Everything about Mashallah totally explained
Masha'allah ibn Atharī (c.
740-d.
815 AD) was an eighth century
astrologer and
astronomer from the city of
Basra (now located in modern day
Iraq) who became the leading astrologer of the late 8th century. The
Arabic phrase
ma sha`a allah indicates acceptance of what God has ordained in terms of good or ill fortune that may befall a believer. His name is usually
Latinized as
Messala or
Messahalla. The
Messala crater, on the
Moon, is named after him.
As a young man he participated in the founding of
Baghdad in 762 by working with a group of astrologers led by
Naubakht the Persian to pick an
electional horoscope for the founding of the city. He wrote over twenty works on astrology, which became authoritative in later centuries at first in the Middle East, and then in the West when
horoscopic astrology was transmitted back to Europe beginning in the 12th century.
Mashallah wrote works on
Astral sympathies, otherwise known as
astrology. The task of astrologers such as him and
Naubakht was to optimize such influences.
His real name was probably
Manasseh or
Jethro, and Latin translators named him Messahala (with many variants, as
Messahalla Messala,
Macellama,
Macelarma,
Messahalah). He flourished under the Caliph
al-Mansur, and became one of the earliest astronomers and astrologers of the Islamic era. Science historian Donald Hill writes that Mashallah was originally from
Khorasan.
Of his over 20 works, few remain. Only one of his writings is still extant in its original Arabic, but there are many medieval Latin and Hebrew translations. One of his most popular books in the Middle Ages was the
De scientia motus orbis, translated by
Gherardo Cremonese. Mashallah's treatise
De mercibus (
On Prices) is the oldest extant scientific work in Arabic.
He also wrote treatises on
Astrolabes
(p 10)
. The
De scientia motus orbis is probably the treatise called in Arabic "the twenty-seventh," printed in Nuremberg in 1501, 1549. The second edition,
De elementis et orbibus coelestibus, contains 27 chapters. The
De compositione et utilitate astrolabii was included in
Gregor Reisch:
Margarita phylosophica (ed. pr., Freiburg, 1503; Suter says the text is included in the Basel edition of 1583). Other astronomical and astrological writings are quoted by Suter and Steinsehneider.
An Irish astronomical tract also exists based in part on a medieval Latin version. Edited with preface, translation, and glossary, by Afaula Power (Irish Texts Society, vol. 14, 194 p., 1914). The notable 12th century scholar and astrologer
Abraham ibn Ezra translated two of Mashallah's astrological treatises into Hebrew:
She'elot and
Ḳadrut (Steinschneider, "Hebr. Uebers." pp. 600-603). One work is available in English:
On Reception, translated by
Robert Hand from the Latin edition by
Joachim Heller of
Nuremberg in 1549.
Further Information
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