  This paper aims at presenting a brief overview of astronomical exchanges
between the Eastern and Western parts of the Islamic world from the 8th to 14th
century. These cultural interactions were in fact vaster involving Persian,
Indian, Greek, and Chinese traditions. I will particularly focus on some
interesting relations between the Persian astronomical heritage and the
Andalusian (Spanish) achievements in that period. After a brief introduction
dealing mainly with a couple of terminological remarks, I will present a
glimpse of the historical context in which Muslim science developed. In Section
3, the origins of Muslim astronomy will be briefly examined. Section 4 will be
concerned with Khwarizmi, the Persian astronomer/mathematician who wrote the
first major astronomical work in the Muslim world. His influence on later
Andalusian astronomy will be looked into in Section 5. Andalusian astronomy
flourished in the 11th century, as will be studied in Section 6. Among its
major achievements were the Toledan Tables and the Alfonsine Tables, which will
be presented in Section 7. The Tables had a major position in European
astronomy until the advent of Copernicus in the 16th century. Since Ptolemy's
models were not satisfactory, Muslim astronomers tried to improve them, as we
will see in Section 8. This Section also shows how Andalusian astronomers took
part in this effort, which was necessary in the path to the Scientific
Revolution. Finally, Section 9 presents the Spanish influence on the eve of the
Renaissance.
