Introduction: Characterizing Astrology in the Pre-Modern

Islamic World

Shandra Lamaute, Elizabeth Sartell

Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft, Volume 12, Number 1, Spring 2017, pp. 3-9
(Article)

Published by University of Pennsylvania Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/mrw.2017.0003

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 Introduction
Characterizing Astrology in the Pre-Modern Islamic World

S H A N D R A L A M AU T E
University of Minnesota
and
ELIZABETH SARTELL
University of Chicago

Abū Rayhān Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Bı̄rūnı̄ (973–1048 CE) can appear,
at times, to hold entirely contradictory beliefs. His involvement with astrol-
ogy in particular is complicated, to say the least. For an example, we need
look no further than one of his major treatises, Kitāb al-Tafhı̄m li-Awail Sināa
al-Tanjı̄m, often translated simply as Elements of Astrology. Throughout the
book, al-Bı̄rūnı̄’s position on astrology remains ambiguous. In the first chap-
ter of Elements of Astrology, he states that, “a man does not merit the title of
astronomer until he has attained proficiency in four sciences: first, geometry;
secondly, arithmetic; thirdly, cosmography; and fourthly, judicial astrology.”1
It is implicit that al-Bı̄rūnı̄ had proficiency in all four. It seems fair to say that
“it would hardly be intelligible why [al-Bı̄rūnı̄] should have spent so much
time and labor on the study of Greek and Indian astrology if he had not
believed in the truth of the thing.”2 However, al-Bı̄rūnı̄ also asserts: “And

1. K. B. Nasim, “al-Biruni as an Astrologer,” in Al-Bīrūnı̄: Commemorative Volume:

Proceedings of the International Congress held in Pakistan on the Occasion of Millenary of Abū
Raihān Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Bīrūnı̄ 973-ca 1051 A.D., November 26, 1973 thru’
December 12, 1973, ed. Hakim Mohammad Said (Karachi, Pakistan: Hamdard
National Foundation, 1979), 580. See also al-Bı̄rūnı̄, The Book of Instruction in the
Elements of the Art of Astrology, trans. R. Ramsay Wright (London: Luzac & Co, 1934),
1, for the Arabic text and Wright’s translation: “I have begun with Geometry and
proceeded to Arithmetic and the Science of Numbers, then to the structure of the
Universe, and finally to Judicial Astrology, for no one is worthy of the style and title
of Astrologer who is not thoroughly conversant with these four sciences.”
2. Eduard Sachau, Al-Beruni’s India: An Account of the Religion, Philosophy, Litera-
ture, Geography, Chronology, Astronomy, Customs, Laws and Astrology of India About
A.D. 1030 (Lahore: Government of West Pakistan, 1962), xxxiii, quoted in M. S.
Namus, “Al-Bı̄rūnı̄: The Greatest Astrologer of the Times,” Al-Bīrūnı̄: Commemora-

Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft (Spring 2017)

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4 Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft  Spring 2017

according to the belief of most people, the verdicts of astrology are the fruit
of the various branches of mathematics. However, my belief in this branch
of knowledge, and in this art, is like the belief of those people who believe
in it least.”3 He also states that “the foundation of this art is placed on frail
principles, and perturbed estimations.”4
These seemingly contradictory opinions regarding the importance and
credibility of astrology may be read in relation to one of al-Bı̄rūnı̄’s over-
arching goals: to distinguish astronomy from astrology and establish the dis-
ciplinary autonomy of astronomy. Al-Bı̄rūnı̄ thus provides a fascinating
opportunity to study how one authority can draw and redraw the boundaries
between the fields of his own study even within a single treatise. But such
drawing and redrawing of disciplinary boundaries raises several questions.
Why was al-Bı̄rūnı̄ so concerned with erecting boundaries between astron-
omy and astrology? What cultural and historical events created the setting for
al-Bı̄rūnı̄’s boundary work? And furthermore, why was it so important at this
particular time and place?

* * *

These types of questions help define the terms of boundary-work, and lay
the ground for the collection of articles that follows.5 These articles stem
from papers presented at a May 2015 conference, “Characterizing Astrology
in the Medieval Islamic World,” organized by the present authors at the

tive Volume, 555. Sachau’s point is also referenced in al-Bı̄rūnı̄, The Book of Instruction,
210.
3. Quoted from Elements of Astrology, with translation by M. S. Namus, in Al-
Bīrūnı̄: Commemorative Volume, 554. See also al-Bı̄rūnı̄, The Book of Instruction, 210,
for the Arabic text and Wright’s translation: “By the majority of people the decrees
of the stars are regarded as belonging to the exact sciences, while my confidence in
their results and in the profession resembles that of the least of them.”
4. Ibid. See also al-Bı̄rūnı̄, The Book of Instruction, 235, for the Arabic text and
Wright’s translation: “This is due first of all to certain defects in the art, and to confu-
sion of reasoning.”
5. The term “boundary-work” is used in Science Studies to refer to the creation,
reinforcement, challenging, or dismantling of social or definitional boundaries or
demarcations between various fields of knowledge. The term was coined by Thomas
Gieryn, who applied it to divisions between “science” and “non-science.” See
Thomas Gieryn, ”Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-
Science: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists,” American Socio-
logical Review 48, no. 6 (1983), 781–95, and idem, Cultural Boundaries of Science: Credi-
bility on the Line (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999).

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 Lamaute and Sartell  Introduction 5

University of Chicago.6 The conference participants each approached the

topic of pre-modern astrology from their own unique (inter)disciplinary per-
spectives, contributing to a more complete picture of how boundaries
between the fields of magic, science, and religion were articulated and nego-
tiated by pre-modern scholars. Each author takes up the issue of boundaries
and offers insights derived from careful study and analysis of treatises on
astrology. By looking at astrological practices, categorizations, and debates of
the pre-modern Islamic world, these articles shed light on the broader ques-
tions of when, where, why, and how our disciplinary terms and boundaries
are negotiated.
As second-order categories, magic, science, and religion might be con-
sidered modern creations; yet, as intersecting fields of knowledge, their
definitional lineaments have been, and still are, in constant contact and con-
versation with one another. Boundaries between forms of proper and
improper knowledge, both in natural and theological studies, have emerged
in many different cultural, geographical, and historical contexts. These
boundaries have been and continue to be drawn and redrawn constantly;
what is considered a legitimate scientific practice or process for one genera-
tion may become magical or occult in the next. Furthermore, the terms and
methods by which these boundaries have been negotiated also vary among
different historical contexts.7

6. The “Characterizing Astrology in the Medieval Islamic World” conference was

generously sponsored by the University of Chicago Divinity School, Center for
International Studies Norman Wait Harris Fund, Center for Middle Eastern Studies,
Chicago Center for Jewish Studies, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civi-
lizations, Divinity Students Association, Division of the Humanities, Franke Institute
for the Humanities, Graduate Council, Humanities Visiting Committee at the Uni-
versity of Chicago, CAS Islamic Studies Workshop, CAS Jewish Studies Workshop,
Martin Marty Center, CAS Middle East History and Theory Workshop, Morris Fish-
bein Center for the History of Science and Medicine, and the Uncommon Fund. We
also wish to thank our faculty sponsors, Alireza Doostdar and James T. Robinson.
7. For classical approaches to the categories of magic, science, and religion, see
(among others): Bronislaw Malinowski, Magic, Science, and Religion and Other Essays
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1948) and idem, Coral Gardens and their Magic (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1965); James Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic
and Religion (London: Macmillan, 1900); and Stanley Tambiah, Buddhist Saints of the
Forest and the Cult of Amulets (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984) as well
as Tambiah’s series of lectures collected in Magic, Science, Religion, and the Scope of
Rationality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). The problems of differ-
entiating and defining these categories have also been addressed by numerous modern
scholars; for examples of contemporary approaches to these concepts, see (among
others): Randall Styers, Making Magic: Religion, Magic, and Science in the Modern World

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6 Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft  Spring 2017

This particular selection of articles approaches the questions of boundary-

work through the methodology put forward by Thomas Gieryn, who argues,
“boundary-work is brought on by disputes over credibility: Who has the
legitimate power to represent a sector of the universe—on what grounds?
by what methods or virtues? in what circumstances?”8 If we agree that the
demarcations of science, as well as magic and religion, “are shaped by the
local contingencies of the moments: the adversaries then and there, the stakes,
the geographically challenged audiences,” then in order to effectively answer
how each of these categories are represented in credibility contests and
boundary debates, we must keep a close focus on particular case studies and
particular local contingencies.9
As a means of delimiting an area ripe for boundary-work, our chosen focus
was astrology, which has long been variously subject to scientific, magical,
and religious protocols. Studying astrology in the context of the pre-modern
Islamic world offers material for many fruitful case studies of the interconnec-
tions between the diverse scientific, esoteric, and religious cultures (including
Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism) interacting in that period.
We recognize that in the pre-modern Islamic world, astrology was inte-
grated into a “ ‘cohesive program of intellectual inquiry’ which included
astronomy, mathematics, music, medicine, alchemy, magic, philosophy, the-
ology, literature, calligraphy and the arts.”10 Thus, the field of astrology as
represented by the selection of articles here is defined broadly to include any
form of scientific, religious, or divinatory practice that incorporates astrologi-
cal principles. This includes various forms of both mathematical and folk
astrology: general astrology, genethlialogy, anniversary horoscopes, elections,

(New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline
of Magic (New York: Scribner, 1971); and Peter Harrison, The Territories of Science and
Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015).
8. Gieryn, Cultural Boundaries of Science, 340.
9. Ibid., 6. Here, we take Gieryn to mean that the demarcations of these categories
in each place and time are shaped by the actors participating in the debates; the
“geographically challenged audiences” contingency points first to the very real sense
in which geographies and terrain (and modes of travel and communication) can limit
or allow work in each of these categories (as well as in the debates surrounding their
categorical definitions) to circulate among various audiences. It can also, more
broadly, refer to the metaphorical “geography” or “territory” of each scope of knowl-
edge; who has access to it, when, and in what forms, and who can participate in
knowledge-making in each of these three categories.
10. Hilary M. Carey, “Astrology in the Middle Ages,” History Compass 8, no. 8
(2010): 888–902.

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 Lamaute and Sartell  Introduction 7

interrogations, medical astrology, and so on. The field additionally encom-

passes the auspicious times at which one should perform medical procedures,
create talismans and amulets, inscribe magic squares or other writings on
astrological instruments, or construct instruments such as astrolabes, which
served both astronomical and astrological purposes.11
The following contributions open up a necessary discussion on these
boundaries and conjunctions; they raise questions about how we as scholars
should categorize “astrology” and challenge our academic pre-conceptions
through the varied lenses offered by the practitioners and opponents of astrol-
ogy in the pre-modern world. Contributors explore the interconnections
between Muslim-Arab culture and other subcultures in the Islamic world as
they consider the common issues surrounding the characterization of astrol-
ogy from the fifth to the sixteenth centuries and across diverse regions of the
Islamic world.
For instance, in her article “Astrology in Hebrew Texts Before and After
Islam,” Marla Segol considers the human as an agent of divine glory by high-
lighting how medical astrology navigates the boundaries between physicians’
agency and divine agency. Her comparison of pre-Islamic fifth- to seventh-
century texts with post-Islamic tenth-century Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic
commentaries concerned with astrology and cosmology illuminates the
incorporation of theological approaches from midrashic and kalāmic traditions
into the realm of Jewish astrological texts.
Noah Gardiner further addresses the interconnections and the fluidity of
boundaries between theoretical and practical astrology, as well as between
astrology, philosophy, and mysticism. In his article, “Stars and Saints: The
Esotericist Astrology of the Sufi Occultist Ah.mad al-Būnı̄,” Gardiner invites
us to consider the absorption of astrology, along with Sufi philosophy and
theology, into a higher, supreme science of lettrism in the thirteenth-century

11. For the wide range of astrological practices, and the overlap of astrology with
astronomy and other fields, see (among others): Edward S. Kennedy, Astronomy and
Astrology in the Medieval Islamic World (Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1998); S. Pines, “The
Semantic Distinction Between the Terms Astronomy and Astrology according to al-
Bı̄rūnı̄,” Isis 55, no. 3 (1964): 343–49; George Saliba, “The Role of the Astrologer
in Medieval Islamic Society,” Bulletin d’Etudes Orientales 44 (1992): 45–67; idem, A
History of Arabic Astronomy: Planetary Theories During the Golden Age of Islam (New
York: New York University Press, 1995); Emilie Savage-Smith and E. Edson, eds.,
Medieval Views of the Cosmos (Oxford: Bodleian Library, 2004); and Gad Freudenthal,
ed., Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2011), especially the essays by José Chabás, Bernard R. Goldstein, Reimund Leicht,
Shlomo Sela, and Dov Schwartz.

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8 Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft  Spring 2017

work of al-Būnı̄.12 Gardiner examines how astrology becomes a lettristic tool

for an exegetical project aiming at the comprehension of God’s speech in the
world. Furthermore, he demonstrates how al-Būnı̄’s esotericist approach to
astrology negotiates the boundaries between astrology as practiced by the
masses and a more philosophical astrology attentive to hidden depths of
meaning.
In “Practicing Astral Magic in Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Istanbul: A
Treatise on Talismans Attributed to Ibn Kemāl (d. 1534),” A. Tunç Şen dis-
cusses the links between the technical and theoretical approaches to astrology
in a treatise attributed to Ibn Kemāl. Şen highlights several issues to which
the treatise speaks, including the compatibility of astrology with normative
Islamic doctrines and questions surrounding celestial causality and the role of
scientific precision and observation in astrological practices. His article con-
siders the interdependencies between scientific observation and experience
on the one hand, and technical magical and astrological practices on the
other, all within the framework of Islamic normative doctrine and sixteenth-
century Ottoman royal patronage.
If these case studies suggest the importance of a focused, narrow lens in
boundary-work, they also make clear that this lens must be constantly re-
adjusted (protracted and tapered) to examine both the historical situations
and theoretical core elements of their disciplinary anchorholds. For this rea-
son, the study of boundary-work benefits from a reciprocal relationship
between emic and etic approaches. More important than their flexible meth-
ods, however, are the new questions and new data brought to the table by
each contributor, which we hope will help to open possibilities for future
research. While contributors were initially invited to address the concept of

12. Lettrism refers to the “science of letters,” ilm al-h.urūf. Similar to Jewish Kab-
balah, lettrism refers to discourse on the powers of the letters in the Arabic alphabet,
powers that are often imbued with cosmological significance. Michael Ebstein and
Sara Sviri have distinguished between two major types of letter speculations in Islamic
literature; the first, “type a,” includes “a symbolic and etymological approach to the
Arabic alphabet and especially to the fawātih.” (the fourteen letters found at the begin-
nings of twenty-nine suras of the Qurān); this type is frequently found in qurānic
commentaries, such as those by al-T.abarı̄ and al-Tustarı̄. The second, “type ß,” is a
cosmogonic approach to language and letters, which is prevalent in the Shı̄’i-Ismā’ı̄lı̄
and Andalusian traditions. See: Michael Ebstein and Sara Sviri, “The So-Called Risala
al-H. uruf (Epistle on Letters),” Journal Asiatique 299, no. 1 (2011), 230–31. It should be
noted that this second type of lettrism often does include symbolic and etymological
approaches to the letters and the fawātih., in addition to a cosmogonic approach to
letters as the primordial building blocks of the universe. For a more extended discus-
sion of lettrism, see the Afterword by Melvin-Koushki in this issue, especially note 6.

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 Lamaute and Sartell  Introduction 9

boundary-work in the categories of magic, science, and religion from the

perspective of their areas of expertise, the resulting articles individually and
collectively highlight the fluid lines of connection among the various reli-
gions, cultures, and actors involved in the exchange of knowledge that depart
from the original categories set up for them.
Although the articles address multiple cultures and span several centuries,
putting them in conversation highlights numerous issues relelevant for
broader explorations of boundary-work. These include issues surrounding
normativity and authority, agency of the self and the cosmos, bodies of
knowledge, and the discourses, commentaries, and practices built upon them.
We also find questions raised regarding the frameworks through which
occultic learning is most profitably studied (whether philosophical, mystical,
lettristic, or within the bounds of history of science and intellectual or social
history). In this way, these articles add to the existing literature that problem-
atizes the categories of magic, science, religion, and their relation to the even
more vexed category of the “West.” Some of these broader issues are articu-
lated in the Afterword by Matthew Melvin-Koushki. We hope that the ques-
tions raised here may help guide other approaches to boundary-work
elsewhere, such as the work done in historiography, postcolonial studies, and
in those many emergent research avenues that aim to better understand the
cultural pluralism of the pre-modern period.

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