Namudar is the Persian name of a technique used by medieval astrologers to know accurately the ascendant of birth.

In his study (1995/96), Edward S. Kennedy found four procedures for the namudar, all of them attributed to pre-Islamic sources as Hermes, Zoroaster, Vettius Valens and Ptolemy.

This paper explores the namudar described by the astronomer Ibn al-Kammad (fl. Cordova, 1116) in his treatise Kitab mafatih al-asrar (Escorial MS 939) of which, J. Vernet made a preliminary study in 1949.

Ibn al-Kammad’s namudar presents some peculiarities, for example the use of the sidereal lunar month together with the synodic lunar month. For his namudar, Ibn al-Kammad employed parameters of the Andalusian astronomical tradition as well as numerical tables to obtain the gestation time.