ASTROLOGIA MUNDA - Classical Astrologer Weblog

Book IV – Astrologia Munda
Appendix VIII
«These clues suggest to me that he (the real author) lived in Spain, knew Arabic, and probably
worked closely with Arab scholars. But he was not John of Spain, and the text is not a redaction of
John of Spain’s translation of OCG.»
I am afraid we may be faced with something quite similar here where each
paragraph of this purported text of Māshā´allāh begins with, «Māshā´allāh
said,…» The problem we face in verifying this text is that the original Arabic
manuscript of this purported work by Māshā´allāh no longer exists. However,
as I mentioned already, we do have what Māshā´allāh practiced and taught in
another book embedded in one of his close contemporaries books!
We find the discrepancies of Māshā´allāh’s On the Eclipses of Luminaries, of
Conjunctions of the Planets, and on the Revolutions of the Years further
exacerbated when we compare it to the Latin translation of his De revolutione
annorum mundi where he refers to the «middle conjunction» as,
«…that in which there is a change from one triplicity to another, by which change of religions and
dynasties occurs.» 1
In On the Eclipses of Luminaries, of Conjunctions of the Planets, and on the
Revolutions of the Years it is recorded,
«Māshā’allāh said: The middle conjunction is the conjunction of Mars and Saturn.»
Abū Hafs 'Umar ibn al-Farrukhān al-Tabarī 2
also wrote a treatise on
conjunctions in which he starts with a definition of the three kinds of
Saturn/Jupiter conjunctions;
«The indication of the first [’am] is taken from the returns and the of the conjunctions of
the thousands, I mean the conjunction of the two planets, Saturn and Jupiter in Leo, 1
to their
1
«Coniunctio media, qua mutatur a triplicitate in triplicitatem alteram, qua fit…mutatio sectarum et
regnorum.»
2
Better known as Omar of Tiberiades or in Latin, Aomar (d.c.815), was a contemporary of
Māshā´allāh and author of a well known astrological treatise on natal astrology called, Three Books
on Nativities.
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