The Role of the Astrologer in Medieval Islamic Society
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Abstract
The object of this paper is to investigate the social status of the astrologer in medieval Islamic society. Therefore, I will not investigate the theoretical status of astrology in medieval Islam, nor will I attempt to analyze the numerous arguments either pro or contra astrology which have been preserved in the classical sources. On that score, I only wish to say that the theoretical framework of the astrological doctrines that were known in medieval Islam were mainly derived from the major tenets of Aristotelian philosophy 1 . In some ways they shared the same fate of that philosophy, but in other ways they developed an independent existence of their own and were integrated within the larger intellectual picture of medieval Islam. The evidence for the connection with Aristotelian natural philosophy was brilliantly argued by one of the most famous astrologers of medieval Islam, namely Abū Ma’sar al-Balḫī (d. 886, Latin Albumassar) 2 , and was later studied in great detail in an excellent dissertation by Richard Lemay 3 . From that perspective, one can assert that astrology enjoyed a status similar to that of medicine 4 , in the sense that both disciplines were considered non-demonstrative natural philosophical sciences, as those sciences were understood within the larger Aristotelian framework.