Imamate Shiite Ulama and the Modern Astronomy in Qajar Period

Contrary to the current cliché concerning the opposition of the Imamate Shiite Ulama to the modern astronomy in the Qajar period, there is no evidence showing their literal or explicit objection of the modern astronomy based on Islamic doctrines, as one finds in the story of Galileo and Catholic Church. Although only for two oppositions we have evidence: Mahdī Narāqī and Muḥammad-Ḥusayn Shahristānī, their opposition were not because of their religious ideas, but for their traditional learnings of the Ptolemaic astronomy and Aristotelian philosophy. Ulama did not extract a cosmology according to the Ptolemaic astronomy from Quranic verses and hadiths. Ulama even did not believe in the astrology and thus did not advocate Ptolemaic astronomy because of astrology. Accordingly they had no religious motivation to defend Ptolemaic astronomy against the modern astronomy. They were not the pretenders of a cosmology, thus they did not see the modern astronomy as their rival. Finally, Hibat al-Dīn Shahristānī in his al-Islām wa al-Hayʾa not only was not against the modern astronomy but also he believed that they admit the holy Quran and Islamic hadiths.