Inthiha

Definition

Inthiha — Arabic intihā', "completion" or "conclusion" — is the sign a profection lands on in the Arabic-Persian system for reading a year. Profection advances one sign per year from the natal Ascendant, or another starting point, and the intihā' is the sign reached in the current year — the "ending" point. The planet that rules that sign becomes the year's salkhudhāy, the Lord of the Year.

In Tradition

In Persian and Arabic-medieval astrology, the intihā' is one of the main inputs for reading a year, alongside the solar revolution and the firdāriyyāt (the planetary-period system). Dykes, in his Persian Nativities Vol. I introduction, glosses the term as "completion, conclusion" — the point a profection ends on — and Masha'allah builds the whole identification of the Lord of the Year on the planet that rules the intihā' sign (Book of Aristotle IV.1).

In Practice

You count profected signs from your chosen starting point — usually the natal Ascendant, sometimes the Sun, Moon, or Lot of Fortune — one whole sign for each year of life completed. Year 1 sits in the natal sign, year 2 in the next, year 13 back in the natal sign, and so on around the wheel. The sign you reach in the current year is the intihā', and the planet ruling it becomes the salkhudhāy. You then judge that planet's condition both at birth and in the year: its sign and dignity, whether it rises before or after the Sun, whether it is scorched by the Sun's beams or free of them, and how benefics and malefics aspect it. Reading the intihā' ruler against the solar revolution's Ascendant, the jarbakhtar (the bound-lord of the directed hīlāj), and the active firdāriyyah period pins down the timing within the year and shows which areas of life the period stirs.

Historical Origin

Intihā' is documented in Dorotheus of Sidon's Carmen Astrologicum Book IV (1st-century-CE Greek; 3rd-century Pahlavi; 8th-century Arabic via 'Umar al-Tabari), where the Pahlavi-Arabic transmission keeps the loanword alongside hīlāj, kadhkhudhāh, farḍār, and qisma. Its fully worked Arabic-Persian use appears in Masha'allah's Book of Aristotle IV.1, Al-Biruni's Kitāb al-Tafhīm (1029), and Bonatti's Liber Astronomiae.

Further Reading

• Masha'allah, Book of Aristotle (Persian Nativities I, trans. Dykes)
• Dorotheus of Sidon, Carmen Astrologicum (trans. Dykes)
• Al-Biruni, Kitāb al-Tafhīm