Background

Abu Maʿshar was born on August 10, 787, in Balkh, Afghanistan. According to An-Nadim's Al-Fihrist (10th century), he lived on the West Side of Baghdad, near Bab Khurasan, the northeast gate of the original city on the west Bank of the Tigris. The ancient city of Balkh, where Abu Ma'shar grew up, had once been an outpost of Hellenism in central Asia, and then had become a center for the mingling of Indians, Chinese, Scythians, and Greco-Syrians with Iranians during the Sassanian period; when it was conquered by Ahnaf ibn Qays during the caliphate of Uthman (644-656), its religious communities included Jews, Nestorians, Manichaeans, Buddhists, and Hindus, as well as Zoroastrians. In the revolution of the middle of the eighth century, the people of Khurasan provided the Abbasids with their army, their general, and many of their intellectuals. These intellectuals, like those from other frontier areas of the former Sassanian empire, were politically inclined toward pro-Iranism and against their Arab masters, and religiously inclined toward heresy, especially the ShTa sect. They were called upon, despite these tendencies, to play a large role in the activities of the libraries and translation institutes established at Baghdad by the early Abbasids; and they succeeded in making a generous portion of their Sassanian heritage of syncretic science and philosophy an integral part of the Muslim tradition.

Education

Abu Maʿshar most likely received his early education in Balkh prior to moving to Baghdad, as his works are often colored by a distinct Persian nationalism. According to Ibn al-Nadīm, the tenth-century scholar and bibliographer, Abū Ma‘shar abandoned the study of hadith to focus instead on astronomy and astrology when he was 47 years old. He was a member of the third generation (after the Arab invasion) of the Pahlavi-oriented Khurasani intellectual elite, and he defended an approach of a "most astonishing and inconsistent" eclecticism. His reputation saved him from religious persecution, although there is a report of one incident where he was whipped for his practice of astrology under the caliphate of al-Mustain (r. 862–866). He was a scholar of hadith, and according to biographical tradition, he only turned to astrology at the age of forty-seven (832/3).

Career

Abu Ma'shar began his career in Baghdad, probably at the beginning of the caliphate of al-Ma’mfln (813-833), as an expert in luidlth, the sayings traditionally ascribed to Muhammad and his companions. It was undoubtedly in studying this subject that he developed his proficiency in such subjects as the pre-Islamic Arabic calendar and the chronology of the early caliphs. But, in his forty-seventh year (832-833), according to the biographical tradition, but actually in about 825, an event occurred that completely changed his scholarly career. He became involved in a bitter quarrel with the Arabs’ first “philosopher,” Abu Yusuf Ya'qub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi (ca. 796-873), who was interested at once in Plato, in Aristotle and his commentators, in various Neo-platonists, in the works that the “Sabaeans” of Harran attributed to Hermes and Agathodemon, and. in general, in “mathematics” (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy, and astrology). It was his urging that made Abu Ma'shar realize the necessity of studying “mathematics” in order to understand philosophical arguments. He henceforth devoted his energies to expounding the philosophical and historical justifications of astrology, and to discoursing on and exemplifying the practical efficacy of this science.

In this effort he drew upon elements of all the diverse intellectual traditions to which he was almost uniquely heir: upon the Pahlavi Greco-Indo-Iranian tradition in astrology, astronomy, and theurgy as preserved in Buzurjmihr, Andarzghar, Zaradusht, the Zij al-Shah, Dorotheus, and Valens; upon a Sanskrit Greco-Indian tradition in astrology and astronomy from Varahamihira, Kanaka, the Sindhind, the Zij al-Arkand, and Aryabhata; upon the Greek tradition in philosophy, astrology, and astronomy through Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Theon; upon the Syriac Neo- platonizing philosophy of astral influences and theurgy from al-Kindi and the books of the Harranians; and upon the earlier, less complete attempts at such vast syntheses among Persian scholars writing in Arabic as represented by those of Masha’-allah, Abu Sahl al-Fadl ibn Nawbakht, Umar ibn al-Farrukhan al-Tabari, and Abu Yusuf Ya'qub al-Qasranl.

Abu Ma'shar’s renown as an astrologer was immense, both among his contemporaries and in later times. He cast the horoscope of an Indian (Rastrakuta?) prince who was born 11 January 826; he advised several rebels against the authority of the caliph; and he accompanied al-Muwaffaq on his expedition against the Zanj in Basra in 880-883. To Ibn al-Qifti, as to most students of Islamic astrology, he was “the teacher of the people of Islam concerning the influences of the stars.”

For Abu Ma'shar, however, the validity of astrology is determined not only by the Neoplalonizing Aristotelianism of the Harranians; it also rests on an elaborate world history of the transmission of science which permits one to trace back the fragments of truth about nature scattered among the peoples of the earth to a pristine divine source; it is a sort of prophetology of science.

Man’s knowledge of the relationship between the three spheres comes not from his own powers of reasoning, but front revelation. For the Harranians, the prophet of revelation was Hermes Trismegistus. Abu Ma'shar, however, desired to universalize the personality of the prophet and to demonstrate the essential unity of human thought, and identifies a first Hermes with the Iranian Hushank and the Semitic Enoch-Idrls; following this composite figure are a succession of pupils of various nations (including two more named Hermes) who spread the revealed truth among the nations of the oecumene. Abu Ma'shar’s cultural background helps to explain this uni- versalism, although it must be noted that in certain details his elaborate history of science had been anticipated by Persian scholars of the preceding generation. It was his theory of an original “Sabaeanism” followed by all of mankind, however, which became the basis of much of Muslim historiography of philosophy and religion.

In conformity with this theory as expounded in his Kitab al-uluf and on the alleged basis of a manuscript said to have been buried at Isfahan before the Flood, Abu Ma'shar produced his Zij al-hazarat, which was to restore to mankind the true astronomy of the prophetic age. The mean motions of the planets are computed in this zij by the Indian method of theyuga and by using Indian parameters; in this section Abu Ma'shar depended largely on the Zij al-Sindhind of al-Fazarl and the Zij al-Arkand (both of Indian origin), although his yuga of 360,000 years, while Indian, was also used by the Isma'ilis. His prime meridian and the parameters for his planetary equations w'ere taken from the Persian Zij al-Shah, which is greatly indebted to Indian sources. Flis planetary model, however, was evidently Ptolemaic. Thus this “antediluvian” zij proves by its mixture of Indian, Persian, and Greek elements that the theory of the original unity of the intellectual traditions of mankind is a true one; each has preserved a bit of the revelation.

Accompanying this astronomical work and history of science was an elaborate astrological interpretation of history expounded in the Kitab al-qiranat, which, being originally of Sassanian (Zoroastrian) origin, reached Abu Ma'shar through the works of Mashasallah, Umar ibn al-Farrukhan al-Tabari, and al-Kindi. This theory, based on periods of varying length under the influence of the several planets and zodiacal signs, on the recurring conjunctions at regular intervals of Saturn and Jupiter and of Saturn and Mars, on the horoscopes of year transfers, and on transits, postulated the inherent impermanence of all human institutions—including the religion of Islam and the rule of the Arab caliphate. It was particularly popular among the Iranian intellectuals of the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries, who delighted in predicting the imminent downfall of the Abbasids and restoration of the royal house of Iran to the throne of world empire. And it is one other element in Abfl Ma'shar’s system that links him with the Ismâ'ïlis.

Parallel to these methods of universal astrological history, Sassanian scientists had developed similar techniques of progressive individual genethlialogy based on periods, the horoscopes of birthdays, and transits. Their sources had been Hellenistic, the primary one being the fourth book of Dorotheus. Abu Ma'shar, like many other Muslim astrologers, has elaborately dealt with this type of astrology (in his Kitâb tahawil sini al-mawalid). He also composed a number of other works on nativities, some mere compilations of the sayings of the wise men of India, Persia, Greece, Egypt, and Islam, intended to demonstrate again their fundamental unity (the Kitab al-jamhara and the Khab asl al-usül), and some more orthodox compositions modeled on the Hellenistic textbooks that had been translated into Arabic (the two versions of the Kitâb ahkâm al-mawàlld).

In these writings, as in his other works listed in the critical bibliography (see below), Abu Ma'shar did not display any startling powers of innovation. They are practical manuals intended for the instruction and training of astrologers. As such, they exercised a profound influence on Muslim intellectual and social history and, through translations, on the intellectual and social history of western Europe and of Byzantium. Abu Ma'shar’s folly as a scientist has been justly pointed out by al-Biruni. One gains the strong impression from his pupil Shadhan’s Mudhâkarât that even as an astrologer he was not intellectually rigorous or honest (no matter what the situation may be now, it certainly was possible to be an intellectually honest astrologer in the ninth century). He is an interesting and instructive phenomenon, but is not to be ranked among the great scientists of Islam.

According to Ibn al-Nadim he died in al-Wasit in central Iraq on 29 Ramadan 272 AH/9 March 886.

Achievements

• The astrologer Abu Ma’shar Ja’far ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Umar al-Balkhi was definitely one of the most influential astrologers in the Middle Ages and the early modern period, in the Islamic world and Europe. His works on astrology display his masterful syncretic knowledge, drawing from Greek, Persian and Indian sources. Among his most influential works are Kitab al-milal wa al-duwal (Religions and Dynasties) also known as Kitab al-qiranat (On Conjunctions) which deals with the effects of celestial conjunctions on nations, dynasties and rulerships; Kitab tahawil sini al-mawalid (The Revolutions of the Years of Nativities), which describes casting horoscopes for the birthdays of clients and how to derive information for the following year by comparing these horoscopes with the clients’ birth charts; and Kitab al-madkhal al-kabir ila ’ilm ahkam al-nujum (The Book of the Great Introduction to the Science of the Judgements of the Stars) in which he provides a comprehensive philosophical model for astrology, presenting it as a natural science. The strategies for the naturalization of astrology that Abu Ma’shar adopts in his Great Introduction led Richard Lemay to assert that ’Abu Ma’shar alone attempts to justify the validity of astrological science by the use of natural philosophy.

Works

More photos

• book

  • I decani di Albumasar: Storie e rappresentazioni delle immagini stellate dello zodiaco (Italian Edition)

    (Se c’è un testo che ha influenzato la letteratura, l’arte...)

  • The decans of Albumasar: The images of stars rising with the 36 facies

    (This is a book about fixed stars and how a few pages from...)

  • Trattato di Astrologia: Kitāb al-mudkhal al-kabīr ilā ʿilm aḥkām al-nujūm

    (Nell'antichità, l'astrologia era una vera scienza e molto...)

  • Albumasar De Magnis Coniunctionibus Annorum Reuolutionibus Ac Eorum Profectionibus Octo Contines Tractatus (Classic Reprint) (Latin Edition)

    ( )

Religion

In his religious affiliation Abū Maʿshar belonged to an Islamic tradition.

Views

Abu Ma'shar was a member of the third generation of this Pahlavi-oriented intellectual elite. He retained a strong commitment to the concept of Iranian intellectual superiority (expressed most vehemently in his Kitdb ikhtilaf al-zljdt and Kitab al-uluf), but he himself relied entirely on translations for his knowledge of Sassanian science. He mingled his already complex cultural inheritance with various intellectual trends current in Baghdad in his time, and became a leading exponent of the theory that all different national systems of thought are ultimately derived from a single revelation (thus, in a sense, paralleling in intellectual history the Neoplatonic doctrine of emanation, w'hich he accepted philosophically in its Harranian guise). This theory could be used to justify the most astonishing and inconsistent eclecticism; it also permitted an advocate to adopt wildly heretical views while maintaining strict adherence to the tenets of Islam. Abu Ma'shar's great reputation and usefulness as the leading astrologer of the Muslim world also helped to preserve him from persecution; there are reports of only one unfortunate incident, a whip ping administered because of his practice of astrology, during the caliphate of al-Mustain (862-866).

Abu Ma'shar’s philosophical proof of the validity of astrology was probably most elaborately presented in his lost Kitab ithbat cilm al-nujum (“Book of the Establishment of Astrology”), but it is also discussed at length in the first maqala of his Kitab al-madkhal al-kabTr (“Great Introduction”), which was written in 849/850. The argument, as has been pointed out by Lemay, is largely Aristotelian, with some Neoplatonic elements; but Lemay, working only with the Latin translations, failed to realize that the immediate sources of Abü Ma'shar’s Aristotelianism were not the Arabic translations of the De cáelo, the Physica, and the De generatione et corruptions, but the purported writings of the Harranian prophets, Hermes and Agathodemon. That the “Sabaeans” of Harran depended on Aristotle’s Physica, De cáelo. De generations et corruptione, and Meteorológica for their theories regarding the material universe is clearly stated by Ahmad ibn al-Tayyib al-SarakhsT (ca. 835-899), another student of al-Kindi.

Since the Harranians were interested in the laws of perceptible nature precisely because they saw the same relationships between the ethereal spheres and the sublunar world of change that Abu Ma'shar seeks to prove (as well as a further relationship between the ethereal spheres and the One which Abu Ma'shar only hints at), it is an easy step to the conclusion that this justification of astrology is, in its main outline, taken by Abu Ma'shar from the books of the Harranians, and is thus only a part of a much more elaborate universal philosophy of emanation.

That philosophy, closely similar to doctrines common to a number of religious movements of the first half-millennium of the Christian era (they are found, for example, in the Corpus Hermeticum, in the Chaldaean Oracles, and in the writings of various Neoplatonists), and not unlike the philosophical background of Jabirian alchemy, posits three levels of being analogous to three concentric spheres: the divine (the sphere of light), the ethereal (the eight celestial spheres), and the hylic (the sublunar core, in which matter is involved in a constant process of change due to the motions of the four Empedoclean elements).

This view of the universe gains religious content when there is added to it the idea that man’s soul has descended from the sphere of light to the hylic sphere, and now must strive to return to union with the divine. But, according to “Sabaean” doctrine, it cannot leap over the ethereal sphere and attain this union without the assistance of intermediaries, which are the celestial spheres; therefore, man’s religion - his liturgy and his ritual—must be addressed to the deities of the planets and of the constellations rather than to the One. The form of this worship is determined by the attributes, qualities, and conditions of the intermediaries; these are known by the study of astrology and astronomy.

The religious view of the Harranians, then, assumes an Aristotelian physical universe in which the four Empedoclean elements are confined to the sublunar world, and the celestial spheres consist of a fifth element. The normal astrological view is concerned to some extent with schematic correlations between celestial figures and (a) the four Empedoclean elements and (b) the various Pythagorean contrasting principles. Primarily, however, it works with somewhat arbitrary associations of planets, zodiacal signs, decans, and so on; with the psychological factors governing man’s behavior; with the attributes and characteristics apparent in material objects; and with various selected species of plants, animals, stones, fish, and so on. The Harranians, followed by Abu Ma'shar, attempted to validate the scientific basis of these arbitrary associations between the celestial and sublunar worlds in astrology by casting over the whole system a peculiar interpretation of Aristotelian physics. According to this interpretation, the nature of the influence of the superior spheres on the inferior is not restricted to the transmission of motion alone; terrestrial bodies each possess the potentiality of being moved by particular celestial bodies, and the celestial bodies similarly each possess the possibility of influencing particular terrestrial bodies. The precise details of the mode of this influence need not detain us here; suffice it to say that the practical effect of this elaborate development of theory in the Kitab al-madkhal al-kablr was the reassertion of the truth of the astrological doctrines already long current.

For the Harranians the Kitab al-madkhal al-kahir also provided the justification for the elaboration of a theory of talismans and planetary theurgy which made them the recognized masters of these esoteric practices (although they had, of course, been popular for centuries in the Roman and Sassanian empires). Abu Ma'shar is among those who helped, in his Kitab al-uluf and Kitab fi buyut a!-cibadat, to establish their reputation. From time to time he refers to talismans (see especially his Kitab suwar al-daraj), but in general he is interested more in predicting the future than in manipulating it.

Quotations: His foretelling of an event that subsequently occurred earned him a lashing ordered by the displeased Caliph al-Musta'in. "I hit the mark and I was severely punished."

There is an interesting anecdote written in the medieval treatise “Albumasar in Sadan”:

“Abu Ma’shar said that when a native’s 2nd house is impeded at birth and its ruler also unfortunate, the native never prospers. When asked why he never mentioned this in his writings, he said: “The sage who writes down all he knows is like an empty vessel. Nobody needs him and his reputation declines. He should keep some secrets to himself and communicate them only to his closest friends."

Abu Ma’shar (Boll, Sphaera 497) writes:

“ The Indians say that in this decan a black man arises with red eyes, a man of powerful stature, courage, and greatness of mind; he wears a voluminous white garment, tied around his midriff with a cord; he is wrathful, stands erect, guards, and observes”.

(German Essays on Art History, Amy Warburg: Italian Art and International Astrology in the Palazzo Schifanoia Ferrara, Continuum International Publishing Group, Jun 1, 1988 edited by Gert Schiff p.242)

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• In investigating the source of the decanic images, Amy is of opinion that Abu Ma’shar had an ‘unacknowledged’ Hindu source. This is the sixth century Indian author by name Varahamihira “whose Brihat jataka was Abu Ma’shar’s unacknowledged source”:
  
  “The first Drekkana of sign Aries is a man with a white cloth tied around his loins, black, facing a person as if able to protect him, of a fearful appearance and of red eyes and holding an ax in his hand. This Drekkana is of the shape of a man and is armed. Mars (Bhauma) is its llord”.
  
  Pingree says: “Abu Ma’shar frequently in his other works in Arabic refers to Indian theories of one sort or another, but little of this material was translated into either Greek or Latin”.

Connections

associate:

Abu-Yusuf al-Kindi

Ibn al‐Nadīm reports in his Fihrist that Abū Maʿshar was at first a scholar of ḥadīth (prophetic traditions), was antagonistic toward the philosophical sciences (i. e., Hellenistic science and philosophy), and sought to stir popular opinion against his contemporary Kindī, one of the champions of these sciences. By means of a ruse, Kindī sought to interest him in arithmetic and geometry.

References

• The Fihrist of Al-Nadim: A Tenth-Century Survey of Muslim Culture
• Astronomies and Cultures in Early Medieval Europe by Stephen C. McCluskey (2000-11-20)
• Abu Ma'shar and Latin Aristotelianism in the Twelfth Century
• The Great Introduction to Astrology by Abu Ma'šar (Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science. Texts and Studies) (English, Arabic and Ancient Greek Edition)
• History of Magic and Experimental Science, Vol 4