Eugenio Griffini and Zaydi Studies in the Light of His Correspondence with Ignaz Goldziher, 1908 through 1920

Eugenio Griffini (1878-1925), the Italian Arabist, was the person who first realized the relevance and cultural significance of the Zaydi manuscript sources, who conveyed the largest Western collection of Zaydi manuscripts (the Caprotti collection) to the Ambrosiana Library in Milan in 1908, and who first immersed himself in this unique and virgin collection of manuscripts of Yemeni origin. Through his exploration of a treasure of nearly 2,000 manuscripts, he became experienced and acknowledged in the practice of reporting extended notes excerpted from the manuscript texts he examined. This outstanding experience over the course of twenty years of study and first-hand research at the Ambrosiana allowed him to unveil the existence and identify hundreds of unknown texts, opening up unexplored fields of interest and investigations into Zaydi literary production. With an extremely collaborative spirit, he lavished on many Orientalist scholars the insights that he had gleaned from the manuscripts he had come across, providing them with partial transcriptions and readings, sometimes upon request and other times even going beyond the requests. This article focusses on Griffini’s life and scholarly activity, particularly his involvement with Zaydi works, in the light of his correspondence with Ignaz Goldziher (1850-1921), of which an annotated edition is provided. The correspondence spans the period from 1908 to 1920 and reveals Griffini’s attitude towards his main projects: the cataloguing of the first three series of the Caprotti collection and his magnum opus, the edition of the Majmūʿ al-fiqh attributed to Zayd b. ʿAlī, on the basis of the Ambrosiana’s exemplars.

Sixth/Twelfth-Century Zaydī Theologians of Yemen Debating Avicennan Philosophy

This article offers critical editions of three texts by Zaydī theologians of sixth/twelfth-century Yemen refuting philosophical notions. The three texts are Qāḍī Jaʿfar b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Salām al-Buhlūlī’s (d. 573/1177-78) Kitāb al-Risāla al-munāṣifa li-l-mutakallimīn wa-l-falāsifa (Masʾalat al-nafs) and two tracts by al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ (d. 584/1188), al-Masʾala al-kāshifa ʿan buṭlān shubhat al-falāsifa, a refutation of the philosophers’ doctrine of the eternity of the world, and Masʾala fī ibṭāl al-qawl bi-talāzum al-hayūlā wa-l-ṣūra wa-anna l-jism murakkab minhumā, a refutation of hylomorphism. Qāḍī Jaʿfar’s tract, of which only a fragment has come down to us, contains four extensive quotations from an unidentified philosophical work. These are strikingly similar to those cited by Rukn al-Dīn Ibn al-Malāḥimī (d. 536/1141) in his Tuḥfat al-mutakallimīn fī l-radd ʿalā l-falāsifa; likewise, Qāḍī Jaʿfar’s responses to the arguments of the philosophers closely resemble those given by Ibn al-Malāḥimī. However, a comparison of the relevant passages shows that the possibility that Qāḍī Jaʿfar had consulted Ibn al-Malāḥimī’s Tuḥfa as his source can safely be excluded. Both rather seemed to have relied on a common and so far unidentified source, possibly written by a Muʿtazilī author. Qāḍī Jaʿfar’s tract is thus another early Muʿtazilī critique of Avicennan philosophy that can shed some additional light on the reception of Ibn Sīnā’s (d. 428/1037) philosophy among the mutakallimūn before Ibn al-Malāḥimī.

Asās al-maqālāt fī qamʿ al-jahālāt: A Hitherto Unknown Zaydī Heresiography from Northern Iran

This paper revolves around a hitherto unknown heresiography from northern Iran, Asās al-maqālāt fī qamʿ al-jahālāt, which is preserved in a unique manuscript contained in a majmūʿa (Ms. Tehran, Majlis 10727). In the introduction, we describe the multitext codex, one of the few extant codices testifying to the continuous presence of Zaydism in northern Iran beyond the sixth/twelfth century. Additionally, we discuss two alternative tentative identifications of the author of Asās al-maqālāt, Abū Muḍar Shurayḥ b. al-Muʾayyad al-Muʾayyadī al-Shurayḥī and Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Shurayḥī al-Muʾayyadī. While the latter is entirely unknown, Abū Muḍar is renowned for his Asrār al-Ziyādāt, and we attempt to situate him more precisely in the chronology of Zaydī scholarship. Finally, we provide an editio princeps of Asās al-maqālāt fī qamʿ al-jahālāt.

Do Accidents Need a Substrate? Critical Edition of al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ’s Masʾala fī kayfiyyat wujūd al-aʿrāḍ

This article offers an editio princeps of al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ’s Masʾala fī kayfiyyat wujūd al-aʿrāḍ. In this text, al-Raṣṣāṣ argues in accordance with the Bahshamī theory that not all accidents need a substrate (maḥall). Although most accidents depend on atoms as their locus of inherence, there are three exceptions: the accident of “annihilation” (fanāʾ), whose existence in a substrate is inconceivable, and “will” (irāda) and “aversion” (karāha), which either subsist in a human body or exist without a substrate in the case of God.