On the occasion of the bestowing of an honorary doctorate in Oriental Manuscript Studies on Beatrice Gruendler, Petra Sijpestijn of University of Leiden convenes a workshop on Wisdom literature in the Islamicate Middle Ages.

Beatrice Gruendler talks about how Kalīla wa-Dimna may be read as a work of Wisdom Literature.

An anonymous copyist-redactor of the fourteenth century added a lengthy incipit to Kalīla wa-Dimna, which makes it usable as an anthology of ethical and practical advice geared to a wide audience. This incipit constitutes the longest and most substantial later addition to Kalīla wa-Dimna, and it evinces a scholastic structure. Its elements partly reuse abstracts and concluding commentaries of chapters from the book, and the incipit was then adopted by other copyist-redactors. This suggests that some anonymous, though ambitious, copyist-redactors “optimized” their versions by making the wisdom scattered across various fables accessible in a systematic way.

Remote participation is possible. If you would like to join please send a mail to: AlBab@hum.leidenuniv.nl