al-Sufi's Book on the Fixed Stars

Editions, Facsimiles and Translations of al-Ṣūfī’s Book of the Images of the Fixed Stars


The constellation Andromeda and the Andromeda nebula (M 31) as depicted in a 15th-century manuscript from the Sufi-Latinus tradition (ms. Memb. II 141, Forschungsbibliothek, Gotha) and in Ismael Boulliauʼs Ad astronomos monita duo (Paris, 1667)

Armand-Pierre Caussin de Parceval, “Les constellations d’Aboulhossaïn Abderrahman es-Soufi er-Razi. [Mss. de la Bibliothèque du Roi, nos. 1110, 1111, 1113.]”, Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque du Roi et autres bibliothèques, 12 (1831), Première Partie, 236-276 [Internet Archive link] – reprinted in Sezgin (1997), pp. 284-324 – edition and French translation of the introduction based on the mss. Arabe 2488, 2489/1 and 2490 (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France).
Louis-Amélie Sédillot, Mémoire sur les instruments astronomiques des Arabes (Paris: l’Imprimerie Royale, 1844 [= Mémoires présentés par divers savants à l’Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Première série, 1]) [Internet Archive link] – pp. 117-141 prints several extracts from the mss. Arabe 2488 and 2490 (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France).
Hans Karl Frederik Kristian Schjellerup, Description des étoiles fixes composée au milieu du dixième siècle de notre ère, par l’astronome persan Abd-al-Rahman Al-Sufi: Traduction littérale de deux manuscrits arabes de la Bibliothèque Royale de Copenhague et de la Bibliothèque Impériale de St. Pétersbourg (St. Petersburg: Eggers et Cie & H. Schmitzdorff, J. Issakof & Tcherkessof, 1874) [MENAdoc link] – French translation based on mss. Arab. 83 (Copenhagen) and Arabskaya novaya seriya 191 (St. Petersburg) – reprinted in Sezgin (1997), pp. 5-282.
M. Nizamu’d-Din, Ṣuwaru’l-Kawākib or (Uranometry), (Description of the 48 Constellations), Arabic Text with the ’Urjūza of Ibnu’ṣ-Ṣūfī – Edited from the Oldest Extant Mss. and Based on the Ulugh Beg Royal Codex, (Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, Arabe 5036) with Introduction, Plates, Diagrams, etc. (Hyderabad: Dā’irat al-Ma‛ārif al-‛Utmānīya, 1954 [AH 1373]) – review in: Isis, 48 (1957), 364-365 [JSTOR link] – based mainly on ms. Arabe 5036 (Paris, Bibliothèque national de France) – with an introductory essay by Henry James Jacques Winter, reprinted in Winter (1955) and in Sezgin (1997), pp. 374-381.
Fuat Sezgin (ed.), Kitāb Suwar al-Kawākib (Frankfurt am Main: Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, 1986) – facsimile (somewhat edited) of ms. Marsh 144 (Bodleian Library, Oxford).
Ihsan Hafez, ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Ṣūfī and His Book of the Fixed Stars: A Journey of Re-Discovery (Cairns/Townsville: James Cook University, 2010) [ADS link] – edition and partial English translation based on ms. Marsh 144 (Bodleian Library, Oxford) and ms. Arabe 5036 (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France).
Khalid bin Abdullah Al-Ajaji, Book of Fixed Stars (Riyadh: King Fahd National Library, 2021 [AH 1442]) – edition based on ms. Marsh 144 with detailed analysis and commentary (in Arabic) [online link].

Studies on al-Ṣūfī’s Book of the Images of the Fixed Stars

Paul Casanova, “De quelques légendes astronomiques arabes considérées dans leurs rapports avec la mythologie égyptienne”, Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 2 (1902), 1-39 [BIFAO link].
Henry James Jacques Winter, “Notes on Al-Kitab Suwar Al-Kawakib Al-Thamaniya Al-Arba’in of Abu-l-Husain ‘Abd Al-Rahman ibn ‘Umar Al-Sufi Al-Razi”, Archives Internationale d’Histoire des Sciences, 8 (1955), 126-133 – reprinted in Sezgin (1997), pp. 374-381.
Emmy Wellesz, “An Early al-Sūfī Manuscript in the Bodleian Library in Oxford: A Study in Islamic Constellation Images”, Ars Orientalis: The Arts of Islam and the East, 3 (1959), 1-26 [JSTOR link] – reprinted in Sezgin (1997), pp. 383-408.
Emmy Wellesz, “Islamic Astronomical Imagery: Classical and Bedouin Tradition”, Oriental Art: A Quarterly Publication Devoted to the Study of all Forms of Oriental Art, New Series, 10 (1964), 84-91.
Emmy Wellesz, An Islamic Book of Constellations (Oxford: Bodleian Library, 1965 [= Bodleian Picture Books, nr. 13]).
M. Shermatov, “[Ash-Shirazi’s Comments on the Star Catalogue of as-Sūfī]”, Uchenye Zapiski Dushanbinskii Gosudarstvennyi Pedogogicheskii Institut, 8 (1971), 73-83 [ADS link] – in Tajik.
Gerald Randall Tibbetts, Arab Navigation in the Indian Ocean Before the Coming of the Portuguese: Being a Translation of Kitāb al-Fawā’id fī usūl al-bahr wa’l-qawā’id of Ahmad b. Mājid al-Najdī, together with an Introduction on the History of Arab Navigation, Notes on the Navigational Techniques and on the Topography of the Indian Ocean, and a Glossary of Navigational Terms (London: Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1971 [= Oriental Translation Fund, New Series, vol. XLII]), pp. 40, 89 & 157.
Paul Kunitzsch, Zur Kritik der Koordinatenüberlieferung im Sternkatalog des Almagest (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975).
Emilie Savage-Smith, Islamicate Celestial Globes: Their History, Construction, and Use (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985 [= Smithsonian Studies in History and Technology, nr. 46]) [Smithsonian link] – with a chapter on iconography by Andrea P.A. Belloli.
Owen Gingerich, “Islamic Astronomy”, Scientific American, 254 (1986), nr. 4, 74-83 & 124 – reprinted in: The Great Copernicus Chase and other Adventures in Astronomical History (Cambridge [Mass.]/Cambridge: Sky Publishing Corporation/Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 43-56 – depiction of Perseus from a manuscript in the Egyptian National Library (Cairo).
Paul Kunitzsch, “The Astronomer Abū ’l-Husayn al-Sūfī and his Book on the Constellations”, Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften, 3 (1986), 56-81 – reprinted in Kunitzsch (1989), nr. XI.
Paul Kunitzsch, “Star Catalogues and Star Tables in Medieval Oriental and European Astronomy”, Indian Journal of History of Science, 21 (1986), 113-122 [INSA link].
Paul Kunitzsch, “The Astrolabe Stars of al-Sūfī”, in: A.J. Turner (ed.), études, 1987-1989 (Paris: Société Internationale de l’Astrolabe/Institut du Monde Arabe, 1989 [= Astrolabica, nr. 5]).
Paul Kunitzsch, The Arabs and the Stars: Texts and Traditions on the Fixed Stars, and their Influence in Medieval Europe (Northampton: Variorum Reprints, 1989 [= Variorum Collected Studies Series, CS 307]).
Edward Stewart Kennedy, “al-Sūfī on the Celestial Globe”, Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften, 5 (1989), 48-93 – reprinted in E.S. Kennedy, Astronomy and Astrology in the Medieval Islamic World (Aldershot: Ashgate/Variorum, 1998 [= Variorum Collected Studies Series, CS600]), nr. III.
Paul Kunitzsch, “al-Sūfī and the Astrolabe Stars”, Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften, 6 (1990), 151-166 – reprinted in Kunitzsch (2004), nr. XIII.
Edward Stewart Kennedy, “Al-Sûfî Calculates a Star’s Declination”, Lectures of the Conference of As-Sûfi and Ibn-an-Nafis, Jordan 1987 (Beirut/Damascus: Dār al-Fikr al-Mu‛āsir/Dār al-Fikr, 1991), pp. 30-35.
Emilie Savage-Smith, “[Islamic Cartography] Celestial Mapping”, in: J.B. Harley & D. Woodward (eds.), The History of Cartography. Volume Two, Book One: Cartography in the Traditional Islamic and South Asian Societies (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1992), pp. 12-70.
Anna Caiozzo, “Les dragons du Livre des étoiles Fixes, Paris, B.N., Ms. ar. 5036”, Histoire de l’Art: Revue de recherche et d’information publiée sous l’égide de l’Association des Professeurs d’Archéologie et d’Histoire de l’Art des Universités, nr. 25/26 (1994), 1-12.
Barbara Brend, “A Reconsideration of the Book of Constellations of 400/1009-10 in the Bodleian Library”, in: R. Hillenbrand (ed.), The Art of the Saljūqs in Iran and Anatolia: Proceedings of a Symposium held in Edinburgh in 1982 (Costa Mesa [Cal]: Mazda Publishers, 1994 [= Islamic Art and Architecture, vol. 4]), pp. 89-93.
Julian Raby, “Saljūq-Style Painting and a Fragmentary Copy of al-Sūfī’s ‛Fixed Stars’”, in: R. Hillenbrand (ed.), The Art of the Saljūqs in Iran and Anatolia: Proceedings of a Symposium held in Edinburgh in 1982 (Costa Mesa [Cal.]: Mazda Publishers, 1994 [= Islamic Art and Architecture, vol. 4]), pp. 106-117.
Edward Stewart Kennedy, Astronomy and Astrology in the Medieval Islamic World (Aldershot [etc.]: Ashgate/Variorum, 1997 [= Variorum Collected Studies Series, CS 600]).
Paul Kunitzsch, “The Astronomer al-Sūfī as Source for Ulug Beg’s Star Catalogue (1437)”, in: Ž. Vesel, H. Beikbaghaban & B. Thierry de Crussol des Epesse (eds.), La science dans le monde iranien à l’époque islamique (Teheran: Institut Français de Recherche en Iran, 1998), pp. 41-47 – reprinted in Kunitzsch (2004), nr. XII.
Sophie Makariou & Anna Caiozzo, “La tradition des étoiles fixes sur les globes célestes et dans les manuscrits illustrés d’al-Sufi”, in: S. Makariou (ed.), L’apparence des cieux: Astronomie et astrologie en terre d’Islam (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 1998 [= Les Dossiers du Musée du Louvre, nr. 54]), pp. 97-119.
Anna Caiozzo, “Le ciel d’astronome, le ciel de l’astrologue et celui du sorcier, trois conceptions des cieux dans les manuscrits enluminés de l’Orient médiéval”, in: R. Gyselen (ed.), La Science des Cieux: Sages, mages astrologues (Bures-sur-Yvette: Groupe pour l’étude de la Civilisation du Moyen-Orient, 1999 [= Res Orientales, 12]), pp. 11-51.
Eva Saenz-Diez, “Al-Sūfī: Kitāb al-‛amal bi’l-asturlāb: Livre sur l’utilisation de l’astrolabe”, Annales Islamologiques / Hawlīyāt Islāmīya, 34 (2000), 437-465.
Anna Caiozzo, Images du ciel d’Orient au Moyen âge: Une histoire du zodiaque et de ses représentations dans les manuscrits du Proche-Orient musulman (Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 2003).
Paul Kunitzsch, Stars and Numbers: Astronomy and Mathematics in the Medieval Arab and Western Worlds (Aldershot/Burlington: Ashgate Publishing, 2004 [= Variorum Collected Studies Series, CS 791]).
Moya Catherine Carey, “Mapping the Mnemonic: A Late Thirteenth-Century Copy of al-Sūfī’s Book of the Constellations”, in: A. Contadini (ed.), Arab Painting: Text and Image in Illustrated Arabic Manuscripts (Leiden: Brill, 2007 [= Handbook of Oriental Studies: Section 1, The Near and Middle East]), pp. 65-71.
Bernard R. Goldstein & Giora Hon, “Celestial Charts and Spherical Triangles: The Unifying Power of Symmetry”, Journal for the History of Astronomy, 38 (2007), 1-14 [ADS link].
Moya Catherine Carey, “Al-Sūfī and Son: Ibn al-Sūfī’s Poem on the Stars and its Prose Parent”, Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World, 26 (2009), 181-204.
Ihsan Hafez, Francis Richard Stephenson & Wayne Orchiston, “‘Abdul-Raḥmān al-Ṣūfī and His Book of the Fixed Stars: A Journey of Re-Discovery”, in: W. Orchiston, T. Nakamura & R.G. Strom (eds.), Highlighting the History of Astronomy in the Asia-Pacific Region: Proceedings of the ICOA-6 Conference (New York [etc.]: Springer, 2011 [= Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings]), pp. 121-138 [ADS link].

Al-Ṣūfī’s Book of the Images of the Fixed Stars and Illustrations in Early Literary and Scientific Islamic Manuscripts

David Storm Rice, “The Oldest Illustrated Arabic Manuscript”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 22 (1959), 207-220 [JSTOR link]
Jonathan M. Bloom, “The Introduction of Paper to the Islamic Lands and the Development of the Illustrated Manuscript”, Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World, 17 (2000), 17-23 [JSTOR link].
Eva R. Hoffman, “The Beginnings of the Illustrated Arabic Book: An Intersection between Art and Scholarship”, Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World, 17 (2000), 37-52 [JSTOR link].
Anna Contadini, “A Question in Arab Painting: The Ibn al-Sūfī Manuscript in Tehran and its Art-Historical Connections”, Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World, 23 (2006), 47-84 [JSTOR link].

Modern Astronomical Studies on the Star Catalogue in al-Ṣūfī’s Book of the Images of the Fixed Stars

click for a larger image — French-Arabic star map in two hemispheres based on the stellar nomenclature of al-Ṣūfī’ published in 1881 in Le Mobacher (Al-Mubashshir)

Hans Karl Frederik Kristian Schjellerup, “Eine Uranometrie aus dem zehnten Jahrhundert”, Astronomische Nachrichten, 74 (1869), 97-104 [nr. 1759] [ADS link] – reprinted in Sezgin (1997), pp. 1-4.
[Anon.], “Abd-al-rahman al-Sûfi’s “Description des étoiles Fixes””, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 36 (1876), 204-205 [ADS link].
Charles Sanders Peirce, “Photometric Researches Made in the Years 1872-1875”, Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College, 9 (1878), 1-181.
Planisphère céleste représentant les principales constellations connues des Arabes (Algiers: Le Mobacher/Al-Mubashshir, [September 1881]) [Gallica link].
John Ellard Gore, “Notes on some of Schjellerup’s Identifications of Al-Sufi’s Stars”, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 43 (1883), 266-271 [ADS link].
Edward Charles Pickering, “Observations with the Meridian Photometer during the Years 1879-82”, Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College, 14 (1884/85) – cf. pp. 329-344 & 509-510.
Edward Ball Knobel, “On Al-Sūfi’s Star Magnitudes”, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 45 (1885), 417-425 [ADS link].
Hans Karl Frederik Kristian Schjellerup, “On Al-Sūfi and Ptolemy’s Catalogues”, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 45 (1885), 465-466 [ADS link].
Camille Flammarion, “Mouvement propre d’une étoile observé à l’œil nu”, l’Astronomie: Revue de l’astronomie populaire, de météorologie et de physique du globe, 6 (1887), 441-448.
Edward Ball Knobel, “Note on an Obscure Arabic Word in Ms. of Ptolemy, Al-Sufi and Other Derivative Arabic Mss.”, Actes du onzième Congrès International des Orientalistes (Paris: 1897), pp. 35-37.
John Ellard Gore, “Changes in the Stellar Heavens”, The Observatory, 23 (1900), 370-374 [ADS link], 398-402 [ADS link] & 449-454 [ADS link].
M. Moye, “Changes in the Stellar Heavens”, The Observatory, 23 (1900), 456 [ADS link].
John Ellard Gore, “Changes in the Stellar Heavens”, The Observatory, 24 (1901), 50-52 [ADS link].
E.M. Antoniadi, “Changes in the Stellar Heavens”, The Observatory, 24 (1901), 95 [ADS link].
John Ellard Gore, “Changes in the Stellar Heavens”, The Observatory, 25 (1902), 54-55 [ADS link].
John Ellard Gore, “Notes on some of Al-Sufi’s Stars”, The Observatory, 27 (1904), 122-128 [ADS link].
Knut Lundmark, “The Estimates of Stellar Magnitudes by Ptolemaios, Al Sûfi and Tycho Brahe”, Vierteljahrsschrift der Astronomischen Gesellschaft, 61 (1926), 230-236 – reprinted in Sezgin (1997), pp. 333-339.
Ernst Zinner, Helligkeitsverzeichnis von 2373 Sternen bis zur Grösse 5.50 (Bamberg: C.C. Buchners Verlag, 1926 [= Veröffentlichungen der Remeis-Sternwarte zu Bamberg, Band 2]), pp. 23-26 [ADS link].
Robert Harry van Gent, “Evidence for Transient Colour Changes of Algol in the Past”, Space Science Reviews, 50 (1989), 372 [ADS link].
Dorrit Hoffleit, “Suspected Variables among al-Sufi Stars”, in: A.G.D. Philip, W.F. Van Altena & A.R. Upgren (eds.), Anni Mirabiles: A Symposium Celebrating the 90th Birthday of Dorrit Hoffleit, held at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, March 7-8, 1997 (Schenectady [NY]: L. Davis Press, 1999 [= Contributions of the Institute for Space Observations, nr. 17]), pp. 45-54 [ADS link].
Tomoko Fujiwara, Hitoshi Yamaoka & S.J. Miyoshi, “Survey of Long-Term Variability of Stars: I. Reliability of Magnitudes in Old Star Catalogues”, Astronomy & Astrophysics, 416 (2004), 641-646 [ADS link].
Tomoko Fujiwara & Hitoshi Yamaoka, “Magnitude Systems in Old Star Catalogues”, Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 8 (2005), 39-47 [ADS link].
Ihsan Hafez, Francis Richard Stephenson & Wayne Orchiston, “Al-Ṣūfī’s Investigation of Stars, Star Clusters and Nebulae”, Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 43 (2011), Meeting #217, #146.01 [ADS link].
Bradley E. Schaefer, “The Thousand Star Magnitudes in the Catalogues of Ptolemy, Al Sufi, and Tycho Are All Corrected for Atmospheric Extinction”, Journal for the History of Astronomy, 44 (2013), 47-74 [ADS link].
Ihsan Hafez, Francis Richard Stephenson & Wayne Orchiston, “The Investigation of Stars, Star Clusters and Nebulae in ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Ṣūfī’s Book of the Fixed Stars”, in: W. Orchiston, D.A. Green & R.G. Strom (eds.), New Insights From Recent Studies in Historical Astronomy: Following the Footsteps of F. Richard Stephenson. A Meeting to Honor F. Richard Stephenson on His 70th Birthday (Heidelberg [etc.]: Springer, 2015 [= Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings, nr. 43]), pp. 143-168 [ADS link].
Ihsan Hafez, Francis Richard Stephenson & Wayne Orchiston, “‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Ṣūfī’s 3-Step Magnitude System”, in: W. Orchiston, D.A. Green & R.G. Strom (eds.), New Insights From Recent Studies in Historical Astronomy: Following the Footsteps of F. Richard Stephenson. A Meeting to Honor F. Richard Stephenson on His 70th Birthday (Heidelberg [etc.]: Springer, 2015 [= Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings, nr. 43]), pp. 169-177 [ADS link].
Philipp Protte & Susanne M. Hoffmann, “Accuracy of Magnitudes in Pre-Telescopic Star Catalogs”, Astronomische Nachrichten / Astronomical Notes, 341 (2020), 827-840 [ADS link].
S. Mohammad Mozaffari & Jeremy J. Drake, “Algol Anomaly or Careful Observations of its Brightness? The Values Recorded for the Magnitude of Algol in the Medieval Astronomical Corpus”, Journal for the History of Astronomy, 52 (2021), 77-103 [ADS link].

Al-Ṣūfī’s Influence on Islamic Astronomy and Astrology

The Cosmography of al-Qazwīnī

Ludwig Ideler, Untersuchungen über den Ursprung und die Bedeutung der Sternnamen: Ein Beytrag zur Geschichte des gestirnten Himmels (Berlin: Johann Friedrich Weiss, 1809) [Internet Archive link] – edition and German translation of al-Qazwīnī’s description of the constellations with a detailed commentary.
Ferdinand Wüstenfeld, Zakarija Ben Muhammed Ben Mahmud el-Cazwini’s Kosmographie. Erster Theil: Die Wunder der Schöpfung. Aus den Handschriften der Bibliotheken zu Berlin, Gotha, Dresden und Hamburg (Göttingen: Verlag der Dieterichschen Buchhandlung, 1849) [Internet Archive link] – Arabic text only.
Hermann Ethé, Zakarija ben Muhammed ben Mahmûd el-Kazwîni’s Kosmographie. Nach der Wüstenfeldschen Textausgabe, mit Benutzung und Beifügung der reichhaltigen Anmerkungen und Verbesserungen des Herrn Prof. Dr. Fleischer in Leipzig, aus dem Arabischen zum ersten male vollständig übersetzt: Die Wunder der Schöpfung. Erster Halbband (Leipzig: Fues’s Verlag, 1868) [Google books link / MENAdoc link] – German translation of the first part, the second part was never published.
Alma Giese, Al-Qazwīnī: Die Wunder des Himmels und der Erde (Stuttgart: Thienemann/Edition Erdmann, 1986 [= Bibliothek arabischer Klassiker, nr. 11]) – German translation of selected parts.

The Star Catalogue in Ulugh Bēg’s Zīj-i-Ṣultānī

John Greaves, “Longitudines, & Latitudines, nonnullarum è præcipuis Stellis inerrantibus, ex Astronomicis observationibus Ulug Beigi, nunc primùm à Johanne Gravio publicatæ”, in: John Bainbridge, Canicularia: Unà cum demonstratione Ortus Sirii heliaci, Pro parallelo inferioris Ægypti (Oxford: Henry Hall, 1648), pp. 77-116 – catalogue of 98 stars drawn from his unpublished Tabulae integrae longitudinis et latitudinis stellarum fixarum juxta Ulug Beigi observationes which he completed in 1643, cf. Thomas Birch (ed.), Miscellaneous Works of Mr. John Greaves, Professor of Astronomy in the University of Oxford (London: J. Brindley & C. Corbett, 1737), vol. I, p. liv.
Thomas Hyde, Tabulæ Long[itudinis] ac Lat[itudinis] Stellarum Fixarum, ex Observatione Ulugh Beighi, Tamerlanis Magni Nepotis, Regionum ultra citráque Gjihun (i. Oxum) Principis potentissimi. Ex tribus invicèm collatis MSS. Persicis jam primùm Luce ac Latio donavit, & Commentariis illustravit (Oxford: Henry Hall, 1665) – reprinted in Gregory Sharpe’s edition of the collected works of Thomas Hyde (Oxford, Clarendon, 1767), vol. I, part III.
Sédillot, Louis-Pierre-Eugène Amélie, Prolégomènes des tables astronomiques d’Oloug-Beg: Publiés avec notes et variantes, et précédés d’une introduction (Paris: Typographie de Firmin Didot Frères, 1847).
Sédillot, Louis-Pierre-Eugène Amélie, Prolégomènes des tables astronomiques d’Oloug-Beg: Traduction et commentaire (Paris: Typographie de Firmin Didot Frères, 1853).
Edward Ball Knobel, “Notes on a Persian MS. of Ulugh Beigh’s Catalogue of Stars belonging to the Royal Astronomical Society”, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 39 (1879), 337-363 [ADS link].
Christian Heinrich Friedrich Peters, “Ueber Ulugh Beg’s Sterngrössen”, Astronomische Nachrichten, 99 (1881), 235-240 [nr. 2367] [ADS link].
Edward Ball Knobel, Ulugh Beg’s Catalogue of Stars. Revised from all Persian Manuscripts Existing in Great Britain, with a Vocabulary of Persian and Arabic Words (Washington: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1917 [= Publications of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, nr. 250]) [Internet Archive link].
P.N. Mitra, “Ulugh Beg, the Astronomer Prince of Iran”, Indo-Iranica, 8 (1955), 8-12.
A. Sayili, Ghiyâth al Dîn’s Letter on Ulugh Bey and the Scientific Activity in Samarquand (Ankara: Turkish Historical Society, 1960).
Ernest W. Plini, “A Giant Astronomical Instrument of Stone: The Ulugh-Beg Observatory”, Griffith Observer, 47 (1984), nr. 9, 3 [ADS link].
Ernest W. Piini, “Ulugh Beg’s Forgotten Observatory”, Sky and Telescope, 71 (1986), 542-544 [ADS link].
M.M. Ashrafi, “Where was the Portrait of Ulugh Beg Painted?”, Iranian Studies: Soviet and North American Studies on Central Asia, 21 (1988), 24-30 [JSTOR link].
M.Y. Shevtchenko, “Equality of Accuracies of Ptolemy’s and Ulugh-Beg Catalogues of Stars”, Astronomicheskii Tsirkulyar, nr. 1526 (1988), 23 [ADS link].
M.Y. Shevtchenko, “An Analysis of Errors in the Star Catalogues of Ptolemy and Ulugh Beg”, Journal for the History of Astronomy, 21 (1990), 187-201 [ADS link].
Kevin Krisciunas, “The Legacy of Ulugh Beg”, in: H.B. Paksoy (ed), Central Asian Monuments (Istanbul: 1992), pp. 95-103.
Kevin Krisciunas, “The Accuracy of the Measurements in Ulugh Beg’s Star Catalogue”, Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 24 (1992), 1166-1167 [ADS link].
Kevin Krisciunas, “A More Complete Analysis of the Errors in Ulugh Beg’s Star Catalogue”, Journal for the History of Astronomy, 24 (1993), 269-280 [ADS link].
Shuhrat Ehgamberdiev, “The Astronomical School of Ulugh Beg”, Sky and Telescope, 90 (1995), nr. 5, 38 [ADS link].
F. Beaupertuis-Bressand, “Le Prince savant annexe les étoiles”, in: V. Fourniau (ed.), Samarcande 1400-1500: La cité-oasis de Tamerlan: coeur d’un empire et d’une renaissance (Paris: Autrement, 1995 [= Mémoires, nr. 34]), pp. 123-149.
M. Bagheri, “A Newly Found Letter of al-Kashi on Scientific Life in Samarkand”, Historia Mathematica, 24 (1997), 241-256.
Edward Stewart Kennedy, “The Heritage of Ulugh Beg”, in: E. Ihsanoglu & F. Günergun (eds.), Science in Islamic Civilisation. Proceedings of the International Symposia “Science Institutions in Islamic Civilisation” & “Science and Technology in the Turkish and Islamic World” (Istanbul: Research Centre for Islamic History, Art & Culture IRCICA, 2000 [= Studies and Sources on the History of Science Series, nr. 9]), pp. 97-109.
T.S. Yuldashbaev, “Mirza Ulugh Beg and Modern Astronomy in Uzbekistan”, in: E. Ihsanoglu & F. Günergun (eds.), Science in Islamic Civilisation. Proceedings of the International Symposia “Science Institutions in Islamic Civilisation” & “Science and Technology in the Turkish and Islamic World” (Istanbul: Research Centre for Islamic History, Art & Culture IRCICA, 2000 [= Studies and Sources on the History of Science Series, nr. 9]), pp. 139-141.
A. Ahmedov & Boris A. Rosenfeld, “The Mathematical Treatise of Ulugh Beg”, in: E. Ihsanoglu & F. Günergun (eds.), Science in Islamic Civilisation. Proceedings of the International Symposia “Science Institutions in Islamic Civilisation” & “Science and Technology in the Turkish and Islamic World” (Istanbul: Research Centre for Islamic History, Art & Culture IRCICA, 2000 [= Studies and Sources on the History of Science Series, nr. 9]), pp. 143-150.
Bernhard Du Mont, “Ulugh Beg: Astronom und Herrscher in Samarkand”, Sterne und Weltraum, 41 (2002), nr. 9/10, 38-46 [ADS link].
Heiner Schwan, “Die Tabellen von Ulugh Beg: Die Sternkataloge des Ptolemäus, Ulugh Beg und Tycho Brahe im Vergleich”, Sterne und Weltraum, 41 (2002), nr. 9/10, 48-51 [ADS link].
Michael G. Nickiforov, “Unsuccessful Attempt for Dating the Ulugbeige’s Catalogue by the Method of Dambis and Efremov”, Bulgarian Astronomical Journal, 11 (2009), 99-122 [ADS link].
Frank W.M. Verbunt & Robert Harry van Gent, “The Star Catalogues of Ptolemaios and Ulugh Beg: Machine-Readable Versions and Comparison with the Modern Hipparcos Catalogue”, Astronomy & Astrophysics, 544 (2012), A31 [34 pp.] [ADS link].

Al-Ṣūfī’s Influence on Western Astronomy and Astrology

Ismael Boulliau, Astronomia Philolaica: Opus Novum, in quo motus Planetarum per novam ac veram Hypothesim demonstrantur. Mediique motus, aliquot observationum authoritate, ex Manuscripto Bibliothecæ Regiæ quæ hactenus omnibus Astronomis ignotæ fuerunt, stabiliuntur [etc.] (Paris: Simon Piget, 1645) [E-RARA link] ‒ pp. 224-225 refer to a manuscript from the Sūfī-Latinus tradition in Forcalquier which Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655) had made available to him.
Ismael Boulliau, Ad astronomos monita duo: primum de stellâ novâ quæ in collo Ceti ante aliquot annos visa est; alterum de nebulosâ in Andromedæ cinguli parte boreâ, ante biennium iterum ortâ (Paris: 1667) [Bayerische Staatsbibliothek link] – contains a copperplate engraving based on a manuscript from the Sūfī-Latinus tradition, now probably to be identified with ms. Memb. II 141 in the Forschungsbibliothek in Gotha, depicting Andromeda and the Andromeda Nebula (M 31).
Paul Kunitzsch, Arabische Sternnamen in Europa (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1959).
Paul Kunitzsch, Untersuchungen zur Sternnomenklatur der Araber (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1961).
Paul Kunitzsch, “Arabische Sternnamen – Sternnamen der Araber: Zur Begriffsbestimmung”, Sudhoffs Archiv: Zeitschrift für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 61 (1977), 105-117.
Paul Kunitzsch, “A Note on Star Names, Especially Arabic, and their Literature”, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, 20 (1979), 478-480 [ADS link].
Paul Kunitzsch, “How we got our “Arabic” Star Names”, Sky & Telescope, 65 (1983), 20-22 [ADS link].
Marie-Thérèse Gousset, “Le Liber de locis stellarum fixarum d’Al-Sûfi, ms. 1036 de la Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal à Paris: une réattribution”, Arte Medievale: Periodico internazionale di critica dell’arte medievale, 2 (1984), 93-108.
Gotthard Strohmaier, Die Sterne des Abd ar-Rahman as-Sufi (Leipzig: Mueller & Kiepenheuer, 1984) ‒ based on the illustrations of ms. Memb. II 141 (Forschungsbibliothek, Gotha).
Kristen Lippincott, “The Astrological Vault of the Camera di Griselda from Roccabianca”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 48 (1985), 43-70 [JSTOR link].
Paul Kunitzsch, Peter Apian und Azophi: Arabische Sternbilder in Ingolstadt im fruhen 16. Jahrhundert (Munich: C.H. Beck’schen Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1986).
Paul Kunitzsch, “A Medieval Reference to the Andromeda Nebula”, ESO: The Messenger/El Mensajero, 49 (1987), 42-43 [ADS link].
Paul Kunitzsch, “Peter Apian and Azophi: Arabic Constellations in Renaissance Astronomy”, Journal for the History of Astronomy, 18 (1987), 117-124 [ADS link] – reprinted in Kunitzsch (1989), nr. XXIII.
K.A.F. Fischer, “Al-Suphi’s Star-Atlases and Middle Europe”, in: G. Swarup, A.K. Bag & K.S. Shukla (eds.), History of Oriental Astronomy: Proceedings of an International Astronomical Union Colloquium, No. 91, New Delhi, India, November 13-16, 1985 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 165-167 [ADS link]
Julio Samsó & Mercè Comes, “al-Sūfī and Alfonso X”, Archives Internationale d’Histoire des Sciences, 38 (1988), 67-76.
Mercè Comes, “Al-Sūfī como fuente del libro de la “Ochava Espera” de Alfonso X”, in: M. Comes, H. Mielgo & J. Samsó (eds.), “Ochava espera” y “Astrofísica”: Textos y estudios sobre las fuentes árabes de la astronomía de Alfonso X (Madrid/Barcelona: Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional/Instituto de Cooperación con el Mundo Árabe, 1990), pp. 11-113.
Gotthard Strohmaier, “The Pictural Representation of the Constellations in the Latin and in the Arabic Traditions: One Fundamental Difference”, Lectures of the Conference of As-Sûfi and Ibn-an-Nafis, Jordan 1987 (Beirut/Damascus: Dār al-Fikr al-Mu‛āsir/Dār al-Fikr, 1991), pp. 6-28.
Raymond Mercier, “The Lost Zij of al-Sūfī in the Twelfth-Century Tables for London and Pisa”, Lectures of the Conference of As-Sûfi and Ibn-an-Nafis, Jordan 1987 (Beirut/Damascus: Dār al-Fikr al-Mu‛āsir/Dār al-Fikr, 1991), pp. 38-74.
Mercè Comes, “El libro de las estrellas de la ochaua espera Alfonsí: ¿Traducción del Kitāb suwākib de al-Sūfī?”, Revista del Instituto Egipcio de Estudios Islámicos en Madrid, 25 (1991/92), 135-152.
Colin Wakefield, “Arabic Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library: The Seventeenth-Century Collections”, in: G.A. Russell (ed.), The ‛Arabick’ Interest of the Natural Philosophers in Seventeenth-Century England (Leiden [etc.]: E.J. Brill, 1994 [= Brill Studies in Intellectual History, nr. 47]), pp. 128-146.
Raymond Mercier, “English Orientalists and Mathematical Astronomy”, in: G.A. Russell (ed.), The ‛Arabick’ Interest of the Natural Philosophers in Seventeenth-Century England (Leiden [etc.]: E.J. Brill, 1994 [= Brill Studies in Intellectual History, nr. 47]), pp. 158-214.
Emilie Savage-Smith & Colin Wakefield, “Jacob Golius and Celestial Cartography”, in: W.D. Hackmann & A.J. Turner (eds.), Learning, Language and Invention: Essays presented to Francis Maddison (Aldershot/Paris: Variorum/Société Internationale de l’Astrolabe, 1994 [= Astrolabica, nr. 6]), pp. 238-260.
Paul Kunitzsch, “European Celestial Globes with Arabic Inscriptions”, Der Globusfreund: Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift für Globen- und Instrumentenkunde, 43/44 (1995), 135-150 [with German translation].
Paul Kunitzsch, “Peter Apian und die Sternbilder”, in: K. Röttel (ed.), Peter Apian: Astronomie, Kosmographie und Mathematik am Beginn der Neuzeit (Buxheim/Eichstätt: Polygon-Verlag, 1995), pp. 123-126.
Paul Kunitzsch, Neuzeitliche europäische Himmelsgloben mit arabischen Inschriften (Munich: C.H. Beck’schen Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1997 [= Sitzungsberichte der Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, Jahrgang 1997, Heft 4]).
Elly Dekker, Illustrating the Phaenomena: Celestial Cartography in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 286-307.