New texts of Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī. A supplement to Endress’ ‘Analytical Inventory’

Islamic Philosophy, Science,

Culture, and Religion

Studies in Honor of Dimitri Gutas

Edited by

Felicitas Opwis and David Reisman

LEIDEN • BOSTON2012

© 2012 Koninklijke Brill NV


CONTENTS

List of Illustrations ............................................................................ ixDedication ........................................................................................... xi

PART I

THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE: ISLAMIC CULTURE

Graeco-Arabica Christiana: The Christian Scholar ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Fadl from Antiochia (11th c. A.D.) as Transmitter of Greek Works .................................................................................. 3Hans Daiber

Aristo of Ceus: The Fragments Concerning Eros ........................ 11William W. Fortenbaugh

Professional Medical Ethics from a Foreign Past ........................ 25David C. Reisman

The Arabic History of Science of Abū Sahl ibn Nawbaht (fl. ca 770–809) and Its Middle Persian Sources ..................... 41Kevin van Bladel

The Physiology and Therapy of Anger: Galen on Medicine, the Soul, and Nature ..................................................................... 63Heinrich von Staden

In Aristotle’s Words . . . al-Hātimī’s (?) Epistle on al-Mutanabbī and Aristotle ................................................................................... 89Beatrice Gruendler

The Prison of Categories—‘Decline’ and Its Company .............. 131Sonja Brentjes

Also via Istanbul to New Haven—Mss. Yale Syriac 7–12 .......... 157Hidemi Takahashi

vi contents


PART II

CLASSICAL ARABIC SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY

A Judaeo-Arabic Version of Tābit ibn Qurra’s De imaginibus and Pseudo-Ptolemy’s Opus imaginum ..................................... 179Charles Burnett and Gideon Bohak

Ibn Sīnā’s Taʿlīqāt: The Presence of Paraphrases of and Super-Commentaries on the Ilāhīyāt of the Šifāʾ .................... 201Jules Janssens

The Invention of Algebra in Zabīd: Between Legend and Fact ................................................................................................... 223David A. King

Medieval and Modern Interpretations of Avicenna’s Modal Syllogistic ........................................................................................ 233Tony Street

The Distinction of Essence and Existence in Avicenna’s Metaphysics: The Text and Its Context ..................................... 257Amos Bertolacci

Höfischer Stil und wissenschaftliche Rhetorik: al-Kindī als Epistolograph ................................................................................. 289Gerhard Endress

New Philosophical Texts of Yahyā ibn ʿAdī: A Supplement to Endress’ Analytical Inventory ...................................................... 307Robert Wisnovsky

Avicenna’s Notion of Transcendental Modulation of Existence (taškīk al-wugūd, analogia entis) and Its Greek and Arabic Sources ....................................................................... 327Alexander Treiger

contents vii


PART III

MUSLIM TRADITIONAL SCIENCES

The Revealed Text and the Intended Subtext: Notes on the Hermeneutics of the Qurʾān in Muʿtazila Discourse As Reflected in the Tahdīb of al-Hākim al-Gišumī (d. 494/1101) .................................................................................. 367Suleiman A. Mourad

Attributing Causality to God’s Law: The Solution of Fahr ad-Dīn ar-Rāzī ............................................................................... 397Felicitas Opwis

Kitāb al-Hayda: The Historical Significance of an Apocryphal Text .................................................................................................. 419Racha El Omari

From al-Maʾmūn to Ibn Sabʿīn via Avicenna: Ibn Taymīya’s Historiography of Falsafa ............................................................ 453Yahya Michot

Index .................................................................................................... 477


NEW PHILOSOPHICAL TEXTS OF YAHYĀ IBN ʿADĪ: A SUPPLEMENT TO ENDRESS’ ANALYTICAL INVENTORY 1

Robert Wisnovsky

The codex Madrasa-yi Marwī 19 is a philosophical anthology copied in Rabīʿ al-Awwal 1073/October 1662.2 Among other items, the codex contains 53 treatises and letters attributed to the Jacobite Christian philosopher and theologian Yahyā ibn ʿAdī (d. 363/974) on various problems of philosophy. The titles of almost all of these 53 essays correspond to those listed by the bio-bibliographers, including Ibn an-Nadīm (d. 380/990), al-Qiftī (d. 646/1248) and Ibn Abī Usaybiʿa (d. 668/1270). These and other bio-bibliographers’ lists and notices were collated, analyzed, supplemented and checked against a number of extant manuscripts by Gerhard Endress, whose very helpful “ana-lytical inventory” appeared in 1977.3 Of the extant philosophical trea-tises, 24 were subsequently edited and published by Sahbān Halīfāt in 1988.4 Among the 53 philosophical works by Yahyā contained in the Marwī codex, there are 24 which Endress thought had been lost. By providing transcriptions of the incipits and explicits of these “lost”

1 Many thanks are due to my research assistants Taro Mimura and Kostyantyn Filonenko for their help with some of the initial transcriptions; to Adam Gacek for his help with some paleographical issues; and to Naser Dumairieh, Felicitas Opwis, Gerhard Endress and the late and sorely missed David Reisman for their acute sug-gestions and corrections. All remaining errors are my own.

2 Fol. 180a, ult. The date of 703 given by the cataloguer (R. Ustādī, Fihrist-i nusha-hā-yi hattī-yi Kitābhāna-yi madrasa-yi Marwī-yi Tihrān [Tehran: Kitābhāna-yi Madrasa-yi Marwī, 1321 Sh.], 271–2) is probably a misprint; and in any case, a date of 703 is too early for the hands: Persian nash in the first half of the manuscript (the half containing the Yahyā treatises), and nastaʿlīq with elements of šikasta in the second half. A facsimile edition, including a comprehensive introduction to the anthology as well as an index of names of individuals and groups, and titles of books, is being jointly prepared by the author and Ahmadreza Rahimiriseh for inclusion in the series co-published by the Institute of Islamic Studies of the Free University of Berlin. I am very grateful to Mr. Rahimiriseh and Reza Pourjavady for bringing this manuscript to my attention.

3 G. Endress, The Works of Yahyā ibn ʿAdī: An Analytical Inventory (Wiesbaden: L. Reichert, 1977). For references to passages on Yahyā in the bio-bibliographers’ works, as well as a synopsis of the data they provide on his life, see Endress, Works, 1–6.

4 S. Halīfāt, Maqālāt Yahyā ibn ʿAdī al-falsafīya (ʿAmmān: al-Gāmiʿa al-Urdunnīya, 1988).

308 robert wisnovsky


philosophical treatises, along with the treatises’ folio and line refer-ences in the Marwī codex, I hope in this chapter to supplement the information that Endress provided, all the while following the format-ting and numbering system he used (e.g., E7.4 refers to the text listed by Endress as 7.4). I have also provided citations of the corresponding titles in the inventory that Halīfāt provided in the Introduction to his Maqālāt (pp. 24–36), and on occasion I have added further notes of my own (indicated by an asterix *) to Endress’ extensive and acute analyses.

E2.21 (= Halīfāt, #41)

Maqāla fī tafsīr fasl min al-maqāla at-tāmina min as-samāʿ at-tabīʿī

MS: Tehrān: Madrasa-yi Marwī 19, no. 17: fol. 28a15–b9

Inc.:

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*As with E4.41 (= Halīfāt, #85), the treatise on badal (“mutual replace-ment”), this work is a commentary on an issue arising from Physics 8.10. Here the question is whether or not the Unmoved Mover, given its primary activity of causing the heavens’ circular motion, is “in” the center of the universe or “on” the circumference of the universe. The Greek anankē dē [or de] ē en mesōi ē en kuklōi einai hautai gar

new philosophical texts 309


hai arkhai alla takhista kineitai ta engutata tou kinountos toiautē d’hē tou kuklou kinēsis (Aristotle, Physics VIII.10, 267b6–9) was rendered into Arabic as fa-qad yagibu darūratan an yakūna immā fī l-wasati wa-immā fī d-dāʾirati wa-dālika anna hādayni humā l-mabdaʾāni lākinna aqraba l-ašyāʾi mina l-muharriki asraʿuhā harakatan wa-ka-dālika harakatu l-kulli fa-l-muharriku idan hunāka (Aristūtālīs: at-Tabīʿa II, ed. ʿA. Badawī [Cairo: ad-Dār al-Qawmīya li-t-Tibāʿa wa-n-Našr, 1965], 932,10–13). Badawī reports that the margin of the Leiden ms Or. 583 Warner contains the comment: ay nahwu an yakūna l-muharriku immā fī l-wasati wa-immā fī d-dāʾirati wa-huwa yaqūlu innahu fī d-dāʾirati ʿalā maʿnā annahu yuharrikuhā bi-l-qasdi l-awwali wa-tataharraku ʿanhu bi-l-qasdi t-tānī. cf. Simplicius, in Phys. 5–8 (= Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca X), ed. H. Diels (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1895), ad loc., 1353,35–1355,ult.

E3.11 (= Halīfāt, #44)

Maqāla fī mabāhit al-hamsa ʿan ar-ruʾūs at-tamāniya

MS: Tehrān: Madrasa-yi Marwī 19, no. 4: fol. 4b31–5b31

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*A transcription and translation of this text, with introduction, will appear as R. Wisnovsky, “Yahyā ibn ʿAdī’s discussion of the prole-gomena to the study of a philosophical text,” in Law and Tradition



in Classical Islamic Thought, ed. M. Cook et al. (Basingstoke, Hamp-shire: Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming). Yahyā’s five inquiries are as follows: (1) Why are they called “headings” (ruʾūs)? Answer: On the basis of an analogy with animals’ heads, which serve as their source of motion and sensation and hence as an expression of their essence qua animals. (2) What is each heading? Answer: the book’s aim, its usefulness, its title, its divisions, its author, which science it is part of, the method of instruction, and its rank. (3) What is the use in investigating them? Answer: there are one or more benefits specific to each heading. (4) Why and in what context was this arrangement pre-scribed for them? Answer: Because the headings correspond to types of causes, and the causes are arranged in terms of priority and poste-riority. (5) Why did their number come to be eight, neither more nor less? Answer: Because a book is an artifact, and like all beings, both natural and artificial, it is subject to a prescribed method of causal analysis.

E3.13 (= Halīfāt, #46)

Maqāla fī innīyat [E: annīyat] sināʿat al-mantiq wa-māʾīyatihā wa-limīyatihā wa-hiya l-mawsūma bi-hidāya li-man taʾattā ilā sabīl an-nagāt


Inc.:

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. * The Incipit and Explicit show that, just as Endress surmised, this text is identical to E3.12 (= Halīfāt, #45), which was translated by N. Rescher and F. Shehadi (“Yahyā ibn ʿAdī’s treatise ‘On the four scientific questions regarding the art of logic,’” Journal of the History of Ideas 25/4 [1964], 572–8), on the basis of an edition by M. Türker (“Yahyā ibn ʿAdī ve neşredilmemiş bir risalesi,” Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Cografya Fakültesi Dergisi 14 [1958], 98–102).



E3.14 (= Halīfāt, #47)

Maqāla fī tabyīn fadl sināʿat al-mantiq bi-wasf baʿd mā yufīduhū ahlahā min al-quwā l-muʿgiza li-sāʾir as-sināʿāt al-kalāmīya siwāhā

MS: Tehrān: Madrasa-yi Marwī 19, no. 2: fol. 3a23–4a4

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*The appendix to this text (E3.14.1) is extant (= Halīfāt, Text 8, pp. 201–205).

E3.21 (= Halīfāt, #40)

ʿIddat masāʾil fī maʿānī Kitāb Īsāġūgī


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. *This treatise appears to be paired with E3.52 (= Halīfāt, #63), i.e., Agwibat šayhinā Abī Bišr Mattā ibn Yūnus al-Qunnāʾī ʿan masāʾil saʾalahu Yahyā ibn ʿAdī ibn Humayd ibn Zakarīyāʾ ʿanhā fī maʿānī Īsāġūgī li-Furfūriyūs. However, the two texts are not identical: for example, the name (viz., Chrysaorius, the Roman senator, and Porphyry’s disciple, who is addressed in the first line of the Isa-goge) does not appear in E3.52.

E3.31 (= Halīfāt, #52)

Maqāla fī tabyīn anna l-maqūlāt ʿašara lā aktar wa-lā aqall

MS: Tehrān: Madrasa-yi Marwī 19, no. 35: fol. 52b19–53a18

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*Endress suggests that this treatise may be identical to E7.1, no. 25, which Halīfāt printed on pp. 180–1 of his Maqālāt. A comparison of the two works shows, however, that they are distinct.



E3.32 (= Halīfāt, #53)

Maqāla fī ibānat anna harārat an-nār laysat gawharan li-n-nār


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*This treatise appears to be related to E7.3 (= Halīfāt, #95), Nushat mā atbatahu Yahyā ibn ʿAdī li-Abī Bakr al-Ādamī al-ʿAttār, which treats the same topic.

E3.33 (= Halīfāt, #54)

Nushat mā kataba bihi Yahyā ibn ʿAdī fī l-hukūma bayna Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAlī al-maʿrūf bi-Abī Nasr ibn ʿAdī al-Kātib wa-munāqidihi fī-mā htalafā fīhi min anna l-gism gawhar wa-ʿarad wa-kitābatuhu ilā l-amīr Sayf ad-Dawla Abī l-Hasan ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Hamdān

MS: Tehrān: Madrasa-yi Marwī 19, no. 50: fol. 70a20–71b25



Inc.:

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. *Halīfāt tentatively assigned this title to the text he printed on pp. 165–6 of his Maqālāt (see p. 165, n. 1). However, the two texts are in fact distinct: Halīfāt’s text is much shorter than this treatise (i.e., Madrasa-yi Marwī 19, no. 50: fol. 70a20–71b25), and the Incipits and Explicits differ. A transcription and translation of this text (and of E. 74, which responds to it), with introduction, has been completed by S. Menn and R. Wisnovsky, and is being submitted as “Yahyā ibn ʿAdī and Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAdī: On whether body is a substance or a quantity”, to Arabic Sciences and Philosophy.

E3.35 (= Halīfāt, #57)

Maqāla fī qismat as-sitt al-maqūlāt allatī lam yaqsimhā Aristūtālīs ilā l-ag nās wa-l-anwāʿ allatī tahtahā




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E3.36 (= Halīfāt, #58)

Maqāla fī anna l-kamm laysa fīhi tadādd


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E3.41 (= Halīfāt, #60)

Maqāla fī nahg as-sabīl ilā tahlīl al-qiyāsāt ilā l-aškāl allatī hiya fīhā min aškāl al-qiyās at-talāta al-hamlīya


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*The reference in the first line to Prior Analytics 1.3 makes it clear that Yahyā is discussing the reduction of second- and third-figure syl-logisms to first-figure syllogisms through conversion.

E3.52 (= Halīfāt, #63)

Agwibat šayhinā Abī Bišr Mattā ibn Yūnus al-Qunnāʾī ʿan masāʾil saʾalahu Yahyā ibn ʿAdī ibn Humayd ibn Zakarīyāʾ ʿanhā fī maʿānī Īsāġūgī li-Furfūriyūs


Inc.:



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*This treatise appears to be paired with E3.21 (= Halīfāt, #40), ʿIddat masāʾil fī maʿānī Kitāb Īsāġūgī; but because it also treats issues from the Prior Analytics such as the reduction of syllogisms, it appears to be related to E3.41 (= Halīfāt, #60), Maqāla fī nahg as-sabīl ilā tahlīl al-qiyāsāt ilā l-aškāl allatī hiya fīhā min aškāl al-qiyās at-talāta al-hamlīya, as well.

E4.24 (= Halīfāt, #78)

Maqāla fī tazyīf tadlīs al-qāʾilīna bi-tarkīb al-agsām min agzāʾ lā tatagazzaʾu bi-htigāgihim bi-mulāqāt al-kura al-basīta al-musattaha ʿalā nuqtatihi wa-harakatihā ʿalayhi


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. *This treatise should not be confused with E4.23 (Qawl fī l-guzʾ alladī lā yatagazzaʾu), which Halīfāt prints on pp. 160–164 of his Maqālāt and mislabels as this treatise, i.e., as Maqāla fī tazyīf tadlīs al-qāʾilīna bi-tarkīb al-agsām min agzāʾ lā tatagazzaʾu.

E4.34 (= Halīfāt, #84)

Maqāla fī annahū laysa šayʾ mawgūd ġayr mutanāhin lā ʿadadan wa-lā ʿizaman


Inc.:



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. E4.41 (= Halīfāt, #85)

Maqāla fī r-radd ʿ alā man qāla bi-anna l-agsām muhdata [E: mug taliba/mug allaba] ʿalā tarīq al-gadal [E: al-badal]


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*Endress appears to be correct in his conjecture that the title should read as al-badal rather than al-gadal, on the grounds that badal here refers to the Greek term antiperistasis (“mutual replacement”) used by Aristotle at, e.g., Physics VIII.10, 267a16–17 (= Aristūtālīs, at-Tabīʿa, 930,13). However, Endress’ suggestion of replacing the title’s muhdata with either mug taliba or mug allaba cannot stand, in light of the exten-sive use of muhdata throughout the text, as exemplified in the Explicit.

E4.51 (= Halīfāt, #86)

Fī anna l-qutr ġayr mušārik li-d-dilaʿ


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E5.12 (= Halīfāt, #67)

Maqāla fī l-buhūt al-ʿilmīya al-arbaʿa ʿan asnāf al-wugūd at-talāta al-ilāhī wa-t-tabīʿī wa-l-mantiqī


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*A transcription and translation of this text, with introduction, has been completed by S. Menn and R. Wisnovsky, and is being submitted as “Yahyā ibn ʿAdī’s Essay on the Four Scientific Questions regarding the Three Categories of Existence: Divine, Natural and Logical,” to Ara-bic Sciences and Philosophy.

E5.33 (= Halīfāt, #73)

Gawāb Abī ʿAbd Allāh ad-Dārimī wa-Abī l-Hasan ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā al-mutakallim ʿan al-masʾala fī ibtāl al-mumkin hakā Abū l-Qāsim ibn ar-Rāzī annahumā gtamaʿā ʿalā l-igāba bihi




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E5.34 (= Halīfāt, #72)

Nushat aš-šubha fī ibtāl al-mumkin

MS: Tehrān: Madrasa-yi Marwī 19, no. 47: fol. 69a9–17

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E5.34 (= Halīfāt, #72)

Gawāb Abī Bakr ad-Daqqāq ʿan aš-šubha fī ibtāl al-mumkin


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*This text quotes from, and responds to, the doubt expressed in the treatise that is placed two before it in the manuscript, i.e., Nushat aš-šubha fī ibtāl al-mumkin. Thus the two treatises probably consti-tute a single whole, referred to by al-Qiftī as Kitāb aš-šubha fī ibtāl al-mumkin. The term ad-Daqqāq in the title could conceivably mod-ify gawāb (“The painstaking [or hairsplitting] response . . .”); but more likely it is simply the profession-name (“The Flour-Merchant”) for Yahyā’s student Abū Bakr al-Ādamī al-ʿAttār.

E5.35 (= Halīfāt, #92)

Maqāla fī tabyīn dalālat man yaʿtaqidu anna ʿ ilm al-bāriʾ galla tanāʾuhu wa-taqaddasat asmāʾuhu bi-l-umūr al-mumkina qabla wugūdihā mumtaniʿ


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. *Given their similar subject matter and their adjacent positions in the manuscript, this treatise and the next treatise (Maqāla fī tabyīn dalālat man yazunnu anna l-ašhās al-kāʾina al-fāsida laysa min šaʾnihā an yuʿlama al-battata), which is not recorded by Endress or Halīfāt, appear to be paired. On this issue see now P. Adamson, “On knowledge of particulars,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 105.1 (2005), 257–78.

E—unlisted (= Halīfāt—unlisted)

Maqāla fī tabyīn dalālat man yazunnu anna l-ašhās al-kāʾina al-fāsida laysa min šaʾnihā an yuʿlama al-battata


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E7.3 (= Halīfāt, #95)

Nushat mā atbatahu Yahyā ibn ʿAdī li-Abī Bakr al-Ādamī al-ʿAttār


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. *On Yahyā’s student Abū Bakr al-Ādamī al-ʿAttār, referred to in the title, see Halīfāt, Maqālāt, p. 48.

E7.4 (= Halīfāt, #55)

Nushat mā kataba bihi Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAlī al-mukannā bi-Abī Nasr wa-yuʿrafu bi-ibn ʿAdī




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*The title of E3.33 similarily describes Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAdī as al-maʿrūf bi-Abī Nasr (“known as Abū Nasr”), i.e., Abū Nasr was Ibrāhīm’s kunya. It appears that both Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAdī and his teacher and asso-ciate al-Fārābī had sons named Nasr, or that Ibrāhīm named his son Nasr as a gesture of respect to his teacher al-Fārābī, who had earlier named his son Nasr.

New texts of Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī. A supplement to Endress’ ‘Analytical Inventory’

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