State Debate & Knowledge Collaboration among Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, and Muslims in the Abbasid Near East, II

In this volume we introduce the debate as a new format in Medieval Worlds. In this format, scholars are invited to contribute to current topics of interest either with an essay or with comments to this essay. The series is opened with a lively discussion of the concept of “state” in medieval studies and offers contributions by Brent D. Shaw, Nichola Di Cosmo, Stefano Gasparri and Cristina La Rocca, Hans-Werner Goetz, John Haldon, Yannis Stouraitis and Régine Le Jan. In our stand-alone article series, Michaela Wiesinger, Christina Jackel and Norbert Orban discuss first results of their ground-breaking ERC project Arithmetic, in which German mathematical treatises from the Late Middle Ages are studied. The second stand-alone contribution by Andrew Wareham compares English and Chinese sources with regard to peacemaking around the turn of the 11th century. The second instalment of our thematic section on Knowledge Collaboration among Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, and Muslims in the Abbasid Near East (guest editor Nathan P. Gibson) presents further studies on textual evidence of “other” (religions) as well as insights into possible uses of digital tools in this context. "While the great medieval philosopher, theologian, and physician Maimonides is acknowledged as a leading Jewish thinker, his intellectual contacts with his surrounding world are often described as related primarily to Islamic philosophy. Maimonides in His World challenges this view by revealing him to have wholeheartedly lived, breathed, and espoused the rich Mediterranean culture of his time." "Sarah Stroumsa argues that Maimonides is most accurately viewed as a Mediterranean thinker who consistently interpreted his own Jewish tradition in contemporary multicultural terms. Maimonides spent his entire life in the Mediterranean region, and the religious and philosophical traditions that fed his thought were those of the wider world in which he lived. Stroumsa demonstrates that he was deeply influenced not only by Islamic philosophy but by Islamic culture as a whole, evidence of which she finds in his philosophy as well as his correspondence and legal and scientific writings. She begins with a concise biography of Maimonides, then carefully examines key aspects of his thought, including his approach to religion and the complex world of theology and religious ideas he encountered among Jews, Christians, Muslims, and even heretics; his views about science; the immense and unacknowledged impact of the Almohads on his thought; and his vision of human perfection." "This insightful cultural biography restores Maimonides to his rightful place among medieval philosophers and affirms his central relevance to the study of medieval Islam."--Jacket Cover Front matter Table of Contents Editorial Debate. Was There a Medieval »State«? Handwritten Arithmetic Treatises in German (1400-1550). A First Assessment of the Sources Based on the Exemplary Corpus Held by the Austrian National Library Peacemaking after Defeat in England in 991 and Northern Song China in 1005 Sleepy Animals: Barhebraeus (1226-1286 CE) on Sleeping and Dreaming among Animals The Ideas of Pseudo-Empedocles in Baghdad Mysticism of the Ninth-Tenth Centuries CE: Al-Ḥallāj’s Cosmology John Zacharias Aktouarios (c. 1275-1330) and His Treatise On Psychic Pneuma: Critical Edition of the Greek Text with German Translation and Medical-Historical Commentary Progress and Current Results of the Research Project Communities of Knowledge: Interreligious Networks of Scholars in Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa’s History of the Physicians (Project Report) Off the Record: On Studying Lost Arabic Books and their Networks Labeling Religious Affiliation in Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa’s History of Physicians: A Quest