He applied the “Page 99 Test” to his new book, Forgotten Experts: Astrologers, Science, and Authority in the Ottoman Empire, 1450–1600, and shared the following:
From page 99:Learn more about Forgotten Experts at the Stanford University Press website.Rukn al-Amuli contends that the astrolabe is the best instrument for executing these astronomical operations, which are essential for casting horoscopes and practicing electional astrology. He nonetheless posits that this craft, along with the mathematical sciences more broadly, is a type of intellectual endeavor that cannot flourish without “the support of rulers and statesmen.” For the past twenty years—since he completed his zij (astronomical handbook with tables) and another treatise on the celestial globe that has yet to be discovered—Rukn al-Amuli laments that he has been bereft of royal support. Notwithstanding possible exaggeration as a plea to his new patron, Abu’l-Qasim Babur Mirza (d. 1457), the Timurid ruler in Khurasan, to whom he dedicates his treatise on the astrolabe, al-Amuli’s life over the past two decades seems to have devolved into an unmitigated disaster. He details a series of afflictions that beset him, not the least of which was his prolonged separation from loved ones and constant relocations to distant places. More recently, his odyssey took him to India and Kerman, during which he was plagued by political turmoil, massacres, and famine.The Page 99 Test works intriguingly well for my book, which traces the lives of several astral experts—known as munajjims—from the Ottoman and broader Persianate worlds of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. These experts shared similar life trajectories: they were well versed in mathematical and astral sciences, constantly sought the patronage of powerful figures, asserted their intellectual superiority over peers and rivals, and offered vital services to audiences eager for interpretations of the heavens. Yet despite their enduring presence and significant contributions, they were largely forgotten—not only in modern times, but even in their own.
There are various reasons why they fell into oblivion. Their expertise over the workings of the heavens is perhaps best characterized by its ambivalent nature. It was a kind of expertise both transmitted and omitted, prized and stigmatized. Munajjims demonstrated technical proficiency in the mathematical sciences, astronomical knowledge, and astrological techniques but were often criticized, even caricatured—both in the medieval and early modern periods and in contemporary times—as simpletons lacking reliable bodies of knowledge. The knowledge required to practice their profession, especially as related to astrology, was text-centered and openly circulated, yet it was not commonly taught within the formal educational institutions of madrasas. While munajjims’ services—such as calculating auspicious hours, casting horoscopes, producing annual almanacs, and providing on-site astrological counsel—appealed to royals and the general public alike, they also faced skepticism from various segments of society, and sometimes even harbored their own doubts about the limitations of their science. Finally, munajjims were not the sole experts in the domain of predicting the future. They operated alongside, and sometimes in competition with, other figures—so-called occult practitioners or masters of esoteric arts—such as dream interpreters, geomancers, experts in the science of lettrism, and mystics claiming to possess mantic powers, whose authority relied upon distinct bodies of knowledge and hence occasionally came into conflict with munajjims’ expertise.
--Marshal Zeringue
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