Treatise on the Shira Yamaniyya (and other astrological treatises). Ibn Abi al-Shukr al-Maghribi. Middle East, incl. Arabian Gulf: History, Travels, Falconry and Horses

8vo (128 x 200 mm). 14 ff. Ottoman Turkish manuscript on polished paper with Western "JC" watermark. Black naskh script with important words picked out in red. Later 19th century marbled wrappers. Ottoman Turkish astrological manuscript drawing in part on the "Treatise on the Shira Yamaniyya" (Sirius) of Ibn Abi al-Shukr al-Maghribi, a 13th-century Andalusian scholar active in Cairo who integrated Ptolemaic astronomy into Islamic astrology. Al-Shukr was attached to the Ayyubid court and later worked in scholarly circles that linked Egypt and Syria. He was one of the principal astronomers of his generation and is remembered both for his technical works on planetary models and for astrological treatises that combined observation with judicial prognostication. - The present text opens with a treatment of fixed stars, with particular attention to Sirius, and sections on eclipses, followed by a distinctive twelve-year animal cycle (ox through pig) giving annual predictions of war, famine, prosperity, plague, earthquakes, and human temperament. While Arabic witnesses of Al-Shukr s "Ahkam al-Nujum" do not usually include the animal cycle, this Ottoman version is a composite, combining a section from the classical text with additional prognostic material of Central Asian origin. - Ibn Abi al-Shukr s scientific importance also derives from his collaboration with the Persian polymath Nasir al-Din al-Tusi at the Maragha observatory in the mid-13th century, where both men contributed to the refinement of astronomical tables and planetary models that would shape later Islamic and, ultimately, European astronomy. His astrological writings, however, ensured his reputation beyond the circle of mathematical astronomy, since they continued to circulate in both Arabic and Ottoman Turkish manuscripts as practical guides for eclipses, conjunctions, and stellar influences. - The manuscript exemplifies the adaptation of medieval Arabic astrology within late Ottoman scholarly culture, when astral sciences continued to serve medical, political, and personal functions. - Very well preserved with text clear, rubrication intact, light marginal soiling. Wrappers slightly worn. - Cf. GAL S I, 868, 12.