thumb|Opus ad scrutanda stellarum magisteria isagogicum, Latin translation from 1521
Abu al-Saqr Abd al-Aziz ibn Uthman ibn Ali al-Qabisi, generally known as Al-Qabisi, (Latinised as Alchabitius or Alcabitius), and sometimes known as Alchabiz, Abdelazys, Abdilaziz (Arabic: 'Abd al-Azîz, عبدالعزيز القبيصي), (died 967) was a Arab Muslim astrologer, astronomer, and mathematician.
Life
Originally from Qabisa in Iraq, Alchabitius later went to Aleppo where he worked for and lived in the palace of Sayf al-Dawla. He died in 967.
Work
Al-Qabisi is best known for his treatise on judicial astrology, Introduction to the Art of Judgments of the Stars. and survives in at least twenty-five Arabic manuscripts, and over two hundred manuscripts of its Latin translation, with twelve printed editions of the Latin work between 1473 and 1521. In 1512 it was published by Melchiorre Sessa in Venice. who commented his astrological works.
Other works include:
- Risala fi al-ab'âd wa-'l-ajrâm (A treatise on distances and bodies);
- Kitāb fi ithbāt ṣinā’at Aḥkām al-nujūm (On Confirming the Art of Astrology);
- Hal al-Zîjat (Solving astronomical tables);
- Risāla fī imtiḥān al-munajjimīn (A treatise for the examination of astrologers)
- Shukūk al-Majisṭī (Doubts on the Almagest);
The belief in the power of stars dated back to Alexandrinian sect of iatromathematicians and the more ancient cult of Hermes Trismegistos.