Included is a short treatise on how to read a horoscope, based on birth data
that seems to fit October 14, 1160, roughly around 10 P.M., at Narbonne, France.
Other topics cover the determination of the hyleg; the rule of not reading the horo-
scope before the native has reached age four; directing the hyleg to crisis times; and
general success and mental quality and observations about both parents.
The Treatise of the Astrolabe(Kli Ha’Ne’hoshet) was first edited and published
by H. Edelmann in 1845. It was later republished by Meir Ben Itzhak in 1971. The
book contains an astronomy treatise, essential for astrological chart calculation. It
holds 36 chapters, describing the use of the astrolabe in computing the length of day
and night; the diurnal and nocturnal uneven hours; the ecliptical longitude and lati-
tude position of the Sun and the planets; the culminating degree; the rising and set-
ting according to the clime; finding the geographical latitude of a city; whether the
planet is direct or retrograde; the disappearance and appearance of the Moon; the
Lunar Mansions; computation of the 12 houses of the horoscope; how to determine
the astrological aspects; fixed stars of the first and the second magnitudes, including
their names and description and computing their precession rate in the tropical zodi-
ac; computing the height of any tall or short or deep object; and what to do when
there is no table for the exact geographical latitude or when the astrolabe is not suffi-
ciently accurate.
Muhammad bin Almatani’s Explanations for the Astronomical Tables of Muham-
mad al-Khwarizmi(Ta’amei Lu’hot al-Khwarizmi) is a translation from Arabic into
Hebrew and includes an introduction by Ibn Ezra. This version was edited and trans-
lated into English by Baruch Rephael Goldstein in 1967. The book contains an
account of the introduction of Hindu astronomical calculations into Islam; a compari-
son of the calculations to Ptolemy’s Almagest;and a discussion of the precession error
found in older texts in determining the position of the fixed stars and the constella-
tions. The text is interspersed with Ibn Ezra’s additional explanations.
In A Book by Mashallah on the Eclipses of the Sun and the Moon(1902), Ibn Ezra
provides an Arabic-to-Hebrew translation. It contains a discussion of how the effect of
the planets are relative to the clime; a sign classification by elements and by gender, etc.
and their effect on the weather; a judgment of the weather and world affairs from the
Aries ingress and from total or partial eclipses and from eclipses of the Sun and the Moon;
and coverage of the great conjunction of Jupiter-Saturn, the medium conjunction of
Mars-Saturn, and the small conjunction of Mars-Jupiter, and their effect in the world.
Unpublished Books
Naftali Ben Menahem reports on Rabbi Moshe Taku who wrote a book, Ktav
Tamim,about Ibn Ezra 50 years after his death, in which he mentions a book by Ibn Ezra
called The Book of Life(Sefer ha-Haim). This book might be the same as Kohot Shnot ha-
Adam,an autobiography whose possible existence was reported by David Kahanah.
Translations and Publications
Ibn Ezra’s astrological writings were very popular, as evidenced by the numer-
ous translations, manuscript copies, and printings that were made over the centuries.
THEASTROLOGYBOOK [353]
Ibn Ezra, Avraham