BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Mosaic - ECPv6.17.5//NONSGML v1.0//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://www.mosaicsynergy.net X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Mosaic REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H X-Robots-Tag:noindex X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/Brussels BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0200 TZNAME:CEST DTSTART:20250330T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0200 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:CET DTSTART:20251026T010000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0200 TZNAME:CEST DTSTART:20260329T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0200 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:CET DTSTART:20261025T010000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0200 TZNAME:CEST DTSTART:20270328T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0200 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:CET DTSTART:20271031T010000 END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260805 DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260809 DTSTAMP:20260831T081700Z CREATED:20260831T080250Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260831T081700Z UID:903-1785888000-1786233599@www.mosaicsynergy.net SUMMARY:Fifteenth Biennial Iranian Studies Conference DESCRIPTION:From 5 to 8 August 2026\, Utrecht University hosted the Fifteenth Biennial Iranian Studies Conference\, organized by the Association for Iranian Studies (AIS) in collaboration with Utrecht University. \nOn 7 August\, Laura Tribuzio chaired the panel Embodied Cosmologies: Devotion\, Knowledge\, and Esoteric Traditions in the Premodern Islamicate World. In its final form\, the session brought together two closely related papers by Laura Tribuzio and Dominique Sirgy\, both examining how Persian encyclopaedic traditions reworked inherited systems of knowledge to make cosmological principles operative in the material and human world. \nLaura Tribuzio focused on the anonymous thirteenth-century Persian Mujmal al-ḥikma\, examining its substantial reworking of the cosmology of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ. Beginning with generation itself\, the Mujmal brings together alchemy\, embryology\, and astrology: mineral generation is explained through mercury and sulphur\, while human generation unfolds under the successive governance of the seven planets. Celestial configurations do not merely accompany embryonic development but shape bodily and psychological dispositions. The text ultimately extends this logic from the formation of the individual body to political and prophetic authority\, connecting particular planetary combinations and conjunctions with the emergence of kings and prophets. \nDominique Sirgy turned to Ḥusayn ʿAqīlī Rustamdārī’s Riyāż al-abrār\, a major Persian encyclopaedia composed in Qazvin in 1571 for the Safavid ruler Shah Ṭahmāsp I. Organising ninety sciences\, Rustamdārī reworks earlier models of classification\, notably that of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Jāmiʿ al-ʿulūm\, while including a significant number of occult sciences omitted by his predecessor. Sirgy showed how this reorganization reflects a cosmology understood through its practical effects: alchemy gives material form to cosmic powers\, including those encoded in letters\, while astrology translates celestial configurations and movements into knowledge about events in the human world. \nThe point of convergence between the two papers lay precisely here. Despite the very different contexts of the thirteenth-century Mujmal and Rustamdārī’s sixteenth-century Safavid encyclopaedia\, both texts transform inherited cosmological knowledge by asking what cosmic forces do. In the Mujmal\, they enter matter\, govern the formation of the embryo\, and contribute to the production of human\, royal\, and prophetic qualities; in the Riyāż al-abrār\, they become accessible through sciences capable of reading\, manipulating\, or materializing their effects. \nThe two contributions thus approached embodied cosmology as a dynamic relationship between cosmos and terrestrial life: celestial and spiritual powers take concrete form in matter\, bodies\, practices of knowledge\, and structures of authority. URL:https://www.mosaicsynergy.net/event/fifteenth-biennial-iranian-studies-conference/ LOCATION:Utrecht University END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260615 DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260617 DTSTAMP:20260831T082647Z CREATED:20260831T082647Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260831T082647Z UID:915-1781481600-1781654399@www.mosaicsynergy.net SUMMARY:Figures of Authority: Argumentative Strategies\, Exemplary Motifs\, and Narrative Patterns in the Political Advice Literature of the Premodern Islamic World DESCRIPTION:From 15 to 16 June 2026\, the University of Tübingen hosted the international workshop Figures of Authority: Argumentative Strategies\, Exemplary Motifs\, and Narrative Patterns in the Political Advice Literature of the Premodern Islamic World. Organized by Marianna Zarantonello at the Department of Oriental and Islamic Studies\, the workshop was held within the framework of her research project Mirrors of the Past. The Modulation of Historical Narratives in Early Arabic Political Advice Literature\, which investigates the use of historical narratives and exemplary figures as argumentative strategies in political advice literature. \nThe workshop brought together scholars working on Arabic\, Persian\, and Turkish traditions to examine the different narrative\, rhetorical\, and exemplary strategies through which political authority and counsel were articulated in the premodern Islamic world. \nTwo members of the MOSAIC project participated in the workshop with individual papers. Laura Tribuzio and Petra G. Schmidl approached political advice from two different textual and historical contexts\, looking at the ways in which counsel could be expressed beyond the most conventional forms of the mirror-for-princes tradition. \nLaura first reconstructed the largely overlooked and still understudied Persian tradition of the Epistle of the Animals\, tracing its development from the Ilkhanid to the Qajar period and considering how the narrative was adapted to different intellectual\, religious\, and political contexts. She then focused on the Persian Būstān al-ʿuqūl\, a substantial reworking of the Epistle of the Animals of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ produced in the Ilkhanid period. She examined the work as an indirect or allegorical mirror for princes\, in which the original debate between humans and animals is reframed within a markedly courtly setting. Through animal speech\, exemplary figures\, envoys\, sages\, and rulers\, the text develops a reflection on justice\, legitimate authority\, counsel\, and the qualities expected of those who govern. The preface further situates the work within the political and intellectual world of Ghazan Khan and his court. \nPetra’s paper\, Prognostics as Advice at Court: Examples from Rasūlid Yemen\, turned to the scholarly activities of the Rasūlid sultans of thirteenth- to fifteenth-century Yemen. Prognostics are not a genre of advice literature in themselves\, but astrology\, arithmancy\, and related techniques could provide rulers with forms of knowledge useful for anticipating events and supporting decisions. The Rasūlid case is particularly interesting because several sultans were themselves scholarly authors. Petra therefore asked whether texts produced by these rulers\, or closely associated with their court\, could also function as a form of advice directed to the ruler himself. \nBoth papers thus highlighted the flexibility of political advice and the different forms that knowledge could assume when brought into a courtly context. URL:https://www.mosaicsynergy.net/event/figures-of-authority-argumentative-strategies-exemplary-motifs-and-narrative-patterns-in-the-political-advice-literature-of-the-premodern-islamic-world/ LOCATION:University of Tübingen END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260518 DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260520 DTSTAMP:20260608T072302Z CREATED:20260604T091828Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260608T072302Z UID:789-1779062400-1779235199@www.mosaicsynergy.net SUMMARY:Annual Conference of the British Association for Islamic Studies DESCRIPTION:On Monday\, 18 May 2026\, members of the ERC Synergy Project MOSAIC participated in the Annual Conference of the British Association for Islamic Studies (BRAIS) in London\, held at the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations (the Aga Khan University) and The Institute for Ismaili Studies. The MOSAIC panel “Transmission of Knowledge and Classifications of the Sciences Across Islamicate Cultures\,” which was organized by Ahmed Tahir Nur (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) and chaired by Petra G. Schmidl (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg)\, brought together contributions exploring the organization\, classification\, and transmission of knowledge across Islamicate intellectual traditions. \nGodefroid de Callataÿ (UCLouvain) opened the session with a study of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ’s (10th century) classification of the sciences\, highlighting its long-term diffusion and reception through the aid of visualizations produced by the project’s digital tool M-Classi. Laura Tribuzio (UCLouvain) followed with an analysis of the Mujmal al-ḥikma (13th century)\, an anonymous Persian translation of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ’s Rasāʾil\, focusing on the identification of manuscripts that once belonged to the library of Bayezid II in early sixteenth-century Istanbul. Ahmed Tahir Nur (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) concluded the panel by tracing the development of a fourfold classification of knowledge from its Aristotelian origins to its systematic deployment in Taşköprüzade’s Miftāḥ al-saʿāda (16th century). \nThe panel provided an important platform for the MOSAIC team to present key aspects of their research to a wide international audience. It also offered valuable opportunities to exchange ideas with scholars from a range of institutions across the United Kingdom and beyond. The lively discussions that followed the presentations reflected a strong interest in the questions and themes addressed by the project. \nThe conference also featured the announcement of the winners of the annual BRAIS Prize in the Study of Islam and the Muslim World. Razieh S. Mousavi\, a MOSAIC postdoctoral researcher at FAU Erlangen–Nürnberg\, was awarded the 2025 Prize for her dissertation\, completed at Humboldt University of Berlin\, entitled Al-Farghānī’s Elements of Astronomy (c. 860 CE): An Interplay of Meaning and Form at the Intersection of Astronomical and Medical Tradition. \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\nLink to the programme. URL:https://www.mosaicsynergy.net/event/annual-conference-of-the-british-association-for-islamic-studies/ LOCATION:London\, Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations (the Aga Khan University) & The Institute for Ismaili Studies END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Brussels:20260512T180000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/Brussels:20260512T193000 DTSTAMP:20260528T142809Z CREATED:20260528T072640Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260528T142809Z UID:774-1778608800-1778614200@www.mosaicsynergy.net SUMMARY:Presentation of the ERC-SYNERGY MOSAIC project DESCRIPTION:On the 12th of May between 18:00 and 18:30\, Godefroid de Callataÿ participated in an event organised by the Belgian Embassy in London. On the occasion of this event\, entitled “The Influence of Arab Thought on European Philosophy”\, Godefroid de Callataÿ presented the Synergy MOSAIC project to an audience of diplomats and academics. He then participated in a roundtable discussion on the influence of Arab thought on European philosophy. \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\nLink to the programme. URL:https://www.mosaicsynergy.net/event/presentation-of-the-erc-synergy-mosaic-project/ LOCATION:London\, Residence of the Ambassador of Belgium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260428 DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260429 DTSTAMP:20260605T093553Z CREATED:20260605T085607Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260605T093553Z UID:812-1777334400-1777420799@www.mosaicsynergy.net SUMMARY:MOSAIC Panel at Celestial Crossroads Conference\, Istanbul DESCRIPTION:On April 28th 2026\, five members of the ERC Synergy MOSAIC team participated in the conference “Celestial Crossroads: Encounters\, Intersections\, and Influences” in Istanbul. The event took place at the Sophia Center and was jointly arranged by Yıldız Technical University\, the Sophia Centre\, and the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. The panel\, organized by Dominique Sirgy (University of South Carolina)\, explored the linkages between celestial agency\, imperial geographies\, spiritual beings\, divination\, and psychology. \nGodefroid de Callataÿ (UC Louvain) launched the panel by examining astrological foundation accounts of Islamic cities with a focus on the ʿAbbāsid imperial legitimation strategy of placing of Baghdad within the Sasanian astrological tradition. Following this\, Petra Schmidl (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg) presented candidates for the study of Arabic premodern prognostic handbooks and presented their suitability for analysis based on their range of practices and level of systematization. Matteo Martelli (University of Bologna) gave a paper on Syriac cosmological doctrines against the broader context of Syriac scientific literature and Late Antique and Byzantine portrayals of Apollonius as a master of divination and magic. For her talk\, Laura Tribuzio (UC Louvain) discussed portrayals of intermediary beings and heavenly signs in two Persian works associated with the Brethren of Purity: Būstān al-ʿUqūl (713/1313) and Mujmal al-ḥikma (13th c.). Razieh Mousavi’s (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg) paper on astral knowledge in Ibn Duraid’s Book of Rain explored this author’s methods for the treatment of meteorological signs as well as his reliance on semiotic interpretation. Dominique Sirgy closed the panel with a discussion of Husayn ʿAqīlī Rustamdārī’s (fl. 16th century) encyclopedia Riyāż al-abrār and the Indic as well as Arabic philosophical and theological sources that informed this author’s theory of the mind’s control over matter therein. \nIn line with the stated aims of the ERC MOSAIC Synergy Project\, the synergistic expertise of the speakers allowed for the presentation of a range of epistemologies of astrological theory and practice across the Arabic\, Persian\, and Syriac traditions. Over the three-day conference\, panelists also engaged with the international community of historians of science in rich discussions\, Q&A sessions\, and organized conference gatherings. These scholarly exchanges fostered valuable opportunities for collaboration\, as participants connected themes across their work and reexamined questions central to both the conference and the MOSAIC Project. \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\nLink to the programme. URL:https://www.mosaicsynergy.net/event/mosaic-panel-at-celestial-crossroads-conference-istanbul/ LOCATION:Celestial Crossroads Conference\, Istanbul END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260410 DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260413 DTSTAMP:20260831T082158Z CREATED:20260831T082158Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260831T082158Z UID:910-1775779200-1776038399@www.mosaicsynergy.net SUMMARY:Fifth biennial Symposia Iranica DESCRIPTION:From 10 to 12 April 2026\, the University of St Andrews hosted the fifth biennial Symposia Iranica. On 10 April\, Laura Tribuzio represented MOSAIC with the paper “Bridging the Unseen: The Mujmal al-ḥikma\, Occult Sciences\, and Political Imagination in the Persianate World.” \nThe paper explored ʿilm al-takwīn (the science of generation and artificial reproduction) through an unpublished Pseudo-Platonic text preserved in manuscript 64 in Hyderabad. The Risālat al-Fahm al-Thāqib\, transmitted in Persian with an Arabic version in the margins\, describes a three-stage alchemical operation in which a bird is generated and transformed through successive processes involving the Stone of the Sages. The procedure links artificial generation to specifically alchemical ideas of transformation\, refinement\, and the production of gold\, while also insisting on the secrecy of this knowledge and warning against its appropriation by rulers. \nThis material was then brought into dialogue with the Mujmal al-ḥikma\, an anonymous early-thirteenth-century Persian abridgement and reworking of the Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ. In the Mujmal\, takwīn-i ḥayavānāt (the generation of animals) appears among a group of restricted sciences reserved for the ahl-i ḥikmat (the people of wisdom)\, alongside alchemy\, talismans\, occult properties\, and other operative forms of knowledge. The paper therefore examined how older conceptions of takwīn as an alchemical science of generation were preserved and reshaped in the medieval Persianate world\, contributing to MOSAIC’s study of the transmission and reorganization of scientific and occult knowledge. URL:https://www.mosaicsynergy.net/event/fifth-biennial-symposia-iranica/ LOCATION:University of St Andrews END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Brussels:20260409T160000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/Brussels:20260409T180000 DTSTAMP:20260605T091126Z CREATED:20260429T134914Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260605T091126Z UID:751-1775750400-1775757600@www.mosaicsynergy.net SUMMARY:Presentació del projecte ERC-SYNERGY MOSAIC DESCRIPTION:On the 9th of April between 16:00 and18:00\, MOSAIC was presented to an interdisciplinary academic audience at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in a hybrid seminar. \nFollowing the introductory remarks by the project’s Research Partner\, Fatma Sinem Eryılmaz\, the seminar continued with Godefroid de Callataÿ\, MOSAIC’s Corresponding PI\, who outlined the project’s general framework\, its various work packages\, and the digital tools currently under development. Eryılmaz then provided information on her responsibilities within the project and presented her own research on the Muslim humanists\, the latter Brethren of Purity of the late medieval and early modern periods. The final speaker was MOSAIC’s postdoctoral researcher at UAB\, Ahmed Tahir Nur\, who presented his research on the Ottoman scholar Taşköprüzade (d. 1561). Razieh Mousavi\, the project’s postdoctoral researcher at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg\, gave generous technical support. \nIn harmony with MOSAIC’s multilingual approach\, the seminar was organized in three languages: Castilian\, Catalan\, and English. In addition to introducing the international project to the local scholarly community at UAB (Catalonia\, Spain)\, the event specifically aimed to foster multidisciplinary collaboration among participants. The enthusiastic attendance by scholars from different universities\, as well as the lively discussion during the Q&A session and the informal reception that followed were encouraging signs promising such collaborations for the near future. \nThe next day\, on the 10th of April\, the members of the MOSAIC team present at UAB and those online convened with Mustakim Arıcı\, who was invited for the occasion from Medeniyet University (Istanbul)\, for a very productive day-long hybrid workshop (Issues on precision\, flexibility\, and practicality) on the project’s two digital tools\, M-Classi and M-Multitext. \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\nLink to the programme. URL:https://www.mosaicsynergy.net/event/presentacio-del-projecte-erc-synergy-mosaic/ LOCATION:Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Brussels:20260203T160000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/Brussels:20260203T180000 DTSTAMP:20260528T143044Z CREATED:20260108T160249Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260528T143044Z UID:562-1770134400-1770141600@www.mosaicsynergy.net SUMMARY:Introductory Meeting – ERC Synergy Grant MOSAIC DESCRIPTION:With a well-attended hybrid event\, MOSAIC was inaugurated at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität (FAU) in Erlangen on 3 February 2026. The programme opened with a welcome address by Klaus Herbers\, who outlined the project’s origins and its development within the broader context of research activities at FAU. This was followed by a keynote lecture delivered by Godefroid de Callataÿ\, who examined the central research questions of MOSAIC\, highlighted their broader theoretical and practical relevance\, and introduced the MOSAIC team. He also presented M-Classi\, an open-source digital tool designed to store\, catalogue\, search\, and visualize the classifications of the sciences in Islamicate cultures. \nTwo further presentations complemented the programme: Petra G. Schmidl outlined the research planned in Erlangen\, focusing in particular on prognostic procedures and instruments; Razieh S. Mousavi introduced another digital tool envisaged by MOSAIC\, namely M-Multitext\, a large-scale\, multilingual\, open-access digital inventory designed to document and analyse multiple-text manuscripts. \nTogether\, these contributions offered a multifaceted introduction to the project’s scope and objectives. The audience welcomed the opportunity to become acquainted with the project\, to gain deeper insight into its aims\, and to engage in direct exchange with members of the MOSAIC team and colleagues. An informal workshop the following morning focused on the project’s digital tools\, M-Classi and M-Multitext\, as well as on prospective collaboration with the History of Science Museum in Oxford\, giving rise to productive and forward-looking discussions. \n  \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n“Photos of Klaus Herbers\, Godefroid de Callataÿ\, and Petra G. Schmidl: Speakers at the introductory meeting in Erlangen.” \nCredits: Andrea Oster \nLink to the programme. URL:https://www.mosaicsynergy.net/event/introductory-meeting-erc-synergy-grant-mosaic/ LOCATION:FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR