The knowledge of Presocratic philosophy has been only indirect in the Arab world: the doctrines of the early cos-mologists were known through the doxographies of the Hellenistic and Imperial ages, whereas the ‘‘Pythagorean’’ doctrines were known either through the Neopythagorean writings like the Tabula cebetis, or through the Neoplatonic accounts, often presenting Pythagoras as a forerunner of the doctrines held in late Platonism. The knowledge of Plato’s doctrines was based more on accounts by later philosophers, on surveys, and on spurious collections of ‘‘sayings,’’ than on a direct acquaintance with the corpus of the dialogues. Still, some of them were known to a certain extent: Timaeus, Symposium, Phaedo, Republic, Leges. As for Aristotle, the entire corpus was known, with the exception of the Politics and the Constitution of the Athenians. Among the pseudepigrapha, a prominent place is due to the pseudo - Theology of Aristotle, produced within the ‘‘circle of al-Kindl’’ out of Plotinus’ Enneads, and to the Liber de causis, produced within the same circle out of Proclus’ Elements of Theology. The early school of Aristotle was also known to a certain extent: some Theophrastus was translated, and his teaching was also indirectly known through the translation of Aetius’ Placita philosophorum, which ultimately traces back to Theophrastus’ collection of the FuaiKcov SoXat. Also the Aristotelianism before Alexander of Aphrodisias had some sort of circulation in Syriac and Arabic, through Nicolaus Damascenus. The philosophy of the Imperial age was widely known, both in Syriac and Arabic: the doxographical traditions, some Plutarch of Chaeronaea (in Syriac), Galen, Nicomachus of Gerasa, and Alexander of Aphrodisias - the latter significantly moulding the reception of Aristotle’s own works - feature in all the stages of the assimilation of Greek learning. A pivotal role was played by Neoplatonism, both in setting the agenda ofthe Arabic-Islamic philosophy and in shaping the main frame of falsafa as a systematic knowledge, through the reception of the late Ancient scholastic pattern. Plotinus’ and Proclus’ doctrines gained wide currency under Aristotle’s name (see Rosenthal 1974); Porphyry, Iamblichus, Themistius, Philoponus, Simplicius, and Olympiodorus circulated among the learned interested in the Greek philosophical heritage.
Appendix: The Kitab al-Fihrist
The first of a series of Arab bio-bibliographies that reach out to the seventeenth century, the Kitab al-Fihrist is an outstanding testimony of the intellectual life in tenth century Baghdad. Its author, Abu l-Faraj Muljammad ibn Islraq al-Warraq al-Bajgdadi ibn al-NadIm al-Mawsili (d. 990), known as Ibn al-Nadim (‘‘son of the boon companion’’) and boon companion himself, was in touch with scholars in the capital and abroad: among them, the belle-trist al-Marzubinl (d. 994), Abu Sulayman al-Sijistani, Yalrya ibn ‘Adi, and Ibn Suwar. Starting from the catalog of his father’s bookshop (see Endress 1987:451 for al-Tawlridi’s account of the bookshop quarter in Baghdad), Ibn al-Nadim restlessly searched for information about books and learned men both of the past and of his own time, visiting Bassora, Kufa, Mosul and possibly Aleppo, so that his Catalogue became ‘‘an encyclopaedia of medieval Islamic culture’’ (Dodge 1970:xix). Of Shi'ite allegiance (see Stewart 2009), Ibn al-Nadlm organized his work according to a systematic account of the sciences, including language and the Holy Scriptures (the Torah, the Gospel, other holy books, and the Qur’an: chapter I); grammar (the schools of Bassora and Kufa: chapter II); history, genealogy, government literature, court literature (chapter III); poetry (pre-Islam and Umayyad poetry; poetry of the ‘Abbasid age: chapter IV); religious sects (Mu'tazilites, Shi'ites, and other: chapter V); Law (Sunni schools of law, legal authorities of the Shl‘a: chapter VI); falsafa (Greek philosophers, Arab philosophers, mathematics and astronomy, medicine: chapter VII); stories and fables (chapter VIII); non-Islamic sects and religions (the Sabians, Manicheism, other sects, religions and further information on India and China: chapter IX). An autograph of this monumental work was housed in the Caliph’s library at Baghdad: the famous geographer and biographer Yaqiit (d. 1229) claims he made use of the K. al-Fihrist in the handwriting of Ibn al-Nadlm himself, shortly before the Mongol sacking ofBaghdad (1258), that put an end to the ‘Abbasid Caliphate. In the sacking, the library was destroyed, and the autograph of the K. al-Fihrist with it. Luckily, other copies survived elsewhere. Other biobibliographical surveys, working on the basis of the K. al-Fihrist throughout the centuries, have added further materials to it: the History of the Learned Men (Ta’rikh al-Jt ukama’) by Ibn al-Qif’ti (d. 1248), the Sources of Information on the Classes of Physicians (‘Uyun al-anba’ fl tabaqat al-atibba’) byIbn Abi Uf! aybi‘a (d. 1270), and the Clarification of the Doubts About the Names of Books and Subdivisions (Kashf al-Zunun ‘an asamt l-kutub wa-l-funun) by Hajji Khalifa (Katib Celebi, d. 1658), that in its turn served as a basis for d’Herbelot’s Bibliotheque orientale (1697). Edited in 1881 on the basis of the defective MSS housed in Paris, Istanbul, Vienna and Leiden by Gustav Flugel, and in 1971 by Rida Tajaddud on the basis of other, more complete MSS (Dublin and Istanbul), the K. al-Fihrist has been translated into English by Bayard Dodge in 1970.
World History
