Reading Safavid Occult-Scientific Miscellanies

Cent er f or Russian, East European, and Eurasian St udies Asian St udies Cent er Universit y Cent er for Int ernat ional St udies Consort ium f or Educat ional Resources on Islamic St udies Cent ral Eurasian St udies Societ y MASTERCLASS ON EURASIA Reading Safavid Occult- Scient if ic Miscellanies Th u r sdays, M ar ch 4 an d 11 9-10:30 a.m. (EST) | 8-9:30 a.m. (CST) | 2-3:30 p.m. (GMT) | 3:00-4:30 p.m. (CET) 4-5:30 p.m. (EET) | 5-6:30 p.m. (MSK) | 5:30-7 p.m. (IRST) | 8-9:30 p.m. (ALMT) We will examine a representative Safavid Persian miscellany of the mid-seventeenth century, MS Majlis 12575. Significant for the history of science, it comprises occult-scientific works by Iranian philosophers of various periods, including Suhravardi, Fakhr al-Din Razi and Sadr al-Din Dashtaki, as well as a lettrist work by Mahmud Dihdar Shirazi, teacher to Shaykh Baha'i in the occult sciences. Our focus will be on 'Ali Safi Kashifi's (d. 1535) Gift for the Khan (Tuhfa-yi khani), an early Safavid simplification of a Timurid Persian grimoire dealing with illusionism and conjuring, both of which we now dismiss as stage magic. Its Safavid-era expansion to include other, more serious occult sciences? alchemy, talismanry, astral magic? and the magico-political feats of eminent Safavid philosophers will also be discussed with examples, as a window onto how Safavid philosophical culture worked in political practice. PREREQUISITE Advanced Persian INSTRUCTOR M at t h ew M elvin -Kou sh k i Associate Professor of Islamic History University of South Carolina COLLABORATORS Aziza Sh an azar ova UCIS Postdoctoral Fellow of REEES University of Pittsburgh REGISTER REGISTRATIONS LIM ITED