The aim of this article is to present a medieval Arabic report regarding six animals from the Gulf of Aden, to provide a zoological identification of five of the animals in question, which may be identified, and to comment on the biological data provided by the report in the light of both contemporary and modern zoological knowledge and, thus, to evaluate the scientific standard of the report.

Samuel Ibn Tibbon (d. c. 1231) is best known as the translator of Maimonides's Guide of the Perplexed and as the author of the bold and ambitious cosmogonic work of Avicennian inspiration Ma'amar Yiqqawu ha-mayim (A treatise on ‘Let the water gather’; 1231). His authorship (in 1199) of the Arabic-into-Hebrew translation of Galen's Tegni with Ibn Riḍwān's commentary, known as al-Ṣināʿa al-ṣaġīra (= Small Art), is attested by the colophons of two manuscripts, but has recently been denied. The question is not unimportant, because if Ibn Tibbon indeed is the author of this translation then, as Steinschneider observed, ʿAlī Ibn Riḍwān's commentary is the first Arabic-into-Hebrew translation of a work by a Muslim writer. In this article I invalidate the arguments against Ibn Tibbon's authorship of the translation and, on the contrary, I positively show that a systematic consideration of the evidence unambiguously confirms it. The inquiry is notably based on probes into the evolution of Ibn Tibbon's philosophical vocabulary, whose results, it is hoped, will be useful beyond the immediate aim that has triggered them. This article accompanies Gad Freudenthal and Resianne Fontaine, “Philosophy and medicine in Jewish Provence, Anno 1199: Samuel Ibn Tibbon and Doeg the Edomite translating Galen's Tegni,” published in this issue of ASP, 26 (2016), pp. 1–26.

We attempt to grasp the mathematics behind the planetary theories of the Syrian astronomer Ibn al-Šāṭir (1304–1375) in his treatise Nihāyat al-Sūl. Following the astronomers of the Marāgha school, by composing circular movements with constant angular velocity, Ibn al-Šāṭir attains two goals. He eliminates the need of excentrics and equant points in astronomy; but he also describes longitudes and latitudes with a unique method, with no more orbs than what is strictly necessary for the longitudes. A better understanding of rotation as a spatial transformation enables this ultimate economy of thought. In our commentary, we take Venus as an example offering an interesting problem about the latitudes. This is an opportunity to give a critical edition of the chapter of the Nihāyat al-Sūl dedicated to the latitudes of Mercury and Venus.

The scholastic doctrine of transcendentals is inherited from Arabic philosophy to a certain extent. This dependance is clearly illustrated in the construction of the problematic of the transcendental one, which is identical with being, and of the numerical one, which is not. The scholastic discussion as a whole reproduces the major themes of Avicenna's position, then of Averroes' criticism of Avicenna. This article attempts to reconstruct the complex of questions, topics, and arguments which constitute this problematic by tracing its evolution through the analysis of anonymous sophismata and of texts by Nicholas of Paris, Roger Bacon, Albert the Great, and James of Viterbo. Two stages are distinguished: the first is centered on the distinction between the transcendental and numerical one; the second, essentially German (Dietrich of Freiberg and Berthold of Moosburg), is centered on the subordination of the Aristotelian to the Platonic concept of the transcendental one. Along the way, it is shown that, with the exception of the German philosophers, the understanding of Avicenna's position is constantly filtered through Averroes' interpretation.

The article describes several representations of Alexander the Great which were current in medieval Arabic learned circles and proposes some ideas on the genesis of these representations in the Greek and Syriac civilizations: 1) Alexander as moralist; 2) Alexander as a mystical philosopher who knew the mysterious links governing the cosmos; 3) Alexander as a monotheist philosopher who was charged with responsibility for the Ğihād; 4) Alexander as a cunning politician.

Once Apollonius' Conics had been translated from Greek into Arabic, they became a main reference and the principal tool in studying solid problems, algebraic equations of 3rd and 4th degrees, infinitesimal mathematics, etc. Mathematicians of the 9th–10th centuries also studied the conic sections' constructions, as well as their continuous drawing and their drawing by points. Ibrāhīm ibn Sinān (909–946), as his grandfather Thābit ibn Qurra (826–901), was one of the most active and inventive mathematicians in these fields. Late Hélène Bellosta examined in this article Ibn Sinān's contribution.

Philosophical and medical excellence notwithstanding, Avicenna was far from being an otherwordly person who buried himself in his books. He had an extraordinarily adventurous life and is reported to have been fond of good food, drink, and lovemaking. This article discusses the wellknown but quite unusual view that he died of having too much sex. A detailed analysis of the sources and a common-sense approach to some of their medical claims will show that this allegation is not supported by any evidence whatsoever. Quite the opposite: it will be argued that the main source on which all later reports must taken to depend has been tampered with in two places to produce the image that we know. Thus, we must assume that people hostile to Avicenna and his philosophy are behind this, their forgery most likely having been committed in the first half of the twelfth century AD.

This article continues and improves the research already accomplished in Géométrie et dioptrique au Xesiècle (1993). It presents two fragments and an additional treatise which enlarge our understanding of the work of Ibn Sahl on the geometrical constructions and projections. All the necessary corrections are included.

Il est bien difficile de situer notre traité dans le temps et l'espace, ou même de le rattacher à une école déterminée. Aucune allusion ne permet de se faire une idée de l'appartenance religieuse de son auteur. Bénédiction initiale et eulogie finale sont des rites obligé (§ 60). La référence au “Créateur béni soit-il” (§17) ou à la sagesse divine (§ 31) est présente chez tout le monde. Aucun penseur n'est cité par son nom propre.

In the first part of chapter 2 of book II of the Physics Aristotle addresses the issue of the difference between mathematics and physics. In the course of his discussion he says some things about astronomy and the ‘ ‘ more physical branches of mathematics”. In this paper I discuss historical issues concerning the text, translation, and interpretation of the passage, focusing on two cruxes, ( I ) the first reference to astronomy at 193b25–26 and ( II ) the reference to the more physical branches at 194a7–8. In section I, I criticize Ross’s interpretation of the passage and point out that his alteration of ( I ) has no warrant in the Greek manuscripts. In the next three sections I treat three other interpretations, all of which depart from Ross's: in section II that of Simplicius, which I commend; in section III that of Thomas Aquinas, which is importantly influenced by a mistranslation of ( II ), and in section IV that of Ibn Rushd, which is based on an Arabic text corresponding to that printed by Ross. In the concluding section of the paper I describe the modern history of the Greek text of our passage and translations of it from the early twelfth century until the appearance of Ross's text in 1936.

In several places and for different purposes, Ibn al-Haytham has studied the variations of a well-known function. The context of these applications reveals some characteristics of Ibn al-Haytham's mathematical and physical thought. An in-depth study of his mathematical proofs of monotony show how close he was from an elaborate concept of the continuous.

Ibn Raḥīq is an 11th century scholar who compiled a book on popular astronomy. This work included a section in which he summarizes basic knowledge of the Milky Way as it was wide spread in the first centuries after the hejira. Ibn Raḥīq gives a comprehensive overview of the perception of the Milky Way that reaches from its use as a test for knowledge of the religious tradition and for agricultural purposes on the one hand to an exact astronomical description of its shape in the sky during the year and to theories of its nature and composition on the other hand. We use a comparison of his text to those of Ibn al-Haytham and others to investigate the role the Milky Way played in early Islamic civilization from its beginning until the 15th century.

In the fresh reading proposed here of the still not satisfactorily interpreted passages in Metaphysics Ε2-3, Aristotle emerges as making a case against determinism based on a robust notion of the accident. Accidental beings are uncaused causes and have their rightful place in Aristotle's ontology. The resulting physical indeterminism is here used as a litmus test for the exegetical practice of the great Commentator, Averroes, whose self-proclaimed, and later proverbial, loyalty to Aristotle's text will be shown to give way to idiosyncratic interpretations at times. His explanations of Metaphysics Ε2-3 are sparse and no less obscure than Aristotle's text. It is only when read together with his commentaries on the Physics, to which he explicitly refers twice in his Long commentary on Metaphysics Ε2-3, that a surprising picture emerges. Averroes recycles the notion of the accident, now reconceptualised in cosmological terms, and – putting it to the opposite use of Aristotle's – weaves it into an original theory of motion that integrates both supra- and sublunar realms into a deterministic framework of uninterrupted causal chains, thus safeguarding the principle of Divine providence.

This article presents an edition, translation, and analysis of a prefatory letter addressed by the Galen translator Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq (d. 873) to one of his East-Syrian Christian patrons, the physician Salmawayh ibn Bunān (d. 840). Ḥunayn composed this Letter to Salmawayh ibn Bunān in Syriac, but it survives only in his nephew's Arabic translation. Since its discovery over eighty years ago, the text has received little attention and has never before been published in its entirety. The Letter provides new insight into Ḥunayn's early career and the Christian milieu in which he moved, demonstrating his indebtedness to the Syriac literary past exemplified by the prefaces of the earlier Galen translator Sergius of Rēšʿaynā (d. 536). At the same time, the Letter indicates part of what made ʿAbbāsid-era translators like Ḥunayn different from their late ancient predecessors. This study argues that increased demand from patrons and Ḥunayn's close reading of Galen's Hippocratic commentaries yielded the Letter’s novel claim that readers of all abilities can and should have access to ancient Greek scientific texts. In this way, the Letter hints tantalizingly at Ḥunayn's understanding of his own literary and scientific project and its relationship with the ancient Greek tradition.

This paper argues that Ibn Ṭufayl (d. 1185) in his Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān offers a surprisingly intellectual reading of the term fiṭra (pl. fiṭar) and one that has significant consequences for our understanding of the story. We will see that at crucial junctures in the text, fiṭra emerges solely in an intellectual context, implying a gulf amongst humanity that defies common understandings of the term as egalitarian. This gulf, I argue, illuminates the political implications of the tale. For while he emphasizes the broad compatibility of the more established, revealed and the philosophical path recently arrived in Andalusia, Ibn Ṭufayl, with the help of fiṭra, shows that the philosophical life is one for the very few. Attention to Ibn Ṭufayl's use of fiṭra might thus explain one of his reasons for writing this tale for the court. Its overall message heightens the role of religion and tempers the political significance of philosophy in two ways: by arguing that only select individuals have the capacity to access truth independently from revelation; and by denying these exceptionally gifted the ability to communicate their findings to the masses.

Do Avicenna’s extant works preserve any trace of his now-lost early philosophical production? This paper considers a hitherto neglected text, namely the chapter “On Hypothetical Propositions” from Avicenna’s “Concise Treatise on the Principles of Logic” (Risāla mūǧaza fī uṣūl al-manṭiq, henceforth: RM). The new evidence offered by the RM chapter in question will lead to a different reading of another well-known passage of Avicenna’s reworking of Aristotle’s Prior Analytics (Qiyās) from the “Book of Healing” (Kitāb al-šifāʾ). The clues gathered from an analysis of these two works will finally lead us to ponder the possibility that Avicenna may in fact have composed a (now lost) work on hypothetical propositions and syllogisms. Since Avicenna’s RM is to date unedited, an edition, as well as an English translation of the relevant chapter, is also provided in the Appendix of this paper.