Astrolabe quadrant, engraved brass
Syria, Damascus; 730 H = 1329-1330
H: 15.5 cm
“Made by Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Mizzi for Sulayman ibn Muhammad ibn Sulayman in Damascus in the year 730” is written in Kufi script, which was often used on astronomical instruments after Kufi had otherwise gone out of fashion. Al-Mizzi, who died in 1350, was an astronomer and muwaqqit (official timekeeper) at the Great Mosque in Damascus, and a total of five quadrants made by him have been preserved. Sulayman has not been identified.
A quadrant is in principle a quarter of an astrolabe, and was used to measure the height of certain stars at a specific latitude (here 33º30’ for Damascus). It could consequently be used for such things as determining the time – and the time of prayer.
19
Inv. no. 16/1988
Published in:
Géza Fehérvári:” An eighth/fourteenth-century quadrant of the astrolabist al-Mizzî” in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 36:1, 1973, pp. 115-117, pl. I-II.;
Sotheby’s London, 13/4-1988, lot 267;
Kjeld von Folsach: Islamic art. The David Collection, Copenhagen 1990, cat.no. 362;
Syrie: mémoire et civilisation, Institut du monde arabe, Paris 1993, p. 438, cat.no. 333;
Kjeld von Folsach, Torben Lundbæk and Peder Mortensen (eds.): Sultan, Shah and Great Mughal: the history and culture of the Islamic world, The National Museum, Copenhagen 1996, cat.no. 78;
Francis Maddison and Emilie Savage-Smith: Science, tools & magic, London 1997, pp. 226-267, note 9;
Kjeld von Folsach: Art from the World of Islam in The David Collection, Copenhagen 2001, cat.no. 595;
Rafael Valencia Rodríguez [et al.]: Ibn Khaldun: the Mediterranean in the 14th century: rise and fall of empires, exhibition in the Real Alcazar of Seville May - September 2006, Fundación El Legado Andalusi, Granada 2006, pp. 48-49;
Andrea Gropp, Werner Pöhling (eds.): Häuser der Weisheit: Wissenschaft im goldenen Zeitalter des Islam, Kultur- und Stadthistorisches Museum Duisburg, Mainz am Rhein 2015, fig. 8, p. 12;
Lærke Rydal Jørgesen and Marie Laurberg (eds.): The moon : from inner worlds to outer space, Louisiana, Humlebæk 2018, cat.no. 2, pp. 80-81;
Stig T. Rasmussen: Klassisk arabisk litteratur i oversættelse til dansk: en litteraturhistorisk vejvisende antologi, København 2018, p. 159;
Joachim Meyer, Rasmus Bech Olsen and Peter Wandel: Beyond words: calligraphy from the World of Islam, The David Collection, Copenhagen 2024, cat. 10, pp. 130-131;
