The Arabic Influences on Early Modern Occult Philosophy

The Arabic Influences on Early Modern Occult Philosophy introduces Arabic medieval astrological and magical theories formulated mainly in The Great Introduction to the Judgements of the Stars by Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi (787-886), De radiis by Ya'qub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi (801-873), and the Picatrix by Maslama al-Qurtubi (d. 964). Liana Saif investigates their influence on early modern occult philosophy, particularly the works of Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494), and John Dee (1527-c. 1608). The Arabic theories of astral influences provided a naturalistic explanation of astral influences and magical efficacy based on Aristotelian notions of causality. In addition, this book explores how this causality was reconciled with astrological hermeneutics, Neoplatonic emanationism, and Platonic eschatology, thus demonstrating the complexity of early modern occult philosophy and its syncretism.

Liana Saif is British Academy postdoctoral fellow at the Oriental Institute in the University of Oxford (St. Cross College), UK. She is interested in Western and Islamic occult thought and the exchange of esoteric ideas between the two worlds. As part of her current project entitled 'On the Margins of Orthodoxy: Magic in Medieval Islam,' Saif is preparing an English translation of the Arabic magic compendium Ghayat al-hakim known as the Picatrix.