Spherical Earth
By the 9th century, many Muslims in Al-Andalus believed that the Earth was flat, contrary to the beliefs of Ancient Greek geographers such as Ptolemy and Eratosthenes. But scholars like Ibn Hazm began supporting the Ancient Greek view that the Earth was a sphere, he is known to have started his debate by stating verses from the Quran: "He makes the Night overlap the Day, and the Day overlap the Night" (Zumar;5)- the word "to make overlap" here, in Arabic kawwara ( كَوَّرَ ), is derived from kura( كُرَة ), which means "ball" or "sphere" -. And after detailed studies using celestial globes he concluded proof, and the now astronomer Ibn Hazm stated publicly stated that: "the Sun is always vertical to a particular spot on Earth". Ibn Hazm proof inspired generations later on including the geographer al-Idrisi, who depicted the world as a globe.
Read more about this topic: Ibn Hazm
Famous quotes containing the word earth:
“Once the sin against God was the greatest sin, but God died, and so these sinners died as well. To sin against the earth is now the most terrible thing, and to esteem the entrails of the unknowable more highly than the meaning of the earth.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)