부산대학교 도서관

This article analyzes how the astronomy of Islamic societies in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries can be understood as cosmological. By studying the Arabic translations of the relevant Greek terms and then the definitions of the medieval Arabic dictionaries, the article finds that Arabic terms did not communicate order in the way implied by the Greek ho kósmos (ὁ κόσμος; the cosmos). Yet, astronomers of the period sometimes discussed cosmic order in addition to describing the cosmos. This article finds, too, that a new technical term, nafs al-amr (the fact of the matter) became part of later discussions of cosmic order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]