ny celestial motion must be a combination of uniform circular motions. This issue exercised Muslim astronomers. For Ptolemy it was sufficient to produce mathematical models that are capable of describing the planetary motion in longitude and in latitude, but for later Muslim astronomers, harmony between the physical and the mathematical worlds was essential. The equant problem was a contradiction between those two worlds (Saliba, 1994).
The influence of Greek astronomy upon the Arabs is further complicated by the fact that this Hellenistic tradition had already influenced other cultural traditions that contributed to the development of science in the area that the Arabic language became the dominant means of communication. Examining the scope of influence requires looking at those centers of astronomical studies which influenced astronomers who wrote in Arabic, including Byzantium, Syria, Sasanian Iran, and India (Pingree, 1973).
The work of writers in the sixth and seventh cent
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