{"id":122,"date":"2019-05-15T12:43:36","date_gmt":"2019-05-15T12:43:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.exeter.ac.uk\/magic\/?p=122"},"modified":"2019-05-15T12:43:36","modified_gmt":"2019-05-15T12:43:36","slug":"a-sorcerers-handbook-medieval-arabic-magic-in-context","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/magic\/2019\/05\/15\/a-sorcerers-handbook-medieval-arabic-magic-in-context\/","title":{"rendered":"A Sorcerer&#8217;s Handbook: Medieval Arabic Magic in Context"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Postdoctoral Research Fellow Needed\u00a0to Participate in &#8220;Sorcerer&#8217;s Handbook&#8221; Project<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jobs.ac.uk\/job\/BUH360\/postdoctoral-research-fellow\">https:\/\/www.jobs.ac.uk\/job\/BUH360\/postdoctoral-research-fellow<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter\u00a0wishes to recruit a Postdoctoral Research Fellow to participate in \u201cA Sorcerer\u2019s Handbook: Medieval Arabic Magic in Context,\u201d awarded to Dr Emily Selove. This Leverhulme Trust funded post is available 01\/11\/2019. The successful applicant will transcribe and create draft translations of manuscripts of Sir\u0101j al-D\u012bn al-Sakk\u0101k\u012b\u2019s Arabic grimoire, write scholarly articles about this subject, and aid the PI in editing a co-authored volume of essays about Sakk\u0101k\u012b\u2019s work.<\/p>\n<p><em>Kit\u0101b al-Sh\u0101mil <\/em>(The Book of the Complete) is a technical manual containing a mixed collection of magical recipes and rituals. It includes instructions for creating talismans, for controlling jinn and devils, for causing sickness, for curing such magically-caused afflictions, and for calling upon the power of each of the planets. The power of God and phrases from the Qur\u2019an are frequently invoked, but the texts in this collection claim to originate from famous Greek thinkers like Ptolemy and Hippocrates. Such Arabic texts concerned with astrological matters as well as the hidden properties of objects in the natural world were influential on European literary and scientific traditions. The translation of the title as <em>The Book of the Complete<\/em> is informed by a reading of the compiler\u2019s introduction, which refers to the \u201cperfect\u201d scholars of the ancient world on which it purports to base its information, hence, \u201cThe book of the Perfect\/Complete person\u201d; it is possible that the title is a play on the similarly-titled 11th century book of magic <em>al-Sh\u0101mil f\u012b al-ba\u1e25r al-k\u0101mil<\/em> (Complete book of the Perfect Sea) by al-\u1e6cabas\u012b.<\/p>\n<p>Previous research on Sakk\u0101k\u012b tends to centre on his influential book on language, <em>Mift\u0101\u1e25 al-\u2018ul\u016bm<\/em> (The Key to the Sciences), often ignoring his reputation as a magician. Nevertheless, early biographical literature indeed credited him with the power to, for example, strike cranes down in mid flight with a magical inscription. Both Sakk\u0101k\u012b\u2019s linguistic and magical interests show his fascination with the power of language, and these interests will inform the literary style of translation of Sakk\u0101k\u012b\u2019s mysterious grimoire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Postdoctoral Research Fellow Needed\u00a0to Participate in &#8220;Sorcerer&#8217;s Handbook&#8221; Project https:\/\/www.jobs.ac.uk\/job\/BUH360\/postdoctoral-research-fellow The Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter\u00a0wishes to recruit a Postdoctoral Research Fellow to participate in \u201cA Sorcerer\u2019s Handbook: Medieval Arabic Magic in Context,\u201d awarded to Dr Emily Selove. This Leverhulme Trust funded post is available 01\/11\/2019. The successful applicant [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1081,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Sorcerer&#039;s Handbook: Medieval Arabic Magic in Context - The Centre for Magic and Esotericism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/magic\/2019\/05\/15\/a-sorcerers-handbook-medieval-arabic-magic-in-context\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Sorcerer&#039;s Handbook: Medieval Arabic Magic in Context - The Centre for Magic and Esotericism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Postdoctoral Research Fellow Needed\u00a0to Participate in &#8220;Sorcerer&#8217;s Handbook&#8221; Project https:\/\/www.jobs.ac.uk\/job\/BUH360\/postdoctoral-research-fellow The Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter\u00a0wishes to recruit a Postdoctoral Research Fellow to participate in \u201cA Sorcerer\u2019s Handbook: Medieval Arabic Magic in Context,\u201d awarded to Dr Emily Selove. This Leverhulme Trust funded post is available 01\/11\/2019. 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