Born : 1403, Samarkand
Died : 16 December 1474, Constantinople
Main interest : astronomer, mathematician,
physicist, scientist and mutakallim (Muslim theologian).
Ala al-Dīn Ali ibn Muhammed (1403 – 16
December 1474), known as Ali Qushji (Ottoman Turkish/Persian language: علی قوشچی, kuşçu – falconer in Turkish; Latin: Ali
Kushgii) was an astronomer, mathematician and physicist originally from
Samarkand, who settled in the Ottoman Empire some time before 1472. As a
disciple of Ulugh Beg, he is best known for the development of astronomical
physics independent from natural philosophy, and for providing empirical
evidence for the Earth's rotation in his treatise, Concerning the Supposed
Dependence of Astronomy upon Philosophy. In addition to his contributions to
Ulugh Beg's famous work Zij-i-Sultani and to the founding of Sahn-ı Seman
Medrese, one of the first centers for the study of various traditional Islamic
sciences in the Ottoman caliphate, Ali Kuşçu was also the author of several
scientific works and textbooks on astronomy.
Biography
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to remove this template message). Early life and works Ali Kuşçu was born in
1403 in the city of Samarkand, in present-day Uzbekistan. His full name at
birth was Ala al-Dīn Ali ibn Muhammed al-Qushji. The last name Qushji derived
from the Turkish term kuşçu—"falconer"— due to the fact that Ali's
father Muhammad was the royal falconer of Ulugh Beg. Sources consider him
Turkic or Persian.
Ulugh Beg Observatory – Landmark of Ali Qushji's career. He attended the courses of Qazi zadeh Rumi, Ghiyāth al-Dīn Jamshīd Kāshānī and Muin al-Dīn Kashi. He moved to Kerman, Iran (Persia), where he conducted some research on storms in the Oman sea. He completed Hall-e Eshkal-i Ghammar (Explanations of the Periods of the Moon) and Sharh-e Tajrid in Kirman. He moved to Herat and taught Molla Cami about astronomy (1423). After professing in Herat for a while, he returned to Samarkand. There he presented his work on the Moon to Ulugh Beg, who found it so fascinating that he read the entire work while standing up. Ulugh Beg assigned him to Ulugh Beg Observatory, which was called Samarkand Observatory at that time. Qushji worked there until Ulugh Beg was assassinated.
After Ulugh Beg's death, Ali Kuşçu went to Herat, Tashkent, and finally Tabriz where, around 1470, the Ak Koyunlu ruler Uzun Hasan sent him as a delegate to the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II. At that time Husayn Bayqarah had come to reign in Herat but Qushji preferred Constantinople over Herat because of Sultan Mehmed's attitude toward scientists and intellectuals.
Constantinople era
When he came to Constantinople (present-day Istanbul), his grandson Ghutb al-Dīn Muhammed had a son Mirim Çelebi who would be a great mathematician and astronomer in the future. Ali Kuşçu composed "risalah dar hay’at" in Persian for Mehmed II at Constantinople in 1470. Also he wrote "Sharh e resalye Fathiyeh", "resalye Mohammadiye" in Constantinople, which are in Arabic on the topic of mathematics. He then finished "Sharh e tejrid" on Nasir al-Din al-Tusi's "Tejrid al-kalam". That work is called "Sharh e Jadid" in scientific community.
Contributions
to astronomy
Qushji improved
on Nasir al-Din al-Tusi's planetary model and presented an alternative
planetary model for Mercury. He was also one of the astronomers that
were part of Ulugh Beg's team of researchers working at
the Samarqand observatory and contributed towards the Zij-i-Sultani compiled
there. In addition to his contributions to Zij, Ali Kuşçu wrote nine works in
astronomy, two of them in Persian and seven
in Arabic. A Latin translation of two of Qushji's works,
the Tract on Arithmetic and Tract on Astronomy,
was published by John Greaves in 1650.
Concerning the Supposed Dependence of Astronomy upon
Philosophy
His travel to the
Ottoman Empire.
Qushji's most important
astronomical work is Concerning the Supposed Dependence of Astronomy
upon Philosophy. Under the influence of Islamic theologians who
opposed the interference of Aristotelianism in astronomy, Qushji
rejected Aristotelian physics and completely separated natural
philosophy from Islamic astronomy, allowing astronomy to become a
purely empirical and mathematical science. This allowed him to
explore alternatives to the Aristotelian notion of a stationary Earth, as he
explored the idea of a moving Earth instead (though Savage-Smith asserts that no
Islamic astronomers proposed a heliocentric universe). He found empirical
evidence for the Earth's rotation through his observation
on comets and concluded, on the basis of empirical evidence rather
than speculative philosophy, that the moving Earth theory is just as likely to
be true as the stationary Earth theory.
His predecessor al-Tusi
had previously realized that "the monoformity of falling bodies, and the
uniformity of celestial motions," both moved "in a single way",
though he still relied on Aristotelian physics to provide "certain principles
that only the natural philosophers could provide the astronomer." Qushji
took this concept further and proposed that "the astronomer had no need
for Aristotelian physics and in fact should establish his own physical
principles independently of the natural philosophers." Alongside his
rejection of Aristotle's concept of a stationary Earth, Qushji suggested
that there was no need for astronomers to follow the Aristotelian notion of the
heavenly bodies moving in uniform circular motion.
Qushji's work was an
important step away from Aristotelian physics and towards an
independent astronomical physics. This is considered to be a
"conceptual revolution" that had no precedent in European
astronomy prior to the Copernican Revolution in the 16th century. Qushji's
view on the Earth's motion was similar to the later views of Nicolaus
Copernicus on this issue, though it is uncertain whether the former had
any influence on the latter. However, it is likely that they both may have
arrived at similar conclusions due to using the earlier work of Nasir
al-Din al-Tusi as a basis. This is more of a possibility considering
"the remarkable coincidence between a passage in De revolutionibus (I.8)
and one in Ṭūsī’s Tadhkira (II.1[6]) in which Copernicus
follows Ṭūsī’s objection to Ptolemy’s "proofs" of the Earth's
immobility.
Astronomy
·
Sharh e Zîj e Ulugh Beg
(In Persian)
·
Resale fi Halle Eshkale
Moadeleye Ghamar lil-Masir (Arabic)
·
Resale fi
Asli'l-HâricYumkin fi's-Sufliyyeyn (Arabic)
·
Sharh
'ale't-Tuhfeti'sh-Shâhiyye fi al-Heyat (Arabic)
·
Resale dar elm-i Heyat
(In Persian)
·
el-Fathiyye fî elm
al-Heyat (In Arabic)
·
Resale fi Hall-e
Eshkal-i Ghammar (In Persian)
·
Concerning the Supposed
Dependence of Astronomy upon Philosophy (Arabic)
Mathematics
·
Resaletu'l-Muhammediyye
fi-Hesab (In Arabic)
·
Resale dar elm-e Hesab:
Suleymaniye (Arabic)
Kalam
and Fiqh
·
Sharh e Jadid
ale't-Tejrîd
·
Hashiye ale't-Telvîh
·
Unkud-üz-Zevahir fi
Nazm-al-Javaher
Mechanics
·
Tazkare fi
Âlâti'r-Ruhâniyye
Linguistics
·
Sharh
Risâleti'l-Vadiyye
·
El-Ifsâh
·
El-Unkûdu'z-Zevâhir fî
Nazmi'l-Javâher
·
Sharh e'Sh-Shâfiye
·
Resale fî Beyâni
Vadi'l-Mufredât
·
Fâ'ide li-Tahkîki
Lâmi't-Ta'rîf
·
Resale mâ Ene Kultu
·
Resale fî'l-Hamd
·
Resale fî Ilmi'l-Me'ânî
·
Resale fî
Bahsi'l-Mufred
·
Resale
fî'l-Fenni's-Sânî min Ilmihal-Beyân
·
Tafsir e-Bakara ve Âli
Imrân
·
Risâle fî'l-İstişâre
·
Mahbub-al-Hamail fi
kashf-al-mesail
·
Tajrid-al-Kalam
Sumber
Labels:
Mathematician
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