XO27 Sirri-l-ʿasrār

Kitāb as siyāsah fī tadbīri-r-riʿāsati 'l-maʿruf bi-Sirri-l-ʿasrār (“The Book on Ruling, known under the name Secret of the Secrets”), ca.1394 CE / 797 A.H. (anno Hegirae; Islamic calendar)

Penn Libraries, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, LJS 456

The Sirri-l-ʿasrār (in Latin Secretum secretorum) is an Arabic treatise that claims to be a translation of a letter written by Aristotle to his student Alexander the Great during his campaign in Achaemenid Persia. It covers statecraft and related ethical questions, medicinal and magical properties of plants, gems, and numbers, alchemy, astrology, and physiognomy, presenting a science accessible only to an exclusive readership. Its original creation falls into the middle of the Islamic Golden Age (8th to 13th centuries CE), characterized by Islamic territorial expansion and prominent interest in gathering, translating, and adapting the knowledge of other civilizations. This Andalusian exemplar, however, proves the lasting popularity that this text enjoyed in Arabic-speaking circles (through Latin translations in the 12th and 13th centuries, the text will be successful in Christian contexts as well). Its misattribution to Aristotle underlines that the strong interest in Aristotle as a philosophical authority opened the door to forgeries and misattributions. Beyond this, the connection it purports between Aristotle and Alexander the Great, including him among the circle of Aristotle’s supposed closest students fit to receive his most secret teachings, feeds into the overblown image of the bond between the philosopher and the king.

Sarah Marie Leitenberger