The Astronomical Observatories of Jai Singh c15.s2.1

c15.s2.1

74. The Muslim astronomers frankly acknowledged their indebtedness to Greek writers. Indeed they were to some extent the direct successors of the Greeks in intellectual matters, and the historical problems of their astronomy are much less complicated than is the case with the Hindus. In the middle ages they were the foremost astronomers of the world. They accepted the fundamental features of the Ptolemaic system of the universe. They were aware of the precession of the equinoxes, and discovered the slight movement of the apogee of the sun, and also they perceived the variation in the obliquity of the ecliptic. They discussed the possibility of the earth rotating on its own axis, but generally rejected the theory.