Mashallah

Mashallah ibn Atharī, was an 8th century Persian astronomer.

He was a former Jew from Balkh, Khorasan, who was entrusted the task of designing the city of Baghdad. He took part with the fellow Persian astronomer Naubakht in surveying the foundation of the new city of Baghdad in 762–63, based on precedents such as Firouzabad.

Mashallah wrote works on Astral sympathies. The task of him and Naubakht was to optimize such influences.

His real name was probably Manasseh, and Latin translators named him Messahala (with many variants, as Macellama, Macelarma). He flourished under al-Mansur, and became one of the earliest astronomers and astrologers of the Islamic era.

Of his 19 works, few remain. Only one of his writings is extant, and is in Arabic, but there are many medieval Latin and Hebrew translations. His most popular book in the Middle Ages was the De scientia motus orbis, translated by Gherardo Cremonese.

He also wrote treatises on Astrolabes. (p 10) The De scientia motus orbis is probably the treatise called in Arabic "the twenty-seventh;" printed in Nuremberg 1501, 1549. The second edition is entitled: 'De elementis et orbibus coelestibus', and contains 27 chapters. The De compositione et utilitate astrolabii was included in Gregor Reisch: Margarita phylosophica (ed. pr., Freiburg, 1503; Suter says the text is included in the Basel edition of 1583). Other astronomical and astrological writings are quoted by Suter and Steinsehneider.

An Irish astronomical tract also exists based in part on a mediaeval Latin version. Edited with preface, translation, and glossary, by Afaula Power (Irish Texts Society, vol. 14, 194 p., 1914.}

He died in 815AD.

Sources

• Islamic Science and Engineering, Donald Hill, p10.

See also

• List of Iranian scientists