Prof. Dr. Maribel Fierro: The letter of the Prophet to the emperor Heraclius in Medieval Iberia

Collaboration on the part of the vanquished with the victors including exalting and magnifying them, as well as dedication to memorializing past history to serve present needs was a path taken by a number scholars in different periods and regions, among them by the Andalusi scholar Ibn Hubaysh (504/1111-584/1188). When Almería was conquered by Alfonso VII of León, Ibn Hubaysh told the Christian king that he knew his genealogy back to Heraclius, the Emperor of Constantinople. Ibn Hubaysh was granted his freedom by the Christian king as reward. Once he was back in Muslim territory, Ibn Hubaysh wrote a  Kitab al-maghazi on the orders of the second Mu'minid Caliph, thus serving the ruler’s policy of self-legitimization through jihad against the Christians. In my paper, the role of Heraclius both in the Muslim and Christian imaginaire will be dealt with, as well as the information regarding the presence in al-Andalus of the famous letter sent by the Prophet to Heraclius asking him to convert to Islam. The aim is to recreate the historical and political context in which such information started to circulate in the Islamic West and the motives behind it.

Maribel Fierro is a Research Professor at the Instituto de Lenguas y Culturas del Mediterráneo y Oriente Próximo in Madrid, Spain. She earned her Ph.D. working on Semitic Philology in 1985 at Universidad Compultense, Madrid, after which she held different academic positions, including Directeur d’études associé at the Centre de Recherches Historiques, Paris and Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as part of the Research Group Law and State in Classical Islam. Furthermore, she directed several Research Projects, including Knowledge, heresy and political culture in the Islamic West (eighth-fifteenth centuries) and Violencia y casting en sociedades islámicas pre-modernas (al-Andalus y el Magreb). She has been guest-lecturer in the MA IEIW in the academic years of 2014/15 and 2015/16.

Prof. Dr. Carlos Fraenkel: Universalism, Pluralism, Exclusivism: Maimonides in the Context of Medieval Arabic Philosophy

In this lecture I will first examine how Arabic philosophers (falāsifa) from al-Fārābī (d. 950) onwards thought about religious pluralism and then discuss Maimonides’ (d. 1204) puzzling views on this issue. I argue that Maimonides both conceives Judaism in a way that allows for other virtuous religions and insists that there can be no virtuous religion but Judaism. I will start by explaining how the falāsifa resolve the tension between universalism (the view that the human good does not depend on things like ethnic background or religious affiliation, but on fully realizing human nature by attaining intellectual perfection) and particularism (the view that a particular religion is the path to the human good). Next I will present their main argument for the possibility of multiple virtuous religions: while there is only a single good that all virtuous religions aim at, they can differ with regard to the means used to promote that good. Since the means must be tailored to the specific cultural and natural circumstances in which a religion is established, they can vary from one context to another. This argument gives rise to what I call the “indifference objection:” if multiple virtuous religions exist that are equally suitable to attain the good, it doesn’t matter to which of these a person belongs. This helps to understand why most of the falāsifa defend the superiority of their own religion. But whereas Christian and Muslim philosophers such as Yaḥyā ibn Adī (d. 974) and Averroes (d. 1198) allow for other virtuous, but less perfect, religions, Maimonides insists, for apologetic reasons, on the exclusive validity of Judaism. My comparative approach will show why Maimonides could not endorse the more inclusive positions of Yaḥyā and Averroes.

Carlos Fraenkel is an associate professor at McGill University in Montréal, jointly appointed in the departments of philosophy and Jewish studies. He holds a William Dawson Scholarship (2004 to 2014) which is McGill’s equivalent to a Junior Canada Research Chair. He held various visiting positions, including a semester at al-Quds University, the Palestinian University in Jerusalem, where he co-taught a seminar with Sari Nusseibeh in 2006. Fraenkel did most of his undergraduate and graduate work at the Freie Universität Berlin and The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, completing his PhD in 2000. He works on various issues spanning ancient philosophy, medieval philosophy (mainly Jewish and Islamic) and early modern philosophy (mainly Spinoza). He also has an interest in political philosophy, in particular in questions related to cultural difference, identity, and autonomy. He has been guest-lecturer in the MA IEIW in the academic year of 2013/14.

Prof. Dr. Konrad Hirschler: Latin Spolia in medieval Syrian multiple-text manuscripts

Producing medieval manuscripts regularly entailed reusing existing documents and manuscripts as title-pages, book bindings and sewing guards. This second life of manuscripts has often been sidelined and seen as merely opportunistic recycling in times when access to writing material was restricted. While such opportunistic motives do play a role this paper explores to what extent manuscript reuse was underlain by a more complex cultural logic. It takes the case study of medieval Damascus where we observe a particularly intensive period of manuscript reuse in the 13th and 14th centuries in order to produce Arabic manuscripts. Among the reused material were Arabic legal documents and treatises; Latin liturgical books, bibles and sermons; Old French Chanson de Geste; Syriac bibles; Hebrew Tosefta; Greek sermons and Armenian liturgies. The question thus arises who opted for manuscript reuse in these specific instances, from where the discarded manuscripts and documents were sourced and for what purposes they were built into the new manuscripts? The case of the Latin and Old French material is particularly intriguing as it is set within the context of Frankish text production and circulation during the 12th and 13th centuries.

Konrad Hirschler is Professor of Islamic Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin since 2016 and was previously Professor of Middle Eastern History at SOAS (University of London). His research focuses on Egypt and Syria in the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods (c. 1200-1500) with a focus on social and cultural history. Over the last years, he has primarily worked on the history of reading, of the book and of libraries in the Syrian lands. Konrad Hirschler is the author of, amongst others, Medieval Damascus: Plurality and Diversity in an Arabic Library (2016) and The Written Word in the Medieval Arabic Lands: A Social and Cultural History of Reading Practices (2012). Since 2018, he is the new Director in Chief of the MA IEIW. 

Prof. em. Dr. Guy Stroumsa: Judaism and Islam in the Mind of Europe: Studying Religion in a Secular Age

My work seeks to provide an epistemological reflection on the discipline variously called history of religion(s), science of religion (Religionswissenschaft), or else comparative religion (vergleichende Religionswissenschaft). Through its history, it is the unconscious of the discipline that I seek to retrieve. To understand the rise and fall of the comparative study of religion, I call attention to transfers of knowledge between different countries and national traditions of orientalism, in what may be called histoire intellectuelle croisée.

Starting with the Enlightenment, and up to the First World War, the long nineteenth century saw the development of the modern, non-theological study of religion. The new discipline was institutionalized through the creation of Chairs in various European universities. The ‘discovery’ of Sanskrit and of its grammatical similarities with most European languages opened new horizons also for the study of religion. Through a fateful fallacy, the existence of Indo-European (or else Indo-Germanic, Aryan) languages was assumed to entail the existence in the distant past of an Aryan people, and of an Aryan religion. The devaluation, as it were, of the cultures and religions of the former Biblical East, the Near East was also a consequence of the new interest in India, its languages, cultures and religions

In the new taxonomy of religions that took shape throughout the nineteenth century, Judaism and Islam, the two religions closest to Christianity, on genetic and structural as well as historical grounds, lost the privileged status that had for centuries been associated with monotheism. Such transformations were directly related to a major paradox of secularization: Jews and Muslims were now perceived as belonging to the Orient, not to Europe. It is in this context that the prominence of Jewish Orientalists, as well as their typical Islamophilia must be understood.

Guy G. Stroumsa is Martin Buber Professor Emeritus of Comparative Religion, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Professor Emeritus of the Study of the Abrahamic Religions, and Emeritus Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford. He is a Member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Zurich. He is a laureate of the Humboldt Research Award, and a Chevalier de l’Ordre du Mérite. Further he is, together with Sarah Stroumsa, the recipient of the Leopold-Lucas-Preis for 2018. He is a distinguished guest to the MA IEIW.

Prof. em. Dr. Sarah Stroumsa: The Cairo Geniza: A Window to the Mediterranean Republic of Letters

In his reconstruction of a what he believed to be a typical Mediterranean medieval society, Shlomo Dov Goitein gave prime of place to the documentary material found in the Cairo Geniza. These documents furnished ample evidence for what Goitein named “symbiosis”.  Focusing, instead, on the literary material in the Geniza offers a different perspective on the character of the connections between intellectuals, on the level of integration of Jewish philosophers within the broader Muslim culture, and on the origin of the Cairo Geniza itself.

Sarah Stroumsa began her academic career at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1977, and then went on to study in Paris. She completed her Ph.D. with honors at the Hebrew University in 1984, where she held the Alice and Jack Ormut Chair in Arabic Studies in the department of Arabic language and literature and the department of Jewish thought. Her field of expertise is philosophy and religious thought in the medieval Islamic world, with a focus on the intellectual exchange between Jewish and Muslim religious thinkers. She also used to be director of the Friedberg Genizah Projects’ ‘Philosophy, Theology and Polemics in the Genizah’ group and is on the steering committee of ‘Intellectual Encounters: Philosophy and Science in the World of Medieval Islam’. In 2003, she was appointed deputy rector and in 2008 rector of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is, together with Guy Stroumsa, the recipient of the Leopold-Lucas-Preis for 2018. Besides, she is one of the three initiators of the MA IEIW.

Prof. em. Dr. Sara Sviri: Medieval al-Andalus: Where Mystical Traditions Meet

In the 13th century, Judaism and Islam gave birth to two monumental works which had a lasting impact on their respective mystical systems. Within Judaism and the Kabbalistic tradition, it was the Zohar, The Book of Splendor, which was destined to overshadow all other documents of Kabbalist literature. Within Sufism, Islam's mystical tradition, it was the work of the Andalusia born Ibn al-ʿArabī (died 1240), in particular his major works, The Meccan Revelations and The Gemstones of Divine Wisdom. To this, one should add the Christian philosopher and mystic Ramon Llull (1232/35 – 1316). In the early phase of his mystical endeavor, Llull composed a book in Arabic titled the Book of Contemplation. His major mystical work is probably The Book of the Lover and the Beloved. Another book that may reflect some Sufi echoes is The Book of the Order of Chivalry. Contemplation, Love and Chivalry had been prevalent themes in medieval mystical literature. Interestingly, in the Council of Vienne (1311-1312), Llull made a direct appeal to the Pope for the establishment of language schools for teaching Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic, where students, after acquiring these languages, would be sent out as missionaries. This was fulfilled at Paris, Oxford, Bologna, Salamanca, and at the Papal Court. In my presentation, I shall outline in brief themes and characteristics of the three mystical systems, whose birth-place was Medieval al-Andalus.

Since 2002, and now in her retirement, Sara Sviri has been affiliated as a distinguished visiting professor to the Department of Arabic and the Department of Comparative Religions at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Formerly, while residing in England, she was teaching at the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at University College London and at the University of Oxford. Her fields of study are Islamic mysticism (Sufism), mystical philosophy, mystical psychology, Judaeo-Arabic mystical writings, comparative and phenomenological aspects of Islam, the formative period of Islamic mysticism, and related topics. She has been guest lecturer in the MA IEIW in the academic years 2015/16 and 2016/17.

Dr. Krisztina Szilágyi: Who wrote polemical treatises against Islam?

Krisztina Szilágyi is research associate at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge. She received her Ph.D. from Princeton University. Prior to that, she studied Arabic and Jewish Studies in Budapest, Damascus and Jerusalem. Her main interest lies in the interactions between Christians, Jews and Muslims in the medieval Islamic world, in particular as reflected in polemical literature. She has been guest lecturer in the MA IEIW for the academic years 2015/16 and 2016/17.

Dr. Ayala Eliyahu: Islamic Philosophy and Muslim rituals in a Hebrew treatise attributed to al-Ghazālī

The Hebrew treatise Moznei ha-'Iyyunim (The Scales of Studies), attributed to al-Ghazālī, provides a rare example for a non-polemical attitude to Islam. This attitude is reflected, for instance, in a detailed description of Muslim rituals, and in faithful translations of Quran verses into Hebrew. The treatise's attribution to al-Ghazālī may have supported its reception in Hebrew literature, despite its Islamic character. However, the description of Muslim rituals, as well as the rest of the treatise, is taken from two works, Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ and Ibn al-Sīd al-Baṭalyawsī's Book of Imaginary Circles – both of which had philosophical positions very different from those of al-Ghazālī.

Ayala Eliyahu's research interest is medieval Islamic and Jewish philosophy which she mainly followed at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Now she works at the Knesset research center and as a tutor at the FU IE program.

Peter Tarras, LMU: Like a Second World: Free Will and The Notion of Microcosm in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Anthropologies (750-950 CE)

The notion of microcosm captures the idea that the structure of the world as a whole is replicated in one of its parts, most notably in the human being. In the history of philosophy, various models have been developed to spell out this idea. Psychistic models stress that what makes human beings a small world analogous to the world as a whole is that they, first and foremost, partake in its immaterial aspects. Early philosophical and theological anthropologies in the Islamicate world have for the most part incorporated this model and, thus, see the human soul and its faculties replicate cosmological structures. However, free will–one of the soul’s fundamental endowments—does not seem to square with this conception. Motion and change come about in the cosmos by necessity, whereas humans have the ability to initiate motion and change voluntarily. The aim of this presentation is to sketch how Jewish, Christian, and Muslim thinkers dealt with this problem and sought to integrate free will into their conception of the human being as a small world.

Sinan Abu-Shanab, Alumnus 2013/14: Before and After: How my experience at FU change me

My experience at FU in the MA-program IEIW changed me. From the curriculum, faculty, students, to the beauty and vibe of Berlin, this experience helped me realize potential in me that I didn’t know it existed. I learned that one has to shake off the biases, constraints and expectations implicit in one’s history and view and face the future as a clean slate on which one would write their own contribution informed but unencumbered by the negative constraints and assumptions of history. This program helped me draw on the iconoclastic qualities that I have in a way that allowed me to solve problems with a fresh eye. This is easier said than done, doubtless, but this is what this experience allowed me to consider. Today, I work with both Israelis and Palestinians to build business ventures in the region with the aim to create two things, social impact, and the next generation of leaders that will work to bring peace and prosperity to the region. I want to talk about how this program, taught me to think, reflect and then ACT.

Isa Babur, Alumnus 2014/15: (An)iconism in Turkish Islam: A literary Genre and the Calligraphic Form of Depiction of the Prophet  

Even though there is no any clear restriction in the Qur’an, there is an aniconism in Islam which strictly against any kind of depiction of prophet Muhammed. With few exceptions, it is not common graphic portraying the prophet(s) in Islamic tradition. This prohibition is usually explained with that any depiction of graphic representation of the prophet(s) may lead to idols.

Because of this restriction, a new literary genre developed among Muslims: The prophet Muhammad’s detailed physical and spiritual characteristics are described with prose and poetic forms of literature, and this genre was called as hilya (ornament). Even though hilya tradition had emerged and developed as a description of prophet Muhammad, later hilyas written also for other prophets, grandchildren of the prophet, caliphs, saints (awliya), and even for Rumi.

In 17th century Ottoman Istanbul, a newly emerged/fabricated hadith (the saying of Muhammed) was roaming around: “For him who sees my hilya after my death it is as if he had seen me myself, and he who sees it longing for me, for him God will make Hellfire prohibited.…” After (or shortly before) this hadith’s circulation, Turkish calligraphers and illuminators adopted this literary genre into a decorative art form and was called hilya-i sherif (the noble description). Because of above-mentioned hadith, this form of decorative arts supposed to have protective effects. As a result of that hilya was considered as a tool represents the prophet Muhammad after his death, and was thought it can protect houses, children, travelers,  and help a person who has difficulties. The calligraphers write down on papers, cloths, leathers, wooden panels, etc. It can be wall sized or even can be a pocket size to be carried. Hilya-i sharif as a decorative and religious form of art invented by the Ottoman Turks and peculiar to Turkish Muslims. In modern Turkey, still, it can be seen on walls of houses and mosques or hanged on the rear-view mirror of cars.

I argue that in Muslim/Turkish Ottoman world, both the literary genre and the calligraphic art forms hilya have similar functions with the icons of the eastern Christianity. And, since the earliest form of the calligraphic art form of hilya emerged in 17th century Ottoman Istanbul, I argue that encounter with Greek Orthodox Christians led to Turkish Muslims in Ottoman Empire to invent such a form of artistic/religious phenomena. In my presentation, I am going to develop these arguments and make some compression between calligraphic forms of hilya and Christians form of icons. The compression between them will not only be their appearances or artistic features but also their religious functions for Muslims and Christians.

Melhem Bader, Alumnus 2014/15: Doing philosophy on religious communities / Israel and East Jerusalem

Netanel Bar-Yehuda, Alumnus 2013/14: PhD Research Proposal

I will be introducing my research proposal titled "The Arabic Commentaries on Aristotle’s De Anima and Parallel Sensory Theories in Medieval Kalāmic Literature".

Simon Conrad, Alumnus 2015/16: Aspects of Muhammad Abduh's Pedagogical State

At the heart of Muḥammad ʿAbduh's (d. 1905) thought stands his desire to reform "the hearts and souls" of his fellow Muslims through education. Though modern in outlook, ʿAbduh resorts to Arabic philosophical ethics in theorising what might be termed an Islamic 'pedagogical state' in late nineteenth-century Egypt.

Nadia Harhash, Alumna 2013/14: Presentation/Talk on Experience

Zacky Khairul Umam, Alumnus 2013/14: Mapping the Rational Theology of Ibrahim al-Kurani (d. 1101/1690)

I aim to chart the intellectual genealogy of post-classical Islam by looking at the case of Mulla Ibrahim al-Kurani, a major Sunni author in early modern Medina. The first part of my presentation will offer a general overview of scholarly transmission of rational sciences pursued by Kurani along with the understanding of social-cultural milieu of his time. The second, I aim to answer some questions including: (1) did Kurani attempt to rearticulate Ash'arism in early modern time by questioning the notion of human actions and freedom? (2) Did Kurani try to comprehend Ash'arism according to the time of Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari (d. 324/936), and rejecting the opinion of later Ash'ari proponents? (3) Can we verify his position that is mentioned as the confluence between Akbariyyat and Taymiyyat? (4) How Kurani created 'tolerance' among the variety of religious schools within Islam? These questions can lead us to attest the intellectual project of this leading Kurdish thinker.

Mazen Okasha, Alumnus 2014/15: Arabic Review of Western Academic Contribution related to the Islamicate World

The Moment of Launching this review, where Middle East faces challenges, violence and rebellions, gives certain significance that voice of reason and dialogue can play a vital role for better co-existing and for more peaceful discussions on disputed issues. It is a try to remember Medieval Baghdad and its Majalis as Scholars from different religions were able to sit and discuss in a way and manner, which became almost impossible today. It is a come-back to that past in order to learn the way the Islamicate culture could flourish then and to investigate the shortcomings of today. It is a try to reopen a discussion on difficult questions, which have not been asked long time ago and which became taboo without any serious critique. The review will be an ambitious and courageous effort to establish a new discourse, a discourse based on reason as axis and based on humanity as value.

Avi Shalev, Alumnus 2016/17: A presentation on Bible exegesis and the philosophical topic of necessity and freedom

There are Jewish and Karaite theologians who lived in the Middle ages and could be described as Mu'atazilite, but none that can be described as Ash'arite. The reason is, probably, the difficulty to conjoin Bible message with Ash'arite ideas. The essence of the Ash'arite - Mu'atazilite disagreement is the conflicting attributes of God's omnipotence and justice. Ash'arites celebrate God's power and Mu'atazilites God's justice. In my presentation I would like to point to Biblical sources that describe God's attributes in ways that cannot be accepted by Ash'arites and leave Jews little choice but to embrace a Mu'atazilite position on the question of God's action in the world.

Esra Ukallo, Alumna 2014/15: Beginnings of the notion of legal capacity in Usul al- Fikh literature

Yehonatan Yahav, Alumnus 2013/14: Ibn Qutayba: Adab, Theology and Religious Authority

Ibn Qutayba al-Dīnawarī (213-276 AH / 828-889 CE) is a well-known literary figure, perhaps one of the three most prominent adab masters after al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 869 CE) and Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (d. 756 CE).

Yet Ibn Qutayba is also a theologian who wrote several important texts on religious thought and culture. Although somewhat neglected, perhaps due to the difficulty to define and categorize within the borders of later Sunni law-centered schools, his theology sheds light on early Sunni intellectual development and its heated debates with kalām. One of the more cited titles given to Ibn Qutayba in this context is Ibn Taymiyya’s (d. 1328) naming him “speaker [khatīb] of the Sunna” alongside al-Jāḥiẓ who he named “speaker of the Muʿtazila”.

I began my research on Ibn Qutayba’s work in my M.A. thesis (as part of the Intellectual Encounters of the Islamicate World program) and am currently continuing it as my PhD research topic in Hebrew University.

My research focuses on Ibn Qutayba’s writing on theology, religion and Muslim culture and identity, while trying to place it in the context of his adab work. It seems to me that his theological and religiopolitical writing are closely tied to his adab training, exhibiting an interesting use of adab-originated perspectives and ideas. To what extent these adab underpinnings which are quite apparent in Ibn Qutayba’s writing had a lasting influence on other, later, Sunni writers is yet to be seen.