Islamicate

11 entries

• Abū MaʿsharPerson

  A ninth-century Baghdad astrologer whose two major works, each translated twice into Latin, were among the widest channels astrology used to reach Europe.

• al-BīrūnīPerson

  An eleventh-century polymath whose astrology manual is technically rigorous, written by a man who never states outright whether he believed the doctrine true.

• Claudius PtolemyPerson

  The name attached to more of this site's material than any other, and the man underneath it, who names six of the twelve places and is silent about the rest.

• Dorotheus of SidonPerson

  The most-cited author on this site, whose Greek is lost, and whose ranking of the twelve places is assembled here from the entries that each hold one line.

• House DivisionConcept

  Seven house systems divide seven different objects into twelve, which is why a chart tool that offers all seven never agrees with itself.

• LibraSign

  The only sign figured as an object: a Babylonian balance, a Greek claw, and a Roman restoration credited to Julius Caesar.

• MāshāʾallāhPerson

  An astrologer at the earliest Abbasid court, credited with electing the moment for founding Baghdad in 762; his own writing survives only in later epitomes.

• The Graeco-Arabic Translation MovementConcept

  Greek and some Sanskrit scientific works entered Arabic in Abbasid Baghdad across two centuries, sponsored partly by a court invested in astrology.

• The TetrabiblosPrimary text

  Ptolemy's four books on astrology: what the work is for, how it reached the present through three languages, and why its chapter numbers must be named.

• The Twelfth-Century Translation MovementConcept

  In the twelfth century, Arabic astronomical and astrological texts, Greek and Arabic in origin alike, were translated into Latin, chiefly from Iberia.

• The Zīj al-SindhindPrimary text

  A Sanskrit astronomical treatise reached Baghdad in the 770s, became an Arabic zīj, and by that route entered Latin Europe.