Māshāʼallāh

Māshāʼallāh Ibn Atharī, active in Baghdad, is the earliest known Jewish astrologer of the Islamic world. His Hebrew name was either Manasseh or Misha, and in one manuscript, he is called by the Persian name Yazdān Khwāst. Māshāʼallāh was decisive in bringing Sasanian (Persian) and Pahlavi-language material into the courts of the Abbasid caliphs in Baghdad. Arabic book lists preserve the titles of many of his works, and his writings were also translated into Latin. These include a commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, a work on the astrolabe, and works on astrology, the last of which were popular among Abbasid elites.