1st Global Conference
Session 10: Historical Perspectives
Chair: Rachel Waterstradt
The King, His Barons and the Virtue of Magnanimity: Forgiveness as a
Political Strategy in Aragonese Naples (1442-1495)
Mattias Roick
European University Institute, Florence, Italy
For a better understanding of the nature and practice of forgiveness, I suggest a combined philosophical and historical approach, turning to the 'forgotten' virtue of 'magnanimity' (megalopsuchia-magnanimitas) and its strategic use in the politics of Aragonese Naples. As has been worked out by Gauthier, in its Greek origins the virtue of magnanimity referred to a certain 'equanimity' amid the vicissitudes of live and an ability to forgive or forget insults. The Stoics referred to this definition of magnanimity as 'forgiveness' and developed it further. Especially Cicero praises Caesars 'magnanimity', his ability to forgive those who had been his enemies during the civil war.
In the Renaissance, these theories have strongly influenced on political practice: A case in point is the policy of the Aragonese kings ruling Naples (1442-1495). Characterized by a continuous struggle between the centrifugal power of the barons and the centralizing power of the king, 'forgiveness' and 'non-forgiveness' played an important role as a valuable political strategy, first under Alfonso 'the Magnanimous' (1442-1458) who had conquered the kingdom and forgiven the hostilities of great parts of the baronage, as well as under his son Ferrante (1458-1494), who had to deal with two Baron's wars during his reign, first forgiving and conciliatory, then rather unforgiving and irreconcilable.
These policies were justified by the humanists at court in their literary activities: Alfonso's official historians Antonio Beccadelli and Bartolommeo Facio created the 'myth' of the 'magnanimous' king, depicted as a strong but also forgiving ruler. Giovanni Pontano's treatise De magnanimitate, on the other hand, written c. 1498, gives a more ambiguous picture: Dedicated to a powerful baron, who had been forgiven by the Aragonese kings more than once, Pontano, former secretary to Ferrante, combines important elements of classical 'forgiveness' with more modern, Machiavellian elements.
To Forgive or not to Forgive: Ibn 'Arabi and the Qur'anic Hermeneutic of Forgiveness
Qaiser Shazad
Philosophy and Science Unit,
Islamic Research Institute,
International Islamic University, Islamabad, Pakistan
This paper purports to investigate some problems in the Qur’anic theory of forgiveness and responds to them drawing upon the medieval mystic, Ibn ‘Arabi. ‘Maghfirah’, the Arabic counterpart of ‘forgiveness’ occurs 28 times in the Qur’an while its other derivatives occur 204 times. We begin with analyzing the ways in which the Qur’an uses ‘forgiveness’. There arise a number of interesting problems regarding the nature, scope and limits of forgiveness in the Qur’an. On the one hand we have to inquire into the meaning of forgiveness and its relationship with some other concepts like mercy etc. Here the implications of construing the word literally or otherwise are important. On the other we have to make sense of the ambivalence found in the Qur’anic concept of forgiveness. This ambivalence is found on various levels. Firstly, at the level of divine nature, in addition to being Forgiver, God is also described as al-Muntaqim, the Avenger. He says that ‘he forgives all sins’ while at the same time certain sins are declared to be unforgivable. Secondly, it emphasizes seeking forgiveness but also forbids that for certain individuals and classes, including parents of the prophets. Thirdly, it recommends forgiving but allows retaliation. The usual non-reductionist explication would not work as we cannot combine the apparent contradictories: All sins are forgivable; some sins are not forgivable. Drawing upon Ibn ‘Arabi, who has called himself ‘the unlimited mercifier’, we can develop an interpretation that reduces divine forgiveness to divine mercy and as the latter encompasses everything, the second horn of the dilemma disappears and we get what can be called ‘eschatological optimism’. In the final section we explain the practical implications of each interpretation.
