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Licit Magic: The Life and Letters of al-Ṣāḥib b. ʿAbbād (d. 385/995)
Series: - Islamic History and Civilization, Volume: 146
Author:
In Licit Magic: The Life and Letters of al-Ṣāḥib b. ʿAbbād (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, Muʿtazilī theology and Shīʿism in Western Iran. Making use of Ibn ʿAbbād’s large corpus of letters (rasāʾil), 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 ʿAbbād displayed in his letters was central to his exercise of power.
Maurice A. Pomerantz, Ph.D. (2010), University of Chicago, is Assistant Professor of Literature at New York University, Abu Dhabi. He is the editor of The Heritage of Arabo-Islamic Learning (Brill, 2016).
Winner of the World Award for Book of the Year of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 2019.
Acknowledgments
1 An Introduction to Ibn ʿAbbād and His Letters
A Letter of Longing for an Absent Friend
al-Ṣāḥib Ibn ʿAbbād: Finding a Context
Ibn ʿAbbād and Arabo-Islamic Epistolography
Ibn ʿAbbād Inside and Outside His Letters
Ibn ʿAbbād in His Own Words?
Plan of the Book
2 A Life in Politics
Birth, Family, and Early Education of Ismāʿīl b. ʿAbbād
Ibn ʿAbbād’s Studies in Rayy with Abū l-Faḍl Ibn al-ʿAmīd
Scribe and Scholar in Baghdad
Rivalry with Abū l-Fatḥ for Succession to the Vizierate of Rayy
Ibn ʿAbbād Becomes Vizier in Rayy
Ibn ʿAbbād and the Rise of ʿAḍud al-Dawla
Vizier for Fakhr al-Dawla: 373–85/983–95
The End of an Era
3 A Muʿtazilī Polymath
Dialectical Theology (kalām)
Legal Schools (madhāhib) and the Imamate
Lexicography (al-lugha)
History (tārīkh)
Poetry (shiʿr)
Poetic Criticism (naqd al-shiʿr)
Qurʾānic Interpretation
Ḥadīth and its Criticism
Grammar (naḥw)
Foreign Sciences (ʿulūm al-awāʾil)
Ibn ʿAbbād as a Scholar in the Fourth/Tenth Century
4 A Patron and Social Networker
Ibn ʿAbbād’s Patronage System
Ibn ʿAbbād’s Court
The Library of Ibn ʿAbbād
The Patron at Court
Ibn ʿAbbād as a Social Networker
Ibn ʿAbbād as a Courtly Intellectual
5 A Letter Writer and His Letters
The Vizier as an Epistolographer
The Letters of Ibn ʿAbbād
FA = al-Fuṣūl al-adabiyya wa-l-murāsalāt al-ʿabbādiyya (The literary excerpts and the ʿAbbādian correspondence)
KB = Kamāl al-balāgha (The perfection in rhetoric)
YD = Yatīmat al-dahr fī maḥāsin ahl al-ʿaṣr (The unique pearl of time concerning the excellencies of the poets of the age)
The Transmission of Individual Letters
6 Sulṭāniyyāt: Governmental and Administrative Letters
Government Proclamations, Edicts, and Other Formal Documents
Government Correspondence
Sulṭāniyyāt: Two Discourses of Power
7 Letters of Friendship (Ikhwāniyyāt)
Formal Ikhwāniyyāt and the Rhetoric of Courtly Friendship
Letters to Boon Companions (nudamāʾ)
Letters of Jesting (mudāʿabāt)
Letters of Congratulation
Letters of Condolence (taʿāzī)
Letters of Intercession and Patronage
Letters to Muʿtazilī Scholars
Letters to ʿAlid Sharīfs
Ikhwāniyyāt: Between Elites and Community
8 Ibn ʿAbbād as Epistolographer
The Structure of Individual Letters in the Collection of Ibn ʿAbbād
Sajʿ: Rhymed and Rythmic Prose
Iqtibās: Quotations from the Qurʾān
Erudite Allusion in Letters
Poetic Allusion in the Letters
Poetry into Prose: Varieties of Ḥall al-Naẓm in Ibn ʿAbbād’s Rasāʾil
9 Conclusion
Appendix 1: Translation of a Letter of Conquest
Appendix 2: A Guide to the Extant Letters of Ibn ʿAbbād
Bibliography
Index of Arabic Terms
Index of Proper Names
1 An Introduction to Ibn ʿAbbād and His Letters
A Letter of Longing for an Absent Friend
al-Ṣāḥib Ibn ʿAbbād: Finding a Context
Ibn ʿAbbād and Arabo-Islamic Epistolography
Ibn ʿAbbād Inside and Outside His Letters
Ibn ʿAbbād 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 Ismāʿīl b. ʿAbbād
Ibn ʿAbbād’s Studies in Rayy with Abū l-Faḍl Ibn al-ʿAmīd
Scribe and Scholar in Baghdad
Rivalry with Abū l-Fatḥ for Succession to the Vizierate of Rayy
Ibn ʿAbbād Becomes Vizier in Rayy
Ibn ʿAbbād and the Rise of ʿAḍud al-Dawla
Vizier for Fakhr al-Dawla: 373–85/983–95
The End of an Era
3 A Muʿtazilī Polymath
Dialectical Theology (kalām)
Legal Schools (madhāhib) and the Imamate
Lexicography (al-lugha)
History (tārīkh)
Poetry (shiʿr)
Poetic Criticism (naqd al-shiʿr)
Qurʾānic Interpretation
Ḥadīth and its Criticism
Grammar (naḥw)
Foreign Sciences (ʿulūm al-awāʾil)
Ibn ʿAbbād as a Scholar in the Fourth/Tenth Century
4 A Patron and Social Networker
Ibn ʿAbbād’s Patronage System
Ibn ʿAbbād’s Court
The Library of Ibn ʿAbbād
The Patron at Court
Ibn ʿAbbād as a Social Networker
Ibn ʿAbbād as a Courtly Intellectual
An Epistolographer and Adīb
5 A Letter Writer and His Letters
The Vizier as an Epistolographer
The Letters of Ibn ʿAbbād
FA = al-Fuṣūl al-adabiyya wa-l-murāsalāt al-ʿabbādiyya (The literary excerpts and the ʿAbbādian correspondence)
KB = Kamāl al-balāgha (The perfection in rhetoric)
YD = Yatīmat al-dahr fī maḥāsin ahl al-ʿaṣr (The unique pearl of time concerning the excellencies of the poets of the age)
The Transmission of Individual Letters
6 Sulṭāniyyāt: Governmental and Administrative Letters
Government Proclamations, Edicts, and Other Formal Documents
Government Correspondence
Sulṭāniyyāt: Two Discourses of Power
7 Letters of Friendship (Ikhwāniyyāt)
Formal Ikhwāniyyāt and the Rhetoric of Courtly Friendship
Letters to Boon Companions (nudamāʾ)
Letters of Jesting (mudāʿabāt)
Letters of Congratulation
Letters of Condolence (taʿāzī)
Letters of Intercession and Patronage
Letters to Muʿtazilī Scholars
Letters to ʿAlid Sharīfs
Ikhwāniyyāt: Between Elites and Community
8 Ibn ʿAbbād as Epistolographer
The Structure of Individual Letters in the Collection of Ibn ʿAbbād
Sajʿ: Rhymed and Rythmic Prose
Iqtibās: Quotations from the Qurʾān
Erudite Allusion in Letters
Poetic Allusion in the Letters
Poetry into Prose: Varieties of Ḥall al-Naẓm in Ibn ʿAbbād’s Rasāʾil
9 Conclusion
Appendix 1: Translation of a Letter of Conquest
Appendix 2: A Guide to the Extant Letters of Ibn ʿAbbād
Bibliography
Index of Arabic Terms
Index of Proper Names
All interested in the history of Muslim statecraft, and the history of the tenth-century, and anyone interested in the office of the vizier, and the political, social and literary dimension of letters (rasāʾil).