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Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi

Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi

787 CE886 CE · Balkh

Abu Ma‘shar al-Balkhi, Latinized as Albumasar (also Albusar, Albuxar, Albumazar; full name Abū Maʿshar Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar al-Balkhī ابومَعْشَر جعفر بن محمد بن عمر بلخی; 10 August 787 – 9 March 886, AH 171–272), was an early Persian Muslim astrologer, thought to be the greatest astrologer of the Abbasid court in Baghdad. While he was not a major innovator, his practical manuals for training astrologers profoundly influenced Muslim intellectual history and, through translations, that of western Europe and Byzantium.

Adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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Balkh

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About Balkh

Balkh (ancient Bactra), in northern Afghanistan in the historic region of Khurasan, was one of the great cities of the pre-modern Islamic east, an early centre of Hanafi law and Sufism known as 'the mother of cities.' The family of Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 1273) came from the Balkh region before migrating west, and the early Qur'an commentator Muqatil ibn Sulayman (d. 767) took his nisba al-Balkhi.

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