Abu Ma'shar Al-Balkhi

Abu Ma'shar Al-Balkhi

Abū Maʿshar, Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad al-Balkhī (also known as al-Falakī or Ibn Balkhī, Latinized as Albumasar, Albusar, or Albuxar) (10 August 787 in Balkh, Khurasan – 9 March 886 in Wāsiṭ, Iraq), was a Persian astrologer, astronomer, and Islamic philosopher, thought to be the greatest astrologer of the Abbasid court in Baghdad. He was not a major innovator and as an astrologer he was not intellectually rigorous. Nevertheless, he wrote a number of practical manuals on astrology that profoundly influenced Muslim intellectual history and, through translations, that of western Europe and Byzantium.