A Persian astrologer born in Balkh, Abu Ma'shar (Latin: Albumasar) became the most prestigious astrologer at the Abbasid court. His most extensive and influential work, the Kitab al-mudkhal al-kabir (c. 848), integrated Hellenistic, Persian, and Indian astronomical traditions using Aristotelian natural philosophy categories; per historian Richard Lemay, it was very probably the most important source for the recovery of Aristotelian thought among European scholars before the mid-12th century, translated by John of Seville (1133) and Hermann of Carinthia (1140).