Islamic Views on the Shape of the Earth: Difference between revisions

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 ==Greek and Indian astronomical knowledge==
-Ptolemy’s Almagest was translated into Arabic in the 8<sup>th</sup> century CE after the Qur’an was completed. Ptolemy recorded in book five of his AlMagest in the mid-2<sup>nd</sup> century CE the discovery of Hipparchus, and of Aristarchus before him, that the sun is much larger than the earth and much more distant than the moon, and the Aristotelian view that Earth was spherical and the heavens were celestial spheres.<ref>Toomer, G. J., Ptolemy and his Greek predecessors, In Astronomy Before the Telescope, Ed. Christopher Walker, p.86, London: British Museum Press, 1996</ref>
+Ptolemy’s ''Almagest'', written in the mid 2nd century CE, was translated into Arabic in the 8<sup>th</sup> century CE after the Qur’an was completed and mostly [[Textual History of the Qur'an|standardized]]. Ptolemy recorded in book five of the ''Almagest'' the discovery of Hipparchus, and of Aristarchus before him, that the sun is much larger than the earth and much more distant than the moon, as well as the Aristotelian view which maintains that the Earth is spherical and that the heavens are celestial spheres.<ref>Toomer, G. J., Ptolemy and his Greek predecessors, In Astronomy Before the Telescope, Ed. Christopher Walker, p.86, London: British Museum Press, 1996</ref>
-Professor Kevin Van Bladel says:
+Professor Kevin Van Bladel writes:
-{{Quote||When the worldview of educated Muslims after the establishment of the Arab Empire came to incorporate principles of astrology including the geocentric, spherical, Aristotelian-Ptolemaic world picture – particularly after the advent of the ‘Abbāsid dynasty in 750 – the meaning of these passages came to be interpreted in later Islamic tradition not according to the biblical-quranic cosmology, which became obsolete, but according to the Ptolemaic model, according to which the Quran itself came to be interpreted.<ref>Van Bladel, Kevin, “Heavenly cords and prophetic authority in the Qur’an and its Late Antique context”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 70:223-246, p.241, Cambridge University Press, 2007</ref>}}
+{{Quote|<ref>Van Bladel, Kevin, “Heavenly cords and prophetic authority in the Qur’an and its Late Antique context”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 70:223-246, p.241, Cambridge University Press, 2007</ref>|When the worldview of educated Muslims after the establishment of the Arab Empire came to incorporate principles of astrology including the geocentric, spherical, Aristotelian-Ptolemaic world picture – particularly after the advent of the ‘Abbāsid dynasty in 750 – the meaning of these passages came to be interpreted in later Islamic tradition not according to the biblical-quranic cosmology, which became obsolete, but according to the Ptolemaic model, according to which the Quran itself came to be interpreted.}}
 Earlier in the same paper, Van Bladel describes how Christian theologians in the region of Syria in the sixth century CE shared the view that the Earth was flat and the heaven, or series of heavens was like a dome or tent above the Earth, based on their reading of the Hebrew and New Testament scriptures. This was a rival view to that of the churchmen of Alexandria who supported the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic view of a spherical Earth surrounded by spinning celestial spheres. See the footnote below<ref name="KVB">ibid. pp.224-226. Here are some more excerpts: