İSlamic Astrology

La chronique d'Ibn al-Qalânisï, Dayl ta'rïh Dimasq qui s'achève avec sa mort 555/1160, fournit l'occasion de s'interroger sur la situation et la perception de l'astrologie la fin de l'époque abbasside, principalement à Damas et à Alep. On y trouve trois types faits, que j'aborderai selon un ordre décroissant, relativement à la quantité d'entrées s'y rapportant dans la chronique.

A copy of the Kitāb Qiyām al-Ḫulafāʾ (Book on the reign of Rulers), identified in Ḏamār, Yemen, in 1993, is dated 8 Ǧumādā Awwal 1150 AH (= Sept. 1737 AD). Under the name of the famous Jewish astrologer MāšāʾAllāh, who practised at the early ʿAbbasid Court together with the Banū Nawbaḫt, this book displays the horoscopes of the Prophet
Muhammad and of the caliphs up to Hārūn al-Rašīd. E.S. Kennedy & D. Pingree offered an English translation of the Kitāb Qiyām al-Ḫulafāʾ in The Astrological History of MāšāʾAllāh, Cambridge (MA), Harvard U. Press, 1971, Appendix 2, on the basis of “two late manuscripts”, one from Berlin, the other at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. Since then, K. Yamamoto & Ch. Burnett have edited the text on the basis of three manuscripts, adding one from Bursa, and offered a revised English translation. Meanwhile, I came upon a second copy of the book in Ṣanʿāʾ.
The copy preserved at the Waqf Library of Ḏamār belonged to the personal collection of a Yemeni cadi, who was a divinatory practitioner (munaǧǧim).
At the intersection of textual studies and field work, this paper, following an introduction to the text, will concentrate on the circulation of the 1150/1737 manuscript and its potential uses.