An account of what Arabic scholars have written, either as commentators or as more independent authors, on the subjects treated in Aristotle's Meteorology, this work investigates how they were influenced by one another and by previous Greek commentators. For each subject a survey is given of the content of the Greek commentaries (by Alexander, Philoponus and Olympiodorus) as well as of a later treatise, ascribed to Olympiodorus and extant only in Arabic. Then, the Arabic version of Ibn al-Bitrīq is investigated; it was one of the sources used by the Arabic writers which are...

Aristotle's Meteorology: a twin set in Mediaeval Text Tradition. The Greek text of Aristotle's Meteorology is in places highly problematic. Its edition by Fobes (1922), however, is a highlight in editorial technique. The Arabic version (c.800) is of quite different form and content. The two editions by Badawi (1961) and Petraitis (1967) were subject to considerable improvement. The present edition was done on the basis of the two extant Arabic manuscripts. The edition of the Latin translation (12th c.) from the Arabic has been constituted on the basis of 5 manuscript sources,...

This volume contains an edition, together with a translation and a commentary, of those parts relating to Aristotle's Meteorologica in Barhebraeus' Butyrum sapientiae (Cream of Wisdom), the major philosophical work of the thirteenth-century Syriac prelate and polymath. Butyrum sapientiae, though based mainly on Ibn Sīnā's Kitāb al-sifāʾ (Book of Healing), draws on a number of other sources. The detailed analysis of the text provided in this volume casts some important light on the manner in which Greek science and philosophy were...

A Critical Edition (together with introduction and English translation) of the Pseudo-Avicenna Liber Celi et Mundi, a Latin translation from Arabic of a paraphrase of Aristotle's De Caelo. It was translated in Spain in the later twelfth century, almost certainly by Dominicus Gundissalinus and Johannes Hispanus. The text circulated widely in Western Europe in the later Middle Ages, in collections of the early Latin translations of the Aristotelian corpus and of the Arabic commentaries. The Origins of the Liber Celi et Mundi are unknown but the editor suggests that the...

This volume deals with the part on practical philosophy in Barhebraeus's "Butyrum sapientiae" or " Cream of Wisdom." The practical philosophy in this large encyclopaedia of Aristotelean thinking in this Syriac language consists of three books: Ethics, Economy and Politics. The books of Ethics and Politics have been edited, translated and commented upon for the very first time in this publication. These books are unique and probably the only specimens of its kind, surviving in the Syriac language and literature. They were written at the end of Barhebraeus's life (1285/86) during a period in...

This volume contains the Syriac text, edited for the first time, of the commentary on Aristotle's Rhetoric by Bar Hebraeus (died 1286) in his Cream of Wisdom. The text is accompanied by an English translation, and the volume also includes an introduction, commentary, and three glossaries (Syriac, Greek and Arabic). Bar Hebraeus' commentary is based on the lost Syriac version of Aristotle's treatise, but the author also drew heavily on the commentary of Ibn Sina (Avicenna). The text therefore provides a unique insight into the nature of that lost version, and also exemplifies the...

This volume offers a critical edition of the only extant Arabic manuscript of the Nicomachean Ethics. A comprehensive introduction by the late Douglas M. Dunlop describes the influence this major Aristotelian work had on Arabic literature. Dunlop's annotated English translation includes important references to the Greek text of the Ethics. The appendix includes a select Greek-Arabic glossary.

The Commentary on the Categories by Abū l-Farağ ibn aṭ-Ṭayyib is an important representative of the Aristotelian tradition in Arabic culture. Formally based on late antique commentaries on Aristotle's Categories, it provides the last example of the learned tradition still alive in eleventh-century Baghdad. The introduction offers a general survey of the commentaries on Aristotelian Categories, from the first Greek texts to the Arabic version featured here. The life and works of Ibn aṭ-Ṭayyib are also discussed. Systematic comparison with...

This publication deals with an anonymous Arabic paraphrase of Aristotle's "De Anima." The paraphrase, which was translated into Persian in the thirteenth century, is to be considered as the earliest testimony of Arabo-Islamic interest in Aristotelian psychology. The first part of the book is concerned with the Arabic and Persian manuscripts and testimonies, the Greek sources of Late Antiquity, and the question of the date and identity of the author. The second part includes a critical edition with a German translation followed by a philological and philosophical commentary in the fourth part....

This volume offers the first critical edition and English translation of the Book of Physics of Barhebraeus' (d. 1286) magnum opus, Butyrum Sapientiae. Barhebraeus' text is not simply a Syriac translation of Aristotle or Avicenna; it offers some unexpected and un-Aristotelian views on time, motion, and inclination, thus adding various personal twists and turns to the work. For his Book of Physics Barhebraeus drew mainly on Arabic texts by Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, among them the as yet unedited al-Mulakhkha . There are also some remarkable similarities with the late...