Forms of Knowledge in the Heart

From our reading last week, this is how Ibn Mājid speaks of the purpose of his astronomical descriptions and teachings,

…for the discerning pilot to find his way through the expanse and the compact of the heavenly spheres… to advance to the ultimate degree and thus picture the sciences in his heart; and to comprehend the turning and dimensions of the spheres through the stars as they rise and set.

The original of this curious “picturing the sciences in the heart” is well worth a closer look. It may be said that the Arabic wording, yusawwiru al-‘ulūm fī qalbihi, is medieval epistemology in a nutshell, particularly in relation to technoscientific knowledge. In describing an accomplished pilot and the perfection of his art, this formula has three components: 1–an object, what is acquired or obtained, al-‘ulūm—plural of ‘ilm, knowledge, often translated as “sciences” or “techniques”; 2–a manner of acquisition, or a process, the verb yusawwiru—a root (s-w-r) we had found used for the “shapes” of constellations, and which has to do with forms, and in particular the Platonic ideas/forms/shapes (suwar aflatuniyyah); 3–a recipient or container for the knowledge acquired, qalb—the “heart” as a centre of consciousness sometimes distinct and sometimes overlapping with ‘aql, “intelect” or “mind”.

So, let’s for now leave aside the first component, and let’s unpack the formula by making explicit some of its implicit nuances. First, like those brilliant shapes in the night sky, the Platonic ideas, or objects of real knowledge, had acquired in Arabic a certain tridimensionality; the root s-w-r has to do with sculpture and pottery: the “ideas” were more like bodies of concrete knowledge. Second, their locus was not so much a breath-like, airy subtance like spiritus, ruh, anima, etc., or an abstract ethereal intellectus or mens, but the liquid/solid fixed centre of the body and the seat of vitality, the heart.

I think we might now rephrase and appropriately paraphrase Ibn Mājid’s formula: “the ultimate degree of your craft is when the knowledges acquired take shape like concrete constellations in the life-giving centre of your existence.” It may sound a bit grandiose, but it does express quite well something that takes place in the day-to-day practice of artisans everywhere: embodied knowledge is not just in the muscles and tendons that know the habitual movements, but also deep down in a central locus from where springs (like blood) the existential knowing joy of a work well made. [JA]

Sewing Paterns in the Sky

In the beginning of this journey through Kitāb al-Fawā’id, we dedicated one of our very first posts to the idea of mimesis. We were reading about navigation history in the first fā’idah, and about how Noah’s ark resembled the Big Dipper. Now, nearly two chapters later, this same idea reappears in relation to the 26th and 27th lunar mansions, al-far‘ān.

In ancient Bedouin tradition, the stars of the great square of Pegasus were imagined to be the upper open end of a well bucket, from which water would be poured. Seen in the night sky, its shape resembles a square where two parallel sides—one southern, the other northern—are the two lunar mansions called al-far‘ān.

However, neither Ibn Mājid nor Indian craftsmanship considered the four stars to form a perfect square. In fact, the difference between the lengths of the southern and northern sides was a crucial one, for it was the pattern upon which were cut the leech (al-dāmān) and the luff (al-jūsh) of a ship’s sail. Following Ibn Mājid, in Indian traditional craft, such a proportional resemblance was no coincidence. The cutting of the sails (tafsīl) was taken directly from the relative positions of these stars—that is, from the lines imagined in al-far‘ān or the great square of Pegasus. [IB]

New Years and Monthless Years

Very aptly, and according to plan, we restarted our reading group last Wednesday with the final session devoted to al-Mahrī’s Qilādah. As far as we are aware, it must be the first time that any shared Western academic initiative has focused on this work in particular, and perhaps even on any work by al-Mahrī. We are grateful to our colleagues in London, Berlin, Leipzig and Abu Dhabi for joining us.

I say very aptly because, as mentioned before, this little treatise is all about the beginning of the year in different calendars, thus about the relations between different calendar eras, and thus about the ever-baffling relations between the paths of sun and moon. To a certain extent it echoes the concerns of computists in medieval Europe for the calculation of the epact.

More specifically, the Qilādat al-shumūs, written by a Muslim pilot, addresses the crucial question of how to reconcile the lunar calendar with the various solar calendars in usage around the Indian Ocean in the late Middle Ages. It was not a theoretical concern, but the very practical one of ascertaining sailing seasons in a region where postponing a departure a few days might have lead to months of delay.

There is one insight from this latest session which has stayed with me after a few days: for most calendrical calculations described, it was necessary to be aware of the number of days elapsed from the first day of the solar year (mā dakhala min al-sanah). This is not unlike the financial “year to date” count, and what in specialised algorithms is nowadays called the dayno. January 11 is simply Day 11, February 1 is Day 32, and March 1 would be Day 60 (i.e. 31+28+1, unless it’s a leap year!) and so on and so forth.

This way of counting the days of the solar year is eminently practical and, remarkably, it does away cleanly with all the layers of mythical and lunar divisions which seem so inseparable from the calendar. It is like stripping the calendar bare and leaving a pure clean sequence of numbers, from 1 to 365. Aniconic, straightforward, arithmetical, almost iconoclastic: what could be more practical?

Calculation table from Wikipedia.

I wonder if knowing that you were born on the 69th day of the year is of any use at all, or a mere idle curiosity. But when a pilot knew that a certain asterism rose in the morning on the 100th day of the year, he knew unequivocally where this fitted within the cycle of the seasons, and where he was within the rhythm of the monsoons and other seasonal winds.

So let’s get ready and practise: What day of the year were you born, sailor? Don’t give me a date, but what is your birthday’s dayno? [JA]