Abstract
In his last years of relative recluseness, Alghazali, the famous Muslim theologian (d. 1111), was addressed by numerous students seeking advice. One student asking what science might be the most useful for him to study received more don’ts than dos: Don’t read theology, the doctrines of the various law schools (madhhab), medicine, astronomy, poetry, etc. From the sacred law (sharî’ah) just learn what you need to know to follow God’s commandments. Another student got the advice to consider only those sciences that he would take up if he had only one week to live, not poetry, or epistolography, or madhhab, or dogmatics. From worldly things he should acquire only those offering enough sustenance for one year.1 This was advice from an exceptional scholar at the end of an exceptional life: Alghazali himself had a thorough training in philosophy, jurisprudence, and theology and a distinguished career as a university professor of the latter disciplines, before he gave it all up. His verdict may be understood as the result of a biographical crisis, but, perhaps, also as a reaction to the overwhelming mass of contemporary scholarship that had formed, or pervaded, Muslim culture from its very beginning, a kind of taedium scientiae.2
This study draws from the introductory chapter of my (unpublished) Habilitationsschrift, “Die Zweige des Wissens: Theorie und Klassifikation der Wissenschaften im Islam in der Darstellung des Ibn Farîghûn” (Bochum, 1985). A kind of companion to the present overview, “Arabisch-islamische Enzyklopädien: Formen und Funktionen,” dealing also with non-philosophical classifications of the sciences, will appear in: Frühmittelalterliche Studien: Jahrbuch des Instituts für Frühmittelalterforschung der Universität Münster.
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References
Makâtib-i fârsî-yi Ghazâlî ba-nâm-i Fa ḍâ’il al-anâm min rasâ’il Ḥujjat-al-islâm, ed. ‘Abbâs Iqbâl (Tehran, 1933); I refer to the summary of Hellmut Ritter, “Hat die religiöse Orthodoxie einen Einfluß auf die Dekadenz des Islams ausgeübt?” in Klassizismus und Kulturverfall, ed. Gustav E. von Grunebaum und Willy Hartner (Frankfurt am Main, 1960), 120. For a representative attitude of a Sûfî thinker and poet towards the religious sciences fiqh (jurisprudence) and ḥadîth (religious tradition), cf. Hellmut Ritter, Das Meer der Seele: Mensch, Welt und Gott in den Geschichten des Farîduddîn ’Aṭṭâr (Leiden, 1978), 101–3.
Ritter’s sweeping verdict, “So endet nicht nur das persönliche Leben Gha-zâlî’s, so endet die islamische Geistesgeschichte überhaupt” (ibid., 121), merits a critical examination.
Franz Rosenthal, “The Study of Muslim Intellectual and Social History: Approaches and Methods,” The Third Annual United Emirates Lecture in Islamic Studies (Ann Arbor, 1980), 2.
Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam (Leiden, 1970).
See, e.g., Franz Rosenthal, The Technique and Approach of Muslim Scholarship (Rome, 1947);
and Franz Rosenthal Das Fortleben der Antike im Islam (Zürich and Stuttgart, 1965), 77–105; transl. Emile and Jenny Marmorstein, The Classical Heritage in Islam (Berkeley, 1975), 52–73.
Ed. Gustav Flügel (Leipzig, 1871–2). Cf. J. Fück, “Eine arabische Literaturgeschichte aus dem 10. Jahrhundert n. Chr.,” in idem, Arabische Kultur und Islam im Mittelalter: Ausgewählte Schriften, ed. M. Fleischhammer (Weimar, 1981), 17–26.
Ed. S. Yaltkaya and K. R. Bilge, 2 vols. (Istanbul, 1941–1943).
A good example is a kind of bibliography (as such also belonging to the first category), Ṭabaqât al-umam (Classes of the Nations), by the Andalusian scholar Sâ’id al-Andalusî (d. 1070), trans. Sema’an I. Salem and Alok Kumar, Science in the Medieval World: “Book of the Categories of Nations” (Austin, Texas, 1991); French trans. Régis Blachère, Livre des catégories des nations (Paris, 1935); see the analysis of this work by Martin Plessner, “Der Astronom und Historiker Ibn Sâ’id al-Andalusî und seine Geschichte der Wissenschaften,” Rivista degli Studi Orientali 31 (1956): 235–57.
Cf. also: G. Martinez-Gros, “Classification des sciences et classification des nations, trois exemples andalous du Ve/XIe siècle,” Mélanges de la Casa de Velasquez 22 (1984): 83–114. Another, less systematic, account of the scientific merits of the old nations can be studied in al-Mas’ûdî’s tenth-century anthology Murûj al-dhahab (Meadows of Gold), ed. Charles Pellat, 7 vols. (Beirut, 1965–1979); cf. André Miquel, La géographie humaine du monde musulman jusqu’au milieu du 11 e siècle, vol. 1 (Paris and La Haye, 1967), 202–12.
A late popular work is al-Zarnûjî’s Ta’lîm al-mutaallim: Ṭarîq al-ta’allum, trans. Gustav E. von Grunebaum and Th. Abel, Instruction of the Student: the Method of Learning (New York, 1947). Cf., in general, Rosenthal, Knowledge Triumphant, 277–98.
Cf. Shlomo Pines, “Studies in Abû ’l-Barakât al-Baghdâdî: Physics and Metaphysics,” in idem, The Collected Works of Shlomo Pines, Vol. 1 (Jerusalem, 1979), 132 ff.;
and H. H. Biesterfeldt, “Abû 1-Ḥasan al-’Amirî und die Wissenschaften,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Suppl. 3 (1977): 335–41 (for al-’âmirî, cf. also infra).
Alghazali, Iḥyây ‘ulûm al-dîn, 4 vols (Cairo, 1312 a.h.). The part on “knowledge,” Kitâh al-’ilm, was translated and annotated by Nabih A. Faris, The Book of Knowledge (Lahore, 1962). For Alghazali and the partial translations of his Iḥyâ’ up to ca. 1965, see Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., s.v. “al-Ghazâlî, Abû Hâmid.”
For a recent assessment of Alghazali’s thought, see Richard M. Frank, Al-Ghazâlî and the Ash’arite school (Durham, 1994).
W. Heinrichs, “The Classification of the Sciences and the Consolidation of Philology in Classical Islam,” in Centres of Learning: Learning and Location in Pre-modern Europe and the Near East, ed. Jan Willem Drijvers and A. A. Macdonald (Leiden, 1995), 120.
Cf. Rosenthal, Knowledge Triumphant, 252–77; Hilary Kilpatrick, “A Genre in Classical Arabic Literature: the Adab Encyclopedia,” in Proceedings of the 10th Congress, Edinburgh 1980, of the Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants, ed. R. Hillenbrand (Edinburgh, 1982), 34–42;
and Ulrich Marzolph, “Medieval Knowledge in Modern Reading: A Fifteenth-Century Arabic Encyclopaedia of omni re scibili,” in Pre-modern Encyclopaedic Texts: Proceedings of the Second COMERS Congress, Groningen l-4 July 1996, ed. Peter Binkley (Leiden, 1997), 407–19, with an exemplary list of chapters from al-Ibshîhî’s Kitâb al-musṭatraf fî kuli fann mustaẓraf (The Most Appreciated Precious Topics from Every Art Regarded As Elegant).
See the list of titles beginning with adab or âdâb in C. Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, Dritter Supplementband (Leiden, 1942), 790f.;
Gérard Lecomte, “L’Introduction du Kitâb adab al-kâtib d’Ibn Qutayba,” in Mélanges Louis Massignon, Vol. 3 (Damascus, 1957), 45–64 (for the secretary);
Irene Schneider, Das Bild des Richters in der “Adab al-Qâḍî”-Literatur (Frankfurt am Main, 1990) (for the judge);
and Martin Levey, Medical Ethics of Medieval Islam with Special Reference to al-Ruhâwî’s “Practical Ethics of the Physician” (Philadelphia, 1967), to be consulted together with the review by J. Christoph Bürgel in Göttingische Gelehrte Anleigen 220 (1968): 215–27.
On Alkindi (d. after 870) and his intellectual environment, cf. Gerhard Endress, “The Circle of al-Kindî,” in The Ancient Tradition in Christian and Islamic Hellenism, ed. Gerhard Endress and Remke Kruk (Leiden, 1997), 43–76.
First noticed by Franz Rosenthal, “From Arabic Books and Manuscripts VI: Istanbul Materials for al-Kindî and as-Sarakh sî,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 76 (1956): 27, who also points out the Aristotelian provenance of the “theoretical” division (Metaphysics VI,I 1026a 19) and the later Alexandrian of the “practical” (28).
The text by al-Hasan b. Ahmad b. ’Alî al-Kâtib is translated by Amnon Shiloah, La perfection des connaissances musicales (Paris, 1972); the quotation is on 63.
For the whole complex of the Aristotelian Organon as a scheme of scientific classification, see Christel Hein, Definition und Einteilung der Philosophie. Von der spätantiken Einleitungsliteratur zur arabischen Enzyklopädie (Frankfurt am Main, 1985), 163–237.
Dimitri Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture. The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early Abbâsid Society (London, 1998), 149 ff., points out the misleading supposition of a “receptive,” followed by a “creative” phase in the translation movement from “Greek into Arabic.”
Alkindi, Fî kammiyyat kutub Arisṭûṭâlîs wa-mâ yuḥtâj ilayhfi taḥṣîl al-falsafah, ed. M. Guidi and Richard Walzer, “Studi su al-Kindî I: Uno scritto introduttivo allo studio di Aristotele,” in Atti delia reale Accademia nazionale dei Lincei, Memorie delia Classe di Scienze Morali, Storiche e Filologiche, serie VI, Vol. 6, 1937 (published in Rome, 1940); also in Rasâ’il al-Kindî al-falsafiyyah, ed. Muhammad ‘Abd al-Hâdî Abû Rîdah (Cairo, 1369 A.H./1950).
Guidi and Walzer, Studi, 391.
Grouping the Aristotelian writings according to their exterior form, “particular” mostly meaning letters to individuals, is again a late Alexandrian tradition; cf. Hein, Definition und Einteilung der Philosophie, 264–7.
Rosenthal, “Istanbul Materials,” 27.
Cf. Richard Walzer, Greek into Arabic. Essays on Islamic Philosophy (Oxford, 1962), 14 ff.;
Richard Walzer, “L’éveil de la philosophie islamique,” Revue des études islamiques 38 (1970): 207–25.
For the author, see Everett K. Rowson’s introduction to the edition and translation of al-’âmirî’s Kitâb al-amad ilâ l-abad: A Muslim Philosopher on the Soul and ItsFate (New Haven, 1988), 1–29.
Ed. Ahmad ’A. Ghurab (Cairo, 1967). For a translation of the relevant passages, see Rosenthal, Classical Heritage (above, n. 5), 63–70 (Fortleben, 91–101); briefly analyzed by Biesterfeldt, Abûl-Ḥasan al-âmirî (above, n. 10).
Rowson, Muslim Philosopher, 8 ff.
Cf. my sketch, “Ibn Farîghûn’s Chapter on Arabic Grammar in His Compendium of the Sciences” in Studies in the History of Arabic Grammar II, ed. Kees Versteegh and Michael G. Carter (Amsterdam and Philadelphia, 1990), 49–56, and my article, “Zwei Exzerpte aus Ibn Farîghûns Jawâmi’ al-’ulûm” Oriens (forthcoming).
For a translation and analysis of this section, see Dimitri Gutas, Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition: Introduction to Reading Avicenna’s Philosophical Works (Leiden, 1988), 245–9.
Cf. Charles-Henri de Fouchécour, Moralia: Les notions morales dans la littérature persane du 3 e /9 e au 7 e /13 e siècle (Paris, 1986), esp. 357–440.
Ed. Gerlof van Vloten, Liber Mafâtîh al-olum explicans vocabula technica scientia-rum tam arabum quam peregrinorum (Lugduni-Batavorum, 1895). For a list of partial translations of the Mafâtîh up to 1978, see Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., s.v. “al-Khwârazmî, Abû’Abd Allâh”;
see further, C. E. Bosworth, “A Pioneer Arabic Encyclopedia of the Sciences: al-Khwârizmî’s Keys of the Sciences” Isis 54 (1963): 97–111.
On al-Khwârizmî, see the entry in the Encyclopaedia of Islam referred to in the preceding note.
Heinrichs, “Classification of the Sciences,” 129.
For the author, see Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., s.v. “al-Fârâbî, AbûNasr”; Walzer, Greek into Arabic (above, n. 22), 18–23; idem, “L’éveil de la philosophie islamique,” 226–42; idem, Al-Farabi on the Perfect State: AbûNaṣr al-Fârâbî’s MabâdV ârâ’ ahl al-madîna al-fâḍila (Oxford, 1985), 1–18; and Dictionary of Scientific Biography, s.v. “Al-Fârâbî, AbûNasr.” References below to the Ihsâ’ are to the edition by ‘Uthmân Amîn (Cairo, 1968). Two Latin versions of the work, together with the Arabic text and a Spanish translation, can be consulted in Ángel Gonzales Palencia, Al-Fârâbî: Catálogo de las ciencias, 2nd ed. (Madrid, 1953). Rosenthal, Classical Heritage, 54–5 (Fortleben, 80–1), gives a translation of the beginning of the introduction. Cf. the study by Muhsin Mahdi, “Science, Philosophy, and Religion in Alfarabi’s Enumeration of the Sciences,” in The Cultural Context of Medieval Learning, ed. John E. Murdoch and Edith D. Sylla (Dordrecht and Boston, 1975), 11347. For the afterlife of the ḥṣâ’ in Hebrew and Latin, cf. Moritz Steinschneider, Die hebraeischen übersetzungen des Mittelalters (Berlin 1893), 37–40;
Mauro Zonta, La “Classificazione delle scienze” di al-Fârâbî nella tradizione ebraica (Torino, 1992);
Dominicus Gundissalinus, De divisione philosophiae, ed. Ludwig Baur (Münster 1903), 349–97;
Henri Hugonnard-Roche, “La classification des sciences de Gundissalinus et l’influence d’Avicenne,” in Études sur Avicenne, ed. J. Jolivet et R. Rashed (Paris, 1984), 41–75.
Ihsâ’, 53; delete the li-anna in the last line.
Trans. Walzer, Al-Farabi on the Perfect State, 281; cf. Walzer’s commentary, 474–80.
For the exemplary debate between the Christian logician AbûBishr Mattâ and the Muslim grammarian AbûSa’îd al-Sîrâfî in the presence of the wazir Ibn al-Furât in 937 or 938, cf. D. S. Margoliouth, “The Discussion between AbûBishr Mattâ and AbûSa’îd al-Sîrâfî on the Merits of Logic and Grammar,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1905) 79–129; Gerhard Endress, “Grammatik und Logik-Arabische Philologie und griechische Philosophie im Widerstreit,” in Sprachphilosophie in Antike und Mittelalter, ed. B. Mojsisch (Amsterdam, 1986), 163–299. 36 Iḥṣa, 68.
Cf. Hein, Definition und Einteilung der Philosophie (above, n. 16), 329–81; Dimitri Gutas, “Paul the Persian on the Classification of the Parts of Aristotle’s Philosophy: a Milestone between Alexandria and Baghdâd,” Der Islam 60 (1983): 266 ff. For Alfarabi’s productive interest in logic, see the references in my forthcoming essay “Arabisch-islamische Enzyklopädien”.
Mahdi, “Alfarabi ’s Enumeration of the Sciences, ” 139.
For a detailed analysis, cf. ibid., 140–5. For the whole of Alfarabi’s Iḥṣâ’, it is true what Sâ’id al-Andalusî wrote in Ṭabaqât al-umam: “aucun ouvrage de ce genre n’existait auparavant, nul n’avait suivi la méthode qui y est adoptée; nulle personne se livrant à l’étude, ne peut s’abstenir de s’y référer ou de le lire au préalable” (Blachère trans, [above, n. 8], 108).
Heinrichs, “Classification of the Sciences” (above, n. 12), 122 ff., points to Alfarabi’s own coinage in the linguistic field; examples of his terminological creativity could be multiplied.
For this dating, see Susanne Diwald, Arabische Philosophie und Wissenschaft in der Enzyklopädie,Kitâb Ikhwân aṣ-Ṣafâ’ (III): Die Lehre von Seele und Intellekt (Mainz and Wiesbaden, 1975), 15 ff.
Heinrichs, “Classification of the Sciences,” 127.
Cf. Samuel M. Stern, “The Authorship of the Epistles of the Ikhwân-aṣ-Ṣafâ,” Islamic Culture 20 (1946): 367–72,
Cf. Samuel M. Stern, “The Authorship of the Epistles of the Ikhwân-aṣ-Ṣafâ,” Islamic Culture 21 (1947): 403 ff.;
Cf. Samuel M. Stern, “New Information about the Authors of the ‘Epistles of the Sincere Brethren,’” Islamic Studies 3 (1964): 405–28; Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., s.v. “Ikhwân aṣ-Ṣafâ”;
and Martin M. Plessner, “Beiträge zur islamischen Literaturgeschichte IV: Samuel Miklos Stern, die Ikhwân aṣ-Ṣafâ’ und die Encyclopaedia of Islam,” Israel Oriental Studies 2 (1972): 353–61.
Rasâ’il Ikhwân aṣ-Ṣafâ’ wa-khillân al-wafâ’ 4 vols. (1376/7 a.h. [1957]). The seventh epistle which proposes this classification is in Vol. 1, 226. For a résumé of the whole work, cf. Alessandro Bausani, L’encyclopedia dei fratelli delia purità. Riassunto, con introduzione e breve commento, dei 52 Trattati o Epistole degli Ikhwan aṣ-Ṣafa’ (Naples, 1978). For a translation of our passage, Rosenthal, Classical Heritage, 55–8 (Fortleben, 81–85).
Cf. Gutas, “Paul the Persian,” 264–6.
For another overview, see Louis Gardet and G. Ch Anawati, Introduction à la théologie musulmane: Essai de théologie comparée (Paris, 1948), 108 ff.;
46a or a different overview, which gives the actual order of the treatises, cf. F. E. Peters, Aristotle and the Arabs: The Aristotelian Tradition in Islam. (New York, 1968), 113–5. Both works, useful as they are for a quick survey of Islamic encyclopedias (Gardet and Anawati, ibid., “La place du kalâm dans l’organisation du savoir,” 94–135; Peters, ibid., “Encyclopedias”, 104–20), suffer from a lack of information on the quantitative relations between the parts of a given encyclopedia, and esp. from a lack of an analysis of the author’s intention and method.
Cf. Carmela Baffioni, “Oggetti e caratteristiche del curriculum delle scienze nell Enciclopedia dei Fratelli delia Purità,” in Studi arabi-islamici in memoria Umberto Rizzitano, ed. G. di Stefano (Mazaro del Vallo, 1991), 25–31;
Carmela Baffioni, “Greek Ideas and Vocabulary in Arabic Philosophy: The Rasâ’ilby Ikhwân aṣ-Ṣafâ’,” in Contacts Between Cultures: West Asia and North Africa, Vol. 1, ed. A. Harrak (Lewiston, 1992), 391–8.
Heinrichs, “The Classification of the Sciences,” 127 ff., who rightly stresses that “the enumeration is just that; there are no further explanations and justifications of any kind. Apart from this specific division of the sciences, the overall layout of the Rasâ’il is, of course, another attempt to list all fields of human knowledge and one that diverges considerably from their own classification.”
For Avicenna, see Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., s.v. “Ibn Sînâ, Abû’Alî.” Gutas, Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition (above, n. 27), 149–59, shows how Avicenna presents, in his autobiography, his philosophical studies as following the order of the classification in the Alexandrian/Islamic Aristotelian tradition, which reflects the historical development insofar as “this classification (of Aristotle’s works), whose function was initially and preponderantly descriptive and pedagogical... later also acquired normative value on the assumption that it reflected ontological reality as well” (149). For a classificatory scheme of the Shifâ’ (to be used with caution [see above, n. 46]), see Peters, Aristotle and the Arabs, 105–7. The Aqsâm was edited in Avicenna’s Tis’ rasâ’ilfi al-ḥikmah wa’l-ṭabî’iyyât (Constantinople, 1298 a.h.)., 71–80; French translation by G. Ch. Anawati, “Les divisions des sciences intellectuelles d’Avicenne,” Mélanges de l’Institut Dominicain d’études Orientales 13 (1977): 323–35;
new partial translation by Jean Michot, “Les sciences physiques et métaphysiques selon la Risâlah fî Aqsâm al-’ulûm d’Avicenne: Essai de traduction critique,” Bulletin de philosophie médiévale 22 (1980): 62–73.
See Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., s.v. “Fikh,” esp. 889; Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford, 1964), 59–68; and Gutas, Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition, 220–1.
Borrowed from Gutas, Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition, 253–4 (with a slight omission). A parallel passage from Avicenna’s Kitâb al-najâh (The Salvation) can be read in translation in Rosenthal, Classical Heritage, 61–3 (Fortleben, 88–91); cf. Gutas, Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition, 112–4.
Avicenna, al-Mashriqiyyûn (Cairo, 1910); discussed by Gutas, Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition, 115–30.
Bibliographical details in the Encyclopaedia of Islam’s entry (above, n. 49); G. Ch. Anawati, Mu’allafât Ibn Sînâ (Cairo, 1950);
Y. Mahdawî, Fihrist-i nuskhahâ-yi muṣannafât-i Ibn-i Sînâ (Tehran, 1954); Gutas, Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition, index of names and places, s.t. The Cure, 320.
E.g., Fakhr al-Dîn al-Râzî’s (d. 1209, cf. below) al-Mabâḥith al-mashriqiyyah (Eastern Investigations), al-Shahrazûrî’s (13th century) al-Shajarah al-ilâhiyyah (The Divine Tree), al-Abharî’s (d. 1264) Hidâyat al-ḥikmah (Guidance towards Wisdom), al-Kâtibî’s (d. 1276, a student of the famous philosopher, theologian and astronomer Nasîr al-Dîn al-Tûsî [d. 1274]) Ḥikmaṭ al-’ayn (treating only physics and metaphysics); for all authors, see Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur. Supplementband III (above, n. 14). Persian encyclopedias, a number of them in the Avicennian tradition, are presented (insufficiently, see my brief review in Die Welt des Orients 22 [1991]: 225–6) by Živa Vesel, Les encyclopédies persanes: Essai de typologie et de classification des sciences (Paris, 1986).
Cf. Hugonnard-Roche, “La classification des sciences” (above, n. 32); Edouard Weber, “La classification des sciences selon Avicenne à Paris vers 1250,” in Jolivet and Rashed, Études sur Avicenne (above, n. 32), 77–101; and particularly the studies of Marie-Thérèse d’Alverny on “Avicenna Latinus,” published in the Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age. 1961 ff.
Cf. George Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges. Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West (Edinburgh, 1981); and Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., s.v. “Madrasa,” I. The Institution in the Arabic, Persian and Turkish Lands.
Two more examples: Abû Hayyân al-Tawhîdî (d. 1023), author of a Risâlah fî al-’ulûm (Epistle on the Sciences), is again homme de lettre and Shâfi’î jurist, and the famous Ibn Khaldûn (d. 1406), author of the Muqaddimah, an “Introduction” to history, which contains, in its last chapter, an implicit system of the sciences, is a politician and historian. For AbûHayyân’s Risâlah, see Marc Berge, “épître sur les sciences... d AbûHayyân at-Tawhîdî,” Bulletin d’études orientales 18 (1963/4): 241–300, 21 (1968): 313–46; for Ibn Khaldûn’s Muqaddimah, cf. Franz Rosenthal’s translation, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, 3 vols. (New York, 1958); Simon van den Bergh, Umriß der muhammedanischen Wissenschaft nach Ibn Khaldûn (Leiden, 1912).
Trans, in Rosenthal, Classical Heritage, 58. See further 58–61 (Fortleben, 85–88); ed. Ihsân Rashîd ‘Abbâs, in Rasa’il Ibn Ḥazm al-Andalusî (Cairo, 1954 ?), 59–90 (relevant passage, 78–81). Cf. Salvador Gómez Nogales, “Teoría y classificación de la ciencia según Ibn Ḥazm,” Miscelánea de estudios árabes y hebraicos 14/15 (1965/6): 49–73.
An Andalusian peculiarity? Cf. Ṣâ’id al-Andalusî’s Ṭabaqât and Ibn Khal-dûn’s Muqaddimah.
Avicenna’s last major work; cf. the translation of its prologues and epilogue in Gutas, Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition, 54–7.
Cf. Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., s.v. “Fakhr al-Dîn al-Râzî, Abû’Abd Allah”; and Paul Kraus, “Les controverses de Fakhr al-Dîn al-Râzî,” Bulletin de llnstitut égyptien 19 (1937): 187–214.
Brockelmann, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, G I 508, S I 924; ed. Bombay 1323 a.h., Tehran 1346 a.h.; Persian edition:Jâmi’ al-’ulûm, yâ: Ḥadâyiq al-anwâr fî ḥaqâyiq al-asrâr, ma’rûf ba Kitâb-i Sittînî (Tehran, 1346 a.h./1967) (in tabular form).
For more examples, see Wilhelm Ahlwardt, Verzeichniß der arabischen Handschriften. Die Handschriften-Verzeichnisse der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin, 10 vols. (Berlin 1887–99), Vol. 1, 25–39, many of which try to attain round numbers like 40 or 100 disciplines.
Gerhard Endress, in a contribution, “Le projet d’Averroès: Constitution, réception et édition du corpus des œuvres d’Ibn Rushd,” in Averroes and the Aristotelian Tradition, ed. Gerhard Endress and Jan A. Aertsen (Leiden, 1999), 3–32, speaks of a “virtual text,” composed of all of Averroes’ commentaries and restituting the Aristotelian system: “Le projet d’Averroès, enfin, fut la dernière tentative de grande envergure pour intégrer le texte transmis dans le texte virtuel, c.-à.-d. dans une doctrine conçue comme la vraie et irréfutable interprétation d’Aristote.”
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Biesterfeldt, H.H. (2000). Medieval Arabic Encyclopedias of Science and Philosophy. In: Harvey, S. (eds) The Medieval Hebrew Encyclopedias of Science and Philosophy. Amsterdam Studies in Jewish Thought, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9389-2_4
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