Whole Sign Houses in Arabic Astrology

In this excerpt from episode 295 of The Astrology Podcast academic scholar Ali A Olomi says that it seems that whole sign houses was the predominant system of house division used by Arabic-speaking astrologers from the early Islamicate period all the way through the 18th century.
This was a somewhat surprising observation since it seems like degree-based forms of house division (e.g. equal houses, Alcabitius, Placidus) became the dominant systems in the European astrological tradition from the 12th century onward, and whole sign houses were largely forgotten.
This was an interesting aside that occurred in episode 295 of the podcast, titled "Queen Buran, Astrologer in 9th Century Baghdad."
I wanted to include a clip from that episode here since Ali's views provide an interesting perspective on the ongoing research surrounding the history of house division in western astrology.
To listen to the full discussion in context, listen to episode 295 of The Astrology Podcast:
• Queen Buran, Astrologe...
This excerpt starts at about 24 minutes into that episode.
#TheAstrologyPodcast

[@noreenhusain7175]

as an arabic speaker and an astrology lover I am so excited for this video!!!

[@TheAstrologyPodcast]

Be sure to check out the full episode we did on Queen Buran, which this is an excerpt from, since I think you would love it!

[@healthylady3489]

me too.. I am sad that our culture treated Astrology as a sin , and all this great history was hidden from us.

[@kalabrisella8675]

Me too! 😍

[@wriimonmir]

which astrology you practice ...

[@nazifanukic8204]

I listened until he called them "buruj"...

[@torib796]

I LOOOVED this episode! This clip, especially! Absolute GOLD. I would LOVE to see more of Ali A Olomi on the podcast. I learned SO MUCH!

[@susanapreston7246]

At last!!! I've been needing to understand this for a long time

[@miriamborne2469]

Thank you for shedding more light on whole sign house via its history 👌💫💚

[@SusanHopkinson]

This is a fascinating discussion! Thanks for introducing me to Ali 🙏🏻

[@ren4893]

OMG so excited for this series just because it finally allows me to study astrology in Islamic tradition!

[@ruygranja]

This is one of the best segments on The Astrology Podcast, ever! Thank You Chris Brennan for giving us such a huge base of knowledge. We should support you more!!!!

[@MagnificentHealingCreations]

Ali 😍 Awesome conversation, thank you!

[@kelseycaitlin]

I love these little clips 🤗

[@niacohen4778]

Although this is an excerpt from the Greatest EPISODE The Astrology Podcast ever release (Queen Buran, God! That was the BESTEST of ALL shows, magical, enchanting, mystical) my Venus in 9th in Taurus still devoured this 15 minutes talk. Big Shoutout to Chris for feeding the hungry hypos that we are 🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾

[@astrosuse7724]

Haha I thought the same thing! Best episode ever!!

[@astroflyinsights]

Agreed! Shout-out to the Virgo risings too 😊

[@sacredsortilege]

This was so great and informative! Now I'm off to watch the full episode with Ali.

[@mysticrosetarot888]

I would love to see you both collaborate on more episodes. Your energies connect very well! I’m curious about both of your charts. I feel there are some similar placements. 🌙✨

[@herkimerblue3772]

It's great to hear this viewpoint, and very important I think.

[@Alusnovalotus]

Most ancient knowledge arrived in Europe from Arabic translations. More so after the fall of the Byzantine empire. Luckily, more ancient texts fell into Arabic scholars’ hands and were preserved than to Latin crusaders’ who burned them as heresy. The west owes a huge debt to Arabic scholarship than they give credit for.

[@tosan3117]

Interestingly, the chart for Ali Ibn Taleb, had his sun in the 12th house written with the Persian word "Aftab", instead of the Arabic word "Shams". More curiously, in the 11th house there was the word "Ormazd" which is the Middle Persian (Sasanid period) term for the Avestan term Ahura-Mazda (the Zoroastrian God). I assume it meant for Jupiter here since Jupiter is called Hormoz (another pronunciation for Ormazd) in Persian.

[@EyeOfTheVeda]

Ali is such a genius, I hope you have him on again sometime. Its nice to know that the Arabic speaking astrologers were also using whole sign houses like the Vedic tradition and the older European traditions. I think one reason why it changed, along with the ones he gave, is that they lost divisional charts at some point in the european traditions. And so with the loss of divisional charts, they may have needed some reason why one twin was born with a different fate than another born only minutes or seconds later. And the degree based house cusps could account for that. But in my opinion it is really the divisional charts where we account for these things.

[@reyesroma]

I loved the entire episode

[@tosan3117]

I suggest a more proper term for the "Arabic Astrology" to be "Perso-Arabic Astrology" since it was a joint contribution between Arab and Persian astrologers although most surviving texts are in Arabic since Arabic was the scholarly language of the region in that period after the fall of the Sassanid Empire.

[@grammasgardenofideas5081]

Fascinating ASTRO history. Ty

[@BlacksParson]

Always good stuff.

[@anjolichadha4669]

Great episode!

[@alexandruamp14]

Wauw, so intresting, and so important how to get the context when translating 🥰🥰

[@ricardogouvea3826]

The Whole Sign are the most accurate, I use even on lots that depend on house cuspid.

[@faithfulone6347]

Such a lovely voice!

[@ewadsworth]

Omg another! 🎁💝💎🙌🏾

[@ewadsworth]

Thank you! Love it!

[@ΔήμοςΜετεώρων]

Is this the astrology with the 'weapons' instead the one with the signs? It would also be interesting to hear something about the Tibeto-Mongolian and the Chinese Astrology. Many thanks!

[@mscorrell]

Lal Kitab, famously written in Urdu, may have had an Arabic or Persian influence?

[@TurtleMarcus]

Have you done an episode on asteroid astrology? For example: on AstroDienst, Chiron is included in the standard chart, but Ceres is not. But in the American Ephemeris Trans-Century Edition, Ceres is "elevated" to the main table together with the other planets with daily positions, but Chiron is relegated to the bottom of the page with only monthly positions (together with Pallas, Juno, Vesta and Eris, interestingly enough). Basically: how should we approach these dwarf planets and asteroids? And how did astrologers deal with this in the 1800's when Ceres, Pallas etc. was discovered? I would love to explore Ceres and Eris more, but I'm afraid I'm not well-versed enough in conventional astrology to start dealing with such a niche topic. Perhaps the classic four asteroids are so "small" that their impact is negligible? And perhaps the orbits of Eris, Haumea and Makemake are so long that they are simply not useful for natal astrology? EDIT: Just saw that this was the topic of episode 242 of the podcast. Looking forward to listening it!

[@donaldwhitney6302]

Very interesting

[@Alusnovalotus]

Hey Chris, is there a site or a book that accurately teaches the formulas & calculations for the lots for both day AND night charts?

[@TheAstrologyPodcast]

There is a chapter in my book that gives many of the early ones.

[@Alusnovalotus]

@@TheAstrologyPodcast Awesome. I'm Still on the Chapter on decans and bounds, so I'll get to that chapter soon too. Thanks!

[@ixiallahuakbar]

Assalamualaikum MR

[@newmoonsyzygy]

I prefer whole sign to placidus.

[@fenugreekqueen6805]

about 5H Mars Saturn comment,but his children died (tragically)after him,so he didn't live through all of that so how is that relevant in his chart?

[@eduardodadourian8866]

so, if you want to use the solar revolution technique you´ll need placidus? But to read a natal chart whole sign houses?

[@TheAstrologyPodcast]

How Abu Ma'shar dealt with solar returns was discussed in more detail in episode 218 with Ben Dykes: kzbin.info/www/bejne/r4achXltr8qEi9E

[@bcom11]

wow this is huge.

[@AlexJohnson-rk5qe]

Yes!

[@khizarabbaskhanniazi5606]

What is the name of that person ❓❓

[@vanessastefanova]

😂 The novelty of listening to a non western astrologer drop foreign words and momentarily being confused.

[@furancis]

Yaaaaas.

[@lailagillani]

Ali ibne Abu Talib has Sun in the 11th house in Taurus?? No way! Everything about Ali is Scorpio-ish, he must have had been Scorpio.

[@tosan3117]

His Sun was in the 12th house of Gemeni. The sun is written in Persian "Aftab". He had Mars and Saturn in Scorpio, moon in Cancer, Mercury and Jupiter (again in Persian Ormazd) in the 11th.

[@lailagillani]

@@tosan3117 a Gemini? Even worse.