Sharh-i Thamra-yi Batlamyus

Claudius Ptolemy (d. ca 170 CE) was a Graeco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, geographer and astrologer who lived and worked in Alexandria. His Tetrabiblos ('Four Books', Lat. Quadripartitum), in which he sets out the principles and practice of astrology, became a highly influential work that was also taught at the cream of European universities, well into Renaissance times. In the Islamic world, there existed an Arabic summary of this work, entitled Kitab al-thamara ('Harvest', Lat. Liber Fructus), erroneously ascribed to Ptolemy himself. Nasir al-Din Tusi (d. 672/1274) was an influential philosopher, theologian, mathematician and astronomer, besides being the first director of the famous observatory at Maraghah near Tabriz. Author of more than 50 scholarly works, the present volume contains his Persian commentary on the Kitab al-thamara in which he also made use of two earlier commentaries in Arabic, one by Ahmad b. Yusuf al-Misri (4th/10th cent.) and the other by Abu 'l-?Abbas al-Isfahani (4th/10th cent.).