A BRIEF HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL ASTROLOGY
A BRIEF HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL ASTROLOGY
Prof. Dr. H. Kadircan KESKİNBORA
Bahçeşehir University Faculty of Medicine
22 Ocak 2017
Medieval scientists were not at all interested in knowing nature or studying the sky, because their own scientific aims were directed in an entirely different direction. All understanding depends on God and the believing soul. A few simple information was enough to accurately calculate the festival days, which change every year. Under the influence of Christian teaching, dealing with the Sun, Moon, Venus, Jupiter and other deified stars carried the danger of straying into idolatry. Spiritual development was nourished in church schools only by insufficient and immature knowledge dating back to the late Roman period.
Even Jordanus Nemorarius, who astonished his sect with what he inherited from the mathematics of Arab scholars, later had to obtain special permission for his studies.
While the regulation dated 1228 prohibited all relations with higher cultures, that is, the Islamic world, that is, infidels, they only turned a blind eye to the Leader of the Order. The ban was as follows: “Members of the sect should not study heretic philosophers. Nor should they learn the so-called free arts (the simplest skills such as counting, calculating and calculating religious holidays called 'computus'). Except for cases where special permission is given for individual persons.”
Obtaining such information from infidels was a dirty business and such a thing could not be tolerated. If the officials missed observing the full moonrise in the spring, the Pope would have to send an emissary to the Arabs in Spain and be in the embarrassing situation of having to learn from these "Devil worshipers" the dates of Easter and the week of mourning.
How little tendency there is to be interested in the stars in the sky; with what distrust those who seriously deal with them are viewed; Gerbert von Aurillac reported how researchers and scholars were slandered to the Kaiser, to whom he was loyal, and to the Empire at the center of Christianity. His, Pope John II. Today, as Silvester, we watch with astonishment and excitement the Arabian astrolabe, which he used in Rome to determine the altitude of the Sun and the deviations of day and night, and which is now preserved in Florence. During his lifetime, he became famous for obtaining this unique information from the devil in Cordoba. However, a pope who dealt with the science of stars should be cursed!
The Church had reason to doubt and worry. Some passages in the sacred texts acknowledged that stars had certain effects on earth. The popes tried to limit these influences to the development of plants and animals. But there were also those with a broad sect among them, and they blamed comets, solar and lunar eclipses, and other unusual movements in the sky as responsible for all kinds of diseases, wars and disasters. The church had to officially reject all influence over man and submit people only to the almighty God. But he was not very successful in this regard. Taking advantage of their representatives' hesitation, the astrologers resorted to various tricks. The weak and turbulent atmosphere had already prepared a fertile ground for deceiving those who were ready to accept mystical speculations and incomprehensible and disturbing explanations. It is no wonder, therefore, that translations of astrological tables and annals were much desired to cross the Pyrenees together with works of astronomy.
Islam was less inclined towards astrology. The Prophet replaced the worshiped stars with a single God, the ruler of the universe and the creator of the earth and the sky. “Celestial bodies can be effective due to their nature; “Belief in the independent influence of stars” was now “not tolerated.” But, “studying astronomy is mandatory”. Allah Himself commanded humans to examine the sky. The movement of the stars was investigated in the name of Allah. The writing of every scientific work was started in his name. And this is what makes the Arabs superior to Western Christians: their high scientific level, which, as can be seen, protects them from getting stuck in the suffocating swamp of mysticism. Therefore, astrology and the art of astrology did not have a seductive spell for the intelligent and realistic Arabs. However, looking at the influence of his works on astrology in the West, one might well think so.
“Arabian astrology”, more than other fruits of Islamic culture, is mainly the product of the Iranians; He was their coy child. The Iranians brought the art of reading the future from the stars to the Islamic world. Yahya bin Abu Mansur, who taught many famous people, was born in Iran and was an astrologer, like almost all of his compatriots who devoted themselves to studying the celestial bodies.
Iranian beliefs regarding the good and bad effects of stars originate from Zoroaster. Planets, bad stars and shooting stars are the symbols of Ahriman (Ahriman or ahriman is the God or principle of evil, representing evil and darkness in Zoroastrian belief. In the absolute dualism expressed by Zoroastrianism, he is associated with Ahura Mazda, the principle or God of goodness. is in a constant struggle) was the product of the evil principle. Ahriman tries to destroy the world order through his own creatures. He uses his terrible power, which brings disaster to people, through seven planets.
What Babylon, with its naive astrologer, started with the pictures drawn in the sky as a result of the pious belief in the star character of the gods, and what Hellenism, as a result of its fondness for the rules of geometry, gathered in a similarly rigid scheme disconnected from all experience and turned into an unshakable theory system; This "scientific theology of decadent paganism" found its faithful patrons and apostles among the Persians. The Persian astrologer Nawbakh (d. ca. 777) arrived at the court of the Arab Caliph al-Mansur in 760 with such a complicated burden. When the Abbasids took power, the center of the extinct Umayyad Dynasty in Damascus, surrounded by deserts, was moved to the east. The new capital is in the richest and most fertile lands; It should have been established on the banks of the Tigris. But before the construction started, Nawbakh was ordered to examine the condition of the stars, eliminate their negative effects, determine the most auspicious time for the construction of the city and report it to the Caliph. From the Ruler of the Believers, Nawbakh received the task of learning from the stars the most auspicious time for the founding of the city and at the same time managing the basic measurements, together with the Persian Jewish scholar Manasseh, who later accepted Islam and took the name Mashallah. Baghdad to the child born in such favorable conditions; It was called "the city of peace" (The first name of the city was Dar-us-salam and means "city of peace". Later it was named Medinet-us-Salam and finally Baghdad).
This very talented Persian became the most influential palace astrologer of the Caliph under the name "Nevbaht". He is also the ancestor of a number of astrologers who would advise later rulers.
Source:
- Hunke S. The Eastern Sun That Illuminates the West. Istanbul: Kaynak Publications, 2009.
- http://www.wfsj.org/course/tr/pdf/ders5.pdf What is science? Accessed 18.04.2016