Abu Ma'shar

Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi (787–886), known in the Latin West as Albumasar, was the most influential astrologer of the Abbasid court in Baghdad.

The Three Hermes

In his Book of Thousands, Abu Ma'shar formalized the legendary genealogy of "Hermes." To integrate Egyptian and Greek wisdom into the Islamic prophetic timeline, he proposed three distinct historical figures named Hermes. The first Hermes lived before the Flood and built the pyramids to preserve knowledge; the second was the Babylonian Hermes (identified with Pythagoras's teacher); the third was the Egyptian Hermes of Hellenistic Alexandria, who wrote on alchemy and astrology. This tripartite genealogy was immensely successful and was directly inherited by Latin Renaissance scholars.