Al-Ḥasan b. Mūsā al-Nawbakhtī on the Views of Astronomers and Astrologers

Abstract

Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. Mūsā al-Nawbakhtī (d. between 300/912 and 310/922) has in modern Islamic studies been primarily known as the author of a Kitāb Firaq al-shī‘a, in which he enumerated the early sects of the Shī‘a and traced the rightful imamate, from an Imāmī perspective, down to the eleventh Imam and the ghayba. Closer to his own lifetime, Ibn al-Nadīm described him as a Shī‘ī kalām theologian and philosopher and associated him with a group of translators of Greek philosophical works, Abū ‘Uthmān al-Dimashqī, Ishāq b. Ḥunayn (d. 298/910), Thābit b. Qurra (288/901), and others. He noted that al-Nawbakhtī was claimed by both the Mu‘tazila and the Shī‘a as one of theirs, but suggested that the claim of the Shī‘a was better founded. From among the books by al-Nawbakhtī, Ibn al-Nadīm named his Kitāb al-Arā’ wa l-diyānāt in first place, adding that it was left incomplete.¹ He and other bibliographical sources mention more than 40 titles of books by al-Nawbakhtī.² From the titles of his books and information provided by the Imāmī Shaykh al-Mufīd, it is evident that he upheld basic Mu‘tazilī theology on the attributes and justice of God, but in line with the general position of the Shī‘a, rejected the Mu‘tazilī doctrines of the divine Threat (wa‘īd) of eternal punishment for the unrepentant Muslim offender and his Intermediate Position (manzila bayn al-manzilatayn) between the believer and unbeliever.³