After completing our reading of Sirafī’s True Stories of the Seas and their Marvels, we have started work on the 10th-century Epistle on the Special Properties (Risāla fī'l-khawāss) of Ahmad ibn al-Jazzār. The word khawāss here refers to the special properties, often magical or wondrous, of certain substances and beings, like the magnet, a first-time mother’s milk, or the “royal snake” (i.e. the basilisk). These entities informed an abundant literature on alchemy and magic, and were readily incorporated into more “scientific” treatises, especially medicinal, like herbals and lapidaries. As our reading continues, it becomes increasingly apparent that in spite of the work’s title, we are not far at all from the topic of mirabilia/‘ajā’ib, the wonders of creation. In fact, this text is the main source of Albertus Magnus’ De mirabilibus mundi.
As the reader can imagine, treatises on magical properties can be great fun. We learn about stones that can attract any kind of substance, the usefulness of carrying around a little bit of human bone, or how to avoid being killed by the gaze of the basilisk, to say nothing of natural contraceptive methods like drinking mule’s urine. But apart from such eminently practical content, these first pages have made me reflect on two aspects worth commenting on: the chain of authorities, and the philosophical stance of the author.
The authorities from whom the reports of marvellous properties proceed make a formidable roster, and are a sort of Who Is Who of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. They include first of all Aristoteles, then of course Galen, the ubiquitous Alexander (the Great, often identified with the Quranic Dhu’l-Qarnayn), Cleopatra, Arab luminaries such as Ibn Masawayh, and “Byzantine” scholars such as Qusta ibn Luqa. What is most remarkable about this fascinating list —an advanced educational syllabus in itself, for whomever is curious— is how easily and stably it moved across languages, cultures and textual genres over the centuries. Never mind that you were reading about navigation, medicine, alchemy or astronomy, you would just as easily come across the same authorities.
The enterprise of science is always necessarily alternating through time between its conservative and revolutionary tendencies: tradition versus innovation, respect for the past versus embrace of the novel—this is the way (of knowledge), because it would be absurd not to capitalise on the achievements of our predecessors. Now this term, “respect”, means originally not only to “look back to”, or “to look again”, but also, due to the intensive function of the prefix re-, “to look very intently at something”. One could say that the respectful study of the traditional authorities has to include all these nuances: to go back again and again to the same authors, and also to look at them with patience and persistence, not sparing efforts to understand their ideas, and struggling with them in the pursuit of knowledge. This is how we try to work in our weekly reading groups, ever hoping to engage in the timeless Geistergespräch, the conversation of minds through the ages.*
As for the second aspect, the philosophical stance of Ibn al-Jazzar and how it relates to contemporary science and our daily research, well… I'm afraid it may have to wait until our next post. Stay tuned! [J. Acevedo]
* You are welcome to join us, it's free.
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