The Andalusian Islamic astrolabe: workshop-conference with Ibrahim Aybek

On Saturday, October 10, at 12:00, the Blas Infante Hall in Almonaster la Real will host the workshop-conference “The Andalusian Islamic Astrolabe”, by Ibrahim Aybek. The activity is part of the XXVI Conference on Islamic Culture and accompanies the exhibition “Andalusian Astrolabes”, which opens on Friday 9 at 7:00 p.m. in the same room.

The astrolabe was much more than an astronomical instrument. Developed and perfected over generations by Muslim scholars, it became a tool for geometric thinking: handling it required understanding circles, angles, projections, and positions in space. That same reasoning eventually paved the way for mathematics, astronomy, optics, geography, cartography, time measurement, and architecture. The astrolabe can be viewed as a kind of mechanical computer based on the human mind: an instrument that not only measures and calculates, but teaches how to interpret the world.

In the workshop, Ibrahim Aybek will explain how these instruments work and their place in the history of science, with examples of historical planispheric and universal astrolabes.

About Ibrahim Aybek

Ibrahim Aybek is an architect, translator, lexicographer and specialist in calendars and the history of science. Born in Konya (Turkey) and based in Lisbon, he focuses his research on the astrolabe and geometric thinking in the Islamic world, along with the history of astronomy, cartography and scientific instruments. He has studied and reproduced various historical astrolabes and has developed manuals on their operation.

Among his recent works are Astrolabe Master’s Handbook (2025), Islamic Timekeeping (2026) and a perpetual lunar calendar with a conversion system between the Jalalí, lunar, Gregorian and Julian calendars. He is also known for his Turkish translations of Luís de Camões, Fernando Pessoa and Fernão Mendes Pinto.

Practical information

• What: Workshop-conference “The Andalusian Islamic Astrolabe”, with Ibrahim Aybek
• When: Saturday, October 10, 2026, at 12:00
• Where: Blas Infante Hall, Almonaster la Real (Huelva)
• Exhibition: “Andalusian Astrolabes”, from October 9 to 12 in the same room. Weekend hours: mornings from 12:00 to 14:00 and afternoons from 18:00 to 20:00
• Organised by: Almonaster la Real City Council, with the collaboration of the Islamic community and the Seville Mosque Foundation

The first revelation of the Qur’an began with a command: read. From that seed was born a civilization that made observation and knowledge a way of approaching Creation. The astrolabe is one of its most beautiful material testimonies, and on Saturday we will have the opportunity to see it up close.

Check here the complete program of the conference.