Book contents
- A History of Alexander the Great in World Culture
- A History of Alexander the Great in World Culture
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Notes on Contributors
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Alexander and Alexandria in Life and Legend
- 3 The Image of Alexander in Ancient Art
- 4 Alexander, Philosophy and Rome
- 5 Christianising Alexander Traditions in Late Antiquity
- 6 Alexander in Ancient Jewish Literature
- 7 The Medieval Alexander
- 8 Alexander the Great and the Crusades
- 9 The Slavic Alexander
- 10 Alexander the Great in Byzantine Tradition, AD 330–1453
- 11 The Spanish Alexander
- 12 The Persian Alexander (1)
- 13 The Persian Alexander (2)
- 14 Alexander in Medieval Arab Minds
- 15 Alexander in the Age of Shakespeare
- 16 Alexander the Great in Opera
- 17 Alexander in the Long Eighteenth Century (c.1660–1830)
- 18 Images of Alexander in Germany
- 19 Alexander the Gay and the Gloryhole That Was Greece
- Index
- References
13 - The Persian Alexander (2)
Amir Khusraw and the Philosophical View of Alexander
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 January 2022
Edited by
Book contents
- A History of Alexander the Great in World Culture
- A History of Alexander the Great in World Culture
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Notes on Contributors
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Alexander and Alexandria in Life and Legend
- 3 The Image of Alexander in Ancient Art
- 4 Alexander, Philosophy and Rome
- 5 Christianising Alexander Traditions in Late Antiquity
- 6 Alexander in Ancient Jewish Literature
- 7 The Medieval Alexander
- 8 Alexander the Great and the Crusades
- 9 The Slavic Alexander
- 10 Alexander the Great in Byzantine Tradition, AD 330–1453
- 11 The Spanish Alexander
- 12 The Persian Alexander (1)
- 13 The Persian Alexander (2)
- 14 Alexander in Medieval Arab Minds
- 15 Alexander in the Age of Shakespeare
- 16 Alexander the Great in Opera
- 17 Alexander in the Long Eighteenth Century (c.1660–1830)
- 18 Images of Alexander in Germany
- 19 Alexander the Gay and the Gloryhole That Was Greece
- Index
- References
Summary
Alexander played an important role in medieval Islamic philosophy and Persian literature, serving as a vehicle for discussions of the ‘ideal king’ in Mirror for Princes literature. This chapter explores the background to one particular work, Amir Khusraw’s Mirror of Alexander (1299), in which the king consults the philosopher Plato for advice on rulership before embarking on his submarine voyage to explore the nature of the universe. Plato’s characterisation as a mystical sage is contrasted in medieval Islam with the wisdom of Aristotle, Alexander’s teacher. In Amir Khusraw as in Nizami, Alexander is as much a philosopher as a king.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A History of Alexander the Great in World Culture , pp. 288 - 307Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022
References
Adamson, P. (2002) The Arabic Plotinus: A Philosophical Study of the Theology of Aristotle. London.Google Scholar
Auer, B. (2012) Symbols of Authority in Medieval Islam: History, Religion and Muslim Legitimacy in the Delhi Sultanate. London.Google Scholar
Barry, M. (2004) Figurative Art in Medieval Islam; the Riddle of Behzad of Herat. Paris.Google Scholar
Bosworth, C. E. (1998) ‘Mirrors for Princes’. In Encyclopaedia of Arabic Literature, Vol. 2, ed. Meisami, J. S. and Starkey., P. London: 527–9.Google Scholar
Brock, S. (1970) ‘The Laments of the Philosophers over Alexander in Syriac’. JSS 15, 201–18.Google Scholar
Bürgel, J. C. (2000) ‘Occult Science in the Iskandarnameh of Nizami Ganjavi’, in The Poetry of Nizami Ganjavi, ed. Talattof, K. and Clinton, J. W.. London.Google Scholar
Casari, M. (2010) ‘The Wise Men at Alexander’s Court in Persian Medieval Romances: An Iranian View of Ancient Cultural Heritage’. In Iranian Identity in the Course of History, ed. Cereti, C. G.. Rome: 67–80.Google Scholar
Casari, M. (2012) ‘The King Explorer: A Cosmographic Approach to the Persian Alexander’, in The Alexander Romance in Persia and the East, ed. Stoneman, R., Erickson, K. and Netton, I.. Groningen.Google Scholar
Chelkowski, P. J. (1977) ‘Nizami’s Iskandarnameh’ in Colloquio sulpoeta Nizemi e la laggenda iranica di Alessandro Magno. Rome: 11–53.Google Scholar
Clouston, W. A. (1884) The Book of Sindibad, or The Story of the King, His Son, the Damsel, and Seven Vazirs: From the Persian and Arabic. Privately printed.Google Scholar
Cottrell, E. (2016) An Early Mirror for Prince and Manual for Secretaries: The Epistolary Novel of Aristotle and Alexander. In Alexander the Great and the East; History, Art, Tradition, ed. Nawotka, K. and Wojciechowska., A. Wiesbaden: 303–28.Google Scholar
Doufikar-Aerts, F. (1970) ‘Alexander the Great and the Pharos of Alexandria in Arabic Literature’, in Bridges and Bürgel (1970): 191–200.Google Scholar
Doufikar-Aerts, F. (2010) Alexander Magnus Arabicus: A Survey of the Alexander-Tradition through Seven Centuries from Pseudo-Callisthenes to Ṣūrī. Paris.Google Scholar
Frenkian, A. M. (1957) Scepticismul grec şi filozofia indiană. Bucharest. See the German summary review in Bibliotheca Classica Orientalis 4 (1958): 212–49.Google Scholar
Gaillard, M. (2005) Alexandre le Grand en Iran: le Darab Nameh d’Abu Taher Tarsusi. Paris.Google Scholar
Gollancz, H. (1897) The History of Sindbad and the Seven Wise Masters. Translated for the First Time from the Syriac into English. Transactions of the Folklore Society VIII. London.Google Scholar
Grignaschi, M. (1967) ‘Le roman epistolaire classique conservé dans la version arabe de Sâlim Abû al-‘Ala’, Le Muséon 80: 211–64.Google Scholar
Grignaschi, M. (1970) ‘Un roman epistolaire gréco-arabe: la correspondence entre Aristote et Alexandre’, in Bridges and Bürgel (1970): 109–23.Google Scholar
Khismatulin, A. (2015) ‘Two Mirrors for Prince Fabricated at the Seljuq Court: Nizam al-Mulk’s Siyar al-mulūk and al-Ghazali’s Nasīhat al-mulūk’, in The Age of the Seljuqs: The Idea of Iran VI, ed. Herzig, E. and Stewart, S.. London: 94–130.Google Scholar
Khusrau, A. (1999) Lo Specchio Alessandrino, traduzione dal persiano… di Angelo M. Piemontese. Soveria Mannelli.Google Scholar
Klein-Franke, F. (1996) ‘Al-Kindi’ in History of Islamic Philosophy, ed. Nasr, S. H. and Leanan, O. London: 165–77.Google Scholar
Kotzia, P. (2007) Περι του Μηλου η Περι του της Αριστοτελους Τελευτης. (Liber de pomo). Athens.Google Scholar
Lambton, A. M. (1971) ‘Islamic Mirrors for Princes’ in Atti del Convegno internazionale sul tema, La Persia nel medioevo: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Problemi attuali di scienza e di cultura, quaderno no. 160. Rome.Google Scholar
Lewisohn, L. (2009) ‘English Romantic and Persian Sufi Poets’, Temenos Academy Review 12: 185–226.Google Scholar
Lingwood, C. (2014) Politics, Poetry and Sufism in Medieval Iran. New Perspectives on Jami’s Salaman va Absal. Leiden.Google Scholar
Manteghi, H. (2018) ‘Alexander the Great in Persian Tradition’, PhD dissertation in progress, University of Exeter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marlowe, L. (2013) ‘Among Kings and Sages: Greek and Indian Wisdom in an Arabic Mirror for Princes’, Arabica 60: 1–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maroth, M. (2005) ‘The Correspondence between Aristotle and Alexander the Great: An Anonymous Greek Novel in Letters in Arabic Translation’, Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 45: 231–315.Google Scholar
O’Leary, D. L. (1949) How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs. London. Reprinted Chicago: Ares.Google Scholar
Peters, F. E. (1979) ‘The Origins of Islamic Platonism: The School Tradition’, in Islamic Philosophical Theology, ed. Morewedge, P.. Albany: 14–45.Google Scholar
Peters, F. E. (1996) ‘The Greek and Syriac Background’, in History of Islamic Philosophy, ed. Nasr, S. H. and Leanan, O. London: 40–51.Google Scholar
Piemontese, A. M. (2007) ‘Sources and Art of Amir Khosrou’s “The Alexandrine Mirror”’, in The Necklace of the Pleiades: Studies in Persian Literature Presented to Heshmat Moayyad on His 80th Birthday. Amsterdam: 31–45.Google Scholar
Rosenthal, F. (1940) ‘On the Knowledge of Plato’s Philosophy in the Islamic World’, Islamic Culture 14: 387–421.Google Scholar
Roth, D. (2004) ‘Historia septem sapientum’. Überlieferung und textgeschichtliche Edition, 2 vols. Tubingen.Google Scholar
Roth, D. (2008) Sieben weise Mesiter. Eine bairische und eine elsässische Fassung der ‘Historia septem sapientum’. Berlin.Google Scholar
Ryan, W. F., and Schmitt, C. B. (1982) Pseudo-Aristotle, the Secret of Secrets: Sources and Influences. London.Google Scholar
Schimmel, A. (1992) A Two-Coloured Brocade: The Imagery of Persian Poetry. Chapel Hill, NC.Google Scholar
Seyller, J. (2001) Pearls of the Parrot of India. The Walters Art Museum Khamsa of Amir Khusraw of Delhi. Baltimore.Google Scholar
Shayegan, Y. (1996) ‘The Transmission of Greek Philosophy’, in History of Islamic Philosophy, ed. Nasr, S. H. and Leanan, O. London: 89–104.Google Scholar
Starr, S. F. (2013) Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane. Princeton, NJ.Google Scholar
Stoneman, R. (2012) ’Persian Aspects of the Romance Tradition’, in The Alexander Romance in Persia and the East, ed.Stoneman, R., Erickson, K. and Netton, I.. Groningen.Google Scholar
Stoneman, R. (2016) ‘Alexander’s Mirror’, in Alexander the Great and the East: History, Art, Tradition, ed. Nawotka, K. and Wojciechowska, A.. Wiesbaden: 329–43.Google Scholar
Stoneman, R. (2018) ‘Plato’s Advice to Alexander: Amir Khusraw’s Mirror of Alexander’, in Concepts of Ideal Rulership from Antiquity to the Renaissance, ed. Roskam, G. and Schorn, S.. Turnhout: 417–44.Google Scholar
Swain, S. (2013) Themistius, Julian, and Greek Political Theory under Rome. Texts, Translations, and Studies of Four Key Works. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Thom, J. C. (2014) Cosmic Order and Divine Power: Pseudo-Aristotle, ‘On the Cosmos’. Tubingen.Google Scholar
Urvoy, D. (1996) ‘Ibn Rushd’, in History of Islamic Philosophy, ed. Nasr, S. H. and Leanan, O. London: 330–45.Google Scholar
Walbridge, J. (2000) The Leaven of the Ancients: Suhrawardi and the Heritage of the Greeks. Albany, NY.Google Scholar
Walbridge, J. (2001) The Wisdom of the Mystic East: Suhrawardi and Platonic Orientalism. Albany, NY.Google Scholar
Whitmarsh, T., and Thompson, S., eds. (2013) The Romance between Greece and the East. Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- 1
- Cited by