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Updated: May 5, 2025
Thus when Al-Mamun, having become acquainted with the globular form of the earth, gave orders to his mathematicians and astronomers to measure a degree of a great circle upon it, Takyuddin, one of the most celebrated doctors of divinity of that time, denounced the wicked khalif, declaring that God would assuredly punish him for presumptuously interrupting the devotions of the faithful by encouraging and diffusing a false and atheistical philosophy among them.
Ibn Kallikan says, "It was Mukaffa who composed the book entitled Kalileh Wa-Dimneh. But some state that he is not the author of the work which they say was in Pahlavi, and he translated it into Arabic, and put it in an elegant style. But the discourse at the beginning of the work is by him." Ahmed Ibn Yusuf addressed to Al-Mamun a verse with a present of an embroidered robe on the day of Nauruz.
In less than two centuries they had not only become acquainted with, but correctly appreciated, the Greek scientific writers. As we have already mentioned, by his treaty with Michael III., the khalif Al-Mamun had obtained a copy of the "Syntaxis" of Ptolemy. He had it forthwith translated into Arabic. It became at once the great authority of Saracen astronomy.
In this instance, also, since the direction lay across the sea, the distance was estimated, not measured. Finally, as we have already related, the Khalif Al-Mamun made two sets of measures, one on the shore of the Red Sea, the other near Cufa, in Mesopotamia. The general result of these various observations gave for the earth's diameter between seven and eight thousand miles.
Al-Mamun, however, persisted. On the shores of the Red Sea, in the plains of Shinar, by the aid of an astrolabe, the elevation of the pole above the horizon was determined at two stations on the same meridian, exactly one degree apart.
Such were the results of their preference of the inductive method of Aristotle, their declining the reveries of Plato. THEIR GREAT LIBRARIES. For the establishment and extension of the public libraries, books were sedulously collected. Thus the khalif Al-Mamun is reported to have brought into Bagdad hundreds of camel-loads of manuscripts.
The great Khalif Al-Mamun had declared that "they are the elect of God, his best and most useful servants, whose lives are devoted to the improvement of their rational faculties; that the teachers of wisdom are the true luminaries and legislators of this world, which, without their aid, would again sink into ignorance and barbarism."
Among the more devout those who claimed to be orthodox there were painful doubts as to the salvation of the great Khalif Al-Mamun the wicked khalif, as they called him for he had not only disturbed the people by introducing the writings of Aristotle and other Greek heathens, but had even struck at the existence of heaven and hell by saying that the earth is a globe, and pretending that he could measure its size.
It is interesting to note, however, that the two degrees were found of unequal lengths, suggesting that the earth is not a perfect sphere a suggestion the validity of which was not to be put to the test of conclusive measurements until about the close of the eighteenth century. The Arab measurement was made in the time of Caliph Abdallah al-Mamun, the son of the famous Harun-al-Rashid.
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