In the early Tang dynasty, the Prime Minister led the compilation of historical texts from previous dynasties, thus establishing a standard practice. Li Chunfeng, skilled in astronomy and writing, was selected as a historian to compile the "Tianwenzhi” 天文志," Lüli zhi” 律曆志 ”Wuxingzhi” 五行志of the Jin shu 晉書and Sui shu 隋書. When Li Chunfeng compiled the Jin shu 晉書 “Tian wen zhi” 天文志, he shaped its academic positioning through the preface. Furthermore, he surpassed earlier historical texts in content related to celestial constellations, cosmology, astronomical instruments, celestial phenomena, and their corresponding events, making it the most comprehensive and integrative "Tianwenzhi” 天文志of the medieval China. This was one of the key elements in the unification of culture during the early Tang dynasty. The quality of Li Chunfeng's “Tianwenzhi” 天文志 was high, earning praise from historians throughout the ages; however, it also had the flaw of significant content repetition between the Jin shu 晉書"Tianwenzhi” 天文志and Sui shu 隋書 "Tianwenzhi” 天文志.

Alī ibn Aḥmad al-Nasawī was an 11th-century mathematician and astronomer who authored several books on astronomy and mathematics. He made recensions of The Elements and the Almagest, though some of his works have not survived. He taught mathematics and astronomy to his students in Ray (near modern Tehran) and Semnan. In surviving manuscripts, he has been praised as a "distinguished teacher", including in Tusi's recension of Archimedes' Taḥrīr Kitāb al-makhūdhāt li Arshimidis (Book of Lemmas) and by one of his pupils, Shahmardān Rāzī, who served as a secretary to Kākūīd. Shahmardān Rāzī composed an anthology of science and astrology titled Rawḍat al-munajjimīn (Garden of Astrologers), in which he mentions al-Nasawī and one of his works. According to Shahmardān Rāzī, al-Nasawī created a brief recension of the Kitāb ṣuwar al-kawākib "Book of Fixed Stars", originally written by ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Ṣūfī. Shahmardān Rāzī criticized this version of al-Nasawī's work and described its elements before introducing his revised version of the Kitāb ṣuwar al-kawākib in the Rawḍat al-munajjimīn.
In this paper, I aim to reconstruct al-Nasawī's recension of the Kitāb ṣuwar al-kawākib, titled "Almurtazawi", based on Shahmardān Rāzī’s criticisms, his descriptions of the two recensions in the Rawḍat al-munajjimīn, and the original text of the Kitāb ṣuwar al-kawākib.

Keywords: Alī ibn Aḥmad al-Nasawī, Kitāb ṣuwar al-kawākib, ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Ṣūfī, Shahmardān Rāzī.

In both Mesopotamia and China, there is a tradition with a long history of recording astronomical phenomena. In ancient China, the Dynastic Histories contain extensive records on the solar and lunar eclipses, planets movements, comets, meteors and sunspots, in addition to records from other primary sources. In ancient Mesopotamia, there was a more than seven centuries tradition of recording astronomical phenomena in astronomical diaries, alongside other sources such as astrological reports to Assyrian kings. This research focuses on the historical development of recording astronomical phenomena in ancient Mesopotamia and early China. Why there are other information such as water levels and significant historical events recorded alongside astronomical phenomena in astronomical diaries? What belief did the Mesopotamians and the Chinese hold when they choose what to record? Finally, how did celestial divination affect the ways ancient Mesopotamian scribes and Chinese astronomers record the phenomena?

Joseph Needham had noted that modern science is the outcome of multiple rivers of civilizational knowledge flowing into the ocean of modern science. This paper argues that we can illuminatingly extend Needham’s metaphor to understand early modern astronomy. This is not evident in Eurocentric histories of modern astronomy which see it as emerging within a tunnel from ancient Greece to modern Europe. This paper explores how early modern astronomy drew on resource portfolios of astronomical knowledge from regional traditions – Arabic, Indian and Chinese – to forge a global astronomy. It demonstrates how circulations of regional astronomical knowledge - empirical, mathematical, theoretical and methodological - merged to shape modern science. The paper also attempts to answer the question why early modern astronomy was able to exploit structural elements of Arabic, Indian and Chinese astronomical traditions to forge a global synthesis from diverse regional rivers of astronomical knowledge.