The Surviving Fragment of the Zij-i Malikshahi: A Preliminary Edition, Translation, and Study of the 100-Star Catalogue in BnF Arabe 5968

Abstract

The astronomical programme sponsored by the Saljuq Sultan Malikshah I in the late eleventh century occupies an important place in the history of Islamic astronomy. Umar Khayyam was a principal participant in this programme, which produced the Jalali or Maliki calendar and appears also to have resulted in a broader set of astronomical tables known as the Zij-i Malikshahi. A 100-star catalogue traditionally associated with these tables survives in the anonymous Arabic compendium Dustur al-munajjimin, preserved in the unique manuscript BnF Arabe 5968. This study distinguishes the catalogue from the Jalali calendar and from the lost or unidentified complete Zij-i Malikshahi, reconstructs its historical and manuscript context, and examines the provenance of BnF Arabe 5968. It presents a complete transcription of the catalogue from fols. 224r-225r and a new English translation made directly from the Arabic text, with B. A. Rosenfeld's 1961 Russian translation used as a control. The collation identifies several divergences, including a substantive correction to the longitude of entry 8, and clarifies the planetary temperament abbreviations. Rosenfeld and A. P. Yushkevich observed that 96 of the 100 stellar longitudes correspond to Ptolemaic values increased by about 14 degrees 26 minutes, while 87 latitudes agree with Ptolemy. These correspondences suggest systematic updating of inherited Ptolemaic data rather than 100 wholly independent observations, illustrating the combined roles of observation, computation, transmission, and adaptation in medieval Islamic astronomy.