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Rhetoric and Islamic Political Philosophy*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Charles E. Butterworth
Charles E. Butterworth
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland
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Abstract

Islamic political philosophy has always been pursued in a setting where great care had to be taken to avoid violating the revelations and traditions accepted by the Islamic community, since these offer guide-lines for the secular conduct of that community, as well as injunctions about the manner in which its religious life should be conducted. Political philosophy is the search for a thorough understanding of the good or the best political regime. Thus, a Muslim political philosopher must temper his conclusions about the character of the good or the best political regime with what the Islamic community holds to be appropriate for Muslims. This statement of what a Muslim political philosopher does immediately gives rise to two questions: (i) Can a Muslim political philosopher ever really engage in philosophy? (2) If he can, is it not at the expense of Islamic precepts?

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , April 1972 , pp. 187 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

page 188 note 1 Averroes wrote two commentaries on rhetoric, both based on Aristotle's Rhetoric. Contrary to what M. Bouyges thought (Melanges de VUniversite de St. Joseph, 1922), the shorter commentary has only recently been edited. It has also been translated into English but is not yet published. The text is extant in two Judaeo-Arabic manuscripts: Catalogue des Manuscrits Orientaux, Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris, No. 1008; and Verzeichnis der orientalischen Handschriften der K. Hof- und Staats-bibliothek, Miinchen, Cod. Arab. No. 650°. Moreover, there is a Hebrew translation of the text in the Paris manuscript and a Latin translation published in the Juncta edition of Aristotle's works: Aristotelis, Opera cum Averrois Commentariis (Venetiis: Apud Junctas, 1562-74), Vol. n, folios 192D_196M. The Summary was probably written prior to 1159 (cf. P. Manuel Alonso, Teologia de Averroes [Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1947l] PP- 55_61)- The longer, or middle, commentary was edited and published by Abd al-Rahman Badawi in i960. Averroes, Talkhis al-Khatdbah, ed. 'Abd al-Rahman Badawi (Cairo, Maktabat al-Nahdah al-Misriyah, i960). Salim Salim has also edited the middle commentary: Talkhis al-Khatdbah, ed. Salim Salim (Cairo, Dar al-Tahrir li al-Tab'wa al-Nashr, 1967). A Latin translation of the commentary exists in the Juncta edition, and a Hebrew translation was published in Leipzig in 1842. Averroes indicated that he finished the middle commentary in 1174. Hereafter, the shorter commentary will be cited as S, and references to parts of it will reflect the paragraphing that I have adopted in my edition. The middle commentary will be cited as T, and references will be to the pages and lines of the Badawi edition.Google Scholar

page 189 note 1 The only evidence of a reason for Averroes having composed any of the treatises is in the very opening lines of the whole collection. At that point, he explained that he intended ‘to abstract the necessary speeches from each and every one of the arts of logic in order to make clear the ranks of the kinds of concept and conviction employed in each and every one of the five arts, i.e. demonstrative, dialectical, sophistical, rhetorical, and poetical’. He thought that to know a certain amount of logic was ‘most necessary in order to study the arts which have already been completed in the way that most of the arts [have already been completed] in this time of ours’. As an example of a completed art which logic would help a person to study, he cited medicine.Google Scholar

page 190 note 1 al-Qur'ân, xvi. 125.Google Scholar

page 190 note 2 This was his Kitâb al-Kashf 'an Manahij al-‘Adillah FV Aqd’idal-Millah (The Book of Uncovering the Clear Paths of the Signs about the Beliefs of the Religious Community which he claims to have completed in about 1179, i.e., about 5 years after he completed the Talkhis.Google Scholar

page 193 note 1 Cf. also T 247:13-19.Google Scholar

page 197 note 1 This divergence from Aristotle is possibly part of what Averroes meant when he appealed to al-Farabi's authority to assert that many of Aristotle's ideas were either incomprehensible or not useful to the Arabs (T 252:19-253:2).Google Scholar