Paraliterary text: ENA NS 39.10

Description

Astrological prognostications predicting the character of a year based on the zodiac sign in which it is "born" (i.e., the position of the moon at the heliacal rising of Sirius or another calendrical marker). This fragment makes predictions in the case of a year born in Gemini (al-Jawzāʾ). It forecasts abundant rain and fruit, a full Nile flood, and successful barley and fruit harvests, but also predicts cattle disease, an outbreak of skin disease (al-ḥikka, "the itch"), Byzantine naval expeditions ending in shipwreck, the death of the noblest kings, civil strife (fitna), economic turmoil, famine, high prices, and mass displacement. Line 5 remains obscure, possibly containing a pious interjection amid the list of calamities. The fragment concludes with the conventional formula allāhu aʿlam bi-l-ghayb ("God best knows the unseen").