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Ibn Waḥshiyya | |
|---|---|
| ابن وحشية | |
 Beginning of The Nabataean Agriculture from a 17th-century manuscript | |
| Died | 930–1 CE (318 AH)[1] |
| Philosophical work | |
| Era | Islamic Golden Age |
| Region | Kufa (Iraq) |
| Language | Arabic |
Main interests | Agriculture, botany, toxicology, alchemy and chemistry, magic |
Notable works | The Nabataean Agriculture |
Ibn Waḥshiyya (Arabic: ابن وحشية), died c. 930, was a Nabataean (Aramaic-speaking, rural Iraqi) agriculturalist, toxicologist, and alchemist born in Qussīn, near Kufa in Iraq.[2] He is the author of the Nabataean Agriculture (Kitāb al-Filāḥa al-Nabaṭiyya), an influential Arabic work on agriculture, astrology, and magic.[3]
Already by the end of the tenth century, various works were being falsely attributed to him.[4] One of these spurious writings, the Kitāb Shawq al-mustahām fī maʿrifat rumūz al-aqlām ("The Book of the Desire of the Maddened Lover for the Knowledge of Secret Scripts", perhaps 1022–3 CE),[5] is notable as an early proposal that some Egyptian hieroglyphs could be read phonetically, rather than only logographically.[6]
His full name was Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn [Qays ibn] al-Mukhtār ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn Ḥarathyā ibn Badanyā ibn Barṭānyā ibn ʿĀlāṭyā al-Kasdānī al-Ṣūfī.[7]
Just like the semi-legendary Jabir ibn Hayyan, he carried the nisba al-Ṣūfī despite the fact that he is not known to have engaged in or to have written anything about Sufism.[8] The nisba al-Kasdānī is a variant of al-Kaldānī ('Chaldaean'), a term referring to the native inhabitants of Mesopotamia that was also used in Greek, but (given the known -shd-/-ld- variation in Babylonian language) may perhaps be based on a living oral tradition indigenous to Iraq.[9]
Ibn Wahshiyya was likely born in Qussīn (Iraq) and died in the year 318 of the Islamic calendar (= 930-1 CE). Very little else is known about his life. Our main source of information are Ibn Wahshiyya's own writings, as well as the short entry in Ibn al-Nadim's (died c. 995) Fihrist, where he is explicitly said to be among the "authors whose life is not well known". Ibn Wahshiyya himself claimed to be a descendant of the Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib (r. 705 – 681 BCE), whom the rural, Aramaic-speaking population of southern Iraq (known to Arabic authors of Ibn Wahshiyya's time as 'Nabataeans') revered as their illustrious ancestor. Despite the fact that these Iraqi 'Nabataeans'[a] were generally looked down upon as lowly peasants by the contemporary Arab elite, Ibn Wahshiyya identified himself as one of them. Ibn Wahshiyya's self-identification as 'Nabataean' seems credible given the accurate use of Aramaic terms in his works.[10]
Ibn Wahshiyya's works were written down and redacted after his death by his student and scribe Abū Ṭālib al-Zayyāt.[11] They were used not only by later agriculturalists, but also by authors of works on magic like Maslama al-Qurṭubī (died 964, author of the Ghāyat al-ḥakīm, "The Aim of the Sage", Latin: Picatrix), and by philosophers like Maimonides (1138–1204) in his Dalālat al-ḥāʾirīn ("Guide for the Perplexed", c. 1190).[12]
Ibn al-Nadim, in his Kitāb al-Fihrist (c. 987), lists approximately twenty works attributed to Ibn Wahshiyya. However, most of these were probably not written by Ibn Wahshiyya himself, but rather by other tenth-century authors inspired by him.[13]
Ibn Wahshiyya's major work, the Nabataean Agriculture (Kitāb al-Filāḥa al-Nabaṭiyya, c. 904), claims to have been translated from an "ancient Syriac" original, written c. 20,000 years ago by the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia.[14] In Ibn Wahshiyya's time, Syriac was thought to have been the primordial language used at the time of creation.[15] While the work may indeed have been translated from a Syriac original,[16] in reality Syriac is a language that only emerged in the first century. By the ninth century, it had become the carrier of a rich literature, including many works translated from the Greek. The book's extolling of Babylonian civilization against that of the conquering Arabs forms part of a wider movement (the Shu'ubiyya movement) in the early Abbasid period (750-945 CE), which witnessed the emancipation of non-Arabs from their former status as second-class Muslims.[17]
One of the works attributed to Ibn Wahshiyya is the Kitāb Shawq al-mustahām fī maʿrifat rumūz al-aqlām ("The Book of the Desire of the Maddened Lover for the Knowledge of Secret Scripts”), a work dealing amongst other things with Egyptian hieroglyphs. Its author refers to his extensive travels in Egypt, but Ibn Wahshiyya himself seems never to have visited Egypt, a country which he barely even mentions in his authentic works. For this and other reasons, scholars believe the work to be spurious.[18] According to Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila, it may have been authored by Hasan ibn Faraj, an obscure descendant of the Harranian Sabian scholar Sinan ibn Thabit ibn Qurra (c. 880–943) who claimed to have merely copied the work in the year 413 AH, corresponding to 1022–3 CE.[19]
Another work attributed to Ibn Wahshiyya is a treatise on toxicology called the Book of Poisons, which combines contemporary knowledge on pharmacology with magic and astrology.[20] This treatise was strongly influenced by Indian sources.[20]
The works attributed to Ibn Wahshiyya contain several cipher alphabets that were used to encrypt magic formulas.[21]
Pseudo-Ibn Wahshiyya's Kitāb Shawq al-mustahām fī maʿrifat rumūz al-aqlām ("The Book of the Desire of the Maddened Lover for the Knowledge of Secret Scripts", perhaps 1022–3 CE, see above), has been claimed by Egyptologist Okasha El-Daly to have correctly identified the phonetic value of a number of Egyptian hieroglyphs.[23] However, other scholars have been highly sceptical about El-Daly's claims on the accuracy of these identifications, which betray a keen interest in (as well as some basic knowledge of) the nature of Egyptian hieroglyphs, but are in fact for the most part incorrect.[24]
The book was translated into English by Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall in 1806 as Ancient Alphabets and Hieroglyphic Characters Explained; with an Account of the Egyptian Priests, their Classes, Initiation, and Sacrifices in the Arabic Language by Ahmad Bin Abubekr Bin Wahishih.[25]
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
Ibn Waḥshiyya (Arabic: ابن وحشية), died c. 930, was a Nabataean (Aramaic-speaking, rural Iraqi) agriculturalist, toxicologist, and alchemist born in Qussīn, near Kufa in Iraq. He is the author of the Nabataean Agriculture (Kitāb al-Filāḥa al-Nabaṭiyya), an influential Arabic work on agriculture, astrology, and magic. Already by the end of the tenth century, various works were being falsely attributed to him. One of these spurious writings, the Kitāb Shawq al-mustahām fī maʿrifat rumūz al-aqlām ("The Book of the Desire of the Maddened Lover for the Knowledge of Secret Scripts", perhaps 1022–3 CE), is notable as an early proposal that some Egyptian hieroglyphs could be read phonetically, rather than only logographically.
The Nabataean Agriculture (Arabic: كتاب الفلاحة النبطية, romanized: Kitāb al-Filāḥa al-Nabaṭiyya, lit. 'Book of the Nabataean Agriculture'), also written The Nabatean Agriculture, is a 10th-century text on agronomy by Ibn Wahshiyya (born in Qussīn, present-day Iraq; died c. 930). It contains information on plants and agriculture, as well as on magic and astrology. It was frequently cited by later Arabic writers on these topics. The Nabataean Agriculture was the first book written in Arabic about agriculture, as well as the most influential. Ibn Wahshiyya claimed that he translated it from a 20,000-year-old Mesopotamian text. Though some doubts remain, modern scholars believe that the work may be translated from a Syriac original of the 5th or 6th century. In any case, the work is ultimately based on Greek and Latin agricultural writings, heavily supplemented with local material. The work consists of some 1500 manuscript pages, principally concerned with agriculture but also containing lengthy digressions on religion, philosophy, magic, astrology, and folklore. Some of the most valuable material on agriculture deals with vineyards, arboriculture, irrigation and soil science. This agricultural information became well known throughout the Arabic-Islamic world from Yemen to Spain. The non-agricultural material in The Nabataean Agriculture paints a vivid picture of rural life in 10th-century Iraq. It describes a pagan religion with connections to ancient Mesopotamian religion tempered by Hellenistic influences. Some of this non-agricultural material was cited by the Andalusian magician and alchemist Maslama al-Qurtubi (died 964) in his Ghayat al-Hakim ("The Goal of the Wise", Latin: Picatrix), while other parts were discussed by the Jewish philosopher Maimonides in his Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190). The French Orientalist Étienne Marc Quatremère introduced the work to the European scholarly community in 1835. Most 19th-century scholars dismissed it as a forgery, but from the 1960s onward several researchers have shown increased interest in its authenticity and impact.
The Sabians, sometimes also spelled Sabaeans or Sabeans, are a religious group mentioned three times in the Quran (as الصابئون al-Ṣābiʾūn, in later sources الصابئة al-Ṣābiʾa), where it is implied that they belonged to the 'People of the Book' (ahl al-kitāb). Their original identity, which seems to have been forgotten at an early date, has been called an "unsolved Quranic problem". Modern scholars have variously identified them as Mandaeans, Manichaeans, Sabaeans, Elchasaites, Archontics, ḥunafāʾ (either as a type of Gnostics or as "sectarians"), or as adherents of the astral religion of Harran. Some scholars believe that it is impossible to establish their original identity with any degree of certainty. At least from the ninth century on, the Quranic epithet 'Sabian' was claimed by various religious groups who sought recognition by the Muslim authorities as a People of the Book deserving of legal protection (dhimma). Among those are the Sabians of Harran, adherents of a poorly understood ancient Semitic religion centered in the upper Mesopotamian city of Harran, who were described by Syriac Christian heresiographers as star worshippers. These Harranian Sabians practiced an old Semitic form of polytheism, combined with a significant amount of Hellenistic elements. Most of the historical figures known in the ninth–eleventh centuries as al-Ṣābiʼ were probably either members of this Harranian religion or descendants of such members, most notably the Harranian astronomers and mathematicians Thabit ibn Qurra (died 901) and al-Battani (died 929). From the early tenth century on, the term 'Sabian' was applied to purported 'pagans' of all kinds, such as the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, or Buddhists. Ibn Wahshiyya (died c. 930) used the term for a type of Mesopotamian paganism that preserved elements of ancient Assyro-Babylonian religion. Today in Iraq and Iran, the name 'Sabian' is normally applied to the Mandaeans, a modern ethno-religious group that follows the teachings of their prophet John the Baptist (Yahya ibn Zakariya). These Mandaean Sabians, whose most important religious ceremony is baptism, are monotheistic, and their holy book is known as the Ginza Rabba. Mandaean Sabian prophets include Adam, Seth, Noah, Shem and John the Baptist with Adam being the founder of the religion and John being the greatest and final prophet.
The Nabataeans of Iraq or Nabatees of Iraq (Arabic: نبط العراق, romanized: Nabaṭ al-ʿIrāq) was a name used by medieval Islamicate scholars for the rural, Aramaic-speaking, native inhabitants of central and southern Iraq (the Sawād) during the early Islamic period (7th–10th centuries CE). They are not to be confused with the ancient Nabataeans, a northern Arab people who established a kingdom at Petra during the late Hellenistic period (c. 150 BCE – 106 CE), and whom the Islamic-era Arabs seem to have called 'Nabataeans of the Levant' (نبط الشام, Nabaṭ al-Shām). The Nabataeans of Iraq were strongly associated by their Muslim overlords with agriculture and with a sedentary way of living, as opposed to the nomadic lifestyle of the conquering Arabs. The Arabic term Nabaṭī (also Nabīṭ, plural Anbāṭ) was often used as a derogatory term, identifying anyone who did not speak Arabic and who maintained a rural lifestyle as lacking education and culture, or as being akin to farm animals. Thus conceived of as a kind of 'other' to the noble way of life maintained by the nomadic Arabs, the term also came to be used for the non-Arab rural inhabitants of other places, such as for example for 'Nabataean' Kurds (al-Nabaṭ al-Akrād) or 'Nabataean' Armenians (al-Nabaṭ al-Armāniyyūn). The term 'Nabataeans of Iraq' appears to have been an exonym applied by the Arabs, not used by the Iraqi population to refer to itself. However, it was not always derogatory in meaning. As a general term for pre-Islamic Mesopotamian people, it was also used in a more positive way by learned authors such as the historian al-Mas'udi (died 956), who identified the ancient Babylonian kings as 'Nabataeans', stating that "these are the Nabataeans and others [...] It is they who erected the buildings, founded the cities, established the administrative divisions, dug the canals, planted the trees, sank the wells, worked the land." Al-Mas'udi's knowledge of the history of Mesopotamia, being ultimately based on Greek sources, was quite impressive for his time. However, the fact that the Iraqi 'Nabataeans' whom he used as direct informants were speakers of Aramaic, a language best known in his time through its Syriac variant, led him to use the terms 'Nabataean' and 'Syrian' (Suryānī) interchangeably, applying them both to the various Aramaic-speaking Hellenistic kingdoms established in the Near East after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE. Another name which al-Mas'udi sometimes used synonymously with both 'Nabataean' and 'Syrian' is 'Chaldaean' (Kaldānī), a similarly ambiguous term originally referring to the inhabitants of a small kingdom in southeastern Mesopotamia (Chaldea) but which came to designate Mesopotamia as a whole in the writings of Greek authors such as Aristotle (384–322 BCE), as well as in the Bible (both usages of which al-Mas'udi was aware). Since al-Mas'udi also believed the Parthians (whom he called Ardawān, perhaps after the several Parthian kings who carried this name) to have been 'Chaldeans', in his historical imagination the Syriac/Aramaic-speaking 'Nabataeans' or 'Chaldaeans' had ruled over Mesopotamia from the legendary times of Nimrod until the advent of the Sassanids in the 3rd century CE. The Iraqi Nabataeans themselves, who were mainly peasants, seem to have had little knowledge about their own past. In this regard their case was similar to the Persians and other people with a long history before the advent of Islam, but it was exacerbated by the fact that most Iraqi Nabataeans had long since converted to Christianity, which tended to focus their interest on Christian salvation history rather than on their own pagan heritage. However, among those who had remained pagan there was a greater motivation to vaunt their glorious past as long-time rulers of the land. For example, the Nabataean scholar Ibn Wahshiyya (died c. 930 CE) claimed to be a descendant of the Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib (r. 704 – 681 BCE), who was also more widely revered by pagan Nabataeans at the time as their illustrious ancestor. It is also from the pagan peasantry that Ibn Wahshiyya got most of his local information when compiling his Nabataean Agriculture, an influential work containing a mix of folkloric and learned knowledge on agriculture, plants, magic, astrology, and various subjects related to religion and myth. Ibn Wahshiyya claimed to have translated this work from a c. 20,000 old original written in "ancient Syriac" (al-Suryānī al-qadīm), believing it to contain the first seeds of all human knowledge. Syriac, a language that originated in the 1st century CE, was commonly believed in Ibn Wahshiyya's time to have been the language spoken in Paradise and used at the time of creation. Thus, the whole of Mesopotamian history was imagined to have been a product of Aramaic (i.e., 'Syrian' or 'Nabataean') culture. In reality, the Nabataean Agriculture was likely translated from a Syriac work that was first composed on the basis of Greek and Latin agricultural writings and then gradually augmented with local material during the last few centuries before Ibn Wahshiyya's time. Together with al-Mas'udi's historical works, and like the latter written in the context of the Shu'ubiyya movement which sought to preserve and promote the heritage of non-Arab peoples, the Nabataean Agriculture is the product of a conscious attempt to write down what was known at the time about pre-Islamic Mesopotamian, 'Nabataean' culture, a subject for which it remains a valuable source today.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
