‹al-istiṭāʿa› between kalām and falsafa

Surveys the Begriffsgeschichte of istiṭāʿah (< τὸ αὐτεξούσιον; τὸ ἐφ´ ἡμῖν) in antique and late antique philosophical and theological/patristic texts, the Syriac&Arabic reception history of the Nicomachean Ethics, Alexander of Aphrodisias's Maqāla fī l-istiṭāʿa, Nemesius of Emesa's K. Ṭabīʿat al-insān, and early Christian-Arabic literature, and critically considers real and alleged historical and conceptual relations to the notion of istiṭāʿa in Muʿtazilī theories of human agency

Diachronic Intertextualities: Falsafa, Kalām, Uṣūl al-Fiqh

Computer-aided comparison between large textual corpora, first and foremost in the areas of falsafa, ʿilm kalām, and uṣūl al-fiqh, Muslim & Jewish & Christian

Opposing the theological doctrine of the Qāsimī state in 11th/17th century Yemen: a Shāfiʿī khat addict from Ṣanʿāʾ allegedly writing under the pseudonym of a Kurdish savant from Damascus

Among the great diversity of source material and multiple historio- and biographical works covering the history of the early Qāsimī state , Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn b. al-Qāsim’s (d. after 1100/1687) Bahǧat al-zaman fī tārīḫ al-Yaman occupies a position of paramount importance. For the political, economic, social, cultural and intellectual history of Yemen in the five decades following the end of the first Ottoman occupation in 1046/1636, it amounts to an exceedingly rich mine of unique information. Even though it is referred to as ‘appendix’ (ḏayl) to the author’s overarching history of Yemen (Anbāʾ al-zaman fī tārīḫ al-Yaman) and its general introduction (al-ʿIbar fī aḫbār man maḍā wa-ghabar), it in many respects eclipses the Anbāʾ in importance, not least because it contains a substantial amount of data collected during the author’s lifetime from a wide range of sources and informants (travellers, tradesmen, students, men of learning, and commoners) from Yemen and all over the Islamic world. An equally amusing and intriguing section of Bahǧat al-zaman is the entry dedicated to ʿAbd al-Hādī al-Quwayʿī, a Ṣanʿāʾ based Šāfiʿī bibliophile. The article offers an annotated translation of passages extracted from that entry and are designed to prepare the ground for an in-depth study of K. al-Nibrās and a ramified network of related texts

A Hamaḏānian Patchwork

Among the numerous Jewish uṣūl al-dīn compositions in the Second Firkovitch Collection at the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg there is one that I have labelled “A Hamaḏānian Patchwork”. You might just as well call it “A Persian Carpet”. It is another magnificent specimen of “diachronic intertextualities”. The treatise, which is partly preserved in ms. St. Petersburg, RNL, Yevr.-Arab. I 4881 and a few smaller fragments, is made up of many customised quotations, first and foremost from works by the chief Qāḍī Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAbd al-Ǧabbār b. Aḥmad al-Hamaḏānī (d. 415/1024), in particular his Muḥīṭ and Muġnī. A full breakdown of the text’s fabric will be presented in a separate publication. Of the two samples given below, the first reproduces a passage which is also quoted in the extensive Šarḥ ʿUyūn al-masāʾil by al-Ḥākim Abū Saʿd al-Muḥassin b. Muḥammad b. Kurrāma al-Bayhaqī al-Barawġanī al-Ǧušamī/Češumī (d. 494/1101), while the second renders two passages taken from the Nubūwāt of the Muġnī. In several instances, these quotations will help to lay bare mistakes in the printed edition

Toolkit for Genizah Scholars: A Practical Guide for Neophytes (2017)

Toolkit for Genizah Scholars: A Practical Guide for Neophytes prepared for the participants of the EAJS SUMMER LABORATORY FOR YOUNG GENIZAH RESEARCHERS, Institut für den Nahen und Mittleren Osten, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München, 6–7 September 2017. Corrections and additions are most welcome (g.schwarb[at]gmail.com)

The Reception of Ibn Sina and Avicennian Philosophy in Christian-Arabic Literature

Audio & slides of a paper given at the Colloquium on Avicenna and Avicennisms held at SOAS, University of London, 6–7 June 2014. http://meti.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/home/meti-info/2014-avicenna/ © Gregor Schwarb, 7 June 201

Palaeographical Guide to a Draft Copy (musawwada) of Sahl b. al-Faḍl al-Tustarī’s Torah Commentary, Ex 34:18 – Lev 3:4 (SP, RNL, Arab.-Yevr. 21, ff. 105r-213v)

This palaeographical guide grew out of a workshop («A Jewish Theologian’s Arabic Guide to State Administration: Mukhtaṣar fī ṣināʿat al-kitāba of Sahl b. al-Faḍl al-Tustarī»), organised by Dr. Luke Yarbrough at the NYU Abu Dhabi, 29-30 March 2017. Comments and corrections are welcome ([email protected])

Bioequivalence testing of topical dermatological formulations, the gap between science and legislation

Bioavailability concerns for topical dermatological products are complex and it is especially difficult to determine the bioequivalence of similar topical formulations. Since only small amounts of drug dispersed in an appropriate vehicle are applied to the skin, the amount of drug that actually reaches the systemic circulation is often too small to be easily quantified. Additionally, it can be argued that the relevance of any serum/plasma concentration-time curve of a topical agent is questionable, since the curve reflects the amount of drug after the active moiety has left the site of action. For some topical drugs e.g., topical corticosteroids, it is possible to perform a pharmacodynamic bioassay to obtain acceptable bioequivalence data. In this case, the intensity of the side effect of blanching (vasoconstriction) in the skin caused by topical corticosteroids can be measured. The response is directly proportional to the clinical efficacy, and the skin blanching assay has proved to be a reliable procedure for the determination of topical corticosteroid bioavailability. Recently, we had sight of the results of a topical bioequivalence study, which was conducted for the registration of a new generic corticosteroid cream formulation. In this trial the new formulation was compared to two equivalent product from the local market and bioequivalence was demonstrated by the investigators for all three products. These results were examined with interest as the respective reference products have been used repeatedly as standard formulations in our laboratory. However, one of these reference formulations has consistently shown superior bioavailability in our trials, but was not demonstrated to be superior in the study results examined. In the present publication an overview of topical bioequivalence testing in general is given and the difficulties occurring in practice, for topical corticosteroid formulations in particular, are demonstrated

Chromametry: measuring precision of diurnal and local variation of human forearm skin colour

Chromameters are compact portable instruments used for the assessment of surface colour based on the tristimulus analysis of a reflected xenon light pulse, and have been used for the quantification of erythema in the study of irritant dermatitis, and corticosteroid-induced skin blanching in the vasoconstriction assay. The variability and the reproducibility of chromameter results were investigated since it is known that the location and application force of the measuring head on the skin and the orthostatic maneuver of the arms influence the colour measurement. Furthermore the diurnal variation and the homogeneity of forearm skin colour were investigated