Article

The science of astrology, meaning prognostications predicated on the heavens’ control over the terrestrial realm, has always had a place in Islamic civilisation, particularly at court and in popular culture (George Saliba, ‘The Role of the Astrologer in Medieval Islamic Civilization’, Bulletin d’Études Orientales 44 (1992), pp. 45–67, esp. pp. 51–2). However, astrology and astrologers were criticised in a number of disciplines, among them Ḥadīth (Ahmad Hasan (tr.), Sunan Abu Dawud (3 vols, Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1984), vol. 3, p. 1095), Kalām, falsafa (philosophy in the tradition of philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle) (A.F. von Mehren, ‘Vue d’Avicenne sur l’Astrologie et sur le rapport de la responsabilité humaine avec le destin’, Museon 3 (1884), pp. 382–403; Thérèse Anne Druart, ‘Astronomie et astrologie selon Farabi’, Bulletin de philosophie médiévale 20 (1978), pp. 43–7; and Thérèse Anne Druart, ‘Le second traité de Farabi sur la validité des affirmations basées sur la position des étoiles’, Bulletin de philosophie médiévale 21 (1971), pp. 47–51. On al-Fārābī, see now Damien Janos, ‘Al-Fārābī and the Method of Astronomy’, forthcoming in Early Science and Medicine. For a different philosopher’s more favourable attitude to astrology, see Peter Adamson, ‘Al-Kindī and the Mu‘tazila, Divine Attributes, Creation, and Freedom’, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 13 (2003), pp. 45–77, at pp. 70–2), and mathematics (George Saliba, ‘The Development of Astronomy in Medieval Islamic Society’, Arab Studies Quarterly 4 (1982), pp. 211–25, at pp. 215–20. See also the viewpoints cited in David Cook, art. ‘Astrology’ in Josef Meri (ed.), Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia (London: Routledge, 2005). See also Saliba, ‘The Role of the Astrologer’, pp. 46–7).

1. The earliest astrology texts in Islamic civilisation certainly presumed a physical connection between the celestial and terrestrial realms, even if that connection was not couched in peripatetic language (R.G. Khoury, ‘Un Fragment Astrologique Inédit Attribué à Wahb b. Munabbih’, Arabica 19 (1972), pp. 139–44. Khoury expressed some reservations as to the authenticity of this fragment, but did note (p. 141) that an MS in Paris, that may be attributable to Wahb, also has astrological themes. Nabia Abbott (‘Wahb b. Munabbih: A Review Article’, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 36 (1977), pp. 103–12, at p. 112) has pointed out that the work of Wahb b. Munabbih was rejected by most historians of his period. See also Carlo Nallino: ʿIlm al-falak: tārīkhuhu ʿind al-ʿArab fī’l-qurūn al-wusṭā (Rome, 1911; reprinted Beirut: Awrāq Sharqiyya, 1993), p. 138).
2. On astrology and Ṣūfī thought, see: Titus Burckhardt, Mystical Astrology According to Ibn ‘Arabi (Aldsworth: Beshara, 1977; repr. Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 2001). On astrology and Ismāʿīlī thought, see Wilferd Madelung, ‘The Fatimids and the QarmaṭīsofBaḥrayn’ in Farhad Daftary (ed.), Medieval Isma‘ili History and Thought (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 21–73, at pp. 48–9. See also Abbas Hamdani, ‘A Critique of Paul Casanova’s Dating of the Rasā’il Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’’ in Daftary, Medieval Isma‘ili History, pp. 145–52. On Ismāʿīlīs and Neo-Platonism, see Paul Walker, Early Philosophical Shiism: The Isma‘ili Neoplatonism of Abū Ya‘qūb al-Sijistānī (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 54.
3. Discussions of Astrology in Early Tafsīr (Connections Between the Heavens and the Earth)

Al-Ṭabarī’s comments on Q. 2:29 (He it is Who created for you all that is in the earth. Then turned He to the heaven, and fashioned it as seven heavens. And He is the knower of all things) show that God’s subjugation of the cosmos nevertheless allowed the heavens and the earth to function as distinct causes with at least a vague measure of independence. Were intermediate causes not understood to be distinct, astrological predictions would be difficult to rationalise. Al-Ṭabarī wrote: ‘… He apportioned (qaddara) in each one [heaven] what He apportioned (qaddara) with His creation’ (Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān (30 vols in 12, Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, 1992; reprint of the 1326 AH Būlāq edition), vol. 1, p. 153). Al-Ṭabarī founded his interpretation upon a narration transmitted via al-Suddī (d. 127/745), Abū Ṣāliḥ and Ibn ʿAbbās (who had referred to Ibn Masʿūd (d. 32/652)) (Heribert Horst, ‘Zur Überlieferung in Korankommentar aṭ-Ṭabarīs’ in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft CIII (1953), pp. 290 307). This report described six days of creation; on the sixth day (yawm al-jumʿa), God planted the earth’s trees and ordained (qaddara) in the earth its food (aqwātahā) (al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, vol. 22, p. 64). In addition, God revealed in each heaven its affair (wa-awḥā fī kull samāʾ amrahā), which included angels particular to each heaven (Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, vol. 1, p. 152). Commentaries on Q. 37:6 tell us of the views of both al-Ṭabarī and Ibn ʿAbbās (via Ibn Isḥāq25) on how the heavens were an instrument for God’s control over creation.

This is, ostensibly, a response to the mythology of shooting stars that implies that, were it not for the jinn, God’s decrees would pass unhindered from the heavens to the earth (for more on the idea that shooting stars were a defense against devils, see Josef van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, vol. 3, p. 25). Indeed, the comment found in the reconstructed tafsīr of Ibn ʿAbbās held that God uses the stars to prevent the jinn from listening to the angels (Al-Fīrūzābādī, Tafsīr Ibn ‘Abbās, p. 583). Still, the report from Ibn Isḥāq in al-Ṭabarī’s tafsīr indicates, given the Qur’an’s conflation of angels and celestial bodies (mudabbirāt amran) earlier in the sura, that the heavens would be a means for God to exert control over the terrestrial realm. One early comment on the Qur’an presumed that particular stars could control the fortunes of particular people. Q. 12:4.

1. Rabīʿ b. Anas (d. 138/756) explained that there were physical cords connecting heaven and earth; al-Ṭabarī’s own definition of asbāb included causality: ‘on the authority of Rabīʿ b. Anas, he [i.e. Rabīʿ] said: “the cords (al-asbāb) are finer than hair and stronger than iron and they are everywhere although they are not visible.” The root of sabab with the Arabs is anything that is the cause for arriving at the desired, be it from a rope or an instrument (wasīla) or kinship or proximity or a way or method (maḥajja), etc.’ Kevin van Bladel has argued that the word asbāb,reflected in Rabīʿ’s comment, is a clue for the existence of an Iranian cosmology that saw the heavens as a tent held down by cords and in which particular locations were connected, by cords, to particular parts of the heavens (Kevin van Bladel, ‘Heavenly Cords’, p. 237). The cords made it possible for those whom God permitted to ascend to heaven to foresee the future (Van Bladel, ‘Heavenly Cords’, p. 241). Al-Fīrūzābādī wrote that Ibn ʿAbbās, who did not define asbāb as ‘cords’, equated control over the heavens with the power to bestow prophethood (Al-Fīrūzābādī, Tafsīr Ibn ‘Abbās, p. 599). An ascent to heaven has been, in more than one religion, a way to buttress a prophet’s authority (Martha Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses).
2. God’s control over the heavens is clearly for humans’ benefit; thus a particular end is discernible from God’s control over the heavens (Robert Morrison, ‘The Portrayal of Nature in a Medieval Qur’an Commentary’, Studia Islamica 94 (2002), pp. 115–37, at p. 127).
3. Astrology and Understanding Events on Earth
4. Al-Ṭabarī wrote à propos Q. 6:77, in his Tārīkh and Jāmiʿ al-bayān, relating a story that went back to Ibn Isḥāq, that when the time of Abraham’s birth approached, Nimrod’s (K. van der Toorn and P.W. van der Horst, ‘Nimrod Before and After the Bible’, Harvard Theological Review 83 (1990), pp. 1–29) astrologers (aṣḥāb al-nujūm) came to tell him that Abraham would be born and break idols at such-and-such a time (Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, vol. 1, pp. 163–4). Even correct astrological knowledge was insufficient to enable God’s opponents to foil God’s plan. God’s determination could be known but could not be avoided (Josef van Ess, Frühe mu‘tazilitische Häresiographie (Beirut and Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1971), {206). A story from al-Ṭabarī’s Tārīkh involving a parallel use of astrology illustrates how astrological forecasts were another way of presenting the force of time. Al-Ṭabarī wrote that when Ardashīr b. Papak became king, he was told by a group of astrologers and fortunetellers (ʿarrāfūn) of the righteousness of his birthday (ṣalāḥ mawlidihi) and that he would rule the land (Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, vol. 1, p. 477).

1. Some Relevant Discussions of Astrology in Late Antique Jewish and Christian Texts
2. Late Antique Jewish and Christian texts acknowledged the potential accuracy of astrologers’ predictions, and the identification of signs from God was an important component of interfaith dialogue in the second/eighth century (van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, vol. 3, p. 23). Thus, material from Late Antique Jewish and Christian texts is the most likely source or the most proximate context for the comments on astrology found in early Tafsīr. The story in al-Ṭabarī’s Jāmiʿ al-bayān (and Tārīkh) about Nimrod’s astrologers predicting the advent of Abraham raised the issue of whether God’s will could be grasped by those who did not believe in God; pagan astrologers discerning the threat that Abraham would pose to paganism was a case in point (al-Masʿūdī, Murūj al-dhahab, ed. Muḥammad Muḥyi’l-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1989), vol. 1, p. 44). In the story recounted by al-Ṭabarī on the authority of Ibn Isḥāq, Abraham’s father played no role. Both stories agreed that whatever one’s success in astrological forecasting, God’s will was ineluctable and would benefit only those who believed (i.e. Abraham and his kin). Earlier sources attributed religious significance to the practice of astrology in Babylonia; both Christian and Jewish sources identified Nimrod as the originator of f ire worship ( Van der Toorn and van der Horst, ‘Nimrod’, p. 27). Josephus presented astrology as the Babylonian religion that Abraham rejected in favour of monotheism, but also as the religion on the basis of which Abraham inferred monotheism (Annette Reed, ‘Abraham as Chaldean Scientist and Father of the Jews: Josephus, Ant. 1.154–168, and the Greco-Roman Discourse about Astronomy/Astrology’, Journal for the Study of Judaism 35 (2004), pp. 119–58).

The Syriac Christian Jacob of Edessa (d. 89/708), in his Hexameron, held that the Chaldeans’ (i.e. Babylonians’) astral religion contained elements of truth (L’Abbé Martin, ‘L’Héxameron de Jacques d’Édesse’, Journal Asiatique, huitième serie, tome 11 (1888), pp. 401–90). For Jacob of Edessa, valid astrological predictions were not an insurmountable obstacle to Christian faith; Michael Cook has noted that, according to other writings of Jacob of Edessa, God’s foreknowledge did not entail predestination ( Cook, Early Muslim Dogma, pp. 147–8). Cook explained that the willingness to distinguish between God’s foreknowledge and predestination was widespread in Christian theology of the seventh century AD. Thus, Jacob of Edessa did not necessarily see the acceptance of astrology as an impediment to proper religious action. Other Rabbinic Jewish texts explained that while the heavens could wield a real power, one received God’s providence only through faith and God’s providence could overpower the stars. The third-century AD midrash collection Genesis Rabbah tells us (Ravnitzky, Braude and Stern, Sefer ha-Aggadah, pp. 346–7). Still, a statement in the Babylonian Talmud showed that faith and piety could not supplant astral forces’ control over certain aspects of life. The passage reads (Bialik, Ravnitzky, Braude and Stern, Sefer ha-Aggadah, p. 790). While God could reserve the right to intervene, seemingly regular processes on earth were subject to heavenly control (Jacob Neusner, A History of the Jews in Babylonia (5 vols, Leiden: Brill, 1970), vol. 5, p. 190). Israel (i.e. Jews) were not wholly, but rather partially, subject to the stars whereas pagans were wholly subject to the stars (Neusner, A History, vol. 5, p. 192). Neusner explained that the ‘point must be that Israel is not subjected only to natural laws, including astrological ones, but also to supernatural forces.

Pagans acquire no merit, therefore are wholly subjected to planetary governance” (Neusner, A History, vol. 5, p. 192).