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 (g.schwarb@gmail.com).

This paper examines a 9th-century Arabic text of genethlialogical astrology, arguing that while it presents itself as heir to a Greek science deriving from India, it is also a testament to the pervasive role played by Sasanian intellectual culture in the 8th- to 10th-century Greek-Arabic translation movement. After a description of the…[Read more]

The article offers a bibliographical aperçu of Zaydī-Muʿtazilī Kalām-studies from the 15th through 18th centuries based on MS Munich, Bavarian State Library, Cod. arab. 1294. This codex contains ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad al-Naǧrī’s as yet unedited K. Mirqāt al-anẓār, a major kalām textbook which for almost three centuries constituted the b…[Read more]

The article offers a bibliographical aperçu of Zaydī-Muʿtazilī Kalām-studies from the 15th through 18th centuries based on MS Munich, Bavarian State Library, Cod. arab. 1294. This codex contains ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad al-Naǧrī’s as yet unedited K. Mirqāt al-anẓār, a major kalām textbook which for almost three centuries constituted the b…[Read more]

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…[Read more]

Discusses the Graeco-Syriac-Arabic transmission of Nemesius of Emesa’s Περὶ φύσεως ἀνθρώπου and related texts. The focus is on the notions of istiṭāʿah (τὸ αὐτεξούσιον; τὸ ἐφ´ ἡμῖν), irāda, qaṣd and ikhtiyār (προαίρεσις) in philosophical theories of action, the reception history of the Nicomachean Ethics, and their historical and conceptual relati…[Read more]

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…[Read more]

Discusses the Graeco-Syriac-Arabic transmission of Nemesius of Emesa’s Περὶ φύσεως ἀνθρώπου and related texts. The focus is on the notions of istiṭāʿah (τὸ αὐτεξούσιον; τὸ ἐφ´ ἡμῖν), irāda, qaṣd and ikhtiyār (προαίρεσις) in philosophical theories of action, the reception history of the Nicomachean Ethics, and their historical and conceptual relati…[Read more]

The papper offers an identification and reconstruction of Abū l-Ḥasan al-Ṣūrī’s “Kitāb fī bāb al-qibla” together with its anonymous Qaraite refutation (al-Naqḍ ʿalā l-Sāmira). Building on previous studies by A. Loewenstamm, A. Halkin, H. Pohl, and others, this paper will also provide new evidence from the Firkovitch collections (mainly ФIPK. СA…[Read more]

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).

Thābit b. Qurra (d. 288/901), a Sabian of Ḥarrān, and his descendants remained in their ancestral religion for six generations. Why did they persist despite pressure to convert? This article argues that religious self-identification as a Sabian could be a distinct advantage in Baghdad’s elite circles. It focuses on Thābit’s great-grandson Abū…[Read more]

This essay begins by offering some observations about how holiness was comprehended and expressed in Victorian and Edwardian England. In addition to the ‘sensibility’ and ‘sentiment’ that characterised society, notions of holiness were shaped by, and developed in reaction to, dominant philosophical movements; notably, the Enlightenment and Romanti…[Read more]

Published in PCANZ Global Mission – Why, Where, and How (Wellington: Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, 2014).

Abstract: Why does the Church need the world? This paper seeks to explore what today’s Church might learn from secular ‘apostles’ and ‘prophets’ as part of its ongoing mission to, for and with the world that God so loves. In particular, it will investigate the role that poets, dramatists and other artists might play in identifying humanism’…[Read more]