page_title: Astronomy in the medieval Islamic world
section_title: Sundials
hierarchical_section_title: Astronomy in the medieval Islamic world / Instruments / Sundials
caption_attribution_description: English: Image of Timbuktu manuscripts.
context_page_description: Islamic astronomy comprises the astronomical developments made in the Islamic world, particularly during the Islamic Golden Age, and mostly written in the Arabic language. These developments mostly took place in the Middle East, Central Asia, Al-Andalus, and North Africa, and later in the Far East and India. It closely parallels the genesis of other Islamic sciences in its assimilation of foreign material and the amalgamation of the disparate elements of that material to create a science with Islamic characteristics. These included Greek, Sassanid, and Indian works in particular, which were translated and built upon.
  Islamic astronomy played a significant role in the revival of Byzantine and European astronomy following the loss of knowledge during the early medieval period, notably with the production of Latin translations of Arabic works during the 12th century.
  Islamic astronomy also had an influence on Chinese astronomy and Malian astronomy.
  A significant number of stars in the sky, such as Aldebaran, Altair and Deneb, and astronomical terms such as alidade, azimuth, and nadir, are still referred to by their Arabic names.
context_section_description: Muslims made several important improvements to the theory and construction of sundials, which they inherited from their Indian and Greek predecessors. Khwarizmi made tables for these instruments which considerably shortened the time needed to make specific calculations.
  Sundials were frequently placed on mosques to determine the time of prayer.  One of the most striking examples was built in the fourteenth century by the muwaqqit (timekeeper) of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, ibn al-Shatir.
caption: The Timbuktu Manuscripts showing both mathematics and astronomy.[74]
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