Najlaa Aldeeb, Effat University, Effat College of Humanities, Saudi Arabia: Happiness and Its Expression in Simon Ockley’s Translation of Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān
Abstract: This paper dives into the philosophical theme of happiness as presented in Simon Ockley’s 1708 English translation of Ibn Ṭufayl’s Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, which was originally penned in the twelfth century. While many often trace the roots of the novel back to early modern Europe—think Cervantes’ Don Quixote or the Italian novella—Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān emerges as a significant premodern philosophical novel that challenges this Eurocentric perspective. The work, credited to the Andalusian philosopher and physician Ibn Ṭufayl (1100-1185 AD), offers a metaphysical and allegorical journey into human growth, knowledge, and the pursuit of true happiness. The main argument of this paper is that, even though Ibn Ṭufayl’s original text is rich with symbolism and spirituality – connecting happiness to mystical union and divine realization – Ockley’s translation shifts the focus of happiness into a rationalist and Enlightenment framework. Ockley highlights the importance of intellectual exploration, empirical observation, and philosophical reasoning as the key pathways through which Ḥayy finds fulfillment. In doing so, Ockley aligns the idea of happiness with spiritual and intellectual enlightenment, moving away from a purely mystical or religious interpretation. By closely examining pivotal moments in the narrative—like Ḥayy’s sensory awakening to the world, his deep dive into nature and metaphysics, and his philosophical musings on the soul—this study outlines how the concept of happiness evolves from a divine-centered aspiration to a rational, self-derived state. Each phase of Ḥayy’s journey reflects a gradual shift toward a more abstract, universal understanding of existence, ultimately leading him to believe that true happiness is found in ongoing reflection and alignment with a higher order of being. By shedding light on the interpretative decisions made by Ockley, this paper places his translation within the intellectual landscape of early eighteenth-century England. It contends that his work not only brought Arabic philosophical thought to the forefront but also enriched the broader discourse of the time.
Chiara Benati, Università di Genova: Erwirdiger freundt Bernnharde…: Friendship and Community Among Late Medieval Surgeons as Presented in the Vernacular Translations of Lanfranc of Milan’s Surgical Works
As McVaugh (2006: 9) observes, “between 1240 and 1320, a new genre of medical writing appeared in Western Europe: Latin general surgery.” In the works produced during those eighty years, various authors developed a shared conception of surgery as a rational and scientific discipline. This is evident not only in the dedications to friends and colleagues in the proems of their works (e.g., to Bernard of Gordon in Lanfranc’s Chirurgia parva and magna), but also in how their texts build upon the teachings and experiences of their teachers, and predecessors, contributing to the growing body of collective knowledge. Despite the general tendency to reduce dedications and other rhetorical elements in the vernacular translations and adaptations of these Latin works, this sense of shared expertise continues to be present and is even more pronounced, as the core texts are often supplemented with remedies and techniques from other authors. This talk will focus on the Germanic translations of Lanfranc of Milan’s surgical works, particularly examining the additions suggesting that a late medieval surgical community really existed and was not a mere rhetorical convention.
Albrecht Classen, University of Arizona, Department of German Studies: Community and Peace: The Political Discourse in the Late Middle Ages Regarding the Peaceful and Harmonious Community: Margareta Ebner, Christine de Pizan, and Frances Eiximenis
This talk will highlight the political treatises by Christine de Pizan and the Catalan Francesc Eiximenis addressing their society and outlining utopian concepts of harmony and peace within their respective community. On that basis, other late medieval narratives will be consulted, including negative examples, such as Heinrich Wittenwiler’s remarkably negative allegorical poem Der Ring. Examples of a working spiritual community based on the friendship between Heinrich von Nordlingen and Margareta Ebner will provide good stepping stones.
Gabriella DaCosta-Yulsman, Dept of English & Comparative Literature, Columbia University: Summum Bonum, Summum Malum: Saint Augustine’s de Civitate Dei as Ancient Sermon Against Troubled Times
In his relatively understudied, “magnum opus et arduum” de Civitate Dei, Saint Augustine propounds an understanding of the good life, or “summum bonum,” through the use of trinitarian theology. In his theory, Augustine proposes that the best human life and by extension human society, stems from the triune relationship of man to God, to neighbor, and to the Holy Spirit which flows between them. Such holy love fulfills man’s innate need for the consummation of desire in an eternal source, enabling him to do and feel good beyond the pursuit of empty worldly treasures. Thus, the people of Christ, in Augustine’s view, enjoy true happiness in this life and the next through their devotion to the triune God and their practice of trinitarian love, in contradistinction to vain pagan philosophers and people of the world, or “carnal city,” who seek happiness in a deceptive and dangerous materiality (as well as erroneous philosophy and false gods). Straddling two empires, Saint Augustine’s prescription for the human condition during the fall of Rome reads all the more saliently in today’s turbulent times.
Heba Abd Elaziz, Alexandria University, Egypt: Tribalism in the Sirah of Banu Hilal (the Oral Epic of the Hilal Tribe): Migration, Conflict, and Integration in Medieval North Africa
The Sirah of Banu Hilal (the Oral Epic of the Hilal Tribe) is an oral Arabic epic that narrates the legendary migration (around 1050) and adventures of the Bedouin Banu Hilal tribe. This epic has been passed down through generations in the form of oral poetry and storytelling. The central hero of the epic is Abu Zayd al-Hilali who is portrayed as a brave, intelligent, and resourceful warrior who defends his clan against rulers, traitors, and rival tribes. Within the same context, tribalism, as a social and cultural phenomenon, has long formed the identity, customs, and relationships within various societies, particularly in medieval Arab contexts. The Sirah of Banu Hilal, significantly impacted the region’s sociopolitical landscape, offers insights into the ways tribal affiliations influence not only the behaviors and ethics of individuals but also their interactions with broader political entities. While tribal affiliation (assabya) provided a sense of security and cohesion for the Banu Hilal, it also fostered inter-tribal rivalries and complex relationships with the broader Muslim world. This paper explores the intricate concept of tribalism through the lens of the Sirah of Banu Hilal’s migration from the Arabic Peninsula to Africa and their involvement in numerous historical events, including conflicts, alliances, and cultural exchanges. The paper highlights that Banu Hilal migration was driven by a combination of environmental hardship and political instability in the Arabian Peninsula which forced them to interact with various local and foreign powers, including the Fatimids, the Almoravids, and Berber dynasties. The study investigates how tribalism functioned as both a protective mechanism and a source of internal conflict, underscoring the tensions between traditional tribal values and the evolving political realities of medieval North Africa. The study aims to prove that the Sirah Banu Hilal offers a profound illustration of how tribalism operates both as a unifying force and a divisive factor through inspecting how the concept of tribalism solidifies its members but creates a conflict driven attitude against other tribes. Thus, the paper concludes that tribalism is a strong element that influences the migration, conflict and integration of communities and generates communal social, cultural and linguistic changes that affect the solidarity of communities.
Fidel Fajardo-Acosta, Creighton University, NE: Pax Arthuriana: The Illusion of Peace, Friendship, and Community in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Taken at face value, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight tells a story of peace, community, and friendship disrupted by the arrival of the Green Knight, an arrogant and disrespectful guest motivated, as we later learn, by the jealousy of Arthur’s sister, Morgan, who is bent on aggravating and causing trouble for her brother. The setting of the banquet and Christmas celebrations at the moment when the Green Knight arrives itself suggests associations of Arthur’s court with ideas of Christian fellowship and communion, including imagery of the Last Supper, with Morgan and her enviously green envoy playing the role of Judas-like agents threatening the unity of the community. Such a reading of the story, together with its happy ending, are characteristic aspects of a work meant as courtly entertainment, of a kind with the stories of adventure that Arthur craves as appetizers before his feasts. That understanding of the story, however, holds good only on the surface and only for an audience of self-indulgent courtiers, much like those in Arthur’s retinue. Indeed, beneath the atmosphere of peaceful celebration, material abundance, and jolly camaraderie of a community of loyal and selfless peers, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight tells a tale that exposes the violence, cruelty, and injustice that underwrite the seemingly idyllic lives of the king and his followers, also hinting at the harsh lives of those outside the charmed circle of the court at Camelot. The centerpiece of what is, at the core, a Christian morality tale, the “Chrystemas gomen” (283; Christmas game) that the Green Knight proposes, “strike a strok for an oþer” (287; to strike a stroke for another stroke) alludes, it seems quite directly, to both the Christian Golden Rule and Matthew 26:52 (“all who draw the sword will die by the sword,” NIV). It is also an implicit test of the character of the Arthurian knights. The test takes the form of a choice between peace and violence, represented by the branch of holly the Green Knight holds in one hand and the axe he grips in the other. Though the Green Knight dares his hosts to deal him a blow of the axe, which he offers as a gift, he also assures them that “I passe as in pes, and no plyȝt seche” (266; I come in peace, and seek no quarrel”), further specifying to Arthur that he does not intend to fight, “Nay, frayst I no fyȝt, in fayth I þe telle’ (279; no, I fight no fray, I tell you in faith). There is then an explicit option of peace, while the axe embodies the temptations of pride, anger and violence, also acquisitiveness. The daring of the stranger, however, is sufficient to enrage Arthur, who can see nothing but an insult to his pride and challenge to his authority. What makes the situation most serious is not just the Christmas setting, hardly consistent with carrying out decapitations in the dining room, but also the ancient Greek context of the sacred ξένος (xenos; the stranger), a much feared figure in classical culture, justifying the imperatives of hospitality of the ξενία (xenia) ritual. The xenos is to be feared, in particular, because it could be a god in disguise, testing the piety of the chosen host. With Gawain as his willing tool, Arthur thus falls squarely into a spiritual trap. The exposure of the vices and flaws of Arthur and his knights continues in the form of the symbolic animals hunted by Sir Bertilak — the does (lechery and cowardice), the boar (blind rage and brutality), and the fox (deceptiveness and treachery) — and the mirror hunt his wife conducts after Gawain. The fact that, in the last instance, the Green Knight is merciful and does not decapitate Gawain is an act of Christian forgiveness, also a warning, but one that is wasted on the likes of Gawain and Arthur, as, after the adventure, they continue living as before, frivolously adopting the symbolic green sash as a fashionable decoration, never for a moment pausing to consider its deeper significance. The Pax Arthuriana then can be seen as just another Pax Romana, a false state of peace grounded on brutality and pride, not to speak of treachery and deception, therefore doomed to the fate of all violent and unjust kingdoms, nations, or empires.
*************
Filip A. Jakubowski, PhD, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland: Happiness Not Only Inside the Muslim umma. The Case of The Meadows of Gold by al-Masʽūdī (d. 956)
Throughout history and in diverse cultures, happiness has been a significant subject of deep philosophical and theological contemplation but it has not been conceptualized in a uniform way. In the Islamic tradition, for example, the pursuit of happiness is envisaged differently from the more transient forms celebrated in modern, secularized cultures. Islamic thought emphasizes the attainment of enduring happiness derived from the fulfillment of religious and moral obligations
Not all the Arabic texts aligned with the Islamic beliefs about the nature of happiness. The aim of this paper is to explore the extraordinary descriptions of the subject of happiness in a tenth-century historical work The Meadows of Gold, authored by a renowned 10th-century historian and polymath Abū al-Ḥasan ʽAlī Al-Masʽūdī (d. 956), the author of over twenty works on theology, history geography and natural sciences, of which only few have survived until our times. The Meadows of Gold is his magnum opus, in which he describes both Islamic and pre-Islamic history until the third decade of the tenth century based both on witnesses’ accounts and his own observations. The descriptions of the many nations included in this work offer a wide array of insights into the lived experiences of diverse communities within and beyond the Muslim world.
What is remarkable about al-Masʽūdī’s The Meadows of Gold is that unlike the Islamic tradition which emphasizes happiness is possible solely in the other world, it suggests that it can be experienced also in this one and outside the Muslim community. The author explains its strong reliance on the complex interplay of social, economical, and political realities. This paper will analyze how al-Masʽūdī’s describes happiness in three different non-Islamic communities. In the account of Alexandria, he shows how it derives from the city’s cosmopolitan nature where people of different faiths and races coexisted in a state of harmony, engaging in intellectual and commercial pursuits. In the section about India, al-Masʽūdī’s inserts an interesting dialogue between the Macedonian and a unnamed Indian philosopher who explains how a ruler gives happiness to his subjects, “being their creator”. Finally, in the passage about Persia, the historian shows its inhabitants a multifaceted understanding of happiness, rooted in their own cultural and religious traditions.
The Meadows of Gold are a work of extraordinary erudition and open-mindedness. As one of few intellectual work of Arabo-Islamic culture of this period, it challenges the notion that happiness is exclusively accessible within the Muslim umma. Through his expansive and inclusive narrative, al-Masʽūdī presents a rich tapestry of insights into the diverse manifestations of happiness across various cultures and civilizations, underscoring its variety and social background.
Imants Lavins, University of Economics and Culture in Riga, Latvia: Not only erotic or religious narrative – Cosmographic Vision in Nizāmī’s Romantic Epic “Haft Paykar”.
Nizāmī Ganjavī (1141–1209) is one of the most outstanding poets who wrote his works in Persian. His narrative poem “Seven Beauties” (“Haft Paykar”) was written in 1197 and tells of the adventures of Bahram Gur, a prince destined to become the ruler of the world. Bahram Gur enters a mysterious locked room to discover the portraits of seven beautiful princesses, each from a different land. These are the daughters of seven kings ruling the seven climes of the inhabited earth. The further development in the poem is linked with the narratives of these princesses.
The Seven Beauties are usually classed as love literature (erotic), but the moral context is the most important. Others have seen mystical Sufi features and hidden allegories in this work. This work of art is firmly grounded in this world. Its ethical content is devoted to this world and its pursuits rather than to religion or spiritual affairs. The main idea of the poem tells us that physical passions can give the greatest pleasure only when they are in close connection with virtue, simplicity and kindness.
Over time, researchers and translators have tried to clarify Nizamīʼs cosmographic and geographical conceptions about climes and their geographic boundaries. These attempts to decode them quite frequently have failed, as all the elements in his works are integrated into a complicated poetic system of images.
The structure of Nizamīʼs poem is built on the ancient Persian climate theory – a theory that the earth is divided into kishvar regions each of which comprises a large civilization. Kishvars (climes) in diagrams are visualized as seven circular regions. Iran is situated in the center of the world and the other six are arranged around it. Diagrams contain the information about the peoples inhabiting these kishvars and the boundaries of kishvars – rivers, mountains, and seas.
If we compare the cosmographic vision given by “Seven Beauties” with the kishvar diagrams which we can find in the treatises of scientists of the time e.g. anonymous 11th-century work “Mujmal at-tawarikh wa-l-qisas” and treatises by al-Bīrūnī, we must conclude that several different models of inhabited earth division have existed simultaneously. The borderlines of kishvars are shifted and we also can find changes in the depiction of lands and their inhabitants.
William M. Mahan, Northern Arizona University: The Perfect Community? Proto-Capitalism and Proto-Socialism as Conceptual Antimonies in Medieval Visions of Utopia
In the present day, notions of utopia and dystopia have the additional burden of accounting for the coexistence of humans with artificial intelligence. The technology we create threatens us with (self-)destruction, and yet some are still hopeful of a paradisiacal future in which human and machine coexist in an ecologically stabilized world. Even more intriguing are the echoes of medieval imagination in the contradictions of utopia.
Epistemologies for the happiest possible earthly existence have reflected the possibility of an ideal community as early as antiquity. In the Middle Ages, happiness was achievable in the everyday sense; nonetheless, changing notions of happiness reflected hopes that it could be attained by creating and living in the perfect community. According to Frederic Jameson, authors such as Thomas More began to imagine alternatives to both feudalist society and to pastoral life. More is credited with the notion of Utopia, coining the title of his work from the Greek term, hence, a non-place, but also considered eutopia, or “good place.” As Jameson rightly observes, the imagined egalitarian, Commune-like social structures were proto-Marxist, but were also proto-capitalist in their emphasis on commerce, materialism and reification. Utopias were somewhat materially oriented and yet proposed notions of equality and abolition of private property. Examples include the poetry of Hartmann von Aue, the mythical medieval land of Cockaigne, the book Utopia by Thomas More, and the early modern mythical land of Arcadia. Ideas of various community sizes, political features, and locations varied greatly, but a commonality was some form of equality contributing to happiness. Many groups indeed relocated together in attempts to build a new, morally structured society.
While More’s vision included various (invented) religions coexisting in peaceful tolerance as well as an abolition of private property, there were paradoxically two slaves assigned to each household. Returning to present-day considerations, it is telling that the Czech and Russian word “robota” also means slave and labor. Medieval utopias seem to be an attempt to combine imagined notions of life without labor and ideas of how lasting peace could be reached. The abolition of property in this example seems not to be absolute and still creates dichotomies between privilege and servitude. This paper will seek to assess these imagined utopias not only in terms of Marxism (cf. Marxism in Medieval Studies), but also in terms of freedom, health, ecological friendliness and other measurements of well-being. This essay will consider fictional writings and poetry of the Middle Ages that imagines the ideal community, analyzing equality and other factors necessary for communal happiness.
Doaa Omran, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque: Saladin’s Jaffa Peace Treaty
Saladin (Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf al-Ayyūbi) was the Muslim leader who recaptured Jerusalem in 1187; this made him a central figure in both Christian and Islamic chronicles. To ensure peace during the tumultuous Third Crusade, Saladin established a three-year truce in 1192. Saladin signed it with European leaders, including Richard the Lionheart of England, Frederick I of the Holy Roman Empire, and Philip II of France. A unique intercultural, diplomatic, and political dynamic emerged as Saladin collaborated with these three rulers to secure regional peace and protect the local community. Saladin’s importance resulted in a representation that mixes admiration and hostility. Earlier texts, like William of Tyre’s late twelfth-century History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea portrayed Saladin as a formidable enemy and a threat to Christendom. Later medieval works, including the 13th-century French La Fille du Comte de Ponthieu and the 14th-15th century Middle English The Sowdone of Babylone, offered a more favorable and even a mythologized portrayal. These texts romanticized Saladin and even gave him European ancestry and made him even involved in a romantic relationship with Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard the Lion Heart’s mother. The 13th-century anonymous work, The Minstrel of Reims, narrates such legendary amorous adventures and reconciles Saladin’s virtues with Christian chivalric ideals. On the other hand, the more non-fictional Arabic sources such as that written by Saladin’s advisor/ close companion/official – Baha’ al-Din Ibn Shaddad who wrote النوادر السلطانية والمحاسن اليوسفية – بهاء الدين بن شداد (The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin) provides valuable insights into Saladin’s rule, character, and military campaigns. Maimonides, who worked closely with Saladin, wrote about Jews and Christians who enjoyed freedom under the rule of Saladin. Even though peace and the question who owns the land could be a relative perspective, Saladin remained an important figure in twelfth century political and literary texts. This paper examines Saladin’s peace treaty and leadership portrayal in European and Arabic sources as a legendary figure of nobility and leadership. A comparison of both traditions reveals how cultural values, and political agendas shaped Saladin’s historical narrative. Unlike the medieval European literary sources such as The Sowdone of Babylone which depicted Saladin as a chivalrous Christian-like figure with European ancestry, I illustrate how Arabic sources such as Baha’ al-Din Ibn Shaddad’s The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin focus on how this Kurdish Muslim leader sought peace even when foreign troops invaded Jerusalem for its riches and Christ’s tomb – which locals had safeguarded for centuries. Even when he was under attack, Saladin prioritized peace, resulting in the Treaty of Jaffa, although many of his soldiers had been beheaded. While medieval romances highlight Saladin’s romantic pursuits and military victories, his substantial contributions to peacemaking are equally important. I demonstrate, through both fictional and non-fictional European and Arab sources, how Saladin’s leadership was defined by the ideals of justice, moderation, and a preference for long-term stability over conquest.
Emanuele Piazza: Department of Educational Sciences, University of Catania, Catania, Italy: A PATH TO PEACE AT THE END OF THE CAROLINGIAN EMPIRE: A READING OF THE GESTA KAROLI MAGNI IMPERATORIS OF NOTKER THE STAMMERER
The Gesta Karoli Magni imperatoris of Notker the Stammerer (ca. 840-912) reconstructs the figure of the great Frankish ruler, paying particular attention to highlighting the portrait of a pious and wise emperor rather than a great warrior. These virtues allowed Charlemagne to maintain peace in his kingdom, an objective that, according to Notker’s testimony, he achieved by, for example, disciplining the actions of the bishops and demonstrating his great value not only on the battlefields (although the strictly warlike dimension remains in the background), but also in establishing diplomatic relations with other politica! entities that came into contact with the Carolingians. In the Gesta, therefore, it is possible to trace some features of Charlemagne as a peaceful Emperor who, according to our author’s intentions, could have been a model for Charles the Fat, if the crisis of the imperial structure and the subsequent abdication had not interrupted the latter’s political! project.
Daniel F. Pigg, University of Tennessee at Martin: Finding Empowering Communities: Margery Kempe’s Quest for Friendship and Affirmation
Readers of The Book of Margery Kempe are often surprised by Margery Kempe’s behavior as it appears at times eccentric, obsessive, dangerous, and erratic. For those who read the work carefully, what seems apparent is that Kempe is looking for a community, not a location, even in the one in which she lives in King’s Lynn. In the course of Book One she meets a variety of regular clergy, bishops/archbishops, friars, monks, and nuns as well as a host of those in various kinds of civil government and ordinary people. Patterns emerge very quickly that certain people, perhaps based on their orientation to life, are more amenable to Kempe than others. Cloistered nuns often call upon her for spiritual advice. She often encounters monks who call her “false flesh.” She encounters civic officials who are worried about the influence that she will have over women in their community. Why is she wearing white clothing when it is clear that she is a married woman? Do her direct communications with Jesus or the Spirit threaten or enhance her participation in various communities?
This paper will examine the way in which Margery Kempe engages with various kinds of relatively fixed, stable communities and what those connections tell us about her. While to the casual observer it might look like Kempe simply wants to be understood, what actually emerges is that she engages with communities from a position of mutuality. Such a position both challenges and confirms her status a woman of the middling sort—the rising middle class—in fifteenth-century England. Why is community participation important? How does that contribute to her understanding of the good life? Why do those most cloistered find her a source of spiritual comfort and spiritual engagement? While one intention of such “community building” is to legitimate Kempe’s religious experience on the part of the scribe, at the same time those same connections seem to play off against one another in a way that renders Kempe both a person desirable for community, but at the same time outside some of its boundaries. It is not surprising then that those in religious communities find her most delightful and helpful. In that sense, Kempe has found who her “friends” really are.
Karen Pinto, Associate Scholar, Religious Studies, University of Colorado-Boulder: “Making it onto the KMMS Map: Why is al-Basra, Morocco, marked on medieval Islamicate images of the Maghrib and Mediterranean?”
The marking of a place called al-Basra on the Mediterranean flank of present-day Morocco where the much better known, indeed, famous medieval site of Fez is usually located is one of the most curious anomalies on medieval Islamicate KMMS maps of the Maghrib and the Mediterranean from the Kitāb al-masālik wa-al-mamālik (Book of Routes and Realms) carto-geographical manuscript series. Until now it has been routinely ignored in earlier studies on Islamicate maps of the Mediterranean because scholars were unable to identify the site and chose to not inform their audiences about it. Aside from the anomaly of a city called Basra – well-known as a site of significant history in Iraq right up until today– showing up on the depicted shores of medieval North Africa when our history books tell us otherwise, is the question of how and why a little-known and long forgotten site is permanently represented on medieval Islamicate KMMS maps of the Mediterranean stands out as historically bizarre and calls out for explanation. That is what this paper aims to do: To explain this unusual yet crucial anomaly of al-Basra on medieval Islamicate maps of the Maghrib and the Mediterranean. The question of community is related to the exodus of the Umayyad caliphate following the 747-750 C.E. Abbasid revolution, which resulted in a major change to the power structure of the medieval Islamic world. Most of the Umayyads were massacred and those that survived escaped west to North Africa, first, and then, eventually, to the Iberian Peninsula where, a century later, the runt of the Umayyads established a secondary minor caliphate to rival Baghdad. In this great sweep of history that is memorialized in the history of Islamic Spain, the site of al-Basra, Morocco, has been all but forgotten although it tells the story of a decimated community. Fortunately, the KMMS authors chose to remind us otherwise. This paper will seek to layout the history of the development of a short-lived Umayyad Maghribian rival to the great Basra of Iraq that, literally, put it onto the maps. I will discuss in what way this anomaly is related to the development of a caliphal expatriate community and show how it helps us to significantly re-date the start of the KMMS mapping tradition to the 9th century. It is a reminder of the importance of excavating anomalies for the annals of history.
John Pizer, Louisiana State University: Poetic Community, Social Standing, Friendship, and Happiness in Contexts of War and Peace: Contrasting Simon Dach with Sigmund von Birken
The Baroque Age in Germany witnessed the flourishing of poetic communities (“Sprachgesellschaften”) that were inspired by similar Italian societies already existent in the fifteenth century. While most of the German societies were devoted to developing a viable vernacular poetry that could rival the Latin verse prevalent at the time, these communities were disparate in terms of social standing, the thematization of war and peace, and the pursuit of happiness. The Kürbishütte (pumpkin cottage) was a society founded during the Thirty Years’ War and featured Simon Dach among its leading members. The group used the term “Kürbis” in its name to signal the transient and evanescent nature of life, exemplified by this short-lived plant. Dach’s poem on friendship as a mode of consolation in dire circumstances has attained a canonic status. Indeed, religion, community, and friendship are viewed as the only modes of happiness available by Dach and his colleagues in this society, who were primarily members of the middle class. On the other hand, poetic organizations such as the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft (fruit-bearing society) and the Pegnesischer Blumenorden (Pegnitz order of flowers) had many aristocratic members. Poems generated by these groups often put aside the horrors of war and were frequently bucolic pastorals redolent with the simple, harmonious life of the shepherd. Relationships between figures in this poetry, while not devoid of rivalry, are largely amicable, sometimes amorous, and peaceful. A leading member of both societies was Sigmund von Birken, who had a close working relationship with Duke Anton Ulrich of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel and was a prolific composer of pastoral poetry. My paper would contrast these differing modes and moods of poetic community by examining the often-antithetical attitudes of Dach and Birken with respect to their poetic communities, peace, happiness, and friendship, primarily as expressed in their poetry and as influenced by their social standing.
Kristof Szitar, Yale University and Université de Lausanne: The Concept of Peace in Ghaznavid Poetic Sources
The concept of “universal civility” (ṣulḥ-i kull/ṣulḥ ba-hama, lit. “peace with all”), developed by the prominent statesmen Abū l-Fażl and Faiżī, has been widely discussed for its role in promoting peaceful relations during Akbar’s rule in Mughal India (Sheffield 2014 & 2025, Kinra 2020, et al.). However, less attention has been paid to the role of peace in the ethnically, religiously, and culturally diverse Ghaznavid Empire, particularly during the reigns of Maḥmūd (r. 998–1030), Muḥammad (r. 1030), and Masʿūd (r. 1030–1040). Ghaznavid court poetry, primarily composed during these periods but preserved in later Mughal-Safavid manuscripts, reveals reflections on peace in the context of the empire’s military and political expansion across Central and South Asia.
This presentation examines the conceptual development of “peace” in the dīvāns of ʿUnṣurī and Farrukhī, whose works juxtapose war (jang, razm) with peace (ṣulḥ), offering insights into the political and religious transformations of the period. In their poetry, peace and happiness (shādī) are contrasted with devastation (vīrānī), strife fitnāʾ), and instability. While the Ghaznavid period was not devoid of conflict, the prominence of peace and harmony in court poetry sponsored by Ghaznavid rulers has been insufficiently explored. Through specific examples, this study demonstrates how ʿUnṣurī and Farrukhī portrayed their patrons as harbingers and maintainers of peace, crucial for the stability of the increasingly diverse communities unified under the Ghaznavid Empire. The presentation also addresses critical textual challenges in the study of Ghaznavid literature, highlighting newly discovered archival sources that shed light on this formative period.
David Tomíček, Jan Evangelista Purkyně University, Ústí nad Labem, Czech Republic: Plague and Consolation: Medical Treatises as Tools for Coping with Crisis in Early Modern Bohemia
One of the most serious threats that human societies have faced for centuries is infectious disease epidemics. This fact is well reflected in interpretations that identify one of the apocalyptic horsemen with the pestilence. Physicians belong to those professions where people seek help, explanation and encouragement in illness, and the numerous treatises on the plague can thus be read as texts on coping with existential crisis. Their content was certainly not intended to evoke a feeling of happiness, but it undoubtedly offered some consolation, which had a positive effect on the mental state. In my paper I would like to focus on Czech-language printed treatises on the plague from the 16th and 17th centuries. I will examine their communicative strategies and the discursive means by which medical consolation is constructed and offered to readers. I will also be interested in the forms of its instrumentalization. How the authors of the plague treatises, following the medieval concept of res non naturales, used consolation as a prophylactic and therapeutic intervention.
Warren Tormey, English Department, Middle Tennessee State University: “A Faire Field Full of Folk”: Envisioning Community in Piers Plowman
Scholars of Langland’s Piers Plowman have in recent decades come to recognize its intensely communal character. Borne out of the author’s rural roots and also his deep immersion in the life and culture of fourteenth century London, Piers Plowman features multiple communities across the 22 chapters of its fullest C-text version. Langland first portrays struggling denizens of that urban world who collectively fall prey to the distractions of everyday life and so remain spiritually incomplete. He also portrays academic communities, represented in allegorical figures, who debate and argue about the contours of Christianity, the nature of salvation, and the spiritual fate of unbaptized pagans. He fashions an agrarian everyman hero of sorts in the evolving figure of Piers Plowman himself, who is positioned firstly as an idealized representative of rural community and later as a Christ-like embodiment of human potential and human experience. Finally, this enigmatic author seeks and creates community between himself, an ephemeral persona revealing itself in select tangible details, and a keen, discerning readership capable of discerning his poem’s allegorical nuances across the nearly two-decade process of its composition. True to his clerkly culture and origins, he seeks to reconcile these inactive and preoccupied spiritual laborers with those who work more productively to sustain the larger society as well as those privileged few who escape the mundane duties of everyday labor. The purpose of this essay is to consider the multiple forms of engagement with the concept of community embedded in Langland’s poem, and to consider select representations of that idea, flawed, fallen and also fulfilled, that the poet articulates across the full narrative of his poem.
Birgit Wiedl, Institute for Jewish History in Austria, St. Pölten, Austria:: My dear friend, the Jew. The Multitude of Jewish-Christian Relations in Medieval Ashkenaz
My dear friend, the wise and honorable David Steuss the Jew: Thus Johann Ribi von Platzheim-Lenzburg, Bishop of Gurk and chancellor of the Austrian Duke Rudolf IV addressed his business partner, the Viennese Jewish man David Steuss, who bore him nothing but loyalty and friendship, in 1364. Such friendly, sometimes even familiar addresses, while not to be over-interpreted, hint at Jewish-Christian interaction that went beyond the stereotypical business relations and anti-Jewish pogroms. Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages were for a long time seen – and researched – as two separate entities that lived according to their own religions, customs, and laws. While their respective cultural identities, with all the regional and temporal differences, are still acknowledged (and researched), current research has turned to topics such as Jewish-Christian neighborhoods, to keywords such as entanglement and both gendered and social status. Modern scholarship therefore finds Jews and Christians in a multitude of relations: they acted as arbitrators together and sat as assessors in local courts; Jewish craftspeople worked for Christian customers and in Christian workshops, and vice versa; and although forbidden by both Christian and Jewish authorities, sexual relations were not unheard of. On a personal level, business contacts could develop into personal relationships based on trust and confidence in each other, and neighborly encounters might lead to closer acquaintance and even friendship.
Thomas Willard, University of Arizona: From Christian Rosencreutz to Christianopolis: The Utopian Journey of Johann Valentin Andreae: The Utopian Journey of Johann Valentin Andreae (1586–1654)
By a curious coincidence, Johann Valentin Andreae is known primarily for his juvenilia, conceived and written with others before he completed his undergraduate studies in 1606. Meanwhile, his mature masterpiece, the novel Christianopolis (1619), has received relatively little attention, even though it is recognized as a major contribution to utopian literature in the Western world. The reason for this lies in Andreae’s career path as a candidate for the Lutheran ministry and then a deacon and candidate for ordination. His entry into the theology faculty over which his grandfather once presided was delayed for six years because his satiric verse and imaginary prose raised doubts among university officials. Then his promotion from deacon to pastor was delayed for several more years after an early text about Christian Rosencreutz was printed without his permission and widely debated. Between the early story of a supposed medieval fraternity and the final description of a social and religious utopia, Andreae wrote a series of largely satiric works about contemporary life in the early seventeenth century. This essay explores the development of his thought from satires to the satiric but serious utopian novel.
Asmaa Ahmed Youssef Etman, Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Higher Institute of Languages, Egypt: Beyond Arabism: Shu’ubiyyah’s Role in Shaping Abbasid Literary Discourse Through the Poetry of Bashar ibn Burd and the Works of Al-Jāhiz
Beyond Arabism: Shu’ubiyyah’s Role in Shaping Abbasid Literary Discourse Through the Poetry of Bashar ibn Burd and the Works of Al-Jāhiz
This paper examines the phenomenon of populism, Shu’ubiyyah, which embodies intellectual, literary, social, and ideological conflict that existed between the Arabs and non-Arabs, ’Ajam, especially the Persians, during the Abbasid era. The research identifies the stages and causes of the phenomenon, beginning with the Umayyad era and reaching its peak during the Abbasid era. The roots of racial fanaticism and the expansion of the nationalist tendency toward independence led to the rebellion of the Persian loyalists against the Arabs. The research explores how populism, Shu’ubiyya, relied on literature and made it a means of planting the seeds of discord, racism, and hatred in the souls of non-Arabs. It also provides examples of this phenomenon among the Abbasid poet Bashar ibn Burd and the writer al-Jāhiz, who responded to the falsehoods and allegations of this trend. The paper explores how Bashar ibn Burd used praise to revive Persian culture to instill it in the Abbasid state and satire to disparage and belittle Arab-Islamic culture. Meanwhile, Al-Jāhiz wrote books such as Al-Bayan wa al-Tabyin and Kitāb al-Hayawān in response to Shu’ubiyya. He attempted to create awareness of these vicious attacks on Arab-Islamic culture in an effort to strike a balance between the two camps. The paper proves that the trend of Shu’ubiyya led to new developments in Arabic medieval literature. The results of the conflict included: First, the compilation of the Arab poetic and prose heritage to counter the populist accusation that Arabs were culturally bankrupt among nations. Second, the activity of the translation movement from various nations. Translated Arabic and Persian works from both sides expanded the horizon of knowledge and stimulated the cultural and scientific movement. Third, an attempt to reconcile the races of the Islamic nation and preserve its Arab authenticity.