YoC presents Morocco’s 1639 CE manuscript on astronomy

Doha, Qatar: As part of the ongoing Qatar Morocco 2024 Year of Culture,the Years of Culture team looked deeper into Morocco s history, culture, and tr...

Doha, Qatar: As part of the ongoing Qatar-Morocco 2024 Year of Culture, the Years of Culture team looked deeper into Morocco’s history, culture, and traditions. In collaboration with Qatar National Library, they delved into documents and manuscripts related to Morocco available on the Qatar Digital Library (QDL) portal, unearthing a digital copy of an important scientific manuscript by one of Morocco’s leading 17th century CE scholars in timekeeping and astronomy.

Almost 400 years ago in Fez, Morocco, on precisely Tuesday, March 29, 1639 CE (24 Dhū Al Qa‘dah, 1048 AH), Moroccan scholar Alī ibn Muhammad ibn Abī Al Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm Al Dādasī was hard at work at the Subāhīyah Madrasa finalising a commentary on his educational poem on astronomical timekeeping called “The Students’ Beginning in the Science of the Time of Day by Means of Calculation” that he had written during the previous Ramadan. He titled the commentary, which is accessible on QDL, “A Gift for the Intelligent in Explanation of the Students’ Beginning. “

 Al Dādasī, who died in 1683 CE and was originally from Dades in the Atlas Mountains, worked in Fez and Cairo and is known to have written several manuscripts on timekeeping, including the 1648 poem “Guide for Pupils,” and in the same year, “Sapphires for the Beginners for the Study of the Science of Timekeeping.”