Korte inhoud: een aantal boekbesprekingen ivm Arabische astrologie.

Arabic Astrology

• Al-Biruni, Abu'l-Rayhan Muhammad Ibn Ahmad, Trans. R. Ramsay Wright The Book of Instruction in the Elements of the Art of Astrology (London,1934).
  The most complete text we have of arab astrology by a practicing professional, who was also a distinguished, mathamatician, geographer, geometer, ethnographer etc. Al-Biruni is the Arabic equivalent of C. Ptolemy and knew a great deal about the late hellenistic world, the worlds of Persia and India, and especially Indian science; and dabbled in philosophy in a serious way. The Book of Instruction is the most complete arabic astrological manual that we have available in English. See the various other entries on Al-Biruni for more information about this man.

• Al-Biruni, India ed Edward Sachau, (Lahore, West Pakistan, 1962).
  This is Al-Biruni's most celebrated work. It is a geographic, historical, ethnographic, and scientific review of the condition of India in Al-Biruni's time. There is a great deal of useful astrological information in it, as well as other important things. Al-Biruni's dates are given on the Library of Congress card, as 973 A.D.-1048 A.D. This book is still used as a reference book on Indian civilization.

• Al-Biruni,The Determination of the Co-ordinates of Cities, Al-Biruni's Tahdid al Amakin, trans. Jamil Ali, (Beirut,Lebanon, The American University of Beirut, 1967).
  I have not seen this publication, but it is the work of Al-Biruni on which E.S.Kennedy's Commentary is based.

• Dorotheus of Sidon, Carmen Astrologicum ed David Pingree (Leipzig, B.G.Teubner, 1967).
  This is a publication of an arabic text of the Carmen Astrologicum collated with the existing greek fragments, and translated by David Pingree. As part of the Teubner Library it is probably the authoritative text. Hellenistic astrology is my term for what Tester calls Byzantine astrology. I like it because it allows us to distinguish between the astrology of the classical (stoic?) period (ie C. Ptolemy) and the somewhat different astrologers of Syria, separated not so much in time, as in cultural characteristics, less "scientific", more inclined to pseudepigrapha, to "revelations", to post neoplatonic mysticism and magic, and so forth. It is important to note that Dorotheus of Sidon was an almost exact contemporary of Jesus of Nazareth in the same part of the world. Beirut is only about 147 miles from Jerusalem.

• Ibn Ezra, Abraham The Beginning of Wisdom, eds Raphael Levy and Francisco Cantera, (Baltimore MD, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1939).
  A seminal work for Renaissance astrology. In some ways a typical example, though far from the key one, of the transmission of arabic astrological methods to medieval/renaissance europe. Ibn Ezra was Jewish, and in another department of his life, a distinguished commentator on the scriptures, who left an enduring legacy as an exegete. He lived in Spain, an example of "Moorish" transmission of arab culture to the west.

• Kennedy, E. S. A Commentary upon Biruni's Kitab Tahdid Al-Amakin (Beirut, Lebanoon, American University of Beirut, 1973).
  A valuable commentary on a major geographic, mathematical, and spherical trigonometric work by Al-Biruni. No direct, or very little, direct relevance to astrology, but it explores several collatereal areas of great importance. For pertinent insight into how the arabic scientific mind worked, it is very important. For text see Al-Biruni .

• Masha'allah The Astrological History: On Conjunctions, Religions, and Peoples, in the version of Ibn Hibinta eds. E.S.Kennedy and David Pingree, (Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 1971).
  No text of Masha'allah's work has survived, but the Ibn Hibinta text is close, and for the general argument suffices. This work comprises not only a text, and translation of the Ibn Hibinta version, but also a most valuable commentary on the whole subject of arabic (islamic cultural, Ibn Hibinta was a Christian Arab, Masha'allah was Jewish) mundane astrololgical contextural theories. Deals with such things as the development of historical periodization, the attribution of astrological knowledge to pre-deluge figures, or other pseudepigraphic sorts of attributions. Very important for the transmission of late hellenistic cultural phenomena into European and Indian cultures, as well as an important source for various occult theories in our own time. (ie Hermes Trismegistus as the Ur-astrologer.) It also records many particular interpretive methods of Islamic cluture area mundane astrology, particularly an emphasis on the exhaltation of the plants in addition to, or even instead of the usual rulerships.

• Nasr, Seyyed Hossein,An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines (Boulder, Colorado, Shambala, 1978).
  This is a study of various arabic sources, from the peak period of arabic scientific and mathamatical writing, which explores not only the cosmological doctrines which were held, but the philisophical and religious implications of those doctrines. A valuable background study. Heavy focus on Al-Biruni, and decent chapter on Astrology. Other arabic savants discussed include, Ikhwan Al-Safa, and Ibn Sina.

• Pingree, David The Thousands of Abu Mashar (London, The Warburg Institute,1968).
  This is not a text of the Abu Mashar work, but rather a commentary on its sources, and dating, by a most distinguished historian of science. In the absence of an English translation this will have to do. The work duplicates much of the subject matter of the Astrological History of Masha'allah, with same characteristics of transmitting late hellenistic ideas, pseudepigraphic habits, and romanticizing rewrites of history to fit into vast schemes of periodization, all of which leads to India and the Yogas and other Indian mythological perodizations. Given the Hellenistic background, some questions about relations to the gnostics with their Aeons and so forth should also be raised.

• Sphujidhavaja The Yavanajataka ,ed David Pingree 2 Vols, (Cambridge, MA,Harvard University Press,1987).
  The title means "The Horoscopy of the Greeks". This book contains the text, a most excellent translation, and a superb commentary on this seminal and transitional work of Hindu Astrology. It demonstrates absolutly the origins of this art in the teaching of the hellenistic astrologers of the late classical period in the mediterranian basin. If we take the Carmen Astrologicum of Dorotheus of Sidon as a good example of where hellenistic astrology was at the beginning of this cultural transmision, and perhaps Al-Biruni's Book of Instruction as a central position on its trajectory, the landing place has to be this work of Sphujidhavaja's. Hence it is listed as contributing to our understanding of arabic astrology as well as indian, simply because arabic astrology occupies the middle of the arc of transmission.
  The emblem Pingree has chosen for vol I nails down the intellectual dependence. It is by Varahamihira, the father of Indian Astrology, "For although the Greeks are barbarians, they have brought this science to perfection, and so are honored as sages; how much more honorable, then, is an astrologer who is a Brahmana!" Brhatsamhita 2, 14