Ibn Wahshiyya

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Ibn Waḥshiyya
ابن وحشية
alchemy and chemistry, magic

Ibn Waḥshiyya (

Nabataean Agriculture (Kitāb al-Filāḥa al-Nabaṭiyya), an influential Arabic work on agriculture, astrology, and magic.[3]

Already by the end of the tenth century, various works were being falsely attributed to him.

logographically.[6]

Name

His full name was Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn [Qays ibn] al-Mukhtār ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn Ḥarathyā ibn Badanyā ibn Barṭānyā ibn ʿĀlāṭyā al-Kasdānī al-Ṣūfī.[7]

Just like the semi-legendary

Babylonian language) may perhaps be based on a living oral tradition indigenous to Iraq.[9]

Biography

Ibn Wahshiyya was likely born in Qussīn (Iraq) and died in the year 318 of the

Aramaic-speaking population of southern Iraq (known to Arabic authors of Ibn Wahshiyya's time as 'Nabataeans') revered as their illustrious ancestor. Despite the fact that these Iraqi 'Nabataeans'[a] were generally looked down upon as lowly peasants by the contemporary Arab elite, Ibn Wahshiyya identified himself as one of them. Ibn Wahshiyya's self-identification as 'Nabataean' seems credible given the accurate use of Aramaic terms in his works.[10]

Works

Ibn Wahshiyya's works were written down and redacted after his death by his student and scribe Abū Ṭālib al-Zayyāt.[11] They were used not only by later agriculturalists, but also by authors of works on magic like Maslama al-Qurṭubī (died 964, author of the Ghāyat al-ḥakīm, "The Aim of the Sage", Latin: Picatrix), and by philosophers like Maimonides (1138–1204) in his Dalālat al-ḥāʾirīn ("Guide for the Perplexed", c. 1190).[12]

Kitāb al-Fihrist (c. 987), lists approximately twenty works attributed to Ibn Wahshiyya. However, most of these were probably not written by Ibn Wahshiyya himself, but rather by other tenth-century authors inspired by him.[13]

The Nabataean Agriculture

Main article:
The Nabatean Agriculture

Ibn Wahshiyya's major work, the

Abbasid period (750-945 CE), which witnessed the emancipation of non-Arabs from their former status as second-class Muslims.[17]

Other works

The Book of the Desire of the Maddened Lover for the Knowledge of Secret Scripts

One of the works attributed to Ibn Wahshiyya is the Kitāb Shawq al-mustahām fī maʿrifat rumūz al-aqlām ("The Book of the Desire of the Maddened Lover for the Knowledge of Secret Scripts”), a work dealing amongst other things with

Harranian Sabian scholar Sinan ibn Thabit ibn Qurra (c. 880–943) who claimed to have merely copied the work in the year 413 AH, corresponding to 1022–3 CE.[19]

The Book of Poisons

Another work attributed to Ibn Wahshiyya is a treatise on toxicology called the Book of Poisons, which combines contemporary knowledge on

pharmacology with magic and astrology.[20]

Cryptography

The works attributed to Ibn Wahshiyya contain several cipher alphabets that were used to encrypt magic formulas.[21]

Later influence

Attempted translation of Egyptian hieroglyphs by pseudo-Ibn Wahshiyyah (from Shawq al-mustahām, Paris MS Arabe 6805, fol 92b–93a).[22]

phonetic value of a number of Egyptian hieroglyphs.[23] However, other scholars have been highly sceptical about El-Daly's claims on the accuracy of these identifications, which betray a keen interest in (as well as some basic knowledge of) the nature of Egyptian hieroglyphs, but are in fact for the most part incorrect.[24]
The book may have been known to the German
Jesuit scholar and polymath Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680),[25] and was translated into English by Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall in 1806 as Ancient Alphabets and Hieroglyphic Characters Explained; with an Account of the Egyptian Priests, their Classes, Initiation, and Sacrifices in the Arabic Language by Ahmad Bin Abubekr Bin Wahishih.[26]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ These Iraqi 'Nabataeans' are not to be confused with the ancient Nabataeans of Petra, with whom they have nothing in common.

References

  1. ^ Hämeen-Anttila 2018.
  2. ^ Hämeen-Anttila 2018. On Qussīn, see Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, IV:350 (referred to by Hämeen-Anttila 2006, p. 93).
  3. ^ Hämeen-Anttila 2006, p. 3.
  4. ^ Hämeen-Anttila 2018.
  5. ^ For the spurious nature of this work, see Hämeen-Anttila 2006, pp. 21–22. See also Toral-Niehoff & Sundermeyer 2018.
  6. ^ El-Daly 2005, pp. 57–73. Stephan 2017, p. 265 affirms that the author correctly deciphered a few signs and that he showed some knowledge on the nature of Egyptian hieroglyphs. However, according to Stephan, El-Daly "vastly overemphasizes Ibn Waḥshiyya's accuracy". El-Daly's characterization of pseudo-Ibn Wahshiyya's and other contemporary Arabic authors' interest in the decipherment of ancient scripts as representing a coordinated research program, and as lying at the foundations of modern Egyptology, was found lacking in evidence by Colla 2008. On pseudo-Ibn Wahshiyya, see also Toral-Niehoff & Sundermeyer 2018.
  7. ^ Hämeen-Anttila 2018.
  8. ^ Hämeen-Anttila 2018.
  9. ^ Hämeen-Anttila 2006, pp. 16, 43.
  10. ^ Hämeen-Anttila 2018.
  11. ^ Hämeen-Anttila 2006, p. 87.
  12. ^ Hämeen-Anttila 2018. On the authorship of the Ghāyat al-ḥakīm, see Fierro 1996, recently confirmed by De Callataÿ & Moureau 2017.
  13. ^ Hämeen-Anttila 2018.
  14. ^ Hämeen-Anttila 2006, p. 3.
  15. ^ Rubin 1998, pp. 330–333.
  16. ^ Hämeen-Anttila 2006, pp. 10–33.
  17. ^ Hämeen-Anttila 2006, pp. 33–45.
  18. ^ Hämeen-Anttila 2006, pp. 21–22; Toral-Niehoff & Sundermeyer 2018.
  19. ^ Hämeen-Anttila 2006, p. 21, note 45.
  20. ^ Iovdijová & Bencko 2010.
  21. ^ Whitman 2010, p. 351.
  22. ^ El-Daly 2005, p. 71.
  23. ^ El-Daly 2005, pp. 57–73.
  24. ^ Stephan 2017, p. 265. According to Stephan, El-Daly "vastly overemphasizes Ibn Waḥshiyya's accuracy". El-Daly's characterization of pseudo-Ibn Wahshiyya's and other contemporary Arabic authors' interest in the decipherment of ancient scripts as representing a coordinated research program, and as lying at the foundations of modern Egyptology, was found lacking in evidence by Colla 2008.
  25. ^ El-Daly 2005, pp. 58, 68.
  26. ^ Hammer 1806. Cf. El-Daly 2005, pp. 68–69.

Bibliography

Further reading

External links
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