Law and Tradition in Classical Islamic Thought

Studies in Honor of Professor Hossein Modarressi

Edited by

MICHAEL COOK , NAJAM HAIDER, INTISAR RABB, AND ASMA SAYEED

LAW AND TRADITION IN CLASSICAL ISLAMIC THOUGHT

Copyright © Michael Cook, Najam Haider, Intisar Rabb, and Asma Sayeed, 2013.

All rights reserved.

First published in 2013 byPALGRAVE MACMILLAN®in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

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ISBN: 978–0–230–11329–9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cook, Michael. Law and tradition in classical Islamic thought : studies in honor of Professor

Hossein Modarressi / Michael Cook, Najam Haider, Intisar Rabb, Asma Sayeed. pages cm.—(Palgrave series in Islamic theology, law, and history) ISBN 978–0–230–11329–9 (hardback) 1. Islamic law—Interpretation and construction. 2. Modarressi Tabataba’i,

Hossein. 3. Islamic law—History. 4. Islamic law—Philosophy. 5. Shi’ah—Doctrines. I. Haider, Najam Iftikhar, 1974– II. Rabb, Intisar A. III. Sayeed, Asma. IV. Title.

KBP440.74.C66 2012340.5�909—dc23 2012002453

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.

Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.

First edition: January 2013

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

List of Figures and Tables vii

Acknowledgments ix

Series Editor Preface xi

Introduction xiii

Part I Source Studies

1 The Abū Bas.īr Tradition: Qurʾānic Verses on the Merits of the Shīʿa 3 Etan Kohlberg

2 Criteria for Emending the Text of the Qurʾān 21 Behnam Sadeghi

3 Muʿāwiya in the H. ijāz : The Study of a Tradition 43 Najam Haider

Part II Shīʿī Tradition

4 The Kitāb al-was.iyya of ʿĪsā b. al-Mustafād: The History of a Text 67 Hassan F. Ansari

5 Women in Imāmī Biographical Collections 81 Asma Sayeed

6 Why Incline to the Left in Prayer? Sectarianism, Dialectic, and Archaeology in Imāmī Shīʿism 99 Michael Cook

Part III Islamic Legal Traditions

7 Dissent and Uncertainty in the Process of Legal Norm Construction in Muslim Sunnī Law 127 Baber Johansen

Contentsvi

8 Islamic Legal Minimalism: Legal Maxims and Lawmaking When Jurists Disappear 145 Intisar A. Rabb

9 Cultivating Human Rights: Islamic Law and the Humanist Imperative 167 Khaled Abou El Fadl

Part IV Philosophical Traditions

10 Yah.yā b. ʿAdī’s Discussion of the Prolegomena to the Study of a Philosophical Text 187 Robert Wisnovsky

11 Two Commentaries on Najm al-Dīn al-Kātibī’s al-Shamsiyya, Copied in the Hand of David b. Joshua Maimonides (fl. ca. 1335–1410 CE ) 203 Sabine Schmidtke

12 Logic in the Khayrābādī School of India: A Preliminary Exploration 227 Asad Q. Ahmed

Part V Historical Traditions

13 The Eastern Travels of Solomon: Reimagining Persepolis and the Iranian Past 247 Roy P. Mottahedeh

14 Al-H. asan b. Mūsā al-Nawbakhtī on the Views of Astronomers and Astrologers 269 Wilferd Madelung

15 Conversion and Law: A Muslim-Christian Comparison 279 Richard W. Bulliet

Part VI The Scholarly Output of Professor Hossein Modarressi

Bibliography of Works by Professor Hossein Modarressi 293 Compiled by Intisar A. Rabb and Hassan F. Ansari

A Bibliographical Note on the Persian Works 301 Hossein Kamaly

Contributors 305

Index 311

Chapter 10

Yah.ya b. Aʿdı’s Discussion of the Prolegomena to the Study of

a Philosophical Text 1 Robert Wisnovsky

In a recent chapter for another Festschrift, I announced that the codex Madrasa-yi Marwī 19—a philosophical anthology copied in Rabīʿ al-Awwal 1073/October 1662—contains 24 treatises and letters that are attributed to the Jacobite Christian philosopher and theologian Yah.yā b. ʿAdī (d. 363/974) and that were thought to have been lost. 2 The present chapter is a transcription and translation of one of these “lost” treatises, Yah.yā’s Essay on Five Inquiries into the Eight Headings ( Maqāla fī mabāh. ith al-khamsa aʿn al-ru ūʾs al-thamāniya ). 3

Yah.yā’s eight “headings” (the Arabic term ruūʾs corresponds to the Greek kepha-laia and the Latin capita ) collectively constituted one of the basic elements of late-antique introductions to philosophy, and to the study of Aristotle in particular. Building on earlier work by classicists and historians of philosophy—especially Plezia, Westerink, and (Ilsetraut) Hadot—Jaap Mansfeld has provided an extensive and detailed analysis of these basic elements of late-antique prolegomena literature, which in fact crossed between disciplines, such as Bible commentary, grammar, rhetoric, mathematics, and philosophy. Mansfeld describes them in his index as the “general” isagogical (i.e., introductory) questions—usually ten in number—which need to be settled before commencing the study of a particular discipline, such as philosophy or mathematics, or author , such as Aristotle or Euclid. 4

In late-antique philosophy, the general isagogical questions were normally found in the first section of commentaries on Aristotle’s Categories or on Porphyry’s Isagoge , and they usually included:

1. an explanation of the names of the different philosophical schools (e.g., Stoics, Cynics, Peripatetics, etc.);

Robert Wisnovsky188

2. a division of Aristotle’s works (e.g., into particular, intermediate, and univer-sal works; of universal works, into notebooks and treatises; of treatises, into dialogues and nondialogical works; and of nondialogical works, into theoreti-cal philosophy and practical philosophy);

3. an explanation of how the student should commence the study of philosophy (e.g., with logic);

4. an explanation of the ultimate aim of studying philosophy (e.g., knowledge of God);

5. the means to attain that end (e.g., studying ethics, physics, mathematics, and theology);

6. the qualifications needed to study philosophy (varying opinions on these); 7. the qualifications needed to interpret a philosophical work (e.g., a critical

attitude and familiarity with the whole corpus); 8. Aristotle’s style of composition (e.g., in accordance with the type of work); 9. the reason why Aristotle sometimes wrote obscurely (e.g., to exclude the

unworthy); 10. the “capital” questions (or “headings”) to be settled before one starts studying

each individual work. 5

These introductory discussions were taken up by Yah.yā’s teacher and senior col-league al-Fārābī (d. 339/950), in his Essay on What Should Precede the Study of Philosophy ( Risāla fī mā yanbaghī an yuqaddama qabla taaʿllum al-falsafa ). 6

The final “general” isagogical question thus comprises the set of “particular” isa-gogical questions (usually eight), which need to be settled before commencing the study of a particular text . It is al-Fārābī’s two articulations of this final prolegom-enon—one in the Essay on What Should Precede the Study of Philosophy , the other (in more abbreviated form) in his Utterances Used in Logic ( al-Alfāz. al-mustaʿmala fī al-mant. iq )—that probably provided the immediate Arabic background to the eight “headings” listed in Yah. yā’s Essay . 7 As for Yah. yā’s Greek sources, the Isagoge commentaries of Ammonius, David, and/or Elias are more likely candidates than the Categories commentaries of Philoponus, Olympiodorus, Simplicius, or Elias, since the Isagoge commentaries tended to list eight particular isagogical questions, whereas the Categories commentaries tended to list only six. 8 However, a compari-son of Yah. yā’s sequence with the 36 different sequences supplied by Plezia reveals that not a single Greek author listed a set of eight kephalaia in exactly the same order that Yah. yā listed his eight ru ūʾs . 9

If Yah.yā’s order differs from those of his Greek forebears, how then does it com-pare with a selection of the “headings” lists compiled by other medieval Arabic philosophers? This selection includes the lists contained in al-Fārābī’s two works men-tioned just above (given that al-Fārābī was one of Yah.yā’s two teachers, the other being Abū Bishr Mattā b. Yūnus, d. 328/940); the lists contained in Abū ’l-Faraj b. al-T. ayyib’s (d. 435/1043) commentaries on the Isagoge and the Categories (given that Ibn al-T. ayyib was a student of Yah.yā’s students Abū ʿAlī b. Zurʿa [d. 398/1008], and Ibn Suwār [d. 411?/1020]); 10 and the lists contained in Averroes’s (d. 595/1198) “long” commentary on Aristotle’s Physics— in its surviving medieval-Latin (“ancient”) and

Yah. ya b. ʿAdi’s Discussion 189

medieval-Hebrew translations—and his treatise on grammatical principles, al-D. arūrī fī s.inā aʿt al-nah. w (given that Averroes saw himself as following al-Fārābī on some ques-tions of Aristotelian exegesis). 11 Following the order of the list in Yah.yā’s Essay on Five Inquiries into the Eight Headings , we find the following variations:

Key: FR � al-Fārābī, Risāla fī mā yanbaghī, #8, 54,21–55,1; FA � al-Fārābī, al-Alfāz.al-mustaʿmala, #51, 94,15–95,16; IT. Ī � Ibn al-T. ayyib, Tafsīr Kitāb Īsāghūjī , #54, 27,11–13; IT. M � Ibn al-T. ayyib, Tafsīr Kitāb al-Maqūlāt , III–IV, 26,9–32,4; AVP � Averroes, Proemium to Long Commentary on the Physics , 1b,ult.–C,4 (Latin) and 65,7–8 (Hebrew); AVN � Averroes, al-D. arūrī fī s.inā ʿat al-nah. w , 3,3–10,8

1. aim [i.e., the book’s scope, the author’s project in the book] (Gr: skopos or prothesis ): gharad. al-kitāb FR(1): al-gharad. fī kitāb al-mant. iq ; FA(1): gharad. al-kitāb ; IT. Ī(1): al-gharad. ; IT. M(1): al-gharad. ; AVP(1): intentionem/kavanat hasefer; AVN(1): gharad. hādhihi al-s.inā aʿ

2. benefit [i.e., why studying the book is useful] (Gr: khrēsimon ): manfaaʿtuhu FR(2): al-manfaaʿ fī hādhā al- iʿlm ; FA(2): manfaaʿtuhu ; IT. Ī(2): al-manfaaʿ ; IT. M(2) al-manfaaʿ ; AVP(2): utilitatem/to aˁlto ; AVN(2): manfaaʿtuhā

3. reason for the title [i.e., of the particular book] (Gr: aition tēs epigraphēs ): simatuhu FR(3): sabab tasmiyat kutubihi ; FA(6): ʿunwānuhu ; IT. Ī(3): al-sima ; IT. M(3): al-sima ; AVP(7): nomen libri/ma šeyore aˁlav šəmo ; AVN(7): mā yadullu aʿlayhi ismuhā

4. division [i.e., the book’s arrangement into sections] (Gr: diairesis eis merē or eis kephalaia ): aqsāmuhu FR(7): al-ajzā ʾ allatī yanqasimu ilayhā kull wāh. id min kutubihi ; FA(3): qismatuhu ; IT. Ī(5): qismatuhu ; IT. M(7): qismatuhu ; AVP(4): divisionem/h. aluqato ; AVN(3): aqsāmuhā

5. authenticity [i.e., the correctness of the book’s attribution to its author] (Gr: gnēsion ): wād. i ʿuhu FR(4): s.ih. h. atuhā ; FA(7): ism wād. i iʿhi ; IT. Ī(6): wād. i ʿuhu ; IT. M(5): nisbatuhu ; AVP(8): nomen authoris/mi hamaniah. ˀoto ; AVN(8): maʿrifat man wad. aaʿhā

6. to which part of philosophy [i.e., the book belongs] (Gr: hupo poion meros tēs philosophias anagetai ): min ayy al- ʿulūm huwa FR(absent); FA(4): nisbatuhu ; IT. Ī(8): min ayy al- ʿulūm huwa ; IT. M(6): min ayy al- ʿulūm huwa ; AVP(5): proportionem/yah. aso ; AVN(6): nisbatuhā min sā iʾr al- ʿulūm

7. manner of instruction [i.e., used in the book] (Gr: tropos tēs didaskalias ): nah. w al-ta lʿīm FR(6): maʿrifat al-kalām alladhī istaʿmalahu fī kutubihi ; FA(8): nah. w al-ta lʿīm ustuʿmila fīhi ; IT. Ī(7): al-nah. w alladhī yustuʿmalu fīhi min anh. āʾ al-taāʿlīm ;

Robert Wisnovsky190

IT. M(8): al-nah. w alladhī yuslaku fīhi min anh. āʾ al-taāʿlīm ; AVP(6): viam doc-trinae/ oˀfen halimud hana aˁse bo ; AVN(4): al-nah. w al-mustaʿmal fī ta lʿīmihā , etc.

8. rank or place [i.e., of the book, in the author’s corpus, or in the order of philo-sophical study] (Gr: taxis tēs anagnōseōs ): rutbatuhu FR(5): tartīb marātibihā ; FA(5): martabatuhu ; IT. Ī(4): martabat al-kitāb ; IT. M(4): al-martaba ; AVP(3): ordinem/madregato ; AVN(5): martabatuhā min al-ʿulūm fī al-taaʿllum

In terms of establishing a filiation between these texts, it seems that little impor-tance can be attached to the variations in ordering that occur between the Arabic lists of the eight “headings.” Although all seven lists are united in ranking “aim” and “benefit” first and second, respectively, they diverge radically when it comes to the order of the remaining six headings. Indeed, the two lists of al-Fārābī put the same heading in the same place only three out of eight times. Westerink also showed that the lists of Philoponus, Olympiodorus, Elias, and Simplicius all vary somewhat, and that there is even variation between the first time each of these authors orders the kephalaia and subsequent times within the same text . And although Plezia collated the 36 different sequences that he discovered into a single underlying order, his own survey of those sequences showed little commonality in ordering, apart from the precedence enjoyed by the first two kephalaia . 12 It is unclear, therefore, if the variations in order between the seven Arabic lists given above arose because of multiple sources used, or because each author wished to coin a new order.

Nevertheless, the similarities in wording between the seven Arabic lists cer-tainly show that each of our Arabic authors was using a traditional set of terms. Upon examination of the content of the discussions of individual headings, the link between Yah. yā and Ibn al-T. ayyib seems stronger, since Ibn al-T. ayyib’s dis-cussions show signs of familiarity with Yah. yā’s Five Inquiries . For example, in his Commentary on the Isagoge , Ibn al-T. ayyib, in abbreviated form, cites and resolves an objection also cited and resolved by Yah. yā, namely, to the aim’s ( al-gharad. ) coming first: since the aim or purpose is the final cause, and since final causes follow their effects, the aim should instead go last (IT. Ī #55, 27,15–20; Y fol. 5a16–22). And Ibn al-T. ayyib’s terse discussion of why there are eight of these head-ings, no more and no less ( lā zā iʾda wa-lā nāqis.a � #60, 29,20–30,7), is effectively a synopsis of Yah. yā’s fifth inquiry into why there are eight headings, no more and no less ( lā akthar wa-lā aqall � fol. 5b19–25). 13

As is evident from the title, Yah.yā’s own aim in his little treatise is broader than simply listing and describing the eight headings. In fact, Yah.yā poses and responds to five “inquiries” ( mabāh. ith ; buh. ūth ) into the very practice of posing and then addressing the eight headings. Yah.yā’s five inquiries are as follows:

1. Question : Why are they are called “headings” ( ruūʾs )? 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.

Yah. ya b. ʿAdi’s Discussion 191

2. Question : What is each heading? Answer : The book’s aim, its benefit, its title, its divisions, its author, which science it is part of, the manner of instruction, and its rank.

3. Question : What is the use in investigating them? Answer : There are one or more benefits specific to each heading.

4. Question : Why and in what context was this arrangement prescribed for them? Answer : Because the headings correspond to types of causes, and the causes are arranged in terms of priority and posteriority.

5. Question : 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 standard causal analysis, which in this case is com-pleted by addressing the eight headings.

What is most striking about this little treatise is how Yah.yā identifies the eight head-ings with several then-current metaphysical categories in order to show how one can provide a full causal account of a particular philosophical book or any text for that matter. Examples include Yah.yā’s appeals, in the second, fourth, and fifth inquiries, to Aristotle’s distinctions (at least, as understood by the Neoplatonists) between the way in which a final cause is prior to its effect and the way in which it is posterior; between first and second perfections; between intrinsic and extrinsic causes; and between the final cause understood as to hou (“that in view of which”) and as to hōi (“that for the benefit of which”). 14

Needless to say, this brief introduction is meant to be suggestive rather than exhaustive. On the basis of the information presented here, we can speculate that in composing his little “metaprolegomenon,” which as far as I can tell is unprec-edented in Greek and Arabic philosophical literature, Yah. yā hopes not simply to translate, but to explain and justify, the late-antique Greek isagogical tradition to a new, Arabic-reading audience. Yah. yā’s audience was composed primarily of philosophers, it is true. But the newly established sciences of the third/ninth- and fourth/tenth-century Muslim world—Arabic grammar and philology, Qurʾānic exegesis and h. adīth criticism, and Islamic jurisprudence and theology—increas-ingly sought to set out and justify their own hermeneutical practices. What made falsafa different from the other “new” sciences of classical Islamic civilization is not so much that it came with a long and well-established isagogical tradition, but that it openly embraced this tradition. In the context of the competitions over ways of knowing that were engaging Muslim and non-Muslim intellectuals at this time (third/ninth and fourth/tenth centuries) and in this place (Iraq and Syria), it may have seemed to Yah. yā that falsafa ’s particular isagogical questions required fuller explanation and justification than could be found in al-Fārābī’s two terse discussions. The need for a cogent defense of this Greco-Arabic propae-deutic practice would have been acutely felt by Yah. yā, given the famously ill-fated debate over the merits of logic and grammar in which one of his own teachers, Abū Bishr Mattā b. Yūnus, had been entangled, and given the evident confusion

Robert Wisnovsky192

exhibited by late-antique Greek and Arabic philosophers concerning the proper ordering of the kephalaia/ruʾūs .

TEXT

Madrasa-yi Marwī 19: 4b,ult.—5b31

||fol. 5a1|| مقالة في مباحث الخمسة عن الرؤوس 15 الثمانية

إن | من عادة مفسري كتب | الحكماء أن يفحصوا قبل الفحص عن | معاني كل كتاب من كتب الحكمة عن ثمانية معان |5a5| يسمونها الرؤوس وهي غرض الكتاب ومنفعته وسمته و | أقسامه وواضعه ومن أي العلوم هو ونحو تعليمه ورتبته وينبغي أن | نبحث عن هذه الرؤوس خمسة مباحث أحدها لم سميت رؤوسا والثاني ما كل واحد | منها والثالث ما المنفعة في البحث عنها والرابع لم رتبناها 16 هذا الترتيب المرسوم لها

| والخامس لم صارت عدتها ثمانية ال أكثر وال أقل.

رؤوس من واالستعارة التشبيه جهة |5a10| على رؤوسا سميت إنما إنها األول البحث في فنقول الحيوانات وذلك أنه كما أن رأس الحيوان حاو مشتمل على ينبوع ما به قوام | سائر الحيوان بما هو حيوان ألنه معدن منه منشأ العصب الذي به يكون الحس والحركة اإلرادية اللذان هما الفصالن الفاصالن | بين الحيوان وبين ما ليس بحيوان مما هو والحيوان تحت جنس واحد قريب وهو الجنس المتنفس أعني النبات كذلك هذه الرؤوس الثمانية حاوية | حاصرة بجميع معاني الكتاب المقومة له وهي التي بها وجوده وبها هو على ما هو إنما ردت قولي وبها هو ما هو بسبب الرأس الثامن الذي | هو الترتيب فإن الترتيب وإن كان 17 ليس هو من األشياء المقومة للكتاب وال مما هو به ما هو فإنه به صار على الحال التي هو عليها أعني أنه

صار |5a15| مقدما في التعليم أو مؤخرا أو موسطا به فهذا القول في البحث األول كاف.

فأما البحث الثاني وهو ما كل واحد منها فإنا نقول فيه إن الغرض هو ما يقصده الفاعل بفعله حتى إذا | انتهى إليه قطع الفعل وقد رسمه بعض من تقدم من المفسرين بأنه غاية سابقة في الوهم وتشكك على هذا | متأخرة فقوله في الراسم متشكك في هذا الرسم فقال إن فيه تناقضا وذلك أن معنى الغاية هو أن تكون فاتحة الرسم غاية أوجب له التأخر وبقوله بعد ذلك سابقة 18 أوجب له التقدم ومن البين أن المتقدم ليس هو والمتأخر والتنبيه على أنهما من | المتقدم بشرح معنى المتأخر وال المتأخر هو المتقدم وهذا الشك ينحل مقولة المضاف وأن المضاف إنما يعرف محصال بمعرفة ما هو مضاف إليه وبمعرفة الجهة والنحو اللذين منها أو عليه هو مضاف إليه فلذلك إذا حصل | معنى المتأخرة إذ كانت الغاية متأخرة في العمل عن األشياء التي تتقدمها مما يعمل من أجلها وهي متقدمة في الوهم إذ كانت متصورة قبل األشياء التي تعمل بسببها فهذا يحل الشك إذ كانت الجهة |5a20| التي هي بها متقدمة غير الجهة التي هي بها متأخرة وليس بمنكر أن يكون الشيء الواحد متقدما على شيء واحد ومتأخرا عنه عن جهتين مختلفتين إال أن هذا الرسم وإن كان الزما للغرض | فإنه ليس هو له بما هو غرض وال غاية من حيث هو غرض وإن كان الغرض والغاية في الموضوع شيئا واحدا بل إنما عرض للغرض إن كان غاية وإن كان سابقا في الوهم فأما الغرض بحسب االسم | الغرض فإنما حقيقته أنه مقصود إليه متحرك نحوه مطلوب لمن يفعل ما يفعله بسببه فلذلك اخترنا رسمه بهذا الرسم الذي ذكرناه فأما المنفعة فهي المتشوق 19 من كل فأما السمة فهي عبارة يجمل | فيها ما يلخصه الكتاب وأما القسمة وهي تفصيل العبارة عن كل واحد من معانيه عن العبارة عن المعنى الذي يليه وأما واضع الكتاب والعلم الذي هو منه والنحو من أنحاء التعليم الذي | يستعمل فيه واضعه فإن سماتها إذ كانت أقاويل ال أسماء مفردة فقد تضمنت من شرح معانيها ما يغني عن رسمها وأما مرتبة الكتاب فهي موضعه من نظام أجزاء العلم الذي هو منه فهذا مبلغ ما |5a25| نقوله في البحث الثاني عن ماهية كل واحد

من هذه الرؤوس.

وأما البحث الثالث وهو الفحص عن المنفعة والفائدة الحاصلة من البحث عنها فإنا قائلون في ذلك منذ اآلن إنه احتيج إلى معرفة | الغرض ألسباب أحدها أن يكون فكر المتعلم مسددا نحوه فتبين له منفعة كل جزء من أجزاء القول في التأدية إليه والثاني ليتفقد ويتأمل هل بلغه ووفى بضمانه أو ال والثالث لئال 20 يقصر دونه | أو يتجاوزه أو يعدل عنه واحتيج إلى معرفة المنفعة ليذكي بذلك سوق المتعلم إلى العلم وليكون قدر ما يقسط له من الغاية بحسب جاللتها فإن كانت كبيرة احتمل لها فضل التعب والنصب وإن | كانت يسيرة

Yah. ya b. ʿAdi’s Discussion 193

لم يزدها من السعي على ما تستحقه فيستقل بها وبالدأب في طلبها عما هو أولى به منها واحتيج إلى معرفة السمة ليفهم منها بالخيار واختصار ما يدل عليه الغرض باإلسهاب واإلكثار واحتيج | إلى معرفة القسمة ليسلم من اختالط الكالم في معنى الكتاب بالكالم في معنى آخر من معانيه فيعرض لذلك اختالط واشتباه فال يتبين المعاني وال يتمكن في الفهم واحتيج إلى معرفة الواضع للكتاب ألنه |5a30| ربما انتهى التعليم بالمتعلم إلى معان غامضة تبعد عليه ويصعب فهم البرهان عليها لضعف قوته عن إدراكه فيحتاج في أمثال هذه المعاني إلى أن يقبل قول المعلم تقليدا وتصديقا له | ومن الناس من ال يصلح أن يصدق ويوثق إما لجهله وإما لشره وإما لهما جميعا ألنه إن كان جاهال لم يؤمن خطأه وإن كان شريرا لم يؤمن غشه وإن اجتمعت فيه الرذيلتان | صدر عنه الضرران فإنما يستحق التصديق والتقليد له من اجتمع فيه العلم والخير فيسكن بعلمه إلى إصابته ويؤمن بخيره غشه ويستدل على نسبته إلى واضعه | إما من معانيه إذا تشابهت بصحتها أو سقمها صحة أو سقم معانيه في كتبه المعروفة صحة نسبتها إليه كما يستدل بمشابهة أخالق نفس الولد أخالق | نفس والده على صحة نسبته إليه وإما من مشابهة عبارته فيه عبارته في كتبه الصحيحة النسبة كما يستدل بمشابهة صورة بدن الولد صورة بدن الوالد على صحة نسبته إليه وإما من شهادة المفسرين الثقات بذلك وإما من ذكره إياه في كتبه الصحيحة |5a35| وفيه إياها ويحتاج إلى معرفة العلم الذي هو منه لترتب النظر فيه بحسب رتبة العلم الذي هو منه عند | العلوم الباقية ويحتاج إلى معرفة نحو التعليم ليوقف منه هل سلك في تعليمه سبيال صحيحة كاملة | الشرائط التي بها تتم السبيل واستقامتها أو ال ويحتاج إلى معرفة رتبة الكتاب لترتب النظر | فيه وتعلمه بالتقديم والتأخير من أجزاء العلم الذي هو منه بمنزلة معانيه | فإن كانت معانيه يحتاج إلى معرفتها في سائر أجزاء ذلك العلم |5a40| غيره قدم النظر فيه على جميعها وإن كان يحتاج | fol.|| في معرفة معانيه إلى معرفة جميع أجزاء العلم غيره 21 أخر | النظر وجعله بعد سائرها | وإن احتيج5b1|| في معرفة | معانيه إلى معرفة بعضها | أو إليها في معرفة بعضها قدم عليه | النظر في البعض وأخر عنه النظر في البعض |5b5| فقد تبين ما طلب في البحث الثالث وهو المنفعة | في البحث عن كل واحد من

هذه الرؤوس الثمانية والفائدة | الواصلة من قبله.

فلنقل اآلن في البحث الرابع وهو عن العلل في ترتيبنا | إياها في التعديد والفحص هذا الترتيب فنقول 22 إنه إنما قدم الغرض على سائرها ألنه كالصورة | للمركب والصورة أولى بأن تكون طبيعة المركب من غيرها وقدمت المنفعة ألنها غرض ما ألن الغرض هو |5b10| المقصود والكمال األول والمنفعة هي الكمال الثاني والمنفعة من قبل أنها كمال ومقصودة هي أحد الغرضين والفرق | بينها وبين الغرض أن الغرض األول وإن شئت فقل الكمال األول هو أحد جزأي 23 المركب وموجود فيه والمنفعة هي تابعة للكمال األول | وهي التي من أجلها وجود الغرض األول وقدمت المنفعة على السمة وإن كانت السمة تدل 24 على معنى الغرض ألن المنفعة تستحق التقديم من جهتين | أحدهما أنها أحد الغرضين والثانية أنها حادية على الشروع في تعلم الكتاب والسمة إنما تستحق التقديم من جهة واحدة وهي أيضا دليلة على الغرض | األول وقدمت السمة على سائر الباقية ألنها دليلة على الغرض الذي هو مستحق التقديم على جميع هذه إذ كانت منزلته منزلة الصورة في المركب وهي ماهيته |5b15| وذاته ومن البين أن ذات كل شيء أخص األشياء كلها به وتلت السمة القسمة ألن منزلتها منزلة المادة في المركب وهي إحدى طبيعتيه وموجودة فيه وتلتها معرفة الواضع للكتاب | ألن الواضع هو العلة الفاعلة ومن البين أن العلل مناسبات للمعلول وتتلو 25 معرفة الواضع معرفة العلم الذي هو منه ألن ارتقاء الكتاب إلى العلم الذي هو منه إما أن يكون كارتقاء النوع | إلى جنسه فتشابه الصورة وإما كارتقاء الجزء إلى كله فتشابه المادة ويتلو 26 هذه نحو التعليم ألن منزلته منه منزلة العلة األدوية وهي األداة التي بها تحصل صورة المركب في مادته ومن البين أن ما له | معونة في وجود المركب أحق به مما ليس كذلك وآخره المرتبة ألنها ليست مقومة لذاته بل إنما هي غرض ذاتي تابع له وهي طبيعية

له كما أن سمو النار طبيعي للنار فهذا ترتيب هذه الرؤوس في التعديد | والفحص على ما توجبه ذواتها.

وأما البحث الخامس وهو لم صارت هذه الرؤوس 27 ثمانية ال أقل منها وال أكثر فإنا نقول في ذلك إن السبب فيه أن كل كتاب فهو موجود ما ومسمى فمن قبل |5b20| أنه مسمى لزم طلب سمته إذ هي كاالسم له ومن قبل أنه موجود وكل موجود فال يخلو 28 من أن يكون إما بسيطا وإما مركبا ومن البين أن الكتاب ليس هو بسيطا فهو ال محالة مركب وكل مركب | فال يخلو 29 من أن يكون مركبا بالطبيعة أو بالصناعة ومما ال خفاء به أن الكتاب ليس هو مركبا بالطبيعة فهو إذا مركب بالصناعة وظاهر أن في كل مصنوع شيئا ما نسبته إليه نسبة الهيولى إلى | األشياء 30 الطبيعية وهذا هو موضوع الصناعة وفيه أيضا شيء ما <منزلته> منزلة الصورة 31 في األشياء الطبيعية وهذا هو غرض الصناعة وما تقصد الصناعة إيجاده في موضوعها

Robert Wisnovsky194

وله صانع | حاله عنده كحال الطبيعة في األشياء المركبة بالطبيعة وهذه هي الصناعة وسواء قلت الصناعة أو قلت الصانع 32 بما هو به صانع وله أداة بها يحصل الصانع غرض صناعته في موضوعها | وللصانع في نفسه غرض في تحصيل غرض صناعته في موضوعها من أجله تكلف ذلك وهو المنفعة الواصلة إليه بذلك فوجب لذلك أن يوجد الكتاب إذ كان موجودا من الموجودات |5b25| بالصناعة هذه األشياء الخمسة التي عددناها بقية موضوع هو أقسام معانيه وغرض صناعي هو العبارة عنها وإيضاحها ونظمها وتأليفها وله صانع هو مؤلفه ولصانعه غرض في تأليفه | إياه هو منفعته وأداة بها يحصل مؤلفه تأليفه في أقسامه وهي السبيل أو السبل من سبل التعليم التي يستعملها مؤلفه في تأليفه إياه فهذا ما وجب للكتاب من الرؤوس 33 من حيث هو مصنوع | للتعليم والتعلم فألن التعليم والتعلم تلزمهما وتوجد لهما ال محالة أشياء منها تبتدئ وأشياء إليها تنتهي وأشياء متوسطة بين االبتداء واالنتهاء هى المتطرق فيها من المبدأ إلى المنتهى لزمه لذلك | الترتيب ولما كان الترتيب يلزم الكتاب من قبل مرتبة العلم الذي هو جزء منه عند العلوم األخر المخالفة له في النوع كما يرتب العلم النظري قبل العلم العملي لزم البحث السادس وهو من أي | العلوم وهو يلزمه الضامن مرتبته في نفسه عند أجزاء العلم الذي هو منه األخر غيره كما يرتب المدخل إلى علم األصول الهندسية قبل سائر كتب الهندسة فيلزم البحث الثامن وهو طلب |5b30| مرتبته الخاصة به فقد تبينت األسباب الموجبة لوجود هذه الرؤوس 34 بهذه العدة دون غيرها وإذ قد بينا ذلك فقد بلغنا غرضنا في هذا القول وهو الجود ذي اهللا بمعونة قصدنا إلى انتهينا الثمانية 36 الرؤوس 35 في عددناها التي | الخمسة المباحث تبيين

والحكمة والحول ولي العدل وواهب العقل فله الحمد شكرا دائما كما هو له أهل.

TRANSLATION

Essay on the five inquiries into the eight headings {fol. 5a1}

It is a custom of those commenting on the philosophers’ books, before investigat-ing the things [contained in] each book of philosophy, to inquire into eight aspects {5a5} that they call “headings”: the book’s aim, its benefit, its title, its divisions, its author, which science it is part of, the manner of instruction, and its rank. We must [therefore] undertake five inquiries into these headings: (1) Why are they called “headings”? (2) What is each of them? (3) What is the benefit in investigating them? (4) Why have we prescribed this sequence for them? (5) Why did their number come to be eight, neither more nor less?

With respect to the first inquiry, we say that they are called “headings” only by {5a10} way of an analogy with, and metaphor for, the heads of animals. This is because, just as an animal’s head contains and includes the source of that by which the rest of the animal is constituted as an animal, since it is the source from which stem the nerves by which sensation and voluntary motion exist—[sensation and vol-untary motion] which are the two differentiae that distinguish animals from what is not an animal yet is subsumed, together with animal, under the same proximate genus, the genus of ensouled [beings], I mean [from] plants—so these eight head-ings contain and comprise all of the book’s constitutive aspects: those in virtue of which it exists, and those in virtue of which it is the way it is. I desist from saying “and by which it is what it is” only on account of the eighth heading, which is the ranking. For though the ranking is not among the things which constitute the book nor is it among the things by which it is what it is, by it [the ranking] the book comes to have the status it has (I mean the fact that [the book] came to be {5a15} first in the [order of] instruction, or last, or in the middle). This is enough discus-sion about the first inquiry.

Yah. ya b. ʿAdi’s Discussion 195

Now to the second inquiry, namely, what each of them [the eight headings] is. In this regard we say that the aim is what the agent strives for in his action, so that when he reaches it, he cuts off the action. One of the earlier commentators described it as being “an end that comes first in the imagination.” One who was skeptical of this description cast doubt on the one who described it [thus], and said that it contains a contradiction. This is because the meaning of “end” consists in being posterior, so his saying “end” at the start of the description necessarily entails posteriority, whereas by saying after this “that comes first,” priority is necessarily entailed; and it is evident that the prior cannot be identical to the posterior, nor can the posterior be identical to the prior. This objection is resolved by explaining the meaning of “prior” and “pos-terior,” and pointing out that both fall under the category of “the relative,” and that the relative is effectively known only by knowing what it is related to and by knowing the respect and manner in which it is related to it. Thus the meaning of “posterior” is realized, since the end is posterior in the action to those things that preceded it and that were done for the sake of it; at the same time [the end] is prior in the imagina-tion, since it was conceived of before the things that were done on account of it. This resolves the objection, since the respect {5a20} in which it is prior is other than the respect in which it is posterior. It is undeniable that one single thing may be prior to another thing and posterior to it in two different respects. But whereas this descrip-tion [of being prior and posterior at the same time] attaches necessarily to “aim,” it [attaches] to it not insofar as it is an aim nor an end qua aim (even though aim and end are one single thing in substrate). Rather, it [the description of being prior and posterior at the same time] is an accident of the aim only if it is an end and it is prior in the imagination. Now the true nature of the aim, insofar as it is named “aim,” con-sists simply in the fact that it is what is striven for, moved toward, and sought after by whoever does what he does on account of it. For this reason we chose to describe it by the description we mentioned. As for the benefit , it is what is wished for in everything. As for the title , it is an expression in which what the book expounds is summarized. As for the division , it consists in separating the account of each of its contents from the account of what follows it. As for the book’s author , the science that it is part of , and the manner of teaching that its author uses in it, well, since their “titles” are phrases and not single words, they already include enough explanation of the meanings to make description superfluous. As for the book’s rank , it is its place in the order of the parts of the science that it is part of. This is the extent of what {5a25} we have to say concerning the second inquiry into the quiddity of each one of these headings.

Now to the third inquiry, namely, the investigation into the benefit and profit that arises from inquiring into them [the eight headings]. In this regard we now say that one needs to know the aim for several reasons. One of them is in order that the stu-dent’s thinking be guided toward it, so it becomes clear to him how each part of the discussion is useful in leading him toward it. The second is in order to remind him-self [of it] repeatedly and consider whether or not he has reached it and fully grasped its import. The third is in order that he not fall short of it, or bypass it, or turn away from it. He needs to know the benefit so that through this, he may be keen in follow-ing the student’s path toward knowledge, and so that he can assess what magnitude

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should be assigned to the end, in accordance with its gravity. If it [the benefit] is great, he will put up with a great deal of fatigue and exhaustion for its sake. If it is paltry, he will not devote more effort to it than it deserves, and he will proceed in his own way toward what is more worthwhile. He needs to know the title in order to understand from it, in excerpted and abbreviated form, what the aim signifies in elaborated and expanded form. He needs to know the division in order to be safe from confusing the discussion about one of the book’s contents with a discussion about another of its contents, for on account of this a confusion and a conflation will arise, and he will not clearly distinguish the contents nor gain a masterful understanding [of them]. He needs to know the book’s author , because {5a30} a student’s instruction sometimes comes to a halt at difficult things that are far beyond him and hard to understand the proof of, due to the weakness of his capacity to apprehend it. In cases like this it is necessary that the teacher’s statement be accepted on his authority and out of trust for him. There are some people whom it is not right to count as trustworthy and accept on authority, due to their ignorance, or to their wickedness, or to both together. For the fact is, if he is ignorant, he will not be immune from erring; if he is wicked, he will not be immune from deceitfulness; and if both vices are combined, two harms will issue from him. Only he in whom knowledge and goodness come together deserves to be counted as trustworthy and accepted on authority, so that through his knowl-edge he will be secure in getting [it] right, and through his goodness he will be immune from deceitfulness. He seeks evidence for its attribution to its author either from its contents, if they are similar, in their soundness or their unsoundness, to the sound and unsound contents of the books that are known to be genuinely his (just as one seeks evidence, through the similarity between the character-traits of the son’s soul and the character-traits of the father’s soul, of the genuineness of his relation to him); or from the similarity between his manner of expression in it [the book] and the manner of expression in books that are authentically his (just as one seeks evidence, through the similarity between the form of the son’s body and the form of the father’s body, of the genuineness of his relation to him); or from the attestation of reliable commentators; or from his [the author’s] mentioning it in his genuine books {5a35} or [his mentioning] them in it. He needs to know the science that it is part of , so that he may structure his thinking about it in accordance with the rank of the science that it is part of, among all the other sciences. He needs to know the manner of instruc-tion in order to be made certain of whether or not, in his instruction, he is following a method that is sound [and] that fulfills the stipulations by which the method is completed and correctly followed. He needs to know the book’s rank so that he may structure his thinking about it and his studying of it by the priority and posteriority of the parts of the science that it belongs to, in respect of the level of its contents. If he needs to know its contents for the other parts of that science, {5a40} he will put the study of it before all of them. If, to know its contents, he needs to know all the parts of the science other than it, he will postpone the study of it and put it after the rest of them. If {fol. 5b1}, to know its contents, he needs to know some of them (or [if], to know some of the contents, he needs to know [some of] them), he will put the study of some of them before it. {5b5} It has thus become clear what is sought in the third inquiry, namely, the benefit in inquiring into each one of these eight headings, and the profit that accrues in view of it.

Yah. ya b. ʿAdi’s Discussion 197

Let us now speak about the fourth inquiry. It concerns the causes of our placing them [the headings] in numerical order, and the investigation of this arrangement. We say that the aim is made to come before the rest of them because it is like the form is to the composite, and the form is more appropriate to be the nature of the composite than anything else is. The benefit is given precedence because it is a kind of aim, since the aim is {5b10} what is intended and is the first perfection, whereas the benefit is the second perfection. The benefit, in view of the fact that it is a per-fection and what is intended, is one of the two aims. The difference between it and the aim consists in the fact that the first aim (if you wish, say “first perfection”) is one of the two parts of the composite and is present in it, whereas the benefit fol-lows the first perfection, and is that for the sake of which the first aim exists. The benefit is made to come before the title, even though the title indicates the meaning of the aim, because the benefit deserves to be given precedence from two angles: one is that it is one of the two aims, and the second is that it serves as a guide in the course of learning the book. The title deserves to be given precedence only from one angle, namely, that it also indicates the first aim. The title is made to come before the other remaining [headings] because it indicates the aim, which is what deserves to be given precedence above all of these, since its status is the status of the form in the composite, being its quiddity {5b15} and essence; and it is clear that each thing’s essence is the most specific to it of all things. The division is next after the title because its status is the status of the matter in the composite, being one of its two natures and present in it. Knowledge of the book’s author is next after it because the author is the efficient cause, and it is clear that the causes are “genetically” related to [their] effect. Knowledge of the science that it is part of is next after knowledge of the author, because the book’s ascending to the level of the science that it is part of is either like the species’ ascending to the level of its genus (in which case it [the book, taken as a species] is like the form), or it is like the part’s ascending to the level of its whole (in which case it [the book, taken as a part] is like the matter). The man-ner of teaching is next after this because it has the status of the instrumental cause, being the instrument by which the form of the composite comes to be in its [the composite’s] matter. It is clear that whatever is of assistance in the existence of the composite is more [directly] relevant to it [to the composite] than what is not like this. The rank is last because it is not a constituent of its [the composite’s] essence, but is instead an essential end that follows it and is natural to it, just as fire’s rising upward is natural to fire. This is the placement of these headings in numerical order and the investigation of what their essences entail.

As for the fifth inquiry, namely, why did these headings become eight, neither less nor more, we say in this regard that the reason for it is the fact that every book is something existing and something named. In view of {5b20} the fact that it is something named, it is necessary to seek its title , since it [the title] is its name, as it were. In view of the fact that it is something existing, well, every existent must be either simple or composite, and it is clear that the book is not simple, so it is doubt-less a composite. Every composite must be composed either by nature or by craft. It is no secret that a book is not composed by nature, so it is therefore composed by craft. In everything crafted there is obviously something related to it as matter

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is related to natural things; this is the craft’s substrate. It [the crafted thing] also contains something that has the status of form in natural things; this is the craft’s aim and that whose existence the craft is meant to bring about in its [the craft’s] substrate. It has a craftsman who has the same role that nature has in things that are composed by nature, whereas this is craft. (It does not matter whether you say craft or you say craftsman qua craftsman.) It has an instrument by means of which the craftsman makes the aim of his craft come to be in its substrate. In his mind, the craftsman has an aim in realizing the aim of his craft in its substrate, for the sake of which he occupies himself with this, namely, the benefit that accrues to him through this. It must follow therefore that the book exist, since it is one of the things that exist {5b25} by craft. These five things which we have enumerated are a remaining portion [of the eight headings]: a substrate, which is the divisions of its contents; an artificial aim , which consists in articulating them [the contents], exposing them, arranging them, and authoring them. It has a craftsman, who is its author (and its craftsman has an aim in his authoring it, which is its benefit ); and [it has] an instrument by which its author effects his authoring it in its divisions, namely, the manner or manners of instruction which its author uses in authoring it. These are the headings that must follow for the book, insofar as it is something crafted for teaching and learning. Because teaching and learning necessarily entail the existence of some things that are at the beginning and other things that are at the end, and yet others that lie between the beginning and the end (namely, the things by which one proceeds from the start to the finish), this ranking is entailed. And since the ranking is entailed for the book in view of the rank of the science that it is part of among the other sciences that differ from it in species, just as theoretical science is ranked before practical science, the sixth inquiry—namely, in which of the sciences [it is]—is entailed. [Also] entailed is that which, in itself, guarantees its rank alongside the other parts of the science that it is part of, just as the introduction to geometrical principles is ranked before the rest of the books of geometry. There the eighth inquiry is entailed, namely, seeking {5b30} its specific rank . The reasons that make the existence of these headings necessary, in this number and no other, have now been made clear. Since we have clarified this we have fulfilled our aim in this discussion, namely, clarifying the five inquiries that we enumerated with respect to the eight headings, we have reached our destination with the help of God, possessor of generosity and wisdom and might, guardian of justice and bestower of intellect; to Him goes praise with perpetual thanks, to which He is entitled.

Notes

1 . Many thanks are due to Ahmedreza Rahimiriseh and Reza Pourjavady for bringing this codex to my attention; to Stephen Menn, Sascha Treiger, Naser Dumairieh, and the editors of this volume for their detailed criticisms and suggestions; to Taro Mimura for his assistance with the initial transcription; to Adam Gacek for his advice on some paleographical issues; to Gerhard Endress for some references; and to Keren Abbou Hershkovits for her help with Hebrew transcriptions and translations. This chapter is dedicated to my doctoral supervisor Hossein Modarressi, an example of how—as Yah.yā

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puts it here—a teacher “in whom knowledge and goodness come together deserves to be counted as trustworthy and accepted on authority.”

2 . R. Wisnovsky, “New Philosophical Texts of Yah.yā ibn ʿAdī: A Supplement to Endress’ Analytical Inventory, ” in Islamic Philosophy, Science, Culture and Religion:  Studies in Honor of Dimitri Gutas , ed. D. Reisman and F. Opwis (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 307–326. A facsimile edition of the Marwī codex, including a comprehensive introduction to the anthology as well as an index of names of individuals and groups, and titles of books, is being prepared by the author for inclusion in the series co-published by the Institute of Islamic Studies of the Free University of Berlin. Inventories of Yah.yā’s works can be found in G. Endress, The Works of Yah. yā ibn Aʿdī: An Analytical Inventory (Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert, 1977), and S. Khalīfāt, Maqālāt Yah. yā ibn Aʿdī al-falsafiyya (Amman: al-Jāmi ʿa al-Urdunniyya, 1988).

3 . This treatise is listed as 3.11 by Endress ( Works , 42), and as 44 (but as Maqāla fī ’ l-buh. ūth al-khamsa ʿan al-ru ūʾs al-thamāniya ) by Khalīfāt ( Maqālāt , 29).

4 . J. Mansfeld, Prolegomena: Questions to Be Settled before the Study of an Author, or Text (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994), supplemented by his Prolegomena Mathematica: From Apollonius of Perga to Late Neoplatonism (Leiden: Brill, 1998). M. Plezia, De commentariis isagogicis (Krakow: Archiwum Filologiczne, 1949); L. Westerink, ed., Anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1962), xxv–xxxii; updated in Prolégomènes à la philosophie de Platon (Paris: Budé, 1990); I. Hadot, “Les introductions aux commentaires exégétiques chez les auteurs néoplatoniciens et les auteurs chrétiens,” in Les Règles de l’ interprétation , ed. M. Tardieu (Paris: Cerf, 1987), 99–122; Simplicius, Commentaire sur les Catégories, fasc. 1, Introduction, Première partie, comm. I. Hadot, trans. P. Hoffman (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990); and Hadot, “The Role of the Commentaries on Aristotle in the Teaching of Philosophy according to the Prefaces of the Neoplatonic Commentaries on the Categories ,” in Aristotle and the Later Tradition , ed. H. Blumenthal and H. Robinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 175–89. The appropriation of two of these late-antique introductory topoi by medieval Arabic scholars is treated in detail by C. Hein, Definition und Einteilung der Philosophie: Von der spätantiken Einleitungsliteratur zur arabischen Enzyklopädie (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1985); for the full list see 254–256. Discussions of the Arabic reception of the eight kephalaia are con-tained in G. Schoeler, “Der Verfasser der Augenheilkunde K. Nūr al- ʿuyūn und das Schema der 8 Praeliminarien im 1. Kapitel des Werkes,” Der Islam 64 (1987): 89–97, at 93–96, and C. Ferrari, ed. and comm. , Der Kategorienkommentar von Abū l-Farağ Aʿbdallāh ibn at. -T. ayyib: Text und Untersuchungen (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 90–109. See also D. Gutas, “Paul the Persian and the Classification of the Parts of Aristotle’s Philosophy: A Milestone between Alexandria and Baghdad,” Der Islam 60 (1983): 231-67; and D. Gutas, “The Starting Point of Philosophical Studies in Alexandrian and Arabic Aristotelianism,” in Theophrastus of Eresus: On His Life and Work, ed. W. Fortenbaugh, P. Huby and A. Long (New Brunswick, N.J. and Oxford: Transaction Books, 1985), 115–23. The appearance of the kephalaia in an Arabic translation of a Syriac introduction to an ancient medi-cal text is discussed by G. Bos and Y. T. Langermann, “The Introduction of Sergius of Rēsh ʿainā to Galen’s Commentary on Hippocrates’ On Nutriment ,” Journal of Semitic Studies 54, no. 1 (2009): 179–204. On the Latin reception of this tradition, see E. Quain, “The Medieval Accessus ad auctores ,” Traditio 3 (1945): 215–64.

5 . This list largely reproduces Westerink’s useful synopsis, which collates the lists con-tained in the Categories commentaries of Ammonius (d. 517/526; see Commentaria in Aristotelem graeca [CAG] , vol. IV, section 4), Philoponus (d. 570s; CAG XIII.1), Olympiodorus (d. after 565; CAG XII.1), Elias (fl. mid/late sixth century; CAG XVIII.1) and Simplicius (fl. mid-sixth century; CAG VIII); see L. Westerink, “The Alexandrian

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Commentators and the Introductions to their Commentaries,” in Aristotle Transformed , ed. R. Sorabji (London: Duckworth, 1990), 325–48 (at 342–43).

6 . Ed. F. Dieterici, Alfārābī’s philosophische Abhandlungen aus Londoner, Leidener und Berliner Handschriften (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1890), 49–55; translated by Dieterici into German in his Alfārābī’s philosophische Abhandlungen aus dem Arabischen übersetzt (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1892), 82–91. Al-Fārābī may have been loosely following and revis-ing al-Kindī’s Essay on the Quantity of Aristotle’s Books and on What Is Needed in the Realization of Philosophy ( Risāla fī kammiyyat kutub Arist. ūt. ālīs wa-mā yuh. tāju ilayhi fī tah. s.īl al-falsafa ), ed. M. Abū Rīda in his Rasā iʾl al-Kindī al-falsafiyya (Cairo: Dār al-Fikr al-ʿArabī, 1950), 363–73; and also ed. R. Walzer and M. Guidi in their “Studi su al-Kindi I: Uno scritto introduttivo allo studio di Aristotele,” Memorie della Reale Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Classe di Scienze Morali, Storiche e Filologiche) 6, no. 6 (1937–1940): 375–403. Al-Fārābī’s essay is placed in the context of his other isagogical treatises by A. Jaffray, “At the Threshold of Philosophy: A Study of al-Fārābī’s Introductory Works on Logic” (Unpublished PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 2000), esp. 31–81. In the 1980 “Postscript” to his Al-Farabi’s Commentary and Short Treatise on Aristotle’s De Interpretatione (London: Oxford University Press, 1981), F. Zimmermann asserts that the Risāla fī mā yanbaghī (which he translates as Prolegomena to Aristotle’s Philosophy ) is “almost certainly not by Farabi. This is shown by parallels, e.g. to the section on the canonical preliminaries, in authentic works such as Alfāz. and the Commentary ” (258–59). But see note 12 below, for Westerink’s and Plezia’s citations of internal variations in wording and order within an individual author’s text , let alone within an individual author’s corpus .

7 . Ed. M. Mahdi (Beirut: Dār al-Mashriq, 1968). See also Hein, Definition und Einteilung der Philosophie, 385–87.

8 . Westerink, Anonymous Prolegomena , xxxi. 9 . Plezia, De commentariis isagogicis , 11–16.

10 . K. Gyekye, ed., Ibn al-T. ayyib’s Commentary on Porphyry’s Isagoge (Beirut: Dār al-Mashriq, 1975) (cf. S. Stern, “Ibn al-T. ayyib’s Commentary on the Isagoge,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 19, no. 3 [1957]: 419–25; Ferrari, Der Kategorienkommentar von Abū l-Farağ Aʿbdallāh ibn at. -T. ayyib) .

11 . Aristotelis opera cum Averrois commentariis (Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1962), vol. IV; S. Harvey, “The Hebrew Translation of Averroes’ Proemium to his Long Commentary on the Physics ,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 52 (1985): 55–84; M. ʿA. ʿAbd al-Samīʿ, ed., al-D. arūrī fī s.inā aʿt al-nah. w (Cairo: Dār al-Fikr al-ʿArabī, 2002). On Averroes’s openly admitted debt to al-Fārābī in resolving problems of ontol-ogy, see S. Menn, “Farabi in the Reception of Avicenna’s Metaphysics: Averroes against Avicenna on Being and Unity,” in The Arabic, Hebrew and Latin Reception of Avicenna’s Metaphysics , ed. A. Bertolacci and D. Hasse (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2011), 51–96.

12 . Westerink, “Alexandrian commentators,” 343; Plezia, De commentariis isagogicis , 17. 13 . Ibn al-T. ayyib, Tafsīr Kitāb Īsāghūjī li-Furfūriyūs , al-ghāya � #55–#56, 27,14–28,6;

al-manfaaʿ � #56, 28,6–13; al-sima � #57, 28,14–21; al-martaba � #57, 28,21–23; qis-mat al-kitāb � #58, 29,1–10; wād. i ʿ al-kitāb � #58, 29,5–13; al-nah. w alladhī yustuʿmalu fīhi min anh. ā ʾ al-taāʿlīm � #59, 29,14–16; fī ayy al- ʿulūm huwa dhālika al-kitāb � #59, 29,16–19. In his Commentary on the Categories , following an extensive introductory dis-cussion of the ten “general” isagogical questions, Ibn al-T. ayyib directs the reader to his Commentary on the Isagoge for a full account of the tenth general question, namely, the question that comprises the eight kephalaia ( al-abwāb al-thamāniya ): Tafsīr Kitāb al-Maqūlāt , 14,14–16. In the Categories commentary, the list appears as follows: al-gharad. � III, 15,13–25,8; al-manfaaʿ � IV, 26,11–30; al-sima � IV, 26,31–28,4;

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al-martaba � IV, 28,4–7; nisbatuhu � IV, 28,8–29,13; min ayy al- ʿulūm huwa � IV, 29,14–15; qismatuhu � IV, 29,16–30,20; al-nah. w alladhī yuslaku fīhi min anh. ā ʾ al-taāʿlīm � IV, 30,21–32,4.

14. For detailed discussions of the history of these distinctions, see S. Stern, “The First in Thought is the Last in Action,” Journal of Semitic Studies 7, no. 2 (1962): 234–52, as well as my “Notes on Avicenna’s Concept of Thingness (Shay iʾyya),” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 10, no. 2 (2000): 181–221; “Towards a History of Avicenna’s Distinction between Immanent and Transcendent Causes,” in Before and After Avicenna, ed. D. Reisman (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 49–68; and “Final and Efficient Causality in Avicenna’s Cosmology and Theology,” Quaestio 2 (2002): 97–123.

15. الرؤوس : الرؤس 16. رتبناها : وبيناها

17. وإن كان : وإن قولي وبها هو ما هو كان18. سابقة : سايقة

19. المتشوق : المسبوق20. لئال : ليال

21. في معرفة معانيه إلى معرفة جميع أجزاء العلم غيره : في معرفة جميع أجزاء العلم غيره22. فنقول : فيقول23. جزأي : جزئي

24. تدل : بدل25. وتتلو : وتتلوا26. ويتلو : ويتلوا

27. الرؤوس : الرؤس28. يخلو : يخلوا29. يخلو : يخلوا

30. إلى | األشياء : إلى | إلى أشياء31. شيء ما منزلته منزلة الصورة : شيء ما منزلة الصورة

32. الصانع : 33. الرؤوس : الرؤس34. الرؤوس : الرؤس35. الرؤوس : الرؤس36. الثمانية : والثمانية