Encyclopaedism in the Mamluk Period: The Composition of Shihāb al-Dīn al-Nuwayrī’s (D. 1333) Nihāyat al-Arab fī Funūn al-Adab The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Muhanna, Elias Ibrahim. 2012. Encyclopaedism in the Mamluk Period: The Composition of Shihāb al-Dīn al-Nuwayrī’s (D. 1333) Nihāyat al-Arab fī Funūn al-Adab. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:9366551 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA © 2012 Elias Muhanna All rights reserved. Advisor: Professor Wolfhart P. Heinrichs Elias Muhanna Encyclopaedism in the Mamluk Period: The Composition of Shihāb al-Dīn al-Nuwayrī’s (d. 1333) Nihāyat al-arab fī funūn al-adab Abstract This dissertation explores the emergence of a golden age of Arabic encyclopaedic literature in the scholarly centers of Egypt and Syria during the Mamluk Empire (1250-1517). At the heart of the project is a study of Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Nuwayrī’s (d. 1333) Nihāyat al-arab fī funūn al-adab (‘The Ultimate Ambition in the Branches of Erudition’), a 31-volume encyclopaedic work composed at the beginning of the 14th century and divided into five parts: (i) heaven and earth; (ii) the human being; (iii) animals; (iv) plants; and (v) the history of the world. My study examines the formal arrangement, thematic contents, and codicological features of this seminal work, arguing that the rise of encyclopaedism in this period was emblematic of a certain intellectual ethos, a systematic approach to the classification of knowledge which emerged in the discursive context of a rapidly centralizing imperial state. I argue that the Nihāya grew out of an amalgam of several genres (including the adab anthology, the cosmographical compendium, the chancery scribe manual, the dynastic chronicle, and the commonplace book), developing into a new form and serving a different purpose from its literary predecessors. Such texts, long considered tokens of intellectual and cultural decadence, demonstrate the strategies used by Mamluk religious scholars, chancery scribes, and littérateurs to navigate an ever-growing corpus of accumulated knowledge. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….......iii Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………………………………….vi List of Tables & Figures………………………………………………………………………………………………….viii Abbreviations, Transliteration, and Dates….…………………………………………………………………….x Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………1 Chapter 1: Approaching Mamluk Encyclopaedism…………………………………………………………10 Reading the Medieval Encyclopaedia: Definitions and Approaches…………………..12 In Search of Arabic Encyclopaedism……………………………………………………………………21 The Instability of Actors’ Categories……………………………………………………………………28 A Middle Path……………………………………………………………………………………………………...31 Why Encyclopaedism?…………………………………………………………………………………………32 Chapter 2: An Encyclopaedist at Work: al-Nuwayrī’s Intellectual and Institutional Milieus……………………..……………….39 Intellectual Activity in the Wake of the Mongol Conquests……………………………….41 Bureaucrat, Scholar, Compiler: Notes on al-Nuwayrī’s Biography………………….…47 Compiling the Nihāya…………………………………………………………………………………………..58 al-Nuwayrī’s Biographers…………………………………………………………………………………….63 A Scribal Milieu: al-Nuwayrī at the Diwān al-khāṣṣ….…………………………………………..68 The Nāṣiriyya Madrasa & Bīmāristān al-Manṣūrī……………….………………………………78 The Ethos of Empire..…….…………………………………………………………………………………….97 Chapter 3: The Shape of the Nihāya…………………………………………………………………………………99 Books, Sections, Chapters, Sub-Chapters: The Nihāya’s Architecture………………101 Thematic Modularity & Cross-Referencing……………………………………………………….109 Taxonomy, the Ideological Science……………………………………………………………………124 The Nihāya and the Classical Adab Encyclopaedia…………………………………………….125 Textual Topographies………………………………………………………………………………………..134 By the Numbers: Mapping the Content of the Nihāya……………………………………….136 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………………………….149 Chapter 4: Cosmography, Anthology, Chronicle, Commonplace Book: The Nihāya’s Sources and Compositional Models……………………………………….152 Compositional Models & Sources…..………………………………………………………………….160 The Adabization of the ʿUlamā’ & the Literarization of Historiography……………185 The Judge, the Sufi, & the Cow: al-Nuwayrī’s Epistemological Ecumenism……..191 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………………………….199 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..203 iv Appendix A: Translation of the Nihāya’s Table of Contents………………………………………….207 Appendix B: Guide to Nihāya Editions and Word Counts………………………………………………217 Appendix C: Notes on Autographs and Later Manuscripts.....................………………………..224 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..242 v Acknowledgements It is a pleasure to express my gratitude to the individuals and institutions who have supported me during several years of study and research. At Harvard, I have benefited from the erudition, encouragement, and good humor of several wonderful scholars. Wolfhart Heinrichs, an encyclopaedist and encyclopaedia in his own right, has subjected each draft of this work to his scrupulous eye, providing generous and essential guidance at every stage. Shahab Ahmed shared with me his immense knowledge of the medieval Islamic intellectual tradition, and challenged me to think creatively about this project from the outset. Many hours of discussion with Ann Blair, along with her penetrating interventions and copious comments have improved this work immeasurably. I feel deeply privileged to have worked with each of them. I was first introduced to al-Nuwayrī and his Nihāya at the University of Pennsylvania, where my wanderings in the landscape of adab were expertly guided by Roger Allen. Also at Penn, I was fortunate enough to find a mentor in Joseph Lowry, who has been a source of wisdom and friendship for many years. Of the many other scholars who shared their insights on parts of this work as it came together, I should particularly like to thank Thomas Bauer, Maaike van Berkel, Jonathan Berkey, Alex Csiszar, Richard Delacy, Adam Gacek, Andras Hamori, Syrinx von Hees, Ahmad al-Jallad, Hilary Kilpatrick, Yaron Klein, Jason König, Remke Kruk, Margaret Litvin, Roy Mottahedeh, Erez Naaman, Avigail Noy, Meredith Quinn, Ahmed Ragab, Khaled El- Rouayheb, David Roxburgh, Ahmad El-Shamsy, Adam Talib, and Carl Sharif El Tobgui. A few friends deserve special mention. Ken Garden is unwittingly but inarguably the vi source of my decision to pursue a path as a scholar of medieval Islam, and has been a dear comrade since our days in Morocco. Naseem Surhio and Alexander Key have been confidantes and fellow travelers who have made my experience in graduate school richer in every way. Several institutions provided material support at various junctures. At Harvard, my research was funded by a GSAS doctoral fellowship and a Whiting Fellowship in the Humanities. The search for manuscripts was facilitated by individuals at Princeton’s Firestone Library, Leiden University Library (especially Arnoud Vrolijk), Süleymaniye Manuscript Library, and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. The staff of Widener Library has honored every request, no matter how arcane and unreasonable, with professionalism and aplomb. The Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies at the American University of Beirut provided an institutional home during a year of manuscript research and writing in the Middle East. I should also like to thank Cambridge Masters Swimming Club for twelve kilometers of happiness each week, and the community of readers at Qifa Nabki, who have thrown me a lifeline each time al- Nuwayrī’s leviathan threatened to swallow me whole. How does one thank one’s family? The Nihāya’s chapter on the expression of gratitude (§2.3.1.10) does not contain a rhetorical formula that is up to this challenge. For their unstinting love and support, I thank my parents, brothers, and sister, who, despite the thousands of miles that have separated us for so many years, have always been with me. On this side of the world, the Jacksons have treated me like a member of their family since long before I became one. Finally, my deepest gratitude is to my wife Jennifer and our darling daughters Laila and Maya. For everything. vii List of Tables & Figures Table 1: Biographical Timeline Table 2: Codicological & Textual Evidence for the Nihāya’s Compilation History Table 3: Budget of the Nāṣiriyya Madrasa Table 4: The Nihāya’s three-tiered structure Table 5: Divions of Nihāya §3.3.1 (On the Horse) Table 6: Cross-references in Nihāya, Book I Table 7: Cross-references in the Nihāya (summary) Table 8: Structural arrangement of seven adab encyclopaedias Table 9: Word count by Book Table 10: Section word count ordered by size Table 11: The Nihāya’s largest ten chapters, ordered by size Table 12: The contents of al-Waṭwāṭ’s Mabāhij al-fikar wa-manāhij al-ʿibar Table 13: Comparison between Nihāya §1.0 and Mabāhij §1.0-§2.0 Table 14: Cosmographical compilations of the 13th-14th centuries Table 15: Sources of the Nihāya, Books I, III, and IV Table 15: Major sources of the Nihāya, Book II Table 17: Editions and word counts Table 18: Manuscripts consulted Figure 1: Paris BnF, Mss or. Arabe 5050, fol. 10b