Astronomical Anthology (Astrolabe, etc.)

This manuscript begins with a treatise by the renowned mathematician al-Bīrūnī addressing variants of the astrolabe that include updates to its standard discs (which represent projections of the northern sky). He discusses the “crab” and “drum” astrolabes invented by Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh Nasṭūlus, maker of the oldest surviving astrolabe (dated A.H. 315 or 927/928 AD). He also describes Nasṭūlus’s “huqq al-qamar” (“box for the moon”), a mechanism that could be added to an astrolabe to represent phases of the moon. Two treatises on “crab” and “drum” astrolabes follow al-Bīrūnī’s texts; these works were unknown before this manuscript was described and are now attributed to Nasṭūlus. Other texts in this compilation address an instrument for finding the qibla (direction of Mecca) and the compass.