Ferrario, Gabriele

Vollandt, Ronny

English

Apollo (Cambridge)

Cambridge University LibraryFragment of the Month: September 2010A Judaeo-Arabic version of Ibn Bahrīz’s treatise onlogic, T-S K6.181Gabriele Ferrario, Ronny VollandtThe three folders that bear the classmark T-S K6 containaltogether about 200 fragments, mostly the colophons of books.Although a large number have already been studied andpublished, there are, however, some very interesting items thathave not hitherto been noted. Fragment T-S K6.181 is one ofthem. It preserves the Arabic colophon and beginning of apreviously unknown Judaeo-Arabic version of the treatise Kitābḥudūd al-manṭiq (‘The Definitions of Logic’) by ʿAbdīshūʿ IbnBahrīz.The fragment consists of one parchment folio with a stub,exhibiting ruling and pricking marks. It is in relatively poorcondition and shows many signs of the ravages of time. Theverso in particular is badly rubbed, to the extent that entirepassages are illegible. Fortunately, however, the Arabic title onrecto is preserved in its entirety. It is written in a calligraphicAbbasid book hand and reads kitāb fīhi ḥudūd al-manṭiq minqawl Arisṭuṭalis al-faylasūf li-Ṣadaqa Ibn Isḥāq, ‘The bookregarding the definitions of logic based on Aristotle thephilosopher, belonging to Ṣadaqa Ibn Isḥāq’. Title page of the Kitāb ḥudūd al-manṭiq in an Abbasid bookhand,T-S K6.181,r. The 28 lines of the verso, containing the beginning of theJudaeo-Arabic text, are written in a formal Hebrew squarescript. The Judaeo-Arabic orthography shows some hallmarks ofEarly Phonetic Judaeo-Arabic Script (EPJS), which dropped outof use in the tenth century. All in all, the evidence points to anearly date for this copy, probably the tenth century.The East-Syriac Metropolitan ʿAbdīshūʿ Ibn Bahrīz, author ofKitāb ḥudūd al-manṭiq, was active at the turn of the eighth andninth centuries. A well-versed polymath, with interests rangingfrom religion to philosophy and from maths to medicine and law,he is found in ʿAbdīshūʿ bar Brīkhā’s (d. 1318) rhymed canon ofEast-Syriac authors. In addition, his life and works arementioned by three Arabic authors: al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 868) lists himamong the translators of Aristotle in his Kitāb al-ḥayawān, ‘TheBook of Animals’, and Kitāb al-bayān wa’l-tabyīn, ‘The Book ofEloquence and Exposition’. Al-Nadīm (d. 995) refers to himthree times in his Kitāb al-Fihrist: first, Ibn Bahrīz is mentionedin the section of Christian authors as the Metropolitan of Ḥarrānand later of Mosul and Ḥazza. He is further reported to havewritten epistles and books on the Christian faith and to havetranslated many books on logic and philosophy under thepatronage of the Abbasid caliph al-Maʾmūn. Finally, al-Nadīmmentions the East-Syriac scholar among the epitomisers of ‘TheCategories’ and ‘On Interpretation’ in his list of Aristotle’s bookson logic. The last medieval source in regard to Ibn Bahrīz isfound in Ibn Abī Uṣaybīʿa, who makes reference to him as afriend and translator for the East-Syriac physician Gabriel IbnBakhtīshūʿ. An Arabic translation from the Syriac of Nicomachusof Gerasa’s Introduction to Arithmetic, commissioned by theAbbasid military officer Ṭāhir ibn al-Ḥusayn, should be added tothe list of Ibn Bahrīz’s writings.Only two of Ibn Bahrīz’s original works are extant today: ajuridical treatise on marriages, heritages and judgments inSyriac and Kitāb Ḥudūd al-Manṭiq. The latter was edited byDāneshpazhūh in 1978 on the base of two twelfth-centuryArabic manuscripts preserved in Istanbul (Rāġib Pāšā, 1464/4)and Damascus (Ẓāhiriyya 4871/40). Kitāb ḥudūd al-manṭiq is ashort treatise composed on behest of al-Maʾmūn, in which theauthor presents a summary and simplification of Aristotelianbooks on logic and their commentaries. The intention of thetreatise is didactic and this may be the reason why in theDamascus manuscript the text takes the shape of a series oftables.The treatise, as preserved on the verso of fragment T-S K6.181,opens with a brief summary of the contents of the book (lines1–3), including the transcription, formulation, abstraction,figuration and definition of the elements of Aristotelian logic. Itis followed by a dedication to the caliph al-Maʾmūn (lines 4–6)and another explanation of the subject of the treatise (lines 7–10). The name of the author, Ibn Bahrīz muṭrān al-Mawṣul, isonly mentioned in line 9. What follows is a lengthy introduction,in which Ibn Bahrīz dwells on the blessings of God, on His unityand the wisdom displayed in His creation: evident and apparentthings act as a guide in the discovery of the hidden things, justlike a bridge connecting the two banks of a river or like thestairs of a bridge for a man wanting to step up them (lines 28–29).The discovery of this version of the Kitāb ḥudūd al-manṭiq isnotable for at least two reasons: first, the manuscript in which itis preserved predates all the known extant complete Arabicwitnesses of the book; second, this is the only known Judaeo-Arabic version of this treatise on logic.As this brief note will hopefully have shown, the Genizah stillhas many surprises in store for scholars of Arabic literature!The Judaeo-Arabic text of the Kitāb ḥudūd al-manṭiq, T-SK6.181,v.BibliographyM. T. Dāneshpazhūh (ed.), Ḥudūd al-Mantiq by Ibn Bihriz(Tehran, 1978).G. Freudenthal & T. Lévy, ‘De Gérase à Bagdad: Ibn Bahrīz, Al-Kindī, et leur recension arabe de l’Introduction Arithmétique deNicomaque, d’après la version hebraïque de Qalonymos benQalonymos d’Arles’, in R. Morelon & A. Hasnawi (eds), Da Zénond’Élée à Poincaré. Recueil d’études en hommage à RoshdiRashed (Louvain–Paris, 2004), pp. 479–544.G. Graf, Geschichte des christlichen arabischen Literatur (5 vols;Vatican City, 1944–1953), vol. II, pp. 119–120.T. Langermann, ‘Arabic Writings in Hebrew Manuscripts: aPreliminary Relisting’, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 6 (1996),pp. 137–160.J. Ragep & E. S. Kennedy, ‘A Description of Ẓāhiriyya(Damascus) Ms 4871: A Philosophical and Scientific Collection’,Journal for the History of Arabic Science 5 (1981), pp. 85–108.M. Steinschneider, Die arabischen Übersetzungen aus demGriechischen (Leipzig, 1893), pp. 227–228.—, Die hebraeischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters und dieJuden als Dolmetscher (Berlin, 1893), pp. 517–518.G. Troupeau, ‘Abdīšūʿ Ibn Bahrīz et son livre sur les definitionsde la logique’, in D. Jacquart (ed.), Les voies de la sciencegreque. Études sur la transmission des texts de l’Antiquité audix-neuvième siècle (Genève, 1997), pp. 135–145.If you enjoyed this Fragment of the Month, you can findothers here.Contact us: genizah@lib.cam.ac.ukThe zoomable images are produced using Cloud Zoom, ajQueryimage zoom plugin:Cloud Zoom, Copyright (c) 2010, R Cecco,www.professorcloud.comLicensed under the MIT License 

A Judaeo-Arabic version of Ibn Bahrīz’s treatise on logic, T-S K6.181

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A Judaeo-Arabic version of Ibn Bahrīz’s treatise on logic, T-S K6.181

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