Observatories and its Role in Arab Islamic State

Abstract

Abstract One day , the Islamic Religion was not limited , but it opened the way to the nations and other civilizations and called to benefit from the cultural and civilized heritage of that nations , in addition to select what is appropriate the nature and the method of the Islamic Civilization and Ethical Religion and not only do so , but it encouraged the people to develop that sciences and create new fields that were not known before.The Arab Muslims did not interest only with religious and associated sciences , but they interested with pure sciences that benefit Islamic society as medicine , algebra and its branches , astronomy or what is known as the science of the body . They stopped reading the books of these sciences as the books of Greece, Persia and India and translate it into Arabic language , especially after the translation in Abbasid period recovered that it had a great role in informing the Arabs of the other nations sciences and benefit .Astronomy is one of the sciences which are interested with the Arabs since old periods , the human being is always looking for the sky and observing the stars and the movement of celestial bodies ,in addition to keep and record the times when each of these objects appears and its impact on man and the place where it appears. After the human being appear , the interest in astronomy increased because of it is necessary in limiting and organizing the times of acts of worship and determining the first day of each month to control the time of fasting and hajj and other acts of worship . This science was continued slowly and self-individual efforts to some scholars who are adopted in their observations on naked eye and some simple machines . The State did not interest with this side only some signals showed that the caliphs and princes are interested with astronomy and stars , but this interest did not consider a courage to the scholars and urge them to translate the books of this science without necessary support for developing astronomy as establish scientific observatory with creative machines at that time and we did not witness as this support only in Mamoon period ( 195 AH-218 AD) When he ordered establishment the first Arab-Islamic observatories in Baghdad and Damascus and provided it with the modern machines that are known at that time as well as scientists specialized in astronomy . Then , many observatories established in various parts of the Arab Islamic State such as Marqand, Maragha, Iraq, Levant and Egypt. Astronomical observatories marked simple of building , tools and machines , but it developed over time , especially the machines that are used in observatories that Arabs created as a result of their deep study that are included in their scientific books that it became a basis of the basis upon which the West has establish their theories in this field of human knowledge . Also we notice that there are two types of observatories of first establishment that is made by individual efforts of specialized scientists and the second made by the State , each one has specifications , but the selected site shall be high and far away the human centers . The research included an introduction , abstract and three chapters , the first chapter talk about the historical background of the observatory and the most important observatories in the Islamic Orient , the second deals with the observatories in Levant and Egypt and the third is the scientific discoveries of the Arab Islamic observatories and the people who are worked in .