Ibn Hibint?

(fl, Iraq, ca 950)

astrology.

Ibn Hibint? lived at the time of the first Buwayhid rulers of Baghdad, Ahmad ibn Buwayh (946–949) and ?A??d al-Dawla (949–982). The only work by which he is known is his vast compilation of astrological and astronomical lore entitled Kit?b al-mughn? fi’l-nuj?m of which the second section only is preserved in a manuscript at Munich (MS Arab 852). The importance of this work lies entirely in the many quotations that it contains from earlier authorities, including Ptolemy (the Planetary Hypotheses,) Dorotheus of Sidon, al-Khw?rizm?, and Kanaka. One of the most interesting sections is that in which Ibn Hibint? discusses M?sh?’all?h’s Fi ’l-qir?n?t wa ’l-ady?n wa ’l-milal, to which he adds his own astrological interpretations of the Buwayhids’ advent to power, at one point surreptitiously criticizing them, at another openly justifying their regin. Ibm Hibint?’s date and location depend on these passages; there is little else in the manuscript that can be attributed to him as the original author.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ibn Hibeinta?’s book was known to Haj?jji?—Lexicon bibloggraphicum et encyclopaedicm, G. Flügel, ed., 7 vols. (Lyipzig, 1835–1858), V, 654—but is otherwisse little noticed in the Arabic bibliographic and biographic tradition. The Munich MS was used by C. A. Nallino in his ed. of al—Batt?ni’s Opus astronmicum, I (Milan, 1899), passim; and the extract from M?sh? all?h has been edited by E. S. Kennedy and D. Pingree, The Astrological Histroy of M?sh?’all?h (Cambridge, Mass., 1971).

David Pingree