Ibn Wahshiyya

His full name was {{transliteration|ar|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}}.{{harvnb|Hämeen-Anttila|2018}}.

Just like the semi-legendary Jabir ibn Hayyan, he carried the {{transliteration|ar|nisba}} {{transliteration|ar|al-Ṣūfī|italics=no}} despite the fact that he is not known to have engaged in or to have written anything about Sufism.{{harvnb|Hämeen-Anttila|2018}}. The {{transliteration|ar|nisba}} {{transliteration|ar|al-Kasdānī|italics=no}} is a variant of {{transliteration|ar|al-Kaldānī|italics=no}} ('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.{{harvnb|Hämeen-Anttila|2006|pp=16, 43}}.

Ibn Wahshiyya was likely born in {{transliteration|ar|Qussīn|italics=no}} (Iraq) and died in the year 318 of the Islamic calendar ({{nowrap|1== 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 {{nowrap|c. 995}}) {{transliteration|ar|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 ({{reign|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'{{efn|These Iraqi 'Nabataeans' are not to be confused with the ancient Nabataeans of Petra, with whom they have nothing in common.}} 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.{{harvnb|Hämeen-Anttila|2018}}.

Ibn Wahshiyya's works were written down and redacted after his death by his student and scribe Abū Ṭālib al-Zayyāt.{{harvnb|Hämeen-Anttila|2006|p=87}}. 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).{{harvnb|Hämeen-Anttila|2018}}. On the authorship of the Ghāyat al-ḥakīm, see {{harvnb|Fierro|1996}}, recently confirmed by {{harvnb|De Callataÿ|Moureau|2017}}.

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.{{harvnb|Hämeen-Anttila|2018}}.

{{main|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.{{harvnb|Hämeen-Anttila|2006|p=3}}. In Ibn Wahshiyya's time, Syriac was thought to have been the primordial language used at the time of creation.{{harvnb|Rubin|1998|pp=330–333}}. While the work may indeed have been translated from a Syriac original,{{harvnb|Hämeen-Anttila|2006|pp=10–33}}. 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.{{harvnb|Hämeen-Anttila|2006|pp=33–45}}.

One of the works attributed to Ibn Wahshiyya is the {{transliteration|ar|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.{{harvnb|Hämeen-Anttila|2006|pp=21–22}}; {{harvnb|Toral-Niehoff|Sundermeyer|2018}}. 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 ({{circa|880–943}}) who claimed to have merely copied the work in the year 413 AH, corresponding to 1022–3 CE.{{harvnb|Hämeen-Anttila|2006|p=21, note 45}}.

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.{{Cite web |title=Medieval Arabic toxicology; the Book on poisons of Ibn Wahshiya and its relation to early Indian and Greek texts [ed. by] Martin Levey {{!}} WorldCat.org |url=https://search.worldcat.org/title/1913502 |access-date=2024-11-07 |website=search.worldcat.org |language=en}} This treatise was strongly influenced by Indian sources.

The works attributed to Ibn Wahshiyya contain several cipher alphabets that were used to encrypt magic formulas.{{harvnb|Whitman|2010|p=351}}.

File:Ibn Wahshiyya's 985 CE translation of the Ancient Egyptian hieroglyph alphabet.jpg

Pseudo-Ibn Wahshiyya's {{transliteration|ar|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 {{nowrap|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.{{harvnb|El-Daly|2005|pp=57–73}}. 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.{{harvnb|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 {{harvnb|Colla|2008}}.

The book may have been known to the German Jesuit scholar and polymath Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680),{{harvnb|El-Daly|2005|pp=58, 68}}. 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.{{harvnb|Hammer|1806}}. Cf. {{harvnb|El-Daly|2005|pp=68–69}}.

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

{{notelist}}

• {{cite journal|last1=Colla|first1=Elliot|year=2008|title=Review of El-Daly 2005|journal=International Journal of Middle East Studies|volume=40|issue=1|pages=135–137|doi=10.1017/S0020743807080142|s2cid=162412180}}
• {{cite journal|last1=De Callataÿ|first1=Godefroid|last2=Moureau|first2=Sébastien|year=2017|title=A Milestone in the History of Andalusī Bāṭinism: Maslama b. Qāsim al-Qurṭubī's Riḥla in the East|journal=Intellectual History of the Islamicate World|volume=5|issue=1|pages=86–117|doi=10.1163/2212943X-00501004}}
• {{cite book|last1=El-Daly|first1=Okasha|year=2005|title=Egyptology: The Missing Millennium. Ancient Egypt in Medieval Arabic Writings|location=London|publisher=UCL Press}}
• {{cite journal|last1=Fierro|first1=Maribel|year=1996|title=Bāṭinism in Al-Andalus: Maslama b. Qāsim al-Qurṭubī (d. 353/964), Author of the Rutbat al-Ḥakīm and the Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm (Picatrix)|journal=Studia Islamica|volume=84|issue=84 |pages=87–112|doi=10.2307/1595996|jstor=1595996|hdl=10261/281028|hdl-access=free}}
• {{cite book|last1=Hämeen-Anttila|first1=Jaakko|author-link=Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila|year=2006|title=The Last Pagans of Iraq: Ibn Wahshiyya And His Nabatean Agriculture|location=Leiden|publisher=Brill}}
• {{cite encyclopedia|last1=Hämeen-Anttila|first1=Jaakko|author-link=Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila|year=2018|title=Ibn Waḥshiyya|editor1-last=Fleet|editor1-first=Kate|editor2-last=Krämer|editor2-first=Gudrun|editor2-link=Gudrun Krämer|editor3-last=Matringe|editor3-first=Denis|editor4-last=Nawas|editor4-first=John|editor5-last=Rowson|editor5-first=Everett|editor5-link=Everett K. Rowson|encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia of Islam, Three|doi=10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_32287}}
• {{cite book|last1=Hammer|first1=Joseph von|year=1806|title=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|location=London|publisher=Bulmer}}
• {{cite journal|last1=Rubin|first1=Milka|year=1998|title=The Language of Creation or the Primordial Language: A Case of Cultural Polemics in Antiquity|journal=Journal of Jewish Studies|volume=49|issue=2|pages=306–333|doi=10.18647/2120/JJS-1998}}
• {{cite book|last1=Stephan|first1=Tara|year=2017|chapter=Writing the Past: Ancient Egypt through the Lens of Medieval Islamic Thought|editor1-last=Lowry|editor1-first=Joseph E.|editor2-last=Toorawa|editor2-first=Shawkat M.|title=Arabic Humanities, Islamic Thought: Essays in Honor of Everett K. Rowson|location=Leiden|publisher=Brill|isbn=978-90-04-34329-0|chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/33864647}}
• {{cite book|last1=Toral-Niehoff|first1=Isabel|last2=Sundermeyer|first2=Annette|year=2018|chapter=Going Egyptian in Medieval Arabic Culture. The Long-Desired Fulfilled Knowledge of Occult Alphabets by Pseudo-Ibn Waḥshiyya|editor1-last=El-Bizri|editor1-first=Nader|editor2-last=Orthmann|editor2-first=Eva|title=The Occult Sciences in Pre-modern Islamic Cultures|location=Würzburg|publisher=Ergon|pages=249–263}}
• {{cite book|last1=Whitman|first1=Michael|year=2010|title=Principles of Information Security|location=London|publisher=Course Technology|isbn=978-1-111-13821-9|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L3LtJAxcsmMC&pg=PA351}}

• {{cite book|last1=Braun|first1=Christopher|date=2016|title=Das Kitāb Sidrat al-muntahā des Pseudo-Ibn Waḥšīya. Einleitung, Edition und Übersetzung eines hermetisch-allegorischen Traktats zur Alchemie|series=Islamkundliche Untersuchungen|volume=327|location=Berlin|publisher=Klaus Schwarz|doi=10.1515/9783112209202|isbn=978-3-11-220920-2 }}
• {{cite book|last1=Braun|first1=Christopher|date=2022|chapter=The Hieroglyphic Script Deciphered? An Arabic Treatise on Ancient and Occult Alphabets|editor1-last=Brentjes|editor1-first=Sonja|editor1-link=Sonja Brentjes|title=Routledge Handbook on the Sciences in Islamicate Societies: Practices from the 2nd/8th to the 13th/19th Centuries|location=New York|publisher=Routledge|pages=194–207|doi=10.4324/9781315170718-17|isbn=978-1-138-04759-4}} (on pseudo-Ibn Wahshiyya's {{transliteration|ar|Shawq al-mustahām}})

• [http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0003/bsb00037029/images/ Kitāb Shawq al-mustahām fī maʿrifat rumūz al-aqlām] (1791)
• {{cite book|last1=Ibn-Waḥšīya|first1=Aḥmad Ibn-ʻAlī|last2=Hammer-Purgstall|first2=Joseph von|title=Ancient alphabets and hieroglyphic characters explained: with an account of the Egyptian priests, their classes, initiation, and sacrifices|url=https://archive.org/details/ancientalphabets00ibnw|page=[https://archive.org/details/ancientalphabets00ibnw/page/52 52]|access-date=12 June 2011|year=1806|publisher=Bulmer}}
• {{cite encyclopedia | last = Hamarneh | first = Sami K. | title=Ibn Wahshiyya, Abū Bakr Ahmad Ibn ͑Salī Ibn Āl-Mukhtār | url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2830904536.html | encyclopedia = Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography | publisher = Encyclopedia.com | orig-year=1970-80 | year = 2008 }}

{{Islamic alchemy and chemistry|state=expanded}}

{{Alchemy|state=expanded}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:Alchemists of the medieval Islamic world

Category:Arab historians

Wahshiyah, Ibn

Category:9th-century Arab people

Category:10th-century Arab people

Category:10th-century Arabic-language writers

Category:9th-century Arabic-language writers

Category:10th-century agronomists