EṢFAHĀNĪ,ʿABD-AL-ḤASAN (?) b. Aḥmad b. ʿAlī b. Ḥasan, author of the Ketāb al-bolhān on astrology, magic, divination, and demonology, which he composed around 1400 for Ḥosayn b. Aḥmad b. Moḥammad Erbelī. His autograph copy containing numerous fascinating illustrations is preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.
Bibliography:
Sezgin, GAS VII, pp. 24-25.
S. Carboni, Il Kitab al-bulhan di Oxford, Turin, 1988. W. Gundel, Dekane und Dekansternbilder, Glükstadt and Hamburg, 1936, pl. 32a; cf. L. Aurigemma, Le signe zodiacal du Scorpion dans les traditions occidentales de l’antiquité gréco-latine à la Renaissance, Paris and the Hague, 1976, pls. ii-iv.
M. Ullmann, Die Natur-und Geheimwissenschaften im Islam, Leiden, 1972, pp. 344-45.
(David Pingree)
Originally Published: December 15, 1998
Last Updated: January 19, 2012
This article is available in print.
Vol. VIII, Fasc. 6, p. 583
