Kalamazoo Medieval Congress Blog: Saturday 1:30

I had some difficulty in taking notes on this session. Part can be attributed to my unfamiliarity with the material, making it harder to sort out the relevant details from the background. But the speakers also rattled off their papers at great speed, which didn’t help.

Session 437: Occult Capitals of Islam

• Sponsor: Societas Magica
• Organizer: Matthew Melvin-Koushki, Univ. of South Carolina–Columbia
• Presider: Nicholas G. Harris, Univ. of Pennsylvania

Baghdad, the City of Jupiter - Liana Saif, Univ. catholique de Louvain

(scratched)

What Did it Mean to Be a Magician in al-Baqillani’s Baghdad? The Social Implications of the Discourse on Magic - Mushegh Asatryan, Univ. of Calgary

(could not be present due to immigration status concerns, but sent paper to be read)

11th c Baghdad, implications of magical practice. Book concerns difference between saintly miracles, tirckery, soothsaying, magic, and ??.  Works to distinguish and offers examples. Clear case where theological speculation is informed by social context of author. Life experiences that led the author to compose the work. “Prophetic miracles” (only prophets can perform) vs. “saintly miracles”.

Miracles: something only God can perform, and not others including supernatural creatures. Breaks the usual custom of events. E.g., flying through the air, moving mountains. One test is claim of prophecy. If someone claims to be a prophet and can still perform the action, it’s a miracle not a trick/magic.

Tricks are manipulation of people’s perceptions.

Magic is considered to be real, and is otherwise similar to miracles in breaking the usual course of events.

The author considers these categories in the context of determinism and atomism. Things are considered magic/miracles only because their break the apparent habit of what God wills, but they are still in alignment with God’s will. A magician cannot effect change in an object but any change is due to God’s action. So a magician can’t prove his actions to be proof of prophecy., as God won’t coincidentally break his habits to create the appearance of the effectiveness of his actions. Unless he’s a prophet and they are actual miracles. So if a magician makes a false claim of prophecy, either he must be punished, or the apparent miracle must be made into a natural law (i.e., a habit of God).

While the author condemns Muslim magicians for this reason, he does not do so for Christian or Jewish magicians,. They post no threat to the Islamic power structure of Baghdad, while Muslim magicians did. Internal political conflicts may have been relevant, e.g., Shi’ites were associated with claims of magical powers. (There is discussion of the authority structure with regard to scriptural interpretation.) The author defends the concept/acceptability of magic in order to counter Shi’a magical claims.

Lettrism at Sultan Barquq’s Court and Beyond: Cairo as Occult Capital at the Turn of the Fifteenth Century - Noah D. Gardiner, Univ. of South Carolina–Columbia

Working on the “science of letters and names” a mystical theory of the relationship of letters and mystical meaning. Magic squares, etc. Origins in Sufism.  Studying renaissance of occult scholarship in 14-15th c Cairo etc. Drawing connections with parallel interest in Christian Europe. Continuing occult interest in Mamluk culture.

At the same time, there as condemnation of occult studies by more conservative elements in the culture and modern Sufis have tried to distance themselves from historic interest in the occult. Some evidence that occult scholarship was aimed at an elite readership in the courts and urban centers. (The speaker is rattling details off very quickly and I’m having a hard time extracting overall outlines.)

Lettrist books included “effective prayers, healing medicines, lordlynames, Qur’anic secrts, luminescent magical squares, and Solomonic charms.” (A discussion of various of the lettrist texts under consideration and poltiical considerations regarding their reception and audience. At this point I’ve entirely lost the thread of the purpose of the paper other than catalogs of books and authors.)

“Here Art-Magick Was First Hatched”: Shiraz as Occult-Scientific Capital of the Persian Cosmopolis - Matthew Melvin-Koushki

Shiraz is Cairo’s successor as an occult capital of the larger Islamic world, picking up around the turn of the 15th century. The “golden triangle” of occult study was Cairo, Istanbul, and Shiraz. We now get some pretty pictures of the mausoleum of Hafiz(sp?) a major figure working in Shiraz at that time. His poetic works used for bibliomancy.

Now we have some 17th century western travel writers talking about Shiraz and discussing the work on magic being done in Persia. The intellectual fame of Shriaz included a college that included astrology among the sciences. He talks about the Magi and how scientific study of cause and effect is thought to be magical by the ignorant. (A lot of 17th centruy antiquarian nonsense about ancient philosophers in many cultures. So this isn’t about Shiraz itself, but about an outsider’s understanding of its historic relevance.)

For an insider’s view, we get a 19th c. Shirazi poet  who praises his home tow, but also mentions its astrologers, physicians, mathematicians, etc, but including lettrism, geomancy.

We get a list of 15-16th c occult scientists of Shiraz and some amusing biographical details. And a brief discussion of the political implications of occult studies in this particular time and place. (We finish with a bunch of pretty slides of various occult texts.)