brochure 2012 - Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas

Research Unit
Intellectual History of
the Islamicate World
Islam, Christianity and Judaism Interwined

Research Unit
Intellectual History of
the Islamicate World
Vivantes International Medicine
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Islam, Christianity and Judaism Interwined
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Contents
Message from the President 7
Mission and Vision 8
The Team 8
Staff 9
Associated Team Members 10
International and National Cooperations 12
The work of the Research Unit Intellectual History of the Islamicate World and its research areas 14
Executive Summary 14
Detailed Description of the Research Areas and the Current Projects: 14
Critical Avicennism in the Islamic East of the 12th century 14
Muslim and Jewish philosophy intertwined during the 13th through 15th centuries 16
Philosophy in Iran during the Ṣafavid and Qajar Periods 18
Aesthetics 19
The formative period of Mysticism 21
Rationalism and Rational Theology in the Islamicate World 22
Counterreactions 27
The intellectual and religious heritage of Shīʿism (Zaydism and Imamism) 28
Interreligious Controversies 30
Bible in Arabic among Christians, Jews and Muslims 34
Achievements (2003–2012) 35

Message from the President
Thank you for your interest in the Research Unit Intellectual History
of the Islamicate World. One of Freie Universität’s prominent research
centers, the Research Unit combines key features and strengths that
have been decisive for the success of Freie Universität in the recent years:
a clear international orientation, a research program that cuts across traditional
disciplinary boundaries and a commitment that reaches beyond
the academic world, true to the founding heritage of Freie Universität.
The Research Unit acts as an umbrella structure for various research
projects, all of which have been very successful in acquiring external
funding, but its objective is not merely an organizational one. Rather, the
overarching intellectual goal is to arrive at a better and more comprehensive
understanding of the intellectual history of the Islamicate world,
with particular attention to the medieval, pre-modern and early modern
periods. The Research Unit employs a new perspective in the pursuit of
this aim: rather than starting out from one of the traditional disciplines –
Islamic Studies, Jewish Studies, Studies of Eastern Christianity – it relies
on an interdisciplinary approach. With this orientation, it takes up - in
many significant ways – a tradition that is at the same time a key object
of its own research: The tradition of exchange between Muslim, Jewish
and Christian scholars that existed in the Islamicate World for centuries.
This intellectual history bears inspiring witness to a rational dialogue between
the three monotheistic religions. An understanding of Islam that
sees this dialogue as an integral part of its historical heritage would indeed
be much more than merely an academic matter.
Reflecting the research profile of the Research Unit Intellectual History
of the Islamicate World, its team unites scholars from various disciplines,
countries and cultural backgrounds. The extensive international
network, reaching from the Near East to Europe and North America,
makes another vital contribution to its diversity in the academic, cultural
and methodolgical sense.
I am convinced that the work of the Research Unit Intellectual History
of the Islamicate World will continue to make groundbreaking
contributions to academic research and beyond. In closing, let me also
thank all sponsors who have provided external funding for the work of
the Research Unit. Needless to say, the work done would not have been
possible without their support.
Peter-André Alt
President of the Freie Universität Berlin
7

Mission and Vision
In a world in which borders increase in significance – be they cultural or
religious, political or economic–academic research has the power to demonstrate
that intellectual movements disregard any such border and
that symbiosis is the norm rather than the exception. This held true
for intellectual movements in one of today’s hottest conflict areas, the
Middle East, cradle of the three monotheistic religions and for more
than two millenia home to major strands of human culture. If we
wish to establish lasting peaceful relations between leading cultures, religions
and political entities, we require above all knowledge about our
own intellectual heritage, about that of others, and about the ways
they intersect. Such knowledge will not only foster mutual respect,
but it will also prevent the spread of ideologically distorted perceptions of
one another. An open mind in research, a readiness to widen the scope of
scholarly investigation, and a willingness to share its results with a wider
audience contribute significantly to the shaping of a public opinion
that is less biased and more refined.
Departing from the customary academic approach with its (often
exclusive) focus on either Muslim, Jewish or Christian authors and their
writings, the Research Unit Intellectual History of the Islamicate
World at Freie Universität Berlin (formally established in 2011 and exclusively
funded through third-party funding) is unique in its threedimensional
appreciation of the region’s intellectual history. With
its specific approach it strives to contribute to a peaceful atmosphere
between Muslims and non-Muslims both in the Muslim world and in
the global context. Its members are committed to groundbreaking research
in a variety of aspects of the intellectual history of the Islamicate
world in the medieval, pre-modern and early modern periods. The results
of their efforts are communicated not only to the scholarly community
worldwide but also to a wider public in East and West.
The various activities and projects that are now under the umbrella
of the Research Unit have been funded since 2003 by a variety of foundations
and institutions, among them the German-Israeli Foundation
(GIF) (2003–06), the Fritz Thyssen Foundation (2005–07, 2010–11), the
Gerda Henkel Foundation (2005, 2006–07, 2008), the Rothschild Foundation
(Yad ha-nadiv) (2006), the European Science Foundation (ESF)
(2007), the European Research Council (ERC) (2008–13), the German
Foreign Office (2009–11), the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
with the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) (2010–13), and
the Einstein Foundation (2010–15).
The Team
♦
The team working at the Research Unit Intellectual History of the
Islamicate World at Freie Universität Berlin not only studies the centuries-old
intellectual symbiosis between Islam, Judaism and Christianity,
it also reflects that symbiosis. The team is international and multireligious,
with an almost equal number of Muslims and non-Muslims,
comprising scholars from various Western countries and from the Middle
East. While all are leading experts in several disciplines of Islamic Studies,
some are also specialized in Christian and Jewish Arabic literature
with proficiency in related languages such as Syriac and Aramaic,
Coptic, Judaeo-Arabic, Hebrew and Persian. Close cooperation among
the staff and the associated team members and an interdisciplinary approach
characterize the work of the Research Unit.
To achieve the maximum outreach within the scholarly community
and the wider public, the team members publish regularly in a variety
of languages – English, French, German, Arabic, Persian and Hebrew –
on the internet,1 in peer-reviewed journals and in well-established
book series, both in the West and in the Islamic world. Moreover, the
director of the Research Unit is editor-in-chief of the journal Intellectual
History of the Islamicate World, published by Brill, Leiden, that has
recently been launched.2 The Research Unit also publishes three book
series in cooperation with leading academic institutions in Iran.3 The aim
is to publish critical editions of important, previously unedited texts and
facsimile editions of particularly valuable manuscripts in the field of the
intellectual history of the Islamicate world and Muslim history. Sixteen
volumes have been published since 2006; another four volumes are currently
in press. Research results and ongoing projects are regularly announced
through the page of the Research Unit,4 its individual members’
homepages and through the various social networks.5 In addition to
publications for an academic audience, the Research Unit is also addressing
a wider audience, through a bi-annual Newsletter (in German),6 a
monthly eNewsletter (English and German) and by organizing regularly
public events aimed at the general public.
Staff
♦
Dr. Hassan Ansari (Research Associate 2005–07, Senior Research Associate
2009–13), PhD Paris 2009 (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes)7
Josephine Gehlhar (Student Assistant since 2009)
Dr. Katja Maria Jung (coordinator of the Research Unit since 2012), PhD
1 E.g., http://ansari.kateban.com/.
2 www.brill.com/ihiw.
3 Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Mysticism. Facsimiles and Editions (since 2006, edited in
cooperation with the Iranian Institute of Philosophy, Tehran); Classical Muslim Heritage Series
(since 2011, edited in cooperation with Mīrāth-e maktūb, Tehran); Muslim History and Heritage
Series (since 2011, edited in cooperation with Markaz-i Dā‘irat al-ma‘ārif-i buzurg-i islāmī, Teheran).
4 http://www.geschkult.fu-berlin.de/e/islamwiss/institut/Intellectual_History_in_the_Islamicate_
World/index.html.
5 http://www.facebook.com/\#!/pages/Rediscovering-Theological-Rationalism-in-the-Medieval-
World-of-Islam/144710522241165; http://www.facebook.com/pages/Research-Unit-Intellectual-
History-of-the-Islamicate-World/120655678037693; http://fu-berlin.academia.edu/Departments/
Research_Unit_Intellectual_History_of_the_Islamicate_World_Institut_f%C3%BCr_
Islamwissenschaft
6 Cf. http://www.geschkult.fu-berlin.de/e/islamwiss/Intellectual_History_in_the_Islamicate_World/
Newsletter/index.html.
7 http://ansari.kateban.com/.
8 9

Munich 2010
Dr. Lukas Muehlethaler (Senior Research Associate, 2009–13), PhD Yale
20108
Jonas Müller-Laackmann (Student Assistant since 2012)
Samir Mahmoud (Senior Research Associate since 2012)
Prof. Sabine Schmidtke (Founding Director of the Research unit), DPhil
Oxford 1990, Professor at Freie Universität Berlin since 20029
Gregor Schwarb (Research Associate 2005–07, Senior Research Associate
2009–13), former Academic Director of the Centre for the Study of
Muslim-Jewish Relations, Cambridge10
Dr. des. Jan Thiele (Senior Research Associate, 2012–13)11
♦
Associated Team Members
Dr. Michael Ebstein (Rothschild Fellow), PhD The Hebrew University of
Jerusalem 201112
Dennis Halft OP, PhD candidate Institute of Islamic Studies, Freie Universität
Berlin13
Prof. Omar Hamdan, Professor of Qurʾānic Studies, Eberhard Karls-Universität
Tübingen14
Prof. Wilferd Madelung, Laudian Professor of Arabic (Emeritus), University
of Oxford
Damaris Pottek, PhD candidate Institute of Islamic Studies, Freie Universität
Berlin15
Dr. Reza Pourjavady, PhD Freie Universität Berlin 2008, currently Research
Associate, McGill University, Montreal, Institute of Islamic Studies16
Ahmad-Reza Rahimi-Riseh, PhD candidate Institute of Islamic Studies,
Freie Universität Berlin17
Dr. Abdurrahman al-Salimi, PhD Durham 2001 (Ministry of Endowments
and Religious Affairs, Oman)
Prof. Adel Y. Sidarus, Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies (Emeritus),
University of Evora, Portugal
8 http://fu-berlin.academia.edu/LukasMuehlethaler.
9 http://fu-berlin.academia.edu/SabineSchmidtke.
10 http://fu-berlin.academia.edu/GregorSchwarb.
11 http://fu-berlin.academia.edu/JanThiele.
12 http://huji.academia.edu/MichaelEbstein
13 http://www.institut-chenu.eu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=146&Itemid=95.
14 http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/einrichtungen/verwaltung-dezernate/i-forschung-strategie-undrecht/zentrum-fuer-islamische-theologie.html.
15 http://fu-berlin.academia.edu/TamarIs.
16 http://mcgill.academia.edu/RezaPourjavady.
17 http://fu-berlin.academia.edu/AhmadRezaRahimiRiseh.
10 11

Prof. Sarah Stroumsa, The Alice and Jack Ormut Professor of Arabic
Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, recipient of a Humboldt Research
Award (2011/12)18
Dr. Sophia Vasalou, PhD Cambridge 2006
Dr. Ronny Vollandt, DPhil Cambridge (UK) 2011, IRHT, Section Hébraïque,
CNRS Paris19
Zeus Wellnhofer, PhD candidate Institute of Islamic Studies, Freie Universität
Berlin20
Eva-Maria Zeis, PhD candidate Institute of Islamic Studies, Freie Universität
Berlin21
International and National Cooperations
♦
The team members of the Research Unit Intellectual History of the
Islamicate World have excellent working relations with a variety of academic
institutions and scholars in the Middle East, in Europe and the
US. In Turkey, long-standing relations have been established with scholars
working on related topics at Yıldız Technical University, Department
of Humanities and Social Sciences (Prof. M. Sait Özervarli) and at ISAM
Center for Islamic Studies and Marmara Unversity (Prof. Osman Gazi
Özgüdenli, Dr. Harun Anay22), all in Istanbul, and at Uludağ Üniversitesi
İlahiyat Fakültesi in Bursa (Dr. Kadir Gömbeyaz23, Dr. Veysel Kaya24).
In Yemen, the team members are working in close cooperation with
the Imām Zayd b. ʿAlī Cultural Foundation (IZbACF) / Muʾassasat al-
Imām Zayd b. ʿAlī al-thaqāfiyya, Ṣanʿāʾ.25 In Iran, the Dāʾirat al-maʿārif-i
buzurg-i islāmī26 and the Written Heritage Research Centre27, Tehran,
should be mentioned. In Uzbekistan, the Research Unit is cooperating
with the al-Biruni Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences
of Uzbekistan. Good working contacts with the King Faisal Centre
for Research and Islamic Studies28 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and the
Jumʿat al-Mājid Reseach Center in Dubai29 have been established over
the past years. The Research Unit is also closely collaborating with the
joint Israeli-Palestinian research project Intellectual encounters: Phi-
losophy and Science in the World of Medieval Islam30 in Jerusalem/al-
Quds, with Prof. Sara Sviri, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the
Ben Zvi Institute in Jerusalem. At Tel Aviv University, the Research Unit
is collaborating with Dr. Camilla Adang31 and Prof. Meira Polliack32 on a
research project The Bible in Arabic among Jews, Christians and Muslims.
The members of the Research Unit are also cooperating with the Institute
of Samaritan Studies, Holon, Israel (Binyamin Tsedaka).
In the West, the Research Unit is closely cooperating with the Institute of
Islamic Studies at McGill University in Montreal where Prof. Robert Wisnovsky
and Prof. Jamil Ragep have initiated “The Post-classical Islamic
Philosophy Database Initiative” (PIPDI),33 with Prof. Alexander Treiger34
of Dalhousie and his discussion group “Arabic Bible”, with Prof. Asad
Q. Ahmed of Washington University in St. Louis, as well as Prof. Ahmet
T. Karamustafa and Prof. Jon McGinnis of the University of Missouri,
who coordinate the Mellon Sawyer Seminar “Graeco-Arabic Rationalism
in Islamic Traditionalism: The Post-Classical Period (1200-1900 CE)”, with
Prof. Mohammed Ali Amir-Moezzi,35 Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes,
Paris, with Prof. Ayman Shehadeh, School of Oriental and African Studies,
London, with Prof. Peter Adamson, King’s College, London, and
Munich University, with Professor Ulrich Rudolph (Zürich) on the Ueberweg:
Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie (Islamische Philosophie),
with Prof. Maribel Fierro, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas,
Madrid,36 with Prof. Khaled el-Rouayheb, Islamic Intellectual History,
Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University,37 with
Prof. David Hollenberg, University of Oregon,38 and Prof. Bernard Haykel
and Dr. David Magier, Princeton University and Princeton University Library
on “The Yemeni Manuscripts Digitization Initiative” (YMDI),39 and
with Boris Zaykovsky, Russian National Library, St. Petersburg.
Within Germany, the Research Unit is collaborating closely with the
recently founded Center for Islamic Theology (Zentrum für Islamische
Theologie), Tübingen, directed by Prof. Omar Hamdan, a former member
of the Research Unit (2010–11).40 The Research Unit is also closely
cooperating with the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin in a variety of research
projects and conferences.41
♦
18 http://pluto.huji.ac.il/~stroums/.
19 http://cnrs.academia.edu/RonnyVollandt
20 http://fu-berlin.academia.edu/ZeusWellnhofer.
21 http://fu-berlin.academia.edu/EvaMariaZeis.
22 http://www.isam.org.tr/; http://english.isam.org.tr/.
23 http://uludag.academia.edu/KadirG\%C3\%B6mbeyaz.
24 http://uludag.academia.edu/veyselkaya; http://ilahiyat.uludag.edu.tr/tr/akademikkadro/
kadro/408-veysel-kaya.html.
25 http://www.izbacf.org/.
26 http://www.cgie.org.ir/.
27 http://www.mirasmaktoob.ir/.
28 http://www.kfcris.com/.
29 http://www.almajidcenter.org/Arabic/Pages/default.aspx/.
30 http://www.intellectualencounters.org/.
31 http://telaviv.academia.edu/CamillaAdang; http://vimeo.com/38437580.
32 http://www.tau.ac.il/humanities/vip/polliackm.htm.
33 http://islamsci.mcgill.ca/RASI/pipdi.html.
34 http://religiousstudies.dal.ca/Faculty%20and%20staff/Alexander_Treiger.php.
35 http://www.ephe.sorbonne.fr/annuaire-de-la-recherche/mamirmoezzi.html.
36 http://csic.academia.edu/maribelfierro.
37 http://tinyurl.com/nelc-fas-harvard-edu-rouayheb.
38 http://ymdi.uoregon.edu/.
39 http://ymdi.uoregon.edu/.
40 http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/einrichtungen/verwaltung-dezernate/i-forschung-strategie-undrecht/zentrum-fuer-islamische-theologie.html.
41 See, e.g., http://staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/nc/die-staatsbibliothek/ausstellungen-undveranstaltungen/detail/article/2012-01-12-5714/.
12 13

The work of the Research Unit Intellectual History of
the Islamicate World and its research areas
Executive Summary
Intellectual richness and unparalleled variety characterize the Islamicate
world throughout its history and a fundamental understanding
of the intellectual history of the Islamic cultural sphere is possible
only if research is not confined within denominational boundaries. The
Qurʾān regards itself as the last, perfect link in a chain of progressive
divine revelations. It is, thus, very much aware of its own generic
linkage to the two preceding monotheistic religions, Judaism and Christianity.
The early Muslims adopted many Jewish and Christian elements
as they had evolved during Late Antiquity. Christians and Jews were
also involved in shaping Muslim intellectual history in subsequent
centuries. From the 9th century CE Muslims, Christians and Jews shared
a common everyday and cultural language, Arabic, which they used
to communicate ideas, concepts and texts, and the ensuing exchange was
mutually enriching. For centuries representatives of all three religions
read a very similar canon, especially in the so-called rational sciences
(theology, philosophy, aspects of legal methodology, the natural sciences,
and medicine) and belles lettres and thus contributed to its development.
The dynamic was multi-dimensional. Christian and Jewish authors influenced
Islamic thought, while the writings of Muslim thinkers had an
impact on non-Muslims. Interreligious interaction is a historical fact
that continues into the modern age.
While this has been amply demonstrated for some selected periods and
regions, scholars usually opt for a one-dimensional approach with an (often
exclusive) focus on either Muslim, Jewish or Christian authors and
their writings. In all three fields and for a variety of reasons, the scholarly
investigation of the “rational sciences” beyond denominational borders is
still in the beginning phase. This calls for an entirely new framework
for innovative research that systematically crosses the boundaries
between three major disciplines of academia and research, viz. Islamic
Studies, Jewish Studies and the study of Eastern Christianity.
This approach characterizes the work carried out at the Research Unit
Intellectual History of the Islamicate World.
♦
Detailed Description of the Research Areas and the Current
Projects:
Critical Avicennism in the Islamic East of the 12th century
The reception of the philosophy of Avicenna (d. 1037) in the Islamic and
Christian West has been documented for some time. Less understood is
the reception of Avicenna’s philosophy in the East of the Islamic
world, where it occurred on a much greater scale and proved much more
momentous. Two hundred years after the death of Avicenna, major con-
14

cepts of his philosophy had become an integral part of new philosophical
schools and traditional disciplines.
Yet only rarely was Avicenna’s philosophical system accepted wholesale.
Especially during the 12th century, various thinkers interpreted and reevaluated
his works from a number of perspectives. While they generally
retained Avicenna’s conceptual framework, they modified or relinquished
some of his most central tenets. They did so for various reasons. Some
attempted to resolve problems inherent to the Avicennan system. Others
tried to integrate Avicennan ideas into hitherto nonphilosophical contexts.
This process and the philosophical concepts and positions resulting
from this process will be termed “critical Avicennism”.
To better understand the formation of critical Avicennism, members of the
Research Unit study figures and writings from the 12th century that
are central to this process. They aim to draw the intellectual landscape of
that period, to make important texts accessible, and to understand the
developments of central philosophical concepts in detail.
The works of the famous 12th-century logician and philosopher ʿUmar
b. Sahlān al-Sāwī in defense of Avicennan philosophy (Lukas Muehlethaler
/ Reza Pourjavady) illustrate the reaction to critical Avicennism
and the modification of Avicennan tenets in its wake. Two philosophical
works of ʿUmar b. Sahlān, his Nahj al-taqdīs and his response to criticisms
of Avicennan philosophy, are being critically edited and made accessible
through translation and analysis. In these works, ʿUmar b. Sahlān defends
central Avicennan concepts against critiques by al-Shahrastānī (d. 1153)
and Abū l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī (d. after 1164-5). The monograph, Defending
Avicennan Philosophy: ʿUmar b. Sahlān al-Sāwī in Response to the Criticisms
of Abū al-Barakāt al-Baghdādī and Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Karīm al-
Shahrastānī, will be ready for the press in 2013.
A study of Abū l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī’s philosophical work and its
reception (Lukas Muehlethaler) looks at how key concepts in Avicenna’s
philosophy are transformed by Abū l-Barakāt and how the
transformed concepts are taken up by Abū l-Barakāt’s contemporaries
and later thinkers. Chief among them is Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 1210)
whose conceptualization of philosophical positions is of central importance
for 13th-century Arabic philosophy and theology. Fakhr al-Dīn’s
reception and transformation of the Avicennan tradition in general and
Abū l-Barakāt’s philosophy in particular are therefore traced through a
number of case studies.
♦
Muslim and Jewish philosophy intertwined during the 13th through
15th centuries
Apart from the towering figure of Abū l-Barakāt, the Jewish philosopher
and convert to Islam of the 12th century, there are many additional examples
of Jewish and Muslim thinkers who were well-versed in both religious
traditions and who left an impact on Jewish and Muslim readers
alike. One of the most prominent Jewish philosophers belonging to this
category is ʿIzz al-Dīn Ibn Kammūna. Ibn Kammūna was born into
a Jewish family of 13th century Baghdad and received a thorough
education in both Jewish and Islamic letters. Little is known about
his life but it is evident that he held a high-ranking position in the administration
of the Ilkhānid empire, although there is no indication that
he ever converted to Islam. Like many Muslim scholars of his time, he
enjoyed the patronage of the Minister of State, Shams al-Dīn al-Juwaynī
(d. 1284) and his family, to whom he dedicated most of his works. He
also corresponded with the most important intellectuals of his time. Ibn
Kammūna’s philosophical writings and particularly his commentary
on the Kitāb al-Talwīḥāt by Shihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī, as well as his
independent works in this discipline significantly shaped the development
of Islamic philosophy in the Eastern lands of Islam over
the following centuries. The Research Unit (Sabine Schmidtke / Reza
Pourjavady) is currently preparing critical editions of Ibn Kammūna’s
commentary on Avicenna’s Remarks and admonitions (al-Ishārāt wal-tanbīhāt)
(editio princeps) and of his Examination of the three religions
(Tanqīḥ al-abḥāth li-l-milal al-thalāth). A monograph on Ibn Kammūna’s
theory of the soul (Lukas Muehlethaler) is about to go to press.
The vast holdings of manuscript collections of Jewish provenance (esp.
the Abraham Firkovitch collection in St. Petersburg) in many respects
still await scholarly exploration and the material they contain specifically
for the later period (12th through 15th centuries and beyond) is bound to
change our current perception of Jewish philosophy in the lands of Islam
and its intertwinedness with the Muslim environment significantly as research
progresses. Sabine Schmidtke is engaged with the literary output
of the intriguing figure of David ben Joshua Maimonides (d. 1415), the
last head of the Jewish community of Egypt from the descendants of Moses
Maimonides. In contrast to Ibn Kammūna’s, his professional life took
place within the confines of the Jewish community(ies) and his works (all
written in Arabic, but in Hebrew characters) circulated exclusively among
Jewish readers. Born in Egypt, David succeeded his father Joshua Maimonides
as nagīd or Head of the Community following the latter’s death
in 1355. For reasons that remain unclear, he left his homeland to take up
residence in Syria for a decade during the 1370s and 1380s. He resumed
his office as head of the community after his return to Egypt and retained
it until his death. Apart from being a prolific author himself, David is
well known as a book collector and an accomplished scribe, and numerous
copies of works in his hand by earlier Jewish and Muslim authors in
a variety of disciplines have survived. It was particularly during his time
in Aleppo that David assembled an impressive library containing numerous
copies of works that he had either commissioned or copied himself.
These testify to his scholarly abilities and his erudition in both the Jewish
and Muslim literary traditions. He wrote a commentary on Maimonides’
Mishneh Torah, an influential code of Jewish law, as well as
numerous works in the fields of ethics, philosophy, logic as well as a comprehensive
handbook of Sufi mysticism. These works testify to David’s
deep immersion into a variety of Muslim rational sciences. In philosophy,
he was not only familiar with the peripatetic thought of Avicenna, but
also acquainted with numerous writings of the founder of Illuminationist
philosophy, Shihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī, and he may have possessed
a copy of Ibn Kammūna’s commentary on Suhrawardī’s K. al-Talwīḥāt.
David was likewise familiar with the writings of the renowned Muslim
thinker Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazzālī (d. 1111) and of the latter’s student Fakhr
al-Dīn al-Rāzī. In addition, he quotes extensively from the earlier Muslim
literature on mysticism, and was evidently well-versed in the Muslim as-
16 17

tronomical tradition.
Although none of the works of David ben Joshua ever reached a wider
Muslim readership, as was the case with the writings of his co-religionist
Ibn Kammūna, he did reach out on a more personal level. During his
time in Syria, David befriended the Muslim scholar ʿAlī b. Ṭaybughā
al-Ḥalabī al-Ḥanafī al-Muwaqqit (d. 1391?), who wrote a commentary
on Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah (Book of Knowledge, Fundamental
precepts of the Torah I–IV) based on an Arabic translation by David ben
Joshua and the latter’s own commentary. Both commentaries are extant
in manuscript and provide evidence for a fruitful and stimulating exchange
between two distinguished scholars of the 15th century, a Jew and
a Muslim, on the fundamental issues of a Jewish Code of Law. These commentaries
are being closely studied and will be edited by Gregor Schwarb.
Philosophy in Iran during the Ṣafavid and Qajar Periods
♦
During the Ṣafavid period (1502–1736), Iranian philosophy was characterized
by two main strands, one following the thought of Ṣadr al-Dīn al-
Shīrāzī (“Mullā Ṣadrā”, d. 1640), the other strand following that of Rajab
ʿAlī al-Tabrīzī (d. 1669). While much scholarly attention has been paid
over the last decades to the renowned Mullā Ṣadrā, Rajab ʿAlī al-Tabrīzī
and his extended circle of students has so far mostly escaped scholars’
attention. One of the projects of the Research Unit (Ahmad Reza Rahimi
Riseh) is therefore concerned with his philosophical œuvre and its reception.
Five of his works have been preserved in manuscript. In addition to
this, the writings of his numerous students are another major source for
the reconstruction of his thought. The most important of his students are
Muḥammad Rafīʿ Pīrzādeh (d. first half 18th c.), ʿAlī Qulī Qaračaġāy Khān
(d. after 1680), Qawām al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Rāzī (d. 1683), Mullā Ḥasan
al-Lunbānī (d. 1683), Mullā ʿAbbās al-Mulawī (d. after 1690), Muḥammad
b. Mufīd (“Qāḍī Saʿīd al-Qummī”, d. 1695), Muḥammad Ismāʿīl b.
Muḥammad Bāqir al-Khwātūnābādī (d. 1704) and Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-
Fattāḥ al-Tunkābunī (“Fāḍil-i Sarāb”, d. 1712). The project aims at reconstructing
Rajab ʿAlī al-Tabrīzī’s biography, providing a detailed inventory
of his writings with descriptions of all preserved manuscripts, a study of
his students and their writings, as well as an analysis of his philosophical
thought in comparison with that of his contemporary Mullā Ṣadrā.
Next to nothing is known in modern scholarship about the rich philosophical
tradition in Iran during the Qajar period. One of the current
projects of the Research Unit (Reza Pourjavady / Sabine Schmidtke)
is therefore to edit a collective volume devoted to this period, The Philosophical
Tradition in Iran during the Qajar Period (1794–1925). Each chapter
will treat one key thinker of the period and will be written by a leading
Western or Iranian experts in the field: Chapter One: Shaykh Aḥmad
al-Aḥsāʾī (by Hassan Ansari); Chapter Two: Mullā Muḥammad Mahdī
Narāqī (by Reza Pourjavady); Chapter Three: Mullā ʿAlī Nūrī (by Sajjad
Rizvi); Chapter Four: Mullā Hādī Sabzavārī (by Fatemah Fana); Chapter
Five: Āqā ʿAlī Mudarris Zunūzī (by Mohsen Kadivar); Chapter Six: Mīrzā
Abū l-Ḥasan Jilva (by Encieh Barkhah); Chapter Six: Lithograph Editions
of Philosophical and Theological Works in Qajar Iran (by Reza Pourjavady
/ Sabine Schmidtke). The publication of the volume is envisaged for 2013.
One of the characteristic features of this period is the increased interest
in ancient Greek philosophical texts and pre-Avicennan philosophical
writings. The intellectual endeavour in an attempt to shed light
on the legacy of Greek philosophy can be traced back to the end of the
15th century to Shiraz which was at the time the main cultural centre
of philosophy in the Eastern lands of Islam. Here, the two main figures
who initiated the Eastern renaissance movement were Jalāl al-Dīn al-
Dawānī (d. 1502) and Ghiyāth al-Dīn al-Dashtakī (d. 1541-42). Gradually,
a large corpus of Graeco-Arabica (including pseudo-Graeco Arabica)
was assembled by scholars, one of the most significant texts being the socalled
Theologia Aristotelis, an adapted paraphrase of sections of Enneads
IV to VI of Plotinus, which had made an immense impact in Christian,
Muslim and Jewish circles during the 16th and 17th centuries. In a
joint project, Reza Pourjavady and Sabine Schmidtke study this shift and
its consequences in the Muslim philosophical writings of the 16th, 17th,
and 18th centuries. With the help of an archive containing digitized copies
of all the relevant manuscripts produced from the early 16th to late
18th centuries and a database with an analytical description of the extant
manuscripts they are examining the corpus of Greek and pre-Avicennan
Muslim philosophical works that was copied/read during this
period. Moreover, Muslim philosophical works written in this period are
being examined in order to study the appropriation of the Graeco-
Arabica by the Muslim philosophers of the period under investigation.
Aesthetics
♦
In addition to the rigorous philosophical inquiries into post-Avicennan
philosophy and intellectual history, there are projects that are more thematic
such as the topic of aesthetics (Samir Mahmoud). Despite the
existence of numerous studies of Islamic art and architecture, there is a
dearth of scholarship in what precisely links these works to the overall
intellectual and cultural climate of their time, particularly its aesthetic
sensibilities. What complicates the matter is the conspicuous absence
of an Arabic equivalent to the word ‘aesthetics’. The lack of terminology,
however, does not mean that the themes and correlata suggested
by the term ‘aesthetics’ were not discussed in medieval Islamic
thought. Muslims not only enjoyed beauty but promoted the arts.
The precise nature of this relationship between art and beauty depends
on the author, period, and school of thought under consideration.
Regardless of the different approaches to beauty, one can safely say that
medieval Muslim philosophers, theologians, and mystics always
discussed aesthetics in the context of their discussions on metaphysics,
theology, or ethics and not as a sui generis topic in any modern
sense. The task of exploring such a wide range of source is an onerous
one that requires the patient scholar to search in many different places.
He has to turn to the philosophical works that address questions of
intelligible beauty and the nature of sensible beauty inherited from the
Greek texts; mystical works that discuss the beauty of the world as instances
or manifestations of Divine Beauty; theological discussions on
18 19

the signs of God in nature, discussions about the divine attributes such as
we find in the kalām disputes of the Muʿtazilites and Ashʿarites; ethical,
moral, and jurisprudential treatises that warn of the dangers of sensuous
pleasure; literary discussions of aesthetics in poetry; discussions
of vision and how the perception of an object affects the perceiver such
as we find in the field of optics; various Sufi writings on the nature of
perception and matter; alchemy and how one thing can be made to appear
as another; psychology, particularly writings on dreams and the
imagination; and ‘licit magic,’ i.e. treatises that often discuss the allure
and magical power of poetry, geometrically designed talismans, and images
or what is referred to as apotropaic. In the above-mentioned sources
there are either direct references to the correlata of aesthetics or else
indirect and implicit assumptions about their nature vis-à-vis their relationship
to the entire metaphysical, philosophical, theological, mystical,
scientific, or ethical framework within which they are discussed. It
is more accurate, then, to speak of the existence of a multiplicity of aesthetic
sensibilities. The focus on Ibn ʿArabī (d. 638/1240) in this research
project stems from the importance of Ibn ʿArabī and his legacy in
post-Avicennan Islamic intellectual history. In regards to the relevance
of Ibn ʿArabī to aesthetics, his theory of ‘the imagination’ and
‘liminal images’ as intermediaries between different realms of meaning
that both reveal and conceal in an ambiguous manner have a lot to offer
a theory of art as mediation and the nature of re-presentation and
mimesis. His theory on how the imagination works can significantly
enrich contemporary understandings of the relation between geometric
signification and imaginative programs suggested by the geometric art
and the nature of the creative process. His understanding of sympathy
and ornament as animated can contribute to the art historical and
anthropological debate surrounding the significance of ornament. He also
offers a brilliant psychological analysis of ‘images’ and the imaging
process, why certain traditions have figurative representation. Moreover,
his is the first lucid and internally coherent account of the ban on figuration
in the Islamic tradition. He presents a fresh and renewed appreciation
for the meaning of ‘the abstract’ and ‘the geometric,’ their relation to
‘representational images,’ and their fundamental role in art and religion.
His theory of love as that which is occasioned by beauty can as much
explain the erotic gaze and offer a theory of the beautiful as the daemon
in Plato’s Symposium, and his theory of language and writing as a
distinct mode of being remains to be explored from an aesthetic point of
view. The continuity of many of these themes throughout his commentators
and the possible influence it may have had on the development of
the arts in the Ottoman and Safavid lands has yet to be explored. There is
yet another significance to Ibn ʿArabī that is more contemporary. The rise
to prominence of abstract art in the 20th century poses an interesting
path of inquiry regards to Islamic art in general and Ibn Arabī’s
thought in particular. If one follows Alois Riegl’s notion of a Kunstwollen,
one can bridge the temporal divide between medieval abstract and
geometric Islamic art and 20th century ornament and art through
a serious intellectual debate. This has already started in the pioneering
scholarship of Islamic art historians such as Oleg Grabar, Gulru Necipoglu,
and Valerie Gonzalez. The project will thus bring Islamic studies,
Western aesthetics and art history, and anthropology into dialogue.
In addition, it will offer, in lieu of Hans Belting’s latest book, Florence and
Baghdad: Renaissance Art and Arab Science, a renewed appreciation for a
distinct Islamic aesthetic sensibility not governed or evaluated on Western
art historical terms.
The formative period of Mysticism
♦
Together with Sara Sviri (Jerusalem), the Research Unit (Sabine Schmidtke)
recently launched a new project aiming to explore aspects and trends
of Islamic mysticism in its formative period and revisiting processes,
themes, images, practices, terminology and thought models pertaining
to the literary products of the 9th–11th centuries, which demarcates the
formative period of Islamic mysticism. Underlying this approach is the
contention that within Islamic studies a typological and comparative approach
to the origins of Islamic mysticism is a desideratum. The literary
corpora pertaining to this period, Sufi and non-Sufi alike, contain materials
which may shed new light on the versatility and fluidity of the
prevailing mystical trends during this early period. Thus, although issues
pertaining to Sufism will remain central to this research, other, non-Sufi,
mystical models and trends are being explored whose portrayal, in both
the original compilatory and hagiographic literature as well as in modern
scholarship, has hitherto been marginalized. The aim is to address
such oversights and to offer a more complete picture of the topic under
discussion by exploring a wide range of textual sources – some published
and many still in manuscript – by pursuing rigorous text-based philology
together with historical, prosopographic and comparative-thematic
methodologies. The project proceeds along three main axes, first the continuum
of Late Antique trends, motifs, topoi and practices; secondly
the build-up of Sufi culture from local centres to an all-inclusive
movement; thirdly philosophical mysticism and theological trends.
Within this field, the Research Unit (Hassan Ansari / Sabine Schmidtke)
is collecting, sorting out and analyzing hitherto unconsulted material relating
to the Sufi-Ashʿarite connection in Nishapur – notably some of the
works of Abū Saʿd al-Khargūshī (d. 1015-16) that were believed to be
lost – Khargūshī being marginalized in current Sufi studies but whose
importance as a witness to early processes and definitions has been duly
highlighted by Sara Sviri. Moreover, together with Sara Sviri the Research
Unit also explores the engagements with Sufism of other theological
schools active in Nishapur and Khurasan such as the Karrāmiyya and
the Ḥanafiyya. Studies in the background of Christian (Syriac) monasticism
and “ascetism” will eventually also be considered.
Rationalism and Rational Theology in the Islamicate World
♦
Rationalism has been a salient feature of Muslim theological thought
from the earliest times. Despite the fact that rationalism had its opponents
throughout Islamic history, it continued to be one of the mainstays
of Muslim theological (and legal) thought, and it is only in the wake of
modern Islamic fundamentalism that rationalism has become marginal-
20 21

ized and threatened as never before.
The disputed issue of authenticity notwithstanding, a small corpus of
texts is extant in which doctrinal issues such as free will versus determinism
are dealt with in a dilemmatic dialogue pattern. The display of
the dialectical technique in these texts testifies to the use of reason in
the formulation of and argumentation for doctrinal issues from a very
early period onwards. There is a near-consensus among contemporary
scholars that the Muslim dialectical technique of kalām can be traced
back to similar patterns of dilemmatic dialogue that were characteristic
for the Christological controversies raging in 6th century Alexandria
and, more importantly, 7th century Syria. These are based on late antique
(“pagan”) schools of rhetorics.
The Muʿtazila was the earliest “school” of rationalist Islamic theology
and one of the most important and influential currents of Islamic
thought. Muʿtazilites stressed the primacy of reason and free will and developed
an epistemology, ontology and psychology that provided a basis
for explaining the nature of the world, God, man and the phenomena of
religion. In their ethics, Muʿtazilites maintained that good and evil can be
known solely through human reason. The Muʿtazila had its beginnings in
the 8th century and its classical period of development was from the latter
part of the 9th until the middle of the 11th century. The movement gradually
fell out of favour in Sunni Islam and had largely disappeared by the
14th century. Its impact, however, continued to be felt in Shīʿī Islam where
its influence subsisted through the centuries. Moreover, modern research
on the Muʿtazila from the beginning of the 20th century onwards gave
rise to a renaissance of the Muʿtazilite notion of rationalism finding its
expression in the so-called “Neo-Muʿtazila”.
Within the field of Islamic Studies, scientific research of Muslim rational
theology is a comparatively young discipline, as a critical mass
of primary sources became accessible only at a relatively late stage.
Muʿtazilite works were not widely copied and few manuscripts have survived.
So little authentic Muʿtazilite literature was available that until the
discovery of a significant number of Muʿtazilite texts in the early 1950’s
in Yemen, Muʿtazilite doctrine was mostly known through the works of
its opponents.
Second in importance in the use of rationalism was the theological movement
of the so-called Ashʿariyya, named thus after its eponymous
founder, Abū l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī (d. 935). Ashʿarī and his followers aimed
at formulating a via media between the two dominant opposing strands
of the time, Muʿtazilism and traditionalist Islam. Methodologically, they
applied rationalism in their theological thought as was characteristic for
the Muʿtazila while still maintaining the primacy of revelation over that
of reason. Doctrinally, they upheld the notion of ethical subjectivism
as against the ethical objectivism of the Muʿtazila. On this basis, they
developed their own theological doctrines. Within the Sunni realm at
least, Ashʿarism proved more successful and enjoyed a longer life than
Muʿtazilism, yet, like Muʿtazilism, Ashʿarism was constantly challenged
by traditionalist opponents rejecting any kind of rationalism.
While modern research on the Muʿtazila has begun relatively late, research
on Ashʿarism started already in the 19th century, due to the fact
that more manuscripts of Ashʿarite texts are preserved in European libraries
than Muʿtazilite ones. Major landmarks in the 20th century were
22 23

the publications of R. J. McCarthy in 1953 and 1957. Additional advances
in recent decades were made by the numerous studies of M. Allard, R.
M. Frank and D. Gimaret. In addition to the efforts by Western scholars,
many scholars in the Islamic world have also contributed significantly
to the research of this movement. This progress notwithstanding, many
desiderata remain in the scholarly investigation of the Ashʿariyya,
particularly with respect to the earlier phase of the movement. Among the
most spectacular findings by a member of the Research Unit were two so
far completely unknown manuscripts of the opus magnum by the important
Ashʿarite theologian Abū Bakr al-Bāqillānī, Hidāyat al-mustarshidīn
in Russia and Uzbekistan.
The various strands of rational Muslim theological thought within
Islam are closely related to each other as they were shaped and reshaped
in a continuous process of close interaction between its respective
representatives. This also holds true for other theological schools
that were less prominent in the central areas of the Islamic world, such as
the Māturīdiyya (named thus after its eponym Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī,
d. 944) which was heavily indebted to traditional Ḥanafite positions and
to Muʿtazilite thought alike, but whose centre was in the North-East of
Iran so that it has made relatively little impact. Of considerable importance
is also the Ibāḍiyya, which reacted in many ways to Muʿtazilism
(Wilferd Madelung / Abdurrahman al-Salimi).
What has been stated about the close interaction between the various
strands of thought within Islam equally applies to the relations of Islam
with other religions that were most prominently represented in the medieval
world of Islam, viz. Judaism and Christianity. Here, similar phenomena
of reciprocity can be observed. Jews, Christians, and Muslims
had Arabic as their common language and therefore naturally shared
a similar cultural background. Often reading the same books and all
speaking and writing in the same language, they created a unique intellectual
commonality in which an ongoing, constant exchange of ideas,
texts, and forms of discourse was the norm.
Judaism proved much more receptive to basic Muslim doctrinal notions
such as divine unicity than Christianity, and it was Muʿtazilism in particular
that was adopted to varying degrees from the 9th century onwards
by both Rabbanite and Karaite authors, so that by the turn of the 11th century
a “Jewish Muʿtazila” had emerged. Jewish scholars both composed
original works along Muʿtazilite lines and produced copies of Muslim
Muʿtazilite books, often transcribed into Hebrew characters. The influence
of the Muʿtazila found its way to the very centres of Jewish religious
and intellectual life in the East. The Karaites and several of the Heads of
the ancient Rabbanite Academies (Yeshivot) of Sura and Pumbedita (located
by the 10th century in Baghdad) adopted the Muʿtazilite worldview.
By contrast, Ashʿarite works and authors were received among Jewish
scholars to a significantly lesser degree and in a predominantly critical
way. The study of Jewish Muʿtazilism began a century ago with the
works of S. Munk (1859) and M. Schreiner (1895). Schreiner and Munk,
however, were not aware of the primary sources to be found among the
various Genizah materials that had been discovered and retrieved during
the second half of the 19th century in Cairo by a number of scholars
and manuscript collectors. Among the many Muʿtazilite manuscripts
found in the Abraham Firkovitch collection (taken from the former library
of the Karaite Synagogue in Cairo) thirteen were described in detail
by A.J. Borisov in an article published in 1935. Additional landmarks in the
study of Jewish Muʿtazilism were H. A. Wolfson’s Repercussions of the Kalam
in Jewish Philosophy (1979) and G. Vajda’s studies on Yūsuf al-Baṣīr,
particularly his edition of Baṣīr’s al-Kitāb al-Muḥtawī on the basis of a
manuscript from the Kaufmann collection in Budapest (1985). On the basis
of Borisov’s descriptions of the Firkovitch Muʿtazilite manuscripts and
from fragments in the British Library, H. Ben-Shammai was able to draw
additional conclusions regarding the identity of some of the Muʿtazilite
materials preserved by the Karaites.
In 2003, the “Muʿtazilite Manuscripts Project Group” was founded
by the head of the Research Unit Intellectual History of the Islamicate
World, Sabine Schmidtke, and by the Director of Research, Center
for the Study of Judeo-Arabic Culture, Ben Zvi Institute (Jerusalem),
David Sklare, in order to assemble and identify as many fragments of
Muʿtazilite manuscripts as possible from Jewish as well as Shīʿī repositories.
Although much has been achieved over the past years, major textual
resources still remain unexplored. Among the fragments of philosophical
and theological texts found in the various Genizah collections, the material
that originated in the Ben Ezra Genizah (Cairo) and is nowadays
mostly preserved in the Taylor-Schechter collection at Cambridge University
Library (and other libraries in Europe and the USA) is until now
still largely unidentified and only rudimentarily catalogued. A systematic
study of all Muʿtazilite fragments will render the reconstruction of many
more so far lost Muʿtazilite (Muslim and Jewish) writings possible. As
such, this Genizah material significantly supplements the extensive findings
of the manuscript material found in the Russian National Library in
St. Petersburg, which likewise has so far only partly been explored.
The Research Unit (Gregor Schwarb) has been working on the reconstruction
of several key-texts of Jewish Muʿtazilism, such as Yeshuʿah ben
Yehudah’s K. al-Tawriya or Sahl b. al-Faḍl al-Tustarī’s K. al-Īmāʾ and will
edit a number of Muʿtazilite texts by Muslim authors which have only
been preserved in Jewish manuscript collections (Omar Hamdan / Sabine
Schmidtke / Gregor Schwarb).
Muʿtazilism had also left its mark on the theological thought of the Samaritans.
It is not clear whether Samaritans (whose intellectual centres
between the 9th to the 11th centuries were mainly Nablus and Damascus)
had studied Muslim Muʿtazilite writings directly or whether they rather
became acquainted with them through Jewish adaptations of Muʿtazilism.
The study of Samaritan literary activities in Arabic in general and of Samaritan
Muʿtazilism in particular is still very much at the beginning. The
only relevant text that has been partly edited and studied is the Kitāb al-
Tubākh by the 11th century author Abū l-Ḥasan al-Ṣūrī, who clearly shares
the Muʿtazilite doctrinal outlook. The majority of Samaritan theological
writings composed in Arabic still await a close analysis. New insights into
the quality of Samaritan Muʿtazilism will be presented in a forthcoming
study on two newly identified Samaritan treatises by Abū l-Ḥasan
al-Ṣūrī and Munajjā b. Ṣedaqah (Gregor Schwarb).
Moreover, Muslim theologians devoted much thought and energy to a
critical examination and refutation of the views of Christianity and (to a
lesser extent) Judaism, as is evident from the numerous polemical tracts
written by them against these religions. While the majority of refutations
against Christianity by early Muslim theologians are lost,
there are a few extant anti-Christian texts from the 9th century that give a
24 25

good impression of the arguments that were employed. Moreover, many
of the earliest treatises in defense of Christianity in Arabic are preserved,
and it is evident that their authors were well acquainted with Muslim
kalām techniques and terminology. Given the basic disagreements between
Muslim and Christian theological positions, such as the Muslim
notion of divine unicity (tawḥīd), which is incompatible with the Christian
understanding of trinity and incarnation, any kind of far-reaching
adoption of any of the Muslim school doctrines by Christian theologians
was out of question. The most intensive reception of Muslim kalām can be
observed among Coptic and Syriac-orthodox writers (Bar Hebraeus
and contemporaries) of the 13th and 14th centuries.
Approximately all extant writings of the first generation of Christian
mutakallimūn writing in Arabic have been edited and (partly) translated,
and modern scholars, such as S. H. Griffith and D. Thomas, have studied
them in detail. Likewise, all of the few extant anti-Christian writings by
Muslim rational theologians have been published in critical editions. By
contrast, much work still needs to be done on the vast corpus of Coptic
Christian writings (13th and 14th c. CE), only few of which have so
far been published in critical editions, let alone studied. It is this corpus
that still needs to be made available in critical editions and to be studied
in order to locate them within the “whirlpool” of intellectual activities
in the medieval world of Islam. Through a comprehensive study on the
reception of Maimonides and Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī in the writings
of Coptic theologians of the 13th and 14th centuries and the edition
of the two major works by al-Rashīd Abū l-Khayr Ibn al-Ṭayyib,
Gregor Schwarb will highlight the contribution of Jewish and Muslim intellectual
thought to the “Golden Age” of Copto-Arabic literature.
Within the field of theological rationalism in the medieval world of Islam
between the 10th and the 13th centuries beyond and across denominational
borders, all major desiderata have been identified and are being
addressed in a number of projects in the framework of the ERC Project
“Rediscovering Theological Rationalism in the Medieval World
of Islam”. Among the most important ongoing projects within this field
are the Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology (editor: Sabine Schmidtke)
that will comprise some forty contributions by internationally renowned
scholars in the field, among them all team members of the Research Unit.
The publication of the Handbook is envisaged for 2013.
Another more specific though at the same time groundbreaking project
of the Research Unit is the Handbook of Muʿtazilite Works and Authors
that has been accepted for publication by Brill (Leiden) (editor: Gregor
Schwarb). The work, which is close to completion, will discuss in detail
some 500 representatives of Muʿtazilism (Sunnis, Twelver Shīʿīs, Zaydīs
and Jews), together with detailed inventories of their respective theological
writings and extant manuscripts.
♦
– was felt also in North-Africa and Islamic Spain (al-Andalus). Among
the staunchest opponents of these two currents of rational theology was
Abū Muḥammad Ibn Ḥazm (d. 1064) who was a representative of the
Ẓāhirī or literalist approach to the sacred scriptures and who categorically
rejected all theological speculation. This resulted in a series
of works in which he vehemently polemicized against the teachings of
both Muʿtazilites and Ashʿarites. The Research Unit (Sabine Schmidtke,
in collaboration with Maribel Fierro and Camilla Adang) is finalizing a
reference work devoted to the Ẓāhirī thinker Ibn Ḥazm, entitled Ibn
Ḥazm of Cordoba: Life and Works of a Controversial Thinker, that will be
published (early 2013) in the Brill series “Handbuch der Orientalistik”. The
majority of contributions were presented during an international conference
held in Istanbul in 2008 (funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation).
The sections that will be covered in the volume are “Life and Times of Ibn
Ḥazm”, “Legal Aspects”, “Ẓāhirī Linguistics”, “Art and Aesthetics”, “Theology,
Philosophy and Ethics”, “Intra- and Interreligious Polemics”, “Reception
and Impact on Medieval and Modern Muslim thought”.
Another project (Sophia Vasalou) focuses on the theology of the Hanbalite
scholar Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328). Ibn Taymiyya represents
an important case both in terms of the history of the changing
relationship of Ḥanbalite theologians – traditionally distrustful of the
methods of reason – to other theological schools, but also in terms
of evolving accounts of the relationship between reason and revelation.
In this context, Ibn Taymiyya’s view of ethics and the sources of
moral knowledge holds particular significance. Ibn Taymiyya seeks to
articulate a new via media between existing approaches to the nature of
value which would transcend both Muʿtazilite and Ashʿarite configurations.
Influenced both by his extensive readings of kalām as well as his
wide-ranging interests in falsafa, Ibn Taymiyya articulates a view that
presents itself as a revised Muʿtazilism, claiming that reason delivers
knowledge of the values of human actions. This claim involves a reworked
understanding of reason that brings it into close relationship with a new
epistemological idiom, that of human nature or fiṭra. In this new configuration,
the notion of welfare or maṣlaḥa comes to occupy a crucial
role, and a heavy accent is placed on the role of desire, as against reason,
in the knowledge of good and evil. The deeper motivations of Ibn Taymiyya’s
proposed synthesis are rooted in an understanding of theology in
which theological doctrines are understood and assessed in terms of their
pragmatic, or better said, “spiritual”, ends. Just how this synthesis relates
to the existing theological possibilities represented by the Mu‘tazilite and
Ash‘arite schools is a central question to consider in this connection, and
one that holds the key to understanding both the genuine innovativeness,
as well as the true substance, of Ibn Taymiyya’s rationalism. Gaining a
clearer view of Ibn Taymiyya’s ethical approach is of crucial importance,
on the one hand, for refining our history of a theological debate
that played a significant part in Islamic theological self-understanding. At
the same time, and given the wide diffusion of Ibn Taymiyya’s legacy
in the modern era, it may also enable us to construct the prolegomena
for a history of contemporary theological developments.
Counterreactions
Although the Muʿtazila and the Ashʿariyya originated in the Eastern
part of the Islamic world, their influence – especially that of the latter
♦
26 27

The intellectual and religious heritage of Shīʿism (Zaydism and
Imamism)
The scholarly investigation of Shīʿite Islam and its three branches, Twelver
(or Imami) Shīʿism, Zaydism and Ismāʿīlism, began much later than that
of Sunnī Islam, and Shīʿism has long been considered to be of marginal
importance at best. The Iranian Revolution of 1979, which cannot be
understood without taking the legal characteristics of Twelver Shīʿism
and its historical development into consideration, has proved this evaluation
to be wrong and since then the study of Twelver Shīʿite Islam is
steadily on the rise. The study of Ismāʿīlism has been actively promoted
over the last three decades by the current imam of the Nizārī Ismāʿīlīs, Aga
Khan IV (b. 1936), and the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London that was
established in 1977 under his auspices. In contrast to these two branches
of Shīʿite Islam, Zaydism has so far attracted much less scholarly attention,
partly because it has been perceived as being more marginal than
either Twelver Shīʿism (which is the state religion of Iran and a politically
significant community in Lebanon, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula) and
Ismāʿīlism (due to the active role of the Aga Khan in its scholarly investigation).
However, the recent conflict in Yemen shows how important it
is to understand the legal and political notions of Zaydism, as its adherents
represent some of the most significant political factions in the country,
and their views will no doubt be an important factor in the future
developments in Yemen.
It is only during the last years that the vast holdings of the various private
and smaller public libraries of Yemen are being made available
to the scholarly community. While some of these materials have been
used for various publications by members of the “Muʿtazilite Manuscripts
Project Group”, the majority still awaits close study. This also applies to
the development of Muʿtazilite thought among the Zaydites from the 12th
century onwards.
The Research Unit (Hassan Ansari / Sabine Schmidtke / Gregor Schwarb /
Jan Thiele) focusses on some of the most neglected fields of Zaydī thought
and practice. Some results of these efforts are included in a special issue
of the peer-reviewed journal Arabica: Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies/Revue
d’études arabes et islamiques, The neglected Šīʿites: Studies in
the legal and intellectual history of the Zaydīs = Arabica 59 iii-iv (2012)
that is published by Brill, Leiden.
Gregor Schwarb is preparing a comprehensive study of the development
of Zaydī legal methodology (uṣūl al-fiqh) that is closely related
to Muʿtazilism on the one hand and to Ḥanafism on the other. Jan
Thiele is focusing on Zaydī Yemenī doctrinal thought during the 12th
and early 13th centuries that was primarily under the influence of the
Muʿtazilite thought of the school of the Bahshamiyya. Beside his indepth
studies into the ontology and cosmology of al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ he is
now preparing an editio princeps of the majority of the latter’s works on
theology. One of the major concerns of al-Raṣṣāṣ was with the rival group
of the Muṭarrifiyya, whose adherents upheld notions of natural causality
and a cosmology that was inconceivable for mainstream Zaydism of
the time. Hassan Ansari is currently preparing a comprehensive study
on the doctrinal history of the Muṭarrifiyya. Hassan Ansari and Sabine
Schmidtke further study the doctrinal developments of Yemeni Zaydī
thought since the 13th century, focusing in particular on the growing
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Institute of Asian and African Studies
The Nehemia Levtzion Center for Islamic Studies
and
Freie Universität
Research Unit Intellectual History of the Islamicate World
announce
The second
New Frontiers in Islamic Studies
German-Israeli Summer School
funded by the Einstein-Stiftung, Berlin
9–14 September at Freie Universität Berlin
The Genizah:
An unexploited source for the intellectual
history of the medieval world of Islam
The purpose of this School is to introduce students
of Islamic Studies to the immense riches of
the Genizah, to demonstrate its relevance and
potential through a number of case studies and
to enable them to work with the Genizah materials
on their own. Special emphasis will be laid on
technical and methodological issues related to
the material.
Conveners:
Prof. Sabine Schmidtke (FU)
and Prof. Reuven Amitai (HU)
Coordinator: Jan Thiele
The School is aimed at graduate
(MA and PhD) students in Islamic
Studies and adjacent fields. The
School will be conducted in English;
reading knowledge of Arabic is
required (knowledge of Hebrew is
preferred, but not necessary).
Students coming from outside Berlin
will receive full room and board.
Attendance throughout the week
of the Summer School is mandatory.
The School will be considered
equivalent to 2 academic credits
(approval pending).
For further information and application
please contact Jan Thiele
e-mail: jan.thiele@arcor.de
Application ends 31 May 2012
28

eservations of Zaydī theologians towards the doctrines of the Bahshamites,
as is the case with the prominent and prolific theologian of the 13th
century, ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd al-ʿAnsī (d. 1268).
Another project of the Research Unit (Hassan Ansari / Sabine Schmidtke)
is concerned with the socio-legal history of the Zaydīs in Northern
Iran beyond the 12th century that has so far hardly been explored in
scholarship, using an untapped source, the Kitāb al-Ibāna by the 11th century
legal scholar al-Hawsamī and the rich commentary literature that
has been written on this work over several generations. A detailed analysis
of the text and its commentaries first aims at reconstructing the networks
of Zaydī scholars of Northern Iran from the 10th century until the
beginning of the Safavid dynasty (15th century). In addition to this, the
text is being used to prepare a study of the development of legal doctrines
among the Nāṣiriyya branch.
Within the field of Twelver Shīʿism, Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke
are tracing new, so far unexplored and often unknown doctrinal works,
focusing in particular on the interim period between the two towering
figures of al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā (d. 1044) and al-Ḥimmaṣī al-Rāzī (d. 1204),
author of al-Munqidh min al-taqlīd who was significantly influenced by
the theological thought of Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī (d. 1045) as against al-
Murtaḍā who maintained mostly the views of the Bahshamiyya.
Interreligious Controversies
♦
The relations between the Muslim majority and the members of religious
minorities (Jews and Christians) in the central lands of the Ottoman
Empire and in Iran received a series of new stimuli from the 15th and 16th
centuries onwards, which were reflected in intensified encounters in the
intellectual, literary, and social spheres.
The most important momentum in the Ottoman Empire for a new social
and intellectual flourishing of the Jews in particular was the immigration
of Jewish exiles from the Iberian Peninsula in the aftermath of
the Spanish Reconquista of 1492. In Safavid and early Qajar Iran
(ca. 1500–1850), it was the increasing presence of Christian, initially
mainly Catholic, missionaries that constituted the main catalyst. From
the 19th century onwards they were joined by Protestant missionaries,
mainly from Britain. In the Ottoman Empire, where native Christians of
different denominations were numerous, the foreign missionary effort
seems to have had less of an impact than in Iran. On the other hand, the
Jewish communities in the latter country did not experience the same
kind of renaissance enjoyed by their coreligionists in the Ottoman lands.
Most studies of the social position of Jews and Christians in both abovementioned
areas are based mainly on writings produced by members of
the minority groups, which often results in a one-sided picture. A systematic
and comprehensive discussion of materials documenting the
Muslim perception of the non-Muslim minorities is still largely absent.
One type of source that has hitherto been insufficiently explored
is Muslim polemical and apologetical literature. In more than one
respect, this genre of writings can supply information about the intellectual
as well as the social position of the religious minorities. The
arguments used, the events and persons referred to (even if at times only
obliquely), as well as the literary sources quoted allow us to draw conclusions
concerning the position of the respective minority. Moreover, the
statements with which the Muslim authors preface or justify their works,
the multiplication of polemical and apologetical tracts and the proliferation
of copies of these same tracts, inform us about the socio-historical
contexts in which these texts were written and subsequently reproduced.
Muslim apologetical and polemical literature against other monotheistic
religions from the first six centuries of the Islamic era has been
relatively well studied. However, existing research repeatedly raises the
contention that in subsequent centuries this type of literature had little
new to offer and that relatively few such tracts were being produced to
begin with, so that further scholarly occupation with this field would
yield few results. This contention is based on a mere lack of information
on the relevant material that can be encountered in libraries in presentday
Turkey, Iran and India. With regard to Iran, where private and public
collections of manuscripts are relatively well catalogued by now, it is clear
that a wealth of hitherto unexplored manuscript material is available
which can shed important new light on the relations between the
Muslim majority and the religious minorities under its rule. In the case
of Turkey, where the process of cataloguing manuscripts is in a less advanced
stage, chance finds of isolated manuscripts have already revealed
that a systematic search for, and study of, polemical and apologetical
materials is a worthwhile undertaking. Moreover, many libraries
in India (holding considerable collections of polemical works in Persian
from 17th century onward) and Europe (among them in particular the
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana in Rome) have important holdings in
this field which so far remain untapped. So far, well over three hundred
relevant texts have been located, and as the project progresses, numerous
additional texts are likely to be discovered.
Major results of this project have already been published over the past
years. At present, the following projects are being addressed by members
of the Research Unit:
(Dennis Halft) It was particularly during the early 17th century that European
missionaries found a favourable climate to promote the Catholic
faith in the Safavid Empire. Welcomed by the Shāh in his capital Isfahan,
the missionaires held disputations with Shīʿī scholars on Christian
and Islamic doctrines. From these disputations arose an extensive
Muslim polemical literature in Persian refuting Christian beliefs that
has been little studied so far. Among these Shīʿī scholars Sayyid Aḥmad
ʿAlawī (d. betw. 1644 and 1650), a well-known disciple of Shaykh Bahāʾī
(d. 1622 or -23) and Mīr Dāmād (d. 1631), composed five polemical writings
against the Christian doctrine, among them Miṣqal-i ṣafāʾ dar
tajliya u taṣfiya-yi Āyina-yi ḥaqq-numā (about 1032/1622–23). In ʿAlawī’s
treatises, which have come down to us in about 40 manuscripts in different
recensions, the representative of the so-called School of Isfahan brings
forward both theological and philosophical arguments by Illuminationists
as well as Peripatetics with strong references to Sufi thought in refutation
of the concepts of Trinity and Incarnation and in support of the Muslim
faith. Based on a comprehensive discussion of the manuscript copies and
the author’s Arabic literary sources, the project aims to analyze Sayyid
Aḥmad ʿAlawī’s theological and philosophical thinking regarding Christi-
30 31

anity on the vast intellectual background of his time. The wide diffusion
of copies of ʿAlawī’s treatises with an apparent Wirkungsgeschichte on
later refutations as far as India points to the significance of his thinking
in a period of transition from Arabic to Persian polemical writings
during the 17th century. Combining different approaches of Islamic as
well as Comparative Religious Studies, the project proposes to make a
contribution to the study of the perception of Christianity by Shīʿī Muslims
and of the interdependence of Christian-Muslim thinking.
(Reza Pourjavady / Sabine Schmidtke) During the Qajar period a number
of comprehensive polemic tracts against Judaism were composed,
mostly by converts or their descendants. Most of this material is preserved
in Iranian libraries only and therefore beyond the reach of most Western
scholars, while Iranian scholars often hesitate to work on these materials.
Among these texts is Maḥḍar al-shuhūd fī radd-i yahūd by Ḥājjī Bābā b.
Muḥammad Ismāʿīl Qazwīnī Yazdī, who was the son of a Jewish convert
to Islam, that was completed on 5 March 1797. The book consists
of seven comprehensive chapters (bāb), most of which are further subdivided
into sections (faṣl). It is replete with Biblical materials adduced
to prove the prophet Muḥammad’s annunciation in the Bible, discusses
in detail the earlier prophets on the basis of biblical, pseudo-biblical and
later Islamic materials, and treats likewise in detail Christianity and the
correct perception of Jesus Christ. As such, the work which is impressive
in its elaborateness and variety of materials it contains, shares
characteristics with a variety of literary genres well known from earlier
periods – most importantly the famous genre of the dalāʾil al-nubuwwa,
works detailing the proofs for the prophethood of Muḥammad, and the
genre of interreligious polemics. Although the text is not unknown to the
scholarly community, it has not been analyzed as to its sources, the materials
and arguments it contains or its reception among later readers –
Muslim and Jewish alike. Its popularity and significance is evident from
the comparatively high number of preserved manuscripts. The text has
been published twice on the basis of a single manuscript respectively, first
in the 1960ies by Aḥmad al-Ḥusaynī on the basis of a manuscript held in
Yazd (Yazd: Kitābkhāna-yi Vazīrī, 196-[?]) and again in 2000 by Ḥāmid
Ḥasan Navvāb on the basis of one of the manuscripts held in Qum (Qum:
Ḥuẓūr, 2000). None of these qualifies as a critical edition, for apart from
the narrow manuscript basis the editors lacked the required philological
ability to treat the numerous Hebrew quotations contained in the text
with sufficient justice. Moreover, no attempt was made to analyze the
intellectual background of the author and to trace his sources. We have
been able to trace so far eleven manuscript copies of the text in Iranian
libraries (Tehran: Dānishgāh, Majlis, Malik Millī, Millī; Yazd: Kitābkhānayi
Vazīrī; Qum: Kitābkhāna-yi Āyat Allāh Nūrī, Markaz-i iḥyāʾ-i mīrāth-i
Islām; Tabrīz: Kitābkhāna-yi Thiqat al-islām) and more may come to light
in European libraries. Within the Research Unit, a critical edition of the
text will be prepared, together with an indepth analysis of its sources, in
order to be able to locate the text on the larger map of interreligious
exchanges during the pre-modern and, more specifically, Qajar period
of Iranian history.
♦
a r a b i c a s p e c i a l i s s u e
Arabica - Special Issue 59/3-4
Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies/Revue d’études arabes et islamiques
Guest-Editor: Sabine Schmidtke
Originally founded by Evariste Lévi-Provençal in 1954 as an organ for French arabists, Arabica
has now become a multidisciplinary academic journal, with an international editorial board
representing various fields of research. It is dedicated to the study of the Arab world’s classical and
contemporary literatures, languages, history, thought and civilization. From a wider perspective,
Arabica is open to the general fields of Islamicate studies and intercultural relations between Arab
societies and the other cultural areas throughout history. It actively endeavors to participate in
the development of new scholarly approaches and problematics. In addition to original research
articles in English and French (preferably), Arabica also publishes ‘notes and documents’, book
reviews, and occasionally academic debates in its ‘methods and debates’ section. Special issues
may deal with a specific theme, or publish the proceedings of a conference.
The neglected Šīʿites: Studies in the legal and intellectual history of the Zaydīs
Guest-Editor: Sabine Schmidtke
Arabica 59/3-4
SOMMAIRE/CONTENTS
• 2012: Volume 59 (in 6 issues)
• ISSN 0570-5398 / E-ISSN 1570-0585
• Institutional subscription rates
Electronic only: EUR 455.- / US$ 637.-
Print only: EUR 501.- / US$ 701.-
Electronic + Print: EUR 546.- / US$ 764.-
• Individual subscription rates
Print only: EUR 167.- / US$ 234.-
For more information see www.brill.nl/arab
Sabine Schmidtke, The History of Zaydī Studies: An Introduction 185
Najam Haider, A Kūfan Jurist in Yemen:
Contextualizing Muḥammad b. Sulaymān al-Kūfī’s Kitāb al-Muntaḫab 200
Sabine Schmidtke, Biblical Predictions of the Prophet Muḥammad
among the Zaydīs of Iran 218
Hassan Ansari, Un muḥaddiṯ muʿtazilite zaydite : Abū Saʿd al-Sammān
et ses Amālī 267
Jan Thiele, La causalité selon al-Ḥākim al-Ǧišumī 291
Maher Jarrar, Al-Manṣūr bi-Llāh’s controversy with Twelver Šīʿites
concerning the occultation of the Imam in his Kitāb al-ʿIqd al-ṯamīn 319
Bernard Haykel and Aron Zysow, What Makes a Maḏhab a Maḏhab:
Zaydī debates on the structure of legal authority 332
Gregor Schwarb, Muʿtazilism in a 20th century Zaydī Qurʾān
commentary 371
James Robin King, Zaydī revival in a hostile republic: Competing
identities, loyalties and visions of state in Republican Yemen 403
32

Bible in Arabic among Christians, Jews and Muslims
Many of the major translations of the Bible, produced from ancient
into modern times, resulted from the need for more accessible versions
of the sacred scriptures felt among Jews and/or Christians.
The Old and/or New Testaments were no longer understood in their original
languages (Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek) by large parts of these communities
who either spoke or became more widely educated in their current
vernaculars and/or lingua franca. Thus the Septuagint (produced in
Alexandria, around the 3rd century B.C.E), filled the need of Greek-speaking
Jews, and later also of early Christians; the Latin Vulgate supplied
the Catholic clergy in medieval Europe with a more accessible version.
Other famous, if much later, examples include the German translation
produced by Martin Luther in the 16th century, or the King James Bible
produced around the same time in England, which aimed to make the
Bible accessible to the populace in their spoken tongues. In the Middle
East of pre-Islamic times, there also existed various Bible translations:
Aramaic-speaking Jews produced a range of Jewish Aramaic translations
(e.g., the Targum), often used alongside the Hebrew Bible, while Christian
Aramaic speakers produced various Syriac versions (e.g., the Peshitta),
often used alongside the Septuagint. With the spread of Islam, however,
Arabic became the new common language, and the hallmark of
the cultured elites, not only among the growing body of converts to Islam,
but also among those whom the Qurʾān calls “People of the Book”,
namely, the Jews and the Christians, whose scriptural heritage guaranteed
their religious autonomy throughout the Islamic domain. From the
8th century socially-mobile Christians and Jews used Arabic not only for
speech but also as their written language, for religious, literary and scientific
purposes. They increasingly composed and consumed works in
Arabic alongside their continued usage of culturally-distinctive literary
and liturgical writings in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Syriac and Coptic. The
oldest Arabic Bible versions have come down to us from this early
stage of the arabicization process of these groups for whom scriptural
translation was the initial vehicle in reforming their communal identity
and adapting it to a new world at a time of profound political and cultural
change. Christians and Jews of different denominations (Rabbanites,
Karaites, Jacobites, Nestorians and Copts) as well as Samaritans now
started to produce translations of those parts of the Bible they held
sacred. With the spread of Islam to Spain, local Catholic clergymen, too,
started to become involved in these activities. The Arabic translations in
turn engendered a host of commentaries, likewise in Arabic, on individual
biblical books or the entire Bible. Together with Camilla Adang, Meira
Polliack (Tel Aviv University) and Ronny Vollandt (CNRS, Paris), the Research
Unit is currently preparing a comprehensive research project that
will address these schools of translation and their inner varieties in
great detail. Apart from fully preserved texts, thousands of manuscript
fragments and codices containing portions of these translations and
commentaries have come down to us, although, with a few notable exceptions,
only few of them have so far been studied in depth. They reveal a
large variety in stylistic approaches, vocabulary, scripts (e.g., Hebrew or
Syriac), ideologies (e.g., literal versus explanatory translations) and specific
doctrinal aspects.
Once Arabic translations became readily available, Muslims, too, began
to take a greater interest in the Jewish and Christian scriptures, in which
they believed the Prophet Muḥammad was annunciated and the coming
of Islam foretold. Some of the earliest extant texts by Muslim writers
containing significant Biblical material have already been studied by
members of the Research Unit (Sabine Schmidtke). In the more comprehensive
project, all genres of Islamic literature and thought in which the
influence of the Arabic Bible translation movement may be perceived will
be taken into consideration.
Achievements (2003–2012)
♦
The Research Unit Intellectual History of the Islamicate World at
Freie Universität Berlin combines the research projects devoted to post-
Avicennan philosophy, the “Muʿtazilite Manuscripts Project Group”, the
Research Project “Rediscovering Theological Rationalism in the Medieval
World of Islam”, including Counterreactions; the Research Projects “Bible
in Arabic” and “Interreligious Contacts and Controversies in the Ottoman
Empire and pre-modern Iran” and the projects devoted to “Mysticism”.
Some aspects of the research project devoted to post-Avicennan philosophy
began in 2003, funded by a grant by the German-Israeli Foundation
(GIF) (2003–06). It resulted in several publications on the early commentators
of Suhrawardī, ʿIzz al-Dawla Ibn Kammūna, Shams al-Dīn al-
Shahrazūrī and Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī, and a number of representatives
of the so-called “School of Shīrāz”, among them a monograph on the life
and work of the Jewish philosopher Ibn Kammūna (a Persian translation
will soon go to press) and critical editions of most of his writings in philosophy.
Within this research area, three new projects have been defined,
viz. (i) “Critical Avicennism in the Islamic East of the 12th century”, (ii)
Muslim and Jewish philosophy intertwined during the 13th through 15th
centuries, (iii) “Philosophy in Iran during the Ṣafavid and Qajar Period”.
Some results of the second project have already been published.
The “Muʿtazilite Manuscripts Project Group” was founded in 2003,42
an international group of some fifteen scholars from Europe, the US, Israel
and Palestine, from Lebanon, Oman, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Iran, setting
out to collect, record and prepare critical editions of all unpublished
material of Muʿtazilite provenance. Funded by various grants of the Fritz
Thyssen Foundation (2005–07, 2010–11), the Gerda Henkel Foundation
(2005, 2008), and the Rothschild Foundation (Yad ha-nadiv) (2006), the
project has held three international workshops in Istanbul (with participants
from the West, including Israel, and the Islamic World) and published
more than twenty critical editions and facsimiles, along with several
monographs and edited volumes and many studies.
The efforts of the “Muʿtazilite Manuscripts Project Group” have been
merged since 2008 with the Research Project “Rediscovering Theological
Rationalism in the Medieval World of Islam”, that is funded by
the European Research Council (2008–13).43 The project focuses on theo-
42 http://www.geisteswissenschaften.fu-berlin.de/izma/forschung/laufend/mutazila/index.html.
43 http://www.facebook.com/\#!/pages/Rediscovering-Theological-Rationalism-in-the-Medieval-
World-of-Islam/144710522241165; http://www.geisteswissenschaften.fu-berlin.de/en/izma/forschung/
34 35

logical rationalism in the medieval world of Islam between the 10th and
the 13th centuries beyond and across denominational borders. Within this
field, all major desiderata have been identified and are addressed in a
number of primary and secondary sub-projects, many of which have already
been completed and are published. So far, two international conferences
have been held in 2009 and 2010, again with participants from the
West and the Islamic World, and numerous critical editions and studies
have been published in English, French, German, Arabic and Persian. Another
international conference, Takfir: A diachronic perspective, was held
in October 2011 in Madrid, in collaboration with the ERC Project KOHE-
POCU. A further conference is planned for spring 2013 that will focus on
“Jewish and Christian reception(s) of Muslim theology”.
The purpose of the Research Project “Contacts and Controversies between
Muslims, Jews and Christians”, which was funded by the Gerda
Henkel Foundation (2005–07), was to bring into focus new textual materials
that shed fresh light on the intellectual and social exchanges between
Muslims and non-Muslims both in the Ottoman lands and in pre-modern
Iran and to foster intensified cooperation between scholars from a variety
of disciplines. An international exploratory workshop on the topic, “The
Position of Religious Minorities in the Ottoman Empire and Early Modern
Iran, as Reflected in Muslim Polemical and Apologetical Literature”, was
funded by the European Science Foundation (ESF) (2007). The results of
this project were published in a collective volume and several articles in
peer-reviewed journals.
The Research Project “Bible in Arabic” evolved in close cooperation with
Meira Polliack and Camilla Adang (Tel Aviv University). Apart from numerous
studies tracing the reception of the various Christian translation
traditions among Muslim scholars during the first centuries of Islam that
have already been published (Sabine Schmidtke), the collaborators will
convene an international workshop on “The Bible in Arabic among
Jews, Christians and Muslims” in May 2012. Moreover, the first issue of
the recently established journal Intellectual History of the Islamicate World
(editor-in-chief: S. Schmidtke), to be published in summer 2013, will be
devoted exclusively to this topic.
A = Article; B = Blog; C = Conference paper / invited lecture; CE = Critical
Edition; CV = Collective volume; E = Encyclopaedia entry; F = Facsimile;
M = Monograph; R = Review article
DOCUMENTA ARABICA
A series of important works concerning Arabian history and culture
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· William Gifford Palgrave ·
Ulrich Jasper Seetzen, u.a.
To the people of the past the Arabian
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The first part of the autobiography of
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2003
[A] S. Schmidtke, “II Firk. Arab. 111 – A copy of al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā’s
Kitāb al-Dhakhira completed in 472/1079–80 in the Firkovitch-Collection,
St. Petersburg,” [Persian] Maʿārif 20 ii (1382/2003), pp. 68–84.
[A] S. Schmidtke, “The ijāza from ʿAbd Allāh b. Ṣāliḥ al-Samāhījī to Nāṣir
al-Jārūdī al-Qaṭīfī: A Source for the Twelver Shiʿi Scholarly Tradition of
Baḥrayn,” Culture and Memory in Medieval Islam. Essays in Honour of Wilferd
Madelung, eds. Farhad Daftary & Josef W. Meri, London: I.B. Tauris in
laufend/theological_rationalism/index.html.
36
Diese Publikation wurde unterstützt durch
This publication has been supported by
Alumni Association of Freie Universität Berlin
www.fu-berlin.de/erg

association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2003, pp. 64–85.
[A] S. Schmidtke, “Recent Studies on the Philosophy of Illumination and
Perspectives for Further Research,” Dāneshnāmah. The Bilingual Quarterly
of the Shahīd Beheshtī University 1 ii (Spring/Summer 2003), pp. 101–19
(English section), p. 69 (Persian Section).
[A] S. Schmidtke, “Studies on Saʿd b. Manṣūr Ibn Kammūna (d. 683/1284):
Beginnings, Achievements, and Perspectives,” Persica. Annual of the
Dutch-Iranian Society 29 (2003), pp. 105–21.
2004
[A] S. Schmidtke, “Re-Edition of al-Minhāj fī uṣūl al-dīn by Jār Allāh al-
Zamakhsharī,” [Persian] Maʿārif 20 iii (1382/2004), pp. 107–48.
[A] S. Schmidtke, “A Bibliography of Ibn Abī Jumhūr al-Aḥsāʾī’s Works.
Translated with additions and corrections by Ahmad Reza Ra-hi-mi
Risseh,” [Persian] Nusḥeh Pazūḥī. A Collection of Essays and Articles on
Manuscripts Studies and Related Subjects 1 (2004), pp. 291–309.
[A] R. Pourjavady & S. Schmidtke, “Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī’s (d. 710/1311)
Durrat al-Tāj and Its Sources. (Studies on Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī I),” Journal
Asiatique 292 i-ii (2004), pp. 309–28.
[CE] Abu l-Qasim al-Busti, Kitāb al-Bahth ʿan adillat al-takfīr wa l-tafsīq
(Investigation of the evidence for charging with kufr and fisq). Edited with
an Introduction by W. Madelung & S. Schmidtke, Tehran: Iran University
Press, 1382/2004.
2006
[A] B. Chiesa & S. Schmidtke, “The Jewish Reception of Samawʾal al-
Maghribī’s (d. 570/1175) Ifḥām al-yahūd. Some Evidence from the Abraham
Firkovitch Collection I,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 31
(2006), pp. 327–49.
[A] W. Madelung, “Abu l-Husayn al-Basri’s proof of the existence of God,”
Arabic Theology, Arabic Philosophy, from the Many to the One. Essays in
Celebration of Richard M. Frank, ed. J. Montgomery. Leuven 2006, pp. 273–
80.
[A] R. Pourjavady & S. Schmidtke, “Muslim Polemics against Judaism
and Christianity in 18th Century Iran. The Literary Sources of Āqā
Muḥammad ʿAlī Bihbahānī’s (1144/1732–1216/1801) Rādd-i shubahāt alkuffār,”
Studia Iranica 35 (2006), pp. 69–94 [Abbreviated Persian translation
by Muḥammad Kāẓim Raḥmatī: http://www.rahmati.kateban.com].
[A] R. Pourjavady & S. Schmidtke, “Some notes on a new edition of a medieval
philosophical text in Turkey: Shams al-Dīn al-Shah-ra-zūrī’s Rasāʾil
al-Shajara al-ilāhiyya,” Die Welt des Islams 46 i (2006), pp. 76–85.
[A] S. Schmidtke, `‘The Karaites’ Encounter with the Thought of Abū
l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī (d. 436/1044). A Survey of the Relevant Materials in
the Firkovitch-Collection, St. Petersburg,`` Arabica 53 (2006), pp. 108–42.
[Persian translation by Muḥammad Kāẓim Raḥmatī: http://www.religions.ir/mag/mag.php?magid=11117&section=7].
[A] S. Schmidtke, “Ibn Abī Jumhūr al-Aḥsāʾī und sein Spätwerk Sharḥ al-
Bāb al-ḥādī ʿashar,” Reflections on Reflections. Near Eastern writers reading
literature. Dedicated to Renate Jacobi, eds. A. Neuwirth & A. C. Islebe,
Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2006, pp. 119–45.
[A] S. Schmidtke, “Forms and Functions of ‚Licences To Transmit’ (Ijāzas)
in 18th-Century-Iran. ʿAbd Allāh al-Mūsawī al-Jazāʾirī al-Tustarī’s (1112–
73/1701–59) Ijāza kabīra,” Speaking for Islam. Religious Authorities in Muslim
Societies, eds. Gudrun Krämer & Sabine Schmidtke, Leiden: Brill, 2006,
pp. 95–127.
[A] G. Schwarb, “Un projet international: le manuel des œuvres et manuscrits
muʿtazilites,” Chronique du manuscrit au Yémen 2 (Juni 2006) [French
version: http://cy.revues.org/document198.html; Arabic version: http://
www.cefas.com.ye/spip.php?article158].
[A] G. Schwarb, “Sahl b. al-Faḍl al-Tustarī’s K. al-Īmā,” Ginzei Qedem:
Shenaton le-ḥeḳer ha-genizah 2 (2006), pp. 61*–105*.
[C] G. Schwarb, “Arabic Translations of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah
and the Commentary of ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn al-Muwaqqit on Sefer ha-Maddaʿ,
Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah I–IV”, (International Conference “Bridging the
Worlds of Judaism and Islam”, Bar-Ilan University, 3–4 January 2006).
[C] G. Schwarb, “Sahl b. al-Faḍl al-Tustarī’s K. al-Īmāʾ” (Jerusalem, Institute
for Advanced Studies, 14 February 2006).
[CE] Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī, Taṣaffuḥ al-adilla. The extant parts introduced
and edited by W. Madelung & S. Schmidtke. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz,
2006.
[CE] Samawʾal al-Maghribī’s (d. 570/1175) Ifḥām al-yahūd. The Early Recension,
eds. I. Marazka, R. Pourjavady, S. Schmidtke, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz,
2006 (Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes; 57, 2).
[CE] Khulāṣat al-naẓar. An Anonymous Imami-Muʿtazilī Treatise (late
6th/12th or early 7th/13th century). Edited with an Introduction by S.
Schmidtke & H. Ansari, Tehran: Iranian Institute of Philosophy & Institute
of Islamic Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, 2006. (Series on Islamic
Philosophy and Theology. Texts and Studies; 2).
[F] An Anonymous Commentary on Kitāb al-Tadhkira by Ibn Mattawayh.
Facsimile Edition of Mahdavi Codex 514 (6th/12th Century). Introduction
and Indices by S. Schmidtke, Tehran: Iranian Institute of Philosophy & Institute
of Islamic Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, 2006. (Series on Islamic
Philosophy and Theology. Texts and Studies; 1).
[M] W. Madelung & S. Schmidtke, Rational Theology in Interfaith Communication.
Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī’s Muʿtazilī Theology among the Karaites
in the Fatimid Age. Leiden: Brill, 2006.
[M] R. Pourjavady & S. Schmidtke, A Jewish Philosopher of Baghdad. ʿIzz
al-Dawla Ibn Kammūna (d. 683/1284) and His Writings, Leiden: Brill, 2006.
38 39

2007
[A] C. Adang & S. Schmidtke, “Islamic Rational Theology in the Collections
of Leiden University Library. The ‘Supplements’ of the Zaydī Imām
al-Nāṭiq bi-l-ḥaqq (d. 1033) to the theological Summa of Abū ʿAlī Ibn
Khallād (fl. second half of the 10th century),” Omslag. Bulletin van de Universiteitsbibliotheek
Leiden en het Scaliger Instituut 3–2007, pp. 6–7.
[A] R. Pourjavady & S. Schmidtke, “The Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī (d. 710/1311)
Codex (Ms. Marʿashī 12868) (Studies on Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī II),” Studia
Iranica 36 (2007), pp. 279–301.
[A] S. Schmidtke, “Étude de la littérature polémique contre le Judaisme,”
Annuaire 114. Résumé des conférences et travaux 2005–2006. Ecole Pratique
des Hautes Etudes. Section des Sciences Religieuses. Paris 2007, pp. 183–86.
[A] G. Schwarb, “Capturing the meanings of God’s speech: the relevance
of uṣūl al-fiqh to an understanding of uṣūl al-tafsīr in Jewish and Muslim
kalām,” A Word Fitly Spoken: Studies in Mediaeval Exegesis of the Hebrew
Bible and the Qurʾān presented to Haggai Ben-Shammai, eds. Meir Bar-Asher,
Sarah Stroumsa, Bruno Chiesa, Simon Hopkins, Jerusalem: The Ben
Zvi Institute and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2007, pp. *111-*156.
[A] G. Schwarb, “Uṣūl al-fiqh im jüdischen Kalām des 10. und 11. Jahrhunderts:
Ein Überblick,” Orient als Grenzbereich? Rabbinisches und ausserrabbinisches
Judentum, ed. A. Kuyt and G. Necker, Wiesbaden 2007, pp.
77–104.
[A] G. Schwarb, “Die Rezeption Maimonides’ in der christlich-arabischen
Literatur,” JUDAICA: Beiträge zum Verstehen des Judentums 63 (2007), pp.
1–45.
[C] R. Pourjavady, “ʿAlī Qulī Jadīd al-Islām and his Hidāyat al-ḍāllīn” (ESF
Exploratory Workshop: “The Position of Religious Minorities in the Ottoman
Empire and Early Modern Iran, as Reflected in Muslim Polemical
and Apologetical Literature”. Istanbul 14–16 June 2007).
[C] S. Schmidtke, “Baḥr al-ʿUlūm’s disputation with the Jews. A Survey
of the Transmission of the debate” (ESF Exploratory Workshop: “The Position
of Religious Minorities in the Ottoman Empire and Early Modern
Iran, as Reflected in Muslim Polemical and Apologetical Literature”. Istanbul
14–16 June 2007).
[CE] Rukn al-Dīn Ibn al-Malāḥimī al-Khwārazmī, Kitāb al-Fāʾiq fī uṣūl aldīn.
Edited with an Introduction by W. Madelung & M. McDermott, Tehran:
Iranian Institute of Philosophy & Institute of Islamic Studies, Freie
Universität Berlin, 1386/2007. (Series on Islamic Philosophy and Theology.
Texts and Studies; 3).
[CE] Jār Allāh al-Zamakhsharī, Kitāb al-Minhāj fī uṣūl al-dīn. Introduced
and edited by S. Schmidtke, Beirut: Arab Scientific Publishers, 1428/2007.
[CE] Critical Remarks by Najm al-Dīn al-Kātibī on the Kitāb al-Maʿālim
by Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, together with the Commentaries by ʿIzz al-Dawla
Ibn Kammūna. Edited with an Introduction by S. Schmidtke & R. Pourjavady,
Tehran: Iranian Institute of Philosophy & Institute of Islamic Studies,
Freie Universität Berlin, 1386/2007 (Series on Islamic Philosophy and
Theology. Texts and Studies; 6).
[CV] A Common Rationality. Muʿtazilism in Islam and Judaism, eds. C. Adang,
S. Schmidtke & D. Sklare, Würzburg: Ergon, 2007 (Istanbuler Texte
und Studien; 15).
[F] Maḥmūd b. ʿAlī b. Maḥmūd al-Ḥimmaṣī al-Rāzī: Kashf al-maʿāqid fī
sharḥ Qawāʿid al-ʿaqāʾid. Facsimile Edition of MS Berlin, Wetzstein 1527.
Introduction and Indices by S. Schmidtke, Tehran: Iranian Institute of Philosophy
& Institute of Islamic Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, 1386/2007
(Series on Islamic Philosophy and Theology. Texts and Studies; 4).
2008
[A] C. Adang & S. Schmidtke, “Aḥmad b. Muṣṭafā Ṭāshkubrīzāde’s
(d. 968/1561) polemical tract against Judaism,” Al-Qanṭara. Revista de Estudios
Arabes 29 i (2008), pp. 79–113, 537–38.
[A] ʿA. al-Sālimī, “al-Mutashābih li-l-Qurʾān li-l-Turaythīthī. Dirāsa lil-kitāb
wa-nusakhihi al-khaṭṭiyya,” Majallat maʿhad al-makhṭūṭāt al-
ʿarabiyya 52 (2008), pp. 7–43.
[A] S. Schmidtke, “The doctrinal views of the Banu l-ʿAwd (early 8th/14th
century): an analysis of ms Arab. f. 64 (Bodleian Library, Oxford),” Le
shiʿisme imamite quarante ans après. Hommage à Etan Kohlberg. Eds. M.
A. Amir-Moezzi, M. Bar-Asher, S. Hopkins. Turnhout: Brepols, 2009, pp.
357–82. [Partial Persian translation by Sayyid Muḥsin Mūsawī: http://tazkereh.kateban.com/entry1547.html].
[A] S. Schmidtke, “Theological Rationalism in the Medieval World of Islam,”
al-ʿUsur al-wusta: The Bulletin of Middle East Medievalists 20 i (April,
2008), pp. 17–29.
[A] S. Schmidtke, “Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī on the Torah and its Abrogation,”
Mélanges de l’Université Saint Joseph 61 (2008), pp. 559–80.
[A] S. Schmidtke, “Rationale Theologie in der islamischen Welt des Mittelalters,”
Verkündigung und Forschung 53 ii (2008), pp. 57–72.
[A] S. Schmidtke, “MS Mahdawi 514. An Anonymous Commentary on Ibn
Mattawayh’s Kitāb al-Tadhkira,” Islamic Thought in the Middle Ages. Studies
in Text, Transmission and Translation in Honour of Hans Daiber, eds. A.
Akasoy & W. Raven. Leiden: Brill, 2008, pp. 139–62.
[A] S. Schmidtke, “Ibn Kammūna, fīlusūf-i taʾthīr gudhar,” Kitāb-i māh-i
falsafa 2 xiv (Ābān 1387/December 2008) [Special issue devoted to Ibn
Kammūna], pp. 133–35.
[A] G. Schwarb, “Découverte d’un nouveau fragment du Kitāb al-mughnī
fī abwāb al-tawḥīd wa-l-ʿadl du Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Ha-ma-dā-nī dans
une collection karaïte de la British Library,” Mélanges de l’Institut d’Etudes
Orientales 27 (2008), pp. 119–29.
[C] S. Schmidtke, “Ibn Ḥazm on Ashʿarism and Muʿtazilism” (Workshop
“The Life and Work of Ibn Ḥazm of Cordoba”. Istanbul 26–28 August 2008).
[CE] O. Hamdan & S. Schmidtke, “Qadi ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Hamadhānī
(d. 415/1025) on the Promise and Threat. An Edition of a Fragment of
his Kitāb al-Mughnī fī abwāb al-tawḥīd wa l-ʿadl preserved in the Firkovitch-Collection,
St. Petersburg (II Firk. Arab. 105, ff. 14–92),” Mélanges de
l’Institut dominicain d’Etudes orientales 27 (2008), pp. 37–117.
[CE] Rukn al-Dīn Ibn al-Malāḥimī al-Khwārazmī, Tuḥfat al-mutakallimīn
40 41

fī l-radd ʿalā l-falāsifa. Edited with an Introduction by W. Madelung &
H. Ansari, Tehran: Iranian Institute of Philosophy & Institute of Islamic
Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, 1387/2008. (Series on Islamic Philosophy
and Theology. Texts and Studies; 7).
[E] S. Schmidtke, “Jobbāʾī,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. 14 (New York, 2008),
pp. 666–72.
[E] S. Schmidtke, “Ḥāl,” Dānishnāma-yi jahān-i Islam, vol. 12 (Tehran,
1387/2008), pp. 437–40.
[F] Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Abī Jumhūr al-Aḥsāʾī (d. after 906/1501), Mujlī
mirʾāt al-munjī fī l-kalām wa-l-ḥikmatayn wa-l-taṣawwuf. Lithograph edition
by Aḥmad al-Shīrāzī (Tehran 1329/1911). Reprinted with an Introduction,
Table of Contents, and Indices by S. Schmidtke, Tehran: Iranian Institute
of Philosophy & Institute of Islamic Studies, Freie Universität Berlin,
2008 (Series on Islamic Philosophy and Theology. Texts and Studies; 10).
[C] S. Schmidtke, “Biblical predictions of the Prophet Muḥammad from
the 9th century.” (Department of Religious Studies, University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, April 2009).
[C] S. Schmidtke, “Biblical materials in Zaydī sources.” (Reunion Conference,
Muʿtazilism in Islam and Judaism, The Institute for Advanced Studies,
The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, July 2009).
[C] G. Schwarb, “K. Mabādiʾ al-adilla fī uṣūl al-dīn by the Zaydī Imām
al-Nāṭiq bi-l-ḥaqq Abū Ṭālib Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn al-Buṭḥānī (d. 424/1033):
Who needs revelation?” (Reunion Conference, Muʿtazilism in Islam and
Judaism, The Institute for Advanced Studies, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem,
July 2009).
[C] J. Thiele, “Zaydī Adoptions of Bahshamī Thought: The Theology of al-
Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ (d. 584/1188)” (Reunion Conference, Muʿtazilism in Islam
and Judaism, The Institute for Advanced Studies, The Hebrew University,
Jerusalem, July 2009).
2009
[A] H. Ansari, “ʿIlm al-kalām fī l-Islām. Al-Khiṭāb wa-l-tārīkh,” Al-Masār 10
iii (Fall 2009), pp. 63–120.
[A] H. Ansari & M.A. Amir-Moezzi, “Muḥammad b. Yaʿqūb al-Kulaynī (m.
328 ou 329/939-40 ou 940-41) et son Kitʿb al-Kāfī: une introduction,” Studia
Iranica 38 ii (2009), pp. 191-247.
[A] M.A. Amir-Moezzi & S. Schmidtke, “Rationalisme et théologie dans
le monde musulman médiéval. Bref état des lieux,” Revue de l’histoire des
religions 226 iv (2009), pp. 613–38.
[A] L. Muehlethaler, “Ibn Kammūna on the argument of the Flying Man in
Avicenna’s Išārāt and al-Suhrawardī’s Talwīḥāt,” Avicenna and his Legacy:
A Golden Age of Science and Philosophy, ed. Y. T. Langermann, Turnhout:
Brepols, 2009, pp. 179–203.
[A] S. Schmidtke, “Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī and his transmission of biblical
materials from Kitāb al-dīn wa-al-dawla by Ibn Rabban al-Ṭabarī: The evidence
from Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Mafātīḥ al-ghayb,” Islam and Christian-
Muslim Relations 20 ii (2009), pp. 105–18.
[A] S. Schmidtke, “New sources for the life and work of Ibn Abī Jumhūr
al-Aḥsāʾī,” Studia Iranica 38 (2009), pp. 49–68. [Persian translation by
Muḥammad Kāẓim Raḥmatī: “Manābiʿ-i tāzeh-yi yāb barāyi taḥqīq dar
zandagī u āthār-i Ibn Abi Jumhūr Ahsāʾī,” Nusḥeh Pazūḥī. A Collection
of Essays and Articles on Manuscripts Studies and Related Subjects 4 (in
press)].
[A] S. Schmidtke, “MS Berlin, Wetzstein II 1527. A unique manuscript
of Maḥmūd b. ʿAlī b. Maḥmūd al-Ḥimmaṣī al-Rāzī’s Kashf al-maʿāqid fī
sharḥ Qawāʿid al-ʿaqāʾid,” Tribute to Michael. Studies in Jewish and Muslim
Thought Presented to Professor Michael Schwartz, eds. S. Klein-Braslavy,
B. Abrahamov, J. Sadan, Tel Aviv: The Laster and Sally Entin Faculty of
Humanities, The Chaim Ro-senberg School of Jewish Studies, pp. 67*–78*.
[A] S. Schmidtke, “The Rightly Guiding Epistle (al-Risāla al-Hādiya) by
ʿAbd al-Salām al-Muhtadī al-Muḥammadī. A Critical Edition,” Jerusalem
Studies in Arabic and Islam 36 (2009), pp. 439–70.
2010
[A] H. Ansari, “Maḥmūd al-Malāḥimī al-Muʿtazilī fī l-Yaman,” al-Masār 11
ii (1431/2010), pp. 48–58.
[A] H. Ansari, “Al-Imām al-Muʾayyad bi-llah al-Hārūnī: fatāwā wa-ajwibat
al-masāʾil wa istiftāʾāt wujjihat ilayhī fī l-radd ʿalā al-bāṭiniyya wa
ġayrihā min al-masāʾil,” al-Masar 33, pp. 57-72.
[A] H. Ansari & S. Schmidtke, “The Zaydī reception of Ibn Khallād’s Kitāb
al-Uṣūl: The taʿlīq of Abū Ṭāhir b. ʿAlī al-Ṣaffār,” Journal asiatique 298
(2010), pp. 275–302.
[A] H. Ansari & S. Schmidtke, “Muʿtazilism after ʿAbd al-Jabbār: Abū
Rashīd al-Nīsābūrī’s Kitāb Masāʾil al-khilāf fī l-uṣūl (Studies on the transmission
of knowledge from Iran to Yemen in the 6th/12th and 7th/13th c. I),”
Studia Iranica 39 (2010), pp. 227–78.
[A] D. Halft, “Schiitische Polemik gegen das Christentum im safawidischen
Iran des 11./17. Jahrhunderts. Sayyid Aḥmad ʿAlawīs La-wā-miʿ-i
rabbānī dar radd-i šubha-yi naṣrānī.” Contacts and Controversies between
Muslims, Jews and Christians in the Ottoman Empire and Pre-Modern Iran.
Eds. Camilla Adang & Sabine Schmidtke, Würzburg 2010, pp. 273–334.
[A] J. Thiele, “Propagating Muʿtazilism in the VIth/XIIth century Zaydiyya:
The role of al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ,” Arabica 57 v-vi (2010), pp. 536–58;
58 i (2011), p. 165.
[C] H. Ansari, “Un membre de l’école de Rayy, Abû l-Fadl al-ʿAbbâs b.
Sharvîn et son œuvre théologique” (Séminaire du Centre d’His-toire des
Sciences et des Philosophies Arabes et Médiévales (UMR 7219 - CNRS/
Université Paris–7 Denis Diderot/ EPHE/ Université Paris I) Sciences et
philosophie, de l’Antiquité à l’Äge classique Séance du samedi 30 janvier
2010, 10h–14h: Le Kalam (Théologie musulmane): état actuel de la recherche).
[C] H. Ansari, “L’école des théologiens muʿtazilites de Rayy: la famille
Farrazādhī” (Theological Rationalism in Medieval Islam: New Sources
and Perspectives. The Second International Conference of the European
42 43

Research Council’s FP 7 Project “Theological Rationalism in the Medieval
World of Islam”, 4–6 June 2010 in Istanbul, Turkey).
[C] H. Ansari, “Al-Shalmaghānī et al-Hidāyat al-kubrā: une des sources
d’al-Khaṣībī dans la formation de la doctrine Nuṣayrī,” Messianism and
Normativity in the Late Medieval and Modern Persianate World: Themes
and Sources, dirigé par Orkhan Mir-Kasimov, Freie Universität Berlin,
September 2010.
[C] H. Ansari, “La littérature du Hadith chez les zaydite en Iran et au Yémen,”
Journée d’études dans le cadre du projet transversal, “Controverses
sur les écritures canoniques en Islam,” dirigé par Daniel De Smet (CNRS/
LEM), November 2010.
[C] H. Ansari, “Les réfutations des zaydites contre les philosophes au VIe
et VIIe siècles,” ‘Science and Philosophy in Classical Islamic Civilization’;
8th International Conference of SIHSPAI (International Society for the
History of Arabic and Islamic Science and Philosophy), London, The Institute
of Ismaili Studies, December 2010.
[C] D. Halft, “Christian-Muslim Controversies in 17th Century Safavid Isfahan.
Missionaries in Conversation with Shīʿī Scholars” (31. Deutscher
Orientalistentag, Marburg, 21 September 2010, Section Iranian Studies).
[C] L. Muehlethaler, “The Reception of Abū al-Barakāt’s Philosophical
Work: A Re-appraisal” (EAJS Conference Judaism in the Mediterranean
Context, 25–29 July 2010 in Ravenna, Italy).
[C] L. Muehlethaler, “Ibn Kammūna on the Pre-Eternity of the Human
Soul” (SOAS Conference The Ontology of the Soul in Medieval Arabic
Thought, 19 September 2010 in London).
[C] L. Muehlethaler, “What is the question? The conception of philosophical
problems in Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s commentaries on the works of Avicenna”
(Deutscher Orientalistentag, 21–24 September in Marburg).
[C] L. Muehlethaler, “ʿUmar ibn Sahlān al-Sāwī’s Nahj al-taqdīs and the
early reception of Abū al-Barakāt al-Baghdādī’s philosophical work” (SI-
HSPAI Conference Philosophy and Science in Classical Islamic Civilisation,
3–5 December 2010 in London).
[C] L. Muehlethaler, “Abū l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī’s Kitāb al-Muʿtabar and
the Avicennan Tradition” (AJS 42nd Annual Conference, 19–21 December
2010 in Boston).
[C] L. Muehlethaler, “On the Position of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Nihāyat
al-ʿuqūl among his earlier works” (Theological Rationalism in Medieval Islam:
New Sources and Perspectives. The Second International Conference
of the European Research Council’s FP 7 Project ``Theological Rationalism
in the Medieval World of Islam, 4–6 June 2010 in Istanbul, Turkey).
[C] L. Muehlethaler, “Syllogistics and the Soul: From the toolbox of a 13thcentury
philosopher in Baghdad” (Philosophy Department, John Hopkins
University, Baltimore, 17 December 2010).
[C] S. Schmidtke, “Biblical testimonies to the Prophethood of Muḥammad
in Zaydi sources” (The Departments of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations,
Religious Studies and the Middle East Center at the University
of Pennsylvania, PA, 6 December 2010).
[C] S. Schmidtke, “Breaking the wall of religious public opinion: How
the study of interfaith crosspollination in the Islamicate World can uncover
common ground” (Falling Walls: Berlin Conference on Future Breakthroughs
in Science and Society, 7–8 November 2010).
[C] S. Schmidtke, “Ḥusām al-Dīn ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd al-ʿAnsī (d. 667/1268)
and his Kitāb al-Maḥajja al-bayḍā” (Religious movements and transformations
in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Israel Academy of Sciences,
January 2010).
[C] S. Schmidtke, “Jewish (and Christian) Converts in the Medieval World
of Islam: Some Methodological Questions” (Herbert D. Katz Center for
Advanced Judaic Studies, Philadelphia, PA, 13 October 2010).
[C] S. Schmidtke, “Jewish Contributions to Islamic Learning in the Medieval
and Late Medieval Muslim World” (Vanderbilt University, Department
of Jewish Studies, Nashville, TN, 18 November 2010).
[C] S. Schmidtke, “The Islamic rational heritage - Muʿtazilism and
Ashʿarism to be rediscovered” (Shaykh Ibrahim Center, Manama, Bahrain,
February 2010).
[C] S. Schmidtke, “The Muʿtazilite Manuscripts Project: The example of
Abu l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī (d. 436/1045)” (al-Bīrūnī Institute of Oriental Studies,
Academy of Sciences, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 30 June 2010)
[C] S. Schmidtke, “The Muʿtazilite Manuscripts Project” (Deutsches
Archäologisches Institut, Sanaa, Yemen, 25 April 2010).
[C] S. Schmidtke, “The reception of Abu l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī and Ibn al-
Malāḥimī among the Zaydīs. The case of ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd al-ʿAnsī”
(The Institute of Ismaili Studies, Shi’i Studies Lecture Series, London, 27
May 2010)
[C] S. Schmidtke, “The Reception of Ibn Khallād’s Kitāb al-Uṣūl” (Theological
Rationalism in Medieval Islam: New Sources and Perspectives. The
Second International Conference of the European Research Council’s FP
7 Project “Theological Rationalism in the Medieval World of Islam”, 4-6
June 2010 in Istanbul, Turkey)
[C] S. Schmidtke, “The Zaydi reception of Abu l-Husayn al-Basrî and Ibn
al-Malâhimî” (Séminaire du Centre d’Histoire des Sciences et des Philosophies
Arabes et Médiévales (UMR 7219 - CNRS/ Université Paris–7 Denis
Diderot/ EPHE/ Université Paris I) Sciences et philosophie, de l’Antiquité
à l’Äge classique Séance du samedi 30 janvier 2010, 10h–14h: Le Kalam
(Théologie musulmane): état actuel de la recherche).
[C] G. Schwarb, “Muʿtazilī-Zaydī uṣūl al-fiqh: A Longue Durée Perspective”
(Theological Rationalism in Medieval Islam: New Sources and Perspectives.
The Second International Conference of the European Research
Council’s FP 7 Project “Theological Rationalism in the Medieval World of
Islam”, 4–6 June 2010 in Istanbul, Turkey).
[C] G. Schwarb, “Jewish Muʿtazilite approaches to Hebrew semantics”
(Memorial Conference for Dr. Friedrich Niessen: The Semitic languages of
Jewish intellectual production. Madrid, CSIC, 11–12th March 2010).
[C] G. Schwarb, “A Maimonidean Trinitarianism: The Christology of Al-
Rashīd Abū l-Khayr Ibn al-Tayyib (d. after 1270)” (Third International
Congress of Eastern Christianity. Knowledge Transfer in the Mediterranean
World, University of Córdoba, 2–4 December 2010).
[C] J. Thiele, “Nūr al-Dīn Sulaymān b. ʿAbdallāh al-Khurāshī (d. 7th/13th
c.) and his K. al-Tafṣīl li-jumal al-Taḥṣīl” (Deutsches Archäologisches Insti-
44 45

ملزمة عن تاريخ اليمن الجزء ٥
حفاظا على تراث اليمن الثقافي
مشروع رقمنة اطوطات اليمنية
زابينه اشميتكه ويان تيله
tut, Sanaa, Yemen, 25 April 2010).
[C] J. Thiele, “The Commentary Literature on al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ’ K. al-
Taḥṣīl” (Theological Rationalism in Medieval Islam: New Sources and Perspectives.
The Second International Conference of the European Research
Council’s FP 7 Project “Theological Rationalism in the Medieval World of
Islam”, 4–6 June 2010 in Istanbul, Turkey).
[C] E.-M. Zeis, “Proofs of Prophecy and Their Political-Theological Context:
The Kitāb Ithbāt nubuwwat al-nabī of the Zaydī mutakallim Imām
al-Muʾayyad bi-llāh al-Hārūnī (333–411)” (Theological Rationalism in
Medieval Islam: New Sources and Perspectives. The Second International
Conference of the European Research Council’s FP 7 Project “Theological
Rationalism in the Medieval World of Islam”, 4–6 June 2010 in Istanbul,
Turkey).
[C] S. Vasalou,
Preserving
“An
Yemen’s
innate
Cultural
moral
Heritage
knowledge? In quest of Ibn Taymiyya’s
moral epistemology” The Yemen Manuscript Digitization (Deutscher Project Orientalistentag, 21–24 September in
Marburg).
by Sabine Schmidtke and Jan Thiele
[C] S. Vasalou, “Ibn Taymiyya’s ethics between Ashʿarite voluntarism and
Muʿtazilite rationalism: a middle road?” (Theological Rationalism in Medieval
Islam: New Sources and Perspectives. The Second International
Conference of the European Research Council’s FP 7 Project “Theological
Rationalism in the Medieval World of Islam”, 4–6 June 2010 in Istanbul,
Turkey).
[CV] Contacts and Controversies between Muslims, Jews and Christians in
the Ottoman Empire and Pre-Modern Iran, eds. C. Adang & S. Schmidtke,
Würzburg: Ergon, 2010 (Istanbuler Texte und Studien; 21).
[E] C. Adang & S. Schmidtke, “Polemics (Muslim-Jewish),” Encyclopaedia
of the Jews in the Islamic World, ed. Norman A. Stillman, Leiden: Brill, 2010,
vol. 4, pp. 82–90.
[E] R. Pourjavady & S. Schmidtke, “ʿAlī Qulī Jadīd al-Islām,” The Encyclopaedia
of Islam. Three. Leiden: Brill, 2010.
[E] S. Schmidtke, “Ibn Kammūna,” Encyclopaedia of the Jews in the Islamic
World, ed. Norman A. Stillman, Leiden: Brill, 2010.
[E] S. Schmidtke, “Samawʾal al-Maghribī,” Encyclopaedia of the Jews in the
Islamic World, ed. Norman A. Stillman, Leiden: Brill, 2010.
[E] G. Schwarb, “Kalām”, Encyclopedia of the Jews in the Islamic World, ed.
Norman A. Stillman, Leiden Brill, 2010, vol. III, pp. 91–98.
[E] G. Schwarb, “Yūsuf al-Baṣīr”, Encyclopedia of the Jews in the Islamic
World, ed. Norman A. Stillman, Leiden Brill, 2010, vol. IV, pp. 651–655.
Preserving Yemen’s Cultural Heritage
Hefte zur Kulturgeschichte des Jemen Band 5
2011
[A] H. Ansari, “L’héritage ésotérique du chiisme: un livre sur l’exégèse de
la sourate 97,” Arabica 58 i-ii (2011), pp. 7-18.
[A] H. Ansari, “Risāla fī dhanb al-ghība lil- Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Ğabbār al-
Hamaḏānī al-Muʿtazilī,” al-Masar 12 ii (2011), pp. 105-110.
[A] H. Ansari & S. Schmidtke, “Iranian Zaydism during the 7th/13th century:
Abū l-Faḍl b. Shahrdawīr al-Daylamī al-Jīlānī and his commentary
on the Qurʾān,” Journal Asiatique 299 (2011), pp. 205-11.
[A] H. Ansari & S. Schmidtke, “The literary-religious tradition among
7th/13th century Yemenī Zaydīs: The formation of the Imām al-Mahdī li-
Dīn Allāh Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn b. al-Qāsim (d. 656/1258),” Journal of Islamic
Manuscripts 2 i (2011), pp. 165-222.
[A] H. Ansari & S. Schmidtke, “Abū Saʿd al-Ḫargūšī and his Kitāb al-
Lawāmiʿ: A Ṣūfī Guide Book for Preachers from 4th/10th century Nīshāpūr,”
Arabica 58 (2011), pp. 503-18 (with Hassan Ansari).
[A] S. Schmidtke, “The Muslim Reception of Biblical Materials: Ibn Qutayba
and his Aʿlām al-nubuwwa,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 22 iii
(2011), pp. 249-74.
[A] S. Schmidtke, “Jemenitische Handschriften in der Staatsbibliothek zu
Berlin,” Für Forschung und Kultur. Sonderausgabe der Zeitschrift „BibliotheksMagazin“
anlässlich des 350. Geburtstags der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin
- Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin 2011, pp. 52-57.
[A] S. Schmidtke, “Quei muri abbattuti dall’Islam medieval [Those Walls
Knocked down by Medieval Islam / Ces murs abattus par l’Islam medieval],”
Oasis: Cristiani e Musulmani nell’era del meticciato di civilità 13
(2011) [http://www.oasiscenter.eu/node/7199].
[A] S. Schmidtke & J. Thiele, “Preserving Yemen’s Cultural Heritage: The
Yemen Manuscript Digitization Project,” Fair Observer 27 July 2011 (http://
www.fairobserver.com/article/preserving-yemens-cultural-heritage-yemen-manuscript-digitization-project?page=3).
[A] G. Schwarb, “Muʿtazilism in the Age of Averroes,” In the Age of Averroes:
Arabic Philosophy in the Sixth/Twelfth Century, ed. P. Adamson, London:
Warburg Institute, 2011, pp. 251–82.
[A] G. Schwarb, “Manuskripte im Portrait: Eine Sprache, viele Schriften,”
Newsletter of the Research Unit Intellectual History of the Islamicate World
2 (2011), p. 4.
[B] S. Schmidtke, “Muslimische Ideengeschichte jenseits der Religionsgrenzen:
Chancen und Perspektiven” (http://fu-berlin.academia.edu/
SabineSchmidtke/Blog/51642/Muslimische-Ideengeschichte-jenseits-der-
Religionsgrenzen-Chancen-und-Perspektiven).
[C] H. Ansari, “Un bref historique des commentaires coraniques chez les
théologiens muʻtazilites, zaydites et imâmites jusqu'à la fin du septième
siècle,” “L’exégèse philosophique du Coran”, dirigé par Meryem Sebti
(CNRS), April 2011.
[C] H. Ansari & Sabine Schmidtke, “Le traitement des Muṭarrifites comme
des kuffâr,” International Conference: “Takfīr: A Diachronic Perspective,”
Madrid, CSIC, October 2011.
[C] L. Muehlethaler, “On the conception of philosophical problems in
Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Mafātīḥ al-ġayb and his philosophical commentaries”
(Séminaire sur l’Exégèse philosophique du Coran, CNRS, Villejuif,
April 12, 2011).
[C] L. Muehlethaler, “Critical Avicennism of the 6th/12th century” (Workshop
“Arabische Wissenschaft,” Max-Planck-Institute Berlin, June 24,
2011).
[C] L. Muehlethaler, “Konzepte der Selbstwahrnehmung in der arabisch-
46 47

en Philosophie,” (Abschied vom Seelischen? Erkundungen zum menschlichen
Selbstverständnis (Interdisziplinäre Veranstaltungsreihe, Universität
Zürich, October 10, 2011).
[C] L. Muehlethaler, “The correspondence between Naǧm al-Dīn al-Kātibī
al-Qazwīnī and Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī on proofs for the existence of the necessary
of existence” (Rationalist Sciences I: Logic, Physics, Metaphysics,
and Theology in the Post-Classical Period, Washington University in St.
Louis. December 3–5, 2011).
[C] G. Schwarb, “Theological and Philosophical Fragments in the British
Library Genizah Collection”, London: The British Library, Genizah Workshop,
2 June 2011, 4pm - 5pm.
[C] G. Schwarb, “The Samaritan Abū l-Ḥasan al-Ṣūrī and the Qaraites:
Qaraite-Samaritan Relations in the 5th/11th century Bilād al-Shām: Encounters,
Polemics, and Intertextualities” (15th Congress of the Society for
Judaeo-Arabic Studies, Cambridge 15-18 August 2011).
[C] G. Schwarb, “Parallel Text Processing and the critical edition of Judaeo-Arabic
Texts” (15th Congress of the Society for Judaeo-Arabic Studies,
Cambridge 15-18 August 2011).
[C] G. Schwarb, “Muʿtazilism in a 20th Century Zaydi Qurʾān Commentary”,
London: School of Oriental and African Studies, Centre of Islamic
Studies, The Qurʾān: Text, Society and Culture, 11th November 2011, 3pm
- 4pm. (http://www.soas.ac.uk/islamicstudies/conferences/quran2011/
file72296.pdf), http://www.soas.ac.uk/islamicstudies/conferences/
quran2011/file72262.pdf
[C] G. Schwarb, “Non-Polemical Intellectual Encounters Between Muslims
and Jews,” Cambridge: The Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre of Islamic
Studies, University of Cambridge; The Centre for the Study of Muslim-
Jewish Relations, Woolf Institute; Intertwined Worlds: The Judaeo-Islamic
Tradition, 12th September 2011, 9am - 10am [To be published in the conference
proceedings, within the Studies on the Children of Abraham series
(http://www.brill.nl/publications/studies-children-abraham)]
[C] G. Schwarb, “Qaraite-Samaritan Relations in 5th/11th Century Bilād
al-Shām: Encounters, Polemics, and Intertextualities,” Cambridge: Cambridge
University Library, Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, Society
for Judaeo-Arabic Studies, Judaeo-Arabic Culture and the Arabic Speaking
World: Linguistic, Textual and Social Crosspollinations, 16th August
2011, 5pm - 6pm
[C] G. Schwarb, “Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ṣūrī and the Qaraites: Qaraite-Samaritan
Relations in 5th/11th Century Bilād al-Shām”, Oxford: Oxford Centre
for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, British Association for Jewish Studies,
Annual Conference 2011, ‘Jewish Languages’, 19th July 2011, 6pm - 7pm.
[CE] C. Adang, W. Madelung, S. Schmidtke, Baṣran Muʿtazilite Theology:
Abū ʿAlī Muḥammad b. Khallād’s Kitāb al-uṣūl and its reception. A Critical
Edition of the Ziyādāt Sharḥ al-uṣūl by the Zaydī Imām al-Nāṭiq bi-l-ḥaqq
Abū Ṭālib Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn b. Hārūn al-Buṭḥānī (d. 424/1033), Leiden:
Brill, 2011 (Islamic History and Civilization).
[CE] Early Ibāḍī Literature: Abu l-Mundhir Bashīr b. Muḥammad b. Maḥbūb,
Kitāb al-Raṣf fi l-Tawḥīd, Kitāb al-Muḥāraba and Sīra. Introduced and
edited by Abdulrahman al-Salimi and Wilferd Madelung. Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz, 2011 (Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes).
[F] Sulaymān b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Khurāshī, Kitāb al-Tafṣīl li-jumal al-Taḥṣīl.
Facsimile Edition of Ms Berlin, Glaser 51. With Introductions and Indices
by H. Ansari and J. Thiele, Tehran: Iranian Institute of Philosophy & Institute
of Islamic Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, 2011 (Series of Islamic
Philosophy Theology and Mysticism. Facsimiles and Editions).
[M] S. Schmidtke and J. Thiele, Preserving Yemen’s Cultural Heritage: The
Yemen Manuscript Digitization Project, Ṣanʿāʾ: Deutsches Archäologisches
Institut, 2011 (Hefte zur Kulturgeschichte des Jemen; 5).
[M] J. Thiele, Kausalität in der muʿtazilitischen Kosmologie. Das Kitāb al-
Muʾattirāt wa-miftāḥ al-muškilāt des Zayditen al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ (st.
584/1188), Leiden: Brill, 2011 (Islamic Philosophy, Theology, and Science.
Texts and Studies; 84).
2012
[A] H. Ansari, “Pišgoftār: al-Malāḥimī u kitāb al-Muʿtamad-e u,” Rukn al-
Dīn Ibn al-Malāḥimī al-Khwārazmī, al-Muʿtamad fī uṣūl al-dīn, edited and
introduced by Wilferd Madelung, Tehran: Mīrāth-e maktūb (Classical
Muslim Heritage Series).
[A] G. Schwarb, “Semantics of Hebrew in Medieval Theological and Philosophical
Thought”, Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, ed.
G. Khan, Leiden: Brill, 2012.
[A] G. Schwarb, “Capturing the Meanings of God’s Speech: The Relevance
of uṣūl al-fiqh to an understanding of uṣūl al-tafsīr in Jewish and Muslim
kalām,” Tafsīr: Interpreting the Qurʾān (Critical Concepts in Islamic Studies),
Volume II: Tafsir: Theory and Constructs, Part 3: Procedural and Conceptual
Devices (article no. 18), ed. M. Shah, London & New York: Routledge
2012 [reprint].
[A] G. Schwarb, “Theological Semantics in Yūsuf al-Baṣīr’s Risāla fī maʿnā
ijāzat al-naskh”, The Semitic Languages of Jewish Intellectual Production.
Memorial Volume for Dr. Friedrich Niessen, eds. María Angeles Gallego and
Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala, Leiden: Brill 2012.
[C] D. Halft, “Quelque relation rabbinique secrete” (H. Corbin)? Some
Notes on Sayyed Aḥmad ʿAlavī’s (d. between 1054/1644 and 1060/1650)
Quotations from the Hebrew Bible in his Shiʿi Refutations of Christianity,
International Workshop “The Bible in Arabic among Jews, Christians and
Muslims”, Tel Aviv University, Israel, May 24, 2012.
[C] L. Muehlethaler, “Bare self-awareness as cognitive basis in the epistemology
of Abū l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī,” Between Selfhood and Selfawareness:
Varieties of Subjectivity in the Arabic and Latin Traditions The
Finnish Institute in Berlin, April 12, 2012
[CE] Rukn al-Dīn Ibn al-Malāḥimī al-Khwārazmī, al-Muʿtamad fī uṣūl aldīn.
Revised and enlarged edition by Wilferd Madelung, Tehran: Mīrāth-e
maktūb, 2012 (Classical Muslim Heritage Series; 1).
[E] S. Schmidtke, “Ibn Mattawayh,“ The Encyclopaedia of Islam. Three
(Leiden: Brill).
[F] Legal Methodology in 6th/12th century Khwārazm: The Kitāb al-Tajrīd
fī uṣūl al-fiqh by Rukn al-Dīn Maḥmūd b. al-Malāḥimī al-Khwārazmī (d.
536/1141). Facsimile edition of MS Arab e 103 (Bodleian Library, Oxford),
with an introduction and indices by Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke,
48 49

Tehran: Markaz-i Dāʾirat al-maʿārif-i buzurg-i islāmī, 1390/2012.
[M] H. Ansari, Bar-rassī-hā-yī tārīkhī har ḥawza-yi islām wa tashayyuʿ:
Majmūʿa-yi nawad maqāla wa-yaddāsht, Tehran: Kitābkhāna-yi mūze wa
markaz-i asnād-i majlis-i shūrā-yi islāmī, 1390/2012.
[M] J. Thiele, Die Theologie des Zayditen al-Ḥasan ar-Raṣṣāṣ. Rezeption und
Entwicklung bahšamitischer Lehren im Jemen des 6./12. Jahrhunderts, unpublished
PhD thesis, Freie Universität 2012.
In press
[A] C. Adang & S. Schmidtke, “Muʿtazilī Discussions of the Abrogation of
the Torah. Ibn Khallād (4th/10th century) and His Commentators,” Reason
and Faith in Medieval Judaism and Islam. Ed. M. Ángeles Gallego. Leiden:
Brill.
[A] H. Ansari, “Un muḥaddith muʿtazilite zaydite: Abū Saʿd al-Sammān
et ses Amālī,” The neglected Šīʿites: Studies in the legal and intellectual history
of the Zaydīs = Arabica. Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 59 iii-iv
(2012), pp. 267-90.
[A] H. Ansari, “Zamīne hāye tārīḫī ye taʾlīf e kitāb e Nihāyat ul-marām,”
in Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn al-Makkī’s Nihāyat ul-marām fī dirāyat ul-kalām, Facsimile
Publication with Introduction and Indices by Ayman Shihadeh, Tehran:
Mīrāth-e maktūb (Classical Muslim Heritage Series).
[A] H. Ansari, “The Kitāb al-waṣiyya of ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād: The history of
a text,” Law and Tradition in Classical Islamic Thought, eds. Michael Cook,
Najam Haider, Intisar A. Rabb and Asma Sayeed, Palgrave Series in Islamic
Theology, Law, and History, Palgrave Macmillan.
[A] H. Ansari & S. Schmidtke, “Muʿtazilism in Rayy and Astarābād: Abu
l-Faḍl al-ʿAbbās b. Sharwīn,” Studia Iranica 41 (2012).
[A] D. Halft, “A Hitherto Unknown Persian Manuscript of Ḥosayn Vāʿeẓ
Kāšefī’s (d. 910/1504-05) Treatise on Ethics Aḫlāq-e moḥsenī in the Dominican
Priory in Vienna,” Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 3 (2012), pp. 1-13.
[A] L. Muehlethaler, “Ibn Kammūna on the Pre-Eternity of the Human
Soul,” Muslim World.
[A] R. Pourjavady & S. Schmidtke, “La vie, l’œuvre et la pensée philosophique
d’Ibn Kammūna,” Ibn Kammūna, Examen de la critique des trois
religions monothéistes, trad. Simon Bellahsen, Paris: Vrin.
[A] S. Schmidtke, “The History of Zaydī Studies: An Introduction,” The
neglected Šīʿites: Studies in the legal and intellectual history of the Zaydīs =
Arabica. Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 59 iii-iv (2012), pp. 185-199.
[A] S. Schmidtke, “Biblical predictions of the Prophet Muḥammad among
the Zaydīs of Iran,” The neglected Šīʿites: Studies in the legal and intellectual
history of the Zaydīs = Arabica. Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 59 iiiiv
(2012), pp. 218-266.
[A] S. Schmidtke, “Two commentaries on Najm al-Dīn al-Kātibī’s al-
Shamsiyya, copied in the hand of David b. Joshua Maimonides’ (fl. ca.
1335-1410 CE),” Law and Tradition in Classical Islamic Thought, eds. Michael
Cook, Najam Haider, Intisar A. Rabb and Asma Sayeed, Palgrave
Series in Islamic Theology, Law, and History, Palgrave Macmillan.
[A] S. Schmidtke, “Early Ashʿarite Theology: Abū Bakr al-Bāqillānī (d.
403/1013) and his Hidāyat al-mustarshidīn,” Bulletin d’Etudes Orientales.
[A] G. Schwarb, “The reception of Maimonides in Christian-Arabic literature”,
Proceedings of the 12th Conference of the Society of Judaeo-Arabic
Studies, ed. Y. Tobi, Haifa.
[A] G. Schwarb, “A Maimonidean Trinitarianism: The Christology of Al-
Rashīd Abū l-Khayr Ibn al-Tayyib (d. after 1270),” Proceedings of the Third
International Congress of Eastern Christianity: Knowledge Transfer in the
Mediterranean World, ed. Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala, Cordoba: Cordoba
University Press.
[A] G. Schwarb, “Muʿtazilism in a 20th century Zaydī Qurʾān commentary,”
The neglected Šīʿites: Studies in the legal and intellectual history of
the Zaydīs = Arabica. Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 59 iii-iv (2012),
pp. 371-402.
[A] G. Schwarb, “Zaydī-Muʿtazilī Traditions of uṣūl al-fiqh, 4th/10th–
11th/17th centuries,” Theological Rationalism in Medieval Islam: New
Sources and Perspectives, Leuven: Peeters, 2013.
[A] G. Schwarb, “Jewish Adaptations of Islamic Legal Hermeneutics (uṣūl
al-fiqh),” Jewish—non-Jewish Relations – Between Exclusion and Embrace,
ed. H. Holtschneider and M. Diemling (to be published online @ http://
www.jnjr.div.ed.ac.uk/). (includes a critical edition of a Jewish adaptation
of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s K. al-Maʿālim fī uṣūl al-fiqh).
[A] J. Thiele, “La causalité selon al-Ḥākim al-Ǧišumī,” The neglected Šīʿites:
Studies in the legal and intellectual history of the Zaydīs = Arabica. Journal
of Arabic and Islamic Studies 59 iii-iv (2012), pp. 291-318.
[CE] Nukat al-Kitāb al-Mughnī. A Recension of ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-
Hamadhānī’s (d. 415/1025) al-Mughnī fī abwāb al-tawḥīd wa-l-ʿadl. Al-
Kalām fī l-tawlīd. Al-Kalām fī l-istiṭāʿa. Al-Kalām fī l-taklīf. Al-Kalām fī
l-naẓar wa-l-maʿārif. The extant parts introduced and edited by O. Hamdan
and S. Schmidtke. Beirut: Orient Institut (Bibliotheca Islamica).
[CV] S. Schmidtke (ed.), The neglected Šīʿites: Studies in the legal and intellectual
history of the Zaydīs = Arabica. Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies
59 iii-iv (2012).
[E] S. Schmidtke, “Ibn Mattawayh,” The Encyclopaedia of the World of Islam
(Tehran).
[E] G. Schwarb, “Amr”, The Encyclopaedia of Islam. Three (Leiden: Brill).
[E] G. Schwarb, “al-Aṣamm”, The Encyclopaedia of Islam. Three (Leiden:
Brill).
[E] G. Schwarb, “Abū ʿAbdallāh al-Baṣrī”, The Encyclopaedia of Islam.
Three (Leiden: Brill).
[F] Twelver Shīʿite Theology in 6th/12th century Syria. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b.
ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-Ḥusaynī and his Commentary on al-Shaykh al-Ṭūsī’s
Muqaddima. Facsimile Publication with Introduction and Indices by Hassan
Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke. Tehran: Mīrāth-e maktūb, [in press]
(Classical Muslim Heritage Series; 2).
[R] G. Schwarb, Review of M. Goldstein, Karaite Exegesis in Medieval Jerusalem:
The Judeo-Arabic Pentateuch Commentary of Yūsuf ibn Nūḥ and Abū
al-Faraj Hārūn (Texts and Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Judaism,
26), Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011 [ISBN 978-3-16-150972-8], to be pub-
50 51

lished in the Journal of Semitic Studies.
[R] G. Schwarb, Review of C. Adang, W. Madelung and S. Schmidtke
(eds.), Baṣran Muʿtazilite Theology: Abū ʿAlī Muḥammad b. Khallād’s Kitāb
al-Uṣūl and its reception, Leiden: Brill, 2011, to be published in BSOAS 75,2
(June 2012).
[R] G. Schwarb, Review of J. Thiele, Kausalität in der muʿtazilitischen
Kosmologie: Das Kitāb al-Muʾaṯṯirāt wa-miftāḥ al-muškilāt des Zayditen
al-Ḥasan ar-Raṣṣāṣ (st. 584/1188), Leiden: Brill, 2011, to be published in
BSOAS 75,2 (June 2012).
[R] G. Schwarb, Review of S. Stroumsa, Maimonides in His World: Portrait
of a Mediterranean Thinker, to be published in Speculum: A Journal of Medieval
Studies 87,2 (2012).
Forthcoming
[A] H. Ansari & S. Schmidtke, “Al-Shaykh al-Ṭūsī: His Writings on Theology
and Their Reception,” The Study of Shīʿī Islam: The State of the Field,
Issues of Methodology and Recent Developments, eds. Farhad Daftary and
Gurdofarid Miskinzoda, London: I.B. Tauris.
[A] H. Ansari, S. Schmidtke & J. Thiele, “Muʿtazilism among Yemeni
Zaydīs,” The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology, ed. Sabine Schmidtke,
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[A] L. Muehlethaler, “Konzepte der Selbstwahrnehmung in der arabischen
Philosophie,” in H.-U. Rüegger, E. Dueck, S. Tietz (eds.) Abschied vom
Seelischen? Erkundungen zum menschlichen Selbstverständnis, Vdf Hochschulverlag
ETH Zuerich: Zürich, 2012. ISBN 978-3-7281-3424-0.
[A] L. Muehlethaler, “The philosophical theology of Ibn Sīnā and his
school” Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology, ed. Sabine Schmidtke, Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
[A] L. Muehlethaler, “Revising Avicenna’s ontology of the soul: Ibn
Kammūna on the soul’s eternity a parte ante,” The Muslim World.
[A] G. Schwarb, “ʿAlī b. Ṭaybughā’s (d. 793/1391) Commentary on Maimonides’
Mishneh Torah, Sefer ha-Maddaʿ, Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah I-IV:
A Philosophical Encyclopaedia of the 14th Century”, in tbd.
[A] G. Schwarb, “Excursus II - The Jewish and Samaritan Reception of
Muʿtazilism,” The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology, ed. S. Schmidtke,
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[A] G. Schwarb, “Excursus III - The Coptic Reception of Ashʿarite Theology,”
The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology, ed. S. Schmidtke, Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
[A] G. Schwarb, “The Scholastic phase of the Muʿtazila up to Abū ’l-Ḥusayn
al-Baṣrī including his reception in Baghdad and Khwārazm,” The Oxford
Handbook of Islamic Theology, ed. S. Schmidtke, Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
[A] J. Thiele, “Theological Compendia in Late 6th/12th and Early
7th/13th Century Zaydism: Al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ’s K. al-Taḥṣīl and its commentaries,”
Theological Rationalism in Medieval Islam: New Sources and
Perspectives, eds. Lukas Mühlethaler & Gregor Schwarb, Leuven: Peeters.
[A] J. Thiele, “Abū Hāshim al-Jubbāʾī’s (d. 321/933) theory of
states (aḥwāl) and its adaption among Ashʿarite theologians,” The Oxford
Handbook of Islamic Theology, ed. Sabine Schmidtke, Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
[CV] S. Schmidtke (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology, Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
[CV] R. Pourjavady & S. Schmidtke, The Philosophical Tradition in Iran
during the Qajar Period (1794-1925).
[CV] Kh. El-Rouayheb & S. Schmidtke (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Islamic
Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[CV] S. Schmidtke, C. Adang, M. Fierro (eds.), Ibn Ḥazm of Cordoba: Life
and Works of a Controversial Thinker, Leiden: Brill (Handbuch der Orientalistik).
[CV] Theological Rationalism in Medieval Islam: New Sources and Perspectives,
eds. Lukas Mühlethaler & Gregor Schwarb, Leuven: Peeters.
[E] S. Schmidtke, “Abu l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī,” The Encyclopeadia of the World
of Islam (Tehran)
[M] H. Ansari, L’imamat et l’Occultation selon l’imamisme: Etude bibliographique
et histoire des texts, Leiden: Brill.
[M] L. Muehlethaler & R. Pourjavady, Defending Avicennan Philosophy:
ʿUmar b. Sahlān al-Sāwī in Response to the Criticisms of Abū l-Barakāt al-
Baghdādī and Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Shahrastānī.
52 53

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Version: 2.0 2012-05-15
Layout and typography: Jonas Müller-Laackman
Photographs title page, 4, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 23, 25, 27, 31, 34: Ernst Fesseler
Manuscript images pp. 13, 21 @Russian National Library (with kind permission)
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Research Unit Intellectual History of the Islamicate World
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