History of Astrology and Astronomy in Islamic Medicine

Abstract

Living in the desert with an open space and a clear night sky, the Arabs had always depended on the stars to guide them on their travels, to determine the progression of time and the changes of seasons and weather, which were important for their agricultural and trading needs. These dependencies on the stars, however, did not stop at these physical phenomena only, but extended also into divination such as astrology and geomancy, which continued even after the coming of Isl?m. Although Isl?m clearly rejects astrology, this paper attempts to show that astrology–which somehow includes also some knowledge of astronomy, since during the medieval period, a practicing astrologer is also a skillful astronomer–continued to be practiced widely and openly by the Muslims, in the market place, on ships, at deathbeds and even in the caliph’s court. This paper, however, will only touch one area where astrology seems to have some good reputation, which is in the field of medicine. Although astrology had its own opponents, especially among the religious scholars, it was welcomed in the caliph’s court and was practiced openly by some of the physicians. We will delineate how and to what extent astrology and astronomy contributed into their field of medicine. The methodology of the paper is a literature review in the history of astrology and astronomy in the Islamic civilization.