Following the Steps of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’ in the Ottoman Word II: ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Biṣtāmī and his tashjīr diagrams of science
(2023) Mediterranea. Serie de Estudios sobre Biologia Terrestre Mediterranea — Vol. 8, p. 55-88 (2023)
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- 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.
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de Callatay, G. (2023). Following the Steps of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’ in the Ottoman Word II: ’Abd al-Raḥmān al-Biṣtāmī and his tashjīr diagrams of science. Mediterranea. Serie de Estudios sobre Biologia Terrestre Mediterranea, 8, 55-88. https://doi.org/10.21071/mijtk.v8i.15055 (Original work published 2023)