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- [00:00]
A
Chris. Hey, my name is Chris Brennan, and you're listening to the Astrology podcast. Joining me today is Professor Tunsh Shin, and we're gonna be talking about his new book, Forgotten Astrologers, Science and Authority in the Ottoman Empire, 1450-1600, which focuses on especially astrologers in the Ottoman court in the 15th and 16th centuries. So, hey, tune, thanks for joining me today. I appreciate it.
- [00:26]
B
Thank you, Chris, for having me. It's my pleasure.
- [00:29]
A
Yeah, I just finished. I've been reading your book slowly, but then I kind of timed it so that I would finish reading it last night. And I absolutely loved this book. It was incredibly fascinating and detailed and yet still accessible, where you really gave a really vivid picture of the lives and the interactions of these astrologers and the sort of social dynamics, especially that were happening in the Ottoman court at the highest levels of power in the 15th and 16th centuries. So, first off, I just want to thank you and congratulate you for publishing this.
- [01:06]
B
Well, thank you so much. It's so great to hear these from you. Really appreciate that.
- [01:12]
A
Yeah. So you are a professor of especially Ottoman history, and this is actually like a published version of your PhD dissertation from 2016, right?
- [01:23]
B
That's correct. That's correct. But I had to change its framework, although it relied upon the sources I used during my dissertation research in terms.
- [01:36]
A
Of just streamlining it to make it more accessible.
- [01:41]
B
That's just one aspect. Yes. I mean, I tried to make it more accessible to a more general readership, but also the framework I use in this book, that is the expertise, is something I brought up lately because I didn't really use that kind of framework in my dissertation. And I had some different arguments that I made in the book, which are not available in the dissertation. But I'll be happy to talk more about that.
- [02:14]
A
Okay, brilliant. Yeah, that makes sense, because you've had, like, 10 years to think about it additionally since you completed that. So where should we start in terms of framing this? This is my first episode, talking in particular about. I've done a number of episodes about astrology in the earlier medieval period and some of the earlier Arabic works, especially of the 8th and 9th century, that often gets so much attention and coverage in terms of the history of astrology or history of science. But one of the things that you really tried to do in this book was reframe the notion that there was just this earlier golden age in. In terms of that, and then everything was a decline after that, and you showed that astrology especially was still very vibrant and Impactful in terms of things during the 15th and 16th centuries.
- [03:09]
B
That's correct. I mean, the decline narrative is still a dominant one both in academic circles as well as among the lay readers. And by decline there is generally reference to the modern scientific, exact scientific understanding of things. Astrology, unfortunately has never been treated as important scientific category by the historians of science in both the classical times as well as the post classical times, which also include the Ottoman world in particular. So I also wanted to engage with that kind of discussion whether we can speak about the flourishing of sciences in the so called post classical, post 10th, 11th, 12th century Islamic world, including the Ottomans.
- [04:08]
A
Okay, that makes sense. One of the things that you emphasized especially, or that came up repeatedly was even though there had been a divergence between astronomy and astrology centuries earlier, was still a lot of overlap during this time. And it seemed like the work of the astrologers and their desire for predictive accuracy was part of what was still driving, at least in their minds, a desire for improved astronomical observations and calculations.
- [04:40]
B
That's right. Although I have some mixed feelings about whether back in the medieval times or even ancient world, astrology and astronomy were we viewed as the the same thing. I think the practitioners oftentimes had a clear understanding of how astrology was different than astronomy, even though they didn't really use the conceptual tools to demarcate these, these two disciplines or spheres of knowledge. I mean, of course the distinction between astronomy, astrology and astronomy became much more crystallized from the 18th or 19th century onwards. But still, I think in the medieval and early modern times, the practitioners themselves were very much aware of the distinctions between what astrological practice really meant and what astronomical theory and practice did mean. And I mean, as I tried to show in the book, that some of the practitioners of the study of heavens, let's call it that way, were hesitant to practice astrology. I mean, some of the names I cite in my book, we don't really know any particular texts specifically devoted to astrology. And in some other writings about these people during their own times, we know that they were a bit reluctant to practice astrology. So these distinctions between astrology and astronomy were, I believe, still observed, observed during pre modern times by the practitioners. But to come back to your question, yes, many practitioners were operating within those fields of astrology, astronomy and other mathematical sciences.
- [06:48]
A
Yeah, that makes sense. Part of the context is the last episode I did was on Mesopotamian astrology where there was less of a distinction between the two and much more overlap in terms of the practitioners. But then as we get later, obviously, starting at the beginning of the Greek tradition, there starts being a differentiation where some of the astronomers are not practicing astrology and are disavowing it. But then you still get this overlap later in the tradition between figures like Ptolemy or Al Tusi. Later and in your time in your book, one of the incidences you open with is about an observatory and the opening of that, right?
- [07:30]
B
That's correct. That's correct. I mean, it's the only observatory established in the Ottoman world prior to the 19th century. But it only had a few years of lifetime because after it was established in the late 16th century, there was another imperial decree to destroy it. The full details of its destruction are still hazy. We don't really know what prompted the sultan to issue such a decree for the destruction of the observatory, because it was him who kind of welcomed the idea of erecting an observatory in the capital in the first place. But then he was under the influence of several individuals, including some supreme mystics who were particularly, particularly hostile against the astrologer who established the observatory. So there was some kind of personal food as well as some rivalry, intellectual rivalry, between different registers of knowledge. And I thought it would be a good way of starting the book with that kind of anecdote or episode.
- [08:53]
A
Yeah, absolutely. Because that actually falls towards the end of your timeline. And maybe we should focus at the beginning and start there, because a large part of the focus of your book centers around the notion that there was a specific unit that was created for astrologers within the Ottoman court that paralleled other specialists or expert fields, like a unit for physicians or another one for architects. And in the 15th century, they created one for court astrologers.
- [09:26]
B
That's correct. I mean, this is certainly not unprecedented in Islamic history. We know that there were physicians in the palace of the sovereigns. There were architect, engineers, mathematicians, other type of specialists serving their royal patrons. But in the Ottoman case, there is a move toward establishing something like a bureaucracy or administrative bureaucracy. And there was a particular unit of court astrologers, though I use the original term in the book, which is monadjim. And I still would prefer referring to that original concept, because I think it nicely merges both astrological and astronomical expertise of these people. So in that sense, Ottoman example stands as, again, it's not unprecedented, but it's certainly an interesting and worth, you know, important phenomena which operated in the Ottoman courtly context for over four centuries. I mean, the resilience of this unit is really, really significant, and we really need to trace what really happened to this unit of court astrologers in that prolonged time period.
- [10:58]
A
Yeah. That's incredible. To have that created in the 16th century and to last all the way up until the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century. And you said during the course of it, There were over 40 court astrologers during that long, multiple century existence?
- [11:19]
B
Yeah, those are just the chief court astrologers. They also have their own staff. So the total number was probably more than 40. But unfortunately, we are not always lucky to trace the stories and biographies of those second or third court astrologers in the palace.
- [11:41]
A
Right. So the unit itself consisted. It fluctuated in terms of the numbers, but it fluctuated between one and six astrologers as court astrologers in that unit at any one time, with one of them acting as the head or the leader.
- [11:56]
B
That's right. I mean, it also depends on who the sultan was and whether the sultan was really interested in hearing the. The council of the astrologers. So I have several sultans that I visited in my book as well who were very much interested in the knowledge itself and the service of these astrologers. So in their own times, we have around 5, 6 astrologers serving the court. But we also have some other types of sultans who were not that interested in the knowledge of these people. So during their own times, the number just fell down to two or even one. So the number of astrologers serving at the time really varied. But there was always somebody at the unit up until the very end of the empire. And I find it really fascinating.
- [12:56]
A
Yeah, that's incredible. I mean, it reminds me one of the things having just done the Mesopotamian episode is that almost exact 2000 years earlier, in the 7th century BCE, there were similarly these 10 different colleges of astrologers set up around Mesopotamia that were sending in reports and letters to the king about observations and their advice astrologically. And some of those did have a head astrologer that was doing the main reports. So it's interesting, the parallelism in terms of if you were to compare these two periods of astrologers working at the highest levels in society and how sometimes those roles get structured into standard sort of bureaucratic institutions.
- [13:41]
B
I think Ottoman experience runs very much parallel to the Mesopotamian experience that you just referred to. Although I need to go back to the podcast and I mean, I listen the very first half of the podcast two weeks ago, but I need to finish the rest. But, yeah, there are so many parallels, I believe, between Mesopotamian astrology and astrological practice in The Ottoman world. I mean, one difference might be the absence of schools or colleges in the Ottoman world that help the training of these people. Because in my research, I really couldn't find any instit, eternal framework for transmission of this particular knowledge across generations other than the unit of court astrologers in the palace. So that unit operated as, I mean, as I call it in the book, it's office or school without walls. So it really helped those people interested in the knowledge itself to come together and train one another. But other than that, there was really no institutional framework for the training of these people.
- [15:14]
A
Right. One of the things you pointed out is there were some lineages though, and that there was sometimes a tendency for some of the positions to be handed down from a father to a son. So that there might have been some training that was taking place in families perhaps.
- [15:30]
B
Absolutely, absolutely. Family kinship was really a primary method for the transmission of this knowledge. So many of the court astrologers, I mean, when I look at their careers, I see that they're either father or son, or one is the student of the previous chief court astrologer. But the training itself did not really take place in the madrasa. The madrasa is the Islamic higher education institution where students were receiving their training primarily in the so called religious sciences. I mean, there are some records as to the teaching of astronomy in those schools, but I really couldn't find the teaching of astrology systematically in those educational institutions.
- [16:34]
A
Okay, that's incredible. I mean, again, there's a parallel there, just because that was evidently one of the primary transmission routes in Mesopotamia 2000 years earlier was through these family lineages that were being handed down from father to son for generations. So being a court astrologer, it seems like that carried with it some advantages as well as some disadvantages. But in terms of. To stay on this point about training, at one point towards the end of the book, you noted how sometimes being a court astrologer gave one access to some of the tools and resources that were part of that, which could include access to astrolabes, for example, which otherwise might be prohibitively expensive for, let's say, like a street astrologer. I wondered, and one thing I wanted to ask you about is it seemed like there was also an implication that perhaps having access to books or perhaps the royal library, which may have contained astrological texts, could have also provided additional access to sort of like training resources, even if there wasn't a formal sort of like school or training program in a physical sense.
- [17:48]
B
Exactly, exactly. I mean, being a court Astrologer has so many advantages besides the regular salaries they were receiving from their patrons. And the material aspect of being a court astrologer is, I think, really important, because I believe their job was a kind of expensive job because they really needed some special instruments which were not easily accessible or affordable by so many practitioners. Because this is a complaint I usually find in the autobiographical writings of these people. They often complain about the lack of resources for having access to astrolabes or other precision instruments. So being a court astrologer enables these people to have closer access to the instruments kept in the imperial treasury. And we have records, archival records, as to those instruments and books available in the imperial treasury at the time. And the imperial treasury was pretty wealthy in terms of astrolabes or celestial globes or other types of precision instruments that the astrologers needed. And I also came across several petitions written by the astrologers and submitted to the palace asking for immediate access to these instruments. So this was really a part of their daily business, daily life, you know, asking for access to instruments as well as books and receiving permission from the imperial authorities for that.
- [19:48]
A
That's amazing. And one of the reasons you're able to know all of this that you pointed out is there's just such greater documentation of this period. And that's one of the things that makes your book unique, is that this is one of the first periods where we have this level of documentation about what the astrologers were doing. And many of these, not just books, but also papers or reports or almanacs they were sending in to the king, survive. But also one of the most fascinating and subtle points is you have payment receipts so that you know how much the astrologers were getting paid during different eras and how that fluctuated, which provides an interesting additional access point to just seeing a much fuller picture of the lives of some of these astrologers than we've ever had access to at any earlier point in history, where the documentation is much more sparse.
- [20:37]
B
That's right. I mean, that's one of the perks of being an Ottomanist historian, because Ottomans, thanks to their bureaucratic machinery, left behind millions of documents and archival materials where one can trace not just the political history or military history. I mean, Ottoman history is famous for the political and military aspect of. Of the empire. But the rich archives of the Ottomans also offer so much thing, so many things to historians of science. But the historians of science usually haven't used the archives in that fashion. So I wanted to use the Ottoman archives for that purpose. And I came across hundreds of short notes sent by court astrologers and letting their audiences know about the particular auspicious moments to start business. So the practice of electional astrology can be traced through hundreds of usually one page long notes penned down by these practitioners and submitted to the sultans or other high ranking administrators in the court bureaucracy. So yes, I mean, in the beginning of our conversation I said the Ottoman astrological practice was not unprecedented because there was similar, there were similar type of experts in the service of royal patrons in other medieval Islamic polities. But the Ottoman experience is sort of unique for the immense documentation it provided over the, you know, over the four centuries.
- [22:50]
A
Yeah, the electional astrology aspect and just the range of different things ranking from very important things to somewhat less important or even minor things that they were doing electional charts for constantly fascinated me. So some of the things I wrote down was an electional chart for founding a mosque, for founding an observatory, as we mentioned earlier, military campaigns. You mentioned one which was an attack on Constantinople and I was curious if that was the final attack of the taking over of Constantinople that was elected, or was that some other attack? Do you happen to know?
- [23:25]
B
Unfortunately, the report by the court astrologers before the attack against Constantinople did not survive. Although we have references in contemporary historical texts and chronicles at the time saying that the astrologers in the service of Mehmed the Conqueror, who conquered Constantinople in 1453 consulted them and they prepared a chart and he duly followed the advice by his astrologers. But unfortunately the report itself did not survive until our time. But as you said, before the construction of mosques, before giving any wedding party, before the military campaigns, before giving any high ranking position in the bureaucracy to a particular individual, court astrologers were asked to prepare an auspicious time and they delivered that report. And the decision makers duly followed that particular moment before they started that kind of business. And sometimes they decided not to, you know, embark on a military campaign. I mean, there is one episode I believe I refer to in the book. One of the Ottoman sultans, Selim the first, was hoping to conquer the island of Rhodes in the Mediterranean. And he, as per usual, asked the court astrologers what the ideal time would be to start the military campaign. And the astrologer said the first three months don't look really good toward that purpose, so you'd better, you know, delay it. And he really did the same thing and he delayed it.
- [25:32]
A
That's incredible. Yeah, so that was for the year 1519 attack on Rhodes. That was one of the ones I wrote down because that's so striking to have a military campaign postponed by months because the astrologer said the early and middle part of the year didn't look good. So then that presumably would have forced them to postpone it until even later in the year, like the fall or the winter, which is pretty striking. And then also, enthronement you mentioned was sometimes elected as well as sometimes if they had already gone ahead and done the action, the astrologer would be given the time and asked to interpret the chart retroactively to see if it would still work out.
- [26:17]
B
Yes, I mean, we have some reports as to the retroactive calculations of protest strategies for the enthronement of. Of particular sultans, but unfortunately, I couldn't really find any other chart produced by Kurdishwanas before the enthronement ceremony of the sultan because the change of the sultan also had potential risks for incumbent astrologers, because anytime a new sultan was enthroned, it was a change of administration, and they might have just lost their position. So that might be the reason why we don't really have any surviving document of a chart produced by an astrologer before the enthronement ceremony of the sultan took place.
- [27:09]
A
Got it. That makes sense. And one of the instances that you cited that we have detailed documentation for was the election for. Was it the mosque by Riazi and his very elaborate, the singular elaborate manuscript that survives where it seems like the court astrologers were actually competing or debating over what the correct election was, but were debating over very minute differences of like 10 minutes very vehemently.
- [27:42]
B
No, exactly. I mean, that text is still my favorite Ottoman astrological text, and I really bumped into that. Fortunately, I wasn't really expecting to find anything like that, but, I mean, I was going through some manuscripts in the biggest manuscript library in Istanbul, and I. I mean, it's still. I mean, it's. It's a short book, it's like a booklet, but it's really eccentric in terms of its content as well as some of the issues Riyazi says in the book. So he says that there was a particular disagreement among court astrologers at the time. I mean, that disagreement was about that minute difference as to the. The most auspicious moment at which the. The ceremony should start. But it was also a good opportunity for him to assert his own expertise and authority. I mean, there is no way for us to confirm whether or verify whether he was telling the truth, because we don't have the second. The second chart produced by other astrologer at the time. So maybe he's just making up this story, maybe he's just using it as an opportunity to assert his own intellectual authority and expertise, because that's what he says in the book. But we don't have any other source verifying that. But regardless of that, I think it's really, really interesting. I mean, first of all, the occasion itself doesn't sound too easily compatible with the practice of astrology.
- [29:48]
A
Founding a mosque.
- [29:49]
B
Yeah, they are building a mosque. And astrology was often criticized in the Ottoman context as well by the religious scholars as well as those pious Sufi mystics. So you wouldn't really expect the use of astrology for construction of a pious complex, but they also used astrology for that purpose without really having any strong objection.
- [30:26]
A
So with that one, I mean, one of the things that was funny that they were arguing about the astrologers was the difference between a 20 degree Leo rising ascendant versus 22 degrees is what Riyazi was arguing for. And he was making a lot of emphasis about it. At one point he said that the earlier degree would be worse. And I was curious what subdivision he was using, if he was basing on the bounds or decans or 12th parts. Or do you happen to know what thing he was emphasizing by trying to argue that one degree was better than the other?
- [31:03]
B
He makes a reference to this ancient Greek authority, Teucross, who is known as Tangalusha in Islamic sources. I really need to go back to the book itself and I don't have immediate access to that. But the point, I mean, I think he was making a point based on the planetary qualities, not strictly about the deacons or other other variables. But I need to go back to it, you know.
- [31:39]
A
Sure, no problem. I was just curious about that. I was looking at the election last night. Do you happen to know in that. I didn't see the manuscript of it, but in Riyazi's text, was he using a division of the houses by degree or by sign? Because I was trying to figure out how to display the chart like he would to recreate it. Was he using alcabitious, perhaps houses or.
- [32:09]
B
The letters he uses refer to the particular degrees of the houses.
- [32:17]
A
Okay, so if it does refer to the degrees, then yeah, he would have been using some quadrant division. Let me share the chart then, if you don't mind. Just showing that because I was fascinated by one of the things the astrologers were shooting for that you mentioned is a chart with Leo rising. And then they were aiming for this this auspicious looking moon, Venus conjunction in taurus in the 10th house with the Moon in the sign of its exaltation was one of the things that you mentioned. So this is roughlyactually I should get rid of the outer planets, but this is roughly what the chart was essentially that they were looking for and they were arguing over a difference between 20 Leo rising versus 22 Leo rising.
- [33:08]
B
Yes.
- [33:11]
A
Yeah, so that's incredible. And it gives some idea about the dynamics then and the purpose of having multiple astrologers, that sometimes the astrologers were not in agreement with one another and sometimes there must have been these discussions or internal debates about what the correct answer was. And one of the things that made me think of is that's probably in those instances, the head astrologer, the chief astrologer, must have had to make presumably the final call or would have had more weightiness in terms of his decision if it came to some sort of disagreement like that. Although obviously ultimately the Sultan was the final arbiter. But in one instance, you cited an instance where the astrologers were disagreeing and the Sultan was informed, informed about it and asked to make a choice and he was just like, I don't know. And he sent it back to them to figure out.
- [34:07]
B
That is another example from I believe late 17th or early 18th century. But in the case of the construction of the mosque in Istanbul in Bryazi's time, again, there is no way for us to verify which particular astrologers advise was followed because we don't really know at what specific time the construction started. The only source we have available is what Riyazi himself says. And he says, after I corrected other astrologers, they decided to listen to me, but this is what he says. We don't really know whether that really took place. But in the other example from the early 18th century, I think it was before a particular military campaign that the Ottomans were about to undertake. The reigning Sultan just asked astrologers to prepare the auspicious time and the chief astrologer prepared one and the second astrologer prepared another and they were not on the same page. And then they didn't know what to do and asked the Sultan what to do. And the Sultan said, okay, whoever has the greater expertise to just follow his advice. But again, we don't really know whose expertise was taken as, as the guide back then.
- [35:49]
A
Got it. Okay, yeah. So that does create some hierarchy between the astrologers themselves in terms of these groups, especially in the instances where it got upwards of five or six Astrologers that were all working in the same unit. And we were talking about Riyazi and his arguments in favor of his preferred electional time. And he's quite a character. I was having trouble telling because he lamented that he was never able to become court astrologer. But I was having trouble reading between the lines because sometimes it seemed like he was frustrated and expressing a lot of frustrations that he never got what he felt like was his just due or what he deserved. But then at other times he seemed kind of boastful and you almost wondered if there wasn't some sort of personality issue or clash there. That was perhaps the reason why he didn't get some of those positions. Did you have a sense for that as you read through his works?
- [36:55]
B
That's really my impression about him. He had so much self pride as to the knowledge he had and he was just thinking that he indeed should be the one who was the chief court astrologer because he never attained that position in the unit. He always served as the second or the third astrologer. But he was always thinking that his expertise supersedes all the others expertise in astral sciences. That kind of feeling actually prompted him in the first place to write that bizarrely lengthy horoscope chart. I mean he could have just submitted one page long horoscope chart by saying, okay, here is the auspicious time you should follow for starting the construction business. But he didn't do that. Instead he wrote around 25 page long treatise explaining why he is the right one. And I also found some contemporary bureaucratic correspondences or archival registers at the time showing that he was really paid so little at the time compared to the chief astrologer. So he must really have been frustrated about so many things in his life that probably triggered him to. I mean he, he loves inserting little poems here and there in his scientific treatises displaying his anger and frustration. And I really enjoy reading those particular lines because.
- [38:52]
A
Because he was a noted poet and he actually shows up in biographical dictionaries of noted poets at the time. I loved, I love some of your translations of those because you actually did a really good job translating the meter and the poetry into English from the Arabic of his verses.
- [39:13]
B
That's right. I mean, I had the help of my colleagues with these translations as well because establishing the meter is not really that easy, both in Ottoman Turkish and English. I'm so glad to hear that you found it accessible.
- [39:37]
A
Yeah, well, because when I see others have tried, there's so many other earlier astrological texts that were written in the form of poems like Dorotheus or Manetho or what have you. But usually they get just translated into prose at this point. And I've seen others attempt to translate Manilius, for example, into English and to retain some of the poetry, but it's very hard to make that transfer. So I was actually impressed that you pulled it off here. But, yeah, he has some very flowery. But he lamented his circumstances in life quite a bit.
- [40:17]
B
That's right. And he at some point quits his job and he seeks other kind of patrons because there is another episode in which his proposal was not taken into serious consideration. And after he saw that, he says, okay, that's it. I'm no more doing this kind of job and I'm going elsewhere. And he did go elsewhere.
- [40:49]
A
Can I read one of the poems?
- [40:51]
B
Oh, please, please.
- [40:52]
A
Okay, so this is just an excerpt. It says he wrote Riazi's Heart. He's writing about himself. Riazi's heart weighed down by fortune's ruthless hand. Ignorant minds misconstrue his plight misunderstand his fame as radiant as the sun at its peak. Yet those blind to the star's secrets more favor they seek. That's really good. I like that. Yeah. So this guy was quite a character. And then. So is he the one who ends up working for a vizier and ends up eventually making some money and settling on some land? Or was that a different. I might be confusing with another astrologer.
- [41:37]
B
You're right. I mean, he served for a vizier. He also served for one of the sons of the reigning sultan back then. But that the prince lost his war against his brother. I mean, for those of your listeners who may not know anything about the Ottoman history, you know, by the end of each sultan, there was a kind of civil war between the contenders, that is, the princes of the Sultan. And that civil war usually broke out before the reigning Sultan passes away. So by the time Sultan Suleiman was coming close to the end, to the end of his life, he had two main sons fighting with one another. And Riyazi started serving in one of those princess. But unfortunately, that prince lost the war and Riyazi lost his patron.
- [42:44]
A
He backed the wrong guy and he wrote a text and dedicated it to the son that lost. So his luck just never. He always just kept having bad luck.
- [42:56]
B
That's right.
- [42:57]
A
Yeah. Okay. That's amazing. And mentioning the sultans brings it back to one that I wanted to talk about and focus on, because it seems like this book Just as much as it was about the astrologers, it also ended up being about one sultan in particular who was instrumental in setting up this unit for astrologers, partially due to his own personal interests and proclivities for astrology.
- [43:31]
B
Correct? Correct. And that's Bayezid ii, who is now the favorite Ottoman sultan of Ottoman historians, usually because his father, Mehmet the Conqueror and his son and grandson, those are the more victorious type of people. I mean, they conquered so many territories in the west or on the east. So the Ottoman historians and the students usually love those sultans for these reasons. Babayazit II usually is a disliked figure.
- [44:09]
A
Okay, well, so let's situate this, because I should have done this at the beginning. But for those that are not familiar with Ottoman history, at least one way to orient people is Constantinople falls and is taken over in 1453 and then becomes the new capital of the Ottoman Empire. And the sultan was Mehmed the Conqueror, right?
- [44:39]
B
Correct, Correct.
- [44:40]
A
Okay, so that's Mehmed the Conqueror who takes over Constantinople and ends the Byzantine Empire, basically, that had sort of lurched on since that point, or struggled on. And then his son ends up being Bayazid ii, right?
- [44:59]
B
Correct. Yeah.
- [45:01]
A
So we're just talking about one generation basically after Constantinople has taken over and becomes the new capital of the Ottoman Empire. And that actually provides a lot of the context for what was going on, because I was fascinated by that and how you're describing, because it seems like in setting up the new capital, still going into the reign of Bayezid ii, that part of it also involved bringing scholars and astrologers there. And in many instances, they were actually reaching out to scholars from Persian lands, basically. And a lot of the early generations of astrologers were Persians or being sent to study in Persia, which I thought was an interesting parallel, just because that's kind of what you see at the beginning of the. The medieval tradition where a lot of the early astrologers are coming out of that Middle Persian tradition, the Sassanian Persian tradition, and drawing on that in the early generations of Arabic speaking astrologers.
- [46:04]
B
I think that was still an ongoing tradition in early 16th centuries. So many of the astrologers ended up in the Ottoman court in the late 15th and early 16th century had some Persianate origin. They either came originally from the Iranian lands or they spent some time there, even though they were born and raised in Anatolia, the lands controlled by the Ottomans. So there was really a Persian connection throughout the 15th and the first half of the 16th century and through that connection, I believe the Ottoman astrologers became much more exposed to both the medieval Islamic and Persian tradition and also the earlier Sassanian astral tradition transmitted through that medieval Arabic and Persian literature.
- [47:05]
A
So why was that? I was trying to understand because I don't know enough about this part of history because I would have thought that enough of the astrology was written in Arabic. I mean, was part of it due to the fall of Baghdad in the 13th century? Because that was another major epoch changing event that happened was the sack of Baghdad like a century or two centuries before our timeframe. But I was trying to understand better why for example, there wouldn't have been a lot of astrologers in Egypt or in other areas that would have come over and why the majority or the emphasis of the most educated astrologers were still in Persia at this stage by like the 15th century.
- [47:55]
B
That's a wonderful question and it's not an easy question to answer, I have to say. I mean the roots and origins of the Ottomans play, I believe, a role because again, for those of your listeners who may not know anything about the Ottomans, I mean Ottomans, I mean the story of the Ottomans trace back to the 13th century. I mean it's a group of Turkic speaking nomadic tribal community migrating from Central Asia via Iran after the Mongol conquest of the region. So the Mongol conquest as you refer to in the 13th century really had an important consequence in terms of turning a vast geography from Anatolia up until to Central Asia under the influence of Persianate culture. I mean, some scholars refer to this the Persianate world. So Persian is the main language and the related traditions were espoused by different communities living in that vast geography. So the Ottoman astrological tradition which started in the 14th century, also owed much of its success to that Persianate cultural intellectual sphere rather than the Arabic speaking tradition that was available in Baghdad or Cairo or Damascus. I mean there was certainly an intellectual exchange between the Ottoman world and those Arabic speaking worlds in the 14, 15 and 16th centuries. But for astral sciences in particular, the direction was more toward the Persian world. But again, I really don't have a particular answer why this happened like that.
- [50:27]
A
No, that makes sense. That fills in a blank for me and is just probably a lack of knowledge on my part about the Persian influences on Ottoman culture, especially due to that migration from Central Asia and then sweeping across the Middle east into Anatolia and the area around modern day Turkey. You mentioned at one point, one astrologer, and this is just in passing using or mentioning the Chinese zodiac of the Uyghur zodiac, I think. Was there some influence there or. I was trying to understand what that influence was.
- [51:07]
B
I mean, I don't recall if there was an exact reference to Chinese astrology. I mean the Chinese 12 month calendar is something Ottoman astrologers kept referring to for many centuries. And it's really a very customary thing for these astrologers to refer to in their annual almanacs. But other than that, there really isn't a substantial engagement with Chinese astrology. And that Chinese 12 month calendar, the knowledge about it was transmitted not directly via some Chinese agents, but rather through again, the Persian tradition or the post Mongol tradition of the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries. So I don't think Ottomans were directly exposed to the Chinese tradition, but they.
- [52:14]
A
Were.
- [52:17]
B
I mean, if they, they became familiar with the Chinese tradition through the Persianate legacy, that makes sense.
- [52:27]
A
Okay, got it. All right, so let's redirect and go back to the king, the Sultan. I want to focus on that. So much of your book revolves around, which is Bayezid ii and you repeatedly invoke this image that he seems to fulfill of this almost like idealized philosopher king who was very interested in a wide range of different subjects. He was very well read, but he seems to have had a particular personal interest in astrology.
- [53:02]
B
That's right. I mean, so many contemporary observers, and these observers include Italians, Arabic speaking poets, Turks, Iranians. I found so many contemporary sources saying that this guy is a well versed in theology, astrology, philosophy. And I found traces of the Sultan in the books he personally owned. So I use it in, in the book that there is a long list of books we know the Sultan and did not only keep in his imperial treasury, but also personally read and probably discussed with some of his interlocutors. So he had certain people around him and some of these people were his childhood friends. And they became also influential scholars teaching in high ranking colleges at the time. So those people, including Sultan Bayaza ii, were reading these texts together and discussing them. And among these texts, astral sciences really were among the, you know, the total number of texts related to astral sciences constitute the greatest majority of the texts the Sultan himself read and discussed with his peers.
- [54:52]
A
Right. I think you give a percentage at some point of his holdings and it's a surprisingly large percentage of his library. And then you even tell the story of his close childhood friend that he grew up with, who eventually at one point wrote a spirited defense against astrology against an earlier skeptical critique.
- [55:12]
B
That's right. And his name is Muayyadzadeh his buddy from the provincial town, he served as a prince. So they were raised together. I mean, although there was some time gap between the two. I mean, when Bayazid ii was around 15 years old, the other guy was around 9 or 10. But they really spent so much time together. And they were engaged in some activities in that provincial town which made Bayazid II's father, memor the Conqueror, pretty upset. And he.
- [56:01]
A
Right.
- [56:02]
B
He had to kind of intervene.
- [56:04]
A
And that was hilarious. You were talking about them like they were partying together and.
- [56:08]
B
Yeah, they were. Yeah, they were partying together. They were smoking.
- [56:12]
A
Young guys.
- [56:13]
B
Yeah, yeah, as so many youngs. So they were consuming hashish. And then the news just arrived in Constantinople at the time, saying that, oh, Sultan, your son Bayazid ii. And Bayazid II was just a prince back then. And he was, as the Ottoman prince, the governor of a small provincial town. So Mehmed II was informed of what's going on in the town. And then the Sultan Mehmed II sent his team to that town to just get rid of those vicious kind of people who is keeping son astray. But Bayazid II heard the news before that team arrived in the town and helped his buddy, this guy, Muayed Zada, to escape. And he escaped. And he spent some time in Iran.
- [57:14]
A
And can I say, sorry to interrupt, but what a classic, just archetypal dynamic of young kid in his teens or twenties is partying too much, dad is mad, and dad is sending somebody to get rid of the friend who he thinks is a bad influence. Except in that instance, get rid of probably meant actually kill. So the son gets wind of this and sends his friend away, luckily in time. And then they go their separate ways for years, but later meet up again when the son becomes. Becomes king.
- [57:50]
B
Exactly, exactly. That's, that's the story. And after Salt Abayazov II became a sultan, the other guy came to the capital and he became one of the most important administrators, slash scholars at the time. So he was in charge of so many things in the scholarly bureaucracy. And he was also very much interested in astral sciences because we have the probate inventory of this guy's library. So he had around 7,000 books in his library and it was really impressive compared to some other well known Renaissance polymaths and humanists. So Galileo, for example, had around 2,000 books, or Erasmus had around 1,000 books, but this guy had 7,000 books and at least 15% of the collection was about astral sciences. So he was very well versed. In so many different aspects of astral sciences. So astronomical theory, astrology, those tables, handbooks with tables. So he was. And not just Persian or Arabic, but also contemporary European astronomical works were on the radar of this guy. And then he wrote diatribe against a very famous medieval Islamic philosopher who attacked astrology. And he said he is basically wrong. What he knows about astrology is not right. Astrology is not a discipline like that. You need to educate yourself. I mean, that's really the attitude he has in this treatise. And he was that close to Bayezid II and they shared this interest in astral sciences.
- [60:01]
A
That's incredible. Yeah, and he deals with the twins argument and also has such advanced knowledge of astrology that he points out the instances where this person, the skeptic, misunderstands astrology or doesn't have a solid technical understanding in certain instances. And so you were really getting insight to some extent into Bayazid himself by looking into the interests and the book collections and other things of one of his closest friends. And that's again, just very insightful. And so bringing it back to Bayezid, what did he accomplish? Was he the one that set up the unit or was the unit set up before him?
- [60:47]
B
That's a great question. I mean, the records about the unit only come to us from his time. So I take it as a sign that it was only during his time that we can speak about the institutionalization of this unit. Yes, his father also has some astrologers around and they probably constituted something like a group or a unit, but their status was really different than the status that a unit gained during the time of Bayaza ii.
- [61:29]
A
Okay, got it.
- [61:30]
B
And he also had a private tutorial. I mean, this is not again unprecedented in Ottoman history for the sultans to have private tutors. But this private tutor taught the guy specifically the mathematical sciences, including astronomy and astrology. So the private tutor himself was a well known practitioner of astral sciences at the time.
- [61:55]
A
Okay, and you used the term astral sciences and I really like that term. That term has also started to become used more wide earlier traditions, especially in Mesopotamian studies, where there is that greater overlap between astrology and astronomy. But it nicely encapsulates that there could be individuals who are adept or practitioners of both or using them at the same time in some ways.
- [62:24]
B
Exactly. That's my kind of answer to terminology problems, because at the beginning I said that. But there were some distinctions between astrology and astronomy observed by these practitioners, but the practitioners were still very well versed or they were expected to be well versed in different registers and branches of this field. And that field I referred to as astral sciences.
- [62:59]
A
Yeah. And that brought up a point that was really fascinating, that one of the things they struggled with the most and that the astrologers struggled with the most and that they attributed sometimes mistaken predictions to, was that their astronomical tools and tables were still not necessarily that good. And they would commonly notice a discrepancy between what essentially the ephemeris said, where the planets should be on a specific day, and then when they would look up and make an observation in the sky that sometimes it would be off. And this was based on the tables that they were using that were compiled by earlier observatories and things like that, which I have to imagine some of those tables probably got worse over time. The longer you get from their composition, I would assume, right?
- [63:49]
B
That's right. And this is a pretty standard complaint of the practitioners because based on these tables, they make a particular computation of the expected eclipse, and then when that time comes, they don't observe any eclipse and they realize that, oh, there is a discrepancy. And this discrepancy is because the tables are either outdated or they don't really help us to provide precision in our computations. And they, or I shouldn't maybe call them day, because not all of the practitioners of, you know, make the demand of creating an observatory. Only specific types of practitioners really express that kind of demand to establish an observatory. But the reason that so many observatories were established in the Islamic world From the 13th century onwards, I mean, there are so many established, particularly in the Persian world, is the need of these practitioners to come up with greater precision in their computations. And the existing tables did not really help them for that kind of purpose. So they wanted to run longer observed celestial observations with better instruments. But oftentimes these observatories also didn't operate to the as long as these practitioners wanted these observatories to operate, because it was also a very costly business and there was really no institutional framework for the sustenance of these observatories. So when a ruler, patron who supported these practitioners just died, the next sultan often was not really interested in providing funds for these people. So when they didn't have funds, most of them, you know, cease to operate. But this is an episode prior to the Ottomans. I mean, the observatories established in the medieval Islamic world were established in the. Under the rule of the Mongol Ilhanids and the Timurids, the ottomans of the 15th century or most of the 16th century did not really have an observatory. But interestingly, Riyazi made a formal request in one of his texts that he presented to the Sultan that he explicitly said that my Sultan, there are discrepancies in our calculations. We need to have a new celestial observation, so we need to have a new observatory. Please fund me and I'll be happy to run an observation. But he never was funded.
- [67:21]
A
Got it. And then there was later another astrologer who was successful in getting a later Sultan to fund the observatory. But then as we talked about at the beginning, that observatory ended up being demolished only a few years later, partially due to religious objections. Although you point out that it's very complicated and it's not necessarily just religious objections.
- [67:45]
B
I mean, the exact reasons are still a bit hazy. I mean, there is a reported account or a letter of the chief jurist at the time, the Sheikh Al Islam as they call it, informing the Sultan that in all those empires where there was an observatory, there was always a problem. So you need to get rid of this. But this doesn't explain why he really didn't want the observatory to operate. I mean, there might be some personal feud between this particular religious scholar and the chief astrologer at the time. And one other possibility I raise in the book as an answer to this question is how did the instruments look like to people? I mean, these instruments were pretty colossal and we don't really know how the ordinary subjects perceived these instruments because they were perfectly visible from outside. And some of These instruments were 15 meter, 20 meter tall. And I came across some contemporary references associating these instruments with some kind of magical talismanic objects. And they probably were not perceived in a positive sense. I mean, it might have created some fear or awe that also, you know, created some tension against, against the observatory because I mean, 20 or 30 years ago, when Riyazi was making the similar request of establishing an observatory in Istanbul, he also had an interesting episode about similar colossal objects he wanted to use in order to repel plague from, from the city. So plague was a con, you know, a big issue back in istanbul in the 16th century. So one day the Sultan ask the Riyazi, as Riyaza tells what we can do with that. Can you write something about the talismans? And he says, okay, I have a perfect solution for the plague. We need to erect human size talismans in different parts of the city, which would help us to ward off plague. But then some observers, including some ruling elites at the time, Said that, well, we can't really do anything like that because people would freak out if we erect human size statues around the city. It would violate the religious beliefs of these people. That is the exact remark that a contemporary historian uses. So there might be disdain towards the use and visibility of such colossal instruments in the urban fabric. That might be a reason why the observatory eventually was disrupted.
- [71:37]
A
Right, that makes sense. And that brings up a point which is that that was one of the things that they were sometimes doing, the astrologers was work with talismans in addition to other duties like delineating the birth charts of rulers. Horary questions were mentioned in passing. That didn't come up a lot in the book, but there was at least one section about one of the astrologers having written a major text on horary astrology.
- [72:04]
B
So presumably the Tudor, Bayezid ii. Yeah, he wrote.
- [72:07]
A
Oh, the tour.
- [72:08]
B
Okay, yeah.
- [72:09]
A
Wow.
- [72:10]
B
Wow.
- [72:11]
A
Okay. So, yeah, so the tutor of Bayezid II wrote of significant work on horary astrology. This didn't come up a lot, but it was mentioned in passing the potential medical advice that sometimes the astrologers were also trained in medicine.
- [72:26]
B
Many of them were well versed in medicine. And sometimes when they realized that their patrons were much more interested in medicine than astrology, they also remarketed themselves as a physician. So they shifted across these disciplines, not infrequently. And in their annual almanacs, one can come across so many medical advice saying that, okay, you should eat this, you shouldn't eat that, because this is how the horoscope of the month looks like. So medical advice is customary item of astrologers annual almanacs.
- [73:12]
A
Let's talk about the almanacs, because that seems like one of the most important centerpieces of what the astrologers did for the king was each year the astrologer would write a very elaborate annual almanac with predictions in a number of different areas and then present this to the sultan. And they would actually get paid quite a bit for that. Right?
- [73:34]
B
That's right. That's right. That's really the primary function of curt astrologers presenting by the spring equinox or before the spring equinox, the annual almanac of the year with all astrological prognostications.
- [73:52]
A
So what all did that cover? One of the things it mentioned that was very interesting to me is it mentioned it gave predictions for different levels of society based on associating the planets, each of the seven planets with different levels of society.
- [74:07]
B
Correct? Yeah, correct. So Venus is Usually affiliated with musicians and the singers and women and the female members of the dynasty. And other planets as well. You know, Jupiter often associated with the religious scholars. The Mars, as our listeners would know, were associated with the military personnel. So in seven separate sections, the astrologers present prognostications for these different groups.
- [74:50]
A
Each.
- [74:50]
B
Of which associated with a particular planet. And based on how the planet or the alignment of the planets would look like for the upcoming year, they convey their predictions.
- [75:09]
A
Got it. Okay. One of the interesting things about the almanacs is you said that eclipses were always dealt with at the very end because they were viewed as inauspicious.
- [75:19]
B
That's right. I think that it's a pretty old tradition associating eclipses with bad things to happen, taking them as bad omens. So I came across in several treatises on the basics of astrology that they intentionally keep that section at the very end of their annual almanacs.
- [75:50]
A
Got it.
- [75:50]
B
But they, of course, never. Or maybe I shouldn't say never, but most of the times, the bad omen of the eclipse was associated with the main rival of the Ottoman house at the time. So if the Ottomans were fighting against the Safavid empire in Iran, then the eclipse was often interpreted as the fall of the Safavid Empire, not the Ottoman Empire. So the bad omens were always for the arrivals of the Ottomans.
- [76:23]
A
Got it. Yeah. There was a tension, it seemed like, with the astrologers in terms of, on the one hand, sometimes specificity versus speaking in general terms, but also sometimes, while there were many benefits for being an astrologer and their interactions with the sultan, I wrote down a whole list of all of the cool things that sometimes the astrologers got as benefits. But there were also drawbacks because there was one very notable instance of an astrologer who got a prediction wrong and then died as a result of it. I assumed that was the impression.
- [77:03]
B
Yeah. There are anecdotes passing in contemporary historical texts. I really didn't find any specific text written by an astrologer saying that. But, you know, the contemporary observers always enjoy making those kind of allegations or references.
- [77:30]
A
Okay, so the story about the astrologer Osri and the attempt of the Ottomans to take the island of Rhodes in 1522, that was more of a legend rather than something that you felt like was. For sure.
- [77:43]
B
That's what I would say, actually.
- [77:45]
A
Okay, got it.
- [77:46]
B
Yeah.
- [77:46]
A
It did have kind of a mythical quality. It reminded me of the legend associated with Thrasyllus and Tiberius in the first century, because in this legend. It's like the astrologer makes a wrong prediction about taking the island of Rhodes and then gets summoned by the Sultan. And then the astrologer goes and meets with a friend of his, another astrologer, and they look at the astrologer's chart to see what's going to happen at this meeting, and they decide he's probably going to die at the meeting or shortly afterwards. And that's the legend?
- [78:18]
B
Yeah, that's the legend expressed by a contemporary observer of the time. But that was probably not true because I later realized that the guy esri, actually lived pretty long than what this contemporary observer says. What happened?
- [78:42]
A
Okay, yeah, that's like Thrasyllus, who did the meeting for Tiberius, and then Tiberius turns it around and says, what do you see in your horoscope? And Thrasyllus does some calculations and breaks out in a cold sweat and says that he's in imminent danger. And then Tiberius says, you've got the job because you correctly predicted that you're in danger. There was pressure, though, to get a prediction right. And certainly if you get a prediction right, some of the astrologers that were in the good graces of the Sultan received. Received a number of gifts. It sounded like, I want to know more about these robes that astrologers were receiving as gifts. But also one of them received money in order to cover the costs of going to visit his hometown and reconnecting with family. Another Bayezid sponsored the wedding of his tutor in astrology and mathematics at one point. So it seemed like sometimes the Sultan would have a somewhat close relationship with the astrologers and would give them gifts. Gifts or support them in different ways as a token of gratitude. It seems like.
- [79:53]
B
Exactly, exactly. Especially when the Sultan wanted to give gifts to the wives of these astrologers. I mean, it tells something about how close that person must have been to the Sultan, because giving a robe or giving some amount of money, it was a pretty ordinary thing for the Ottoman sultans. I mean, the register that I particularly used lists almost thousands of people who received robes and other monetary allowance for some kind of service they provided. But when the Sultan decided to give gifts to the wife of that individual or help the guy to travel somewhere, it's really telling something about the proximity of that individual to the Sultan. Unfortunately, we don't really know whether he was giving gifts when the predictions of these individuals proved true, or it was just the regular part of their business. I mean, there is no way for me to verify the exact occasion behind that payment. But I believe the proximity of these particular individuals to the Sultan is beyond any doubt.
- [81:28]
A
Got it. So it seems like the astrologers enjoyed the favor of the Sultan and the most elevated status around that time of Bayezid II in the 16th century. But that after that time, by the end of the 16th century, the astrologers started to fall out of favor or at least were less favored, which included being paid less compared to even a few decades earlier.
- [81:58]
B
That's the narrative I trace in the book. By the late 15th and early 16th century, astrologers really enjoyed, you know, greater prestige as well as higher amounts of salaries, thanks in particular to the Sultan Bayezid II's own interest. But by the second half of the 16th century, there is a substantial decrease both in terms of the prestige of their knowledge as well as the monetary aspect of their salary. So by the time Riyazi was operating at the Horde, I mean, he was really receiving so little compared to what the astrologers were making at the beginning of the century.
- [82:56]
A
Got it. Okay, so that seems interesting and important, even though the role did continue for several centuries after that, even if it didn't quite have the same level of financial support or prominence that it once did.
- [83:14]
B
Exactly. I think there are tights, ups and downs of the respect shown towards the astrologers, and I use the word ambivalence. The particular expertise of these people was received in an ambivalent way by both the decision makers and the broader public in the Ottoman world. I mean, the sultans and the other decision makers took their advice seriously, but they often kept their particular skepticism or hesitance toward their practice and expertise. So they always wanted to have them around, but, you know, they didn't really know what to do with them. So it's not maybe that different from how the astrologers today are perceived by both the decision makers and the general public. But there is some level of respect and, you know, appeal to their expertise and service. But there is also a particular level of skepticism with regard to the knowledge they have.
- [84:46]
A
Right. And you pointed out how different sultans sometimes became more or less interested in different esoteric arts. And even though historians tend to lump astrologers together with other practitioners of esoteric or occult sciences, that really, you felt like there was a distinction between them that's not often recognized. And in particular, it sounds like one of the later sultans fell under the sort of spell of a fast talking geomancer who tried to present some of his stuff as if it had a thin veneer of astrology. But really, he was focused on geomancy and other things. And to the extent that he seemed to even compete with the astrologers and to denigrate the astrologers at one point in order to improve his own status.
- [85:42]
B
That's right. And that's really the main crux of the book, I have to say. You know, one thing I'm not particularly happy with, the scholarship on occult sciences is this tendency to lump things together and, you know, flattening the important distinctions and nuances between different registers of knowledge and between different types of practitioners. So we tend to think that, oh, astrologers must be the same with dream interpreters or magicians or other types of occult sciences. But there were some important nuances between these, these figures and the Ottoman experience, I believe, really displays why these distinctions should. Should be more closely observed. So the particular time period I refer to as to tracing these distinctions is the time of Suleiman the Sultan. Suleiman, who is really well known for his interest in different esoteric sciences, including the science of letterism. I mean, it's a kind of Kabbalah in Jewish mysticism, but it's the Islamic version of letter mysticism. So Suleiman, as far as the scholarship on him is concerned, was very much interested in his Persona as the last ruler on the earth, I. E. The Messiah. And in order to promote his messianic claims, he really had recourse to the service of that particular geomancer who was also well versed in the science of letterism. But interestingly, it was Suleiman's time that we see a significant decrease in the prestige as well as the monetary rewards of astrologers. So how is it possible that a sultan who is known to have promoted esoteric sciences did not show enough attention to astrologers? If we tend to think that oh, astrologers were just like the other occult scientists or esoteric specialists, well, these specialists were also competing with one another. And I found some writings of that particular geomancer attacking the astrologers at the time, saying that, oh, they don't know anything, anything useful and anything important because their signs cannot be compared to our esteemed signs of letterism. To our sign, science reigns supreme and you should follow our guidance, not the guidance of astrologers. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any similar text written by an astrologer attacking the geomancer. But this competitive environment and the particular decisions made by patrons as to what kind of expertise should be preferred over what is an important question that we should, I believe, address.
- [89:30]
A
Brilliant. Well, Yeah, I think that's probably one of the biggest things that your book does is establish that in a really compelling way and how the astrologers represented a specific, specialized field of expertise and how that could be distinct not just from other fields like the physicians or the architects, but also from other esoteric studies as well. And yeah, I think we're about out of time. So this is a really great book. I'm really glad. I wanted to say congratulations for releasing it. Do you have plans for the future in terms of will you continue to focus on or do work in this area or are you going to move on to other areas or what's your plans?
- [90:14]
B
I'm slightly moving to other areas though. I'm still interested in the scholarly culture. I'm very much interested in the colleges, I. E. The madrasas that I referred to earlier. And I'm really interested in people like Riyazi, those people who think they really have the expertise of different disciplines but couldn't be rewarded enough. And I try to understand their frustration and anger and how the Ottoman academic universe affected the decisions of individuals interested in that particular industry. So I'm trying to write something on those low and mid ranking scholars who never attained the higher positions, but who still decided to serve in the scholarly establishment, what they went through in their lives. So I'm working on figures like Riyazi, but they were not astrologers. They were totally different.
- [91:32]
A
Got it. That makes sense. And people like Riyazi, you had mentioned at one point that some of them just had a proclivity for the subject or an interest in the subject, and that's why they ended up gravitating towards it, even though they could have gone in different directions.
- [91:46]
B
That's right. That's right. That's what he says, at least.
- [91:50]
A
Sure, yeah. All right, brilliant. Well, so the book people can get it now. They can order it on Amazon or wherever it's called, called Forgotten Experts. And yeah, thank you so much for joining me today for this interview. I appreciate it.
- [92:06]
B
Thank you so much for your time, Chris. It's such an honor to be hosted here.
- [92:12]
A
All right, thanks everyone for watching or listening to this episode of the Astrology podcast and we'll see you again next time.
- [92:19]
C
If you're a fan of the podcast and you'd like to find a way to help support my research, then consider becoming a patron through my page on patreon.com in exchange, you'll get access to subscriber benefits such as early access to new episodes, the ability to attend live recordings the monthly Electional Astrology Podcast, an exclusive podcast series called the Secret Astrology Podcast that's only available to patrons, or you can even get your name listed in the credits. For more information, go to patreon.com astrologypodcast Special thanks to the patrons on my Producers tier, including patrons Kristi Moe, Ariana Amour, Mandi Rae, Angelic Nambo, Issa Sabah, Jeannie Marie Kaplan, Melissa Delano, Sunny Bazbaz, Kwatsi Alibarahu, Annie Newman, Ginger Sadlier, Berlin.
- [93:07]
A
West, and Nikki Crawford.
- [93:10]
C
People often ask me if I'm available for consultations, but unfortunately I'm not right now because the podcast takes up so much of my time. However, I did create a consultations page on the Astrology Podcast website that has a list of astrologers that I recommend for astrological consultations. You can find that@theastrologypodcast.com consultations the astrology software we use here on the podcast is called Solar Fire for Windows, which is astrology software. For the PC, you can get a 15% discount by using the promo code AP15 at the website alabe.com For Mac users, I recommend the software Astro Gold for macOS, which is astrology software for the Mac computer made by the creators of Solar fire. For the PC you can get a 15% discount with the promo code AstroPodcast15 through their website at AstroGold IO. If you're really looking to deepen your studies of astrology, then I would recommend signing up for my Hellenistic Astrology course, which is an online course in ancient astrology where I take people from basic concepts up through intermediate and advanced techniques, or for reading birth charts. There's over 100 hours of video lectures plus monthly webinars and Q and A sessions, and then at the end of the course you get a certificate of completion saying that you studied with me. If you pass the final written test, find out more information@theastrologyschool.com.
- [94:46]
B
Sa.