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    Libros de Arquitectura esenciales para principiantes

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    103 views37 pages

    Architecture and Astronomy, The Ventilators of Medieval Cairo and Their Secrets

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    Lalo Landa
    Libros de Arquitectura esenciales para principiantes

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    of 37
    ARCHITECTURE AND ASTRONOMY: THE VENTILATORS OF MEDIEVAL CAIRO AND THEIR SECRETS* Davip A. Kine New York Universtry 1. INTRODUCTION: THE VENTILATORS OF MEDIEVAL CAIRO, IN THE EARLY MEDIEVAL PERIOD many houses in Fustat and Cairo had several storeys. A large wind- catcher on the roof over a vertical shaft conveying air * Acknowledgements: My research on orientations of medi val Islamic religious architecture was supported by grants ‘SES 8007145 and 8204520 from the National Science Foun- dation (1980-83); this supports gratefully acknowledged. It Js also pleasure to express my gratitude tothe Egyptian [National Library in Cairo and the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin and the Bodleian Library in Oxford for unlimited access to thir rich collections of medieval scientific mand scripts and for permission to publish the photographs ofthe ‘manuscripts used in ths study. Thanks to the kind permis- sion of Prof. Muhsin Mahdi, Director of the Harvard Center for Middle Fastern Studies, the Arabi text was fd into the Center's computer by Ms. Carol Cross and extracted from ‘the same in its present form by Dr, Wheeler Thackston, Je, Publication of the photographs and Arabic text was made possible by a generous grant from the Hagop Kevorkian Foundation, Al opinions expressed in this paper are my own respon- sibility, although I have profited greatly from discussions with colleagues in other fields. Ite pleasure to record my particular gratitude to various friends who have guided me to material related to my investigations, most especially Felicias Jaritz of the Swiss Institue in Cairo, and also James Allen (the Egyptologst), Carol Bier, Wiliam Chittick, Michael Dols, Horst Jaritz, and Michael and Vitoria Meinecke. For numerous suggestions of an editorial nature, sm indebted to Jeanne Monroe, My greatest debt isto my teacher Professor Franz Rosen ‘who adopted me when I knew only newspaper Arabic, and raised me to face the rigors of medieval manuscripts and savor the delicacies of classical Arabic. For hie friendship, guidance, and inspiration over the years, 1 am profoundly sratefol, to cach storey was a common feature of such houses." The Iraqi scholar ‘Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi, who visited Cairo about the year 1200, described the ven- tilators as follows:? (The Egyptians) make the opening of their houses exposed to the agreeable winds from the north, and ‘one sees hardly any houses without ventilators, These ventilators are tall and wide, and open to every aetion ‘ofthe winds they are erected carefully and with much still, One can pay between one hundred and five hundred dinars fora single ventilator, but small ones for ordinary houses cost no more than one dinar cach, Ventilators were also a feature of the architecture of religious institutions in medieval Cairo, Several of the buildings discussed by K. A. C. Creswell in his monu- ‘mental survey of medieval Cairene architecture have air-shafts from which the wind-catchers at the upper fends have now disappeared.” ‘A European traveller to Cairo in the sixteenth century, Prosper Alpin, also observed the ventilators there. He wrote as follows (de Fenoyl’s translation of the original Latin)* * Foran introduction to ventilation inthe medieval Islamic world, see Eitinghousen, p.71, and Petherbridge, pp. 20\~ 204. See also note IS below. (For the bibliographical abbre- ations used in the notes to this paper, see pp. 130-133, below) * al-Baghd8dl, pp. 178-179, cited in King 1, p. 372 and Rosenthal. 1 » Creswell, |, pp 4S, 226, and 284-285, and I, pp. 244 24S, and index, sv. malgaf (Il, p. 291), See also Fig. 5 below. “Alpin, pp. 38-36. According to de Fenoyl (ibid, p. 36, note 21), there is an illustration of a ventilator in Alpin’ ‘rerum aegypriarum (vol. WV, pl. 1 on p. 3). 1 owe this refer- cence to the kindness of Prof. Michiel Dol 8 Journal of the American Oriental Society 104.1 (1984) late 1. The skyline of Cairo in the mid-nineteenth (?) century viewed across the canal known as al-Khalfj as illustrated in an unidentified work. Note that the ventilators are open to a direction parallel to that of the Khalij; ‘but if they are correctly displayed, then the view is across the Khallj away from the old city. (Taken from AW, p.179) plus, A la manidre d'une panse de cloche. Par cette ‘ouverture, tournée vers le nord, ils regoivent la brise Cette ville est faite de trbs hautes maisons dont kes toitssttendent si largement sure ls rues qu’lcachent Dresque entitrement le ciel au-dessus d'eles et empé- chent le soleil dincommeder les passants (car, A toutes les heures du jour, Yombre recouvre et prottge les fralche, quils conduisent dans les partes basses de la raison: ainsi se trouvent refroidis le sous-tl et le rerde-chausste. ea eters ¥etilators were stil common in Caio just a een- ‘srandes trompes, et plac 4° tury or two ago. In the early nineteenth century, eras ne E. W. Lane stated in his celebrated work, The Man- fu milieu des maisons, avec une ouverture d¥environ pers and Customs of the Modern Egyptians* six coudées ils montent droit en Ir etatteignent le a is ‘sommet, ob ils se terminent en slargissant beaucoup “Many houses (in Cairo) have, atthe top, a sloping shed of boards, called a *malkaf," directed towards the north or northwest, to convey to a “ferchah” or “fesahah” (an open apartment) below the cool breezes which generally bow from these quarters. tis rather curious that sixteenth-century European draw- ‘ngs of Cairo do not feature ventilators at all: see Meinecke- ‘Berg on several such drawings. See also the discussion ofthe lack of representation of ventilators in Persian miniatures in Rosenthal. 5. * Lane 2, p.29. Kino: Architecture and Astronomy ” Plate 2. Part of a painting by the nineteenth-century French artist Jean Léon Gérdme entitled Prayer on the Rooftops. Notice the two wind-catchers on the left of the painting. The men at prayer are standing a little to the left of the direction ofthe openings of the wind- catchers, that is, they are facing roughly due north rather than southeast! Clearly the artist superimposed two visual images, one of the Cairo rooftops and the ‘other of the men at prayer! (Reproduced courtesy of the Hamburger Kunsthalle.) ‘A photograph of Cairo taken in the nineteenth century published by F. Frith in 1860,* as well as a contem- porary sketch (see Plate 1) and a painting by Gérdme (see Plate 2) show row upon row of air-shaft covers, comparable with a forest of television antennas on the skyline of a modern city.” * Frith, pl. 11, already cited in Rosenthal, p. 1. have not seen this Photograph, Houses with ventilators are inadvertently omited in the ilustations in Etinghausen,p. 92 of house-types in early nineteenth-century Egypt. The original ilstations of house- types in Cairo in the Description d'Egypue show ventilators ‘on each house. Plate 3. The ventilator on the roof of the Mustfirkhiine, the most impressive of the few ventilators of medieval Cairo which sur- vive to this day. Since none of the houses from Fatimid, Ayyubid or Mamluk Cairo has survived to this day, it is not surprising that no early ventilators survive either. In Cairo, new houses have been built on the ruins of old ones; in Fustat, destroyed in the twelfth century little remains of the houses besides the foundations and the drainage systems." Most of the ventilators which do survive in Cairo today are comparatively ate Ottoman, constructions, and a dozen or so of these have recently been discussed by A. Lézine (1971). Plates 3 and 4 show one of the Ottoman ventilators in Cairo, a splendid specimen on the roof of the two-storey cighteenth-century private house now known as the Mausifirkhane.”” Ventilators do not appear on twen- tieth-century Cairo buildings, and the only use of * See Casanova and especially Scanlon on the recent exca- vations in Fustat. See also Guest and Jomier on Fustat and its early history. * See Lézine. "© The Musifirkhane (on which see Parcolo, pp. 187-190, 100 Journal of the American Oriental Society 104.1 (1984) Plate 4. The inside of the ventilator on the Musifirkhdne. Notice that the western (left-hand) side of the wind-catcher is open to the wind, whereas the eastern side is blocked. them in modern Egypt known to me is in the out- standing work of the Egyptian architect, Hassan Fathy." ‘The early history of the ventilators of medieval Cairo is still a matter of some speculation. It is well Known that ventilators were featured in domestic architecture in ancient Egypt. However, the notion that the ventilators of medieval Cairo represent a purely Egyptian development of the ancient Egyptian pls, CCXXIV-CCKXX, and Pouty, pp. $9, 7, fig 42, pl ¥/B, and VIII-XI) is distinguished feom the majority of historical buildings in Caico by the fact that it has been restored, and that until recently was used as a center for artists. However, during Visit tothe building in May, 1979 to take the photographs presented here as Plates 3 and 4, 1 was distessed to find the building no longer occupied and already displaying signs of neglect. On this problem of, Cairo’ architectural heritage see Bergne, and most recently the various articles listed under Meinecke. See, for example, Fathy 1, pp. 68-69, Fathy remarks (p.68) that such wind-eatchers as he incorporated in his architectural designs “may be set at precisely the right angle to catch the wind, irrespective of the orientation of the howe.” ventilators" is probably to be abandoned because of philological considerations. It is already well-estab- lished that the medieval Egyptian name for ventilators was a Persian word badahanj, and more than one scholar has suggested that the Egyptian ventilators were inspired by those used in Abbasid Iraq.” How- ever, the Persian scholar Nasir-i-Khosraw, who visited Egypt in the middle of the eleventh century and observed that most houses in Cairo had five or six storeys, did not mention the ventilators on these hhouses."* This is perhaps all the more surprising be- cause ventilators were, and indeed stil are, a promi- nent feature of Iranian architecture.” ® Such a view is expressed in Badawy 1 and also Fathy 2, pp. 143-144. On the ancient Egyptian connection see also Section VII below. ® Rosenthal and Bosworth, iri-Khosraw,p. 132, cited in King 1, p- 372. See also 1nd further Abu-Lughod, p19. sce Bosworth and the iterature there cited, to which add, for example, Beazley, Rainer, Siroux, Nasr, pp. 220-231; also Bahadori for a sient investigation oftheir function, The film entitled “Man and Nature” prepared on the occasion of the “Festival of the Kino: Architecture and Astronomy 101 In a recent study, Professor Franz Rosenthal has published a series of translations of references to ventilators in medieval Egyptian poctry, where their aesthetic and erotic features are extolled. This valu- able study provides a wealth of new material on the ventilator and new insight into its origin. The refer- ences gathered by Professor Rosenthal are mainly from Ayyubid and Mamluk times, but some occur already in Fatimid sources, and they all illustrate that the ventilator achieved a “modest measure of literary celebrity" in medieval Egypt." New information on the ventilators of medieval Cairo is available, and this constitutes the subject matter of the present study. This new material is contained in what may at first sight seem a rather ‘unlikely source, namely, medieval Egyptian astronomi- cal treatises and tables. There was a vigorous tradition of mathematical astronomy in Egypt in Fatimid, Ayyubid, and Mamluk times, as well as in Ottoman times, and most of the many available sources for the history ofthis tradition have been investigated only in recent years! In the present study 1 propose to assemble all the ‘material on the ventilators of Cairo that has come to ‘my attention, and to use it to establish some rather astounding connections between this prominent archi tectural feature of medieval Cairo, the street plan of the Fatimid-Mamluk city, and medieval traditions of folk meteorology and astronomy. As we shal se. the ventilators of medieval Cairo lead us to an exciting new perspective in Islamic urban and architectural planning First I shall discuss the modern term malgaf for ventilator and the medieval term badahanj (Section I), Then I shall show that the medieval ventilators were not aligned towards the north but were astro- nomically aligned, open to the direction perpendicular to midwinter sunrise (Section II), The astronomical sources which provide us with this information also lead us simultaneously to the first known quantitative measurement of the effect of refraction atthe horizon, 4 topic of some interest to the history of science World of Islam” (London, 1976) provides a useful visual account of these Iranian ventilators and their function, ‘On ventilators in Dubai se, for example, Azzi and Coles & Jackson. On ventilators in Sind see Bourgeois. (The last= mentioned article mentions the orientation and shape of the ind-atchers.) See Rosenthal, pp. 45 Foran overview ofthis activity see King 6. (ection IV). Other astronomical sources contain infor- ‘mation on the shape of the medieval ventilators and the names of the different varieties of Cairene venti- lators (Section V). The direction adopted for the ven- ors was, in fact, perpendicular to one of the two main directions that were accepted for the qibla or local direction of Mecca in medieval Cairo (Section VD. This ventilator orientation was also used for aesthetic reasons; the entire Fatimid city of al-Qahira, built alongside the Pharaonic Red Sea canal, was fortuitously aligned in the astronomically-defined aibla direction. The ventilators were thus aligned on the roof tops in accordance with the more or less ‘orthogonal street plan (Section VII). However, the ventilators were not aligned in this fashion solely for aesthetic reasons: the direction of the winds in medi- eval Egyptian folklore also played a role inthe orien- tation and design of the ventilators (Section VII), Finally, I shall show that the first Muslims in Egypt used an astronomical direction for the qibla because they wanted to face one particular side of the Kaba in Mecca, which is itself astronomically aligned (Sec- tion 1X). Within the broader context of medieval Islamic architecture and city-planning in general, the medieval city of Cairo, with its qibla-oriented religious archi tecture and astronomically-aligned ventilators, is just ‘one example, albeit probably the most interesting one, of an Islamic city oriented about the Ka°ba."" 1M, THE TERMS MALQAF AND BADAMANE Modern historians of Islamic architecture, following Lane, usually refer to the Cairo ventilators by their modern Arabic name, malgaf.” from an uncommon root [-q-f meaning “to gather." However, the medi eval name was not malgaf at all, but an Arabicized Persian word badahanj, with variants badhahanj, ‘badhahanj, badahanj, and badhanj.” and in one text " See further King. ™ See, for example, Creswell and. Rogers (see note 3 to Section 1 above) and Lézine, passim. Lézine mentions the term badhan) in passing on p. 13, note 1 * Om this term see Rosenthal, especially pp. 2-5, The poet ALQHAIT Uf. ca. 1380) specifically implies the use of the ‘Arabic letter dal rather than dha! when he renders the letters of the word in numerical notation 2-I-45-80-3 (se Rosen: thal, p.7). The new Dictionnaire Arabe-Francais- Anglais (iste im the bibliography as Blachive eta.) lists hadinj and >adinjan, quoting Ibn Batts and Dory. 102 Journal of the American Oriental Society 104.1 (1984) Plate $. The table for the altitude of the sun in the direction of the ventilator found in the corpus of tables for timekeeping that was used in medieval Cairo throughout the medieval period. Notice that the entry for the winter solstice (the entry at the lower left-hand corner of the table) is 0°41’. This represents a correction to an altitude ‘of 0" above the true astronomical horizon to take into consideration the effect of refraction at the horizon. Kino: Architecture and Astronomy 103 (no. 6), @ plural hawadahanj. The Persian word, most correctly spelled hddahanj, was apparently less com- ‘mon than hadgir for ventilator. and is derived from ‘ad, wind. and the verb dhanjidan, to pull out oF extract." The d or dh of the Arabicized form would ‘both be pronounced as @ d in Middle Arabic and a ‘vowel is required after ths letter. The fact that @ long 4 vowel occurs in some of the sources indicates that the word was borrowed in its correct form badahan. For the purposes of this paper, however, I shall use the more common form bddahani Where malgaf occurs as an architectural feature in ‘4 medieval Arabic text, it apparently does not mean ‘adahanj, although precisely what it does mean in this particular context isnot yet clear. It may refer only to the sloping part of the cover at the top of the ‘adahanj, and relate to the function of this particular feature in gathering the air, but even this association is not certain.” The term malgaf is not listed at all in Lane's Arabie-English Lexicon, although it should be remembered that in this work words whose roots begin with / are only sketchily treated, and the root ‘gf's not listed at all. In Dozy's Supplément to Lane's Lexicon, malgaf is listed with the meaning “shield” with four references to the Thousand and One Nights (one would expect milgaf rather than malgaf for such 1 meaning), and milgaf as a kind of tool used by @ burglar in the same source.” The terms malgafi are not listed in the major medieval Arabic dic such as the Lisan al-‘arab and the Taj al-“aris. The term badahanj for ventilator is used by “Abd al-Lasit al-Baghdadt in the passage cited at the beginning of this paper, in all of the references gathered by Pro- fessor Rosenthal, and also in several other medieval Egyptian sources, including the Thousand and One Nights2* Again, however, itis listed by Dory but not 1 owe this information, which is based on the article ‘adgir and badahan| in the Lughat-ndme, tothe kindness of Dr. William Chittick The term malgaf occurs inthe wagfva of the madrasa of the Sultan Bargug, now published in facsimile and edited ‘and translated by F. Jaritz in Lamed ® Dozy II p. $536, * Some reference to badahan)s inthe historical sources are the following (1) Ibn Taghet Bird's description of the Azhar ‘mosque (IV, p- 102), (2) the waghya of the madrasa of Qaytbay (Mayer, pp. 40 and 43); (3) the history of Ibn Habtb (p. 345): (8) alMagea's Khity (2:1, p. 222) and Sulak (31, p. 281), On the story of the corpse being lowered by Lane.” The same term hadahan/is also attested in fone medieval Egyptian source with the meaning of f fashionable garment with wide openings in the sleeves.” The various references to malgaf! milgaf and ‘adahani in the medieval historical sources that have come to my attention are collected in Arabic text no. | atthe end of this paper. ‘The professional astronomical timekeepers (muwag- 4its) who were associated with mosques and madrasas in Cairo from early Mamluk times onward used @ corpus of astronomical tables for determining time by the sun and for regulating the astronomically-defined times of the five daily prayers.” Some of these tables were compiled by the celebrated Fatimid astronomer Ton Yanus; others were added by various Mamluk astronomers.” Among these tables, which were redis- covered only about ten years ago, was a table dis- playing the altitude of the sun in degrees and minutes for each degree of solar longitude (corresponding roughly to each day of the solar year) when the sun was in the direction of the bidahanj (see Plate 5).” The entries, which are expressed in standard Arabic alphanumerical abjad notation, are given for each degree (read vertically) of each zodiacal sign (read horizontally,” this format being standard in the entice down the shaft of the badahanj in the Thousand ond One [Night se Rosenthal. p.6, * Dozy 1,1, p47. ° al-Qalgashandi. IV, p.43. This term is not listed in Dory? The tables of the Cairo coxpus are analyzed in King | and also in my fortheoming Studies in Astronomical Time: Keeping in Medieval Islam (SATMD), which contains an analysis of all known tables for timekeeping from the med ‘eval period. In particular, SATMI, I, contains a detailed investigation of the problems involved with the atibution of the various tables in the Cairo corpus, and SAMI, V, deals With the role ofthe muwaggit in medieval Islamic society. ™ On Ibn Yanus see my article in DSB. On the later Mamluk astronomers who contributed to the corpus, see King 6 On this table see King |, especially pp. 371-373, where, however, several errors of interpretation occur, * On the notation see Iran, and for more details on the format see King 1, pp. 351-353, 104 Journal of the American Oriental Society 104.1 (1984) corpus of tables. Analysis of the table reveals that the back of the badahanj was intended to be aligned with the direction of the rising sun at midwinter, namely, ca, 27°30! S. of E. for Cairo. This is curious indeed ‘Why should one align a ventilator in an astronomically~ defined direction, which one would think has nothing to do with wind directions? Now this direction of the winter sunrise was known to be the qibla of the first Muslims in Egypt (see Section V). But this raises another question, namely, why was an astronomically- defined direction chosen for the gibla? One would also think that the direction of winter sunrise has nothing to do with the direction of Mecca. Further more, the value given in the table for the solar altitude at the winter solstice is not zero, as one might have expected, since the Muslims were not known to have ‘been familiar with the quantitative effect of refraction at the horizon, but rather a fraction of a degree. These features of the table were of obvious interest, and it has taken several years for me to fully appreciate their significance. ‘Some of the surviving ventilators in Cairo, notably the one on the roof of the Musifirkhine, appeared to bee aligned in the direction underlying the table.” If the orientation of ventilators was so important, why then is the west side (but not the east side) of the Musafirkhane wind-catcher also open to the winds? A slightly more northerly orientation could perhaps have achieved a more symmetrical and more durable struc- ture. However, even this feature of the Cairo venti- lators can now be explained ‘The direction of the winter sunrise was used for the gibla of the mosque of “Amr in Fustat, the first mosque to be built in Egypt (see Section VI). It was the qibla of this mosque, builtin the winter of the year ‘641-642, which was known as the giblar al-sahaba, that is, the qibla of the Companions of the Prophet. This qibla was toward the winter sunrise, tha 27° S, of E.; it was occasionally favored in later times, fover the qibla which was computed in the tenth century according to a correct mathematical procedure and based on the available geographical data, viz. ca, % According to Lézine, p. 4, the ventilators examined by him face north, north-east, north-west, east and even south west and south (?). From these he reasonably concludes: “I AY a pas de réple pour la place du malgaf* On the other hand, both Lane (1834) (see note $ above) and alo Prise ’Avennes (1877) noted (p. 158) the northern and north- western orientation of the malga/s of Cairo (Rosenthal, 16 line 7). 37" S, of E, Most medieval mosques in Cairo are ‘oriented in one direction or the other (or, as we shall see, in both!). Only one of the references to the ‘badahanj in the medieval Egyptian poetry cited by Professor Rosenthal contains any mention of the direc- tion in which they are aligned. Burhan al-Din al (71. ca, 1350) wrote a line of poetry which I see that the love of air has turned (the ‘badahanj) away from the gibla of Islam. take this as confirmation that the badahanj was intended to face the direction perpendicular to the 4iblaral-sahaba. 1, & DIGRESSION: ISLAMIC QUANTITATIVE ESTIMATES OF The table displaying the solar altitude in the azimuth ‘ofthe badahanj, that is at 27 1/2° south of eas, exists in a corpus of tables attributed in most of the available copies to the Fatimid astronomer Ibn Yanus.”” How- ever, as Ihave shown in a study more recent than my original analysis of these tables, not all of these 200, pages of tables were computed by Ibn Yonus.™* That Ibn Yanus himself actually computed this particular table for the badahanj is not certain, and there are actually two versions of the table in the various ‘manuscripts of the corpus. ‘The first, which appears to be the original version and is the more common of the two, is distinguished by the fact that at the winter solstice (Capricorn 0°) the solar altitude is 0°41’ above the horizon, rather than 0° as one might expect, given that the azimuth of the badahanj is the azimuth of the rising sun. This value 0°41" represents an attempt to incorporate the effect of atmospheric refraction at the horizon, since the visible horizon is indeed 2/3" above the true horizon.” The value 0°41" is thus intended to be the altitude of the sun above the visible horizon and it accords with the theory of refraction at the horizon attributed elsewhere in the medieval sources to Ibn Yanus. In some copies (see Plate 6) this first table is attributed specifically to an early fourteenth-century Egyptian astronomer named Ibn al-Rashidi.” He is Rosenthal, p16, line 1 See note 28 above % See note 27 above. See already King 1, pp. 373-376 on ths. % On Ibn al-Rashidt see Cairo Survey, no. C39; King 6, Appendix. no. 26 His various works ae discussed in SA TMI 10s Kina: Architecture and Astronomy es ia Smee rt ie yak iw Seas Aa [ae yon ony ye dy eee a ; FAR, ee ebay onca edad pa ZAMS FA EM 4175 4 AF AF 1 AS49439 Gy pd 1a) a9 ng Se T CTS, ea jg ean nd AQ Sea ao oe € t 3 JRF WN) FAL T GN ORT | S33 [aes fahren Fo Afael Jn is R Pla Wknre ase celal ot! 106 Journal of the American Oriental Society 104.1 (1984) known to have corrected certain tables of bn Yunus where they had become corrupt after much copying, However, it is precisely this first version of the table that occurs in certain copies of Ibn YOnus's tables as they were before Ibn al-RashidT modified them, In the second version of the table, the solar altitude decreases to zero at the winter solstice. Inthe sixteenth, ‘century the Cairo corpus of tables was modified to include the effect of refraction at the horizon, but Muhammad al-Mindf, the muwaggit at the Ghawri madrasa who was responsible for this, attributes the underlying theory to Tbn Yunus.” Furthermore, al- Mind did not adjust any of the tables involving solar altitudes; rather he adjusted only those tables of fune~ tions involving times of horizon phenomena. He did, however, present a table of the solar altitude in the azimuth of the badahanj, but itis simply a table with the solar altitude zero at the winter solstice (see Plate 7). Al-Minif' claims to have recomputed his tables for the new obliquity found by Ulugh Beg in the Samargand observations ca. 1430, but, in fact, for the badahanj table he merely “fixed up" the last column of entries, which serves solar longitudes up to 30" on either side of the winter solstice. Facing the badahanj table in Plate 7 is another table which is standard in the various copies of the Cairo corpus, and which displays the altitude of the sun in the azimuth of the qibla at Cairo, namely, 37° S. of E.”" Before the rediscovery of the Cairo corpus it was not known that the Muslims concerned themselves at all with quantitative estimates of refraction at the horizon. More recent investigations of other collec~ tions of tables for timekeeping that were used in other Muslim cities have revealed that some of these also incorporate such modifications for refraction.” I have been able to trace quantitative estimates of the effect of refraction to the celebrated eleventh-century scholar Ton al-Haytham and the less well known twelfth~ century scholar Samaw’al al-MaghribI:® This feature of the table for the badahanj, while of considerable interest to the history of science, is, however, of little relevance to the present study, See Kine 1, p. 373 (somewhat confused). The various Cairo manuscripts mentioned there are now analyzed in SATMI, On al-Minafi see now Cairo Survey, no. C120, and on his tables see SA TMI, IL ™ On this and related tables see King 1, p. 368 2 For details of this tradition see SATMI, I © detailed study iin preparation, V. MORE ON THE 2ADA1/AA/ IN THE MEDIEVAL EGYPTIAN The table for the badahany illustrated in Plate 6 is of particular interest. It is found in a seventeenth- century Egyptian copy of the auxiliary tables for solving problems of spherical astronomy for all lati- tudes by the fourteenth-century Syrian astronomer Shams al-Din al-Khalll*" On the leftchand side of the table there is a note (Arabic text no. 2) which reads: To find the azimuth of the badahan) for every latitude, you determine the ssing amplitude (of the sun) at the frst point of Capricorn, and the result is the azimuth of the badahan), but) God knows better By this remark it is implied that the orientation of ventilators with winter sunrise was not practised in Cairo alone. For different latitudes the direction of winter sunrise is different; from this text we might anticipate that the azimuth of the badahan) is ca 27 3/4" south of east for Alexandria, 27 1/4" for Cairo, and ca, 25° for Aswan, See further Sections VIL and VIL ‘Another reference of the same kind is found in a treatise on the use of the sine quadrant by an uniden- tified author named Muhammad Hattita al-Fariskast ‘The unique copy of this treatise, preserved in Cairo, ‘was copied ca, 1700, and the section relating to our subject (Arabic text no. 3) is as follows:** The twelfth chapter: on finding the azimuth of the ‘badahan). Find the vsing amplitude ofthe day-circle fof Capricorn for the azimuth of Mecca, and then ‘move south by this amount (rom the east point) and this will be the badohanj. God knows better Unless the text is garbled, the author either was no astronomer or was simply careless. The expression “for the azimuth of Mecca” makes no sense what- soever in this context, In a collection of short treatises attributed to Ibn Yanus and copied ca. 1300, which is preserved in the “Om al-Khali see the article in DSB, Supplement vol. 1 also King 6. (On al-Farisk is contained in ms Cairo DM 639, 8 Coiro Survey, no. DIS, His treatise fol. 460-51, copied a. 1900, and the remarks onthe gibla are found on fl. Sr. Kino: Architecture and Astronomy Plate 7. Tables for determining the directions of the ventilator and qibla from the corpus of tables for timekeeping as modified by the sixteenth-century astronomer Muhammad al-Mindf Note that in the table for the ventilator, the value for the altitude of the sun at the winter solstice is 0°0", so that no correction for refraction at the horizon has been incorporated in the table. The value for the qibla underlying the other table is 37° S. of E., that is, bn YOnus's value. (Taken from ms Cairo DM 470 (unfoliated), copied ca. 1575.) 107 108 Journal of the American Oriental Society 104.1 (1984) ne com Se ie fest oe ee fe Pe etea Se Sten LAB eect ees Plate 8. A diagram for laying out the badahanj in Cairo drawn by the fourteenth-century Aleppo astronomer Ibn al-Sarrij in his own copy of is treatise on astronomical instruments. The reader may well imagine my surprise at finding such a diagram in a Syrian compendium on instruments. (Taken from ms Dublin Chester Beatty 102, fo. 52v.) Kino: Architecture and Astronomy 109 Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, we find instructions for finding the direction of the badahanj (Arabic text no. 4)" ‘To mark the direction ofthe bidahani, fist establish the four cardinal directions, and then count from the castpoint southwards by the amount of the rising amplitude of (the sun at the ist point of Capricorn [Next extend a line (rom the center) in this direction, and this willbe the direction forthe ventilator. Form ‘a rectangle with another line, and set up the mahilla fn this rectangle (rabbi“hu Bi-khatt akhar wa-agimi makilla ala dhatka barb). A good procedure (or laying out the direction of the badahan/) i to divide ‘the front inten parts and make the side five and one half, according to the technical convention of the craftemen, God Almighty grants success. From this text we might conclude that the term ‘mahilla, not attested in any medieval or modem ‘Arabic dictionary known to me," refers to the entire wind-catching device corresponding 10 the modern word malgaf Other soures, however, do not confirm this (See below and also Plate 8). The ratio for the lengths of the front and side ofthe badahan), namely, 10:5 1/2, ensures that the diagonal is precisely east- west. Observe also that the western side of this badahanj is open to the winds; it appears that this design was in accordance with a wind-scheme (see further Section VIII). The plan and orientation of the badahanj as outlined in this text is displayed in Fig. 2° Notice thatthe bddahanj on the Musafirkhine is about twice as wide as it is deep, as one can see by counting the wooden arches around the base. How ever, two other sources point to a different arrange rent forthe base of the badohan. ‘Another method of constructing the base of the badahanj is provided by the early fourteenth century astronomer Ibn al-Sarr who worked in Aleppo but © On this manuscript, numbered 281e, see King 1, p. 372 The passage on the bddahonj occurs on fol. 110 “The form is mafia forthe geminated root Frit signi= fying a nomen lot (see Wright, I pp. 124-128 and 128-129), but the precise meaning is obscure to me, © This procedure is misinterpreted in King 1, p. 372, note (66, It is reminiscent of various architects rules for deter- mining the qibla (surveyed in King 9, Section 2.1); see Kennedy, pp. 213-214 and Lorch, pp. 314-317 on some rules for laying out the qibla at Ghazna and Marw. is known to have visited Cairo. Ibn al-Sarraj is known, in the history of science as the inventor of several varieties of astrolabes and quadrants, which I have investigated in a recent study." His major treatise on instruments was discovered only in 1982 in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, The manuscript, numbered 102 in the Library collection, is copied in the author's ‘own distinctive hand, and the discussion of the badahanj (Arabic text no, 5) occurs on fol. 52v (see Plate 8). The text is as follows: ‘The 91st chapter on knowing how to set up the ‘mailla ofthe badahanj and the names ofthe (various kinds) and the amounts (measured) on the horizon circle for that latitude which are (open) to favorable winds and (closed) to unfavorable winds. The names fof the four (kinds of badahan/) are furdtt, mujan- nah, Kill, and “ait, The furait is the one which stands on the Mat surface (a-@i°im “ald sarh mus: tagim). The mujannah (lerally, winged) is the one hich stands on a surface “winged” ike the wings of Did (@a"im “ald sah mujannah (ie, read mjan- ‘nohan) ka-aiihat azar). The Kilt (that i, Hike a veil) is (read: has?) the sloping surface (a-sath ‘mail The “adi is the one which i bythe side of a wall (akan jamb Ba) I you want to set up (the bddahan/), draw a full circle and divide it into four parts by marking the cardinal directions). Then draw a line from (the point corresponding to) the rising amplitude of Capricorn to (the point corresponding to) the setting amplitude (of Cancer (that is, from winter sunrise to summer sunset) in that locality. This will be the mailla ofthe ‘badahan) {in} localities which are far feom the sea [For localities which are on the sea) such as Alexan- dria, Damicta, “Aydhib, Jedda and similar places [the mahillaof the badahan is to be facing the se}. [nnb. The text is corrupt here] When you have made the mohilla of the badohan ss Ihave described, draw a line fom the east point to twice the rising amplitude of Capricorn and this will be the closed part (al:mawal-masdid); then draw a line from the west point to twice the setting amplitude of Cancer and this will be the open part (al-mawdi= ‘al-maftih). The total number of degrees on the (hori= zon) circle corresponding to the favorable winds is “ See my forthcoming monograph The Astronomical Instruments of Ion alSarraj 0 be published by the Benak Museum, Athens. On Tha al-Sarra, se already King 6 110 Journal of the American Oriental Society 104.1 (1984) (axis of ety) Fig. 1. The rule for constructing ventilators outlined in the Ambrosiana text. N 459" =} AS aus ote) 207 s Fig. 2. The rule for constructing ventilators outlined by Ibn al-Sarraj and Tbn al-Qasih 183" [ule read 153°] and the number of degrees on the circle corresponding to the unfavorable winds is or" Then we divide one of these two lines [which are perpendicular to] (text has: min) the length of the ‘mahilla ofthe badahan {into two parts] and it will be fone quarter of the mabilla of the badohanj. You Should know that the mahilla is the length (of the ‘adahani) and the open part is its width on the western side and the closed (part isis width on the eastern sid, I you want todo this by calculation, take the ratio ofits width to its length. (Then) find the Sine ofthe ing/setting amplitude at ether of the sobstices at that latitude, which is 27:44 [sc, the correct value is 27:42) at latitude 30°, which we Keep in mind, Then wwe add the rising amplitude which is 27°30" to 90° to ‘obtain 117° 3 and subtract from that twice the rising amplitude which is $8° and the remainder is 62°30 We take the Sine of this, namely, $33 [the text has 53:53, a serbal error], double it and obtain 106.26 We divide this by the quantity which we kept in mind and obtain 0:15.38, whichis a quarter ofthe length and, when rounded (to 0:15), equals a quarter of a diay ifthe length i taken as one qiat (2). Then we divide the mahilla of the badahan) in 24 equal parts and take from this division six and a quarter girs which will be the with ofthe badahan have not seen this method in (the writings of any of the vious scholars who preceded me and I know ‘of no-one who mentioned it, Whoever wants to do thie properly let him do it as Uhave explained. Under- tan this and you wil gti ight. Tn al-Sarraj does not deserve top marks for his mathematical presentation. The essence of his caleu- lation is to determine the breadth b in terms of the length / using 6 = 1/2//tan y, where y isthe solstital rising amplitude, correctly stated as being equal 10 27°30’ for the latitude of Cairo.” In accordance with ‘medieval convention he uses Sines to base 60 (indi- cated by capital notation) rather than to base | as we use nowadays, and also he does not avail himself of the tangent function. Values ofthe Sines are expressed in the same way as values of angles, that is, sexa- gesionally (to base 60) inthe standard alpha-nummerical aabjad notation.** ‘The base advocated by Ibn al-Sarraj is only half the width of that described in the Amrosiana text. The two angles to which he ascribes values of 153° 180° =27°) and 207° (= 180" +27") relate to the ‘open and closed parts of the badahanj, and imply that the western side of the erection be open to the winds, which is also indicated on his diagram. His directions, appear to accord with a different wind scheme from that underlying the Ambrosiana text (see Section VIII, In view of the fact that the part of his text dealing with the different kinds of ventilators is gar- bed, I assume that for this he was merely quoting an earlier source. The same source is quoted by a later writer (see below). The information provided by Ibn © See King 1, pp. 389 and 371-372, (This value is based on bn Yanus's (accurate) value forthe latitude of Cairo-Fusta [30°0']and his value forthe obliquity ofthe ecliptic [23°38']) See note 30 above, Kixo: Architecture and Astronomy um al-Sarraj on the four different varieties of badahanj is not known to me from other sources besides the related one mentioned below,” and will be of interest to scholars concerned with vernacular architecture and its transmission. The term furaiT applied to one variety suggests a connection with the Euphrates, ‘Another source relating to the badahany isa treatise fon the use of the almucantar quadrant by a scholar named Ibn al-Qisih (1316-1399), otherwise known for his writings on the Qur°&nie sciences.”’ This trea- tise exists in a unique manuscript copied about the time of the death of the author and now preserved in the Egyptian National Library in Cairo. Chapter 63, deals with the setting up of mihiabs and badahanjs (in ‘the manuscript the singular is given as both badahanj land badahanj and the plural as al-bawadahanj), and gives information on the different kinds of badahanis that were used, as well as their shape. Part of the text bears marked resemblance to that of Ibn al-Sarraj, and it seems that both were quoting a common souree ‘The relevant section of bn Qasih’s treatise (Arabic text no. 6) reads as follows: The way to setup the cardinal directions on a fat slab (alaza) as deseribed ‘above, and move from the east point towards the south by the amount ofthe arimuth of the hidahanj in that locality by (using) the degrees of the altitude re, You make a mark on the altitude are (of the ‘quadrant, then you place the ruler on the center of the quadrant and on the mark and draw a line on the slab through the end of the ruler the line sil be the azimuth of the badahani, which isthe position ofthe © No such information is contained in the other literary sources: see Rosenthal. 6 On this author, whose full name was Abu I-BagA? “Alt ‘bn

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