The planets' reign and the world's cycles

According to al-Masudi, the astronomers spoke about the end of the world, its decline, and its return anew. They said that the sultan of this time belongs to Virgo (al-sunbula), which lasts seven thousand years, the age of this human world, and that Jupiter helped it in its governance. ²

Their account of the end of the world is that the governing planet completes its full distance by its powers many times, and when it completes it, annihilation and decay fall. When the planets complete their courses and revolutions, the governance returns to the first of them, and the persons and forms of every world return with the gathering of the matter, and thus the affair of the world proceeds forever. ²

They claimed that the sultanate of Aries lasts twelve thousand years, and the sultanate of Taurus eleven thousand years. ²