One of the greatest names in the history of astrology is that of Abū Maʿshar Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammd ibn ʿUmar al-Balkhī, known to Europeans under various names, most commonly Albumasar. The precise dates of his birth and death are uncertain, but it seems he was born around 787 in the city of Balkh, in present-day Afghanistan, and died about 886, possibly in the city of al-Wāsiṭ in Iraq. He spent most of his life in Baghdad.
More certain is that he wrote several Arabic treatises on different aspects of astrology, the most influential of which was The Book of the Great Introduction to Astrology (Kitāb al-mudkhal al-kabīr ilā ʿilm aḥkām al-nujūm), in which he developed a systematic justification of astrology based upon the Aristotelian principles of causality and motion.
For Abū Maʿshar, the stars and planets were guides to terrestrial events because they are the efficient causes for the generation and corruption of all plants, animals, and minerals on the Earth. In the course of laying the philosophical foundations of astrology, Abū Maʿshar responds in this treatise to ten groups of critics:
1. Those who reject that celestial objects can influence anything in the sublunar world.
2. Those who think that celestial objects indicate only general or universal processes and not individual characteristics.
3. Those who reject that celestial bodies can indicate contingent events.
4. Those who maintain they effect only the seasons.
5. Those who object that astrology cannot be verified through repetitive experiences.
6. Those who object arguing that astronomical tables give differing values for planetary positions.
7. Those who object out of spite, being unable to master the topic themselves.
8. Mercenary physicians who continue to treat a patient even though an astrologer predicts the patient's life is coming to an end.
9. People who value only those who make money.
10. Those who reject astrology because of the incompetence of many of its practitioners.
Abū Maʿshar provides the positions of the stars at the time of his writing, corresponding to the period 1 October 848 to 30 September 849. His systematic defence of astrology circulated widely in the Latin West, being translated twice in the twelfth century, first by John of Seville, probably in 1133, and then by Hermann of Carinthia in 1140, working in north-east Spain or southern France. They appear to have had different Arabic manuscripts from which they worked.
The first volume of the present publication contains the Arabic text in a new edition and facing-page English translation, meticulously prepared by Keiji Yamamoto (who died in 2018 before its publication) and Charles Burnett. Footnotes to the English translation provide variants in interpretation or content (translated into English) that are found in the Latin translations of John of Seville and Hermann of Carinthia.
A previously unpublished large fragment of a Byzantine Greek translation made in about the year 1000 is included in the second of the two volumes. This Greek extract had been edited much earlier by David Pingree, who died in 2005, with the edition revised for publication here by Stephan Heilen. There is no translation provided of the Greek fragment, but there is a table of correspondences with the Arabic text.
Also in the second volume are two appendixes providing English translations of passages added to John of Seville and Hermann of Carinthia's Latin versions but having no corresponding Arabic text. These appendixes are followed by an extensive, 242-page, glossary of terms and phrases used by Abū Maʿshar, with Arabic as the lead term accompanied by the English, Greek, and Latin equivalents. This is supplemented by a shorter Greek–Arabic glossary (22 pages) and a Latin–Arabic glossary (45 pages). Five indexes complete the second volume: geographical places and races; persons and authors; Greek constellation names according to Ptolemy; constellation names according to people of Persia, Babylon and Egypt; and a general subject index.
This is not, however, the first edition of the Arabic text, for in 1995–96 Richard Lemay included one in the Liber introductorii maioris ad scientiam judiciorum astrorum, published in Naples in nine volumes. Yamamoto and Burnett employed all but one of the eight manuscripts used by Lemay (the one in Meshhed being unavailable) while adding an additional five copies. The present edition is based primarily on the two oldest copies (Istanbul, Carullah 1508, and Paris, BnF ar. 5902), with readings from the other manuscripts employed when the two basic versions appear to give erroneous readings. The editors refer the reader to Lemay's earlier edition for further manuscript variants that provide additional evidence for the history of the text. The present edition “aims to provide the text that most accurately represents what Abū Maʿshar himself may have written” (p. 33). Thus, Lemay's edition and the present edition are independent studies that complement each other. The present editors reject, however, Lemay's contention that Abū Maʿshar revised the treatise in 876, almost 30 years after the original composition, for they argue that the variants between manuscripts that formed the basis of Lemay's hypothesis are simply those that one would expect to arise in the course of copying. For the Latin texts of John of Seville and Hermann of Carinthia, the present editors refer readers to Lemay's edition and textual analysis in Liber introductorii maioris ad scientiam judiciorum astrorum, in which Lemay employed 41 manuscripts for John of Seville's version and 11 for that of Hermann of Carinthia. The present editors provide annotated English translations of relevant passages from these Latin translations, leaving the reader to consult Lemay's edition for the Latin itself or the online Arabic and Latin Corpus maintained at the University of Würzburg (http://arabic-latin-corpus.philosophie.uni-wuerzburg.de).
With the publication here under review, this hugely influential defence of astrology has at last received the scholarly annotated edition, translation, and analysis that it deserves, presented in a way that allows readers (including those without Latin) to trace the interpretation of the Great Introduction from the time of its composition in ninth-century Baghdad to its reception by Latin scholars in the twelfth century.
