Licit magic : the life and letters of al-Ṣāḥib b. ʿAbbād (d. 385/995)
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Licit magic : the life and letters of al-Ṣāḥib b. ʿAbbād (d. 385/995)
(Islamic history and civilization, v. 146)
Brill, c2018
- : hardback
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [290]-305) and indexes
Description and Table of Contents
Description
In Licit Magic: The Life and Letters of al-Sahib b. 'Abbad (d. 385/995) Maurice A. Pomerantz explores the biography and literary output of a major tenth-century Muslim statesman, literary patron, and intellectual. His nearly two-decade reign as vizier on behalf of two Buyid amirs was an important period for the flowering of Arabic letters, Mu'tazili theology and Shi'ism in Western Iran. Making use of Ibn 'Abbad's large corpus of letters (rasa'il), Pomerantz explores the role that eloquence played in the conduct of administration, the maintenance of social networks of elites, and persuasion. Licit Magic argues that the eloquent expression that Ibn 'Abbad displayed in his letters was central to his exercise of power.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
1 An Introduction to Ibn 'Abbad and His Letters
A Letter of Longing for an Absent Friend
al-Sahib Ibn 'Abbad: Finding a Context
Ibn 'Abbad and Arabo-Islamic Epistolography
Ibn 'Abbad Inside and Outside His Letters
Ibn 'Abbad in His Own Words?
Plan of the Book
A Buyid Politician, Polymath and Patron
2 A Life in Politics
Birth, Family, and Early Education of Isma'il b. 'Abbad
Ibn 'Abbad's Studies in Rayy with Abu l-Fadl Ibn al-'Amid
Scribe and Scholar in Baghdad
Rivalry with Abu l-Fath for Succession to the Vizierate of Rayy
Ibn 'Abbad Becomes Vizier in Rayy
Ibn 'Abbad and the Rise of 'Adud al-Dawla
Vizier for Fakhr al-Dawla: 373-85/983-95
The End of an Era
3 A Mu'tazili Polymath
Dialectical Theology (kalam)
Legal Schools (madhahib) and the Imamate
Lexicography (al-lugha)
History (tarikh)
Poetry (shi'r)
Poetic Criticism (naqd al-shi'r)
Qur'anic Interpretation
Hadith and its Criticism
Grammar (nahw)
Foreign Sciences ('ulum al-awa'il)
Ibn 'Abbad as a Scholar in the Fourth/Tenth Century
4 A Patron and Social Networker
Ibn 'Abbad's Patronage System
Ibn 'Abbad's Court
The Library of Ibn 'Abbad
The Patron at Court
Ibn 'Abbad as a Social Networker
Ibn 'Abbad as a Courtly Intellectual
An Epistolographer and Adib
5 A Letter Writer and His Letters
The Vizier as an Epistolographer
The Letters of Ibn 'Abbad
FA = al-Fusul al-adabiyya wa-l-murasalat al-'abbadiyya (The literary excerpts and the 'Abbadian correspondence)
KB = Kamal al-balagha (The perfection in rhetoric)
YD = Yatimat al-dahr fi mahasin ahl al-'asr (The unique pearl of time concerning the excellencies of the poets of the age)
The Transmission of Individual Letters
6 Sultaniyyat: Governmental and Administrative Letters
Government Proclamations, Edicts, and Other Formal Documents
Government Correspondence
Sultaniyyat: Two Discourses of Power
7 Letters of Friendship (Ikhwaniyyat)
Formal Ikhwaniyyat and the Rhetoric of Courtly Friendship
Letters to Boon Companions (nudama')
Letters of Jesting (muda'abat)
Letters of Congratulation
Letters of Condolence (ta'azi)
Letters of Intercession and Patronage
Letters to Mu'tazili Scholars
Letters to 'Alid Sharifs
Ikhwaniyyat: Between Elites and Community
8 Ibn 'Abbad as Epistolographer
The Structure of Individual Letters in the Collection of Ibn 'Abbad
Saj': Rhymed and Rythmic Prose
Iqtibas: Quotations from the Qur'an
Erudite Allusion in Letters
Poetic Allusion in the Letters
Poetry into Prose: Varieties of Hall al-Nazm in Ibn 'Abbad's Rasa'il
9 Conclusion
Appendix 1: Translation of a Letter of Conquest
Appendix 2: A Guide to the Extant Letters of Ibn 'Abbad
Bibliography
Index of Arabic Terms
Index of Proper Names
by "Nielsen BookData"