The Light of the World: Astronomy in al-Andalus

by Joseph ibn Nahmias, Robert G. Morrison (Translator)

Overview

This book contains an edition—with an extensive introduction, translation and commentary—of The Light of the World, a text on theoretical astronomy by Joseph Ibn Nahmias, composed in Judeo-Arabic around 1400 C.E. in the Iberian Peninsula. As the only text on theoretical astronomy written by a Jew in any variety of Arabic, this work is evidence for a continuing relationship between Jewish and Islamic thought in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. The text’s most lasting effect may have been exerted via its passage to Renaissance Italy, where it influenced scholars at the University of Padua in the early sixteenth century. With its crucial role in the development of European astronomy, as well as the physical sciences under Islam and in Jewish culture, The Light of the World is an important episode in Islamic intellectual history, Jewish civilization, and the history of astronomy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520287990
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	03/01/2016
Series:	Berkeley Series in Postclassical Islamic Scholarship , #1
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 6.20(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Robert G. Morrison is Professor of Religion at Bowdoin College. He is also the author of Islam and Science: The Intellectual Career of Nizam al-Din al-Nisaburi.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Preface xi

Introduction 1

1 Judeo-Arabic Text of The Light of the World 49

2 Translation of the Judeo-Arabic Text of The Light of the World 101

3 Hebrew Recension of The Light of the World 187

4 Translation of the Significant Insertions in the Hebrew Recension of The Light of the World 241

5 Commentary on the Judeo-Arabic Text 263

6 Commentary on the Significant Insertions in the Hebrew Recension of The Light of the World 359

7 The Hebrew Text of Profiat Duran's Response to The Light of the World 393

8 Translation of the Hebrew Text of Profiat Duran's Response to The Light of the World 395

Glossary of Judeo-Arabic, Hebrew, and English Technical Terms 399

Bibliography 409

Index 421

Editorial Reviews

"Morrison has carried out an outstanding and exceedingly demanding undertaking for which we all must be grateful."

Journal for the History of Astronomy