Periodic Reporting for period 4 - PhilAnd (The origin and early development of philosophy in tenth-century al-Andalus: the impact of ill-defined materials and channels of transmission.)
Reporting period: 2022-04-01 to 2024-03-31
Philand (The origin and development of philosophy in tenth-century al-Andalus: the impact of ill-defined materials and channels of transmission) is a project whose objective was to conduct a large-scale exploration of how, and under which form, philosophy appeared for the first time in al-Andalus. This issue is pivotal to understanding the history of sciences and ideas, and the role of the Arab-Muslim world in this transfer to Medieval Europe. Its relevance today also lies in the fact that it addresses questions of cultural and religious identities, since the formative stage of philosophy in al-Andalus proved decisive in shaping the intellectual background of many later authors from the Peninsula, whether Muslims, Jews, or Christians. At the crossroads of several major lines of enquiries in modern scholarship and in line with recent discoveries having important chronological implications, PhilAnd focuses on the 10th century, a period usually disregarded by historians on the assumption that philosophy as such was not cultivated in the Iberian Peninsula before the 11th-12th centuries. Its originality is also to put emphasis on ‘ill-defined’ materials and channels of transmission, a field which remains largely unexplored.
Conducted in parallel at UCLouvain and at the Warburg Institute (University of London) by an international team of researchers (Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, France, Jordan and Egypt), Philand has, for the first time, interrogated together a vast body of texts produced both in the East and in al-Andalus, to determine their filiation and better assess their critical significance in the history of philosophy and science. The examination of these sources, which include the Jābirian corpus, the encyclopedia of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’ (Brethren of Purity), the Nabatean Agriculture, the alchemical Rutbat al-Ḥakīm by Maslama b. Qāsim al-Qurṭubī, as well as the works by Ibn Masarra and Ibn Ḥazm, resulted in an extensive array of publications (critical editions, translations, monographic surveys, special issue or individual articles in to-rank peer-reviewed journals). Three major conferences were convened with the leading experts in the world to explore the following transversal issues: ‘Power, Religion, and Wisdom: Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy in al-Andalus and Beyond’ (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton); ‘Science and Craft: the Relations between the Theoretical and Practical Sides of the Occult Sciences in the Islamic world’ (Warburg Institute, London); ‘Interconnections Between Jewish and Islamic Rationalistic Forms of Thought During the Middle Ages’ (UCLouvain). Additionally, we created M-Classi, a digital tool to list, search and visualize the classifications of the sciences in the Islamicate world. PhilAnd also includes a major research dissemination component, including an article in EU Research journal and a series of ‘Conversations with PhilAnd researchers’ video capsules.
The final objectives of PhilAnd were to test the hypothesis: (1) that the emergence of philosophy in al-Andalus significantly predates the currently accepted time; and (2) that the impact of this formative stage was considerably wider than commonly acknowledged. At the end of the project, we can safely assume that these objectives have been largely achieved, and that our twofold initial hypothesis has been validated. Our results now give us a secure asset to better understand and contextualize the emergence and early circulation of philosophy and science to al-Andalus and beyond. Among our main achievements, special mention must be made of the following, which all mark significant advance beyond the state of the art: (1) Mattila (J.), The Ikhwānian Corpus. A Study of Rasāʼil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʼ, al-Risāla al-Jāmiʻa, and Risālat Jāmiʻat al-Jāmiʻa (Brill), the first comprehensive study of the chronology of composition of these works, an issue of major implication; (2) Bellver (J.), Ibn Masarra: Early Philosophy and Theology in al-Andalus (Brill), the complete reassessment of the works and influence of this milestone figure in Andalusī intellectual history; (3) de Callataÿ (G.) – Halflants (B.) – Moureau (S.) – Mattila (J.), The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity, On Magic. 2. An Arabic Critical Edition and English Translation of Epistles 52b and 52c (Oxford University Press), the first critical edition and extensive survey of a seminal text on the occult; (4) our special issue of Arabica journal and the two volumes of proceedings of our international conferences (Micrologus; SISMEL Edizioni del Galluzzo), all of which presenting cutting-edge research in our field; (5) M-Classi, a game changing and already referential digital tool to list, search and visualize the classifications of science in the Islamicate worl. M-Classi is already available in its beta form, on request (more info at https://sites.uclouvain.be/erc-philand/dissemination/m-classi/).