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...

Aristotle's logic first became known in the Middle East through the medium of the Syriac language at a time prior to the rise of classical Arabic philosophy. The present volume makes available for the first time the earliest Syriac translation (sixth century AD) of the Categories, which is here edited together with an English translation, analytical commentary, glossaries and indices. The availability of such an important early work will enable the beginnings of the Semitic Aristotelian tradition to be studied more comprehensively. This will open the way to a better understanding of both the...

The Letter before the Spirit contains original articles based on the papers given at the Huygens ING (The Hague, 2009) on the importance of text editions for the study of the transmission of Aristotle's works in the Semitico-Latin translations and their commentary tradition in the medieval world. Authors underline this importance in general overviews and theoretical outlines and present their own work on various text editions, ranging from Syriac and Arabic to Hebrew and (Graeco) Latin, and from Aristotle, Avicenna and Averroes to Plotinus, Michael Scot, William of Moerbeke, Judah...

Aristotle's Physics and Its Reception in the Arabic World presents a survey of what Arabic philosophers, as commentators of Aristotle's Physics, have contributed to philosophy and science in the Middle Ages. It investigates to what extent they influenced one another and to what extent they were influenced by previous Greek commentators. Besides Ibn Bājja's commentary on the Physics, which had up to now only partially been edited, the commentaries of Ibn as-Samḥ, Abū Bisr Mattā, Abū l-Faraj ibn aṭ-ṭayyib and Ibn Rusd are...

The physician and commentator Sergius of Reshaina (d. 536) composed two related texts in Syriac about the philosophy of Aristotle, chiefly dealing with themes discussed by Aristotle in his Categories, but also with his teaching on space as found in the Physics. This book presents a critical edition and English translation of the shorter of these texts. A survey of Sergius' life and works is given in the introduction and the intellectual context of his education in Alexandria is outlined, with focus on the medical and philosophical curricula of the Alexandrian school. Sergius'...

Aristotle’s Historia Animalium is one of the most famous and influential zoological works that was ever written. It was translated into Arabic in the 9th century CE together with Aristotle’s other zoological works, On the Generation of Animals and On the Parts of Animals. As a result, the influence of Aristotelian zoology is widely traceable in classical Arabic literary culture and thought. The Arabic translation found its way into Europe through the 13th-century Latin translation by Michael Scotus, which was extensively used by medieval European scholars. A critical edition of the Arabic...

Themistius’ (4th century CE) paraphrase of Aristotle’s Metaphysics 12 is the earliest surviving complete account of this seminal work. Despite leaving no identifiable mark in Late Antiquity, Themistius’ paraphrase played a dramatic role in shaping the metaphysical landscape of Medieval Arabic and Hebrew philosophy and theology. Lost in Greek, and only partially surviving in Arabic, its earliest full version is in the form of a 13th century Hebrew translation. In this volume, Yoav Meyrav offers a new critical edition of the Hebrew translation and the Arabic fragments of Themistius’...