Talk:Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi

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A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on March 9, 2019 and March 9, 2024.

Dates are unclear[edit]

BC/BCE & AD/CE modifiers needed to clarify exactly WHEN this fellow lived and died.Westernesse (talk) 21:42, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"BCE"? Islamic astrology? --dab (𒁳) 09:33, 17 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

removed claim of heliocentrism[edit]

Not supported by the source given.--Knight1993 (talk) 17:00, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

the source was misrepresented.[1] Nobody ever claimed that Abu Maʿshar "developed" heliocentrism. The item is properly represented here, it's about speculation that Seleucus of Seleucia might have developed heliocentrism, and that this idea might have survived into the 9th century in Arabic translation. Agree it's not relevant here. --dab (𒁳) 09:38, 17 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"descent"[edit]

The sources cited all agree that Abu Mashar had a "strong sense of the intellectual primacy of Iran", i.e. he was pro-Sassanian and opposed to the Arab supremacism imposed by the Islamic conquest. "Persian nationalism" here means pro-Sassanian, pro-Iranian, anti-Arab. It does not mean that his ancestors were from Fars, or that he was "Persian" (as opposed to generic Iranian) by ancestry or descent. Balkh was a multi-ethnic cosmopolitan city, and as far as I can tell our sources are silent on Abu Mashar ethnic heritage.

in short, please report what your source actually states. --dab (𒁳) 20:36, 18 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 6 May 2022[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 17:29, 13 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Abu Ma'shar → Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi – 'Abu Ma'shar' is a common Arabic name. This figure is distinguished by the fact he is also referred by his nisba 'al-Balkhi'. See for example Islamica [2] HistoryofIran (talk) 16:44, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Support - I think it should be clear that our subject (the famous astrologer) is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for Abu Ma'shar (there's also Abu Ma'shar Najih al-Sindi al-Madani, but this is a very minor figure in comparison), and Abu Ma'shar is also the most WP:CONCISE form, which in most cases would mean that we should name the article that way. However, there is a clause in the last cited guideline which states that exceptions exist for biographical articles. For example, neither a given name nor a family name is usually omitted or abbreviated for concision. According to WP:Naming conventions (people), biographical articles should generally have the form <First name> <Last name>, though various exceptions exist. I think that in medieval Arabic names, this general guideline is far too often ignored: Arabic names often consist of four or more parts rather than two, which makes them generally too long for use in article titles. But this does not mean that we should reduce them to one part only (for clarity, "Abu Ma'shar" is one such part, a so-called kunya), at least not in most cases. I think that wherever general purpose sources (not encyclopedias) commonly provide a second part to disambiguate the name, even if only at first mention, we should have that part in our article title. So, for example, figures like Muhammad and Abu Bakr are almost without exception introduced by sources as such, without mention of any other part of their name. They are so famous by this one name that only a very few people even know the other parts of their names (Muhammad ibn Abd Allah, Abu Bakr Abd Allah ibn Abi Quhafa). Even though our famous astrologer is often simply called Abu Ma'shar and well-known as such (see Google Scholar [3]), he is also quite commonly introduced as Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi (Google Scholar [4]). It's not the most concise form, but just like we have Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart not simply Mozart, or Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky not simply Tchaikovsky, we should have Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi not simply Abu Ma'shar. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 21:13, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

titles of Latin and Greek translations[edit]

Titles of the works in the section "Latin and Greek translations" are all mixed up.

De magnis coniunctionibus is not the translation of the Great Introduction (Kitāb al‐mudkhal al‐kabīr), besides it is John of Seville's work, not Hermann's. Hermann of Carinthia's translation of Kitāb al‐mudkhal al‐kabīr is called Introductorium in Astronomiam whereas John of Seville's translation of the same work is Liber introductorius ad scientiam iudiciorum.

(Hermann's translation Introductorium in astronomiam was first printed by Erhard Ratdolt in Augsburg in 1489.)

See the The Great Introduction to Astrology by Abū Maʿšar by Burnett&Yamamoto (2019) and Liber astrologiae (Abū Maʿshar Treatise) (2023). Cardeña2 (talk) 10:53, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]