Introduction: Characterizing Astrology in the Pre-Modern Islamic World

This brief introduction outlines the purpose behind this particular special issue and collection of articles, and provides a concise overview of each paper and how each relates to the larger themes of the collection. This collection of papers uses the particular case study of medieval astrology as a means to study the broader implications of boundary-work. The papers examine the intersections among science, the occult, and the religious cultures that lived in the medieval Islamic world—including Islam, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism. The authors, in various ways, help complicate the categories of magic, science, and religion by looking at how boundaries between these fields were articulated by medieval scholars.