Ibn Wahshiyya

Ibn Waḥshiyya (Arabic: ابن وحشية), died c. 930, was a Nabataean (Aramaic-speaking, rural Iraqi) agriculturalist, toxicologist, and alchemist born in Qussīn, near Kufa in Iraq.^[2] He is the author of the Nabataean Agriculture (Kitāb al-Filāḥa al-Nabaṭiyya), an influential Arabic work on agriculture, astrology, and magic.^[3]

Ibn Waḥshiyya
ابن وحشية
Manuscript of The Nabataean Agriculture
Died	930–1 CE (318 AH)^[1]
Notable work	The Nabataean Agriculture
Era	Islamic Golden Age
Region	Kufa (Iraq)
Language	Arabic
Main interests	Agriculture, botany, toxicology, alchemy and chemistry, magic

Already by the end of the tenth century, various works were being falsely attributed to him.^[4] One of these spurious writings, the Kitāb Shawq al-mustahām fī maʿrifat rumūz al-aqlām ("The Book of the Desire of the Maddened Lover for the Knowledge of Secret Scripts", perhaps 1022–3 CE),^[5] is notable as an early proposal that some Egyptian hieroglyphs could be read phonetically, rather than only logographically.^[6]

Name

His full name was Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn [Qays ibn] al-Mukhtār ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn Ḥarathyā ibn Badanyā ibn Barṭānyā ibn ʿĀlāṭyā al-Kasdānī al-Ṣūfī.^[7]

Just like the semi-legendary Jabir ibn Hayyan, he carried the nisba al-Ṣūfī despite the fact that he is not known to have engaged in or to have written anything about Sufism.^[8] The nisba al-Kasdānī is a variant of al-Kaldānī ('Chaldaean'), a term referring to the native inhabitants of Mesopotamia that was also used in Greek, but (given the known -shd-/-ld- variation in Babylonian language) may perhaps be based on a living oral tradition indigenous to Iraq.^[9]

Biography

Ibn Wahshiyya was likely born in Qussīn (Iraq) and died in the year 318 of the Islamic calendar (= 930-1 CE). Very little else is known about his life. Our main source of information are Ibn Wahshiyya's own writings, as well as the short entry in Ibn al-Nadim's (died c. 995) Fihrist, where he is explicitly said to be among the "authors whose life is not well known". Ibn Wahshiyya himself claimed to be a descendant of the Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib (r. 704 – 681 BCE), whom the rural, Aramaic-speaking population of southern Iraq (known to Arabic authors of Ibn Wahshiyya's time as 'Nabataeans') revered as their illustrious ancestor. Despite the fact that these Iraqi 'Nabataeans'^[a] were generally looked down upon as lowly peasants by the contemporary Arab elite, Ibn Wahshiyya identified himself as one of them. Ibn Wahshiyya's self-identification as 'Nabataean' seems credible given the accurate use of Aramaic terms in his works.^[10]

Works

Ibn Wahshiyya's works were written down and redacted after his death by his student and scribe Abū Ṭālib al-Zayyāt.^[11] They were used not only by later agriculturalists, but also by authors of works on magic like Maslama al-Qurṭubī (died 964, author of the Ghāyat al-ḥakīm, "The Aim of the Sage", Latin: Picatrix), and by philosophers like Maimonides (1138–1204) in his Dalālat al-ḥāʾirīn ("Guide for the Perplexed", c. 1190).^[12]

Ibn al-Nadim, in his Kitāb al-Fihrist (c. 987), lists approximately twenty works attributed to Ibn Wahshiyya. However, most of these were probably not written by Ibn Wahshiyya himself, but rather by other tenth-century authors inspired by him.^[13]

The Nabataean Agriculture

Main article: The Nabatean Agriculture

Ibn Wahshiyya's major work, the Nabataean Agriculture (Kitāb al-Filāḥa al-Nabaṭiyya, c. 904), claims to have been translated from an "ancient Syriac" original, written c. 20,000 years ago by the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia.^[14] In Ibn Wahshiyya's time, Syriac was thought to have been the primordial language used at the time of creation.^[15] While the work may indeed have been translated from a Syriac original,^[16] in reality Syriac is a language that only emerged in the first century. By the ninth century, it had become the carrier of a rich literature, including many works translated from the Greek. The book's extolling of Babylonian civilization against that of the conquering Arabs forms part of a wider movement (the Shu'ubiyya movement) in the early Abbasid period (750-945 CE), which witnessed the emancipation of non-Arabs from their former status as second-class Muslims.^[17]

Other works

The Book of the Desire of the Maddened Lover for the Knowledge of Secret Scripts

One of the works attributed to Ibn Wahshiyya is the Kitāb Shawq al-mustahām fī maʿrifat rumūz al-aqlām ("The Book of the Desire of the Maddened Lover for the Knowledge of Secret Scripts”), a work dealing amongst other things with Egyptian hieroglyphs. Its author refers to his extensive travels in Egypt, but Ibn Wahshiyya himself seems never to have visited Egypt, a country which he barely even mentions in his authentic works. For this and other reasons, scholars believe the work to be spurious.^[18] According to Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila, it may have been authored by Hasan ibn Faraj, an obscure descendant of the Harranian Sabian scholar Sinan ibn Thabit ibn Qurra (c. 880–943) who claimed to have merely copied the work in the year 413 AH, corresponding to 1022–3 CE.^[19]

The Book of Poisons

Another work attributed to Ibn Wahshiyya is a treatise on toxicology called the Book of Poisons, which combines contemporary knowledge on pharmacology with magic and astrology.^[20]

Cryptography

The works attributed to Ibn Wahshiyya contain several cipher alphabets that were used to encrypt magic formulas.^[21]

Later influence

 

Attempted translation of Egyptian hieroglyphs by pseudo-Ibn Wahshiyyah (from Shawq al-mustahām, Paris MS Arabe 6805, fol 92b–93a).^[22]

Pseudo-Ibn Wahshiyya's Kitāb Shawq al-mustahām fī maʿrifat rumūz al-aqlām ("The Book of the Desire of the Maddened Lover for the Knowledge of Secret Scripts", perhaps 1022–3 CE, see above), has been claimed by Egyptologist Okasha El-Daly to have correctly identified the phonetic value of a number of Egyptian hieroglyphs.^[23] However, other scholars have been highly sceptical about El-Daly's claims on the accuracy of these identifications, which betray a keen interest in (as well as some basic knowledge of) the nature of Egyptian hieroglyphs, but are in fact for the most part incorrect.^[24] The book may have been known to the German Jesuit scholar and polymath Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680),^[25] and was translated into English by Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall in 1806 as Ancient Alphabets and Hieroglyphic Characters Explained; with an Account of the Egyptian Priests, their Classes, Initiation, and Sacrifices in the Arabic Language by Ahmad Bin Abubekr Bin Wahishih.^[26]

See also

• Alchemy
• Alchemy and chemistry in the medieval Islamic world
• History of agriculture
• Ibn Abi Usaybi'a
• Muslim Agricultural Revolution
• Science in the medieval Islamic world
• The Nabataean Agriculture (Ibn Wahshiyya's major work)

Notes

1. These Iraqi 'Nabataeans' are not to be confused with the ancient Nabataeans of Petra, with whom they have nothing in common.

References

1. Hämeen-Anttila 2018.
2. Hämeen-Anttila 2018. On Qussīn, see Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, IV:350 (referred to by Hämeen-Anttila 2006, p. 93).
3. Hämeen-Anttila 2006, p. 3.
4. Hämeen-Anttila 2018.
5. For the spurious nature of this work, see Hämeen-Anttila 2006, pp. 21–22. See also Toral-Niehoff & Sundermeyer 2018.
6. El-Daly 2005, pp. 57–73. Stephan 2017, p. 265 affirms that the author correctly deciphered a few signs and that he showed some knowledge on the nature of Egyptian hieroglyphs. However, according to Stephan, El-Daly "vastly overemphasizes Ibn Waḥshiyya's accuracy". El-Daly's characterization of pseudo-Ibn Wahshiyya's and other contemporary Arabic authors' interest in the decipherment of ancient scripts as representing a coordinated research program, and as lying at the foundations of modern Egyptology, was found lacking in evidence by Colla 2008. On pseudo-Ibn Wahshiyya, see also Toral-Niehoff & Sundermeyer 2018.
7. Hämeen-Anttila 2018.
8. Hämeen-Anttila 2018.
9. Hämeen-Anttila 2006, pp. 16, 43.
10. Hämeen-Anttila 2018.
11. Hämeen-Anttila 2006, p. 87.
12. Hämeen-Anttila 2018. On the authorship of the Ghāyat al-ḥakīm, see Fierro 1996, recently confirmed by De Callataÿ & Moureau 2017.
13. Hämeen-Anttila 2018.
14. Hämeen-Anttila 2006, p. 3.
15. Rubin 1998, pp. 330–333.
16. Hämeen-Anttila 2006, pp. 10–33.
17. Hämeen-Anttila 2006, pp. 33–45.
18. Hämeen-Anttila 2006, pp. 21–22; Toral-Niehoff & Sundermeyer 2018.
19. Hämeen-Anttila 2006, p. 21, note 45.
20. Iovdijová & Bencko 2010.
21. Whitman 2010, p. 351.
22. El-Daly 2005, p. 71.
23. El-Daly 2005, pp. 57–73.
24. Stephan 2017, p. 265. According to Stephan, El-Daly "vastly overemphasizes Ibn Waḥshiyya's accuracy". El-Daly's characterization of pseudo-Ibn Wahshiyya's and other contemporary Arabic authors' interest in the decipherment of ancient scripts as representing a coordinated research program, and as lying at the foundations of modern Egyptology, was found lacking in evidence by Colla 2008.
25. El-Daly 2005, pp. 58, 68.
26. Hammer 1806. Cf. El-Daly 2005, pp. 68–69.

Bibliography

• Colla, Elliot (2008). "Review of El-Daly 2005". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 40 (1): 135–137. doi:10.1017/S0020743807080142. S2CID 162412180.
• De Callataÿ, Godefroid; Moureau, Sébastien (2017). "A Milestone in the History of Andalusī Bāṭinism: Maslama b. Qāsim al-Qurṭubī's Riḥla in the East". Intellectual History of the Islamicate World. 5 (1): 86–117. doi:10.1163/2212943X-00501004.
• El-Daly, Okasha (2005). Egyptology: The Missing Millennium. Ancient Egypt in Medieval Arabic Writings. London: UCL Press.
• Fierro, Maribel (1996). "Bāṭinism in Al-Andalus: Maslama b. Qāsim al-Qurṭubī (d. 353/964), Author of the Rutbat al-Ḥakīm and the Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm (Picatrix)". Studia Islamica. 84 (84): 87–112. doi:10.2307/1595996. hdl:10261/281028. JSTOR 1595996.
• Hämeen-Anttila, Jaakko (2006). The Last Pagans of Iraq: Ibn Wahshiyya And His Nabatean Agriculture. Leiden: Brill.
• Hämeen-Anttila, Jaakko (2018). "Ibn Waḥshiyya". In Fleet, Kate; Krämer, Gudrun; Matringe, Denis; Nawas, John; Rowson, Everett (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam, Three. doi:10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_32287.
• Hammer, Joseph von (1806). Ancient Alphabets and Hieroglyphic Characters Explained; with an Account of the Egyptian Priests, their Classes, Initiation, and Sacrifices in the Arabic Language by Ahmad Bin Abubekr Bin Wahshih. London: Bulmer.
• Iovdijová, A.; Bencko, V. (2010). (PDF). Annals of Agricultural and Environmental Medicine. 17 (2): 183–92. PMID 21186759. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 March 2012. Retrieved 13 June 2011.
• Rubin, Milka (1998). "The Language of Creation or the Primordial Language: A Case of Cultural Polemics in Antiquity". Journal of Jewish Studies. 49 (2): 306–333. doi:10.18647/2120/JJS-1998.
• Stephan, Tara (2017). "Writing the Past: Ancient Egypt through the Lens of Medieval Islamic Thought". In Lowry, Joseph E.; Toorawa, Shawkat M. (eds.). Arabic Humanities, Islamic Thought: Essays in Honor of Everett K. Rowson. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-34329-0.
• Toral-Niehoff, Isabel; Sundermeyer, Annette (2018). "Going Egyptian in Medieval Arabic Culture. The Long-Desired Fulfilled Knowledge of Occult Alphabets by Pseudo-Ibn Waḥshiyya". In El-Bizri, Nader; Orthmann, Eva (eds.). The Occult Sciences in Pre-modern Islamic Cultures. Würzburg: Ergon. pp. 249–263.
• Whitman, Michael (2010). Principles of Information Security. London: Course Technology. ISBN 978-1-111-13821-9.

Further reading

• Braun, Christopher (2016). Das Kitāb Sidrat al-muntahā des Pseudo-Ibn Waḥšīya. Einleitung, Edition und Übersetzung eines hermetisch-allegorischen Traktats zur Alchemie. Islamkundliche Untersuchungen. Vol. 327. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz. doi:10.1515/9783112209202. ISBN 978-3-11-220920-2.
• Braun, Christopher (2022). "The Hieroglyphic Script Deciphered? An Arabic Treatise on Ancient and Occult Alphabets". In Brentjes, Sonja (ed.). Routledge Handbook on the Sciences in Islamicate Societies: Practices from the 2nd/8th to the 13th/19th Centuries. New York: Routledge. pp. 194–207. doi:10.4324/9781315170718-17. ISBN 978-1-138-04759-4. (on pseudo-Ibn Wahshiyya's Shawq al-mustahām)

External links

• Kitāb Shawq al-mustahām fī maʿrifat rumūz al-aqlām (1791)
• Ibn-Waḥšīya, Aḥmad Ibn-ʻAlī; Hammer-Purgstall, Joseph von (1806). Ancient alphabets and hieroglyphic characters explained: with an account of the Egyptian priests, their classes, initiation, and sacrifices. Bulmer. p. 52. Retrieved 12 June 2011.
• Hamarneh, Sami K. (2008) [1970-80]. "Ibn Wahshiyya, Abū Bakr Ahmad Ibn ͑Salī Ibn Āl-Mukhtār". Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Encyclopedia.com.