← Encyclopedia of Astrology · lesson 214/235
Astrology in the Arabic tradition
What it is
From the founding of Baghdad in 762 to the eleventh century, the most advanced astrology in the world was written in Arabic. The language was Arabic; the people were many. Māshāʾallāh and Sahl ibn Bishr were Jewish; ʿUmar al-Ṭabarī and Abū Maʿshar were Persian; Syriac Christians such as the astrologer Theophilus of Edessa also served the caliphs; al-Kindī, "the philosopher of the Arabs", was an Arab of noble family; al-Bīrūnī was a Khwarazmian who also wrote the first great study of India. Under the Abbasid caliphs, Greek, Persian (Middle Persian) and Sanskrit works were translated, compared and rebuilt into one system.
The city itself began with an election: the surviving accounts say the astrologers Nawbakht and Māshāʾallāh chose the moment for laying Baghdad's foundations in 762.
What it added
Almost every technique a traditional astrologer uses today passed through these authors, and many were shaped by them:
- Horary — answering a question from the chart of the moment it is asked — was set out systematically by Māshāʾallāh and Sahl (horary).
- Elections — choosing a moment to begin — were developed into a full art, with the Moon's lunar mansions as one of its tools (electional astrology).
- World astrology was organised around the twenty-year meetings of Jupiter and Saturn — the great conjunctions — and the chart of the Sun's entry into Aries each year (mundane astrology).
- Timing a life combined the solar return, profections and the Persian firdaria.
- Lots multiplied from a handful to well over a hundred (lots or "Arabic parts").
- The dignities and debilities, reception and the condition of a planet were worked into rules a reader can apply step by step.
The vocabulary shows it still. Zenith, nadir and azimuth are Arabic words; so are the names of many stars — Aldebaran, Altair, Deneb, Fomalhaut. Lilly's almuten is the Arabic al-mubtazz, "the one who prevails".
How it reached Europe
In the twelfth century, scholars in Spain and southern Italy — John of Seville, Hugo of Santalla, Hermann of Carinthia, Gerard of Cremona — translated these books into Latin. Abū Maʿshar became "Albumasar", Māshāʾallāh "Messahala", al-Qabīṣī "Alcabitius", Ibn Abī al-Rijāl "Haly Abenragel". Through them, and through Guido Bonatti's thirteenth-century summary, the Arabic tradition became the astrology of the European Middle Ages and of William Lilly.
Astrology and Islam
Astrology was never simply accepted in the Islamic world. Philosophers such as Ibn Sīnā argued against its claims, and many religious scholars condemned the idea that the stars cause events, while respecting astronomy and timekeeping — the calendar, the hours of prayer, the direction of Mecca. The astrologers themselves usually wrote that the stars are signs through which God works, not powers of their own. Both views belong to the history; we present the techniques as a tradition of reading, not as a claim on anyone's faith.