Roma, Pontificio Istituto Orientale, foto del convegno GRAC tenutosi nell'anno 2009

Percorso

pcac 9
Elia di Nisibi, Il libro per scacciare la preoccupazione, Kitāb dafʿ al-hamm («The book on Driving Away Anguish from the Soul»), introduction by Paolo La Spisa and Davide Righi; arabic text by Samir Khalil Samir; italian translation and notes by Anna Pagnini, 1st volume, 3rd edition, Bologna 2018, 474p. isbn 978-1728616773.

In Mesopotamia during the eleventh cen­tury a Muslim visir asked a Nestorian bishop to compose a book of spiritual instructrions which would enable him to drive away the anguish of his soul. This guidebook, widely disseminated in the Medieval period and until now inaccessible to the non-Arabist, orginated from this simple request. The book, “On Driving Away Anguish from the Soul”, is a text of wisdom literature. Organized like a “virtue list” along with the corresponding vices, it is a cultured work but a surprisingly accessible one. It draws from the wisdom of the Greek philosophers, Persian emperors, Christian monks of the East, as well as from Muslim sages and Bedouin folk wisdom. This text is a precious testimony of the Medieval Arabic cultural environment both in the variety of its roots and the homogeneity of its language.

(WARNING! This is the first part of the work, with arabic text and italian translation. For the complete work you have to look also for the second part: PCAC 10 Patrimonio Culturale Arabo Cristiano vol. #10)