Author: Nader El-Bizri
Publisher: Ergon Verlag
ISBN: 9783956502910
Category : Afroasiatic languages
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
The present edited volume is based in part on papers that were delivered at an international conference, which was held at the American University of Beirut (AUB) on 56 December 2013 and was organized by the Orient-Institut Beirut (OIB) in association with the Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies (CAMES) at the American University of Beirut (AUB). The conference carried the title that has been retained for this present volume as: The Occult Sciences in Premodern Islamic Cultures. Not all the chapters that constitute the present volume were presented at the conference, and some of the papers that were delivered at the conference have not been included in this volume. It is therefore more prudent to think of this book as a collection of studies rather than as a strict proceedings volume. It is also evident that some of the chapters are expanded and adapted versions of the papers delivered at the conference. In pre-modern Islamic cultures, a number of arts and practices that are associated with the occult sciences were seen as epistemic expansions of the field of scientific knowledge in its various branches. The sciences of the occult dealt with what was taken to be of the order of non-observable realities that were studied by pre-modern natural scientists. This included all phenomena that could not be explained on the basis of the four classical elements. The sciences of the occult were situated between natural philosophy and metaphysics, and at times blended with these in more direct forms as was the case with astronomia ('ilm al-nujum), which combined mathematical astronomy with astrology, or the bent on arithmology and numerology that accompanied the sciences of arithmetic and number theory. An examination of these pre-modern forms of knowledge can itself further enrich our modern understanding of what constitutes the limits of science and its epistemological bearings in the deliberations of philosophy of science.
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004426973
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 721
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Book Description
Islamicate Occult Sciences in Theory and Practice brings together the latest research on Islamic occult sciences from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, namely intellectual history, manuscript studies and material culture. Its aim is not only to showcase the range of pioneering work that is currently being done in these areas, but also to provide a model for closer interaction amongst the disciplines constituting this burgeoning field of study. Furthermore, the book provides the rare opportunity to bridge the gap on an institutional level by bringing the academic and curatorial spheres into dialogue. Contributors include: Charles Burnett, Jean-Charles Coulon, Maryam Ekhtiar, Noah Gardiner, Christiane Gruber, Bink Hallum, Francesca Leoni, Matthew Melvin-Koushki, Michael Noble, Rachel Parikh, Liana Saif, Maria Subtelny, Farouk Yahya, and Travis Zadeh.
Author: Hani Khafipour
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231547846
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1103
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Book Description
In the early modern world, the Safavid, Ottoman, and Mughal empires sprawled across a vast swath of the earth, stretching from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. The diverse and overlapping literate communities that flourished in these three empires left a lasting legacy on the political, religious, and cultural landscape of the Near East and India. This volume is a comprehensive sourcebook of newly translated texts that shed light on the intertwined histories and cultures of these communities, presenting a wide range of source material spanning literature, philosophy, religion, politics, mysticism, and visual art in thematically organized chapters. Scholarly essays by leading researchers provide historical context for closer analyses of a lesser-known era and a framework for further research and debate. The volume aims to provide a new model for the study and teaching of the region’s early modern history that stands in contrast to the prevailing trend of examining this interconnected past in isolation.
Author: Albrecht Classen
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 311055772X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 768
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Book Description
There are no clear demarcation lines between magic, astrology, necromancy, medicine, and even sciences in the pre-modern world. Under the umbrella term 'magic,' the contributors to this volume examine a wide range of texts, both literary and religious, both medical and philosophical, in which the topic is discussed from many different perspectives. The fundamental concerns address issue such as how people perceived magic, whether they accepted it and utilized it for their own purposes, and what impact magic might have had on the mental structures of that time. While some papers examine the specific appearance of magicians in literary texts, others analyze the practical application of magic in medical contexts. In addition, this volume includes studies that deal with the rise of the witch craze in the late fifteenth century and then also investigate whether the Weberian notion of disenchantment pertaining to the modern world can be maintained. Magic is, oddly but significantly, still around us and exerts its influence. Focusing on magic in the medieval world thus helps us to shed light on human culture at large.
Author: Damien Janos
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004516190
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 260
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Book Description
This book is the first bibliographical and methodological work entirely devoted to the modern scholarship on Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī. It includes more than 1000 entries, an introductory essay, annotations, and various indices to help readers navigate the complex field of Rāzī studies.
Author: Sonja Brentjes
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1351692690
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 876
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Book Description
The Routledge Handbook on the Sciences in Islamicate Societies provides a comprehensive survey on science in the Islamic world from the 8th to the 19th century. Across six sections, a group of subject experts discuss and analyze scientific practices across a wide range of Islamicate societies. The authors take into consideration several contexts in which science was practiced, ranging from intellectual traditions and persuasions to institutions, such as courts, schools, hospitals, and observatories, to the materiality of scientific practices, including the arts and craftsmanship. Chapters also devote attention to scientific practices of minority communities in Muslim majority societies, and Muslim minority groups in societies outside the Islamicate world, thereby allowing readers to better understand the opportunities and constraints of scientific practices under varying local conditions. Through replacing Islam with Islamicate societies, the book opens up ways to explain similarities and differences between diverse societies ruled by Muslim dynasties. This handbook will be an invaluable resource for both established academics and students looking for an introduction to the field. It will appeal to those involved in the study of the history of science, the history of ideas, intellectual history, social or cultural history, Islamic studies, Middle East and African studies including history, and studies of Muslim communities in Europe and South and East Asia.
Author: Mark A. Waddell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108591167
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 231
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Book Description
From the recovery of ancient ritual magic at the height of the Renaissance to the ignominious demise of alchemy at the dawn of the Enlightenment, Mark A. Waddell explores the rich and complex ways that premodern people made sense of their world. He describes a time when witches flew through the dark of night to feast on the flesh of unbaptized infants, magicians conversed with angels or struck pacts with demons, and astrologers cast the horoscopes of royalty. Ground-breaking discoveries changed the way that people understood the universe while, in laboratories and coffee houses, philosophers discussed how to reconcile the scientific method with the veneration of God. This engaging, illustrated new study introduces readers to the vibrant history behind the emergence of the modern world.
Author: Robert Irwin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316184315
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1104
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Book Description
Robert Irwin's authoritative introduction to the fourth volume of The New Cambridge History of Islam offers a panoramic vision of Islamic culture from its origins to around 1800. The introductory chapter, which highlights key developments and introduces some of Islam's most famous protagonists, paves the way for an extraordinarily varied collection of essays. The themes treated include religion and law, conversion, Islam's relationship with the natural world, governance and politics, caliphs and kings, philosophy, science, medicine, language, art, architecture, literature, music and even cookery. What emerges from this rich collection, written by an international team of experts, is the diversity and dynamism of the societies which created this flourishing civilization. Volume four of The New Cambridge History of Islam serves as a thematic companion to the three preceding, politically oriented volumes, and in coverage extends across the pre-modern Islamic world.
Author: Alireza Doostdar
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691163782
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 312
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Book Description
What do the occult sciences, séances with the souls of the dead, and appeals to saintly powers have to do with rationality? Since the late nineteenth century, modernizing intellectuals, religious leaders, and statesmen in Iran have attempted to curtail many such practices as "superstitious," instead encouraging the development of rational religious sensibilities and dispositions. However, far from diminishing the diverse methods through which Iranians engage with the immaterial realm, these rationalizing processes have multiplied the possibilities for metaphysical experimentation. The Iranian Metaphysicals examines these experiments and their transformations over the past century. Drawing on years of ethnographic and archival research, Alireza Doostdar shows that metaphysical experimentation lies at the center of some of the most influential intellectual and religious movements in modern Iran. These forms of exploration have not only produced a plurality of rational orientations toward metaphysical phenomena but have also fundamentally shaped what is understood as orthodox Shi‘i Islam, including the forms of Islamic rationality at the heart of projects for building and sustaining an Islamic Republic. Delving into frequently neglected aspects of Iranian spirituality, politics, and intellectual inquiry, The Iranian Metaphysicals challenges widely held assumptions about Islam, rationality, and the relationship between science and religion.
Author: Ahmed El Shamsy
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691241910
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 312
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Book Description
The story of how Arab editors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries revolutionized Islamic literature Islamic book culture dates back to late antiquity, when Muslim scholars began to write down their doctrines on parchment, papyrus, and paper and then to compose increasingly elaborate analyses of, and commentaries on, these ideas. Movable type was adopted in the Middle East only in the early nineteenth century, and it wasn't until the second half of the century that the first works of classical Islamic religious scholarship were printed there. But from that moment on, Ahmed El Shamsy reveals, the technology of print transformed Islamic scholarship and Arabic literature. In the first wide-ranging account of the effects of print and the publishing industry on Islamic scholarship, El Shamsy tells the fascinating story of how a small group of editors and intellectuals brought forgotten works of Islamic literature into print and defined what became the classical canon of Islamic thought. Through the lens of the literary culture of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Arab cities—especially Cairo, a hot spot of the nascent publishing business—he explores the contributions of these individuals, who included some of the most important thinkers of the time. Through their efforts to find and publish classical literature, El Shamsy shows, many nearly lost works were recovered, disseminated, and harnessed for agendas of linguistic, ethical, and religious reform. Bringing to light the agents and events of the Islamic print revolution, Rediscovering the Islamic Classics is an absorbing examination of the central role printing and its advocates played in the intellectual history of the modern Arab world.
