Pletho's Nomoi - A Case of Polytheism in the Latebizantinian Era and its Reception in the Islamic World

During his stay in Italy as a member of the Greek delegation at the Council of Union in Ferrara/Florence in 1438/9 George Gemistos Pletho criticized the intellectuals of the Latin West heavily for their overestimation of Aristotle and their disregard of Plato. Meanwhile he blamed the Arabic commentators of the Aristotelian corpus Avicenna and Averroes for this misinterpretation, Islam is used as a positive example in Pletho s historical writings. On the other hand Pletho s works were received in the Islamic world as well through the Arabic translation of his Nomoi done at the court of Mehmet II. This article offers a short overview of the different aspects of the relation between Pletho and Islam and the transliteration and translation of the Arabic translation of his Compendium Zoroastreorum

Plethons Nomoi : ein Beitrag zum Polytheismus in spätbyzantinischer Zeit und seiner Rezeption'in der islamischen Welt

Während seines Aufenthaltes in Italien als Mitglied der griechischen Delegation auf dem Unionskonzil in Ferrara/Florenz 1438/39 kritisierte GeorgiosGemistos Plethon die Intellektuellen im lateinischen Westen heftig für ihre Überschätzung des Aristoteles und die Mißachtung Platons. Während er die arabischen Kommentatoren des aristotelischen Corpus Avicenna und Averoes für diese Fehlinterpretaton verantwortlich machte, findet der Islam in den historischen Schriften Plethons als positives Beispiel Verwendung. Auf der anderen Seite wurde Plethons Werk auch in der islamischen Welt durch die arabische Übersetzung seiner Nomoi am Hof Mehmets II bekannt. Dieser Aufsatz enthält einen kurzen Überblick über die verschiedenen Aspekte der Beziehung zwischen Plethon und dem Islam, sowie die Transkription und Übersetzung der arabischen Übersetzung seines Compendium Zoroastreorum.During his stay in Italy as a member of the Greek delegation at the Council of Union in Ferrara/Florence in 1438/9 George Gemistos Pletho criticized the intellectuals of the Latin West heavily for their overestimation of Aristotle and their disregard of Plato. Meanwhile he blamed the Arabic commentators of the Aristotelian corpus Avicenna and Averroes for this misinterpretation, Islam is used as a positive example in Pletho s historical writings. On the other hand Pletho s works were received in the Islamic world as well through the Arabic translation of his Nomoi done at the court of Mehmet II. This article offers a short overview of the different aspects of the relation between Pletho and Islam and the transliteration and translation of the Arabic translation of his Compendium Zoroastreorum

The man-made disaster: fire in cities in the medieval Middle East

'In Anbetracht der Baumaterialien wie auch der klimatischen Bedingungen im mittelalterlichen Nahen Osten müssen Feuer ein großes Problem dargestellt haben. Dieser Artikel enthält einen ersten Überblick über die Quellen, die für eine Untersuchung der Bedeutung von Feuern in städtischen Gegenden relevant sind. Material findet sich beispielsweise in Geschichtswerken wie Ibn Kathirs 'Der Anfang und das Ende' oder in juristischen Abhandlungen. Die meisten Feuer, die in diesen Quellen behandelt werden, sind im Zuge von Unruhen bzw. während kriegerischer Auseinandersetzungen entstanden, oder durch Unfälle auf Märkten. Der Artikel setzt sich auch mit der Frage auseinander, inwieweit Feuer in das allgemeine Muster von Katastrophendiskursen in der mittelalterlichen arabischen Literatur passen.' (Autorenreferat)'Considering the building materials and climatic conditions in the medieval Middle East, fires must have been a major problem. This article provides a first survey of sources which are relevant for studying the impact of fires in urban environments. Evidence can be found, for example, in historiographies such as Ibn Kathir's 'The Beginning and the End', or in legal discussions. Most fires mentioned in these sources were caused during riots or war, or by accidents in markets. The article also analyses how far fires fit into the general pattern of discussions around disasters in medieval Arabic literature.' (author's abstract

The Man-Made Disaster: Fire in Cities in the Medieval Middle East

Considering the building materials and climatic conditions in the medieval Middle East, fires must have been a major problem. This article provides a first survey of sources which are relevant for studying the impact of fires in urban environments. Evidence can be found, for example, in historiographies such as Ibn Kathīr\u27s The Beginning and the End, or in legal discussions. Most fires mentioned in these sources were caused during riots or war, or by accidents in markets. The article also analyses how far fires fit into the general pattern of discussions around disasters in medieval Arabic literature

Islam and Buddhism: The Arabian Prequel?

Conventionally, the first Muslim-Buddhist encounters are thought to have taken place in the context of the Arab-Muslim expansions into eastern Iran in the mid-seventh century, the conquest of Sind in 711 and the rise of the Islamic empire. However, several theories promoted in academic and popular circles claim that Buddhists or other Indians were present in western Arabia at the eve of Islam and thus shaped the religious environment in which Muhammad’s movement emerged. This article offers a critical survey of the most prominent arguments adduced to support this view and discusses the underlying attitudes to the Islamic tradition, understood as a body of ideas and practices, and Islamic Tradition, understood as a body of texts. Such theories appear to be radical challenges of the Islamic tradition insofar as they seek to reinscribe the presence of religious communities in conventional narratives of Islamic origins that do not acknowledge them. On the other hand, they often operate with an unreconstructed reliance upon the sources of the Islamic Tradition. The assessment focuses on descriptions of the Ka’ba and objects associated with it as well as on a story about an Indian physician who diagnosed an illness of Muhammad’s wife Aisha. While Indian or Buddhist connections with western Arabia and early Islam do not appear to be entirely impossible, the evidence does not amount to a persuasive case for the early seventh century

L’adaptation des savoirs byzantins à la cour ottomane après la conquête de Constantinople

Introduction Le 29 mai 1453 fut une journée qui changea le monde. Après un long siège, Constantinople tombait aux mains de ses conquérants ottomans. L’Empire byzantin avait disparu pour toujours. Si l’on doit en croire les légendes modernes, l’événement serait surtout le succès d’un homme, le sultan Mehmet II qui venait d’avoir vingt-et-un ans et qui allait par la suite être nommé Fatih, « le conquérant ». Rempli d’une ambition tenace, celui-ci s’était imposé face à ses conseillers afin de po..

L’adaptation des savoirs byzantins à la cour ottomane après la conquête de Constantinople

Introduction Le 29 mai 1453 fut une journée qui changea le monde. Après un long siège, Constantinople tombait aux mains de ses conquérants ottomans. L’Empire byzantin avait disparu pour toujours. Si l’on doit en croire les légendes modernes, l’événement serait surtout le succès d’un homme, le sultan Mehmet II qui venait d’avoir vingt-et-un ans et qui allait par la suite être nommé Fatih, « le conquérant ». Rempli d’une ambition tenace, celui-ci s’était imposé face à ses conseillers afin de po..

Alexander in the Himalayas: Competing Imperial Legacies in Medieval Islamic History and Literature

In 1888, Rudyard Kipling published a collection of stories in a volume with the title The Phantom Rickshaw and Other Tales. The collection includes the short story The Man Who Would be King, in which Kipling\u27s alter ego, a British journalist in India, makes the acquaintance of a pair of adventurers, Daniel Dravot and Peachey Carnehan, who demand his help as a fellow Mason. The two shady characters have set out to take advantage of divisions among the natives and are determined to install themselves as kings in Kafiristan, a remote region inhabited by pagans in the north of the subcontinent. The journalist supplies them with maps; but it is only after two years that he hears from them again, when Carnehan, half-dead, returns to the journalist\u27s office. Recounting their fate, he describes how they had first succeeded in securing themselves ever higher positions of power by playing off the tribes against each other. Dravot was declared a god and son of Alexander the Great. Their rise was facilitated by their familiarity with Masonic symbols in a temple used by the elders. Then, however, Dravot decided to marry a Kafiri girl; and when the reluctant bride bit him in the cheek during the wedding ceremony, the sight of their ‘god\u27s’ blood betrayed his thoroughly human nature. The natives chased him onto a bridge which crossed a deep gorge and cut the ropes. Carnehan was crucified, but let go after he survived until the next day. In John Huston\u27s film version of this story, released in 1975. the Alexandrian hoax is more prominent. The Kafiri girl becomes Dravot\u27s very own Roxana, and the short scene in the temple from Kipling\u27s story turns into an elaborate cult of the holy city of Sikandergul. Equally pronounced is the Masonic background of the two fraudsters