Author:
Isahaya Yoichi Hokkaido University, Kita 9, Nishi 7, Kita-ku, Sapporo

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This article aims to shed light on a hitherto unknown transmission route of the astral sciences from Alamut to Dadu (Beijing). I argue that the huntianyi 渾天儀, an armillary sphere, which Jamāl al-Dīn dedicated to Qubilai in 1267, was designed in Alamut – the main stronghold of the Nizārī Ismāʿīlīs – on the grounds that the instrument was set to Alamut’s latitude. After its fall in 1256, the armillary sphere traversed the Mongol Silk Roads. The Dastūr al-munajjimīn, an Arabic work of the Nizārī Ismāʿīlīs, functions as the missing link in this West-to-East transmission.

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  • MA: Ibn, al-Fuwaṭī, Muṣṭafā, Jawwād (ed.) Majmaʿ al-ādāb fī muʿjam al-alqāb [The Confluence of Adabs in the Dictionary of Laqabs]. 4 vols. Damascus: Wizārat Al-Thaqāfa Wa Al-Irshād Al-Qawmī, 196267.

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  • MZ: Wang Shidian, 王士點 and Shang Qiweng, 商企翁 (eds) Mishujian zhi 秘書監志 [Accounts of Imperial Library Directorate]. Hangzhou: Zhejiang Guji Chubanshe, 1992.

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  • TJG: ʿAlāʾ, al-Dīn ʿAṭā-Malik, al-Juwainī, Qazvīnī, Muḥammad (ed.) Tārīkh-i jahān-gushā [The History of the World-Conqueror]. 3 vols. Leiden: Brill, 19121937.

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  • Isahaya, Yoichi 2020. ‘Fu Mengzhi: “The Sage of Cathay” in Mongol Iran and Astral Sciences along the Silk Roads.’ In: Michal Biran et al. (eds.) Along the Silk Roads in Mongol Eurasia: Generals, Merchants, and Intellectuals. Berkeley: University Of California Press, 238254.

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  • Jorati, Hadi 2014. Science and Society in Medieval Islam: Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī and the Politics of Patronage (PhD thesis, Yale University).

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  • Karīmī Zanjīnī Aṣl, Moḥammad 2013. Tārīkh wa taʾwīl ba-rawāyat-i Dustūr al-munajjimīn [History and its Interpretation according to the Dustūr al-Munajjimīn]. Bonn: Goethe & Hafis.

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  • Karīmī Zanjīnī Aṣl, Moḥammad, Eva Orthmann And Petra Schmidl 2017. ‘The Sources and the Composition of the Dustūr al-Munajjimīn.’ In: Eva Orthmann And Petra Schmidl (eds.) Science in the City of Fortune: The Dustūr al-Munajjimīn and Its World. Berlin: Eb-Verlag, 35113.

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  • Maʿṣūmī -Hamadānī, Ḥusayn 2000. ‘Ustād-i Bashar’ [Teacher of Humankind].’ In: Nasr Allah Pourjavady And Živa Vesel (eds.) Nasir al-Din al-Tusi: Philosophe et Savant du XIIIe Siècle. Téhéran: Institut français de recherche en Iran/Presses universitaires d’Iran, 113130.

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  • Miya, Noriko 2016. ‘“Knowledge” in East and West during the Mongol Period.’ Acta Asiatica 110: 1937.

  • Miyajima Kazuhiko 宮島一彦 1982. ‘Genshi tenmon-shi kisai no Isuramu tenmonkiki ni tsuite 『元史』天文志記載のイスラム天文儀器について [New Identification of Islamic Astronomical Instruments Described in the Yuan Dynastic History].’ In: Tōyō no kagaku to gijutsu 東洋の科学と技術. Kyoto: Dōhōsha, 407427.

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  • Mozaffari, Mohammad and Georg Zotti 2013. ‘The Observational Instruments at the Maragha Observa-tory after AD 1300.’ Suhayl 12: 45179.

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  • Otsuka, Osamu 2017. ‘The Dustūr al-munajjimīn as a Source of Early Ismaili History.’ In: Eva Orthmann And Petra Schmidl (eds.) Science in the City of Fortune: The Dustūr al-Munajjimīn and Its World. Berlin: Eb-Verlag, 173187.

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  • Sidoli, Nathan and Isahaya Yoichi 2019. ‘Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī’s Comments on Euclid’s Data.’ Historia Mathematica 47: 87105.

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Dr. Gábor Kósa
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Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae
Language English
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