Subproject 2

This project traces the history of the Arabic concept of nature (ṭabīʿa) and its root (ṭ–b–ʿ) from its earliest attestations in pre-Islamic and Qurʾānic language to its philosophical development under Greek influence. Drawing on sources including early Arabic poetry, grammar, and lexicography, as well as the works of philosophers such as al-Kindī and Abū Bakr al-Rāzī, the study reconstructs how the root shifted from meanings related to “corrosion” and external divine action to an internal principle of motion and change. By examining materials up to the fourth/tenth century, the project maps the encounter between Qurʾānic theology, Arabic philology, and Hellenic philosophy, offering a comprehensive account of how the concept of “nature” entered – and was transformed within – the Islamic intellectual tradition, especially in philosophy.

 

Photo: Double-leaf frontispiece from the "Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity". Baghdad, 1287. Süleymaniye Library. Wikimedia Commons.