p1

•^Chapter Two^
TALKING ABOUT IMAGES, may Allah bless you, is
very difficult because the specialized people in this field
exerted their utmost efforts to conceal it. However, I
am revealing what they have concealed. He who wants
to delve in this subject can refer to The Book of the Great Images,
by Zosimos which deals with the art of astrology as illustrated
by the Arabs in the Middle Ages. This book goes into detail in
explaining this subject. The images, my brother, that appear in
the constellations have two phases: the first are the 48 images
that appear in the constellations; they are in the celestial sphere,
and these are the imaginary images that are drawn by using the
fixed stars as a reference. They find similarity between the
convergence and diversion of planets on one hand and the
images of the constellations and other images such as Canis,
Ursa, Lyra, Cygnus and others, on the other hand.
These images disappear and move from one constellation to
another. This quality is not natural in astronomy, especially in
the constellations' band, because it takes these images
thousands of years to do so when they approach the aphelion;
however, the images that are getting close or are already close
to the aphehon do not appear to be moving in hundreds of
thousands of years because the band gets very narrow. This is
69