List of Publications

by Benno van Dalen
Research leader of the project Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus
at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (Munich, Germany).

Monographs

1. Ancient and Mediaeval Astronomical Tables: mathematical structure and parameter values. Utrecht (Utrecht University) 1993. ISBN 90-393-0167-0. Download.
2. Ptolemaic Tradition and Islamic Innovation: the Astronomical Tables of Kūshyār ibn Labbān, Turnhout: Brepols, 2021. [Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus — Texts 2.]  Download.

Collected studies

1. Islamic Astronomical Tables. Mathematical Analysis and Historical Investigation. Farnham UK (Ashgate/Variorum), 2014. ISBN 978-1-4724-2238-5. See this link on the Routledge website. Now available in paperback for a third of the price.
   
   

Edited volumes

1. From China to Paris: 2000 Years Transmission of Mathematical Ideas (editor, with Yvonne Dold-Samplonius, Joseph W. Dauben and Menso Folkerts), Boethius 46, Stuttgart (Steiner) 2002. Download.
2. Certainty, Doubt, Error: Aspects of the Practice of Pre- and Early Modern Science in Honour of David A. King (editor, with Sonja Brentjes and François Charette), special issue of Early Science and Medicine 7/3 (2002). Publisher link. JSTOR link.
3. Between Orient and Occident: Transformation of Knowledge (guest editor, with Charles Burnett), special issue of Annals of Science 68/4 (2011). Publisher link.
4. Ptolemy’s Science of the Stars in the Middle Ages (editor, with David Juste, Dag Nikolaus ‎Hasse and Charles Burnett), Turnhout: Brepols, 2020. [Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus — ‎Studies 1.]‎ Publisher link with downloads. Smaller download from the PAL website.
5. Editing and Analysing Numerical Tables: Towards a Digital Information System for ‎the History of Astral Sciences (editor, with Matthieu Husson and Clemency Montelle), Turnhout: Brepols,  2021. [Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus Studies — 2.]‎ Publisher link with downloads. Smaller download from the PAL website.

Articles

1. A Statistical Method for Recovering Unknown Parameters from Medieval Astronomical Tables, Centaurus 32 (1989), pp. 85-145. DOI  link.
2. A Table for the True Solar Longitude in the Jâmi` Zîj, in: Ad Radices. Festband zum fünfzigjährigen Bestehen des Instituts für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main (ed. Anton von Gotstedter), Stuttgart (Franz Steiner) 1994, pp. 171-190. Download.
3. On Ptolemy's Table for the Equation of Time, Centaurus 37 (1994), pp. 97-153. DOI link.
4. Statistics and Medieval Astronomical Tables, in: Images of SMC Research 1996, Amsterdam (SMC) 1996, pp. 167-178. Download.
5. al-Khwârizmî's Astronomical Tables Revisited: Analysis of the Equation of Time, in: From Baghdad to Barcelona. Studies on the Islamic Exact Sciences in Honour of Prof. Juan Vernet (eds. Josep Casulleras and Julio Samsó), Barcelona (Instituto Millás Vallicrosa de Historia de la Ciencia Arabe) 1996, pp. 195-252. Download.  [For an updated Spanish version of Sections 2 to 4, see item no. 25 below.]
6. Article “al-Shams (the Sun) 2. In astronomy”, in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edition, Vol. 9 (1996), pp. 291-294 (fasc. 151-152). DOI link.
7. The Chinese-Uighur Calendar in Tûsî's Zîj-i Îlkhânî (with E.S. Kennedy and Mustafa K. Saiyid), Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften 11 (1997), pp. 111-152. Download.
8. Islamic Astronomy in China during the Yuan and Ming Dynasties (translation and partial revision of a chapter from a book by Kiyosi Yabuuti), Historia Scientiarium 7 (1997), pp. 11-43. Download.
9. Article “al-Ta’rîkh 2. Era chronology in astronomical handbooks”, in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edition, vol. 10 (2000), pp. 264-271. DOI link.
10. Islamic Astronomy in China: Two New Sources for the Huihui li (“Islamic Calendar”) (with Michio Yano), in Highlights of Astronomy, vol. 11B (ed. J. Andersen), Dordrecht (Reidel) 1998, pp. 697-700. Download.
11. Tables of Planetary Latitude in the “Huihui li” - Part II, in Current Perspectives in the History of Science in East Asia (eds. Yung Sik Kim and Francesca Bray), Seoul (Seoul National University Press) 1999, pp. 315-329. Download. Together with the accompanying article by Michio Yano: download.
12. Origin of the Mean Motion Tables of Jai Singh, Indian Journal of History of Science 35 (2000), pp. 41-66. Download.
13. A Non-Ptolemaic Islamic Star Table in Chinese, in Sic itur ad astra. Studien zur Geschichte der Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften. Festschrift für Paul Kunitzsch zum 70. Geburtstag (eds. Menso Folkerts and Richard P. Lorch), Wiesbaden (Harrassowitz) 2000, pp. 147-176.
14. Islamic and Chinese Astronomy under the Mongols: a Little-Known Case of Transmission, in From China to Paris: 2000 Years Transmission of Mathematical Ideas (Yvonne Dold-Samplonius, Joseph W. Dauben, Menso Folkerts and Benno van Dalen, editors), Boethius 46, Stuttgart (Steiner) 2002, pp. 327-356. Download.
15. Islamic Astronomical Tables in China. The Sources for the Huihui li, in History of Oriental Astronomy. Proceedings of the Joint Discussion-17 at the 23rd General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union, organised by the Commission 41 (History of Astronomy), held in Kyoto, August 25-26, 1997 (S.M. Razaullah Ansari, editor), Dordrecht (Kluwer) 2002, pp. 19-31.
16. The Zîj-i Nâsirî by Mahmûd ibn `Umar. The Earliest Indian-Islamic Astronomical Handbook with Tables and its Relation to the `Alâ’î Zîj, in Studies in the History of the Exact Sciences in Honour of David Pingree (Charles Burnett, Jan Hogendijk, Kim Plofker and Michio Yano, eds.), Leiden (Brill) 2004, pp. 825-862.
17. The Activities of Iranian Astronomers in Mongol China, in Sciences, Techniques et Instruments dans le monde Iranien (Xe-XIXe siècle). Actes du colloque tenu à l'Université de Téhéran (7-9 juin 1998) (eds. N. Pourjavady and Z. Vesel), Tehran (Presses Universitaires d'Iran / Institut Français de Recherche en Iran) 2004, pp. 17-28. Download.
18. A Second Manuscript of the Mumtahan Zîj, Suhayl 4 (2004), pp. 9-44. Download.
19. Articles “al-Battânî’ (vol. 1, pp. 101-103), “Ulugh Beg” (vol. 2, pp. 1262-1263), “Shams al-munajjim al-Wâbkanwî” (vol. 2, pp. 1187-1188), “Yahya ibn Abî Mansûr” (vol. 2, pp. 1249-1250), and “Zhamaluding” (vol. 2, pp. 1262-1263), in Biographical Encyclopaedia of Astronomers (eds. Thomas A. Hockey, F. Jamil Ragep, et al.), Berlin (Springer) 2007. Second edition in 4 volumes: 2014. Third edition in preparation. Link to all articles on Islamic astronomers from the 1st edition.
20. An Index of Authors to A Survey of the Scientific Manuscripts in the Egyptian National Library (with David A. King), Suhayl 7 (2007), pp. 9-46. Download.  Searchable Unicode version.
21. Re-Editing the Tables in the Sâbi’ Zîj by al-Battânî (ca. AD 900) (with Fritz S. Pedersen), in Mathematics Celestial and Terrestrial Festschrift für Menso Folkerts zum 65. Geburtstag (eds. Joseph W. Dauben, Stefan Kirschner, Paul Kunitzsch, Andreas Kühne and Richard P. Lorch), Halle a/d Saale (Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina) 2008, pp. 405-428. Download.
22. In Memoriam E.S. Kennedy (1912-2009), Historia Mathematica 37 (2010), pp. 159-163. Download.
23. Al-Battânî's Astrological History of the Prophet and the Early Caliphate (with E.S. Kennedy, George A. Saliba and Julio Samsó), Suhayl 9 (2009/10), pp. 13-148. Download.
24. The Malikī Calendar in the Dustūr al-munajjimīn, in Science in the City of Fortune. The Dustūr al-munajjimīn and Its World (eds. Eva Orthmann and Petra G. Schmidl), Berlin (EB-Verlag Dr. Brandt), 2017, pp. 117-135. Publisher link for the book.
25. Las tablas astronómicas islámicas en al-Ándalus: el Sindhind Ziy de al-Juarizmi,Awraq ‎‎17/18 (2018, published in 2020), pp. 95–116. [Updated Spanish translation of Sections 2 ‎to 4 of my article ‘al-Khwārizmī’s Astronomical Tables Revisited’ (1996).]‎ Download.
26. In Memoriam Paul Kunitzsch (with Memories by Richard Lorch and a list of publications), Suhayl 18 (2020/21), pp. 277-296. Download.
27. In Memoriam: Richard P. Lorch (1942–2021) (with Henry Zepeda and Menso Folkerts), Historia Mathematica 58 (2022), pp. 7-16. Download from Science Direct.
28. The Geographical Table in the Shāmil Zīj: Tackling a 13th-century Arabic Source with the Aid ‎of a Computer Database, in Editing and Analysing Numerical Tables: Towards a Digital Information System for ‎the History of Astral Sciences (eds. Matthieu Husson, Clemency Montelle and Benno van Dalen), Turnhout: Brepols, 2021, pp. 511-566. Download.
29. Commentary on the Horoscope of Iskandar Sultan: An Introduction to Islamic Mathematical Astrology, Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften 23 (2022), pp. 1-104.   Download.

 Articles in Press

 Reviews

• Michio Yano, Kûshyâr Ibn Labbân's “Introduction to Astrology”, Tokyo 1997. In: Isis 90 (1999), pp. 591-592.
• Christopher Cullen, Astronomy and Mathematics in Ancient China: the “Zhou bi suan jing”, Cambridge 1996. In: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 9 (1999), pp. 343-345.
• James Evans, The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy, Oxford 1998. In: Isis 91 (2000), pp. 580-581.
• David A. King, World-Maps for Finding the Direction and Distance to Mecca, Leiden (Brill) 1999. In: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 12 (2002), pp. 371-373.
• Alexander Jones, Astronomical Papyri from Oxyrhyncus (P. Oxy. 4133-4300a), 2 vols., Philadelphia (American Philosophical Society) 1999. In: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 14 (2004), pp. 127-129.
• Carlos Dorce, El Tây al-Azyâj de Muhyî al-Dîn al-Magribî, Barcelona (Instituto “Millás Vallicrosa” de Historia de la Ciencia Á�rabe) 2002-2003. In: Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften 17 (2006/07), pp. 390-396.
• Petra G. Schmidl, Volkstümliche Astronomie im islamischen Mittelalter. Zur Bestimmung der Gebetszeiten und der Qibla bei al-Asbah, Ibn Rahîq und al-Fârisî  (2 vols.), Leiden (Brill) 2007. In:  Journal of the American Oriental Society 130 (2010), pp. 121-124.
• Jean-Claude Martzloff, Le calendrier chinois: Structure et calculs (104 av. J.-C.-1644).  Paris (Honoré Champion) 2009. In: Isis 102 (2011), pp. 544-545.
• Robert H. Gassmann, Antikchinesisches Kalenderwesen. Die Rekonstruktion der chunqiu-zeitlichen Kalender des Fürstentums Lu und der Zhou-Könige. Bern (Peter Lang) 2002. In: East Asian Science and Medicine 35 (2012), pp. 151-153.
• Nathan Sivin, Granting the Seasons: The Chinese Astronomical Reform of 1280, With a Study of its Many Dimensions and an Annotated Translation of Its Records, New York (Springer) 2009. In: East Asian Science and Medicine 36 (2012), pp. 205-211.
• Christopher Cullen. The Foundations of Celestial Reckoning: Three Ancient Chinese Astronomical Systems. In: Isis 109 (2018), pp. 166–167.
• Eighteen reviews in  Mathematical Reviews and 56 abstracts in zbMATH Open (Zentralblatt für Mathematik und ihre Grenzgebiete).

Preprints

• A Statistical Method for the Analysis of Medieval Astronomical Tables, Universiteit Utrecht, Mathematisch Instituut, Preprint no. 517.

 Selected Invited Lectures

• Recovering Unknown Parameters in Islamic Astronomical Tables, at the XVIIIth International Congres of History of Science, Hamburg and Munich (Germany), 1-9 August 1989.
• Transmission of Astronomical Parameter Values from East to West, at the XIXth International Congress of History of Science, Zaragoza (Spain), 22-29 August 1993.
• Tables of Planetary Latitude in the “Huihui li” - Analysis, at the Eighth International Conference on the History of Science in East Asia, Seoul (Korea), 26-31 August 1996.
• Islamic Astronomy in China: Two New Sources for the Huihui-li  (with Michio Yano), at the XXIIIrd General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union, Kyoto (Japan), 18-30 August 1997.
• Islamic Astronomical Tables and Their Transmission to Europe and China, at the Conference “Harmony of the Heavens”, London (United Kingdom), 13-14 March 1998.
• The Activities of Iranian Astronomers in China in the 13th Century, at the Conference “La science dans le monde iranien”, Tehran (Iran), 7-9 June 1998.
• Islamic Astronomical Tables: What we can learn from them and how they were transmitted to other cultures, in the colloquium of the Dibner Institute, Cambridge MA (USA), 6 October 1998.
• An Example of Applied Mathematics in Islamic Astronomy: the Calculation of the Vernal Equinox by al-Kashi, at the Second Joint Meeting of the Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Mathematics and the British Society for the History of Mathematics, Toronto (Canada), 15-17 July 1999.
• The transmission of mathematical knowledge between Iran and China in the Mongol Period: a Little Known Route, at the Conference “2000 Years Transmission of Mathematical Ideas”, Bellagio (Italy), 8-12 May 2000.
• Transmission of Astronomical Knowledge within the Islamic World, at the XXIth International Congress of History of Science, Mexico City (Mexico), 8-14 July 2001.
• Tables for calculating planetary longitudes in Islamic astronomical handbooks, at the 3rd Joint Conference of the BSHM and the CSHPM, Clare College, Cambridge (England), 9-11 July 2004.
• Islamic Astronomy in China: State of the Art of Research on the Huihuilifa, at the 11th International Conference on the History of Science in East Asia, Deutsches Museum, Munich (Germany), 15-20 August 2005.
• Transmission of Islamic Astronomy to China, at the David Pingree Memorial Seminar “Empires and Exact Sciences in Pre-modern Eurasia”, Leiden (Netherlands), 29-30 May 2006.
• Islamic Astronomy in Northeastern Tibet (14th c.), at the International Conference “Islam & Tibet: Cultural Interactions, The Warburg Institute, London, 16-18 November 2006.
• Islamic Astronomy in China: Latest Developments, at the International Conference “A Shared Legacy. Islamic Astronomy East and West”, Barcelona (Spain), 11-14 April 2007.
• Mixing Islamic and Chinese Astronomy in the Huihuilifa, Twelfth International Conference on the History of Science in East Asia, Baltimore, 14-18. Juli 2008.
• Mathematical Astrology in Islamic Astronomical Handbooks, Conference “From Masha’­allah to Kepler: The Theory and Practice of Astrology in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance”, Warburg Institute, London, 13-15. November 2008.
• Methods for Correcting the Ascendant in Islamic zijes. In Memoriam: Edward S. Kennedy (1912-2009), XXIIIrd International Congress of History of Science and Technology, Budapest, 28 July-2 August 2009
• Islamic Astronomical Handbooks and their Transmission to India and China (invited lecture in the section History of Mathematics), International Congress of Mathematicians, Hyderabad (India), 19-27 August 2010.
• Islamic and Chinese Astronomy under the Mongols, Workshop “Transliteration and Transfiguration of Cultural Traditions: Archaeology, Medical Knowledge, Art and Science”, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, 18-19 March 2011.
• `Umar al-Khayyâm in the Dustûr al-munajjimîn?, Workshop “Science in Context: The Dustûr al-munajjimîn and its world”, Bonn, 22-23 July 2011.
• Editing mathematical astronomical tables: From Nallino to the personal computer, Research symposium “Editing Historical Mathematics: techniques and traditions since 1900”, All Souls College, Oxford, 15-16 December 2011.
• al-Kashi’s Khaqani Zij: ingenuity in Modeling and Computation, International conference “The Scientific Heritage of Ghiyath al-Din Jamshid al-Kashi”, University of Kashan, Iran, 22-23 February 2012.
• Ptolemy’s Astronomical Heritage in the Middle Ages, “24th International Congress of History of Science”, Manchester, 21-28 July, 2013.
• Islamic Astronomical Tables in China and their Role in Astrological Predictions, symposium “The Impact of Arabic Sources on Divination and the Practical Sciences in Europe and Asia”, Erlangen, 21-23 January 2014.
• Islamic Astronomical Tables and their Transmission to al-Andalus, International conference ‎‎“Science in al-Andalus”, Córdoba, Casa Árabe, 20–22 September 2017.‎
• Ptolemaic Astronomy and Its Dissemination in the Islamic World, Europe and Asia, One-day conference “Astronomy Across the Medieval World”, Oxford, Centre for the History and Philosophy of Physics / St. Cross College, 18 November 2017.
• Ptolemaeus Persicus et Sinicus: Islamic Astronomical Tables in China, Colloquium of the ‎Mathematical Institute of Augsburg University, 26 June 2018.‎

Last modification: 12 October 2022.

Benno van Dalen

Islamic Astronomy

Family History