Medicine and Religion in the Life of an Ottoman Sheikh

<p>In 1768, Aḥmad al-Damanhūrī became the rector (shaykh) of al-Azhar, which was one of the most authoritative and respected positions in the Ottoman Empire. He occupied this position until his death. Despite being a prolific author, whose writings are largely extant, al-Damanhūrī remains almost unknown, and much of his work awaits study and analysis. This book aims to shed light on al-Damanhūrī’s diverse intellectual background, and that of and his contemporaries, building on and continuing the scholarship on the academic thought of the late Ottoman Empire.</p><p></p><p>The book specifically investigates the intersection of medical and religious knowledge in Eighteenth-Century Egypt. It takes as its focus a manuscript on anatomy by al-Damanhūrī (d. 1778), entitled "<i>The Clear Statement on the Science of Anatomy</i> (<i>al-qawl al-ṣarīḥ fī ʿilm al-tashrīḥ</i>),". The book includes an edited translation of <i>The Clear Statement</i>, which is a well-known but unstudied and unpublished manuscript. It also provides a summary translation and analysis of al-Damanhūrī’s own intellectual autobiography. As such, the book provides an important window into a period that remains deeply understudied and a topic that continues to cause debates and controversies.</p><p></p><p>This study, therefore, will be of keen interest to scholars working on the "post-Classical" Islamic world, as well as historians of religion, science, and medicine looking beyond Europe in the Early Modern period.</p> <p>Introduction <b>Part I: The study of al-Damanhūrī’s life and career </b>1 Al-Damanhūrī: the life of a scholar 2 The Education of Ahmad al-Damanhūrī 3 Medicine and Religion in al-Damanhūrī’s Clear Statement; Postscript Al-Damanhūrī in Anticipation: Writing Postcolonially <b>Part II: <i>The Clear Statement</i>—a translation; </b>A note on translation; <i>The Clear Statement</i>—Translation</p>