Note 334 — Chapter III · THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE MOSLEMS

The writer has been unable to find that any detailed study has been 394made of the sources of the Toledo Tables and of the Canons of Az-Zarqalī. Though these Spanish works in their geographical aspects undoubtedly owe much to Al-Khwārizmī, the exact relationship between them is an unsolved problem. As is explained in Chapter X, p. 244, above, most of the Latin translations of the Toledo Tables dating from the twelfth century and later are accompanied by a list of geographical coördinates obviously copied from a similar list in the original Arabic and Hebrew texts of the Tables. So far as the writer is aware no manuscripts of the original Arabic list are known. Consequently, if this is true, we can obtain no precise information regarding the connection between the earlier Arabic figures and those known in the West in our period. A superficial comparison, however, of the Latin list with the figures in Al-Khwārizmī’s Kitāb ṣūrat al-arḍ suffices to show that there are many figures common to each and to establish the general thesis that the figures of the Toledo Tables are based on earlier Moslem figures, especially those of Al-Khwārizmī, which, in turn, were derived ultimately, though with many alterations, from Ptolemy’s Geography.