Monday Majlis: On Animals, Stones, and Alphabets: The 14th-Century Egyptian Alchemist Aydamir al-Jildakī and His Natural Encyclopaedia
Despite his large and – in his time – well-received oeuvre, the Egyptian scholar Aydamir al-Jildakī (fl. middle of the 14th century) so far is known to specialists of Islamic alchemy only. Yet, Manfred Ullmann, writing in 1972, insisted that he was one of the “greatest scholars of the Islamic cultural sphere”. In his natural encyclopaedia entitled Durrat al-ghawwāṣ (“The diver’s pearl”), al-Jildakī treats the whole sublunar nature, from humans to animals, plants, and minerals. Perhaps following Qur’anic concepts of sign (āya), he also considers languages and scripts as part of the ordered natural world. This paper will offer an introduction to al-Jildakī and his concepts of nature and culture and thus into concepts of post-classical Arabic science.
| A Centre for the Study of Islam seminar | |
|---|---|
| Speaker(s) | Regula Forster |
| Date | 10 June 2024 |
| Time | 17:00 to 18:30 |
| Place | Online |
| Registration information | Register please on this link: https://universityofexeter.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIvd--rrDouHNDNvAhz1UzISuCVMprpA0iu |
Event details
Abstract
Regula Forster (PhD Zurich 2005) is Professor of Islamic History and Culture at the University of Tübingen (Germany). Previously, she has held professorships at Freie Universität Berlin (Germany) and at the University of Zurich (Switzerland). She has published on both German medieval and Arabic literature, including Wissensvermittlung im Gespräch. Eine Studie zu klassisch-arabischen Dialogen (Leiden: Brill, 2017), Das Geheimnis der Geheimnisse. Die arabischen und deutschen Fassungen des pseudo-aris-totelischen Sirr al-asrār / Secretum secretorum (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2006), and Methoden mittelalterlicher arabischer Qur’ānexegese am Beispiel von Q 53, 1-18 (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz, 2001).
