Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi
Ja'far ibn Muhammad Abu al - Ma'shar Balchi (Arabic أبو معشر جعفر بن محمد بن عمر البلخي, DMG Abū Ma ʿ ʿ far Šar Ǧa b. Muḥammad b. ʿ Umar al - Balḫī ), also called Albumasar, Abu al Ma'shar or - Falaki, (c. 787 Balch, † 886 ) was a Persian mathematician, astronomer and astrologer.
Albumasar was born in the city of Balkh in the province of Khorasan, the then Persia. He studied at the beginning of his career as a scholar the teachings of Muhammad, but turned between his 30th and 40th years of astronomy and astrology. He created horoscopes of both Muhammad and Christ. According to his interpretation of the stars the world was created when the seven known planets (ie, Sun and Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) were in conjunction in the first degree of the constellation Aries. For the destruction of the world he presented also a forecast for a similar conjunction. From Tycho Brahe he was quoted as early critic of the Peripatetics concerning the comet beyond the sphere of the moon (see Comet of 1577), even though Abu Ma'schars traditional justification of the color change is not convincing.
His book Introductorium in astronomiam is one of the Arabic texts that have survived the philosophical works of Aristotle, in Arabic translation.
Albumasar was a prolific writer and is said to have written over 50 books. In medieval Europe, it was considered as the most important Iranian Astrologer, with great influence on the genesis of medieval astrological worldview. His books that were translated into Latin in the 12th century, were widely used as manuscripts, but were not printed until some two hundred years later.
Writings
- De revolutionibus magnis conjunctionibus et annorum ac eorum profectionibus. Printed in Augsburg in 1489 and in Venice 1515th Ed. K. Yamamoto, C. Burnett, Leiden, 2000, 2 vols. (Text in Arabic and Latin)
- De judiciis astrorum
- Introductorium in astronomiam. Posted in Baghdad 848 into Latin trans. John Hispalensis and Hermann of Carinthia. printed in Augsburg in 1489 and Erhard Ratdolt in Venice 1495th ( Augsburg in 1489 and Venice 1515) Augsburg edition 1489 ( digitized Posner Library, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
- Venice edition 1506 ( digitized Zurich )