Greek Astrology and the Arabs
Greek Astrology and the Arabs
By
Roland Matthews
(2003)
Did the Arabs save classical Greek astrology? They did save some of it, but not by themselves. The clergy of Latin speaking Western Europe helped, as did isolated pockets of education like Ireland. Classical Greek was still taught in Constantinople and later preserved by Arabic book collectors. Those who studied the classical Greek philosophies soon found themselves holding small candles of light in an ensuing age of dark barbarity.
After long periods of inner turmoil in Rome, the Germanic tribes (Vandals, Burgundians, and Goths from the East and Saxons, Franks, and Lombards from the West), who were pushed westward by the Huns from further East, had little difficulty in sacking the Roman Empire.
All the constant warfare and lack of agriculture lead to Feudalism, a system of government where the poor worked for the wealthy nobility in exchange for protection. The Roman Catholic Church was able to survive these conquests by converting the pagans and offering eternal salvation from these terrible times of trouble.
In the East, Constantinople also under the rule of Christianity continued to flourish. There were growing differences like the debate over iconoclasm, and the nature of the Christ that lead to the eventual split between the two. “The pope resisted domination by the Byzantine emperor, and the Byzantines would not accept the pope as head of all Christians.” (1) Another difference was that Latin was the language of Rome and Greek had all but become extinct in the west, whereas Greek was still the language in use in the Byzantine Empire. During all the wars, education became scarce and soon, even Latin was being replaced by the languages of the invading tribes.
“In Ireland, Latin became firmly entrenched as the language of both the church and scholars at a time when it was in danger of disappearing in many parts of the continent. Irish monks preserved and cultivated Latin and even preserved some knowledge of Greek.” (2)
For some reason, the Arabs felt a need to collect ancient Greek books and translate them into Arabic. Most likely, it was the Islamic doctrine of Tawhid, where a philosopher was required to seek wisdom from all sources since all wisdom comes from God. This led them to the formation of the House of Wisdom. Luckily, many manuscripts have survived because of this, in spite of Constantinople finally being sacked by the Ottoman Turks.
“Islamic thinkers turned to sources in Greece, Persia, and India in their quest for the details of astrological practice and its philosophical foundations.” (3) One such source was the Persian astronomical observatories. “Persian observatories in particular succeeded in improving the parameters of mathematical astronomy, by painstaking measurements of stellar and planetary positions.” (4) Even in the more tolerant Muslim countries there was debate over whether or not astrology was permissible and many of the observatories did not survive.
“Harun al-Rashid (caliph from 786 CE) and his successors sent agents to the Byzantine Empire to buy Greek manuscripts, and early in the ninth century a translation centre, the House of Wisdom, was established in Baghdad by the Caliph al-Ma’mun. There Syriac and Arabic speaking scholars, under the leadership of the Christian Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-Ibadi (808-873 CE), collaborated to translate the Greek works, either from the original or from a Syriac version, into Arabic.” (5)
“The Harranians fulfilled an important role in the history of Hermeticism and Neo-Platonism, which they transmitted to Islam through scholars such as Thabit Ibn Qurrah, who carried these ideas to the House of Wisdom in Baghdad”.(6) Many great thinkers went there much like in the glory days of Alexandria.
Ironically, thanks to the Arabs’ obsession with Greek knowledge, it eventually found its way back to Europe by way of the battles fought during the crusades. The Moors had flooded into Spain and Italy, while simultaneously the Crusaders themselves were adopting Arabic customs and gaining interest in Islamic knowledge. There were many Muslim sages, but the three most notable Arabic astrologers responsible for extending the life of Greek astrology are: Masha’Allah, al-Kindi, and Abu-Mashar.
“Masha’Allah (f. 762-816 CE), a Jewish native of Basra who went to work in Baghdad, indeed his astrological advice was influential in the decision to found the city on 30 July 762 CE. He is the first Jewish astrologer known to us by name, and he signals the Jewish acceptance of astrology after the long centuries of opposition recorded in the Old Testament.” (7) “Masha’Allah drew on three living traditions-the Greek, the Sasanian and the Indian.” (8) “Masha’Allah was the author of more than two dozen astrological treatises that were considered to be authoritative by both the Arabs and the Western Europeans.” (9) “Masha’Allah was familiar with Persian and Indian astrology and is said to have used the Persian Zij al-Shah…, a set of astronomical tables compiled for Shah Khusrau Anushirwan in the sixth century.” (10)
“Al-Kindi (c. 796-873 CE), was called the “philosopher of the Arabs”. He was an exceedingly prolific author whose innumerable works included some twenty or more “epistles” on various topics in astrology. According to the Fihrist it was he who first interested Albumasar in astrology.” (11) “Al-Kindi, whose self-appointed task was to introduce the concepts and the language of Hellenic philosophy into Islamic thought, justified this enterprise by the classic argument that reason and revelation were twin pathways to the same truth.” “He was a leading figure in the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, where the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Euclid and Ptolemy were translated into Arabic.” (12) “The idea of planetary conjunctions as a periodic focusing of powerful stellar emanations followed naturally from al-Kindi’s doctrine of rays.” (13) “Carmody* says that al-Kindi’s books on meteorological astrology were prime sources for later writers on that branch of the art.” (14)
“Abu-Mashar (787-886 CE), who became known and revered in the west as Albumasar, was a native of Balkh in central Asia, a frontier city of the former Sasanian empire, where intellectual cross-currents met from Greece, Persia, India and China, Abu-Mashar too migrated to Baghdad and became active in the House of Wisdom.” “He was able to advance an eclectic philosophy within the Islamic faith by urging that all wisdom is one and emanates from the same divine revelation.” (15) “Abu-Mashar followed the Hermetic tradition in asserting that knowledge of astrology, and of the three levels of being, came from the revelation of Hermes and of other prophetic figures of various nations.” (16) “He began his career as a student of the Hadith or traditions of the Prophet Muhammad, but in his 30’s or 40’s he gave that up and turned his attention to astrology. Thereafter, he became famous not only as the leading authority on astrology but also as a court astrologer and a professional astrologer. His knowledge of the subject was encyclopedic. Some fifty books are credited to him.” (17)
In conclusion, these three men are just a few out of a handful who held on to the knowledge left by the ancients, and thanks to their endeavors not only did astrology survive to become what it is today, but so did the other six of the seven classic liberal arts: grammar, rhetoric, logic, mathematics, geometry, and music. The Arabs did save Greek astrology, and not only did they help it to survive, but they improved upon it by adding knowledge they gained from other cultures met on caravan trade routes. The Christian monasteries saved it even against some of their wishes. Irish monks and other secular scholars preserved it as well with the help of their relative isolation from the barbarian hordes. It is truly strange that the two religions that both claimed to have the true wisdom of God, fought each other fiercely during the Crusades, and simultaneously both helped to preserve the Greek knowledge of astrology to be used again by later generations. It seems that the winds of war do not always snuff out the candles of truth.
Bibliography
Perry, Marvin Western Civilization A Brief History Volume I: To 1789, Houghton Mifflin Co. fourth edition, (2001) p.145
Perry p.152
Whitfield, Peter Astrology: A History, Harry N. Abrams Inc., (2001) p.84
Whitfield p.87
Hoskin, Michael The Cambridge Concise History of Astronomy, Cambridge University Press (1999) p.51
Whitfield p.84
Whitfield p.87
ibid.
Holden, James Herschel A History of Horoscopic Astrology, American Federation of Astrologers Inc., (1996) p.104
Holden p.107
Holden p.121
Whitfield p.87
ibid.
Holden p.122, * Francis J. Carmody, AAASLT p. 79
Whitfield p.88
Whitfield p.90
Holden p.111
