The Ultimate Ambition in the Arts of Erudition: A Compendium of Knowledge from the Classical Islamic World

by Shihab al-Din al-Nuwayri, Elias Muhanna (Editor)

For the first time in English, a catalog of the world through fourteenth-century Arab eyes—a kind of Schott’s Miscellany for the Islamic Golden Age
 
An astonishing record of the knowledge of a civilization, The Ultimate Ambition in the Arts of Erudition catalogs everything known to exist from the perspective of a fourteenth-century Egyptian scholar and litterateur. More than 9,000 pages and thirty volumes—here abridged to one volume, and translated into English for the first time—it contains entries on everything from medieval moon-worshipping cults, sexual aphrodisiacs, and the substance of clouds, to how to get the smell of alcohol off one’s breath, the deliciousness of cheese made from buffalo milk, and the nesting habits of flamingos.
 
Similar works by Western authors, including Pliny’s Natural History, have been available in English for centuries. This groundbreaking translation of a remarkable Arabic text—expertly abridged and annotated—offers a look at the world through the highly literary and impressively knowledgeable societies of the classical Islamic world. Meticulously arranged and delightfully eclectic, it is a compendium to be treasured—a true monument of erudition.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Islam, Science, Classics, Religion

349 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1329

Reviews

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but I didn’t find it as amazing as the blurbs and professional reviews. Maybe dipping in now and again would be a better approach than reading straight through. The rather horrifying concoctions specified for ‘increasing sexual vigor’ certainly grab your attention, but even they pall after a few pages, and the long sections on description of various animals and plants are less than riveting. However, the sections on statecraft and history were quite interesting as an insight into the attitudes that were current in the Muslim world circa 1300 (CE).

Translator Elias Muhanna provides very helpful references and notes, the index of the entire thirty volume work to give an idea of the omitted topics, a biographical section, a good index of topics, and a cross reference to the arabic version. I only wish he had provided a brief guide to Avicenna’s medical theories becaues there are endless references to degrees and the properties of substances that mean nothing if you don’t understand the implications of something being ‘cold in the first degree and dry in the second’.

A few quotes that I marked:

as a by-comment on the basis for believing something:

The astronomers have said much about the structure of the heavens, but I have disregarded it because it does not rest upon a clear proof. For that reason, I’ve limited myself to recounting traditional (manqūl) rather than speculative (ma'qūl) knowledge.

as a decidedly important, untried legal case:

Al-Mutanabbī once said of it [the sun], in censure:

The sun darkens the white skin of our faces
Yet does not blacken the white hair of our beards!
Surely their cases would be considered equivalent
Were we to appeal this judgment in an earthly court!

as some lovely Arabic poetry on shooting stars, which the Quran quotes God as describing: ‘And We adorned the lower heaven with lamps, and set them to pelt the devils with...':

A star caught a devil eavesdroppping
And shot down, a flame burning in its wake
Like a horseman in the desert who has loosened his turban
Its ends fluttering behind him

From the examples of legal documents a scribe must know how to write:

If a divorced woman would like to rent herself out to her former husband, the scribe should write: “Jane Doe rents herself out to her former husband...to raise and nurse her children by him, washing their clothes, combing their hair, and taking care of them in her home, which is in _____(name of place), for ____ (specific period of time).”

rather dubious advice on farming:

Ibn Wahshiyya said, of the generation of cabbage: “If you would like to grow cabbage, take four goat hooves and soak them in lard three times, then put them in the ground. Cover them with the hair from a billy goat’s beard, then bury everything in sand and throw some soil on top. Cabbage will grow from it.” [One suspects from the number of times that Shihāb Al-Dīn Al-Nuwayrī starts a section on a vegetable with generation advice from Ibn Wahshiyya that he was poking fun, but who knows. As he says multiple times after a dubious assertion he has copied from an authority, “And God knows best.’]

[Sunny · Rating 4 out of 5]

A shorter version of a much larger compendium of knowledge compiled by an Arab dude who clearly ad a lot of time on his hands. Shihab was born in the 13th century and basically pulled a lot of information to get on some of the most disparate things you can ever imagine anyone pulling anything together on. The book covered topics such as: the heavens, the human being, animals, plants and history. The stories at times were literally unbelievable and often literally hilarious. Surely they couldn’t have believed some of these random things. It was incredible to get an insight into the style of writing and thinking that was prevalent at those times. Here are the best bits:
• “So I mounted the stallion of reading and galloped in the field of consultation.”
• “God almighty replied: their messengers will be the angels and the prophets among them, and their books will be the Torah and the gospels and the book of Psalms and the Quran. Then Satan asked and what is my book? God replied. Your book is the tattoo and your Quran is poetry and your food is that which God’s name is never uttered upon and your drink is everything that inebriates and your truth is lying and your home is the bathhouse and your snares are women and your muezzin is the reed flute and your mosque is the souk”
• “Lineage of prophet Muhammad back to Adam: Muhammad ibn Abd Allah ibn Abd-al Muttalib ibn Hashim ibn Abd Manaf ibn Qusayy ibn Kilan Ibn Murra Ibn Ka’b ibn Luayy ibn GHalib ibn Fihr (Quraysh) ibn Malik ibn al-Nadr ibn Kinana ibn Khuzayma ibn Mudrika ibn Ilyas ibn Mudar ibn Nizar ibn Ma’ad ibn Adnan ibn Udd ibn Udad ibn al-Yasu Ibn al-Hamisa ibn Salaman ibn Nabat ibn Hamal ibn Qaydar ibn Ismail ibn Ibrahim ibn Tarah ibn Nahur ibn Saru ibn Arghu ibn Falagh ibn Abar (HUd the ancestor of all arabs) ibn Shalakh ibn Arfakhshadh ibn Sam (Shem) ibn Nuh (Noah) ibn Yarad ibn Mahlail ibn Qaynan ibn Anush ibn Shith (Seth) ibn Adam.”
• “As for the afflictions and crimes associated with wine, they are many for it is the mother of crimes.”
• Now for a couple of the hilarious stories!!:
• “They say that when a group of monkeys goes to sleep they lie next to one another in single file. Once they have fallen asleep the first of them lying on the right side wakes up and walks pat them all and sits down beyond the last monkey on the left side. He shouts out as he sits and so the next monkey awakens and does the same thing. They follow this practice throughout the night waking up in a different place than where they went to sleep.” WTF
• “Take the nails of a magpie and your own nail clippings burn them together and grind them in a fine powder. Slip it into a glass of wine and give it to an unwilling woman you desire. She will become attracted to you and will love to be near you.” WTF!!!

[Justin Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

First, thanks to Elias Muhanna for convincing a trade press to publish this. It's great fun: selections from a fourteenth century Egyptian 'encyclopaedia.' There are great stories, weird facts, and our translator/edtior does some good imitations of rhythmical/rhymed prose.

I would say, for the next edition, this reader would prefer more pages from the history and the metaphysics, and rather fewer pages about plants. But I guess the reading public demands science, or nature, or something. Screw that. Give me angels and sultans.

['Izzat Radzi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Karya ini adalah terjemahan dari karya 33 jilid 'Nihayat al-Arab fi Funun al-Adab', namun seperti dinukilkan penterjemah, terpaksa dipilih-pilih untuk dimuatkan ke dalam ini kerana keterbatasan ruang.

Buku ini lebih kepada ensiklopedia, yang bahagian kelima (atau buku kelima) asalnya memakan hampir 2/3 dari karya asal. Bagi yang berminat dengan kaitan tumbuhan sebagai 'potions', atau generally dalam biologi alam tumbuhan dan manusia, boleh menelaah buku 4 On Plants.

Untuk lebih puas membaca, nampak gayanya kena tajamkan balik bahasa arab untuk baca karya asal!

[Steven "Steve" · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating introduction to the scholarship of medieval Islamic culture. More similar to the Elder Pliny than Encyclopedia Brittanica, but that’s part of the fun. The original material was much longer but the translator gives what seems to be an excellent collection of the highlights.

[t · Rating 2 out of 5]

this was painful to read tbh. sooooo long. some bits were funny at least, I loved the sodomy bit x

[Eric Norris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really fun book. Endlessly fascinating. Imagine browsing a medieval mind, looking at totally random entries. Most of the information stored here is wrong (Not all: hippos really do have a three chambered stomach), but it wasn't wrong at the time: it was State-of-the-Art, cutting edge, Institute for Advanced Studies advanced. Which should give us all pause.

We learn about the environment and the generation of clouds. The structure of the Heavens. The stars. The planets. The generation of comets and meteors. The manufacture of perfumes and cakes of deodorant. The costive properties of certain plants. The magic of camphor. Experimental aphrodisiacs and infallible love philtres. (One involving a decapitated a crow sure to enchant your lady.) The homosexual habits of wild boar. How to stop a charging rhino. (Climb a tree and pee into his ear as he attempts to knock down the tree.) There is a gorgeous account of the creation of Adam, his tour of the universe in royal robes (which I never knew about), the deceptions of Satan, the expulsion from Paradise of Adam, Eve, the peacock and the serpent, and the thousands of pairs of twins Eve conceived before the birth of Cain and murder of Abel. The book ends with the defeat of the Mongols at the hands of the Mamluks in Syria, one of the most decisive battles in world history. When I was finished with the book, I wanted more.

All of the entries are from a massive encyclopedia (9000 pages) compiled by al-Nuwayri after he retired from the Civil Service. He borrows freely from Aristotle. (Indirectly from Pliny, too, I expect, another great encyclopedist, though I don't think Pliny is ever named in this selection except maybe in the introduction, and only there as a Latin avatar in the genre of knowledge compendia.) One of the loveliest aspects of al-Nuwayri's approach is that he illustrates many of his entries with citations from Arabic poetry, as modern dictionaries and encyclopedists illustrate with pictures. The book also reminds us that best and brightest minds of any day may be dead wrong about nearly everything.

This is a perfect book to take to the park on a sunny afternoon. Or read on the bus or the streetcar. It does not require a huge amount of concentration. And returns, for the simple effort of turning pages, an immense amount wonder. Not a bad bargain that.

[Connor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating compendium of Mamluk Egyptian knowledge and general Islamic knowledge form the 14th century. My only wish is that they devoted more time to the history stuff, like maybe included the historical chapters of Muhammad and the successors instead of having an entire chapter of stars.

[Faisal Amjad · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful look into erudite minds of the past. It's like entering a time warp and seeing the world as they saw it. I prefer their version, to ours!

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

The scientific beliefs of the Islamic middle ages are still based on referencing earlier accounts, rather than on observation. In most cases they are so far from the truth that they were no longer interesting to me. However, I have registered that they were more sophisticated than the beliefs in Christian Europe at that time.

[Grady · Rating 4 out of 5]

The juiciest parts of this abridged translation are the discussions of proverbs and parables, wild animals, perfumes, and recipes for aphrodisiacs. For example, here's at-Nuwayri's helpful advice for how to get rid of an angry rhinoceros:

"A trustworthy person among the Abyssinians told me that rhinoceroses in Abyssinia charge at human beings to kill them whenever they spy them. If a man climbs into a tree to escape, the rhinoceros will seek to smash it and kill him, but if the man urinates on the rhinoceros's ear, it will run away and not return to him. That way, the man will escape from it. God knows best." (148)

But, overall, these parts of this translation are the engaging exception rather than the rule. Less piquant, but more revealing of the author's cultural context and assumptions, are the longer passages on the nature of rulership, and the excerpt on the history of the Mamluk state. Al-Nuwayri set out to write everything he knew within the circumference of erudition, which seems to mean book learning - not everything there is to know, but knowledge attested by respected authorities, or as topics show up in literature. I can't judge the fidelity of the translation, but it reads cleanly, and the introduction is very helpful as well.

[Majd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quote: It is said that some people gave a Bedouin woman some liquor, and she asked them " do your women drink this?". They said "Yes". She replied "So, not one of you must know who his father is?"

14th century Mic Drop.

[Timons Esaias · Rating 4 out of 5]

The translator and abridger of this medieval encyclopedia (finished in 1333 CE) faced an essentially impossible task: represent a 9,000-page, 33-volume work that does not exist in English (and most likely never will), and do it in less than 300 pages. Muhanna has done us a great service in giving it a try, and I am pleased with the result. This is a work I've heard of many times, but the language barrier kept me from it. Now I have a sense of it, and found the presentation both enlightening and amusing.

One of the most important details is in the Appendix, where Muhanna has elected to translate the entire original Table of Contents, so that you can judge the structure of the whole monster. That gives a great deal of context to the project.

So, this was a widely available and very influential encyclopedia, which many subsequent scholars referred to, borrowed from, expanded upon, etc.. al-Nuwayri was a high official in the Mamluk Empire, serving in Syria and Egypt, and with access to all sorts of sources. He decided that it would be useful to create a compendium of human knowledge, and produced a two-million-word mini-library. He had access to much of Ancient Greek scholarship, so it's full of quotes from Aristotle and Hippocrates and the like. It also refers to Persian, Indian, Turkish, Byzantine, Egyptian and other sources, some of them surprisingly advanced, others wildly inaccurate. (I was a bit surprised to learn that one of his sources had figured out pretty much what rainbows were, as one example.)

I've learned highly useful things, like that hazelnuts increase the size of the brain (according to Hippocrates); which the package labels never tell you. I'm also intrigued by one of al-Nuwayri's frequent sources on matters biological: Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn 'Alī ibn Waḥshiyya, author of The Nabataean Agriculture. Ibn Waḥshiyya is full of surprising information about planting, like, "If you would like a pistachio tree, take the kidney of a goat and slice it open. Bury within it a bone from the spine of a peacock and sprinkle some fumewort over it and put it in the ground. After twenty-seven days, a pistachio tree will grow from it." If you want radishes, don't go planting radish seeds, oh, no. Ibn Waḥshiyya insists that "If you would like to grow radishes, take two goat horns and soak them in human urine for seven days. Then plant them in the ground and sprinkle a little asafoetida on top of them. Water them with rainwater every day, and you will have radishes after twenty-one days."

Now supposedly this ibn Waḥshiyya had a great reputation, but I wonder how he got it, and what the heck he was really up to. Because anybody who grew the crops he talks about would know better. Very weird.

I also learned that the fart of the Egyptian mongoose has a horrible smell, and that it settles in the clothes and will not leave until they are worn out. If a mongoose farts among a large herd of camels, they will flee, and it's hard to get them rounded up again, leading to the Bedouin expression for any dispersing group: "The mongoose farted among them." (Wikipedia doesn't warn you about this dangerous feature, no sir.)

We also get interesting versions of Adam and Eve, Cain and Able, and particularly the way that Satan behaved when humans were created.

I found the whole volume rather fascinating, for its snapshot of what a well-informed scholar thought about biology, philosophy, history, and so on, in the Muslim world of the 14th century. I got several story ideas, and I now look forward to reading another such work, Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah. I've read bits of it, but I'll be reading it cover-to-cover in the coming months.

[Philip · Rating 3 out of 5]

A window into the professional and intellectual echelons of the Mamluk world, that is, the Classical Islamic world in the 13th century, with sections on: natural sciences, geography, anatomy, the soul, love, poetry, proverbs, law, administration, animals, plants, history, and Islam. Some passages are delightful - parts diverting, parts evocative - thanks no doubt to the translation. But if you're looking to be impressed by the extent of human knowledge eight centuries ago, prepare to be disappointed. It's pretty remarkable what al-Nuwairi allows to pass as creditable, or at least good enough to merit a mention in this encyclopedia (e.g. "One authority has claimed that the bear delivers its young from its mouth." Really, couldn't al-Nuwairi fact check this with someone who knows something about bears?)

You'd do well to read this alongside the travelogue of Ibn Battuta who, unlike al-Nuwayri, actually traveled beyond the borders of the Mamluk world and actually saw the people, places, and creatures he then described. This is the compendium's biggest shortcoming: Nuwayri's world was too insular, and the text reflects it.

[Asani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Al-Nuwayri was a 14c encyclopedist living in Cairo at the time of the Abbasid Caliphate. The Mamluks were ruling Cairo. Al-Nuwayri was a career politician and administrator. He wrote this massive 30 volume encyclopedia towards the end of his life. This edition does a marvelous job in condensing its essence into a readable one volume book of less than 300 pages. It’s a book that should be picked on at leisure as there is much that is enjoyable. There’s a delightful version of the story of Adam and Eve, highly idiosyncratic descriptions of animals and plants, elaborate recipes for potions to increase or decrease sexual potency. There are also practical passages — one that gives advise on the best way to become an accountant to the Sultan. There are descriptions of contracts and balance sheets, and stories of the creation of the world.

[ari :) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some excerpts—often fascinating, at times mystifying, and always whimsical—from al-Nuwayrī’s 14th century encyclopedia Nihāyat al-arab fī funūn al-adab. The translator, Elias Muhanna, has chosen (probably wisely) to abridge the historical sections of the original, keeping most of the sections on what al-Nuwayrī's European contemporaries would call natural philosophy. Greatly enjoyed the read: a scholarly yet readable translation, serving as a “greatest hits” of the enchanted Weltanschauung of the Islamicate Middle Ages.

As an addendum, this translation is the source of an image that has made the rounds on Twitter a few times, with the following poem:

She has an ass below a slender waist
that oppresses us both:
it tortures me when I think about it
and tires her when she moves to stand up.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book to read in short snippets. Lots of weird and wonderful facts some more accurate than others. The animals section has to be the most bonkers e.g. "As for the cowardice of the lion - he is frightened by the voice of the rooster, the beating of a metal basin, and the playing of a lute. He is frightened by the sight of a black rope, a white rooster, a cat and a mouse." Now we know.

[Tony Gualtieri · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the sort of book that gives a real insight to the Medieval mind. A cabinet of curiosities that illustrates the human penchant for creating certainty out of ignorance. One either loves this type of compendium or finds it tedious. I am firmly in the former camp.

[Abdul Padela · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciate what the translator tried to do, but in only sampling parts of al-Nuwayri to give an overview of the book, I feel the focus wasn't put on the parts of the book I was interested in, primarily what the author had to say about secretaryship in the Mamluk sultanate.

[Ricardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A glimpse to Cairo's 14th century erudition. Great book on a great translation.

[Alhasan Aldulaimi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Its a fasinating history book

[Denise]

Meh, not what I was hoping for. This is truly an encyclopedia of the knowledge of the time. There is no narrative of any kind.

[Richard Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much information inaccessible to Western eyes.

[sam kr · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

surprisingly large quantity of the book spent on sexual medicines but was still interesting

[Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informational and a perfect view into history that I normally don't interact with

[Lucas · Rating 3 out of 5]

The poetry is my favorite element of this collection, and visually striking imagery is available on nearly every page. Artistically, I found several poems that I wanted to paint instead of read. The rest ranges from humorous to bizarre.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but definitely not meant to be read cover to cover.

I'm going to start using this to fix my and other people's problems.

5/10

[Marcos Augusto · Rating 3 out of 5]

Egyptian historian and civil servant al-Nuwayrī (1272–1332) compiled one of the best-known encyclopaedias of the Mamlūk period, the Nihāyat al-arab fī funūn al-adab (“The Aim of the Intelligent in the Art of Letters”), a work of almost 9,000 pages. It comprised: (1) geography, astronomy, meteorology, chronology, geology; (2) man (anatomy, folklore, conduct, politics); (3) zoology; (4) botany; (5) history.

[A Ter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining and clearly curated for a 20th century audience.

[Mills College Library]

039.927 N989 2016