Mashallah ibn Athari


Māshāʾallāh ibn Atharī, known as Mashallah, was an 8th-century Persian Jewish astrologer, astronomer, and mathematician. Originally from Khorasan, he lived in Basra during the reigns of the Abbasid caliphs al-Manṣūr and al-Ma’mūn, and was among those who introduced astrology and astronomy to Baghdad. The bibliographer ibn al-Nadim described Mashallah "as virtuous and in his time a leader in the science of jurisprudence, i.e. the science of judgments of the stars". Mashallah served as a court astrologer for the Abbasid caliphate and wrote works on astrology in Arabic. Some Latin translations survive.
The Arabic phrase indicates a believer's acceptance of God's ordainment of good or ill fortune. His name is probably an Arabic rendering of the Hebrew. Al-Nadim writes Mashallah's name as .
The crater Messala on the Moon is named after Mashallah.

Biography

As a young man Mashallah participated in the founding of Baghdad for Caliph al-Manṣūr in 762 by working with a group of astrologers led by Naubakht the Persian to pick an electional horoscope for the founding of the city, and building of an observatory. Attributed the author of 21 works, predominantly on astrology, Mashallah's authority was established over the centuries in the Middle East, and later in the West, when horoscopic astrology was transmitted to Europe from the 12th century. His writings include both what would be recognized as traditional horary astrology and an earlier type of astrology which casts consultation charts to divine the client's intention. The strong influence of Hermes Trismegistus and Dorotheus is evident in his work.

Philosophy

Mashallah postulated a ten-orb universe rather than the eight-orb model offered by Aristotle and the nine-orb model that was popular in his time. In all Mashallah's planetary model ascribes 26 orbs to the universe, which account for the relative positioning and motion of the seven planets. Of the ten orbs, the first seven contain the planets and the eighth contain the fixed stars. The ninth and tenth orbs were named by Mashallah the "Orb of Signs" and the "Great Orb", respectively. Both of these orbs are starless and move with the diurnal motion, but the tenth orb moves in the plane of the celestial equator while the ninth orb moves around poles that are inclined 24° with respect to the poles of the tenth orb. The ninth is also divided into twelve parts which are named after the zodiacal constellations that can be seen beneath them in the eighth orb. The eight and ninth orbs move around the same poles, but with different motion. The ninth orb moves with daily motion, so that the 12 signs are static with
respect to the equinoxes, the eighth Orb of the Fixed Stars moves 1° in 100 years, so that the 12 zodiacal constellations are mobile with respect to the equinoxes. The eight and ninth orbs moving around the same poles also guarantees that the 12 stationary signs and the 12 mobile zodiacal constellations overlap. By describing the universe in such a manner, Mashallah was attempting to demonstrate the natural reality
of the 12 signs by stressing that the stars are located with respect to the signs and that fundamental natural phenomena, such as the beginning of the seasons, changes of weather, and the passage of the months, take place in the sublunar domain when the sun enters the signs of the ninth orb.
Mashallah was an advocate of the idea that the conjunctions of Saturn and Jupiter dictate the timing of important events on Earth. These conjunctions, which occur about every twenty years, take place in the same triplicity for about two hundred years, and special significance is attached to a shift to another triplicity.

Works

The Big Book of Births ; The Twenty-One On Conjunctions, Religions and Sects ; The Projection of Rays ; The Meaning ; Construction and Operation of Astrolabes ; The Armillary Sphere ; Rains and Winds ; The Two Arrows ; Book known as The Seventh & Decimal ; Ch.2 – Averting What Is Predestined ; Ch.3 – On Questions ; Ch.4 – Testimonies of the Stars ; Ch.5 – Happenings ; The Letters ; The Sultan ; The Journey ; Preceptions
; Nativities ; Revolution of the Years of Nativities ; Governments and Sects ; Prediction Based on Conjunctions and Oppositions ; The Sick ; Predictions Based On Constellations ;
Mashallah's treatise De mercibus is the oldest known scientific work extant in Arabic, and the only work of his extant in its original Arabic.
One of Mashallah's most popular works in the Middle Ages was a cosmological treatise. This comprehensive account of the cosmos along Aristotelian lines, covers many topics important to early cosmology. Postulating a ten-orb universe, it strays from traditional cosmology. Mashallah aimed at the lay reader and illustrated his main ideas with comprehensible diagrams. Two versions of the manuscript were printed: a short version De scientia motus orbis, and an expanded version De elementis et orbibus. The short version was translated by Gherardo Cremonese. Both were printed in Nuremberg, in 1504 and 1549, respectively. This work is commonly abbreviated to De orbe.

Texts and translations

  • On Conjunctions, Religions, and People was an astrological world history based on conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn. A few fragments are extant as quotations by the Christian astrologer Ibn Hibinta.
  • Liber Messahallaede revoltione liber annorum mundi, a work on revolutions, and De rebus eclipsium et de conjunctionibus planetarum in revolutionibus annorm mundi, a work on eclipses.
  • Nativities under its Arabic title Kitab al – Mawalid, has been partially translated into English from a Latin translation of the Arabic
  • On Reception is available in English from the Latin edition by Joachim Heller of Nuremberg in 1549.
Other astronomical and astrological writings are quoted by Suter and Steinschneider.
The Irish Astronomical Tract appears based in part on a medieval Latin version of Mashallah. Two-thirds of tract are part-paraphrase part-translation.
The 12th-century scholar and astrologer Abraham ibn Ezra translated two of Mashallah's astrological treatises into Hebrew: She'elot and Ḳadrut.
Eleven modern translations of Mashallah's astrological treatises have been translated out of Latin into English.