1.asp)
(5) al-Nabaʾ magazine, issue (59): (http://www.annabaa.org/nba59/hilly.htm )
