northwestern Europe. He clearly means red-skinned men, as in every one of the other
cases in which he identifies the denizens of the various regions of the world by their
skin color. Could it be that he was repeating reports of contact between the Viking
Rus (who were in the Volga basin and Byzantium in his day) and the Amerindians?
In paragraph 242, Al-Biruni returns to astronomy to pin down with what
degree a given star will culminate, rise, or set. In paragraphs 245–48 he addresses the
houses of the horoscope, using equal houses from the ascendant. Next he discusses the
astronomy of the anniversary on the macrocosmic level as a “Revolution of Years of
the World” in medieval parlance (Aries ingress in modern) and on the microcosmic
level as a solar return for an individual. Paragraph 250 deals with the Saturn-Jupiter
conjunctions. Lunar motion follows, with a discussion of the phases of the Moon fol-
lowed by a presentation on eclipses and the problem of parallax.
Next Al-Biruni switches to the problems of chronology, showing that the
astrologer of his day was called upon to regulate the calendar and to understand how
the calendar of his nation related to those of other nations who used different systems
of chronology. He discusses leap years, solar and lunar years, intercalation, and the
religious festivals of various peoples of the Middle and Far East, including the Indians
and Sogdian Magi. There follows a description of the astrolabe and its use in astrono-
my, desert navigation, and trigonometrical measurements.
After the astrolabe, Al-Biruni returns to the subject of astrology, discussing
the zodiacal signs and their correspondence to directions of the compass, professions,
character, appearance, diseases, crops, and animals. Next he shows the relation of the
signs to each other, the year, and the triplicities. He then expounds on the planets
with their various correspondences. Some of his correspondences seem a bit beside
the point or of little importance; for instance, he lists pimples as a Cancer “disease.”
Paragraph 348 presents us with a surprise, stating that the planets have a tendency to
take on the gender of the sign they are in. This seems to mean that even male planets
become effeminate in female signs! He discusses the Years of the Planets table found
so frequently in medieval texts and consisting of Least, Mean, Great, and Greatest
Years (used in predicting longevity). He confesses that he doubts that people ever
lived as long as the Greatest Years (e.g., the Sun’s Greatest Year is 1,461 years). He
clearly does not know how to use the Greatest Years of the Planets. He then launches
into the dignities and debilities of the planets, their friendships and enmities, and the
halves of signs, decans, paranatellon, terms, ninths (nawamsas), and twelfths
(dwadasamsas). He gives characteristics of individual degrees. Correspondences of
the houses follow in natal and horary figures. The Arabic parts are discussed in para-
graphs 475–80. The subject of application and separation is then addressed. He fol-
lows with more on dignities.
The vexed question of the oriental/occidental positions of the planets (i.e.,
whether they are in the left or right hemisphere of a horoscope) and the effect this has
on their influences is the subject of paragraphs 481–86. The orientality or occidentali-
ty of the planets is found obscurely in Dorotheus’s Pentateuch(first century C.E.) and
gets a fuller and thoroughly problematical treatment in Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos(second
century C.E.). Al-Biruni’s treatment is based on Al-Kindi’s. It is systematic, ultimately
THEASTROLOGYBOOK [17]
Al-Biruni