Qub al-Dn Shrz and the Configuration of the Heavens

As a leading scientist of the 13th century C. E. Qub al-Dn Shrz wrote three substantial works on haya (or the configuration of the celestial orbs): Nihyat al-idrk f diryat al-aflk (The Limits of Attainment in the Understanding of the Heavens), al-Tufa al-shhya f ilm al-haya (The Royal Offering Regarding the Knowledge of the Configuration of the Heavens), and Ikhtyrt-i Muaffar (The Muaffar Elections). Completed in less than four years and written in two of the classical languages of the Islamic world, Arabic and Persian, these works provide a fascinating window to the astronomical research carried out in Ilkhanid Persia. Shrz and his colleagues were driven by their desire to rid Ptolemaic astronomy from its perceived shortcomings. An intriguing trail of revisions and emendations in Shrzs haya texts serves to highlight both those features of Shrz's astronomy that were inherited from his predecessors, as well as his original contributions to this branch of astronomical research. As a renowned savant, Shrz spent a large portion of his career near centers of political power in Persia and Anatolia. A study of his scientific output and career as a scholar is an opportunity, therefore, for an examination of the patronage of science and of scientific works within the Ilkhanid realms. Not only was this patronage important to the work of scholars such as Shrz but it was critical to the founding and operation of one of the foremost scientific institutions of the medieval Islamic world, the Margha observatory. The astronomical tradition in which Shrz carried out his research has many links, as well, to the astronomy of Early Modern Europe, as can be seen in the astronomical models ofCopernicus.