The City of Baghdad, a curious astrological election
The City of Baghdad,
a curious astrological election
By Jonathan Pearl
A cosmopolitan community of people from many lands living and working in peace. A center of agriculture, trade, crafts, learning and art. Urban planning. Public fountains, parks, clean streets and running water. Cooled rooms to escape from the blazing summer heat1. Sounds like a contemporary city with the benefits of modern civilization. This was Baghdad in the 8th century.
Baghdad was founded in 762 on July 31st. It is one of the few great cities of the globe where astrologers had a say in the timing of its first brick.
The city was built to establish a new and more suitable capital for the rising Islamic empire, and rapidly became the center of the powerful Moslem world. In a time when the most likely thing running through European city streets was sewage2, Baghdad was remarkably advanced. In addition to the amenities above, by 777 it even had its first school of astrology. This was founded by a Jewish scholar named Jacob ben Tarik and later headed by the profound Al-Kindi and then Abu Mashar, both leading astrologers of the day3.
Their predecessors were the astrologers who selected the chart for the new city. The head caliph Al-Mansur had asked his court astrologer Al-Naubakht the Persian, aided by the young Jewish Masha’allah, to recommend a time4. Al-Naubakht was also responsible for the plan of the grand capital, so he must have been quite powerful, akin to a chief of staff in today’s governments. Since Al-Mansur ruled the empire, he probably employed the most able astrologers around.
Unlike John Dee’s election for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, we don’t know the timeframe the two astrologers had available. Al-Mansur was a mover and a shaker, so he might have been willing to wait for a little while, but what does this mean in the 8th century? 3 months? 1 year? We don’t know (or I couldn’t find) exactly. He had risen to power a few years earlier in 754 and by means of an assassination of a key rival secured his leadership in 755, yet even in 762 was still threatened by rival factions and armies. The book “When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World,” based on Islamic histories of the time, simply says Al-Mansur decided to build the new capital in 7625. But this may be simply based on the established date of founding. When he built the new city on the site of a small village, we see consideration of many factors: available land (a small village meant he could build what he wished and grant his supporters the prime plots); trade and agriculture (the Tigris river fed all the aqueducts and canals, and the Euphrates was also not far off); religion (a grand mosque at the city’s center); and defenses and fortifications (round walls surrounding and space for the army)6. If the caliph was building walls, we can assume that he didn’t want to sit around exposed in the desert for too long. Yet a project like this wasn’t going to happen overnight – it took 100,000 paid construction workers – so perhaps while these were being assembled and plans drawn up there was some time. Let’s say the astrologers had a few or even several months to work with.
The chart is from the research of David Holden whose excellent article is available online7. He writes that the day of founding was recorded by the 11th century astrologer Al-Biruni. To make it through three centuries, even astrologically literate ones, is quite notable. We can even imagine the chart being discussed in Baghdad’s astrology school. According to Holden the chart shows Jupiter in the 1st house, but no cusp degrees are given so we don’t have an exact time. Holden puts Jupiter on the Ascendant at 2:40 pm LMT. It’s possible the time may be slightly different but this is close enough. Let’s look at the chart.
Even with Jupiter in Sagittarius in the 1st house, it’s an odd one. Many things jump out that are quite negative – and yet we know this time was chosen in advance! Jupiter is retrograde while the Mars opposing is direct. It seems that they are setting themselves up for some riches, yet not nearly as much as could be had with a direct Jupiter. Mars applying to oppose Jupiter makes Baghdad vulnerable to attack – this indeed happened a few times over the centuries to devastating effect. The status of the 10th house and thus the king is even worse. With Virgo on the MC, we look to Mercury which is also retrograde and conjunct the South node in Cancer in the 8th house. This is about as bad as it gets. It makes me wonder: did these two astrologers want to make sure the caliph didn’t get too powerful?
Perhaps some of you may be thinking – what if they didn’t think retrograde was that bad? After all isn’t retrograde some kind of plus in Indian astrology? No. While not much of the writings of Massa’allah have made it into English, a delightful and profound book by his student Abu Ali Al-Khayyat called The Judgments of Nativities has been translated into modern English by Holden. In Chapter 38, The General Way or Method of Judgment of the Twelve Houses of Heaven, a summary of the method, we find this advice: “But if you find the significators of any thing configured with the evil [planets], or retrograde, or combust, or in their own falls, viz. falling from their own exaltations and from the angles, or in their detriments, it signifies misfortune in the thing signified, and especially if cadent and posited in inauspicious houses, as we have said, they are also conjoined to the infortunes, or in square or opposition to them.”8 This was written in an age when students almost always upheld the doctrines of their teachers, so we can surmise that this position on retrograde was also that of Masha’allah. If we take this Chapter 38 to heart, it makes the king rather powerless and even perhaps decrepit.
Yet things aren’t as bad as first glance indicates. Mercury turns direct the next day, and Jupiter turns direct the day after that. So now we have a new question: if both Mercury and Jupiter would be direct so soon, why didn’t they wait? Surely if the caliph was choosing an auspicious day for the start of his capital city he would wait 2 more days!
There are several potential answers to this question. First of all, though I respect James Holden’s scholarship, is their some chance we have the wrong day for the chart? His article claims that the recorded day of 4 Jumada I 145 A.H. is equivalent to July 31st 761 in our calendar. I think we can give him credit for an accurate translation of their date into ours, so let’s set aside this consideration unless evidence surfaces from another source.
What about the information the two astrologers were working with? Could that have been off? It’s possible. Planetary tables definitely had errors. It was many centuries later that Europe had accurate planetary information, due mostly to the efforts of Tycho Brahe and the considerable royal patronage of the Danish king to build an observatory9. Yet out there in the clear desert sky, I’d like to think that the best two astrologers of the age could tell whether a planet was moving backward or forward.
So what are the strengths of this chart? We can go straight to the Sun in Leo on the 9th cusp. This tells us something of the priorities of the astrologers. Rather than power to the people (Sun in 1st) or even the more likely power to the king (Sun in 10th), they are putting the most dignified planet in the chart in the 9th house of wisdom and God.
There is even more to this Sun. It is close to Regulus. In fact the conjunction by longitude occurred on two days later on August 2nd at about 1:30 pm. So again we ask – why not wait?
Since the first brick was laid on Saturday, we might think that day of Saturn might be appropriate for the founding of a city. But since Saturn was considered so unfortunate in Arabic astrology I don’t see how this could have been seen as more important than a direct Mercury and Jupiter. It’s certainly possible that they wanted the Moon out of Scorpio, sign of her fall. Since the Moon is the general symbol for the people, a Moon in Libra would mean a people in peace. However by waiting just 3 more days they could have had a direct Mercury and Jupiter and Moon conjunct Jupiter in the 1st house, and Sun still quite close to Regulus by longitude.
Let’s go back to the Sun. It is close to Regulus by longitude, but even closer to parallel Regulus by declination. The moment of exact parallel (according to Solar Fire) is a mere 11 hours later. Recall that the conjunction by longitude took place much later, about 47 hours. Might they have given prominence to the Sun’s conjunction by declination over these other factors?
The one other possibility I can see is that a Sun at 10 Leo 47 is still in the terms of Venus, yet at 11 Leo it is in the terms of Saturn. Terms were widely employed in Greek and Arabic astrology so this is a maybe. Yet I don’t see how a Sun in a term could take precedence over retrograde states of two key planets.
While we are looking at parallels by declination, we see something interesting with the Moon. While a Moon in Libra in terms of Venus in the 11th house is fine enough, it is also quite close to a parallel to Sirius by declination. Ah ha! Both lights are making connections to two of the most prominent stars – not by longitude, but by declination.
I know this is a stretch. According to several contemporary authorities, there is no mention of declination in traditional texts. Conjunctions take place by longitude or latitude, they say, not declination. And yet here is this chart with a rather baffling retrograde Jupiter and Mercury, and a stunning connection by declination of both lights to Regulus and Sirius. Perhaps there is something to declination that didn’t require writing down, but simply looking up. The Arabs knew the stars. They invented the astrolabe, and much of their star nomenclature survives into English to the present day. Perhaps Al-Naubakht and Masha’allah just knew the motion of the Moon so well that when she was in late Libra she’d also be parallel to Sirius. And certainly it looks like they favored the Sun’s conjunction by declination over longitude – otherwise why not wait two or three more days and have it all?
Whether you decide this chart is an argument for declination in traditional astrology or not, we have to give accolades to two astrologers who put wisdom and God above all else in their election, even their own boss the caliph. Their spiritual perspective shines through this chart. Though Baghdad has been destroyed a few times, its heart has survived. Regulus precessing through the last degree of Leo (1945-2012) has brought tough times for the City of Peace. Regulus into Virgo in 2012 might mean a final end to this election, or another beginning.
Jonathan Pearl is an avid traditional astrologer in San Francisco, CA. For more please visit www.starpearls.com.
- Benson Brobrick, The Fated Sky. Simon & Schuster, 2005. pg 63. [↩]
- Ibid, pg 64. [↩]
- Ibid, pg 69. [↩]
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad [↩]
- Hugh Kennedy, When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World. Da Capo Press, 2005. pg 133 [↩]
- Ibid, pgs 134-6. [↩]
- http://cura.free.fr/xxv/25hold3.html [↩]
- Abu Ali Al-Khayyat, The Judgments of Nativities, translated from the Latin version of John of Seville by James H. Holden. American Federation of Astrologers, 1988. [↩]
- Brobrick, chapter 7. [↩]
