Iqbāl wa Idbār
Definition
Iqbāl wa idbār is the Arabic-Persian binary that judges a planet by its relation to the angles. Iqbāl is advance — being angular, firm, and established; idbār is retreat — falling away from an angle into cadency. The pair maps onto the Hellenistic angular/cadent distinction but keeps its own imagery: a planet on or near an angle is settled and able to act, while a cadent planet is pictured as falling down and passing away. The same root sense carries into the horary verbs of approach and falling-back among Sahl's sixteen accidents of planetary relation.
In Tradition
Arabic-Persian natal practitioners treat iqbāl wa idbār as one of the basic strength-checks run on every significator before judgment, beside orientality, sect, dignity, and the condition of the Moon. Angular placement reads as firmness and standing; cadent placement reads as a planet that has slipped from power. The advance-or-fall of the triplicity-lords and the chart's main life-significators is weighed heavily when ordering the phases of life and judging whether a birth promises survival and long life.
In Practice
For each planet you are judging — the Ascendant's lord, the triplicity-lords, the longevity significators — first note which house it occupies and whether that house is angular, succedent, or cadent. Read an angular planet as in iqbāl: firm, established, able to deliver what it signifies. Read a cadent planet as in idbār: fallen from the angle, weakened, its promise undercut. In the four-fold survival assessment of a nativity, the firmness or fall of the chart's main significators and triplicity-lords is a primary determinant: significators fixed and strong in angles point toward a nourished, long life, while significators cadent and unaided point the other way. Weigh iqbāl wa idbār together with the planet's essential dignity and its orientality rather than reading angularity alone, and let a strong, stable house-master that receives a well-placed pushing planet confirm the favourable reading.
Historical Origin
The dyad is set out by Abū Bakr (son of al-Khaṣībī) in his On Nativities, where firmness and fall of the significators drive the four-fold judgment of whether a birth will be nourished and live long; the Latin tradition rendered the terms as alicbel (angular) and alicher (cadent). The underlying accidents of approach and falling-back are catalogued in Sahl ibn Bishr's Introduction. Benjamin Dykes translated Abū Bakr's On Nativities in Persian Nativities.