| From: Thomas Hockey et al. (eds.). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, Springer Reference. New York: Springer, 2007, pp. 740-741 |
|
Courtesy of 
|
Māshāʾallāh ibn Atharī (Sāriya)
Ari Belenkiy
Alternate
name
Messahala
Died circa 815
Māshāʾallāh
(from mā shāʾ Allāh, i. e., “that which God intends”)
was a Jewish astrologer from Basra. Ibn al‐Nadīm says in his Fihrist
that his name was Mīshā, meaning Yithro (Jethro). Māshāʾallāh
was one of the leading astrologers in 8th‐ and early 9th‐century
Baghdad under the caliphates from the time of al‐Manṣūr to Maʾmūn,
and together with al‐Nawbakht worked on the horoscope for the foundation
of Baghdad in 762.
Ibn
al‐Nadīm lists some 21 titles of works attributed to Māshāʾallāh;
these are mostly astrological, but some deal with astronomical topics and
provide us information (directly or indirectly) about sources (i. e.,
Persian, Syriac, and Greek) used during this period. This valuable information
also comes from the Latin translations of some of Māshāʾallāh's
works, some of which are no longer extant in Arabic.
A selection of the works by Māshāʾallāh includes
De scientia motus orbis (On Science of the Movement of Spheres), preserved
in Latin translation, containing an introduction to astronomy as well as a
study of Aristotle's
Physics, both based on Syriac sources. Ptolemy
and Theon of
Alexandria are mentioned, but the planetary models are pre‐Ptolemaic
Greek and similar to those found in 5th‐century Sanskrit texts, Kitāb
fī al‐qirānāt wa‐ʾl‐adyān wa‐ʾl‐milal
(A book on conjunctions, Religions, and communities), an astrological history
of mankind, attempts to explain major changes based on conjunctions of Jupiter
and Saturn; a discussion of eclipses is preserved in a Latin translation by
John of Seville and a Hebrew translation by Abraham
ibn ʿEzra, and a commentary on
the armillary sphere. (For other works, see Sezgin.)
Misattributions
have sometimes occurred because of confusion between the works of Māshāʾallāh,
Abū Maʿshar,
and Sahl ibn Bishr. Indeed, the authenticity of two treatises on the astrolabe
attributed to Māshāʾallāh and translated into Latin has
been questioned by P. Kunitzsch.
Finally, according to E. Kennedy, Māshāʾallāh's
son was an astronomer who composed a manuscript unifying the theories of Khwārizmī
and Ḥabash.
Selected References
Carmody, Francis J. (1956). Arabic Astronomical and Astrological
Sciences in Latin Translation: A Critical Bibliography. Berkeley: University
of California Press, pp. 23 ff.
Goldstein, Bernard
R. (1964). “The Book on Eclipses by Mashaʾallah.” Physis 6: 205–213.
(English translation of Abrahim ibn ʿEzra's Hebrew
translation of Māshāʾallāh's work.)
Ibn al‐Nadīm (1970). The Fihrist of al‐Nadīm:
A Tenth‐Century Survey of Muslim Culture, edited and translated
by Bayard Dodge. 2 Vols. Vol. 2, pp. 650–651. New York: Columbia University
Press.
Kennedy, E. S. (1956).
“A Survey of Islamic Astronomical Tables.” Transactions of the American
Philosophical Society, n.s., 46, pt. 2: 121–177. Reprint: Philadelphia:
American Philosophical Society, 1989.
Kennedy, E. S. and David Pingree (1971). The Astrological
History of Māshāʾallāh. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press.
Kunitzsch, Paul (1981). “On the Authenticity of the Treatise
on the Composition and Use of the Astrolabe Ascribed to Messahallah.” Archives
internationale d'histoire des sciences 31: 42–62.
Pingree, David (1974). “Māshāʾ allāh.” In
Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie,
Vol. 9, pp.159–162. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
Rosenfeld, B. A. and Ekmeleddin Ihsanoğlu (2003). Mathematicians,
Astronomers, and Other Scholars of Islamic Civilization and Their Works (7th–19thc.).
Istanbul: IRCICA, p. 17.
Samsó, Julio (1991). “Māshāʾ allāh.”
In Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2nd ed. Vol. 6, pp. 710–712. Leiden: E.
J. Brill.
Sezgin, Fuat (1978). Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums.
Vol. 6, Astronomie: pp. 127–129; Vol. 7, Astrologie – Meteorologie
und Verwandtes (1979): 102–108. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
Thorndike, Lynn (1956). “The Latin Translations of Astrological
Works of Messahala.” Osiris 12: 49–72.