Sahl ibn Bishr al-Israili (c. 786–c. 845), also known as Rabban al-Tabari and Haya al-Yahudi
("the Jew"), was a Syriac Christian astrologer, astronomer and mathematician
from Tabaristan. He was the father of Ali ibn Sahl the famous scientist and
physician, who became a convert to Islam.
He served as astrologer to the
governor of Khuristan and then to the vizier of Baghdad. He
wrote books on astronomy, astrology, and arithmetic, all in Arabic.
His works
Sahl is believed to be the first
who translated the Almagest of Ptolemy into Arabic.
Sahl ibn Bishr wrote in the Greek
astrological tradition. Sahl's first five books were preserved in the
translation of John of Seville (Johannes Hispanus) (c. 1090 – c. 1150). See the
English translation by Holden. The sixth book deals with three thematic topics
regarding the influences on the world and its inhabitants was translated
by Herman of Carinthia. The work contains divinations based on the
movements of the planets and comets.
· The Introduction to the Science of the Judgments of the Stars. Translated by James Herschel Holden (Tempe, Az.: A.F.A., Inc., 2008)ix,
213 pp.
There are some books by Sahl ibn
Bishr in Arabic such as:
· Ahkam fi al-Nujum ("Laws of the
Astrology")
· Kitab al-ikhtiyarat 'ala al-buyut al-ithnai 'ashar ("Book of elections according to the twelve houses").
· al-Masa'il al-Nujumiyah ("The
astrological problems")
Astrology was considered a
scientific discipline in the Middle Ages, when political powers patronised
astronomical research that was considered necessary for obtaining ‘scientific’
astrological predictions.
Sahl ibn Bishr (fl. 205 AH/AD
821–235 AH/AD 850) was an astrologer and mathematician at the service of the
governor of the Khurāsān Ṭāhir ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Aʽwar (205/821–207/822) and who
later served al-Ḥasan ibn Sahl (died 236/ 850–1) secretary and governor of
caliph al-Ma’mūn (198/813–218/833). This implies that he was in Baghdad during
the great programme of astronomical research patronised by al-Ma’mūn and when
the interest in astrology, which had begun under al-Manṣūr (136/754–158/775),
reached its apex.
Sahl ibn Bishr (fl. 205 AH/AD
821–235 AH/AD 850) was an astrologer and mathematician at the service of the
governor of the Khurāsān Ṭāhir ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Aʽwar (205/821–207/822) and who
later served al-Ḥasan ibn Sahl (died 236/ 850–1) secretary and governor of
caliph al-Ma’mūn (198/813–218/833). This implies that he was in Baghdad during
the great programme of astronomical research patronised by al-Ma’mūn and when
the interest in astrology, which had begun under al-Manṣūr (136/754–158/775),
reached its apex.
Horoscope with planetary
positions corresponding to about 3am, 4 July 824 in Baghdad (Beinecke Rare Book
and Manuscript Library, Yale University, Arabic MSS 523, f. 50a)
SAHL IBN
BISHR
Little information about Sahl
survives; we only know that he was a Jew who converted to Islam. All his extant
works are astrological and, according to a list provided by Ibn al-Nadīm in
377/977-78, they dealt with all branches of astrology: nativity horoscopes (Kitāb al-mawālīd al-kabīr and al-ṣaghīr), anniversaries of nativities (Kitāb taḥāwīl sinī al-mawālīd), elections (Kitāb al-ikhtiyārāt), interrogations (Kitāb al-masā’il al-kabīr), world astrology (Kitāb taḥāwīl sinī al-ʽālam), astrological meteorology
(Kitāb al-amṭār wa l-riyāḥ) and so on. These materials
were probably summarised in his Kitāb al-madkhal al-kabīr and al-ṣaghīr. We know his works reached al-Andalus around
338/950 because they are quoted in the Ghāyat al-ḥakīm (Picatrix), and they were translated into Latin by an
anonymous translator of the twelfth century, as well as into Byzantine Greek. A
Latin corpus of his writings, in which his name appears as Zael/Zahel/Zahel
Benbriz, is extant in about fifty-five manuscripts and in seven printed
editions dated between AD 1484 and 1551.
SAHL’S TREATISE ON INTERROGATIONS (MASĀ’IL)
The work preserved in the British Library manuscript Or. 12802 bears no
title, although another copy at Yale (Arabic MSS 523) is entitled Kitāb fī ʽilm
al-falak wa l-burūj wa l-aḥkām al falakiyya ʽalā l-tamām wa l-kamāl (a book
which deals exhaustively with astronomy, the zodiacal signs and astrological
predictions). This kind of astrological book would have been designed for the
upper classes of society, and differed from the more popular kind of texts used
by astrologers who worked in the city markets.
It has two clear parts: the first is an introduction dealing with the
zodiacal signs (the twelve houses of the horoscope) and sixteen ḥālāt, which
analyse the conditions of a planet in relation to the others in the same
horoscope. These horoscopes are often related to the second part, on
interrogations. An interrogation (mas’âla), is an astrological technique
consisting of casting a horoscope ‘of the moment’, in which a question is
addressed to the astrologer who will try to answer it. The moment is important
because a horoscope depends on two variables: time (the moment for which the
horoscope is cast) and place (the local latitude).
Interrogations formed the main topic of the rest of the book and they are
classified according to the twelve houses of the horoscope, each one of them
having a specialised field of interest. There is also an appendix dealing with
topics unrelated to the houses. These kind of texts – as well as treatises on
‘elections’ (ikhtiyārāt), which try to choose a propitious moment for
undertaking a particular activity – have an obvious interest for social
historians because they give information about the kind of problems that
concerned people of that time.
SAHL’S LEGACY
The work of Sahl ibn Bishr is a clear example of the interest shown in
astrology during part of the Abbasid period (second/eighth–fourth/tenth
centuries), probably due to Persian influence. His treatise on interrogations
only mentions by name the authority of another Jewish astrologer, Māshā’allāh
(died c. 200/815–6), but it has been proven that it uses the Pentateuch of Dorotheus of Sidon, translated
from Pahlevi by ʽUmar ibn Farrukhān al-Ṭabarī (died 200/ 815–6). The patronage
of the Abbasid rulers reveals that they were keenly interested in knowing the
future, and Sahl is representative of the astrologers who worked in the circles
of power at that time. Sahl’s works were later translated into Latin and
underwent a remarkable diffusion in Western Europe.
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