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Dr. L.W.I. (Liana) Saif

Faculty of Humanities
Religion Studies
Visiting address
  • Kloveniersburgwal 48
  • Room number: G1.01B
Postal address
  • Postbus 1622
    1000 BP Amsterdam
Contact details
  • Publications

    2025

    • Saif, L. W. I., & Burnett, C. (2025). The Book on Attracting the Ruhaniyya of Every Animal: A Pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetic Text. In Power, Religion, and Wisdom: Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy in al-Andalus and Beyond SISMEL.

    2024

    2023

    • Saif, L. W. I., & Burnett, C. (2023). The Aping of Culinary Recipes in Magical Texts: The Case of the Flos Naturarum and the Kitāb al-Istijlab (Liber de quatuor confectionibus. In The Recipe from the XIIth to the XVIIth Centuries: Europe, Islam, Far East SISMEL.
    • de Callataÿ , G., & Saif, L. (2023). Astrological and Prophetical Cycles in the Pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica and Other Islamic Esoterica. In G. de Callataÿ , M. Cavagna, & B. Van den Abeele (Eds.), Speculum arabicum. Intersecting perspectives on medieval encyclopaedism: Bilan et perspectives des études sur les encyclopédies médiévales (pp. 67-82). Brepols. [details]

    2022

    • Saif, L. (2022). Magic and Divination Lost in Translation: A Cairene in a Maltese Inquisition. In A. Mallett, C. Rider, & D. A. Agius (Eds.), Magic in Malta: Sellem Bin al-Sheikh Mansur and the Roman Inquisition, 1605 (pp. 419-451). (Islamic History and Civilization; Vol. 185). Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004498945_010 [details]
    • Saif, L. (2022). Physiognomy: Science of intuition. In S. Brentjes (Ed.), Routledge Handbook on the Sciences in Islamicate Societies: Practices from the 2nd/8th to the 13th/19th Centuries (pp. 180-193). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315170718-16 [details]
    • Saif, L. W. I. (2022). Review: H Darrel Rutkin, Sapientia Astrologica: Astrology, Magic and Natural Knowledge, ca. 1250–1800, I. Medieval Structures (1250–1500). Aries.

    2021

    • Saif, L. (2021). A Preliminary Study of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica: Texts, Context, and Doctrines. Al-ʿUsur al-Wusta: The Journal of Middle East Medievalists, 29(1), 20-80. https://doi.org/10.52214/uw.v29i1.8895 [details]
    • Saif, L. W. I. (2021). A Study on Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ’s Epistle on Magic, the Longer Version (52b). In L. Saif, F. Leoni, M. Melvin-Koushki, & F. Yahya (Eds.), Islamicate Occult Sciences: Theory and Practice (pp. 162-206). Brill.
    • Saif, L. W. I. (2021). ‘That I did love the Moor to live with him”: Islam in/and the Study of “Western Esotericism”. In E. Asprem, & J. Strube (Eds.), New Approaches to the Study of Esotericism (pp. 67-87). Brill.
    • Saif, L., Leoni, F., Melvin-Koushki, M., & Yahya, F. (Eds.) (2021). Islamicate Occult Sciences in Theory and Practice. (Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 1, The Near and Middle East; Vol. 140). Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004426979 [details]

    2020

    • Saif, L. (2020). Review: Francesco Piraino and Mark Sedgwick, Global Sufism: Boundaries, Structures, and Politics. Aries, 20(2), 273-302. https://doi.org/10.1163/15700593-02002012
    • Saif, L. W. I. (2020). REVIEW: The Diffusion of the Islamic Sciences in the Western World. Early Science and Medicine.

    2019

    • Saif, L. W. I. (2019). What is Islamic Esotericism? Correspondences, 1-59.

    2018

    • Saif, L. W. I. (2018). Abū Maʿshar. In W. E. Burns (Ed.), Astrology through History: Interpreting the Stars from Ancient Mesopotamia to the Present ABC-Clio.
    • Saif, L. W. I. (2018). Islamic Astrology. In Astrology through History: Interpreting the Stars from Ancient Mesopotamia to the Present

    2017

    • Saif, L. W. I. (2017). Between Medicine and Magic: Spiritual Aetiology and Therapeutics in Medieval Islam. In Demons and Illness from Antiquity to the Early-Modern Period
    • Saif, L. W. I. (2017). From Ġāyat al-ḥakīm to Šams al-maʿārif : Ways of Knowing and Paths of Power in Medieval Islam. Arabica.
    • Saif, L. W. I. (2017). THE COWS AND THE BEES: ARABIC SOURCES AND PARALLELS FOR PSEUDO-PLATO’S LIBER VACCAE (Kitāb al-Nawāmīs). Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes.
    • Saif, L. W. I., Porter, V., & Savage-Smith, E. (2017). Medieval Islamic Amulets, Talismans, and Magic. In Blackwell's Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture

    2016

    • Saif, L. W. I. (2016). The Universe and the Womb: Generation, Conception, and the Stars in Islamic Medieval Astrological and Medical Texts. Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies.

    2015

    • Saif, L. W. I. (2015). The Arabic Influences on Early Modern Occult Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Saif, L. W. I. (2015). Astrology: Homocenrtic Science in a Heliocentric Universe. In Astrology in Time and Place: Cross-Cultural Questions in the History of Astrology

    2013

    • Saif, L. W. I., & Porter, V. (Eds.) (2013). The Hajj: Collected Essays.

    2011

    • Saif, L. W. I. (2011). Arabic Theory of Astral Influences in Early Modern Medicine. Renaissance Studies.

    2025

    • Saif, L. W. I. (2025). Astrology: A Science of Wonder. In Wonders of Creation: Art, Science, and Innovation in the Islamic World The San Diego Museum of Art.
    • Saif, L. W. I. (2025). Talismans. In Wonders of Creation: Art, Science, and Innovation in the Islamic World The San Diego Museum of Art.
    This list of publications is extracted from the UvA-Current Research Information System. Questions? Ask the library or the Pure staff of your faculty / institute. Log in to Pure to edit your publications. Log in to Personal Page Publication Selection tool to manage the visibility of your publications on this list.
  • Ancillary activities
    • La Méduse (Anne Jaffrennou CEO)
      Scientific curator of a multimedia exhibition
      at the Jeddah Dome venue.
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