Arabic Lunar Mansion Reading

The manazil al-qamar divide the path of the moon into twenty eight houses, each a station the moon passes through in turn over its sidereal circuit. A reading finds the house the moon stood in at birth and reads its character, distinct from the nakshatra placement Vedic astrology already gives on that report item's own page.

History

The lunar mansions are attested in pre-Islamic Arabian star lore, where they served a practical role in reckoning the seasons and predicting weather before their later astrological elaboration. They were carried into Islamic astrology and astral magic in the medieval period, most influentially through the Picatrix, the Arabic text on astrological magic that also carries the Behenian fixed star tradition this atlas's Fixed Stars report item describes, and reached Latin Europe through the same broad current of Arabic to Latin translation.

The manazil al-qamar is one of three lunar zodiacs of twenty seven or twenty eight stations that different traditions independently developed to track the moon's own faster circuit rather than the sun's year: the Chinese xiu and the Indian nakshatras are the other two, each with its own station names and its own history, and this atlas keeps its three lunar mansion report items separate rather than treating the resemblance between them as evidence of one shared origin.

A Sample Of The Twenty Eight Mansions

Al Sharatain, the first mansion, opens the cycle; Al Thurayya, named for the Pleiades star cluster, and Al Dabaran, named for the bright star Aldebaran, are among the mansions that, like several others in the twenty eight, take their name directly from a fixed star or star cluster the moon passes near on that stretch of its path.

How A Reading Is Constructed

A reading finds which of the twenty eight mansions the moon occupied at the moment of birth and names the character the tradition attaches to that station, a signal read independently of, and distinct from, the Vedic nakshatra the same birth moment falls under on the Vedic Astrology page, since the two systems divide the moon's path by separate historical traditions rather than sharing one station scheme.

Where To Read More

• Al SharatainSunAl Sharatain, the first of the twenty eight mansions.
• Al ThurayyaMarsAl Thurayya, named for the Pleiades star cluster.
• Al DabaranMercuryAl Dabaran, named for the bright star Aldebaran.