Al-Battani

[pp. 84-85]

AL-BATTĀNĪ

(d. 929 A.D.)

Abū 'Alī M. b. Jābir b. Sinān al-Battānī aṣ-Ṣābī al-Ḥarrānī, an astronomer from Mesopotamia, wrote K. az-zīj (Astronomical Tables).

EI (s.v.)

Ed.: C.A. Nallino, Al-Battani seu Albatenii Opus Astronomicum, Milano 1899-1907, 3 vols.

[p. 85]

T.: MC 556 (Nallino) A: l

[The Indian Ocean] forms a gulf penetrating into the land of the Ḥabash, which extends into the direction of Barbar and is called the Barbarī Gulf. Its length is five hundred miles and its width, in a straight direction, is one hundred miles. (Nallino III, p. 26; MC fol. 556).

As for the Ouqiyanos Sea which they call al-Muḥīṭ, only its western and northern parts are known, viz. from the extreme end of the territory of the Ḥabash until Birṭāniyya (Britannia?). It is a sea where vessels cannot sail.

The six islands which lie opposite the [coast of the] territory of the Ḥabash are the islands called Jazā'ir as-su'adā. ("Insulae Fortunatae").

The second part [of the Earth] extends southwards from the Sea of Egypt [= the Mediterranean] to the Sea of the Ḥabash. This territory is limited by the Green Sea on the West, by the Sea of Egypt and the Sea of the Rūm on the North, by al-‘Arish on the East and by the See of the Ḥabash on the South. (Nallino III, p. 27; MC 556).