Sahl ibn Bishr - Wikiwand

Sahl ibn Bishr al-Israili^[a] (c. 786 – c. 845)^[b] was a Jewish^[2]^[3]^[4] or Syriac Christian^[5]^[6] astrologer,^[7] astronomer and mathematician from Tabaristan. He was the father of Ali ibn Sahl the scientist and physician, who became a convert to Islam.^[8]

He served as astrologer to the governor of Khuristan and then to the vizier of Baghdad. He wrote books on astronomy, astrology, and arithmetic, all in Arabic.^[9]

His works

Sahl is believed to be the first who translated the Almagest of Ptolemy into Arabic.

Sahl ibn Bishr wrote in the Greek astrological tradition. Sahl's first five books were preserved in the translation of John of Seville (Johannes Hispanus) (c. 1090 – c. 1150). See the English translation The Introduction to the Science of the Judgments of the Stars. Translated by James Herschel Holden (Tempe, Az.: A.F.A., Inc., 2008)ix, 213 pp. The sixth book deals with three thematic topics regarding the influences on the world and its inhabitants was translated by Herman of Carinthia. The work contains divinations based on the movements of the planets and comets.

Books by Sahl ibn Bishr in Arabic include:

Ahkam fi al-Nujum (Laws of the Astrology)
Kitab al-ikhtiyarat 'ala al-buyut al-ithnai 'ashar (Book of elections according to the twelve houses).
al-Masa'il al-Nujumiyah (The astrological problems)

Notes

[a]
Persian: ابوعثمان سهل بن حبیب بن هانی
[b]
Latinised as Zael or Zahel,^[1] also known as Haya al-Yahudi ("the Jew") and Rabban al-Tabari (Persian: ربان طبری)

References

[1]
Carey, Hilary M. (June 2010). "Judicial astrology in theory and practice in later medieval Europe". Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences. 41 (2): 90–98. doi:10.1016/j.shpsc.2010.04.004. hdl:1959.13/805149. Sahl b. Bishr (d. 822 or 850), known in Latin as Zael or Zahel
[2]
Goldstein, Bernard R. (January 2001). "Astronomy and the Jewish Community in Early Islam". Aleph Historical Studies in Science and Judaism. 1 (1): 17–57.
[3]
Said al-Andalusi, Ṭabaqāt al-‘Umam, 1068 - in Catégories des nations, translated in french by Régis Blachère, Paris: Larose, 1935, p. 157.
[4]
SAHL called Rabban, Jewish Encyclopedia.
[5]
Prioreschi, Plinio (2001-01-01). A History of Medicine: Byzantine and Islamic medicine. Horatius Press. p. 223. ISBN 9781888456042. Retrieved 29 December 2014. Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari, the son of a Syriac Christian scholar living in Persia on the Caspian Sea...
[6]
Meyerhof, Max (July 1931). "Alî at-Tabarî's "Paradise of Wisdom", one of the oldest Arabic Compendiums of Medicine". Isis. 16 (1): 7–8. doi:10.1086/346582. JSTOR 224348. S2CID 70718474. Ibn al-Qiftî (4) renders the title Rabban correctly but with a false explanation, taking it for the Jewish title of Rabbi. So 'Alî b. Rabban passed into all historical works, until quite recently, as a Muslim of Jewish origin, although 'Alî himself, in the preface to his work, explains this title Rabban as being the Syriac word for "our Master" or "our Teacher". The late Professor Horovitz told me and wrote to me several years ago, that this was a Christian title; A. Mingana gave the proof of this in print for the first time in I922. 'Alî says in his apologetic tract "The Book of Religion and Empire", which he wrote about 855 A.D., that he himself was a Christian before he was converted to Islam, and that his uncle Zakkâr was a prominent Christian scholar.
[7]
"Astrology in Medieval Judaism - My Jewish Learning". Archived from the original on 29 December 2014. Retrieved 29 December 2014.
[8]
Meyerhof (1931), p. 7.
[9]
Roth, Norman, ed. (2003). Medieval Jewish Civilization: An Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge. p. 385. ISBN 978-0-415-93712-2.

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