Following the Steps of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’ in the Ottoman World: II: ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Bisṭāmī and His tashjīr Diagrams of Science

• GODEFROID DE CALLATAŸ ^[1]
  1. [1] UC LOUVAIN
• Localización: Mediterranea.: International Journal on the Transfer of Knowledge, ISSN-e 2445-2378, Nº. 8, 2023, págs. 55-88
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • In various places of his extensive production the fifteenth-century littérateur and occultist ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Bisṭāmī (d. 858/1454) presents a classification of the sciences in the form of a tree. In this paper we discuss four variants of this ‘tashjīr’ representation from four different works of al-Bisṭāmī as they have come down to us in manuscripts. We compare these diagrams with one another, discuss their respective textual environments, and bring al-Bisṭāmī’s arboreal representations in line with the classification of the sciences of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’, their obvious source. By putting this tashjīr representation side by side with other examples of tree-shaped science classifications inside and outside the Islamic world, we seek to better assess al-Bisṭāmī’s original contribution in turning the Ikhwān’s system of organizing knowledge into a tree-shaped diagram