1848.] Ihn QotaybaJis Adah al KlitiU on Arabic Astronomy. 671 



Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury, they have this name, 

 because they move through the zodiac and mansions, like the sun and 

 moon, but then they return ; when you see one at the end of the zodiac 

 it returns to the beginning. They are also called konnas, for they con- 

 ceal themselves like " gazelles in their dens." 



The word nawo, helical setting of a mansion of the moon, (plur. 

 anwa,) is of frequent occurrence in Arabic authors, and several of them 

 have written monographies on the anwa, to which the changes of the 

 weather were ascribed, as with us to the quarters of the moon ; yet 

 this term seems to have escaped the diligence of Ideler, and its 

 meaning has baffled the learning of Richardson and Freytag; the 

 former explains it : " setting in the west (as a star) in the twilight, ano- 

 ther one rising in the east." A passage from Wa£wa£, which bears on 

 the meaning of this term, may therefore be useful. 



The mansions of the moon alternately watch each other. The term 

 watching is employed, because one indicates the rise of another, as if 

 one was waiting the setting of its fellow before it rises. The reason is 

 this. The mansions are divided into two sets (or halves) as we have 

 said, viz. the southern, which comprizes fourteen mansions, and the 

 northern, which comprizes the same number. When the first mansion 

 of the southern half rises, the first mansion of the northern sets. 

 The first mansion of the northern set is the shara^an, and the first 

 mansion of the southern set is the ghafr. When the shara^an rises 

 the ghafr sets, and so on until the simak rises, which is the last mansion 

 of the northern set, and which alternates with the Imt (fish) : the one 

 sets when the other rises the second morning. Rising and setting are 

 not to be taken in the usual meaning, or rising from the horizon ; for in 

 this sense, the mansions of the moon rise and set every twenty-four 

 hours. The meaning is this. When the sun approaches to a fixed 

 star or planet, he hides it and it is not visible to the eye of the observer ; 

 a star is therefore visible only at night and not at day time, and being 

 in occultation is as much as being not on the sky. The star remains 

 invisible until it is sufficiently distant from the sun ; it can first be seen 

 at dawn, for the light of the sun (not of the stars as the MSS. has it) 

 is then weak and does not overpower the light of the stars ; the star 

 of the rising mansion can therefore be seen in the east in the morning. 

 This is the meaning of the term "the rise of a mansion." Its watch- 



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