Matthew Melvin-Koushki
Biographic Data
| ID | 2496315 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Matthew Melvin-Koushki |
| GIVEN NAMES | Matthew |
| FAMILY NAME | Melvin-Koushki |
| SIGNATURE | MELVIN-KOUSHKI M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of South Carolina |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2432-3264 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 6 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 18 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
The Meanings of Islamic Magic
As an Islamicist and Persianist, I celebrate Michael Bailey's founding call to go beyond in the study of "magic," that Greco-Latin anti-Persian slur: for it is precisely the Modern English word's status as a slur that makes it not just a spell, but a magnetic field, equally repulsive and attractive, and so wonderfully productive going forward. Here the Arabic word siḥr —translated as "magic" when legal and "sorcery" when illegal, but meaning cosm…
To Doubt—or to Wonder? Classist Wordwitching and Nocebic Talecrafting Meet the Islamic Weird
William Pooley argues for doubt as a culturally neutral category superior to belief for writing the history of “magic” and its mythical decline in western Europe and thence colonial modernity. But a simple linguopolitical New Old English exercise shows that Franco-Latinized Modern English word to be no less classist, Eurocentrist and colonially psychoanalyzing; the trick pivots on “supernatural” as an epistemological slur and “doubt” as a civiliz…
The New Brethren of Purity
The Brethren of Purity are rightly acclaimed the most influential Pythagorean thinkers of pre-Mongol Islam; their Epistles were crucial to the development of a wide and weird range of western and eastern forms of occultism, Sufism and Neoplatonic philosophy, as current research has shown. What has yet to be mapped is the extent to which their post-Mongol Persianate heirs – the self-styled New Brethren of Purity – exerted an even wider and weirder…
Selenocentrism and Heliocentrism in Early Modern Persianate Imperial Cultures
Islam, as all moderns know, is the religion of the Moon. Yet it has been experienced as equally Solar (and Venusian) since late antiquity, thanks to its Iranian-Egyptian-Greek-Roman imperial Heliocentrist genetics. By the same genetic token, the Sun-supremacism that is colonialist-Orientalist Eurocentricism merely continues Latin Christian Jesuan Heliocentrism—a theological rite that, painfully ironically, remains the textbook touchstone of moder…
The Occult Court
The occult-imperial turn that defined the post-Mongol Persianate world saw a proliferation of grimoires as handbooks of court culture – one with Mediterranean roots. Here I contextualise and translate for comparative study a minor Persian manual of illusionism and trickery, Boon for the Khan, by the Herati Naqshbandī Sufi, preacher and occultist ʿAlī Ṣafī (d. 1533), as strategic window onto this turn generally and the politically and militarily f…
Definition as (De)colonial Weapon
Geomancy and Other Forms of Divination
Current debates and emerging trends in the history of science in premodern Islamicate societies
This roundtable brings together contributions from nine senior, mid-career and junior scholars who work on the history of science in pre-1800 Islamicate societies. The contributions reflect upon some of the challenges that have historically constrained the subfield, how they have sought to overcome them, and what they see as some of the more productive and fruitful turns the field has taken and/or should take in the future. A central trend in all…
Teaching and Learning the Sciences in Islamicate Societies (800–1700), written by Sonja Brentjes
Occult Ecumenism
That Safavid Iran was scene to a boom in the occult sciences ( ʿulum-i gharība ) is now beginning to be acknowledged by specialists; what has yet to be appreciated is the extent to which that boom represented a smooth and conscious continuation of Mamluk, Aqquyunlu, Ottoman and especially Timurid Sunni precedent. In particular, lettrism ( ʿilm-i ḥurūf ), developed by the Pythagoreanizing, imamophile New Brethren of Purity as universal imperial sc…
An Analysis of the Rug-Washing Ceremony in Mashhad-e Ardehāl, Kāshān
The Iranian religious ceremony of rug-washing ( qāli-shuyān ), commemorating the martyrdom of Emāmzāda Soltān-ʿAli b. Mohammad Bāqer (d. 734/116), is held every year in the second week of autumn in Mashhad-e Ardehāl, a village of Kāshān, Esfahān Province. This ceremony is unique amongst Twelver Shiʿis for its observance in accordance with the solar calendar rather than the lunar. The objective of the present article is to analyze this ceremony an…
Is (Islamic) Occult Science Science
More than any other object of historical and anthropological study, Islamicate occult science cuts to the quick of what it means to be modern, to be Western, to be scientific. Yet nowhere else are nineteenth-century colonialist metaphysics and materialist cosmology more firmly entrenched. The piecemeal, truncated study of “Magic in Islam” to date has thus often been pursued in service of either scientistic or religionist agendas, whereby magic ca…
World as (Arabic) Text
The heavily Neoplatonic and antiquarian-perennialist tenor of Safavid philosophy is now widely recognized by specialists; but few have acknowledged its equally notable Neopythagorean turn. Likewise, that the primary mode of applied Neoplatonic-Neopythagorean philosophy as a Safavid imperial way of life was occult science has been ignored altogether, making impossible a history of its practice. The case of the Twelver Shiʿi sage-mage Mīr Dāmād – f…
In Defense of Geomancy
The late 8th/14th century saw a renaissance of high occultism throughout Islamdom—a development alarming to puritan scholars. This includes Ibn Ḫaldūn (d. 808/1406), whose anti-occultist position in the Muqaddima is often assumed to be an example of his visionary empiricism; yet his goal is simply the recategorization of all occult sciences under the twin rubrics of magic and divination, and his veto persuades more on religious and social grounds…
Introduction
Astrology, Lettrism, Geomancy
Mobilizing Magic
The Delicate Art of Aggression
Medieval Persian imperial correspondence (tarassul) remains relatively untapped as a source of historiographical information, due in no small part to its stylized and ornate character. This ornateness, far from being merely an obstructive husk to the useful pith of data within, constitutes a rich source of information in its own right; indeed, the formal aspects of a given letter may significantly alter the ostensible sense of the text. This stud…
World as (Arabic) Text
The heavily Neoplatonic and antiquarian-perennialist tenor of Safavid philosophy is now widely recognized by specialists; but few have acknowledged its equally notable Neopythagorean turn. Likewise, that the primary mode of applied Neoplatonic-Neopythagorean philosophy as a Safavid imperial way of life was occult science has been ignored altogether, making impossible a history of its practice. The case of the Twelver Shiʿi sage-mage Mīr Dāmād – f…
The Delicate Art of Aggression
Medieval Persian imperial correspondence (tarassul) remains relatively untapped as a source of historiographical information, due in no small part to its stylized and ornate character. This ornateness, far from being merely an obstructive husk to the useful pith of data within, constitutes a rich source of information in its own right; indeed, the formal aspects of a given letter may significantly alter the ostensible sense of the text. This stud…
Astrology, Lettrism, Geomancy
Mobilizing Magic
The Delicate Art of Aggression
Medieval Persian imperial correspondence (tarassul) remains relatively untapped as a source of historiographical information, due in no small part to its stylized and ornate character. This ornateness, far from being merely an obstructive husk to the useful pith of data within, constitutes a rich source of information in its own right; indeed, the formal aspects of a given letter may significantly alter the ostensible sense of the text. This stud…
Astrology, Lettrism, Geomancy
Mobilizing Magic
In Defense of Geomancy
The late 8th/14th century saw a renaissance of high occultism throughout Islamdom—a development alarming to puritan scholars. This includes Ibn Ḫaldūn (d. 808/1406), whose anti-occultist position in the Muqaddima is often assumed to be an example of his visionary empiricism; yet his goal is simply the recategorization of all occult sciences under the twin rubrics of magic and divination, and his veto persuades more on religious and social grounds…
Introduction
Is (Islamic) Occult Science Science
More than any other object of historical and anthropological study, Islamicate occult science cuts to the quick of what it means to be modern, to be Western, to be scientific. Yet nowhere else are nineteenth-century colonialist metaphysics and materialist cosmology more firmly entrenched. The piecemeal, truncated study of “Magic in Islam” to date has thus often been pursued in service of either scientistic or religionist agendas, whereby magic ca…
World as (Arabic) Text
The heavily Neoplatonic and antiquarian-perennialist tenor of Safavid philosophy is now widely recognized by specialists; but few have acknowledged its equally notable Neopythagorean turn. Likewise, that the primary mode of applied Neoplatonic-Neopythagorean philosophy as a Safavid imperial way of life was occult science has been ignored altogether, making impossible a history of its practice. The case of the Twelver Shiʿi sage-mage Mīr Dāmād – f…
An Analysis of the Rug-Washing Ceremony in Mashhad-e Ardehāl, Kāshān
The Iranian religious ceremony of rug-washing ( qāli-shuyān ), commemorating the martyrdom of Emāmzāda Soltān-ʿAli b. Mohammad Bāqer (d. 734/116), is held every year in the second week of autumn in Mashhad-e Ardehāl, a village of Kāshān, Esfahān Province. This ceremony is unique amongst Twelver Shiʿis for its observance in accordance with the solar calendar rather than the lunar. The objective of the present article is to analyze this ceremony an…
Teaching and Learning the Sciences in Islamicate Societies (800–1700), written by Sonja Brentjes
Occult Ecumenism
That Safavid Iran was scene to a boom in the occult sciences ( ʿulum-i gharība ) is now beginning to be acknowledged by specialists; what has yet to be appreciated is the extent to which that boom represented a smooth and conscious continuation of Mamluk, Aqquyunlu, Ottoman and especially Timurid Sunni precedent. In particular, lettrism ( ʿilm-i ḥurūf ), developed by the Pythagoreanizing, imamophile New Brethren of Purity as universal imperial sc…
Geomancy and Other Forms of Divination
Current debates and emerging trends in the history of science in premodern Islamicate societies
This roundtable brings together contributions from nine senior, mid-career and junior scholars who work on the history of science in pre-1800 Islamicate societies. The contributions reflect upon some of the challenges that have historically constrained the subfield, how they have sought to overcome them, and what they see as some of the more productive and fruitful turns the field has taken and/or should take in the future. A central trend in all…
Definition as (De)colonial Weapon
The New Brethren of Purity
The Brethren of Purity are rightly acclaimed the most influential Pythagorean thinkers of pre-Mongol Islam; their Epistles were crucial to the development of a wide and weird range of western and eastern forms of occultism, Sufism and Neoplatonic philosophy, as current research has shown. What has yet to be mapped is the extent to which their post-Mongol Persianate heirs – the self-styled New Brethren of Purity – exerted an even wider and weirder…
Selenocentrism and Heliocentrism in Early Modern Persianate Imperial Cultures
Islam, as all moderns know, is the religion of the Moon. Yet it has been experienced as equally Solar (and Venusian) since late antiquity, thanks to its Iranian-Egyptian-Greek-Roman imperial Heliocentrist genetics. By the same genetic token, the Sun-supremacism that is colonialist-Orientalist Eurocentricism merely continues Latin Christian Jesuan Heliocentrism—a theological rite that, painfully ironically, remains the textbook touchstone of moder…
The Occult Court
The occult-imperial turn that defined the post-Mongol Persianate world saw a proliferation of grimoires as handbooks of court culture – one with Mediterranean roots. Here I contextualise and translate for comparative study a minor Persian manual of illusionism and trickery, Boon for the Khan, by the Herati Naqshbandī Sufi, preacher and occultist ʿAlī Ṣafī (d. 1533), as strategic window onto this turn generally and the politically and militarily f…
The Meanings of Islamic Magic
As an Islamicist and Persianist, I celebrate Michael Bailey's founding call to go beyond in the study of "magic," that Greco-Latin anti-Persian slur: for it is precisely the Modern English word's status as a slur that makes it not just a spell, but a magnetic field, equally repulsive and attractive, and so wonderfully productive going forward. Here the Arabic word siḥr —translated as "magic" when legal and "sorcery" when illegal, but meaning cosm…
To Doubt—or to Wonder? Classist Wordwitching and Nocebic Talecrafting Meet the Islamic Weird
William Pooley argues for doubt as a culturally neutral category superior to belief for writing the history of “magic” and its mythical decline in western Europe and thence colonial modernity. But a simple linguopolitical New Old English exercise shows that Franco-Latinized Modern English word to be no less classist, Eurocentrist and colonially psychoanalyzing; the trick pivots on “supernatural” as an epistemological slur and “doubt” as a civiliz…
History (12 works) · Islamic Studies and History (10 works) · Art (9 works) · History (9 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Ancient history (8 works) · Eurasian Exchange Networks (7 works) · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies (7 works) · Law (7 works) · Political science (7 works)