ABSTRACT

This work addresses the question of the intended audience of the Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm, the famous Andalusi treatise on magic, better known by its Latin moniker, Picatrix. I propose that a substantial portion of the Ghāya's readers were scribes, or kuttāb, in the tenth-century caliphate of Cordova. Many of these scribes were considered udabāʾ; that is, those who possessed adab, an elusive yet ubiquitous term in Islamic culture. The concept of adab, scribal culture, and magic traveled to al-Andalus in similar ways and at similar times, and they reached their apex in two figures: Ibn Rabbih and al-Qurṭubī. I argue that, in the Ghāya's spells and rituals, these kuttāb and udabāʾ could find not only a shortcut to acquire abilities vital to their work but also more dubious ways to promote themselves in a difficult political environment. Further, I show that sections of the Ghāya potentially allowed these officials to establish contact with the “supreme scribe,” the personified planet Mercury, who is closely related to the mythical sage Hermes Trismegistus.

摘要

这部作品解决了Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm的目标读者的问题，这是著名的安达卢西魔法论文，其拉丁名字Picatrix更为人所知。我认为Ghāya的大部分读者是10 世纪科尔多瓦哈里发国的抄写员或kuttāb 。许多这些抄写员被认为是udabāʾ ; 也就是说，那些拥有adab的人，这是一个在伊斯兰文化中难以捉摸但无处不在的术语。阿达布、文士文化和魔法的概念以相似的方式和相似的时间传到了安达卢斯，并在两个人物中达到了顶峰：伊本·拉比和 al-Qurṭubī。我认为，在Ghāya的咒语和仪式，这些kuttāb和udabāʾ 不仅可以找到一条捷径来获得对他们的工作至关重要的能力，而且还可以找到更可疑的方式来在艰难的政治环境中提升自己。此外，我还展示了Ghāya的某些部分可能允许这些官员与“最高抄写员”建立联系，即拟人化的水星星球，与神话中的圣人 Hermes Trismegistus 密切相关。