Mars and Saturn

The planets Mars and Saturn share a synodic period of two Earth years and a week. As visible from Earth the two come into conjunction under the same zodiacal sign, every thirty years and fifteen weeks - a bit longer than Saturn's sidereal year. I missed this event last year 4-5 April 2022; if you don't mind the SSL-error here's a schedule.

Indians consider this unlucky. Apparently so did certain Near Easterners; AD 622 which is, of course, AH 1 was such a conjunction. This may explain Nergal's appearance in the Mandaean ginza book XVIII . . .

Kindi and Abu Ma'shar share an interest in these events. We can start with the murder of the Persian king and the appearance of the Arabs. Next up: the murder of 'Uthman (p. 538-9#25 "31" at the end of 53 months, cf. p. 601) and the move of the "rulership" to Syria or "west", respectively. Then the "riot" of Ibn al-Zubayr (p. 539#26 "61"); then that of Ibn al-Muhallab after ten years (#27 "91"). Then "121" / AD 742 featuring the murder of al-Walid II and you know what that meant. AD 772 is vague for Abu Ma'shar but for Kindi #29 "151" A comet rose in the east for 17 nights, then disappeared, then rose in the west for two days (and the Hasani revolt). I'm scarequoting the years because I suspect they're solar, based on the Saturnine year as Kindi did.

Kindi at least found difficult to shoehorn these events into those conjunctions. Ibn al-Muhallab was hardly a problem in AD 712; it would take until Yazid II's accession before his mutiny. Although one might ponder the grumbling against 'Uthman to start around AD 651, he'd not be murdered for some years yet - and the kingdom wouldn't shift to Jerusalem and Damascus until, what, AD 660. Plenty of Persian kings got murdered but not in AD 622; Khusro II was doing just fine then thank you very much. On the other side the Hasani had revolted a full decade prior to AD 772. I'll grant Ibn al-Zubayr whose agitations would erupt into a fitna for everybody; I might also grant the comet.

In its present state the chronicle looks like it becomes Islamic. It focuses on fitna. And it's Oriental: for AD 712, you'd think a Syrian might prefer the disasters (as it were) we read in Andrew Palmer's text #7. A western Muslim might have summat to say about Sulayman's debacle against the Romans, rather than about the Muhallabihullabaloo which (I submit) didn't matter as much to Umayyad-era Islam as had, say, the Asha'itha.

For the Mars / Saturn chronicle I can't help but see a Magian basis. They'd ponder the Higri era as starting under baleful stars, and then they'd mourn the loss of runaway shah Yazdegerd III which, indeed, came not long after the second conjunction. The Syrians or even Mandaeans may have taken the series first; for the 'Abbasis to adopt it late in the eighth century.