AHMAD DANISH’S ASTRONOMICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL HERITAGE IN WORLD COLLECTIONS: MANUSCRIPTS, CATALOGUE CONCORDANCES, AND THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF ATTRIBUTION

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Abstract

This article reconstructs the worldwide manuscript geography of Ahmad Danish’s (1827–1897) astronomical and geographical works and reviews the principal scholarship devoted to their interpretation. The survey distinguishes three levels of evidence: currently verified manuscript records, legacy catalogue or bibliographic references that require reconciliation, and disputed attributions. For holdings of the Al-Biruni Institute of Oriental Studies in Tashkent, the Institute’s current electronic catalogue is treated as the latest cataloguing authority whenever its component numbering conflicts with A. B. Vildanova’s 1998 printed catalogue or older literature. This rule is especially important for Istiḥrāj-i ṭūl va ʿarż-i balad, now recorded electronically as 2247/5. Confirmed evidence outside Tashkent includes Manāẓir al-kawākib, MS 760, in Dushanbe, and the Bukhara topographical plan preserved in the P. I. Lerch archive in St Petersburg, although the latter’s attribution to Danish remains disputed. Iranian repertories are treated as bibliographic evidence rather than proof of an Iranian holding, while no shelfmark-level Danish scientific manuscript was verified in the Turkish and major Western catalogues searched for this study. The article also reassesses the contested “Zīj of Ahmad Danish” and maps the main historiographical contributions from manuscript cataloguing, astronomy, geography, and cartographic studies.