<h1 lang=en><font color="maroon" style="font-weight:bold">Arabic</font></h1>
<p align="justify" lang="en"><font size="3" color="antiquewhite">This <em><font color="steelblue">Arabic sky culture</font></em>, which is in use now for more than a thousand years, had been influenced greatly by Greek astronomy, particularly <em><font color="steelblue">Ptolemy's astronomy</font></em>.</font></p>
<p align="center"><a href="http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/startales1b.htm" class='external text' rel="nofollow"><img src="Book_of_Fixed_Stars3.png" width="210" height="152" /><br /><em><font color="black" style="font-weight:bold" size="2">The depiction of Orion, as seen from Earth (left) and a mirror-image, from a 13th-century copy of al-Sufi's Book of the Fixed Stars. In this version, Orion's shield has become a long sleeve, typical of Islamic dress.</font></em></a></p>
<p align="justify" lang="en"><font size="3" color="antiquewhite"><em><font size="3" color="steelblue">Ptolemy</font></em>, the Greek astronomer who lived and worked around <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">100-178 CE</font></em> in Alexandria, Egypt, collected ancient Greek descriptions of <font size="3" color="steelblue">1,022</font> stars in his famous book <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">The Great System of Astronomy</font></em>, popularised under its shortened Arabic title, the <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">Almagest</font></em>. Ptolemy's catalogue of stars arranged into <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">48 constellations</font></em>, with estimates of their brightness, based largely on the observations of the Greek earlier astronomers, such as <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">Hipparchus</font></em>.</font></p>
<p align="justify" lang="en"><font size="3" color="antiquewhite">Ptolemy's book was translated twice into Arabic in the 9th century and became famous. Many of the Arabic-language star descriptions in the Almagest came to be used widely as names for stars.</font></p>
<h3 align="justify" lang="en"><font size="5" color="#04003C" >Constellations</font></h3>
<p align="justify" lang="en"><font size="3" color="antiquewhite">This Arabic sky culture uses the classical <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">48 constellations</font></em> of the Greeks. These constellations were described by several Arab and Islamic authors, One of those who left an indelible influence on the Arabic observation and study of stars is the astronomer <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">Abū al-Husayn ‘Abd Al-Rahmān al-Sūfī (903-986)</font></em>, known also by his Latinized name of <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">Azophi</font></em>, who systematically revised Ptolemy's catalogue of stars. <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">Al-Sūfī</font></em> produced a revised and updated version of Ptolemy's <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">Almagest</font></em> in a major book called <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">Kitab suwar al-kawakib</font></em> <em><font size="3" color="skyblue">(The Book of Fixed Stars)</font></em>, completed around 964 CE. Built on the basis of the Greek astronomical heritage, the work of <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">Al-Sūfī</font></em> contained a listing of the Arabs' own star names, magnitudes determined by <em>al-Sūfī</em> himself, and two drawings of each constellation, one as it is seen in the sky and one reversed right to left as it would appear on a celestial globe. The oldest surviving copy was produced by his son around <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">1010 CE</font></em> and is preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (MS Marsh 144).</font></p>
<p align="center"><a href="http://www.atlascoelestis.com/alsufi%20Suwar.htm" target="_top">In this link you can see the beautiful illustrations of constellations and sample star tables in an old manuscript of Al-Sufi book.</a></p>
<p align="center"><a href="http://www.atlascoelestis.com/alsufi%20Suwar.htm"><img src="al_sufi_altre_006_copia.png" width="210" height="152" /><br /><em><font color="black" style="font-weight:bold" size="2">Cetus as seen in the sky</font></em></a></p>
<h3 align="justify" lang="en"><font size="5" color="#04003C" >The origin of star names</font></h3>
<p align="justify" lang="en"><font size="3" color="antiquewhite"> Regardless of origin, almost all star names belong to old traditions. They are a part of the collective cultural heritage of humanity.</font></p>
<p align="justify" lang="en"><font size="3" color="antiquewhite"> official star names are essentially limited to the <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">old names</font></em>, and typically only bright stars have names. The majority of stars names are related to their constellation, e.g., the star <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">Deneb</font></em> means <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">"tail"</font></em> and labels that part of <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">Cygnus</font></em> the Swan.</font></p>
<p align="justify" lang="en"><font size="3" color="antiquewhite"> Others describe the star itself, such as <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">Sirius</font></em>, which translates literally as <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">"scorching"</font></em>, apt enough for the brightest star in the sky. Quite a lot of prominent stars bear Arabic names, in which <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">“al”</font></em> corresponds to the article <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">"the"</font></em> and often appears in front, e.g., <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">"Algol", "The Ghoul"</font></em>. Its inclusion has become somewhat arbitrary over time. Hence, several star names of Arabic origin are given elsewhere with or without the al- prefix. Most other names of stars inherited from the past have <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">Greek, Latin or Chinese</font></em> labels.</font></p>
<p align="justify" lang="en"><font size="3" color="antiquewhite"> When the Arabic texts were translated into Latin beginning from the <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">12th century</font></em>, the Arabic tradition of star names was passed down to the Latin world. However, this happened often in a highly corrupted form that either changed the meaning, or in extreme cases gave birth to words with no meaning at all. Other names were mistakenly transferred from one star to another, so that a name might even refer to a different constellation <font size="3" color="steelblue">(Greek or Arabic)</font> rather than to the one of the star's actual residence.</font></p>
<p align="justify" lang="en"><font size="3" color="antiquewhite"> Nevertheless, even with these shortcomings, the majority of star names adopted since the Renaissance are Arabic in origin.</font></p>
<p align="justify" lang="en"><font size="3" color="antiquewhite"> local tradition of the peoples of <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">Islamic lands</font></em> in the Arabian Peninsula and in the Middle East had their own names for various bright stars such as <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">Aldebaran</font></em>, and they commonly regarded single stars as representing <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">animals or people</font></em>. For example, the stars we know as <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">Alpha</font></em> and <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">Beta Ophiuchi</font></em> were regarded by them as a <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">shepherd</font></em> and <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">his dog</font></em>, while neighbouring stars made up the outlines of a <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">field with sheep</font></em>. Some of the Arabic names were already so many centuries old that their meanings were lost even to <em>al-Sūfī</em> and his contemporaries, and they remain unknown today. Other star names used by <em>al-Sūfī</em> and his compatriots were direct translations of Ptolemy's descriptions. For example, the star name <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">Fomalhaut</font></em> comes from the Arabic meaning <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">"mouth of the southern fish"</font></em>, which is where <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">Ptolemy</font></em> had described it in the <em><font size="3" color="steelblue">Almagest</font></em>.</font></p>
<h3 align="justify" lang="en"><font size="5" color="#04003C" >External links</font></h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_al-Rahman_al-Sufi" class='external text' rel="nofollow">Abd al-Rahman Al-Sufi</a> article at Wikipedia</li>
<li><a href="http://www.atlascoelestis.com/alsufi%20Suwar.htm" class='external text' rel="nofollow">Constellations Illustrations by Al-Sufi</a> Images of a manuscript of Al-Sufi book with sample artistic illustrations and star table samples.</li>
<li><a href="http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b60006156.image.f7.pagination" class='external text' rel="nofollow">The Original "Ulg Beack" manuscripte of the "Kitab suwar al-kawakib"(The Book of Fixed Stars)</a> Paris Digital Library "Gallica".</li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arabic_star_names" class='external text' rel="nofollow">List of Arabic Star Names</a> article at Wikipedia.</li>
<li><a href="http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Topics/astronomy/_Texts/secondary/ALLSTA/home.html" class='external text' rel="nofollow">Star Names — Their Lore and Meaning</a> Richard Hinckley Allen: Star Names — Their Lore and Meaning.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.muslimheritage.com/article/arabic-star-names-treasure-knowledge-shared-world" class='external text' rel="nofollow">Islamic science heritage</a> article :<br /> Arabic Star Names: A Treasure of Knowledge Shared by the World.</li>
</ul>
<h3 align="justify"><font size="5" color="#04003C">Thanks to</font></h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.jas.org.jo/forum/viewtopic.php" class='external text' rel="nofollow">The Arab Astronomy Forum .</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.icoproject.org/star.html" class='external text' rel="nofollow">The Islamic Cresent's Observation Project "ICOP"</a> for granting a permission to use there lists of "Arabic" Constellations and star names.</li>
<li>Arabic Stellarium Translation team</li>
</ul>
<h3 align="justify"><font size="5" color="#04003C" >source</font></h3>
<ul>
<li lang="fr" dir="ltr"><a href="http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b60006156.image.f7.pagination" class='external text' rel="nofollow">Bibliothéque Nqtionqle de France;Départment des manuscrits, Arabe 5036 </a><font size="3" color="beige"> / gallica.bnf.fr</font></li>
</ul>
<h3 align="justify"><font size="5" color="#04003C" >Author</font></h3>
<p align="justify"><font size="3" color="beige">The Arabic star names were compiled and added to Stellarium by :</font></p>
<p><em><font size="3" color="burlywood">Khalid Alajaji</font></em></p>
<p align="justify"><font size="3" color="beige">The Arabic constellation lines and images prepared by :</font></p>
<p><em><font size="3" color="burlywood">Kutaibaa Akraa:   kutaibaa@gmail.com</font></em></p>
<h5 align="center">English translation by: <br />kutaibaa akraa </h5>