Masha'allah

mah-SHAH-al-lah

Definition

Masha'allah ibn Athari (c. 740 - c. 815 CE) was a Persian-Jewish astrologer at the early Abbasid court in Baghdad, and is usually counted among the founders of the Arabic astrological tradition. The body of work that survives under his name spans natal, horary, mundane, and electional astrology, and takes in planetary motion, the hyleg-kadhkhudah method for estimating length of life, delineations of each planet through the houses, eclipses, weather, and a reading of world history from the cycle of Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions.

In Tradition

In the medieval Arabic-Persian and Latin tradition, Masha'allah is named as the senior contemporary and frequent collaborator of Abu 'Ali al-Khayyat, Sahl ibn Bishr, and the early Baghdad school, and his works are routinely treated as a primary authority alongside Dorotheus and Ptolemy. He is the classical name attached to the chart elected to inaugurate the founding of Baghdad in 762 CE under the caliph al-Mansur.

In Practice

Several procedures still used by astrologers of the classical and medieval revival trace back to Masha'allah. He set out a five-step cascade for choosing the hīlāj (the releaser, the point standing for the life-force) by sect and placement; a method for identifying the kadhkhudhāh (the house-master) by counting dignity testimonies, with a required aspect back to the hīlāj; a ten-point procedure for reading the annual solar-return chart; and a framework for delineating each house-lord as it falls in each of the twelve houses. His On Reception is a foundational source for the medieval doctrine of reception, and his Book on Nativities gives the early Arabic synthesis of the Hellenistic length-of-life technique with the Persian period-of-life systems known as firdar, or firdaria.

Historical Origin

Masha'allah's Arabic originals survive only in part, carried through medieval Latin translation chains: Gerard of Cremona, John of Seville, Hugo of Santalla (who translated the pseudonymous Book of Aristotle in 1140/41), and the anonymous Paris BN lat. 16204. His major works include On the Knowledge of the Motion of the Orb (De Scientia Motus Orbis), On the Roots of Revolutions, On Nativities, On Hidden Things, On the Interpretation of Cognition, On Reception (De Receptione), and the Quid significent planete in 12. domibus circuli. Benjamin Dykes's modern English editions have been the standard since 2008.

Definition

In Tradition

In Practice

Historical Origin

Further Reading