# اكر



## Drink

فان الاوايل كلهم كانوا يرتّبون الزهرة وعطارد فوق الشمس فلذلك كانوا يعدّون الاكر خمسًا كرة القمر التي تلينا بلا شك...

In the quote above, what is the meaning of اكر and how is it vocalized?


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## Matat

It may be a typo; I think it's supposed to be الأكثر. However, I'm not completely sure what this sentence is saying.


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## Drink

It's definitely not a typo, since the word appears at least a few more times later on.

For some background, this is from a ~12th-13th century text. I also had trouble separating out individual senteces so my quote may actually be just a piece of a sentence.


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## Matat

Hmm, my second guess, in that case, would be that it's saying الأُكَر, which is the plural of أُكْرَة/كُرَة especially since the word كرة appears after it.

فإن الأوائل كلهم كانوا يرتّبون الزهرة وعطارد فوق الشمس، فلذلك كانوا يعدّون الْأُكَرَ خمسًا، كرة القمر التي تلينا بلا شك
All of the ancients used to order Venus and Mercury above the sun, so they used to count there to be 5 planets, with the moon coming after us without a doubt.


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## Drink

That was one of my theories but the plural كرات is used later on. Could it be that both plurals would be used?

Although now that I think about it, it could have actually said الاخر. Which would mean it could be الْآخِر; would that make sense grammatically in this context?


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## Matat

Hmm, I don't see anything wrong with using two different plurals. Looking through the dictionary, it seems that أُكَرٌ is more the plural of أُكْرَةٌ while كُرَاتٌ is more the plural of كُرَةٌ. I don't know if there is a significant difference between these two.


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## Drink

It's strange because I didn't see the word اكرة there at all, while كرة and اكر are used several times and كرات once. Could it be that كرة and اكرة have slightly different meanings?


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## Matat

Within the context of the piece you have shown and superficially, I doubt there is a huge difference. I think they could be used interchangeably in the context of this piece.


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## cherine

Hi,

When I read الأكر خمسة، كرة القمر... I understood it that there were five أُكَر and that the moon was one of them, though it's the first time I see أُكَر used as a plural of كُرَة.
Can we have the source and the rest of the sentence?


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## Drink

The source is Maimonides' دلالة الحائرين (called in English "The Guide for the Perplexed").

Here is some more of the text, but like I said, there is no punctuation so I don't know where the sentences are actually supposed to start and stop:
فان الاوايل كلهم كانوا يرتّبون الزهرة وعطارد فوق الشمس فلذلك كانوا يعدّون الاكر خمسًا كرة القمر التي تلينا بلا شك وكرة الشمس التي هي فوقها ضرورة وكرة الخمسة كواكب المتحيرة وكرة الكواكب الثابتة والفلك المحيط بالكل الذي لا كوكب فيه فتكون عدد الاكر المصوَّرة اعني كرات الصور التي فيها كواكب لان هكذا كانوا الاقدمون يسمّون الكواكب صورًا كما هو مشهور في كتبهم


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## Matat

cherine said:


> When I read الأكر خمسة، كرة القمر


The author is correct when he used خمسا instead of خمسة, as the singular of أكر (i.e. أكرة) is feminine, so the number that matches it would be the reverse gender (i.e. خمس)



cherine said:


> I understood it that there were five أُكَر and that the moon was one of them


That's what I got out of that as well. I think he was talking about how the ancient Arabs used to count planets and what they considered to be planets. However, the meaning of "كرة" back then could mean something more broad than its current meaning of "planets".


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## analeeh

Yeah, my initial reading was that it was some plural of _kurah, _which here I'd translate as 'sphere' (I feel like this is the equivalent archaic term) or maybe '[heavenly] body'. The hamza > yaa2 and related shifts happen a lot in medieval texts.

Does _kurah_ really mean 'planet' in modern Arabic, though? To me it means 'sphere', 'ball', or 'globe', but not specifically planet (_kawkab_).


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## Ashraf Mahmoud

Actually I do not know what (أكر) means.
-------------------
I want to say something else;
What is the difference between (القمر) and (كرة القمر) in this context?
(القمر) = the moon.

(كرة القمر) is the celestial sphere in which the moon moves around the earth.
(كرة القمر) is the path that is taken by the moon when it moves around the earth.
(كرة القمر) is the orbit of the moon.

What is the difference between (الشمس) and (كرة الشمس)
(الشمس) = the sun.

(كرة الشمس) is the celestial sphere in which the sun moves around the earth, because at that time people assumed that the earth is fixed at the center of the universe.

What does (كرة الخمسة كواكب المتحيرة) mean?
It is the celestial sphere in which the five planets move around the earth.

What does (كرة الكواكب الثابتة) mean?
It is the celestial sphere in which the stars stay.

What does (الفلك المحيط بالكل الذي لا كوكب فيه) mean?
It the outer space. (the outer celestial sphere)

Now, there are five celestial spheres. (خمسة أكر) , but still I do not know what means of (أكر)


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## Drink

Wow, thanks! I had just assumed كرة meant the moon/sun/planet itself. So then what is the difference between كرة and فلك?


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## cherine

Matat said:


> The author is correct when he used خمسا instead of خمسة, as the singular of أكر (i.e. أكرة) is feminine, so the number that matches it would be the reverse gender (i.e. خمس)


That was just a typo of my part, I wasn't "correcting" the quote.


Drink said:


> فان الاوايل كلهم كانوا يرتّبون الزهرة وعطارد فوق الشمس فلذلك كانوا يعدّون الاكر خمسًا كرة القمر التي تلينا بلا شك وكرة الشمس التي هي فوقها ضرورة وكرة الخمسة كواكب المتحيرة وكرة الكواكب الثابتة والفلك المحيط بالكل الذي لا كوكب فيه فتكون عدد الاكر المصوَّرة اعني كرات الصور التي فيها كواكب لان هكذا كانوا الاقدمون يسمّون الكواكب صورًا كما هو مشهور في كتبهم


Luckily, I'm now in the library and could find an English translation of "The Guide for the Perplexed", by M. Friedländer, printed in London 1942. Here's the relevant part (it's from Part II, Chapter IX: On the number of the heavenly spheres",p.164:
«[...] the ancients placed Venus and Mercury above the sun, and had, therefore, the following five spheres: that of the moon, which is undoubtedly the nearest to us; that of the sun, which is, of course, above the former; then that of the five planets, the sphere of the fixed stars, and the outermost sphere, which does not contain any star. Consequently there are four spheres containing figures, i.e., stars, which were called figures by the ancients in their well-known works-viz., the spheres of the fixed stars, of the five planets, of the sun, and of the moon; above these there is one sphere which is empty, without any star.»

P.S. I also found a copy where the word الاوايل is written الأوائل.


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## Drink

Thank you for taking the time to do all that research! I guess it's settled then that أكر is simply being used as the plural of كرة. This may be an unanswerable question, but I am still curious why كرات was used in one place.


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## cherine

It's not uncommon to use different plurals of the same word in one text. But there could be another explanation that I'm unaware of.


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