"Kitab al-Iktiyarat 'ala l-buyut al-itnai 'asar" by Sahl ibn Bisr al-Isra'ili with its Latin translation "De Electionibus." Edited and translated, with introduction, annotations and glossaries

Sahl ibn Bisr's Kitab al-Iktiyarat 'ala l-buyut al-itnai 'asar represents one of the few Arabic astrological works ever to have been edited. The topics discussed are, as the title suggests allotted to the appropriate "house" or chapter according to the scope of the twelve celestial houses. The edition is based on three Arabic manuscripts and twelve Latin, as well as the sixteenth century printed edition by Nicolaus Pruckner, entitled Zahelis de Electionibus Liber. The Introduction relates the little that is. known about the author and the state of research so far in this field. Two tables illustrate firstly, the extensive use made by Sahl of the fifth book of Dorotheus Sidonius in writing this work and secondly, the equally extensive use made two centuries later by Ali ibn Abi r-Rijal of Sahl's work in writing his tract on elections in his Al-Kitab al-Bari bi akkam an-nujum. The description of the manuscripts also includes their mutual relationship and their grammatical and orthographical peculiarities. A textus mixtus could not be avoided as none of the manuscripts is close enough to the archetype to provide a consistently reliable reading. The Arabic and Latin texts and the English translation are followed by the Annotations in which the astrological / astronomical terminology is explained and the corresponding passages in Dorotheus and / or Abenragel are compared. From this comparison with the former it can be seen how Sahl's translation of his Dorothean passages is probably not based on 'Umar ibn al-Farrukan at-Tabari's translation nor on the Pahlavi version(s) but on a different source, perhaps even the Greek original. This comparison also throws some new light on Pingree's edition of 'Umar's translation and highlights some mis-translations, misunderstandings and scribal errors, which were indeed to be expected after Kunitzsch's review. The Glossaries are followed by two Appendices which include the additional sections from two Latin manuscripts (J and I), too long to be included in the apparatus criticus. Appendix I reproduces the list of contents at the beginning of the Krakow manuscript (J) and Appendix II the sections from the Amplonianus 363 (I) which do not belong to this work at all