Abu Ma'shar

Abu Mashar, author of "al-Madkhal al-Kabir ila Ilm al-Nujum" (The Great Introduction to the Science of the Stars). Al-Mas'udi mentions him in describing the planets and their forms at their rising. He relates that a group in India say that figures appear in the deserts when the Head-Bearer of the Ghoul rises, which the common people call a ghoul. ¹

Ibn al-Nadim names him Abu Mashar Jafar ibn Muhammad al-Balkhi. At first he was among the people of hadith, and he lived on the west side of Baghdad near the Khurasan Gate. ²

Ibn al-Nadim says he bore a grudge against al-Kindi, who sent someone to make him love the sciences of arithmetic and geometry; then Abu Mashar turned to judicial astrology. It is said he learned astrology after the age of forty-seven. ²

He was whipped by al-Musta'in for being right about a matter he had predicted before its time. He died past the age of a hundred, in Ramadan 272 AH according to the book. ²