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Ibn Waḥshiyya
ابن وحشية
Manuscript of The Nabataean Agriculture
Died930–1 CE (318  AH) [1]
Notable work The Nabataean Agriculture
Era Islamic Golden Age
Region Kufa (Iraq)
Language Arabic
Main interests
 Agriculture, botany, toxicology, alchemy and chemistry, magic

Ibn Waḥshiyya ( Arabic: ابن وحشية), died c. 930, was a Nabataean ( Aramaic-speaking, rural Iraqi) agriculturalist, toxicologist, and alchemist born in Qussīn, near Kufa in Iraq. [2] He is the author of the 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. [4] One of these spurious writings, 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", perhaps 1022–3 CE), [5] is notable as an early proposal that some Egyptian hieroglyphs could be read phonetically, rather than only 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 Jabir ibn Hayyan, he carried the nisba al-Ṣūfī despite the fact that he is not known to have engaged in or to have written anything about Sufism. [8] The nisba al-Kasdānī is a variant of al-Kaldānī ( 'Chaldaean'), a term referring to the native inhabitants of Mesopotamia that was also used in Greek, but (given the known -shd-/-ld- variation in 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 Islamic calendar (= 930-1 CE). Very little else is known about his life. Our main source of information are Ibn Wahshiyya's own writings, as well as the short entry in Ibn al-Nadim's (died c. 995) Fihrist, where he is explicitly said to be among the "authors whose life is not well known". Ibn Wahshiyya himself claimed to be a descendant of the Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib ( r. 704 – 681 BCE), whom the rural, 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]

Ibn al-Nadim, in his 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 Nabataean Agriculture (Kitāb al-Filāḥa al-Nabaṭiyya, c. 904), claims to have been translated from an "ancient Syriac" original, written c. 20,000 years ago by the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia. [14] In Ibn Wahshiyya's time, Syriac was thought to have been the primordial language used at the time of creation. [15] While the work may indeed have been translated from a Syriac original, [16] in reality Syriac is a language that only emerged in the first century. By the ninth century, it had become the carrier of a rich literature, including many works translated from the Greek. The book's extolling of Babylonian civilization against that of the conquering Arabs forms part of a wider movement (the Shu'ubiyya movement) in the early 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 Egyptian hieroglyphs. Its author refers to his extensive travels in Egypt, but Ibn Wahshiyya himself seems never to have visited Egypt, a country which he barely even mentions in his authentic works. For this and other reasons, scholars believe the work to be spurious. [18] According to Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila, it may have been authored by Hasan ibn Faraj, an obscure descendant of the 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]

Pseudo-Ibn Wahshiyya's Kitāb Shawq al-mustahām fī maʿrifat rumūz al-aqlām ("The Book of the Desire of the Maddened Lover for the Knowledge of Secret Scripts", perhaps 1022–3 CE, see above), has been claimed by Egyptologist Okasha El-Daly to have correctly identified the 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

  • Colla, Elliot (2008). "Review of El-Daly 2005". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 40 (1): 135–137. doi: 10.1017/S0020743807080142. S2CID  162412180.
  • De Callataÿ, Godefroid; Moureau, Sébastien (2017). "A Milestone in the History of Andalusī Bāṭinism: Maslama b. Qāsim al-Qurṭubī's Riḥla in the East". Intellectual History of the Islamicate World. 5 (1): 86–117. doi: 10.1163/2212943X-00501004.
  • El-Daly, Okasha (2005). Egyptology: The Missing Millennium. Ancient Egypt in Medieval Arabic Writings. London: UCL Press.
  • Fierro, Maribel (1996). "Bāṭinism in Al-Andalus: Maslama b. Qāsim al-Qurṭubī (d. 353/964), Author of the Rutbat al-Ḥakīm and the Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm (Picatrix)". Studia Islamica. 84 (84): 87–112. doi: 10.2307/1595996. hdl: 10261/281028. JSTOR  1595996.
  • Hämeen-Anttila, Jaakko (2006). The Last Pagans of Iraq: Ibn Wahshiyya And His Nabatean Agriculture. Leiden: Brill.
  • Hämeen-Anttila, Jaakko (2018). "Ibn Waḥshiyya". In Fleet, Kate; Krämer, Gudrun; Matringe, Denis; Nawas, John; Rowson, Everett (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam, Three. doi: 10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_32287.
  • Hammer, Joseph von (1806). 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 Wahshih. London: Bulmer.
  • Iovdijová, A.; Bencko, V. (2010). "Potential risk of exposure to selected xenobiotic residues and their fate in the food chain--part I: classification of xenobiotics" (PDF). Annals of Agricultural and Environmental Medicine. 17 (2): 183–92. PMID  21186759. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 March 2012. Retrieved 13 June 2011.
  • Rubin, Milka (1998). "The Language of Creation or the Primordial Language: A Case of Cultural Polemics in Antiquity". Journal of Jewish Studies. 49 (2): 306–333. doi: 10.18647/2120/JJS-1998.
  • Stephan, Tara (2017). "Writing the Past: Ancient Egypt through the Lens of Medieval Islamic Thought". In Lowry, Joseph E.; Toorawa, Shawkat M. (eds.). Arabic Humanities, Islamic Thought: Essays in Honor of Everett K. Rowson. Leiden: Brill. ISBN  978-90-04-34329-0.
  • Toral-Niehoff, Isabel; Sundermeyer, Annette (2018). "Going Egyptian in Medieval Arabic Culture. The Long-Desired Fulfilled Knowledge of Occult Alphabets by Pseudo-Ibn Waḥshiyya". In El-Bizri, Nader; Orthmann, Eva (eds.). The Occult Sciences in Pre-modern Islamic Cultures. Würzburg: Ergon. pp. 249–263.
  • Whitman, Michael (2010). Principles of Information Security. London: Course Technology. ISBN  978-1-111-13821-9.

Further reading

  • Braun, Christopher (2016). Das Kitāb Sidrat al-muntahā des Pseudo-Ibn Waḥšīya. Einleitung, Edition und Übersetzung eines hermetisch-allegorischen Traktats zur Alchemie. Islamkundliche Untersuchungen. Vol. 327. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz. doi: 10.1515/9783112209202. ISBN  978-3-11-220920-2.
  • Braun, Christopher (2022). "The Hieroglyphic Script Deciphered? An Arabic Treatise on Ancient and Occult Alphabets". In Brentjes, Sonja (ed.). Routledge Handbook on the Sciences in Islamicate Societies: Practices from the 2nd/8th to the 13th/19th Centuries. New York: Routledge. pp. 194–207. doi: 10.4324/9781315170718-17. ISBN  978-1-138-04759-4. (on pseudo-Ibn Wahshiyya's Shawq al-mustahām)

External links

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