Models of Intelligibility: a case from Jewish Philosophy in the Islamic world

In this paper I outline a number of ways Jewish philosophy, Neoplatonism, and Islamic scriptural exegesis (tafsīr) interact with each other in the writings of Abū l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī. Taking into account the wealth of mystical texts accessible to philosophers of his time period (12th cen. CE), I show how these texts attempt are used by him to model the intelligibility of the natural world. While some of the most famous cases include the Sefer Yeṣira and its commentary by Saʿadya Gaon, or the lettrism of al-Ḥallāj and other earlier Ṣūfī’s, there are lesser well known and still as deeply influential modelling techniques. Such techniques include the atomism of Ashʿarite kalām; the substance-theory of Plato and Aristotle, the eclecticism of Galen’s humoral theory, as well as the numerological theories of Evagrius and Ps.-Hippocrates’ Hebdomads. I argue that Abū l-Barakāt is a case of combinging these models to develop a theologically pregnant understanding of nature as the "Scroll of Existence".