Following the Mongol conquest of Central Asia, the Iranian Plateau, and other regions, there was a notable rise in scholarly interest in the astral sciences, often attributed to the Turko-Mongol rulers’ preoccupation with astrological prognostication. Not all branches of the astral sciences, however, enjoyed the same level of patronage during the Ilkhanid era. There is, for instance, no evidence to suggest that the Ilkhanid rulers commissioned horoscopes for themselves or their kin.
Nevertheless, the production and use of horoscopes gained prominence under the Timurid dynasty, with several painstakingly calculated and finely illuminated examples associated with Timurid rulers and their families. One such notable work is the treatise containing the nativity chart cast for Prince Iskandar (d. 1415) by Maḥmūd al-Kāshī in 1411 in Shiraz.
Moreover, four other detailed treatises exclusively dedicated to nativity charts for other royal Timurid family members have survived in manuscript form but have hitherto remained unstudied. A significant aspect of these horoscopes is that they were composed by members of two prominent families of astrologers from central Iran: Maḥmūd al-Kāshī (fl. 1410) and Jamshīd al-Kāshī (d. 1429).
Following these treatises, there was a marked rise in such exhaustive horoscopes, not only dedicated to royal family members but also to the offspring of elite families associated with the Timurid and subsequent courts in the dominions of the Mughal, Safavid, Ottoman, and Qajar dynasties, up to the late 19th century.
In this project, I intend to examine the scholarly activities of these families of astrologers, addressing their innovations in producing such treatises, which contributed to their success and facilitated their transmission, translocation, and transcreation across these dominions and beyond. The scholarly activities of these families, coupled with other networks of scholars, many of whom had family ties, help explain how the astral sciences developed under the patronage of Central Asian Timurid rulers in the early and mid-15th century were subsequently transmitted and translocated to regions as far as Mecca, Cairo, Istanbul, and Delhi as early as the late 15th century.
