Late Medieval Planetary Theory

Author(s): E. S. Kennedy
Source: Isis , Autumn, 1966, Vol. 57, No. 3 (Autumn, 1966), pp. 365-378
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science
Society

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 Late Medieval Planetary Theory

By E. S. Kennedy *

1. INTRODUCTION

THIS PAPER IS an attempt to describe and discuss models for repre-

senting planetary motion developed in the thirteenth century or
shortly thereafter. A series of four articles which have appeared in this
journal 1 have dealt with the related work of a Damascene astronomer of
the following century, one Ibn al-Shatir. The latter gives a list of his pre-
decessors who worked in the same field, and an effort has been made to
examine systematically the extant writings of these individuals. The findings
are of some general interest in the history of astronomy, but more particu-
larly they supply partial material for an eventual solution of the problem
of transmission posed by the existence of numerous identical elements
between the work of Copernicus and that of Ibn al-Shatir.
Hulagu, grandson of Genghis Khan, conqueror of Baghdad, and founder
of the Mongol Il-khan dynasty of Iran, established an astronomical observa-
tory at Maragha in Iranian Azerbaijan. The scientific activity there was
under the leadership of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (1201-1274),2 a savant of wide
interests and varied activities whose work in planetary theory, as we shall
see in Sections 3 and 4 below, supplied the impetus for the developments here
described. Associated with him were a number of astronomers attracted from
regions as widely separated as China on the East and Spain to the West.
It will be convenient to refer to this group as the Maragha School.
One member of the school mentioned by Ibn al-Shatir is Muhi al-Din
al-Maghribi.3 He compiled a set of astronomical tables (a z[l) after the
death of Nasir al-Din, but the theory underlying the computations seems
to be Ptolemaic in character. The theory behind an earlier zij, which he
* Brown University and the American Uni- Theory of Ibn al-Shatir," Isis, 1959, 50:227-235;
versity of Beirut. This study was sponsored by Fuad Abbud, "The Planetary Theory of Ibn
the National Science Foundation. al-Shatir: Reduction of the Geometric Models
Grateful acknowledgment is made to for the
Numerical Tables," Isis, 1962, 53:492-499;
assistance rendered by officials of theVictor various
Roberts, " The Planetary Theory of Ibn
manuscript collections in Istanbul, Turkey, al-Shatir: Latitudes of the Planets," Isis, 1966,
and the Bodleian Library, Oxford. This work 56:208-219.
could not have been done without microfilms
2 H. Suter, "Die Mathematiker und As-
supplied by them.
Victor Roberts, "The Solar and Lunar tronomen der Araber ... ," Abhandlungen
zur Geschichte der mathematischen Wissen-
Theory of Ibn ash-Shatir: A Pre-Copernican
schaften,
Copernican Model," Isis, 1957, 48:428-432; E. 1900, 10:146.
3 Ibid, p. 156.
S. Kennedy and Victor Roberts, " The Planetary

Isis, 1966, VOL. 57, 3, No. 189.

365

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366 E. S. KENNEDY

completed in Damascus in 1259, is also orthodox. Hence we

unable to present any contributions to our subject which ma
made by Muhi al-Din.
The same is the case with Mu'ayyad al-Din al-'Urdi, a Da
Ibn al-Shatir whose description of the instruments used at M
been published in translation by Seemann.4 His work on plan
seems to have been put into a book called A l-Hay'a, (The
Universe]), also thus far inaccessible to us.
From a third associate of Nasir al-Din, however, we have a
information, and the bulk of this report is taken up with h
life-span of Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi (1236-1311)5 overlapped th
al-Din and Ibn al-Shatir. After leaving Maragha he traveled e
the service of the Il-khans Ahmad and Arghfn, going onc
ambassador to the Mameluke ruler there. He lived some time in Anatolia
and eventually settled down in Tabriz, where he died. He is best k
for his work on the theory of the rainbow.6 His planetary models a
pounded in two works described in Section 6 below. The remainder o
paper is given over to a presentation of Qutb al-Din's models, sp
attention being paid to the planet Mercury and to the moon.
Familiarity with Ptolemaic planetary theory is assumed. The reader
find Appendix 2 of Neugebauer's The Exact Sciences in Antiquity 7 u
in this connection.

2. THE MOTIVATION

It is well to stress at the outset that the impulse behind the activity we
scribe was theoretical, and in some sense philosophical, rather than an attem
to improve the bases of practical astronomy. The Maragha observatory
equipped with very elaborate instruments, which presumably were u
in making observations. There is no evidence, however, that the resu
of such observations in any way affected the motives of astronomers seeki
to reform planetary theory. On the whole they were well satisfied wit
parameters (exclusive of mean motions) worked out in the Almagest.
tions predicted by their models are the same, within the limits of obse
tional precision of the time, as those obtainable from Ptolemaic mod
What they sought was to preserve the boundary conditions admir
derived by Ptolemy from his own observations, but at the same time to pu
the planetary machinery of an alleged flaw. This stemmed from the
strongly held in ancient and medieval times, that any celestial motion
be uniform and circular, or a combination of uniform circular motion

4 Hugo J. Seemann, "Die Instrumente der tution of Washington by Williams & Wil
Sternwarte zu Maragha nach den Mitteilungen 1927-1941), Vol. 2, p. 1017.
von al 'Urdi," Sitzungsberichte der physi- 6 See Carl Boyer, The Rainbow from My
kalisch-medizinischen Sozietdt zu Erlangen, to Mathematics (New York: T. Yoseloff,
1928, 60:15-126. p. 125.
5 Suter, op. cit., p. 158. See also George
Sarton, Introduction to the History of Scien
(Baltimore: Published for the Carnegie Insti

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 LATE MEDIEVAL PLANETARY THEORY 367

Such motions are produced by the end point of a constan

rotating at constant angular velocity, or by linkages of suc
of its convenience for description we will freely make u
terminology. (The explicit notion of a vector is moder
does not occur in the texts.) Now the Ptolemaic configur
consist of combinations of uniform circular motions, an
basic objection to them.

FIGURE 1. Four planetary models superposed.

Figure 1 shows part of a Ptolemaic planetary model labe

ing. In order to impose an irregularity of proper period
velocity of the epicycle center as viewed from the earth,
necessary to displace the latter from the deferent center

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368 E. S. KENNEDY

the eccentricity. The epicycle center C, if moving at constan

the deferent, will pass an observer at U faster when it is clos
perigee) and slower at apogee. That is ,it takes on a peri
acceleration as required. For each planet Ptolemy fixed th
by observational considerations, and it cannot be changed
noticed, however, that the acceleration due to the eccentricity
half the amount demanded by the observations. This intract
him to introduce a second point, the equant center E, loca
and to require that the epicycle center so move that its angu
with respect to the equant be a constant. Its velocity as view
earth then accords very well with the observed facts. Th
(approximate) equant in the Kepler theory. For if, in a two-b
one mass is regarded as stationary, the second rotates about
ellipse having the first at one of its foci. And viewed from th
the second body moves with very nearly constant angular
all the planets of the solar system the eccentricity is small -
almost a circle - and it has been shown that if a circular orbit is demanded,
the Ptolemaic arrangement gives the best possible approximation to the
facts.8
The equant, however, violates the principle of uniform circularity. The
motion of the point C can be regarded as the sum of two vectors, UD and
DC. The first of these is stationary; the second is of constant length, but
its angular velocity is variable. Or the same result can be obtained by
adding vectors UE and EC. Again, the first is stationary; the second rotates
at constant angular velocity, but it has variable length.
The constant and announced purpose of the Maragha School efforts,
and those of Ibn al-Shatir, was to construct models in which only constant-
speed circular motions were involved. In this they were, on the whole,
successful. It was a mark of genius on the part of Ptolemy to originate
the equant. It is indicative of great intelligence on the part of all the
Maragha astronomers and Ibn al-Shatir (and hence Copernicus) that their
linkages retained the equant in the sense that for every planet (save some-
times Mercury) there existed a properly placed fixed point in the linkage
such that the angular velocity of the epicycle center, as viewed from that
point, remained constant.

3. NASIR AL-DIN AL-TUSI's ROLLING DEVICE

The non-Ptolemaic proposals of Nasir al-Din are contained in his Al

Tadhkira. It was evidently popular, for several commentaries on it were
prepared by later scholars, and the book itself is extant in at least eighty-six
manuscript copies. It consists of four treatises, the first being introductory
The second treatise is on the form of the heavens, and contains all the
material which will concern us. The third and fourth deal with geodesy
and interplanetary distances, respectively.

s See, e.g., Asger Aaboe, "On Babylonian Planetary Theories," Centaurus, 1958, 5:209-277.

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 LATE MEDIEVAL PLANETARY THEORY 369

Chapter 13 of Treatise 2 has been translated into Fr

Carra de Vaux.9 It commences by proving a simple but
in geometry which Nasir al-DIn later applies. The theor
one circle rolls inside the periphery of a stationary circle
first being half the second, then any point on the first d
line, a diameter of the second. The figure accompanying
in the Tadhkira is repeated in the books of Qutb al-Din a

FIGURE 2. Nasir al-Din's rolling device.

We illustrate it in Figure 2, and think of the device as a linkage of two

equal-length vectors, the second rotating with constant velocity twice that
of the first and in a direction opposite the first. It is easy to see that the
end point of the second vector moves with simple harmonic motion, and,
as shown in our figure, the configuration can be thought of as a combination

9 In Les spheres celestes selon Nasir-Eddin Recherches sur I'histoire de l'astronomie an-
Attfsi, App. 4, pp. 337-361 in Paul Tannery, cienne (Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1893).

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370 E. S. KENNEDY

of uniform circular motions which causes a vector periodical

and contract in length. For convenience we name the dev
couple" and thus refer to it hereafter.

4. THE PLANETS ACCORDING TO NASIR AL-DiN

As indicated in Figure 1, Nasir al-Din's expedient is simple and straight-

forward. In the Ptolemaic configuration the vector from the equant is
objectionable because it is of variable length. Very well, Nasir al-Din makes
it constant, of length 60 like the deferent radius, and he sets a Tufsi couple
on its end point. The length of each element of the couple is half the
eccentricity, and the initial positions and subsequent displacements of the
elements are as shown. The result is that the epicycle center, the end point
of the couple, moves along a curve which coincides with the Ptolemaic
deferent at apogee, perigee, and apsidal quadrature, and diverges from it
only slightly at intermediate positions. The eccentricity is greatly exagger-
ated in our drawing; for all the actual planets the divergence is slight
indeed. The locus of the epicycle center is not a circle, as is proved by
Nasir al-Din. However, this is incidental; the result is a combination of uni-
form circular motions, and the equant property is strictly retained.
The French translation has been compared with the text as preserved
in a Bodleian copy (MS Lyall 100, fol. 31r). Evidently the manuscript used
by Carra de Vaux exhibits variants of some significance as compared with
our version. Some sentences in the one do not appear in the other. The
language is involved and difficult, partly because Nasir al-Din, like his
contemporaries, felt obligated to provide some sort of three-dimensional
physical machinery to carry out all the various motions involved, including
such things as precession and the variation in latitude, not considered
here. However, the two versions are essentially the same, and Carra de Vaux
gives an algebraic expression in polar coordinates for the locus of the
epicycle center. Our only present role is to emphasize the preservation of
the equant and to integrate the accomplishment of Nasir al-Din into the
other work in the field.

5. NASiR AL-DIN ON THE MOTION OF MERCURY

The orbit of Mercury is so eccentric that all the astronomers with whom
we are concerned found it necessary to use a special model for the prediction
of its longitudes. In the Tadhkira it is stated that if the author had the
opportunity he would write an appendix describing a Mercury model.
This appendix appears in no copy of the Tadhkira known to us. Max
Krause 10 lists two copies of a short treatise ascribed to Nasir al-Din and
having to do with the planet Mercury. In the hope that these might be
copies of the missing appendix, microfilms of the manuscripts were secured,

10 Max Krause, "Stambuler Handschriften dien zur Geschichte der Mathematik, Abt. B,
islamischer Mathematiker," Quellen und Stu- 1936, 3:437-532, p. 497.

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 LATE MEDIEVAL PLANETARY THEORY 371

and they were studied by Ali Abdul Latif.11 His results

the sense that the material consists of two copies of a com
with accompanying geometric figures, such as might be u
a table of equations of the Almagest type for Mercury i
of the standard Ptolemaic model. The work may be b
although there is no author named in the treatise itself, b
appendix exists at all, it must be sought elsewhere.

6. THE PLANETARY WRITINGS OF QUTB AL-DIN

The proposals described below are contained in two boo
in Sivas, in central Anatolia, and both extant in many co
called Nihayat al-idrdk fa dirdyat al-aflak (The Limit of
Concerning Knowledge of the Heavens), was completed at
For brevity, and to avoid confusion with the Nihdya of
will refer to it simply as the Idrdk. It is dedicated to
al-Sihib al-Sa'id, Baha' al-Din Muhammad al-Juvaini, who
letter from Dr. J. A. Boyle) was the son of the nephew of
historian Juvainl. Microfilms of two Istanbul copies (MSS
957) have been used in the preparation of this paper. T
called Al-Tuhfat al-Shahiya (The Royal Present) and was fi
of 1284. We have used the Istanbul copies (MS Fatih 3175
Sofya 2584).
Like the Tadhkira, both books are arranged in four treatises each, with
the same topics, and there are numerous references in them to this work
of Nasir al-Din and quotations from it.
Reading either one of Qutb al-Din's books is even more frustrating than
reading the Tadhkira; passages, long and short, or figures present in one
copy may be absent from the other. Hence the preliminary task of deciding
upon a canonical text for a critical edition would be a heroic one. The
figures are exceedingly complicated, as may be seen from the one reproduced
as Figure 3. Fortunately, in all four copies they were drawn by people with
a knowledge of the subject.
However, Qutb al-Din's most exasperating trait is that after going through
a long explanation of a model he has worked out, and after demonstrating
that it is superior to all previous devices and in every way fulfills the require-
ments, he frequently then admits that it is susceptible to improvement after
all, and proceeds to work out something else. The cycle may then repeat
itself.
This explains why in less than four years he produced two books on an
identical set of subjects. In the Idrdk (MS 957, fol. 94) he states that he has
solved all difficulties except those connected with the moon, and that without
changing the conditions set by Ptolemy. Evidently he was dissatisfied with
his own work, and the Tuhfa is a second try, or rather a series of successive
tries.

11 This study was completed under a grant

from the Arts and Sciences Research Com- mittee, American University of Beirut.

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372 E. S. KENNEDY

I
/

t7b'$I fW~t/? +'j! j 2 _ }-Z;iur

WI S^ ^Q-C^j,
i4,
t> H!^(M^~cyi~s~u,,l ; ~-e-Ot?/A, u
^Wiij^^^/^/^^<S~~if;
^^u^^^^^?j?^^yyiCJ~Jl)f

FIGURE 3. Illustration of a planetary model in a manuscript of

the Tuhfa (fol. 62v of Aya Sofya MS 2584, reproduced by per-
mission of the Director, Siileymanie Library, Istanbul).

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 LATE MEDIEVAL PLANETARY THEORY 373

7. PLANETARY THEORY ACCORDING TO QUTB AL-

A glance at the portion of Figure 1 labeled with Q
will suffice to acquaint the reader with the essentia
which takes up many labored pages of the Idrak and t
this configuration to all planets except Mercury. A
having the direction of the mean longitude issues fro
between the deferent center and the equant. From th
vector issues another, rotating as shown, and of length
tricity. Of the various models encountered, this is th
in terms of the number of moving vectors. Qutb al-D
ferring it to, say, an equivalent Tfisi couple, is unknow
In his discussions he calls each of the various devices
Thus the Tfisi couple is the " principle of the little and
asl al-saghira w'al kabira. The one he adopts is asl al-hd
"principle of the protector and the director." There is
MS 957, fol. 82r) for thinking he was not the discove
He calls the point D the " center of the imaginary defe
has discarded an actual deferent in favor of the vector issu
he calls hamil al-mudir, " the deferent [literally 'carrie

8. QUTB AL-DIN'S SOLUTION FOR MERCURY

The Ptolemaic requirements for this planet are easily
ent, with the customary mean radius of 60, is to be de
by stretching it out three units each at apogee and
quadrature it is to be compressed three units on ea
resulting deferent is to have major and minor axes of 6
The eccentricity is 6. With all the other planets th
midway between the center of the universe and the e
the situation is reversed - the equant is halfway betwe
universe and the deferent center. We note that all of the transformations
involved require distances of length 3 or multiples thereof. For eas
statement later on we put 3 = c. The Ptolemaic Mercury configuration,
those of all the other planets, violates the uniform circularity precept,
in essentially the same way.
After several attempts, all discussed at great length, Qutb al-Din com
up with a linkage which satisfies the requirements above and is purged
the Ptolemaic defect. It is most easily described by reference to Figur
and consists of six vectors, plus an additional one for the epicycle, not show
on the drawing. The first vector r1 is of length 60, it issues from the defer
center, and it has at all times the direction of the mean planet. The n
four vectors, each of length c/2, make up two Tusi couples. The last vec
r6 has length c. The initial positions and rates of rotation of all the vec
are as shown on the drawing, where k is the mean longitude measured f
apogee.

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 IC
t to

(AFIGURE

FIGUR

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 LATE MEDIEVAL PLANETARY THEORY 375

The effect of the first Tuis couple is to drop the deferen

able distortion of shape, by an amount c. The second c
one-half the first. Its action is to stretch out the orbit
apogee and perigee, and to pinch it in by the same am
the waist, as it were.
Thus far the center of equal angular velocity is the d
final transformation, accomplished by r6, does two th
oval orbit, without further gross distortion, by an am
drops the point of equal angular velocity by the sa
position of the desired equant.
In some sense this model probably represents the ape
developed by the Maragha School. We note in passin
stays closer to the Ptolemaic Mercury model than I
Copernicus) to the extent that he retains an oval defe
it is worth, an equant. The effect of the epicycle o
position is decreased whenever the epicycle retires farther
as its center rides out upon the oval. It then appears sm
Ibn al-Shatir obtains essentially the same effect 12 by k
distance but varying its actual size by means of a Tfusi cou
radius.
9. QUTB AL-DIN AND THE MOON
For the ancient as well as the medieval astronomers the problem of
predicting the moon's true longitude was in some way even more intractable
than that posed by the planet Mercury. Ptolemy's solution of the lunar
motion was subject to three criticisms, one of a substantive nature, plus
two violations of the uniform-circularity requirement. The first objection,
a valid one indeed, arose from the necessity of making the epicyclic equation
more pronounced in quadratures than at syzygies. To obtain this effect
Ptolemy set up a crank mechanism, like that of Mercury, to give the
equivalent of an oval deferent. Unfortunately, the required eccentricity is
so pronounced as to pull the Ptolemaic moon far nearer the earth than the
actual moon ever reaches. This seems to have bothered Qutb al-Din not
at all. He sought only to remove the second and third difficulties by methods
which yield substantially the Ptolemaic earth-moon distances. In this respect
the work of Ibn al-Shatir (and Copernicus) marks a decisive advance over
his.
A second objection to Ptolemy's lunar model is the familiar one that the
motion of the epicycle center is not a combination of uniform circular
motions. Finally, there is the matter of the anomaly, to be measured from the
epicyclic apogee. In the Ptolemaic model the anomaly is measured from a
point on the epicycle found by extending the line connecting the " opposite
point" and the epicycle center (see Figure 5). This point likewise has not
been obtained by a combination of uniform circular motions.
Qutb al-Din was able to eliminate the second difficulty by means of the

12 Kennedy and Roberts, op. cit., p. 231.

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376 E. S. KENNEDY

double-crank device pictured in Figure 5. This is a combinatio

circular motions, and the positions of the epicycle center gi
substantially the same as those of Ptolemy's single crank.
The third difficulty, the matter of the oscillation in the ep
produced by the "opposite point," apparently resisted all
efforts. On folio 88r of the Fatih copy of the Tuhfa, afte
of planetary latitudes, he commences an effort to eliminate t
trouble. On folio 91r is a caption for a picture of a lunar

moon 's

opposite
point

FIGURE 5. Two lunar models superposed.

obtained by adding four heavens (i.e., vectors) to the (customary?) lunar

machinery. The picture itself is missing - its place has been left blank in
both copies of the Tuhfa used by us. Then there is a long passage beginning
with the statement that even though what has just been done is the extreme
of beauty, nevertheless, there are failings in it for which he sees no explana-
tion. If God wills, he says, he will work something out.
The ensuing explanation calls for a vector chain of which the last vector,
bearing the epicycle center at its end point, is of length e, the eccentricity.

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 LATE MEDIEVAL PLANETARY THEORY 377

At conjunction it is pointing toward the center of the

rotates at twice the rate of the mean elongation. Prece
couple, each element of length 3e/2, and fully extended at
period is a mean lunation. But we are unable to fathom w
to happen from there on in. The passage ends with a stat
that the matter of the opposite point has been settled.
place for a figure, again left blank in both copies. Tha
solution was really attained seems to us doubtful.

10. COPERNICUS AND THE MUSLIM PLANETARY THEORISTS

It is instructive to list the resemblances between the work of Coperni

and the Islamic astronomers who preceded him:
1) Copernicus, Ibn al-Shatir, and the astronomers of the Marag
School accepted without reservation the dictum that any celestia
model must be a linkage of constant-length vectors rotating at co
stant angular velocity.
2) Copernicus, Ibn al-Shatir, and the Maragha School obtained th
effect of the equant by introducing two additional vectors into th
planetary linkage, both of length half the eccentricity. One displac
itself parallel to the line of apsides; the other rotates with an angular
velocity equal to the mean motion, but opposite in direction. In th
connection we note that all the variants shown in Figure 1 (excep
the Ptolemaic one) produce identically the same result by exploitin
as we would put it, the commutativity of vector addition.
3) Copernicus' lunar model, which is greatly superior to the Ptolema
one, is that of Ibn al-Shatir.
4) Copernicus' Mercury model (in De revolutionibus) is that of I
al-Shatir with slight differences in vector lengths.
5) Copernicus uses a Tuisi couple in the Mercury model (as does I
al-Shatir).

In the face of this array of similarities, the conclusion seems inescapable

that, somehow or other, Copernicus was strongly influenced by the work of
these people. In terms of innovations there remains to him the reintroduc-
tion of the heliostatic hypothesis, an act of great intellectual daring.

11. CONCLUDING REMARKS

This paper by no means says the last word descriptive of late medieva
planetary theory. There probably exist contributions by other members
the Maragha School missed by us. Time and again Qutb al-Din make
remarks to the effect that " most contemporary workers prefer" such-an
such a non-Ptolemaic model. At the end of the Idrdk he mentions several
books unknown to us, presumably on the same subjects as his own wor
In a discussion of one latitude component of the inferior planets (Idrd
MS 957, fol. 89v) he quotes from a section by 'Umar al-Khayyam appen

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 378 E. S. KENNEDY

to a treatise of Ibn al-Haitham

wise quite unknown to us. T
of the planets' motions in lati
Finally, the matter of transmi
that many Arabic and Persian
Byzantine Greek, and that a
Italy well before the time of
in one of these (MS Vat. Gr
Ptolemaic device for determi
to be any of the models encou
contain these also.

13 Otto Neugebauer, "Studies in Byzantine

Astronomical Terminology," Proceedings of the 50:1-45.
American Philosophical Society, 1960, N.S. 14 Oral communication.

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