A milestone in the history of Andalusī bāṭinism: Maslama al-Qurṭubī’s riḥla in the East

Recent research has considerably modified our assessment of the role played by Maslama Ibn Qāsim al-Qurṭubī (d. 964) in the history of alchemy, magic and other esoteric sciences in the Middle Ages. Virtually unknown two decades ago, this traditionalist with bāṭinī aspirations is today recognized as the genuine author of both the Rutbat al-ḥakīm and the Ghāyat al-ḥakīm/Picatrix (Fierro, 1996), as well as the man by whom the encyclopaedic corpus of the Rasā’il Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’ was introduced into al-Andalus (de Callataÿ, 2013). In short, it is now becoming increasingly clear that this Andalusī scholar, whose name usually appears in connection with that of Ibn Masarra (d. 931) and his school, played a crucial role in the transmission of Ismā‘ilī neoplatonism to the western part of the Dār al-Islām. In the early 30s of the 10th century, Maslama al-Qurṭubī travelled extensively through the Middle East and pursued there his education under a great number of reputed masters, such as the sūfī Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Sālim al-Tustarī (d. 967) in Basra and Abū Sa‛īd b. al-A‛rabī (d. 952) in Mecca. What kind of teaching did Maslama receive on that occasion? Who were his models? Which authors and which books was he looking for? What was his purpose in collecting this material? And what did he actually bring back to al-Andalus? The present paper will examine these questions and, in more general terms, seek to better figure out the intellectual milieu which the Andalusī scholar was immerged in during his riḥla across the East. By doing so, it is hoped that some new light will be cast on the role Maslama al-Qurṭūbī played in the transmission of esoteric knowledge to al-Andalus. It is also hoped that this inquiry will provide us with inspiring elements in the establishment of the critical edition of the Rutbat al-ḥakīm now under way