Writing the history of Arabic astronomy: problems and differing perspectives.

• Author: Saliba, George

This essay concerns the recent publication of tWO books dealing with one of the most important pre-modern Arabic astronomical texts, namely, the theoretical planetary work of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (d. 1274), called al-Tadhkira fi ilm al-hay a (Memoir on Astronomy). Both books were published in the same year, but are worlds apart. One is Nasir al-Din al-Tusi's Memoir on Astronomy (al-Tadhkira fi ilm al-hay a), by F. J. Ragep, and the other, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi: al-Tadhkira fi ilm al-hay a ma a dirasat li-ishamat al-Tusi al-falakiya, by Dr. Abbas Sulaiman. Both books provide an edition of the Arabic text of Tusi's Tadhkira, but only Ragep's has an English translation and a commentary, obviously addressed to the Western and international reader. Both books include indices and bibliographies, but, again, only Ragep's has an extensive critical apparatus: maps, glossary of Arabic terms with their English translations and contextual references. This, however, is where the similarities end.

A quick look at both books makes it obvious that Dr. Sulaiman's expertise in the field is vastly different from Ragep's, and illustrates very clearly the drawbacks of working (as Dr. Sulaiman did) without much in the way of institutional resources, libraries, collections of manuscripts, and the like. As a result, Dr. Sulaiman's edition ends up being an adequate attempt at informing the Arab reader of the contents of Tusi's work, while leaving that reader to his own interpretive devices regarding what Tusi was really trying to say. Hence, Dr. Sulaiman does not feel the need to supply a commentary and his few introductory technical remarks in chapter three reveal very clearly that he himself does not have full mastery of the text. Moreover, this reviewer is fully convinced that Dr. Sulaiman is not even aware of the historical importance of the text. He is out of touch with the most recent literature on the subject, though he seems to have a vague impression that Tusi's text has something to do with the work of Copernicus (d. 1543) - hence its importance and, I presume, the reason for which he undertook his edition.

In contrast, Ragep is not only aware of the most recent analysis of Arabic astronomical theory and its relationship to Copernican astronomy, he is also engaged in it at the participant level and has spent more than twenty years in preparing, annotating, and reading almost every word that has been said about this text, whether useful or not. The result is clearly demonstrated by the level of mature analysis throughout the book.

This brings me to the first of the problems that I would like to touch upon in this essay, namely that of dealing with a specific cultural and scientific heritage. Put differently, why do we study historical scientific texts and how should they be studied? The contrast in perspective between Drs. Sulaiman and Ragep illustrates this point clearly. Dr. Sulaiman approaches the text from a linguistic perspective, assuming that since the text is in Arabic, an Arab reader whose motivation to understand the text is fired by his feeling of belonging to the Arab heritage ought to be able to understand the text on his own - hence no need for further comments. It is enough to raise the flag, so to speak, to announce one's identity, and the text itself will do the rest. This posture assumes that any native reader of a language can understand the contents of a text even if the text is highly technical in nature. The fallacy of this assumption becomes clear when we think of a general reader of English who is handed a text on mathematical topology and is expected to understand it on his own, without any mathematical training.

Ragep, on the other hand, approaches the text with the assumption that its contents are totally alien to a Western reader and hence needs to be translated, annotated, and commented upon at almost every point - not only to convince himself that he has mastered the text, but also to make it accessible to any reader, who may or may not even be interested in the whole enterprise.

As a result, we have two completely different treatments of the same text, and when considered separately, the two treatments make the text almost completely unrecognizable to the readers of the other culture. In a way, the text Dr. Sulaiman published in Kuwait and Cairo bears little similarity to that which Ragep produced, despite the fact that they both edited the same treatise. It is curious how important is the imposed cultural context that determines the discourse employed in each of the two books, their mutual incomprehensibility, and the futility of attempting to cross the boundary. My feeling is that Ragep's book will not be read in Cairo, despite the fact that it includes a perfectly readable Arabic edition of an important cultural text (although Arab readers may find the Arabic typeface slightly offensive from the aesthetic point of view), while Dr. Sulaiman's text will probably become the standard reference text of the Tadhkira in the whole Arab world for quite some time to come.

As a matter of fact, there are very few variations in the textual readings between the two editions, but the ocean that separates them has to do with the authors' understanding of the text and their varying use of its message. A time may come when someone will undertake to translate into Arabic the extensive historical introduction and the equally extensive commentary supplied by Ragep in order to bring to the Arab reader's attention the real difference between the two books, and in a sense the real significance of Tusi's work. What we will then have is a third book whose function will be mainly to mediate between the results achieved in one culture and the results achieved in the domain of the other.

The question therefore, is not why we study these texts, but also for whom we publish them and to whom we address the interpretative discourse surrounding them. In this instance, it is obvious that the only common ground between the two books are the actual words of the "original" text of Tusi, in so far as the "original" can be determined by either editor. The rest comes from two different cultural domains whose varying perspectives remind us of the delicate problems posed by their differences. Once this is understood, it will no longer be surprising that books published in Cairo, such as Dr. Sulaiman's, will become mere curiosities in New York, while Ragep's book will probably become too "specialized" and erudite for Cairo.

From this point on, this essay will focus on the problems raised by Ragep's book, and their implications for historians of science, in general, and historians of Arabic astronomy, in particular. In great part these problems have to do with the project of studying the production of another culture. Is such a study conducted in order to incorporate that production within the global picture of the researcher, and do all findings and results thus have to be couched in such a way that they make sense to the investigating culture? Or should the study be conducted with the view that members of the "native" culture could also incorporate the results obtained from a specific historical text and thus the interpretation be addressed to them as well? The answers to such questions will determine the language of the text, the manner in which problems are posed, and will certainly determine the common ground from which one can address an audience. There is no doubt in my mind that Ragep's book does not have the Arab reader in mind and that he attempts to incorporate its conclusions within the framework of a specifically Western intellectual sphere. But that position has its problems.

To illustrate: those who work in Islamic studies within the Western cultural domain are under constant pressure from their colleagues who have no access to Islamic languages to translate, annotate, and pre-digest primary texts of Islamic civilization, in order to incorporate such texts into current critical discussions here in the West. The same, I am sure, could be said of other cross-cultural disciplines. These colleagues want total pictures - not individually dissected texts - that by their very nature as historical texts tend to yield more than one reading and provide more interpretive choices. In such an environment, the lessons learned from one text may very quickly be generalized and hasty conclusions drawn without justification - this at a time when the elementary stock-taking of Islamic culture (such as determining the existence of manuscripts, cataloguing collections, correcting outdated catalogues, reading existing and well-catalogued manuscripts, etc.) is hardly even begun.

A case in point is Ragep's treatment of a problem in Tusi's text (Book IV, paragraph 2 [so Ragep]), namely, the value that Tusi gives for the length of a meridian degree on the surface of the earth. The text states explicitly that such a terrestrial degree along the meridian was found by Ma mun's (r. 813-833) astronomers to be twenty-two parasangs and two-ninths of a parasang (or "they found it to be 22 2/9 parasangs" in Ragep's translation, p. 310). This value, when read in miles, yields 66 2/3 miles, for we are told by Tusi that each parasang is three miles. This is not the value usually attributed by other sources to Ma mun's astronomers. Ragep correctly notes that what "may appear to be a simple mistake . . . turns out to be the tip of a rather unwieldy iceberg" (p. 501). Ragep...