Andalus and Sefarad: On Philosophy and Its History in Islamic Spain.

• Author: Akasoy, Anna Ayse

Andalus and Sefarad: On Philosophy and Its History in Islamic Spain. By SARAH STROUMSA. Princeton: PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2019. Pp. xxi + 220. S35, [pounds sterling]28.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, public intellectuals such as Amartya Sen and Amin Maalouf made a case that identity and violence are related. Writing against the backdrop of the rise of exclusionary nationalism and genocides, Maalouf contended, "My identity is what prevents me from being identical to anybody else." Both thinkers argued that identities were hybrid and complex. This phenomenon of multifaceted affiliations is not limited to modernity. Medieval individuals too belonged to different groups simultaneously. As much as we treat them as identical only w ith themselves when it comes to the specifics of their ideas, in other respects we divide them into categories and treat them as identical with others. Depending on our field of study, we tend to foreground some aspects of their identities and take others for granted. That medieval philosophers were as a general rule urban, male, and free is rarely mentioned. Attention has rather been paid to their religious identities, either because of a general assumption that medieval realities were defined by religion, because of related linguistic divisions, or out of convention. The relationship between Islamic and Arabic philosophy is an old debate among those who study this history, and the use of Arabic by Jews and Christians in the Middle East illustrates that religious identities are only one option of dividing individuals. This is especially obvious in culturally productive urban landscapes that were also religiously diverse, al-Andalus being one of the most high-profile cases. For then as now, we can inquire, what are we missing when we reduce individuals to one aspect of their identities?

In the well-published field of Andalusi philosophical history, Sarah Stroumsa's Andalus and Sefarad is both a masterful synthesis and a breath of fresh air. An essay in history as much as historiography, the monograph presents a case for an integrative approach to the history of philosophy in medieval al-Andalus. Connections and parallels between Jewish and Muslim philosophers from the region have long been acknowledged, Stroumsa argues, but not to the extent that the common ground shapes the narrative. Her ambition in particular is to restore the agency of Jewish philosophers in a narrative dominated by Muslim authors and the...