When did rational thinking emerge in al-Andalus?
It is commonly thought that philosophy was first cultivated in the region of al-Andalus during the 11th century, but did rational thinking actually emerge earlier? We spoke to Professors Godefroid de Callataÿ, Liana Saif and Sébastien Moureau about their work investigating the origins of philosophy in al-Andalus, and its importance to the wider history of sciences and ideas.
The 11th century is generally thought of as the period during which philosophy and rational thinking first emerged in alAndalus, a region on the Iberian peninsula which was under Muslim dominion at the time. However, evidence has been uncovered suggesting that philosophy in fact emerged in al-Andalus before this period, which would represent a significant shift in perspective.
“We would have to re-think the history of the transmission of sciences, the history of the transmission of rational thinking,” outlines Godefroid de Callataÿ, Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Louvain. This is a topic Prof. de Callataÿ is exploring in the ERC-funded PhilAnd project, in which he and his team are investigating the origins of philosophy in al-Andalus, including research into the work of a society of Muslim scholars called the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’, the Brethren of Purity. “It is thought that the members of the Brethren of Purity lived during the 9th or 10th century in Iraq and that their work influenced people in al-Andalus,” he says. “One of the aims in the project is to show that this occurred during the 10th century, rather than in the 11th.”
PhilAnd project
This research involves analysing manuscripts and producing critical editions of several important texts dating from the period, including certain parts of the Rasā’il Ikhwān al-Ṣ afā’ the encyclopaedia of the Brethren of Purity. In his earlier research, Prof. de Callataÿ found that the Brethren of Purity had a significant influence on later scholars. “I started to see that they were more influential than one had previously thought, and that they had come to be seen as important figures by people in al-Andalus,” he explains. This earlier work eventually led to the establishment of the PhilAnd project, with researchers aiming to build a deeper picture of when and how philosophy developed in al-Andalus; philosophy here is viewed in a broad sense, including essentially all rational thinking. “In the project we’re mainly focusing on 10 th-century philosophers in al-Andalus. These philosophers were interested in topics like occult sciences, mathematics, magic and astronomy,” explains Prof. de Callataÿ. “We’re
also looking at how these philosophers transmitted their ideas.”
The way in which the materials available for this inquiry are examined needs to be carefully considered, believes Prof. de Callataÿ. Mainstream scholarship into the Arab-Muslim world as a phase in the transfer of the intellectual legacy of Late Antiquity to Modern Europe has, until now, largely concentrated on what could be referred to as ‘well-defined’ materials and channels of transmissions. “‘Well-defined’ in this sense
refers to those processes which can be traced on rather secure grounds, since they involve the works of clearly-identified and usually high-brow scientists and philosophers whose lives, list of writings and areas of influence, can be determined with relative accuracy,” outlines Professor de Callataÿ.
The influence exerted by the ’Rasā’il Ikhwān al-Ṣ afā’, the so-called ‘Jābirian’ alchemical corpus and the ‘Nabatean Agriculture’ ascribed to Ibn Wa ḥshiyya have attracted less attention however. “These three large corpora
of texts were all produced in the Middle East and share with one another a noteworthy number of peculiarities. All three works were the result of stratified compilations, which possibly extended over various generations. All three were highly syncretic compositions, in which a philosophical – essentially Neoplatonic – conception of man and his place in the universe is inextricably intertwined with religious ideas and an esotericallyorientated conception of science which is commonly refered to in modern scholarship as ‘bā ṭinism’,” says Professor de Callataÿ. “All three appear to have been compiled in milieus strongly influenced by Ismā‘īlism, although the nature of their relationships with specific Ismā‘īlī movements as we know them to have existed still remains enigmatic.”
Philosophy in al-Andalus
The project’s agenda involves research into the works of a number of philosophers, including Maslama Ibn Qāsim al-Qur ṭubī, a prominent intellectual who explored a range of topics in his work. Al- Qur ṭubī is thought to have written the Rutbat al-Ḥ akīm, the Book of the Rank of the Sage, which is a central text in the project.
“The Rutbat al-Ḥ akīm seems to be the text which introduced alchemy into al-Andalus. It appears to be the only Arabic alchemical text that has been preserved from that time in alAndalus,” says Prof. Sebastien Moureau, who is part of the team working on PhilAnd. Prof. Moureau’s primary focus in the project is the practice of alchemy, which can be thought of as the science of material transformation. “A lot of translations from Arabic into Latin from the 12th and 13th centuries have been preserved, providing evidence that alchemy was present in al-Andalus. The Rutbat al-Ḥ akīm allows us to know from which point it was present.
We have Latin witnesses that alchemy was practiced – I would say undercover – in alAndalus, but we don’t have Arabic traces, except for in the Rutbat al-Ḥ akīm,” he says.
“The Mālikī scholars did not accept some of these sciences, so alchemy was not openly studied, except under the rule of Caliph Abd al-Ra ḥmān III.”
A lot of attention in the project is centered on investigating the relationship between the development of these esoteric and philosophical ideas in al-Andalus, and their development in the Eastern regions. As Assistant Professor in the History of Esotericism in the Middle Ages at the University of Amsterdam, Liana Saif holds a deep interest in occult sciences; her work in the project is focused on the corpus attributed to Jābir Ibn Ḥayyān. “The Jābirian corpus was produced in the Eastern region, most likely
in Iraq, over a fairly long period of time. The authorship of this corpus is contentious,” she outlines. The significance of this corpus to the project as a whole can be understood through the impact of a text on magic called the Ghāyat al-Ḥ akīm (or Picatrix in Latin).
“This is translated as the Goal of the Sage and is the sister text to the Rutbat al-Ḥ akīm
It was also written by Maslama Ibn Qasim AlQur ṭ ubī, who was the tutor of the son of ‘Abd
al-Ra ḥmān III’,” says Prof. Saif. “He was from al-Andalus, but he also travelled to Eastern regions, which is one of the ways that his ideas were transmitted. The Jābirian corpus had a deep influence on Maslama Ibn Qāsim al-Qur ṭubī.”
The specific text Prof. Saif is focusing on in the project is a book about magic called the Kitāb al-Nukhab, also known as Kitāb al-Baḥ th which is attributed to Jābir Ibn
Ḥayyān. While Jābir Ibn Ḥayyān is primarily known as an alchemist, Prof. Saif hopes to shed new light on his magical work and explore the interconnection between the two topics. “This interconnection is reflected in the Jābirian corpus, as well as in the Ghāyat al-Ḥ akīm These works helped to make the unseen knowable, so that new insights could be used for practical, pragmatic, useful ways of understanding and manipulating nature,” she explains.
With a deeper understanding of the place of magic in knowledge production in this period, Prof. Saif aims to then trace the movement of these ideas into different areas. The Rutbat al-Ḥ akīm was written before the Ghāyat al-Ḥ akīm and there are references to the former text in the latter; there is a deep interconnection between these two texts, and Prof. Saif says this was part of a whole programme of learning. “Philosophy is presented in the works that study as a kind of cultivation of wisdom using rational sciences and natural sciences,” she outlines. The occult sciences occupied an important place in the intellectual landscape at the time. “The scholar Maslama Ibn Qāsim alQur ṭubī put alchemy and magic at the very end of the curriculum, he called them the
Critical editions
PhiL And
two conclusions. They are the culmination of what he called a ladder of ascension, a kind of intellectual or scientific ladder,” explains Prof. de Callataÿ. “An individual who knew about one of these two sciences would be considered as half a sage. Somebody who knew both of them was a full philosopher, a full sage,” as Maslama famously wrote.
Researchers also plan to make the materials in these manuscripts more widely available, helping to shed new light on the work of these 10th-century scholars and to learn more about their influence on later authors. The PhilAnd team are creating critical editions of several texts, including the Rutbat al-Ḥakīm and parts of the Rasā’il Ikhwān al-Ṣ afā’, which is an extremely lengthy work. “We also translate these texts into English. We are producing annotated translations and critical editions,” says Prof. de Callataÿ. As part of her work in PhilAnd, Prof. Saif is focusing on the relatively under-studied Kitāb al-Nukhab “I’m producing a critical edition and a translation of the Kitāb al-Nukhab based on work with manuscripts. This is a huge text and will require a lot of attention,” she says. “This will be quite a distinctive work, because we don’t have a lot of up-to-date editions of the works attributed to Jābir Ibn Ḥayyān. In the general imagination the figure of Jābir Ibn Ḥayyān is known mostly as an alchemist, so it would be good to have an edition that showcases some of his more magical thinking.”
A critical edition of epistle 52 b and c (two of the three versions of the Epistle of Magic) of the Rasā’il Ikhwān al-Ṣ afā’ has also been
produced in direct line with the project’s work, and is currently being prepared for submission to the ‘Epistles of the Brethren of Purity’ series published by Oxford University Press in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies. This epistle is a lengthy text, and Prof. Moureau says a lot of work has been involved
together, in order to try to reconstruct a text that was written in the 10th century.”
This is a very long process, which involves reading and comparing all the manuscripts in great detail, while very specific rules around editing texts must be rigorously followed. It’s important to stay close to the text and not
The origin and early development of philosophy in tenth-century al-Andalus: the impact of ill-defined materials and channels of transmission
Project Objectives
The objective of PhilAnd is to conduct a largescale exploration of how, and under which form, philosophy appeared for the first time in alAndalus, a pivotal issue to understand the history of sciences and ideas, and the role of the ArabMuslim world in this transfer to Medieval Europe.
Project Funding
PhilAnd is an Advanced grant ERC project funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s H2020 ERC MGA Programme (ERC Grant The project 740618).
Project Partners
The project is held at UCLouvain, with the Warburg Institute (London) as second beneficiary.
Contact details
Prof. Godefroid de Callataÿ Institut des Civilisations, Arts et Lettres (INCAL) UCLouvain
1, Place Blaise Pascal
B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve Belgium
T: +3210474966
E: godefroid.decallatay@uclouvain.be
W: https://sites.uclouvain.be/erc-philand
in producing the critical edition. “It’s been the culmination of a lot of effort. It’s not just a case of finding a manuscript and making it available,” he stresses. While the original text was written in the 10th century, researchers are working with later copies, which adds a layer of complexity. The same problem arises with the Rutbat alḤakīm. “Our earliest witness of the Rutbat alḤakīm is from the 14th century. So you have four centuries between the point at which the text was written, and the earliest copy that we have in our hands,” outlines Prof. Moureau. “We have around 60-65 copies of this text, which is quite a lot in comparison to other works. The earliest copies we have are from the 14th century, and the more recent are from the 20th century. We must take all these texts and compare them
over-interpret it, although there is scope for explanatory notes in the apparatus criticus.
“This is the section in an edition where you put all the notes, explaining what you found in the manuscripts,” explains Prof. Moureau. While the project is now entering its final year, Prof. de Callataÿ is looking to continue his research in this area and is exploring the possibility of a new project with a broader scope. “This new project will not be focused on al-Andalus, it will be more about Islam and the transmission of the sciences in general,” he says. “We shall focus more on the transmission of sciences in later periods, from the 12th century up to the 17th, and look further to the East. This will involve not only texts in Arabic, but also in Persian and Turkish. The focus will clearly be on the occult sciences.”
Godefroid de Callataÿ is Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at UCLouvain. He specializes in the history of philosophy and science and has published extensively on the Rasā’il Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’
Sébastien Moureau is researcher at the FNRS and Professor at UCLouvain. His research is focused on the history of science, with special attention to the history of alchemy and metallurgy.
Liana Saif is assistant professor of medieval history of esotericism and the occult sciences in the Islamic world and Europe at the University of Amsterdam.
Prior, she was a research associate as the Warburg Institute and UCLouvain.
The Rutbat al-Ḥ akīm seems to be the text which introduced alchemy into al-Andalus. it’s essentially the only Arabic text that has been preserved from that time in al-Andalus.Medina Azahara in Córdoba, Spain. Photo by Kent Wang. Ruins of Medina Azahara. Córdoba, Andalusia, Spain. Photograph by LBM1948. Medina Azahara. Photo by R Prazeres.