Al-Zīj al-Jadīd as an Instrument for Timekeeping in Fifteenth-Century Cairo: The Materiality of Bodleian MS Arch. Seld. A 30

This article discusses an early fifteenth-century manuscript of Ibn al-Shāṭir's Kitāb al-zīj al-jadīd (The new tables for timekeeping). Ibn al-Shāṭir (d. ca. 777/1375) was a fourteenth-century astronomer and muwaqqit (Islamic timekeeper) of the Umayyad mosque of Damascus. His "new zīj" has always been presented as a typical example of its genre, that is: a work containing the data needed to "solve all the standard problems" in timekeeping, written down by an astronomer. However, a different perspective on this work, which takes into account its materiality and considers this an aspect which is not at all distinct from its content, provides us with interesting insights into the meaning of the text in early fifteenth-century timekeeping in Cairo.