Communities of Knowledge
Interreligious Networks of Scholars in Ibn Abi Usaybiʿa’s History of the Physicians
Project Goal
To examine the social encounters of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish scholars during the Greco-Arabic translation movement in the Abbasid Near East (750–1258).
Researchers & Host
- Nathan P. Gibson, Ph.D. (Principal Investigator)
- Prof. Dr. Ronny Vollandt (Host Professor)
- Nadine Löhr, M.A. (Research Associate)
- Vanessa Birkhahn, B.A. (Student Researcher, 2019–2020)
- Hanna Friedel (Student Researcher, 2021)
- Lukas Froschmeier (Student Researcher, 2021)
- Malinda Tolay, B.A. (Student Researcher, 2019–2021)
- Robin Schmahl, M.A. (Student Researcher, 2019–2020)
- Flavio Zeska (Student Researcher, 2021)
- Fabio Ioppolo, M.A. (Intern, 2020)
Institute of Near & Middle Eastern Studies
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (University of Munich)
Objectives
Render Ibn Abi Usaybiʿa’s historiographical assertions about interreligious interactions into a format that allows them to be queried and analyzed.
Comprehensively evaluate the significance of places, persons, and means of communication involved in interreligious scholarly collaboration as profiled in History of the Physicians.
Publicize the project’s methods, data, and results in open and stable formats.
Research Questions
How does Ibn Abi Usaybiʿa depict networks of interreligious knowledge exchange in the History of Physicians?
Which persons, groups, and roles …
Which places, place types, institutions, and social settings …
Which communicative modes and types of social or scholarly encounters …
… are depicted as most central to knowledge exchange between communities?
How does Ibn Abi Usaybiʿa’s depiction of these people, places, and modes compare to their depiction in related sources?