Whole Sign Houses in Arabic Astrology

In this excerpt from episode 295 of The Astrology Podcast academic scholar Ali A Olomi says that it seems that whole sign houses was the predominant system of house division used by Arabic-speaking astrologers from the early Islamicate period all the way through the 18th century. This was a somewhat surprising observation since it seems like degree-based forms of house division (e.g. equal houses, Alcabitius, Placidus) became the dominant systems in the European astrological tradition from the 12th century onward, and whole sign houses were largely forgotten. This was an interesting aside that occurred in episode 295 of the podcast, titled “Queen Buran, Astrologer in 9th Century Baghdad.“ I wanted to include a clip from that episode here since Ali’s views provide an interesting perspective on the ongoing research surrounding the history of house division in western astrology. To listen to the full discussion in context, listen to episode 295 of The Astrology Podcast: