IBN
AL-ATHIR, ‘ALI ABU ‘L HASAN ‘IZZ AL-DIN
Ibn al-Athir was a scholar (1160–1232 CE) who spent most of his life in
Mosul (present-day northern Iraq) with short spells in Syria. Details of his
life are hardl known because he rarely referred to himself in his writings. He
was the scion of a notable Mosulian family that had acquired some wealth by
engaging in trade and owned real estates. His father and two of his brothers
played an active role in political life by serving Zankid and Ayyubid rulers in
northern Iraq and Syria. It is not clear whether Ibn al-Athir himself had
official positions, but he enjoyed at least the patronage of members of the
Zankid dynasty and their high officials and served as the dynasty’s envoy to
Baghdad.
Ibn al-Athir’s fame has rested with his universal history Kamil
fi al-ta’rikh (The Perfect History), which reports events from the creation
of the world until shortly before the author’s death. The scope of this
voluminous work was unusual for its period because most chronicles tended to be
local histories that concentrated on the immediate past (such at those by Abu
Shama, Ibn al-‘Adim, and Ibn Wasil). TheKamil was regarded by its
contemporaries and following generations as an outstanding achievement in the
field of history for several reasons. The coherent account focuses on the main
events by artfully integrating a variety of sources. At the same time Ibn
al-Athir strove to treat also events in neighboring regions of the Islamic
world, such as Egypt and Persia. Although the chronicle followed the period’s dominant
annalistic scheme of organizing the material, Ibn al-Athir transgressed this
rigid framework when necessary. He drew together elements of events, which
stretched over several years, under one heading in order to avoid the
continuous interruption of the narrative. Finally, as the author eschewed
explicit partisanship to political or sectarian causes he was able to reach a
broad readership.
Shortcomings of his work, for example, that the hardly covered more
distant areas such as the Maghrib, did not alter its popularity. However, from
a modern perspective the chronicle poses several problems, chief among them the
author’s method of omitting his sources to avoid interrupting the narrative.
Consequently, the bulk of his work prior to his own lifetime, while retaining
its literary value, can hardly be used for historical purposes. The parts contemporary
to him are of greater historical value, but the implicit support of the Zankid
dynasty has to be kept in mind when reading the text.
The Crusades play no particular role in the Kamil’s narrative because
they hardly altered the chain of events as laid out by Ibn al-Athir. However, in
a famous passage the author linked the advent of the First Crusade in the late
eleventh-century Middle East to the Christian advances into Muslim territories
in Andalus/Spain and Sicily, an insight of historical broadness rarely found
among his contemporaries.
Ibn al-Athir composed another chronicle, al Ta’rikh al-bahir (The Splendid
History), on the Zankid dynasty of his hometown of Mosul, which due to its limited
geographical and chronological focus, as well as its more explicit partisanship
for the Zankids, did not reach the reputation of theKamil. Ibn al-Athir’s fame
in history did not only rest on his chronicle but also on biographical works,
especially his account of the Companions of the Prophet. This work’s virtues, again,
were its coherent account and its focus on main issues.
Primary Sources
Ibn
al-Athir.al-Kamil fi al-ta’rikh. 13 vols. Edited by Carolus
J.
Tornberg. Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1965–1967 (eprint of
1851–1871
edition with corrections and new pagination).
Further Reading
Ahmad,
M. H. M. ‘‘Some Notes on Arabic Historiography during the Zengid and Ayyubid
Periods (521/1127–648/ 1250).’’ In Historians of the Middle East, edited by Bernard
Lewis and Peter M. Holt, 79–97. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962.
Robinson, Chase F.Islamic Historiography. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2003. Rosenthal, Franz.A History of Muslim Historiography. Leiden:
Brill, 1968.
IBN
AL-FURAT
Nasir al-Din b. ‘Abd al-Rahim b. ‘Ali b. al-Furat alMisri al-Hanafi (d.
1404–1405), was the Mamluk era author of a universal history titled Ta‘rikh al-Duwal wa-l-Muluk. The work
has proved valuable for modern historians, particularly for its coverage of the
Ayyubid and Mamluk periods including details of the late Crusade period
although there are gaps in the surviving manuscripts. The Ta‘rikh al-Duwal wa-l Muluk was
subsequently used by later Mamluk era historians, notablyal-Maqrizi(d. 1442).
An analysis of portions of his work reveals Ibn al-Furat to have been
interested primarily in the recording of significant political and economic
events and the associated activities of the ruling elite.
Primary
Sources
Ayyubids, Mamluks and Crusaders: Selections from the Tarikh
al-Duwal wa’l-Muluk of Ibn al-Furat. Text and Translation by U. and M.C. Lyons.
Historical
Introduction by J. S. C. Riley-Smith. 2 vols. Cambridge: W. Heffer and Sons,
1971.
Further
Reading
cahen. CCl. ‘‘Ibn al-Furat.’’Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2d ed.,
vol. 3.2, 768–769.
Little, D.P.An Introduction to Mamluk Historiography.
Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1970.
IBN
AL-HAYTHAM, OR ALHAZEN
The polymath Abu ‘Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham (ca. 965–1039 CE), known
in Latin as Alhazen, was born in Basra, Iraq. After completing his studies in
Iraq, he settled in Egypt, wherein he
was commissioned to design a dam on the Nile. The failure of this project led
him to feign madness until the death of his erratic patron, the Fatimid caliph
al-Hakim (1021 CE).
Although his prolific contributions covered a variety of disciplines in
mathematics, astronomy, and mechanics, his impact was greatest in the field of
optics. His chef-d’œuvre Kitab al-Manazir
(The Optics, ca. 1027 CE), which was translated into Latin as De aspectibus
(ca. 1270 CE), decisively shaped the emerging theory of perspective in medieval
and Renaissance science and art. His influence is noticeable in medieval scholars
such as Roger Bacon, John Peckham, and Witelo and in Renaissance theorists such
as Leon Battista Alberti and Lorenzo Ghiberti. In medieval science in Islam,
Kamal al-Din al-Farisi’s Tanqih
al-Manazir (The Revision of the Optics) advanced the most substantive
critical interpretation of Ibn al-Haytham. His theory of vision constituted an
outstanding achievement in optics in the period between Claudius Ptolemy and
Johannes Kepler. He resolved the ancient Greek dispute over the nature and
causation of vision, which had either been derived, in physical terms, from the
intromission of the form of a visible object into the eye or from the mathematical
model of the extromission of a cone of light from the eye. Following physicists
like Aristotle, Ibn al-Haytham argued that vision occurs by intromission of the
luminous form of the visible object into the eye. However, in elucidating this
process he employed the model of the cone of vision as formulated by mathematicians
such as Euclid and Ptolemy. He thus demonstrated that vision results from the
intromission of a luminous form by way of the rectilinear propagation of light
through a transparent medium; there is a virtual cone whose vertex is in the
center of the eye and whose base is on the surface of the visible entity. He
also held that visual perception is not a mere sensation but is primarily an inferential
act of discernment and judgment. Moreover, he supplemented his Optics withTreatise on Light (Risala fi l-Daw’), which further investigated the essence and comportment
of luminosity and its radiant dispersion through various transparent and translucent
media. His ocular observations were founded on anatomical examinations of the
structure of the eye, as well as being supported by experimental installations
devised to detect errors and illusions in visual perception and to explore
phenomena like the camera obscura (the darkroom principle behind the pinhole camera).
Ibn al-Haytham also investigated meteorological aspects related to the rainbow
and to the density of the atmosphere, as well as inquiring about the nature of
celestial phenomena such as the eclipse, the twilight, and moonlight. In this
endeavor, he relied on his accounts of refraction and on catoptrical
experimentations with spherical and parabolic mirrors and magnifying lenses. He
also presented a thorough critique of the conception of place (topos) as set in
Aristotle’s Physics, wherein it was stated that the place of something is the
two-dimensional boundary of the containing body that is at rest and is in
contact with what it contains. In contrast with this definition, Ibn al-Haytham
rather attempted to demonstrate in his Risala
fi’l-makan (Treatise on Place) that place (al-makan)is the imagined threedimensional
void between the inner surfaces of the containing body. Consequently, he showed
that place was akin to space in a manner that prefigures Descartes’s extensio.
Building on the legacy of Euclid, and partly informed by the works of the
mathematician Thabit ibn Qurra (d. 901 CE), Ibn al-Haytham further systematized
the arts of analytical geometry (linking algebra to geometry), infinitesimal
mathematics, conics, and number theory. In addition, he studied the mechanics
of the first law of motion according to which it is held that a body moves
perpetually unless prevented from doing so by an external force that arrests it
or alters its direction. In examining the attraction between masses he also seems
to have been tangentially aware of the magnitude of acceleration due to a
principle akin to the force of gravity. Pioneer in his pursuits, he also
strived to develop rigorous experimental methods of controlled scientific
testing in view of verifying theoretical hypotheses and substantiating
inductive conjectures.
Primary
Sources
Ibn al-Haytham.Kitab al-manazir. Edited by Abdelhamid I. Sabra.
Kuwait: National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters, 1983.
———.The Optics of Ibn al-Haytham, Books I-III, On Direct
Vision. Translated by Abdelhamid I. Sabra. London: The Warburg Institute,
University of London,
1989.
———.Majmu’ al-rasa’il. Haydar Abad: Da’irat al-Ma’arif al-‘Uthmaniyya,
1937.
Further
Reading
Beshara, Saleh O.Ibn al-Haytham’s Optics: A Study of the
Origins of Experimental Science. Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1977.
Nazif, Mustafa.al-Hasan bin al-Haytham. 2 vols. Cairo: Matba’at
al-nuri, 1942–1943.
Rashed, Roshdi. Les mathe´matiques infinite´simales du IX
E au XI e sie`cle: Ibn al-Haytham, Volumes II–IV. London: al-Furqan
Islamic Heritage Foundation, 1993–2002.
Sabra, Abdelhamid I. ‘‘The Physical and the Mathematical in
Ibn al-Haytham’s Theory of Light and Vision.’’ In The Commemoration Volume of
Biruni International
Congress in Tehran. Vol. 38. Tehran: High Council of Culture
and Arts, 1976.
———. ‘‘Sensation and Inference in Alhazen’s Theory of Visual
Perception.’’ InStudies in Perception: Interrelations in the History of
Philosophy and Science. Edited by Peter K. Machamer and Robert G. Turnbull.
Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1978.
IBN
AL-JAWZI
Ibn al-Jawzi, ‘Abd al-Rahman b. ‘Ali b. Muhammad Abu ’l-Faraj, a legal
scholar, theologian, preacher, and historian, was one of the most prominent
figures of twelfth-century Baghdad. Born around 1126 CE to a fairly wealthy
family, he lived in the city a life of great intellectual, religious, and
political activity. His life, which lasted to the end of the twelfth century, illustrates
major characteristics of the political and religious milieu of Baghdad during
the so-called Sunni Revival. In particular, his career and activities as a
Hanbali master and preacher reflect the significant role played by Hanbali
popular preachers of this period in shaping the city’s public sphere. Seen in
the broader perspective of the medieval Islamic civilization, the century
during which he lived was a particularly productive and significant period in
the history of Islamic preaching, comparable to the twelfth century in the history
of preaching in the Latin West.
By the twelfth century, Baghdad had become a major scene in the
development of the madrasa and the crystallization of the Sunni schools of
jurisprudence. Ibn al-Jawzi’s teaching career began as an assistant to his master
in his two madrasas and culminated in the directorship of five prestigious
madrasas erected in the city for adherents to the Hanbali school. His
prominence in Baghdad’s official and public spheres was due to his preaching as
to his teaching activity at the Hanbali law colleges. Not only did he deliver
the official sermons of the Palace mosque but he also preached many popular
sermons to very large and enthusiastic crowds. His sermons vigorously defended
the Sunna against all those whom he considered to be schismatic and criticized
those Sunni scholars who, in his view, did not fully adhere to the uncompromising
demand of Hanbali scholars for conformity and uniformity among the ‘‘people of the
Sunna’’ in accordance with the perfect integrity of the simple original faith.
At the same time, he called for the restoration of the caliphate—an institution
commonly perceived as the symbol of
legitimate government and unity among Muslims. For many years he was closely associated
with the ‘Abbasids who supported and encouraged his teaching and preaching activities
in Baghdad’s public arena. However, toward the end of his life, he was exiled
and put under house arrest by decree of the caliph al-Nasir, whose policy he
had refuted. Soon after his triumphant return to Baghdad, Ibn al-Jawzi died in
1200.
Ibn al-Jawzi was clearly one of the most prolific and versatile authors
of medieval Arabic literature. Several medieval authors place the number of his
writings at nearly a thousand. While this is probably an exaggerated figure,
enough information is available to indicate that the extent of his literary
corpus is very considerable indeed. A glance at the titles of his works that
are extant indicates that they range across the entire spectrum of the great
Islamic and literary disciplines.
His outstanding work, al-Muntazam ,is
a universal history, relating the history of the world in chronological order
from its beginnings to the year 1179. Following each year entry, he provides
richly documented biographies of all prominent people who died during that
particular year: caliphs, viziers, judges, high officials, scholars, and pious
men. His two other major historical works belong to the biographical genre, one
of the most productive genres of the Islamic literary tradition. HisSifat
al-safwais a collection of biographies of those whom he considered to be true
Sufis, that is, the ascetic worshipers who followed faithfully the teaching of
the Prophet and his Companions. HisManaqibis a collection of panegyric
biographies of the historic figures he regarded as models of proper Islamic
creed and conduct.
Ibn al-Jawzi’s zeal as a defender of true faith appears with particular
fervor in hisTalbis iblis, one of the major works of Hanbali polemic. In this work he launched an
attack not only on the various heretical sects but also on all those whom he
considered responsible for introducing bid‘a (negative innovations) into
Sunnism, and of these, particularly, the Muslim mystics. His views and tenets
are no more clearly expressed than in his collections of homilies consisting of
the four subgenres that make up the medieval Arabic homily: the khutba (hymn of praise), the qissa(pious story), thewa‘z (admonition), and the khawatim(concluding verses of
poetry). Furthermore, the collection of sermons he left reflects his prominence
in the society within which he was embedded and his significant contribution to
the evolution of the Islamic art of sermon composition and preaching.
Further
Reading
Ibn al-Jawzi, ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn ‘Ali. Kitab al-Lutf fi’l-wa‘z.
Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 1984.
———.Kitab al-qussas wa’l-mudhakkirin. Edited and translated
by Merlin Swartz. Beirut: Dar al-Machreq, 1984. ———.Al-Muntazam fi ta’rikh
al-muluk wa’l-umam. 5 vols.
[¼Vols. V–X]. Hyderabad, Deccan: Dairat el-Maaref Osmania,
1938–1940.
———.Sifat al-safwa. Hyderabad, Deccan: Dairat elMaaref
Osmania, 1936–1938.
———.Talbis iblis. Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, n.d. Hartmann,
A. ‘‘Les ambivalences d’un sermonnaire hanbalite.’’ Annales Islamologiques22
(1986), 52 ff.
———. ‘‘La predication islamique au moyen age: Ibn alJawzi et
des sermons (fin du 6 E /12 e sie`cle).’’Quadrani di studi arabi. 5–6
(1987–1988): 337–346.
Laoust, H. ‘‘Les Agitations Religieuses a` Baghdad aux IV e
et V e sie`cles de l’He´gire.’’ InIslamic Civilization 950– 1150,edited by D.S.
Richards. Oxford: Cassirer, 1973.
Leder, S.Ibn al-Gauzi und seine Kompilation wider die Leidenschaft.
Beirut: In Kommission bei Franz Steiner Verlag, 1984.
Swartz, Merlin. ‘‘The Rules of Popular Preaching in Twelfth-Century
Baghdad According to Ibn al-Jawzi’’.
In Preaching and Propaganda in the Middle Ages, edited by G.
Makdisi et al, 223–239. Islam, Byzantium, Latin West. Paris: Presses Universitaires
de France, 1983.
———. ‘‘Arabic Rhetoric and the Art of Homily in Medieval
Islam.’’ InReligion and Culture in Medieval Islam, edited by Richard G.
Hovannisian and George Sabagh. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press,
1999.
IBN AL-MUQAFFA‘
Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ (c. 723–759 CE) was a
prolific translator and the author of original works on ethics and statecraft.
He was born in Fars (Southwest Persia, today Iran) to a family of local
notables. In the course of his education he mastered the various scripts used to
write Pahlavi, an archaic written form of Persian. He was thus able to read the
epic histories, works of advice to kings, and other genres of wisdom literature
left behind by the Sasanian Empire that had once ruled Southwest Asia.
After studying in the southern Iraqi city
of Basra to perfect his knowledge of
Arabic, Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ held a series of secretarial posts under the Umayyad governors
of Shapur and Kirman. Unlike many of his
colleagues, he escaped persecution when the ‘Abbasid revolution (750) overthrew
the Umayyad dynasty. Returning to Basra, he served as a secretary to the brothers
of the reigning caliph al-Mansur. When one of the brothers made an abortive bid
for the throne, Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ was asked to draft a letter asking the caliph
not to retaliate against his rebellious relative. The terms of the letter
angered the caliph, who expressed the wish that someone might rid him of this troublesome secretary. Taking the hint,
the governor of Basra had Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ executed, reportedly by being chopped
to pieces.
In the course of his short career, Ibn
al-Muqaffa‘ translated numerous works of Sasanian literature from Pahlavi into
Arabic. The most famous of these is Kalila
and Dimna, a collection of fables that had been translated from Sanskrit
into Pahlavi. The stories, which feature both human and animal characters, show
how foresight, self-restraint, and trickery can be used to one’s advantage. The
book’s preface, which claims to be the autobiography of the Persian physician
who translated the book from the original Sanskrit, contains a searching
critique of institutionalized religion. The work inspired at least seven direct
translations from the Arabic into other languages. The most influential was the
second Hebrew translation, which was made around 1270. It inspired versions in German,
Spanish, and Italian, the last of which served as the basis of the first
English rendering (1570).
In addition toKalila and Dimna, Ibn
al-Muqaffa‘ translated Pahlavi works on history, statecraft, and ethics. None
of his translations survives in its
entirety, although one (The Letter of
Tansar) is known through a later rendering into New Persian. The rest are
widely quoted by classical Arabic authors, and even in this fragmentary form constitute
an important source of information on pre-Islamic Iran. He has also been credited
with a translation of an Aristotelian work on logic, but the attribution is
erroneous.
Of the works he himself wrote in Arabic, the most famous is his work
on adab. Adab means ‘‘the right way of doing something,’’ and his book offers
advice on how to win friends, prosper in one’s career, and avoid incurring the
wrath of one’s superiors. Due to the influence of this work (as well as an
imitation of it commonly misattributed to him),adabcame to mean not only
‘‘social skills’’ but also ‘‘books about social skills,’’ and eventually
‘‘secular literature,’’ which, along with ‘‘good manners,’’ is the meaning of
the term in modern Arabic.
Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ is also famous for his letter
of advice to the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur(AH 136– 158/754–775 CE)recommending
that the latter promulgate an official statement of the Islamic creed, adopt a
uniform code of law, and pay the army regularly. The recommendations were not
adopted, but the diagnosis of the state of the empire proved strikingly
prescient.
To Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ also are ascribed a
defense of Manichean dualism and a few lines of prose written in imitation of
the Qur’an. Authentic or not, these texts contributed to his posthumous
reputation as a heretic, which clung to him despite his conversion from Zoroastrianism
to Islam.
Industrious, unsentimental, and often
irreverent, Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ deserves much of the credit for preserving the
literary legacy of the Sasanian empire and, in the process, creating a
precedent for the use of Arabic as a vehicle for secular prose literature.
Primary Sources
Al-adab
al-kabir wa al-adab al-saghir. Edited by In‘am Fawwal. Beirut: Dar al-Kitab
al-‘Arabi, 1994.
Kalila wa
Dimna li ‘Abd Allah Ibn al-Muqaffa‘. Edited by ‘Abd al-Wahhab ‘Azzam et al.
Beirut: Dar al-Shuruq, 1973. English translation (based on other sources) in Kalilah
and Dimnah. An English Version of Bidpai’s Fables Based upon Ancient Arabic and
Spanish Manuscripts. Translated by Thomas Ballantine Irving. Newark, DE: Juan
de la Cuesta, 1980.
La Lotta tra
l’Islam e il Manicheismo: un libro di Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ contro il Corano
confutato da al-Qasim b. Ibrahim. Edited and translated by Michaelangelo Guidi.
Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1927 (contains passages from the
Manichean tract with Italian translation).
Pellat,
Charles.Ibn al-Muqaffa‘, mort vers 140/757, ‘‘conseilleur’’ du caliphe. Paris:
Maisonneuve, 1976 (contains the letter to al-Mansur).
The Letter
of Tansar. Translated by Mary Boyce. Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed
Estremo Oriente, 1968.
Further Reading
de Blois,
Franc¸ois.Burzoy’s Voyage to India and the Origin of the Book of Kalilah wa
Dimnah. London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1990 (with extensive further
bibliography).
Latham, J.D.
‘‘Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ and Early ‘Abbasid Prose.’’ In‘Abbasid Belles-Lettres, edited
by JuliaAshtiany et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
van Ess,
Josef. ‘‘Some Fragments of the Mu‘aradat alQur’anAttributed to Ibn
al-Muqaffa‘.’’[the passages in imitation of the Qur’an] In Studia Arabica et
Islamica,
Festchrift
for Ihsan ‘Abbas, edited by Wadad al-Qadi. Beirut: American University in Beirut,
1981.
IBN AL-NAFIS
‘Ala’ al-Din ‘Ali ibn Abi l‘Haram al-Qurasi,
commonly known as Ibn al-Nafis, was a renowned physician and an author of and
commentator on medical works. He also wrote about the fields of grammar, rhetoric,
logic, religious sciences, and, famously, of religious philosophy. Ibn al-Nafis
was born probably in the second decade of the thirteenth century and grew up
and was educated in Damascus. At some point, he moved to Cairo, where he
practiced and taught at a hospital of unknown identity, perhaps the Bimaristan
al-Nasiri, and eventually attained the post of chief of physicians (ray‘is al-aibba) of Egypt and the influential
honor of being personal physician to the Mamluk sultan, probably al-Zahir Baybars
(r. 1260–1277). One of his contemporary and compatriot students was the surgeon
Ibn al-Quff (1233–1286). Ibn al-Nafis may have crossed paths with Ibn abi
Usaybi’a (d. 1270) in Cairo, but it does not figure in the latter’s
biographical collection of Arabic medicine. Toward the end of his life, Ibn al-Nafis
bequeathed his house and library to the Mansuri hospital, founded by the sultan
al-Mansur Qallwun (r. 1279–1290) in 1284. He died in Cairo on Dec. 17, 1288.
Ibn al-Nafis was extolled by his admiring
biographers and colleagues as a ‘‘second
Avicenna’’; his prominent position in the scholarly heritage of the Arabs
until today is reflected in the fact that many hospitals in the Arab world are
named after him. In fact, the breadth of his scholarship, his ability for synthesis,
and his independent judgment, an indicator of which is the scarcity of his
literal references to preceding scholarly literature, are remarkable. More decisive
is the fact that Ibn al-Nafis, with his treatment of Avicenna’s Qanun,
inaugurated a long series of commentaries and supercommentaries to this medical
encyclopedia and helped to establish its dominant position for some centuries to
come. Of his extant commentaries on medical writings a number deal with the Corpus Hippocraticum: the Aphorisms, the Prognostics, the
Epidemics (for which cf. the essay by P. Bachmann), and De natura hominis; the writings of Galen
do not seem to have attracted Ibn al-Nafis’ solicitude, because, according to
his biographer, alSafadi, and contrary to his Damascene teacher, Muhaddib
al-Din al-Dahwar (d. 1230), ‘‘he loathed the style of Galen and described it as
weak and profuse with nothing in it.’’ Apart from a commentary on the famous
medical catechism al-Masa’il fi l-O ibb
by Hunayn b. Ishaq (d. 873 or 877), he dealt markedly with Avicenna’s Qanun,
first in the form of an epitome, Mujiz,
treating all parts of medicine as they are dealt with in the Qanun, except for
anatomy and physiology; and second, a commentary, Sarh al Qanun. The Mujiz gave rise to a host of commentaries, and
one Hebrew and two Turkish translations are known. Among the commentators, the
most widely read authors are SadI d al-Din al-Kazaruni (d. 1357); Gamal al-Din
al-Aqsara’i (d. 1378); Nafis b. ‘Iwad alKirmani (wrote in 1437), whose
commentary in turn was repeatedly commented on into the nineteenth century; and
Ibn al-Amsati (d. 1496). Ibn al-Nafis’ Sarh al-Qanun,as well as at least one of
his manuscripts, written before 1242 and bearing the separate Title Sarh tasrih al-Qanun, contain the
earliest account of the pulmonary blood circulation, which contradicts b oth common theories of a visible passage and
the Galenic assumption of an invisible passage of the blood between the two
cavities of the heart and which antedates the publication, in 1553, of the
pertinent account by Michael Servetus, possibly through the communication of
Ibn al-Nafis’ ideas by the translator Andrea Alpago (d. 1520), by three
centuries. The anatomical observation that the cardiac wall is impermeable
leads Ibn al-Nafis to the logical postulation that ‘‘when the blood [in the
right cavity] has become thin, it is passed through the arterial vein into the
lung, in order to be dispersed within the substance of thelung and to mix with
the air, whereupon the finest parts of the blood are refined and, after mixing
with the air and becoming fit for the generation of pneuma, are passed through
the venous artery into theleft cavity’’ (cf. Iskandar 1970–1980: 603, and
Ullmann 1970: 173–176; for the recent discussion of Ibn al-Nafis’ theory, cf.
Iskandar 1970–1980: 605 f.). Ibn al-Nafis’ construction of the pulmonary blood
circulation was received scarcely, if at all, by later scholars of Islamic
medicine. Equally small was the visible reception of his comprehensive handbook
on ophthalmology,K. al-Muhaddab fi l-kuhl
al-mugarrab. Of his medical Summa,
the K. alSamil fi l-sina al-tibbiyya,
projected to consist of three hundred
volumes, only eighty were completed, and a number of manuscripts are extant,
some of them autographs of the author.
In his Muhtasar
fi ‘ilm uE`U´l al-hadir, Ibn al-Nafis gives a short summary (some
twenty-four folia) of the principles of the science of Tradition, ‘‘a reminder
for the advanced student and an auxiliary manual for the beginner,’’ which is
informed by the school of al-Safr’i and
makes extensive use of al-Harib al-Bagdadi’s Kifayaand, particularly, al-Gazali’sMustasfa.
Certainly the most original of Ibn al-Nafis’ works is his Risala al-kamiliyya fi l-sira al-nabawiyya. The two
predecessors of this philosophical allegory are Avicenna’s Risalat Hayy b. Yaqzanand a work with the same title (but different
intention) by the Andalusian physician and philosopher Ibn Tufayl (d. 1185).
While Avicenna’s tale, with its programmatic title hero who comes into being by
spontaneous generation, grows up on an island without fellow human beings, and,
by his own observation and reasoning, attains the natural, philosophical, and theological
truths, clearly is the inspiration for both Ibn Tufayl’s and Ibn al-Nafis’
accounts, the relationship between these two latter authors vis-a `-vis Avicenna is much closer.
This shows in the similar treatment of the hero’s anatomical observations, which
proceed toward a study of the plants, the meteorological phenomena, the
celestial bodies, the Creator and His attributes, and a number of other parallels,
as the hermeneutical issue of why the Divine Law is mediated to the common
people in the form of allegories. In turn, Ibn al-Nafis’ account deviates significantly
from that of Ibn Tufayl insofar as his hero, Kamil, ‘‘the Perfect,’’ deduces
not only the rules of the religious law, the duties of man in worship and social
relations—hence the editors’ title of the edition of Ibn al-Nafis’ text,Theologus
Autodidactus—but also the historical events from the Prophet Muhammad down into
the author’s lifetime, not from information given by visitors to the island
from outside, as Ibn Tufayl had related a hundred years before, but by his own
reasoning. Ibn al-Nafis links his theological and historical ideas by the
concept that the divine providence is bound to produce a course of history that
isasiahfor the community, ‘‘that which is best and most proper,’’ a concept
that is informed both by Mu‘tazilite thought and Galen’s anatomical ideas, as
famously represented in his De usu
partium.
Primary Sources
Amarat,
Hasan (Ed).Ibn an-Nafis. Kompendium u¨ber die Wissenschaft von den Grundlagen
des Hadit. Edition und kommentierte U ¨bersetzung. Hildesheim, Zu ¨rich, New York:
Georg Olms Verlag, 1986 (Arabistische Texte und Studien. Band 1).
Meyerhof,
Max, and Joseph Schacht (Eds).The Theologus Autodidactusof Ibn al-Nafis.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968.
Qataya,
Salman (Ed).K. Sarh tasrih al-Qanun li-Abi l-Hasan [...] Ibn al-Nafis.
Al-Qahira: al-Maglis al-A‘la li-l-taqhfa, al-Hay’a al-misriyya, 1988.
al-Wafa’i,
Muhammad Zafir and Muhammad Rawwas Qal’agi (Eds).Al-Muhaddab fi l-kuhl
al-mugarrab li-‘Ali b. a. l-Hazm [...] Ibn al-Nafis. Casablanca: Malba’at an-Nagah
al-gadida, 1408/1988.
Zaydan,
Yusuf (Ed).Sarh Fusul Abuqral li-‘Alai al-Din ‘Ali [...] Ibn al-Nafis.
Al-Qahira: al-Dar al-misriyya al-lubnaniyya, 1411/1991.
Zaydan,
Yusuf (Ed).Al-Muhtar min al-aydiya, ma‘a dirasa li-nazariyyat al-tadawi
bi-l-gida’ li- [...] Ibn al-Nafis.
Al-Qahira:
al-Dar al-misriyya al-lubnaniyya, 1412/1992.
Further Reading
Bachmann,
Peter. ‘‘Quelques remarques sur le commentaire du premier livre des E´ pide´mies
par Ibn an-Nafis.’’ In Actas do IV Congresso de Estudos a´rabes e isla ˆmicos. Coimbra–Lisboa
1 a 8 setembro de 1968. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1971, 301–309.
Heer,
Nicholas, ‘‘Talafat mugalladat min Kitab as-Samil li-Ibn an-Nafis.’’ In Revue
de l’Institut des Manuscripts Arabes. 6 (1960): 203–210.
Iskandar,
Albert Z. ‘‘Ibn al-Nafis.’’ InDictionary of Scientific Biography, 14 vols,
edited by Charles C. Gillespie, 602–606. Vol 9. New York, 1970–1980.
Iskandar,
Albert Z. ‘‘Comprehensive book on the art of medicine by Ibn al-Nafis.’’
In:www.islamset.com/isc/ nafis/iskandar.html(accessed online on 9/20/2004).
Kruk, Remke.
‘‘History and Apocalypse: Ibn al-Nafis’ Justification of Mamluk rule.’’ Der
Islam72 (1995): 324–337.
Meyerhof,
Max, and Joseph Schacht. ‘‘Ibn al-Nafis.‘‘ In The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New
edition. 11 vols, edited by B. Lewis et al. Leiden, 1954–2002. Vol. 3: 897–898.
Savage-Smith,
Emilie. ‘‘Ibn al-Nafis’sPerfected Book on Ophthalmologyand his Treatment of
Trachoma and Its Sequelae.’’Journal for the History of Arabic Science. 4
(1980): 147–187 [with an edition of parts of K. al-Muhaddab fi tibb al-þayn:
namat2,gumla2,bab1, fasl20:fi l-garab; gumla3,bab1,fasl8:fi s-sabal; fasl9: fi
z-zafara, 31–49 (Arabic pagination)].
Ullmann,
Manfred.Die Medizin im Islam. Handbuch der Orientalistik. Erste Abteilung.
Erga¨nzungsband 6, Erster Abschnitt. Leiden and Ko¨ln: E.J. Brill, 1970, 172–176.
IBN
AL-RAWANDI, ABU ’L HUSAYN
AHMAD IBN YAHYA
Perhaps the most notorious freethinker of
medieval Islam, Ibn al-Rawandi was born in Khurasan around 815 CE. He started
out as a respected Mu‘tazilite theologian but later became estranged from his
former colleagues, perhaps due to the association with his mentor, the Manichaean Abu ‘Isa al-Warraq. From that
point on Ibn al-Rawandi is depicted by most (though not all) of our sources as
a heretic who maliciously scoffs at all religions, particularly Islam... He
left Baghdad, apparently to escape persecution by the authorities, and died in
860 (or, according to other sources, in 912).
Although one can see this image as a
distorted picture composed by his opponents (as suggested by Josef van Ess),
the accumulated information provided by the texts suggests that the image had a
firm base in reality, and that Ibn al-Rawandi had indeed outstepped the
boundaries of Islam. He is said to have written numerous books, none of which
is extant. Extensive quotations in later Muslim sources, however, allow us to
reconstruct many of his arguments. In hisBook of the Emeraldhe argued that the
human intellect makes revelation superfluous. God has provided humanity with
the intellect. This intellect, which is part of the definition of humanity, is
given equally to all human beings and is sufficient to guide them. The pretenders
to prophecy are thus nothing but impostors and charlatans who exploit their knowledge
of natural phenomena in order to manipulate and delude simple people. In this
book, those who serve as Ibn al-Rawandi’s mouthpiece and who present his
antiprophetic lore are the so-called Brahmans: Indian polemicists who uphold
the intellectual and spiritual equality of all humans. This literary device may
reflect actual contacts with Indian philosophy, but it may also have been
conceived to ward off accusations of heresy, and as a protective device against
persecution.
Apart from a strong skeptical tenor, it is
difficult to attribute to Ibn al-Rawandi any identifiable positive belief. He
spared no religion, but his most severe criticism was directed against Islam.
His sharp, sarcastic censure of the Qur’an is characterized by mocking and
irreverent style. He pointed out apparent inconsistencies in the text, as well
as to its illogical, immoral concept of a vengeful God who acts arbitrarily. He
was preoccupied by questions of theodicy, to which he dedicated one of his
books.
Ibn al-Rawandi’s mastery of the art of
dialectical disputation is recognized by his fiercest opponents. They claim,
however, that he put this talent to ill use. His image of anenfant terribleis
enhanced by lists of his books, from which it appears that he cultivated a
habit of writing books on various topics, and then writing refutations of the
same books. Muslim heresiographers and polemicists are baffled by this
practice, which they see as the mark of senseless nihilism. Thus, they depict
Ibn al-Rawandi as motivated by mercenary malice alone. But the quotations from
his books transpire with genuine existential anxiety, which must have driven
him to his rebellious ideas.
Further
Reading
Stroumsa,
Sarah.Freethinkers of Medieval Islam: Ibn alRawandi, Abu Bakr al-Razi, and
Their Impact on Islamic Thought. Leiden: Brill, 1999.
van Ess,
Josef. ‘‘Ibn ar-Rewandi, or the Making of an Image.’’Al-Abhath27 (1978–1979):
5–26.
IBN ‘ARAB
Muhyi al-Din Muhammad (1165–1240 CE) was born
in Murcia (present-day Spain) and spent his formative years in Seville. After receiving
an excellent religious and secular education, he embraced Sufism and traveled
widely in search of authoritative Sufi masters in both Andalus and North
Africa. In 1201, Ibn ‘Arabi set out on a pilgrimage to Mecca, never to come back.
Although Ibn ‘Arabi spent the first half of his life in al-Andalus and North
Africa, his talents came to full bloom in the East—the Hijaz, Anatolia, and
Syria. There he composed the bulk of his works including his controversial
masterpieces, Bezels of Wisdom (Fusus
al-hikam)and Meccan Revelations (al-Futuhat al makkiyya)—and trained his
foremost disciple, Sadr al-Din al-Qunawi (1207–1274), who spread his ideas among
the scholars of Anatolia, Egypt, and beyond. Ibn ‘Arabi died and was buried in
Damascus, where his tomb is still in evidence. Although he occasionally
counseled rulers on religious matters, Ibn ‘Arabi generally eschewed close contacts
with secular authorities and amassed no fortune. His written legacy consists,
in his own estimation, of some 250–300 works. Nowhere in this vast corpus of
writings did Ibn ‘Arabi provide a succinct and unequivocal account of his basic
tenets. On the contrary, he was deliberately elusive in presenting his ideas
and prone to offset them with numerous disclaimers. In conveying to the reader
his personal mystical insights, Ibn ‘Arabi made skillful use of ‘‘symbolic images
that evoke emergent associations rather than fixed propositions.’’ Although
familiar with the syllogistic methods of reasoning of Muslim philosophers and
theologians, he always emphasized that they fell short of capturing the
dizzying dynamic of oneness / plurality that characterizes the relationship
between God and his creation. To capture this subtle dynamic, Ibn ‘Arabi
availed himself of shocking antinomies and breathtaking paradoxes meant to
awaken his readers to what he regarded as the real condition of the universe,
namely, the underlying oneness and identity of all its elements. The intuitive,
supersensory awareness of this oneness constituted for Ibn ‘Arabi the essence
of mystical gnosis (ma‘rifa), which he restricted to the perfected Sufi
‘‘gnostics,’’ or ‘‘saints.’’ His mystical teachings strike us as a mishmash of seemingly
disparate themes, images, and motifs borrowed from scriptural exegesis, love
poetry, mythology, jurisprudence, and speculative theology. Ibn ‘Arabi explored
such controversial issues as the status of prophecy vis-a`-vis sainthood (the
latter, in his view, being more encompassing), the concept of the perfect man
(identified as the supreme Sufi ‘‘gnostic’’
of the epoch), the parallelism between the human ‘‘microcosm’’ and its cosmic
counterpart—the universe, the ever-changing self-manifestation of the Divine in
the events and phenomena of the empirical universe, the different modes and realms
of the divine will (namely, the existential as opposed to the normative), and
the allegoric aspects of the Muslim scripture. He addressed these issues in
ways that were ‘‘never really repeated or adequately imitated by any subsequent
Islamic author.’’ The goal of this deliberately devious and polyvalent discourse
was to ‘‘carry the reader outside the work itself into the life and cosmos which
it is attempting to interpret.’’ His writings thus function ‘‘as a sort of
spiritual mirror, reflecting and revealing the inner intentions, assumptions
and predilections of each reader...with profound clarity.’’ It is hardly
surprising that each Islamic century produced new interpretations of Ibn
‘Arabi’s ideas and works, especially his controversial Bezels of Wisdom,resulting in an entire ‘‘industry’’ of
commentaries aimed at bringing out and elucidating the true teaching of the
‘‘Greatest Master,’’ as he came to be known among his numerous followers across
the Muslim world. Given Ibn ‘Arabi’s deliberately elusive style it is very difficult to summarize his
complex metaphysical ideas. Suffice it to say that he viewed the universe as a
product of God’s self-reflection that riged his unique and indivisible essence
to reveal itself in the things and phenomena of the material universe as in a
giant mirror. All divine perfections that are dispersed in the universe are
brought together in the persona of the ‘‘perfect man’’(al-insan al-kamil), who thus serves as their epitome and allows
God to contemplate himself in his full beauty and glory. This idea scandalized
many medieval Muslim divines who accused Ibn ‘Arabi of admitting the
substantial identity of God and world—a concept that contravened the doctrine
of divine transcendence, which was so central to mainstream Islamic theology.
In Ibn ‘Arabi’s teaching, God’s absolute otherworldliness and inscrutability is
postulated, paradoxically, alongside the notion of his imminent and immediate
presence in the empirical world. His identity/nonidentity with the latter is
just a matter of perspective, which should reflect the constant changes in the
fluid modes of divine existence. Ibn ‘Arabi’s complex synthesis of Sufi moral
and ethical teaching, Neoplatonic metaphysics, gnosticism, and mainstream Sunni
theology (Ash‘arism) and legal theory
aptly capture the astounding diversity of post-classical Sufism. This diversity
allowed it to effectively meet the intellectual and spiritual needs of a broad
variety of potential constituencies—from a pious merchant or craftsman in the
marketplace to a refined scholar at the ruler’s court. Contrary to a commonly
held assumption, his philosophical and metaphysical system was not a ‘‘foreign
implant’’ grafted onto the pristine body of ‘‘traditional’’ Sufism. Rather, it
was a natural development of certain tendencies inherent in Sufism from its
very inception. With Ibn ‘Arabi these tendencies evolved—probably under the
influence of Ibn Sina and al-Ghazali—into a vision of God not just as the only
agent but also the only essence possessing real and unconditional existence.
This vision, which may loosely be defined as ‘‘monistic,’’ was rebuffed by the great
Hanbali scholar Ibn Taymiyya (1263–1328), who condemned its followers as
heretical ‘‘unificationists’’(al-ittihadiyya)
bent on undermining divine transcendence and blurring the all-important
borderline between God and his creatures. A fierce polemic between the
champions of Ibn ‘Arabi and his detractors ensued that has not quite abated down
to the present. It has divided Muslim intellectuals into two warring factions,
one of which has declared Ibn ‘Arabi to be the greatest ‘‘saint’’ (wali) and divine ‘‘gnostic’’ (‘arif) of
all time, while the other has condemned him as a dangerous heretic who
undermined the very foundations of Islamic doctrine and communal life.
Further Reading
Addas,
Claude.Quest for the Red Sulphur. Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1993.
Chittick,
William.The Sufi Path of Knowledge. Albany: SUNY Press, 1989.
———.The Self-Disclosure
of God. Albany: SUNY Press, 1998.
———. ‘‘Ibn
‘Arabi and His School.’’ InIslamic Spirituality: Manifestations,edited by S.H.
Nasr. Chodkiewicz, Michel.An Ocean Without Shore. Albany: SUNY Press, 1993.
Corbin,
Henry.Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn ‘Arabi. Princeton: Princeton
University Press,1969. Hirtenstein, Stephen.The Unlimited Mercifier. Ashland, OR:
Anqa Press and White Cloud Publishing, 1999.
Hodgson,
Marshall G.S.The Venture of Islam. Vol. 2.
Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1974.
Ibn
al-‘Arabi.The Bezels of Wisdom. Translated by Ralph Austin. New York: Paulist
Press, 1980.
Knysh,
Alexander.Ibn ‘Arabi in the Later Islamic Tradition. Albany: SUNY Press, 1999.
Morris,
James W. ‘‘How to Study theFutuhat.’’ InMuhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi: A Commemorative
Volume, Edited by Stephn Hirtenstein and Michael Tiernan. Brisbane: Element,
1993.
Nettler,
Ronald.Sufi Metaphysics and Qur’anic Prophets, Cambridge: Islamic Texts
Society, 2003.
IBN ‘ASAKIR
Abu al-Qasim ‘Ali ibn al-Hasan ibn ‘Asakir is
the most notable figure of the ‘Asakir family, whose members occupied prestigious
positions as judges and scholars of the Shafi‘i
school of Sunni law in Damascus for almost two centuries (AH 470–660/ 1077–1261
CE). Ibn ‘Asakir was born in 499/1105 and died in 571/1176. He started his
pursuit of religious education at a very young age (six years old), accompanying
his father and elder brother to the teaching circles of several renowned
Damascene scholars. Between 520/1126 and 535/1141, Ibn ‘Asakir embarked on two
ambitious educational journeys that took him to the most influential learning
centers in the Islamic world, from Egypt and the Hijaz (Mecca and Medina) to
Iran and Central Asia (Khurasan and Transoxiana);
he wrote a three-volume work, Mu‘jam
al-shuyukh, in which he mentioned some fourteen hundred teachers whom he
met and studied with, including approximately eighty women. The enormous
knowledge that he acquired, especially ofhadith, law, and scriptural exegesis,
earned him the title of Hafiz (great memorizer), and he became the most learned
and renowned scholar of his day.
Shortly after Ibn ‘Asakir returned from his
travels to settle in his hometown of Damascus, Nur al-Din occupied the city (549/1154).
Nur al-Din’s political and religious ambition had two focuses: first, on the unification
of Syria and Egypt under the banner of Sunni Islam and on putting an end to the
Fatimid Shi’i dynasty; second, on mounting an effective military campaign against
the Crusaders. Nur al-Din found in Ibn ‘Asakir the perfect scholar who could help
him achieve his goals: an ardent defender of Sunni Islam, in particular the
Ash‘ari branch. He ordered that a madrasabe built for Ibn ‘Asakir, known as Dar al-Hadith (School of Hadith). Also under
Nur al-Din’s patronage, Ibn ‘Asakir composed several books, among them the
largest work of history ever produced by a medieval Muslim scholar: Ta’rikh madinat Dimashq (The History of Damascus and Its Environs),which he started
in 529/1134. The History of Damascusis
primarily a biographical dictionary now published in a partially complete edition
in seventy five volumes plus indices that celebrates the holiness of Syria,
with Damascus as its center, by documenting the lives and achievements of the
scholars who lived in it or passed by it. It is one of the treasures of medieval
Islamic historiography, in that it preserves extensive excerpts from hundreds
of now-lost works authored by historians and religious scholars before the time
of Ibn ‘Asakir. The first two chapters of the History of Damascusfocus on the sanctity
of the city and its environs and list the sites and events that make it holy.
Ibn ‘Asakir did not restrict his work to Muslim figures. He included biblical
prophets and figures as well: Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, David, Isa, Mary, and John
the Baptist, to name a few. This is the only Muslim biographical dictionary
that features substantial biographical notices for pre-Islamic figures.
In addition to the History of Damascus, Ibn ‘Asakir authored several other politically
motivated works. With respect to theology, he authored two books in defense of
the theologian al-Ash‘ari and his school(seeAsh‘aris), which was under attack
by rival Sunni groups in Damascus, especially the Hanbalites (see Ibn Hanbal).
The two works are Manaqib ash‘ariyya (Ash‘arite
Virtues) and Tabyin kadhib al-muftari
‘ala Abi al-Hasan al-Ash‘ari (Exposing the Slanderer’s Mendacity against
Abu al-Hasan al-Ash‘ari). Ibn ‘Asakir also composed two other works on the
virtue ofjihad: Arba‘in fi al-ijtihad fi
iqamat al-jihad, which is a collection of forty hadiths attributed to the
Prophet Muhammad, which emphasize the duty and obligation to wage jihad; and
Fadl ‘Asqalan (The Merits of Ascalon),
which was written in reaction to the fall of Ascalon to the Crusaders in
548/1153 and as an appeal for the Muslims to recapture it. Ibn ‘Asakir
obviously used religion to serve the political agenda of his patron, Nur
al-Din, and used politics to promote his religious conviction. Exalting the
holiness of Syria (Damascus, Jerusalem, Ascalon)
and urging the Muslims to wage jihad against the Crusaders are, therefore, to
be seen as his contributions as a scholar to the success of Nur al-Din’s
campaign and, subsequently, to the triumph of Sunni Islam in Syria and Egypt.
Ibn ‘Asakir’s eldest son, al-Qasim (d.
600/1203), followed in his father’s footsteps. He composed a continuation of
the History of Damascus and authored a treatise on the merits of Jerusalem,
titled al-Jami‘ al-mustaqsa fi fada’il
al-masjid al-aqsa (The Verified Compendium on the Merits of the Aqsa Mosque).The
works of Ibn ‘Asakir, especially the History of Damascus, inspired later Syrian
scholars to follow his lead, like Ibn al-‘Adim (d. 660/1262), who composed a
biographical dictionary of the notables of Aleppo and its environs, and a
chronological history of the city. They were also heavily used by scholars such
as al-Dhahabi (d. 748/1348).
Further Reading
Lindsay,
James E. (Ed).Ibn ‘Asakir and Early Islamic History. Princeton: The Darwin
Press, 2002. (This edited volume comprises five studies on Ibn ‘Asakir’sHistory
of Damascus, his methodology and agenda for the reconstruction of Syria’s
past.)
IBN BABAWAYH, MUHAMMAD IBN
‘ALI AL-QUMMI, AL-SHAYKH AL-SADUQ
Ibn Babawayh (d. AH 381/991–992 CE) was a
Twelver Shi‘i compiler of Man la
Yahdaruhu al-Faqih (He Who Has No Jurisprudence with Him),which was later
considered the second great collection of Twelver Shi‘ihadith, after Kulayni’s al-Kafi,
and numerous other collections of the Imams’ traditions. Ibn Babawayh collected
many traditions from his father, a contemporary of al-Kulayni, but he also
traveled throughout the region collecting traditions. His ‘Uyun Akhbar al-Rida (Sources of the Traditions of al-Rida),was the
product of a sojourn to Khurasan in search of the traditions of the eighth Imam
‘Ali al-Rida (d. 202/818).
Further Reading
Newman,
Andrew.The Formative Period of Twelver Shi’ism: Hadith as Discourse between Qum
and Baghdad. Routledge Curzon, 2000.
IBN BATTUTA
Muhammad
ibn ‘Abd Allah al-Lawatı, known as Ibn Battuta (1304–1368 or 1369 CE), was born in Tangier, Morocco.
In 1325, at the age of twenty-one, Ibn Battuta embarked on his first journey to
perform the Muslim pilgrimage (Hajj) in Arabia. This voyage would end up lasting
almost twenty four years (1325–1349) and would take him to lands on three continents:
Africa, Asia, and Europe. He returned to his native Morocco in 1349 and within
a year decided to cross the Strait of Gibraltar for a visit to Granada, Spain
(1350). Three years later, he joined a caravan crossing the Sahara Desert and
arrived in West Africa. By 1354, he settled in Morocco, where news of his
travels reached the Marınid ruler Ab ‘Inan Faris (r. 1348–1359), who entrusted
Ibn Juzayy (d. ca. 1358), a native of Granada at his employ, with the composition
of Ibn Battuta’s account of his travels. The result was a work titled Tuhfat al-NuzzarfıGhara’ib al-Amsar
wa-‘Aja’ib al-Asfar, commonly known as the Rihla ( journey or travel narrative) of Ibn Battuta. Not much is
known of Ibn Battuta’s life after he settled down in his native Morocco, other
than that he held a judgeship in ‘‘some town’’ and that he died around AH
720/1368–1369 CE. Ibn Battuta’s account was received with skepticism and
incredulity by his contemporaries, as stated by the Tunisian born Ibn Khaldu¯ n (d. 1406).
Ibn Battuta traveled from Morocco, through North
Africa, to the Middle East, Anatolia and Constantinople, the Indian
subcontinent and Southwest Asia, several islands in South Asia, China,
Transoxiana, and areas north of the Black Sea. After returning to Morocco he
took two additional trips to Spain and West Africa. His longest continuous stay
(almost nine years) was in India, where he was appointed a Malikite judge by the
sultan of Delhi, Muhammad Tughluq Shah (r. 1325–1351). In his travels, Ibn
Battuta pursued the medieval Muslim learning tradition of joining the lecture
circles of several teachers and collecting certificates (ijazat) from them to serve as scholarly credentials or as
qualifications for future employment, especially in the legal profession. He
took advantage of the existence of the Akhı
and Futuwwa networks in Anatolia and of the ‘ufı brotherhoods elsewhere to secure lodging and, at times,
material help. In 1348, he witnessed the effects of the Black Death while in
Aleppo, Syria.
The degree of reliability of Ibn Battuta’s
Rihla is open to argument. This travel narrative is the product of a joint
effort: Ibn Battuta as the source of information and Ibn Juzayy as the
ghostwriter. It has been long assumed that Ibn Battuta dictated the content from
memory and that the inconsistencies, factual errors, and confusing chronology
are due to the failings of his memory. This assumption originated with the
first complete edition of the text, which emphasized, based on a
misinterpretation of a passage, that the entire Rihla was dictated from memory.
However, this view is now losing ground and recent studies tend to show,
through internal evidence, the existence of written notes of unequal quality in
Ibn Battuta’s possession and that theRihlais therefore the combination of his
recollections, written notes, and occasional exaggeration, if not outright boasting,
on the one hand, and the finishing touches of Ibn Juzayy on the other.
The first complete edition of the Rihla was made
by C. Defre´mery and B. R. Sanguinetti and published with a French translation
in four volumes between 1853 and 1858, under the auspices of the Socie´te ´
Asiatique. In 1866, the Hakluyt Society
published Sir Henry Yule’s abridged English translation of the section on
Bengal and China. Between 1958 and 1971, the same Hakluyt Society published H.
A. R. Gibb’s English translation in three volumes.
This English translation was completed by C.
F. Beckingham (vol. 4, published in 1994) and followed by an index compiled by
A. D. H. Bivar (vol. 5, published in 2000). In 1953, Mahdi Husain published an
English translation of the section on India, the Maldive Islands, and Sri
Lanka. Finally, the part on West Africa, translated by Said Hamdun and Noe ¨l
King, was published in 1994.
Primary Sources
Cathay and
the Way Thither. 4 vols. Translated and edited by Sir Henry Yule. New edition
revised in light of recent discoveries by Henri Cordier. London: The Hakluyt Society,
1913–1916.
Husain,
Mahdi.The Rehla of Ibn Battuta. Baroda, India: The Oriental Institute, 1953
Ibn Battuta
in Black Africa. Translated by Said Hamdun and Noe¨l King, forward by Ross E.
Dunn. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1994.
Ibn Jubayr,
Muhammad ibn Ahmad. The Travels of Ibn Jubayr. Translated by R. J. C. Broadhurst.
London: J. Cape, 1952.
Ibn Khaldun.The
Muqaddimah. An Introduction to History. 3 vols. Translated by Franz Rosenthal.
2d ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967.
The Travels
of Ibn Battuta, A.D. 1325–1354. 5 vols. Translated by H. A. R. Gibb and C. F.
Beckingham. London: The Hakluyt Society, 1958–2000.
Voyages
d’Ibn Batouˆtah: Texte arabe accompagne ´ d’une traduction. 4 vols. Arabic text
with a French translation by C. Defre´mery and B. R. Sanguinetti. Paris:
Imprimerie Impe´riale, 1853–1858.
Further Reading
Allouche,
Adel. ‘‘A Study of Ibn Battutah’s Account of His 726/1326 Journey through Syria
and Arabia.’’Journal of Semitic Studies35, no. 2 (autumn 1990): 283–299.
Dunn, Ross
E.The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the 14 Th Century.
Berkeley and Los Angeles: The University of California Press, 1986.
Hrbek, Ivan.
‘‘The Chronology of Ibn Battuta’s Travels.’’ Archiv Orienta´lnı ´30 (1962):
409–486.
‘‘Ibn
Battuta, 1304–1369.’’ Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism57 (2003):
1–75 (a collection of essays). Netton, Ian Richardson. ‘‘Myth, Miracle, and
Magic in the Rihla of Ibn Battuta.’’ Journal of Semitic Studies 29, no. 1
(spring 1984): 131–140
IBN EZRA, ABRAHAM (1089–1164
CE)
Ibn Ezra’s life was divided among many areas:
poet, grammarian, biblical commentator, philosopher, and physician. Born in Tudela,
Spain, Ibn Ezra had two very different periods in his life. The first period
began in Spain, from where he seems to have traveled through North Africa,
seeking the company of scholars in the present day lands of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. He had a specifically
close relationship with the scholar Judah Halevi, and legend even says that Ibn
Ezra married Halevi’s daughter. Although five of Ibn Ezra’s sons are mentioned,
only one of them is known, whereas the others may have died young.
The second period of Ibn Ezra’s life was from
1140 until his death in 1164. Regarding that period, he stated that he had left
Spain for Rome in restless wandering, supposedly ‘‘in a troubled spirit’’
because of the real, or alleged, conversion (ca. 1143) of his only surviving
son, Issac, who had lived in Egypt and Baghdad. Most of his work was done in
the latter part of his life, partly in Rome, where he wrote a poem that
expressed his bitterness against the Jewish community there. He went on to
Lucca and from there to Mantua. Then he left Italy for Provence, and later on
traveled to northern France, where he wrote a great deal. According to one
writer, Ibn Ezra is said to have written no fewer than 108 books. From Spain to
the north and east, Ibn Ezra introduced some very needed important works on
Hebrew grammar, which most scholars there had never learned previously.
As a poet he wrote both secular and religious
poems, introducing them to eastern and northern European scholars. He did so
both in the Spanish poetic school, as well as in the Arabic of Jewish poets who
therefore tried to write poems in the Spanish meter and imitate its school of
structure, form, and style. As a commentator on the Bible, he also began this
activity in Rome in 1140, but a number of
his books there are not extant.
Although he did not create any new or
original grammatical systems for newer generations, he was considered one of
the fathers of Hebrew grammar, both because he collected the conclusions of the
eastern philologists and those of Spain, and because he wrote in Hebrew, unlike
earlier grammarians. Only two of Ibn Ezra’s works on mathematics and astronomy
are available; the latter was only discovered and published in the twentieth
century. His philosophical areas were essentially Neoplatonic, strongly
influenced by Solomon Ibn Gabirol, with views, for example, that like God, the
intelligible world is eternal, while the terrestrial world was created in time
from preexistent matter. The universe was in three ‘‘worlds’’: the ‘‘upper
world’’ of intelligibility or angels; the ‘‘intermediate world’’ of the
celestial spheres, and the ‘‘lower, sublunar world’’ that was created in time.
Further Reading
Center for
Jewish Studies.Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra: Studies in Writings of a Twelfth-Century
Polymath. Cambridge, England, 1993.
Ibn Ezra,
Abraham ben Meir. Twilight of a Golden Age: Selected Poems of Abraham Ibn Ezra.
University of Alabama Press, 1997.
Lancaster,
Irene.Deconstructing the Bible: Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Introduction to the Torah.
London, 2003.
Levi, R.The
Astrological Works of Abraham Ibn Ezra. 1927.
Sela,
Shlomo.Abraham Ibn Ezra and the Rise of Medieval Hebrew Science. Leiden, 2003.
IBN EZRA, MOSES BEN JACOB (CA.
1055 TO AFTER 1135 CE)
Moses Ibn Ezra (also known as Abu Harun), a Spanish
Hebrew poet and philosopher born in Granada, appears to have held an honored
position. Moses Ibn Ezra encouraged Judah Halevi in his early poetic efforts,
supporting him and forming a lasting friendship. A very decisive change took
place in his life in 1090, when the Almoravids captured Granada, its Jewish
community was destroyed, and the members of the Ibn Ezra family were dispersed.
For some reason he remained in Granada for a while, but only after much effort
and suffering was he able to flee to Christian Spain in the North. He was,
however, unable to return to his native city for which he yearned the rest of
his life. His later years were full of misfortune and disappointments,
wandering through Christian Spain and seeking the aid of patrons for whom he
had to sing and write their praise. Unable to adapt himself to the manners of
the northern Jewish population in its low cultural standards in Christian
Spain, he could not adapt himself to all those ways and died far from his native
city. Moses Ibn Ezra was one of the most prolific poets of the Spanish school,
and the rhetoric of his poetry was seen for many years as a model of perfection
that greatly appealed to many. Some modern writers have seen him as having an
exaggerated desire for a beautiful poetic form, replete with ornamentation,
restricting the flow of free poetic expression. However, many of his poems are
perfect in every aspect, with their main themes belonging to love, wine, and
nature, and served as a model for medieval poets.
One of his earliest works on Hebrew poetics
is found in his treatise on rhetoric and poetry, one of the earliest works on
Hebrew poetical literature. This eight-chapter work was written in his old age in
an answer to questions on Hebrew poetry posed by a friend. It was published in
more modern times: first in a small part of the Arabic original in 1895, then
translated into Hebrew in 1924. This was a valuable historical source for
Spanish Hebrew poetry and relates to the poet and his environment. Using many
metaphors from the Bible, Moses Ibn Ezra showed an appreciation for literary
charm and beauty but neglected Jewish writers until recently. Although some seemed
perfect, his poetic images and linguistic patterns are so intricate that only other
poets can unravel their complexity. Some themes deal with rural life,
infidelity in friendship, old age, vicissitudes in luck, death, trust in God, and
the beauty of poetry. In his old age, though bitter and dejected, his mood
neither impeded his poetic sense nor undermined his joyful poetry. In his great
corpus of poems, the Selihot
(penitential prayers) are so impressive that he was called Ha-Sallah (the writer of prayers). Some of his sacred poetry shows
signs of ideas, images, and idioms from his secular verse, directly influenced
and interwoven with Arabic literature. Many of his poems are scattered in the prayer
books of different rites of Judaism.
Further Reading
Brody, H.,
and S. De Solis Cohen (Eds and Trans).Selected Poems of Moses Ibn Ezra. 1934.
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