Licit Magic: The Life and Letters of Al-Ṣāḥib B. ʿabbād (D. 385/995)

Erscheinungsjahr 2017
ISBN: 978-90-04-34582-9
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 146, 316 Seiten, Format (B × H): 159 mm x 241 mm, Gewicht: 592 g

Reihe: Islamic History and Civilization

In Licit Magic: The Life and Letters of al-Sahib b. 'Abbad (d. 385/995) Maurice A. Pomerantz explores the biography and literary output of a major tenth-century Muslim statesman, literary patron, and intellectual. His nearly two-decade reign as vizier on behalf of two Buyid amirs was an important period for the flowering of Arabic letters, Mu'tazili theology and Shi'ism in Western Iran. Making use of Ibn 'Abbad’s large corpus of letters (rasa'il), Pomerantz explores the role that eloquence played in the conduct of administration, the maintenance of social networks of elites, and persuasion. Licit Magic argues that the eloquent expression that Ibn 'Abbad displayed in his letters was central to his exercise of power.

Autoren/Hrsg.

A Pomerantz, Maurice

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Islam & Islamische Studien Islam & Islamische Studien
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Alternative Glaubensformen Okkultismus und andere religiöse Praktiken
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Naher & Mittlerer Osten

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments

1 An Introduction to Ibn 'Abbad and His Letters

A Letter of Longing for an Absent Friend
al-Sahib Ibn 'Abbad: Finding a Context
Ibn 'Abbad and Arabo-Islamic Epistolography
Ibn 'Abbad Inside and Outside His Letters
Ibn 'Abbad in His Own Words?
Plan of the Book

A Buyid Politician, Polymath and Patron

2 A Life in Politics

Birth, Family, and Early Education of Isma'il b. 'Abbad
Ibn 'Abbad’s Studies in Rayy with Abu l-Fadl Ibn al-'Amid
Scribe and Scholar in Baghdad
Rivalry with Abu l-Fath for Succession to the Vizierate of Rayy
Ibn 'Abbad Becomes Vizier in Rayy
Ibn 'Abbad and the Rise of 'Adud al-Dawla
Vizier for Fakhr al-Dawla: 373–85/983–95
The End of an Era

3 A Mu'tazili Polymath

Dialectical Theology (kalam)
Legal Schools (madhahib) and the Imamate
Lexicography (al-lugha)
History (tarikh)
Poetry (shi'r)
Poetic Criticism (naqd al-shi'r)
Qur'anic Interpretation
Hadith and its Criticism
Grammar (nahw)
Foreign Sciences ('ulum al-awa'il)
Ibn 'Abbad as a Scholar in the Fourth/Tenth Century

4 A Patron and Social Networker

Ibn 'Abbad’s Patronage System
Ibn 'Abbad’s Court
The Library of Ibn 'Abbad
The Patron at Court
Ibn 'Abbad as a Social Networker
Ibn 'Abbad as a Courtly Intellectual

An Epistolographer and Adib

5 A Letter Writer and His Letters

The Vizier as an Epistolographer
The Letters of Ibn 'Abbad
FA = al-Fusul al-adabiyya wa-l-murasalat al-'abbadiyya (The literary excerpts and the 'Abbadian correspondence)
KB = Kamal al-balagha (The perfection in rhetoric)
YD = Yatimat al-dahr fi mahasin ahl al-'asr (The unique pearl of time concerning the excellencies of the poets of the age)
The Transmission of Individual Letters

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Über Autor(innen)

Maurice A. Pomerantz, Ph.D. (2010), University of Chicago, is Assistant Professor of Literature at New York University, Abu Dhabi. He is the editor of The Heritage of Arabo-Islamic Learning (Brill, 2016).