Background
Mashallah ibn Athari was born around 740. He is the son of Atharī (his father’s name is sometimes written Abrī or Sāriya), Māshaā’allāh was a Jew from Başra (sometimes wrongly written Mişr). His name in Hebrew was Manasse.
(Sahl bin Bishr (Zahel) and Masha'allah were two of the mo...)
Sahl bin Bishr (Zahel) and Masha'allah were two of the most influential medieval astrologers from the Arabic period. This essential work in medieval astrology translates 16 of their works, most for the first time, and includes many charts and lengthy introductory remarks and explanations by the translator.
https://www.amazon.com/Works-Sahl-Mashaallah-ibn-Bishr/dp/1934586021/?tag=2022091-20
2008
Mashallah ibn Athari was born around 740. He is the son of Atharī (his father’s name is sometimes written Abrī or Sāriya), Māshaā’allāh was a Jew from Başra (sometimes wrongly written Mişr). His name in Hebrew was Manasse.
Mashallah was one of those early ‘Abbāsid astrologers who introduced the Sassanian version of the predictive art to the Arabs; he was particularly indebted to the Pahlavī translation of Dorotheus of Sidon and to the Zik i Shahriyārān, or Royal Astronomical Tables, issued under the patronage of Khusrau Anūshirwān in 556. He was also acquainted with some Greek material (perhaps through Arabic versions of Syriac texts) and would have acquired some knowledge of Indian science, both through the Pahlavī texts that he read and through such Indian scientists as the teacher of al-Fazārī and Kanaka, who visited the courts of al-Manşūr and Hārūn al-Rashīd.
It is during al-Mansūr’s reign that Mashallah’s name first appears: he participated in the astrological deliberations that led to the decision to found Baghdad on 30 July 762. Several of his works contain horoscopes that can be dated between 762 and 809 and were cast during his lifetime. Ibn al-Nadīm states that Mashallah lived into the reign of al-Ma’mūn, which began in 813; but the absence of any information about his activities after 809 indicates that he probably did not live long after 813.
Māshā’allāh wrote on virtually every aspect of astrology, as the bibliography below demonstrates. His most interesting works for the historian of astronomy are his astrological history, from which we derive almost all that we know of Anūshirwān’s Royal Tables. His brief and rather primitive De scientia motus orbis combines Peripatetic physics, Ptolemaic planetary theory, and astrology in such a way that, in conjunction with its use of the Syrian names of the months, one strongly suspects that it is based on the peculiar doctrines of Harrān, to which al-Kindī and Abū Ma’shar were also attracted. In fact, Mashallah’s works are often echoed in Abū Ma’shar’s; and in the list below references have been made to the corresponding items in the list of works given in the article on Abū Ma’shar in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography.
(Sahl bin Bishr (Zahel) and Masha'allah were two of the mo...)
2008There is no information on whether Mashallah ibn Athari was ever married or had any children.
