Esotericism in a manuscript culture: Aḥmad al-Būnī and his readers through the Mamlūk period by ...

482 Pages·2014·7.33 MB·English

Esotericism in a manuscript culture:
Aḥmad al-Būnī and his readers through the Mamlūk period

by

Noah Daedalus Gardiner

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
(Near Eastern Studies)
in the University of Michigan
2014

Doctoral Committee:

Professor Alexander Knysh, Chair
Associate Professor Kathryn Babayan
Professor Frédéric Bauden, University of Liège
Professor Michael Bonner
Professor Andrew Shryock
© Noah Gardiner, 2014.
Dedication

To my parents, Elaine and Charlie Gardiner, who have
always let me find my own way.

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Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I owe a fundamental debt to scores of librarians and their predecessors at
the numerous libraries I have visited and otherwise called upon in the course of this project. This
includes the staffs of the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, the Österreichische
Nationalbibliothek in Vienna, the Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig, the Schloss Friedenstein Library in
Gotha, the Berlin Staatsbibliothek, the British Library in London, the Bodleian Library at Oxford
University, the Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi in Istanbul, the Manisa Kütüphanesi, the Konya Bölge Yazma
Eserler Kütüphanesi, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the Dār al-Kutub (Egyptian National Library) in Cairo,
the Firestone Library at Princeton University, and, of course, the Hatcher Graduate Library at the
University of Michigan. Without their curation efforts over the years—indeed, over the centuries—
historians such as myself would be all but useless. The present wave of digitization efforts that
librarians have been pioneering will continue to make the kind of research conducted for this study
more and more feasible, and I hope that those of us in medieval Islamic studies and related fields will
rise to the occasion of utilizing and sharing with our students the incredible resources they are making
available. I would like extend particular thanks to Jon Rodgers, Near East librarian at the Hatcher
Graduate Library, as well as to his associate Evyn Kropf, with whom I first had the pleasure of working
as a cataloger in the library’s recent effort to re-catalog and digitize its Islamic manuscript collections.
Evyn, already a baḥr al-ʿilm in the field of Islamic manuscript studies, is an invaluable colleague, and I
am lucky to also count her as a dear friend.
I undertook a great deal of travel in order to visit the libraries named above, and this of course
required a not inconsiderable amount of funding and organizational support. For this I owe thanks to
numerous entities at the University of Michigan, including the Rackham Graduate School, the
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Department of Near Eastern Studies, the Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS) program, the
Islamic Studies Program, and the Institute for the Humanities. Organizations outside the university
were also of great importance, particularly the American Research Center in Egypt, The Islamic
Manuscript Association, and the Thesaurus Islamicus/Dār al-Kutub project.
I would like to thank the members of my committee: Michael Bonner and Kathryn Babayan of
the Department of Near Eastern Studies, Andrew Shryock of the Department of Anthropology, and
Frédéric Bauden of the University of Liège. They have given me much warm support over the past
several years, and have shown great forbearance in the face of my sudden prolixity toward the end of
this project. Above all I would like to thank my adviser and committee chair Alexander Knysh, a truly
gracious man, a great and patient guide in the world of medieval Sufism, and a good friend. Other
faculty at the University of Michigan also have been instrumental to my success there, particularly
Gottfried Hagen of Near Eastern Studies, George Hoffman of Romance Languages and MEMS, and Betsy
Sears of the Department of the History of Art. Numerous faculty from other universities have also
generously shared their time and knowledge with me, including Adam Gacek, François Déroche, Jan
Just Witkam, Maribel Fierro, John Dagenais, Alex Metcalfe, and Antonella Ghersetti. From my time at
Brown University I owe a great debt to Tara Nummedal, Matthew Bagger, Nicolas Wey-Gomez, and
Rebecca Schneider, as well as to Dean Perry Ashley and the staff of the Resumed Undergraduate
Education program, without whom my re-entry to academia after several years away likely would not
have been possible. The staff of Near Eastern Studies have also been essential to getting me through
this process, and I would offer my particularly warm thanks to the two Graduate Student Coordinators I
have had the pleasure of working with, Angela Beskow and Wendy Burr. Numerous others I interacted
with here at UM also were essential to this project, including Terrie Fisher of MEMS, Laurie Sutch and
the staff at the Knowledge Navigation Center at the Hatcher, as well as Chris Taylor and Todd Austin of
Instructional Support Service, who helped bring NES into the twenty-first century, if only with regard
to video-conferencing. I would also offer special thanks to the tireless employees and volunteers of the
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Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO), one of the oldest and strongest graduate employee unions in
the United States. And I must mention UM’s WCBN, the best college radio station in the world, whose
freeform weirdness has been my faithful companion through many, many long nights of writing.
I would thank my fellow NES grads who not only helped guide me in the unwritten sunnah on
which the department really operates but also ensured there was never a dull moment here in Ann
Arbor, particularly Rob Haug, Laura Culbertson, Derek Mancini-Lander, Özgen Felek, Maxim Romanov,
Sara Feldman, İlgi Evrim Gerçek, Helen Dixon, Anne Kreps, Stephanie Bolz, Frank Castiglione, Ethan
Menchinger, Paul Love, Gina Konstantopoulos, Jason Zurawski, Aiyub Palmer, Ali Hussain, and Mike and
Alison Vacca, as well as other UM grads such as Kevin Jones, Yoni Brack, Ismail Alatas, and especially
Dan Birchok, who selflessly volunteered himself as a reader. I have also made great friends in my
travels and studies outside of Ann Arbor, many of whom had a hand in the completion of this project,
especially Elena Chardakliyska, Jake Benson, Daud Sutton and Ada Romero-Sanchez, Davidson
MacLaren, Ahmed Shawket, Figen Öztürk, Ahmad Ismail, and Matthew and Jasmine Melvin-Koushki.
Numerous others whom I have only ever met online have also made substantial contributions,
particularly the members of Islamic Occult Philosophy Facebook group and the mysterious and ever-
helpful A.O.M.
Finally, I thank my parents, Elaine and Charlie Gardiner, who have supported me
unconditionally through the many twists and turns of my life, and Joshua Gass, my fighting partner for
lo these many years, both in the academy and far, far outside it. Last but certainly not least, I thank my
wife and fellow NES-er Nancy Linthicum, by far the best surprise of my time here in Ann Arbor. She has
not only tolerated me and kept me laughing during the last eighteen months of writing this
dissertation, but has also read every page of it with her careful attention to detail.

Noah Gardiner
Ann Arbor, May 2014
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Table of Contents

Dedication ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….ii
Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….iii
List of Charts …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…x
List of Tables ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………xi
List of Figures ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………xii
List of Appendices ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………xiii
Notes on manuscript references ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..xiv
Notes on Arabic latinization and abjad-numerology ………………………………………………………………………………xvi
Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….... xvii
Chapter One, Introduction: Al-Būnī in the archives ………………………………………………………………………………… 1
1.0 Preamble: Turning to the manuscripts .................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Al-Būnī studies ............................................................................................................................................. 5
1.1.1 Other recent research on the occult sciences ...................................................................................... 12
1.2 The survey of the corpus ..........................................................................................................................14
1.2.1 ‘Wide-angle’ views of the corpus ........................................................................................................... 15
1.2.2 The importance of the survey in this project ...................................................................................... 19
1.3 Bibliographical findings............................................................................................................................19
1.3.1 Al-Būnī’s ‘core’ works .............................................................................................................................. 21
1.3.1.1 Descriptions of the core works .................................................................................................. 22
1.3.2 Other medieval Būnian works, authentic and pseudepigraphic ...................................................... 24
1.3.3 Issues surrounding Shams al-maʿārif wa-laṭāʾif al-ʿawārif ..................................................................... 27
1.3.3.1 The notion of ‘three redactions’ of Shams al-maʿārif ............................................................... 31
1.3.3.2 Notes on Shams al-maʿārif al-kubrá ............................................................................................. 33
1.3.4 Medieval bibliographical paratexts and notices ................................................................................. 37
1.4 Al-Būnī through the lenses of ‘New Philology’ and the study of ‘manuscript cultures’ ................40
1.4.1 ‘Reading communities’, esotericist and otherwise ............................................................................. 43
1.4.1.1 Stock on ‘textual communities’ ................................................................................................. 46
1.4.1.2 Dagenais on the ethics of reading ............................................................................................. 48
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1.4.1.3 Hirschler on ‘reading communities’ ......................................................................................... 50
1.4.2 The textual economy................................................................................................................................ 51
1.5 ‘Esotericism’ and the Science of letters and names .............................................................................54
1.5.1 Islamic esotericisms ................................................................................................................................. 57
1.5.2 Esotericism and ‘mysticism’ .................................................................................................................... 64
1.5.3 Esotericism and the ‘occult sciences’ .................................................................................................... 65
1.6 Al-Būnī’s life and the career of his corpus .............................................................................................70
1.6.1 The man from Būnah ............................................................................................................................... 71
1.6.2 A synopsis of the career of the Būnian corpus through the Mamlūk period ................................. 75
Chapter Two, The heart trusts in writing: Esotericist reading communities and the early transmission of
al-Būnī's works ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….78
2.0 Introduction: The ethics of esotericist knowledge transmission ......................................................78
2.0.1 Manuscript evidence relating to the germinal period ....................................................................... 84
2.0.2 Chapter overview ...................................................................................................................................... 86
2.1 Esotericism in al-Būnī’s works ................................................................................................................87
2.1.1 Al-Būnī and the Qurʾān: hermeneutics and elitism ............................................................................. 88
2.1.2 Al-Būnī and ‘the esoteric tradition’ ....................................................................................................... 98
2.1.3 The impact on al-Būnī’s readers .......................................................................................................... 104
2.2 Esotericist reading communities and al-Būnī’s use of tabdīd al-ʿilm ............................................... 105
2.2.1 Tabdīd al-ʿilm ............................................................................................................................................. 106
2.2.2 The intertexts in al-Būnī’s works ......................................................................................................... 108
2.2.3 Implications of the intertexts regarding al-Būnī’s composition and revision practices............ 112
2.2.4 Rhetorical and social-practical effects of the intertexts .................................................................. 113
2.3 Al-Būnī’s composition and transmission practices ........................................................................... 114
2.3.1 The composition and transmission paratexts ................................................................................... 115
2.3.1.1 Authorial colophon for ʿAlam al-hudá, and notes on al-Būnī’s compositional practices 115
2.3.1.2 Collation statements in Süleymaniye MS Reşid efendi 590.1 and 590.2 ............................ 117
2.3.1.3 Copied audition certificate in BnF MS arabe 2658, further evidence of audition ........... 121
2.3.2 Audition, reading communities, and esotericism ............................................................................. 124
2.3.2.1 Social, historical, and geographical parameters of audition .............................................. 125
2.2.2.2 Audition’s peak popularity: Damascus and Cairo in the 6th/12th-8th/14th centuries ........ 132
2.3.3 Audition practices and esotericism with regard to Ibn al-ʿArabī and al-Būnī .............................. 135
2.3.3.1 Ibn al-ʿArabī’s two types of audition ....................................................................................... 138
2.3.3.2 Al-Būnī’s use of audition ........................................................................................................... 141
2.4 Esotericist reading communities in the ‘long’ century after al-Būnī’s death ............................... 145
2.4.1 Bibliographical paratexts considered in relation to the intertexts ............................................... 146
2.4.2 Issues of transmission and compromise substitutes for it .............................................................. 150
2.4.3 Reading al-Būnī with other lettrist authors ....................................................................................... 152
2.5 Some signs of transition, the neo-Ikhwān al-ṣafāʾ and the ‘courtly’ Shams al-maʿārif ................. 155
2.5.1 The neo-Ikhwān al-ṣafāʾ ......................................................................................................................... 156
2.5.2 BnF MS arabe 2647, the ‘courtly’ Shams al-maʿārif ............................................................................. 157
2.6 Conclusion: The heart trusts in writing .............................................................................................. 158
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Chapter Three, Portable cosmos: Al-Būnī's lettrist cosmology and the uses of the Sufi book ………………161
3.0 Introduction: Esotericism, cosmology, and the Sufi book ............................................................... 161
3.0.1 Notes on the manuscripts of Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt drawn on in this chapter ....................................... 166
3.1 Cosmology and lettrism prior to al-Būnī ............................................................................................ 166
3.1.1 Letters and cosmology in ‘extremist’ and early Ismāʿīlite Shīʿite thought ................................... 170
3.1.2 Letters and cosmology in Fāṭimid-era Ismāʿīlite Neoplatonism ..................................................... 173
3.1.3 Related themes in the Jābirian corpus and Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-ṣafāʾ ................................................... 177
3.1.4 Letters and cosmology in the writings of Ibn Masarrah al-Jabalī .................................................. 180
3.1.5 Western Sufi lettrism after Ibn Masarrah .......................................................................................... 182
3.2 Reading Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt ......................................................................................................................... 186
3.2.1 Al-Būnī’s lettrist cosmology .................................................................................................................. 191
3.2.1.1 The first world of Invention ..................................................................................................... 198
3.2.1.2 The second world of Invention ................................................................................................ 200
3.2.1.3 The first world of Origination .................................................................................................. 205
3.2.1.4 The second world of Origination ............................................................................................. 210
3.2.2 The letters in action: The forty-eight letters of the manifest world ............................................. 212
3.2.3 Diagrams and talismans in Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt ........................................................................................ 218
3.2.3.1 The alif diagram .......................................................................................................................... 221
3.2.3.2 The rāʾ diagram ........................................................................................................................... 222
3.2.3.3 Talismans in practice ................................................................................................................. 224
3.3 Notes on al-Būnī’s education and Sufi training ................................................................................. 225
3.3.1 Al-Būnī and al-Mahdawī ........................................................................................................................ 226
3.3.1.1 Al-Mahdawī and lettrism .......................................................................................................... 233
3.3.2 Al-Būnī’s isnād according to al-Bisṭāmī ............................................................................................... 237
3.3.3 Al-Būnī’s education in the West according to al-Maqrīzī ................................................................ 243
3.4 Conclusion................................................................................................................................................ 247
Chapter Four, Encyclopædism and post-esotericist lettrism: The Būnian corpus in the Mamlūk textual
economy ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….250
4.0 Introduction: Remembering al-Būnī in the Mamlūk period ............................................................ 250
4.0.1 Chapter overview .................................................................................................................................... 261
4.1 Mamlūk-era manuscripts of the Būnian corpus ................................................................................ 263
4.1.1 Shifts in the demand for Būnian works .............................................................................................. 264
4.1.2 Būnian works produced for court settings ......................................................................................... 267
4.1.3 Geographical spread ............................................................................................................................... 268
4.2 Al-Būnī in the Mamlūk textual economy ............................................................................................ 270
4.2.1 Al-Būnī and the encyclopædists ........................................................................................................... 275
4.2.1.1 Ibn Manẓūr’s Lisān al-ʿarab ........................................................................................................ 277
4.2.1.2 Al-Nuwayrī’s Nihāyat al-arab ..................................................................................................... 281
4.2.1.3 al-Qalqashandī’s Ṣubḥ al-aʿshá .................................................................................................. 287
4.2.2 Critiques of al-Būnī as a heretic .......................................................................................................... 293
4.2.2.1 Ibn Taymīyah on al-Būnī ........................................................................................................... 294
4.2.2.2 Ibn al-Naqqāsh on al-Būnī ........................................................................................................ 298
4.2.3 Ibn Khaldūn’s critique of al-Būnī and the science of letters ........................................................... 300
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4.2.3.1 al-Shāṭibī on al-Būnī .................................................................................................................. 302
4.2.3.2 Ibn al-Khaṭīb on al-Būnī ........................................................................................................... 305
4.2.3.3 Ibn Khaldūn’s comments on al-Būnī and Ibn al-ʿArabī ........................................................ 309
4.2.3.4 The context of Ibn Khaldūn’s attack on lettrism .................................................................. 317
4.2.3.5 Were al-Būnī’s works censored? .............................................................................................. 319
4.3 ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Bisṭāmī, the neo-Ikhwān al-ṣafāʾ, and post-esotericist lettrism ................... 321
4.3.1 ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Bisṭāmī .................................................................................................................... 322
4.3.2 Al-Bisṭāmī and the neo-Ikhwān al-ṣafāʾ of the 9th/15th century ...................................................... 325
4.3.3 The apotheosis of the reader: al-Bisṭāmī’s initiation through books ............................................ 329
Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….341
Charts ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………347
Tables ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ……..351
Figures …..………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..356
Appendices …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 373
Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………445

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