arabic sciences and philosophy volume 16 issue 2 2006 [doi 10.1017%2fs0957423906000336] forcada,...

8/9/2019 Arabic Sciences and Philosophy Volume 16 Issue 2 2006 [Doi 10.1017%2fs0957423906000336] Forcada, Miquel -- Ibn Bajja and the Classification of the Sci…

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Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, vol. 16 (2006) pp. 287–307doi:10.1017/S0957423906000336 2006 Cambridge University Press

IBN BA z JJA AND THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE

SCIENCES IN AL-ANDALUS

MIQUEL FORCADA

I. INTRODUCTION

Arabic-Islamic scholars of many di # erent kinds were interestedin the classication of the sciences. The Ikhwā n al-S

*afā ’,

philosophers such as al-Kindı¯, al-Fā rā bı̄ and Ibn Sı̄nā , religiousscholars and theologians such as al-Ghazā lı¯, Abū ‘Umar ibn‘Abd al-Barr and Ibn H

*azm, a court servant, perhaps a lexi-

cographer, Abū ‘Abd Allā h al-Khwā rizmı̄, and others studiedthe various kinds of knowledge that were present in Arabic-Islamic culture, and the interrelations between them. 1 Thanksto the wealth of edited sources and secondary bibliography onthese classications there is no need to survey them all in thisintroduction. However, for the purposes of this paper it isworth noting that underlying these classications of the

sciences are two cultural traditions which many authorssought to harmonize. The rst is the classical tradition of structuring knowledge in a systematic and comprehensivecorpus, which dates back to Aristotle and was developed byHellenistic and Roman authors, and, over the course of itsevolution, eventually became an educational program. Thesecond is the Islamic framework, dened by an intellectualtradition of a legal-religious kind; inside this framework,Greek science and philosophy, together with some Hindu and

1

The main works and writings of these authors are well known and there is noneed here either to list them or to provide an exhaustive secondary bibliography.I address the reader to the following titles, which contain the necessaryreferences: Louis Gardet & M. M. Anawati, Introduction à la théologie musul-mane. Essai de théologie comparée (Paris, 1948), pp. 94–133; Jean Jolivet‘‘Classications of the sciences’’, in Roshdi Rashed (ed.) (in collaboration withRégis Morelon), Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Sciences, 3 vols.(London-New York, 1996), vol. III, pp. 1008–25; Osman Bakar, ‘‘Science’’, inSeyyed Hosein Nasr & Oliver Leaman (eds.), History of Islamic Philosophy(London-New York, 1996), pp. 926–46. This last author has written one of themost recent monographs on the subject, Classication of Knowledge in Islam. AStudy of Islamic Philosophies of Science (London, 1998; rst ed. Kuala Lumpur,

1992).


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Iranian elements (the so-called ‘‘sciences of the ancients’’),were incorporated in several di # erent ways.

From the mid 5th / 11th century onwards, al-Andalus was afertile ground for the speculation on the classication of thesciences. Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr (368 / 978–463 / 1071), Ibn H* azm(384 / 994–456 / 1064), S

*ā ‘id al-Andalusı̄ (420 / 1029–462 / 1070)

and Ibn Bā jja (d. 533 / 1139) all addressed the subject, from thetwo perspectives we have described above: Ibn ‘Abd al-Barrand Ibn H

*azm from a religious viewpoint, S

*ā ‘id al-Andalusı̄ and

Ibn Bā jja from a purely scientic one. In spite of the di# erencesall their analyses share two common features. The rst is theirproximity in time: all these scholars belong to the same era.The second is that, in their own way, they all represent a mirror

in which the growth and evolution of scientic knowledge arereected at both social and material levels. The chronologicalcoincidence of these scholars 2 is due to the internal evolutionof Andalusı̄ culture: Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, Ibn H

*azm, S

*ā ‘id, and the

young Ibn Bā jja belong to an era in which, for the rst time,both religious and rational sciences attained the levels of Mashriqı̄ knowledge. What is more, these scholars lived in anenvironment in which knowledge was expanding in variouscentres (namely the cities of Toledo, Saragossa and Seville)under the protection of learned sovereigns who promoted thetwo spheres of ‘ilm without any serious conict emergingbetween them. So in a setting in which a large number of scholars were active in both elds, it is no surprise to discoverthat several authors (Ibn H

*azm, Ibn al-Sı̄ d, al-Waqqashı̄ and

Ibn Sı̄ da) engaged in serious discussion on the harmonybetween reason and faith, and assessed the interrelation andusefulness of the sciences drawn from both. 3 And in a period of

2 Note that Ibn H*

azm is a disciple of Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr and that both are

contemporaries of S* ā ‘id al-Andalusı̄ , who, in turn, has been credited with havingbeen a disciple of Ibn H*

azm and mentions him in T *

abaqā t al-umam. Moreover,there is a clear link between the reality that S

*ā ‘id describes in this treatise and

Ibn Bā jja, as we will see below. It is also worth noting an early precedent. Sā ‘idibn Fath

*ū n ibn Mukram al-H

*imā r, who ourished in Cordova in the second half

of the 10th century, wrote two treatises that seemingly deal with that question,Shajarat al-h

*ikma and Risā la fı̄ Ta‘dı̄l al-‘ulū m (cf. S

*ā ‘id al-Andalusı̄ , T

*abaqā t

al-umam, ed. H*

ayat Bū ‘Alwā n [Beirut, 1985], p. 165).3 Cf. pp. 363–74 of the art. by Miguel Asín Palacios, ‘‘La tesis de la necesidad de la

revelación en el islam y en la escolástica’’, Al-Andalus , 3 (1935): 345–89; MarieGeneviève Balty-Guesdon, Médecins et hommes de science en Espagne musulmane(II e / VIII e –V e / XI e s.), unpublished doctoral dissertation (Université de la

Sorbonne Nouvelle), issued in microche (Lille, 1992), pp. 302–4; Darío Cabanelas,

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such scientic productivity it is natural that someone such asS*ā ‘id al-Andalusı̄ should have written a historical treatise,

Kitā b T *

abaqā t al-umam, to record the progress of al-Andalus inthis eld. 4

The classications of Ibn H* azm and Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr arealready known, and the role that the classication of thesciences plays in S

*ā ‘id’s work has also been discussed. The

present paper aims to add to this collection by describing IbnBā jja’s classication. 5 We will begin with a brief survey of thewritings of the authors mentioned above, with three aims inmind: rst, to provide a context for Ibn Bā jja’s work; second, toevaluate his work and to reassess its forerunners with regard tothe intellectual environment of the time; and third, to study the

inuence of the Aristotelian classication of the sciences andof the Ih*s*ā ’ al-‘ulū m6 by al-Fā rā bı̄ on Andalusı̄ scientists and

philosophers of the 5th / 11th century.

II. ANDALUSI z CLASSIFICATIONS: IBN H*

AZM AND IBN ‘ABDAL-BARR

As is well known, the only extant monograph that focuses onthe classication of the sciences written in al-Andalus isMarā tib al-‘ulū m by Ibn H

*azm. This work has a precedent in

the ideas that his master Abū ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-Barr expounds

Ibn Sı̄ da de Murcia. El mayor lexicógrafo de al-Andalus (Granada, 1966),pp. 72–4.

4 More explicitly, Ibn H*

azm wrote his Risā la fı̄ Fad*

l al-Andalus to celebratethe intellectual achievements of al-Andalus, and mentions a large number of scientists.

5 A study on Andalusian classications of sciences can be found in theintroductory study of the edition of Ibn H

*azm’s Marā tib al-‘ulū m by Anwar G.

Chejne, Ibn H *

azm (Chicago, 1982), in which the author also deals with Abū

‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-Barr and S* ā ‘id al-Andalusı̄ . An interesting chapter on thisquestion and on the same authors can be found in Balty-Guesdon, Médecins ethommes de science, pp. 458–73. Further bibliographical references will be givenbelow.

6 I have used the edition of Ángel González Palencia, Al-Fā rā bı̄. Catálogo delas ciencias (Madrid-Granada, 1953). This book contains a translation intoSpanish, the edition by Guilelmus Camerarius of Dominicus Gundissalinus’ Latintranslation and the Latin translation by Gerard of Cremona. As for the secondarybibliography, I refer the reader to the titles listed in note 1 above and also to themost interesting study by Muhsin S. Mahdi in his Al-Fā rā bı̄ and the Foundationof Islamic Political Philosophy (Chicago-London, 2001), chapter 4. A recentsummary of its contents can be found in Majid Fakhry, Al-Fā rā bı̄ Founder of

Islamic Neoplatonism. His Life, Works and Inuence (Oxford, 2002), pp. 40–53.

IBN BAz JJA AND THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 289


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in a chapter in Kitā b Jā mi‘ bayā n al-‘ilm.7 Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr wasone of the outstanding religious scholars in the al-Andalusof his time, and the Jā mi‘ is a wide-ranging manual on theimportance of religious disciplines, their learning, trans-mission and teaching, compiled on the basis of the propheticalh*adı̄ th. He devotes a short chapter to the classication of

the sciences, where he distinguishes between religious ( ‘ilmal-diyā nā t) and rational knowledge (here called sā ’ir al-‘ulū mal-muntah

*ala , ‘‘the rest of the professed sciences’’).8 He gives

two classications of science, one according to ‘‘philosophers’’(ahl al-falsafa ), and the other according to ‘‘religious scholars’’(ahl al-diyā nā t). Both divide sciences into three levels:superior, intermediate, and inferior. For the religious scholars,

the superior sciences are the ones that require knowledge of divine revelation; intermediate sciences deal with worldlythings (such as ‘‘medicine and geometry’’); and inferiorsciences with elementary knowledge such as writing, and artsand crafts. The author says that philosophers have a similarclassication, in which the philosophical sciences are thesuperior ones. Just as he omits philosophy from the religiousdisciplines, Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr does not state the place of thereligious disciplines in the philosophers’ classication, but heexplains the di # erences between the ‘‘intermediate sciences’’of the philosophers and religious scholars. Philosophers dividethem into arithmetic ( ‘ilm al-h

*isā b), astronomy, medicine, and

music. After stating that religious scholars do not acceptmusic, Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr describes in great detail the subjectsdealt with by mathematics, astronomy and medicine from thepoint of view of what is acceptable in religion. The only subjectexplicitly denounced is astrology: the author devotes a longparagraph to its condemnation. He also includes a three-tierclassication of the religious sciences.

7 Kitā b Jā mi‘ bayā n al-‘ ilm wa-fad*

lihi wa-mā yanbaghı̄ fı̄ riwā yatihi wa-h*amlihi

(Beirut, s.a.), pp. 36–40. A complete, recent biography and bibliography of Ibn‘Abd al-Barr can be found in the art. ‘ ‘Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, Abū ‘Umar’’, by MaribelFierro, in Jorge Lirola and José Miguel Puerta Vílchez (eds.), Enciclopedia deal-Andalus. Diccionario de autores y obras andalusíes (Granada, 2002), I, pp. 287– 92. On his classication of the sciences, see Chejne, Ibn H

*azm, pp. 89–92 and

index, and Balty-Guesdon, Médecins et hommes de science, pp. 471–2.8 Note the ecumenical spirit of the author, who refers to religious scholars and

sciences in plural, suggesting that the same conception of knowledge can befound in any religion. By the same token, he qualies profane sciences with the

adjective muntah*

al , in much the same way as if they were religious doctrines.

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Though not strictly speaking a scientist or a philosopher, Ibn‘Abd al-Barr was by no means ignorant of these subjects.Indeed, he wrote an important treatise on farā ’id

* (arithmetic

applied to inheritances) which is known to have inuencedIbn Sayyid al-Kalbı̄ , one of the most important al-Andalusmathematicians of the 5th / 11th century. 9 In this chapter onthe classication of the sciences, he shows an awareness of many of them, and Balty-Guesdon even suggests that thestructure of his classication may have been inuenced by thatof the Ikhwā n al-S

*afā ’. From his pages we can infer an

acceptance (found also in other religious scholars of his time)of a wide range of subjects which did not challenge orthodoxyand were also socially useful, though the criterion of social

utility is not explicitly stated. Nonetheless, he does not bringtogether the sciences of reason and faith in a single corpus; infact, the two spheres are presented as if they were two separateworlds.

Ibn H*

azm10 attempts to combine reason and faith, perhapsbecause unlike his master he was well trained in philosophy,though not in science, apart from some knowledge of medi-cine.11 In the Marā tib al-‘ulū m the author presents a syllabusto enable the student to acquire a global knowledge thatharmonizes rational and religious sciences. This syllabus isstructured in three tiers that coincides faithfully with the threelevels of sciences dened by Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr. At the elemen-tary level, the student must learn to read and write andmemorize the Koran. At the intermediate stage, he must learngrammar, poetry, mathematics, geometry, astronomy (notastrology), then logic, botany, zoology, mineralogy and

9 Cf. Heinrich Suter, Die Mathematiker und Astronomen der Araber und ihreWerke (Leipzig, 1900–1902; reprinted in Amsterdam, 1981), p. 104, no. 236. On Ibn

Sayyid, see Ahmed Djebbar, ‘‘Deux mathématiciens peu connus de l’Espagne duXIe siècle: al-Mu’taman et Ibn Sayyid’’, in Menso Folkerts & Jan P. Hogendijk(eds.), Vestigia Mathematica: Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Mathematicsin Honour of H.L.L. Busard ( Amsterdam-Atlanta, 1993), pp. 79–91.

10 We should mention some additional bibliography relating to Ibn H*

azm. Hedeals with the classication of the sciences in his Marā tib al-‘ulū m, as stated, andin some other works which are listed in note 2 on p. 50 of the article by SalvadorGómez Nogales, ‘‘Teoría y clasicación de la ciencia según Ibn H

*azm’’,

Miscelánea de Estudios Árabes y Hebraicos, 14–15 (1965–66): 49–73. This articleremains a useful approach to this subject. More recent studies can be found inBalty-Guesdon, Médecins et hommes de science, pp. 468–73; Juan Vernet, Lo queEuropa debe al Islam de España (Barcelona, 1999), pp. 58–9.

11

Cf. Chejne, Ibn H *

azm, pp. 38–9.



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anatomy. At the superior level, the student must study whatJolivet calls ‘‘a sort of rational theology’’. 12 Underlying thisclassication is an Aristotelian-Farabian order distorted byIbn H

*azm’s own criteria, the most important of which was,

obviously, the subordination of any knowledge to the revealedtruth, that is to say, to the only sciences that lead to salvation.Rational sciences are merely a propaedeutic tool for thereligious.

III. S*

Az ‘ID AL-ANDALUSI z’S CLASSIFICATION OF THESCIENCES: BETWEEN AL-FA z RAz BIz AND IBN BA z JJA

S*ā ‘id al-Andalusı̄ was a judge, but also a pure scientist, an

astronomer, who was interested in history. Merging the twodisciplines he wrote his famous Kitā b T * abaqā t al-umam,13 inwhich he intended to present a systematic summary of thehistory of science and scientists since time immemorial. Thebook deals almost exclusively with the sciences of the ancients,and, unlike the works mentioned above, includes astrology.However, religious sciences are omitted, as is the religiousperspective on sciences, which is at the core of Ibn H

*azm and

Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr’s classications. As noted above, S*ā ‘id’s book

is a true celebration of rational sciences. Astronomy was hislife’s work; it is the science that occupies him most in T * abaqā t,in which he also discusses other mathematical disciplines. Hepossibly had some knowledge of medicine, due, perhaps, to theimportance of the discipline in Toledo and to his personalrelationship with some of the outstanding physicians of thiscity such as Ibn Wā d.

Though we do not know whether S*ā ‘id was trained in

philosophy, he must have had some knowledge of the disci-pline. In the learned Toledan circles to which he belonged 14

there were many people with a knowledge of philosophy and, in12 Jolivet, ‘‘Classication’’, p. 1008.13 As for the bibliography about the author and the work, I refer the reader to

my article ‘‘Biografías de cientícos’’, in M aI Luisa Ávila and Manuela Marín(eds.), Estudios Onomástico-Biográcos de al-Andalus, VIII. Biografías y génerobiográco en el occidente islámico (Madrid, 1997), pp. 201–48, and GabrielMartinez Gros, ‘‘S

*ā ‘id al-Andalusı̄’’, Encyclopédie de l’Islam, 2nd ed. (Leiden,

1995), VIII, p. 889.14 On philosophy in the kingdom of Toledo at that time, see Rafael Ramón

Guerrero, ‘‘La losofía en la corte de al-Ma’mū n de Toledo’’, Miscelánea deEstudios Árabes y Hebraicos, 32–33 (1983–84): 167–79, and Balty-Guesdon,

Médecins et hommes de science, pp. 298–314.

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T *

abaqā t, we can see that he held the discipline in high esteem:he tries to draw attention to it by highlighting the works of thefew Andalusı̄ philosophers he knew at that time (namely IbnH

*azm and Ibn Sı̄ da, both mentioned as logicians); he describes

in great detail all the scientists who were knowledgeable of philosophical disciplines, although they were not philosophers;nally, he shows an adequate knowledge of the falsafa, particu-larly of Aristotle and al-Fā rā bı̄ . He describes the latter’s bookson logic, the Ih

*s*ā ’ al-‘ulū m, and some of his most important

works,15 so accurately that he may actually have studied them.The clearest evidence that he had read some al-Fā rā bı¯ can befound in the description of Aristotelian works and in theenumeration of the Greek philosophical schools presented in

T * abaqā t, which are practically literal quotations from theshort tract Risā la fı̄ mā yanbaghı̄ an yuqaddam qabla ta‘allumal-falsafa .16

The classication of the sciences appears in T *

abaqā t in twoways. First, directly, in S

*ā ‘id’s extremely favourable descrip-

tion of the Ih*s*ā ’ al-‘ulū m: ‘‘There had never been a book like it

and no one has tried to imitate it. No student of any of thesciences can do without it or proceed without it’’; 17 and second,indirectly, in the way in which S

*ā ‘id arranges the various

disciplines and authors included in the book. 18 In this connec-tion, we should note that the Farabian order does not appear assuch, for obvious reasons: being a work of the t

*abaqā t genre,

the chronological criterion had to be respected; most of S*ā ‘id

biographees were active in several disciplines, a fact thatmakes a stratication science-by-science impossible; nally, anexperienced scientist like S

*ā ‘id had his own criteria and

preferences. What is really of interest to us is the idea that theIh

*s*ā ’ is a guide for correct scientic training, even though this

book has not a pedagogic purpose. In the biography of one of 15 S

*ā ‘id, T

*abaqā t, pp. 137–40.

16 I have used the editions by F. Dieterici, Al-Fā rā bı̄’s philosophischeAbhandlungen (Leiden, 1890), pp. 49–55 and Muh

*ammad T. Dā neshpazū h,

al-Mant*iqiyyā t li-al-Fā rā bı̄ , I (Qum, 1408 / 1987–8), pp. 1–10, together with the

Spanish translation by Rafael Ramón Guerrero, ‘‘Una introducción de al-Fā rā bı ¯ ala losoa’’, Al-Qant

*ara , 5 (1984): 5–14. Compare pp. 50–1 of the ed. by Dieterici

and 1–4 of the ed. by Dā neshpazū h with pp. 76–81 and 92–3 of T *

abaqā t.17 S

*ā ‘id, T

*abaqā t, pp. 205–6; English translation by Sema‘an I. Salem and Alok

Kumar, Science in the Medieval World by S *

ā ‘id al-Andalusı̄ (Austin, 1991), p. 50.18 On the classication of the sciences in S

*ā ‘id and al-Fā rā bı̄’s inuence, see

Balty-Guesdon, Médecins et hommes de science, pp. 458–63, and Forcada,

‘‘Biografías de cientícos’’, pp. 221–8.



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the outstanding Jewish scholars of Saragossa, Abū al-Fad*l

H*

asdā y ibn Yū suf ibn H*

asdā y, the relationship between classi-cation of the sciences and education is explicitly described:

Among their youths who live in our era, we name Abū al-Fad*

l H*

asdā y b.Yū suf b. H*

asdā y of the city of Saragossa and of the Jewish nobility inal-Andalus; he is a descendant of the Prophet Moses – peace be uponhim. Abū al-Fad

*l studied the sciences in the proper order, adopting the

best methods. He learned with precision the Arabic language, itsrhetoric, and the composition of poetry. He excelled in the science of number, geometry and astronomy. He understood the art of music andtried to practice it. He showed deep interest in the science of logic andpracticed the various methods of research and observations in this eld.Then he elevated himself to the study of the natural sciences and beganby studying [sam‘ ] the Kitā b al-Kiyā n [Physics] of Aristotle until heunderstood it well, then he took to the study of Kitā b al-Samā ’ wa-al-‘Az lam [De Caelo et Mundo]. This is when I left him in A.H. 458[A.D. 1066], while he was uncovering the unknown. If Allā h provideshim with His protection, and he lives long, he shall perform well in theeld of philosophy and all its branches. 19

This paragraph is important for several reasons. First of all, asBalty-Guesdon notes, because it lays out S

*ā ‘id’s conception of

the classication and order of the sciences. 20 Second, as Balty-Guesdon also remarks, because the list of disciplines givencoincides closely with the order of the Ih

*s*ā ’ , even though logic

is placed between mathematical disciplines and physics andnot before mathematics, as it is in the Ih*s*ā ’ . In this connection,

it is worth noting that Abū al-Fad*l H

*asdā y’s biography, Ibn

H*

azm’s Marā tib and al-Kindı̄ ’s classication of the sciences putlogic in the same place. 21 Actually, the order of disciplines inal-Kindı̄ ’s Risā la fı̄ Kammiyyat Kutub Arist

*ū t

*ā lı̄ s, which has a

didactic purpose, is the one that coincides best with theparagraph by S

*ā ‘id quoted above. The third reason for stress-

ing the importance of this text is that it records actualfacts (since the author knew the biographee personally),and explains how the sciences of the ancients were taughtand learned in Ibn Bā jja’s homeland. We thus see that the

19 S*ā ‘id, T

*abaqā t, pp. 205–6; English trans., pp 81–2. On this author, see José

MaI Millás Vallicrosa, La poesía sagrada hebraicoespañola (Madrid, 1940), pp. 44–5and 83, Eliahu Ashtor, ‘‘H

*isdai ibn H

*isday, Abū l-Fad

*l’’, Encyclopaedia Judaica

(Jerusalem, 1972), VIII, p. 533, and section 4.1. below.20 Balty-Guesdon, Médecins et hommes de science, p. 459.21 Jolivet, ‘‘Classication’’, pp. 1009–10. See al-Kindı̄, Risā la fı̄ Kammiyyat

Kutub Arist*ū t

*ā lı̄ s, ed. Muh

*ammad ‘Abd al-Hā dı̄ Abū Rı¯da (Cairo, 1950), I, pp. 369

and 378.

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Aristotelian classication, known through al-Kindı ¯ or al-Fā rā bı̄, was vital to the learning of the sciences; that youngstudents were expected to have acquired wide training in mostof the sciences; and nally, that the teaching of the sciences of the ancients had been systematized since Abū al-Fad* l H* asdā yibn Yū suf ibn H

*asdā y learned the Physics by listening to a

master and not via his own study. Seen in connection with IbnBā jja, the text appears to be more than a mere description of agiven context.

IV. IBN BA z JJA’S CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES

4.1. Autobiographical aspectsIt is well known that during the time of the mulū k al-t

*awā ’if

(5th / 11th century) many scholars frequented and settled inSaragossa, which was ruled by a learned dynasty. Al-Muqtadirand al-Mu’taman ibn Hū d, both described as knowledgeable of many scientic and philosophic disciplines (the latter in factwas the author of the Kitā b al-Istikmā l , one of the mostimportant mathematical treatises ever written in al-Andalus),promoted an intellectual climate in which the inuence of the

Ikhwā n al-S*

afā ’ and al-Fā rā bı̄ was widely felt.22

In such an environment, it is hard to see Ibn H*

asdā y’straining as an exception rather than the rule. It seems to havebeen an example of a system that was relatively common amongthe minority (quite a large minority in Saragossa) of thefollowers of the sciences of the ancients. This model of learningaccording to the Aristotelian classication was followed by IbnBā jja,23 as he himself acknowledges in a letter 24 to Abū Ja‘far

22 There is a huge bibliography on Saragossan scholars. I refer the reader to

the following introductory surveys and summaries: Joaquín Lomba, La losofíaislámica en Zaragoza (Saragossa, 1987), and El Ebro: puente de Europa.Pensamiento musulmán y judío (Saragossa, 2002), particularly pp. 133–207 y 329– 483; Balty-Guesdon, Médecins et hommes de science, pp. 325–43; Julio Samsó, Lasciencias de los antiguos en al-Andalus (Madrid, 1992), index; p. 258 of Juan Vernetand Julio Samsó, ‘‘The development of Arabic science in Andalusia’’, inEncyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science, I, 243–75.

23 Ibn Bā jja’s life has been widely studied. I refer the reader to the most recentbiography, Joaquín Lomba and José Miguel Puerta Vílchez, ‘‘Ibn Bā jja’’,Enciclopedia de al-Andalus , I, 624–63.

24 Ibn Bā jja, Rasā ’il falsayya li-Abı̄ Bakr ibn Bā jja. Nus*ū s

* falsayya ghayr

manshū ra , ed. Jamal al-Dı̄ n al-‘Alawı̄ (Beirut-Casablanca, 1983), pp. 78–9. This

letter appeared together with a manuscript of his Physics, as we can see on



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Yū suf ibn H*

asdā y (an Andalusı̄ physician who emigrated toEgypt)25 in which he explains the order in which he learnedvarious sciences: after having mastered music, he studiedastronomy and then physics. Before starting on physics he musthave studied logic while trying to acquire a thorough knowl-edge of astronomy in Seville. Like Ibn H

*asdā y, Ibn Bā jja

progressed from mathematical to philosophical matters via thestudy of logic and physics, as we can see in the following linesof the above mentioned letter:Meanwhile [in the course of his studies of astronomy] I did notunderstand properly al-Fā rā bı̄ ’s treatment of the various types of apodictic demonstration ( burhā n ) which he enumerated, and thisremained a subject that I have only recently been able to elucidate. Then

I devoted myself to speculation on physics, which is the task I mostprefer. Of all the issues of the Physics [. . .]. I have commented it becauseit contains the principles and all that comes after is its consequence. 26

Many years ago, following Stern’s suggestion, 27 Pines proposedthat there was a link between the Saragossan and the EgyptianH

*asdā ys (Abū Ja‘far Yū suf may have been a son of Abū

al-Fad*l). Since then, this relationship has been accepted by

other scholars who have studied the biographical sources ingreat detail. 28 Vernet goes as far as to suggest that the H

*asdays

were one and the same person, speculating that he may havedied around 515 / 1121, at the age of seventy-ve. Whatever thecase, these biographical considerations strengthen the linkbetween Ibn Bā jja and a method of teaching that was struc-tured according to the Aristotelian classication and in whichlogic had an essential function. Let us now look at the role of

pp. 443–4 of Shlomo Pines, ‘‘La dynamique d’Ibn Bā jja’’, Mélanges AlexandreKoyré (Paris, 1964), I, pp. 442–68; reprinted in The Collected Works of ShlomoPines (Jerusalem, 1986), vol. II, pp. 440–68.

25

Ibn Abı̄ Us* aybi‘a, ‘Uyū n al-anbā ’ fı¯ t* abaqā t al-at* ibbā ’ , ed. N. Rid* ā (Beirut,1965), pp. 499–500.26 Ibn Bā jja, Rasā ’il , p. 79. The blank corresponds to some words that make no

sense to the editor. Pines (‘ ‘La dynamique’’, p. 444), who acknowledges thedi$ culties of this text, renders the last part of it as: ‘‘Puis je me suis consacré àla spéculation concernant la physique. Je n’ai pas pris cette décision pourtravailler sur les choses claires qui se trouvent dans l’Akroasis Physiké (samā‘ al-t

*abı̄ ‘ı̄ ) [. . .] Je l’ai prise parce que cet ouvrage contient les principes, et tout ce

qui vient après en est une conséquence’’.27 Pines, ‘‘La dynamique’’, p. 444, n. 7.28 J. Vernet, La transmisión de algunas ideas cientı́ cas de oriente a occidente y

de occidente a oriente en los siglos XI–XIII (Rome, 1992), pp. 25–31; Lomba, El

Ebro, pp. 336–7.

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conceived as an appendix of his commentary to al-Fā rā bı̄ ’sBurhā n, consists of a study on the correctness of the scienticmethod used by the astronomers in order to criticise them. Healso addresses essential epistemological concepts such astas* dı̄ q and tas* awwur and, albeit only in passing, the order andprimacy of sciences.33 In other works he also studies theproblematic of scientic method in non-mathematical sciencessuch as biology and medicine, and devotes to the subject a largenumber of pages in which he also addresses mathematicalsciences. 34

4.3. Ibn Bā jja’s classication of the sciences

Ibn Bā jja’s longest text on the subject appears as an explana-tory interpolation in his glosses to al-Fā rā bı¯’s commentary toPorphyry’s Isagoge.35 So the classication of the sciences isinserted in the introduction to the Organon; in other words, apropaedeutic question appears at the very beginning of IbnBā jja’s process of understanding a propaedeutic discipline. Thetext is the following: 36

al-falak al-bat* lı̄ mū sı̄’’, Dirasā t fı̄ ta’rı̄kh al-‘ulū m wa-al-ibistı¯mū lū jiya, coord. S.Yafū t (Rabat, 1996), pp. 65-73. On this treatise, see p. 151 and passim of thearticle by Gerhard Endress, ‘‘Mathematics and philosophy in medieval Islam’’, inJan P. Hogendijk and Abdelhamid I. Sabra (eds.), The Enterprise of Science inIslam ( Cambridge-London, 2003), pp. 121–76.

33 The study of tas*dı̄ q and tas

*awwur in Ibn Bā jja is beyond the scope to this

article. He addresses the famous couplet in many treatises and his glosses toal-Fā rā bı̄’s logic are the most important source on this question (see, particularly,his Ta‘ā lı̄ q to Burhā n, already quoted, and to al-Isā ghū jı̄ and al-Fus

*ū l al-Khamsa,

edited by M. Fakhry in Ta‘ā lı̄ q Ibn Bā jja ‘alā Mant*iq al-Fā rā bı̄ (Beirut, 1994),

and by Dā neshpazū h in al-Mant*iqiyyā t li-al-Fā rā bı̄ , 3). Consequently, Ibn Bā jja’s

thought about this issue is profoundly indebted to that of al-Fā rā bı¯; on the latter,

see the following studies: Deborah L. Black, Logic and Aristotle’s Rhetoric andPoetics in Medieval Arabic Philosophy (Leiden et al., 1990), pp. 71–8; MiriamGalston, Opinion and Knowledge in Fā rā bı̄’s Understanding of Aristotle’sPhilosophy , unpublished Ph.D. thesis of the University of Chicago, 1973, pp. 204– 10; Joep Lameer, Al-Fā rā bı̄ and Aristotelian Syllogistics. Greek Theory andIslamic Practice (Leiden et al., 1994), pp. 266 and seq. and 275 and seq.

34 See Ibn Bā jja’s Kitā b al-H *

ayawā n, ed. Jawwā d al-‘Ammā ratı̄ (Casablanca-Beirut, 2002), particularly pp. 65–77, and Ibn Bā jja’s commentary to Hippocrates’sAphorisms, unedited work preserved in ms. Berlin 5060, fols. 85a–90a.

35 The glosses of Ibn Bā jja to Farabian Isagoge are gathered in two shorttracts, Kitā b Isā ghū jı̄ and Gharad

* Abı̄ Nas

*r fı̄ Isā ghū jı̄ which can be found in the

above quoted editions by Fakhry in pp. 23–62, and by Dā neshpazū h in pp. 16–51.36

Ed. Fakhry, pp. 27–9; ed. Dā neshpazū h, pp. 17–19.

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The syllogistic arts are those whose object consists of being used onceintegrated and perfected, and they do not have among their aims thedoing of some particular work. They are ve: philosophy and its arts.Philosophy is the art that comprehends all beings ( mawjū dā t)37 in so faras they are known via a certain science. Its parts are establishedaccording to the parts of beings.

Among them, there is theology [al-‘ ilm al-ilā hı̄ ], which comprehendsthe beings which are the ultimate causes of anything a # ected by them,and are neither a body nor in a body.

Among them, there is physical science [al-‘ilm al-t*abı̄ ‘ı̄ ], the theoreti-

cal art by which the true science in natural bodies, and in the accidentsof the essence as well, is attained. It comprehends all beings whoseexistence does not originate in the human will, 38 which are the bodiescomposed by matter and form and their inherent accidents with respectto matter and form.

Among them is the science of the will [al-‘ ilm al-irā dı̄ , politics], whichcomprehends the beings that exist through human will and choice. Theyconsist of virtues and vices.

Among them are the mathematical sciences [ al-ta‘ ā lı̄m], which com-prehend beings separated from matter but not from number andmeasure. They are divided into seven classes: the rst is arithmetic [ ‘ilmal-‘adad], which studies the properties and characters of numbers; thesecond is geometry [‘ilm al-handasa ], which studies the line, the surfaceand the body taken in themselves; the third is optics [ ‘ilm al-manā z

*ir ,

the science of the aspects], which studies the line, the surface and thebody in so far as they are objects of observation; the fourth is astronomy[‘ilm al-nujū m], which studies the quantity of movements of celestialbodies, their structure, and the dimension of their sizes and distances;the fth is music, which studies the sounds and their relations, as wellas their harmony and discord, and enumerates their properties concern-ing their measure; the sixth is statics [ ‘ilm al-athqā l , the science of theweights] which studies either their measure or what is measured bythem, and the way of lifting and moving them from a place to another;the seventh is the science of artices [ ‘ilm al-h

*iyal ],39 which studies the

way of making real many things that can be proved theoretically bymeans of mathematical sciences. The artice seeks to remove theobstacles that impede its existence and also the contrary. There are

37

The term mawjū dā t is employed very frequently by al-Fā rā bı̄ to designate theobject of the sciences, as we can see, for example, in the Ih*

s*ā ’ in the chapter

devoted to metaphysics and Tah*s*ı̄ l al-Sa‘ā da (vz. pp. 8–9 of Hyderabad’s edition,

1344 / 1925; pp. 18–19 of Muhsin Mahdi’s translation in Al-Fā rā bı̄ ’s Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle [New York, 1962]). On the equivalence of this term, see pp.181–2 in Richard Lemay, ‘‘Gerard of Cremona’’, Dictionary of Scientic Biography,XV (supplement I), (New York, 1978), pp. 173–92.

38 The negative sense that this sentence requires is not recorded in theeditions. The whole sentence should be read, in my opinion, as: ‘‘ wa-huwa yashtamilu ‘alā al-mawjū dā t allā tı̄ wujū duhā [laysa] bi-irā dati al-insā n as

*lan ’’.

39 I prefer not to translate this term by its standard equivalent ‘‘engineering’’because in al-Fā rā bı̄ and Ibn Bā jja this word has a more general meaning, as we

will see presently.



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mathematical artices [ ‘adadiyya] such as algebra, geometrical artices[handasiyya ] and static artices [ athqā liyya].

Among them is the art of logic, which comprehends all the inherentproperties of beings that appear to the human mind when it speculates

about each one of these beings. Because of those properties and theirknowledge, [the art of logic] is a tool that permits the comprehension of what is correct and certain in beings. For this reason, some consider itonly as an instrument of philosophy, not as a part of it, but, in so far asthose properties are, in turn, beings, and their knowledge, the science of a certain kind of beings, some others consider it as a part of philosophy.Both aspects occur in it. Philosophy has thus become a word thatcomprehends theology, physics, the science of the will and mathematicalsciences.

The art of logic which provides the rules to grasp the true knowledgein these beings and in the various arts that philosophy comprehends aswell, is named demonstration [ burhā n].As for dialectics [ jadal ], it is the art that comprehends beings in sofar as it employs in them the conrmation and refutation throughknown methods, and its most important aim is to give a solid opinionfrom them. It is a technique [mihna ] that employs practice in refutingand conrming some position. The part of logic that gives the rules of this art is also named dialectics, and its name is given by homonymy[bi-al-ishtirā k].

As for sophistry, it is the art that comprehends beings in so far as onedisguises and misleads them, and their truth is represented in the formof error and the error in the form of truth. Its most important aim is to

induce error about truth and to oppose it. The part of logic that gives therules of this art is named sophistry, and its name is also given byhomonymy.

As for rhetoric [khit*ā ba], it is the art that comprehends beings in so far

as they are studied through the accepted methods and what is believedwithout further consideration. Its most important aim is the trust insomething. It is a technique employed to teach common people thedemonstrative things of sciences that they cannot judge for themselves.The part of logic that gives the rules of this art is also named rhetoric,and its name is given by homonymy.

As for poetry [shi‘r], it is the art that comprehends beings in so far as

they are imagined and represented with images. It is a techniqueemployed to teach common people what they can themselves representof the things conceived in the sciences. Its most important aim is tocompare a thing with its image, in as much as the form of Zayd can beseen in a mirror. The part of logic that gives the rules of this art is alsonamed poetry, and its name is also given by homonymy.

All these are the syllogistic arts, whose operation and aim, onceperfected, consists of applying syllogisms. All of them, with the excep-tion of philosophy, have recourse to syllogisms only for discourse[mukhā t

*aba ], whereas philosophy for discourse and deduction. Among

the practical arts [ s*anā ’i‘ ‘amaliyya], there are some which use syllo-

gisms, such as medicine and agronomy, but they are not termed

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syllogistic because their ultimate aim is not to discourse and to employsyllogism but to do some kind of work.This text is like a set of Russian dolls. The general frameworkis set out by the abovementioned work by al-Fā rā bı̄ , Kitā bIsā ghū jı̄ ay al-Madkhal ,40 which begins with the followingwords: ‘‘Our purpose in this book is the enumeration of the things of which judgments are composed and into whichthey are divided, viz., the parts of the syllogistic expressionsemployed in general in all the syllogistic arts’’. Ibn Bā jjadevotes more than a page to glossing this sentence, often wordby word, until he reaches the expression ‘‘syllogistic arts’’, thecommentary of which is the text translated above.

The text is framed with the materials provided by another of the introductory works by al-Fā rā bı̄ , usually known by theheading of one of its manuscripts, Risā la S

*udira bihā al-

Kitā b.41 At the beginning, al-Fā rā bı̄ sums up and brieyexplains the disciplines that use the syllogism, in a text which,though lacking any reference to religious and linguistic disci-plines, seems to be the archetype of his Ih

*s*ā ’ al-‘ulū m. From

here, Ibn Bā jja extracts the main issues of his text, sometimesreproducing them literally: the absence of an explanationof the distinction between s

*inā ‘a and ‘ilm; the distinction

between syllogistic and non-syllogistic disciplines; parts of logic. Since this Farabian text contains only extremely brief explanations of these subjects, particularly of the mathemati-cal sciences, Ibn Bā jja completes it by extracting severalparts of Ih

*s*ā ’ al-‘ulū m.42 Thus, four mathematical disciplines

(arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music) become the sevenseen above and are dened with the words of the Ih

*s*ā ’ . Ibn

Bā jja’s text is not particularly original, but in some instances

40

I have used the edition by Dā neshpazū h, al-Mant* iqiyyā t li-al-Fā rā bı̄ , 1,pp. 28–39, together with the edition and translation into English by Donald M.Dunlop, ‘‘Al-Fā rā bı̄’s Eisagoge’’, Islamic Quarterly , 3 (1956): 117–38. See also theSpanish translation and a helpful introduction by R. Ramón Guerrero, ‘‘Al-Fā rā bı ¯lógico. Su exposición a la Isagogé de Porrio’’, Revista de Filosofía, 3 (1990):45–67.

41 I have used the edition by Dā neshpazū h, al-Mant*iqiyyā t li-al-Fā rā bı̄ , 1,

pp. 11–17, together with the edition and translation into English by D. M.Dunlop, ‘‘Al-Fā rā bı̄’s Introductory Risā lah on Logic’’, Islamic Quarterly , 3 (1956):224–35.

42 D. M. Dunlop noted many years ago the presence of materials from Risā laS *

udira and Ih*

s*ā ’ in this text by Ibn Bā jja (cf. ‘‘Al-Fā rā bı¯’s Introductory Risā lah’’,

p. 224).



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he di# ers from the two Farabian referents. The followingfeatures are worth noting:

(a) The author adds a general denition of philosophy thatis consistent with the statements of al-Fā rā bı¯ in Tah

*s*ı̄ l al-

sa‘ā da.43(b) He attributes a secondary role to metaphysics and poli-

tics (named al-‘ilm al-madanı̄ by al-Fā rā bı̄ and al-‘ilm al-irā dı̄ by Ibn Bā jja).

(c) However, he deals with physics and mathematicalsciences in more detail.

(d) He questions the status of logic as a science. In Risā laS *

udira al-Fā rā bı̄ mentions it as a philosophical tool, but hedoes not pose the question of whether it is in fact a science. In

Ih* s* ā ’ , logic is not named a ‘‘theoretical science’’ in the chapterdevoted to it, but it is considered one of the theoretical sciences(together with mathematics and natural sciences) in the chap-ter devoted to theology. 44 Ibn Bā jja’s reason for consideringlogic as a science coincides with the thought of al-Fā rā bı̄ , whomaintains that the subject of logic is a particular class of being,di# erent from mathematical and natural beings. 45

The third point deserves our attention, because it appears to beconnected with Ibn Bā jja’s own intellectual evolution and it ishere that we nd the main di # erence from the usual arrange-ment of sciences in al-Fā rā bı̄’s works: the order of the threemajor disciplines ( the other is that Ibn Bā jja presents them indescending order). The subjects that Ibn Bā jja focuses on here,physics and mathematics, are those which he says dominatedbefore the start of his epoch focused on philosophical disci-plines, as we have seen before. His concern with physicalsciences seems to be the reason for his alteration of al-Fā rā bı¯’sarrangement of the major disciplines. Ibn Bā jja presents them

43 Cf. Tah*

s*ı̄ l , p. 40; p. 44 of Mahdi’s translation: ‘‘Now when one acquires

knowledge of the beings or receives instruction in them, if he perceives theirideas themselves with his intellect, and his assent to them is by means of certaindemonstration, then the science that comprises these cognitions is philosophy’’.

44 Al-Fā rā bı̄, Ih*

s*ā ’ , Arabic text, p. 88.

45 Cf. Mahdi, Al-Fā rā bı̄ and the Foundation of Islamic Political Philosophy ,p. 80, and al-Fā rā bı̄, Falsafat Arist

*ū t

*ā lı̄ s, trans. by Mahdi, Al-Fā rā bı̄’s Philosophy

of Plato and Aristotle , p. 82. About this classical question, see also A. I. Sabra,‘‘Avicenna on the subject matter of logic’’, The Journal of Philosophy , 77 (1980):746–64 (reprinted in A. I. Sabra, Optics, Astronomy and Logic [Aldershot-

Brookeld, 1994]), and Chejne, Ibn H *

azm, pp. 161-3.

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in descending order as follows: theology, physics and politics.In Risā la S

*udira and other texts such as Ih

*s*ā ’ and Tah

*s*ı̄ l ,

al-Fā rā bı̄ places physics, theology and politics in ascendingorder, after logic and the mathematical sciences. His criterionis the order of instruction, which, in the path towards humanhappiness, starts with the disciplines whose principles of instruction are easier to grasp and nishes with the mostdi$ cult matters. 46 Ibn Bā jja, in the text we are dealing with,only states that the parts of philosophy ‘‘are establishedaccording to the parts of beings’’ and omits any furtherexplanation. His reasons are explicitly and thoroughly ex-pounded in a later work, the commentary to Aristotle’s On theSoul , in which he ranks psychology after metaphysics and

before politics. In this regard, it must be taken into accountthat psychology, in spite of Aristotle hesitations, can be con-sidered one of the physical sciences, and this is the positionthat Ibn Bā jja adopts in his commentary to On the Soul , whichis also consistent with al-Fā rā bı̄ ’s Ih

*s*ā ’ :47

All sciences, according to Aristotle, are a beautiful good, but some of them are nobler than others, and the ranks of the nobility of the scienceshave been enumerated 48 in many places. The science of the soul [i.e.psychology] precedes the rest of the natural sciences, and the math-ematical disciplines as well, in all kinds of nobility. By the same token,all sciences are obliged to have recourse to the science of the soul sinceit would be impossible for us to grasp the principles of sciences withoutgrasping the soul and knowing by the denition what is it, as has beenexplained in many places. Also, it is well known that he who is not sureof knowing the condition of his soul, is more likely to be unsure of theknowledge of any other condition [. . .] The science of the soul permitsthe investigator the possibility of employing premises without which thephysical science could not be complete. As for the political science(al-h

*ikma al-madaniyya ) it is not possible to say anything about it in an

appropriate order before the knowledge of the issues of the soul. Scienceis noble either by the consistency ( wathı̄ qa), which is the patentcertainty of its phrases, or by the nobility and admirable condition of itssubject, as in the case of astronomy. The science of the soul has bothconditions and it is worthy of being the noblest of the sciences with the

46 For a study of the reasons that underlie al-Fā rā bı¯’s conception of thehierarchy of the sciences and their classication, see Bakar, Classication of Knowledge, pp. 43–151 and 263–6.

47 In this book psychology is also ranked among the physical sciences (cf.Ih

*s*ā ’ , Arabic text, p. 87).

48 This verb, here read as ‘uddidat , can also be rendered by the rst person of singular and in active voice. I have no sound reason for preferring one or other

reading.



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exception of the science of the rst principle ( i.e. metaphysics). It seemsthat the latter might be considered science in another way, distinct fromthe rest of the sciences, due to the distinctiveness of the beings that itdeals with. It is not possible to know the rst principle without aprevious knowledge of the soul, because the knowledge of it would beincomplete. The most complete way of understanding the rst principleis the science that uses the possibility a # orded by the science of thesoul.49

We see in this paragraph that Ibn Bā jja simultaneously appliestwo di# erent criteria, ontological and methodological, whichhe wisely combines. From the ontological point of view, thenobility of the soul saves him from the contradiction of prefer-ring the physical sciences (which also deal with the lowest partof the hierarchy of beings) to politics, whose subject mattercould be seen as nobler; on the other hand, and for the samereason, metaphysics must be placed ahead of any other science.Regarding methodology, primacy corresponds to metaphysicsinsofar as it is, according to al-Fā rā bı̄ ’s Ih

*s*ā ’ , Risā la S

*udira

and related texts, the science of the principles par excellence.Notwithstanding this, at the end of the paragraph he statesthat we can only understand it once we are acquainted with thevery process of knowing, the mastery of which is considered thekey to any other scientic speculation. In this regard, politics

is explicitly said to be dependent on psychology.The classication of the sciences that Ibn Bā jja includes inhis glosses to al-Fā rā bı̄’s Isagoge shows two complementaryfacets. On the one hand, we see in it a relatively inexperiencedIbn Bā jja arranging some of the sciences he knows according toa method that he still has not mastered, following a system thatleads him from the auxiliary and instrumental disciplines tothe superior ones. On the other, we can consider this classi-cation against the background of his peculiar approach toscience. In this extension, these notes to al-Fā rā bı¯’s commen-tary of Isagoge might be understood as a preliminary step in IbnBā jja’s scientic (understanding the term in its broadest sense)project. Within this project, we can include the commentariesto the Organon in al-Fā rā bı̄’s version, which are followed by

49 Ibn Bā jja, Kitā b al-Nafs, ed. Muh*ammad S

*aghı̄ r H

*asan al-Ma‘s

*ū mı̄ (Beirut,

1992), pp. 29–30, and ed. Jamā l Rā shiq ( Fā s, 1999 ), pp. 93–4. As it is well known,psychology plays an essential role in Ibn Bā jja’s philosophy, but an account of this question is far beyond the scope of this paper. I refer the reader to theupdated bibliographical references in the article by Lomba and Puerta Vílchez,

‘‘Ibn Bā jja’’, quoted above.

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the commentaries to Aristotle’s theoretical science. This pro-gram has, in turn, a second side, whose object is the sciences(understanding the term in its modern sense), some of whichwould be revised according to the Aristotelian-Farabianscientic method. In a sense, this aspect seems to result from aslightly di # erent conception of the role of logic; whereas inal-Kindı̄ ’s work it is placed between mathematical sciences andphilosophy, in al-Fā rā bı̄ ’s Ih

*s*ā ’ it is placed after the linguistic

disciplines and ahead of any of the sciences.Since Ibn Bā jja exerted a profound inuence on the early

work of Ibn Rushd and on Ibn T*

ufayl, we can consider theseshort lines about classication of the sciences a sort of preludeto a new chapter in Andalusı¯ sciences, which was to reach its

highest point in the ‘‘revolt against Ptolemaic astronomy’’.50

We know, albeit indirectly (through Maimonides), that IbnBā jja was a forerunner of that movement, even if the evidencewe have suggests that he was a follower of Ptolemy rather thanof Ptolemy’s critics. 51 Nonetheless, works such as Kalā m fı̄ al-hay’a (whose inuence can be traced in Ibn Rushd’sSummary of the Almagest)52 and Ibn Bā jja’s concern with thescientic method show that he (and perhaps other authors fromthe Saragossan circles), may well have paved the way for IbnT*

ufayl, Ibn Rushd and al-Bit*rū jı̄ and their attempts to reformu-

late astronomy and medicine in order to make them compatiblewith the fundamental tenets established by the philosophicaldisciplines, particularly by Aristotle’s theoretical science andlogic. This conception of the sciences of the ancients as acohesive unit requires thorough training in most of them (if notin all), particularly in logic and philosophical disciplines. An

50 As is well known, this expression was coined by Sabra in his ‘‘TheAndalusian revolt against Ptolemaic astronomy’’, in Everett Mendelsohn (ed.),

Transformation and Tradition in the Sciences: Essays in Honor of I. BernardCohen (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 133–53 (reprinted in Sabra, Optics, Astronomy andLogic).

51 On this subject and on Ibn Bā jja’s contribution, see M. Forcada, ‘‘Averroes yla ciencia’’, Averroes y los averroísmos. Actas del III Congreso Nacional deFilosofía Medieval (Zaragoza, 1999), pp. 49–102. This paper contains the necessarybibliographical references, with the exception of the recent article by José LuisMancha, ‘‘Al-Bit

*rū jı̄ ’s theory of the motions of the xed stars’’, Archive for the

History of Exact Sciences, 58 (2004): 143–82, which sheds new light on thequestion, and the article by G. Endress quoted above.

52 Cf. pp. 53 and 56–7 of Juliane Lay, ‘‘L’Abrégé de l’Almageste, un inéditd’Averroès en version hebraïque’’, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy , 6 (1996):

23–61.



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education of this kind was given in Saragossa and was stronglyinuenced by Aristotelian classication of the sciences and,perhaps, by al-Fā rā bı̄ ’s works on this subject. Therefore, itseems reasonable to hypothesize that the scientic andphilosophical program of some of the Andalusı¯ scholars whoourished under the Almohads in the second half of the6th / 12th century may have started at the end of the 5th / 11thcentury in Saragossa. Ibn Bā jja, the most outstanding scholarto emerge from Saragossa, can be seen as a link between thetwo generations, between the science of the 11th century andthat of the second half of the 12th.

V. CONCLUSIONS

The classications of the sciences in al-Andalus can be con-sidered as reections of the scientic activity of the 5th / 11thcentury, in so far as all of them mirror a relevant issue in thequestion. The classications by religious scholars and theolo-gians (Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr and Ibn H

*azm) show the problem of the

relationship between reason and faith, between ‘ulū m ‘aqliyyaand ‘ulū m naqliyya, in a context of relative consensus that wasfavourable to intellectual debate. Philosophy is potentiallyseen as a conictive science, particularly by Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr,but Ibn H* azm solves the problem by appealing to its conditionas an ‘‘ancilla theologiae’’. S

*ā ‘id al-Andalusı̄ complements the

perception of the earlier authors with a faithful portrait of scientic progress in al-Andalus. His work reects a fairly highlevel of accomplishment in medicine, astronomy and othermathematical disciplines, and a notable interest in philosophy,although no major philosopher (apart from Ibn H

*azm) had yet

appeared in al-Andalus. He describes the breeding ground onwhich the great Western falsafa was to ourish in the followingcentury. He tells us that the Aristotelian classication of thesciences contributed to the scientic training in a way that weare still far from understanding completely and that al-Fā rā bı ¯’sIh

*s*ā ’ was known. Aristotle and al-Fā rā bı̄ ’s order and classi-

cation of the sciences are thus linked to the ourishing of theAndalusı̄ sciences of the ancients, and the best lesson that onecan learn from them – the unity of knowledge – seems to havebeen particularly well understood in Saragossa, the mostimportant centre of mathematical and philosophical studies at

the time. Ibn Bā jja, the major representative of this school,

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writes a short text on the classication of the sciences, underal-Fā rā bı̄’s inuence. These lines are merely a note to anothernote to a minor tract by al-Fā rā bı̄ , but show that a di# erentconception of sciences and philosophy prevails among someAndalusı̄ scholars. This text presents sciences as syllogisticdisciplines, in which accurate reasoning, structured accordingto a given set of rules, must guide the work of the scientist. Thismethodology would be followed by Ibn Bā jja in several studiesthat foreshadow an important chapter in Andalusı ¯ science inthe 6th / 12th century.

AcknowledgementsI wish to thank Profs. Joaquín Lomba Fuentes, Julio Samsó and CharlesBurnett for their extremely helpful suggestions and corrections on thepreliminary version of this paper.

Note added on proofs: Complementary references worthy of note appearin a very recent title which deals briey (pp. 157–9) with the classica-tion by Ibn Bā jja studied in the present paper: Josep Puig Montada,‘‘Philosophy in Andalusia: Ibn Bā jja and Ibn T

*ufayl’’, in Peter Adamson

and Richard C. Taylor (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to ArabicPhilosophy (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 155–79.


arabic sciences and philosophy volume 16 issue 2 2006 [doi 10.1017%2fs0957423906000336] forcada,...

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