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Early Women Writers

Fatima al-Mayriti

Item

Author

Fatima al-Mayriti

Location

Madrid, Spain

Dates

10th-11th c

Biography

Fatima was a Muslim astronomer and astrologer of repute, who spent much of her life in Córdoba. At the time, Córdoba was a chief intellectual centre; a conduit for scientific reciprocity between cultures. In such a milieu, Fatima was conversant with texts of sundry origins. She engaged with them and in consequence wrote, and rehearsed the theses of writerly authorities. In particular, to befit the needs of her geography, she aided her father, the polyhistor al-Maslamah Mayriti, to amend Claudius Ptolemy’s Almagest and the astronomical tables of Muhammad ibn Mūsāal-Khwārizmī. Fatima also designed charts on trigonometric ratios and spherical astronomy, catalogued lunar phases and stellar parallaxes, and fashioned zijes and ephemerides of the wandering stars.

Works

Tratado del Astrolabio, The Corrections by Fatima

Languages

Spanish

Genres

Instruction Manual, Reference Work

Bibliography

Bernardi, Gabriella. “Fatima of Madrid”. The Unforgotten Sisters. Female Astronomers and Scientists before Caroline Herschel, Springer Praxis Books, 2016;Núñez Valdés, Juan. “Did Fatima of Madrid really exist?” Review of Social Sciences, vol.1, no.2, 2016, pp. 19-26;
Ruiz, Ana. “Mayrit, 10th-11th Centuries”. Medina Mayrit: The Origins of Madrid, Algora Publishing, 2012;
The Illustrated European American Universal Encyclopaedia. Vol. 23, Espasa-Calpe, 1924. Tag words: Spain, 10th Century, Arabic, Scientific Writing

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