In his seminal essay, Situating Arabic Science: Locality vs. Essence, A.I. Sabra sought to establish both the importance of studying Islamic science on its own terms at the local level, and to situate the importance of Islamic contributions within broader narratives in the history of science. Since then, while there have certainly been enormous strides in local histories of science in Islamicate societies, situating Islamic science with respect to broader narratives has very often led to the Islamic world playing only a peripheral role to the predominantly Eurocentric narratives about the development of science. In the case of astronomy, George Saliba’s Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance, and Jamil Ragep’s essays “Copernicus and his Islamic Predecessors,” and “Ali Qushji and Regiomontanus,” are important works of scholarship that illustrate how much European narratives of science are indebted to the Islamic astronomical tradition. However, they also serve to reinforce the notion that there’s primarily one history of science that matters, a European history, in which Muslims played an important part. The subject of astrology complicates these already existing tensions. In one respect, early Arabic astrological thought (8th-11th c. CE) was highly influential in premodern Europe, and this history has been almost entirely ignored. This paper explores possibilities for how best to recount this narrative without falling into the historiographic trap outlined by Sonia Brentjes (“The Prison of Categories”). In another respect, local histories of astrology within the Islamic world have been guilty of dismissing the discipline, as it does not fit into an “Islamic science” that contributes to the progressive, Western history of science. In this paper, I look especially at George Saliba’s claim that the astronomical discipline of hay’a was formulated in large part because Muslim astronomers sought to liberate themselves from the Greek astrological trappings of pure astronomy. While it’s true that astrology had many critics, several hay’a authors continued to produce astrological works for centuries. To conclude the paper, I provide several examples that show that specific, very local contexts are necessary to determine the extent to which astrological questions informed astronomical research and methods.