Jamil F. Ragep. « Copernicus and his Islamic Predecessors: Some Historical Remarks ». History of Science, 45, 2007, p. 65-81.

Abstract

This article summarizes the various pieces of evidence that, since the beginning of the 20th century, have gradually built up to show Copernicus’s dependence on Islamic predecessors in the development of his heliocentric planetary theory. Starting with the occurrence in De revolutionibus of the so-called Ṭūsī couple and Ibn al-Shāṭir’s (ca. AD 1350) planetary models involving multiple epicycles, recently also cosmological arguments have been considered. The 15th-century astronomer ‘Alī Qūsjī,...