--- title: "Arabic Natal Chart: Reading Your Nativity — Canopy" description: "Arabic natal chart explained: tropical signs, whole-sign houses, seven planets, ten lots, the mansion at birth and the almuten, and how Canopy casts yours." canonical: https://canopyastro.com/natal-chart.html markdown: https://canopyastro.com/natal-chart.md date_modified: 2026-10-24 publisher: Stellar Apps LLC app: "Canopy: Arabian Astrology (iPhone, iPhone Duo and Android)" --- The tradition # The Arabic Natal Chart: How the Nativity Was Read al-mawlid — the nativity 8 min read · From the classical sources · Updated October 24, 2026 ## What a natal chart is — *al-mawlid*, the nativity **A natal chart** is a figure of the sky at the moment and place of a birth: where the planets stood, which sign was rising in the east, and how the houses fell from it. The Arabic astrologers called it *al-mawlid*, the nativity. Māshāʾallāh wrote on nativities at the early Abbasid court, and Abū Maʿshar, al-Qabīṣī and al-Bīrūnī after him set out how it was read, part by part. Two conventions shape it. The zodiac is the tropical one of Ptolemy's *Tetrabiblos*, measured from the spring equinox, so the signs follow the seasons. The houses are whole-sign: the rising sign is the whole first house, the next sign the second, and so round the circle. Canopy casts every chart this way, with no sidereal or Placidus option, and keeps to the seven visible planets. ## Rising, Sun, Moon and temperament The Overview opens with the wheel, headed *Kharīṭat al-Mawlid*, the map of the nativity, and beneath it your rising, Sun and Moon signs, each with its Arabic name. Tap a planet or an aspect line to read it. The rising sign, *al-ṭāliʿ*, makes the first house, and Canopy reads the planet that owns it for the mind. Without a birth time, the Overview warns that the houses and the Ascendant may be inaccurate. The Sun and Moon are the two lights. Whether the Sun stood above the horizon makes the chart one of day or of night: a night birth reverses the lots, and each planet is marked in or out of sect. The Moon joins the rising sign as a significator of the body. Temperament, *al-mizāj*, is judged from the testimonies of the chart in the four qualities, hot or cold and dry or moist: the rising sign and its lord, the Moon and her phase, the planets that aspect them, the season of the Sun and the lord of the geniture. Canopy names it choleric, sanguine, melancholic or phlegmatic, or two together, and lists every testimony. The method is drawn from Abū Maʿshar and al-Qabīṣī; its words come from the old medicine, and it says nothing about your health. See also [Sun, Moon and rising](https://canopyastro.com/sun-moon-rising.html). ## The key angles Key Angles sets out eight points, each with its own page: the Ascendant (*al-Ṭāliʿ*), the Midheaven (*Wasaṭ al-Samāʾ*), the Descendant (*al-Ghārib*), the IC (*Wasaṭ al-Arḍ*), the Vertex (*Nuqṭat al-Qadar*), the Lot of Fortune (*Sahm al-Saʿāda*), and the mean lunar nodes, the Head and the Tail (*al-Raʾs* and *al-Dhanab*). In whole-sign houses the Midheaven need not fall in the tenth sign, so it is given as a point of its own. The first six depend on the birth time. The Lot of Fortune stands here among the angles as well as on Key Lots. ## The seven planets in their houses — and their dignities The Planets page lists the seven planets and nothing beyond them. Each row gives the sign and degree, the whole-sign house in Roman numerals, ℞ if the planet was retrograde at birth, any dignity or debility, and a dot for sect: the Sun, Jupiter and Saturn belong to the day, the Moon, Venus and Mars to the night, and Mercury to neither. Above them sits the Angel of your birth day; each row opens the planet's page, with its decan. The label asks whether a planet is in a place of its own. Domicile and exaltation come first, then triplicity, the Egyptian terms and the Chaldean faces, with detriment and fall as their opposites. Dignity Analysis ranks all seven from weakest to strongest by essential dignity and by accidents such as house and the support or interference of the benefics and malefics. The tables are on the [essential dignities](https://canopyastro.com/essential-dignities.html) guide. ## The ten lots and the twelfth parts The lots, *al-sihām*, are points cast rather than seen: the distance between two places in the chart, measured out again from a third. The Lot of Fortune is the Ascendant plus the Moon less the Sun for a day birth, with the arc reversed at night, and the Lot of Spirit is its mirror. Key Lots lists ten: Fortune and Spirit as the two large plates, then Piety, Eros, Victory, Necessity, Marriage, Nemesis, Courage and Children, each with its Arabic name, sign and degree. Five of them are measured from Fortune or Spirit. Without a birth time a lot can land in the wrong sign. See [Arabic lots](https://canopyastro.com/arabic-lots.html). Twelfth Parts reads the Ascendant, the Midheaven and the seven planets a second time. Each sign is cut into twelve portions of 2½°, the first belonging to the sign itself, the next to the sign after it, and so on, so a planet at 8° Aries has its twelfth part in Cancer. Canopy gives each twelfth-part sign with its ruler, a quieter second sign that leaves your Sun sign as it is. ## The mansion at birth, the angels and the fixed stars Lunar Mansion finds the Moon's station at your birth, one of 28 equal mansions of 12°51′26″ counted from 0° Aries in the tropical zodiac: the Arabian *manāzil al-qamar*. It gives the mansion's number and Arabic name; its nature, benefic (*saʿd*), malefic (*naḥs*), mixed or neutral; its angel; what it favours and counsels against; and its talisman images. See [the 28 lunar mansions](https://canopyastro.com/lunar-mansions.html). Natal Angels names four: the Day Angel, from the planet of the weekday you were born on; the Birth Hour Angel, from the planetary hour of your birth; the Angel of the 24 Hours; and the Lunar Mansion Angel. Without a birth time only the first and the last can be found. Fixed Stars checks 35 stars, 15 of them Behenian, precessed to your birth date, and lists any within 3° of a planet or of the Ascendant, the Midheaven, the Vertex or either node. The stars were catalogued afresh by al-Ṣūfī in the tenth century; see [fixed stars](https://canopyastro.com/fixed-stars.html). ## Aspects, patterns and the conditions of the figure Key Aspects shows up to seven, tightest first, and only the five by which planets behold one another: conjunction, sextile, square, trine and opposition. Orbs are reckoned by moieties, half of each planet's orb added together, so the lights reach further than Mercury or Venus. Patterns finds the grand trine, T-square, grand cross, yod and stellium (three or more planets in one sign), and names any planet with no aspect. Below them stand the planetary refusals, five pairs held to abhor one another: Jupiter and Mars, Mars and Venus, Mercury and Jupiter, the Moon and Mars, and the Sun and Saturn. They are the same five on every chart, doctrine rather than a finding about you. Conditions of the Figure applies the old tests: Jupiter or Venus within 5° of the Ascendant or the Midheaven; the lord of the Moon's sign in the first, fifth, tenth or eleventh house; Mars or Saturn ruling the sixth, eighth or twelfth; the Lot of Fortune joined by the lord of the Ascendant or a benefic, struck by Mars or Saturn, or cut off from the Moon; and any pitted degrees, *al-ḥufar*. The lord and Lot tests need a birth time. ## The almuten — *al-mubtazz*, lord of the nativity The chart closes with the planet that prevails over it, *al-mubtazz*, elected from five places: the rising degree, the Sun, the Moon, the Lot of Fortune and the last new or full moon before birth, with shares at each of 5 for domicile, 4 for exaltation, 3 for triplicity, 2 for term and 1 for face. The reading sets the lord over the course of the life, the owner of the rising sign over the mind, and the rising sign with the Moon over the body, shows where it stands and suggests remedies. Without a birth time it is provisional, over three places. Its box sits on the Overview; the [almuten](https://canopyastro.com/almuten.html) guide gives the method. ## Where each Arabic technique appears in your chart The [signature techniques of Arabic astrology](https://canopyastro.com/arabic-astrology.html#the-signature-techniques) are explained on the main guide; here is where each sits in Canopy's chart. *Where each Arabic technique sits in the natal chart in Canopy* | Technique | Where it appears | Guide | |---|---|---| | Lunar mansions | Lunar Mansion, and the Lunar Mansion Angel on Angels | [The 28 lunar mansions](https://canopyastro.com/lunar-mansions.html) | | Arabic lots | Key Lots; Fortune also on Key Angles and Conditions | [Arabic lots](https://canopyastro.com/arabic-lots.html) | | Planetary hours | Angels: the Birth Hour Angel and the Angel of the 24 Hours | [Planetary hours](https://canopyastro.com/planetary-hours.html) | | Essential dignities | The labels on Planets, and Dignity Analysis | [Essential dignities](https://canopyastro.com/essential-dignities.html) | | Fixed stars | Fixed Stars | [Fixed stars](https://canopyastro.com/fixed-stars.html) | | The almuten | Almuten, and its box on the Overview | [The almuten](https://canopyastro.com/almuten.html) | | Electional astrology | Not in the nativity: the Elections tab | [Electional astrology](https://canopyastro.com/electional-astrology.html) | Elections ask when to begin something, not when you were born, so they have their own tab, with 16 purposes up to six months ahead. ## How Canopy casts your chart Canopy casts your chart in the app, not on this website. You give your name, birth date, birth place and, if you know it, your approximate birth time, and Canopy calculates the rest. The chart is a deck of fourteen sections. Canopy is free to download, with a 7-day free trial where offered; after the trial, a subscription keeps the app open. Each placement carries a reading drawn from the classical sources, the app runs in English, Arabic and Turkish, and on iPhone Duo the deck opens across two pages. The home page tours the [birth chart app](https://canopyastro.com/#chart) section by section. ![Canopy on iPhone Duo in Coffee Cream: a natal chart wheel with Sagittarius rising, the Sun in Gemini and the Moon in Sagittarius on the left page, and the Sun (al-Shams) in Gemini read on the right page](https://canopyastro.com/images/app/duo/coffee-cream/13-natal-chart-800.webp) ![Canopy on iPhone Duo in Midnight: a natal chart wheel with Sagittarius rising, the Sun in Gemini and the Moon in Sagittarius on the left page, and the Sun (al-Shams) in Gemini read on the right page](https://canopyastro.com/images/app/duo/midnight/13-natal-chart-800.webp) *On iPhone Duo, in Coffee Cream and Midnight: the Overview on the left page, the Sun (al-Shams) in Gemini read on the right.* See your nativity, cast to the minute. [Download on the App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/canopy-ancient-arabian-astro/id6780314504?pt=638207&ct=seo-in-natal-chart&mt=8&ppid=90f873d2-5a25-474d-b7aa-b3f8be93f89f) [Get it on Google Play](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=stellarappsllc.com.canopy&referrer=utm_source%3Dcanopyastro%26utm_medium%3Dseo%26utm_campaign%3Dinline-natal-chart&listing=birth-chart) Free to download · 7-day free trial where offered · then a subscription · **Supports iPhone Duo** ## Questions **Why does Canopy use whole-sign houses?** Whole-sign houses are the older method of the Hellenistic and early Arabic authors: the rising sign is the first house, the next sign the second, and so on. Canopy has no Placidus option, though it still calculates the Midheaven and shows it among the key angles. **Why are there no outer planets in the chart?** Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were found in 1781, 1846 and 1930, long after the Arabic books were written. Rulership, dignity and aspect in those books belong to the seven planets visible to the eye, and Canopy keeps to them, with the lots, the lunar nodes, the mansion and the fixed stars beside them. **Can I get my natal chart on this website?** No. This website has no chart form and takes no birth data. Canopy calculates your natal chart in the app, on iPhone and Android, from your birth date and place and, if you know it, your birth time. **What if I do not know my birth time?** Canopy still casts the chart and says where it cannot be sure. The Ascendant and the houses may be inaccurate, the rising sign is left out of the temperament, a lot can fall in the wrong sign, the two hour angels are not shown, the conditions of the lords and of the Lot of Fortune stay locked, and the almuten is provisional, counted over three places. **Is the natal chart free?** Canopy is free to download, and new subscribers start with a 7-day free trial where it is offered, with all fourteen sections of the chart open. After the trial, a subscription keeps the app open. **Is a zodiac chart the same as a natal chart?** Usually, yes. A zodiac chart or zodiac birth chart is a natal chart: the planets placed in the signs for the moment of birth. The Arabic nativity also reads the houses, each planet's dignity, the lots, the Moon's mansion and the lord of the nativity. ## Keep reading - [The almuten](https://canopyastro.com/almuten.html) — al-mubtazz - [Essential dignities](https://canopyastro.com/essential-dignities.html) — al-ḥuẓūẓ - [Arabic lots](https://canopyastro.com/arabic-lots.html) — al-sihām ## What did the sky hold at your birth? Canopy casts your nativity from your birth data, fourteen sections from the wheel to the almuten, with readings drawn from the classical sources — on iPhone, iPhone Duo and Android. [Download on the App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/canopy-ancient-arabian-astro/id6780314504?pt=638207&ct=seo-natal-chart&mt=8&ppid=90f873d2-5a25-474d-b7aa-b3f8be93f89f) [Get it on Google Play](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=stellarappsllc.com.canopy&referrer=utm_source%3Dcanopyastro%26utm_medium%3Dseo%26utm_campaign%3Dnatal-chart&listing=birth-chart) ![QR code that opens Canopy in the App Store or Google Play](https://canopyastro.com/images/qr-get-canopy.svg) On a computer? Scan with your phone's camera to get Canopy. Featured in [Thrive Insider](https://thriveinsider.com/business/canopy-ancient-arabian-astrology-app/) --- *Markdown rendering of https://canopyastro.com/natal-chart.html. Readings in Canopy are drawn from the classical Arabic sources; the HTML page is the canonical version.*