Ptolemaic astronomy and its dissemination in the Islamic world, Europe, and Asia

Abstract The geometrical planetary models that the 2 nd century Greek scholar Ptolemy introduced in his major astronomical work, the Almagest were highly influential for more than a millennium. This paper briefly describes the characteristics of these models and the way in which astronomical activities in the Islamic world developed on the basis of Ptolemy’s work. It then discusses three cases of transmission of Islamic astronomy to surrounding parts of the world, namely to China under the Mongolian Yuan dynasty (13 th and 14 th century), to India during the Mughal empire (c. 1730), where it was used together with the latest European astronomical tables and to Europe, where a mixture of early Indian and Ptolemaic astronomy that had reached the western Islamic world in the 10 th century remained influential until the beginning of the Renaissance.