Travelling autopsies: Ibn Fa[image omitted]lan and the Bulghar
Titel:
Travelling autopsies: Ibn Fa[image omitted]lan and the Bulghar
Auteur:
Montgomery, James E.
Verschenen in:
Middle Eastern literatures
Paginering:
Jaargang 7 (2004) nr. 1 pagina's 3-32
Jaar:
2004-01
Inhoud:
This article is preliminary to a more comprehensive study of the role of observation and autopsy in a number of medieval Arabo-Islamic texts which antedate the mature work of al-Bīrunī in the first half of the 11th century ce. My aim is to allow for the re-creation of a dialogue between a number of works and text-types which are all too often considered in isolation from each other—travel narratives, poetry, cosmography, philosophy and scientific treatises, among others. This piece is devoted to a consideration of certain aspects of a 10th century travel work, The Account of Ibn Fa[image omitted]lan. The principal study, at present in outline, will sketch a survey of the tensions and complementarities between [image omitted]iyan, autopsy (together with its cognate, mushahadah) and sama[image omitted], orally and aurally transmitted authority (together with its cognate, khabar), which when accepted 'blindly' becomes taqlīd. At the core of the investigation will be a scrutiny of the means whereby authority can be generated in a society which is predicated upon textual, divine revelation. The survey will include writers such as Abu Nuwas, al-Ja[image omitted]i[image omitted], Ibn Khurradadhbih, Ibn Qutayba, Ibn Rusta and al-Mas[image omitted]udi and will conclude with a consideration of al-Bīrunī's scientific and epistemological methodologies as presented in his work al-Hind and his astronomy al-Qanun al-Mas[image omitted]udī, and instantiated in his celebrated debate with Ibn Sīna, al-As'ila wa-l-Ajwiba. A separate study will be devoted to a counter-tradition of observation, the spiritual autopsy of the purified soul at the centre of the Islamic Neoplatonism of the Ninth Century and apotheosized in the so-called 'Doffing Metaphor' of Plotinus celebrated in the Theology of Aristotle. This study will be conducted within the context of a survey of the accounts of the celestial ascension (mi[image omitted]raj) of the Prophet Mu[image omitted]ammad.
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