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I am submitting this proposal to the Graduate Student Session.
My dissertation, “Objects of Enchantment: The Life and Afterlife of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s (d. 606/1210) Hidden Secret,” centers on an Arabic manual of ritual magic written by famed theologian and philosopher Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī. The first half of the dissertation provides the first close analysis of Rāzī’s sources, showing how he imagines the pre-Islamic ancient past as a repository of enchanted knowledge and enfolds this knowledge into an Islamic cosmology. The second half of the dissertation traces the circulation of this text, its translation into Persian, and its reception in a variety of contexts, including the Delhi Sultanate and early Ottoman courts, early modern Cairo, and in colonial manuscript libraries. In illustrating the vast popularity of this text, the dissertation both demonstrates the centrality of this genre to Islamic intellectual and political history and also theorizes the meaning of enchantment and disenchantment in a premodern context.
Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)
My dissertation, “Objects of Enchantment: The Life and Afterlife of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s (d. 606/1210) Hidden Secret,” centers on an Arabic manual of ritual magic written by famed theologian and philosopher Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī. The first half of the dissertation provides the first close analysis of Rāzī’s sources, showing how he imagines the pre-Islamic ancient past as a repository of enchanted knowledge and enfolds this knowledge into an Islamic cosmology. The second half of the dissertation traces the circulation of this text, its translation into Persian, and its reception in a variety of contexts, including the Delhi Sultanate and early Ottoman courts, early modern Cairo, and in colonial manuscript libraries. In illustrating the vast popularity of this text, the dissertation both demonstrates the centrality of this genre to Islamic intellectual and political history and also theorizes the meaning of enchantment and disenchantment in a premodern context.