The Lighthouse and the Observatory

Daniel A. Stolz is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of History and the Science in Human Culture Program at Northwestern University, Illinois. He has held fellowships from the Whiting Foundation, the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University, New Jersey, and the Center for Arabic Study Abroad, and he was a US Fulbright Fellow in Egypt.

• List of figures and tables; Acknowledgements; Note on chronology and transliteration; List of abbreviations; Introduction; Part I. Geographies of Knowledge: 1. The deaf Shaykh: scholarly astronomy in late Ottoman-Egyptian society; 2. Astronomers and pashas: viceregal imperialism and the making of state astronomy; Part II. Objects of Translation: 3. Positioning the watch hand: ʿUlamaʾ and the making of mechanical timekeeping in Cairo; 4. Positioning the planets: translating French planetary tables as Ottoman-Islamic knowledge; Part III. Islam, Science, and Authority: 5. The orbits of print: astronomy and the ordering of science and religion in the Arabic press; 6. The measure of piety: making prayer times uniform; 7. Different standards: the Ramadan debates and the establishment of lunar crescent observation; Conclusion; Appendix. Introduction to Muhammad al-Khudari's Sharh al-Lumʿa fi Hall al-Kawakib al-Sabʿa; Bibliography.

'Daniel A. Stolz's study on the history of astronomy in nineteenth-century Egypt is a piece of superb scholarship. It sheds new light on the questions of science and religion, history of science in a non-European context, and of how science changed during a period that saw the rise of new forms of scientific training, politics, techniques and readership.' Khaled Fahmy, Sultan Qaboos Chair of Modern Arabic Studies, University of Cambridge