Alchabitius

Abu al-Saqr Abd al-Aziz ibn Uthman ibn Ali al-Qabisi, generally known as Al-Qabisi, (Latinised as Alchabitius or Alcabitius), and sometimes known as Alchabiz, Abdelazys, Abdilaziz (Arabic: 'Abd al-Azîz, عبدالعزيز القبيصي), (died 967) was a Muslim astrologer, astronomer, and mathematician.

ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿUthmān al-Qabīṣī was a prominent astrologer of the 10th century. On the basis of a reference in the Fihrist, he is generally regarded as a contemporary of Ibn al-Nadim. He was probably born in al-Qabīṣ, a place-name associated with two locations in Iraq, one near Mosul and another near Samarra. He may have been of Persian descent.

His principal surviving work is al-Madkhal ilā ṣināʿat aḥkām al-nujūm (“Introduction to the Craft of the Judgments of the Stars”), which was dedicated to Sayf al-Dawla, the Hamdanid ruler of Aleppo. The work was translated into Latin by John of Seville in 1144, and a French translation, probably based on the Latin version, was produced by Pèlerin de Prusse in 1362. Alchabitius later went to Aleppo where he worked for and lived in the palace of Sayf al-Dawla. He died in 967.

Work Al-Qabisi is best known for his treatise on judicial astrology, Introduction to the Art of Judgments of the Stars. and survives in at least twenty-five Arabic manuscripts, and over two hundred manuscripts of its Latin translation, with twelve printed editions of the Latin work between 1473 and 1521. In 1512 it was published by Melchiorre Sessa in Venice. who commented his astrological works.

Other works include: Risala fi al-ab'âd wa-'l-ajrâm (A treatise on distances and bodies); Kitāb fi ithbāt ṣinā’at Aḥkām al-nujūm (On Confirming the Art of Astrology); Hal al-Zîjat (Solving astronomical tables); Risāla fī imtiḥān al-munajjimīn (A treatise for the examination of astrologers) Shukūk al-Majisṭī (Doubts on the Almagest); The belief in the power of stars dated back to Alexandrinian sect of iatromathematicians and the more ancient cult of Hermes Trismegistos.