Machine summary:
However, the chief -deterrent to a gre~ter appreciation and fuller r~coinition of the extent of the Muslim share m such scientific knowledge· lies m the facts that, firstly, a large number of invaluable works referred to in extant sources .
and longitudes and the shape and size of the earth with its movements, results of measurements connected therewith, famous observatories, and the uses of instruments, etc.
largely contributed to the culture of the mind and the beginning of science• and the Romans were made for conquest and created vast dominions, while the Muslims took up both the tasks ; on the one hand they estab• lished a great empire with its machinery of law and order and good govern• ment, and on the other they built up the edifice of their culture upon the• lessons drawn from the wisdom of India, Iran, Chaldea, Greece, and Rome.
The majority of -Arabic geographical authors based their work more -or less on the Almagest ~I and the Geography of Ptolemy.
D. With the weakening of the authority of the Abbasid caliphs onwards, much of the work of these astronomer-geographers centres round : the Buwaihid Court, and in this connection the name of lbn al-'Alari1 (d.
His work has been characterised by an eminent scholar' as '' the most important contribution to mathematical geography-not only in Islam but anywhere: ......
6 Of all the instruments in use by the Muslim astronomer-geographers the most familiar was the astrolabe in its various forms.