Islamic Ethics as Educational Discourse: Thought and Impact of the Classical Muslim Thinker Miskawayh (d. 1030) 3161599446, 9783161599446, 9783161601347

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SERAPHIM Studies in Education and Religion in Ancient and Pre-Modern History in the Mediterranean and Its Environs Editors Peter Gemeinhardt · Sebastian Günther Ilinca Tanaseanu-Döbler · Florian Wilk Editorial Board Wolfram Drews · Alfons Fürst · Therese Fuhrer Susanne Gödde · Marietta Horster · Angelika Neuwirth Karl Pinggéra · Claudia Rapp · Günter Stemberger George Van Kooten · Markus Witte

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Islamic Ethics as Educational Discourse Thought and Impact of the Classical Muslim Thinker Miskawayh (d. 1030) Edited by

Sebastian Günther and Yassir El Jamouhi

Mohr Siebeck

Sebastian Günther born 1961; 1981-86 pursued Arabic and Islamic studies; 1989 PhD; 1997 Assistant Professor and 2003 Associate Professor of Arabic Language and Literature, University of Toronto; since 2007 Professor and Chair of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Göttingen. Yassir El Jamouhi born 1985; pursued German, Arabic and French studies; 2015 PhD; 2015– 19 postdoctoral researcher at the Collaborative Research Centre 1136 “Education and Religion” at the University of Göttingen; currently, a scholar of intercultural communication and contemporary thought in the Arab world, based in Berlin.

ISBN 978-3-16-159944-6 / eISBN 978-3-16-160134-7 DOI 10.1628/978-3-16-160134-7 ISSN 2568-9584 / eISSN 2568-9606 (SERAPHIM) The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data are available at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2021 Mohr Siebeck Tübingen, Germany. www.mohrsiebeck.com This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted by copyright law) without the publisher’s written permission. This applies particularly to reproductions, translations and storage and processing in electronic systems. The book was typeset by epline in Böblingen using Minion typeface, printed and bound on non-aging paper by Gulde-Druck in Tübingen. Cover Image: Aristotle teaching. Illustration from Kitāb Mukhtār al-ḥikam wa-maḥāsin alkalim (The Book of Choice Wise Sayings and Fine Statements), a work of biographical sketches of ancient, almost exclusively Greek, sages; composed in 1048/1049 by Abū l-Wafāʾ al-Mubashshir ibn Fātik, an 11th century Egyptian historian and savant. Ms. Ahmed III 3206, pen & ink and gouache on paper, Turkish School (13th century); Topkapi Palace Museum, Istanbul, Turkey. Reproduced with kind permission of Bridgeman Images, Berlin. Printed in Germany.

Dedicated to Our Academic Teachers

‫أ‬ ّ ّ ‫ وللرجاء الكر يم الذي ال يتحقق إل بعنايته‬،‫وذلك لجل الخير العظيم الذي يشرف عليه ويصل إليه‬ ّ‫أ‬ ّ ‫وال‬ .‫ ولنه والد روحاني‬،‫يتم إال بمطالعته‬ This is because of the great good which the student envisions and attains, the sublime hope which cannot be realized except by the teacher’s care nor be fulfilled except by the teacher’s attention, and the fact that she or he is a spiritual parent.1

1 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 149; Miskawayh, The Refinement: 134 (slightly modified).

Preface The increasing global interdependence that contemporary societies are currently experiencing in key areas of economy, politics, culture, and science, next to issues affecting social cohesion, sustainability and many other areas of communal and individual life, have given rise to significant challenges in the fields of ethics and education. Key crucial concepts of ethics, deeply rooted in human history, such as the ‘highest good’ and ‘correct action and behavior’, or the ‘freedom of will’ and ‘individual integrity’, for example, are today specific, urgent questions of interest in our increasingly multicultural, democratic societies. Such urgency is closely linked to the need for a system of standards that structures and sensibly directs people’s actions and behaviors for a prosperous, that is to say, peaceful, coexistence. Indeed, the intense debates sparked in Europe and North America about the norms and values of different cultures and religions seem to require more than ever a historical and, if you will, anthropological, perspective. Therefore, historical-critical research on culturally specific values and traditions appears a both reasonable and promising way of developing more useful, trenchant and pertinent questions and responses with regard to the crippling conflict that exists today in the realm of ethics, education, and religion on the global scale. Current societal developments of this kind, coupled with our academic interest in the history of Islam’s deep and sophisticated intellectual culture, formed both the starting point of and important stimuli for the international symposium Islamic Ethics as Educational Discourse: Thought and Impact of the Classical Muslim Thinker Miskawayh, which took place at the University of Göttingen in May 2018. The subject of this conference, which is also the thematic focus of this volume, was the life and scholarly oeuvre of a thinker of special importance in the intellectual history of Islam: the moral philosopher, historian, and writer Miskawayh (ca. 932–1030 CE). The papers presented at that symposium, included in this volume in significantly expanded form, aim to foster a more informed and comprehensive understanding of the educational and ethical preoccupations – as well as the academic environment and scholarly network – of this renowned classical Muslim scholar. In addition, this volume offers insights into the fruitful, though at times conflicting branches of knowledge and human interaction in Islam: ethics, education, and religion.

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The challenge of delineating and studying the multifaceted spectrum of Miskawayh’s reception, adaptation, and recontextualization of Greek and ancient Iranian concepts, especially regarding educational philosophical and ethical views, along with the reception and continuing vitality of his thought among later medieval Muslim and contemporary progressive scholars, form the driving question of our research. To this end, this book offers a well-balanced application of historical-philological as well as religious-philosophical and cultural sociological perspectives, in combination with innovative methodical approaches and research tools. The special value of the various studies published here, however, is manifested in the academic expertise of their authors, who are internationally esteemed senior specialists in the fields of Arabic and Islamic studies alongside remarkably talented junior scholars. As the volume’s editors, we wish to take this opportunity to express our heartfelt thanks to all contributors for their cooperation and patience during the editorial process. In respect of such an international exchange of ideas, it is worth noting that the present collection of studies reflects the rich multilingualism of its contributors as well as their different theoretical approaches and the diversity of their viewpoints. This kind of multiplicity nourishes academic study; it stimulates new insights and thus renders it perennially relevant. We would like to thank the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) 1136, “Education and Religion in Cultures of the Mediterranean and Its Environment from Ancient to Medieval Times and to Classical Islam”, in particular its director, Professor Dr. Peter Gemeinhardt, for the scholarly and financial support provided to the Miskawayh Symposium and to the publication of the current book. We also thank the German Research Foundation for its generous support of CRC 1136, as well as Lower Saxony’s Ministry of Science and Culture and the Fritz Thyssen Foundation for two significant conference grants in support of the 2018 symposium. We cordially thank Dr. Mathias Pätzold, Secretary General of the Lower Saxony Scientific Commission, for his participation in the opening ceremony of the Miskawayh Symposium. To Professor Dr. Norbert Lossau, Vice President of the University of Göttingen, and Professor Dr. Riem Spielhaus, then director of the Göttingen Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies, we offer our thanks and respect for enriching the opening ceremony of the symposium with welcoming thoughts and creative ideas, in which they stressed the importance of historical research for current educational and religious discourses in Europe. It is a true pleasure to thank Professor Dr. Wadad Kadi, The Avalon Foundation Distinguished Service Professor Emerita of the University of Chicago, for her deeply engaging and stimulating inaugural speech with which she set the tone and, indeed, foresaw many of the topics of concern for the ensuing academ-

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ic exchange that would unfold over the three-day 2018 Conference.1 Our sincere thanks are likewise due to Professor Dr. Gerhard Endress, Professor Emeritus for Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Bochum, for his learned prologue to this volume, and Dr. Ruth Mas of New York, specialist in Islamic thought, for her inspiring closing remarks, with which she builds a bridge, in a particularly thought-provoking way, between the mainly historical-philological research presented in this publication and current theoretical and philosophical discourses in religious studies. Special gratitude is due to Professor Dr. Manfred Fleischhammer, Professor Emeritus of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Martin Luther University, HalleWittenberg, for chairing one of our thematic panels. Likewise, we warmly thank Professor Dr. Fatima Henini, Professor Emerita of German Studies at the Université Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah, Fès, for making the journey to Göttingen and actively participating in the symposium. To Professor Dr. Hans Daiber, Professor Emeritus of Oriental Languages at the University of Frankfurt am Main, as well as Professor Dr. Lutz Richter-Bernburg, Professor Emeritus of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Tübingen, we are extremely grateful for their valuable advice on the introduction to this volume. Additional warm thanks are due to Professor Dr. Richter-Bernburg for his overall help with questions relating to the subjects of this book. Cordial words of gratitude go to our symposium panel chairs and roundtable participants: Professors Lale Behzadi (Bamberg), Mohammed Ghaly (Doha), Ghada Jayyusi-Lehn (Toronto), Mutaz Al-Khatib (Doha), Ulrich Marzolph (Göttingen), Asma Sayeed (Los Angeles), and Jens Scheiner (Göttingen) as well as Dr. Enrico Boccaccini (Göttingen). Furthermore, it should be noted that some of the papers, which contributed much to the success of the symposium, unfortunately could not be included in this volume, for reasons mainly relating to the manifold professional obligations of their authors. Specifically, this relates to the papers of professors Mariam Alhashmi (Abu Dhabi), Hassan F. Ansari (Princeton), Hans Hinrich Biesterfeldt (Bochum), Fatima Henini (Fès), and Seyfi Kenan (Istanbul). Dr. Dorothee Lauer (Pielow) and Jana Newiger, M. A., staff members at the Göttingen Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies, not only helped with professionalism, dedication, and enthusiasm in planning the symposium conceptually and logistically, they also expended considerable time and expertise in finalizing the manuscript of this book for the press. Elizabeth Crawford, a freelance editor in Göttingen, was of tremendous help in editing the English-language contributions to this book, and Jacqueline Pitchford, a freelance professional indexer based in Leiwen, prepared the indices. Both of them deserve our warm thanks 1  Professor Kadi’s lecture was recorded and is accessible at the University of Göttingen’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpsAIndmIw8.

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and appreciation. Dr. Monika Winet, former academic coordinator of the Göttingen CRC 1136 “Education and Religion” and an Arabic studies specialist, is to be thanked for her untiring administrative help and scholarly advice for our research on Miskawayh during the time of our membership at the Centre. Our special gratitude is due to all those colleagues in Arabic and Islamic studies who willingly acted as peer reviewers for contributions to this volume and offered extremely constructive advice and support. Last but not least, we wish to cordially thank the editors of the Seraphim book series for including this volume in their series, as well as the publisher, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, for their cooperation in the final stages of publishing this book. Göttingen, August 2020

Sebastian Günther and Yassir El Jamouhi

Contents Preface  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VII Abbreviations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XV Gerhard Endress Prologue. Miskawayh: Ethics and the Lessons of History  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Sebastian Günther und Yassir El Jamouhi Einführung. Der Moralphilosoph und Historiker Miskawaih: Traditionsbindung und Neubestimmung im Bildungsdiskurs des Islams  . . . . . . 7

I.  Setting the Stage: Miskawayh’s Educational Ethics Wadad Kadi Miskawayh: The Uneasy Co-Existence of the Philosopher and the Historian?  . . 55 Steffen Stelzer Où est le Bonheur? Searching for Miskawayh  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

II.  Miskawayh’s Reception and Transformation of Ideas from Greek Antiquity Hans Daiber Ethics as Likeness to God in Miskawayh: An Overlooked Tradition  . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Yassir El Jamouhi Diversität und Bildungsdiskurs im klassischen Islam: Miskawaihs Rezeption von Brysons Oikonomikos  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Elvira Wakelnig Late Antique Philosophical Education, Miskawayh, and Paul the Persian: On the Division and the Ranks of Philosophy  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

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Dorothee Pielow Lehrhafte sprachliche Bilder der Antike für die dreigeteilte Seele bei Miskawaih und Ibn Sīnā  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

III.  Miskawayh’s Familiarity with Muslim and Non-Muslim Ideas Christian Mauder Between Religious Pluralism and Confessional Identity: The Ethical Writings of Miskawayh’s Teacher Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Ute Pietruschka The Tahdhīb al-akhlāq Attributed to Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī: The Early Manuscript Tradition Revisited  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 Maxim Yosefi The Quest for Divine Guidance as Intercultural Educational Discourse: An Inquiry into Saadia Gaon’s and Miskawayh’s Ethics  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Mahmoud Haggag Zur Rezeption von Koran und Scharia in Miskawaihs Bildungsdiskurs: Eine Studie anhand des Werkes al-Hawāmil wa-š-šawāmil  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

IV.  Miskawayh’s Literary Strategies in Promoting Human Development Lutz Richter-Bernburg Miskawayh’s (Re-)Framing of Wisdom as Perennial and Universal in Jāwīdhān Khiradh  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 Ali Rida K. Rizek “An Art That is Learned and Acquired”: Human Happiness in Miskawayh’s Tartīb al-saʿādāt  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

V.  Miskawayh’s Significance for Later Intellectual Discourses Sophia Vasalou Virtue and the Law in al-Ghazālī’s Ethics  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289 Kaouther Karoui The Theory of Justice between the Humanism of the Classical Muslim Thinker Miskawayh and the Contemporary Thought Project of Mohammed Arkoun  . . . 321

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Ruth Mas What, to the Modern, is Miskawayh? An Epilogue  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337 Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343 Indices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347 Notes on the Indexes  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347 Index of Proper Names  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349 Index of Geographical Names and Toponyms  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357 Index of Book Titles and Other Texts  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359 Index of Scriptural References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370 Index of Prophetic Traditions (Ḥadīth)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371 Index of Topics and Keywords  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .372

Abbreviations ASL ASP BEO CMR DPhA EI2 EI3 EIr EMPh EQ FO GAS HWPh IC IJMES IPS IPTS JAOS JAS JEastCS JSS MJSS MNAW.L

Aristoteles Semitico-Latinus Arabic Sciences and Philosophy Bulletin d’Études Orientales de l’Institut Français de Damas Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History Dictionnaire des Philosophes Antiques Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Leiden 1954–2004 Encyclopaedia of Islam, Third Edition, Leiden 2007Encyclopaedia Iranica, London 1982Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy. Philosophy between 500 and 1500 Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, Leiden 2001–2006 Folia Orientalia Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie Islamic Culture International Journal of Middle East Studies International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science. Texts and Studies Journal of the American Oriental Society Journal of Abbasid Studies Journal of Eastern Christian Studies Journal of Semitic Studies Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences Mededelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, afd. Letterkunde MTSR Journal of Method and Theory in the Study of Religion MW The Muslim World REP Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy SGA Studia Graeco-Arabica SI Studia Islamica VNAW.L Verhandelingen der (K.) Nederlands(ch)e Akademie van Wetenschappen (te Amsterdam). Afdeling Letterkunde ZDMG Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft ZfPäd Zeitschrift für Pädagogik ZGAIW Zeitschrift für Geschichte der arabisch-islamischen Wissenschaften

Prologue Miskawayh: Ethics and the Lessons of History Gerhard Endress Can we learn from history? And what, if anything, could be gained from such lessons? Abū ʿAlī Miskawayh (d. 421/1030), the subject of this volume of studies, explored the history of the Muslim dynasties, and especially those of contemporary Iraq and Iran. His chronicle, under the significant title Tajārib al-umam (The Experiences of the Peoples), examines useful experiences among those things that continue to recur, and happenings the like of which may be expected again, like the beginnings of dynasties and the rise of kingdoms and the occurrence of calamities, and how those who corrected and repaired their situation returned to the best of states, and how those who neglected and spurned amendments came to dwindle and vanish.1

His own was a time of crisis: The Eclipse of the Abbasid Caliphate (the title given to the annals of Miskawayh’s own lifetime by its English translator), giving occasion to denounce grievances rather than to praise shining examples: Now let the reader consider whether these sovereigns laid themselves open to attack otherwise than through want of caution, letting themselves be drawn away by the pursuit of pleasure from attending to their affairs, neglecting their secret service, failing to investigate the dispositions of their viziers and officers, and the condition of their troops, relying on fickle fortune and coincidence, and failing to study the history of earlier sovereigns, and the methods pursued by those who maintained themselves successfully, who secured their realms and the loyalty of their followers in various ways.2

The crisis of the caliphate, looming since the mid 2nd/8th century and reaching its climax with the Buyid takeover in Baghdad (in 339/945), brought not only turmoil and the ‘Eclipse of the Abbasid Caliphate’ through an uneasy cohabitation 1 Miskawayh, Abū ʿAlī, Tajārib al-umam, reprod. in facsimile by Leone Caetani, vol. i (E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series VII, 1; Leyden: Brill, 1909): 1–2 (my translation). On this passage, see also the Editors’ Introduction to this volume, n. 112. 2 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: ii, 36; trans. Miskawayh, The Eclipse of the ʿAbbasid Caliphate, ed., trans. and elucidated by Henry F. Amedroz/David S. Margoliouth, vol. v (6. vols.; Oxford: Blackwell, 1920–1921): 41.

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of the Abbasid caliph and the Buyid rulers but also a period of intellectual variety, of open and eager debate between religious groups – Muslim, Zoroastrian, Christian, and Jewish –, between traditions of knowledge, and between philosophic schools of thought: between Sunni orthodoxy and the sects of the Shiʿa, rationalists and traditionists among the theologians, logicians and grammarians in methodology and hermeneutics. In the rich literary culture of adab, “erudition”, where the humaniora were clad in the style of the literary heritage of “pure” Arabic language, the indigenous and foreign traditions – Indian, Iranian, Greek, and ancient Arabic – were first merged and amalgamated, forming a common heritage of “Wisdom” (ḥikma, as in Miskawayh’s own compilation). The foundation of wisdom, and the way to happiness through the study of rational science, was found in the philosophy of the 3rd/9th century philosopher Yaʿqūb b. Isḥāq al-Kindī. It was al-Kindī’s concept of philosophy as an autonomous way of thought and way of life – albeit in the service of the Muslim community and compatible with the Quranic revelation – which stayed alive in the circles of the ḥukamāʾ: of scientists, of learned courtiers, and of physicians who in the spirit of Galen’s Platonism revered philosophy as the healing art of the soul. In this tradition, Miskawayh sought in philosophy a universal truth and a universal morality that discarded the limitations of institutional dogma and the casuistry of law. This universalist claim, and the intellectual optimism that went with it – the belief that perfect knowledge could be reached through the perfection of the soul, The Refinement of Character (Tahdhīb al-akhlāq, the title given by Miskawayh to his manual of philosophical ethics) – is an expression of the truly international culture which had emerged from what is called the classical period of Islam, a culture in which men of all creeds took part. The teaching of the Ancients proved a living force, creating new problems while solving old ones – a source of conflict which shaped Islamic thought even where it was rejected, and so, once again, changing the world. But can there be moral progress in dark times? Is education illusory? As a moral philosopher, Miskawayh followed the tradition of the rational sciences, notably those of the mathematicians, astronomers, and learned physicians, who since the rise of the Abbasid dynasty of Baghdad had entered the service of the Arabic-Islamic administration, and who along with the progress of Arabization and Islamization of Near Eastern society propagated their activity as a service to the foundation of the Islamic community, vindicating philosophical instruction – the doctrines of the Greek philosophers – on God, the world and humanity as a universal demonstration of the truth of the revelation. In Miskawayh’s philosophical works – as in the works of the 4th/10th century Baghdadi school of logic and Aristotelian physics, the Christian translators and commentators and their Muslim disciples and continuators – this philosophi-



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cal theology is built upon a systematic foundation of Aristotelian epistemology, physics, and positive ethics (supplemented by the anthropology of Galen). This is the tradition of the ethical propaedeutic, the way to happiness signaled in the Neoplatonic schools of Athens and Alexandria as leading to the purification of the soul, and hence to the ultimate happiness. This way is prepared by study of the rational sciences on the basis of the Aristotelian canon, and in the end leads to knowledge of the Good according to the Platonic theology. The supreme beatitude will be realized when the highest degree of knowledge is attained. At that stage, the intellect will be identical with the first intelligibles, and the acts of the human being at this highest stage of perfection will be divine: his essence will be identical with his acts, and he will be acting for the sake of his divine nature. This highest grade can be attained only by those who have studied all parts of philosophy, practical and theoretical, exhaustively. Toward this goal, Aristotle had shown the way: in his books on logic, the way towards true judgment and the methods for persuading others to pursue the good, and in his books on ethics, the dispositions of the soul required for the attainment of happiness, and the states and degrees thereof. The counsel of the wise leads to happiness through knowledge of the truth, i. e., the true essences of things (ḥaqāʾiq al-umūr), and from this, to doing right. Accordingly, two classes of knowledge, theoretical and practical wisdom, lead the way to the perfection of humanity (insāniyya, humanness) and to the realization of the ethos (khuluq) of human nature. Could this ideal ever be realized? Sometimes, in the great moments of history, a shining example of virtue, learning and rectitude appears. In the year 359/970, Miskawayh laments the death of Abū l-Faḍl Ibn al-ʿAmīd (d. 6th Safar 359/9th December 970), vizier of the Buyid ruler Rukn al-Dawla (d. 365/976) and tutor of the young ʿAḍud al-Dawla (d. 372/983), who was to become the greatest of the dynasty. As a librarian at the Buyid residence of Rayy, Miskawayh became intimately familiar with the powerful vizier whose virtue and learning he depicts as a living example of the education commended in his ethics; a man who had been encompassing the twofold encyclopaedia: the religious-hermeneutical disciplines, and the rational sciences of the Greek tradition. The talents and virtues which this man displayed were of a sort that made him outshine his contemporaries, that the enemy could not resist or the envious fail to acknowledge. No-one rivalled his combination of qualities. He was like the sun which is hidden from no one, or the sea ‘about which one may talk without restraint’. He is the only person whom I ever saw whose presence outdid his report. … He was the best kātib of his time, and possessed the greatest number of professional attainments, command of the Arabic language

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with its rarities, familiarity with grammar and prosody, felicity in etymology and metaphor, retention by memory of pre-Islamic and Islamic collections of poems.3

Miskawayh goes on to praise his excellence as an epistolographer, and as a poet familiar with the disciplines of the Arabic language, along with Quranic exegesis and Muslim jurisprudence. But then, he was at home in both worlds, that of Arabic Islamic erudition and that of the rational sciences inherited from the Greeks: logic, philosophy, and the applied sciences indispensable for administration and statecraft. Miskawayh ends his panegyric of the vizier with praise of his administrative and financial reforms, brought to bear under the great ruler ʿAḍud alDawla, whom he had taught the art of kingcraft, closing with: Some reader of this section of my book who did not witness his career, may imagine that I have been gratuitously eulogizing, claiming for him more than the real extent of his attainments and height of his virtues. I swear by Him who bade us utter the truth and forbade us to say anything else, that it is not so.4

But the panegyrist was also a realist; the Good Vizier was not able to open an age of justice and peace. He had to face ugly realities, times of unrest, Iraq on the brink of civil war, Western Iran exposed to attacks from outside and from inside, misgovernment and anarchy. In the year 355/966, when serving Abū l-Faḍl Ibn al-ʿAmīd in Rayy, Miskawayh saved the library of his master (ustādh) from the looting of Khwarazmian war hordes. [They] occupied themselves with plundering the Ustādh’s palace, stables and stores, which were newly filled, till nightfall, when they departed. I was in charge of his Library, and this only among his stores remained intact and was not touched. When at night time he returned to his palace, he could find nothing to sit down upon, nor even a jug to drink water out of. … His thoughts were for his books, than which he cherished nothing more, and indeed they were numerous, containing every form of science, and every species of wisdom and learning; there was a hundred camels’ burden of them or more. When he saw me, he asked about them, and when I replied that they were as they had been and untouched, he was relieved, and said: I declare that you are a bringer of luck! All my other stores can be replaced, it is only this store which could not be replaced.5

Preceding this period of turmoil, and the subsequent restoration of Iraq by ʿAḍud al-Dawla, are Miskawayh’s reports devoted to the rule of ʿIzz al-Dawla Bakhtiyār (d. 367/978); a portrait of an incapable and irresponsible weakling. Miskawayh reports in his chronicle the events after the Byzantine invasion of 361/972 when riots shook the capital; how the masses assaulted the caliphal palace, demanding the Holy War against Byzantium, telling the Caliph “that he was incompetent to discharge the duties which God had enjoined upon the Imams” – but the Ca3 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: ii, 275; trans. Amedroz: v, 293–294. 4 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: ii, 224–225; trans. Amedroz: v, 237. 5 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: ii, 282; trans. Amedroz: v, 237.



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liph lacked power and means. Meanwhile, Bakhtiyār, the ruler, stayed in Kufa, ostensibly to visit the shrine of the martyrium, in point of fact to go hunting. Here, Miskawayh’s older friend and sparring partner Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī (d. 414/1023) tells more: How a group of judges and scholars set out to remonstrate with the ruler for his neglect, and to represent to him the woes and distresses of the population  – in vain, but it is a moving narrative of jurists, administrators and scholars taking responsibility in the face of the failure of the authority.6 Miskawayh’s ethics is rational education in the tradition of Platonism. Its concept of value recognition is that of Socrates – no one knowingly acts badly – its ethics is based on knowledge; its ethical education is directed at purifying the rational, the highest of the three Platonic soul parts. Here, for the formation of the use of reason, the Aristotelian encyclopedia of rational sciences is recommended and complements Platonic psychagogy, and Stoic and Galenic anthropology: ethics as ‘purification of character’ (tahdhīb al-akhlāq). With Miskawayh, the Aristotelian criterion of value cognition, mesotês, and its ideal, dikaiosynê (Arabic: ʿadl), also determine the goal of a virtuous life: the highest human good that is actively attainable and available to man in life and action. The path of virtue is not the sharīʿa of religion; rather, it is education for the purification of character in the service of a way of life pleasing to God. For this purpose, the renowned philosopher-theologian Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) integrated the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq into the practical ethics of his Revivification of the Disciplines of Religion and his The Criterion of Action, and henceforth, Miskawayh’s paradigm persisted as a principal source of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210), Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274), Jalāl al-Dīn al-Dawānī (d. 908/1502–1503) and later authors of kutub al-akhlāq. Here is the lasting legacy of the cosmopolitan Miskawayh, in whose work Greek philosophy, Iranian wisdom and Arabic Adab are merged to become an epitome of humanism in classical Arabic Islamic civilization.

6 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: ii, 303–304; trans. Amedroz: v, 326–327; al-Tawḥīdī, al-Imtāʿ: iii, 157, l. 19–158, l. 9.

Einführung Der Moralphilosoph und Historiker Miskawaih: Traditionsbindung und Neubestimmung im Bildungsdiskurs des Islams Sebastian Günther und Yassir El Jamouhi* Für einige seiner gelehrten Zeitgenossen und Nachfolger in der islamischen Geistesgeschichte war bzw. ist Miskawaih ein islamischer Philosoph und Historiker ersten Ranges. Zudem sei er, wie es der algerisch-französische Philosoph und Miskawaih-Kenner Mohammed Arkoun (gest. 2010) ausdrückte, ein Vertreter des „arabischen Humanismus“ par excellence. Andere wiederum sehen in Miskawaih eher einen Eklektiker, wie der marokkanische Philosoph Mohammed Abed al-Jabiri festhält, und jemanden, der die schönen Dinge des Lebens an der Seite der Mächtigen genoss.1 Zeugnisse wie diese kennzeichnen die beiden Pole in einem vielschichtigen Spektrum von Meinungen zu diesem „klassischen“ muslimischen Gelehrten mit dem ungewöhnlichen Namen Miskawaih. Doch wer war dieser Miskawaih? In welcher Weise nahm er an den vielfältigen Diskursen seiner Zeit – insbesondere zu Bildung und Ethik – teil? Was sagen seine Schriften zu diesen Themenbereichen aus? Wie arbeitete Miskawaih und wie wurden seine Auffassungen von seinen Zeitgenossen und späteren Denkern rezipiert? Und schließlich: sind seine Ideen in den heutigen Diskussionen um Bildung und Erziehung noch oder vielleicht wieder von Bedeutung? Einige erste Antworten auf Fragen dieser Art zu finden, macht sich diese Einführung zum vorliegenden Sammelband zur Auf* Dieser Beitrag wurde im Rahmen und mit Unterstützung des Göttinger Sonderforschungsbereichs 1136 „Bildung und Religion“ (Teilprojekt D 03: „Ethische Unterweisung als Bildungsdiskurs“) erarbeitet. Die Transliteration des Arabischen und Persischen folgt im gesamten Band den Regeln der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft (DMG) für die deutschsprachigen Aufsätze bzw. des International Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES) für die englischsprachigen Beiträge. Übersetzungen aus dem Arabischen und dem Englischen stammen von den Verfassern dieser Einleitung. Zitate aus dem Koran folgen – im Wortlaut und in der typographischen Wiedergabe mitunter modifiziert – der Übersetzung Rudi Parets 2007. 1  Vgl. Arkoun (1961, 1970, 1982, 2012b). Zu al-Jabiri (transkribiert und so im weiteren Text: Muḥammad ʿĀbid al-Ǧābirī), siehe al-Ǧābirī 2001: 406. Siehe zu Miskawaih als Person und zu seinem Gesamtschaffen die Abschnitte 1.4 und 3 dieser Einleitung.

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gabe. Ausgehend von der aktuellen Forschung sollen die Primärquellen deshalb erneut umfassend und kritisch befragt werden, um ein möglichst authentisches Bild von Miskawaih und wesentlichen Aspekten seines Schaffens in Fragen der Bildung im Islam zu zeichnen.

1.  Miskawaihs Leben Miskawaih war vor allem Philosoph und Historiker; er wirkte aber auch als Mediziner, Literat und Dichter. In seinen Arbeiten widmete er sich zahlreichen weiteren Wissensdisziplinen wie der Logik, Metaphysik, Theologie und Psychologie bis hin zur Alchemie. Sein Ansehen in der heutigen arabischen und islamischen Welt als „Begründer der islamischen Ethik“ beruht aber vor allem auf seinen Schriften zur Moralphilosophie. Miskawaih wurde zwischen 320 und 325 der islamischen Zeitrechnung, d. h. 932 und 936, in der iranischen Stadt Raiy, dem antiken Rhagai (Rhagae), in der Nähe Teherans geboren.2 Er starb  – fast hundertjährig  – am 9. Ṣafar des Jahres 421/22. Februar 1030 in Isfahan.3 Als Repräsentant der arabophonen, durch iranische sowie hellenistische und nicht zuletzt indische Überlieferungen mitgeformten islamischen Kultur seiner Zeit verfasste Miskawaih seine Werke hauptsächlich in arabischer Sprache, der Lingua franca jener Zeit im Einflussbereich des Islams. Vor allem aber genießt Miskawaih bis heute Anerkennung als ein Denker, der über die Grenzen schiitischer oder sunnitischer konfessioneller Bindungen hinweg die Idee eines kulturübergreifenden geistigen Zugangs zu den Idealen und Werten von Bildung und Ethik repräsentiert, der den Menschen in den Mittelpunkt der Überlegungen rückt und die Notwendigkeit eines vernunftgemäßen Denkens und Handelns hervorhebt. Die Grundlage hierfür ist für Miskawaih eine Art vorherbestimmte Ordnung von Offenbarung und Vernunft im Sinne einer „prästabilierten Harmonie“ (und Willensfreiheit), wie Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) es nennen würde, wobei Miskawaih allerdings zumindest normativ keinen Zweifel an der Gültigkeit des islamischen Religionsgesetzes zulässt. Miskawaihs Verständnis vom Islam ist weder konfessionell ausgeprägt – auch wenn ihn die schiitische Tradition Jahrhunderte später gern für sich beansprucht –, noch besonders traditionalistisch. Vielmehr ist dieses Islamverständnis auch für außerislamisches oder selbst „säkulares“ Denken – um noch einmal einen moderneren Begriff zu bemühen – offen.4 2  Endress 2012: 212. 3 Yāqūt, al-Iršād: ii, 88–89; al-Ḫwānsārī, ar-Rawḍāt: i, 254, 257. Vgl. auch El Jamouhi 2019:

427–429; El Jamouhi 2020: 201–203. 4  Im Sinne Talal Asads verstehen wir das „Säkulare“ als epistemische Kategorie. Während „Säkularismus“ auf politische, staatliches Handeln betreffende Grundprinzipien rekurriert, bewegt sich das Säkulare „mit dem Religiösen, das ihm vermeintlich vorangegangen ist, weder in

Einführung

9

1.1.  Herkunft und konfessionelle Bindung Zum Leben des Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Yaʿqūb al-Ḫāzin („der Bibliothekar“), besser bekannt unter seinem Beinamen Miskawaih, gibt es nur wenige belastbare Informationen in den einschlägigen arabischen historischen und bio-bibliographischen Nachschlagewerken. Diese sagen unter anderem aus, dass Miskawaih (englisch oft: Miskawayh) die arabisierte Form des persischen Mushkōye sei.5 Zudem heißt es, dieser Name weise auf einen Vorort der Stadt Raiy hin, aus dem dieser Gelehrte (oder seine Familie) womöglich stammte;6 allerdings scheint es sich dabei um ein Missverständis zu handeln, wenngleich dieser Ortsname tatsächlich belegt ist. Über die Bedeutung des Bei- (oder Spitz-)Namens Miskawaih bzw. des persischen Nominalkompositums Mushkōye  – mit misk („Moschus“) und dem Suffix -ōye – machen die einschlägigen arabischen und persischen Nachschlagewerke keine Angaben. Da das persische Suffix -ōye drei Bedeutungen haben kann – es kann die Ähnlichkeit, die Verkleinerung (Diminutiv) oder den Besitz von etwas ausdrücken –,7 könnte Mushkōye mit „der dem Moschus Ähnliche“, „der nach Moschus Duftende“ oder auch „der kleine Moschus“ bzw. „Moschüschen“ im Deutschen wiedergegeben werden.8 In einigen Quellen angenommen wird weiterhin, dass Miskawaih schon der Name des Vaters (oder Großvaters) dieses Gelehrten gewesen sei, weshalb in beeinem Kontinuum (d. h. es ist nicht die letzte Phase einer von einem heiligen Ursprung sich herschreibenden Entwicklung), noch ist es ein einfacher Bruch mit ihm (sprich: es ist nicht das Gegenteil des Religiösen, keine Essenz, die darauf angelegt ist, das Heilige auszuschließen).“ Somit ist das Säkulare ein „Begriff, der bestimmte Formen des Verhaltens, des Wissens und des Empfindens zu dem konfiguriert,“ was als gelebte Wirklichkeit aufgefasst werden kann. Vgl. Asad 2017: 33. 5  Vgl. Emami/Umar 2008, online. 6 Yāqūt, al-Buldān: iv, 543; aṭ-Ṭabarī, Tārīḫ: viii, 392. Vgl. auch Emami/Umar 2008, online. Die uns zugänglichen arabischen und persischen Nachschlagewerke machen darüber hinaus keine onomastischen Angaben zur Bedeutung des Namens Miskawaih. 7  Vgl. https://dictionary.abadis.ir/fatofa/%D9%88%DB%8C%D9%87/. 8  Auch die Übersetzung „Moschusbröckchen“ wurde in dieser Hinsicht vorgeschlagen. Angemerkt sei hierzu auch, dass Wohlgerüche und Duftstoffe in der Gesellschaft der Zeit – bzw. in ihrer Vorstellungswelt – allgegenwärtig waren. Als förmliche Namen wurden diese – wie die Bezeichnungen anderer Kostbarkeiten, etwa jene für Edelsteine – vor allem auch für Sklaven verwendet. Insofern könnte sich der Name Miskawaih auf parfümierte Haare oder auf eine dunklere Hautfarbe beziehen oder auch nur allgemein als gutes Omen für Attraktivität gemeint sein. Tatsächlich ist „Miskawaih“ als Bei- bzw. Spitzname nicht unikal in der arabischen Namensgebung. In ähnlichem Kontext bezieht sich Kees Versteegh (1997: 29) auf die in einigen arabischen Quellen verzeichnete – volkstümliche – Erklärung zum Bei- bzw. Spitznamen (laqab) des großen persischen Grammatikers Sībawaih (gest. 180/796; mit der gleichen Endung wie Miskawaih), wonach dieser „smell of apples“ bedeute. Nöldeke und Brockelmann merken zudem an, dass Sēbōe im Persischen „kleiner Apfel“ bedeute (vgl. Carter 1997b: 524). Für diese Literaturhinweise danken wir herzlich Frau Professorin Wiebke Walther (E‑Mail-Kommunkation vom 02. August 2020). Zu männlichen Personennamen in vor- und frühislamischer Zeit vgl. auch Walther 1966.

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stimmten Editionen seiner Werke sowie in einigen modernen Publikationen die Namensform Ibn Miskawaih begegnet. Ebenso wird berichtet, dass Miskawaihs Vater (oder Großvater) vom Zoroastrismus zum Islam konvertiert sei.9 Zu Miskawaihs schiitischer Gesinnung, die heute in der Sekundärliteratur nahezu regulär vermerkt wird, machen die frühen arabischen Primärquellen keine Angaben. Erst spätmittelalterliche, vor allem schiitische Quellen – die früheste unter ihnen stammt aus dem 10./16. Jahrhundert – deuten Miskawaihs schiitische Neigung an, allerdings ohne konkrete Argumente in dieser Hinsicht beizubringen. Zu nennen ist hier vor allem ein Werk mit dem Titel Maǧālis almuʾminīn (Die Lehrsitzungen der Gläubigen) des schiitischen Richters und Theologen Nūr Allāh al-Ḥusainī al-Marʿašī at-Tustarī (gest. 1019/1610).10 Auch dieser weist Miskawaih zwar nicht dezidiert als Schiiten aus, bietet aber zwei Hinweise, die ein solches Verständnis nahelegen sollen. Zum einen hebt at-Tustarī das schiitische Umfeld hervor, in dem Miskawaih wirkte. Zum anderen führt er eine Bemerkung Miskawaihs in dessen ethischem Hauptwerk Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq (Die Läuterung der Sitten) an, in dem Miskawaih an einer Stelle von der Weisheit ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālibs, d. h. des ersten Imams der Schia, spricht.11 Eine andere diesbezügliche, allerdings noch um einiges spätere Quelle ist das Werk Rawḍāt al-ǧannāt (Die Gärten der Domänen des Paradieses) des schiitischen Historikers Muḥammad Bāqir (al-)Ḫwānsārī (auch: Ḫvānsārī; gest. 1313/1895). Dieser zitiert eine Aussage des bekannten persischen Philosophen Mīr Dāmād (gest. 1041/1631), wonach Miskawaih über umfangreiches Wissen zu den Ahl al-bait („die Leute des Hauses,“ d. h. die leiblichen Nachkommen des Propheten Muhammad) verfügt und an die Pflicht der Muslime geglaubt habe, „ihnen zu gehorchen und sie zu lieben“.12 Zusätzlich wird eine weitere Bemerkung Miskawaihs im Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq zum Mut des ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib als Indiz für dessen schiitische Orientierung angeführt. Einschlägige Hinweise sind dann auch in der vielfach zitierten Enzyklopädie Aʿyān aš-šīʿa (Die hervorragenden Persönlichkeiten der Schia) des schiitischen Gelehrten as-Sayyid Muḥsin al9 Al-Ḫwānsārī, ar-Rawḍāt: i, 254; Yāqūt, al-Iršād: ii, 91. Siehe ebenfalls Margoliouths Vorwort zur Edition und Übersetzung von Miskawaihs Taǧārib al-umam (Miskawaih, at-Taǧārib [Übers. Amedroz/Margoliouth] 1920–1921: vii, ii), wo es heißt: „Yaqut (author of the Irshad) states apparently on his own authority that Miskawaihi was a convert to Islam from Magianism; if this be true, the names of his father and grandfather, Mohammed and Yaʿqub, are likely to be fictitious. That Miskawaihi was the laqab of himself, not of his father, appears very clearly from the statements of his contemporaries Abu Hayyan and Thaʿalibi; the lbn which is prefixed in the printed editions of some of his works … is due to his calling himself Ahmad b. Mohammed Miskawaihi, whence some sup­posed the laqab to belong to the father.“ 10 At-Tustarī, al-Maǧālis: iii, 157–159. 11 At-Tustarī, al-Maǧālis: iii, 157–158. 12  In diesem Kontext schreibt al-Ḫwānsārī: „Er (Miskawaih) verfügte über ein hohes Maß an Wissen hinsichtlich der Legitimation (ḥaqq) der Ahl al-Bait – Friede sei mit ihnen – und den Glauben an die Pflicht, ihnen zu gehochen, sowie an die Notwendigkeit, sie zu lieben.“ AlḪwānsārī, ar-Rawḍāt: i, 256.

Einführung

11

Amīn (gest. 1952) wiedergegeben, wenn dort dann explizit von Miskawaihs schiitischer Neigung (tašayyuʿ) gesprochen wird.13 Informationen dieser Art sind im Kontext der modernen Geschichts- und Religionswissenschaft natürlich kaum belastbar. Andererseits kann als relativ gesichert gelten, dass Miskawaih in einem schiitischen Milieu aufgewachsen ist und im Machtbereich der schiitischen Dynastie der Buyiden auch mehrheitlich in einem solchen aktiv war. Doch klar festzuhalten ist hier auch, dass in Miskawaihs wissenschaftlichem Oeuvre keine ausdrücklich schiitischen Positionen thematisiert oder anderweitig augenfällig sind.14 In seinen Werken tritt uns vor allem ein Autor entgegen, der über die konfessionellen Grenzen hinweg denkt und in verschiedenen Wissenschaften bewandert und produktiv war. Gleichwohl ist es für unser Verständnis von Miskawaih als Person und Gelehrten von Bedeutung, rezeptionsgeschichtlich zu eruieren, wann und in welcher Weise sich die Auffassung von Miskawaihs schiitischer Gesinnung etablierte, die heute in diversen Publikationen als Fakt dargestellt wird, ohne dass dafür Belege erbracht würden. 1.2. Bildungsweg Relativ gut gesichert ist Miskawaihs Bildungsweg. Philosophie und Logik studierte Miskawaih vor allem bei zwei christlichen Gelehrten: Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī (gest. 363/974), einem Schüler al-Fārābīs (gest. 339/950) sowie Übersetzer (aus dem Syrischen ins Arabische) und Kommentator der Werke des Aristoteles, wie auch bei dem bekannten Schüler Yaḥyā b. ʿAdīs, dem Philosophen, Arzt und Aristoteles-Kommentator al-Ḥasan b. Suwār, besser bekannt als Abū l-Ḫair Ibn alḪammār (gest. nach 407/1017, evtl. 421/1030). Mit Geschichte befasste sich Miskawaih bei dem vielseitig bewanderten Gelehrten Aḥmad b. Kāmil al-Qāḍī (gest. 350/961), einem Schüler des bedeutenden Historikers und Koranexegeten Muḥammad b. Ǧarīr aṭ-Ṭabarī (gest. 310/923). Mit Aḥmad b. Kāmil las er vor allem aṭ-Ṭabarīs Universalchronik, während er sich intensiv dem Studium der Alchemie bei einem Alchemisten namens Abū ṭ-Ṭaiyib ar-Rāzī zuwandte.15 Wissen zur theoretischen Medizin scheint sich Miskawaih während seiner Studien in der Bibliothek des Ibn al-ʿAmīd angeeignet zu haben, während er praktische Kenntnisse von Ärzten erwarb, welche in dem von ʿAḍud ad-Daula (gest. 13  Hier ist zu lesen: „Zu seinem Schiitentum (tašayyuʿ) äußerten sich Mīr Dāmād und al-Qāḍī Nūr Allāh in den Maǧālis [al-muʾminīn] (Die Lehrsitzungen [der Gläubigen]) und der Autor (d. h. der schiitische Theologe Mirzā ʿAbdallāh al-Iṣfahānī, gest. 1130/1718) des Riyāḍ alʿulamāʾ (Die Gärten der Gelehrten). Diese [Einschätzung] wird gestützt durch seine Tätigkeit, die er (Miskawaih) speziell jenen Ministern und Gebietern der Schia [widmete].“ Al-Amīn, alAʿyān: iii, 159. 14  Ähnlich argumentiert auch Arkoun 1982: 96–100. 15  Kāna mašġūlan bi-ṭalab al-kīmiyāʾ maʿa Abī ṭ­-Ṭaiyib al-Kīmiyāʾī ar-Rāzī. Vgl. at-Tauḥīdī, al-Imtāʿ: 52–53; Yāqūt, al-Iršād: ii, 89–90; siehe auch Badawi 1963: 469.

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372/983) in Bagdad auf der Westseite des Tigris gegründeten Krankhaus tätig waren.16 1.3.  Zeitgenössische Gelehrte und Mäzene In Bagdad (ca. 340–352/952–963)17 war Miskawaih Mitglied eines Kreises bekannter zeitgenössischer Intellektueller. Zu diesen zählten der Literat und Philosoph Abū Ḥaiyān at-Tauḥīdī (gest. 414/1023), ein wichtiger Gelehrtenkollege und Kritiker Miskawaihs, ebenso wie der Philosoph Abū Sulaimān asSiǧistānī al-Manṭiqī („der Logiker,“ gest. ca. 374/985), der Literat Abū Manṣūr aṯ-Ṯaʿālibī (gest. 429/1038), der Theologe und Philosoph Abū l-Ḥasan al-ʿĀmirī (gest. 381/992), der Wesir und Gelehrtenmäzen Abū ʿAbdallāh b. Saʿdān (gest. 374/984–985), der Wesir und Literat aṣ-Ṣāḥib b. ʿAbbād (gest. 385/995), der Literat Badīʿ az-Zamān al-Hamaḏānī („das [literarische] Wunder des Zeitalters,“ gest. 398/1008) sowie der Poet und Epistolograph Abū Bakr al-Ḫwārizmī (gest. 383/993). Schon in jungen Jahren hatte sich Miskawaih Ansehen durch seine Tätigkeit als Kanzleisekretär und Bibliothekar an den Höfen der schiitischen Buyiden (reg. 334–448/945–1055) in Bagdad und in Raiy erworben. Sieben Jahre lang war Miskawaih in Raiy Bibliothekar und Gesellschafter des von ihm auch als Literat hochgeschätzten Abū l-Faḍl Ibn al-ʿAmīd (gest. 360/970), des einflussreichen Wesirs des Buyiden-Herrschers Rukn ad-Daula (gest. 365/976). Nach Ibn al-ʿAmīds Tod stand er für einige Zeit in den Diensten von dessen Sohn, Abū l-Fatḥ Ibn al-ʿAmīd; und danach für weitere zwölf Jahre – von 340 bis 352/952 bis 963 – von al-Muhallabī (gest. 352/963), einem großen Förderer von Literatur und Wissenschaft und Wesir des Buyiden-Herrschers in Bagdad, Muʿizz adDaula (gest. 356/967). Während Miskawaih hier am Tage seinen Pflichten in der Kanzlei nachging, gesellte er sich an den Abenden den literarischen Salons bei, in denen bei gutem Essen und Trinken die alte arabische Kultur und die feine persische Lebensart und Etikette miteinander verschmolzen. In diesen Jahren an den buyidischen Höfen scheint Miskawaih mithin rege am gesellschaftlichen Leben teilgenommen und die Vorzüge einer Existenz am Hof kennengelernt zu haben. Im Alter soll sich Miskawaih zusammen mit einer Gruppe von Freunden als Hofarzt dem Gefolge des Choresm-Schahs und Herrschers von Chiwa am Oxus (Amu-Darya), im heutigen Usbekistan, angeschlossen haben.18 Er starb, wie schon erwähnt, hochbetagt in Isfahan.

16  17  18 

Goodman 2003: 101–112, insbes. 103. Vgl. auch Bürgel 2016: 120. Vgl. Arkoun 1982: 62, 65. Badawi 1963: 469; Goodman 2003: 101–104.

Einführung

13

1.4.  Miskawaihs Stellung als Person und Gelehrter in der islamischen Ideengeschichte Das Porträt, das Miskawaihs Zeitgenossen von ihm als Person und Gelehrten zeichnen, wie auch die Rolle, die ihm von modernen arabischen Intellektuellen und in der Islamwissenschaft zugesprochen wird, sind durchaus ambivalent. Eine vergleichsweise deutliche, aber gleichwohl schon in sich widersprüchliche Missbilligung Miskawaihs stammt von seinem Gelehrtenkollegen Abū Ḥaiyān at-Tauḥīdī. In seinem Werk al-Imtāʿ wa-l-muʾānasa (Die [ freudige] Unterhaltung und die Geselligkeit), einer Reihe nächtlicher Gespräche zu verschiedenen literarischen und philosophischen Themen, bezeichnet at-Tauḥīdī Miskawaih an einer Stelle als „Armen unter Reichen und Stammler unter Beredeten,“19 Auch kritisiert er Miskawaihs angeblichen Geiz, seine alchimistischen Aktivitäten auf der Suche nach Gold und Reichtum sowie seine intellektuellen Leistungen.20 Doch schon kurz darauf im gleichen Text nennt at-Tauḥīdī Miskawaih intelligent (ḏakī) sowie einen Mann mit guten dichterischen Fähigkeiten (ḥasana š-šiʿr) und einer klaren Diktion (naqī l-lafẓ).21 Ibn Sīnā soll ebenfalls keine hohe Meinung von Miskawaih als Gelehrten gehabt haben, wie der Historiker und Biograph Ǧamāl ad-Dīn al-Qifṭī (auch: Ibn al-Qifṭī; gest. 646/1248) in seinem Werk Iḫbār al-ʿulamāʾ bi-aḫbār al-ḥukamāʾ (Die Unterrichtung der Gelehrten über die Nachrichten der Philosophen), bekannt auch als Tārīḫ al-ḥukamāʾ (Die Geschichte der Philosophen) mitteilt.22 Spätere Quellen berichten zudem, dass Ibn Sīnā einmal den Lehrzirkel (maǧlis at-tadrīs) von Miskawaih besucht habe und es hier zu einem kurzen, allerdings wenig freundlichen Gespräch zwischen beiden gekommen sein soll.23 Besonders anerkennende Worte über Miskawaih sind in einer Kompilation grie19 At-Tauḥīdī, al-Imtāʿ: 52; vgl. auch Endress 2012: 213. 20 At-Tauḥīdī, al-Imtāʿ: 52–53. 21 At-Tauḥīdī, al-Imtāʿ: 53. 22 Al-Qifṭī, al-Iḫbār: 248. 23  Zu dieser Anekdote siehe u. a. al-Ḫwānsārī, ar-Rawḍāt:

i, 257, mit Berufung auf ältere, allerdings nicht namentlich genannte Quellen. Auch moderne arabische Publikationen erwähnen dieses Zusammentreffen von Ibn Sīnā und Miskawaih, ohne dies bibliographisch nachzuweisen. Der Legende nach soll Ibn Sīnā den Studienzirkel Miskawaihs aufgesucht und ihn in Anwesenheit seiner Studenten nach der Berechnung der Fläche einer Nuss (ǧauza) gefragt haben. Miskawaih wollte diese Frage aufgrund der von ihm als ungebührlich empfundenen Art der Fragestellung nicht beantworten. Stattdessen habe der zu diesem Zeitpunkt schon hochbetagte Miskawaih dem fast fünfzig Jahre jüngeren Ibn Sīnā einige Blätter seines Buches Die Läuterung der Sitten zugeworfen und diesen ermahnt, er solle erst sein Benehmen bessern, bevor er eine Antwort erhält. Diese Anekdote wurde in zeitgenössischen Dramen bzw. Romanen literarisch verarbeitet, so etwa in den Drāmā aʿlām al-ʿarab (Theaterstücke über arabische Persönlichkeiten) des irakischen Regisseurs und Dramaturgen Faiṣal Ibrāhīm al-Miqdādī (alMiqdādī, Drāmā: 84–89), sowie in dem Ibn Sīnā gewidmeten historischen Roman Fardaqān. Iʿtiqāl aš-Šaiḫ ar-Raʾīs ([Die Festung] Fardaqan. Die Inhaftierung des Großen Meisters) (Zaidān, Fardaqan: 97) des ägyptischen Schriftstellers Yūsuf Zaidān.

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chisch-islamischer Philosophie mit dem Titel Ṣiwān al-ḥikma (Das Depositum der Weisheit) enthalten. Der Autor des Ṣiwān al-ḥikma, der Miskawaih offenbar aus gemeinsamen Jahren in Raiy persönlich kannte, zählt Miskawaih zu den großen Persönlichkeiten seiner Zeit und hebt seine vorbildliche Lebensart (alaḫlāq aṭ-ṭāhira) hervor.24 Von Miskawaihs ethischem Lebenswandel berichtet später auch der arabische Gelehrte Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī (gest. 626/1229) in seinem Werk Iršād al-arīb ilā maʿrifat al-adīb (Die Hinleitung des Klugen zur Kenntnis über den Gebildeten). Yāqūt erwähnt dort ein Testament (waṣīya), wonach sich Miskawaih in seinen späteren Jahren einem fünfzehn Punkte umfassenden Moralkodex verpflichtet habe.25 Auch unter anderen muslimischen Gelehrten der späteren Generationen genoss Miskawaihs Werk Achtung und Anerkennung. Der zur Zeit der Mamluken in Damaskus und Kairo wirkende Biograph und Rechtsgelehrte Ibn Ḫallikān (gest. 681/1282) nennt in seinem mehrbändigen biographischen Lexikon Wafayāt al-aʿyān wa-anbāʾ abnāʾ al-zamān (Die Todesfälle bedeutender Persönlichkeiten und die Nachrichten über die Söhne der Zeit) Miskawaihs Taǧārib alumam (Die Erfahrungen der Völker) „das jedermann bekannte [und vielbenutzte] Geschichtswerk (wa-huwa t-tārīḫ al-mašhūr bi-aidī an-nās).“26 In seinem schon zuvor zitierten Werk Rawḍāt al-ǧannāt fī aḥwāl al-ʿulamāʾ wa-s-sādāt (Die Gärten des Paradieses. [Nachrichten] über Gelehrte und vornehme Personen) erwähnt al-Ḫwānsārī im 13./19. Jahrhundert, dass der persische Philosoph und Theologe Ṣadr ad-Dīn aš-Šīrāzī Mullā Ṣadrā (gest. 1050/1640), auch bekannt als Mullā Ṣadrā, zahlreiche Werke von Miskawaih besessen habe. Er soll diese Schriften allerdings „aufgrund der Vielzahl der darin enthaltenen Geheimnisse (asrār) vor den Augen seiner Freunde verborgen“ haben.27 Letztere Bemerkung gibt dieser Notiz eine merkwürdige Note, da nicht klar ist, was hier mit „Geheimnissen“ gemeint ist (möglicherweise religiös oder anderweitig bedenkliche Aussagen?). Das Interesse an Miskawaihs philosophisch-ethischem Zugang zu Bildung und Erziehung im islamischen Kontext führt bis in die Moderne. Hier sind es, wie oben angedeutet, vor allem der algerisch-französische Denker Mohammed 24  Vgl. [Ps.] al-Manṭiqī, aṣ-Ṣiwān: 347. Das Ṣiwān al-ḥikma wurde zuweilen Miskawaihs älterem Zeitgenossen, dem großen Bagdader Philosophen Abū Sulaimān as-Siǧistānī al-Manṭiqī (gest. ca. 374/985) zugeschrieben. Wadad Kadi hat allerdings gezeigt, dass dieses Buch von einem Autor stammt – möglicherweise einem gewissen Abū l-Qāsim al-Kātib, bekannt als Ġulām al-ʿĀmirī –, der noch zwischen 400/1009–1010 und 420/1029 gelebt hat und zu dessen Quellen für das Ṣiwān al-ḥikma sowohl Werke Abū Ḥaiyān at-Tauḥīdīs als auch Miskawaihs zählten. Abū l-Qāsim al-Kātib war ein Freund at-Tauḥīdīs und ein Bewunderer Miskawaihs. Vgl. al-Qāḍī 1981: 87–124, insbes. 110–115, 118–119. Zum Ṣiwān al-ḥikma siehe auch Daiber 1984. 25 Yāqūt, al-Iršād: ii, 95–96. 26  Ibn Ḫallikān, al-Aʿyān: v, 137; Ibn Ḫallikān, al-Aʿyān/Dictionary: i, 464; ii, 290; siehe auch i, 464. 27 Al-Ḫwānsārī, ar-Rawḍāt: i, 256.

Einführung

15

Arkoun, der diese Diskurse nicht nur erforschte, sondern sich im Rahmen seiner Propagierung eines „arabischen Humanismus“ selbst in diese einbrachte.28 Miskawaih nimmt in zahlreichen Studien Arkouns eine zentrale Stellung ein.29 Für Arkoun ist dabei kennzeichnend, dass die von ihm mit „arabischem Humanismus“ verbundene Geisteshaltung im 4./10. und 5./11. Jahrhundert eben nicht nur von den ganz großen Philosophen wie al-Fārābī (gest. 339/950) und Ibn Sīnā (gest. 428/1037) getragen wurde. Vielmehr haben, so Arkoun, auch weniger bekannte Denker wie Miskawaih dazu Entscheidendes beigesteuert. Miskawaih gilt Arkoun mithin als Vertreter einer intellektuellen Generation muslimischer Denker, welche die Dynamik und Diversität der Diskurse zu Bildung und Ethik im klassischen Islam in signifikanter Weise mitgestalteten und gewissermaßen verkörperten.30 Eine andere Perspektive auf Miskawaihs Schaffen bietet der marokkanische Philosoph Muḥammad ʿĀbid al-Ǧābirī (gest. 2010). Innerhalb der arabisch-islamischen Rezeption griechischen Kulturerbes unterscheidet al-Ǧābirī drei grundlegende theoretische Ansätze: einen medizinisch-wissenschaftlichen (mit Galen als Autorität und Quelle), einen philosophischen, hauptsächlich an Aristoteles (und Platon) orientierten sowie einen eklektischen Ansatz (nazʿa talfīqīya), der sich selektiv auf die drei Autoritäten Platon, Aristoteles und Galen stütze.31 AlǦābirī zählt Miskawaih – zusammen mit dessen Zeitgenossen im Bagdader Gelehrtenkreis al-ʿĀmirī – zum letzteren theoretischen Zugang.32 Nuanciert im Grundton, aber generell anerkennend sind die einschlägigen islamwissenschaftlichen Äußerungen zu Miskawaih. Während der Herausgeber der zweibändigen History of Muslim Philosophy, Mian M. Sharif, in seiner Einleitung Miskawaih – etwas unscharf – als „illustrious philosopher“ in eine Reihe mit Gelehrten wie al-Fārābī (gest. 339/950), Ibn Sīnā, Ibn Ḥazm (gest. 456/1064), al-Ġazālī (gest. 505/1111), Ibn Bāǧǧa (gest. 533/1138), Ibn Ṭufail (gest. 581/1185), Ibn Rušd (Averroes, gest. 595/1198) und Faḫr ad-Dīn ar-Rāzī (gest. 606/1210) stellt, erwähnt Oliver Leaman in der von ihm mitherausgegebenen History of Islamic Philosophy, dass Miskawaih Mitglied eines besonders angesehenen Kreises von Gelehrten war, die ihre politische Karriere mit philosophischen Aktivitäten verbanden. Ähnlich äußern sich auch Majid Fakhry, Joel Kraemer und Lenn Goodman, wobei Fakhry Miskawaih als „principle writer on ethics in Islam“, Kraemer als „famous philosopher-historian-courtier“ und Goodman als 28  Arkoun 1970. 29  Arkoun 1970. 30  Zur Periodisierung

der intellektuellen Geschichte des Islams im Vergleich zur europäischen Geistesgeschichte sowie zur Verwendung von Termini wie „klassisch“ (als chronologischer und qualifizierender Begriff ) und „Mittelalter“ bzw. „mittelalterlich“ vgl. u. a. Heinrichs 1990: 14; Khalidi 1994: xi; Günther 2005: xvii–xx; und Bauer 2011: 14. 31  Al-Ǧābirī 2001: 290. 32  Al-Ǧābirī 2001: 395.

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„key figure in the humanistic tradition“ bezeichnen.33 Peter Adamson charakterisiert Miskawaih treffend als „polymath historian and philosopher“ und Gerhard Endress schließlich schreibt: „Als Höfling, Historiker der iranischen Dynastie der Būyiden und Überlieferer literarisch stilisierter, gnomischer ‚Weisheit‘ der Perser, Griechen und Araber […] repräsentiert Miskawaih die sprachliche, literarische und philosophische Bildung der ‚klassischen‘ islamischen Kulturgemeinschaft arabischer Sprache“.34 1.5.  Humanismus im Islam? Ein Exkurs In der islamwissenschaftlichen Forschung gibt es inzwischen eine ganze Reihe von Studien, die mit dem Begriff des „Humanismus“ in Kombination mit den Attributen „arabisch“ und/oder „islamisch“ operieren35 bzw. die These der Existenz eines „arabischen“ bzw. „islamischen Humanismus“ in der Ideengeschichte des Islams vertreten. Es ist dies eine These, die wie kaum eine andere die moderne islamwissenschaftliche Forschung polarisiert.36 Von den Kritikern der Verwendung dieses Begriffes im islamischen Kontext wird zum einen formuliert, dass die betreffenden Studien keine brauchbare Definition des Humanismusbegriffs bieten, die es ermöglichte, die vielschichtigen Bedeutungsdimensionen und Konnotationen dieses Ausdrucks offenzulegen, zu analysieren und insgesamt genau zu bestimmen. Marco Schöller (2012) zum Beispiel stellt fest, dass der Gebrauch dieses Begriffs weder konsequent noch in Übereinstimmung mit dem Bedeutungsspektrum erfolgt, wie sich dieses „anhand der abendländischen Kultur- und Geistesgeschichte, trotz aller konzeptuell und kontextuell bedingten Unbestimmtheit, in Grundzügen herausarbeiten“ lässt.37 Ferner wird kritisiert, dass die betreffenden Arbeiten den Begriff des Humanismus nicht in ein und derselben Bedeutung verwenden. So ließe sich anhand des abendländischen Gebrauchs dieses Begriffs nicht eindeutig klären, ob der „Humanismus“ als geistesgeschichtlicher, Epochen-, Werte- oder Bildungsbegriff verwendet wird.38 33  Leaman 1996: 252; Fakhry 1970: 209; Fakhry 1991: 4; Kraemer 1992: 148; Goodman 2003: 25. 34  Adamson 2015: 200. Siehe dazu auch Adamson 2007: 39; Endress 2012: 226. 35  Beispielhaft genannt seien hier in chronologischer Reihenfolge folgende Studien: Badawi 1956; Vatikiotis 1957; Arkoun 1961b; Gardet 1962; Arkoun 1970; Rege 1978; Bergé 1979; Boisard 1979; Green 1984; Kraemer 1984; Kraemer 1986; Makdisi 1989; Makdisi 1990; Mernissi 1992; Habib 1993; Sajoo 1995; Afsaruddin/Zahniser 1997; Carter 1997a; Makdisi 1997; Abraham 2007; Daiber 2008; Tibi 2009; Tibi 2012; Daiber 2013; al-ʿAẓm 2005; al-ʿAẓm 2014; Müller 2014; Radez 2015. 36  Siehe dazu z. B. Schöller 2012. 37  Schöller 2012: 275–276. 38  Schöller 2012: 276–278.

Einführung

17

Auch Ruth Mas (2012, 2018) problematisiert die Verwendbarkeit der Begriffe „Humanismus“ und „humanistisch“ in der aktuellen Forschung zum Islam – nicht ohne alternative Zugänge zu dieser Frage anzusprechen –, wenn sie schreibt: [I call] into question the specter of objectivity that pretends that our critical intellectual practices are impartial and scholarly when the foundations of humanistic enquiry, both theoretical and political, are established by the continual attachments of secularism to Christianity and the Enlightenment pretence that these are divided. What we have on our theoretical agenda is thus the need to examine in more detail the political significance of the modernist stance in the foundation of critique’s relationship to tradition, and the context of colonialism and empire which continue to sustain it.39

Andererseits ist festzuhalten, dass bestimmte Intellektuelle, die sich insbesondere der Erforschung des rationalen Denkens in der islamischen Ideengeschichte gewidmet haben, den universalen und kulturübergreifenden Charakter des Humanismus hervorheben und damit die Verengung dieses Begriffs auf die abendländische Kultur- und Geistesgeschichte auflösen. So betrachtet Abdurrahman Badawi den Humanismus als Rückkehr „à la source originelle de l’être pur, c’est-à-dire à lui-même pour y puiser ses normes de valeur, et recommencer un moment nouveau qui aura dans l’évolution de la culture une place prépondérante.“40 Diese „axiale Rückkehr“ zum ursprünglichen Wesen des Menschen bezeichnet Badawi im weiteren als entscheidenden Akt, den jede Kultur, die ihre volle Blüte erreicht, vollziehen müsse. Die Unterschiede beträfen einzig und allein die lokalen und individuellen Eigenarten, während die allgemeinen Merkmale des Humanismus in allen Kulturen im Prinzip ähnlich oder gleich seien.41 Badawi schreibt hierzu: Aussi n’est-il plus admissible, dans le Verstehen historico-existentiel, de réserver le nom de cette tendance à l’Humanisme européen seul; ce serait là une vue courte de l’histoire, une fausse perspective, ou bien une méprise sur le sens réel de cette tendance, ou bien encore une ignorance de ses vrais éléments constitutifs dans une culture donnée.42

Insgesamt hebt Badawi vier Grundelemente des Humanismus hervor, die im Islam – im Idealfall – aus seiner Sicht gleichermaßen zum Tragen kämen: 1. der Mensch ist der Wertmaßstab aller Dinge; 2. die Priorisierung der Vernunft und die Reduktion des Wissens auf die Vernunft; 3. die besondere Bedeutung der Natur als „instrument pour réaliser ses possibilités“;43 39  40  41  42  43 

Mas 2018: 36–37. Siehe auch Mas 2012. Badawi 1956: 67. Badawi 1956: 67. Badawi 1956: 67–68. Badawi 1956: 72.

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4. der Glaube an den durch Wissenschaft erzeugten Fortschritt sowie an den kontinuierlichen Fortschritt der Menschheit insgesamt.44 Andere Intellektuelle betonen vor allem den Aspekt der Rezeption des antiken griechischen Kulturerbes als Grundelement eines „islamischen Humanismus“, dessen Voraussetzungen sie im 4./10. Jahrhundert als gegeben sehen. So sagt Joel Kraemer (1986): The Humanism that flourished in the Renaissance of Islam was an offspring of the humanism ideal that germinated in the period of Hellenism and Graeco-Roman antiquity. Its primary features are: (1) adoption of the ancient philosophic classics as an educational and cultural ideal in the formation of mind and character; (2) a conception of the common kinship and unity of mankind; and (3) humaneness, or love of mankind.45

Ganz in diesem Sinne propagiert auch Mohammed Arkoun (1961) die Verknüpfung von Humanismus und philosophischem Rationalismus.46 Arkoun schreibt dazu: […] il apparaît tout naturel de parler d’humanisme musulman, dans la mesure où, précisément, les philosophes ( falāsifa) et à leur suite, certains esprits indépendants, ont confié à la seule raison humaine la tâche de retracer les étapes logiques qui mènent à ces grandes vérités proposées d’emblée à notre foi par la Révélation. Comme dans tous les humanismes définis en Occident, l’homme est au centre de toute la recherche philosophicoscientifique: on s’interroge sur sa destinée, ses origines, sa place dans l’univers, sa condition biologique et spirituelle, la conduite adéquate à sa vocation spécifique.47

Die Bedeutungsvielfalt des Humanismusbegriffs wird zudem in den inhaltlichen Unterscheidungen deutlich, die Arkoun (1970) in einer weiterführenden Studie getroffen hat. So differenziert er zwischen humanisme religieux, humanisme littéraire und humanisme philosophique.48 Interessant, wenngleich noch wenig erforscht ist die Verknüpfung des Humanismus mit Grundsätzen des Feminismus, die im modernen arabischen Denken vor allem in den Arbeiten der marokkanischen Soziologin Fatima Mernissi propagiert wird. Mernissi spricht in diesem Zusammenhang vom secular humanism und modern humanism – im Sinne humanistischer Ideen wie „die Meinungsfreiheit, die Integrität des Individuums, das Recht auf Handlungsfreiheit und die Toleranz“ – als Prinzipien der Zivilgesellschaft, zu der sie die gesellschaftlichen Verantwortungsträger in der arabischen Welt auffordert, Zugang zu finden.49 Michael Carter (1997a) wiederum spricht im Kontext des Islams sogar von fünf verschiedenen Ausprägungen des Humanismus: 44  45  46  47  48  49 

Badawi 1956: 70–72, 96. Kraemer 1986: 10. Schöller 2012: 300. Arkoun 1961a: 73–74. Arkoun 1970: 356–357. Mernissi 1992: insbes. 42, 73. Vgl. auch Mirsepassi/Fernée 2014: 178–198.

Einführung

19

1. philosophischer Humanismus, der sich insbesondere am philosophischen Diskurs und der Rolle des griechischen Kulturerbes im Islam orientiere; 2. intellektueller Humanismus, beispielhaft vertreten im Islam durch die Strömung der rationalen theologischen Schule der Muʿtazila; 3. literarischer Humanismus, der sich im Wesentlichen mit der Konzeption des adab („gute Bildung“ durch „gute Lektüre“) gleichsetzen lasse; 4. legalistischer Humanismus, der beispielsweise in den Werken des arabischen Grammatikers Abū l-Fatḥ ʿUṯmān Ibn Ǧinnī (gest. 392/1002) zum Ausdruck komme;50 und 5. religiöser Humanismus, verstanden hier (und über den generellen Humanismusbegriff am weitesten hinausgehend) als „a serene contentment with the non-transcendental aspects of Islamic life alongside an unreserved acquiescence to all the conditions of the faith, thus integrating a humane and satisfying earthly existence with the hope of eternal salvation.“51 Ausführlich widmet sich Lenn E. Goodmann seinem Buch Islamic Humanism (2003), das im Übrigen auch mehrere Abschnitte zu Miskawaihs „Courtly Humanism“, wie er diesen nennt, enthält: Islamic humanism is neither an oxymoron nor a redundancy but a theme, a possibility, an authentic strand of meanings and values to be discovered in a rich, often neglected past, a religious and philosophical way of being that individuals and communities can build on in the present and the future. Like all things human this too is fallible and subject to corruption. (For even the most perfect ideal can be corrupted in an instant by false, self-serving, or selfdeceiving motives).52

Diese und weitere Versuche in der Islamwissenschaft, die Konturen eines „arabischen“ bzw. „islamischen Humanismus“ zu schärfen, zeigen, wie vielschichtig und komplex ein solches Unterfangen ist – ein Umstand, der nicht zuletzt auf die große Vielfalt „humanistischer“ intellektueller Strömungen in der islamischen Geistesgeschichte selbst zurückzuführen ist. Es kann deshalb auch nicht Anliegen dieses Bandes sein, eine umfassende Begriffsbestimmung zum „arabischen“ bzw. „islamischen Humanismus“ im Werk Miskawaihs vorzunehmen. Vielmehr geht es uns u. a. darum, in dieser Hinsicht auf bestimmte Elemente im wissenschaftlichen Oeuvre Miskawaihs im Kontext seiner Ausführungen zu Bildung und Ethik aufmerksam zu machen und somit weitere diesbezügliche Forschungen anzuregen. Die Nähe zum konzeptionellen Verständnis eines Humanismus im islamischen Kontext etwa im Sinne Arkouns, Badawis, Kraemers oder auch Goodmans – mit Blick auf die literarischen, religiösen und vor allem auch philosophischen Dimensionen dieser Konzeption – wird dabei in mehreren Beiträgen des vorliegenden Sammelbandes deutlich. 50  51  52 

Carter 1997a: 27–38. Carter 1997a: 32. Goodman 2003: 23.

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2.  Miskawaihs Zeit Miskawaihs Lebens- und Wirkungszeit fällt in eine Periode, die zwar einerseits von vielfältigen politischen Wirren und Krisen gekennzeichnet, andererseits aber auch eine der fruchtbarsten der arabisch-islamischen Kultur- und Geistesgeschichte war und mitunter sogar als ihr „Goldenes Zeitalter“ bezeichnet wird.53 Es ist die Zeit, in der das Arabische die Lingua franca eines islamischen Weltreiches war, das sich von Marokko und der Iberischen Halbinsel im Westen bis an die Grenzen Chinas und nach Indonesien im Osten erstreckte, wobei sich in bestimmten östlichen Teilen auch das Persische zu emanzipieren beginnt. Diese geopolitische und sprachliche Konstellation wirkte sich in ökonomischer und kultureller Hinsicht, aber nicht zuletzt auch auf den Lehr- und Wissenschaftsbetrieb der Länder und Regionen im Einflussbereich des Islams äußerst förderlich aus. Jene politische, wirtschaftliche und kulturelle Dynamik ist vor allem auch dafür verantwortlich, dass sich in den islamisch geprägten Ländern jener Zeit eine „Wissensgesellschaft“ entwickelte, die durch ein bemerkenswert hohes Maß an religiöser und intellektueller Offenheit gekennzeichnet war. Zugleich spielten lokale Dynastien, einflussreiche Familien und begüterte Mäzene eine entscheidende Rolle bei der Einrichtung von Lehrinstitutionen, der Rekrutierung von Lehrpersonal sowie der finanziellen Unterstützung und Kontrolle der intellektuellen Eliten der islamischen Gesellschaften jener Zeit. Bagdad (gegründet im Jahre 145/762), die Hauptstadt des abbasidischen Kalifats (reg. 132–656/750–1258), war in jener Zeit die prosperierende kommerzielle, kulturelle und intellektuelle Metropole der islamischen Welt. In Kairo gründeten die der ismailitischen bzw. der Siebener-Schia zuzurechnenden Fatimiden (reg. 296–566/909–1171) Lehranstalten zu höherer Bildung, an denen nicht nur schiitische theologische Fächer, sondern auch ein Großteil des intellektuellen Erbes der Griechen und Perser studiert wurde. Bedeutende intellektuelle Zentren bildeten sich ebenso heraus in Damaskus, Aleppo, Basra, Kufa, Qom, Meschhed, Nischapur, Raiy, Isfahan und Fergana im Osten; Kairouan, Tunis (mit seiner berühmten Moschee-Universität, der Zaituna) und Fès (mit der al-QarawiyyinMoschee) im Westen; sowie Córdoba, Sevilla und Toledo in al-Andalus, der Iberischen Halbinsel unter islamischer Herrschaft. Die Hochschulen jener Zeit, die reich ausgestatteten Bibliotheken und die speziellen Forschungseinrichtungen waren bemerkenswert frei von kulturellen, ethnischen und konfessionellen Beschränkungen und weit über ihre lokalen Grenzen hinaus berühmt. Die rege Übersetzungstätigkeit im 8. bis 10. Jahrhundert vor allem von philosophischen, naturwissenschaftlichen und medizinischen Werken des antiken griechischen, iranischen und indischen Erbes – bisweilen als „die große Über53 

Vgl. zu diesem Textabschnitt Günther 2016: 214–215.

Einführung

21

setzungsbewegung“ bezeichnet  – führte zu einem enormen Aufschwung der Wissenschaften im Islam.54 Sprachliche Disziplinen wie Grammatik, Rhetorik und Logik bzw. Dialektik (einschließlich Recht und Ethik; das entspricht dem antiken Trivium) sowie mathematische Fächer wie Arithmetik, Geometrie, Astronomie und z. T. auch Musik (das antike Quadrivium) wurden im nicht-institutionellen, philosophisch orientierten Wissenschaftsbetrieb des klassischen Islams gelehrt und durch das Studium der Naturphilosophie und Metaphysik ergänzt.55 Dieses Curriculum, zumindest in Teilen, hat auch Miskawaih durchlaufen, wie oben – unter Berücksichtigung der dürftigen Quellenlage zu seinem Leben – ausgeführt wurde. Der institutionalisierte islamische Lehrbetrieb wiederum, wie er an den religiösen Hochschulen oder Medresen (Arabisch: madrasa) erfolgte u ­ nd z. T. heute noch erfolgt­, setzte andere Prioritäten. Hier standen drei Lehrbereiche im Zentrum, die sich auf die religionsbezogenen Disziplinen im engeren Sinne bezogen: die ʿulūm naqlīya (die traditionsgebundenen Wissenschaften), welche auf dem Koran und der Prophetentradition beruhen; die ʿulūm ʿaqlīya (die rationalen Wissenschaften), wie die Logik und die Astronomie, welche sich auf vernunftgemäße Beobachtung, sinnliche Wahrnehmung und logische Deduktion stützen; und die uṣūl al-fiqh (Grundlagen der islamischen Jurisprudenz). Zweifellos war Miskawaihs Zeit eine Periode äußerst fruchtbarer Lehr- und Forschungsaktivitäten sowohl für die Geistes- als auch die Naturwissenschaften und die Medizin, die z. T. bahnbrechende Entwicklungen und Entdeckungen – vor allem in den mathematischen Fächern, der Geometrie und Astronomie zum Beispiel – hervorbrachten. Letztere wurden nicht zuletzt möglich durch eine von religiöser Freizügigkeit gegenüber Anhängern anderer Religionen (Juden und Christen, Zoroastrier und Sabier) geprägte Politik unter den Buyiden, von der auch die Regierungszeit des mächtigen und zugleich hochgebildeten Buyiden-Herrschers ʿAḍud adDaula, „Stütze des [Abbasiden-] Reiches“ (reg. 338–372/949–983) gekennzeichnet war.56 Miskawaih war ein uneingeschränkter Anhänger von ʿAḍud ad-Daula und dessen Staatsführung;57 letztere war durch kluges politisches Taktieren und resolute Entscheidungen ebenso gekennzeichnet wie durch ein Klima der religiösen und kulturellen Vielfalt, in der dieser nominell schiitische Herrscher auch weite Teile der sunnitischen Bevölkerung an sich binden und gleichzeitig die 54  Eine besonders illustrative Darstellung zur Problematik bietet Biesterfeldt 2003: 9–37. 55  Heinrichs 1990: 28. 56  Vgl. Kühnel 1956: 81–82; Busse 1975; Richter-Bernburg 1980; Bürgel/Mottahedeh 1988,

online; Marcinkowsi 2001. 57  Dies ist besonders deutlich in Miskawaihs „mehr oder weniger parteiischen“ Berichterstattung zu den Ereignissen um ʿAḍud ad-Daula, die sich in seinem großen Geschichtswerk Taǧārib al-umam (Die Erfahrungen der Völker) finden. Vgl. Busse 1969 (Nachdr. 2004): ix, 2–3.

22

Sebastian Günther und Yassir El Jamouhi

(alt-)iranischen Traditionen wertschätzen und die arabische Kultur und Wissenschaft fördern konnte.

3.  Miskawaihs Schaffen Miskawaihs beweglicher Geist und vielseitige wissenschaftliche Interessen zusammen mit seiner Nähe zum gesellschaftlichen Leben bezeichnen in der klassischen muslimischen Gelehrsamkeit einen Wendepunkt in den Überlegungen zu den Tugenden: sein neuer Ansatz in der Moralphilosophie äußerte sich in einer Abkehr von groben Verallgemeinerungen und der verstärkten Hinwendung zu individueller Differenzierung und Spezifizierung der Inhalte von Ethik und Moral. 3.1.  Zwischen Rezeption und Transformation Miskawaih verarbeitete nicht nur Auffassungen der großen griechischen Denker wie Platon, Aristoteles, Bryson, Galen, Alexander von Aphrodisias, Porphyrios und Simplikios, sondern auch jene seiner muslimischen Vordenker in der rationalen Philosophie wie Abū Yūsuf al-Kindī (gest. kurz nach 256/870), Abū ʿUṯmān al-Ǧāḥiẓ (gest. 255/868–869), Abū Bakr ar-Rāzī (gest. 313/925 oder 323/935), Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī und der „Lauteren Brüder“ von Basra, der Iḫwān aṣ-Ṣafāʾ (3.–4./9.–10. Jh.). Höchst fraglich ist bislang in der Islamwissenschaft hingegen, inwieweit Miskawaih die Auffassungen bzw. Arbeiten seines jüngeren Zeitgenossen Abū ʿAlī Ibn Sīnā, den er offenbar persönlich kannte, zur Kenntnis nahm und rezipierte. Später nimmt der bedeutende Theologe und Mystiker Abū Ḥāmid al-Ġazālī (gest. 505/1111) diesen „geistigen Faden“ von Miskawaih für seine eigene Beschäftigung mit den Tugenden nicht nur auf, sondern setzt dabei neue Akzente: denn anders als Miskawaih versteht al-Ġazālī den ethischen Diskurs nun nicht aus einer rational-intellektuellen, sondern aus einer mystisch-spirituellen Perspektive. Inwieweit al-Ġazālī Miskawaihs Schriften tatsächlich für seine eigenen Auffassungen verarbeitete, ist jedoch ebenfalls immer noch ein Gegenstand der Forschung, wie nicht zuletzt der Beitrag von Sophia Vassolou in diesem Band anschaulich zeigt. Miskawaihs wohl bekannteste Nachfolger sind Naṣīr ad-Dīn aṭ-Ṭūsī (gest. 672/1274), Autor der bekannten Aḫlāq-i Nāṣirī (Die Nasirenische Ethik) und ein starker Kritiker von al-Ġazālīs asketischer Ethik58, sowie Ǧalāl ad-Dīn adDawānī (gest. 908/1502–1503), Verfasser der Lawāmiʿ al-išrāq fī makārim al58 

Übersetzung von Wickens 1964, 22011.

Einführung

23

aḫlāq (Glanzlichter der Erleuchtung über den Adel der Sitten)59, auch bekannt als Aḫlāq-i Davānī (Davānīs Ethik), welche die Idee einer Harmonie von Philosophie und Mystik verficht. Doch während Miskawaih sich auf den Diskurs zur Ethik (al-aḫlāq) im engeren Sinne konzentriert, fügen die beiden anderen Gelehrten ihren ethischen Betrachtungen verstärkt die Haushaltsführung (tadbīr al-manzil) und die Staatskunst (siyāsat al-madīna, siyāsat al-mudun) als die zwei weiteren Bereiche der praktischen Philosophie hinzu.60 Nicht zuletzt könnte im Zusammenhang mit der Theorie vom universellen menschlichen Drang, sich immer weiter und zu höheren Existenzzuständen hin zu entwickeln, wie diese der persische Mystiker und Poet Ǧalāl ad-Dīn Rūmī (gest. 672/1273) als Dichter eigenständig aufgreift, über Traditionslinien zu Miskawaih (und den Iḫwān aṣ-Ṣafāʾ) – bzw. über diese zu antiken griechischen Vorbildern wie Aristoteles und Plotinus – spekuliert werden.61 Miskawaihs wissenschaftliches Gesamtschaffen ist in jedem Falle zum einen und vor allem ein beredtes Zeugnis der umfassenden Rezeption antiker und zeitgenössischer philosophischer Werke griechischer, christlich-arabischer und muslimischer Autoren, das insbesondere für die ersten Jahrhunderte der klassischen Periode des Islams charakteristisch ist. Zum anderen kommen für seine Geschichtsschreibung Historiker des 4./10. Jahrhunderts als Quellen hinzu, die dem Sabiertum anhingen.62 Die Vielfalt dieser Quellen und Autoritäten, auf die sich Miskawaih im Kontext der Gelehrtennetzwerke seiner Zeit stützte, veranschaulicht auch die hier im Folgenden beigegebene Graphik. Miskawaih – als ein der persischen Kulturtradition verpflichteter, im Geiste seiner Zeit aber Arabisch schreibender Gelehrter – zeigt einmal mehr, wie kreativ im islamischen Zusammenhang Wissen rezeptiert, adaptiert und neu kontextualisiert wurde. Das thematische Spektrum von Miskawaihs reichem – allerdings nur in Teilen überliefertem – Gesamtschaffen ist dabei ein eindrucksvolles Zeugnis seiner multidisziplinären Interessen und Produktivität wie auch seiner wissenschaftlichen Offenheit und seines Ideenreichtums. Diese Einschätzung ist insbesondere mit Blick auf eine auf den erwähnten Abū Sulaimān as-Siǧistānī, einen Zeitgenossen Miskawaihs, zurückgeführte Aussage zu treffen. Dieser habe festgestellt, dass die Liste von Miskawaihs Werken derart umfangreich sei, dass es ihm nicht möglich war, alle Titel zu nennen.63 Der Vielreisende und Gelehrte Yāqūt wiederum bietet in seinem bekannten biographischen Lexikon Iršād alarīb ilā maʿrifat al-adīb (Die Hinleitung des Klugen zur Kenntnis über den Gebil59  60 

Badawi 1963: 469; Goodman 2003: 102. Fakhry 1989: 441. Zur theoretischen Philosophie wiederum gehörten u. a. die Metaphysik (al-ʿilm al-ilāhī) und Mathematik (al-ʿilm ar-riyāḍī). 61  Vgl. Hakim 1963: 828. 62  Zu den Sabiern als einer Gemeinschaft, die einer alten semitischen polytheistischen Religion anhing, aber eine stark hellenisierte Elite aufwies, siehe de Blois 1995. 63  Vgl. Khan 1962: 309.

24

Sebastian Günther und Yassir El Jamouhi

Miskawaih im Bildungsdiskurs des Islams Zwischen Traditionsbindung und Neubestimmung al-Ǧābirī (gest. 2010)

Arkoun (gest. 2010)

Rūmī (gest. 1273) Ibn Sīnā (gest. 1037) at-Tauḥīdī (gest. 1023) Ibn al-Ḫammār (gest. nach 1017)

Miskawaih (gest. 1030)

Ibn Zurʿa (gest. 1008) Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī (gest. 974) Saʿadia Gaon (gest. 942) al-Fārābī (gest. 950) al-Kindī (gest. ca. 870)

Abū ʿUṯmān ad-Dimašqī (gest. nach. 914) Isḥāq b. Ḥunain (gest. 910) Simplikios (gest. nach 560) Porphyrios (gest. ca. 305) Alexander von Aphrodisias (gest. 2./3. Jh.) Galen (gest. um 200 v. Chr.) Bryson (1. Jh. nach Chr.) Aristoteles (gest. 322 v. Chr.) Platon (gest. 348/7 v. Chr.) Hippokrates (gest. um 370 v. Chr.) Pythagoras (gest. ca. 480 v. Chr.)

Antike griechische Autoren Persische Autoren Jüdische Autoren

Christlich-arabische Autoren und Übersetzer Sabische Autoren Muslimische Übersetzer, Autoren und Autoritäten

25

Einführung

ad-Dawānī (gest. 1502/3) aṭ-Ṭūsī (gest. 1274) al-Ġazālī (gest. 1111)

Abū Isḥāq aṣ-Ṣābiʾ (gest. 994) Ṯābit b. Sinān (gest. 976) Aḥmad b. Kāmil (gest. 961) aṭ-Ṭabarī (gest. 923) al-Ǧāḥiẓ (gest. 868/9) Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (gest. ca. 759) Koran & Ḥadīṯ Paul der Perser (6. Jh. n. Chr.)

Bagdader Gelehrtenkreis aṯ-Ṯaʿālibī (gest. 1038) al-Ḫwārizmī (gest. 993) al-ʿĀmirī (gest. 992) al-Manṭiqī (gest. ca. 985) ar-Rāzī (gest. ca. 925) Abū ṭ-Ṭaiyib ar-Rāzī (10. Jh.)

Herrscher, Wesire & Mäzene Ibn ʿAbbād (gest. 995) Ibn Saʿdān (gest. 984/5) Rukn ad-Daula (gest. 976) Ibn al-ʿAmīd (gest. 970) Muʿizz ad-Daula (gest. 967) al-Muhallabī (gest. 963) Abū Bakr aṣ-Ṣūlī (gest. 947) Iḫwān aṣ-Ṣafāʾ (ca. 9.–10. Jh.)

26

Sebastian Günther und Yassir El Jamouhi

deten) im Eintrag zu Miskawaih eine Aufzählung mit dreizehn Titeln zu Werken, die Miskawaih verfasste oder die ihm zugeschrieben wurden.64 3.2.  Miskawaihs Hauptwerke Anhand einer Auswahl von Miskawaihs Hauptwerken soll hier ein erster Einblick in die Arbeits- und Geisteswelt dieses klassischen muslimischen Gelehrten gegeben werden, dem unser Sammelband gewidmet ist. 1.  Al-Fauz al-aṣġar (Das kleinere Gelingen oder Die kleinere Schrift über den Weg zum Erfolg).65 Überliefert ist diese Schrift auch unter dem möglicherweise ursprünglichen Titel al-Masāʾil aṯ-ṯalāṯ allatī taštamilu ʿalā l-ʿulūm kullihā (Die drei Fragen, die das Wissen insgesamt umfassen), welcher in der Einleitung zu al-Fauz genannt wird.66 Dazu heißt es:

‫أ‬ ّ .‫ورد علي أمر المير بالالكم على المسائل الثالث التي تشتمل على العلوم كلها وتحتوي على الحكمة أجمعها‬

Mich erreichte der Befehl des Emirs zu einer [ausgearbeiteten] Rede (kalām) über die drei Fragen, die das Wissen insgesamt umfassen und die gesamte Weisheit beinhalten.67

Damit wird auch ersichtlich, dass Miskawaih diese Schrift im Auftrag eines buyidischen Emirs  – vermutlich des ʿAḍud ad-Daula, wie bestimmte Quellen vermerken,68 und damit eines bedeutenden Förderers der griechischen Wissenschaften und vor allem der peripatetischen Philosophie  – verfasste. Aus einer metaphysisch-psychologischen Perspektive beschäftigt sich Miskawaih in diesem Werk mit Fragen der Ethik, der menschlichen Selbstverwirklichung und der Erlangung von Glück. Die Schrift widmet sich in drei Teilen mit jeweils zehn Unterabschnitten: a) dem Nachweis der Existenz Gottes, b) Fragen zur Seele und c) Fragen zum Prophetentum und ist mithin dem Bereich der philosophischen Theologie zuzuordnen. In seiner generellen Konzeption erinnert das Buch an Abū Naṣr al-Fārābīs Ārāʾ ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila (Die Ansichten der Einwohner des vortrefflichen Staates). Miskawaihs Lehre von der stufenförmigen Entwicklung der Lebewesen wiederum ist jener der Iḫwān aṣ-Ṣafāʾ ähnlich.69 64 Yāqūt, al-Iršād: ii, 88–96. Vgl. auch Badawi 1963: 469–470. 65 Miskawaih, al-Fauz; franz. Übers. Arnaldez 1987; engl. Übers.

Sweetman 1945. In seinem, mit Abū Ḥaiyān at-Tauḥīdī gemeinsam verantworteten Werk al-Hawāmil wa-š-šawāmil (Aufgeworfene Fragen und erschöpfende Antworten) erwähnte Miskawaih diese Schrift zweimal. Vgl. at-Tauḥīdī/Miskawaih, al-Hawāmil (Ed. Orfali/Pomerantz) 2019: ii, 204 (Nr. 122.3), 246 (Nr. 158.2). 66  Vgl. dazu Endress 2012: 215. 67 Miskawaih, al-Fauz (Ms. Istanbul, Süleymaniye, Esad Efendi 1933): 187l. 68  Endress 2012: 215. 69  Badawi 1963: 472.

Einführung

27

Bemerkenswert ist ebenso, dass Miskawaih hier, wie Oliver Leaman schreibt, „eine eher ungewöhnliche Darstellung des Wesens des Neuplatonismus präsentiert, indem er behauptet, dass die antiken (d. h. die griechischen) Philosophen keinen Zweifel an der Existenz und der Einheit Gottes hatten, so dass es unproblematisch [sei], ihr Gedankengut mit dem des Islams zu versöhnen.“70 2.  Al-Fauz al-akbar (Das größere Gelingen oder Die größere Schrift über den Weg zum Erfolg). Das Werk ist nicht erhalten. Miskawaih erwähnt den Titel dieses offenbar umfangreicheren Werkes am Ende von al-Fauz al-aṣġar71. Hier lesen wir:

ّ ‫ وفي تجاوزه تجاوز الشرط الذي التزمناه‬،‫فهذا مبلغ ما يجب أن يتكلم فيه على هذه المسائل الثالث‬ ‫أ‬ ‫ والداللة فيما احتاج إلى بسط وشرح إلى أما كنه من كتاب الفوز ال كبر الذي نستأنف‬،‫من االختصار‬ .‫بمشيئة هللا عمله‬ Das ist das Höchstmaß dessen, was über diese drei Fragen gesagt werden sollte. Darüber hinaus zu gehen, bedeutet, die Bedingung zu übertreten, die wir uns auferlegt haben hinsichtlich der konzisen Darstellung und – bei Erläuterungs- und Klärungsbedarf – des Verweises auf entsprechende Stellen im Buch Das größere Gelingen, dessen Bearbeitung wir, so Gott will, fortsetzen.72

3.  Tartīb as-saʿādāt wa-manāzil al-ʿulūm (Die Klassifikation des Glücks und die Rangstufen der Wissenschaften).73 Diese Schrift ist auch unter dem Titel Kitāb as-Saʿāda fī falsafat al-aḫlāq (Das Buch der Glückseligkeit über die Moralphilosophie) überliefert,74 wobei Miskawaih den Titel Tartīb as-saʿādāt wa-manāzil al-ʿulūm explizit in Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq erwähnte.75 Arkoun datiert die Entstehungszeit des Werkes in die Jahre zwischen 358–360/969–970.76 Mit diesem Traktat löste Miskawaih sein dem Wesir Abū l-Faḍl Ibn al-ʿAmīd (gest. 360/970) gegebenes Versprechen ein, den er als Meister (ustāḏ) zu bezeichnen pflegte, nachdem dieser ihn nach den „Arten der menschlichen Glückseligkeiten gemäß ihren Rangstufen“ gefragt hatte.77 Dazu sagt Miskawaih am Anfang des Textes: 70 Miskawaih, al-Fauz (Ms. Istanbul, Süleymaniye, Esad Efendi 1933): 189r–189l. Vgl. dazu

Leaman 1996: 252; Endress 2012: 215–216. 71 Miskawaih, al-Fauz (Ms. Istanbul, Süleymaniye, Esad Efendi 1933): 236l. Vgl. Wakelnig 2009: 83–119. 72 Miskawaih, al-Fauz (Ms. Istanbul, Süleymaniye, Esad Efendi 1933): 236l. 73 Miskawaih, as-Saʿāda. 74  Endress 2012: 213. 75 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 273. 76  Arkoun 1970: 107–108. 77  Marcotte 2012: 150–153; Endress 2012: 213–214. Vgl. auch Ballnus 2017: 238–239.

28

Sebastian Günther und Yassir El Jamouhi

‫ فوعدته إثبات ذلك‬.]…[ ‫وسألني عن أصناف سعادات الناس على مراتبهم وما هي وما قدر تفاوتها‬ .‫في تذكرة‬ Er fragte mich nach den Arten der menschlichen Glückseligkeiten gemäß ihren Rangstufen und was diese [Arten der menschlichen Glückseligkeiten] sind und wie sich diese graduell unterscheiden […]. So versprach ich ihm, dies in einer Denkschrift festzuhalten.78

Im Weiteren beschreibt Miskawaih in der Einleitung zu seiner Schrift seine Vorgehensweise in der Darstellung der Argumente und Ideen und formuliert folgende Fragen, denen er dann systematisch nachgeht. Dazu schreibt er:

‫ وما السعادة التي يشترك فيها الناس من جنسهم‬،‫للنسان ما هي وكيف هي‬ ‫فأذكر السعادة الموضوعة إ‬ ّ ،‫ وهل هي مختلفة أو متفقة‬،‫ وما الذى يصل إليه منها المجتهدون منهم بضروب االجتهادات‬،‫ناس‬ ً َ ّ ‫وهل بعضها تحت بعض‬ ‫ وإن كانت مرتقية إلى واحد فما‬،‫حتى ترتقي إلى واحد هو أسماها َم ْرتبة‬ ّ ‫ أم تتناهى السعادات كلها إليه‬،‫للنسان وال مطموع له فيها‬ ‫ وهل وراءها سعادة أخرى غير منتظرة إ‬،‫هو‬ ّ ‫ وهل هذا العظيم الذي رشح له االنسان مع شرفه‬،‫حتى تقف عنده وقوف المتناهي الذي ال غاية بعده‬ ‫وعلو قدره موجود بغير سعي واجتهاد أو بغير صناعة واعتياد ومن غير الطر يق الذي نهجه الحكماء‬ ّ ‫وطرقوا اليه‬ ‫ وإن‬،‫ وهل يمكن اختصار ما أطالوه وأ كثروا عدد الكتب فيه‬،‫وحرضوا أبناء الحكمة عليه‬ ّ ‫ وهل تتفاوت الناس في تحصيل‬،‫للنسان كافية في تحصيله بالصناعة‬ ‫لم يمكن ذلك فهل مدة العمر إ‬ ّ ‫ما‬ ‫ وإن كانوا متفاوتين فيه فما مقدار الزمان‬،‫ وهل يقرب على بعضهم ويبعد على بعض‬،‫يحصلونه منه‬ ‫أ‬ ً ّ ‫الذي يفرض لذكاهم نفسا إذا بعض شغله غلبه وصرف‬ ‫ وما صفة هذا الرجل الذكي في‬،‫همه إليه‬ ّ ‫ وما عدد الكتب التي ال ّبد منها والصناعة التي ال غنى به عنها وما أقصد الطرق إلى‬،‫المدة المفروضة‬ .‫غايته التي يبلغ بأقصى نظره فيها‬ Ich lege die für den Menschen geschaffene Glückseligkeit dar: was sie ist, und wie sie ist; welche Glückseligkeit die Menschen gemäß ihrem menschlichen Wesen teilen; was diejenigen unter ihnen, die sich anstrengen, von ihr (der Glückseligkeit) durch verschiedenartige Anstrengungen erreichen;   [ich lege dar,] ob sie (die Arten der Glückseligkeit) unterschiedlich oder übereinstimmend sind; ob sie hierarchisch so geordnet sind, dass sie zu einer (Art der Glückseligkeit) aufsteigen, welche die ranghöchste ist; und falls sie (die Arten der Glückseligkeit) zu einer einzigen aufsteigen, welche diese ist;   [ich lege dar,] ob es hinter ihr eine weitere Glückseligkeit gibt, welche für den Menschen weder zu erwarten noch zu erstreben ist; oder ob die Glückseligkeiten allesamt solange zu ihr (der Ranghöchsten) aufsteigen, bis sie bei dieser ihr endliches Ziel erreichen, über das hinaus es kein Weiter gibt;   [ich lege im Weiteren dar,] ob dieses, für den Menschen ausersehene Großartige (alʿaẓīm) mit seiner [ihm gebührenden] Ehre und seiner Erhabenheit existent [und erreichbar] ist ohne Bemühung und Anstrengung oder Kunstfertigkeit (ṣināʿa)79 und Gewöh78 Miskawaih, as-Saʿāda: 31. 79  Ṣināʿa, Plural ṣanāʿiʾ („Kunst“,

„Fertigkeit“, abgeleitet vom Verb ṣanaʿa, „etwas machen oder tun“, „herstellen“, produzieren“, d. h. eine Sache, aber auch eine Rede; vgl. Lane 1872: iv, 1733) bezieht sich im klassischen Islam zunächst auf die Tätigkeit eines Künstlers oder Handwerkers (Ghabin 1997: ix, 625–629). In arabischen Texten zur Philosophie und Ethik, ins-

Einführung

29

nung (iʿtiyād)80 und ohne den Pfad, den die Weisen (ḥukamāʾ) bahnten und verfolgten und zu dem sie die nach Weisheit Strebenden (abnāʾ al-ḥikma) aufriefen;   [ich lege dar,] ob es möglich ist, das zusammenzufassen, was sie (die Weisen) ausführlich behandelten und worüber sie zahlreiche Bücher verfassten; und wenn dies unmöglich ist, ob die Dauer eines Menschenlebens [überhaupt] genügt, um dieses [Großartige] mit der [entsprechenden] Kunstfertigkeit zu erreichen;   [ich lege dar,] ob die Menschen sich darin unterscheiden, was sie von diesem [Großartigen] erreichen; ob dies für einige von ihnen nah und für andere fern ist; und falls sie sich darin unterscheiden, wie viel Zeit der Scharfsinnigste unter ihnen aufwenden muss, wenn ihn seine täglichen Verpflichtungen überwältigen und er sich seinen Alltagsproblemen widmen muss; [und ich lege dar,] was die Eigenschaften dieses klugen Mannes in dieser [dafür] vorgesehenen Zeitspanne sind, wie viele Bücher [auf diesem Weg] notwendig sind, welche Kunstfertigkeit für ihn [dabei] unverzichtbar ist und [schließlich] welcher der beste Weg zu seinem Ziel ist, das er bei einem Höchstmaß an konzentrierter Betrachtung desselben erreichen kann.81

Aufgrund seiner prägnanten und theoretischen Ausrichtung kann dieses Werk als wichtige Vorarbeit zur Thematik der Glückseligkeit betrachtet werden, die Miskawaih in al-Fauz al-aṣġar und Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq ausführlicher behandelt.82 In Anlehnung an Aristoteles identifiziert und erörtert der Autor in diesem Werk drei Arten von Glück: das Glück in der Seele, das Glück im Körper und das Glück, dessen Ursache außerhalb des Körpers und der körperlichen Sphären liege. Der Kerngedanke der Schrift gilt sodann vor allem dem Ideal des „spezifisch menschlichen, höchsten Glück[s], bei dessen Erreichen alles Streben ein besondere solchen, die in der griechischen Tradition stehen, stellt der Ausdruck einen Bezug zu griech. τέχνη (téchne, auch: technē; d. h. „Kunst“, „Handwerk“, „Kunstfertigkeit“; „Können“ und „Wissen“) her. (Zur Bedeutungsentwicklung des Begriffs in der Antike siehe Löbl 1997–2008; Streitbörger 2013). Ṣināʿa im Sinne von téchne kann also – wie das deutsche Wort „Technik“ – sowohl materielle, handwerkliche Tätigkeiten als auch Regeln, Verfahren, intellektuelle Fähigkeiten und Fertigkeiten zur Erreichung eines bestimmten Ziels ausdrücken. Der Ausdruck bedeutet mithin, wie Löbl 2003: ii: 271–272, dies für téchne in der Antike zusammenfasst, „eine auf Vernunftbegabung beruhende, stets auf praktische Umsetzung ausgerichtete Form der Erkenntnis und des Wissens, die vorwiegend, aber nicht immer, in der Hervorbringung materieller Objekte wahrnehmbare Gestalt gewinnt.“ – Miskawaih scheint den Begriff ṣināʿa im K. as-Saʿāda in eben diesem Sinne zu verwenden (vgl. auch Ali Rida K. Rizeks Beitrag in diesem Band sowie Miskawaihs Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq, in dessen englischer Übersetzung ṣināʿa mit „art“ wiedergegeben ist). Bei den Lauteren Brüdern von Basra, Zeitgenossen Miskawaihs, zum Beispiel begegnet der Begriff prominent in Epistel 7, Fī ṣ-ṣanāʾiʿ al-ʿilmīya („Über die wissenschaftlichen Künste“) und Epistel 8: Fī ṣ-ṣanāʾiʿ al-ʿamalīya („Über die praktischen Künste“). Der Begriff ṣanāʿiʾ steht hier für Wissensbereiche und Wissensdisziplinen sowohl im Sinne intellektueller Fähigkeiten bzw. der Freien Künste (Epistel 7) als auch für handwerkliches, technisches Wissen (Epistel 8). 80  Iʿtiyād („Gewöhnung“), abgeleitet vom Verb iʿtāda, „sich an etwas gewöhnen“; vgl. auch Lane 1874: v, 2189, „he became accustomed, or habituated“, „or made it his custom, or habit“) – hier: zur Erlangung von Professionalität – rekurriert im philosophischen Kontext auf ἐθισμός („Gewöhung und Einübung“) sowie ἔθος („Gewohnheit“). Zu den griechischen Termini und Konzeptionen vgl. Riedweg u. a. 2018: 160, 578, 2490; Gigon 1973: 67, 76. 81 Miskawaih, as-Saʿāda: 31–32. Zu besseren Verständlichkeit wurde die deutsche Übersetzung entsprechend formatiert. 82  Vgl. u. a. Topkara 2018: 53.

30

Sebastian Günther und Yassir El Jamouhi

Ende hat,“ wie G. Endress es formulierte.83 Diesem höchsten Glück (as-saʿāda al-quṣwā) untergeordnet ist das „allgemeine Glück“ (as-saʿāda al-ʿāmma), das für alle Menschen  – je nach ihren Talenten und ihrem Handeln  – erreichbar sei. Wissenschaft und Erkenntnis führen zum Glück der Seele und letztlich zur Weisheit (ḥikma). 4.  Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq wa-taṭhīr al-aʿrāq (Die Läuterung der Sitten und die Reinigung der natürlichen Veranlagungen), auch bekannt als Ṭahārat an-nafs (Die Reinheit der Seele).84 Diese Schrift ist Miskawaihs ethisches Hauptwerk. Der Autor verbindet darin die Moralphilosophie mit der Psychologie, wenn er – in Anlehnung an Platon – seine Lehre zur Seele, ihren Fähigkeiten und Tugenden darlegt. Das Werk ist eine zentrale Quelle in der Erforschung des ethischen Denkens in der arabischislamischen Ideengeschichte. Hauptsächlich befasst sich der Text mit der Frage, wie der Mensch „die rechte Disposition erwerben kann, um in moralischer Hinsicht korrekte Handlungen in einer organisierten und systematischen Weise ausführen zu können“, um mit den Worten Oliver Leamans zu sprechen.85 Im Zentrum steht dabei die Natur der Seele, die im platonischen Sinn als selbstsubsistente Einheit oder Substanz verstanden wird, die den Körper kontrolliert und die unsterblich ist.86 Durch die Fähigkeit der Seele zur Selbsterkenntnis, die Nutzung des Geistes bzw. Verstandes und die dadurch ermöglichte Bildung und Erziehung seiner selbst, so die These des Autors, findet der Mensch zu tugendhaftem Verhalten, das ihm als Individuum und gesellschaftlichem Wesen nutzt und schließlich zum Glück führt. Die Fragen der Gerechtigkeit (ʿadl) – im aristotelischen Sinne als Mittel des Ausgleiches verstanden – und des reinen Guten (al-ḫair al-maḥḍ) spielen in diesem Werk eine wichtige Rolle,87 da diese den Menschen – mit Hilfe des nur ihm gegebenen Verstandes – zur Erfüllung seines Daseinszweckes führen. Bemerkenswert ist, dass Miskawaih in diesem Zusammenhang die vier antiken Kardinaltugenden (griech. Sing.: aretē, lat. virtus) ausdrücklich nennt und als Rahmen für seine ethischen Überlegungen heranzieht:

83  Endress 2012: 214. 84 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb;

deutsche Teilübersetzung in Rosenthal 1965: 133–145; englische Übersetzung von Zurayk 1968; französische Übersetzung von Arkoun 1969. Für eine konzise Beschreibung dieses Werkes siehe Gamāl al-Dīn 1994: 133–136; Endress 2012: 221–223; Topkara 2018: 57–60. 85  Leaman 1996: 253. 86  Der Begriff „selbst-subsistent“ nimmt Bezug auf eine Vorstellung Platons, wonach die Seele „der Gattung nach ein Geist und insofern ein bestimmtes Etwas … und Vernunftbegabtes“ ist. Vgl. Kobusch 2011: 133–134. 87  Walzer 1956: 220–235; Badawi 1963: 473; Endress 2012: 221–223.

Einführung

31

I. Klugheit und Weisheit (griech.: phrónesis und sophía; arab.: ʿilm und ḥikma), II. Gerechtigkeit (griech.: dikaiosýnē; arab.: ʿadl), III. Mäßigung, Selbstbeherrschung und Besonnenheit (griech.: sophrosyne; lat.: temperantia; arab.: ʿiffa und ḥilm), sowie IV. Mut (griech.:andreía; arab.: šaǧāʿa).88 Miskawaihs Verdienst in diesem Kontext ist es, diese griechischen Tugenden, die bei den Römern sowie im antiken Judentum und Christentum gelehrt wurden, (auch) für den Islam erschlossen und „naturalisiert“ zu haben. Zusätzlich zu diesen vier Tugenden der Antike kommt bei Miskawaih noch die Freigebigkeit (saḫāʾ) als weitere Tugend hinzu, die auch Aristoteles bereits nennt (allerdings nicht als Kardinaltugend) und die auch im orientalischen Kontext eine lange Tradition aufweist. Zu den im Bildungskontext besonders wichtigen Begriffen Klugheit und Weisheit gehören für Miskawaih sodann Eigenschaften bzw. natürliche menschliche Veranlagungen wie: 1. Verstandesschärfe bzw. Intelligenz (ḏakāʾ ), 2. Erinnerungsvermögen (ḏikr), 3. Klugheit und Vernunft, Intellektion (taʿaqqul), 4. klarer Verstand (ṣafāʾ aḏ-ḏihn), 5. vorzügliche Verständniskraft (ǧaudat al-fahm wa-qūwatuhu), und insgesamt 6. leichte Auffassungsgabe (suhūlat at-taʿallum).89 Miskawaih definiert diese Eigenschaften folgendermaßen:

.‫) ّأما الذكاء فهو سرعة انقداح النتائج وسهولتها على النفس‬1( ‫أ‬ ّ )2( .‫وأما الذكر فهو ثبات صورة ما يخلصه العقل أو الوهم من المور‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ّ .‫) وأما التعقل فهو موافقة بحث النفس عن الشياء الموضوعة بقدر ما هي عليه‬3( ّ )4( .‫وأما صفاء الذهن فهو استعداد النفس الستخراج المطلوب‬ َّ ّ ‫وأما جودة الفهم وقوته فهو‬ ّ )5( .‫تأمل النفس لما قد لزم من المقدم‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ّ ّ .‫ بها تدرك المور النظر ية‬،‫) ّأما سهولة التعلم فهي قوة للعقل وحدة في الفهم‬6( (1) Verstandesschärfe bedeutet das blitzartige Aufleuchten von Schlussfolgerungen und deren leichtes Verständnis in der Seele. (2) Erinnerungsvermögen bedeutet die Verankerung des Bildes derjenigen Sachverhalte, die von Verstand oder Vorstellung abstrahieren. (3) Intellektion ist die Übereinstimmung der Untersuchung der zu betrachtenden Objekte durch die Seele mit dem, wie sie [die Objekte tatächlich] sind.

88 

2016.

Zu den Kardinaltugenden in der Antike und in der angewandten Ethik siehe Forschner

89 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 19; Endress 2012: 221–223. Vgl. auch Hafner 1849.

32

Sebastian Günther und Yassir El Jamouhi

(4) Verstandesklarheit bedeutet die Fähigkeit des Menschen [wö.: der Seele], das Gemeinte [aus einem bestimmten Kontext] zu erschließen. (5) Vorzügliches, starkes Verstehen bedeutet, dass der Mensch [wö.: die Seele] das, was aus Prämissen notwendig folgt, erschaut [und versteht]. (6) Leichte Auffassungsgabe bedeutet Potenz des Intellekts und Schärfe im Verstehen, wodurch die theoretischen Sachverhalte erfasst werden.90

Der mit dem Buch verbundene Bildungsanspruch wird vom Autor gleich in der Präambel zum Text ausdrücklich formuliert, wenn er sagt:

‫ّ أ‬ ‫ّ أ‬ ّ ً ‫ وتكون مع ذلك‬،‫عنا الفعال كلها جميلة‬ ‫نحصل لنفسنا خلقا تصدر به‬ ‫غرضنا في هذا الكتاب أن‬ ّ .‫ ويكون ذلك بصناعة وعلى ترتيب تعليمي‬.‫سهلة علينا ال كلفة فيها وال مشقة‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ،‫ ما هي‬:‫والطر يق إلى ذلك أن نعرف ّأو ًال نفوسنا‬ ‫– أعني‬ ‫شيء أوجدت فينا‬ ‫ ول ّي‬،‫شيء هي‬ ‫وأي‬ ٍ ٍ ‫ وما‬،‫ وما قواها وملكاتها التي إذا استعملناها على ما ينبغي بلغنا بها هذه الرتبة العلية‬،‫كمالها وغايتها‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ّ ّ ّ ‫فإن هللا‬ ّ ‫ وما الذي‬،‫يزكيها فتفلح‬ :‫عز وجل يقول‬ ،‫يدسيها فتخيب‬ ‫الشياء العائقة لنا عنها وما الذي‬ ّ ّ ‫سواها فألهمها فجورها وتقواها قد أفلح من زكاها وقد خاب من‬ ّ ‫﴿ونفس وما‬ .﴾‫دساها‬ Unser Ziel in diesem Buch ist es, für uns selbst einen solchen Charakter zu erwerben, der bewirkt, dass alle unsere Handlungen, die daraus hervorgehen, gut sind und gleichzeitig von uns leicht, [d. h.] ohne Zwang oder Schwierigkeiten ausgeführt werden können. Dieses Ziel wollen wir durch Kunstfertigkeit (ṣināʿa) und in einer didaktischen Reihenfolge (tartīb taʿlīmī) erreichen.   Der Weg zu diesem Ziel besteht darin, zuallererst unsere Seelen zu erkennen: was sie sind, was für ein „Ding“ sie sind, und zu welchem Ende sie in uns ins Leben gerufen wurden – ich meine [damit]: ihre Vollkommenheit (kamāl) und ihren letzten Zweck (ġāya); was ihre Fähigkeiten (quwā) und Dispositionen (malakāt) sind, die uns, wenn wir sie richtig einsetzen, zu diesem hohen Rang führen;   [und wir müssen verstehen,] was die Ursachen sind, die uns hindern, diesen Rang [zu erreichen]; und was das ist, das unsere Seelen rein hält, damit sie gedeihen; und was das ist, das sie korrumpiert, so dass sie versagen.   Denn Gott – mächtig und erhaben ist Er – sagt: „Und bei einem [jeden menschlichen] Wesen (wörtl.: bei einer Seele) und [bei] dem, der es geformt und ihm seine Sündhaftigkeit eingegeben hat! Seelig ist, wer es [von sich aus] rein hält, aber enttäuscht wird [in seinen Hoffnungen], wer es verkommen lässt.“91

Das Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq schließt mit Ausführungen zur Gesundheit der Seele, zu denen der Autor z. T. umfangreich aus al-Kindīs Risāla fī l-ḥīla li-dafʿ al-aḥzān (Sendschreiben über den Kunstgriff zur Abwehr von Betrübnissen) zitiert.92 Diese Ausführungen insbesondere scheinen intensiv von seinem jüngeren Zeitgenossen ar-Rāġib al-Iṣfahānī (lebte vor oder um 409/1018) rezipiert worden zu 90 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 19. 91 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 1. Übersetzung

des Koranzitats 91:7–10 nach Paret (leicht modifiziert). 92 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 219. Neue Edition und englische Übersetzung in at-Tauḥīdī/Miskawaih, al-Hawāmil (Ed. Orfali/Pomerantz) 2019.

Einführung

33

0sein.93 Diese Idee findet sich aber auch bei Ibn Sīnā, einem anderen Zeitgenossen Miskawaihs. Nicht überraschend, aber dennoch bemerkenswert ist, dass alle drei hier genannten Denker nicht nur Philosophen, sondern auch psychologisch bewanderte Gelehrte und Mediziner waren.94 5.  Al-Hawāmil wa-š-šawāmil (Die Ungebundenen [ frei assoziierten Fragen] und die Gebundenen [wohldurchdachten Antworten]).95 Das Werk gibt 175 Fragen wieder, die der leicht ältere at-Tauḥīdī an Miskawaih richtete, und die Antworten, die Miskawaih erteilte, wobei al-hawāmil (wö.: „die freilaufenden [Tiere]“) at-Tauḥīdīs Bezeichnung für die von ihm gestellten Fragen sind, wie Miskawaih in der Einleitung zum Werk “mitteilt”:

ّ ‫وهأنذا آخذ في أجوبة مسائلك التي‬ .”‫سميتها “هوامل‬ Nun wende ich mich der Beantwortung Deiner Fragen zu, die Du als hawāmil bezeichnet hast.96

Unklar bleibt, ob der Ausdruck šawāmil („die eingehegten [Tiere]“) für Miskawaihs Antworten von Miskawaih selbst oder von at-Tauḥīdī stammt. Aḥmad Amīn schreibt in der Einleitung zu seiner Edition des al-Hawāmil wa-š-šawāmil, dass Miskawaih seine Antworten als šawāmil bezeichnet habe.97 Im Text des Werkes selbst findet sich jedoch kein solcher Hinweis. Eine Erwähnung der Bezeichnung šawāmil für Miskawaihs Antworten ist aber in at-Tauḥīdīs berühmten Alterswerk, den unter dem Titel al-Muqābasāt (Entlehnte Inspirationen) bekannten philosophischen Konversationen, enthalten. Hier ist zu lesen:

ّ .‫ ولها جواب في الشوامل‬،‫وهذه مسألة في الهوامل‬

Diese Frage ist in den Hawāmil, die Antwort darauf in den Šawāmil [enthalten].98

Daraus wäre zudem zu schließen, dass es sich bei dem intellektuellen Austausch in al-Hawāmil wa-š-šawāmil möglicherweise ursprünglich um zwei Schriften – d. h. einen Frage- und einen Antwortbrief – gehandelt haben könnte.99 Gestützt 93  Daiber

1991: 181–192. Vgl. Mohamed 1995: 51–75, insbes. 53–55; Mohamed 2006, insbes. Kapitel 5: 195–236. Zu ar-Rāġib al-Iṣfahānī und seinen Lebensdaten siehe Key 2012, insbes. 36. 94  Zu den psychologischen und medizinischen Ansätzen dieser Autoren siehe u. a. Landauer 1875: 335–339; Daiber 1991: 181–192; Klein-Franke 1996: 308–322; al-Ǧābirī 2001: 291–293; Adamson 2007: 39–50 sowie den Beitrag von Dorothee Pielow in diesem Band. 95 At-Tauḥīdī/Miskawaih, al-Hawāmil (Ed. Orfali/Pomerantz) 2019. Siehe zu diesem Thema auch den Beitrag von Mahmoud Haggag in diesem Band. 96 At-Tauḥīdī/Miskawaih, al-Hawāmil (Ed. Orfali/Pomerantz) 2019: ii, 8, Nr. 0.6. 97 At-Tauḥīdī/Miskawaih, al-Hawāmil (Ed. Amīn/Saqr) 1951: muqaddima (ǧīm). Siehe auch Arkoun 1982: 110. 98 At-Tauḥīdī, al-Muqābasāt: 146. 99  Vgl. at-Tauḥīdī/Miskawaih, al-Hawāmil (Ed. Amīn/Saqr) 1951: muqaddima (ǧīm).

34

Sebastian Günther und Yassir El Jamouhi

wird dieses Verständnis dadurch, dass diese Art gelehrter Korrespondenz Vorbilder hatte: zum einen in der aristotelischen Problemata-Literatur, die in jener Zeit zumindest teilweise in arabischer Übersetzung verfügbar war, und zum anderen in der Korrespondenz, die etwa zwischen dem christlichen Gelehrten Yaḥyā b.ʿAdī und dem jüdischen Gelehrten Ibn Abī Saʿīd al-Mauṣilī (4./10. Jh.) stattfand und in der Ersterer Antworten auf 14 Fragen des Letzteren zur aristotelischen Logik, Physik und Metaphysik gab.100 Die Inhalte von al-Hawāmil wa-š-šawāmil in der Form, wie das Werk uns heute zugänglich ist, sind von enzyklopädischer Bandbreite; sie kreisen aber um ein Oberthema, nämlich das der Gerechtigkeit. Im Weiteren betreffen sie Fragen zu Konzeptionen, denen Begriffe unterliegen wie Wissen, Wahrheit, Falschheit, Neid, Tyrannei, Feindschaft, Ärger, Großzügigkeit, Liebe, Seele, Einsicht, Furcht, Prädestination und Willensfreiheit und reichen bis zu solchen der Politik oder auch der Hygiene, der Musik, der Physiognomie und der Mode. Das Werk liefert auf diese Weise wertvolle Einblicke in die intellektuellen Interessen der „humanistisch“ orientierten Gelehrtenschaft zur Zeit der Buyiden; es zeigt zugleich aber auch menschliche Neigungen und Schwächen auf.101 6.  Ādāb al-ʿArab wa-l-Furs (Die Sitten[-Sprüche] der Araber und der Perser), bekannt auch unter dem persischen Titel Ǧāwīdān ḫirad (Die ewige Weisheit) bzw. dessen, vom Herausgeber Abdurrahman Badawi dem Text beigegebenen arabischen Übertragung al-Ḥikma al-ḫālida (Die ewige Weisheit).102 Diese Abhandlung umfasst eine weitläufige Abfolge von moralischen Reflexionen und philosophischen Diskursen, die aus verschiedenen Quellen entlehnt sind. Es ist eine Anthologie von Weisheitssprüchen der Perser, Inder, Araber, Byzantiner und schließlich der Muslime. Am Ende des Textes stehen Sentenzen, die Platon zugeschrieben sind, gefolgt von Aphorismen des muslimischen Theologen und Philosophen Abū l-Ḥasan al-ʿĀmirī sowie weitere Sprüche weiser Männer und Poeten, die von dem bereits genannten Theologen und Literaten al-Ǧāḥiẓ überliefert wurden. Miskawaihs eigenen Aussagen zufolge wurde er durch ein Werk von al-Ǧāḥiẓ, das er in seiner Jugend gelesen hatte, zum Verfassen dieses Buches angeregt.103 100 At-Tauḥīdī/Miskawaih,

xxii).

al-Hawāmil (Ed. Orfali/Pomerantz) 2019: ii, Introduction (xiv,

101  Siehe Arkoun 1961a: i, 73–108; ii, 63–88; Endress 2012: 214–215; Wakelnig 2017: 235; Muhanna 2016: 248–280 sowie den Beitrag von Mahmoud Haggag in diesem Band. 102 Miskawaih, al-Ḥikma (Ed. Badawi) 1957; Übersetzung des Kapitels zur Weisheit der Perser durch Giese 1999. Siehe zum Werk und seiner Rezeptionsgeschichte auch Pellat 2004. Zu einer alternativen Transliteration des persischen Titels als Ǧāwīḏān ḫiraḏ siehe den Beitrag von Lutz Richter-Bernburg in diesem Band, dort Anm. 2. 103 Miskawaih, al-Ḥikma (Ed. Badawi) 1957: 5.

Einführung

35

Miskawaih gibt an, im ersten Teil seines Werkes ein geistiges Testament des mythischen iranischen Königs Huschang an seinen Sohn und Nachfolger wiederzugeben, welches den Titel Ǧāwīdān ḫirad getragen habe und das er in Persien vom zoroastrischen Hohenpriester erhalten habe. Dieser Textteil kommt einem iranischen Fürstenspiegel gleich.104 Der Bildungsanspruch, den Miskawaih mit diesem Werk insgesamt verfolgt, wird in der Einleitung explizit formuliert. Miskawaih schreibt hier, er habe das Buch verfasst:

‫أ‬ ّ ّ ‫يتذكر بها العلماء ما‬ ‫ والتمست بذلك تقويم نفسي‬.‫تقدم من الحكم والعلوم‬ ،‫… ليرتاض بها الحداث‬ ّ ‫ومن‬ .‫يتقوم به بعدي‬

… um Jugendliche (aḥdāṯ) damit zu unterweisen, und damit sich die Gelehrten daran erinnern, was ihnen an Weisheit und Wissen (al-ḥikam wa-l-ʿulūm) vorausging. Im Übrigen erhoffe ich mir hierdurch die Besserung meiner selbst und der nach mir Kommenden, die sich dadurch bessern [lassen].105

7.  Fī māhīyat al-ʿadl (Über das Wesen der Gerechtigkeit).106 Es handelt sich bei diesem Werk um eine kurze philosophische Abhandlung in Form einer weiterführenden Antwort Miskawaihs auf die Frage zur „Ungerechtigkeit“, die ihm at-Tauḥīdī in al-Hawāmil wa-š-šawāmil stellte.107 Erhalten ist von diesem Text lediglich eine einzige Handschrift in Mašhad, Iran (Nr. 137), mit dem längeren Titel Risālat aš-Šaiḫ Abī ʿAlī Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Yaʿqūb Miskawaih ilā ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. Ḥaiyān aṣ-Ṣūfī fī māhīyat al-ʿadl (Das Traktat des Meisters Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Yaʿqūb Miskawaih an den Mystiker ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. Ḥaiyān über das Wesen der Gerechtigkeit).108 In diesem Text befasst sich der Autor mit drei Kategorien von Gerechtigkeit, in denen er Aristoteles folgt: a) „natürliche Gerechtigkeit,“ die das Gleichgewicht der Naturkräfte und der Formen der Materie darstellt; b) „traditionelle Gerechtigkeit“ in dem Sinne, in dem die Propheten diese als rechtes Verhalten der Menschen verkündeten; und c) „göttliche Gerechtigkeit,“ die ewig, unveränderlich und übernatürlich ist. Miskawaih fügt dem eine vierte Kategorie hinzu, die d) „freiwillige Gerechtigkeit,“ die der Sicherstellung sozialer Harmonie diene. 104  Diese älteste Erwähnung des Textes im arabisch-islamischen Kontext in einem Werk von al-Ǧāḥiẓ ist offenbar belegt; allerdings ist davon nur ein Exzerpt erhalten. Vgl. Henning 1956: 73–74; Arkoun 1970: 146–158; Arkoun 1976: 1–24; und vor allem Pellat 2004. 105 Miskawaih, al-Ḥikma (Ed. Badawi) 1957: 6. 106 Miskawaih, ar-Risāla. Im Weiteren siehe auch Mohamed 2000. 107 At-Tauḥīdī/Miskawaih, al-Hawāmil (Ed. Orfali/Pomerantz) 2019: 66, Nr. 29.1. 108  Vgl. Arkoun 1982: 113.

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Letzterer Begriff sei jedoch auch schon in den ersten drei Kategorien enthalten. Der Autor verankert auf diese Weise aristotelische und neuplatonische Vorstellungen zur Gerechtigkeit im islamischen Zusammenhang und kontextualisiert diese hier neu.109 8.  Taǧārib al-umam fī aḫbār mulūk al-ʿarab wa-l-ʿaǧam (Die Erfahrungen der Völker bezüglich der Nachrichten zu den Herrschern der Araber und der Nichtaraber).110 Dieses Werk ist Miskawaihs umfangreiche Universalgeschichte.111 Es steht literaturgeschichtlich in der Tradition des Tārīḫ ar-rusul wa-l-mulūk (Die Geschichte der Gottesgesandten und der Herrscher), des Opus Magnum des Muḥammad b. Ǧarīr aṭ-Ṭabarī, das Miskawaih mit Ibn Kāmil, seinem Lehrer und Ṭabarī-Schüler, studiert hatte. Doch mehr noch als dieses Werk seiner Vorgänger ist Miskawaihs Buch einer didaktisch aufbereiteten, ethisch untermauerten Geschichtsdarstellung verpflichtet.112 Insofern spiegelt es nicht nur das Verständnis seines Autors für historische Details wider, sondern auch sein Interesse an den ethischen Grundlagen und dem sozialen Verhalten des Menschen im gesellschaftlichen Kontext. Die weitgreifende Programmatik des Werkes, die darauf abhebt, aus der Vergangenheit für die Gegenwart und Zukunft zu lernen, kommt mithin schon in seinem Titel zum Tragen und wird auch in der Einleitung ausdrücklich hervorgehoben:

‫أ‬ ّ ‫ وجدت فيها ما تستفاد‬،‫ وكتب التوار يخ‬،‫ وقرأت أخبار البلدان‬،‫ وسير الملوك‬،‫لما تصفحت أخبار المم‬ ّ ‫منه تجر بة في أمور ال تزال‬ .‫يتكرر مثلها‬ Als ich die Nachrichten der Völker und die Biographien der Herrscher betrachtet und die Nachrichten der Länder sowie die Geschichtsbücher gelesen hatte, fand ich darin etwas, woraus Erfahrungswissen entnommen werden kann über Angelegenheiten, derengleichen sich ständig wiederholen.113 109 Miskawaih, ar-Risāla: 9; Khaddouri 1984: 111. Siehe auch Mohamed 2000: 242–259. 110 Miskawaih, at-Taǧārib; Übers. Amedroz/Margoliouth 1920–1921. 111  Arkoun 2001: 1–40. 112  Margoliouth nennt in seiner Einleitung zur Edition und Übersetzung der Taǧārib al-

umam unter den weiteren historiographischen Quellen Miskawaihs vor allem die heute nur in Auszügen erhaltene Chronik al-Kitāb at-Tāǧī (benannt nach dem Titel ʿAḍud ad-Daulas Tāǧ al-milla (Die Krone der Glaubensgemeinschaft) des berühmten sabischen Kanzleidirektors der Buyiden Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Hilāl aṣ-Ṣābiʾ (gest. 384/994); die ebenfalls nur in späteren Zitaten überlieferte Chronik des gleichfalls sabischen Hofarztes und Historikers Ṯābit b. Sinān alḤarrānī (gest. 365/976), welche die Geschichte dort, wo diese bei aṭ-Ṭabarī endet, bis zum Tode des Autors fortsetzt, und des al-Aurāq (Die Blätter), einer Sammlung von Berichten über die abbasidischen Kalifen und das kulturelle Leben am Hof, des am Hofe mehrerer Kalifen tätigen Literaten Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā aṣ-Ṣūlī (gest. 335/947). Vgl. dazu Miskawaih, at-Taǧārib (Übers. Amedroz/Margoliouth) 1920–1921: Preface (vi). 113 Miskawaih, at-Taǧārib: i, 59.

Einführung

37

Bereits Henry F. Amedroz und David S. Margoliouth als Herausgeber und Übersetzer des Buches betonten den besonderen Wert dieses Geschichtswerkes „nicht nur als der Chronik einer Periode, sondern als einer intelligenten Aufzeichnung von [universeller menschlicher] Erfahrung.“114 Mohammad Khan hält darüber hinaus fest, dass Miskawaih „während des gesamten Taǧārib […] die Idee des göttlichen Eingreifens und der göttlichen Gerechtigkeit sowie des Triumphs der Tugend über das Laster aufrechterhält“ und wohl auch deshalb in seiner Universalgeschichte nicht selten „einen moralisierenden Ton anschlägt und den Schwerpunkt auf die guten Taten (al-aʿmāl aṣ-ṣāliḥa) legt.“115 Eine genaue Chronologie der Werke Miskawaihs ist nicht überliefert. Wohl aber sei nach Miskawaihs eigenen Aussagen al-Fauz al-aṣġar vor al-Fauz al-akbar und Tartīb as-saʿāda vor Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq verfasst worden.116 Seine beiden großen Werke zur Geschichte und zur Ethik, Taǧārib al-umam und Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq, hat Miskawaih offenbar erst im Alter fertiggestellt, nachdem er sich aus dem Fürstendienst zurückgezogen hatte.117 Mohammed Arkoun schlägt für die Redaktion der drei großen ethischen Werke folgende Chronologie vor: Tartīb as-saʿāda als das früheste Werk zum Thema könnte in der Zeit 358– 360/969–970 geschrieben worden sein, als Miskawaih noch im Dienst von Ibn al-ʿAmīd stand. Al-Fauz al-aṣġar wäre nach 366/976, aber vor 369/979 und Tahdhīb al-aḫlāq nach 372/982, vielleicht um 375/985, geschrieben worden.118

4. Miskawaih-Studien Aussagekräftige Übersichtsdarstellungen zum wissenschaftlichen Schaffen Miskawaihs und Werkbeschreibungen finden sich vor allem bei Abdurrahman Badawi (1963), Mohammed Arkoun (1970), Lenn E. Goodman (2003), Gerhard Endress (2012, 2017) sowie Elvira Wakelnig (2013, 2014) und John Peter Radez (2015). Unter den Autoren weiterer wichtiger Einzeluntersuchungen zum philosophisch-ethischen Schrifttum Miskawaihs  – allerdings ohne auf dessen Bedeutung für den islamischen Bildungsdiskurs besonders einzugehen – ist allen voran noch einmal Arkoun zu nennen (mit seinen Arbeiten zu Miskawaih als Philosoph und Historiker, 1970, 1982; zu einzelnen Werken, 1961–1963, 2001; und zum intellektuellen Umfeld, 2006, 2012). Detaillierte Darstellungen zu Miskawaihs 114 Miskawaih, at-Taǧārib (Übers. Amedroz/Margoliouth) 1920–1921: vii (Preface and Index), ix. 115  Khan 1980; hier zitiert nach Omar 2017: 454. 116  Badawi 1963: 470. 117  Leaman 2003: 104. 118  Arkoun 1982: 107–109, 115–116. Vgl. auch Marcotte 2012: 146.

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Vorstellungen zur Gerechtigkeit stammen von Muhammad S. Khan (1962, 1964) und zur islamischen Ethik – z. T. im Kontext der antiken Tradition – von Majid Fakhry (1970, 1994, 1998), Elvira Wakelnig (2009, 2013), Roxanne D. Marcotte (2012), Peter Adamson (2007), Elias Muhanna (2016) und Mohammed Nasir Bin Omar (2017). Unter den grundsätzlichen Studien zur Rezeption antiker philosophischethischer Vorstellungen im Islam sind hier stellvertretend Dimitri Gutas’ Arbeiten zur Weisheitsliteratur (1975) und zur arabischen Aristoteles-Rezeption (2011), Hans Hinrich Biesterfeldts Forschungen zu den hellenistischen Wissenschaften und der arabisch-islamischen Kultur (2003), Manfred Ullmanns Studie zur Nikomachischen Ethik in arabischer Übersetzung (2011–2012) und Gerhard Endress’ wichtige Publikation zur arabischen Rezeption der platonischen Ethik und der rationalen Wissenschaften: der aristotelischen Enzyklopädie (2014) zu nennen. Mit der engen Verflechtung von Bildung und Ethik im Islam befassten sich vor allem Steffen Stelzer (2008), Sebastian Günther (2015, 2016, 2020) und Cyrus A. Zargar (2017), wobei letzterer für einen Paradigmenwechsel in diesem Themenbereich plädiert. Die in diesem Band vereinten Beiträge geben in z. T. substantiell erweiterter Form und mit einem technischen Apparat versehen Referate wieder, die auf dem Göttinger Miskawaih-Symposium gehalten wurden. Das Hauptaugenmerk dieses Symposiums und somit des vorliegenden Bandes ist auf Aspekte gerichtet, die in den bisherigen Miskawaih-Forschungen allenfalls eine untergeordnete Rolle gespielt haben. Zum einen verbinden wir damit das Anliegen, zu einem wissenschaftlich fundierteren und umfassenderen Verständnis dieses klassischen muslimischen Denkers im Kontext grundsätzlicher Entwicklungslinien islamischer Bildung und Ethik beizutragen. Zum anderen geht es um eine kritische Bestandsaufnahme und Untersuchung bildungsrelevanter Ideen in Miskawaihs Oeuvre, um deren nachhaltige Relevanz für die islamische Kultur- und Geistesgeschichte herauszuarbeiten. Damit leistet diese Publikation einen Beitrag, der geeignet ist, eine Forschungslücke in der Arabistik und Islamwissenschaft sowie in der historischen Bildungsforschung zu schließen. Zentrale Fragestellungen des Bandes sind folgende: – Welche grundsätzlichen Aussagen trifft Miskawaih über Inhalte, Methoden und Wesenszüge von Bildung und Ethik im Islam generell sowie über die ethischen Verhaltensnormen im Lehr- und Lernprozess und den gesellschaftlichen Status von Lehrenden und Lernenden im Besonderen? – In welchem Verhältnis stehen die bildungstheoretischen und moralphilosophischen Ideale und Prinzipien Miskawaihs zu antiken und zu zeitgenössischen (syrischen und arabischen) Werken jüdischer, christlicher und muslimischer Autoren? Wie transformierte und kontextualisierte Miskawaih das Gedankengut seiner Quellen, um es in seine eigene Argumentation einzubinden?

Einführung

39

– Welche Methoden der Darstellung und Argumentation wandte Miskawaih an, um seine bildungstheoretischen und ethischen Kernaussagen zu kommunizieren? – Welche ethischen Grundlagen und Ideale Miskawaihs waren für die weitere Entwicklung islamischer diskursiver Religiosität – hier vor allem für die Debatten zu Bildung und Ethik – im Islam richtungsweisend? Welche Rolle spielten dabei Fragen des menschlichen „Glücks“ und der menschlichen „(Selbst-)Vervollkommnung“? Welche Bedeutung kam Miskawaihs diesbezüglichen Vorstellungen im Spannungsfeld der „philosophisch begründeten Ethik“ ( falsafat al-aḫlāq) und der später dominierenden „religiösen Ethik“ (makārim al-aḫlāq) zu? Sowie nicht zuletzt: Wie wurden Miskawaihs Ideen von späteren muslimischen und nicht-muslimischen (jüdischen und christlichen) Autoren rezipiert? Es versteht sich von selbst, dass dieses anspruchsvolle thematische Tableau in der vorliegenden Publikation nur insofern abgedeckt wird, wie Spezialistinnen und Spezialisten zur Bearbeitung dieser Themen gewonnen werden konnten. Der zu wünschende Erfolg dieses Unterfangens zeigt sich aber eindrücklich in den in dieser Publikation enthaltenen Forschungsbeiträgen. Die nun folgenden Kurzdarstellungen dieser geben hierzu eine thematische Vorschau. Wadad Kadis „Miskawayh: The Uneasy Co-Existence of the Philosopher and the Historian?“ untersucht die Spannung zwischen Miskawaihs Rolle als Philosoph und Historiker durch einen Vergleich seiner Schriften aus beiden Disziplinen. Dabei geht sie der Frage nach der genauen Beziehung der beiden Disziplinen in Miskawaihs Denken nach. Das spezifische tertium comparationis des vorliegenden Vergleichs ist Miskawaihs Darstellung der ʿāmma, d. h. des gemeinen Volkes. Kadi kommt zu dem Schluss, dass sich Miskawaihs Werke in beiden Disziplinen trotz unterschiedlicher Thematiken letztendlich gegenseitig ergänzen. Darüber hinaus identifiziert Kadi in Miskawaihs Schriften dessen entschiedene Selbstzuschreibung zu den ḫāṣṣa, welche eine den ʿāmma diametral entgegengesetzte Macht- und Bildungselite bilden. Steffen Stelzer wirft in seinem Beitrag „Où est le Bonheur? Searching for Miskawayh“ die Frage nach der grundsätzlichen Zielrichtung in Miskawaihs Denken auf. Im Mittelpunkt steht dabei nicht die Antwort auf diese Frage als solche, sondern zunächst die Bedeutungsverschiebungen, die ein philosophischer Text durch Übersetzungen erfahren kann. Diese Frage stellt sich, da das moderne Verständnis von Miskawaihs Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq dieses Werk in einer Ethik-Tradition positioniert, die von der griechischen Antike bis in die Gegenwart reicht. Anhand von Beispielen aus dieser kulturübergreifenden Tradition, in denen Namen wie Sokrates, Aristoteles, Kant und Nietzsche sowie Arendt, Arkoun und Kermani genannt werden, fragt der Beitrag im Weiteren thesenartig nach dem

40

Sebastian Günther und Yassir El Jamouhi

Sinn und Zweck einer solchen Ethik sowie der Bedeutung von Glück speziell mit Blick auf den Islam. In „Ethics as Likeness to God in Miskawayh: An Overlooked Tradition“ richtet Hans Daiber den Fokus auf das Zusammenspiel platonischer, aristotelischer und neuplatonischer Einflüsse in Miskawaihs Ethik. Im Mittelpunkt des Beitrages stehen Miskawaihs Gedanken über die menschliche Seele, die sich unter anderem bis hin zu Debatten zwischen alexandrinischen Philosophen im 3. Jahrhundert zurückführen lassen. Eine besondere Rolle scheint dabei dem neuplatonischen Philosophen Iamblichos von Chalkis zuzukommen. Anhand eines Vergleichs zwischen Miskawaihs Schriften und dem in einer arabischen Übersetzung erhaltenen Kommentar des Iamblichos zu den pseudo-pythagoreischen Goldenen Versen zeichnet Daiber Miskawaihs Rezeption neuplatonischer Gedanken nach und zeigt auf, an welchen Stellen er sich bewusst auf andere Traditionen bezieht. Yassir El Jamouhi befasst sich in „Diversität und Bildungsdiskurs im klassischen Islam: Miskawaihs Rezeption von Brysons Oikonomikos“ mit Miskawaihs Oeuvre als einem Beispiel für die weitläufige Rezeption des bestehenden intellektuellen Erbes durch muslimische Philosophen in der klassischen Periode des Islams. In einer Fallstudie zu Miskawaihs Adaption antiker griechischer Bildungstheorien untersucht er Miskawaihs Rezeption der in Brysons Oikonomikos enthaltenen Gedanken zur Knabenerziehung durch einen Vergleich des Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq mit einer arabischen Übersetzung von Brysons griechischem Text. El Jamouhis Analyse verdeutlicht sowohl die thematische Selektion und Erweiterung des von Bryson entworfenen pädagogischen Programms durch Miskawaih als auch die unterschiedlichen sprachlichen Modifikationen, die Miskawaih nutzt, um Brysons Text lexikalisch und inhaltlich seiner Konzeption von Bildung im islamischen Kontext anzupassen. In ihrem Beitrag „Late Antique Philosophical Education, Miskawayh, and Paul the Persian: On the Division and the Ranks of Philosophy“ rekonstruiert Elvira Wakelnig den Einfluss spätantiker Prolegomena auf den philosophischen und pädagogischen Diskurs zu Miskawaihs Lebzeiten. Entstanden als Einführungswerke für das Studium der Philosophie, erfreuten sich die Prolegomena seit der Spätantike großer Beliebtheit. Das von ihnen vermittelte Verständnis von den Inhalten und Zielen der Philosophie findet sich bei Miskawaih – so wie bei zahlreichen muslimischen Philosophen vor und nach ihm – wieder. Ein Beispiel für diesen Einfluss liefert Wakelnig durch ihre Betrachtung des Verständnisses vom Wissen über Gott und das Intelligible bei Miskawaih und seinem Zeitgenossen al-Isfizārī. Weitere Hinweise bezieht Wakelnig aus der Analyse eines Textes, der Paul dem Perser (Paulus Persa), einem spätantiken christlichen Theologen und Philosophen, zugerechnet wird und der sowohl von al-Fārābī als auch von Miskawaih rezipiert wurde.

Einführung

41

Unter dem Titel „Lehrhafte sprachliche Bilder der Antike für die dreigeteilte Seele bei Miskawaih und Ibn Sīnā“ untersucht Dorothee Pielow die Verwendung der Seelenlehre von Platon und Aristoteles durch zwei namhafte muslimische Philosophen des 4./10. und Anfang des 5./11. Jahrhunderts als Beispiel für das Nachleben antiker Sprachbilder im Islam. Sowohl Miskawaih als auch Ibn Sīnā greifen das Bild der dreigeteilten Seele in ihren Gedanken zur menschlichen Psyche auf. In ihrer Analyse geht Pielow insbesondere der pädagogischen Funktion dieser Metapher in den Werken auf den Grund. Dabei kommt sie zu dem Schluss, dass für Miskawaih und Ibn Sīnā die Konzeption der „dreigeteilten Seele“ eine grundlegende Rolle in der Erziehung und der Verfeinerung von Charaktereigenschaften spielte: sie spiegelt zudem die innere Zerrissenheit des Menschen im Spannungsfeld von Gut und Böse wider und beschreibt die Vernunft als entscheidenden Wegweiser zur Erlangung der Glückseligkeit. Christian Mauder widmet sich in „Between Religious Pluralism and Confessional Identity: The Ethical Writings of Miskawayh’s Teacher Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī“ der bislang nicht eindeutig geklärten Beziehung zwischen den Schriften Miskawaihs und denen seines christlichen Lehrers Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī (gest. 363/974). Mauder geht hierbei der Frage nach, warum Miskawaih ein Werk mit dem gleichen Titel wie das seines Lehrers, Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq, verfasste, ohne diesen dort zu nennen bzw. darin auf diesen Bezug zu nehmen. Mauders Analyse von Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdīs ethischen Hauptwerken, Die Läuterung der Sitten und Die Abhandlung über Enthaltsamkeit, macht dabei eine inhärente Spannung deutlich, welche die Ethiklehre dieses auf Arabisch schreibenden christlichen Philosophen ausmacht. Danach scheinen die Gedanken Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdīs gleichzeitig zu zwei Diskurssträngen beigetragen zu haben: einem religiös-pluralistischen und einem die westsyrisch-christliche Identität bewahrenden. Der tiefgehende Einfluss, den die Spannung zwischen diesen beiden Argumentationsfeldern in Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdīs Schriften auf Miskawaihs Rezeption dieser ausübte, macht die Bedeutung der Werke Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdīs für Miskawaihs Schaffen im interreligiösen Kontext seiner Zeit deutlich. Ute Pietruschkas „The Tahdhīb al-akhlāq Attributed to Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī: The Early Manuscript Tradition Revisited“ unternimmt dann einen detaillierten Vergleich von Miskawaihs gleichnamigem Werk mit dem seines christlichen Lehrers Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī. Pietruschkas Studie basiert auf einer Analyse der ältesten erhaltenen Manuskripte von Yaḥyā b. ʿAdīs Buch über Die Läuterung der Sitten. Dabei stehen besonders die Rolle des Werkes im erweiterten Kontext ethischer Abhandlungen sowie die Frage nach der umstrittenen Autorenschaft Yaḥyā b. ʿAdīs im Mittelpunkt der Untersuchung. Der Vergleich von Inhalten und Textpassagen, die sich in den beiden gleichnamigen Werken finden, wirft ein neues Licht auf das multireligiöse und vielsprachige Bagdad im 4./10. Jahrhundert. Maxim Yosefis „The Quest for Divine Guidance as Intercultural Educational Discourse: An Inquiry into Saadia Gaon’s and Miskawayh’s Ethics“ betritt Neu-

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land insofern, als er einen Vergleich zwischen den ethischen Auffassungen Miskawaihs und jenen des einflussreichen jüdischen Theologen, Philosophen und Philologen Saadia Gaon (Saʿadyā Ben Yōsēf; gest. 924 in Bagdad) unternimmt. Im Fokus steht dabei die Frage, ob sich angesichts bestimmter Parallelen zwischen den Ansichten dieser beiden einflussreichen Ethiker zum religiösen Gesetz, zur Vernunft und zur Offenbarung (un-)mittelbare Einflüsse Saadias auf das Denken und Schreiben Miskawaihs – oder ggf. gemeinsame Quellen – nachweisen lassen. Yosefi geht dabei zwei Hypothesen nach: zum einen der Möglichkeit, dass Saadias Ideen Miskawaih über dessen christlichen Lehrer, den bereits genannten Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī, erreicht haben könnten (letzterer war ein Zeitgenosse Saadias und stand in Bagdad im wissenschaftlichen Austausch auch mit jüdischen Gelehrten); und zum anderen der Möglichkeit, dass Miskawaih seine ethischen Vorstellungen aus einem „interkulturellen Pool von Ideen“ schöpfte, zu dem neben muslimischen auch jüdische und christliche rationale Gelehrte entscheidend beitrugen. Einem innermuslimischen Diskurs widmet sich Mahmoud Haggag in seinem Beitrag „Zur Rezeption von Koran und Scharia in Miskawaihs Bildungsdiskurs: Eine Studie anhand des Werkes al-Hawāmil wa-š-šawāmil“. Haggag analysiert hierbei diesen interessanten Text, der – wie oben schon vermerkt – aus Fragen besteht, welche at-Tauḥīdī seinem Gelehrtenkollegen Miskawaih offenbar schriftlich übermittelt hatte, und den Antworten, die Miskawaih darauf gab. Haggag untersucht zunächst, in welcher Weise und in welchem Kontext Koranund Schariabezüge in al-Hawāmil wa-š-šawāmil zur Verwendung kommen. Im Weiteren beleuchtet er, wie Miskawaih in seinen Antworten auf den Koran und die Scharia verweist und welche Rolle der Vernunft in Fällen zukommt, in denen Uneinigkeit unter den Rechtsgelehrten in den behandelten Themen besteht. Schließlich widmet sich Haggag dem wechselseitigen Verhältnis von Ethik, Vernunft und Scharia. Er stellt abschließend fest, dass at-Tauḥīdīs konzise, gleichwohl bemerkenswert inspirierende Fragen gewissermaßen gedankliche Vorlagen für Miskawaihs tiefgreifende philosophische Antworten boten. In „Miskawayh’s (Re-)Framing of Wisdom as Perennial and Universal in Jāwīdhān Khiradh“ analysiert Lutz Richter-Bernburg Miskawaihs Verwendung von Apophthegmata zur praktischen Veranschaulichung seiner Ethiklehre. Richter-Bernburgs Beitrag geht der Frage nach, welche Strategien Miskawaih einsetzt, um die effektive Vermittlung seiner Ideen sicherzustellen und zugleich deren historisch-philosophische Bedeutung zu erhöhen. Eine besondere Funktion kommt hier einer bestimmten Quelle Miskawaihs zu, der als Jāwīdhān Khiradh (Ewige Weisheit) bekannten Sammlung von Weisheitssprüchen, und deren Charakterisierung als zeitloses und universell gültiges Wissen. Wie Richter-Bernburg zeigt, versucht Miskawaih durch die Zuschreibung dieser Weisheitssprüche an den iranischen mythischen Urkönig und Traditionsgründer Hōshang, deren Inhalt als Essenz eines unwandelbaren Menschheitswissens darzustellen.

Einführung

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In seinem Beitrag „‚An Art That is Learned and Acquired‘: Human Happiness in Miskawayh’s Tartīb al-saʿādāt“ widmet sich Ali Rida K. Rizek dem Konzept der Glückseligkeit (saʿāda), welches in Miskawaihs früherer philosophischer Abhandlung, Tartīb as-saʿādāt wa-manāzil al-ʿulūm (auch bekannt als Kitāb asSaʿāda) behandelt wird. Zu Beginn dieser Studie beleuchtet Rizek Miskawaihs Darstellung der verschiedenen Grade der Glückseligkeit bis hin zur ultimativen Glückseligkeit (as-saʿāda al-quṣwā). Dabei verortet Rizek das Tartīb as-saʿādāt wa-manāzil al-ʿulūm im arabisch-islamischen Kontext in einer größeren philosophischen Debatte zur Glückseligkeit. Er tut dies durch einen Vergleich des Werkes mit anderen einschlägigen Texten, die möglicherweise einen Einfluss auf Miskawaihs Gedanken zu dieser Thematik ausgeübt haben. Von besonderem Interesse sind dabei die inhaltlichen und terminologischen Übereinstimmungen, die Rizeks minutiöser Vergleich von Miskawaihs Werk mit al-Fārābīs Risālat attanbīh ʿalā sabīl as-saʿāda zu Tage fördert. In „Virtue and the Law in al-Ghazālī’s Ethics“ widmet sich Sophia Vasalou der Rezeption von Miskawaihs pädagogischer Theorie zur wechselseitigen Beziehung von Tugend und religiösem Gesetz durch den einflussreichen Theologen und Mystiker al-Ġazālī (gest. 505/1111). Dabei geht es um die Frage, ob gewisse Charaktereigenschaften als wünschenswerte Tugenden gelten, da diese die Menschen befähigen, das Gesetz zu befolgen, oder ob vielmehr der Wert gesetzlicher Vorschriften darin liegt, dass diese den Menschen den Erwerb solcher Eigenschaften sowie eine spirituelle Entfaltung ermöglichen. Ausgehend von einigen Passagen aus al-Ġazālīs Opus Magnum Die Wiederbelebung der Wissenschaften von der Religion, in denen al-Ġazālī den Wert einer Handlung anhand der daraus resultierenden Charakterbildung misst, argumentiert Vasalou für Letzteres. Zum Abschluss dieses thematischen Tableaus untersucht Kaouther Karoui in „The Theory of Justice between the Humanism of the Classical Muslim Thinker Miskawayh and the Contemporary Thought Project of Mohammed Arkoun“ den Beitrag Arkouns zum Verständnis des philosophischen Humanismus in Miskawaihs Gerechtigkeitskonzept. Im Zuge einer Neubewertung der islamischen Ideengeschichte interpretierte Arkoun Miskawaihs Synthese der platonischen und der aristotelischen Gerechtigkeitsdefinition als ein humanistisches Konzept. Ausgehend von Arkouns vielbeachteter Arbeit über den arabischen Humanismus des 3./9. und 4./10. Jahrhunderts zeichnet Karoui das Bild Miskawaihs als einem führenden Gelehrten der islamischen Ethik. Sie zeigt im Weiteren auf, wie Arkoun vor diesem Hintergrund zu einer Neuinterpretation der islamischen Quellen und Doktrinen mit Blick auf die Herausforderungen der Gegenwart ermutigt. Mit diesen thematischen Ausblicken hoffen wir, die Neugierde der geneigten Leserinnen und Leser auf die nun folgenden Sachbeiträge geweckt zu haben. Wir

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wünschen eine gewinnbringende Lektüre des Bandes und, um noch einmal Miskawaih selbst zu Wort kommen zu lassen:

ّ ‫… أن تجد بها من الحكمة ضالتك ومن العلم بغيتك وطلبتك ُفتفضي بعد الظفر منها إلى برد اليقين‬ .‫فيها إن شاء هللا‬ … dass Du darin das findest, was Du an Weisheit suchst und an Wissen erstrebst, sodass Du  – nachdem Du dieses verinnerlicht hast  – das Vergnügen der Gewissheit genießen wirst, so Gott will.119

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Günther, Sebastian (2005): „Introduction“, in Sebastian Günther (Hg.): Ideas, Images, and Methods of Portrayal. Insights into Classical Arabic Literature and Islam (Leiden: Brill) xv–xxxiii. – (2015): „Auf der Suche nach dem Elixier der Glückseligkeit. Konzeptionen rationaler und spiritueller Bildung im Klassischen Islam“, in Peter Gemeinhardt/Tobias Georges (Hgg.): Theologie und Bildung im Mittelalter (Archa Verbi. Subsidia 13; Münster: Aschendorff ) 111–128. – (2016): „Bildung und Ethik Islam“, in Rainer Brunner (Hg.): Einheit und Vielfalt einer Weltreligion (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer) 210–236. – (2020): „Islamic Education, Its Culture, Contents and Methods: An Introduction“, in Sebastian Günther (Hg.): Knowledge and Education in Classical Islam. Religious Learning between Continuity and Change, Bd. i (Islamic History and Civilization 172; 2 Bde., Leiden: Brill) 1–39. Gutas, Dimitri (1998): Greek Thought, Arabic Culture. The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early Abbasid Society (2nd–4th/8th–10th Centuries) (London/ New York: Routledge). Habib, Irfan (1993): „Medieval Popular Monotheism and Its Humanism. The Historical Setting“, Social Scientist 21/3 u. 4, 78–88. Hafner, Albert (1849): Die Lehre von den Kardinaltugenden bei Platon und in der stoischen Schule. Nach den Quellen verglichen (Zürich: Orell, Füssli und Comp.). Hakim, Khalifah A. (1963): „Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī“, in Mian M. Sharif (Hg.): A History of Muslim Philosophy. With Short Accounts of Other Disciplines and the Modern Renaissance in Muslim Lands, Bd. ii (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz) 820–839. Heinrichs, Wolfhart (1990): Orientalisches Mittelalter (Neues Handbuch der Literaturwissenschaft 5; Wiebelsheim: Aula). Hendrich, Geert (2011): Arabisch-Islamische Philosophie. Geschichte und Gegenwart (Frankfurt am Main: Campus). Henning, Walter Bruno (1956): „Eine arabische Version mittelpersischer Weisheitsschriften“, ZDMG 106/1, 73–77. Key, Alexander (2005): „The Applicability of the Term ‚Humanism‘ to Abū Ḥayyān alTawḥīdī“, SI 100/101, 71–112. – (2012): A Linguistic Frame of Mind. Ar-Rāġib al-Iṣfahānī and What It Meant to be Ambiguous (Doctoral dissertation; Harvard). Khaddouri, Majid (1984): The Islamic Conception of Justice (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press). Khalidi, Tarif (1994): Arabic Historical Thought in the Classical Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Khan, Muhammad S. (1962): „An Unpublished Treatise of Miskawayh on Justice“, ZDMG 112/2, 309–318. – (1980): Studies in Miskawayh’s Contemporary History (Chicago: University Microfilms International for the Center for Middle Eastern Studies). Klein-Franke, Felix (1996): „Al-Kindī“, in Seyyed Hossein Nasr/Oliver Leaman (Hgg.): History of Islamic Philosophy (Routledge History of World Philosophies 1.2; London/ New York: Routledge) 308–333. Kobusch, Theo (Hg.) (2011): Geschichte der Philosophie. V. Die Philosophie des Hoch- und Spätmittelalters (München: Beck). Kraemer, Joel L. (1984): „Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam. A Preliminary Study“, JAOS 104/1, 135–164.

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– (1986, 21992): Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam. The Cultural Revival during the Buyid Age (Leiden/Köln: Brill). Kühnel, Ernst (1956): „Die Kunst Persiens unter den Buyiden“, ZDMG 106/1, 78–92. Landauer, Samuel (1875): „Die Psychologie des Ibn Sīnā“, ZDMG 39, 335–418. Lane, Edward William (1863–1893): An Arabic-English Lexicon. In Eight Parts (London: Williams and Norgate; Nachdr. 1980: Beirut: Librarie du Liban). Leaman, Oliver (1996): „Ibn Miskawayh“, in Seyyed Hossein Nasr/Oliver Leaman (Hgg.): History of Islamic Philosophy (Routledge History of World Philosophies 1.2; London/ New York: Routledge) 252–257. Löbl, Rudolf (1997–2008): TEXNH: Techne. Untersuchung zur Bedeutung dieses Wortes in der Zeit von Homer bis Aristoteles. I. Von Homer bis zu den Sophisten (1997). II. Von den Sophisten bis zu Aristoteles (2003). III. Die Zeit des Hellenismus (2008) (Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann). Makdisi, George (1989): „Scholasticism and Humanism in Classical Islam and the Christian West“, JAOS 109/2, 175–182. – (1990): The Rise of Humanism in Classical Islam and the Christian West. With Special Reference to Scholasticism (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press). – (1997): „Inquiry into the Origins of Humanism“, in Asma Afsaruddin/A. H. Mathias Zahniser (Hgg.): Humanism, Culture, and Language in the Near East. Studies in Honor of Georg Krotkoff (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns) 15–26. Marcinkowski, Muhammad Ismail (2002): „Rapprochement and Fealty during the Būyids and Early Saljūqs. The Life and Times of Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī“, IS 40/2, 273–296. Marcotte, Roxanne D. (2012): „Ibn Miskawaih’s Tartīb al-Saʿādāt (The Order of Happiness)“, in Yithzak Tzvi Langerman (Hg.): Monotheism & Ethics. Historical and Contemporary Intersections among Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Studies on the Children of Abraham 2; Leiden: Brill) 142–161. Mas, Ruth (2012): „Why Critique?“, MTSR 24/4–5, 1–19. – (2018): „The Modesty of Theory“, in Matt Sheedy (Hg.): Identity, Politics, and Scholarship. Current Dilemmas in the Study of Religions (Sheffield: Equinox Publishing) 19– 42. Mernissi, Fatima (1992): Islam and Democracy. Fear of the Modern World, trans. by Mary Jo Lakeland (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co.). Mirsepassi, Ali/Fernée, Tadd Graham (2014): Islam, Democracy, and Cosmopolitanism. At Home and in the World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Mohamed, Yasien (1995): „The Ethical Philosophy of al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī“, Journal of Islamic Studies 6.1 (1995), 51–75. – (2000): „Greek Thought in Arab Ethics: Miskawayh’s Theory of Justice“, Phronimon. Journal of the South African Society for Greek Philosophy and the Humanities 2, 242– 259. – (2006): The Path to Virtue. The Ethical Philosophy of Al-Rāghib Al-Iṣfahānī. An Annotated Translation with Critical Introduction of Kitāb Al-Dharīʿah ilā Makārim alSharīʿah (Kuala Lumpur: International Islamic University Malaysia). Muhanna, Elias (2016): „The Scattered and the Gathered. Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī’s Infrequently Asked Questions“, in Alireza Korangy u. a. (Hgg.): Essays in Islamic Philology, History, and Philosophy (Berlin: De Gruyter) 248–280. Müller, Fernando Suárez (2014): „Towards a Synthesis of Humanisms in a Cosmopolitan Age. The Late Philosophy of Edward Said“, Literature and Theology 28/4, 476–490.

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Pellat, Charles (2004): „Ḏj̱āwīd̲h̲ān Ḵẖirad“ [sic], EI2 xii (Suppelement), 263–264. al-Qāḍī, Wadād (1981): „Kitāb Ṣiwān al-Ḥikma. Structure, Composition, Authorship and Sources“, Der Islam 58/1, 87–124. Radez, John Peter (2015): Le Vie est Plus Belle que les Idées. Existentialist Humanism, Intersubjectivity and Transcendence in the Unified Civic Humanism of Abu ʿAli Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Yaqʾub Miskawayh (PhD dissertation; Bloomington: Indiana University). Rege, M. P. (1978): „Islam and Humanism?“, New Quest 10, 276–278. Richter-Bernburg, Lutz (1980): „Amīr-Malik-Shāhānshāh. ʿAḍud ad-Daula’s Titulature Re-Examined“, Iran 18, 83–102. Rosenthal, Franz (1940): „On the Knowledge of Plato’s Philosophy in the Islamic World“, IC 14, 387–422. – (1965): Das Fortleben der Antike im Islam (Zürich/Stuttgart: Artemis). Sajoo, Amyn B. (1995): „The Islamic Ethos and the Spirit of Humanism“, IPS 8/4, 579–596. Schöller, Marco (2001): „Zum Begriff des ‚islamischen Humanismus‘“, ZDMG 151/2, 275– 320. Sharif, Mian M. (Hg.) (1963): A  History of Muslim Philosophy. With Short Accounts of Other Disciplines and the Modern Renaissance in Muslim Lands (2 Bde.; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz). Stelzer, Steffen A. J. (2008): „Ethics“, in Tim Winter (Hg.): The Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 161–179. Streitbörger, Wolfgang (2013): TEXNH – Techne. Eine anwendungsorientierte terminologische Analayse dieses Wortes (Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann). Tibi, Bassam (2009): „Bridging the Heterogeneity of Civilizations. Reviving the Grammar of Islamic Humanism“, Theoria. A Journal of Social and Political Theory 56/120, 65–80. – (2012): „Islamic Humanism vs. Islamism. Cross-Civilizational Bridging“, Soundings. An Interdisciplinary Journal 95/3, 230–254. Topkara, Ufuk (2018): Umrisse einer zeitgemäßen philosophischen Theologie im Islam. Die Verfeinerung des Charakters (Wiesbaden: J. B. Metzler). Ullmann, Manfred (2011, 2012): Die Nikomachische Ethik des Aristoteles in arabischer Übersetzung (2 Bde.; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz). Vatikiotis, Panayiotis J. (1957): „Muḥammad ʿAbduh and the Quest for a Muslim Humanism“, Arabica 4/1, 55–72. Versteegh, Kees (1997): Landmarks in Linguistic Thought. III. The Arabic Linguistic Tradition (London: Routledge). Wakelnig, Elvira (2009): „A New Version of Miskawayh’s Book of Triumph. An Alternative Recension of al-Fawz al-aṣghar or the Lost Fawz al-akbar?“, ASP 19/1, 83–119. – (2013, 22017): „Die Philosophen in der Tradition al-Kindis. Al-ʿĀmirī, al-Isfizārī, Miskawayh, as-Siǧistānī und at-Tawḥīdī“, in Heidrun Eichner u. a. (Hgg.): Islamische Philosophie im Mittelalter. Ein Handbuch (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft) 233–252. – (Hg. und Übers.) (2014): A  Philosophy Reader from the Circle of Miskawayh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Walther, Wiebke (1966): Untersuchungen zu vor- und frühislamischen arabischen Personennamen (Halle/Saale [Diss.]). Walzer, Richard R. (1956): „Some Aspects of Miskawaih’s Tahdhib al-Akhlaq“, Studi Orien­ talistici in onore di Giorgio Levi Della Vida 52/2, 220–235.

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Zargar, Cyrus Ali (2017): The Polished Mirror. Storytelling and the Pursuit of Virtue in Islamic Philosophy and Sufism (London: One World).

Online-Ressources Abadis. Persisches Online-Wörterbuch: https://abadis.ir/ (letzter Aufruf am 25.  August 2020). Vazehyab. Persisches Online-Wörterbuch: www.vajehyab.com (letzter Aufruf am 16. Juli​ 2020).

I.

Setting the Stage: Miskawayh’s Educational Ethics

Miskawayh: The Uneasy Co-Existence of the Philosopher and the Historian? Wadad Kadi It was back in graduate school as a student of classical Arabic prose that I first met Miskawayh (d. 421/1030). This was somewhat unusual, since Miskawayh was not a stylist or a writer of artistic prose. He had, however, an association with the greatest writer of Arabic prose, Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī (d. 414/1023), and the two participated in writing a book entitled al-Hawāmil wa-l-shawāmil. The “hawāmil” were the questions al-Tawḥīdī addressed to Miskawayh; the “shawāmil,” Miskawayh’s responses to them. While al-Tawḥīdī’s 175 questions dealt with practically everything under the sun (and beyond!)  – from the relation between lightning and thunder to the skewed distribution of fortune among men – Miskawayh to him was fundamentally a philosopher, and thus he practically apologized to Miskawayh when he asked him about why jurists disagree about legal decisions, adding: “This epistle is not the proper place for this question, as it must be addressed to jurists or to theologians … but I wanted this book to contain something pertaining to the principles of the sharīʿa.”1 And actually, Miskawayh did not disappoint alTawḥīdī: no matter to what area or discipline al-Tawḥīdī’s questions belonged, he found a way, almost obsessively, to answer them by referring to Greek philosophy’s fours humors, three parts of the soul, or various combinations thereof, thereby making the Hawāmil one of Miskawayh’s philosophical works. Now, what is noticeably striking is the absence from Miskawayh’s answers of issues related to history. This is very strange, given that Miskawayh manages to juxtapose with his philosophical meanderings his views on issues in numerous non-philosophical areas, including Arabic language, grammar, and literature; and Islamic theology, Sufism, and law. Yet, the reason for this absence cannot lie in the absence of a historical bent in al-Tawḥīdī’s questions, especially since all of Miskawayh’s other philosophical works show no engagement with history on Miskawayh’s part either. The reason also cannot be a lack of interest in, or knowledge of, history. For not only do we know that he studied Islam’s most cele1 Miskawayh/al-Tawḥīdī, al-Hawāmil: 329 (no. 153).

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brated history, al-Ṭabarī’s (d. 310/923) Tārīkh, with a professor he revered,2 he actually was an accomplished historian who wrote a voluminous, post-diluvial universal history, the Tajārib al-umam, that ends with the year 980, i. e., when Miskawayh was about 50 years old. The work has a historiographically sophisticated – even if short – introduction,3 followed by the first full citation in Islam of the ʿAhd Aradhashīr,4 the pre-Islamic Persian classic on government. Furthermore, Miskawayh spent almost all of his professional life as a courtier5 close to government circles and witnessed innumerable momentous historical events during the rule of the Buyids. Miskawayh, then, was professionally both a historian and a philosopher, yet somehow the philosopher does not seem to talk to the historian. Obviously, there is a fundamental difference between the two disciplines, and each required a very different educational preparation. This is perhaps why in early Islamic civilization there are no scholars who were both accomplished philosophers and historians – except for Miskawayh. The questions that arise from this unusual situation, and that I  would like to address here, are: How did Miskawayh deal intellectually with the difference between history and philosophy? Did the apparently unbridgeable divide between them lead to an insoluble dichotomy in his thought? Alternatively, could we, Miskawayh’s readers, be wrong, and could the truth in fact be that Miskawayh expressed the “separateness” of history and philosophy only in appearance, while in reality he saw a hidden – and deep – affinity between them? And if so, what is the nature of this affinity? In order to answer these questions, one should ideally undertake a comprehensive comparison between the two aspects of Miskawayh’s thought. This being not possible here, and as a first step in its direction, I will choose one topic on which Miskawayh wrote both in his historical and philosophical works, then compare his views on it. The topic I have chosen is one that I have been curious about for a long time and that has a palpable presence in the Islamic writings of the 4th/10th century. It is the ʿāmma, or “the commoners”. I shall first present Miskawayh’s views in his philosophical works, then specifically in the last 73 years of his History, i. e., the years 296–369 (corresponding to the years 909–980 in the Gregorian calendar), in which in he spoke with his own voice rather than al-Ṭabarī’s.

2  He is Abū Bakr Aḥmad b. Kāmil al-Qāḍī, who died in 961; see Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 329 (year 350). 3  See Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: i, 59–60. See also Miskawayh’s citations from eyewitnesses in Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 252–253 (year 330), 301–303, 304 (year 340), 315 (year 344), 317 (year 345), 345, 350 (year 355), 372–373 (year 359), 419 (year 364). 4 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: i, 79–107. 5  See Naaman 2016: especially 240–270.



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The ʿāmma’s presence in Miskawayh’s philosophical works is small and theoretical, but his opinion of them is clear: it is firmly negative on one level yet accommodating on another. On the level of mental capacity, Miskawayh disdainfully dismisses the ʿāmma, considering them incapable of grasping philosophy and its ultimate aim, moral happiness, whence his saying that he compiled his book Tahdhīb al-akhlāq “specifically for the lovers of philosophy (muḥibī al-falsafa), not for the commoners (li-l-ʿawāmm)”,6 and his tainting them with ignorance in his other book, al-Fawz al-aṣghar, for they do not know the difference between prophets and claimants of prophecy (al-nabī/al-mutanabbī).7 The ʿāmma are in fact so utterly ignorant that they believe in deplorable fallacies (jahālāt) that “rational people” (ʿāqil) never do, such as ‘When a fly enters a person’s clothing he falls ill’, or ‘the blood-money of an ant is a date (read: tamra, not thamara)’, or ‘If a person’s ears buzz, people are saying this and that [about him]’.8 On the behavioral level, the ʿāmma fall terribly short too. Responding to al-Tawḥīdī’s query why those distant from the king “such as doormen, soldiers, and stablemen” gossip about him, Miskawayh first identifies their behavior as “befitting to the commoners’ nature” (ṭibāʿ al-ʿāmma al-lāʾiqa bi-him), then he attributes it to their wish to earn honor and standing among their peers, wherefore they make groundless boasts and untrue claims. He also implies that they ignorantly do not even realize that their behavior invites the king’s punishment.9 Miskawayh’s use of the word nature (ṭibāʿ) for the ʿāmma is striking; it seems to suggest that the ʿāmma cannot help having the limitations they do. This is confirmed in other places in the Hawāmil. In explaining why human beings cling to the world, he presents the well-known view that people progress from being like plants, then like animals, to becoming human through reason. Except for the philosophers and prophets, “the common folks and the vast majority of people” (ʿāmmat al-khalq wa-jumhūr al-nās) occupy a station close to the beastly one (bahīmiyya), with limited rationality and discrimination.10 This seems to indicate that the ʿāmma and their ilk are not responsible for their predicament: they were born of the world and their natures, with which they were born, make them cling to it. Miskawayh takes this relatively indulgent attitude towards the ʿāmma to an even more accommodating level when he discusses, in two shawāmil, the idea that human beings are not capable of living in isolation but are interdependent for satisfying their needs.11 Within this discussion, which is well-known from 6 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 81. 7 Miskawayh, al-Fawz: 117. 8 Miskawayh/al-Tawḥīdī, al-Hawāmil: 339 (no. 157). 9 Miskawayh/al-Tawḥīdī, al-Hawāmil: 303–304 (no. 138). 10 Miskawayh/al-Tawḥīdī, al-Hawāmil 248–249 (no. 102). 11  These are nos. 103, 161, on pp. 249–252, 436–439, of Miskawayh/al-Tawḥīdī, al-Hawāmil.

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Greek philosophy, he assigns prime importance to the contribution of groups to society.12 This comes through clearly in his detailed response to al-Tawḥīdī’s query about the veracity of the saying “Had it not been for fools, the world would have fallen into dilapidation” (lawlā al-ḥamqā la-kharibat al-dunyā).13 After identifying the two opposites states of society as cultivation and dilapidation (ʿimāra/kharāb), to which I shall return, he suggests that society is composed of essentially two groups: those who contribute to communal, cooperative living (through such occupations as agriculture, crafts, and trade) and those who do not. He further identifies the first group as the ʿāmma and strikingly calls them “those who cultivate the world” (al-quwwām bi-ʿimārat al-dunyā).14 He then more strikingly says it was “impermissible” (lā yajūz)15 on that basis that they be called fools (ḥamqā), for this is unfair to “those who have used their intelligence, sheer perspicacity, and sharp acumen to develop this plethora of handsome crafts that bring benefits to people” (alladhīna istakhrajū bi-ʿuqūlihim wa-ṣafāʾ adhhānihim wa-diqqat naẓarihim hādhihi al-ṣināʿāt al-kathīra al-jamīla al-ʿāʾida bi-manāfiʿ al-nās)16 – the ʿāmma’s essential role in madaniyya clearly trumps its limited mental capacity in Miskaway’s opinion. Rather, it is the members of the second group – the ascetics and dwellers in tents, goat-hair houses, or reed huts, or of sparsely populated villages  – to whom the “derogatory appellation” (alnabz) “fools” must be applied, for they make no contribution to society and are satisfied with the most rudimentary needs for subsistence.17 Miskawayh’s view of the ʿāmma as a historian is complex and strongly colored by the reality of the turbulent situation in Baghdad in the 4th/10th century in particular, when there were numerous claimants to power, from the Abbasid caliph, to rival Buyid amīrs and their highly ambitious wazīrs, to a multitude of aspiring military and political leaders, not to mention outside players. In this climate, Baghdad was not only a theater of conflict for the competing parties, but also one in which non-combatants were either ignored or trampled upon. And as with any breakdown of law and order, the institutions that belonged to the time of peace ceased to function. And, of course, rebellions broke out. It is in the context of these rebellions that Miskawayh mentions the ʿāmma. In Miskawayh’s History, the ʿāmma come through as a “known quantity”, since its name was used in some structures of the central government’s administration in Baghdad, where it is clearly opposed to the khāṣṣa, the elite. Thus, Miskawayh repeatedly mentions two treasuries with separate budgets: the “ʿāmma’s treas12  See especially Miskawayh/al-Tawḥīdī, al-Hawāmil: 347 (no. 161). 13 Miskawayh/al-Tawḥīdī, al-Hawāmil: 249 (no. 103). 14 Miskawayh/al-Tawḥīdī, al-Hawāmil: 251 (no. 103). 15 Miskawayh/al-Tawḥīdī, al-Hawāmil: 251–252 (no. 103). 16 Miskawayh/al-Tawḥīdī, al-Hawāmil: 252 (no. 103). 17 Miskawayh/al-Tawḥīdī, al-Hawāmil: 252 (no. 103).



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ury” and the “khāṣṣa’s treasury” (bayt māl al-ʿāmma, bayt māl al-khāṣṣa), both of which were controlled by the de facto occupant of the highest office in government (normally a caliph or a wazīr). He also mentions two doors and two halls in the government’s buildings: the bāb al-khāṣṣa and bāb al-ʿāmma, and the dār al-khāṣṣa and dār al-ʿāmma. Those associated with the khāṣṣa seemed to be restricted to government officials and influential people, while the others were open to the general public.18 Although Miskawayh does not define the ʿāmma, he indicates that he sees them as the lowliest class in society, whose members have no social standing and whose minds are so feeble that they may take up irrational beliefs and hence can be easily duped by intelligent governments.19 Because of that, he believed the elite (khāṣṣa) should not physically mingle with the ʿāmma. He thus criticized the wazīr Abū ʿAlī al-Khāqānī (d. 312/924–925) who, wishing to ingratiate himself to the ʿāmma, would “pray with them in the mosques that are on the roads”, and disapprovingly reports that this wazīr once even prayed with sailors that he spotted on the strand in a mosque on the bank of the Tigris river!20 Miskawayh’s texts further clarify that the ʿāmma was made up of mainly two groups: one that consisted of their “elders” (amāthil) who spoke on their behalf with the authorities,21 and another whose members were inclined to be either inactive and withdrawn (mastūr, ahl al-satr)22 or active and engaged in social issues. The latter group often produced subgroups that were composed of militant, armed, criminally minded thugs who acted like soldiers (mutashabbiha bi-l-jund).23 These are often called in Miskawayh’s History by the name with which they are known in other contemporaneous sources, namely the ʿayyārūn.24 The ʿāmma in Miskawayh’s text clearly constitute a large group in society, and it is this factor that makes them both powerful and feared, especially when they 18  See Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 8, 9, 11, 16, 27, 30, 38, 47, 61, 71, 72, 86, 100, 103, 112, 135, 136, 137, 181, 246 (years 296, vii, 304, 305, 306, 310, 311, 312, 315, 316, 317, 320, 323, 330). For a discussion of some of the above terms, see Berg 1978. 19  In Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 24, Miskawayh relates in detail the story of the ʿāmma’s obsession in the summer of the year 304/916 with a (cat-like?) animal they called zabzab which, they believed, comes through their roofs at night and eats their children, and may also cut a person’s hand while he is asleep or eat a woman’s breast. They thus used to shun sleep, keep vigil, yell and shriek, and beat bowls, trays, and mortars in order to frighten it. The government solved this problem by identifying a particular strange animal which looks like a beaver, claiming it was al-zabzab, fishing it out of the water and crucifying it near the bridge. See also the report about the ʿāmma (and some khāṣṣa) being duped by a claimant to ʿAlid descent in Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 360 (year 357). 20 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 15 (year 299). Miskawayh considered the wazīr’s actions as humiliating and degrading for the vizirate ( fa-ittaḍaʿat al-wizāra bi-afʿālihi wa-dhallat). 21 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 41 (year 307). 22 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 42 (year 307), 392 (year 362). 23 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 102 (year 315). 24 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib:v, 102 (year 315), 171–172 (year 322), 391 (year 361), 405 (year 363), 420 (year 364).

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rise in rebellion.25 And by far most of Miskawayh’s mentions of the ʿāmma deal with some form of uprising they participated in, all but one of which took place in Baghdad.26 He also almost always gives the reasons for these rebellions, thereby providing us indirectly with what he thought were the characteristics of the ʿāmma as a social group and his opinion of them. The first set of reasons that Miskawayh cites gives the ʿāmma the benefit of the doubt, depicting them as a deprived entity in society, so that their rebellions seem justifiable. By far the main reason for these revolts is the rise in prices, especially of bread – and by association, flour and barley27 – indicating that the ʿāmma were the most economically dispossessed group in society, one which seems to be so helpless vis-à-vis the government28 that rebellion against the ruler seems to be the only mechanism at their disposal to object to his decrees. This is confirmed by the second reason Miskawayh cites most frequently, namely the unfair, and usually sudden, rise in taxes imposed by various governments,29 especially in instances when governments resorted to blatant confiscations,30 or planted salaried agents, or spies (whom he calls al-ghammāzūn), among the ranks of the ʿāmma in order to inform on people who had commodities which they may have hidden away.31 The third reason emphasizes the adverse role of the government versus the ʿāmma, not for its action, but inaction, as when it would neglect to protect the ʿāmma from unjustifiable aggressions directed at them by third parties, as it did when Daylamīs occupied houses of local Baghdadīs without paying for them: the authorities stood by doing nothing about that blatantly unjust behavior.32 Further emphasis is provided by the next reason for the ʿāmma’s rebellions, namely when the government failed to do anything against crimes committed by a foreign enemy against its people; Miskawayh presents the ʿāmma in this case as initiating an action that the government should have initiated in the first place. This was clear when in the year 312/924 the seventeen-year-old Abū Ṭāhir al-Qarmaṭī (d. 332/943–944) seized the camels of the caravan of the Baghdadī pilgrims, killing some of them, taking others captive, and leaving the rest to die of thirst, starvation, or exposure to the blazing sun. The incident had 25 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 5 (year 296), 42 (year 307), 260 (year 324). 26  Only one took place in al-Rayy in the year 355; see Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 347. 27 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 41, 42, 43 (year 307), 246 (year 330), 281 (year 334); see

also 396 (year 362), 411 (year 364). The government controlled the price of bread; see, for examples, Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 42, 43 (year 307), 246 (year 330). 28  See Miskawayh’s poignant statement depicting the helplessness of the people vis- à-vis the government’s adverse policies (in this case that of Abū l-Faḍl Ibn al-ʿAmīd) in al-Tajārib: v, 392 (year 362): invocations to God against him (al-duʿāʾ ʿalayhi) became prevalent in communal mosques, churches, synagogues, assemblies, and gatherings. 29 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 246 (year 330), 274 (year 334). 30 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 274 (year 334), 392, 395 (year 362). 31 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 274 (year 334), 392 (year 362). 32 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 241–242 (year 329).



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made the ʿāmma so angry at the vizier in charge then, Abū l-Ḥasan Ibn al-Furāt (d. 312/924), that they shouted in the streets: “Ibn al-Furāt is the great Qarmaṭī; nothing satisfies him but the destruction of Muḥammad’s community.”33 The next set of reasons for the ʿāmma’s rebellions in Miskawayh’s historical work uncovers a darker side of the ʿāmma, suggesting he viewed them negatively: as depraved rather than deprived, rash and open to criminal behavior, whence the more extreme subgroup among its ranks, the ʿayyārūn, often took the lead. This view of the ʿāmma is attributed in part to the ʿāmma being streetsmart, and hence quick to sense political weakness in rulers; their rebellions then would aim at gaining whatever social disorder allows them to gain.34 In one instance, the ʿāmma made fun of a weak chief of police called “Najḥ” and gleefully invented a chant undermining him that goes thus: “Rise and care not, as long as Najḥ is in charge!” (ukhruj wa-lā tubālī, mā dāma Najḥun wālī).35 The ʿāmma is also quick to rebel when moved to it by some form of factional, religious or ethnic fanaticism (ʿaṣabiyya), as in the rebellions that broke out between Sunnis and Shiʿis36 and between partisans of the Turks and those of the Daylam.37 In some instances, other groups from outside the ʿāmma, like soldiers and the caliph’s guards, joined one side or another, depending on where their ʿaṣabiyya lay.38 But here Miskawayh brings in a new factor in his presentation of some of these rebellions, namely that the ʿāmma could be easily manipulated,39 and their leaders as easily co-opted, by one or another of the rulers against whom the rebellions were directed in the first place, thus making the government – or at least a part of it – complicit with the virulent rebels with criminal interests.40 The co-opting parties could very well go, according to Miskawayh, to such great lengths to appease the ʿāmma as to give them riding mules, pay them salaries, break them up into groups, each with a chief, and attach some of them to their military or security apparatus.41 While such co-opting did sometimes lead to the cessation of unrest, at others it did not, as new divisions and rivalries broke out among the ʿāmma and new animosities arose against those who attained rank recently among them.42 Miskawayh devotes the largest space of his presentations about the ʿāmma’s rebellions to two interrelated topics: the actions of the ʿāmma and their consequences. 33 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 68 (year 312). 34  Good examples are found under the years 306 and 364 of Miskawayh’s al-Tajārib. 35 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 39 (year 306). 36 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 391 (year 361), 404, 408 (year 363), 420 (year 364). 37 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 274 (year 334), 320 (year 347), 391 (year 361). 38 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 42 (year 307), 260 (year 324). 39  See above, n. 19, regarding the claimant of ʿAlid descent. 40 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 245 (year 330) and see the next note. 41 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 245 (year 330), 347 (year 355), 392 (year 361), 404 (year 363). 42 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 245 (year 330), 395 (year 362).

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Overall Miskawayh expresses repulsion mixed with alarm at the actions of the ʿāmma during rebellions, calling them qabīḥa, shanīʿa, faẓīʿa,43 and saying at one point that they caused Baghdad to “convulse” (irtajjat).44 He gives these actions in strings of consecutive, graphic phrases. He speaks about the reign of fear, raiding, throwing bricks, killing, robbery, looting, pillage, burning down of property, opening prisons and freeing criminals, attacking mosques, interrupting prayers, breaking furniture, stealing garments, even rape;45 as a result, some of the ʿāmma are arrested, beaten, drowned, or killed, or have their hands cut off.46 In all cases it is assumed that the rebels were men. In one case, however, that of the Qarmaṭī’s seizure of the Baghdadī pilgrims, Miskawayh mentions the participation of women and describes their actions thus: they “went out in the streets, their feet bare, their hair uncovered, their faces blackened, striking their faces in lamentation, and screaming in the streets; they were joined by the widows reduced to poverty by [the wazīr] Ibn al-Furāt”.47 He also mentions the ʿāmma’s carrying various kinds of weapons – such as swords and spears.48 His most graphic description occurs in the revolt of the year 334. In that year, he says, prices had risen so much that people ate corpses, animals’ dung, even live children, and the corpses were too many to be buried, whence dogs ate them. Entire houses were sold for a few loaves of bread, with the broker taking some for himself; and if one had a piece of bread, he would hide it lest he be robbed of it. And men, women, and children would stand on the sides of streets calling: “Hunger, Hunger!” until they fell down dead, out of hunger.49 Such descriptions, and the oft-justifiable reasons for the ʿāmma’s rebellions, give one the impression that Miskawayh sympathizes with them  – which he could very well have. Strikingly, though, this is not something he spells out in his text. Rather, what he does spell out is a sense that the ʿāmma, by rebelling, had gone beyond limits, and speaks of their “daring” (tajāsarat)50 and overbearing arrogance (istiṭāla),51 even calling the sum total of their actions “evil” (al-sharr).52 What is most conspicuous is his emphasis on the economic impact of the rebellions, at one instance associating it with the cessation of the sources of income (inqaṭaʿat mawādd al-amwāl).53 This is what explains his frequent highlighting 43 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 68 (year 312), 416 (year 364). 44 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 68 (year 312). 45 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 5 (year 296), 41–43 (year 307),

246, 247 (year 330), 274–275 (year 334), 396 (year 362). 46 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 42 (year 307), 102 (year 315), 396 (year 362), 411 (year 364). 47 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 68 (year 312). 48 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 102 (year 315), 247 (year 330), 347 (year 335), 391 (year 361), 398, 404 (year 363). 49 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 281 (year 334). 50 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 390 (year 361), 416 (year 364). 51 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 391 (year 361). 52 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 347 (year 355), 391(year 361). 53 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 395 (year 362).



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of the plight of the merchants (al-tujjār) in particular: their stores were looted,54 or their merchandise seized,55 or their goods allowed to rot. They feared for their lives and possessions,56 or fled their quarters of Baghdad (tahāraba),57 or went into hiding (istatara),58 or became impoverished (iftaqara),59 or needed to hire guards for protection of their stores from local thugs (yatakhaffarū).60 He further speaks about the effect of the rebellions on “the market(s)” (al-sūq, al-aswāq): they ceased (baṭalat)61 and became inactive (taʿaṭṭalat);62 people stopped buying and selling (yatasawwaqū);63 and livelihoods were suspended (inqataʿat al-maʿāyish),64 as people stopped seeking them (yataʿayyashū).65 The end result of these rebellions was, according to Miskawayh, al-kharāb, dilapidation. This is a word that he keeps on repeating in the texts and section titles of his History.66 And when in two cases he wanted to use its antonym, he chose the word ʿimāra, cultivation.67 Two of the section titles use these two words side by side; in Arabic they read: dhikr al-āthār al-jamīla allatī atharahā al-wazīr Abū Muḥammad al-Muhallabī ḥattā ʿamarat [Baghdād] baʿd al-kharāb;68 and dhikr talāfī (read: taʿāfi) Baghdād bi-l-ʿimāra baʿd al-kharāb.69 It is at this point that the student of Miskawayh the philosopher suddenly wakes up, lifts the head, and yells: What?! ʿImāra versus kharāb?! This is a subject to which Miskawayh devoted two of his answers to al-Tawḥīdī in the Hawāmil referred to above!70 And indeed, these two detailed shwāmil present us with no less than Miskawayh’s vision of the various states of human society. Miskawayh develops his thought gradually. Human beings, unlike animals and birds, are “political by nature” (madanī bi-l-ṭabʿ)71 and cannot satisfy their needs alone. They thus resort to forming communities and cooperating with others (bi-l-ijtimāʿ; wa-l-taʿāwun) in a process he calls “political association” 54 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 41 (year 307). 55 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 246 (year 330). 56 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 420 (year 364). 57 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 42 (year 307), 274 (year 334), 398 (year 363). 58 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 298 (year 363). 59 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 408 (year 363). 60 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 408 (year 363). 61 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 392 (year 362). 62 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 398 (year 363). 63 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 411 (year 364). 64 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 392 (year 362). 65 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 411 (year 364). 66 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 274 (year 334), 296 (year 339), 391 (year 361),

396 (year 362), 447 (year 369). In one place only (v, 405 [year 363]), Miskawayh used the almost synonymous term bawār. 67 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 296 (year 339), 318 (year 345), 377 (year 359), 447 (year 369). 68 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 296 (year 339). 69 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 447 (year 369). 70 Miskawayh/al-Tawḥīdī, al-Hawāmil: nos. 103, 161, pp. 249–252, 346–349. See above, n. 11. 71 Miskawayh/al-Tawḥīdī, al-Hawāmil: 250 (no. 103).

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(al-madaniyya).72 This process puts communities/societies in either one of two states: ʿimāra, cultivation, or kharāb, dilapidation.73 ʿImāra (state of cultivation) is achieved when (1) “justice reigns among [people] through the power of political authority” (wa-intishār al-ʿadl bi-quwwat al-sulṭān), occupied by an honest custodian (qayyim) capable of supervising the people’s different kinds of occupations; and (2) when people work together to effect a plethora of actions and divide them among themselves. These actions are either essential (basic), useful, or embellishing (ḍarūriyya; nāfiʿa; tazyīn al-ʿaysh).74 Now, if political association loses any one of those aspects – meaning especially the first – then it descends into kharāb (dilapidation); if it loses the last two, it descends into extreme kharāb ( fi ghāyat al-kharāb).75 If people live abstemious lives of necessities only, like ascetics and dwellers of sparse villages, “they do not cultivate the world and are not among the cultivators” (lā yaʿmurūn al-dunyā wa-laysū fī ʿadad alʿummār),76 whence their state is that of kharāb (dilapidation).77 “For” – and here Miskawayh speaks in economic terms reminiscent of his History – this way, “cooperation comes to a standstill, exchange ceases to flow, and every person attains only the product of his own labor, which is of no use to him for his bodily necessities, for the sake of which cooperation was established” (waqafa al-taʿāwun walam tadur al-muʿāmala wa-ḥaṣala kull wāḥid ʿalā ʿamalihi alladhī lā yujdī ʿalayhi mā yuḍṭarr ilayhi min ḥājāt badanihi allatī min ajlihā waqaʿa al-taʿāwun).78 Besides reminding us somewhat of Ibn Khaldun’s terminology (and one can discuss that separately), this template of human society remarkably echoes what Miskawayh said about the situation of Baghdadī society when the ʿāmma’s rebellions caused its descent into the cessation of transactional/market activity, throwing people into the same state of kharāb (dilapidation) he talked about from a socio-philosophical perspective in the Hawāmil. Indeed, if we are to further apply Miskawayh’s philosophical template in the Hawāmil to the situation of society in the shadow of the ʿāmma’s rebellions in his History (not to mention the ʿāmma’s feeble-mindedness), then that society would be considered as being in a state of extreme, even abnormal kharāb (dilapidation), as fear on the streets pushed people into isolation, instead of putting them together in cooperation and political association, which is the natural, not only necessary, state of human existence. The conclusion that we come out with is that Miskawayh the historian is on the same wavelength as Miskawayh the philosopher; they do talk to each other, 72 Miskawayh/al-Tawḥīdī, al-Hawāmil: 250 (no. 103). See also 346–347 (no. 161). 73 Miskawayh/al-Tawḥīdī, al-Hawāmil: 250 (no. 103). 74 Miskawayh/al-Tawḥīdī, al-Hawāmil: 347 (no. 161). See also 250 (no. 103). 75 Miskawayh/al-Tawḥīdī, al-Hawāmil: 250 (no. 103). 76 Miskawayh/al-Tawḥīdī, al-Hawāmil: 250 (no. 103). 77 Miskawayh/al-Tawḥīdī, al-Hawāmil: 251 (no. 103). 78 Miskawayh/al-Tawḥīdī, al-Hawāmil: 347 (no. 161).



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and harmoniously, at least in the case of the topic of the ʿāmma and their rebellions. Where they seem to part lies in the difference in nature between the two disciplines in which Miskawayh was engaged. For his theoretical framework for society’s two potential states of cultivation and dilapidation stops there, as is expected, specifying only neutrally what makes society fall into which state and when. In his History, Miskawayh could not remain an outside observer of the momentous events caused by the ʿāmma’s rebellions. The events shook him, and he was clearly relieved when the rebellions were resolved or suppressed. Furthermore, and perhaps as importantly, Miskawayh was a perpetual courtier. Of his patrons, it is noteworthy he was laudatory of only some: al-Muhallabī (d. 352/963), Abū l-Faḍl Ibn al-ʿAmīd (d. 360/970), and ʿAḍud al-Dawla (d. 372/983), in addition to the earlier Muʿizz al-Dawla (d. 356/967).79 This is due not only to their being accomplished rulers, but more importantly, because they lifted, or attempted to lift, society from a state of dilapidation (kharāb), following rebellions by the ʿāmma and mismanagement by earlier rulers, into a state of cultivation (ʿimāra). In fact, Miskawayh titles the two long sections he devotes to al-Muhallabī’s and ʿAḍud al-Dawla’s reforms, as cited above in Arabic,80 in a manner that emphasizes this fact. In translation the two titles read: “The good works that the wazīr al-Muhallabī undertook so that Baghdad became cultivated after dilapidation”; and “The recovery of Baghdad through cultivation after dilapidation” [at the hands of ʿAḍud al-Dawla]. Not surprisingly, Miskawayh’s presentation of the latter’s ʿimāra (cultivation) of Baghdad consisted of his implementation of economic (and cultural) measures: ʿAḍud al-Dawla financed, shepherded, and ordered the rebuilding of Baghdad’s houses, markets, mosques, mausoleums, monasteries, churches, parks, and bridges; cleared up canals; restarted clear drinking water; lifted unfair taxes; handed monies and fruits of land and sea aplenty to the poor; and allocated alms (al-ṣadaqāt) to the needy, both Muslim and non-Muslim. He also assigned salaries (rusūm) to numerous scholarly groups: jurists, Quran commentators, theologians, ḥadīth transmitters, genealogists, poets, grammarians, prosodists, physicians, astrologists, mathematicians, and engineers; and he set aside a separate chamber (ḥujra) in his residence for the elite of the philosophers (ahl a-khuṣūṣ wa-l-ḥukamāʾ min alfalāsifa), where they could hold their discussions (li-l-mufāwaḍa) in peace, safe from the riffraff and ragtag (al-sufahāʾ wa-raʿāʿ) of the ʿāmma!81 This appropriately brings our little excursion to its end. Its conclusion is that the coexistence of the historian and the philosopher in Miskawayh may not be obvious but is certainly not uneasy. It is furthermore clear that Miskawayh’s works in the two fields complement one another, even in topics that seem to 79  For Muʿizz al-Dawla, see Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 318 (year 345). 80  At nn. 68 and 69, above. 81 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: v, 447–449 (year 369).

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belong only to one of them. In both, he palpably does not consider himself a member of the ʿāmma, but rather implicitly of the group that is antithetical to it, the one classically designated “al-khāṣṣa” in Arabic literature, and in a nonsectarian-specific sense.82 In his philosophical works, Miskawayh was informed by his educated, elitist worldview, one to whose functions belongs the neutral, distant observation of human society in general. And in his historical works, his worldview was replicated, perhaps more starkly, in his close observation of a specific society in a specific time and place – his own, now implicitly as a member of not only the educated elite but also as an associate of the ruling elite too.

Bibliography Sources Miskawayh, Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad b. Muḥammad: al-Fawz al-aṣghar (Beirut: Dār Maktabat alḤayāt, n. d.). –: Tahdhīb al-akhlāq wa-taṭhīr al-aʿrāq, ed. by Ḥasan Tamīm (Tehran: Intishārāt Beydār, n. d.). –: Tajārib al-umam wa-taʿāqub al-himam, ed. by Sayyid Kisrawī Ḥasan (Beirut: Dār alKutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2002). Miskawayh, Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad b. Muḥammad/Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī: al-Hawāmil wa-lshawāmil, ed. by Aḥmad Amīn/al-Sayyid Aḥmad Ṣaqr (Cairo: Lajnat al-Taʾlīf wa-lTarjama wa-l-Nashr, 1951). Al-Nadīm, Abū l-Faraj Muḥammad b. Ishāq: The Fihrist of al-Nadīm. A  Tenth-Century Survey of Muslim Culture, ed. and trans. by Bayard Dodge (Records of Civilization. Sources and Studies, 83; New York: Columbia University Press, 1970).

Studies Berg, A. M.J. (1978): “al- Khāṣṣa wa-‘l-ʿāmma”, EI2 iv, 1098–1099. Cook, Michael/Crone, Patricia (1980): Hagarism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Naaman, Erez (2016): Literature and the Islamic Court. Cultural Life Under al-Ṣāḥib Ibn ʿAbbād (London/New York: Routledge).

82  Berg’s article “al- khāṣṣa wa-‘l-ʿāmma” mentioned above contains a good general discussion of the ʿāmma-khāṣṣa dichotomy and its various usages and meanings by a sizeable number of authors from pre-modern to modern times. These include al-Tawḥīdī but not Miskawayh. For the association of the term ʿāmmaī with “the enemy,” see Cook/Crone 1980: 230, at n. 24. For specific reference to usage in early Shiʿism, see al-Nadīm, al-Fihrist: xvii, 557, n. 47.

Où est le Bonheur? Searching for Miskawayh Steffen Stelzer It must surely, then, be very happy down there in your heart. “Yes,” I said. “It is.” Mary Oliver (1935–2019)

1.  One of the remarkable characteristics of Aristotle’s “sciences” (epistêmê) is that he does not claim to possess them. If we can extend that to philosophical knowledge in general, then we must see, and keep in sight, that it is sought. Yet to have even some small hope of finding it, one needs to know where to seek. Not that the nature and the source of the knowledge of places is unproblematic. Socrates’s reply to some youngsters who would accept his truths only when their ‘place of origin’ was specified is charming, but not too reassuring; telling someone that “we” used to take the truth from wherever it was presupposes that “we” recognized it whenever and wherever it appeared. Can this ‘recognition’ not be blocked, or at least be distorted? The question seems to be especially relevant when things (or words) travel over long distances and times, and when they are translated. 2.  After concluding the first part of the preamble of his Tahdhīb al-akhlāq (The Refinement of Character) with the invocation of several Divine Attributes in the hope of being granted supreme happiness (al-saʿāda al-quṣwā), “Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad Miskawayh says: Our object in this book is to acquire for ourselves a character (khuluq).”1 At the end of the second discourse, the “object” (gharaḍ) is specified as “al-saʿāda al-khuluqiyya” and translated by C. K. Zurayk as “moral happiness”.2 The French translation of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq, which predates the English, renders the title as Traité d’Ethique. It locates Miskawayh’s text thereby in a discourse whose terms of engagement it is bound to and which constrains it to evaluation through criteria of adherence or divergence. What we are facing is, to borrow an expression of Gil Anidjar, a “massive translation”.3 By making “Tahdhīb al- akhlāq” a matter of “ethics”, ways are laid 1 Miskawayh, The Refinement: 1. 2 Miskawayh, The Refinement: 65. 3  “I simply want to underscore the

cultural and political effects of a massive translation. The translation, for example, of dīn into ‘religion,’ comparable at least to the translation of adab

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without too much noise that delineate reading and interpreting, and ties are formed with companions of whose fate one hears little. What exactly do we move akhlāq to when moving it to ethics? How many laps in the course of its history has ethics already run? And what are the arguments for declaring it necessary now? 3.  In Immanuel Kant’s (1724–1804) view, ancient Greek philosophy had given ethics its definitive place in the triumvirate of its “sciences”, between logic and physics. It had described its character and aim and determined which building blocks were necessary to construe it. They are found in Miskawayh’s text as well and, thus, seem to validate its being re-called or re-membered as a treatise of ethics, much as Miskawayh, its author, is found to be the most brilliant embodiment of ethical thought in “medieval Islamic contexts”.4 I will mention these ever-recurring components of ethics briefly and with what one might call a ‘negative’ intention. ‘Negative’ because I do not want to show how well or how awkwardly Miskawayh’s ethics fits into the given frame of the ethics of ancient Greek philosophy, but how and why it is made to sit with something that has become extremely uncomfortable with itself. Let me formulate it hypothetically, although I  refer thereby to a situation that is actual and could be best described as a series of seismic shocks. 4.  If philosophy understands ethics to be a science, and if the requirement of ‘scientificity’ (Wissenschaftlichkeit) as a criterion for the validity of philosophical thought has itself become questionable, would I not wonder about the status of ethical knowledge? If ethics envisages the knowledge of ‘happiness’ as that which constitutes the end, or aim, of man as an acting being, and if this happiness has become vacuous, wouldn’t make this hesitate me regarding happiness? If ethics names ‘the soul’ as both carrier and end of my actions; that is, ‘myself ’, and if the confidence in such a self has worn thin, why would I recommend ethics to someone else’s attention? If ethics says that I am most myself when I am ‘with others’, if it says, in other words, that my place is ‘the city’ (polis, or medīna), and if the city is hardly livable, how could I unhesitatingly recommend ethics for the study of community? If ethics does not only aim at knowing wherein consists the goodness of character but also at providing an art to acquire it, then treatises of ethics will be also manuals of education. But when both “paideia” and “agoge” have lost their persuasiveness, which pedagogy would I  recommend to a mindful teacher of Islam?5 into ‘letters,’ is simply momentous, and reorganizes knowledges, communities, and more.” Cf. Shaikh, Interview with Gil Anidjar. 4  Both placement and praise are Mohammed Arkoun’s. 5  For the former, see Peter Brown’s remark about late antique paideia: “Late antique paideia



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5.  “Où est le Bonheur?”, asked Mohammed Arkoun (1928–2010) in 1993. No one answered, it seems. Seven years later, he calls again, louder, shriller, and more anguished, “Où est le Bonheur en ce début fracassant du XXIe siècle et après tant d’atteintes à la légitimité démocratique la plus avancée?”6 6.  Why does Mohammed Arkoun think that ethics is a door? If a voice answered, “Here! In here is happiness!” and the door opened, what would it open to? 7.  In this fracas, this deafening uproar, how could one even tell, if there was an answer? Panicking, the question is thrown back upon itself and opens into a perception: Arkoun located Miskawayh in ethics – not for the sake of ethics, but for the sake of Islam, or for what he called ‘another Islam’, an Islam of the future and for the future, maybe even a non-religious Islam. Ethics is not the place itself for such a future, it is its holder of place. And it qualifies for this post because it is thought to be able to take the place for adab. For an adab that has been drained of its life. 8.  This is the reason why ethics receives so much attention as the savior or repairman of Islam while news of its changing fates ‘at home’ (philosophy) are hardly heard. 9.  The ethical ‘subject’, the ethical ‘authority’ that holds me to my knowledge and is acknowledged, the ethical ‘sphere’, the political, and finally, the meaning of ‘ethos’ itself: If I realized that virtually every peg that carries the tent of ethics was corroded, whom would I try to sell it to? 10.  Friedrich Nietzsche’s (1844–1900) remark, “Naivität, als ob Moral übrigbliebe, wenn der sanktionierende Gott fehlt! Das ‘Jenseits’ absolut notwendig, wenn der Glaube an Moral aufrechterhalten werden soll”7, is – in its merciless clarity – the result of a sad science. Its knowledge reveals an emptiness of knowledge because it is spoken from a place where the worlds that housed happiness – this world and the next – are long gone. For Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) these words say that “morality collapsed”.8 Collapsing, it will not, however, simply disappear. It will collapse into something which perhaps marked it from its beginning: the existence of “radical evil”. Arendt ends her Questions of Moral Philosophy with another reference to Nietzsche, “According to Nietzsche, the man who despises himself respects at least the one in him who despises! But the real evil is what causes us speechless horror, when all we can say is: This should never have happened.”9 only brings us half the way to the Islamic product of adab” (Brown 1984: 29). For the former, see Winter 2016. 6  Arkoun 2005: 75. 7 Nietzsche, Werke: iii, 484, quoted in Arendt 1994: 753. 8  Arendt 1994: 753. 9  Arendt 1994: 763.

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11.  Maybe morality is bound from the outset to speech, to being able to say (something). If its worst ‘enemy’, radical evil, aims at leaving us speech-less, which moral instance pronounces this “should”? 12.  Mohammed Arkoun offered ethics as a remedy. It was to heal the multiple fractions that Islam (or Islamic ‘culture’) had suffered. Dislocation, dis-memberment, could not be mended by reform. It needed “re-memberment”, and figures like Miskawayh embodied for him the “travail d’harmonisation (al-jamʿ)”10 that he envisaged for more tumultuous times in more intense ways. 13.  But is the diagnosis of the “crisis of reason” (or of two reasons: philosophical and theological) sufficient to explain the “fissures” and “breaks” Arkoun finds in the building of Islam? The example of ethics suggests that there are worse things or deeper cracks. Morality collapsing into the pathlessness of radical evil still calls for a word. 14.  We are used to pay attention mostly to what is said. But if our concern is Islam, shouldn’t we start with the belief that everything in existence is created, and created by word?11 And wouldn’t it matter, then, who speaks? Or shouldn’t we consider the implications of “the universe itself [being] Words of Allah”?12 15.  If we did, what would become of what we now call ‘ethics’ and ‘happiness’ in our studies of Islam? It seems to me that the so-called ‘crisis of reasons’ runs deeper than it claims. And that it is used to prevent speaking about something else, about something like faith. There is a Hadith that says, “A Muslim is someone from whose tongue and hands the Muslims are safe.”13 What is the source for such safety, for such strength of trust? What if the ethics of the polis comes into being only when trust is lacking? 16.  Finally, placing one’s hope for the restoration of buildings (Islamic or other) on ethics is itself a gesture dictated by a rationality that needs to see breaks so it can repair them. It overlooks one question: if tradition is broken, can it be restored at all? 17.  In his book about Christianity, Navid Kermani describes the intricate performance of a Christian Orthodox Mass. He sees in it the work of tradition, of transmitted knowledge, and he calls it “unverbrüchlich”. Unverbrüchlich does 10  11 

Arkoun 2005: 69. “And Our word unto a thing, when We intend it, is only that We say unto it: Be! and it is.” Qurʾan 16: 40 (transl. Pickthall). 12  I thank Eric Winkel for reminding me. He is one of a few scholars who have taken this matter seriously in their study of Islam. My only caveat: His ascription of this attention to “the mystics and the Sufi scholars” gives in to a distinction (“mystics” against “rational scholars”) which his observation had already made obsolete. Cf. Winkel 1997: 100. 13 Al-Nawawī, al-Riyād: Chapter 26, Hadith 211.

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not mean it cannot break or cannot be broken. It means that once broken it cannot be restored. And yes, even this view of tradition leaves room for repair, but only in the negative form, as ‘ideology’.14

Bibliography Sources Miskawayh, Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad b. Muḥammad: The Refinement of Character, trans. by Constantine K. Zurayk (Chicago: Kazi Publications, 2002). al-Nawawī, Abū Zakariyyā: Riyadus Saliheen, trans. by Ustadha Aisha Bewley, https:// bsia.ca/documents/riyad-us-saliheen-gardens-of-the-righteous-vol-i-and-ii.pdf (last accessed on 07 September 2020). Nietzsche, Friedrich: Werke in drei Bänden, vol. iii (München: Carl Hanser, 1956). Pickthall, Marmaduke W. (trans.): The Meaning of the Glorious Koran ([New York]: New American Library, [1953]).

Studies Arendt, Hannah (1994): “Some Questions of Moral Philosophy”, Social Research 61/4, 739–764. Arkoun, Mohammed (2005): Humanisme et islam. Combats et propositions (Paris: Vrin). Brown, Peter (1984), “Late Antiquity and Islam: Parallels and Contrasts”, in Barbara Daly Metcalf (ed.): Moral Conduct and Authority. The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam (Berkeley: University of California Press) 23–37. Kermani, Navid (2015): Ungläubiges Staunen. Über das Christentum (München: Beck). Shaikh, Nermeen [n. d.]: “The Jew, the Arab: An Interview with Gil Anidjar”, Asia Society; https://asiasociety.org/jew-arab-interview-gil-anidjar (last accessed on 06 September 2020). Winkel, Eric (1997): Islam and the Living Law. The Ibn Al-Arabi Approach (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Winter, Tim (2016): “Education as ‘Drawing-Out’: The Forms of Islamic Reason”, in Mujadad Zaman/Nadeem A. Memon (eds.): Philosophies of Islamic Education. Historical Perspectives and Emerging Discourses (New York: Routledge) 27–42.

14 

Cf. Kermani 2015: 234.

II.

Miskawayh’s Reception and Transformation of Ideas from Greek Antiquity

Ethics as Likeness to God in Miskawayh: An Overlooked Tradition Hans Daiber* Abstract:  We have a quite good knowledge of Miskawayh’s ethics and his sources. Still puzzling is his combination of Platonic, Aristotelian and Neoplatonic concepts. In some cases Miskawayh’s use of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics betrays Neoplatonizing interpretations, perhaps due to Hellenistic commentaries. Why and how these interpretations are introduced in Miskawayh’s ethics is still unclear. The paper will focus on an overlooked tradition about the soul, which evolved to be the common base for ethics from al-Kindī to Miskawayh. This tradition can be traced back to critical discussions about the soul by Alexandrian philosophers since the 3rd century CE. Porphyry’s pupil Iamblichus (d. 330 CE) appeared to have played a remarkable role, also in the ethics of Miskawayh, as a comparison with Iamblichus’ commentary on the Pseudo-Pythagorean Golden Verses shows. This commentary is lost in the Greek original, but available in an Arabic translation from the early 3rd/9th century.

We have a fairly clear idea of the diversity of Miskawayh’s (ca. 320/932–421/1030) sources in his Tahdhīb al-akhlāq1, his main work on ethics.2 At first sight and as shown recently by scholars, Miskawayh’s concept is based mainly on a combination of Aristotelian and Platonic traditions. In addition, Neoplatonic commentaries are integrated, as well as central concepts of al-Fārābī’s Perfect State, including al-Fārābī’s epistemological idea of divine revelation to the prophet ruler.3 What is Miskawayh’s motive to combine divergent sources and traditions in his Tahdhīb al-akhlāq? The answer requires a comparison with al-Fārābī’s Perfect State. Contrary to Miskawayh, al-Fārābī did not concentrate on ethics. His Perfect State is more interested in citizenship and rulership and their epistemological background. Miskawayh’s ethics appears to supplement al-Fārābī’s political philosophy insofar as it concentrates on the ethics of the individual. He quotes Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and adds comments taken from Greek-Hellenistic texts, partly *  This contribution is a slightly updated version of a study first published in SGA 8, 195–204. 1 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement. 2  Cf. Endress 2017: 304–344. 3  S. below n. 49 and 50.

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ascribed to Porphyry (“and others”4). Most important is a passage in Treatise III of Miskawayh’s Tahdhīb, rendering his opinion on the “spiritual virtue” leading to perfect happiness. It is followed by an excerpt on the “Virtues of the Soul” attributed to “the philosopher”.5 Both sections are preceded by a doxographical report6 about two groups of philosophers: a) Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato7 “and the like”, who considered the virtues and happiness as belonging to the soul alone. b) The Stoics “and a group of the Naturalists”, according to whom happiness of the soul alone is incomplete. Miskawayh took his doxographical information from a small text on the virtues of the soul, the Maqāla fī ithbāt faḍāʾil al-nafs attributed to Plato. It criticizes those who prefer asceticism to wealth.8 Miskawayh himself is convinced that happiness only belongs to the soul. According to him “bodily things” (al-ashyāʾ al-jusmāniyya) have a double function: Whosoever is still in the lower rank of the “bodily things” is “looking” (yuṭāliʿ) at the noble things, by “seeking” (bāḥithan) them, “desiring” (mushtāqan) them, “being driven to them” (mutaḥarrikan naḥwahā) and “pleased” (mughtabiṭan) with them.9 And he who is in the rank of the “spiritual things” (al-ashyāʾ alrūḥāniyya)10 remains simultaneously “looking” at the “lower things” (al-ashyāʾ al-daniyya), “by learning from them (muʿtabiran bihā), by reflecting on the signs of divine power and the evidences of perfect wisdom, by following the example of (these signs and evidences) (muqtadiyan bihā), by regulating (nāẓiman) them, by pouring out (mufīḍan) goods (khayrāt) on them and by leading them gradually to what is the best in accordance with their readiness (qubūl) and capacity (istiṭāʿa).”11 4  Cf. Endress 2017: 324–325. 5  On this see below n. 18. 6 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 80,

1–7 and 13–17/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 72– 73. The passage reappears in an anonymous collection of philosophical excerpts from the 5th/ 11th century, ms. Oxford, Marsh 539. See Wakelnig 2014: 466 (Wakelnig does not mention Miskawayh’s source, which we discuss below, n. 8). 7  On Socrates and Plato cf. also Miskawayh, al-Maqāla: 523–524. On a further report about Socrates’ doctrines of the soul, with a Neoplatonizing tint, cf. Alon 1991: 163. On Socrates’ numerous sayings in Arabic about virtues cf. ib.: 128–143 and about friendship 153–156. 8 Daiber 1971: § 5. Fragments of a Syriac version are preserved by the Jacobite author Iwannīs of Dārā (3rd/9th century): s. Zonta 2015: 129–143. On the allusions of the Maqāla fī ithbāt faḍāʾil al-nafs to the Divisones Aristoteleae and on fragments of their Syriac transmission cf. now Dorandi/Marjani 2017: 18–19. 9 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 83, ll. 21–22/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 75–76. Here and elsewhere we do not always follow the translation of Zurayk. 10 On rūḥānī “spiritual” in the sense of “immaterial” and its echo in Ibn Bājja cf. Wirmer 2015: 504–532. 11 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 84, ll. 1–5/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 76.



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This statement is of crucial importance for a correct understanding of Miskawayh’s ethics. The starting point is the imperfection of man: “He has an abundant share of wisdom, and, by virtue of his spirituality, he stays among the higher beings (al-malaʾ al-aʿlā) from whom he gets the subtleties of wisdom and is illuminated (yastanīru) by the divine light (al-nūr al-ilāhī). And he seeks to add to his virtues in the measure of the attention (ʿināya) he gives to them and of the lack of hindrances from them.”12 The “overflowing ( fayḍ) of the light of the First One (al-awwal)” makes man free from pains and sorrows, of which someone in the first rank is not free.13 He who belongs to the higher rank and has attained “the final and extreme happiness” (ākhir al-saʿādāt wa-aqṣāhā) is only in need of the necessary things of his body “to which he is attached and from which he cannot be set free until his Creator so wills.”14 Here, the text adds a most important statement, which is equally crucial for a better understanding of Miskawayh’s ethics: “[The person in the higher rank] longs to associate with his kindred and to meet the good spirits (al-arwāḥ al-ṭayyiba) and the angels who are close to him (al-malāʾika al-muqarrabūn).”15 Man’s “association with his kindred” (ṣuḥbat ashkālihi) includes, as Miskawayh says elsewhere,16 the task of teaching those “who are akin or near to him and wish to learn from him (aḥabba l-iqtibās minhū)”. This is an allusion to the Farabian-Aristotelian concept of man as political animal, ζῷον πολιτικόν, who requires his fellow human beings – also in the process of getting knowledge from the teacher, al-Fārābī’s prophet and leader.17 Miskawayh’s explanations receive a philosophical foundation in the following chapter, which is said to be an excerpt from a work entitled The Virtues of the Soul, attributed to “the philosopher”18 and translated by Abū ʿUthmān al-Dimashqī. This work cannot be identified. 12 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 85, ll. 3–6/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 76–77. 13  Cf. Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 85, ll. 6–9/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 77. 14 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 85, ll. 12–18/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 77. 15 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 85, ll. 18–20/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 77. 16 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 85, ll. 11–12/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 77. 17  Cf. also Miskawayh, al-Fawz: 91, l. 7–92, l. 5 (French translation, preceding the Arabic

text, by Roger Arnaldez “Le Petit Livre du Salut”, ch. 8/English translation by Sweetman 1945: 142. Cf. Endress 2017: 314. 18  Constantine K. Zurayk in his edition and translation identified the “philosopher” (alḥakīm) with Aristotle and Endress 2017: 337 speaks of Aristotle as “author of a Pseudo-Platonic-Peripatetic treatise on the “virtues of the soul”. In the anonymous collection of philosophical excerpts from the 5th/11th century, ms. Oxford, Marsh 539, the first sentence of the Faḍāʾil al-nafs appears, followed by a sentence from the Nicomachean Ethics, attributed to Plato: see Wakelnig 2014: 32. Closer to the truth is Shlomo Pines’ classification of the text as a Neoplatonic treatise: see Pines 1986: 157–195 and (Addenda et corrigenda) 196–200, esp. 172–175 and 184–186 (referring to Porphyry, Plotinus, Iamblichus); 178–179 and 196–200 (Alexander of Aphrodisias, On providence). I assume that the text on The Virtues of the Soul is part of the Neoplatonizing commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, which has been tentatively ascribed by Richard Walzer to

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According to this treatise the lower rank of virtues is related to body and soul. Man’s conduct cannot be more than “moderation” (iʿtidāl)19 to an extent “rather nearer to what ought to be than to what ought not to be” (ilā mā yanbaghī aqrabu minhū ilā mā lā yanbaghī).20 In the second rank “man directs his will (irāda) and efforts (muḥāwalāt) to the best improvement (ṣalāḥ) of his soul and body”, with decreasing affection for worldly things and only insofar as they are necessary.21 There are many grades of virtues, as people differ in their 1) nature (ṭabāʾiʿ), 2) habits (ʿādāt), 3) degrees of science (ʿilm), knowledge (maʿrifa) and understanding ( fahm), 4) in their ambitions (humam) and 5) in their desires (shawq) and efforts (muʿānāt), finally possibly also in their fortunes (judūd).22 The highest degree is “the purely divine virtue” (al-faḍīla al-ilāhiyya almaḥḍa), a rank “which is not accompanied by any longing” for future or past, remote or near things, by fear or desire. The “uppermost ranks of virtues” are determined by the “intellectual part” (al-juzʾ al-ʿaqlī) of man and enable man “to follow the example of the First Cause and to imitate Him and His activities” (tashabbuhuhū bi-l-ʿilla al-ūlā wa-qtidāʾuhū bihā wa-bi-afʿālihā).23 Herewith man’s activities become “divine” (ilāhiyya) and “absolute good” (alkhayr al-maḥḍ) and as such “proceed from his inner and true self (lubābuhū wadhātuhū l-ḥaqīqiyya), which is his divine reason (ʿaqluhū l-ilāhī) and his real essence (dhātuhū bi-l-ḥaqīqa).”24 In the final passage the author of the treatise on The Virtues of the Soul explains his concept of the resemblance of man’s actions to the actions of the “First principle” (al-mabdaʾ al-awwal), the Creator in the final stage: Man’s and God’s actions are performed only “for this activity itself ” (lā yafʿalu mā yafʿaluhū min ajli shayʾin ghayri fiʿlihi nafsihi) and for “the divine intellect itself ” (wa-dhātuhū nafsuhā hiya l-ʿaql al-ilāhī nafsuhū). Herewith man’s activity becomes the “absolute good and absolute wisdom” (khayr maḥḍ wa-ḥikma maḥḍa). Accordingly, God’s activity is only “for the sake of His own Self ” (min ajli dhātihi) and Porphyry. See Walzer 1965: 294–296. The Virtues of the Soul might have been written by Porphyry himself, as it shares with Porphyry the concept of philosophy as a way to God, contrary to the revelationist concept of Porphyry’s student Iamblichus (s. below n. 77). In favour of this identification is the fact that the translator, mentioned by Miskawayh, Abū ʿUthmān al-Dimashqī, also has translated Porphyry’s Isagoge (s. Walzer 1965: 278). 19 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 86, l. 13/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 78. 20 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 86, ll. 15–16/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 78. 21 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 86, l. 19–20/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 78. 22 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 87, ll. 4–7/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 78. 23  Cf. Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 87, ll. 8–88, 3/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 78– 79. 24 Cf. Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 88, ll. 4–11/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 79. A  fragment (Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 88, ll. 7–8/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 79) appears as a saying, attributed to Plato, in an anonymous collection of philosophical excerpts from the 5th/11th century, ed. and trans. Wakelnig 2014: 298f (no. 200). Cf. the commentary of Wakelnig 2014: 461, l. 32.



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God’s care of other things happens only as “a secondary purpose” (al-qaṣd althānī).25 Equally, man’s actions for others are for “a secondary purpose”. The primary purpose is his own self (min ajli dhātihi) and the activity itself (min ajli l-fiʿli nafisihi), i. e., “the virtue and the good themselves (li-nafsi l-faḍīlat wa-li-nafsi l-khayr)”. Activity as virtue is not for the sake of benefit, of preventing harm, of seeking authority or honor. The author of The Virtues of the Soul concludes: “This is the object of philosophy and the culmination of happiness” ( fa-hādhā huwa gharaḍ al-falsafa wa-muntahā al-saʿāda).26 It is “divine knowledge” (maʿrifa ilāhiyya) and “divine desire” (shawq ilāhī) which reach man when he is free and purified (ṣafā, naqiya) from the “physical” (al-amr al-ṭabīʿī) and when in himself, in “his very essence” (nafs dhātihi) – that is, his “reason” (al-ʿaql) – “the divine things” (al-umūr al-ilāhiyya) take place in a manner “which is nobler, finer, more pronounced, more manifest to (reason) and more evident than (that of ) the first propositions (al-qaḍāyā al-uwal) which are called the primary intellectual sciences (al-ʿulūm al-awāʾil al-ʿaqliyya)”.27 The passages quoted from The Virtues of the Soul do not speak of divine revelations to man and herein differ from Iamblichus. They look like echoes and slight specifications of Plotinus’ discussions about virtue (Ennead I 2), happiness (Ennead I 5 and 7) and the soul (Ennead IV 8). According to Plotinus, who follows here Plato,28 likeness to God is attained by being just and living in wisdom (Ennead I 2/1). Man’s soul, its civic virtues, attain likeness to God29 through increasing purification from the passions of the body (Ennead I 2/2) and devotion to the absolute Good, the intellectual principle, its knowledge and its wisdom (Ennead I 2 /4, 6 and 7). The virtue in the Supreme is its act and its essence, the virtue in man is a civic virtue and if man abandons his human life, he will have the life of the Gods (Ennead I 2/6). Man’s soul, the individual soul, has appetite for the divine intellect, his source to which he is ascending (Ennead IV 8/4, 5; VI 9 11). It is neither a pneuma nor a body (Ennead IV 8/8C). The above-mentioned ambivalence of Plotinus with regard to the soul results from Plotinus’ criticism of the Stoic concept of pneuma, of κρᾶσις δι’ ὅλων (the intermingling of all [essences]), which became known to the Arabs in the 3rd/9th century through the adaptation of the Enneads in the Pseudo-Aristotelian Theology.30 It paved the way to the classification of the soul as something 25 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 88, ll. 18–89, ult./translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 79– 80. On the passage cf. Pines 1986: 170f, 199 and Neuwirth 1976: 188–190. 26 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 90, ll. 1–10/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 80. 27 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 90, ll. 14–21/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 80–81 (end of the excerpt). 28  Cf. Plato, Theaetetus: 176B, quoted by Berman 1961: 53–54. 29  On the history of this concept in Greek philosophy s. Roloff 1971: 307–310. 30  Cf. D’Ancona 2015: 185–204. The relevant passages in Plotinus’ Enneads, esp. IV 7 [2], § 82 and in the Pseudo-Aristotelian Theology (esp. ch. III) are available now in a critical edition,

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spiritual, as we find it in Miskawayh. It is not detectable in the treatise The Virtues of the Soul, as quoted by Miskawayh: The quotation only speaks of “two beastly souls” which are the source of “imagination” (takhayyul) and of the “sensible soul” (nafsuhū al-ḥissiyya) of man. Their “vicissitudes” (dawāʿī) will disappear, when man’s activities – his “real essence” – become “divine” and his “divine reason”.31 This is a transformation of the Platonic doctrine of the soul and its three parts, θυμικόν (the “irascible” part), ἐπιθυμητικόν (the “desiring” part) and λογιστικόν (the “rational” part),32 into the Neoplatonic concept of the soul returning to its divine origin. However, the consequent classification of the soul as something spiritual does not exist – at least in Miskawayh’s excerpt from the treatise The Virtues of the Soul.33 A forerunner of such a classification of the soul as something spiritual appears to be Plotinus’ student Porphyry, who introduced the doctrine of the pneuma in Neoplatonism.34 In his treatise De regressu animae he expresses his conviction that only the “spiritual soul” (anima spiritalis) can be purified and he introduced for the first time the concept of theurgy as a tool for the purification of this soul by using rituals.35 Porphyry did not fully develop this concept. This remained reserved to his student Iamblichus, who in his work De mysteriis considered theurgy as a tool for the purification of the lower soul, of its leading up to the intelligible and to the divine powers.36 Here, he presupposes an “affinity” (ἐπιτηδειότης) between the beings and their divine cause.37 This affinity between man and God is the prerequisite for the establishment of a relationship with the gods by exercising virtues, which Iamblichus called theurgic virtues.38 Ammonius and the Alexandrians instead speak  – echoing Plato (Theaetetus 176 b 1–d 1)  – of ὁμοίωσις θεῷ “likeness to God” and differ herein from Plotinus, who considered the human virtues solely as a way to the perfection of man’s ethical-political life, but not as making man godlike. Amtranslation and extensive commentary by D’Ancona 2017: 136–159 (commentary 286–362) and (Theology) pp. 416–419 (commentary 502–511). 31 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 88, ll. 9–15/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 79. 32  Cf. the references in Daiber 1971: 34–35. θυμικόν and ἐπιθυμητικόν, in addition the “sensible soul”, are considered to be a source for “imagination”. This is a Neoplatonizing modification of the Aristotelian discussion about imagination and sensation in De anima: iii, 3. 33  Nor is this classification mentioned in Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 15, l. 9–16, l. 5/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 14–15, where the tripartition of the soul is explained: On this cf. also Adamson 2007: 42 and Adamson 2015: 207–210. 34  Cf. Verbeke 1945: 363–374; Toulouse 2001: 268–274; Chase 2004: 37–58 and the references given in these publications. 35  Bidez 1913: 35*, 15–20, quoted in Stäcker 1998: 1180 below. 36  Cf. Stäcker 1998: 1181 (n. 11 and 12); Verbeke 1974: 161; Finamore 1985: 4; Nasemann 1991: 198–214; Toulouse 2001: 277–294. 37  Stäcker 1998: col. 1181, n. 18 and 19. 38  Stäcker 1998: col. 1181, n. 23.



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monius called philosophy as likeness to God as it is possible for man.39 He explains this with the additional remark – perhaps with respect to the Christian theologians in the 6th century – that neither the philosopher’s knowledge nor his care for the lower are comparable with God’s knowledge and providence.40 The sketched positions and the culmination among Alexandrian philosophers of the 5th and 6th century CE turn out to be the starting point for the development of ethics in Islamic philosophy. Al-Kindī (d. ca. 256/870) followed the Neoplatonic tradition of Plotinus – and also of Iamblichus41 – in his treatise On the Method of How to Dispel Sorrow.42 This is excerpted by Miskawayh43 and advises man to dedicate himself to the intelligible world, to the absolute Good and to turn away from the transitory world. Thus, he can release the rational soul from the passions in the world. A philosophical foundation – possibly following the Neoplatonic tradition of the Vita pythagorica as shaped by Porphyry and his student Iamblichus44 – has been developed by al-Kindī in his Discourse on the Soul (Risāla fī l-qawl fī l-nafs al-mukhtaṣar min Kitāb Arisṭū wa-Aflāṭūn wa-sāʾir al-falāsifa). It explains that the soul consists of three parts – as we found them in Miskawayh’s excerpt from the treatise on The Virtues of the Soul. It is eager to release itself from the body through ethical virtues and to return to its divine origin, the realm of the intelligible world.45 Al-Kindī does not offer a fully developed ethical doctrine, beyond the “ascetic and intellectualist ethics”, that appears in al-Kindī’s Treatise on the Sayings of Socrates.46 This remains reserved to two later philosophers, to al-Fārābī (d. 339/950) and to Miskawayh. Both philosophers have continued the Neoplatonic tradition, insofar as they share the common concept of happiness, which can be reached by the release of man’s soul from matter, by man’s virtuous acting and by his increasing knowledge.47 According to Miskawayh, this knowledge is most perfect in the “perfect man” (insān kāmil), who is either a “perfect philosopher” (ḥakīm tāmm) because of his “inspirations” (al-ilhāmāt) in the philosophical attempts made by him and through heavenly support in his “intellectual conceptions” (altaṣawwurāt al-ʿaqliyya). Or he is a prophet supported (by God), who obtained divine “revelation” (al-waḥy) in varying grades, which exist in comparison with God. He will then become an intermediary between “the higher world” (al-malaʾ 39  On this definition cf. Berman 1961: 53–61; Daiber 1990: 118–119, the references given there and Diwald 1975: 510–511. 40  Cf. Thiel 2016: 408–415. 41  Cf. Daiber 1995: 28–29. 42  Risāla fī l-Ḥīla li-daf ʿ al-aḥzān, cf. Adamson/Endress 2017: 160–161 and 193–194. 43 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 219–221/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 194–196. 44  Cf. Daiber 1995: 32–33. 45  Al-Qawl fī l-nafs al-mukhtaṣar min Kitāb Arisṭū wa-Falāṭun wa-sāʾir al-falāsifa, cf. Adamson/Endress 2017: 147, 166, 194. 46  Risāla fī Alfāẓ Suqrāṭ, cf. Adamson/Endress 2017: 164, 194 below. 47  Cf. Daiber 2010: 73–74, 77.

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al-aʿlā) and “the lower world” (al-malaʾ al-asfal).48 This formulation is a clear echo of a specification introduced by al-Fārābī, who had added the concept of prophecy as prerequisite of the philosopher.49 According to al-Fārābī, the ruler in the perfect state is a philosopher and a prophet who – inspired by God and by assimilation to God, by emulating God’s rule – rules the city.50 In addition, Miskawayh and al-Fārābī mirror an accentuation in Iamblichus, who combined philosophy with theurgic revelation and herewith modified the approach of his teacher Porphyry.51 The common Neoplatonic tradition in al-Fārābī and Miskawayh appears to be mixed in al-Fārābī mainly with Platonic and Aristotelian ideas.52 Al-Fārābī is concentrating on epistemology and the concept of knowledge, of learning and acquiring knowledge.53 We have only a small treatise on virtues attributed to al-Fārābī and based on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, with some Platonic elements.54 Miskawayh, however, is in fact more focused on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, which he represents combined with Hellenistic, Neoplatonic interpretations.55 These Neoplatonic interpretations gave Miskawayh’s ethics a specific shape. His Tahdhīb al-akhlāq is not a book on political thought, containing rules for rulers and ruled, like al-Fārābī’s Mabādiʾ ārāʾ ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila (The Principles of the Insights of the Inhabitants of the Perfect State). On the contrary, it is a book on virtues of the individual, who – as formulated by Miskawayh in a passage attributed to Aristotle – is provided with “wisdom” (al-ḥikma) and “intellect” (al-ʿaql) and should “aim with all his capacities (bi-jamīʿ quwāhu) to live a divine life (ḥayāt ilāhiyya)”.56 This aim requires, as Miskawayh says – echoing Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics57 – a “moderate amount of external goods” (alqaṣd min al-khayrāt al-khārijiyya).58 Miskawayh’s book Tahdhīb al-akhlāq is not primarily addressed to the citizen, to rulers and ruled. It is a guidebook on ethics for the individual, for train48 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 70, ll. 15–20/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 62. 49  For more details on parallels between al-Fārābī and Miskawayh, see Marcotte 1999: 37–

72, especially 56–72. 50  Daiber 1986a: 17 (n. 79 and 80). 51  See below n. 77. 52  On al-Fārābī cf. Daiber 2007: 99–112. 53  Cf. Daiber 1986b. 54  This is the Jawāmiʿ al-siyar al-marḍiyya fī qtināʾ al-faḍāʾil al-insiyya, ed. and trans. Daiber 1986b: 741–753. 55  Cf. Endress 2017: 322–326 and 337–344. 56 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 171, ll. 13–15/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 152. On the term “divine life” cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics: X 7. 1177 b 30–31 /Arabic translation Akasoy/Fidora 2005: 561, l. 12 (trans. Dunlop ib.: 560). 57 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics: I 8. 1099 a 31–b 7/Arabic translation Akasoy/Fidora 2005: 143, ll. 7–16/translation Dunlop ib.: 142. 58 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 172, ll. 1–2/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 153.



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ing his character and teaching him the right behaviour towards his fellow human beings. Love, friendship59 and justice60 are for the benefit of the individual and are only means for attaining happiness and knowledge. Human virtues, however, are imperfect: He who has knowledge of real happiness and the real good, can endeavor (jahd) to gain God’s favour (yataqarrabu ilayhi) and can try to obtain (yaṭlub) God’s pleasure (marḍāt) as far as he is able (bi-qadr ṭāqatihi), so that “he resembles (yataqayyalu)61 (God’s) acts to the extent of his capacity (istiṭāʿa)”.62 Miskawayh has modified Aristotle’s allusions to the “most divine element” in man,63 who must “strain every nerve to live in accordance with the best thing” in him,64 with a Neoplatonic tint. He says: “The love of wisdom, the devotion to the intellectual conception (al-taṣawwur al-ʿaqlī), and the use of divine notions (al-ārāʾ al-ilāhiyya) are characteristic of the divine part in man.”65 Therefore, he who has acquired virtues, has concern for divine virtues, and herewith he can “join the good spirits (al-arwāḥ al-ṭayyiba) and mingle (ikhtalaṭa) with the angels which are close (to God) (al-malāʾika al-muqarrabūn).”66 Here Miskawayh adds, in a statement attributed to Aristotle, some information about the hierarchy existing between God, angels and those “who seek to be like God” (almutaʾallihīn).67 This hierarchy reappears in a similar way and partly with identical terminology in a commentary on the Pseudo-Pythagorean Golden Verses, written by the Neoplatonist Iamblichus, which we have already mentioned earlier. Iamblichus distinguishes between God, “the angels who are close (to the Gods)” (al-malāʾika al-muqarrabūn)68 and the “godlike” (al-ilāhiyūn), who are “souls which assumed a human shape (taʾannasat)”, abandoned worldly pleasures and are looking for their “good” (maṣāliḥ).69 Iamblichus recommends a moderate acquisition of 59  Cf. Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 5th discourse. 60  Cf. Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 4th discourse. 61  Cf. Lane 1968: s. v. qyḍ. Miskawayh, The Refinement translates this as “imitates”. 62 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 170, ll. 4–7/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 151. 63  Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics: X 7.1177 a 16–17/translation Barnes 1984: 1860/Arabic

translation Akasoy/Fidora: 557, l. 11/translation Dunlop ib.: 556. 64  Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics: X 7.1177 b 34/translation Barnes 1984: ii, 1861/Arabic translation Akasoy/Fidora: 561, l. 14–563, 1/translation Dunlop: 560, 562. 65 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 168, l. 18–19/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 150. 66 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 169, l. 8–9/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 151. 67 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 169, l. 13/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 151. Walzer 1962: 228 translated al-mutaʾallihīn with “the divine men”, giving the Greek equivalents θεῖοι ἄνδρες and ἐκθεούμενοι. 68  The term “close (to God)” (al-maqarrabūn) corresponds to Greek συνεχής in Iamblichus’ De mysteriis: i, 6,20–2–8 on which cf. Nasemann 1991: 137–138. It describes the closeness of the δαίμονες (“semi-divine beings”) to God. 69 Iamblichus, Sharḥ majmūʿ min Kitāb Iyāmblikhus li-waṣāyā Fūthāghūras al-faylasūf, ed./ trans. Daiber 1995: 40–41, ll. 5–11. Cf. Daiber 1995: introduction, 18–19.

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possessions, insofar as it is necessary and useful for man,70 who is “on the path of virtue” (sabīl al-faḍīla) by “reflecting” (bi-shughl al-fikr) on the paths leading to virtues, away from the “body” (al-badan). Everyone is obliged to tackle difficult situations and to endure trials as possibilities to learn, to find the right way and to avoid sensual “delights” (ladhdhāt), in accordance with his capacity.71 Perfect human virtues of man, whose soul participates in the divine being,72 pave the way to the divine virtue.73 The reasonable part of the soul urges the disobedient part to keep to the virtues and to become habituated to them. This is a process of “learning” (dars) leading to “education” (takharruj), “experience” (tadarrub, khibra) and “patience” (ṣabr), also in dealing with others.74 Iamblichus understood philosophy as “conformity with the divine” (ἡ πρὸς τὸν θεῖον ὁμολογία) and “knowledge of the gods” as perfect virtue, wisdom and happiness, making man “similar to gods”.75 Iamblichus’ concept of a similarity between man and God and of the existence of the divine soul in man is ultimately Platonic. It formulates the preconditions for man’s increasing knowledge of the divine and is a Platonic modification of the ancient Greek principle τὸ ὅμοιον τῷ ὁμοίῳ φίλον, “like attracts like”.76 This concept led Iamblichus – in contrast to his former teacher Porphyry and his concept of philosophical contemplation as the only path to the gods – to the assumption of theurgic virtues as a way to receive theurgic revelations.77 The Alexandrians and Ammonius instead spoke of assimilation to God through virtues leading to knowledge of God. Herein they deviate from Plotinus and follow the Neoplatonic tradition of Iamblichus. We found an echo in al-Kindī and above all in the ethics of Miskawayh. With some probability Miskawayh knew the Golden Verses and the commentary by Iamblichus. This may explain why the anonymous Arabic philosophy reader from the circle of Miskawayh, compiled 70  Daiber 1995: 54–55, ll. 2–6. Cf. Daiber 1995: 26–28. 71  Cf. Daiber 1995: 58–59, ll. 13–22. 72  Cf. Daiber 1995: 20–21. 73  Cf. Daiber 1995: 88–89, ll. 21–ult. Cf. Daiber 1995: 20, 26, 29–30. 74  Cf. Daiber 1995: 62–63, ll. 6–10 and 86–87, ll. 14–18. Cf. Daiber

1995: 22–25. Echoes of Iamblichus’ remarks about the acquisition of experience in dealing with others and the critical reflection about others and oneself (cf. Daiber 1995: 80–81, l. 10, 82–83., l. 23) appear in Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 190, l. 4–191, l. 4/translation Miskawayh, The Refinement: 169–170, in a quotation attributed to al-Kindī. 75  Cf. Daiber 1995: 30–31. On the concept of assimilation to God in Greek commentaries to the Golden Verses cf. Izdebska 2016: 40–64. According to Izdebska (57–60), assimilation to God (apotheosis) does not exist in the Arabic Iamblichus. She considers the text to be “somewhat inconsistent” (58) and in one case to be “a strange mixture of Islamic/Christian theology” (60). In view of our comparison with Miskawayh and with Neoplatonic texts and in view of the contextualization of Iamblichus’ commentary (s. Daiber 1995: introduction) Izdebska’s interpretation is not convincing. 76  Cf. Müller 1965: 177–193. 77  Cf. Shaw 2011: 122–129.

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in the 5th/11th century, contains excerpts from the Golden Verses (excluding Iamblichus’s commentary).78 It is interesting that the mentioned philosophy reader contains an extensive quotation from the encyclopaedia of the so-called “Sincere Brethren” (Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ ). This encyclopaedia, written during the lifetime of Miskawayh, deserves our interest, as it shares with Miskawayh the Neoplatonic post-Plotinian and Iamblichan doctrine, the ascent and return of the soul to its divine origin through increasing knowledge, purification of the soul and improvement of the character. This requires friendship for the mutual assistance.79 The parallels and differences between Miskawayh and the Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ deserve further investigations. Both mirror universalistic concepts of love, friendship and harmony among people, as they were discussed in the Buyid age. With good reasons, Joel Kraemer (1986; 21992) gave his book on the “cultural revival during the Buyid age” the title Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam. Translations from Greek, the philosophical heritage of al-Kindī and al-Fārābī and lively discussions resulted in a humanistic thinking across borders.80 This open-mindedness can answer our question at the beginning of this paper: What is Miskawayh’s motive to combine divergent sources and traditions in his Tahdhīb al-akhlāq? Simultaneously, Miskawayh set new accents in the footsteps of Iamblichus: Happiness of man is happiness of his soul and likeness to God. Al-Fārābī’s Perfect State is pushed into the background and his concept of its prophetic leader is in the shadow of the individual exercising virtues, which Iamblichus called theurgic virtues paving the way to theurgic revelations. In this point Miskawayh dissociates himself from Iamblichus and prefers the Platonic and Alexandrian concept of likeness to God.

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– (1995): Neuplatonische Pythagorica in arabischem Gewande. Der Kommentar des Iamblichus zu den Carmina aurea (VNAW.L, N. R. 161; Amsterdam/New York/Oxford/Tokyo: North-Holland). – (2007): “Al-Fārābīs Aristoteles. Grundlagen seiner Erkenntnislehre”, in Arnoud Vrolijk/ Jan Hogendijk (eds.): O ye Gentlemen. Arabic Studies on Science and Literary Culture. In Honor of Remke Kruk (IPTS 74; Leiden: Brill) 99–112. – (2010): “Al-Farabi on the Role of Philosophy in Society”, Philosophia Islamica 1/1, 71–77. – (2013): “Humanism. A  Tradition Common to both Islam and Europe”, Filozofija i Društvo 24, 293–310. Diwald, Susanne (1975): Arabische Philosophie und Wissenschaft in der Enzyklopädie. Kitāb Iḫwān aṣ-Ṣafāʾ. III. Die Lehre von Seele und Intellekt (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz). Dorandi, Tiziano/Marjani, Issam (2017): “La tradizione siriaca e araba delle cosidette Divisiones Aristoteleae. Analisi e commento della versione siriaca (ed. Brock) e delle due traduzioni arabe (ed. Kellermann-Rost)”, SGA 7, 1–55. Endress, Gerhard (2017): “Ancient Ethical Traditions for Islamic Society. Abū ʿAlī Miskawayh”, in Ulrich Rudolph/Rotraud Hansberger/Peter Adamson (eds.): Philosophy in the Islamic World. I. 8th–10th Centuries, trans. by Rotraud Hansberger (Handbook of Oriental Studies I, 115/1; Leiden/Boston: Brill) 304–344. Finamore, John F. (1985): Iamblichus and the Theory of the Vehicle of the Soul (Chico, CA: Scholars Press). Izdebska, Anna (2016): “Man, God and the Apotheosis of Man in Greek and Arabic Commentaries to the Golden Verses”, The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 10, 40–64. Kraemer, Joel L (1986; 21992): Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam. The Cultural Revival during the Buyid Age (Leiden: Brill). Lane, Edward William (1968): Arabic-English Lexicon, vol. i/1–8 (London/Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate; 1863–1893; reprint Beirut). Marcotte, Roxanne D. (1999): “The Role of Imagination (mutakhayyilah) in Ibn Miskawayh’s Theory of Prophecies (nubūwāt)”, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 73, 37–72. Müller, Carl Werner (1965): Gleiches zu Gleichem. Ein Prinzip frühgriechischen Denkens (Klassisch-Philologische Studien 3; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz). Nasemann, Beate (1991): Theurgie und Philosophie in Jamblichs De mysteriis (Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 11; Stuttgart: Teubner). Neuwirth, Angelika (1976): ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baġdādī’s Bearbeitung von Buch Lambda der aristotelischen Metaphysik (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz). Pines, Shlomo (1986): “Un texte inconnu d’Aristote en version arabe”, in Shlomo Pines: Studies in Arabic Versions of Greek Texts and in Medieval Science (The Collected Works of Shlomo Pines II; Jerusalem/Leiden: Brill) 157–195 and 196–200 (Addenda et corrigenda). Pormann, Peter E., see Adamson. Reijn, Eric van (1995): The Epistles of the Sincere Brethren (Rasaʾil Ikhwan al-Safaʾ). An Annotated Translation of Epistles 43 to 47 (London: Minerva Press). Ritter, Joachim/Gründer, Karlfried/Gabriel, Gottfried (eds.) (1971–2007): Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie (13 vols.; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft). Roloff, Dietrich (1971): “Angleichung an Gott”, HWPh I, cols. 307–310.

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Shaw, Gregory (2011): “The Soul’s Innate Gnosis of the Gods. Revelation in Iamblichean Theurgy”, in Philippa Townsend/Moulie Vidas (eds.): Revelation, Literature, and Community in Late Antiquity (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck) 117–129. Stäcker, Thomas (1998): “Theurgie”, HWPh 10, cols. 1180–1183. Thiel, Rainer (2016): “Die Transformation der Theurgie im christlichen Alexandria des 6. Jahrhunderts nach Christus”, in Helmut Seng/Luciana Gabriela Soares Santoprete/ Chiara O. Tommasi (eds.): Formen und Nebenformen des Platonismus in der Spätantike (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter) 403–417. Toulouse, Stéphane (2001): Les théories du véhicule de l’âme. Genèse et évolution d’une doctrine de la médiation entre l’âme et le corps dans le néoplatonisme (thesis École Pratique des Hautes Études I; Paris: École Pratique). Verbeke, Gerard (1945): L’Évolution de la doctrine du Pneuma du stoïcisme à St. Augustin (Paris/Louvain: Desclee de Brouwer). – (1974): “Geist II. Pneuma”, HWPh 3, cols. 157–162. Wakelnig, Elvira (2014): A Philosophy Reader from the Circle of Miskawayh (Cambridge: University Press). Walker, Paul E. et al. (2015): Epistles of the Brethren of Purity. Sciences of the Soul and Intellect. I. An Arabic Critical Edition and English Translation of EPISTLES 32–36. Foreword by Nader El-Bizri (Oxford: University Press; The Institute of Ismaili Studies). Walzer, Richard (1962): Greek into Arabic (Oxford: Cassirer). – (1965): Porphyry and the Arabic Tradition. Porphyre (Entretiens sur l’Antiquité Classique XII; Vandoeuvres/Genève: Fondation Hardt) 275–299. Wirmer, David (2015): Vom Denken der Natur zur Natur des Denkens (Scientia GraecoArabica 13; Berlin: De Gruyter). Zonta, Mauro (2015): “Iwannīs of Dārā on Soul’s Virtues. About a Late-Antiquity Greek Philosophical Work among Syrians and Arabs”, SGA 5, 129–143. Zurayk, see Miskawayh.

Diversität und Bildungsdiskurs im klassischen Islam: Miskawaihs Rezeption von Brysons Oikonomikos* Yassir El Jamouhi Abstract:  The classical period of Islam (3rd–9th/9th–15th century) is characterized by a great diversity of intellectual traditions. A central feature of the philosophical discourse of this period is the Muslim reception of the ancient Greek, Syriac-Christian, Jewish, Iranian, and Indian intellectual heritage. This fact testifies to the marked openness of many Muslim thinkers of that time concerning “foreign” cultural traditions. Indeed, it is an attitude of the mind, which Mohammed Arkoun and Joel L. Kraemer described with the term “humanism”. Miskawayh is an important representative of this generation of intellectuals. On the one hand, he places the human being at the centre of his reflections on ethics, philosophy, history, and politics. Particularly striking in this regard is, however, his extensive reception of non-religious ideas. On the other hand, religious traditions (both Islamic and non-Islamic) occupy for him a relatively subordinated position in this context. The aim of this study thus is to identify and examine exemplary ways in which Miskawayh adopted and transformed ancient Greek ideas on learning. Our focus in this regard is on Miskawayh’s reception of Bryson’s Oikonomikos concerning the education of boys.

Die Rezeption antiker griechischer philosophischer und religiöser Traditionen ist für die Entwicklung philosophisch-religiöser Diskurse in der klassischen Zeit des Islams kennzeichnend. Diskurskonstituierend wirkten hierbei diverse Geistesströmungen, die sich unterschiedlichen Interessen- und Wissensgebieten zuwandten. Besonders hervorzuheben sind in diesem Zusammenhang Philosophen wie Abū Yaʿqūb al-Kindī (gest. kurz nach 256/870), Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī (gest. 339/950) und Abū ʿAlī Ibn Sīnā (gest. 472/1037), die sich sowohl der Philosophie und der Logik als auch der Theologie widmeten.1 In diese Geistesströmung ist der Moralphilosoph und Historiker Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b.  Yaʿqūb Miskawaih (ca. 320–421/932–1030)2 einzuordnen, dessen ethisches *  Dieser Aufsatz ist im Rahmen des von der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) geförderten Sonderforschungsbereichs 1136 „Bildung und Religion“, Teilprojekt D 03 an der Georg-August-Universität Göttingen unter der Leitung von Professor Dr. Sebastian Günther entstanden. 1  Vgl. hierzu al-Ǧābirīs Einleitung zur Edition von Ibn Rušds Faṣl al-maqāl in Ibn Rušd, Faṣl al-maqāl: Einleitung, 31–32. 2  Nähere Informationen zu seinem Leben und Werk liefern u. a. Arkoun 1970; Endress 2012: 210–226; El Jamouhi 2020: 201–205; siehe auch die Einleitung dieses Bandes.

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und bildungstheoretisches Gesamtschaffen ein großartiges Zeugnis einer umfassenden Rezeption älterer und zeitgenössischer philosophisch-orientierter Werke antiker griechischer, jüdischer, christlicher und muslimischer Autoren in der klassischen Periode des Islams darstellt,3 das zu einem humanistischen Denken führte.4 Dass Miskawaihs Werk heute stärker denn je in das Blickfeld des wissenschaftlichen Interesses gerückt ist, findet seinen Ausgangspunkt insbesondere in den Arbeiten des algerisch-französischen Philosophen Mohammed Arkoun (1943–2010) und seiner These zur Existenz eines „arabischen Humanismus“ im 4./10. Jahrhundert.5 Innerhalb dieses humanistischen Denkens unterscheidet Arkoun zwischen dem religiösen, dem literarischen und dem philosophischen Humanismus. Während sich der religiöse Humanismus auf die Offenbarungsreligionen (Judentum, Christentum und Islam) bezieht und sich durch diverse Prägungen auszeichnet, indem sich dieser über die „gemäßigte Frömmigkeit des Gläubigen bis hin zur extremen Askese des Mystikers erstreckt und mit einer konstanten Bezugnahme auf Gott verbunden ist,“6 könne der literarische Humanismus mit adab im Sinne von humanitas gleichgesetzt werden. Der philosophische Humanismus unterscheide sich vom religiösen und literarischen Humanismus durch die Einhaltung eines strengeren und methodisch stringenten Denksystems.7 Die Integration dieser drei Formen von Humanismus betrachtet Arkoun als „Originalität des 4./10. Jahrhunderts“8, dessen Vertreter nicht nur jene großen Denker sind, die sich des besonderen Interesses der gegenwärtigen Forschung erfreuen, sondern vielmehr eine ganze intellektuelle Generation, die Gedanken aufbereitete, die man aus heutiger Sicht und unter den Bedingungen jener Zeit als humanistisch bezeichnen kann.9 In diesem Zusammenhang schreibt Arkoun: Les animateurs de cet humanisme ne sont pas seulement les grands penseurs qui ont mobilisé jusqu’ici l’attention des spécialistes; la notion de génération intellectuelle aide à mieux situer les personnalités créatrices.10

Miskawaih, ein bedeutendes Mitglied dieser Generation von Intellektuellen, bezeichnet Arkoun als ein Beispiel für ein „weitgehend säkularisiertes Bewusstsein“, der eine moralische Reflexion im aristotelischen Geist durchführte.11 3  4 

Vgl. Endress 2012: 226–238; Günther 2013: 360; El Jamouhi 2020: 207–209. Siehe hierzu Arkoun 1970; Kraemer 1986; Daiber 2013: 298–306; siehe ebenfalls den Beitrag von Hans Daiber in diesem Band. 5  Arkoun 1961; Arkoun 1963; Arkoun 1970. 6  Günther 2004: 166. 7  Vgl. Arkoun 1970: 356–357. 8  Arkoun 1970: 357. 9  Zur Reflexion des in der Forschung konträr diskutierten Begriffs „Humanismus“ siehe die Einleitung zu diesem Band. 10  Arkoun 1970: 356. 11 Arkoun schreibt dazu: „Miskawayh s’offre ainsi à nous comme un exemple parmi



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Miskawaih schien auf den Umstand aufmerksam geworden zu sein, dass nach al-Kindīs umfangreichem philosophischem Werk, al-Fārābīs und Yaḥyā b. ʿAdīs (gest. 363/974) Werken zur Logik und der Fülle an medizinischen Werken ein systematisches Handbuch zur Moral fehlte. Mit seinem ethischen Hauptwerk Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq (Die Kultivierung der Charakterzüge) ist es Miskawaih gelungen, diese Lücke zu schließen.12

1.  Miskawaih als Humanist? In Miskawaihs Schaffen sind in der Tat zahlreiche Indizien zu finden, die darauf hindeuten, dass bestimmte Teile seines Gesamtschaffens und Gedankengutes Wesenszüge tragen, die wir im Sinne Arkouns als humanistisch bezeichnen können. Zwei Beispiele seien hier zur Illustration und Grundierung unserer weiteren Ausführungen genannt. Zum einen ist die soziale Dimension hervorzuheben, die Miskawaih den spirituellen Inhalten und rituellen Handlungen der islamischen Religion beimisst und die nicht ohne Grund eine bedeutende Stellung in seinen Argumentationsstrategien einnimmt. Ein Beleg hierfür findet sich in der folgenden Textpassage aus Miskawaihs Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq.13 Hier lesen wir:

ّ ّ ّ ،‫كل يوم خمس ّمرات‬ ّ ‫ولعل الشر يعة‬ ‫وفضلت‬ ‫إنما أوجبت على الناس أن يجتمعوا في مساجدهم‬ ‫أ‬ ‫آ‬ ّ ‫المحبات وهو فيهم‬ ‫صالة الجماعة على صالة الحاد ليحصل لهم هذا النس الطبيعي الذي هو مبدأ‬ ّ ّ ّ ‫بالقوة‬ ‫ وهذا االجتماع في‬.‫ ّثم يتأ كد فيهم باالعتقادات الصحيحة التي تجمعهم‬،‫حتى يخرج إلى الفعل‬ ّ ّ ّ ّ ّ ‫ والدليل على أن غرض صاحب الشر يعة ما ذكرناه أنه‬.‫كل يوم ليس يتعذر على أهل كل محلة وسكة‬ ّ ‫ يوما بعينه في مسجد يسعهم ليجتمع‬،‫ في كل أسبوع‬،‫أوجب على أهل المدينة بأسرهم أن يجتمعوا‬ ّ ّ ّ ‫ ّثم‬.‫ كما اجتمع شمل أهل الدور والمنازل في كل يوم‬،‫أيضا شمل المحال والسكك في كل أسبوع‬ ّ ‫أوجب أيضا أن يجتمع أهل المدينة مع أهل القرى والرساتيق المتقار بين في كل سنة ّمرتين في مصلى‬ ّ ‫أ‬ ّ ّ ّ .‫المحبة الناظمة لهم‬ ‫ويتجدد النس بين كافتهم وتشملهم‬ ‫ ليسعهم المكان ويترآوا‬،‫مصحر ين‬ ‫بارز ين‬ ّ ّ ّ ‫ ولم‬،‫ّثم اوجب بعد ذلك أن يجتمعوا من البلدان في العمر كله ّمرة واحدة في الموضع المقدس بمكة‬ ّ ّ ‫يعين من العمر وقت مخصوص ليتسع لهم الزمان وليجتمع أهل المدن المتباعدة كما اجتمع أهل‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ‫المدينة الواحدة ويصير حالهم في النس والمحبة وشمول الخير والسعادة كحال المجتمعين في كل‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ّ ّ ‫وتتجدد‬ ،‫ فيجتمعوا بذلك النس الطبيعي إلى الخيرات المشتركة‬،‫سنة وفي كل اسبوع وفي كل يوم‬ ّ ّ ‫وليكبروا هللا على ما هداهم ويغتبطوا بالدين القويم‬ ّ ّ ‫بينهم‬ ‫القيم الذي ألفهم على تقوى‬ ،‫محبة الشر يعة‬ .‫هللا وطاعته‬ d’autres, d’une conscience largement (laïcisée). La dimension religieuse ne s’impose à lui que sous forme d’un ensemble de rites dont on ne saurait dire s’il respecte en eux la contrainte sociale ou l’expression symbolique d’une foi très personnelle“, vgl. Arkoun 1970: 64. 12  Vgl. Arkoun 1970: 238. 13  Zur sozialen und bildungspraktischen Dimension von Religion bei Miskawaih siehe El Jamouhi 2020: 217–218.

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Es ist so, dass die Scharia den Menschen verpflichtet, sich in ihren Moscheen fünfmal pro Tag zu treffen und das Gemeinschaftsgebet dem Einzelgebet vorzuziehen, damit sie diese natürliche Geselligkeit erfahren können, die der Ursprung aller Liebe ist. Auf diese Weise wird das Bedürfnis nach dieser angeborenen Geselligkeit Wirklichkeit und zusätzlich durch die richtigen Überzeugungen, die sie miteinander verbinden, gestärkt. Diese tägliche Zusammenkunft ist für die Bewohner eines jeden Ortsteils und einer jeden Straße möglich. Der Beweis dafür, dass das Ziel Gottes (wörtl.: des Herrn der Scharia) das ist, was wir eben erwähnten, ist, dass es für alle Bewohner der Stadt eine Pflicht ist, sich jede Woche an einem bestimmten Tag in einer Moschee zu treffen, die sie [von der Größe her] alle einschließen kann. Auf diese Weise treffen sich die Bewohner der Ortsteile und der Straßen jede Woche, genauso wie sich die Mitglieder des Hauses bzw. des Haushaltes jeden Tag treffen. Der Herr schreibt zudem vor, dass die Bewohner der Stadt mit den Bewohnern der Dörfer und Umlandgemeinden zweimal im Jahr an einem im Freien liegenden Gebetsort zusammenkommen, damit dieser sie [alle] vereinen kann. Auf diese Weise kann sich die Geselligkeit unter ihnen allen erneuern und die Liebe, die alle vereint, [kann] alle einschließen. Weiterhin schreibt Er ihnen vor, sich einmal im Leben an dem heiligen Ort in Mekka zu versammeln, ohne dabei einen bestimmten Zeitpunkt im Leben festzulegen, damit sie über genügend [Vorbereitungs-]Zeit verfügen und sich auch die Bewohner der weit entfernt liegenden Städte versammeln, ebenso wie sich die Bewohner einer Stadt versammeln können. [Dies soll geschehen,] damit ihr Befinden im Hinblick auf die Geselligkeit, die Liebe und das Herrschen des Guten und der Glückseligkeit mit dem Zustand derer vergleichbar wird, die sich jedes Jahr, jede Woche und jeden Tag treffen. Auf diese Weise ergibt sich die natürliche Geselligkeit im Hinblick auf die gemeinsamen Güter und erneuert sich unter ihnen die Liebe zur Scharia, damit sie letztlich Gott dafür verherrlichen, dass Er sie auf dem geraden Weg führte, und damit sie sich der aufrechten und wertvollen Religion erfreuen, die sie dazu brachte, Gott zu fürchten und zu gehorchen.14

Ein weiterer Aspekt, der für Miskawaihs Geisteshaltung charakteristisch ist, betrifft die Vielfalt seiner rezipierten Autoren und Quellen, die seine Aufgeschlossenheit gegenüber dem intellektuellen Erbe der Menschheitsgeschichte unterstreicht. Betrachtet man beispielsweise die in Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq explizit erwähnten Quellenwerke, so stechen insbesondere die namentlich genannten antiken griechischen Autoren hervor, wie die folgende Tabelle deutlich macht. Wie Miskawaih das Gedankengut seiner Quellen rezipierte und im Lichte seines islamisch geprägten Gottes-, Menschen- und Weltbildes transformierte, um es in seine eigene Argumentation einzubinden, und welcher Methoden der Darstellung und Argumentation er sich hierbei bediente, um seine bildungstheoretischen und ethischen Kernaussagen kontextuell zu kommunizieren, sind weitere leitende Fragestellungen unserer Fallstudie. Dabei ist der Fokus auf Miskawaihs Rezeption des Oikonomikos (griech. Οἰκονομικός) gerichtet, einer Schrift, die dem griechischen Philosophen Bryson, der wahrscheinlich im späteren 1. Jh. n. Chr. lebte, zugeschrieben wird.15 14 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 140–141. 15  Zur antiken Überlieferung über ‚Bryson‘ und die Abfassung des Οἰκονομικός siehe Pless-

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93

Autoren und Quellen

Miskawaihs thematischer Kontext

Aristoteles (gest. 322 v. Chr.) Platon (gest. 348/347 v. Chr.) Galenos (gest. um 200 n. Chr.) Porphyrios (gest. um 305 n. Chr.) Hippokrates (gest. um 370 v. Chr.) Pythagoras (gest. ca. 480 v. Chr.) Bryson (gelebt im späteren 1. Jh. n. Chr.) Der Koran Der Prophet Muhammad (gest. 11/632) ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (gest. 40/661) Abū Bakr (gest. 13/634) al-Kindī (gest. kurz nach 256/870) Ardašīr (gest. um 242 n. Chr.)

Tugend, Glückseligkeit, Seele, das Gute, Weisheit Seele, Glückseligkeit Charakter, das Gute und das Böse Rangstufen der Glückseligkeit Tugend, Glückseligkeit Tugend, Glückseligkeit Knabenerziehung Praktische Moral Praktische Moral Praktische Moral Charakterzüge der Könige Krankheiten der Seele Verhältnis von Religion und Herrschaft

2. Der Oikonomikos in arabischer Überlieferung Der Oikonomikos besitzt einen bedeutenden Stellenwert in der historischen Entwicklung islamischer Bildungsdiskurse. Schon Helmut Ritter konnte beispielsweise den Nachweis für den Einfluss dieser Schrift auf das von ihm analysierte und übersetzte Kitāb al-Išāra ilā maḥāsin at-tiǧāra (Das Buch des Hinweises auf die Schönheiten des Handels) des Abū l-Faḍl Ǧaʿfar b. ʿAlī ad-Dimašqī (ca. 7./12. Jh.) sowie auf das Buch Aḫlāq-i Nāṣirī (Die Nasirische Ethik) des Nāṣir ad-Dīn aṭ-Ṭūsī (gest. 672/1274) erbringen, welches durch das Selbstzeugnis seines Verfassers eine gewisse Abhängigkeit von Miskawaihs Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq aufweist.16 Während vom griechischen Original des Oikonomikos lediglich zwei kurze Fragmente erhalten sind, ist diese Schrift in arabischer Übersetzung in nahezu vollständiger Fassung überliefert.17 Die einzige erhaltene arabische Handschrift ist Teil einer Sammelhandschrift, die zunächst im Privatbesitz von Georges Ṣafā, einem seinerzeit in Beirut niedergelassenen Rechtsanwalt, war.18 Im Vorwort zu seiner Edition des Kitāb Tadbīr al-manzil (Das Buch über die Leitung der Haushaltsführung) schreibt der bekannte Theologe und Jesuit Louis Cheikho (gest. 1927), dass die Handschrift in den Besitz des ägyptischen Schriftstellers und Historikers Aḥmad Pāšā Taimūr (gest. 1930) übergegangen sei.19 Die Handschrift weist allerdings den Namen des Übersetzers dieser arabischen Fassung nicht aus. Auch ner 1928: 7; Swain 2013: 109–142. Nähere Informationen zur Problematik der Verfasserschaft Brysons liefern Ritter 1916; Plessner 1928: 1; Swain 2013: 29–31. 16  Ritter 1916: 9, 14; Plessner 1928: 49. 17  Vgl. Plessner 1928: 9. Näheres zur Überlieferung des Textes in orientalischen Quellen siehe Plessner 1928: 9–29; Swain 2013: 130–142. 18  Vgl. Cheikho 1899: 125. 19 Bryson, at-Tadbīr (Ed. Cheikho) 1921: Vorwort, 161. Die Handschrift befindet sich heu-

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der arabisierte Name des Verfassers des griechischen Originals lässt Raum für Interpretationen, zumal am Anfang und am Ende der Handschrift zwei unterschiedliche, teilweise unpunktierte Schreibweisen des Namens enthalten sind: ‫ ىرسيس‬und ‫ىرولس‬.20 Nach Ritter sind diese unterschiedlichen Namensformen Versuche, „einen fremden d. h. eben griechischen Eigennamen wiederzugeben“21. Ritter stellt zudem fest, dass sich hinter diesen Namen „niemand anders verbergen [könne] als der, freilich nicht eben übermäßig bekannte, angebliche Pythagoreer Bryson, dem eine aus der neupythagoreischen Schule stammende Schrift Οἰκονομικός zugeschrieben wird.“22 Die erste ausführliche Beschreibung dieser Sammelhandschrift legte Chei­ kho 1897 in den Akten des 11. internationalen Orientalistenkongresses in Paris vor.23 1913 veröffentlichte Georges Ṣafā eine weitere Beschreibung dieser Handschrift, die eine geringfügige Abweichung zu Cheikhos Beschreibung in Bezug auf die Angaben zum Umfang des Textes aufweist.24 Während der Text nach Cheikho die Seiten 50 bis 84 der Sammelhandschrift umfasse,25 ist bei Ṣafā zu lesen, dass das Manuskript aus 13 Blättern bestehe. Nach Plessner ist diese abweichende Angabe bei Ṣafā ein Druckfehler.26 Die erste vollständige Edition von Brysons Text stammt von Cheikho. Diese erschien 1921 in Beirut in der katholischen Zeitschrift al-Mašriq.27 Bei dieser Edition handelt es sich um „ein getreues Bild der Handschrift mit einer großen Zahl sehr wertvoller Verbesserungen, die jetzt zum guten Teil durch die Textzeugen bestätigt werden“28. 1928 veröffentlichte Plessner dann eine neue Edition mit einer deutschen Übersetzung.29 Eine neuere kritische Edition der arabischen Handschrift samt englischer Übersetzung lieferte Simon Swain im Jahr 2013.30 Dabei erschloss Swain Brysons Schrift durch umfangreiche Vergleiche mit verwandtem Schrifttum der klassischen Antike. In Bezug auf den Übersetzer der arabischen Handschrift haben sich bislang keine sicheren Belege finden lassen. Cheikho vermutet, dass der Bagdader Arzt und Philosoph Ibn Zurʿa (gest. 398/1008) der Übersetzer sei.31 Martin Plessner te in der Ägyptischen Nationalbibliothek (Dār al-Kutub wa-l-Waṯāʾiq al-qaumiyya) in Kairo in der Sammlung Taimūr; vgl. Swain 2013: Introduction, 69. 20  Vgl. Bryson, at-Tadbīr (Ed. Cheikho) 1921: Vorwort, 161. 21  Ritter 1916: 12. 22  Ritter 1916: 12. 23  Cheikho 1899: 125–127. 24  Ṣafā 1913: 173–177. 25  Cheikho 1899: 125. 26  Vgl. Plessner 1928: 12 [Fußnote 1]. 27  Cheikho 1921: 161–181. 28  Plessner 1928: 12. 29  Plessner 1928 (arabischer Text 144–204; deutsche Übersetzung 214–259). 30  Swain 2013 (arabischer Text samt englischer Übersetzung): 425–497. 31  Cheikho 1921: 161.



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hingegen hegt aufgrund sprachlicher Besonderheiten Zweifel an dieser Annahme.32 Er begründet diese Zweifel mit den chronologischen Argumenten, da die Rezeption der arabischen Übersetzung des Oikonomikos schon in Rasāʾil Iḫwān aṣ-Ṣafāʾ (Sendschreiben der Lauteren Brüder) nachweisbar sei,33 die auf eine vollständigere arabische Übersetzung als die erhaltene, d. h. die Ibn Zurʿa zugeschriebene Version schließen ließe.34 Unklar bleibt dabei, ob die Schrift nicht vielleicht mehrmals ins Arabische übersetzt wurde. Unumstritten ist jedoch, dass Miskawaih als der erste muslimische Autor gilt, der Brysons Text in größerem Umfang rezipierte.35 In Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq erwähnt Miskawaih zudem explizit, dass er sich bei der Verfassung des Abschnitts über die Erziehung der Jünglinge und Knaben auf Brysons Schrift stützte.36 Hier heißt es:

‫أ‬ ّ ‫الحداث والصبيان‬ .‫خاصة نقلت أ كثره من كتاب بروسن‬ ‫فصل في تأديب‬

Ein Abschnitt über die Erziehung der Jünglinge und Knaben im Besonderen. Das Meiste hiervon habe ich von Brysons Schrift (kitāb) übernommen.37

In dieser Mitteilung bleibt allerdings unerwähnt, welche Übersetzung von Brysons Schrift Miskawaih rezipierte. Eine Frage, die aufgrund der gegenwärtigen Quellenlage unbeantwortet bleiben muss und den philologischen Vergleich zwischen dem Oikonomikos (in der erhaltenen arabischen Überlieferung) und den betreffenden Textstellen in Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq erheblich erschwert. Hinzu kommt, dass nicht auszuschließen ist, dass schon der arabische Übersetzer das griechische Original sprachlich und inhaltlich  – durch Kürzungen oder Erweiterungen – modifizierte, wie Plessner in der vergleichenden Gegenüberstellung der arabischen Übersetzung mit den erhaltenen Fragmenten des griechischen Textes konstatiert.38 Doch selbst wenn wir angemessen berücksichtigen, dass der Oikonomikos möglicherweise mehrfach ins Arabische übersetzt wurde und es somit potenzielle textliche und inhaltliche Abweichungen zwischen den einzelnen Vorlagen gibt (sowie die Ungewissheit, welche Vorlage Miskawaih tatsächlich benutzte), ist ein kontrastiver Vergleich zwischen der erhaltenen arabischen Übersetzung des Oikonomikos und den betreffenden Textpassagen in Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq sinnvoll. Hierfür sprechen folgende Gründe, die sich aus der starken intertextuellen Relation zwischen den beiden Texten in den uns vorliegenden Fassungen ergeben: 32  Vgl. Plessner 1928: 14. 33  Vgl. Plessner 1928: 18. 34  Vgl. Plessner 1928: 10. 35  Vgl. Plessner 1928: 49. 36 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb. 37 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb:

55. Falls nicht anders vermerkt, stammen alle Übersetzungen vom Verfasser. 38  Vgl. Plessner 1928: 10–11.

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1.  Stellt man die beiden Texte einander gegenüber, werden thematische Konvergenzen deutlich. Dies zeigt sich zum einen daran, dass in beiden Texten nahezu die gleichen Themen betreffend die Kindererziehung behandelt werden; zum anderen sind sich die Texte hinsichtlich der Ausführlichkeit der Darlegung zur Kindererziehung ähnlich, sodass der Umfang bzw. die Anzahl der behandelten erziehungsrelevanten Aspekte in beiden Texten nahezu deckungsgleich ist. 2.  Auch im Hinblick auf die Argumentationsstrategien zeichnen sich Parallelen ab. Zur Illustration dieser argumentativen Konvergenzen sei folgendes Beispiel genannt: Oikonomikos

Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq

Der Knabe sollte nicht an den Trinkgelagen teilnehmen, es sei denn, die Gesellschaft ist wohlerzogen und tugendhaft. Was die Gelage der Massen (ʿawāmm) angeht, so sollte er wegen der abscheulichen Reden, die dort stattfinden, und der Albernheit, die sich bei ihren Teilnehmern zeigt, nicht dabei sein.39

Er sollte nicht an den Trinkgelagen teilnehmen, es sei denn, die Gesellschaft ist wohlerzogen und tugendhaft; andernfalls könnte er abscheuliche Reden und alberne Dinge hören, die für solche Gelage typisch sind.40

ّ ّ ‫للصبي أن يحضر مجالس النبيذ إل‬ ‫وال ينبغي‬ ‫أ‬ ّ .‫الدب والفضل‬ ‫فأما‬ ‫أن يكون من فيها من أهل‬ ّ ‫العوام فال وذلك لما يجري فيها من‬ ‫مجالس‬ ّ .‫قبيح الالكم ويظهر في أهلها من السخف‬

ّ ‫وال ينبغي أن يحضر مجالس أهل النبيذ إل أن‬ ّ ،‫يكون أهل المجلس أدباء فضالء‬ ،‫فأما غيرهم فال‬ ّ ‫لئل يسمع الالكم القبيح والسخافات التي تجري‬ .‫فيه‬

Hier ist eine eindeutige intertextuelle Relation auf der argumentativen Ebene zu konstatieren. Wie aus dem Beispiel hervorgeht, werden „die Abscheulichkeit der Handlungen und die Albernheit der Teilnehmer der Trinkgelage“ als Argument gegen die Teilnahme von Jugendlichen an solchen Gelagen verwendet. 3. Obwohl in Miskawaihs Text keine direkten Zitate aus Brysons Oikonomikos enthalten sind – hier sei an Miskawaihs Zuverlässigkeit im Umgang mit seinen Quellen erinnert  –, sind zudem lexikalische Konvergenzen, d. h. Übereinstimmungen auf der Wortebene, festzustellen, die einen deutlichen Bezug zu Brysons Text markieren. Ein Blick auf die lexikalische Zusammensetzung des eben angeführten Beispiels zum „Verbot, an Trinkgelagen teilzunehmen“ macht dies überdeutlich. Diese beispielhaft dargestellten intertextuellen Relationen zwischen der erhaltenen arabischen Übersetzung des Oikonomikos und den betreffenden Textpassagen in Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq machen eine kontrastive Analyse dieser Texte nicht nur sinnvoll, sondern auch notwendig und geradezu alternativlos. Auf diese 39 Bryson, at-Tadbīr (Ed. Swain) 2013: 486. 40 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 59.



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Weise kann herausgefunden werden, wie Miskawaih Brysons pädagogisches Programm konkret rezipierte. Als Grundlage für unsere kontrastive Studie dienen dabei die neuere, von Swain 2013 kritisch edierte arabische Übersetzung des Oikonomikos sowie die betreffenden Textpassagen in Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq in der Edition von Zurayk 1966.

3.  Kindererziehung im Oikonomikos Der Text trägt im Arabischen den Titel Kitāb Brīsun fī tadbīr ar-raǧul li-manzilihi (Das Buch Brysons über die Führung des Haushaltes durch den Mann). Eingeleitet wird der Text mit der Aufzählung der vier charakteristischen Bestandteile (ṣifāt), welche die Angelegenheit der Haushaltsführung vervollständigen: 1. der erste Bestandteil von ihnen ist: das Geld, 2. der zweite: die Diener, 3. der dritte: die Frau und 4. der vierte: die Kinder.41 Diese Reihenfolge stellt somit den Aufbau der Abhandlung dar, indem jeder Eigenschaft ein Kapitel gewidmet wird. Zu Beginn des Kapitels zur Kinder­ erziehung werden die Eigenschaften, die eine vorbildliche Kindesmutter besitzen sollte, kurz dargelegt; denn die Mutter sei

‫أ‬ ُ ‫ويقوم طر‬ ُ ّ ‫تأديبه‬ .‫يقته‬ ‫أول صالح الولد والساس الذي ُبني عليه‬

Der Anfang der Rechtschaffenheit des Knaben, das Fundament, auf dem seine Erziehung (taʾdīb) aufgebaut und wodurch sein [Lebens-]weg festgelegt wird.42

Anschließend präsentiert Bryson ein pädagogisches Programm, das Eltern und Lehrer bei der Erziehung der Kinder beachten sollten. Dies leitet er mit der Feststellung ein, dass das Kindesalter das ultimative Erziehungsalter sei. Davon ausgehend betont Bryson die Notwendigkeit, mit der Erziehung des Knaben vom frühen Kindesalter an zu beginnen, denn die Kleinen seien „lenkbarer im Gehorchen und eiliger im Sichfügen“. Auch beherrschte die Kinder in diesem Alter noch nicht die Gewohnheit, die sie von dem abwendet, was von ihnen gefordert wird.43 Bryson fährt fort, dass die Erziehungsbereitschaft der Kinder von ihrem Schamgefühl, ihrer Liebe zur Ehre und ihrem Edelmut abhänge. Besitze ein Knabe diese Eigenschaften, sei seine Erziehung leicht; habe er aber wenig Schamgefühl, geringe Achtung für die Ehre und keinen Edelmut, sei seine Erziehung 41 Bryson, at-Tadbīr (Ed. Swain) 2013: 430. 42 Bryson, at-Tadbīr (Ed. Swain) 2013: 474. 43 Bryson, at-Tadbīr (Ed. Swain) 2013: 476.

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schwierig. Dann gelte es, ihn bei schlechtem Handeln unbedingt Furcht zu lehren und ihm sogar zu drohen. Diese Maßnahmen müssten mit Nachdruck erfolgen und auch Schläge seien angebracht, wenn verbale Drohungen nicht ausreichten. Doch gelte es natürlich auch, ihn gut zu behandeln, wenn er gut handle.44 Weiterhin weist Bryson darauf hin, dass der Knabe in Bezug auf die Handlungen Essen, Trinken, Schlafen, Aufstehen, Sitzen, Bewegen und Reden sowie überhaupt sein gesamtes Verhalten kontrolliert werden müsse.45 Hierbei müsse er darin unterrichtet werden, vor dem zu Tadelnden auszuweichen und nach dem Geziemenden zu streben. Es heißt in diesem Sinne:

‫أ‬ ّ َ ‫ ت ّنب َه عليهما وفهمها في غيرها من جميع‬،‫فإن ُه إذا عرف الجميل والقبيح في هذه الشياء وقاما في نفسه‬ ‫أ‬ .‫المور ولم يحتج في كثير من ذلك إلى تقويم‬

Wenn [der Knabe] das Geziemende und das Schimpfliche in diesen Handlungen erkennt und [wenn diese] beiden [Eigenschaften] in seiner Seele entstehen, so wird er lernen, diese zu beachten und im Zusammenhang mit sämtlichen sonstigen Handlungen zu verstehen; auf diese Weise hat er bei vielen [anderen Angelegenheiten] keine Unterweisung mehr nötig.46

An dieser Stelle bedient sich Bryson des Dialogs als Stilmittel. Er kommuniziert auf diese Weise mit seinen Lesern bzw. einem imaginären Gesprächspartner, um die Strategien zu erläutern, anhand derer sein pädagogisches Programm umgesetzt werden könne. Hierbei geht er auf folgende Themen ein: das Verhalten beim Essen, Trinken und Schlafen; die Kleidung; die Ehrerweisung; das Verhalten beim Schwören, Sprechen, Bestrafen, Spielen und schließlich Fragen der Sexualität.

4.  Kindererziehung in at-Tahḏīb Der Abschnitt über die Erziehung von Jünglingen und Knaben (aḥdāṯ wa-ṣibyān) in Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq beginnt zunächst mit einer Zusammenfassung zur Entwicklung der Kräfte im Menschen, die Miskawaih in einem früheren Kapitel erläutert hatte.47 Er erörtert zunächst die Funktionen der Kräfte der Seele und deutet dabei das Schamgefühl bei den Knaben als Signal für das Auftreten der Verstandeskraft.48 Zudem stellt er die Erziehbarkeit der Scham empfindenden Verstandeskraft fest, die nicht vernachlässigt werden und mit Menschen entgegengesetzten Charakters verkehren sollte. Hier lesen wir: 44 Bryson, at-Tadbīr (Ed. Swain) 2013: 478, 480. 45 Bryson, at-Tadbīr (Ed. Swain) 2013: 480. 46 Bryson, at-Tadbīr (Ed. Swain) 2013: 480. 47 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 55. 48 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 56.



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‫أ‬ ّ ‫مستعدة للتأديب صالحة للعناية ال يجب أن تهمل وال تترك ومخالطة الضداد الذين‬ ‫وهذه النفس‬ .‫يفسدون بالمقارنة والمداخلة من كان بهذه الحال من االستعداد لقبول الفضيلة‬ Eine solche Seele ist bereit und geeignet, erzogen und versorgt zu werden; sie sollte nicht vernachlässigt werden und mit Menschen entgegengesetzten Charakters verkehren, die durch ihre Gesellschaft einen schlechten Einfluss auf jeden haben, der in der Lage ist, Tugend anzunehmen.49

Anschließend präsentiert Miskawaih ein beeindruckend reichhaltiges pädagogisches Programm, welches u. a. folgende Verhaltensbereiche umfasst: Kleidungsstil, Essverhalten, lernwürdige Inhalte, Trinkverhalten, Verbot alkoholischer Getränke und der Teilnahme an Trinkgelagen, Schlafverhalten, Bewegungsverhalten, Haarschnitt, Umgang mit der Obrigkeit, nonverbales Verhalten, Sprechverhalten, Verhalten bei Dienstleistungen, Verhalten beim Bestraftwerden, Verhalten gegenüber Gleichaltrigen, Spielverhalten, Gehorsam gegenüber Erziehungsberechtigten, Kontrolle der Triebseele und anderes mehr. Abschließend verweist Miskawaih auf die besondere Wirkungskraft seines pädagogischen Programms bei den Kindern der Reichen. Diese wiederum haben es schwerer als die Kinder der Armen, sich an das erläuterte pädagogische Programm zu gewöhnen. Zur Hervorhebung der Vorteile eines konsequenten Erziehungsstils, insbesondere für die Kinder der Reichen, erwähnt Miskawaih zum Schluss die Erziehungsmethoden der persischen Könige, die ihre Kinder nicht innerhalb ihrer Dienerschaft und Vertrauten zu erziehen pflegten.50 Hier heißt es:

‫أ‬ ً ّ ‫وخواصهم خوفا عليهم من الحوال التي‬ ‫وقد كان ملوك الفرس الفضالء ال ير ّبون أوالدهم بين حشمهم‬ .‫ذكرناها‬

Die noblen Könige der Perser hatten die Gewohnheit, ihre Kinder nicht innerhalb ihrer Dienerschaft und Vertrauten zu erziehen. [Sie handelten so] aus Angst vor den Zuständen, die wir erwähnt haben.51

Nun stellt sich die Frage nach den Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschieden zwischen Brysons und Miskawaihs pädagogischem Programm. Dies aufzuzeigen, ist das Ziel der folgenden Ausführungen.

5. Der Oikonomikos und at-Tahḏīb im Vergleich Wie Miskawaih mit den rezipierten Inhalten konkret umgeht, wird im Folgenden anhand beispielhafter Textpassagen deutlich, indem die pädagogischen Erziehungsansätze beider Autoren thematisch miteinander verglichen werden. 49 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 56. 50 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 63. 51 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 63.

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Dabei liegt unser Schwerpunkt darauf, herauszuarbeiten, welche Themen die beiden Autoren behandeln und welche thematischen Schwerpunkte insbesondere Miskawaih bei der Rezeption von Brysons Text setzt. Versucht man die in Brysons und Miskawaihs pädagogischem Programm behandelten Inhalte thematisch zu bündeln, so ergeben sich folgende, die Reihenfolge in beiden Texten jeweils widerspiegelnde Themenschwerpunkte: Oikonomikos

Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq

Charakter im Kindesalter Kontrolle des Knaben Essverhalten Körpererziehung Trinkverhalten Schlafverhalten Körpererziehung Kleidungssitten Körpererziehung Ehrerbietungsverhalten Schnäuzen und Gähnen Sitzhaltung Schwören Verhalten beim Sprechen Verhalten beim Zuhören Schlechte Rede Meidung schlechter Gesellschaft Angenehme vs. schlechte Rede Tadel Verhalten bei Dienstleistungen Verhalten beim Bestraftwerden Tadel und Lob Erziehung positiver Eigenschaften Umgang mit Gold und Silber Spielverhalten Gehorsam Sexualität

Meidung schlechter Gesellschaft Essverhalten Kleidungssitten Charakter im Kindesalter Gedichte und Erzählungen Lob Tadel Essverhalten Trinkverhalten Essverhalten Schlafsitten Schlafverhalten Körpererziehung Prahlerei Machtmissbrauch Schnäuzen und Gähnen Sitzhaltung Lügen und Schwören Verhalten beim Sprechen Verhalten beim Zuhören Schlechte Rede Verhalten bei Dienstleistungen Verhalten beim Bestraftwerden Verhalten im Falle eines Tadels Umgang mit Gleichaltrigen Umgang mit Gold und Silber Spielverhalten und Gehorsam

Aus dieser thematischen Übersicht der erziehungsrelevanten Inhalte wird die Vielfalt der Bereiche deutlich, die beide Autoren thematisieren und in ihren pädagogischen Ansätzen postulieren. Wie aus der Tabelle ersichtlich wird, sind aus thematischer Perspektive sowohl Gemeinsamkeiten als auch Unterschiede zwischen den beiden Autoren festzustellen. Bezüglich der Gemeinsamkeiten ist in thematischer Hinsicht zunächst grundsätzlich zu konstatieren, dass Miskawaih nahezu alle Themen rezipiert, die der griechische Autor behandelt. Im Hinblick auf die Unterschiede ist insgesamt festzustellen, dass die thematische Reihenfolge in beiden Texten nicht identisch ist.



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Auch gilt es zu vermerken, dass in Miskawaihs Text zwei zentrale Themen aus Brysons Text nicht enthalten sind: Das Thema Eigenschaften der Kindesmutter, dem Bryson eine fundamentale Rolle bei der Kindererziehung zuschreibt, und das Thema Sexualität. Auch wenn wir nicht sicherstellen können, ob die arabische Übersetzung des Oikonomikos, die Miskawaih tatsächlich verwendete, diese Themen enthielt, erlaubt dieser Befund die Vermutung, dass es sich hierbei um eine thematisch bewusst selektive Rezeption von Brysons Text handelt. Diese Vermutung wird durch einen weiteren markanten Unterschied zwischen den beiden Texten gestützt. Dieser besteht darin, dass Miskawaih zusätzliche Themenbereiche erörtert, die in Brysons Text nicht vorkommen. Diese betreffen das Auswendiglernen von vorzüglichen Gedichten, Machtmissbrauch und Formen der Bestrafung von Knaben. So schreibt Miskawaih im Hinblick auf erstere Thematik, dass der Knabe dazu aufgefordert werden solle, vorzügliche Erzählungen und Gedichte auswendig zu lernen, die dem entsprächen, woran er sich durch die Erziehung gewöhnt habe.52 Auch solle er davor gewarnt werden, belanglose Gedichte in Augenschein zu nehmen.53 In Bezug auf das Thema Machtmissbrauch schreibt Miskawaih:

ّ ‫ أو استهداء من‬،‫وال يتوصل بشرف إن كان له أو سلطان من أهله إن اتفق له إلى غضب من هو دونه‬ ّ ‫ال يمكنه أن‬ .‫تطاول عليه‬ ‫يرده عن هواه أو‬ ٍ

Sollte er irgendeine Ehre oder Macht besitzen, die seiner Verwandtschaft entstammt, so darf er nicht den Zorn derer wecken, die unter ihm stehen, oder versuchen, jemanden zu führen, der ihn nicht von seiner Neigung oder anmaßenden Haltung abbringen kann.54

Im Weiteren ist als auffallender Unterschied zu Brysons Text festzuhalten, dass Miskawaih zum Schluss seiner Erläuterungen, wie oben erwähnt, auf die Erziehungsmethoden der persischen Könige verweist, die einen strengen Erziehungsstil pflegten.55 Doch wie konkret geht Miskawaih mit diesen rezipierten Themen um? Die Klärung dieser Frage verspricht Aufschluss über die strukturelle und inhaltliche Tiefendimension beider Texte zu geben. Dies wird im Folgenden anhand entsprechender Textpassagen gezeigt. Es gilt in diesem Zusammenhang hier aber auch darauf hinzuweisen, dass beide Autoren speziell von der Erziehung des Knaben sprechen. Die Erziehung von Mädchen wird von keinem der beiden Autoren thematisiert.56 52 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 57. 53 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 57. 54 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 60. 55 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 63. 56  Auf diesen fehlenden Bezug

auf Mädchen bei der Erziehung wies bereits Gamāl al-Dīn hin. Den Grund hierfür sieht die Autorin zurecht im Einfluss von Miskawaihs Quellen; siehe Gamāl al-Dīn 1994: 146–147.

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Ebenso ist in stilistischer Hinsicht festzuhalten, dass in beiden Texten der Imperativ als Stilmittel verwendet wird, um eine Handlungsaufforderung bzw. ein Handlungsverbot auszudrücken. So etwa: yanbaġī (es ist erforderlich), lā yulaṭṭiḫ (er soll sich nicht beschmutzen), yaqtaṣir (er soll sich beschränken), yuʿauwwad (er soll gewöhnt werden), yumnaʿ (er soll daran gehindert werden) etc. Diese imperativen Satzkonstruktionen sind generell ein charakteristisches Merkmal für auffordernde bzw. appellative Textsorten. In der Tat sind die Adressaten der beiden Texte nicht in erster Linie die zu erziehenden Knaben, sondern die Erzieher. Das schließt in diesem Falle sowohl die Eltern und Lehrer als auch professionelle Erzieher ein. Zum Vergleich imperativer Satzkonstruktionen seien folgende Gegenüberstellungen als Beispiele angeführt. Alle diese Konstruktionen weisen auf unterschiedliche Art und Weise deutliche intertextuelle Elemente auf. Oikonomikos

َّ ّ ‫الصبي أن ال يشرب الماء على غذائه وال‬ ‫ويعود‬ .‫سيما في الصيف‬

Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq

.‫ويعود أن ال يشرب في خالل طعامه الماء‬

Der Knabe soll daran gewöhnt werden, kein Wasser während des Essens zu trinken, insbesondere nicht im Sommer.57

Er soll daran gewöhnt werden, während des Essens kein Wasser zu trinken.58

ّ ّ ‫للصبي أن يحضر مجالس‬ ّ ‫النبيذ إال أن‬ ‫وال ينبغي‬ ‫أ‬ .‫يكون من فيها من أهل الدب والفضل‬

ّ ‫وال ينبغي أن يحضر مجالس أهل‬ ‫النبيذ إال أن‬ .‫يكون أهل المجلس أدباء فضالء‬

Der Knabe sollte nicht an den Trinkgelagen teilnehmen, es sei denn, die Gesellschaft ist wohlerzogen und tugendhaft.59

Er sollte nicht an den Trinkgelagen teilnehmen, es sei denn, die Gesellschaft ist wohlerzogen und tugendhaft.60

In Bezug auf Miskawaihs konkrete sprachliche Modifikation von Brysons Text ist festzustellen, dass der Autor den Text sowohl lexikalisch als auch inhaltlich modifiziert. Beide Formen der Paraphrasierung sind zahlreich in Miskawaihs Text enthalten. Während die lexikalische Paraphrasierung den Text auf der Wortschatzebene modifiziert, greift die inhaltliche Paraphrasierung in die Bedeutungsebene durch ebenfalls verschiedene Veränderungsstrategien ein. Dies zeigt sich an mehreren Textstellen, von denen hier nur einige präsentiert werden können. Im Hinblick auf die lexikalisch modifizierende Paraphrasierung sind unterschiedliche Veränderungsformen zu konstatieren. So ist eine lexikalisch erweiternde Modifikation als Strategie festzustellen, die beispielweise am Verbot von Wein und alkoholischen Getränken deutlich erkennbar ist: 57 Bryson, at-Tadbīr (Ed. Swain) 2013: 484. 58 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 59. 59 Bryson, at-Tadbīr (Ed. Swain) 2013: 486. 60 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 59.

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Oikonomikos

103

Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq

ّ ‫الصبي النبيذ‬ ّ ‫حتى يصير‬ ‫وال ينبغي أن يقرب‬ ّ ‫إلى‬ ّ ‫ أل ّنه‬،‫حد الرجال‬ .‫يضره في بدنه ونفسه‬

‫أ‬ ّ ‫فإياها‬ ّ ‫الشر بة المسكرة‬ ّ ،‫وإياها‬ ‫فأما النبيذ وأصناف‬ ّ ّ .‫فإنها تضره في بدنه ونفسه‬

Er sollte sich nicht dem Wein nähern, bis er in das Alter der Männer tritt, denn das schadet seinem Körper und seiner Seele.61

Was Wein und sämtliche alkoholische Getränke angeht, so sollte er sich davor hüten, denn das schadet seinem Körper und seiner Seele.62

Hier wird das Lexem nabīḏ (Wein) aufgenommen und durch weitere Lexeme aus dem gleichen semantischen Feld ergänzt: asnāf al-ašriba al-muskira (Sorten berauschender Getränke). Darüber hinaus ist auch zu beobachten, dass die imperative Satzkonstruktion lā yanbaġī an yaqraba an-nabīḏ (er sollte sich dem Wein nicht nähern) lexikalisch in iyyāhā wa-iyyāhā (er sollte sich gänzlich davor hüten) verändert wurde. Auch auf der syntaktischen Ebene, also was den Satzbau betrifft, ist ebenfalls eine Modifikation festzustellen. Während in Brysons Text das Handlungsverbot am Anfang des Satzes geäußert wird, geschieht dies in Miskawaihs Text am Ende des Imperativsatzes. Diese Beobachtungen treffen teilweise auch auf die folgende Textpassage zu, die bereits oben angeführt wurde: Oikonomikos

Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq

ّ ّ ‫للصبي أن يحضر مجالس‬ ّ ‫النبيذ إال أن‬ ‫وال ينبغي‬ ‫أ‬ .‫يكون من فيها من أهل الدب والفضل‬

ّ ّ ‫وال ينبغي أن يحضر مجالس أهل‬ ‫النبيذ إال أن‬ .‫يكون أهل المجلس أدباء فضالء‬

Der Knabe soll nicht an den Trinkgelagen teilnehmen, außer wenn die, die dabei sind, zu den Leuten von Bildung und Rang.63

Er soll nicht an den Trinkgelagen teilnehmen, außer wenn die Teilnehmer der Gelage ehrbare Gebildete sind.64

Hier erfahren die Lexeme ahl al-adab wa-l-faḍl (Leute von Bildung und Rang) eine lexikalische Modifikation. Ahl al-adab (Leute von Bildung) werden bei Miskawaih als udabāʾ (Gebildete) und ahl al-faḍl (Leute von Rang) als fuḍalāʾ (Ehrbare) bezeichnet. Dies ist ein Veränderungsmodus, der als Stilmittel der Substantivierung bezeichnet werden kann. Auch das Stilmittel der Desubstantivierung wird im Text als Form der Paraphrasierung verwendet, wie aus dem folgenden Beispiel deutlich wird:

61 Bryson, at-Tadbīr (Ed. Swain) 2013: 484. 62 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 59. 63 Bryson, at-Tadbīr (Ed. Swain) 2013: 486. 64 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 59.

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Oikonomikos

Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq

ّ ّ .‫القالل من الحلو والفوا كه‬ ‫ويعود‬ ‫الصبي إ‬

ّ ‫وأما الحلواء والفا كهة فينبغي أن يمتنع منها البتة‬ .‫إن أمكن‬

Der Knabe soll daran gewöhnt werden, das Essen von Süßem und Früchten zu reduzieren.65

Was Süßes und Früchte angeht, so soll ihm das nach Möglichkeit gänzlich verboten werden.66

Hier wird der Substantivsatz al-iqlāl min al-ḥulw wa-l-fawākih (Reduzierung von Süßem und Früchten) in einen Verbalsatz umgewandelt. Dieses Beispiel zeigt zudem eine inhaltlich modifizierende Paraphrasierung. Vergleicht man die beiden Texte, fällt auf, dass Miskawaih den Inhalt des Prätextes verstärkt. Während Bryson dafür plädiert, dass der Knabe nur wenig Süßes und Früchte essen sollte, äußert Miskawaih die Aufforderung, dem Knaben den Verzehr von Süßem und Früchten gänzlich zu verbieten. Doch neben der Verstärkung ist auch das Stilmittel der Abschwächung des Inhalts des Prätextes festzustellen. Zur Illustrierung dieser Paraphrasierungsstrategie sei folgendes Beispiel genannt: Oikonomikos

Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq

َّ ّ ‫باخس الطعام واالقتصار على الخبز بال‬ ‫ويعود القناعة‬ .‫أدم‬

‫ويأ كل الخبز القفار الذي ال أدم معه في‬ ‫أ‬ .‫بعض الوقات‬

Und er soll daran gewöhnt werden, sich mit der geringsten Speise zu bescheiden und sich auf Brot ohne Zukost zu beschränken.67

Und er soll zeitweise das bloße Brot ohne Zukost essen.68

Brysons Äußerung, sich auf die geringste Speise und auf Brot ohne Zukost zu beschränken, schwächt Miskawaih ab, indem er die zeitlich uneingeschränkte Aufforderung durch die adverbiale Konstruktion fī baʿḍi l-awqāt (zeitweise) relativiert. Hier gilt es darauf hinzuweisen, dass die unterschiedlichen Formen lexikalisch und inhaltlich modifizierender Paraphrasierung auch gleichzeitig verwendet werden. So werden beispielsweise einige Textpassagen lexikalisch und damit auch inhaltlich stark reduziert, wie an folgendem Beispiel zum Schlafverhalten erkennbar wird:

65 Bryson, at-Tadbīr (Ed. Swain) 2013: 484. 66 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 59. 67 Bryson, at-Tadbīr (Ed. Swain) 2013: 482. 68 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 59.

Diversität und Bildungsdiskurs im klassischen Islam



Oikonomikos

َّ ‫وأما النوم‬ ّ ّ ‫للصبي منه مقدار حاجته ويمنع من أن‬ ‫فيقدر‬ ّ .‫يستعمله للذته به‬ Die Schlafmenge, die dem Knaben zugeteilt wird, soll nach dem Ausmaß seines Bedarfs beurteilt werden. Er soll daran gehindert werden, den Schlaf zu seinem Vergnügen zu nutzen.69

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.‫ويمنع من النوم الكثير‬ Er soll daran gehindert werden, übermäßig zu schlafen.70

In Bezug auf diese Textpassage kann man von einer lexikalischen und inhaltlichen Reduktion zugleich sprechen. Die lexikalische Reduktion bezieht sich auf das Zurückführen der aus ca. dreizehn Lexemen bestehenden Äußerung auf eine Aussage, die sich aus vier Lexemen zusammensetzt. Damit geht eine deutliche inhaltliche Reduktion einher. Doch nicht immer sind Bryson und Miskawaih gewissermaßen einer Meinung. Zur Illustration dieses Befundes dient dieses Textbeispiel: Oikonomikos

Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq

ُ ‫الصبي فينبغي أن يالم‬ َّ ‫وي َذ ّم‬ ّ ‫ويعير‬ ‫وإن كذب‬ ُ َ ‫وي‬ .‫ضرب إن أحوج إلى ذلك‬

‫أ‬ ‫أ‬ ‫فإن خالف في بعض الوقات ما ذكرته فالولى‬ ّ ‫أن ال يوبخ عليه وال يكاشف بأنه أقدم عليه بل‬ .‫يتغافل عنه‬

Wenn der Knabe lügt, muss er gerügt, getadelt und zurechtgewiesen und gegebenenfalls geschlagen werden, wenn es nötig ist.71

Wenn er manchmal gegen das verstößt, was ich erwähnt habe, so soll er nicht sofort getadelt werden. Vielmehr sollte man das übersehen/überhören.72

In diesem Textbeispiel geht es um die Bestrafung des Knaben, wenn er lügt. Während Bryson dafür plädiert, den Knaben sofort zu rügen und zurechtzuweisen, wenn er lügt, und ihn sogar zu schlagen, wenn dies nötig sei, ist Miskawaih der Ansicht, dass der Knabe nicht sofort getadelt werden soll, wenn er einmal gegen die Verhaltensregeln verstößt. Doch:

.‫فإن عاد فليوبخ عليه سرا وليعظم عنده ما أتاه ويحذر من معاودته‬ Bei nochmaligem Verstoß soll er dezent getadelt und vor Wiederholung gewarnt werden.73

Diese Beobachtungen weisen markante Unterschiede zwischen Brysons und Miskawaihs pädagogischen Ansätzen auf. Sie zeigen zudem, wie wichtig es Mis69 Bryson, at-Tadbīr (Ed. Swain) 2013: 486. 70 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 60. 71 Bryson, at-Tadbīr (Ed. Swain) 2013: 492. 72 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 57. 73 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 57.

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kawaih war, die Persönlichkeit der Heranwachsenden zu schützen und ihnen zu ermöglichen, ihr „Gesicht zu wahren“. Einsichten wie diese zeigen zudem auch, dass Miskawaih doch sehr reflektiert mit dem Text Brysons umging, den er intensiv rezipierte. Damit dürfte der Beweis erbracht worden sein, dass die Antikenrezeption durch diesen klassischen muslimischen Autor keine bloße literarische Nachahmung antiker Vorlagen darstellt, der nichts Originelles eigen ist. Vielmehr handelt es sich hier – am Beispiel Miskawaihs Rezeption von Brysons Oikonomikos – um ein inhaltlich reflektiertes Rezeptionskonzept, dessen Originalität u. a. darin besteht, das antike griechische intellektuelle Erbe zum Wohle der islamischen Diskursgemeinschaft nutzbar zu machen.

6.  Abschließende Betrachtung Fassen wir nun die relevanten Ergebnisse zur Rezeption von Brysons Oikonomikos in Miskawaihs Tahḏīb zusammen: Erstens wird aus dem thematisch kontrastiven Überblick zum einen eine thematisch selektive und erweiternde Vorgehensweise Miskawaihs deutlich. Diese thematische Selektion schlägt sich immer darin nieder, wenn Miskawaih nicht alle von Bryson behandelten Themen rezipiert. Themen wie Sexualität und die Eigenschaften der Kindesmutter sind hierfür repräsentative Beispiele. Ob dies auf die rezipierte Vorlage zurückgeht oder ob dies für Miskawaihs strategische, zielgruppenorientierte Rezeption spricht, die die Bedingungen seiner Zeit und Diskursgemeinschaft berücksichtigt, kann nicht zweifelsfrei geklärt werden, da – wie eingangs erwähnt – nicht klar ist, welche übersetze Textfassung des Oikonomikos Miskawaih tatsächlich benutzte. Zweitens hat sich gezeigt, dass Miskawaih das pädagogische Programm von Bryson punktuell, aber signifikant thematisch erweiterte. Auch behandelt und erläutert Miskawaih bestimmte pädagogische Inhalte, die in Bryons Text nicht vorkommen, wie beispielsweise das Thema Erziehungsmethoden der persischen Könige. Drittens hat die Untersuchung der Rezeptionsstrategien gezeigt, dass sich Miskawaih unterschiedlicher sprachlicher Veränderungsformen bedient. So ist zwischen der lexikalisch und der inhaltlich modifizierenden Paraphrasierung zu differenzieren, die wiederum durch unterschiedliche Modifikationsformen realisiert werden. Als relevante Strategien der lexikalisch modifizierenden Paraphrasierung sind die lexikalische Erweiterung, die syntaktische Veränderung, die Substantivierung und die Desubstantivierung besonders festzuhalten. Im Hinblick auf die inhaltlich modifizierende Paraphrasierung sind es vor allem die Verstärkung, Abschwächung, lexikalische und inhaltliche Reduktion sowie die reflektierende Modifikation, die hier zu vermerken sind.



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Viertens gilt als Analyseergebnis zu notieren, dass die unterschiedlichen Formen lexikalisch und inhaltlich modifizierender Paraphrasierung auch gleichzeitig verwendet werden. Und nicht zuletzt ist als grundsätzliches Ergebnis festzustellen, dass Miskawaih in Bezug auf die Erziehung von Jugendlichen die Wissensbestände seiner Vorlage systematisch, weitgehend objektiv und umfassend rezipiert und in sein Konzept zu Bildung (adab) und Ethik (aḫlāq) integrierte. Dabei stellt er sein Selbstverständnis als Muslim nicht infrage. Sein Umgang mit älteren ethischen und philosophischen Traditionen lässt aber den Schluss zu, dass er den Koran und die Prophetentradition nicht als prioritäre bzw. dominierende Quellen ansieht. Diese Einsicht bestätigt andere Feststellungen aus der Miskawaih-Forschung, wie die von Mohammed Arkoun, die zu dem Ergebnis kommen, dass im ethischen und bildungsphilosophischen Gesamtschaffen Miskawaihs frühere Traditionen der Menschheitsgeschichte in einem komplementären Verhältnis zum Islam stehen. Folgerichtig lässt sich Miskawaih als Beispiel für einen „humanistisch“ und in Teilen auch „säkular“ argumentierenden klassischen muslimischen Autor bezeichnen, in dessen wissenschaftlichem Schaffen wesentliche Charakteristika einer islamischen paideia ihren deutlichen Ausdruck finden.

Bibliographie Quellen Bryson: Kitāb Brīsun fī tadbīr ar-raǧul li-manzilihi, hg. von Martin Plessner, in Martin Plessner (1928): Der Oikonomikós des Neupythagoreers ‚Bryson‘ und sein Einfluß auf die islamische Wissenschaft. Edition und Übersetzung der erhaltenen Versionen, nebst einer Geschichte der Ökonomik im Islam mit Quellenprobe in Text und Übersetzung (Heidelberg: Winter) 144–204. –: Kitāb Brīsun fī tadbīr ar-raǧul li-manzilihi, hg. von Simon Swain, in Simon Swain (2013): Economy, Family, and Society from Rome to Islam. A Critical Edition, English Translation, and Study of Bryson’s Management of the Estate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 425–497. –: Kitāb Tadbīr al-manzil, hg. von Louis Cheikho, al-Mašriq 19 (1921), 161–181. Ibn Rušd, Abū l-Walīd Muḥammad: Faṣl al-maqāl, maʿa madḫal wa-muqaddima taḥlīlīya wa-šurūḥ l-il-mušrif ʿalā l-mašrūʿ ad-Duktūr Muḥammad ʿĀbid al-Ǧābirī (Beirut: Markaz Dirāsāt al-Waḥda al-ʿArabīya, 1997). Miskawaih, Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad b. Muḥammad: Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq, hg. von Constantine K. Zurayk (Beirut: al-Ǧāmiʿa al-Amīrikīya, 1966).

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Studien Arkoun, Mohammed (1961): „Deux épîtres de Miskawayh (mort en 421/1030), édition avec introduction et notes par Mohammed Arkoun“, BEO 17, 7–74. – (1963): „Textes inédits de Miskawayh (M. 421)“, Annales islamologiques 5, 181–205. – (1970): Contribution à l’étude de l’humanisme arabe au IVe/Xe siècle. Miskawayh, philosophe et historien (Paris: Vrin). Cheikho, Louis (1899): „Notice sur un ancien manuscrit arabe“, Acte du Onzième Congrès International des Orientalistes Paris 1897 (Troisième section, Langue et archéologie musulmanes; Paris: Imprimerie nationale) 125–142. Daiber, Hans (2013): „Humanism. A Tradition Common to both Islam and Europe“, Filozofija i Društvo 24, 293–310. El Jamouhi, Yassir (2020): „Educational Discourse in Classical Islam. A  Case Study of Miskawayh’s (d. 421/1030) Tahdhīb al-akhlāq“, in Sebastian Günther (Hg.): Knowledge and Education in Classical Islam. Religious Learning between Continuity and Change, vol. i (Leiden: Brill) 200–222. Endress, Gerhard (2012): „Antike Ethik-Tradition für die islamische Gesellschaft. Abū ʿAlī Miskawaih“, in Ulrich Rudolph (Hg.), unter Mitarbeit von Renate Würsch: Philosophie der islamischen Welt. I. 8.–10. Jahrhundert (Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie; Basel: Schwabe) 210–238. Günther, Sebastian (2013): „Pädagogische Ratschläge klassischer muslimischer Denker“, in Peter Gemeinhardt/Sebastian Günther (Hgg.): Von Rom nach Bagdad. Bildung und Religion von der römischen Kaiserzeit bis zum klassischen Islam (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck) 357–379. Günther, Ursula (2004): Mohammed Arkoun. Ein moderner Kritiker der islamischen Vernunft (Kultur, Recht und Politik in muslimischen Gesellschaften 5; Würzburg: Ergon). Gamāl al-Dīn, Nadia (1994): „Miskawayh (A. H. 320–421/A. D. 932–1030)“, Prospects. Quarterly Review of Comparative Education 24/1–2, 131–152. Kraemer, Joel L. (1986): Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam. The Cultural Revival during the Buyid Age (Leiden: Brill). Plessner, Martin (1928): Der Oikonomikós des Neupythagoreers ‚Bryson‘ und sein Einfluß auf die islamische Wissenschaft. Edition und Übersetzung der erhaltenen Versionen, nebst einer Geschichte der Ökonomik im Islam mit Quellenprobe in Text und Übersetzung (Heidelberg: Winter). Riedweg, Christoph u. a. (Hgg.) (2018): Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie. Die Philosophie der Antike. V/1–3: Die Philosophie der Kaiserzeit und der Spätantike (Basel: Schwabe). Ritter, Hellmut (1916): Ein arabisches Handbuch der Handelswissenschaft (Berlin: Reimer). Ṣafā, Georges (1913): „Taʿrīf baʿḍ maḫṭūṭāt maktabatī“, al-Mašriq 16, 168–178. Swain, Simon (2013): Economy, Family, and Society from Rome to Islam. A Critical Edition, English Translation, and Study of Bryson’s Management of the Estate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Late Antique Philosophical Education, Miskawayh, and Paul the Persian On the Division and the Ranks of Philosophy Elvira Wakelnig Abstract:  Late antique philosophical education followed the curriculum of the Neoplatonic school in Alexandria, in which ethics played a role as propaedeuticum and as the practical part of philosophy informed by its theoretical part. Introductions to the study of philosophy, the so-called prolegomena, emerged in educational contexts and became extremely widespread and popular. Material from such late antique introductions heavily influenced the Arabic speaking Muslim scholar and philosopher Miskawayh and his predecessors and contemporaries, and shaped their perception of the contents and aims of philosophy. To illustrate this fact, we discuss the understanding of the knowledge of God and the intelligible in Miskawayh and his contemporary al-Isfizārī. Further, one particularly influential late antique introductory text ascribed to Paul the Persian and attested in al-Fārābī as well as in Miskawayh is re-examined. It is shown that late antique prolegomena material contributed to and influenced the philosophical and educational discourse at least as late as during Miskawayh’s lifetime.

In late Antiquity, philosophical education was organised along the lines of the Aristotelian corpus and the division of philosophy into a theoretical and a practical part. Philosophical theory was meant to inform philosophical practice, i. e., ethics. Ethics was divided into the governing of one’s self, i. e., ethics proper; the governing of one’s household, i. e., economics; and the governing of the people at large, i. e., politics. Miskawayh follows this late antique tradition and presents two models of philosophical education: one based on the Aristotelian corpus, in his treatise Tartīb al-saʿādāt wa-manāzil al-ʿulūm (The Order of Happiness and the Ranks of the Sciences), and one based on the division of philosophy, in a chapter on the kinds of happiness and the division of philosophy. According to these two slightly diverging models, the aim of philosophy is to reach ultimate happiness, namely knowledge of and nearness to God. This sits well with the Neoplatonic ethical tradition within which Hans Daiber has recently placed Miskawayh, characterising his “ethics as likeness to God”.1 Likeness to or assimilation of God 1  Daiber 2018, which is correspondingly entitled “Ethics as Likeness to God in Miskawayh. An Overlooked Tradition”. However, as far as I am aware, Miskawayh never uses the concept of

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is also one of the six definitions of philosophy which can be found in the late antique prolegomena, the introductions to philosophy with which the Aristotelian commentators prefaced their philosophical teaching. There exist two kinds of prolegomena: general ones that introduce the student to philosophy2 and, more specifically, to Aristotelian philosophy;3 and particular ones that discuss several aspects of the treatise commented upon. The prolegomena to philosophy precede the commentaries to Porphyry’s Isagoge, and the prolegomena to Aristotelian philosophy, the commentaries to Aristotle’s Categories. In the latter prolegomena, the ideal student of Aristotle’s books is described as someone “educated in character and pure of soul”4 which recalls the title of Miskawayh’s treatise Tahdhīb al-akhlāq wa-taṭhīr al-aʿrāq (The Refinement of Character and the Purification of Natural Dispositions), also known as Ṭahārat al-nafs (The Purity of the Soul), and stresses the importance of propaedeutical ethics which precedes the study of philosophy proper. Over time, textual material from the prolegomena also came to circulate independently from any commentary and became extremely widespread and influential, not only in Greek, but also in Syriac and Arabic.5 Its influence is difficult to trace as the texts transmitting this material were introductory treatises mainly used for teaching and not considered worth keeping after they fell out of use. It is obvious, however, that prolegomena material influenced the very beginning of Arabic philosophy as it is prominent in the earliest extant philosophical texts in Arabic, namely Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s (d. before 140/756–757) paraphrase of the short Organon, Ibn Bahrīz’s (fl. end of 2nd/ 8th and beginning of the 3rd/9th centuries) Ḥudūd al-manṭiq (Definitions of Logic), and in several of al-Kindī’s (d. ca. 256/866) treatises. It probably gained, or regained, particular importance within the circle of the Baghdad Aristotelians who translated late antique Aristotelian commentaries from Syriac into Arabic in the 4th/10th and the likeness to or assimilation of God in his proper philosophical statements but ascribes it to other authorities, for example to Aristotle in his Tahdhīb al-akhlāq. In this he differs from, for example, al-Isfizārī and Ibn al-Ṭayyib, who employ the concept in their own name, see Wakelnig 2017: esp. 456 and 470. This may be interpreted as an attempt by Miskawayh to Islamicize this antique and late antique concept. 2  The preserved prolegomena by Ammonius, Elias, David and Ps-Elias/David present the main subjects: (1) definition, (2) the six definitions of philosophy, (3) division, (4) the division of philosophy, and add, individually, further topics. 3  With some variations in order and wording, Ammonius, Philoponus, Olympiodorus, Elias and Simplicius discuss the following points: (1) the names of the philosophical schools, (2) the division of Aristotle’s writings, (3) the starting point for studying these writings, (4) the goal of Aristotle’s philosophy, (5) how to reach this goal, (6) Aristotle’s way of expressing himself, (7) the intention behind his obscurity in expression, (8) the character of the commentator and (9) of the student, (10) the preliminary points concerning each writing to be commented upon. 4 Ammonius, On Aristotle: 14; similarly also in the other preserved prolegomena to Aristotelian philosophy. 5  Prolegomena material was also transmitted into Armenian and, most probably, into Persian, even if hardly any evidence in Persian survives.



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early 5th/11th centuries. Al-Fārābī (d. 339/950–951), for example, composed an independent treatise modelled on the prolegomena to Aristotelian philosophy; and Ibn al-Ṭayyib (d. 435/1043) prefaced his commentaries to the Isagoge and the Categories with the corresponding prolegomena.6 Miskawayh (d. 421/1030) was, according to al-Tawḥīdī (d. 414/1023), in contact with some of these Baghdad Aristotelians, notably Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī (d. 363/974), Ibn al-Khammār (d. after 407/1017), Ibn Samḥ (d. 418/1027) and Ibn Zurʿa (d.  398/1008),7 and it seems most likely that questions such as how to introduce and teach philosophy, how to divide it, how to connect theoretical knowledge and ethics and which aims the two pursue, were discussed in their circle. This is probably the way in which Miskawayh became familiar with the prolegomena material that is of eminent importance to his work. The most striking example of this importance is the second half of Miskawayh’s treatise The Order of Happiness, which is excerpted from a late antique prolegomena text on the classification of the parts of Aristotle’s philosophy. According to Miskawayh’s own indication, this text derives from a “treatise” (mā kataba) by Paul (Būlus) dedicated to [Khosrow] Anūshirwān (r. 531– 578). It is not clear whether Miskawayh considers Paul, who has been identified as Paul the Persian, a 6th century East Syrian theologian, philosopher and Aristotelian commentator, as an important philosophical authority worth mentioning or whether he is more interested in the dedication, which clearly documents the philosophical interests of the shah and may thus be cited to glorify the Persian past. Interestingly, al-Fārābī uses the same text that Miskawayh ascribes to Paul in his treatise Iḥṣāʾ al-ʿulūm (The Enumeration of the Sciences).8 Almost forty years ago, Dimitri Gutas suggested that Miskawayh quotes “an Arabic translation of an introductory work composed by Paul the Persian (in Pehlevî?) … on the philosophy of Aristotle, modeled on the late Alexandrian prolegomena to Aristotle” and that the translator may have been Abū Bishr Mattā ibn Yūnus (d. ca. 328/940).9 Mattā was the head of the school of the Baghdad Aristotelians and the teacher of al-Fārābī and Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī. Even if the prolegomena text was not translated by Mattā, its use by al-Fārābī shows that it circulated among the Baghdad Aristotelians, and via them it probably reached Miskawayh. Some ten years ago, I proposed to link to this assumed translation of Paul the Persian another text which is preserved as a “chapter” ( faṣl) ascribed to Miskawayh. This Chapter presents a division of philosophy (ḥikma) in a similar context as the quotation of Paul in The Order of Happiness and is also partly par6  On the prolegomena in the Syriac and Arabic traditions, see Wakelnig 2019: 162–173; Wakelnig 2020: 316. On Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī and Miskawayh, see Wakelnig 2017: 469–471. 7  See Arkoun ²1982: 39–51, 233–234; Endress 2017: 304–305, 309. 8  The parallels were mentioned by Pines 1971 and discussed in detail by Gutas 1983, who argues that the entire second half of Miskawayh’s treatise The Order of Happiness is modelled on Paul. 9  Gutas 1983: 244, 254.

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alleled in The Enumeration by al-Fārābī. I suggested that al-Fārābī drew on one single prolegomena source when composing his treatise, namely prolegomena by Paul the Persian, and that the same text was excerpted by Miskawayh twice, once in The Order of Happiness and once in his Chapter.10 In view of recent research on the Syriac Aristotelian tradition, on Paul the Persian, and even specifically on his alleged treatise preserved in Miskawayh’s treatise The Order of Happiness,11 it seems worthwhile to reconsider the division of philosophy in Miskawayh’s Chapter, its possible source and its relation to al-Fārābī in more detail than I did before. Furthermore, it is interesting to see how Miskawayh himself uses this text that he excerpted in his Chapter elsewhere, namely in his treatise al-Fawz al-aṣghar (The Minor Triumph).

1.  Miskawayh, al-Isfizārī and a Possible Shared Source The first chapter of the first part of Miskawayh’s Minor Triumph dealing with God is entitled “On that the desired aim (i. e., knowledge of God) is very difficult in one respect and very simple in another respect”, which is an almost verbatim quotation from the very beginning of the Arabic version of Aristotle’s Metaphysics.12 In this first chapter, Miskawayh expounds ideas that may well stem from the Metaphysics but are even more likely to derive from some prolegomena to philosophy. As these ideas and even some terms that Miskawayh employs have striking resemblances to the second and third questions of the Masāʾil al-umūr al-ilāhiyya wa-hiya thamāniya wa-ʿishrūn masʾala (Twenty-eight Questions on Metaphysical Topics) by Miskawayh’s contemporary al-Isfizārī, the conclusion suggests itself that both philosophers drew on the same unidentified prolegomena source. Referring to the chapter heading which states that the desired aim is very difficult in one respect and very simple in another, Miskawayh explains that God is the most obvious, the most brilliant, the most apparent and the clearest due to His own reality, which is light. However, due to the weakness of our intellects, it is the most hidden and the most difficult for us to grasp.13 To overcome this dif10  11 

Wakelnig 2009: 105–106; and likewise 2014: 469–470. Of particular importance to the questions at hand are Hugonnard–Roche 2004 and 2018; Watt 2014; Sorabji 2019; Perkams 2019. 12  Unlike the original Metaphysics in Greek, the Arabic version begins with Alpha elatton and thus Met. 993a30–31. See Miskawayh, al-Fawz: 35:

ًّ ًّ ّ .‫جدا من وجه‬ ‫جدا من وجه سهل‬ ‫في أن هذا المطلوب صعب‬

Cf. the Arabic translation of the Metaphysics as preserved in the lemmata of Ibn Rushd’s Great Commentary, see Averroes, al-Tafsir: 3: 13  For

ّ ّ ‫ان النظر في‬ .‫الحق صعب من جهة سهل من جهة‬

the use of the simile of the bats in Arabic philosophy and in particular by al-Kindī and Miskawayh, see Jolivet 2013; and by al-Ghazālī, see Treiger 2021: 20–24.



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ficulty and to strengthen the intellect, Miskawayh advocates a gradual approach towards the ultimate knowledge following Aristotle:

‫ّ أ‬ ً ّ ‫الحق ال ّول ما يلحق‬ ‫وقد ضرب الحكيم لهذا مثاال فقال إن العقل يلحقه من الالكل إذا نظر إلى‬ ّ ‫ وراضهم‬،‫ ولذلك ّدرج أبناء الحكمة إلى هذا المطلوب‬،‫عين الخفاش إذا نظر إلى عين الشمس‬ ّ ‫ وعالجهم بالعالجات‬،‫بالر ياضيات‬ ،‫حتى أمكنهم أن يلحظوه بنحو ما يستطيع المخلوق أن يلحظ خالقه‬ ّ … ،‫التدرج واالرتياض‬ ّ ‫وال سبيل إلى هذا النظر ّإل بهذا الوجه وهذه الطر يقة من‬ ‫فأما السبب الذي‬ ‫آ‬ ‫ فهو ما قد ُب ِّي َن في المباحث‬، ‫من أجله لحقتنا هذه الفة في عيون عقولنا من الغشاوة والضعف‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ّ ّ ‫ فكثرت الغشية‬،‫النسان آخر الموجودات وأن التركيبات تناهت إليه ووقفت عنده‬ ‫ من أن إ‬،‫الفلسفية‬ ّ ّ … ،‫ أعني العقل الذي به يدرك هذا المعنى البسيط‬،‫واللبوسات الهيوالنية على جوهره النير‬ The sage gave an example for that and said that when the intellect regards the First Truth (al-ḥaqq al-awwal) it is affected by the [same kind of ] weariness that affects the eyes of the bats when they regard the solar disc. Therefore he made the adepts of wisdom advance to this desired aim gradually, trained them by propaedeutics (al-riyāḍiyāt) and treated them with therapies until he had enabled them to look at It according to how the created may look at its Creator. The access to this insight is only in this way and by this method of gradual progress and training (al-tadarruj wa-l-irtiyāḍ). … As for the reason due to which this damage affects us with regard to the eyes of our intellects with cover(s) (al-ghishāwa) and weakness, it is what becomes clear in the philosophical enquiries about man being the last of the beings and the compositions ending in and stopping with him. So the material covers and clothes (al-aghshiya [pl. of ghishāwa] wa-l-lubūsāt al-hayūlāniyya) upon his luminous substance, i. e., the intellect, by which man perceives this simple notion, are many …14

Some ideas expressed here, at the beginning of Miskawayh’s Minor Triumph, clearly stem from the Greek prolegomena literature as can be seen in the following passage from David’s prolegomena to philosophy: Some people raise the following puzzle: ‘if the divine is manifest by nature, why is it not so for us?’ We can reply that just as the sun, which is naturally bright, seems rather dim to bats because of the unfitness of their sense-organs, i. e., because they do not see in daytime, so too the divine, which is manifest and pure by nature, is not manifest to us because the eye of our soul is obscured by the mist of the body, i. e., by pleasurable indulgences.15

The last phrase about ‘the eyes of our soul being obscured by the mist (Greek: achlus) of the body’ may have inspired Miskawayh’s formulation of the eyes of our intellect being wrapped by many material covers and clothes. For the idea that the body causes mist, fog or veils (achlus) upon our souls occurs in the prolegomena literature several times, for example, already in Ammonius’s commentary to the Categories: If souls were on high, separate from the body, each of them would on its own know all things, without need of anything else. But they descend at birth and are bound up with the 14 Miskawayh, al-Fawz: 35–36. 15 David, Introduction: 130.

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body, and, filled up with its fog [achlus – E. W.], their sight becomes dim and they are not able to know things it is in their nature to know.16

From Ammonius the idea and the term may have come down to his student Philoponus, who states in his commentary to Nichomachus’s Introduction to Arithmetic that the divine is, as Aristotle has said, the most luminous in its substance, yet appears dark and difficult to grasp to us due to the mist of the body.17 Miskawayh’s hendiadys al-aghshiya wa-l-lubūsāt al-hayūlāniyya suggests that the concept of the bodily mist had entered the Arabic tradition, for ghishāwa, pl. aghshiya was used to translate the Greek achlus.18 However, which source Miskawayh had at his disposal is more difficult to assess. It was probably not David’s prolegomena quoted above but a similar text more elaborated on this point. This assumption is based on the fact that Miskawayh’s passage has a close parallel in the second and third questions of al-Isfizārī’s Twenty-eight Questions which suggests that the two Arabic authors used a common model:

‫ ِل َم صارت المعقوالت عندنا أخفى من المحسوسات وقد كان يجب أن تكون‬:]‫] مسئلة [كذا‬٢[ ً ّ ‫أبدا في‬ ّ ‫المعقوالت أبين عندنا وأوضح أل ّنها باقية موجودة ظاهرة واضحة‬ ‫التغير‬ ‫بتبينها والمحسوسات‬ ً ّ ّ‫أ‬ ّ ‫أبدا بالعقل وكانت‬ ّ ‫نقية من‬ ‫والحس يغلط والعقل ال يغلط؟ لن المعقوالت وإن كانت‬ ‫والتحلل‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ّ ‫الهيوالنية ظاهرة ّبينة ّنيرة واضحة في ذاتها فإن عقولنا تضعف عن إدرا كها ويعرض‬ ‫الهيولى والشياء‬ ّ ‫تبينها ما يعرض للعين الرمدة الضعيفة النور عند النظر إلى الشمس‬ ّ ‫لنا عند‬ ّ‫حتى ال تبصرها وال يتهيأ‬ ّ ّ ّ ‫ وهكذا المعقوالت فإنا إذا نظرنا‬.‫لها بعد النظر إليها أن تبصر ما كانت تبصره في الظل إل بعد زمان‬ ً ّ ‫تدرج وارتياض عرض لنا ذلك‬ ّ ‫دفعة من غير‬ ‫حتى يخفى علينا كثير من المبصرات قبل النظر‬ ‫إليها‬ ً ّ ‫ ُفالن منذ ينظر في المعقوالت صار أعمى‬:‫وكثيرا ما يقول الناس لمن نظر على غير راتبها‬ .‫إليها‬ ‫وأشد‬ ً ً ّ ً ّ ّ ّ ً ‫أشد نورا وأ كثر ضوءا وأظهر من جميع‬ ‫ فكما أن الشمس وإن كانت‬.‫تخيرا وأضل سبيال مما كان عليها‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ّ ‫الكوا كب والشياء‬ ‫النيرة فليس يقوى عين الخفاش على النظر إليها لضعف بصرها كما يقوى على‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ‫النظر في الشياء المظلمة فيكون لذلك بصره بالليل أوقى منه بالنهار وإدرا كه نور الكوا كب أشد من‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ‫ال‬ ‫لهية أصعب منه في سائر العلوم‬ ‫ ِل َم صار الالكم في المور إ‬:]‫] مسئلة [كذا‬٣[… .‫إدرا كه نور الشمس‬ ّ ً ّ ‫وقد كان يجب أن يكون أسهل مراما إذ كان هللا الموجود المطلق بالحقيقة والعلة لكل موجود والباقي‬ ّ ّ ّ‫أ‬ ّ ‫النسان‬ ّ … ‫الهيوالني‬ ‫تلبست باللبوسات‬ ‫باق؟ لن نفس إ‬ ٍ ‫والعلة لبقاء كل‬

[2] Question: Why are the intelligibles more hidden to us than the sensibles, when it should be that the intelligibles were clearer and more apparent to us, because they are permanent, existent, obvious and apparent through their clarity, whereas the sensibles are always in change and dissolution, and the sense perception errs, whereas the intellect does not err?   Because even if the intelligibles are always in the intellect, pure from matter and material things, obvious, clear, luminous and apparent in their essence, our intellects are too weak to perceive them. To us, when faced with their clarity, the same happens that 16 Ammonius, On Aristotle: 22. 17 [Philoponus], Tra neopitagorismo:

neopitagorismo: 248. 18  Ullmann 2002: 154; and 2006: 205.

105, and the Italian translation [Philoponus], Tra



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happens to the sore eye sensitive to light when looking at the sun and not seeing it. It only becomes prepared for it [i. e., the sun] after having looked for some time at that what it sees [of it] in the shadow. The same applies to the intelligibles: when we suddenly look at them without gradual progress and practice (tadarruj wa-rtiyāḍ), that happens to us so that many [intelligibly] visibles are hidden to us while looking at them. Frequently people say to him who studies them not according to their proper order: since such and such has studied the intelligibles he has become blind, more confused and more straying from [his] way than he used to. In the same way, although the sun is more luminous, more radiant and more obvious than all the planets and luminous things, the eye of the bat is not able to look at it because of the weakness of its vision but is able to look at the things in the shadow. Therefore, its vision is stronger at night than at day and its perception of the light of the stars is stronger than its perception of the light of the sun. […].   [3] Question: Why is the speech about divine matters more difficult than the speech about the other sciences while it is necessary that it is the easiest to long for, since God is the absolute truly existent and the cause of every existent, and the permanent and the cause of the permanence of every permanent?   Because the soul of man is covered in material clothes (al-lubūsāt al-hayūlāniyya) […].19

Both Miskawayh and al-Isfizārī tackle the puzzle of why the most obvious matters are the most difficult for our intellect to perceive and compare the human intellect in its attempts to grasp them with bats when confronted with sunlight. They explain the intellect’s inability and weakness by the material clothes (al-lubūsāt al-hayūlāniyya) that cover man’s soul or intellect. Only gradual progress and practice (tadarruj wa-rtiyāḍ) may strengthen the intellect and eventually enable it to reach the divine. Al-Isfizārī’s passage also contains some other elements that can be found in the late antique commentators of Aristotle and that are therefore likely to stem from the assumed common source of his and Miskawayh’s. There is, for example,20 the idea that bats see the stars more easily than the sun as expressed by Philoponus in his commentary on An. Post. 89b7 as follows: Just as also the sun, which is most apparent and best known, more than all the other stars and all other beings, is invisible and obscure to bats, while the other stars are easier to distinguish, due to the weakness of their power of sight, just so are divine things [obscure] to us.21

This passage belongs to a larger section in which Philoponus explains the meaning of the Greek term sophia, i. e., wisdom. Interestingly, the above quoted passage from David’s prolegomena occurs in a discussion of the etymology of ‘philosophy’, which is composed of love (philia) and wisdom (sophia). Philoponus 19 Al-Isfizārī, al-Masāʾil: 217–218. 20  In Asclepius’s commentary on

Metaphysics: 993a, ll. 30–31, he states that our intellect tires when confronted with the divine not due to the divine’s concealment but to intellect’s weakness. Further, the idea of having to perceive things first as their shadows recalls the Platonic allegory of the cave and its rich afterlife in the late antique commentary literature. 21 Philoponus, On Aristotle: 138.

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may also have presented the same simile as above in his prolegomena to philosophy when expounding on Pythagoras’s definition of philosophy as ‘love of wisdom,’ just as David does. If he had, his prolegomena could be seen as the common source for Miskawayh and al-Isfizārī. There exist some indications suggesting that his commentary to the Isagoge which would have contained the prolegomena at its beginning was translated into Arabic.22 Be that as it may, at the end of the first chapter of The Minor Triumph, Miskawayh still draws on prolegomena material, yet without having any parallel in al-Isfizārī:

‫أ‬ ‫أ‬ ‫أ‬ ‫ وهي ُالمسماة العلم الدنى والعلم الوسط‬،‫ولجل صعوبة هذا المرام رتبت له المراتب التي ذكرتها‬ ‫أ‬ ُ ‫بأولها‬ ّ ‫ وقد بدأت منها بأقر بها إلينا فعملت له منازل ُي ْب َتدأ‬،‫والعلم العلى‬ ‫ من حيث‬،‫وي َنت َهى إلى آخرها‬ َّ ُ ّ ّ ُ ‫ وكذلك ع ِمل بما يليها حتى بلغت‬،‫ال ت َت َخطى منزلة إلى أختها إل بعد تحصيلها وبعد االشتمال عليها‬ ّ ‫ فمن ابتدأ بالر ياضيات‬.‫الغاية القصوى‬ ‫ ّثم بما بعد الطبيعة‬،‫فتدرب بها ّثم بالمنطق الذي هو آلة الفلسفة‬ ّ ّ ‫ بل إنما يشتق له اسم من‬،‫على الترتيب إلى أن يصل إلى أقصى الغايات فليس بمستحق اسم الفلسفة‬ ً ً ً ّ ً ّ ‫ أعني أن‬،‫الرتبة التي ارتاض بها ووقف عندها‬ ‫منجما أو طبيبا أو منطقيا أو غيرها‬ ‫يسمى مهندسا أو‬ ّ ،‫من أجزاء الفلسفة‬ .‫فأما من ارتاض بجميعها وبلغ أقصاها فهو الفيلسوف‬

Due to the difficulty of this longing [for knowledge of God], the above-mentioned steps leading to it have been arranged and they are called the lowest science (al-ʿilm al-adnā), the intermediate science (al-ʿilm al-awsaṭ), and the most elevated science (al-ʿilm al-aʿlā). Among them, one begins with the one of them that is nearest to us. Ranks (manāzil) have been made for [the science nearest to us] that start with their first and ultimately get to their last in such a way that one does not pass through one rank to its sister unless after having attained it and after having comprehended it. Likewise, it is made for that which follows it until the utmost end is reached. He who begins with propaedeutics (alriyāḍiyāt), then studies it, then logic which is the instrument of philosophy, then natural sciences, and then what is after nature according to the arrangement, is not entitled to the name ‘philosophy’ until he reaches the utmost of the ends. Rather, for him a name is derived from the level in which he has been trained and at which he has stopped, I mean that he is called geometer, astronomer, physician, logician, or something else from the parts of philosophy. As for him who has been trained in all of them and reached their utmost, he is the philosopher.23

The last statement about the application of the term philosophy has an interesting parallel in Elias’s prolegomena to philosophy in that it is not the name ‘philosopher’ which is restricted, as in David,24 but philosophy itself: Pythagoras at any rate, who was born a long time afterwards, restricted the application of philosophy’s name to only those people who have knowledge of immaterial things, i. e., philosophers. The divine things are clear and manifest to them, even though they are unclear to us because of our unfitness, just as the sun is to bats. […].25 22  Gannagé 2012: 516–518. 23 Miskawayh, al-Fawz: 39–40. 24 David, Introduction: 130. 25 Elias, Introduction: 45.



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The context in which Elias’s statement occurs is reminiscent of the beginning of The Minor Triumph’s first chapter, and looking back at this beginning also helps in interpreting the above-quoted passage from its end and, in particular, the term al-riyāḍiyāt, which can mean either mathematics or propaedeutics. At the chapter’s beginning, Aristotle is said to have trained (r-w-ḍ I.) “the adepts of wisdom […] by propaedeutics (al-riyāḍiyāt) and treated them with therapies”. As the same Arabic root is used to express training and propaedeutics – and as the second half of the phrase talks about treatment and therapies a general way – it does not seem likely that Miskawayh uses al-riyāḍiyāt here in the sense of mathematics. Rather, he may refer to propaedeutical ethics by which the student of philosophy is expected to educate his character and purify his soul before beginning his philosophical studies proper, as expressed in the above-mentioned quotation by Ammonius in the prolegomena to Aristotelian philosophy. However, if Miskawayh used al-riyāḍiyāt here in the sense of mathematics, this would raise the question of what he understood as intermediate science. Traditionally it is mathematics, yet Miskawayh could not suggest starting with the intermediate science without being self-contradictory.26 Also elsewhere, namely in his Chapter, Miskawayh explicitly states that mathematics is the intermediate science. This Chapter may also well be the inspiration for the tripartite hierarchy of the sciences presented here,27 at the end of the first chapter of The Minor Triumph, and to it we shall now turn.

2. Miskawayh’s Chapter on the Kinds of Happiness (ajnās al-saʿādāt) and the Division of Philosophy (qismat al-ḥikma)28 Miskawayh’s Chapter is preserved in a philosophical compilation entitled Kitāb al-Ḥikma (The Book of Wisdom) in which it is set apart from the preceding text by the heading “chapter” ( faṣl). The first part of The Book of Wisdom, of which the Chapter is the last section, summarises material presented in Miskawayh’s treatise The Minor Triumph, yet in a completely different arrangement 26  At the end of the passage, Miskawayh names several scholars who cannot claim to be philosophers. If he listed them according to the hierarchy of the philosophical disciplines which he proposes in this passage, he would indeed mention two scholars of mathematical disciplines, namely the geometer and the astronomer, before the logician – and, according to two further manuscript readings indicated in ʿUḍayma’s edition, before the grammarian. Yet Miskawayh also lists the physician, whose field of expertise is not even necessarily conceived of as philosophical, but when it is, it definitely falls within the realm of natural sciences. So the physician represents natural science which is explicitly said to be studied after logic and is also listed before the logician. 27  On the development of this idea, see Hein 1985: 163–170. 28  This descriptive title is based on the terms used in the opening phrases of Miskawayh’s text. I refer to the textual unit which I describe in the following as Miskawayh’s Chapter.

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and sometimes in deviating wording. To account for these facts, I argued elsewhere that The Book of Wisdom may rely on an alternative version of The Minor Triumph, maybe even al-Fawz al-akbar (The Greater Triumph), a treatise mentioned by Miskawayh himself and ascribed to him in the bibliographical literature. The exact same Chapter is also contained in an acephalous and incomplete philosophical compilation which I termed Philosophy Reader (PR) in my edition and the origin of which I postulated within the circle of Miskawayh and/or his students. There it is introduced not as “chapter” but by the phrase “Abū ʿAlī Miskawayh says”.29 The PR attests to the same alternative version of Miskawayh’s treatise The Minor Triumph, as it quotes, with some omissions, from the very same text present in The Book of Wisdom in exactly the same order. The only exception is our Chapter in question, which occurs in The Book of Wisdom at the end of the material taken from the alternative version of The Minor Triumph and may thus belong to yet another, otherwise unknown writing by Miskawayh.30 The attribution of the Chapter to Miskawayh is, in any case, secured by the introductory phrase in the PR. The Chapter covers the same two subjects as The Order of Happiness, namely the kinds of happiness and the division of the sciences. Following Aristotle, Miskawayh first divides happiness into: – the happiness of the soul which is the ultimate happiness and sought after for itself, – the well-being of the body which is desired for the ultimate happiness of the soul, and – external goods such as rank, wealth, family and friends wanted as help for achieving the other two kinds of happiness, i. e., that of the body and that of the soul. Ultimate happiness is said to depend on one’s own efforts alone, whereas the obtainment of external goods is completely due to chance and luck. Miskawayh links this presentation of happiness to the then presented division of philosophy by identifying ultimate happiness with “the true sciences, sound knowledge, excellence in deliberation and understanding of the eternal matters, then action 29  Cf. Wakelnig 2009: 107–115, where I edited and translated the Chapter based on The Book of Wisdom, taking into account reading variants of the PR; and my edition and translation of the PR, Wakelnig 2014: 308–321, passages 210–211. 30  I argued that the Chapter still belonged to the alternative version of The Minor Triumph. Yet it is the only material with no parallel in the standard version of The Minor Triumph, and its positioning in the PR is probably better explained by assuming that it derives from some other writing by Miskawayh. For the PR quotes from several treatises of the philosopher, but when quoting from the alternative version of the Minor Triumph it strictly keeps to the order of the passages as they appear in The Book of Wisdom, even though it omits some material and intersperses some other material from different sources. See my table in Wakelnig 2009: 96–98. The word ‘chapter’ as a text divider also occurs only twice within the first part of The Book of Wisdom containing the alternative version of The Minor Triumph but 15 times in the remaining part of The Book of Wisdom when introducing new sources.



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in accordance with the obligations of science and justice”.31 Here, the division into theoretical philosophy represented by the sciences and practical philosophy represented by action in accordance with these sciences is implied. Miskawayh also characterises ultimate happiness as that “by which knowledge of the Creator – Exalted be His praise – is reached in soundness and truth”.32 In linking happiness and the philosophical sciences, Miskawayh follows the late antique prolegomena tradition and may have been particularly inspired by Simplicius’ prolegomena to Aristotelian philosophy, where the goal of Aristotle’s philosophy is described as follows: The fourth point of those put forward33 was to discover the goal of Aristotle’s philosophy, […] Now, the goal of this man’s philosophy, too, is, with regard to character, perfection by means of the virtues; with regard to knowledge, the ascent (anadromê) towards the one principle of all things. […] The goal common to both is the most complete happiness [he teleōtatē eudaimonia – E. W.] which can befall mankind. […] What leads us to such a goal are all the Philosopher’s writings. […] Some of his works prepare for the method of demonstration, others adorn our characters (êthê) by means of virtue; while still others lead our [faculty of ] knowledge, through [the study of ] natural things, on up to that which is above nature.34

For Simplicius, the goal of Aristotle’s philosophy is twofold, namely the perfection of one’s psychic virtues and the intellectual approach to the divine by which the most complete happiness is reached. Ethics is thus seen as equally important as theoretical knowledge in achieving man’s ultimate aim and purpose. The way to reach this goal are Aristotle’s writings, and these are exactly what Miskawayh presents after the discussion of happiness in his treatise The Order of Happiness. Yet, in his Chapter, he continues with the exposition of the traditional tripartite division of philosophy which is usually found in the prolegomena to philosophy. Whether Miskawayh’s inspiration to link philosophy and, more particularly, metaphysics to ultimate happiness came from Simplicius or some other similar source must remain an open question.35 However, it seems likely that he had access to Simplicius’ commentary to the Categories as it was used in the circle of Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī,36 and Abū Sahl al-Masīḥī (d. 401/1010), a contemporary of Miskawayh, claimed to have come across it.37 31  Wakelnig (ed. and trans.) 2014: 308–309. 32  Wakelnig (ed. and trans.) 2014: 308–309. 33  See the general structure of the prolegomena

to Aristotelian philosophy as described above, n. 3. 34 Simplicius, On Aristotle: 21. 35  Among the extant Greek prolegomena to Aristotelian philosophy, Simplicius’s are the only ones in which the goal of Aristotle’s philosophy is explicitly linked to happiness. The other commentators indicate the goal as the knowledge of the principle of all things. 36  Coda 2016: 387–388; Walzer 1953: 103–106. 37  Abū Sahl al-Masīḥī, Five Books: 21, ll. 1–3, where he further lists the commentaries to the Categories by the not yet identified Allīnūs, by Mattā and al-Fārābī.

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The link between the kinds of happiness and the division of philosophy which Miskawayh establishes in his Chapter is further reinforced by his hierarchical presentation of the sciences. In the same way as the ultimate happiness is sought after for itself, so is metaphysics as the most elevated science:

‫أ‬ ّ ّ ،‫حر‬ ّ ‫أن‬ ّ ‫وهو العلم الذي يقال فيه ّإنه‬ ‫الحر هو الذي ال يحتاج‬ ‫ وذلك‬،‫فأما العلوم الخر فمستعبدة‬ ‫ والعبد هو الذي ال ّبد له في قوامه ووجوده من شيء أو‬،‫في قوامه وفي وجوده إلى شيء خارج عنه‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ّ ّ ‫العبودية‬ ‫ وكأنه موجود بغيره ولغيره وبحسب حاجاته إلى كثرة الشياء وقلتها يكون رسوخه في‬،‫أشياء‬ .‫ولزوم هذه السمة له‬

It is the science which is said to be ‘free’ (ḥurr), whereas the other sciences are ancillary (mustaʿbad). For the free science is the one that does not need anything outside itself for its foundation and existence, whereas the ancillary (ʿabd) is the one that is inevitably dependent on something or some things for its foundation and existence. It is as if it existed by virtue of and for something else. In accordance with its needs for many or a few things it is fixed in its position of subservience and attached to this characteristic.38

And as the other sciences, in particular mathematics, are often described as ladder and bridge to metaphysics,39 Miskawayh calls the bodily happiness “a way of ascending to [the first, the ultimate happiness] and a ladder to become acquainted with it”.40 When first introducing the division of philosophy, wisdom or knowledge (ḥikma) in the Chapter, Miskawayh ascribes it to “the people of wisdom”, saying:

‫أ‬ ‫ وهما الحكمة النظر ّية والحكمة‬،‫الحكمة على ما قسمها أهلها تنقسم بالقسمة الولى إلى قسمين‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ّ .‫العملية‬ ّ ّ ‫ال‬ ‫لهي ووجوده في العقل‬ ‫ العلم العلى وهو العلم إ‬،‫فأما النظر ّية فإنها تنقسم إلى ثالثة أقسام‬ ‫أ‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ّ ‫فقط والعلم الوسط وهو العلم الر‬ ‫الطبيعي‬ ‫ياضي ووجوده في الوهم حسب والعلم السفل وهو العلم‬ ً ّ ّ .‫وينقسم كل واحد من هذه العلوم أقساما كثيرة‬. ‫الحس خارج الوهم والعقل‬ ‫ووجوده في‬ According to the division by the people of wisdom, wisdom (ḥikma) is primarily divided into two parts: theoretical and practical wisdom. I. Theoretical wisdom is divided into three parts: (1) the most elevated science (al-ʿilm al-aʿlā) is the divine science (al-ʿilm al-ilāhī) and its existence is only in the intellect (al-ʿaql). (2) The intermediate science (al-ʿilm al-awsaṭ) is mathematics (al-ʿilm al-riyāḍī) and its existence is solely in thought (al-wahm). (3) The lowest science (al-ʿilm al-asfal) is the natural science (al-ʿilm al-ṭabīʿī) and its existence is in sense perception (al-ḥiss) outside thought and intellect (khārij alwahm wa-l-ʿaql). Each one of these sciences is divided into many parts.41 38  39 

Wakelnig (ed. and trans.) 2014: 310–313. See, e. g., Sergius’s commentary on the Categories to Theodore: “… certains des Anciens ont appelé ponts et escaliers ces mathématiques” in Hugonnard-Roche 2014: 193, and 213 for further references. 40  Wakelnig (ed. and trans.) 2014: 308–309. 41  Wakelnig (ed. and trans.) 2014: 310–311.



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The hierarchical order of the sciences is the same as the one Miskawayh employs in the above quoted passage from The Minor Triumph and here, the intermediate science is explicitly identified as mathematics. Each science is further characterised from an epistemological point of view, i. e., the divine science as the science of intellect, mathematics as that of thought, imagination or abstraction,42 and natural science as that of sense perception. In the rest of the Chapter, the three theoretical sciences are discussed at varying length, before ethics are summarised as follows:

‫أ‬ ّ ّ ‫ سياسة النفس بالخالق‬،‫ وهي في سياسات ثالث‬،‫العملية فانقسامها إلى ثالثة أقسام‬ ‫وأما الحكمة‬ ّ ‫ وسياسة المدن والعامة‬،‫ وسياسة المنزل وما يشتمل عليه بالتدبير ليصير منتظما‬،‫النسان فاضال‬ ‫ليصير إ‬ .‫بالسنن العادلة لتجري على أفضل أحوالها‬

Practical wisdom is divided into three parts which belong to three sorts of governance: the governance of the soul by morality so that man becomes virtuous; the governance of the household and its contents by [household] management so that it becomes [well] ordered; and the governance of cities and the common people by just laws so that they are guided towards their best conditions.43

The epistemological perspective of theoretical philosophy is mirrored, for practical philosophy, by indicating how each kind of governance may be achieved. This entire section on the division of philosophy in Miskawayh’s Chapter may well be an excerpt from a late antique prolegomena text. As I shall argue in what follows, a possible source which suggests itself is Paul the Persian.

3.  Paul the Persian, Miskawayh’s Chapter and al-Fārābī’s Treatise The Enumeration of the Sciences In a recent article, Matthias Perkams has studied the text which Miskawayh introduced with the words “what Paul (Būlus) has mentioned in his writing to Anūshīrwān saying: …” in his The Order of Happiness and which is thought to make up exclusively the entire second half of Miskawayh’s treatise. Perkams has stated that we “have good reasons for assuming that Miskawayh transmitted the entire treatise, because a preface ascribed to ‘Paul’ is immediately followed by sections which describe, in the way of a catalogue, the different works of Aristotle and their scopes”.44 Perkams has identified a number of sources of and par42  The term wahm is difficult to define. Here it must refer to a power or faculty that is positioned between sense perception and intellect. Elsewhere, Miskawayh and his source oppose wahm to sense perception which indicates that it is referring to thinking, see below. In order to translate these two slightly different expressions with one and the same English term, I opted for “thought”. 43  Wakelnig (ed. and trans.) 2014: 320–321. 44  Perkams 2019: 131.

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allels to this text, among which is, most interestingly, the Syriac commentary on the Categories to Theodore by Sergius of Rēshʿaynā,45 and compared some parallels in al-Fārābī’s treatise The Enumeration in detail. He has come to the conclusion that “one may safely confirm the authorship of Paul the Persian for most of the treatise on the works of Aristotle transmitted under his name”.46 In the light of Perkams’s findings, I would like to suggest that the excerpt on the division of philosophy in Miskawayh’s Chapter derives from the very same treatise which is ascribed to Paul47 in The Order of Happiness. The parallels to this excerpt in al-Fārābī’s treatise The Enumeration have undergone the same Farabian reworking as the parallels to Paul’s text presented in The Order of Happiness. While it is, of course, conceivable that Miskawayh and al-Fārābī shared more than one common prolegomena source, it seems more prudent to postulate just a single one. Further, in my reconstruction, Paul’s treatise contains the division of philosophy, the classification of Aristotle’s writings and some other topics traditionally discussed in prolegomena to philosophy and to Aristotelian philosophy. This structure is very similar to Sergius’s prolegomena section in his commentary to Theodore on the Categories, in which he discusses the division of philosophy, the classification of Aristotle’s writings, the position and aim of logic, the order of Aristotle’s logical writings and Aristotle’s reason for using obscure language.48 Given that Sergius has been established as an important source for Paul, it is plausible that Paul may have modelled his treatise also structurally on Sergius’s. Whether Paul’s treatise was a commentary to the Categories or simply an introductory text mainly based on prolegomena literature cannot be decided on the available evidence. In any case, it must have been an interesting text through which late antique prolegomena material was transmitted into Arabic and further developed, as attested by Miskawayh and al-Fārābī. Let us have a look at some textual examples. 3.1  The Two-fold and the Three-fold Divisions of Theoretical Philosophy Whereas in the above quoted passage from Miskawayh’s Chapter theoretical philosophy is divided into three parts, it is divided into two parts in his treatise The Order of Happiness. My assumption that both passages derive from Paul thus necessitates a plausible explanation for this difference. The same challenge was faced by Gutas and Perkams, for they wanted to show that the difference be45  46  47 

Perkams 2019: esp. 133–135. Perkams 2019: 144. Whether Paul can indeed be identified with any historical personage is irrelevant for my argument. Rather, I hope to reconstruct a text which I refer to, for the sake of convenience, by the name of Paul. 48  See the translations of the first two chapters of Sergius’s commentary in HugonnardRoche 2004: 191–202; and Watt 2014: 32–40.



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tween the twofold division in The Order of Happiness and the traditional threefold division in Paul’s preserved Logic does not invalidate the ascription of the text excerpted in The Order of Happiness to Paul. Gutas argued that the threefold division is a division of philosophy in general following the prolegomena to philosophy, whereas the twofold division is a division of the parts of Aristotle’s philosophy following the prolegomena to Aristotle’s philosophy.49 Perkams explained the change from a threefold to a (doubly) twofold division as resulting from the influence of the Syriac tradition, in which a “double bipartition of all beings can indeed be found in Barḥadbshabba’s Cause of the Foundation of Schools, an important witness for the practices used in the school of Nisibis”.50 In The Order of Happiness, Miskawayh indeed explicitly ascribes the twofold division to Aristotle and employs it to classify the Aristotelian writings:

ّ ّ ّ ‫النظري منها‬ ‫ فوجد‬، ‫والعملي‬ ‫النظري‬ ‫ أعني‬، ‫أن نظر في جزئي الحكمة‬، ‫وكان الوجه في ترتيبه لذلك‬ ‫أ‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ّ ّ ‫الشياء التي في‬ ّ ، ‫مواد‬ ‫ وكل واحد من هذين‬. ‫وإما في الشياء التي ليسا في مواد‬ ‫ّإما أن يكون في‬ ‫أّ أ‬ ً ّ ، ‫ منها ما هو تحت الكون والفساد‬، ‫ لن الشياء التي في مواد‬، ‫القسمين ينقسم أيضا إلى قسمين‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ّ ‫والشياء التي ليست في‬ ‫المواد‬ ‫ فمنها ما هو منتزع من‬، ‫مواد‬ . ‫ومنها ما هو ليس تحت الكون والفساد‬ ّ ‫ بل له وجود في ذاته‬، ‫المواد‬ ‫ ومنها ما هو ليس منتزع من‬، ‫ووجوده في الوهم وال وجود له في خارج‬ ‫أ‬ ‫أ‬ ‫أ‬ ‫أ‬ ً ّ .‫النظري‬ ‫ فهذه القسام الر بعة هي القسام الولى التي ينقسم إليها الجزء‬.‫خارجا عن الوهم‬ The course of his [i. e., Aristotle’s] arrangement for that was such that he examined the two sections of philosophy (ḥikma), I mean the theoretical and the practical. He found the theoretical section of the two either as (examining) the things which are in matter (mawādd) or as (examining) the things which are not in matter. Each one of these two parts is also divided into two parts, for among the things which are in matter there is that which falls under generation and corruption and that which does not fall under generation and corruption [i. e., the heavens]. Among the things which are not in matter, some are removed from matter, their existence is in thought (wahm) and they have no existence outside ( fī khārij), and some are not removed from matter but have an existence in themselves outside of thought (khārij ʿan al-wahm).51 These four parts are the first parts into which the theoretical section is divided.

‫أ‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ‫المور التي ال‬ ّ ّ ّ ‫ وجد بين‬،‫مواد لها‬ ‫ إلى‬،‫المواد‬ ‫الطبيعيات وهي المور ذوات‬ ‫ولما أراد أن يترقى من‬ ً ،‫ فعمل فيه كتابه في النفس‬،‫ وشركة في ما بعد الطبيعة‬،‫هاتين المنزلتين أمورا لها شركة في الطبيعة‬ ّ ‫ وهي‬،‫ ّثم عمل في ما بعد الطبيعة كتبه التي رسم عليها الحروق‬.‫الحس والمحسوس‬ ‫وكتابه في‬ ‫أ‬ .‫المعروفة باللف والباء وما بعدها‬

When he [i. e., Aristotle] wished to ascend from the natural [things] – and they are the things possessing matter  – to the things which do not have matter, he found, between 49  Gutas 1984: 240–241. 50  Perkams 2019: 136. As

Perkams admits, the passage is “different in many ways” from Paul’s division, and it has also been translated and interpreted quite differently from his own rendering, see his note 26. 51 Miskawayh, al-Tartīb: 117.

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these two ranks, things which participate in nature and participate in that which is after nature. About that, he composed his book on the soul and his book on sense perception and the perceived. About that which is after nature, he then composed his books, upon which he wrote letters, and they are known as “a”, “b” and so on.52

When these two passages, from the beginning of Paul’s text in Miskawayh’s treatise The Order of Happiness and from its end, are read together, it becomes clear that the things whose existence is said to be in thought (wahm) are those which Aristotle discusses in his Metaphysics.53 The immaterial things that are not removed from matter and participate in nature as well as in the metaphysical are, for example, the souls. Thus mathematics54 and theology do not figure in this division. This sits well with the fact that Aristotle did neither deal extensively with mathematics nor develop a full-fledged theology – a fact that was also acknowledged by the Greek philosophical tradition in which Plato completed philosophy, by the Syriac tradition in which Plato’s role was given to Pseudo-Dionysius, and by the Arabic tradition in which, probably most consistently, a Theology of Aristotle was put together using Plotinus’ Enneads.55 The question of how to reconcile this two-fold Aristotelian division with the traditional three-fold division of theoretical philosophy must already have occupied late antique thinkers and caused much debate. A possible answer can be found in the following passage from Ḥudūd al-manṭiq (The Definitions of Logic) by the East Syriac metropolitan of Mosul, Ibn Bahrīz, who attributes two sciences to the material and perceptible things and one science to the immaterial and imperceptible ones:

‫أّ أ‬ ّ ‫ أحدهما محسوس وهو‬:‫ ثلثة أقسام ر] لن الشياء شيئان‬:‫وإنما ينقسم العلم قسمين [قسمين د‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ّ ّ ّ ُ ‫ فمنه ما ال يفارق‬:‫قسمان‬ ‫ في التوهم ر] بمنزلة المهات‬:‫العدة التي هو فيها وال بالتوهم [وال بالتوهم د‬ ‫أ‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ّ ‫الر بع وما نشأ فيها [منها ر] وعلمها يسمى علم السفل ومنها ما يفارق العدة التي هو فيها بالتوهم‬ ّ ّ ]‫ بمنزلة الدائرة ر‬:‫ عدته في التوهم ر] فقط كالدائرة [كالدائرة د‬: ‫[العدة التي هو فيها بالتوهم د‬ ‫أ‬ ‫آ‬ ّ ‫يسمى علم االدب والخر غير محسوس وعلمه‬ ّ ‫والشكل المثلث والمر بع وعلمها‬ .‫يسمى العلم العلى‬

Knowledge (ʿilm) is divided into two56 parts because the things are two kinds of things: one of the two is perceptible (maḥsūs), it has two parts and to it belongs: 52 Miskawayh, al-Tartīb: 125. 53  This is in contrast to Gutas’s interpretation of the “immaterial things, subsisting in imag-

ination, as abstracted from matter” as mathematics (1983: 263). 54  Paul’s division thus finally cuts the mathematical out of the Aristotelian writings, which no Aristotelian commentator had ever been able to indicate convincingly. Hadot 1990: 91. Sergius holds on to these writings yet without specifying their nature, see Hugonnard-Roche 2004: 221, n. 1. 55  Watt 2017: 190–191. 56  The Istanbul manuscript reads “three”, which is most probably a later change in the attempt to harmonize the text in which the traditional threefold division of knowledge is presented as well, namely immediately before the above quoted passage.

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– that which is not separable from the matter in which it is, not even in imagination (tawahhum), like the four elements and what is brought forth in them. Its knowledge is called the lowest knowledge (al-ʿilm al-asfal). And to it belongs: – that which is, through imagination alone, separable from the matter in which it is, like the circle, the triangular and the rectangular shapes. Its knowledge is called the knowledge of the discipline of propaedeutics (ʿilm al-adab57). The other kind of things is the imperceptible and its knowledge is called the most elevated knowledge (al-ʿilm al-aʿlā).58

Ibn Bahrīz dedicated his Definitions of Logic to the caliph al-Maʾmūn (r. 198– 218/813–833) which provides us with a composition date of the treatise at the beginning of the 3rd/9th century. He also states that he composed his treatise based on Syriac sources which indicates the same late antique tradition as the one in which we may situate Sergius of Reshʿaynā and Paul the Persian. Ibn Bahrīz’s passage links the two divisions of philosophy in Miskawayh, namely the twofold one of Aristotle’s philosophy in The Order of Happiness and the hierarchically ordered threefold one in the Chapter, and is thus some further indication that they may both stem from the same text. Even if Ibn Bahrīz here used a source already translated into Arabic, it does not seem to have been the same as Miskawayh’s since the technical vocabulary is close, but not identical: wahm vs. tawahhum and al-ʿilm al-awsaṭ vs. ʿilm al-adab. This implies the diffusion of a wide range of similar, yet varying prolegomena material in Arabic. 3.2 Mathematics In Miskawayh’s Chapter, mathematics is said to be divided into arithmetic (ʿilm al-ʿadad), geometry (ʿilm al-handasa), astronomy (ʿilm al-nujūm) and music (ʿilm al-mūsīqī) “because mathematics is in (takūn fī) the matters of the sensible natural bodies which are the things closest to us. The first thing we examine in the matters of bodies is their quantity and quality, i. e., their surface (misāḥa) and shapes.”59 Quantity is then said to be either discreet, which is studied by arithmetic, or continuous, which is, when at rest, studied by geometry, and 57 

On the unusual term ʿilm al-adab, a possible explanation for its emergence and its occurrence in Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ and Ibn al-Bahrīz, see Hein 1985: 180–181. 58  Here I quote my forthcoming edition based on the two preserved manuscripts, Damascus, MS Ẓāhirīya 4871 (d) and Istanbul, MS Ragıp Paşa 1463 (r), giving deviate readings of the latter in square brackets. Cf. also Dānešpažūh’s edition, Ibn Bahrīz, al-Manṭiq: 111 and 113–114. 59  Wakelnig (ed. and trans.) 2014: 312–313:

ّ ‫أ‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ّ ‫الشياء‬ ّ ،‫منا‬ ّ ‫الط‬ ّ ‫أل ّن‬ ّ ‫بيعية المحسوسة‬ ‫وأول ما ننظر فيه‬ ‫التي هي أقرب‬ ‫الر ياضة إنما تكون في أمور الجسام‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ّ ‫من أمور الجسام هو‬ … ‫ أعني مساحتها وأشكالها‬،‫وكيفيتها‬ ‫كم ّيتها‬

This reminds one of the above-quoted passage in Ibn Bahrīz in which the division of knowledge is explained by the fact (li-anna) that the kinds of things are two.

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when in motion, studied by astronomy. Adding quality to quantity is done in music. Mathematics is described from an epistemological point of view, first stressing that it deals with matters related to the sensible bodies which are most easily perceived by us. Then quantity and quality are marked out as the two Aristotelian categories by which we observe and examine perceived things first and foremost. Miskawayh’s Chapter thus preserves evidence that there existed some late antique tradition according to which mathematics was divided using quantity and quality. This evidence can be used against the claim that al-Kindī’s division of mathematics along the lines of quantity and quality results from a translation error.60 It is even more convincing due the fact that al-Kindī understands arithmetic and music as dealing with quantity, and geometry and astronomy with quality,61 whereas Miskawayh’s Chapter relates only music to quality. A third way to divide mathematics by quantity and quality is attested in the Greek tradition, in a scholion to Ptolemy’s Harmonics that defines being in relation as quality and argues that since astronomy deals with the relationships between celestial bodies, and music with notes in relation to each other, both disciplines are also concerned with quality.62 These three different understandings of quality within mathematics cannot all be explained by some misinterpretation of their sources. They attest to the popularity of textual material dividing the sciences in all sorts of ways, and to its wide diffusion. 3.3  Natural Science in Miskawayh’s Chapter and al-Fārābī’s treatise The Enumeration of the Sciences The parallels between Miskawayh’s Chapter and al-Fārābī’s treatise The Enumeration occur in the long section dealing with natural science and its eightfold division. Assuming that both authors relied on Paul’s text, al-Fārābī must be the one who reworked his source more extensively as the differences between his and Miskawayh’s versions can, in most cases, be explained as Farabian theories documented in his other treatises. The parallel sections start as follows:

60  Richard Walzer thought that a translation error occurred with regard to the second term of the common late antique Greek division of mathematic into poson (quantity) and pēlikon (magnitude). Pēlikon would have been read as poion (quality), see Hein 1985: 186–187. Cf. Gannagé 2016: 101–103, who shows that this ‘error’ must have existed in the Arabic version of Nicomachus of Gerasa’s Introduction to Arithmetic which al-Kindī had at his disposal. As pēlikon is translated into Arabic as misāḥa, the fact that this very term also occurs in Miskawayh’s passage is a further argument against assuming a mistranslation. 61  See Gannagé 2016: 99–100. 62 Ptolemy, Harmonics: 142, n. 84.



Late Antique Philosophical Education

Miskawayh, Chapter

‫أ‬ ّ ّ ‫الطبيعي هو النظر في جملة الجسامأ كلها‬ ‫والعلم‬ ّ ‫الحس من السموات والرض‬ ‫التي وجودها في‬ ‫ ّثم فيما‬،‫وما بينهما من النبات والحيوان وغيرهما‬ ّ ّ ‫نوع‬ ‫يخص‬ ٍ ‫أجزآها العظام والخواص الالزمة لنوع‬ ‫أ‬ ‫قوامها بها ووجودها فيها‬ ،‫منها‬ ‫وعن الشياء التي أ‬ ّ ‫ والبحث‬.‫وعن العلة أالتي وجدت لجلها فيها‬ ‫أ‬ ّ .‫ال ّول عن المور‬ ‫العامة المشتركة لها وهي التي‬ ّ ‫ هي أر بعة أشياء ما‬،‫طبيعي منها‬ ‫ال يخلو جسم‬ ‫وجودها أبه وما وجودها فيها أوما وجودها عنه وما‬ ّ ‫الصناعية قد‬ ‫ ولما أكانت الجسام‬.‫وجودها لجله‬ ً ،‫لها هذه الر أبعة وهي فيها أبين وأظهر‬ ‫يوجد أيضا‬ ً ّ ّ ‫ليتصور‬ ‫الطبيعية‬ ‫جعلناها مثاال لما في الجسام‬ ّ .‫ويتحقق‬ Natural science is the examination of the entirety of all the bodies of the heavens, the earth and what is between these two of plants, animals and others,63 whose existence is in the realm of sense perception. Next it is the examination of what is characteristic of their parts with regard to size and properties (al-khawāṣṣ) which are concomitant to each single species, and [the discussion] of the things by which their subsistence is, in which their existence is, and of the cause due to which they exist in them. The first discussion is of the general things which are common to [all natural bodies]. It is that of which a natural body is never devoid. They are four things: whereby its existence is, wherein its existence is, whence its existence is and wherefore its existence is. Since these four also exist for artificial bodies, and are more evident and manifest in them, we take them as an example of what is in natural bodies in order to conceive and ascertain [it].64

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‫أ‬ ّ ّ ‫الطبيعية‬ ‫ينظر في الجسام‬ ‫الطبيعي‬ ‫فالعلم‬

‫أ‬ ‫أ‬ ،‫وفي ال أعراض التي قوامها في هذه الجسام‬ ‫التي عنها والتي بها والتي لها توجد‬ ‫يعرف أالشياء أ‬ .‫هذه الجسام والعراض التي قوامها فيها‬ ‫أ‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ‫الطبيعية في أهذه المور كحال‬ ‫… وحال الجسام‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ّ ّ ‫الصناعية‬ ‫وذلك أن الجسام‬ :‫الصناعية‬ ‫الجسام‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ‫ وتوجد‬،‫الصناعية‬ ‫توجد فيها أمور قوامها أبالجسام‬ ّ ‫الصناعية وأشياء بها‬ ‫لها أشياء عنها وجود الجسام‬ ّ ‫الصناعية أظهر‬ ‫وجودها وأشياء لها وجودها وهذه‬ ّ .‫الطبيعية‬ ‫منها في‬ Natural science examines the natural bodies

and the accidents (al-aʿrāḍ) whose subsistence is in these bodies. It makes known the things from which, by which and for which these bodies and the accidents whose subsistence is in them exist. … The condition of the natural bodies with regard to these matters is like the condition of the artificial bodies. That is that in the artificial bodies matters exist whose existence is by the artificial bodies; and for [the artificial bodies] things exist through which the existence of the artificial bodies is, things by which their existence is and things for which their existence is. And these [in] the artificial things are more manifest than they are in the natural things.65

63  An almost verbatim description occurs in al-Fārābī further down, where he distinguished between the artificial and the natural bodies, al-Fārābī, al-Iḥṣāʾ: 111, l. 11. 64  Wakelnig (ed. and trans.) 2014: 314. 65 Al-Fārābī, al-Iḥṣāʾ: 111–112.

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Both passages concur that natural science examines the natural bodies and their attributes. The attributes are referred to much more clearly in al-Fārābī, who uses the common philosophical term accident (ʿaraḍ) and defines an accident as something which subsists in a natural body, i. e., in a substance. The examination is said to include the four Aristotelian causes and, with regard to them, an interesting difference between the two texts is seen. Miskawayh lists four Arabic prepositions which correspond to the four causes, i. e., bi- indicating the formal cause, fī the material cause, ʿan the efficient cause and li-ajli the final cause. AlFārābī has only three prepositions, i. e., ʿan referring to the efficient cause, bi- to the formal and the material causes together, and li- to the final cause.66 This sits well with his statements in Kitāb al-Ḥurūf (The Book of Particles) that “the kinds of particles by which the causes and reasons of the thing’s existence are searched seem to be three: for what (li-mādhā) its existence is, by what (bi-mādhā) its existence is and through what (ʿan mādhā) its existence is”.67 However, there and in Taḥṣīl al-saʿāda (The Attainment of Happiness), al-Fārābī uses the particle ʿan to refer to the efficient and the material causes together.68 Thus although his reduced use of particles is clear, the exact reconstruction of the reasoning behind it remains to be done. In any case, this reduction suggests that it is indeed al-Fārābī’s above quoted passage which is a reworking of the traditional representation of the four Aristotelian causes present in the source text, and that Miskawayh preserves their common model more accurately. In accord with each other, both philosophers claim that the four causes are more easily discerned in artificial than in natural bodies and thus follow their source in its epistemological focus that has already become apparent before. Then they give almost identical examples:

66  One

may wonder whether al-Fārābī gives less attention to the two causes inherent in matter, i. e., the formal and material causes by having them indicated by a single preposition, and stresses the importance of the external causes, i. e., the agent and the end. If so, he might have been inspired by the Neoplatonic distinction of immanent and transcendent causes applied to the Aristotelian theory of the four causes, as Robert Wisnovsky has shown to be the case in al-Fārābī’s lost commentary on the Physics. Cf. Wisnosvky 2003: 62, where he quotes the Farabian distinction from a Latin epitome of the lost commentary. However, the two parallel passages in The Book of Particles and The Attainment of Happiness (see n. 68 below) contradict such an interpretation. 67 Al-Fārābī, al-Ḥurūf: 205, ll. 1–2. 68 Al-Fārābī, al-Ḥurūf: 205, l. 1–206, l. 5; al-Fārābī, The Attainment: 15. I would like to express my gratitude to Jawdath Jabbour who drew my attention to the passage in The Attainment of Happiness and discussed with me the problem of how to interpret al-Fārābī’s reduction of four to three particles.

Late Antique Philosophical Education



Miskawayh, Chapter

‫أ‬ ّ ‫الطبيعية‬ ‫ونجعل مثال ما ذكرنا في الجسام‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ّ ّ ‫ فإنه إنما كان‬،‫الصناعية السر ير‬ ‫من ًالجسام‬ ّ ‫ وفي مادته‬، ‫ أعني هيئة التر بيع‬، ‫سر يرا بصورته‬ ّ ‫ أعني‬،‫ وعن فاعله‬،‫ أعني الخشب‬، ،‫النجار‬ ‫أجله عمل وهو الجلوس‬ ‫ولتمامه‬ ‫الذي من أ‬ ّ ‫وتصور هذه الشياء بعينها في الثوب‬. ‫عليه‬ ّ ّ ‫صناعي لتجعلها مثالك‬ ‫جسم‬ ‫وكل‬ ‫والسيف‬ ‫ّ أ‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ‫فأما الشياء التي قوامها‬ ،‫الطبيعية‬ ‫في ال أجسام‬ ّ ‫ كالنقوش في السر ير‬،‫الصناعية‬ ‫في الجسام‬ ّ ‫ فإن‬،‫السيف‬ ‫في‬ ‫يق‬ ‫والبر‬ ‫الثوب‬ ‫في‬ ‫والصقال‬ ‫ً أ‬ ً ً ّ ،‫لكل واحد منها أيضا غرضا وكماال لجله وجد‬ ّ ‫وذلك أن النقش أوجد في السر ير ليحسن‬ ً ‫ والصقال‬،‫ والحديد ليصير بها وثيقا‬،‫به منظره‬ ّ ،‫ليتجمل به وليزل عنه الغبار‬ ‫أوجد في الثوب‬ ّ .‫والبر يق أوجد في السيف ليرهب به العدو‬

Among the artificial bodies we take the couch as an example of what we have mentioned in regard to the natural bodies. For it is truly a couch by its form, i. e., the rectangular shape, and in its matter, i. e., wood, and through its agent, i. e., the carpenter, and for the purpose because of which it is made, and that is to sit on. Imagine precisely these things in a cloth, a sword and every artificial body, so that you take them as your example with regard to the natural bodies. For each of the things whose subsistence is in artificial bodies, like the engravings on the couch, the sheen of the cloth and the lustre in the sword, there is also an aim and a perfection because of which it exists. For the engraving is produced on the couch in order to decorate it and the iron structure in order to make it solid. The sheen is produced on the cloth in order to make it pretty and repellent of dust. The lustre is produced in the sword in order to intimidate the enemy.69

69  Wakelnig (ed. and trans.) 2014: 314. 70 Al-Fārābī, al-Iḥṣāʾ: 112–113.

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‫أ‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ‫الصناعية هي‬ ‫التي لها توجد الجسام‬ ‫والشياء أ‬ ‫ … أوالسر ير‬:‫عراض التي لها تعمل‬ ‫الغايات وال أ‬ ّ ‫ … وأما الغايات وال أغراض‬،‫الرض‬ ‫ليتقي به نداوة أ‬ ‫التي لها توجد العراض التي قوامها في الجسام‬ ّ ّ ‫ وبر يق‬،‫ليتجمل به‬ ‫الصناعية فمثل صقال الثوب‬ ‫ ونقش السر ير أليحسن‬، ‫السيف ليرهب أالعدو‬ ‫ … والشياء التي توجد عنها الجسام‬،‫به منظره‬ ّ ّ ‫ مثل النجار‬:‫والمكو أنة لها‬ ‫الصناعية هي الفاعلة‬ ‫ … والشياء التي بها توجد‬،‫الذي عنه وجد السر ير‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ّ ّ … ‫صناعي شيئان‬ ‫الصناعية في كل جسم‬ ‫الجسام‬ ً ‫ بالتر بع‬:‫والسر ير ايضا وجوده بشيئين‬ ‫والخشب؛ والتر بيع هيئته وصيغته والخشب‬ ّ .‫ وهو كالحامل للتر بيع‬،‫مادته‬ The things for which the artificial bodies exist are the aims and ends for which they are made: … and the couch so that one may be protected by it from the soil’s moisture. As for the aims and ends for which the accidents whose subsistence is in the artificial bodies exist, they are, for example the sheen of the cloth in order to make it pretty, the lustre of the sword in order to intimidate the enemy, the engraving of the couch in order to decorate it, … The things through which the artificial bodies exist are the agents and the makers for them, like the carpenter through whom the couch exists, … The things by which the artificial things exist are two in every artificial body … and the existence of the couch is also through two things, the rectangular shape and the wood. The rectangular shape is its shape and external form and the wood is its matter, which is like the bearer for the rectangular shape.70

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The presentation of the four Aristotelian causes in different artificial bodies is traditional, whereas the importance that is given to the accidents is remarkable. Both texts here devote a long section to the discussion of “the things whose subsistence is in the artificial bodies” and give some identical examples. The excursus on the explanation of the four causes may have been triggered by the usual comments in the Greek prolegomena at this point of the division of philosophy, namely that only the division of mathematics is appropriate for an introductory presentation, whereas the divisions of metaphysics and natural science are too difficult. In contrast to that attitude, Paul may have put some effort into explaining the aims of the natural science as well. The passages in Miskawayh and al-Fārābī attest to a common model which was clearly firmly rooted in the late antique prolegomena tradition. It may well be the same source as the one they share with regard to the classification of Aristotle’s logical writings, namely a treatise by Paul the Persian. Whether this same treatise also inspired Miskawayh at the beginning of his treatise The Minor Triumph and is thus also attested in al-Isfizārī is difficult to ascertain. The possibility exists.

4. Conclusions Apart from the questions regarding the existence of shared sources and their attribution which will probably never be satisfyingly answered, this study has demonstrated the influence of prolegomena material on Arabic philosophers such as Miskawayh, his contemporary al-Isfizārī, and their predecessor alFārābī. Even if the exact modes of the transmission remain unknown, the immense diffusion, enormous popularity and substantial influence of late antique prolegomena from the very beginning of Arabic philosophy to the discourses of the Baghdad Aristotelians in the 4th/10th and 5th/11th centuries become more and more apparent. The impact of this material is explicable by its addressing fundamental questions such as how to teach philosophy, how to prepare the philosophy student by propaedeutical ethics, how to reach the final goal of man, i. e., ultimate happiness, how to approach the Divine and act like It. These questions already occupied the Greek Neoplatonic Aristotelian commentators, and were further developed in the Syriac Christian intellectual milieu and finally taken up by Muslim thinkers such as al-Fārābī, Miskawayh and al-Isfizārī.



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Bibliography Sources Abū Sahl al-Masīḥī: Five Books on Cosmology, Physics, and Medicine, Facsimile Edition by Fuat Sezgin (Publications of the Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science. Series C, 84; Frankfurt am Main: Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science, 2011). Ammonius: On Aristotle Categories, trans. by S. Marc Cohen and Gareth B. Matthews (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle; London: Bloomsbury, 1991). [Anonymous]: A Philosophy Reader from the Circle of Miskawayh, ed. and trans. by Elvira Wakelnig (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). Averroès: Tafsir ma baʿd at-tabiʿat, ed. Maurice Bouyges, vol. i (Bibliotheca Arabica Scholasticorum. Série arabe V/2; Beyrouth: Imprimerie Catholique, 1938). David: Introduction to Philosophy, trans. by Sebastian Gertz, in Elias and David: Introductions to Philosophy. Olympiodorus: Introduction to Logic, trans. by Sebastian Gertz (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle; London: Bloomsbury, 2018) 79–189. Elias: Introduction to Philosophy, trans. by Sebastian Gertz, in Elias and David: Introductions to Philosophy. Olympiodorus: Introduction to Logic, trans. by Sebastian Gertz (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle; London: Bloomsbury, 2018) 15–78. al-Fārābī, Abū Naṣr: Iḥṣāʾ al-ʿulūm, ed. ʿUṯmān Amīn (Cairo: Maktabat al-Anjlū alMiṣriyya, ³1968). –: Kitāb al-Ḥurūf, ed. Muḥsin Mahdī (Beirut: Dār al-Mashriq, 1970). –: “The Attainment of Happiness”, in: Muḥsin Mahdī (trans.): Al-Farabi’s Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1962) 13–50. [Ibn Bahrīz and Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ]: al-Manṭiq li-Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ. Ḥudūd al-manṭiq li-Ibn Bahrīz, ed. Muḥammad Taqī Dānešpažūh (Tehran: Intišārāt-e Anǧuman-e Šāhanšāhīye Falsafa-ye Īrān, 1978). al-Isfizārī, Abū Ḥāmid Aḥmad b. Abī Isḥāq: Masāʾil al-umūr al-ilāhiyya wa-hiya tha­ māniya wa-ʿishrūn masʾala, in Daniel Gimaret: “Un traité théologique du philosophe musulman Abū Ḥāmid al-Isfizārī (IVe–Xe s.)”, Mélanges de l’Université Saint-Joseph 14 (1984), 207–252. Miskawayh, Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad b. Muḥammad: al-Fawz al-aṣghar, ed. by Ṣāliḥ ʿUḍayma (Tunis: Bayt al-Ḥikma, 1987). –: Tartīb al-saʿādāt wa-manāzil al-ʿulūm, ed. Abū l-Qāsim Emāmī, in: ʿAlī Awjabī (ed.): Ganjīne-ye Bahārestān, vol. i (Tehran: Ketābḫāne, Mūze va-Markaz-e Asnād-e Majles-e shūrā-ye eslāmī, [2000]) 97–127. [Philoponus] Giovanni Filopono Matematico: Tra neopitagorismo e neoplatonismo. Commentario alla Introduzione Aritmetica di Nicomaco di Gerasa. Introduzione, testo, traduzione e note Giovanna R. Giardina (Catania: CUECM, 1999). Philoponus: On Aristotle Posterior Analytics 1,19–34, trans. by Owen Goldin and Marije Martijn (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle; London: Bloomsbury, 2012). Ptolemy: Harmonics, trans. and comm. by Jon Solomon (Brill: Leiden, 2000). Simplicius: On Aristotle Categories 1–4, trans. by Michael Chase (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle; London: Duckworth, 2003).

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Studies Arkoun, Mohammed (²1982): L’humanisme arabe au IVe/Xe siècle. Miskawayh, philosophe et historien (Paris: Vrin). Coda, Elisa (2016): “Simplicius dans la tradition arabe”, in Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques. VI de Sabinillus à Tyrsénos (Paris: CNRS Éditions) 384–394. Daiber, Hans (2018): “Ethics as Likeness to God in Miskawayh. An Overlooked Tradition”, Studia Graeco-Arabica 8, 195–204. Endress, Gerhard (2017): “Ancient Ethical Traditions for Islamic Society. Abū ʿAlī Miskawayh”, in Ulrich Rudolph/Rotraud Hansberger/Peter Adamson (eds.): Philosophy in the Islamic World. I. 8th -10th Centuries (Leiden/Boston: Brill) 304–344, 370–379. Gannagé, Emma (2012): “Philopon (Jean -) Tradition Arabe”, in: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques. Va de Paccius à Plotin (Paris: CNRS) 503–563. Gutas, Dimitri (1983): “Paul the Persian on the Classification of the Parts of Aristotle’s Philosophy. A Milestone between Alexandria and Baġdâd”, Der Islam 60, 231–267. Hadot, Ilsetraut (1990): Simplicius. Commentaire sur les Catégories, vol. i (Leiden: Brill). Hein, Christel (1985): Definition und Einteilung der Philosophie. Von der spätantiken Einleitungsliteratur zur arabischen Enzyklopädie (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang). Hugonnard-Roche, Henri (2004): La logique d’Aristote du grec au syriaque (Paris: Vrin). – (2018): “Sur la réception syriaque et arabe de l’Isagoge de Porphyre”, Medioevo 43, 73– 122. Jolivet, Jean (2013): “Les yeux des chauves-souris”, in Jean Jolivet, Medievalia et arabica (Paris: Vrin) 293–302 [reprint from 2003 in Éric Chaumont (ed.): Autour du regard. Mélanges Gimaret (Leuven: Peeters) 53–62]. Perkams, Matthias (2019): “The Syro-Persian Reinvention of Aristotelianism. Paul the Persian’s Treatise on the Scope of Aristotle’s Works between Sergius of Rēšʿaynā, Alexandria, and Baghdad”, Studia Graeco-Arabica 9, 129–145. Pines, Shlomo (1970): “Aḥmad Miskawayh and Paul the Persian”, Irān-Shīnasī 2/2, 121–129 [reprinted in Sarah Stroumsa (ed.): The Collected Works of Shlomo Pines. III. Studies in the History of Arabic Philosophy (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1996) 208–216]. Sorabji, Richard (2018): “The Cross-Cultural Spread of Greek Philosophy (and Indian Moral Tales) to 6th Century Persian and Syriac”, Studia Graeco-Arabica 9, 147–163. Treiger, Alexander (2021): “From Dionysius to al-Ġazālī. Patristic Influences on Arabic Neoplatonism”, Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 9/1–2, 189–236 [accessed as advance article, published online 19 Dec 2019, 1–48]. Ullmann, Manfred (2002): Wörterbuch zu den griechisch-arabischen Übersetzungen des 9. Jahrhunderts (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz). – (2006): Wörterbuch zu den griechisch-arabischen Übersetzungen des 9. Jahrhunderts. Supplement (2 vols.; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz). Wakelnig, Elvira (2009): “A New Version of Miskawayh’s Book of Triumph. An Alternative Recension of al-Fawz al-aṣghar or the Lost Fawz al-akbar?”, ASP 19, 83–119. – (2017): “What does Aristotle have to do with the Christian Arabic Trinity? The Triad ‘Generosity-Wisdom-Power’ in the Alexandrian Prolegomena and Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī”, Le Muséon 130, 445–477. – (2019): “Late Antique Philosophical Terminology in Early Kalām. The Polysemous Greek Term atomon and Its Arabic Equivalent juzʾ lā yatajazzaʾ”, JAS 6, 150–184.



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– (2020): “Pyrrho and Sextus Refuting Philosophy and the Value of Definition. On the Arabic Reception of the Late Antique Prolegomena to Philosophy”, in Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides/Ken Parry (eds.): Eastern Christianity and Late Antique Philosophy (Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity; Leiden: Brill) 311–333. Walzer, Richard (1953): “New Light on the Arabic Translations of Aristotle”, Oriens 6, 91– 142. Watt, John W. (2014): “Sergius of Reshaina on the Prolegomena to Aristotle’s Logic. The Commentary on the Categories, Chapter Two”, in Elisa Coda/Cecilia Martini Bonadeo (eds.): De l’Antiquité tardive au Moyen Âge (Paris: Vrin) 31–57. – (2017): “The Curriculum of Aristotelian Philosophy among the Syrians”, Studia Graeco-­A rabica 7, 171–192. Wisnovsky, Robert (2003): “Towards a History of Avicenna’s Distinction between Immanent and Transcendent Causes”, in David C. Reisman (ed.): Before and After Avicenna (Leiden/Boston: Brill) 49–68.

Lehrhafte sprachliche Bilder der Antike für die dreigeteilte Seele bei Miskawaih und Ibn Sīnā Dorothee Pielow* Abstract:  Since Plato (d. 348/347 BCE) and his famous pupil Aristotle (d. 322 BCE), instructive images occupy a firm place among the stylistic devices in philosophical works. This study exposes how such instructive images known from Antiquity were seen by the physicians and philosophers Miskawayh (d. 421/1030) and Ibn Sīnā (d. 428/1037) and how they applied some of them in their own philosophical works. Particular attention is paid in this regard to the idea of the “tripartite soul” which these two classical Muslim scholars discuss as part of their psychological concepts of the human being. An exploration of the educational goals as driving forces behind the use of metaphors complements this study. In conclusion, this chapter reveals that the tripartite soul, according to Miskawayh and Ibn Sīnā, plays an essential role in human education generally, and in refining human character traits (tahdhīb al-akhlāq) in particular.

Dieser Beitrag widmet sich den Methoden der Darstellung und Argumentation, die Miskawaih (gest. 421/1030) und Ibn Sīnā (d. 428/1037) anwandten, und der Frage, welche Strategien diese beiden klassischen muslimischen Gelehrten verfolgten, um ethische und erzieherische Kernaussagen zu kommunizieren. Die Verwendung lehrhafter sprachlicher Bilder hat seit der Antike  – insbesondere durch Platon (gest. 348/347 v. Chr.) und seinem Schüler Aristoteles (gest. 322 v. Chr.) – einen festen Platz als didaktisches Stilmittel in philosophischen Texten und wurde auch von islamischen Philosophen genutzt.1 Das von Platon beschriebene Bild der „dreigeteilten Seele“ haben sowohl Miskawaih als auch Ibn Sīnā (gest. 428/1037) verwendet und fest in ihrem jeweiligen Konzept der Seelenlehre verankert. Das besondere Augenmerk dieser Studie ist daher auf die Seelenlehren dieser beiden Gelehrten gerichtet, in denen sie die lehrhaften sprachlichen Bilder der Antike verarbeiten. Dabei wird das didaktische Ziel der Verwendung dieses Stilmittels bei Miskawaih und Ibn Sīnā untersucht und dargelegt, welche Rolle die *  Mein besonderer Dank für eine kritische Durchsicht meines Beitrages gilt Herrn Dr. Fabian Käs. Den Herausgebern des Bandes danke ich sehr herzlich für wichtige inhaltliche Hinweise und dafür, dass sie mich ermutigt haben, den Artikel für diesen Band fertigzustellen. 1  Heath 1992: 7.

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dreigeteilte Seele, die nach Meinung beider Autoren der „Erziehung des Charakters“ (tahḏīb al-aḫlāq) bedarf, spielt. Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb Miskawaih,2 geboren um das Jahr 320/932 in Raiy in Persien, gestorben um 421/1030, war ein herausragender Gelehrter in der Hochblüte der Bagdader Gelehrsamkeit zur Zeit der BuyidenDynastie. Er gilt als hervorstechender muslimischer Ethiker, Philosoph und Historiker. Miskawaih, über den nur wenige und lückenhafte biographische Notizen vorliegen, arbeitete in den Jahren 950 bis 983 als Sekretär und Bibliothekar am schiitischen Buyidenhof in Bagdad und Raiy. Er war auch an der Medizin interessiert und verfasste zwei pharmakologische Werke, die Ǧamal ad-Dīn al-Qifṭī (gest. 646/1248) in seiner Geschichte der Gelehrten erwähnt, die aber nicht erhalten sind.3 Als Intellektueller gehörte er zeitweilig einem Philosophenkreis in Bagdad an. Hochbetagt hinterließ er ein reiches Erbe an Schriften zur Geschichte, Philosophie, Ethik und zur Gnomik. Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusain ibn ʿAbdallāh ibn Sīnā,4 geboren um 370/980 in Afšāna bei Buchara im heutigen Usbekistan, starb 428/1037 im Alter von 57 Jahren in der Stadt Hamadān im Westen Irans. Er war Arzt, Physiker, Philosoph, Dichter, Jurist, Mathematiker, Astronom, Alchemist, Musiktheoretiker und Theosoph. Ibn Sīnā gilt nicht nur als einer der einflussreichsten Denker der islamischen Welt, sondern ist auch der Verfasser des Kitāb al-Qānūn fī ṭ-ṭibb, des großen „Kanons der Medizin“, der bereits von Gerhard von Cremona5 (gest. 1187) ins Lateinische übersetzt wurde, und bis in die Mitte des 17. Jahrhunderts das europäische Denken über Krankheit und Heilung prägte. Ibn Sīnā hinterließ ein Schrifttum von ca. 450 Werken, darunter etwa 240 Titel zur Philosophie und vierzig zur Medizin.6 Ebenso verfasste er literarische Erzählungen. Miskawaih und Ibn Sīnā haben nicht nur einen Teil ihrer Vornamen und den Umstand, dass beide persischer Abstammung waren, gemeinsam. Beide Zeitgenossen wirkten in einer besonders ereignisreichen Zeit und waren als Intellektuelle mit Bagdad, der Hauptstadt der Abbasiden, auf die eine oder andere Weise eng verbunden. Beide Persönlichkeiten galten schon zu ihren Lebzeiten als anerkannte Gestalten in der Gelehrtenszene und waren als Autoren äußerst produktiv. Auch setzten sich beide in ihren philosophischen Ausführungen intensiv mit der „Seele“ auseinander, über die sie jeweils komplexe Abhandlungen verfassten und die in ihrem philosophischen Denken eine herausragende Rolle spielte. Sie ließen sich hierbei von den gleichen Quellen antiker Philoso2  Zum Leben und Werk Miskawaihs siehe Endress 2012: 210–238; Wakelnig 2013: 233–252, sowie die Einleitung zu diesem Band. 3 Al-Qifṭī, at-Taʾrīḫ: 331. Siehe zu den Werken Miskawaihs auch Sezgin 1970: iii, 336. 4  Zum Leben und Werk Ibn Sīnās siehe u. a. Strohmaier 2006. 5  Unter dem Titel Liber Canonis, De medicinis cordialibus et Cantica. 6  Angabe nach http://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Avicenna.html.



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phen, insbesondere Platon, Aristoteles und Galen (gest. um 205 oder 215), inspirieren und nennen die Namen dieser griechischen Gelehrten ausdrücklich in zahlreichen ihrer Werke. Die von Miskawaih und Ibn Sīnā entworfenen ontologischen und kosmologischen Konzepte, in die sie ihre Lehre vom Intellekt und die damit verbundenen Seelenkonzepte einfügten, sind in manchen Teilen so ähnlich, dass z. B. die Schrift Aḥwāl ar-rūḥ (Die Zustände des Geistes) von Miskawaih z. T. auch Ibn Sīnā zugeschrieben wird.7 Dennoch gab es kaum persönliche Berührungspunkte zwischen Miskawaih und Ibn Sīnā; im Gegenteil, der „exzentrische“ Ibn Sīnā soll sich gegenüber Miskawaih „anmaßend“ verhalten haben.8

1.  Metapher und Allegorie im Bildungskontext In Bildern zu sprechen bedeutet, dass komplexe oder abstrakte Sachverhalte plastisch veranschaulicht werden. Bereits in der Antike wurde die Metapher als Stilmittel verwendet. Sie war zunächst klassischer Gegenstand der Rhetorik, der historischen Semantik, der Textlinguistik und der Literaturwissenschaft. Nach Aristoteles (gest. 322 v. Chr.), dem Schüler Platons, ist die Metapher „die Übertragung eines Wortes, das somit in uneigentlicher Bedeutung verwendet wird, und zwar entweder von der Gattung auf die Art oder von der Art auf die Gattung oder von einer Art auf die andere oder nach den Regeln der Analogie.“9 Die Allegorie wiederum ist ein Überbegriff der Metapher, der bildlichen Übertragung eines Wortes, und spielt gerade für die Interpretation von Heiligen Texten und Mythologien eine wichtige Rolle, wenn es darum geht, den überlieferten Text auf eine verborgene Weisheit oder Wahrheit hin auszudeuten. Es gibt drei Richtungen, die von Philosophen bei der Verwendung der bildhaften Sprache verfolgt wurden: eine poetologische, eine epistemologische und eine die Philosophie betreffende.10 Metapher und Allegorie in philosophischen Texten haben insbesondere dann eine vermittelnde Bedeutung, wenn sich neben der bestehenden Religion und unabhängig von ihr eine philosophische Ansicht gebildet hat und das Bedürfnis vorhanden ist, die Ideen und Lehren der Philosophie mit dem Inhalt des religiösen Glaubens in Übereinstimmung zu bringen. Auf diese Weise wurde die Allegorie schon bei den Griechen zuerst von Platon und nach ihm von den Stoikern genutzt, um Mythen des Volksglaubens für ihre philosophischen Ideen zu nutzen und das philosophische Bewusstsein mit dem populären zu verbinden.11 Dass Metaphern in der Pädagogik eine beson7  Endress 2012: 220. 8  Vgl. Wakelnig 2013: 234. 9 Aristoteles, Poetik: 67. 10  Taureck 2004: 52. 11  Vgl. Baur 1975: 5.

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dere Rolle spielen, erweist sich schon dadurch, dass der Begriff Erziehung (lat. educare für großziehen, ernähren, erziehen) selbst schon metaphorisch ist und im Sinne von „jemandes Geist und Charakter bilden und seine Entwicklung fördern“ steht.12

2.  Seelenkonzepte in der Antike und ihre Rezeption im Islam 2.1.  Antike Vorstellungen Das antike griechische Bildungsgut hatte ab dem 2./8. und 3./9. Jahrhundert einen besonders großen Einfluss auf die islamische Gelehrsamkeit, insbesondere die islamische Philosophie. Auch in den Werken Miskawaihs und Ibn Sīnās spiegelt sich die Rezeption und Adaption platonischer und aristotelischer Philosophie wider. Eschatologische Überlegungen, die erörtern, was mit der Seele beim Eintritt des Todes geschieht, sind hierbei stark in das neuplatonische Weltbild eingebunden, in dem eine Stufenfolge vom Irdischen bis zu Gott dargelegt wird und die vom Körper losgelöste Seele je nach Grad ihrer diesseitigen Vervollkommnung den Aufstieg zu Gott findet. Nach Ausführungen Platons ist die Seele immateriell und unsterblich, sie existiert unabhängig vom Körper, also schon vor dessen Entstehung. In seiner Ideenlehre beschreibt er die Seele, die nicht nur Träger des Denkens, sondern die Identität der Person verbürgt und zudem unsterblich sei.13 Der Mensch ist wesentlich durch die Verbindung von Leib und Seele bestimmt. Dabei ist die Seele vorrangig, während der Leib nur ein Schatten und sogar eine unglückliche Verbindung ist, da die Seele im Leib wie in einem Gefängnis eingesperrt ist. Der Körper ist daher eine stete Belastung und Herausforderung für die Seele. Platon definiert drei Seelen: 1. die „Vernunft- und Geistesseele“ (logistikón) die im reinen Denken aufgeht; 2. die „muthafte Seele“ (thymoeidēs), der die edleren Erregungen wie Zorn, Ehrgeiz, Mut und Hoffnung zugehören; und 3. die triebhafte „Begierdenseele“ (epithymētikón), in der der Nahrungs- und Geschlechtstrieb seinen Sitz hat sowie Lust und Unlust und das Ruhebedürfnis. Der Phaidros ist ein in Dialogform verfasstes Werk von Platon. Der Dialog beinhaltet ein fiktives, literarisch gestaltetes Gespräch von Platons Lehrer Sokra12  Duden 2007: 948. Die Untersuchung von Metaphern im pädagogischen sprachlichen Handeln stellt einen eigenen Forschungsbereich in der Erziehungswissenschaft dar. Vgl. exemplarisch Meyer-Drawe 1999. 13  Er beschreibt dies in seinem Werk Phaidon. Ausführlich hierzu und zu Platons Konzept der Seele siehe Hirschberger 2007: i, 118–119.



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tes mit seinem Freund Phaidros, nach dem der Dialog benannt ist. Um das Wesen der Seele zu veranschaulichen, stellt Platon in diesem Dialog die Allegorie von der Seele als Gespann vor und schuf zugleich mit diesem Bild des „Seelenwagens“ eine der bekanntesten Metaphern für die Seele. In diesem lehrhaften sprachlichen Bild symbolisiert der Wagenlenker bzw. Kutscher, die Vernunft, die Platon im Kopf lokalisiert. Eines der beiden Pferde des Gespanns ist gehorsam und steht sinnbildlich als zweiter Teil der Seele für Tapferkeit, Mut bzw. Wille und Gefühl. Diesen Zustand lokalisiert Platon in der Brust. Der dritte Teil der Seele ist das störrische Pferd, das für Besonnenheit und Mäßigkeit steht; es repräsentiert Begierde und den Trieb, der im Bauch lokalisiert wird. Platon vergleicht den muthaften Seelenteil auch mit einem Löwen und den begierigen mit einem „geilen Hengst“. Diese Metapher der dreigeteilten Seele wird in Varianten von Miskawaih und Ibn Sīnā aufgegriffen, wie wir noch sehen werden. Aristoteles (gest. 322 v. Chr.), Schüler von Platon, dessen Schriften im Islam weitaus bekannter als die von Platon sind und die zum größten Teil schon früh ins Arabische übersetzt worden waren, unterschied ebenfalls drei Seelenteile. Der Mensch besitzt nach seiner Aussage neben der Pflanzen- und Tierseele auch noch die Geistseele. Allerdings bedeuten diese Seelenvermögen für Aristoteles nur das niedere Erkennen. Darüber erhebt sich als das höhere und eigentlich menschliche Erkennen der Geist (logos). Dieser stellt das diskursive Denken und Urteilen des Verstandes dar, das nicht intuitiv, sondern planmäßig mit steter Überprüfung der Denkschritte vorgeht.14 Nous ist das Denkvermögen und der oberste Seelenteil des Menschen.15 Zustände der Seele, so betont Aristoteles, sind immer auch Zustände des Körpers, aber eine Identität von Körper und Seele wird von ihm verneint. Diese antiken philosophischen Lehren über die Seele, die hier nur kurz umrissen werden konnten, wurden im Islam umfassend rezipiert und weiterentwickelt. Die von Platon beschriebene metaphorische Dreiteilung der Seele wurde mit den entsprechenden Termini, 1. nafs ʿāqila für die Vernunftseele; 2. nafs ġadabīya für die muthafte und 3. nafs šahwānīya für die triebhafte Seele übernommen. Eingebettet wurde in die islamische Philosophie zudem das kosmologische Modell des neuplatonischen Weltbildes, dessen Begründer Plotin (204–270 n. Chr.) war. Seine Lehre prägte die Philosophie der Spätantike und war von größtem Einfluss auf die metaphysischen Lehren. Plotins Idee von der Seele, die sich zwar mit dem Körper verbindet, aber zugleich in der Welt der Intel14  Nach Hirschberger 2007: i, 212. 15 Aristoteles, Über die Seele: 429a.

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lekte beheimatet bleibt und somit befähigt ist, die reale Struktur der Dinge zu erkennen, machte großen Eindruck auf die islamischen Philosophen und befruchtete ihr Denken nachhaltig. Fragen, die die islamischen Denker intensiv beschäftigten und bei denen jede mögliche Position vertreten und auch wieder ad absurdum geführt werden konnte, waren, wie die separate Existenz der Seele denkbar ist, ob sie gar präexistent ist, da sie ewig ist, was mit ihr nach dem Tod geschieht und wie sie sich nach dem Tod, bei dem sie vom Körper getrennt wird, mit dem Körper wieder vereinigt, da der Körper ohne die Seele nicht existieren kann. 2.2.  Die Seele und ihre eschatologische Bedeutung im Islam Im Jahr 1902 versuchte der amerikanische Arzt Duncan McDougall (gest. 1920), auf experimentellem Weg das Gewicht der Seele zu bestimmen, und kam zu einem konkreten Ergebnis: 21 Gramm. Der Aufbau des Experiments war einfach: McDougall legte Sterbende samt Sterbebett auf eine Präzisionswaage, bestimmte das Gewicht vor und nach Eintritt des Todes und erörterte ausführlich die möglichen Störfaktoren. Doch abgesehen von der Frage, ob die Seele ein Gewicht hat, erfährt der Begriff „Seele“ vielfältige Interpretationen und wird ganz unterschiedlich aus den verschiedensten Bereichen dargelegt. Deutungen und Erklärungsmuster finden sich u. a. in mythischen und mystischen, theologischen und philosophischen sowie medizinischen und auch psychologischen Ansätzen wieder. So steht die Seele mithin sinnbildlich für ein Lebensprinzip und für das „Selbst“ des Menschen, der oftmals zweigeteilt als ein unvergängliches geistiges und ein veränderliches und am Ende verfallendes Moment vorgestellt wird. Die Seele wird dabei bis zum Tod mit dem Körper verhaftet gedacht und gilt währenddessen als Teil des Körpers, Prinzip der Bewegung, Sitz der Persönlichkeit und des Bewusstseins. Zugleich steht der umfassende Begriff Seele für Wahrnehmung und Bewusstsein, für die Persönlichkeit, Intelligenz, die Erkenntnis aber auch die moralische Disposition und Lebenshaltung. Die Beschreibung der Seele im islamisch-religiösen Kontext wird durch Aussagen im Koran, in dem das feminine Wort nafs (Pl. anfus oder nufūs) über 250 mal begegnet, wie auch in der eschatologischen Literatur ausführlich geschildert.16 Der Begriff nafs, Hauch, steht hier auch für die Person oder das Selbst oder in der Bedeutung von „Seele“. Diese wird, so die koranische Lehre, von Gott geschaffen, bei der Geburt des Menschen in seinen Körper gegeben und bei seinem Tod aus dem Körper herausgenommen. Der Koran erwähnt drei Arten der Seele:

16 

Homerin 2006: 82.



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1. an-nafs al-ammāra ist die Seele, die das Böse befiehlt.17 2. an-nafs al-lawwāma18 ist die tadelnde Seele, die in etwa dem „Gewissen“ entspricht. 3. an-nafs al-muṭmaʾinna19 ist diejenige Seele, die sich in einem friedvollen Zustand befindet.20 Ebenso wie in der jüdisch-christlichen wird auch in der islamischen Lehre (K 15:28) gesagt, dass Gott den Menschen aus feuchter Tonmasse erschuf und ihm anschließend Geist, rūḥ, „Atem Gottes“ oder „Wind“ einblies. Der Begriff rūḥ wird in diesem Zusammenhang oftmals gleichbedeutend mit dem Begriff nafs als Bezeichnung für die menschliche Seele verwendet. Keine Seele wird schwerer belastet als sie es ertragen kann (K 2:233, K 2:286, K 6:152, K 7:42, K 65:7); jede Seele wird den Tod erleiden (K 3:185, K 21:35, K 29:57) und Wächter oder Hüter Gottes holen die Seele beim Tod ab (K 6:61). Und dann wird jede Seele wissen, was sie getan hat (K 82:5). Weiterhin wird in Sure 39:42 festgestellt, dass Gott die Seelen im Schlaf vorübergehend aus den Körpern austreten lässt und danach zum Körper zurückschickt. Nach den eschatologischen Berichten führt der Todesengel, ʿIzrāʾīl, die Seele zu einem Zwischengericht in den Himmel. Hat der Mensch ein Gott wohlgefälliges Leben geführt, wird ihm mitgeteilt, dass ihm alle seine Sünden vergeben sind. Haben der Glaube und die Taten des Menschen vor Gott keinen Bestand, wird der Seele der Eintritt in den Himmel verwehrt und sie muss zu dem Versammlungsort der Verdammten zurückkehren. Nach diesem Zwischengericht wird die Seele in den Körper des Verstorbenen zurückgebracht. Nun folgt eine Befragung im Grab, die von allen Menschen zu beantworten ist. Kann der Verstorbene die Fragen nicht richtig beantworten, muss er bereits im Grab Qualen erleiden, die ihm von den beiden Todesengeln Munkar und Nakīr zugefügt werden. Nach dieser Befragung folgt eine Wartezeit, die bis zur Auferstehung am Tag des Jüngsten Gerichts dauert und den Kreislauf des Lebens beschließt. Die Seelen erleben die Wartezeit zwischen der Befragung im Grab und der Auferstehung aber in einem schlafähnlichen Zustand, die sie als äußerst kurze Zeit wahrnehmen (K 10:45, 79:46 oder K 20:103).21 17  Vgl. K 12:53: „Die (menschliche) Seele verlangt (nun einmal) gebieterisch nach dem Bösen, – soweit mein Herr sich nicht erbarmt. Er ist barmherzig und bereit, zu vergeben.“ Alle im Text zitierten Koransuren nach der Übersetzung von Paret 1982. 18  K 75:1–2: „Nein doch! Ich schwöre beim Tag der Auferstehung, und bei einem (jeden), der (dann vor dem Richter stehen und sich wegen seines sündigen Lebenswandels?) bittere Vorwürfe machen wird (?) (oder: und bei der [menschlichen] Seele, die an allem etwas zu tadeln findet?).“ 19  K 89:27: „(Wenn aber einer [w. eine Seele] rechtzeitig den Glauben angenommen hat und ihm bis an sein Lebensende treu geblieben ist, ergeht an ihn [bzw. sie] die Aufforderung Gottes:) Der (bzw. Die) du (im Glauben) Ruhe gefunden hast!“ 20  Zu den Seelen im Koran siehe auch Talaat 1929. 21  Siehe hierzu Günther 2020: 309–348, insbesondere 317.

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Zu den bekanntesten Vorstellungen über das Geschehen am Lebensende eines Menschen gehören die Erzählungen über den Todesengel ʿIzrāʾīl, der im Koran nicht namentlich genannt wird (K 32:11, malak al-maut). In zumeist düsteren, angstmachenden Berichten wird hier der Vorgang geschildert, wie die Seele beim Tod vom Körper getrennt wird: Vier Engel treten an den Sterbenden heran, um seine Seele aus dem Körper zu „ziehen“. Der eine versucht, sie am rechten, der zweite am linken Fuß, der dritte an der rechten, der vierte an der linken Hand aus dem Körper zu zerren und schließlich ziehen sie seine Seele aus den Spitzen der Finger heraus. Die Seele verlässt daraufhin den Körper unter Gefühlen der Angst. Bei manchen Menschen zieht ʿIzrāʾīl aber selbst die Seele langsam und vorsichtig heraus, bis sie erst als ein dünner Streifen in der Kehle sitzt und dann ganz heraustritt. Das Mittel, durch das der Todesengel letzthin nach langem Zerren die Seele aus dem Körper entfernt, ist der Stich mit einer vergifteten Lanze. Sie ist in „feuriges“ Gift getaucht worden. Vor diesem Stich „flieht“ die Seele oder „fließt“ nach außen in die Hand des Todesengels und wird von dessen Gehilfen in Empfang genommen.22 Während sich die islamischen Gelehrten generell über eine körperliche Auferstehung einig sind, gibt es jedoch verschiedene Theorien über den Zustand der Seele nach dem Tod: Die einen meinen, dass Körper und Seele nicht getrennt werden und der Verstorbene am Jüngsten Tag in den wiederhergestellten Körper aus dem Grab erwacht. Andere meinen, dass der Mensch einen weiteren unsichtbaren Körper hat, der den Tod überdauert und die Seele nach dem Tode fortträgt. Auch die Vorstellung, dass die Seele nach dem Tod einen astralen Körper entwickelt, der der geistigen Welt und dem Jenseits angepasst ist, wurde diskutiert, wie Josef van Ess dies zusammenfasste.23 2.3.  Vorstellungen im klassischen Islam Vor allem Abū Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq al-Kindī (gest. ca. 252/ 866) war ein wichtiger Vorläufer und Anreger der Philosophie Miskawaihs. Er verband Vorstellungen aus Platons Lehre mit einer gnostisch-neuplatonischen Seelenlehre und stützte sich auf die eben beschriebene Dreiteilung der Seele von Platon in einen „rationalen“, „begehrenden“ und „zornigen“ Teil. Die Welt ist nach al-Kindī das Werk Gottes, dessen Wirken mit einer Ursache gleichgesetzt wird. Die höchste Wirk22  So

beschrieben von Horten 1917: 278. Zur Eschatologie im Islam siehe auch Günther 2016: 113–122. Eschatologische Hauptwerke, die die Thematik der Seele in den Vordergrund stellen, sind at-Tawahhum (Sich [die letzten Dinge] Vorstellen) von dem einflussreichen Theologen, Mystiker und Autor Abū ʿAbdallāh al-Muḥāsibī (gest. 243/857), ad-Durra al-fāḫira fī kašf ʿulūm al-āḫira (Die wertvolle Perle über die Enthüllung des Wissens vom Jenseits), das dem philosophischen Theologen und Mystiker Abū Ḥāmid al-Ġazālī (gest. 505/1111) zugeschrieben wird, sowie das Kitāb ar-Rūḥ (Das Buch über die Seele [und ihrer Reise nach dem Tod]) von dem Theologen Qayyim al-Ǧauziyya (gest. 751/1350). Vgl. dazu Günther 2020: 310. 23  Vgl. van Ess 2016: xix.



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ursache wird über viele Stufen nach unten weitervermittelt. In allem Weltgeschehen ist eine durchgängige Ursächlichkeit zu erkennen, so dass man z. B. aus dem Stand der Himmelskörper zukünftige Dinge voraussagen kann. Der göttliche Geist und die materielle Welt, die aus ihm hervorgeht, werden durch die Weltseele zusammengehalten. Die Seele eines jeden Menschen ist in gewisser Weise Ausfluss dieser Weltseele und hat an ihr teil. Die Seele des Menschen beschreibt al-Kindī als eine einfache, unvergängliche Substanz, die in diese materielle Welt geworfen wurde und sich danach sehnt, aus ihr befreit zu werden.24 Abū Naṣr Muḥammad al-Fārābī (gest. 339/950) setzte die von al-Kindī begonnene Rezeption und Adaption der antiken Wissenschaften fort. Besonders einflussreich waren seine Ausarbeitungen zur Kosmologie und der Erkenntnistheorie. Seine Vorstellungen von dem aktiven Intellekt hatten einen großen Einfluss auf Ibn Sīnā25 und inspirierten ebenso Miskawaih.26 Al-Fārābī beschreibt, dass der Mensch eine Kombination von vier Seelen, der vegetativen, animalischen, rationalen und engelsgleichen Seele, ist. Diese vier Seelen spiegeln vier Stufen wider, die der Mensch auf dem Weg zur Vollkommenheit durchläuft und die den Menschen zwischen Gut und Böse schwanken lassen. Entsprechend seiner unterschiedlichen natürlichen „Anlage“ und Intelligenz veranlasst ihn seine rationale Seele, nach Kenntnis zu streben sowie dem göttlichen, dem Propheten offenbarten und von den Imamen vermittelten Gesetz zu gehorchen.27 Al-Fārābī erstellte ein kosmologisches Weltbild, das für Miskawaih und Ibn Sīnā mit Blick auf ihre mit der Seele verbundene Lehre vom Intellekt ein wichtiges gedankliches Vorbild lieferte. Hierin beschreibt al-Fārābī einen Emanationsprozess, der in stufenförmiger Abfolge zehn Intellekte benennt, angefangen vom Ersten Seienden, bzw. der ersten Ursache oder dem Schöpfer/Gott bis hin zur Erde. Den zehnten Intellekt identifiziert al-Fārābī mit dem aktiven Intellekt, der den menschlichen Intellekt in den Zustand des aktuell erkennenden Intellekts überführt, indem er ihm die intelligiblen Formen vermittelt. Die Feststellung, dass alles Lebendige auf den Vorgang des Atmens angewiesen ist und dass kein Lebewesen in der Lage ist, einfach aus sich selbst heraus und ohne jegliche Bedürfnisse zu existieren, war schließlich eine Beobachtung, die Ärzte und Philosophen dahin inspirierten, dass die Seele, die dem Körper nach theologischem Verständnis eingehaucht wird, das Zentrum der physischen Existenz ist und damit nicht nur eine göttliche Gabe, die im Körper eines Menschen gefangen ist. Der griechische Arzt Galenos von Pergamon (gest. um 205 oder 215), kurz Galen, dessen Werk nahezu vollständig ins Arabische übersetzt wurde und der neben Aristoteles wohl den größten Einfluss auf die arabische24  Hier wird deutlich, dass die antike Überlieferung, die al-Kindī aufgreift, von gnostischen Motiven beeinflusst ist, wie Nagel (1994: 178–179) feststellt. 25  Strohmaier 2006: 76, 103, 107. 26  Rudolph 2012: 374 und Mohamed 2000: 657–679. 27  So beschrieben von Daiber 2013: 49.

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islamischen Wissenschaften hatte, hatte mit seiner psychologischen Betrachtung der Seele ebenfalls stark auf Miskawaih und Ibn Sīnā eingewirkt. Galen baute die in der Philosophie entwickelte Vier-Elemente-Lehre aus, wonach Feuer, Erde, Luft und Wasser in unterschiedlicher Zusammensetzung die Grundelemente allen Seins darstellen. Auch er befasste sich nachhaltig mit der Seele und ihrem unmittelbaren Einfluss auf den Körper. Dies beschrieb er in seiner Schrift Darüber, dass die Kräfte der Seele der Mischung des Körpers folgen28, die den arabischen Ärzten gut bekannt war und als lehrreiche Lektüre empfohlen wurde. Ibn Sīnā stellte an ihn anknüpfend fest, dass die Seele den Körper beeinflusst und dass sie auch eine Krankheit des Körpers verursachen kann, wenn sie ihre natürliche Ordnung verlässt.29 Solche Ursachen der Erkrankung sind beispielsweise Zorn, Kummer, Angst, maßlose Liebe oder Verwunderung, Ungestüm, Ungeduld, Jähzorn. Das Werk Galens wurde von dem christlichen Gelehrten Ḥunain ibn Isḥāq (gest. 260/873) ins Syrische und Arabische übersetzt und bildete für die Muslime – so auch für Miskawaih und Ibn Sīnā – einen wichtigen Grundstock für ihre philosophischen und medizinischen Lehren.30 Die „Lauteren Brüder“, ein Verbund von überwiegend iranischen muslimischen Gelehrten, die sich bereits ab Mitte des 4./10. Jahrhunderts als philosophische, religiöse und politische Gruppe in Basra zusammenfanden, verfassten die berühmten Rasāʾil Iḫwān aṣ-Ṣafāʾ (Sendschreiben der Lauteren Brüder). Diese Textsammlung entstand vermutlich in den Jahren zwischen 259/873 und 296/909 und hat sowohl Miskawaih31 als auch Ibn Sīnā32 inspiriert. Eingangs ihres insgesamt 52 Abhandlungen umfassenden Werkes erklären die Verfasser, dass diese Enzyklopädie geschrieben wurde, um die Seele zu läutern und den Charakter zu verbessern.33 Die Hauptaufgabe des Menschen bestehe darin, sich aus der Hölle der Welt, des Erstehens und Vergehens zu befreien und die Seele aus dem Gefängnis des Körpers, der Sinne und der Materie zu erlösen. Die Seele sei ein Teil des Göttlichen und müsse wieder zu Gott zurückgeführt werden. Sie solle emporsteigen in das eigentliche Haus des Lebens. Mit Bezug auf Platon beschreiben auch sie die drei Seelen, nämlich die vegetative, deren Begehren sich auf Essen, Trinken und Begattung richtet, die zornige, animalische, die nach Unterwerfung und Herrschaft strebt und die vernunftbegabte, die nach Erkenntnissen und dem Erwerb der Tugenden strebt. Sie führen schließlich aus, dass nachdem die Seele den Körper verlassen hat, der Körper verwest und zu Staub wird, während die Seele aber eine himmlische Substanz, lichterfüllt, lebendig, wissend, tätig und von großer Wahrnehmungskraft sei. Sie ist so geartet, 28  29  30  31  32  33 

Siehe hierzu vor allem Biesterfeldt 1973. Siehe hierzu Bürgel 2016: 328. Vgl. Bergsträsser 1925: 41. Ausführlich hierzu Mohamed 2008: 92–95. Bloch 1952: 9. Diese und die folgenden Angaben nach Diwald 1975: 303–305.



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dass sie weder stirbt noch vergeht, vielmehr ewig lebt, entweder in Genuss oder in Schmerz.

3.  Miskawaih und die Seele In den Schriften und Werken Miskawaihs stellt sich die Frage nach Art, Beschaffenheit und Disposition der Seele als eine Schlüsselthematik dar. Zusammenfassend seien hier in Kürze einige seiner wichtigsten Gedanken zu seiner Vorstellung von der Seele genannt:34 Glück und Glückseligkeit bezeichnet Miskawaih als die höchsten Zustände der Seele. In der Schrift al-Hawāmil wa-ššawāmil (Aufgeworfene Fragen und erschöpfende Antworten) verweist Miskawaih darauf, dass die Seele eine höchstmögliche Vollkommenheit erlangt, wenn sie Formen der Intelligiblia aufnimmt.35 In al-Fauz al-aṣġar (Der kleinere Triumph oder Die kleinere Schrift über den Weg zum Erfolg), welche deutlich in der neuplatonischen Tradition steht, stellt er fest, dass die Frage der Seele des Menschen und ihre Fähigkeiten zu den wichtigsten philosophischen Gegenständen gehört und daher über allen anderen Wissenschaften rangiert. In diesem Werk führt Miskawaih auch aus, dass es drei Seelenformen gibt, welche sich in wachsender Folge von der vegetativen über die animalische bis hin zum Seelenvermögen des vernünftigen Lebewesens präsentieren und dass die Seele nach der vollkommenen Tugend sucht. Hier klingt ein früher evolutionistischer Gedanke an. Die Substanz der Seele, so Miskawaih, ist von der Substanz des Körpers verschieden. Die Vernunftseele überdauert den Tod und ist unvergänglich. In seiner Maqāla oder Risāla fī n-nafs wa-l-ʿaql (Abhandlung über Seele und Intellekt) stellt er dar, dass die Seele vollkommene Tugend sucht und die Lust des Körpers verachtet und abweist. In seiner Schrift Risāla fī ǧauhar annafs (Abhandlung über Seele und Intellekt) hält Miskawaih fest, dass nicht aufgrund ihrer Körperlichkeit, sondern aufgrund ihrer Beseeltheit Lebewesen von der Pflanze über das Tier bis zum Menschen existieren und die Fähigkeit zu Ernährung, Wachstum und Fortpflanzung haben. Auch habe die Seele mehrere Teile und Kräfte.36 In seinem wichtigen Werk Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq wa-taṭhīr al-aʿrāq (Die Kultivierung der Charakterzüge und die Läuterung der natürlichen Veranlagungen) greift

34  Im Folgenden fasse ich die Inhalte der Schriften von Miskawaih nach dem Kapitel von Endress 2012: 213–223 zusammen. 35 Mit intellectus agens wird die „tätige Vernunft“ bezeichnet, die man der „möglichen Vernunft“ (intellectus possibilis) bzw. der „passiven Vernunft“ (intellectus passivus) entgegensetzt. 36  Zu erwähnen ist an dieser Stelle auch das von Adamson 2007 untersuchte Sendschreiben über die Seele und den Verstand, in dem Miskawaih auch ontologische und psychologische Aspekte der Seele beschreibt.

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Miskawaih auf die von Platon beschriebene Dreiteilung der Seele zurück. Diese, so stellt er dar, untergliedere sich in: 1. die vernünftige Seele (an-nafs an-nāṭiq); 2. die muthafte (al-ġaḍabīya, auch sabuʿīya, „die löwenhafte“) und 3. die triebhafte (aš-šahawīya, auch al-bahimīya, die „tierische“). Der vernünftige Seelenteil aber sei nach Miskawaih der königliche, denn es kommt ihm zu, die anderen Teile zu Mäßigung und Ausgewogenheit und damit zur Tugend zu bestimmen. Diesen Seelenteil lokalisiert er im Gehirn. Jedem Seelenvermögen entspricht zudem eine Tugend, die jeweils aus maßvollem Gebrauch und Einsicht in den ihr entsprechenden Zweck hervorgeht. Die Verwirklichung der Tugenden erfordert die Reinigung der Seele von den Lastern. Miskawaih nannte dieses Werk daher auch Kitāb aṭ-Ṭahāra (Buch der Reinigung [der Seele]).37 Der zweite Diskurs des Werkes über die Verfeinerung der Charakterzüge behandelt den Charakter, die Menschlichkeit und die Methode der Ausbildung junger Männer, nachdem Miskawaih im ersten Diskurs die Seele und ihre Tugenden behandelte. In diesem zweiten Diskurs geht Miskawaih der Frage nach, welchen Weg ein intelligenter Mensch beschreiten muss, um zur intellektuellen Vollkommenheit zu gelangen, und greift hierbei auf die bekannte Metapher für die Dreiheit der Seele, Vernunft, Wille und Begierde in leichter Modifikation mit Bildern von einem Reiter, einer „starken Bestie“ (bahīma qawīya) in Anklang an die „löwenartige“ Seele und einem Hund zurück. Er schreibt:

ً ‫أ‬ ً ّ ‫النفس الثالث بإنسان را كب بهيمة‬ ّ ‫وقد‬ ‫ يقود كلبا أو فهدا‬،‫قوية‬ ‫النسان وحاله في هذه‬ ‫شبه القدماء إ‬ ّ ّ ّ ‫يصرفهما ويطيعانه في سيره وتصيده‬ ‫ال‬ ‫ فإن كان إ‬،‫للقنص‬ ِ ‫نسان من بينهم هو الذي يروض دابته وكلبه‬ ّ‫أ‬ ّ ‫النسان يكون‬ ‫ لن إ‬،‫ فال شك في رغد العيش المشترك بين الثالث وحسن أحواله‬،‫وسائر تصرفاته‬ ّ ّ ‫يحب وكما‬ ّ ‫ يجري فرسه حيث‬،‫مرفها في مطالبه‬ ‫ فإذا نزل واستراح‬،‫ ويطلق كلبه أيضا كذلك‬،‫يحب‬ ‫أ‬ ‫أراحهما معه وأحسن القيام عليهما وأزاح علتهما في المطعم والمشرب وكفاية العداء وغير ذلك من‬ .‫مصالحهما‬ ّ ‫ فلم تطع‬،‫النسان مضعوفا عندها‬ ‫ وكان إ‬،‫ وإذا كانت البهيمة هي الغالبة ساءت حال الثالثة كلهم‬ ً ّ ‫ وعدلت عن الطر يق‬،‫وتعسفت في عدوها‬ ّ ‫عشبا من بعيد عدت نحوه‬ ،‫النهج‬ ‫ فإن رأت‬،‫فارسها وغلبت‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ‫الودية والوهاد والشوك والشجر فتقحمتها‬ ‫ ولحق فارسها ما يلحق مثله في هذه‬،‫وتورطت فيها‬ ‫فاعترضتها‬ ‫أ‬ ً .‫والشراف على الهلكة ما ال خفاء فيه‬ ‫الحوال فيصيبها جميعا من أنواع المكاره إ‬ ً ً ّ ‫ فإن رأى من بعيد صيدا أو ما‬،‫ وكذلك إن قوي الكلب لم يطع صاحبه‬ ،‫يظنه صيدا أخذ نحوه‬ ّ ‫ ولحق الجميع من‬،‫فجذب الفرس وفارسه‬ .‫الضر والضرر أضعاف ما ذكرناه‬

Die Altvorderen (d. h. die antiken Denker) verglichen den Menschen und seine Situation in Bezug auf die dreigeteilte Seele mit einer Person, die ein starkes Reittier (bahīma qawīya) besteigt und [dabei] einen Jagdhund oder einen Geparden führt. Wenn er nun 37 

Daiber 2013: 50.



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unter ihnen derjenige ist, der sein Reittier (dābba) und seinen Hund gut abgerichtet hat, indem er ihnen beiden befiehlt und ihm beide gehorchen, dann besteht kein Zweifel daran, dass alle drei gemeinsam ein gutes Leben führen werden und es ihm [dem Menschen] gut gehen wird. Das liegt nämlich darin [begründet], dass der Mensch bezüglich seiner Wünsche entspannt lebt, wenn er sein Pferd [Reittier] wo und wie er will frei laufen lässt, ebenso auch seinen Hund. Wenn er [der Mensch] absteigt und sich etwas ausruht, wird er auch die beiden ausruhen lassen, und er wird sich gut um sie kümmern, ihren Bedarf an Essen und Trinken befriedigen und ihnen Sicherheit vor Feinden geben. Und so verfährt er [auch] bezüglich ihrer weiteren Interessen.   Sollte aber das Reittier die Oberhand gewinnen, wäre dies für alle drei ein misslicher Zustand und der Mensch wäre für [das Reittier ein] schwacher [Anführer]. Das Reittier würde seinem Reiter nicht gehorchen. Wenn es [zum Beispiel] in der Ferne Gras sähe, würde es dorthin laufen, willkürlich galoppieren und vom geraden Pfad abweichen. Es würde achtlos in Täler, Gruben, Dornen oder Bäume rennen und vom Weg abkommen. Es würde nicht nur sich selbst, sondern auch die anderen beiden in Gefahr bringen. Der Reiter würde darunter leiden und alle drei würden ein solches Übel und solche zerstörerischen Gefahren treffen, wie dies hier offensichtlich wird.   Das gleiche würde auch dann passieren, wenn der Hund die Oberhand bekäme. Er würde dann seinem Herrn nicht mehr gehorchen. Wenn er in der Ferne Beute sähe oder etwas, das ihm als Beute erscheint, so würde er auf sie zu hetzen, den Reiter und das Reittier mit sich ziehen und allen dreien Schaden und Verletzungen um ein Vielfaches mehr als das zufügen, was wir beschrieben haben.38

Dass sich Miskawaih bei dieser Textpassage speziell auf Galen und seine ethische Abhandlung De moribus39, die von Ḥunain ibn Isḥāq mit dem Titel Kitāb al-Aḫlāq ins Arabische übersetzt wurde, gestützt hat, ist augenfällig und auch nachgewiesen worden.40

38 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 52; eigene Übersetzung. Vgl. auch die englische Übersetzung von Zurayk 1968: 47. 39  Hierzu siehe Kraus 1939: 1–51. 40  Galen zum Vergleich schreibt im K. al-Aḫlāq, das Miskawaih nahezu wörtlich zitiert: „Die jähzornige Seele verhält sich zur rationalen Seele, so wie der Hund zum Jäger oder so wie das Pferd zum Reiter. Obwohl Sie ihm helfen, zu tun, was er will, bewegen Sie sich manchmal zur falschen Zeit und zum falschen Maß/Umfang. Manchmal schaden sie ihm sogar. Der Hund kann ihm sogar Schaden zufügen. Das Pferd kann mit ihm weglaufen und zusammen könnten sie in eine tiefe Grube stürzen und dort verenden. Des Reiters Aufgabe ist es, den richtigen Zeitpunkt und den richtigen Maßstab für die Fortbewegung zu bestimmen und einen virtuosen Umgang mit ihm den beiden Tieren, so dass das Pferd durch seinen Willen geleitet wird und der Hund die Jagd aufnimmt. Wie einfach es ist, Pferd und Hund zu einem guten Gefährten zu machen, hängt von dem Umfang des Trainings mit ihnen ab, wobei kein Pferd und kein Hund einfach zu trainieren sind. Es gibt eigensinnige Charaktere deren Ausbildung viel Aufmerksamkeit und eine lange Zeit der Praxis erfordern. Zudem ist der Jäger und der Reiter selbst zunächst unerfahren.“ Zu diesem Zitat vgl. Rosenthal 1992: 87–88. Siehe zur Metapher und ihrer Verwendung, die den starken Bezug auf Galen besonders verdeutlicht, auch Walzer 1963: 142–163 und 1963: 220–235, insbesondere 220.

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4.  Ibn Sīnā und die Seele Ibn Sīnā verfasste zahlreiche Schriften zur Seele, die für ihn ebenfalls wie für Miskawaih von besonderem Interesse für seine ethische wie auch eschatologische Deutung war.41 Sein Kitāb aš-Šifāʾ (Buch der Heilung) ist eine philosophische Enzyklopädie und zugleich das umfangreichste der erhaltenen Werke von Ibn Sīnā, die er in der Zeit von 1020 bis 1027 verfasste und in der er auch spirituelle und seelische Aspekte behandelte.42 Zu nennen sind an dieser Stelle auch sein berühmtes Gedicht über die Seele und seine allegorischen Erzählungen, auf die ich sogleich zu sprechen komme.43 Im Kitāb aš-Šifāʾ setzt sich Ibn Sīnā intensiv mit der Herkunft und Beschaffenheit der Seele in seiner Abhandlung zur Metaphysik im Kapitel über das jenseitige Leben auseinander. Die Diskrepanz zwischen Körper und Seele, welche zwar untrennbar miteinander verbunden sind, dennoch aber im Widerstreit miteinander liegen, formuliert er mit folgenden Worten:

ّ ‫ّثم جوهر‬ ّ ‫ ويغفله عن الشوق الذي‬،‫النفس ّإنما كان البدن هو الذي يغمره ويلهيه‬ ‫ وعن طلب‬،‫يخصه‬ ّ ّ ‫ والشعور بألم الكمال إن قصر عنه؛ ال بأن‬،‫ وعن الشعور بلذة الكمال إن حصل‬،‫الكمال الذي له‬ ّ ‫ولكن العالقة التي كانت بينهما وهو الشوق الجبلي إلى‬ ،‫النفس منطبعة في البدن أو منغمسة فيه‬ ّ ‫ وبما‬،‫تدبيره واالشتغال بآثاره وبما تورده عليه من عوارضه‬ .‫يتقرر فيه من ملكات مبدؤها البدن‬ Was die Substanz der Seele angeht, so ist es der [menschliche] Körper, der sie [d. h. die Substanz der Seele] einschließt, sie hemmt und ablenkt von: – der ihr innewohnenden Sehnsucht, – dem ihr eigenen Verlangen nach Vollkommenheit, – dem Gefühl des Genusses der Vollkommenheit, wenn diese erreicht wird, und – dem Gefühl des Schmerzes nach der Vollkommenheit, wenn er [d. h. der Körper] diese nicht erlangt. [Dies alles liegt nicht daran, dass] die Seele im Körper eingeprägt oder gar [in ihm] versenkt ist. [Vielmehr geschieht dies aufgrund] des Verhältnisses zwischen den beiden [d. h. der Seele und dem Körper], nämlich – der naturgemäßen Sehnsucht [des Körpers], sie [d. h. die Substanz der Seele] zu leiten (tadbīr) und – sich mit ihren Regungen zu beschäftigen (ištiġāl) und mit dem, was sie ihm [d. h. dem Körper] an deren Akzidenzien darbietet, sowie mit dem, was in ihr [d. h. der Substanz der Seele] an Dispositionen verankert und [schließlich] deren Subsistenz im Körper ist.44

Weiterhin erklärt Ibn Sīnā, dass der vollkommenste Mensch derjenige sei, dessen Seele im aktuellen Denken vervollkommnet wurde und dessen Seele zugleich 41  Ausführlich zu Ibn Sīnā und seinem Werk siehe Gutas 1985. 42  In der arabischen Ausgabe Ibn Sīnā, aš-Šifāʾ: x, 423–432. 43  Übersetzung Arberry 1951: 77–78. Ibn Sīnā, aš-Šifāʾ: x, 430. 44  Ibn Sīna, aš-Šifāʾ: 430; eigene Übersetzung. Siehe dazu auch

ten (Übers.), Die Metaphysik: 645.

die Übersetzung von Hor-

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149

mit ethischen Eigenschaften ausgestattet sei. Der vollkommenste dieser Menschen sei derjenige, der für die Rangstufe der Prophetie disponiert sei. Die Befreiung der Seele von der Anhänglichkeit an das Körperliche werde durch gute Charaktereigenschaften und ethische Dispositionen erreicht. Ibn Sīnā führt weiterhin aus, dass die religiösen Handlungen und guten Werke die animalischen Kräfte und die Neigungen, sich der Ruhe und Trägheit hinzugeben, vernichten. Ibn Sīnā griff auch auf die Metaphysik von al-Fārābī zurück und erweiterte und verfeinerte sie. So bringt auch nach seiner Vorstellung der aktive Intellekt die Materie der sublunaren Welt hervor und wird damit zum Urheber der gesamten materiellen, irdischen Welt.45 Nach Ibn Sīnās Überzeugung könnte ein Mensch in gesundem Zustand, wenn er zeitweilig nichts von seinem Körper wahrnehmen könnte, seine eigene Identität als Selbst oder Seele nicht leugnen, auch wenn ihm sonst nichts bekannt wäre. Hierfür benutzt er in seinem Kitāb al-Išārāt wa-t-tanbihāt (Das Buch der Hinweise und Belehrungen) das Bild vom fliegenden Menschen, mit dem er die Fähigkeit der Seele beschreibt, nicht nur denken, sondern sich gleichwohl der eigenen Existenz vergewissern zu können.46 Auch betont er, dass der Körper nach dem Tod vergeht und als Materie wieder in den beständigen Kreislauf des Lebens eingeht, die Seele aber fortleben kann. Aus Ibn Sīnās Feder stammen drei allegorische Erzählungen, die den Intellekt und die Frage der Beschaffenheit der Seele in ihren verschiedenen Entwicklungsstadien beschreiben. In diesen Erzählungen reflektiert der Autor den Widerstreit der Seele, welche im Körper verhaftet ist, aber dennoch stets einen Funken des Göttlichen erahnt bzw. sogar ein Teil dessen ist. Ibn Sīnā schrieb die erste Erzählung dieser Trilogie Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān (Lebendiger, Sohn des Wachen) während einer Festungshaft in der Nähe von Hamadan im Westen des Iran im Jahr 1023.47 Die Erzählung legt eine komplexe kosmologische Weltsicht dar, in der das Geschehen zwischen der irdischen Welt und der nichtirdischen verankert ist. Die zweite Erzählung, Risālat aṭ-ṭair (Die Erzählung von den Vögeln), schildert, wie eine im Okzident der diesseitigen Welt gefangene und fern von ihrer Heimat lebende Seele erwacht und sich in Gestalt eines Vogels auf den Weg zur Erkenntnis begibt. Die allegorische Erzählung Salāmān wa-Absāl (Salaman und Absal) schildert, wie das gewöhnliche Bewusstsein des Schülers erst erkannt und geformt werden muss, damit er mit der Königswürde eines vollendeten Menschen wiedergeboren werden kann.48 An dieser Stelle wollen wir das Augenmerk nur auf die Metaphern in der Erzählung Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān richten: 45  46  47 

Vgl. Corbin 1996: 240; ebenso Strohmaier 2006: 64. Vgl. Strohmaier 2006: 69–70. Gohlmann 1974: 60. Unter dem gleichen Titel schrieb der arabisch-andalusische Gelehrte Ibn Ṭufail (gest. 581/1185) ebenfalls eine allegorische Erzählung. 48  Siehe hierzu insbesondere Corbin 1960: 190.

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Die Erzählung erfolgt aus der Perspektive des Icherzählers, der eines Tages mit drei Gefährten eine Wanderung unternimmt. Bei einer Rast begegnet ihnen ein alter Mann, der von einem übernatürlichen Glanz umgeben ist und trotz seines Alters wie ein junger Mann zu sein scheint, ganz ohne eine Schwäche, mit makelloser Haltung und dem kein Zeichen des Alters anhaftet. Kaum erblickt der Erzähler diesen Mann, empfindet er den sehnsüchtigen Wunsch, sich mit ihm zu unterhalten und ihn kennenzulernen. Und so kommen sie ins Gespräch; der Greis stellt sich mit dem Namen „der Lebende“ vor und führt aus, dass sein Vater „der Wachende“ sei und dass er aus dem himmlischen Jerusalem, dem Allerheiligsten aller Orte komme. Auch erfährt der Icherzähler, dass der geheimnisvolle Fremde in der Welt herumwandert, um diese kennenzulernen. Dabei sei sein Antlitz stets seinem Vater zugewandt, von dem er alles gelernt und der ihm die Schlüssel zu jeder Art von Erkenntnis gegeben habe. Die drei Freunde, die den Icherzähler begleiten, werden nun von Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān genauer betrachtet und charakterisiert: Jener Gefährte, der dem Erzähler immer vorangeht und ihn anstachelt, so erklärt er es dem Icherzähler, sei ein Lügner, ein frivoler Schwätzer, der das Falsche verherrlicht und ihn mit erfundenen Geschichten betört. Er trägt Kenntnisse zu, ohne dass man danach fragt, und vermischt Wahres und Falsches, beschmutzt die Wahrheit mit dem Irrtum, und das, obwohl er trotz allem das verborgene Auge und der Erleuchter seines Freundes sei. Der Gefährte zu seiner Rechten dagegen ist gewalttätig; wenn er von Zorn erfüllt ist, wird ihn kein guter Ratschlag bändigen; auch zuvorkommendes Verhalten mäßigt seinen Zorn nicht. Er ist wie das Feuer, das trockenes Holz verzehrt, wie eine Sturzflut, die aus den Höhen herabkommt, wie ein betrunkenes Kamel, wie eine Löwin, deren Junges getötet wurde. Der Gefährte zu seiner Linken schließlich sei ein Schlamper, ein Vielfraß, ein Lüstling und nichts vermag seinen Appetit zu stillen, als die Erde: allein Schlamm und Dreck befriedige ihn. Er sei, so führt Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān aus, wie ein hungriges Schwein, das man auf Abfall loslässt. Abschließend stellt er mahnend fest, dass der Icherzähler an seine Gefährten untrennbar gefesselt ist.49 Die Gefährten, von denen hier die Rede ist, sind unschwer nach dem bekannten Muster der drei Seelenteile zu verstehen. Die platonische Trichotomie der Seele, wie sie zuerst von Platon, dann von Aristoteles und Galen vertieft und weiter differenziert wurde, begegnet uns also wieder. Das Bild der dreigeteilten Seele bei Ibn Sīnā erfährt hierbei die von Aristoteles weiter ausdifferenzierte Sichtweise der Übertragung des Mittelmaßes auf die niederen Seelenteile, denn die Tugend kann nur in der Ausgewogenheit zwischen einem Übermaß und einem Mangel an Begierde bestehen. 49 Zusammenfassung der Charakterisierung der drei Gefährten nach Strohmaier 1996: 339–340.



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Der erste Gefährte meint den Komplex der inneren Sinne; der zweite Gefährte, unbedacht, reizbar wie ein wilder Hengst oder eine Löwin, die ihr Junges verloren hat, symbolisiert den mutvollen Teil der Seele, die ihren Sitz im Herzen hat; der dritte Gefährte, schmutzig und gefräßig, wie ein brünstiger Hengst oder ein hungriges Schwein; er symbolisiert die triebhafte, begehrende Seele, die ihren Sitz in der Leber hat. Der jugendliche Greis, Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, ist schließlich eine Metapher für den aktiven Intellekt. Ausgehend von der bekannten Seelenlehre differenziert Ibn Sīnā nun die drei Seelenvermögen weiter aus und ordnet sie der Weltseele unter. Der Greis, der sowohl durch Alter als auch ewige Jugendlichkeit fasziniert, verkörpert den aktiven Intellekt. Der „ewige Jüngling“ ist zugleich auch ein Symbol für Ganzheit: die Vollendung, die durch das lange Lebensalter bereits erreicht ist, verbunden mit dem zeitlosen Nicht-Jetzt ewiger Jugend. Von dem Greis erfährt der Erzähler in verschlüsselter Rede das Gebäude des Makro- und des Mikrokosmos ebenso wie die Unzuverlässigkeit der Sinne. Der Greis, also der aktive Intellekt, beschreibt das Reich der Materie als vergänglich, in dem nichts Bestand hat. Anders verhält es sich mit den himmlischen Sphären, welche bevölkert sind von Menschen, die aufgrund ihres Charakters der Herrschaft eines bestimmten Planeten unterstehen. Das Gespräch ist schließlich eine Metapher für das Einwirken des aktiven Intellekts auf den menschlichen. Zusammenfassend ist festzuhalten, dass die Erzählung eine symbolische Beschreibung der Wege der Seele fort von den Fesseln des Körpers, von der Dunkelheit der Materie und hin zum himmlischen Licht des reinen Intellekts, zur Einswerdung mit Gott ist. In Übereinstimmung mit Miskawaih folgt auch Ibn Sīnā der platonischen Lehre, dass die Seele unteilbar und immateriell ist und den Tod des sterblichen Leibes überdauert. Letztere Feststellung ist insbesondere für ihre ethische Unterweisung grundlegend.

5. Fazit Die von Miskawaih und Ibn Sīnā verwendeten Bilder sind, wie sich gezeigt hat, nicht nur ein rhetorischer Schmuck in ihrer literarischen Sprache, vielmehr dienen sie den Gelehrten als bewusst eingesetztes didaktisches Instrument, um die dreigeteilte Seele sowohl zu veranschaulichen als auch in poetischer Weise zu erklären. Der Rückgriff auf die lehrhaften Metaphern aus der Antike erweist sich bei ihnen als ein Instrument, um komplizierte Gedanken plastischer zu formulieren und diese den Rezipienten in einfachen Worten zu veranschaulichen. Dies ermöglicht es Miskawaih und Ibn Sīnā, mit einer gewissen Leichtigkeit erzählerisch einprägsam ihre komplexen Seelentheorien zu beschreiben und gleichzeitig dem Leser auf ästhetische Weise eine Hilfestellung beim Nachdenken über

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die philosophische Aussage zu geben, wodurch der philosophische Bildgebrauch eine Reflexivität der Bilder enthält.50 Die Seelenkonzepte von Miskawaih und Ibn Sīnā weisen eine in der Philosophie zugleich traditionelle Behandlung der Seele auf, indem die beiden Gelehrten die Immaterialität, den Zustand der Seele im Körper, ihre Unsterblichkeit und Herkunft und die Verbindung zu Seelenkräften behandeln. Beide Autoren sind sich auch darin einig, dass Fragen zur Art und Beschaffenheit der Seele zu den wichtigsten philosophischen Fragen gehören und beide formulieren mit Blick auf das „Seelenheil“ einen individual-ethischen Weg zur Vollendung des menschlichen Lebens. Das lehrhafte sprachliche Bild der dreigeteilten Seele, das in dem moralphilosophischen Vorbild der Antike mit der Metapher von Platons Phaidros eine Entsprechung findet, wird von Miskawaih und Ibn Sīnā aufgenommen, mit neuen Akteuren besetzt und in einem neuen Gewand innerhalb ihrer Schriften kontextualisiert. Als bekannter Topos und als poetisches Stilmittel nutzen sie es methodisch, um darzulegen, dass der Körper ein Symbol für das Sein, die Seele ein Symbol für das Leben und der Geist ein Symbol für das Bewusstsein ist. Hier erscheint der weitgedehnte Begriff „Seele“ also selbst als Metapher. Miskawaihs Anliegen im Taḥḏīb al-aḫlāq ist es, die Menschen dahingehend zu belehren, dass sie die richtige Disposition für ein moralisches Handeln erwerben können. Diese wichtige Botschaft rahmt er in die „Erziehung des Charakters“ ein, die für den Erwerb einer reinen Seele (nafs) wichtigste Voraussetzung ist. Er betont daher besonders die Verpflichtung des Menschen zu einem tugendhaften Leben, in dem die Vernunftseele die Oberhand über ihre ständigen Gefährten, die Menschen zerstörenden Triebe, hat. In der Erkundung der Seele und der mit ihr verbundenen Charakterbildung des Menschen sah Miskawaih ein vorbildhaftes Vorgehen, um sich gewissenhaft zu bilden und somit zu einer moralischen Vollkommenheit, die mit Glück und Glückseligkeit belohnt wird, also den höchsten Zuständen der Seele, zu gelangen. Sein Werk, das sich ganz der Frage der moralischen Belehrung widmet, ist in diesem Anliegen auch als ein lehrhafter Leitfaden zur Glückseligkeit zu verstehen. Letztere wird erlangt, wenn sich die Vernunftseele über die weltliche Gefangenschaft und Zerrissenheit der ewig streitbaren Gefühle erhebt. Die dreigeteilte Seele mit Rückgriff auf Galen wird bei Miskawaih fast schulbuchartig verarbeitet. Ibn Sīnā mit seinen allegorischen Erzählungen hingegen sucht andere dichterische Formen, um seine philosophischen Betrachtungen in Worte zu fassen. Er lässt dabei geheimnisvolle Bilder anklingen, die – wie er es erklärt – nur von Eingeweihten, d. h. Menschen mit einem speziellen Wissen, zu verstehen seien. Seine allegorischen Erzählungen haben mithin den allegorischen Erzählstil im Islam auch als literarische Lehrform beflügelt. Ibn Sīnā verortet in seiner Erzäh50 

Vgl. Taureck 2004: 19.

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lung Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān die Seele mit dem aktiven Intellekt, aus dem sie hervorgeht. Die Wahrnehmung der universalen Formen durch den aktiven Intellekt sah Ibn Sīnā in der menschlichen Seele, die mit Hilfe der Imagination die materiellen Formen in der Phantasie und im Gedächtnis kombiniert. Ibn Sīnā erweist sich darüber hinaus in seiner philosophischen Betrachtung als ein Vertreter eines mit neuplatonischen Elementen durchsetzten „mystisch-illuminatorischen Denkens“51, ohne jedoch Mystiker zu sein. Er betont aber im Unterschied zu Miskawaihs rational-intellektuellen Zugang, dass der mystische Pfad der einzige Weg ist, der die Vernunftseele vom Körper und seinen Leidenschaften befreien und zur vollständigen Schau Gottes führen kann.52 Miskawaih und Ibn Sīnā stimmen darin überein, dass die Seele und der Körper, jeder für sich genommen, ein Teil des Lebewesens ist, und zwar dergestalt, dass die Seele der Herrscher, der Körper der Diener der Seele ist. Da die Seele den Körper beeinflusst, kann sie auch Krankheiten im Körper verursachen, wenn sie ihre natürliche Ordnung verlässt. Die Seele, so stellen Miskawaih und Ibn Sīnā gemeinsam fest, nimmt eine Mittelstellung zwischen Gott und der leblosen Materie ein. Dass die Substanz der Seele anders ist als die Substanz des Körpers, ist für beide Autoren offensichtlich. Beide schließen sich der Lokalisierung der Seelenkräfte in Herz, Leber und Hirn an. Übereinstimmend befinden sie, dass die Seele immateriell, unzerstörbar, unsterblich und nicht notwendig an den Körper gebunden ist. Wie in der antiken Philosophie bezeichnet die Seele auch bei ihnen das Prinzip des Lebens – das, was Pflanzen, Tiere, Menschen lebendig macht. Die Seele im Menschen bildet jedoch eine andere Einheit als die Seele der Pflanzen oder Tiere, weil das Denken und Wollen einzig Fähigkeiten der menschlichen Seele sind, die sich nicht in den Verrichtungen der Selbst- und Arterhaltung erschöpfen. Neben dem in vielen Varianten diskutierten Gerüst zur Beschaffenheit der Seele in ihren beiden Schriften gehen beide Autoren von den drei Seelenkräften, aufsteigend von der pflanzlichen über die tierische bis zu der menschlichen Vernunftseele aus. Die Lehre vom Intellekt als höchstem menschlichem Vermögen bekommt in dieser Hierarchie einen bedeutsamen Platz zugewiesen und wird zu einem Kernstück ihrer Deutungen. Beide Autoren erkennen im Intellekt, der Vernunft des Menschen, dasjenige Instrument, mit dem sich die menschliche Seele aus dem Körper, der für sie eine stete Belastung ist, und dem Irdischen erheben kann. Die beiden Gelehrten verarbeiteten dabei drei wesentliche Vorstellungen: 1. Es gibt verschiedene Grade der Abstraktion von der sinnlichen Wahrnehmung über die inneren Sinne bis zum Intellekt; 51  52 

Wöhler 1990: 44. Vgl. Daiber 2008: 117.

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2. der menschliche Intellekt hat Kontakt mit dem außerhalb des Menschen existierenden „aktiven Intellekt,“ von dem die universalen abstrahierten Formen in unseren Intellekt fließen und 3. dieser Kontakt ist von der unterschiedlichen intellektuellen und intuitiven Befähigung und Lernfähigkeit der Menschen abhängig, denn manche Menschen bedürfen nur ihrer eigenen Intuition, andere aber sind auf Belehrung angewiesen. Wie eingangs beschrieben, finden Metapher und Allegorie in philosophischen Texten insbesondere dann eine Verwendung, wenn sich neben der bestehenden Religion eine philosophische Ansicht gebildet hat und das Bedürfnis vorhanden ist, die Ideen und Lehren der Philosophie mit dem Inhalt des religiösen Glaubens in Übereinstimmung zu bringen. In diesem Kontext fällt auf, dass uns in den Ausführungen zur Seele von Miskawaih und Ibn Sīnā ein immaterieller, der Seele zugeschriebener Seinsbereich begegnet, der den ontologischen Gegensatz von Welt und Gott aufhebt. Ein stufenförmiger Aufstieg der Seele, wie sie in den Schriften der beiden Gelehrten dargelegt wird, in der zudem die Intellektseele ein Teil der Weltvernunft und damit unsterblich ist, steht mit der theologischen Lehre aber im Widerspruch. Mit den Entwürfen der Seelenlehren der beiden Gelehrten und ihrer Sichtweise von der immateriellen, dem Leib des Menschen nur vorübergehend einwohnenden Seele, die zudem als das aufgefasst wird, was den Menschen erst zu dem macht, was er ist, und der nach dem Tod auf ewig in die eigentliche Heimat zurückkehrt, bekommt die islamische eschatologische Lehre eine ganz neue Ausdeutung. Diese Sichtweise steht dem von dem Koran und den islamischen Prophetentraditionen genährten Glauben an körperliche Qualen im Grab und im Jenseits entgegen und nimmt dem Tod den Schrecken, der nunmehr als Übergang verstanden wird, nicht aber als unausweichlicher Beginn erschreckender Peinigungen.53 Ein erster Tod aber, nämlich das Verlöschen der Begierden im Diesseits, die beständig der Vernunftseele entgegenstehen, d. h. die Erziehung der Seele durch tahḏīb al-aḫlāq, die Verfeinerung der Charakterzüge, wird von beiden als der gerade Weg, den die Seele bereits im Diesseits beschreiten sollte, propagiert. Das sprachliche Bild von der dreigeteilten Seele, das von Platon im Seelenwagen-Mythos beschrieben und von Miskawaih und Ibn Sīnā aufgenommen und verarbeitet wurde, erweist sich im Kontext der islamischen Bildungsgeschichte als ein didaktisches Mittel zur Veranschaulichung der Verfassung des Menschen und seiner inneren Zerrissenheit: Die Seele gleicht einem Pendel zwischen zwei Antipoden, dem Guten und dem Bösen. Die Vernunft aber kann zum Guten und damit zum Glück des Menschen führen. Ich meine, dass dieses Bild auch heute nichts an seiner Aussagekraft verloren hat. 53 

Vgl. Nagel 2002: 435.



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Bibliographie Quellen Aristoteles: Poetik, Griechisch/Deutsch, übers. von Manfred Führmann (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1979). –: Über die Seele, neu übers. von Adolf Busse (Leipzig: Meiner, 1922). al-Ġazālī, Abū Ḥāmid: Ad-Dourra al-fākhira. La perle précieuse de Ghazālī: Traité dʼeschatologie musulmane, avec une tradition française par Lucien Gautier, hg. und übers. von Lucien Gautier (Geneva: Georg 1878; Nachdr. Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1925). Ibn Qayyim al-Ǧauziyya, Šams ad-Dīn Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr: Kitāb al-Rūḥ (Kairo: Maṭbaʿat Muḥammad ʿAlī Ṣabīḥ, 1966). Ibn Sīnā, Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusain ibn ʿAbdallāh: al-Išārāt wa-t-tanbīhāt, Bd. ii (Kairo: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Kutub al-ʿArabīya, 1948). –: aš-Šifāʾ. Al-Ilāhīyāt, hg. von al-Ab Qanawātī/Saʿīd Zāid, Bd. x (10 Bde.; 2. Aufl.; Kairo: al-Haiʾa al-ʿĀmma li-Šuʾūn al-Matābiʿ al-Amīrīya, 2012). –: aš-Šifāʾ. Al-Ilāhīyāt (2 Bde; Qum: Maktabat Āyatallāh al-ʿUẓmā al-Marʿašī an-Naǧafī, 1983; Nachdr. d. Ausg. Kairo 1952–1980). Miskawaih, Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad b. Muḥammad: Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq, hg. von Constantine K. Zurayk (Beirut: al-Ǧāmiʿa al-Amīrikīya, 1966). –: Tahdhīb al-Akhlāq or The Refinement of Character. A Translation from the Arabic of Aḥmad Ibn Muḥammad Miskawaih’s Tahdhīb al-Akhlāq, übers. von Constantine K. Zurayk (Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1968). al-Qifṭī, Ǧamāl ad-Dīn ʿAlī ibn Yūsuf: Taʾrīḫ al-ḥukamāʾ, hg. von Julius Lippert (Leipzig: Dieterich, 1903). Paret, Rudi (Übers.): Der Koran (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1982).

Studien Arberry, Arthur (1951): Avicenna on Theology (London: Murray). Baur, Ferdinand Christian (1975): „Die Gnosis in Gnosis und Gnostizismus“, in Ferdinand Baur (Hg.): Die Gnosis (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft) 1–16. Bergsträsser, Gotthelf (1926): Ḥunain Ibn Isḥāq über die syrischen und arabischen GalenÜbersetzungen (Leipzig: Brockhaus [in Komm.]). Biesterfeldt, Hans Hinrich (1973): Galens Traktat „Dass die Kräfte der Seele den Mischungen des Körpers folgen“ in arabischer Übersetzung (Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 40,4; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz). Bloch, Ernst (1952): Avicenna und die Aristotelische Linke (Düsseldorf/München: Progress). Bürgel, Johann Christoph (2016): Ärztliches Leben und Denken im arabischen Mittelalter, bearbeitet von Fabian Käs (IHC 135; Leiden: Brill). Corbin, Henry (1960): Avicenna and the Visionary Recital (übers. von Willard R. Trask; New York: Bollingen Foundation). – (1996): Histoire de la philosophie islamique (London, u. a.: Kegan Paul Internat). Daiber, Hans (2008): Islamisches Denken im Dialog der Kulturen. Innovation und Vermittlung zwischen Antike und Mittelalter (Sarajewo: Kult).

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– (2013): „Wissen und Handeln in der Philosophischen Ethik des Islam. Griechische Wurzeln und islamische Transformation“, in Matthias Lutz-Bachmann zu seinem 60. Geburtstag (Hg.): Phronêsis – Prudentia – Klugheit. Das Wissen des Klugen in Mittelalter, Renaissance und Neuzeit (Porto: Fédération Intern. des Inst. d’Études Médiévales) 35–61. Diwald, Susanne (1975): Arabische Philosophie und Wissenschaft in der Enzyklopädie. Kitāb Iḫwān aṣ-ṣafāʾ. III. Die Lehre von Seele und Intellekt (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz). Duden (42007): Das Herkunftswörterbuch der deutschen Sprache. Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (Mannheim/Zürich: Duden). Endress, Gerhard (2012): „Antike Ethik-Tradition für die islamische Gesellschaft. Abū ʿAlī Miskawaih“, in Ulrich Rudolph (Hg.), unter Mitarbeit von Renate Würsch: Philosophie der islamischen Welt. I. 8.–10. Jahrhundert (Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie; Basel: Schwabe) 210–238. van Ess, Josef (2016): „Zum Geleit“, in Sebastian Günther/Todd Lawson unter Mitarbeit von Christian Mauder (Hgg.): Roads to Paradise. I. Foundations and the Formation of a Tradition. Reflections on the Hereafter in the Quran and Islamic Religious Thought (IHC 136; Leiden: Brill) xiii–xxv. Gohlman, William Edward (1974): The Life of Ibn Sina (New York: State University of New York Press). Gutas, Dimitri (1985): Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition. Introduction to Reading Avicenna’s Philosophical Works (Leiden: Brill). Günther, Sebastian (2016): „Die Menschen schlafen; und wenn sie sterben, erwachen sie. Eschatologische Vorstellungen im Koran“, in Reinhard Feldmeier/Monika Winet unter Mitarbeit von Isabel Toral-Niehoff (Hgg.): Gottesgedanken. Erkenntnis, Eschatologie und Ethik in Religionen der Spätantike und des frühen Mittelalters (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck) 113–122. – (2020): „As the Angels Stretch Out Their Hands (Quran 6:93). The Work of Heavenly Agents According to Muslim Eschatology“, in Stefan Leder/Sara Kuehn/Hans-Peter Pökel (Hgg.): Angels and Mankind. Nature, Role and Function of Celestial Beings in Near Eastern and Islamic Traditions (Beirut: Orient-Institut) 309–334. Heath, Peter (1992): Allegory and Philosophy in Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā). With a Translation of the Book of the Prophet Muḥammad’s Ascent to Heaven (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press). Hirschberger, Johannes (2007): Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. i (Freiburg: Herder). Homerin, Thomas Emil (2006): „Soul“, EQ v, 80–84. Horten, Max (1907): Die Metaphysik Avicennas. Enthaltend die Metaphysik, Theologie, Kosmologie und Ethik. Übersetzt und erläutert (Halle/New York: Rudolf Haupt). – (1917): Die religiöse Gedankenwelt des Volkes im heutigen Islam (Halle an der Saale: Max Niemeyer). Kraus, Paul (1939): „Kitāb al-Akhlāq li-Jālīnus“, Bulletin of the Faculty of Arts of the Egyptian University 5/1, 1–51. Meyer-Drawe, Käte (1999), Zum metaphorischen Gehalt von „Bildung“ und „Erziehung“, ZfPäd 45/2, 161–175. Mohamed, Yasien (2000): „The Cosmology of Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Miskawayh and alIṣfahānī“, Islamic Studies 39/4, 657–679. – (2001): „The Classical Islamic Concept of a Man as a ‚Small World‘“, Afkar. Journal of Aqidah & Islamic Thought 1, 87–106.



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Nagel, Tilman (2002): Im Offenkundigen das Verborgene. Die Heilszusage des sunnitischen Islams (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht). Rosenthal, Franz (1992): The Classical Heritage of Islam (London: Routledge). Rudolph, Ulrich (2012): „Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī“, in Ulrich Rudolph (Hg.), unter Mitarbeit von Renate Würsch: Philosophie der islamischen Welt. I. 8.–10. Jahrhundert (Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie; Basel: Schwabe) 363–457. Rudolph, Ulrich (Hg.), unter Mitarbeit von Renate Würsch (2012): Philosophie in der islamischen Welt. I. 8–10. Jahrhundert (Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie; Basel: Schwabe). Sezgin, Fuat (1970): GAS. III. Medizin, Pharmazie, Zoologie, Tierheilkunde bis ca. 430 H. (Leiden: Brill). Strohmaier, Gotthard (1996): Von Demokrit bis Dante (Hildesheim u. a.: Olms). – (2006): Avicenna (München: C. H. Beck). Talaat, Sia (1929): Die Seelenlehre im Koran (mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Terminologie) (Halle/Saale: John). Taureck, Bernhard H. (2004): Metaphern und Gleichnisse in der Philosophie (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp). Wakelnig, Elvira (2013): „Die Philosophen in der Tradition al-Kīndīs. Al-ʿĀmirī, al-Isfizārī, Miskawaih, as-Siǧistānī und at-Tawḥīdī“, in Heidrun Eichner/Matthias Perkams/Christian Schäfer (Hgg.): Islamische Philosophie im Mittelalter. Ein Handbuch (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft) 233–252. Walzer, Richard (1963a): „New Light on Galen’s Moral Philosophy“, in Richard Walzer (Hg.): Greek into Arabic. Essays on Islamic Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press) 142–163. – (1963b): „Some Aspects of Miskawaih’s Tahdhīb Al-Akhlāq“, in Richard Walzer (Hg.): Greek into Arabic. Essays on Islamic Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press) 220–235. Wöhler, Hans-Ulrich (1990): Geschichte der mittelalterlichen Philosophie. Mittelalterliches europäisches Philosophieren einschließlich wesentlicher Voraussetzungen (Berlin: DVW). Websites Adamson, Peter (2007): Miskawayhs Psychology; https://www.academia.edu/3197532/ Miskawayhs_Psychology (letzter Zugriff am 13. April 2020). O’Connor, John J./Robertson, Edmund F.: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive; http://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Avicenna.html (letzter Zugriff am 13. April 2020).

III.

Miskawayh’s Familiarity with Muslim and Non-Muslim Ideas

Between Religious Pluralism and Confessional Identity The Ethical Writings of Miskawayh’s Teacher Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī Christian Mauder Abstract:  While there can be little doubt that Miskawayh’s interactions with his Christian Westsyrian teacher Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī (d. 363/974) were of pivotal importance for the development of the Muslim philosopher’s ethical thought, the precise nature of the relationship between the ethical writings of the two authors has up to now largely eluded scholarly analysis. This is in part due to the fact that students of Miskawayh’s ethical teachings have so far paid insufficient attention to an inherent tension within Ibn ʿAdī’s ethical oeuvre. By focusing on two of Ibn ʿAdī’s most prominent ethical works, namely his The Refinement of Character Traits and The Treatise on Continence, it is shown that the Christian philosopher contributed in his writings to two partly separate ethical discourses, one of which can be described as Baghdadian and religiously pluralistic in nature, while the other one was aimed at maintaining a Westsyrian confessional identity. Moreover, it is argued that the tension between these discourses had a profound impact on Miskawayh’s reception of his teacher’s thought and thus needs to be taken into account in any analysis that seeks to situate Miskawayh within the interreligious intellectual context of his time.

The recent rediscovery of numerous works by Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī (d. 363/974), long considered lost, has generated a new wave of attention for this Christian philosopher from ʿAbbasid Baghdad.1 Previously, Yaḥyā was of interest mainly to two groups of scholars: specialists in the history of Middle Eastern Christianity who sought to situate Yaḥyā’s writings in the Arabic literary tradition of the Syrian Orthodox Church, to which he made numerous contributions; and intellectual historians of the Islamicate world more broadly who focused on Yaḥyā’s role in 4th/10th-century Baghdadian philosophy as a student of al-Fārābī (d. 339/950) and a teacher of Miskawayh (d. 421/1030).2 Especially Yaḥyā’s relationship with the latter philosopher, who is mostly remembered for his ethical work Tahdhīb al-Akhlāq (The Reformation of Morals), has vexed scholars for decades. After all, 1  Wisnovsky 2012; Wisnovsky 2016; Bennett/Wisnovsky 2016. 2  On Yaḥyā’s teachers, students, and colleagues, see Samir 1974:

138; Watt 2007: 103, 106; Griffith 2003: 130; Griffith, Introduction, in Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: xiii–xiv, xviii, xx–xxi; Endress 1977: 5–6, 8–9; Endress 2016: 222–225; Goodman 2003: 105; Platti 1983: 14–15. On Yaḥyā’s biography, see, e. g., Endress 1977: 1–9; Endress 2016: 222–226; Platti 1983: 1–10; Griffith 2012: 80–83; Griffith, Introduction, in Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: xiii–xviii.

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Yaḥyā too authored an ethical treatise of the same title, i. e., Tahdhīb al-Akhlāq, which, like Miskwayh’s more famous work, was based on the Aristotelian and Neoplatonic philosophical heritage. Given these obvious similarities, an earlier generation of scholars attempted to clarify the exact relationship between the two works. Mohammed Arkoun was convinced that Miskawayh was aware of the text by his teacher Yaḥyā, who had written his Tahdhīb al-akhlāq about 50 years before Miskawayh composed his work of the same title.3 Constantine Zurayk likewise discussed the relationship between the two works and concluded that his teacher’s text “could very well have been known” to Miskawayh “though there is no reference to it in his text.”4 Most emphatically, Naji al-Takriti stated that “[t]here is no doubt that ­Miskawaih read Yahya b. ʿAdi’s Tahdhib al-Akhlaq and wrote his own T ­ ahdhib al-Akhlaq under his influence.”5 However, al-Takriti’s list of similarities between Miskawayh’s and Yaḥyā’s works does not include anything that could not be explained through reference to the shared intellectual background of the two authors. Moreover, al-Takriti fails to identify a single direct quotation in Miskawayh’s text which he could safely attribute to the latter’s teacher. He furthermore acknowledges the existence of several noteworthy differences between the two thinkers.6 Thus, despite the pronounced efforts of several scholars, it has so far not been possible to arrive at any definitive insights into the textual connections between the two works called Tahdhīb al-akhlāq. Miskawayh’s text includes no direct reference to his teacher’s Tahdhīb al-akhlāq, nor does it appear to contain any direct or indirect quotations. In terms of content, the works undoubtedly share numerous similarities, yet none of them is so outstanding that it could not be rather easily explained through their common intellectual background and their common goal of producing meaningful syntheses of Greek ethical thought based on the Platonic tripartition of the soul within a monotheistic framework. Moreover, the two works exhibit some marked differences, for instance, in the system they use to discuss virtues and vices or the prominence they accord to the virtue of justice. While Miskawayh employs the concept of cardinal virtues to structure his discussion of noble character traits and pays particular attention to justice (for him the most noble virtue), the order of Yaḥyā’s list of virtues appears to be

3  4 

Arkoun 1982: 97–98. For the chronology of the works, see also Fakhry 1983: 192. Zurayk, Preface, in Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: xvii. On interconnections between Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī and Miskawayh in the field of ethics, see also Goodman 2003: 105–107, 109, 116–117; Fakhry 1983: 193; Griffith, Introduction, in Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: xxxi, xxxv; Griffith 2003: 132, 134, 136, 149; Endress 2016: 225. On Christian ethical writings in ʿAbbasid times in general, see Griffith 1996. 5  Al-Takriti 1978: 263. 6  Al-Takriti 1978: 263–272.

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rather random. Furthermore, the latter’s description of the virtue of justice is in fact only two lines long.7 It is not my intent here to undertake yet another attempt at scrutinizing the precise intertextual relationship between the two works and the ways they build in similar, but distinct ways on the same late antique heritage of ethical thought. Rather, I would like to approach the issue from a different, and possibly somewhat provocative, perspective. My basic question is: Why did Miskawayh fail to cite from or refer to the ethical writings of his Christian teacher in a way that would make his intellectual debts to his teacher obvious? While I am aware that it is almost impossible to say with any certainty why someone did not do something a millennium ago, I  would like to demonstrate that this question opens up novel approaches to both Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī’s and Miskawayh’s writings – and thus potentially also more broadly to the intellectual world of 4th/10th-century Baghdad. My main argument is that it is possible to read Yaḥyā’s text not as a philosophical treatise shaped by its interreligious context of origin in ʿAbbasid Baghdad, as is often done, but rather as a markedly Christian or – in this specific case – Syrian-Orthodox work. The possibility of reading the text in this way might have made it difficult for Miskawayh and Yaḥyā’s other non-Christian interlocutors to rely directly and openly on Yaḥyā’s work, even if they did appreciate his other, less confessional writings. My argumentation proceeds in five steps: In the following section, I look at those passages of Yaḥyā’s Tahdhīb al-akhlāq that would seem to speak most clearly for its interreligious, nonconfessional character, and appear to be shaped by the religious pluralism of its context of origin in Baghdad. In the next step I suggest a reading of these and other passages which reflects their author’s Christian confessional identity. Thereafter, I put Yaḥyā’s Tahdhīb al-akhlāq within the broader context of his other, even more clearly Christian ethical writings. The penultimate section provides evidence from the history of the transmission of Tahdhīb al-akhlāq to support my argument that this text may be understood to reflect the author’s Christian confessional identity. The final section summarizes my main findings and offers conclusions about their broader significance.

1.  Religious Pluralism in Tahdhīb al-Akhlāq Modern scholarship typically describes Yaḥyā’s Tahdhīb al-akhlāq as a nonconfessional work that makes little reference to religious groups, figures, and concepts. Gerhard Endress lists it among Yaḥyā’s nonreligious works and calls it “a compendium of philosophical ethics,”8 while to Richard Walzer it “represents 7  8 

On the structural principles of Yaḥyā’s text, see Hatem 1986. Endress 1977: 85.

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another variant of late Greek thought. There are no specifically Christian ideas in it.”9 To Sidney Griffith, it constitutes “[i]n many ways a classical text of moral philosophy, […] it reflects typical Greek thinking of the late antique period […] [The author] makes no allusions to the hereafter or to any moral principles deriving from divine revelation.”10 In those passages where Yaḥyā does refer to religious matters in his Tahdhīb al-akhlāq, he appears to makes a conscious effort to reflect the realities of multireligious Baghdad, where Muslims, Christians, and Jews of various subgroups as well as members of other religions lived not only largely peacefully next to each other, but could also participate in shared projects of philosophical world explanation. Moreover, Yaḥyā highlighted, as we shall see shortly, that, despite these confessional differences, all human beings shared a common nature. A typical example of the few passages where religious terminology does appear in Tahdhīb al-akhlāq is the following, which stems from the discussion of the vice of love of pomp and splendor. I quote here and below Sidney Griffith’s seminal translation of the work: As for monks (ruhbān), ascetics (zuhhād), elders (shuyūkh), and scholars (ahl al-ʿilm) – especially orators (khuṭabāʾ ), preachers (wāʿiẓūn), and religious leaders (ruʾasāʾ al-dīn) – for them pomp and splendor and making a display of oneself are to be considered repugnant. What is to be considered good for them is clothing of hair and coarse material, traveling on foot, obscurity, attendance of churches (kanāʾis) and mosques (masājid) and so forth, and an abhorrence for luxurious clothing.11

Shunning the love of pomp and splendor, religious men should instead engage in renunciation (zuhd) of the world: [Renunciation] is having little desire for money and goods, for accumulation and acquisition. […] This moral quality is to be considered very good, but it is for scholars, monks, religious leaders, orators, preachers, and whoever gives people an interest in eternal life.12

When reading these passages, one has to acknowledge that Yaḥyā could have hardly found a more clear-cut way to express that his ethical thought pertained not only to members of a specific religious group, but was indeed shaped by the realities of multireligious Baghdad. In using terminology that spoke to both Christians and Muslims – and left room for other religious identities as well – 9  Walzer 1986: 328. On Yaḥyā’s reliance on Greek ethical thought, see also al-Takriti 1978: 198–206; Urvoy 2014: 34–47; and on the nonreligious character of his work al-Takriti 1978: 256. A somewhat different interpretation is advanced in Urvoy 2014: 72–73; Hatem 1986: 224, 226, who point to possible traces of the author’s Christian background in his ethical thought. 10  Griffith 1996: 126. See also Griffith, Introduction, in Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: xi–xii, xxi–xxiii, xliii. 11  Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 60–61. See on this passage also Griffith 2003: 143; Griffith 2012: 92; Griffith 2010: 29. 12  Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 62–63.



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Yaḥyā brought his argumentation to a level that seemingly transcended petty religious rivalries. At the same time, Yaḥyā did not shy away from referring to and affirming religious convictions, yet it seems that he did so only  – and consciously  – in ways that were acceptable to members of all religious groups present in 4th/10th-­ century Baghdad. In describing the best ways to train one’s appetitive soul ­(al-nafs ­al-shawāiyya), he underlines the positive effects that mingling with people or religion typically has: Whoever wants to tame his appetitive soul must frequent the company of ascetics, monks, hermits, pious people, and preachers, in addition to attending the gatherings (majālis) of leaders and scholars. Leaders and scholars, especially religious leaders, will extoll whoever is known for abstinence, and they will think little of anyone who is a shameless debauchee. […] One must also be continually studying books on morality and deportment, as well as accounts of ascetics, monks, hermits, and pious people.13

Rather than advocating a moral life based solely on nonreligious precepts, in this passage Yaḥyā underlines the importance of religious instruction – yet he again uses words that are unspecific enough to speak to Christians, Muslims, and Jews alike. The desirable outcome of this religiously informed process of refining one’s character is likewise phrased in religious, albeit apparently nonconfessional terms when Yaḥyā writes about the man who has attained perfection (kamāl), that “it is the angels (al-malāʾika) he resembles more than he resembles men.”14 It is thus only fitting that Yaḥyā also ends his book with a religious formula that, while clearly demonstrating the author’s theistic worldview, was in principle acceptable to any monotheistic reader: “Praise be the One who endows the intellect always and forever. Amen.”15 So far, one could assume that Yaḥyā’s interconfessional rhetoric remained purely on the semantic level and was intended to make his work accessible to as broad a readership as possible, without reflecting deeper commitments. Yet, that Yaḥyā did indeed have such commitments is made clear in the following famous passage of Yaḥyā’s work: Men are a single tribe, related to one another; humanity (insāniyya) unites them. The adornment of the divine power is in all of them and in each one of them, and it is the rational soul. By means of this soul, man becomes man. It is the noble of the two parts of man, which are the soul and the body. So man in his true being is the rational soul, and it is a single substance in all men. All men in their true being are a single thing, but they are many in persons. Since their souls are one, and love is only in the soul, all of them must then show affection for one another and love one another.16 13  Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 72–75. 14  Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 92–93. 15  Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 118–119. 16  Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 106–107.

On this passage, see also Griffith, Introduction, in

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More than any other, this passage reveals how obvious it is to argue that Yaḥyā’s primary goal in writing his Tahdhīb al-akhlāq was to develop and spread an ethical outlook that would be attractive to multiple audiences in 4th/10th-century Baghdad, including his fellow Christians, but also Muslim philosophers such as Miskawayh. This interpretation moreover tallies well with central aspects of Yaḥyā’s biography, who is known to have counted both Muslims and Christians of various confessional identities among his teachers and students. In addition to the already mentioned Miskawayh and al-Fārābī, one may point here to Yaḥyā’s teacher Abū Bishr Mattā ibn Yūnus (d. ca. 328/940), a member of the Apostolic Church of the East, Yaḥyā’s Muslim students Abū Sulaymān al-Sijistānī (d. ca. 374/985) and Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī (d. 414/1023), the latter’s Syrian Orthodox peer Abū ʿAlī ʿĪsā Ibn Zurʿa (d. 398/1008), the Christian Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan Ibn al-Samḥ (d. 418/1027), the details of whose confessional identity are unclear, and Abū l-Khayr al-Ḥasan b. Suwār Ibn al-Khammār (d. after 407/1017), another Christian student of Yaḥyā who converted to Islam later in his life.17 Moreover, a large number of Yaḥyā’s 134 works catalogued by Gerhard Endress deal with philosophical matters in a way that seems to be uninformed by Yaḥyā’s religious identity, including translations of and commentaries on philosophical texts by nonChristian and non-Jewish pre-Islamic authorities such as Plato (d. ca. 347 BCE), Aristotle (d. 322 BCE), Theophrastus (d. ca. 287 BCE), Alexander of Aphrodisias (fl. 200 CE), Themistius (d. after 388 CE), and Olympiodorus (d. after 565 CE).18 Taken together, we thus see that there is evidence that Yaḥyā viewed himself as part of an interconfessional circle of philosophers who not only studied together, but also read and discussed a shared corpus of originally Greek writings, the authors of which did not belong to any of the religious communities of their time. In this, he is very much a representative of his time, which – among parts of the intellectual elite of Baghdad at least – was characterized by close collaboration between learned men of different creeds, as Joel L. Kraemer has masterfully shown.19 Furthermore, by consciously employing religious terminology that was largely shared among all pertinent communities and counterbalancing vocabulary that was apparently connected to one religious tradition with terms belonging to other communities – such as his reference to “churches and mosques and so forth” – Yaḥyā with his Tahdhīb al-Akhlāq seems to have authored an ethical work that could provide guidance to all members of this philosophical circle. Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: xl, xliii–xliv; Griffith 2010: 46–47; Griffith 2012: 91; Griffith 2006: 300, 303, 333; Griffith 2003: 142, 145–148; Goodman 2003: 105–106; Kraemer 1984: 161. 17  Griffith, Introduction, in Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: xiii–xiv, xviii, xx–xxi; Endress 1977: 5–6, 8–9. 18  Endress 1977: 25–98. On this aspect of Yaḥyā’s activities, see also Platti 1983: 7–9, 15–19; Graf 1910: 2–3; Périer 1920: 77–80. 19  Kraemer 1984; Kraemer 1986a; Kraemer 1986b.

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Why then do I suggest here that Yaḥyā’s Tahdhīb al-akhlāq can also be read as reflecting its author’s confessional identity as a Christian?

2.  Christian Confessional Identity in Tahdhīb al-Akhlāq One of the most striking characteristics of Yaḥyā’s Tahdhīb al-akhlāq is its strong interest in the social status of its readers. Whereas comparable ethical treatises, including that of Miskawayh, address fellow philosophers, students, or humanity at large, Yaḥyā’s Tahdhīb al-akhlāq evidently considers rulers and members of the political elite as one of its most important, if not indeed its primary, circle of recipients. On 36 out of the 59 pages of the 2002 Provo edition, Yaḥyā explicitly addresses the moral obligations of political leaders.20 Moreover, the last section of the work is dedicated entirely to the proper behavior of perfect kings marked by “their position of prestige and the magnitude of their authority”21 who are “the noblest of people and the greatest of them in terms of worth.”22 While this does not make Tahdhīb al-akhlāq a “mirror-for-princes” in the traditional sense, clearly the rectification of the morals of rulers was one of Yaḥyā’s key objectives.23 How central ethics are to proper political conduct in Yaḥyā’s view becomes apparent in a passage that reminds one of the writings of his teacher al-Fārābī: The complete man (al-insān al-tāmm) is a leader by nature. If a king is fulfilled, embodying good moral qualities, including all the virtuous traits, he is a king by nature. If he is deficient, he is a king by force. What is most appropriate for a king is that he should want authentic sovereignty, which does not come about by force, and also personal nobility, which is not the result of imposition.24

Which character traits, however, make a king a “leader by nature”? It appears that, for Yaḥyā, the treatment of the weaker elements of society was of special importance, as becomes apparent, for example, from the following passage: 20  I

disagree here with Griffith 2003: 143, who argues that “prospective students” were the work’s intended recipients. No passage explicitly addresses such students as the intended readership, while references to political leaders are almost omnipresent. See also Griffith, Introduction, in Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: xlii–xliii. On Yaḥyā’s advice to rulers also al-Takriti 1978: 249–255. 21  Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 110–111. 22  Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 112–113. See on this section Raad 2003: 536. 23  See also Griffith 2003: 129, 137–138, 141–143; Griffith, Introduction, in Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, ­al-Tahdhīb: xxxv–xxxvii, xxxix–xliii; Périer 1920: 113–114. On similarities and differences between Yaḥyā’s ethical thought and the Persianate mirrors-for-princes literature, see Urvoy 2014: 28–34. As suggested in a review of the present study, it might be a worthwhile future undertaking to approach Yaḥyā’s text as an adab work. This trajectory of inquiry is not pursued here primarily because of the space that would be necessary to overcome the difficulties in defining what an adab work actually was in the 4th/10th century, on which see Bonebakker 1990, which addresses this with particular clarity. 24  Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 112–113.

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As for kings (mulūk) and leaders (ruʾasāʾ), […] [t]hey should deal kindly with the weak and the poor, and they should search out the strangers and the alienated. They should be solicitous for ascetics and devout people, and they should allot them proportionately a share of their goods and their flocks. They should be solicitous of the young and the old among their subjects.25

Moreover, the virtuous should not only support the people of their own community, but look mercifully on all human beings: One who loves perfection must also make it his habit to love people generally, to treat them with affection, to act sympathetically toward them, and to be gentle and compassionate with them. […] And the lover of perfection must certainly be a lover of all people, having compassion on them and being merciful to them – and this is especially true for a king and a leader. A king will not be a king as long as he is not a lover of his subjects, being compassionate toward them. That is because a king and his subjects are like the master of a household and the people of his household. How disgraceful would it be for the master of a household to loathe the people of his household and not to have compassion for them, nor to want their best interests!26

In Yaḥyā’s time, the rulers he addressed in such passages and who seem to have constituted his intended recipients could only have been Muslims, given that no Christian-ruled Arabic-speaking polities existed in the 4th/10th century. Furthermore, it seems highly unlikely that Yaḥyā used terms such as “kings” and “leaders” in a metaphorical and nonpolitical sense to refer to church officials and other high-raking figures within the Christian community; he would have addressed such men not in the language of the Muslim rulers, i. e., Arabic, but rather in their ancestral Syriac, the language of the Syrian Orthodox Church. If the kings in his text were the Muslims rulers of his time, who then were the “weak and the poor,” “the strangers and the alienated” whom they should treat kindly, no matter whether or not they belonged to their community, as antique and late antique philosophers had already recommended? It stands to reason that the unfortunate whom Yaḥyā had in mind here also encompassed, and possibly predominantly at that, the members of his own Christian community whose rights to social participation had been necessarily limited through their status as protected persons or dhimmīs. Read from this perspective, Yaḥyā’s emphasis of the common human nature of insāniyya quoted earlier served not only as a basis for an ethical outlook that transcended religious boundaries, but also provided a justification for why Muslim rulers should, or indeed from a philosophical perspective had to, treat their non-Muslim subjects kindly if they wanted to be natural leaders. Similarly, Yaḥyā’s use of religiously ambiguous and inclusive vocabulary in the first three passages cited above were probably meant to emphasize that all 25  26 

Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 102–103. Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 106–107. See on this passage also Kraemer 1984: 161.

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human beings, irrespective of their religious status, shared the same ethical rights and duties  – including Yaḥyā’s fellow Christians. Such a reading would see Yaḥyā’s Tahdhīb al-akhlāq not as a religiously neutral philosophical ethical treatise intended for like-minded readers schooled in the Greek intellectual heritage, but as “a dhimmī’s plea for justice in an Islamic society,”27 to quote Sidney Griffith. While this interpretation of the work as informed and shaped by Yaḥyā’s experiences as a dhimmī is certainly not the only possible one, it goes a long way toward explaining why Yaḥyā’s Tahdhīb al-akhlāq was apparently largely ignored by Muslim audiences, including Yaḥyā’s student Miskawayh. The Christian identity of its author, combined with the call for just and benevolent treatment of the weaker parts of society on the part of the Muslim ruling elite inherent in the work, labeled it as a dhimmī text that had little to offer to Muslim philosophers for whom the social status of their non-Muslim compatriots was not an issue of primary interest. While this did not preclude the reception of Yaḥyā’s other, less confessional works among his Muslim contemporaries, it did mean that his Tahdhīb al-akhlāq was not of immediate concern to his philosophically minded non-Christian interlocutors such as Miskawayh, who, as far as we know, collectively ignored Yaḥyā’s work under discussion here.28 This interpretation of the text as a reaction to the social realities of what it meant to be a dhimmī in the 4th/10th century moreover suggests that Tahdhīb ­al-akhlāq functioned as a kind of bridge between the parts of Yaḥyā’s oeuvre which have so far been often viewed as clearly distinct, namely, the works he wrote as a philosopher and those he wrote as a Syrian Orthodox theologian, defending the views of his church against both its Christian and Muslim opponents. Apparently, Yaḥyā was able and willing to use his philosophical expertise to the benefit of his fellow Christians vis-à-vis the ruling Muslim elites – or at least to undertake an attempt to do so.

3.  Christian Confessional Identity in Yaḥyā’s Other Ethical Writings Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī was not just one of the leading Peripatetic philosophers of his time, he was also a lay teacher (malpānā) of the Syrian Orthodox Church.29 In this capacity, according to Endress’s inventory, he produced about 75 theological treatises dealing with the exegesis of the Gospels, practicalities of Christian religious life, intra-Christian dogmatic disputes, and, most importantly, apologetics 27 

Griffith, Introduction, in Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: xliii; Griffith 2003: 144. On Tahdhīb al-akhlāq as a distinctly Christian work, see also Griffith, Introduction, in Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, ­al-Tahdhīb: xlv–xlvi. 28  On the later reception of the work in Muslim circles, see section 5 below. 29  On Yaḥyā’s Christian origins and early upbringing, see Griffith, Introduction, in Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: xiv–xvi.

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of Christian tenets vis-à-vis Muslim authors.30 Among other things, he defended the Christian dogma of the incarnation, showed how, in his view, the doctrine of the Trinity did not contradict the principle of the unity of God (tawḥīd), and argued against the notion of iktisāb (acquisition of acts) as developed by Muslim rational theologians.31 In light of his broad literary output, we can consider Yaḥyā as much a Syrian Orthodox theologian as a Peripatetic philosopher.32 Accordingly, seeing his Tahdhīb al-akhlāq as a work shaped by his experiences as a dhimmī does not make it an outlier in Yaḥyā’s written oeuvre. This interpretation merely moves the work closer to the Christian theological end and farther away from the philosophical one in the spectrum of Yaḥyā’s writings. Yet of course this does not mean that Yaḥyā’s philological knowledge was of no relevance to his Christian theological undertakings and vice versa. Indeed, there is ample evidence that both aspects of Yaḥyā’s thought mutually shaped each other.33 A case in point is Yaḥyā’s second major ethical work known under the title Maqāla fī tabyīn ḥāl tark ṭalab al-nasl fī l-tafḍīl wa-l-tardhīl (Treatise on the Clarification of the State of Abandoning the Striving for Offspring: On its Preference and Rejection).34 In this treatise, Yaḥyā sets out to defend a behavior against its detractors which he also considered a virtue in his Tahdhīb al-akhlāq: abstinence or ʿiffa, first and foremost regarding sexual activities. In his Tahdhīb al-akhlāq, he mentions this quality as the first of the 20 virtues listed: [Abstinence] is the soul’s control of the appetites, and the constraint of them to be satisfied with what furnishes the body with the means of subsistence and preserves its health, and no more. It is also the avoidance of intemperance, the curtailment of all pleasures, and the endeavor to moderate. Furthermore, the appetites to which one is restricted should be indulged in a commendable manner, agreeable with their satisfaction, in moments of indispensable need. They should be indulged according to a measure: no more than what is needed, no less than what safeguards soul and strength.35 30  Endress 1977: 99–123. See also Griffith, Introduction, in Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: xvii, xxv–xxviii; Graf 1944–1954: ii, 233–249. 31  On the issue of iktisāb, see, e. g., Pines/Schwarz 1979; Platti 2015: 71–75; Platti 2003; Endress 2016: 240–242. On tawḥīd, see, e. g., Lizzini 2016; Endress 2016: 231–235; Ehrig–Eggert 2008: 55–56; Fakhry 1983: 196–201; Platti 1994; Platti 1983: esp. 107–114; Platti 1986: 232–234; Graf 1910: 24–36; Griffith 2012: 86–90; Périer 1920: 122–191; Schöck 2012 (with references to further literature); Schöck 2014. See also in general Griffith 2003: 147–148; Griffith, Introduction, in Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: xx–xxi. 32  On the relationship between philosophical thought and religious identity in Yaḥyā’s time in general, see Watt 2007. See moreover also Griffith 2003: 146; Griffith, Introduction, in Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: xxi–xxiii. 33  On the influence of Yaḥyā’s philosophical training on his theology and vice versa, see, e. g., Platti 1980; Platti 2015; Griffith, Introduction, in Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: xxi–xxv; Lizzini 2016: esp. 256–257; Endress 2016; Ehrig-Eggert 2008: 59–60; Graf 1910: 8, 45–46. 34  The work was edited by Vincet Mistrih as Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, Traité sur la continence. On the various titles under which it is known, see Griffith 2006: 308–309. 35  Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 28–31.



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In his Maqāla fī tabyīn ḥāl tark ṭalab al-nasl, Yaḥyā significantly expands on these thoughts and argues based on late antique ethical teachings that one should avoid indulgence in sexual activities as far as possible, since these activities, and the children that result from them, keep human beings from their true vocation: the acquisition of knowledge and the training of their rational souls. A detailed discussion of Maqāla fī tabyīn ḥāl tark ṭalab al-nasl, which seems to have had a quite complex history of origin and might have remained unfinished, would go beyond the limits of the present chapter. It also appears unnecessary given that Sidney Griffith and others have already analyzed the text in detail.36 Two observations regarding Maqāla fī tabyīn ḥāl tark ṭalab al-nasl, however, are important to the present context: First, in this second ethical work Yaḥyā used primarily philosophical arguments and his skills in syllogistic reasoning in particular to drive his point home, for example when he seeks to show through logical argumentation that the premises of his adversaries are faulty and hence lead to incorrect conclusions when used as the first terms of their syllogisms.37 References to clearly religious matters are rare and of such limited significance for the course of argumentation that, based on the author’s arguments alone, it would be difficult to tell whether he was a Christian or a Muslim.38 Yaḥyā’s method of argumentation in his Maqāla fī tabyīn ḥāl tark ṭalab al-nasl is thus strikingly similar to that in his Tahdhīb al-akhlāq. Moreover, there is a passage about the exaltedness of the rational soul in the former work which, as its editor Vincent Mistrih argued, has a close parallel in Tahdhīb al-akhlāq, where, as we have seen, the shared character of the rational soul is the central reason why all human beings should love each other, the internal divisions among them notwithstanding.39 Despite these similarities in content and style, scholarship has understood the Maqāla fī tabyīn ḥāl tark ṭalab al-nasl as a decidedly Christian text, while Tahdhīb al-akhlāq is seen as religiously neutral philosophical work.40 One possible reason for this – and this is my second point – is that, in his Maqāla fī tabyīn ḥāl tark ṭalab al-nasl, Yaḥyā identifies his argumentative adversaries explicitly and, one might add, his implied recipients implicitly but unmistakably as Muslims.41 Thus his adversaries in debate use the Muslim calendar for dating42 and 36  E. g., Griffith 2012: 84–85; Griffith 2010: esp. 28–34; Druart 2008; Griffith 2006. On the relationship of the text with Tahdhīb al-akhlāq, see also Griffith, Introduction, in Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: xliv–xlv. 37  On this style of argumentation, see also Griffith 2010: 30–32; Druart 2008: 80, 82, 84; Griffith 2006: 310–311, 314–315, 317, 321, 332–333. 38  See also Mistrih’s comments in Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, Traité sur la continence: 7–8 and Druart 2008: 84, on the lack of an overt religious dimension of the text. 39 Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, Traité: 51, 119–120. The corresponding passage is Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, ­al-Tahdhīb: 106–107. 40  See, e. g., Griffith 2003: 145. 41  See also Druart 2008: 79. 42  Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, Traité: 40, 103.

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quote the treatise on The Prostration of the Outermost Sphere to God Most High (Sujūd al-falak al-aqṣā li-llāh taʿālā) by the Muslim philosopher al-Kindī (d. ca. 256/870).43 Most importantly, however, they use the example of Muḥammad, whom they call “our prophet – may God bless him – the best of prophets” as an argument against what they see as excessive abstinence in matters of sexuality, procreation, and worldly belongings.44 It seems that this clear identification of his argumentative adversaries whom Yaḥyā sought to convince of his own ethical views as Muslims was the main and indeed possibly the only reason that prompted scholarship to consider Yaḥyā’s Maqāla fī tabyīn ḥāl tark ṭalab al-nasl a work shaped primarily by its author’s Christian identity. Gerhard Endress, for example, lists it among the author’s works of Christian theology in the subcategory of “Christian Worship and Practice.”45 I would like to argue here that the close similarities between the Maqāla fī tabyīn ḥāl tark ṭalab al-nasl and Tahdhīb al-akhlāq in content, style, and technique or argumentation indicate that one can understand the latter work similarly as belonging to that part of its author’s oeuvre that was critically shaped by his Christian identity. The possibility of this interpretation, in turn, might have prevented its broader reception among Muslim readers.

4.  The History of the Transmission of Tahdhīb al-akhlāq Notwithstanding the above factors, one may rightly object here that Tahdhīb al-akhlāq nevertheless had a noteworthy history of reception and transmission among Muslim audiences, albeit in a rather peculiar form. Thanks to the work of Khalil Samir and others, we are today aware of numerous manuscripts in which Yaḥyā’s Tahdhīb al-akhlāq is attributed to Muslim luminaries such as al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 255/868), Abū l-Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham (d. 432/1041), Ibn ʿArabī (d. 638/1240), or even Miskawayh. The pertinent manuscript evidently came from a Muslim social context of origin, as their codicological features, other contents, and the names of the copyists of these manuscripts demonstrate. As Khalil Samir showed, all of these attributions to Muslim authors are spurious, and we have every reason to assume that Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī was the author of Tahdhīb al-akhlāq, as is corroborated by manuscripts of mainly Christian background.46

43  Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, Traité: 43, 108. This text seems to be identical to the Risāla fī l-ibāna ʿan sujūd al-jirm al-aqṣā published in al-Kindī, al-Rasāʾil: i, 238–261. See also Griffith 2006: 324– 325. 44  Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, Traité: 46–47, 113. See also Griffith 2010: 26–27, 34, 44–46. 45  E. g., Endress 1977: 118, 120. 46  Samir 1979: esp. 159–160, 165–171; Samir 1974; Griffith 1996: 126. See also Griffith 2003: 132; Griffith, Introduction, in Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: xxix; Périer 1920: 119–121.

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As spurious as the attributions to Ibn ʿArabī and other Muslim thinkers are, they nevertheless demonstrate that Muslims could and did read Tahdhīb ­al-akhlāq as the work of a fellow Muslim author. Nothing in its contents or language spoke outrightly against such an interpretation, once the true identity of its author had fallen into oblivion.47 Yet the manuscript evidence also shows that, in order to be appreciated by Muslims, the work first had to be stripped of all information about its Christian context of origin. Once this was done, the interpretation of the work as shaped by Yaḥyā’s experiences as a dhimmī that I advance here was no longer obvious. However, it stands to reason that this move of “Islamizing” Tahdhīb al-akhlāq by erasing the true identity of its author was neither credible nor possible in Miskawayh’s time, when the memory of the true author of the work was still very much alive. Hence, Miskawayh had the choice between referring to a text that could be understood as being shaped by its author’s experiences as a dhimmī and acting as if he did not know it. Apparently, he opted for the second alternative.

5. Conclusion When two eminent scholars standing in a teacher-student relationship write works about the same subject that share a common title, the question of the interconnectedness of their texts crops up immediately, the examination of which promises to generate new insights into the relationship of their authors. This is also the case with Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī’s Tahdhīb al-akhlāq and the work of the same title by his student Miskawayh. To date, however, scholars have been unable to pinpoint any clear-cut connections between the two texts which would prove that Miskwayh relied on his teacher’s work when composing his ethical Opus Magnum. I  argue in this chapter that one possible explanation for this noteworthy lack of discernible links between the texts lies in the fact that Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī’s Tahdhīb al-akhlāq can be understood as having been shaped by his specific experiences as a dhimmī in a Muslim-ruled society. The possibility of this interpretation of the work might have made it appear irrelevant, if not indeed unquotable, to his Muslim student Miskawayh. Arguments in support of this interpretation include the fact that throughout his work Yaḥyā addresses members of the political elite as his primarily intended recipients, who at the time necessarily must have been Muslims. Moreover, despite its apparent references to contemporaneous religious pluralism, the text can be read as a plea addressed to these political elites to treat weaker members of society kindly, given their status as fellow human beings. While admittedly not explicitly stated by Yaḥyā, it stands to reason that the lower social strata he 47 

See also Samir 1974: 134–137.

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entrusted to the generosity of the political elite included his fellow Christians. Furthermore, Tahdhīb al-akhlāq exhibits noteworthy stylistic and argumentative similarities with another of Yaḥyā’s ethical texts that scholarship has unanimously considered to belong to those parts of Yaḥyā’s oeuvre reflecting his Christian background. Finally, the history of the text indicates that the identity of its author was indeed a stumbling block for its reception among Muslim readerships, which in numerous instances had to be overcome by attributing the text to a Muslim. Taken together, these observations suggest that, throughout its history, Yaḥyā’s Tahdhīb al-akhlāq could be, and indeed was, read as a text that bore witness to the background of its author as a Syrian Orthodox Christian. While we may never know whether this was indeed the reason why Miskawayh failed to quote his teacher, it is evident that Miskawayh’s ethical Opus Magnum Tahdhīb al-akhlāq with its – albeit rather infrequent – references to Muslim religious teachings and traditions was even more overtly religiously framed than the ethical writings of his Christian teacher. This would seem to problematize the interpretation of Miskawayh’s thought as thoroughly secular, as first propagated by Mohammed Arkoun.48 Yet the results presented here also raise the question as to whether a category such as “secular” can at all be fruitfully applied to the intellectual milieu of 4th/10th-century Baghdad, given that even such a prima facie religiously polyvalent, if not to say neutral, text as Yaḥyā’s Tahdhīb al-akhlāq can be read as a work profoundly informed by its author’s religious identity.

Bibliography Sources al-Kindī, Abū Yaʿqūb bin Isḥāq: Rasāʾil al-Kindī al-falsafiyya, ed. by Muḥammad ʿAbd ­al-Hādī Abū Rīda (Cairo: Dār al-Fikr al-ʿArabī, 1950–1953). Miskawayh, Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad b. Muḥammad: The Refinement of Character. Tahdhīb ­al-Akhlāq, trans. by Constantine K. Zurayk (Beirut: The American University of Beirut, 1968). Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī: The Reformation of Morals. Tahdhīb al-Akhlāq, ed. and trans. by Sidney H. Griffith (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2002). –: Traité sur la continence: Edition critique par P. Vincet Mistrih O. F.M., ed. and trans. by Vincent Mistrih, Studia Orientalia Christiana Collectanea 16 (1981), 2–137.

Studies Arkoun, Mohammed (21982): L’humanisme arabe au IVe–Xe siècle. Miskawayh, philosophe et historien (Paris: Vrin). 48 

Arkoun 1982: 64.



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Bennett, David/Wisnovsky, Robert (2016): “A Newly Discovered Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī Treatise against Atomism”, in Damien Janos (ed.): Ideas in Motion in Baghdad and Beyond. Philosophical and Theological Exchanges between Christians and Muslims in the Third/ Ninth and Fourth/Tenth Centuries (Leiden: Brill) 298–311. Bonebakker, Seeger A. (1990): “Adab and the Concept of Belles-lettres”, in Julia Ashtiany et al. (eds.): ʿAbbasid Belles-lettres (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 16–30. Druart, Thérèse-Anne (2008): “An Arab Christian Philosophical Defense of Religious Celibacy against Its Islamic Condemnation: Yahyā ibn ʿAdī”, in Nancy van Deusen (ed.): Chastity. A Study in Perception, Ideals, Opposition (Leiden: Brill) 77–85. Ehrig-Eggert, Carl (2008): “Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī on Universals and the Intellect”, in Peter Adamson (ed.): In the Age of al-Fārābī. Arabic Philosophy in the Fourth/Tenth Century (London: The Warburg Institute) 51–61. Endress, Gerhard (1977): The Works of Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī. An Analytical Inventory (Wiesbaden: Reichert). – (2016): “Theology as a Rational Science. Aristotelian Philosophy, the Christian Trinity and Islamic Monotheism in the Thought of Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī”, in Damien Janos (ed.): Ideas in Motion in Baghdad and Beyond. Philosophical and Theological Exchanges between Christians and Muslims in the Third/Ninth and Fourth/Tenth Centuries (Leiden: Brill) 221–252. Fakhry, Majid (1983): A History of Islamic Philosophy (New York: Columbia University Press). Goodman, Lenn E. (2003): Islamic Humanism (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Graf, Georg (1944–1954): Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur (5 vols.; Rome: Biblioteca Apostolocia Vaticana). – (1910): Die Philosophie und Gotteslehre des Jaḥjâ ibn ʿAdî und späterer Autoren. Skizzen nach meist ungedruckten Quellen (Münster: Aschendorff ). Griffith, Sidney H. (1996): “The Muslim Philosopher al-Kindi and his Christian Readers. Three Arab Christian Texts on ‘The Dissipation of Sorrows’”, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 78, 111–128. – (2003): “The ‘Philosophical Life’ in Tenth Century Baghdad. The Contribution of Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī’s Kitāb Tahdhīb al-Akhlāq”, in David Thomas (ed.): Christians at the Heart of Islamic Rule. Church Life and Scholarship in ʿAbbasid Iraq (Leiden: Brill) 129– 149. – (2006): “Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī’s Colloquy On Sexual Abstinence and the Philosophical Life”, in James E. Montgomery (ed.): Arabic Theology, Arabic Philosophy. From the Many to the One. Essays in Celebration of Richard M. Frank (Leuven: Peeters), 299–333. – (2010): “The Virtue of Continence (al-ʿiffah) and the ‘Perfect Man’ (al-insān al-kāmil). An Islamochristian Inquiry in Abbasid Religious and Philosophical Circles”, in Martin Tamcke (ed.): Gotteserlebnis und Gotteslehre. Christliche und islamische Mystik im Orient (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz) 25–47. – (2012): “Commending Virtue and a Humane Polity in 10th Century Baghdad. The Vision of Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī”, Islamochristiana 38, 77–100. Hatem, Jad (1986): “La dialectique des moeurs dans l’éthique de Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī”, in Khalil Samir (ed.): Actes du deuxième congrès internation d’ètudes arabes chrétiennes (Rome: Pont. Institutum Studiorum Orientalium) 215–228. Kraemer, Joel L. (1984): “Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam. A Preliminary Study”, JAOS 104, 135–164.

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– (1986a): Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam. The Cultural Revival during the Buyid Age (Leiden: Brill). – (1986b): Philosophy in the Renaissance of Islam. Abū Sulaymān al-Sijistānī and His Circle (Leiden: Brill). Lizzini, Olga (2016): “What Does Tawḥīd Mean? Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī’s Treatise on the Affirmation of the Unity of God between Philosophy and Theology”, in Damien Janos (ed.): Ideas in Motion in Baghdad and Beyond. Philosophical and Theological Exchanges between Christians and Muslims in the Third/Ninth and Fourth/Tenth Centuries (Leiden: Brill) 253–280. Périer, Augustin (1920): Yaḥyâ ben ʿAdî. Un philosophe arabe chrétien du Xe siècle (Paris: J. Gabalda). Pines, Shlomo/Schwarz, Michael (1979): “Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī’s Refutation of the Doctrine of Acquisition (iktisāb). Edition, Translation, and Notes on Some of His Other Treatises”, in Yehoshua Blau (ed.): Studia Orientalia. Memoriae D. H. Baneth Dedicata (Jerusalem: Magnes) 49–94. Platti, Emilio (1980): “Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī. Philosophe et théologien”, Mélanges de d’Institut Dominicain d’Études Orientale du Caire 14, 167–184. – (1983), Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī. Théologien chrétien et philosophe arabe. Sa théologie de l’Incarnation (Leuven: Departement Oriëntalistiek). – (1986): “Intellect et revelation chez Ibn ʿAdī. Lecture d’une page d’un petit traité”, in Khalil Samir (ed.): Actes du deuxième congrès internation d’ètudes arabes chrétiennes (Rome: Pont. Institutum Studiorum Orientalium) 229–234. – (1994): “Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī and His Refutation of al-Warrāq’s Treatise on the Trinity in Relation to His Other Works”, in S. Khalil Samir/Jørgen S. Nielsen (eds.): Christian Arabic Apologetics during the Abbasid Period (750–1258) (Leiden: Brill) 172–191. – (2003): “Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī and the Theory of iktisāb”, in David Thomas (ed.): Christians at the Heart of Islamic Rule. Church Life and Scholarship in ʿAbbasid Iraq. (Leiden: Brill) 151–157. – (2015): “Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, Disciples and Masters. On Questions of Religious Philosophy”, in Douglas Pratt et al. (eds:) The Character of Christian-Muslim Encounter. Essays in Honour of David Thomas (Leiden: Brill) 60–84. Raad, Samih (2003): “L’homme parfait dans le traité d’éthique de Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī”, Parole de l’Orient 28, 531–536. Samir, S. Khalil (1974), “Le Tahḏīb al-Aḫlāq de Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī (m. 974) attribué à Ğāḥīẓ et à Ibn al-ʿArabī”, Arabica 21, 111–138. – (1979), “Nouveaux renseignements sur le Tahḏīb al-Aḫlāq de Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī et sur le Taymūr Aḫlāqa 290”, Arabica 26, 158–178. Schöck, Cornelia (2012), “The Controversy between al-Kindī and Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī on the Trinity, Part One. A Revival of the Controversy between Eunomius and the Cappadocian Fathers”, Oriens 40, 1–50. – (2014), “The Controversy between al-Kindī and Yaḣyā b. ʿAdī on the Trinity, Part Two. Gregory of Nyssa’s and Ibn ʿAdī’s Refutations of Eunomius’ and al-Kindī’s ‘Error’”, Oriens 42, 220–253. al-Takriti, Naji (1978): Yahya ibn ʿAdi. A  Critical Edition and Study of His Tahdhib alAkhlaq (Beirut: Oueidat). Urvoy, Marie-Thérèse (2014): Yahya ibn ʿAdî. L’homme des perfections. Le maître chrétien de la philosophie morale arabe (Paris: Cerf ). Walzer, Richard (1986): “Akhlāḳ”, EI2 i, 325–329.



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Watt, John W. (2007): “Christianity in the Renaissance of Islam. Abū Bishr Mattā, ­al-Fārābī, and Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī”, in Martin Tamcke (ed.): Christians and Muslim in Dialogue in the Islamic Orient of the Middle Ages (Würzburg: Ergon) 99–112. Wisnovsky, Robert (2012): “New Philosophical Texts of Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī. A  Supplement to Endress’ Analytical Inventory”, in Felicitas Opwis/David Reisman (eds.): Islamic Philosophy, Science, Culture, and Religion. Studies in Honor of Dimitri Gutas (Leiden: Brill) 307–326. – (2016): “MS Tehran – Madrasa-yi Marwī 19. An 11th/17th-Century Codex of Classical falsafah, Including ‘Lost’ Works by Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī (d. 363/974)”, Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 7, 89–122.

The Tahdhīb al-akhlāq Attributed to Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī The Early Manuscript Tradition Revisited Ute Pietruschka Abstract:  Miskawayh’s Tahdhīb al-akhlāq is an important milestone in the development of Muslim philosophical ethics. Miskawayh’s Christian teacher, Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī, wrote a treatise that shares title, structure and some of the content of Miskawayh’s composition. The paper re-examines ideas and passages they have in common and will shed light on a multireligious and multi-lingual environment at that time in Baghdad.

As a philosopher, Miskawayh (d. 421/1030) is distinguished by the particular significance he gave to ethics. In his treatise Tahdhīb al-akhlāq1, he pleaded for the organization of philosophical education around ethics. Miskawayh brought together all the themes that had appeared in Arabic ethical works up to that point in a very clear and didactic manner; he knew the Greek, Iranian, Arab and Muslim traditions perfectly, as is also confirmed by his collection of sayings alḤikma al-khālida, the Eternal Wisdom2. A treatise with the same title, Tahdhīb al-akhlāq, is attributed to the Christian (Syrian Orthodox) thinker and philosopher Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī (d. 363/974) who had become a major figure in a new generation of intellectuals in Baghdad in the forties of the 4th/10th century.3 We know next to nothing about his personal life except that he must have been a married layman, and had a son, as we learn from his kunya Abū Zakariyyā. As a young man he moved to Baghdad where he studied with Christian and Muslim philosophers, such as Abū Bishr Mattā Yūnus (d. ca. 328/940) and al-Fārābī (d. 339/950).4 Like his contemporary Ibn al-Nadīm, he was a copyist and bookseller. His passion was for books of logic and philosophy; he not only searched for them and copied them, but he also translated them from Syriac into Arabic, often correcting and revising earlier translations. Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī attracted numerous disciples of various reli1  2  3 

Ed. Zurayk 1966, trans. Zurayk 1968. Ed. Badawi 1952. See also the paper by Lutz Richter-Bernburg in this volume. See the information about his life and works in Griffith 2002: xiv–xxviii; Platti 2010; Endress 2017; Griffith 2017. 4  On Yaḥyā’s intellectual background see Platti 2015.

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gious groups unified by a deep admiration of Greek philosophy and Persian wisdom who pursued philosophical studies together. They were important participants in the cultural revival during the Buyid age that Joel Kraemer described as the “humanistic renaissance” of Islam. Arabic-speaking Christians like Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī played a significant role in the translation movement in Baghdad in the 3rd/ 9th and 4th/10th centuries, bringing the Greek philosophical and scientific works into the world of Islam. Yaḥyā’s leading Christian disciples (ʿĪsā b. Zurʿa, Ibn alKhammār, Ibn al-Samḥ) were, beside their philosophical interests, mainly engaged in textual studies and translation. They focused especially on the writings of Aristotle relating to logic and physics.5 In 1977, Gerhard Endress published an analytical inventory of all known works of Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī,6 which is still valid, and a quick review of his bibliography shows that Yaḥyā worked not only as logician, philosopher and translator, but also in the area of Christian theology and apologetics. His concerns, however, were not limited to the customary topics of Christian apologetics; they extended to issues of public morality. In a short treatise, Yaḥyā defends the Christian ideal of chastity.7 The already mentioned ethical treatise Tahdhīb al-akhlāq attributed to Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī deals with the improvement of morals. The author explains that human perfection can be achieved by training and acquisition of good moral qualities. It was well appreciated within Muslim and Christian circles, and one of the Muslim editors of Tahdhīb al-akhlāq characterizes Yaḥyā’s work as “one of the earliest books on ‘Islamic’ ethical philosophy”8. Most of the modern scholars do not question Yaḥyā’s authorship of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq – Samir Khalil has argued for the authenticity as Yaḥyā’s composition,9 and Gerhard Endress pursues in his Inventory this opinion.10 Recently, ʿAṭif Khalīl al-Ḥakīm has presented manuscripts, editions and questions of attribution in detail.11 Although numerous publications on Tahdhīb al-akhlāq have been published in recent years, there are still questions open and the treatise attracts attention of scholars, because it is a “somewhat uncharacteristic work” of Yaḥyā, as many modern commentators agree.12 The problem is that the title of the treatise, “Tahdhīb al-akhlāq”, does not appear in early lists of Yaḥyā’s works. Later Muslim writers who deal with ethical problems never mention Yaḥyā’s Tahdhīb al-akhlāq, not even Miskawayh who wrote his own Tahdhīb al-akhlāq in the 5  On Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī and his school see Kraemer 1992: 104–139; Endress 2017: 421–527 on the Baghdad Aristotelians. 6  Endress 1977. 7  Mistrih 1981. 8  Al-Takriti 1978: 222. 9  See n. 18. 10  Endress 1977: 84. 11  Al-Ḥakīm 2006. 12  Griffith 2002: xxxi.



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same city and had contacts to the intellectual circle of Yaḥyā13 (and should have known his works). The great bibliographer Ibn al-Nadīm (d. 385/995 or 389/998) who was in close touch with Yaḥyā, mentions in his Fihrist mainly the translations from Greek that Yaḥyā made, but apparently he does not know the Tahdhīb alakhlāq.14 The historian and biographer Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qifṭī (d. 646/1248) who provides an extensive list of works written by Yaḥyā, does not mention the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq.15 The same is true for the Coptic writer Abū l-Barakāt b. Kabar (d. 724/1324) who wrote his catalogue of Christian Arab authors fifty years later.16 Only Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa (d. 668/1270) mentions a writing of Yaḥyā with the title Siyāsat al-nafs that may refer to the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq, where both terms occur.17 To date, about 20 manuscript copies of this work have come down to us, and about 20 printed editions have been published. In the 1970s, Khalil Samir dealt several times with Yaḥyā’s Tahdhīb al-akhlāq, delivered a useful compilation of all available manuscripts and editions and discussed the different attributions of the treatise to various authors.18 Finally, he published a critical edition of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq, mainly based on a good vocalized manuscript from Damascus of the 11th/17th century.19 Two monographs have been devoted to the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq: the Cambridge dissertation of Naji al-Takriti with a critical edition of the text,20 and a monograph by Marie-Thérèse Urvoy21 which includes, in addition to an edition of the text and a useful lexical index, a translation into French. An English translation by Sidney Griffith, using Samir’s edition, appeared in 2002. Both al-Takriti and Urvoy concentrate on an examination of the sources of Yaḥyā. Urvoy speaks here of the “syncretism of Ibn ʿAdī”: “Nous avons vu que le syncrétisme d’Ibn Adi va encore plus loin, mais ce qui est intéressant dans son oeuvre, c’est d’une part le lien qu’elle établit entre morale traditionelle et éthique philosophique.”22 Before we turn to a closer examination of the oldest manuscripts of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq (a few of them now accessible online), we will focus on an issue that is a matter of debate among the scholars: the purpose of this treatise. Was it intended as “mirror of princes”, after the manner of the Persian tradition, as Jad Hatem23 supposes, containing a protest against the actual behavior of the 13  In his Muqabasāt (144, l. 224–225), al-Tawḥīdī mentions Miskawayh among the Muslim pupils of Yaḥyā. 14  Ibn al-Nadīm, al-Fihrist: i, 248–254, 264–265. 15 Al-Qifṭī, al-Tārīkh: 361–364. 16  Riedel 1902: 649. 17  Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa, al-ʿUyūn: i, 235. 18  Samir 1974; Khalil 1979a; Khalil 1979b. 19  Ed. Samir 1994. 20  Al-Takriti 1978. 21  Urvoy 1991. 22  Urvoy 1991: 43. 23  Hatem 1985.

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ruling classes in an Islamicate world? Is it rather to be seen not as a work of ethics but as an adab work, as Thérèse-Anne Druart24 suggests? Or was it intended for the instruction of prospective students more generally, be they Christians or Muslims, in order to give them an introduction into the practice of the philosophical way of life?25 In order to approach this question, a closer look at the transmission of the manuscripts of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq would be helpful. This could give us a clue as to the “Sitz im Leben” of this treatise and how readers and copyists perceived and contextualized this work.

1.  Short Overview of the Treatise The treatise can be divided into three sections: 1) After a short introduction, the author defines in the first section khuluq (moral quality) and explains the tripartite soul; 2) then follows a catalogue of 20 virtues and corresponding vices. 3) In the third part the author describes the way to train good morals in order to shape a perfect human being (al-insān al-tāmm). The author of Tahdhīb al-akhlāq sees virtues as social actions that lead to the purification of the soul from all evils. He hopes that if the reader, a person who is willing to reform his morals (the muʾadhdhib – this term occurs several times in his treatise), “finds his own moral qualities listed in books, and described as good, this summons him to persevere in his good behavior and to carry on in his way.”26 Following Galen27, the author defines moral quality (khuluq) as “a state (ḥāl) proper to the soul, in which a person performs his actions without deliberation or precise knowledge.”28 These moral qualities can be achieved by having control over one’s soul.29 Following the Platonic tradition he inherited, the author distinguishes three powers (quwwa) in the soul: “The soul has three powers  … the appetitive soul (al-nafs al-shahwāniyya), the irascible soul (alnafs al-ghadabiyya), and the rational soul (al-nafs al-nāṭiqa).30 All of the moral qualities emanate from these powers.”31 According to the author, the rational soul, which distinguishes man from the animals, is also the power “by which he deems good deeds to be good and bad deeds to be bad.”32 Most people, how24  25 

Druart 1996: 185. Griffith 2017: 131 states that the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq “seems to be addressed to a more general readership.” 26  Griffith 2002: 21. 27  Cf. Kraus (ed.), K. al-Akhlāq: 25; trans. Mattock, A Translation: 236. 28  Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 22; Griffith 2002: 9. 29  Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 66, l. 1–11; Griffith 2002: 67. 30  See on this also Dorothee Pielow’s contribution to this volume. 31  Griffith 2002: 30. 32  Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 42; Griffith 2002: 23.

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ever, “are disposed to the bad moral qualities” because evil predominates over human nature.33 A man has, however, “the ability to reform (yuhadhdhib) the remaining two powers (appetitive and irascible), to control them and to restrain them.”34 After these fundamental reflections on the parts of the soul and their significance for the emergence of good or bad moral qualities, the author provides a catalogue of 20 desirable virtues to which 20 vices correspond, briefly explaining each virtue and vice. This list represents a somewhat peculiar compilation of virtues and vices. We will come back to this problem in more detail later. In the third section of the treatise, the author provides a programme for the reformation of morals (tahdhīb al-akhlāq). The programme consists in subjecting the appetitive and the irascible soul and their powers to the control of the rational soul. This reformation itself is a process of discipline (taʾdīb): “It is necessary to discipline (yuʾaddib) his appetitive soul and to reform it (yuhadh­ dhibahā)”.35 When one studies the rational sciences (al-ʿulūm al-aqliyya), “his soul will awaken, take cognizance of its appetitive [soul], recover from its indolence, perceive its virtues, and reject its vices.”36 The acquisition of the rational sciences is necessary for the strengthening of the rational soul, and the end product is the perfect (or: complete) man, al-insān al-tāmm, who is able to reform his morals. Some moral qualities, however, are of an ambivalent character, which means that in some people they are virtues, but in others they are vices. It is remarkable that the author distinguishes between commendable and abhorrent moral qualities by reference to the social status of the person who might possess them. For example, niggardliness is a “moral quality (which) is abhorrent for everyone, but it is less abhorrent for women. As for the rest of the people, niggardliness disgraces them, especially kings and aristocrats.”37 The same is true for renunciation: Renunciation (al-zuhd) is diminishing the desire for money and goods, for accumulation and acquisition […] This moral quality is to be considered very good, but it is for scholars, monks, religious leaders, sermon-givers, preachers and whoever gives people an interest in the life to come and in survival after death. It is not to be deemed good for kings and aristocrats, nor it is appropriate for them. For when a king makes his practice of renunciation public, he becomes deficient […] So if he abandons the accumulation (of goods), his reign becomes futile, and he will summarily be numbered among the most inadequate of the kings […]38

33  34  35  36  37  38 

Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 24; Griffith 2002: 9. Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 42–43; Griffith 2002: 23. Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 36; Griffith 2002: 19. Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 82, l. 17–84, l. 1; Griffith 2002: 57, 59. Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 81–82; Griffith 2002: 55, 57. Griffith 2002: 89–91.

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The idea of moderation plays an important role in the author’s understanding of desirable virtues. Among these virtues is friendship (al-wudd), which is defined as a temperate love that is not influenced by desire.39 The only enduring love is that for virtuous people, and leads to self-control and thus refinement of the soul and moral qualities while friendship for pleasure does not.40 Additionally, he recommends to “frequent the sessions (majālis) of scholars and sages, and continually associate with modest and abstinent people,” and reading books “on morality […], as well as accounts of ascetics, monks, hermits and pious people”, on grammar and rhetoric in order to get some measure of eloquence.41

2. The Tahdhīb al-akhlāq in the Context of Ethical Writings The interest in ethical and social concerns of the emergent Muslim societies gave rise to the translation of popular ethical and practical political writings of Greek or Persian origin into Arabic. Treatises on the subject of good and bad character traits (akhlāq) formed a relatively stable genre already in the 4th/10th century; similar ideas were put forward by Jewish, Christian and Muslim authors. Many of these writings would fall under the category of adab, a genre of literature that combined instruction and entertainment.42 In this context the compilation of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq is to be seen. Platonic ideas served as groundwork of an ethical system in which Aristotelian, Neoplatonic, Cynic and Stoic strands were woven together and transmitted to the Islamicate world in whatever form – in the form of late antique paraphrases translated into Arabic or already composed in Arabic.43 Especially the influence of Plato’s Republic and Laws and also Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics was decisive, all of them already in the late 3rd/9th– early 4th/10th century known to an Arabic readership.44 During the aftermath, important commentaries, especially on the Nicomachean Ethics, circulated in learned circles, thus shaping medieval Arabic thinkers’ understanding of ethical doctrines. Our author of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq argues along familiar Platonic and Aristotelian lines: The sources for the tripartition of the soul, Plato’s Republic and Ti39  40 

Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 34, ll. 1–2. Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 34, ll. 2–7. Moderation also plays a role in Miskawayh’s concept of virtue as he establishes a link between friendship and virtue. Love becomes virtue as a means for perfection (Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 14, l. 17–15, l. 9). 41  Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 132; Griffith 2002: 95. 42  Kilpatrick 1998. 43  Wakelnig 2013: 239–242. 44  On the Arabic reception of the Nicomachean Ethics see Hayes 2015: 204. See Dunlop’s introduction in the edition of Akasoy/Fidora 2005; also, the comment on this edition by Ullmann 2011: 1–29.

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maeus, had been available in Arabic translation.45 Galen’s Peri ēthōn (On Traits of Character) provided another link to fuse Platonic and Aristotelian doctrines and played an important role in transmitting Platonic ideas not only in Greek, but also in Arabic translation.46 The Platonic theory of the tripartite soul is one of the philosophical doctrines to which Galen is most strongly committed, and this theory, as well as the terminology, became the basis of Arabic psychological taxonomy.47 Galen understands psychic harmony as a balance of strength between the three parts. The best state for this harmony is when reason is in charge, the spirited part is strong and obedient, and the appetitive part is weak.48 Galen draws a sharp distinction between the rational part of the soul with its cognitive abilities such as thinking and imagination, and the two other (lower) parts without these activities. In keeping with this the virtue of the rational part is knowledge (or wisdom), while the virtues of the spirited and the appetitive parts (courage and temperance) do not involve knowledge. Therefore, there are different kinds of training appropriate for the three parts of the soul: the training of the rational part is intellectual, while the lower parts are trained by habituation:49 I have said that habit is a second nature, and I also say that a man should not restrict himself to not acquiring bad habits, but he should also not associate with those who have acquired them … The man who is most learned and the wisest is the most fitted to rule.50

The author of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq knew these ideas that are summarized (sometimes in a simplified manner) in the first part of his treatise; he even repeats a passage from Galen’s writing (which becomes quite commonplace in several treatises on ethics): if a man were able to come to full perfection, he would rather resemble the angels.51 What is missing in the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq, however, is the almost usual classification of four cardinal virtues as result of the threefold division of the soul. Each faculty (quwwa) of the soul corresponds to a virtue which arises from the measured use of this faculty. This classification is followed, e. g., by Miskawayh in his Tahdhīb al-akhlāq:52 45  46 

For a general survey on the Arabic Plato see Arnzen 2009, 2011; Gutas 2012. For Galen’s Peri ēthōn, lost in the Greek original and preserved only in Arabic guise, see the edition of the Arabic epitome by Kraus (ed.), K. al-Akhlāq. English translation by Mattock, A Translation. 47  For the Platonic model cf. Büttner 2006, and for Galen’s adaptation Schiefsky 2012: 336– 339. 48  Kraus (ed.), K. al-Akhlāq: 38–39; Mattock (trans.), A Translation: 247. 49  Kraus (ed.), K. al-Akhlāq: 28; Mattock (trans.), A Translation: 238. 50  Kraus (ed.), K. al-Akhlāq: 49–50; Mattock (trans.), A Translation: 257. 51  In Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 129; Griffith 2002: 93. Cf. Mattock (trans.), A Translation: 248. 52 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 18–24.

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Virtue of the rational soul

appetitive soul

irascible soul

vice: virtues: knowledge (ʿilm) ignorance wisdom (ḥikma)

vice: virtues: temperance (ʿiffa) greed generosity (sakhāʾ )

vice: virtues: prudence (ḥilm) cowardice courage (shajāʿa)

virtues in perfect balance: justice (ʿadl) arises

This classification corresponds in principle with the categorization that is already to be found in the ps.-Aristotelian treatise On Virtues and Vices (Περὶ ἀρετῶν καὶ κακιῶν)53 that was at least two times independently translated into Arabic, once by Theodore Abū Qurra (d. ca. 209/825 or later) and later by Ibn al-Ṭayyib (d. 435/1043).54 This text was apparently well appreciated in monastic circles, as attested by an anthology of texts in a Syriac ms. of the 4th/10th century55 with an ascetical or ethical interest which includes an abbreviated Syriac version of this treatise.56 The same division of the soul and the derivation of the four cardinal virtues is described in Iwānnīs of Dārā’s (fl. first half of the 3rd/9th century) treatise On Soul’s Virtues which probably goes back to a Syriac source of this tradition (the fourfold classification of virtues and vices) prior to the 3rd/9th century, possibly reflecting a lost Greek original.57 A  similar general scheme of virtues and vices is given by a younger contemporary of Iwānnīs of Dārā, the JudaeoArabic author Dāwūd b. Marwān al-Muqammiṣ (fl. second quarter of the 3rd/9th century) in his Twenty Chapters: His [a human being’s] soul has three faculties (quwwa), viz., cogitation ( fikra), passion (shahwa) and irascibility (ghadaba) […] These faculties have four virtues ( faḍāʾil): wisdom (ḥikma), continence (ʿiffa), courage (quwwa) and justness (ʿadl) […] These three faculties have eight defects (manāqiṣ). (Each) pair of defects is the opposite of one of the four (virtues), and each virtue is the opposite of a pair of defects. The two defects of cogitation are dishonesty and stupidity; these two are the opposite of wisdom, which is the virtue of cogitation. The two defects of passion are impudence and sluggishness; these two are the opposite of continence, which is the virtue of passion. The two defects of irascibility are folly and timidity; these two are the opposite of courage […] which is the virtue of irascibility.58

Another text of this kind, a ps.-Platonic work, Maqāla fī ithbāt faḍāʾil al-nafs (Treatise on the Subsistence of Soul’s Virtues),59 is a further example of the classification of the four cardinal virtues as related to the three souls that was avail53  54  55  56  57  58 

On the classification of virtues and vices in this treatise see Cacouros 2003: 516. Kellermann 1965. On this ms. (Sinai syr. 14) see Brock 2003: 19–20. Brock 2014: 91–92, 102–104. Zonta 2015: 138. Stroumsa 1989: 280–282. These aspects of equilibrium, excess and deficiency have their origin in Aristotelian ethics. 59  The text goes back to a Syriac translation of a Greek compilation, see: Daiber 1971, 1972.



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able to an Arabic speaking readership around 1000 CE. All these examples show the deep impact of late-antique literature about the soul, sometimes of pseudepigraphic character, on Syriac and Arabic literature that testifies to an eclectic reception of Platonic and Aristotelian ideas. The classification of the parts of the soul and related lists of virtues and vices seemed to be well-known not only in philosophical and monastic circles, but also among a broader public interested in psychology and related matters. So, it is hardly surprising to find similar catalogues of vices and virtues in adab literature and mirrors of princes (Fürstenspiegel). There is, however, a significant difference between the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq and the above-mentioned treatises in the way the virtues and vices are presented: Whereas in the latter works the virtues and vices are classified according to an ideal equilibrium that connects a given virtue always with corresponding vices, the author of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq gives no systematical explanation of the virtues and vices. In the first section, he simply lists virtues and vices of each part/ faculty of the soul; e. g., for the rational soul: This soul also has virtues and vices. Its virtues are the acquisition of knowledge (iktisāb alʿulūm) and refinement (ādāb) […] Its vices are malevolence, subterfuge, deception, flattery, cunning, envy, defamation, and hypocrisy.60

In the catalogue of virtues/vices in the second section, however, he does not explicitly refer to the parts of the soul and the connected virtues or vices. The lists of virtues and vices given in the respective description of the division of the soul corresponds only in part with the list in section 2, and so we get the impression that section 1 and section 2 of the treatise go back to two different sources.61 Another fact is very curious: the author fails to mention ḥikma (the term occurs only once in the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq62) as a cardinal virtue of the rational soul and does not list this virtue in the catalogue. On the other hand, it is explained especially in the third section that the acquisition of knowledge or wisdom is to be seen as the most effective way for reforming the morals. Most intriguing is the catalogue of twenty virtues and vices in section 2 of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq which provides an entertaining vademecum for perfect moral behavior. Griffith pointed out that this list has an “idiosyncratic character”63, because it does not follow the Greek philosophical practice of listing the virtues An indication for this assumption is the striking rendering of ἀνδρεία (courage) as quwwa (and not shajāʿa), as also al-Muqammiṣ did (see Daiber 1971: 28; Stroumsa 1989: 280). 60  Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 43, 44; Griffith 2002: 23, 25. 61  Cf. the virtues/vices of the rational soul: Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 43–44; Griffith 2002: 23, 25. Of the irascible soul: Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 41; Griffith 2002: 23. Of the appetitive soul: Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 33; Griffith 2002: 17. 62  In the description of the complete man: Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 132; Griffith 2002: 95: al-ʿilm wa-l-ḥikma. 63  Griffith 2002: xxxiv.

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Figure 1: Depiction of the parts of the soul in Ibn Farīghūn’s Jawāmiʿ al-ʿulūm64

under the headings of the four cardinal virtues. Most of the virtues and vices on this list, however, can also be found with other authors. There is an example that shows remarkable parallels with the catalogue in Tahdhīb al-akhlāq: the compendium of sciences Jawāmiʿ al-ʿulūm by Ibn Farīghūn (fl. middle of the 4th/10th century).65 It is to be seen as a classification of all knowledge that may have been relevant to a court secretary. How Ibn Farīghūn’s idea of the faḍāʾil is shaped by concepts of mirrors of princes becomes clear in the description of the ideal ruler and his secretaries. He distinguishes between bodily virtues, mental virtues and virtues due to nobility and dignity66 and lists 21 virtues that correspond in part with the virtues mentioned in Tahdhīb al-akhlāq (see table below). Additionally, Ibn Farīghūn groups the necessary virtues of a ruler according to the parts of the soul (see fig. 1). In contrast to Tahdhīb al-akhlāq, however, Ibn Farīghūn tries to formalize the system 64  Many thanks to Hans Hinrich Biesterfeldt for providing me with the copies of the facsimile edition of Ibn Farīghūn’s al-Jawāmiʿ (1985) and of the edition by al-Janābī (2007). 65  Biesterfeldt 2015: 11–25. 66  Ibn Farīghūn, al-Jawāmiʿ, facsimile: 78.



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of virtues: he correlates a given virtue to its part of the soul, whereas the list of faḍāʾil in Tahdhīb al-akhlāq apparently does not follow a recognizable arrangement. Besides, as already stated, the cardinal virtue ḥikma is entirely absent from the list in Tahdhīb al-akhlāq. Ibn Farīghūn was obviously one of the early adab compilators who made use of the Platonic/Galenic system of virtues and introduced it into his concept of a Fürstenspiegel. Later mirrors of princes, such as Ibn Abī al-Rabīʿ’s Sulūk al-mālik fī tadbīr al-mamālik, provide a similar classification of virtues according to an ideal equilibrium of excess and deficiency of a given faculty.67 The list in Tahdhīb al-akhlāq seems to be inspired not only by Platonic psychology, but also by Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Obviously, the compiler of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq knew the Nicomachean Ethics, because he discusses most of the individual virtues explained by Aristotle. Another intriguing parallel is the so-called “Seventh Book”, an additional book in the Arabic version of the Nicomachean Ethics which was inserted between Books VI and VII. The subject matter of this “Seventh Book” is the virtues and vices discussed in Chapter II and IV of the Greek Nicomachean Ethics.68 The virtues listed in Tahdhīb al-akhlāq and the moral virtues discussed in Nicomachean Ethics show striking similarities, albeit there is not the same sequence of the virtues (the same is true for the order in the Jawāmiʿ) (see next page). After providing this list of recommendable virtues and avoidable vices, the author of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq explains the necessity of a reformation of morals. He sees in the acquisition of knowledge through consultation of appropriate books and attending scholarly gatherings, combined with a moderate way of life, the best possibility for a reformation of morals. So, the author states that is it necessary to train or refine the different parts of the soul in order to become their master. Especially by means of the rational soul, a man has the ability to reform the appetitive and the irascible soul in order to control them.69 The idea of tahdhīb is linked to the subject of adab since both ideas denote culture, courtesy, and the refinement of character.70 Adab means here paideia, training in the sense of education. The goal which is described in the last section of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq is the perfect human being, al-insān al-tāmm. The author states that it is difficult to reach fulfillment (tamām), which “is the utmost at which a man may arrive”. A  man seldom ends up at this point, confesses the author, but it is possible: “When a man’s determination is true […] he will be fit to come ultimately to the 67  See Biesterfeldt 2015: 18 for the authorship and date of the Sulūk. 68  Cf. the comparison of virtues in the “Seventh Book” and Ch. III

machean Ethics in Akasoy/Fidora 2005: 59. 69  Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 43; Griffith 2002: 23. 70  Goodman 1999: 132.

and IV of the Nico­

✓ ✓

✓ (rahb dhirāʾ ) ✓

✓

✓ (IV,3–4) ✓ (V )

✓ (VII,4) ✓ (ladhdha VII,11) ✓ (IV,7) ✓ (IV,1) ✓ (IV,1) ✓ (III,6–9)

✓

✓ ✓b

✓

✓ ✓ (II,11) ✓ (VII,9) (✓) ✓ (IV,5) ✓ (ḥayāʾ IV,9) ✓ (VII,7; VIII,1) ✓ (III,1)

Virtues in Nicomachean Ethics

ḥikma (wisdom) ✓ ✓

Virtues in Jawāmiʿa

fujūr (debauchery) sharah (greed) tabadhdhul (profligacy) safah (folly) khurq (awkwardness) ʿishq (passion) qasāwa (harshness) ghadr (perfidy) khiyāna (dishonesty) ifshāʾ al-sirr (divulging secrets) kibr (arrogance) ʿubūs (sullenness) kidhb (lying) khubth (malevolence) bukhl (niggardliness) jubn (cowardice) ḥasad (envy) jazaʿ ʿinda l-shidda (anxiety in the face of adversity) ṣighar al-himma (lack of ambition) jawr (injustice)

Tahdhīb al-akhlāq catalogue of vices

a  Cf. the list provided in Biesterfeldt 2015: 19. As Biesterfeldt points out, the terminology of virtues in the cited works, especially in the light of different translations, is open to interpretation. The same is true for the terminology used in NE. b  The rasm wnʾ could be a garbled wfʾ: wafāʾ (fidelity) rather than wudd, as Biesterfeldt 2015: 18, proposed.

ʿiẓm al-himma (high ambition) ʿadl (justice)

– ʿiffa (abstinence) qanāʿa (contentedness) taṣawwun (self-control) ḥilm (calm, insight) waqār (modesty) wudd (friendship) raḥma (compassion) wafāʾ (fidelity) amāna (honesty) kitmān al-sirr (keeping secrets) tawāḍuʿ (humility) bishr (joy) ṣidq al-lahja (truthfulness) salāmat al-niyya (benevolence) sakhāʾ (generosity) shajāʿa (courage) munāfasa (emulation) ṣabr ʿinda l-shadāʾid (perseverance in difficulties)

Tahdhīb al-akhlāq catalogue of virtues („cardinal virtues“: bold)

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goal for which he is preparing himself.” Kings are not supposed to reach the described fulfillment for themselves, but are called upon to lead a virtuous life that can only be achieved through education, and to appoint the most qualified (educated) persons as political advisors. Intellectuals and political leaders have a special role in this process: because people are born with a desire for good and evil but most people are inclined more towards evil, there should be a king or laws in the society to encourage and to guide people to practice good morals.71 Based on the definition of adab literature as a genre that was intended for transmitting a canon of knowledge belonging to “general knowledge”, offering education and ethical values, the classification of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq as adab compilation seems plausible. This genre has been seen as a literature of compilation, one that lacks real originality. The originality of a particular text exists in the choice of the reproduced texts, their nuanced rewriting and in the new contexts where they are inserted.72 Concerning the concept of adab, Tarif Khalidi points out: Central […] is the concept of Adab, a curriculum of learning and good manners, of courtliness, leading to the formation of the Adib, the gentleman-scholar, a cultural type of many guises, recognizable over a broad swath of time and from Greece to China. Adab presupposes that there can be no true erudition without the polished character that goes with it. The Adib was an ornament to any salon, holding forth with ease on all branches of learning but careful to keep himself aloof from the plebs and the contamination of the mauvais goût …. It was important not only to educate the reader or listener but also to avoid boring him with pedantry. Clearly, Adab does not correspond to literature in the strict sense; perhaps the happiest synonym so far suggested is [the] Greek Paideia.73

The same is true for our Tahdhīb al-akhlāq that gives a general introduction to the Greek classification of the virtues, as it should be familiar to educated people of that time, and combines it with a discussion of ethical problems – more precisely, the reformation of morals – as some sort of a Fürstenspiegel. Especially in the last section of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq it becomes clear that it was intended for the instruction and advice not only of the general public, but also of bureaucratic elites, the kuttāb. The universal value of moral and ethical concepts in an adab work facilitated the reception and transmission in various cultural and religious environments. The manuscript tradition attests that the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq was popular reading in both Muslim and Christian circles.

71  72  73 

Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 150–152. Cheikh-Moussa et al. 1999. Cited after Kennedy 2005: xii‒xiii.

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3.  The Manuscript Tradition of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq Khalil Samir provided in two erudite articles74 a survey of the manuscripts and printed editions of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq. Samir made an important observation: whereas the manuscripts dated from the 11th/17th to 14th/20th centuries are attributed to different well-known authors, the oldest manuscripts from the 7th/ 13th and 8th/14th centuries are (with one exception) anonymous.75 The occurrence of works of similar titles on ethical subjects, in fact, might well have been the reason that some scribes or compilers attributed the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq to such lofty writers as Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī, Ibn ʿArabī or even al-Jāḥiẓ.76 The ascription of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq to the renowned Sufi sheikh Ibn ʿArabī (d. 638/1240) can be explained by his famous and widespread work, the Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam (The Bezels of Wisdom), where he discusses the insān al-kāmil.77 Ibn ʿArabī may have first coined this term in a reference to Adam found in his Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, explained as an individual who is connected with the Divine and creation.78 As we have seen, a similar term, al-insān al-tāmm, is used in the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq. During the late Mamluk and early Ottoman period, Sufi orders gained in importance in Syria and Egypt;79 at the heart of mainstream Sufism we observe an emphasis on individual piety and on upward spiritual progress, from repentance through self-purification to perfection and closeness to God. Many Sufi teachers exhorted abandoning the material pleasures of the world and recommended chastity – thus the content of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq fits well into Sufi teaching and an attribution to a Sufi writer was more than easy.80 Another ethical treatise, al-Rāzī’s K. al-Ṭibb al-rūḥānī (The Spiritual Physic), was appreciated not only by philosophers and theologians, but also by Sufis who shared the interest in ethical topics based on Platonic ideas.81 The treatise discusses the pre-eminence of reason which is the faculty that distinguishes man from the animal and is the ruling principle in the soul that enables human beings to suppress their desire, which is necessary for the reformation of character. According to al-Rāzī, this “spiritual therapy” can be achieved by moderation (taʿdīl) of the parts of the soul. Undoubtedly, the psychological framework of the al-Ṭibb al-rūḥānī is the Platonic tripartition of the soul which matches 74  Samir 1974, 1979. See also Endress 1977: 82–85. 75  We will focus in the following on the earliest mss. from the 7th/13th–8th/14th centuries. 76  On the rather improbable attribution of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq to al-Jāḥiẓ, see Samir

1974: 116; Khalil 1979a: 160. 77  Biesterfeldt 2010. 78  Fitzpatrick/Walker 2014: 440. 79  Geoffroy 1995; Winter 2014. 80  See, e. g., Ms. Taṣawwuf 2155 (706/1307) and Ms. Taṣawwuf 2241 (732/1332) of the Dār al-Kutub in Cairo. The overview of respective mss. in Samir 1979: 167. 81  Edition by Kraus (ed.), Rhagensis. See Arberry 1950; Fakhry 1991: 70–77 on the al-Ṭibb al-rūḥānī.



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well with the other topics discussed in the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq, so that we can observe the co-occurrence of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq and al-Rāzī’s treatise in several manuscripts. One early example is the Ms. Taṣawwuf 2241 (Dār al-Kutub Cairo), written in 732/1332.82 That al-Rāzī’s ethical treatise enjoyed high reputation not only in a Muslim context, but also in Christian monastic circles, is seen in the Ms. Vatican ar. 182, dated from 1301 CE.83 It is the earliest manuscript containing the Tahdhīb alakhlāq with an attribution to Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī. This majmūʿ (composite ms.) contains on fol. 1r–46v al-Rāzī’s K. al-Ṭibb al-rūḥānī; fol. 47v–103r Tahdhīb alakhlāq; fol. 104v–132v Hermes, R. al-Maʿānī; fol. 139r–152 Sermons and sayings of John Chrysostomos; fol. 153v–158r Sermons and sayings of Cyrill, patriarch of Alexandria. The manuscript is written in two different hands and was secondarily bound together. At least the second part (after fol. 47) is of Christian (Coptic) origin, as the foliation and the colophon (fol. 103r) indicate. On fol. 47v of this manuscript the copyist noted down in the margin that “Abū l-Ḥasan b. al‑Ḥasan b. al-Haytham compiled (muṣannifahā)” this treatise (fig. 2). From the alleged author, the famous mathematician and astronomer Ibn al-Haytham (d. ca. 432/1041)84, no writings on ethics or similar topics are known, so that this attribution remains very doubtful.85 The same note is to be found in a manuscript from the 11th/17th century which is obviously a copy of Vat. ar. 182.86 The majmūʿ Ms. Jerusalem, Dayr Mār Murqus 272, again of Egyptian provenance, contains the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq on foll. 38v–87v. The date, mentioned on fol. 34r, 15 Amshīr 990 AM/10 Shaʿbān 672 H, is not necessarily the date of composition of the whole manuscript, because the part containing the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq (see fig. 3) is secondarily bound into the majmūʿ. Fortunately, the beginning of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq is intact and clearly indicates the title Tahdhīb al-akhlāq, but there is no author mentioned. In contrast to the Ms. Vat. ar. 182, it starts with the Muslim basmala, and we can suppose that this copy of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq stems from a Muslim ms. (or was at least written for a Muslim readership).87 About one folio at the end of the ms. is missing, so that there is no colophon. 82 The Tahdhīb al-akhlāq is here incomplete. On this ms. see Kraus (ed.), Rhagensis: 6‒7 and Gutas 1977: 91. 83  Description of the ms. see https://opac.vatlib.it/mss/detail/151631. 84  About his life, see GAS: v, 358. 85 Al-Qifṭī, al-Tārīkh: 165–168; Ibn Abī Uṣaybīʿa, al-ʿUyūn: ii, 90–98 (97‒98 a bibliography compiled by Ibn al-Haytham is preserved). 86  Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, Gud. graec. 106: This ms. was purchased by Marquard Gude (1635–1689) who owned in the 17th century the largest private collection of (especially Greek) manuscripts north of the Alps, cf. Härtel 2008. With the beginning of the collection of Oriental manuscripts by Europeans in the 16th/17th centuries, European scholars became acquainted with Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī’s important role as a Christian-Arabic philosopher and theologian. It seems that the Wolfenbüttel ms. was exclusively copied for a European manuscript collector. 87  On different forms of the basmala see Almbladh 2010: 56–59.

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Figure 2: Vatican ar. 182, fol. 47v. The first page with a Christian form of the basmala.

The manuscript comprises on foll. 1–37r extracts from the Apophthegmata patrum. The beginning of the manuscript is missing, and a second hand indicated Aqwāl al-anbāʾ al-qiddisīn (in Karshūnī) on the top of the first page. After the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq follows on foll. 88r–101v Bustān al-ruhbān and on foll. 102r–195v Stories of the Fathers.



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 Figure 3: Jerusalem, Dayr Mār Murqus 272, fol. 38r/38v88.

The arrangement of literary pieces in a majmūʿ (composite or multiple text ms.) is, as we know, a deliberate decision of the compiler or scribe that tells a lot about purpose and target group of a manuscript. In our case the Tahdhīb alakhlāq is embedded in several collections of stories and sayings of holy men and monks which have been popular reading in monastic circles. The combination of literary pieces is very similar to that in the Vat. ar. 182. The Tahdhīb al-akhlāq had in both cases the same function: it was meant as source of inspiration and as an ethical guideline for pious people, dealing with the moral improvement of human beings and the description of the “perfect man”. The combination of texts of ethical-philosophical character and wisdom literature, pious narrations and legends shows that the majmūʿ was not intended for philosophical instruction or schooling, rather for edifying, but also educative reading. This kind of collection has its parallels in the Muslim adab compendia, but was certainly made for a Christian (monastic) readership. The Tahdhīb al-akhlāq is, however, also to be found in miscellanies of a philosophical character. A very important ms., Cairo Dār al-Kutub Taymūr Akhlāq 290, from the 8th/14th century, that comprises several Arabic translations of Greek philosophical treatises89, contains the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq on the first 25 88  Online available: https://w3id.org/vhmml/readingRoom/view/136488. 89  The ms. contains, e. g., Bryson’s K. Tadbīr al-manzil; a letter of Plato

to Porphyrios; Hermes, al-Maʿānī (De castigatione animae), and p. 191–235 Galen’s Peri ēthōn. On the con-

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pages. Unfortunately, the beginning and the end of the treatise is missing, so that we have no information about the title and author. Ms. Add 7473 of the British Library is the oldest witness that transmits a part of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq. It is a majmūʿ copied in 639/1242 at least in part from an exemplar that was copied in “the west side of the city of al-Mahdiyyah” in 530/1136, as the colophons on fol. 172v and 178r indicate. This miscellany comprises 20 treatises, among them a number of Graeco-Arabic texts, on philosophy, mathematics, history and related subjects. It includes several treatises on ethical topics, e. g., on foll. 1v–5v al-Rāzī’s K. al-Sīra al-falsafiyya (The Philosophical Life), on foll. 6r–12r al-Mawṣilī’s Maqāla fī l-nafs, and on foll. 188v–198v Avicenna’s Maqāla fī l-nafs. On foll. 26v–31v there is an ethical treatise entitled Risālat Siyāsat al-nufūs (Compendium on the Soul) written by the mathematician, astronomer and physician Sinān b. Thābit (d. 330/942)90, the son of the well-known Thābit b. Qurra (d. 288/901). The treatise contains a passage that corresponds to the last section of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq (about al-insān al-tāmm).91 Shlomo Pines drew attention to this correspondence and concluded that there must be some confusion here between Yaḥyā’s Tahdhīb al-akhlāq and the Siyāsat al-nufūs by Sinān b. Thābit.92 Fig. 4 shows the colophon of the Siyāsat al-nufūs on fol. 31v. Beginning with l. 10 of this page, the text in the BL ms. differs from the printed edition: “wahādhā ḥīna nakhtimu l-qawla fī l-akhlāq” (instead of “wa-hādhā ḥīna nakhtimu l-qawla fī tahdhīb al-akhlāq”).93 The following ḥamdala is also different. At first sight, an ethical work attributed to Sinān seems improbable, since he was primarily known as a mathematician, astronomer and physician whose writings – in contrast to the writings of his father and his son Ibrahīm (d. 334/946)94 – are unfortunately lost. There is, however, an intriguing passage in al-Masʿūdī’s K. Murūj al-dhahab wa-maʿādin al-jawhar (compiled in 331/943, revised in 335/947 and 344/956) on a R. Siyāsat al-nufūs written by Sinān. AlMasʿūdī gives a short overview of the writing and passes a rather harsh judgment on this ethical treatise. So, he writes that Sinān compiled this risāla “for one of his friends of the kuttāb” where he deals with the “moral qualities of the souls” (akhlāq al-nufūs) and “the parts of the soul according the teaching of Plato in his Republic”. The subject of this letter is, however, “beyond his competence (laysa tent of the ms. and editions of the respective treatises, see Kraus (ed.), K. al-Akhlāq: 3–8; Khalil 1979a: 172–177. 90  On his life, see GAS: v, 291; GAS: vii, 331: “Leider scheinen seine Werke mit Ausnahme seiner ethischen Schriften verlorengegangen zu sein”. See also Ibn al-Nadīm, al-Fihrist: 272, 302; al-Qifṭī, al-Tārīkh: 190–195. 91  The corresponding parts in Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 132, and British Library Ms. Add 7473, fol. 28r l. 18. 92  Pines 1953: 248, n. 9. 93  Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, al-Tahdhīb: 165. 94  GAS: v, 292–295.



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Figure 4: British Library Ms. Add 7473 fol. 31v.

min ṣināʿtihī)”.95 Al-Masʿūdī critically notes that “we can only blame him for leaving his profession and taking on a job (mihna) for which he was not done”.96 Assuming that al-Masʿūdī means the risāla which is transmitted in British Library Ms. Add 7473, then the question arises of whether a reappraisal of the authorship of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq, at least of its last section, might be appropriate.

4.  Arguments For and Against the Authorship of Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī Although G. Endress emphasized 40 years ago that there “is no intrinsic evidence against the authorship of Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī”97, some doubts remain. These have first and foremost to do with the fact that in the oldest manuscripts (with one exception) Yaḥyā – sometimes due to damaged incipits or explicits – is not mentioned as author of the treatise. The oldest manuscript where Yaḥyā is named as author of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq is Vat. ar. 182, which mentions in a marginal note Ibn al-Haytham and Yaḥyā as possible authors. Obviously al95 Al-Masʿūdī, al-Murūj: i, 19. 96 Al-Masʿūdī, al-Murūj: i, 20. 97  Endress 1977: 84.

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ready in the 7th/13th century the authorship seemed to have been controversial. And why did the copyist add the skeptical note that Ibn al-Haytham might be the author who, as a mathematician and astronomer, did not excel with ethical writings? Was there any confusion with the much lesser-known mathematician Sinān b. Thābit, who, as we know from al-Masʿūdī, wrote an adab treatise on the Platonic tripartition of the soul that apparently exceeded his professional competence? Moreover, we have to state the striking fact that none of the early bibliographers, e. g., Ibn al-Nadīm as a contemporary of Yaḥyā, mentions the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq. Only Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa, three centuries later, lists a scripture entitled Siyāsat al-nafs.98 As we have seen, pseudepigraphic works or adab compilations on topics similar to those in the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq, referring to ethical issues and discussing the improvement of morality, circulated in various cultural and religious environments. The manuscript tradition has shown that most of the early manuscripts containing the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq originate from Egypt. Christian authors from Syria and Iraq, as, e. g., Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī, were well appreciated among the Copts, where the monastery of the Syrians in the Wadi al-Natrun played an important role as mediator between the eastern parts of the Arab world and Egypt.99 We have knowledge of the most important works of Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī due to the fact that Coptic writers and scholars, especially during the so-called Coptic renaissance in the 7th/13th-8th/14th centuries, “rediscovered” Christian authors from the East.100 The already mentioned catalogue of Abū l-Barakāt gives us a good overview of which literary pieces from the East were known in Egypt among the Copts. Especially the Awlād al-ʿAssāl drew from the works of Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī which was of interest for them, and composed epitomes of his books. Al-Ṣafi b. al-ʿAssāl (d. after 650/1253) finished in 638–639/July 1241 CE a résumé of 41 works of Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī that transmitted important parts of the Christian Arabic theological and philosophical heritage to the Copts.101 Al-Muʾtaman b. al-ʿAssāl (d. between 668/1270 and 684/1286) refers in his Majmūʿ uṣūl al-dīn extensively to Christian thinkers such as Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī.102 The Tahdhīb al-akhlāq is, however, nowhere mentioned in the writings of the Awlād al-ʿAssāl. Yaḥyā’s writings were therefore well known in Christian intellectual and monastic circles in Egypt. Due to his reputation as an important Christian philosopher and theologian it may well be that the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq (of whatever authorship) was attributed to Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī from the 6th/13th century onwards, whereas in a Muslim context the same treatise was ascribed to a famous Sufi author. 98  See n. 17. 99  Brock 2004. 100  Sidarus 2013: 334, 338–340 for the reception of Platonic writings among Coptic writers. 101  Platti 1977; Awad 2012b: 538–539. 102  Awad 2012a: 530.



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In the near future, the uncertainty of attribution should be clarified with a more precise analysis of style and vocabulary of the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq: a computer-aided analysis of Yaḥyā’s works in comparison with the Tahdhīb al-akhlāq is in preparation.

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Wakelnig, Elvira (2013): “Die Philosophen in der Tradition al-Kindīs. Al-ʿAmirī, al-Isfizārī, Miskawayh, as-Siǧistānī und at-Tawḥīdī”, in Heidrun Eichner et al. (eds.): Islamische Philosophie im Mittelalter. Ein Handbuch (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft) 233–252. Winter, Michael (2014): “Sufism in the Mamluk Empire (and in Early Ottoman Egypt and Syria) as a Focus for Religious, Intellectual and Social Networks”, in Stephan ­Conermann (ed.): Everything is on the Move. The Mamluk Empire as a Node in (Trans-)­Regional Networks (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht) 145–164. Zonta, Mauro (2014): “Iwānnīs of Dārā’s Treatise on the Soul and its Sources. A  New Contribution to the History of Syriac Psychology around 800 AD”, in Elisa Coda/­ Cecilia Martini Bonadeo (eds.): De l’Antiquité tardive au Moyen Âge. Études de logique aristotélicienne et de philosophie grecque, syriaque, arabe et latine offertes à Henri ­Hugonnard-Roche (Études Musulmanes 44; Paris: Vrin) 113–122. – (2015): “Iwānnīs of Dārā On Soul’s Virtues. About a Late Antiquity Greek Philosophical Work among Syrians and Arabs”, SGA 5, 129–143.

The Quest for Divine Guidance as Intercultural Educational Discourse An Inquiry into Saadia Gaon’s and Miskawayh’s Ethics Maxim Yosefi* Abstract:  This chapter addresses the ethics of Saadia Gaon – the eminent early 10th century Jewish theologian, philosopher and philologist, who wrote in Arabic – and of Miskawayh. It explores the question of whether the ideas developed by Saadia may have had an indirect impact on Miskawayh. It first suggests several parallels indicating that this transmission of ideas may have taken place. Second, it posits that the ideas shared and promoted by Saadia may have reached Miskawayh via the Syriac Orthodox Christian philosopher Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī. Third, it explores the hypothesis that both the Jewish philosopherexegete Saadia and the Muslim thinker Miskawayh used thoughts from a common pool of ideas to which not only Muslim Muʿtazilites but likewise early Jewish Muʿtazilites and Christian proponents of kalām contributed. The example of Dāwūd b. Marwān al-Muqammaṣ, “the oldest Jewish mutakallim,”1 is used as an example in this regard. Intercultural parallels between Saadia’s and Miskawayh’s ethics-related conceptions of religious law, reason and revelation, however, are the focus of this study’s discussion.

In 320/932, when Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad Miskawayh (d. 421/1030) was born in Baghdad, the Jewish rabbi Saadia ben Joseph Gaon, known also by his Arabic name Saʿīd b. Yūsuf al-Fayyūmī (882–942), was already a prominent philosopher-exegete. Living in Baghdad, he was working on his Opus Magnum – a treatise on virtue ethics known today as Kitāb al-Amānāt wa-l-iʿtiqādāt (The Book of Beliefs and Opinions).2 No record indicates that Miskawayh, who was only ten years old *  I wish to express my gratitude to the editors of the collection, Professor Dr. Sebastian Günther and Dr. Yassir El Jamouhi, to the two anonymous reviewers of my study, and to the English language editor Elizabeth Crawford for their scrupulous attention and encouraging advice on many details of the paper, including the translations of the Arabic passages. I also express my gratitude to the Fritz Thyssen Foundation for its support of my research for this paper. 1  Van Ess 2017: 500. 2  The book was completed in Baghdad in 321/933. The Book of Beliefs and Opinions – Samuel Rosenblatt’s rendering of the Arabic title Kitāb al-Amānāt wa-l-iʿtiqādāt  – (an abridged translation first published in 1948) is not the only variant of translation. Alexander Altmann translated the title as The Book of Doctrines and Beliefs (for an abridged translation first published in 1946). After explaining the connotation of the Arabic terms, Altmann (Saadya, Doc-

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when Saadia died, might have known his work, written originally in Judeao-Arabic. Nevertheless, a closer look reveals that the ethical ideas of Saadia have clear parallels in Miskawayh’s Tahdhīb al-akhlāq (The Refinement of Character). Furthermore, the two scholars share a number of basic rationalist premises, which could be most easily explained by the fact that both were deeply influenced by Hellenistic philosophy and Muʿtazilite theology, widely available to literate individuals in the Abbasid caliphate. Yet among the common foundations of Saadia’s and Miskawayh’s ethics there are elements distinguishable from Greek and Muʿtazilite premises, but shared by Arabic Christian scholars of that time and adopted in Jewish thought. The parallels between Saadia’s and Miskawayh’s concepts of religious law, reason and revelation indicate how widely these ideas seem to have been debated in the 4th/10th century in scholarly circles in the realm of Islam and how lively the intercultural intellectual exchange apparently was in this regard in Baghdad and beyond.

1.  Saadia: Toward Beliefs and Opinions Saadia’s religious background, his tasks as a communal leader, and the methodology he used as a leading scholar of his time make his work the symbol of the significant Jewish contributions to the intellectual exchange during the Abbasid caliphate. A brief outline of his biography needs to be given here to trace the path of a Jewish rabbi from Egypt to the ascendancy of the “inaugurator of medieval Jewish scholasticism”3 and to the authorship of “the greatest work in Jewish philosophy before Maimonides’ Guide to the Perplexed”.4 Saadia was born in the village of Dilāẓ, in the Fayyūm district in Upper Egypt, in a period that was marked by the bitter struggle between the Rabbanites and trines: 20) concludes: “The title of the book thus epitomises the whole purpose which the author had in mind, namely, to enable the reader to reach a stage where the Amānāt (‘doctrines’, i. e., of Judaism) become the object of Iʿtiqādāt (‘conviction’, i. e., faith based on speculation)”. On the other hand, the translation Beliefs and Opinions also conveys the conception of Saadia’s project of applying reason to God’s commandments: Jewish religious beliefs (amānāt), become the object of convictions based on reason (iʿtiqādāt), namely, opinions. The translation of the title suggested by Gyongyi Hegedus (2013: 1) stresses the fact that beliefs become convictions: The Book of Beliefs and Convictions. 3  Altmann 1944: 320. 4  See “New introduction” by Daniel H. Frank in Saadya, Doctrines: 1. Maimonides (529– 601/1135–1204) was a Jewish rabbi, philosopher-exegete, communal leader, legal authority and a physician. Born in Cordoba (Almoravid Empire), he died in Egypt, where he served in the court of the vizier. A consummate scholar and prolific writer, he authorised numerous compositions, the most significant of which are: Mishne Torah (a pioneering work on Jewish religious law), The Guide to the Perplexed (a work reconciling the teaching of Aristotle with Rabbinical Jewish theology), and The Book of Commandments (a commentary on the Mishnah, an enumeration of the commandments of the Torah).



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the Karaites5 and, at the same time, by the controversy between the Jewish intellectual centres of Babylonia (Iraq) and the land of Israel. In the early 4th/10th century, the Jewish communities of Egypt were exposed to intensive Karaite propaganda, while the local Rabbanites were within the sphere of influence of the religious leaders of Israel. Saadia belonged to a family of scholars connected with the Babylonian centres of Judaism.6 These religious and academic links predetermined his lifelong struggle in support of the rabbinical tradition and the Babylonian school of Judaism. Saadia became famous when he still was a young man. At the age of twenty, he composed a major Hebrew-Arabic dictionary (Sefer Egron). At the age of twenty-three, he came out against the Karaites for the first time, when writing The Response against ʿAnan (al-Radd ʿalā ʿĀnān). During his career, he formulated antiKaraite arguments not only in the polemical literature, but also in the fields of prayer, religious law (halāḵā), biblical translation and commentary.7 Around 915 CE, in his thirties, Saadia had to leave Egypt, most likely due the hostility of the Karaites. Living the life of an exile, he travelled between Aleppo, Palestine and Baghdad, finally establishing himself in Iraq around 922.8 In the 920s, he contributed to the ultimate victory of the Babylonian school of rabbinic Judaism over the Palestinian school in the calendar dispute, after which, in 928, he was appointed the Gaon (lit. “Splendor”) of the Talmudic academy in Sura, a city near contemporary Najaf.9 This was the leading academy in Babylonia and the supreme 5  Official Judaism appeals to the rabbinical traditions and laws, recorded during the first and second centuries CE in the Mishna (the major written collection of the oral traditions and laws derived from the Torah) and codified in the Gemara, which was based on discussions of the Mishnah during the third to the fifth centuries CE. Rejecting the rabbinical traditions, the Karaites profess to follow only the Bible in all religious observances and opinions. 6  Gil 2004: 351; Harvey 2013: 758. 7  Polemicising against the Karaites in the field of polemical literature, Saadia also composed al-Radd ʿalā Ibn Saqawayh (Response against Ibn Saqawayh) and al-Radd ʿalā l-mutaḥāmil ʿalā l-mishna wa-l-talmūd (Response against the Detractor of the Mishnah and the Talmud). In the field of Jewish religious law, Kitāb Taḥṣīl al-sharāʾiʿ al-samʿiyya (Book of Comprehending the Oral Torah’s Laws) was written against the Karaite’s method of analogy (qiyās). Saadia’s anti-Karaite polemical arguments are also included in his biblical commentaries (Gil 2004: 352–353). Saadia’s translation of the Torah into Arabic, which he provided with Arabic exegesis (tafsīr), was performed for those Jewish communities who were no longer knowledgeable in Hebrew and Aramaic. This work countered the attempts of the Karaites to impose their own reading of the Scripture. Finally, Saadia’s prayer book (Siddūr) was codified to refute the criticism of the Karaites against the prayer formulas elaborated by the Rabbanites (Schweid 2008: 4). A survey of Saadia’s tracts against the Karaites was published by Samuel Poznanski (1897). 8  Hegedus 2013: 2. 9  At the beginning of the 920s, the head of the Talmudic academy in Ramle, the leading academy of the Palestinian school in those days, decided to reform the generally accepted rules of the Hebrew calendar. Had the suggested changes been accepted by the local Jewish communities, it would have resulted in a two-day schism between the Jewish community in greater Palestine and that of Babylonia. This threatened Judaism, as the world’s largest communities could have been split between two different calendars. The head of the Jewish community in

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authority in religious matters for the majority of the Jewish communities in the world. Saadia was the first foreigner ever to be appointed to this highly prestigious post. Two years after the appointment, a controversy broke out between him and the head of the Jewish community of Babylonia. Saadia was demoted from the position of Gaon only to be reinstated seven years later, after a reconciliation. He kept his office for five more years until his death in 942, at the age of 59.10 The Book of Beliefs and Opinions was written by Saadia during the first years following his dismissal from the position of the Gaon of Sura, after he had already received recognition as the major intellectual leader of his generation. In Babylonia, where Jews were exposed to a large variety of streams of Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism and religious skepticism, Saadia found that his mission was to introduce traditional rabbinic Judaism in a way that would allow defense of its norms amid the intellectual tensions of the contemporary multi-ethnic culture of the caliphate. To be introduced in this way to Arabicised Jews who had the background necessary for understanding the argumentation of Muslim and Christian authors, rabbinic Judaism had to be adapted to the Arabic scholarly tradition. Throughout his career, Saadia had prepared himself for this mission: most of his works were written in the Judaeo-Arabic language and, conforming to the Arabic scholarly tradition, were of a systematic nature, each containing a table of contents, theoretical and methodological introductions, and references to the texts and theoretical arguments of Arabic authors.11 Both the use of the Arabic language for rabbinical writings and creation of a coherent system for Jewish religious doctrines were Saadia’s innovations. In Saadia’s time, the Jewish rabbinic tradition was presented only by the Talmud, in which moral and ritual requirements as well as all intellectual and practical matters were provided in a rather “bewildering” variety of beliefs and judgements. Saadia’s project of harmonising the Jewish rabbinic tradition with rationalism would have been impossible without a coherent system, and already in this respect the achievements of the Arabic scholarly tradition contributed greatly to the formation of the medieval rabbinic literature. As for methodology, Saadia employed the principles of kalām al-dīn (dialectical theology) as the most appropriate achievement of contemporary thought available at the time. The use of the methodologies and tools of this branch of scholarship in The Book of Beliefs and Opinions perfectly fits the classical definitions of kalām by alFārābī (d. 339/950), al-Bayḍāwī (d. 691/1292) and Ibn Khaldūn (d. 808/1406).12 Babylonia commissioned Saadia to come out against the plan of the Palestinian school with polemics. Saadia’s struggle resulted in his writing the Sefer ha-Mōʿadīm (The Book of the Seasons), which eventually contributed to the ultimate victory of the Babylonian school, and the calendar schism was prevented (Kobler 1978: 83). 10  Gil 2004: 349. 11  Harvey 2013: 758–760. 12  In the book Iḥṣāʾ al-ʿulūm, al-Fārābī defines kalām as “a science which enables a person



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Namely, Saadia established the truth of religious principles by means of rational proofs. In terms of the religious tradition he used, the goal of his philosophising and the scientific methods he employed, Saadia could be seen as a Jewish mutakallim. He used the Jewish rabbinic tradition to advance philosophical claims in order to defend the faith and to ground the doctrines of the Torah in rationality. The systematic character of The Book of Beliefs and Opinions and the innovativeness of the idea to submit the doctrines of rabbinic Judaism to theological speculation made Saadia “the first [Jewish] philosophical theologian of real substance since Philo”, as the contemporary Jewish philosophy specialist Alan Mittleman appraises him.13 To prove Jewish religious doctrines, Saadia analysed them systematically – from the beliefs related to the creation of the world ex-nihilo and the absolute oneness of God to the doctrines dealing with the resurrection of the dead, messianic redemption and the world to come. He ascribed rational necessity to God’s revelation and commandments, to free will and divine reward and punishment, to the features of the moral order and the regulation of relations by justice. In the age of moral confusion and the lack of faith, rational proofs not only transformed beliefs based on religious doctrines into convictions based on reason; they were formulated to transform Saadia’s contemporaries “from men who believed on the basis of scriptural authority alone into men who could support their beliefs with philosophical arguments”.14 This way, Saadia’s proofs could help the perplexed believers to reach agreement as to the appropriateness of the religious doctrines and to overcome confusions. Developing his virtue ethics, Saadia discussed divine commandments found in the Bible as well as issues of free will, and reward and punishment, thus dealing with questions of equal concern to both Muslim and Christian thinkers.

2.  Saadia and Miskawayh: Between Religious Law,15 Revelation and Reason The epistemology and the logic adopted by Saadia largely correlate with those of the early Muʿtazilites – the rationalist theologians in Islam who, as opposed to orthodox Muslim theologians (such as the Ashʿarites), made reason the arbiter to support specific beliefs and actions laid down by the Legislators of the religion and to refute all opinions contradicting them”. According to al-Bayḍāwī, kalām is “a science which enables one to establish religious beliefs, by adducing arguments/proofs and banishing doubts”. Ibn Khaldūn explains that kalām is “the science that involves arguing with rational proofs in defence of the articles of faith and refuting innovators who deviate from the beliefs of early Muslims and Muslim orthodoxy” (Abdel Haleem 1996: 75). 13  Mittleman 2012: 94. 14  Hyman/Walsh 1973: 341. 15  In this study’s discussion, the Law implies the religious, divinely revealed law in both the Jewish and the Islamic context. It is referred to as “the Law” (al-sharīʿa) by Miskawayh and as

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over the validity of divine laws.16 Nevertheless, with respect to the religious law, reason, free will and revelation – the fundamental concepts behind his moral ethics – Saadia (although sharing some basic Muʿtazilite assumptions) occupies a position between these two groups. Remarkable parallels can be observed between his and Miskawayh’s respective ideas. 2.1.  Distinction between Reasonable and Revealed Laws Under Muʿtazilite influence, both Saadia and Miskawayh adopt a distinction between the religious law and reason as two different, but mutually complementing, sources of ethical knowledge. In Muʿtazilite theology, human’s ability to distinguish between good and evil (true and false, etc.) is self-evident by virtue of the existence of directly inferable knowledge, which includes ethical principles intelligible to reason. These rational laws (sharāʾiʿ ʿaqliyya), uncovered in the human mind (ʿaql), are distinguished from revealed laws (sharāʾiʿ samʿiyya), received through listening (samʿ) to the precepts. A similar distinction had been previously made in the Jewish tradition by the sages,17 who derived it from the Torah, which mentions on more than one occasion “rules” and “laws.” Examples of this are: “My rules (mishpāṭay) alone shall you observe, and faithfully follow My laws (ḥuqqōṯay)” (Lev. 18:4); “This day the Lord, your God, commands you to do these laws (ḥuqqīm) and rules (mishpāṭīm); you shall, therefore, observe and do them with all your heart, and with all your soul” (Deut. 26:16). Sifra, the Halakhic exegesis of Leviticus, composed by an unknown author in the 3rd or 4th century CE, commenting on Lev. 18:4, speculates that the “rules” are the matters of the Torah that would have been fitting to be inscribed as laws even if they had not been written in the Book. The “laws” are interpreted as those customs of the nations of the world which Jews, according to the Torah, are not permitted to practice (for instance, eating pork, mixing meat and milk in food, or mixing linen and wool in garments). Thus the “laws” (Hebr: ḥuqqīm), as opposed to the “rules” (mishpāṭīm), are commands not intelligible to reason – those which the Muʿtazilites define as “revealed laws” (sharāʾiʿ samʿiyya). In the tradition of the sages, however, the distinction has neither ethical nor epistemological implications. Saadia does not lean upon the distinction made by the sages. He opens the first chapter of the treatise on command and prohibition (Treatise III of Beliefs and Opinions) with a reference to verse 26:16 of Deuteronomy (quoted above), “laws” (sharāʾiʿ) by Saadia. Here and below, the term is capitalised (the Law) when unspecified, and not capitalised when specified as “religious”, “divine” or “revealed”. 16  On the adoption of kalām by Saadia, see Ben-Shammai 1997: 127–132. 17  The Hebrew term is ḥazal, an acronym for Ḥāḵāmeynū Ziḵrōnām Li-ḇrāḵā (our sages, may their memory be blessed). In this specific sense, the term “sages” refers to the Jewish religious law scholars of the period spanning roughly from 250 BCE to 625 CE.



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but merely to illustrate the idea that humans must observe and carry out laws prescribed by God. In Saadia’s coherent system, the Muʿtazilite distinction between “reasonable” and “revealed” laws does have clear epistemological and ethical implications. He classifies all moral requirements intelligible to reason under four duties, which are valid for the relationship between God and man as much as for relationships between human beings. These are the duties of gratitude, respect, not causing harm, and fairness.18 As the rational precepts of the Torah, the laws given in revelation are, in Saadia’s conception, based on particularly useful purposes, and he is ready to inquire into motivations behind them, but stresses that God’s wisdom is above such inquiry.19 This runs counter to the orthodox Islamic doctrine according to which values can be known “only” by revelation and never by reasoning independent of revelation.20 However, Saadia’s concept differs not only from the orthodox Islamic doctrine but also from that of the Muʿtazilites, for in his view the rational precepts, no less than the revealed laws, indispensably need prophetic revelation.21 As against the Muʿtazilites, Saadia admits that man’s exclusive dependence on reason is reprehensible.22 The Republic and Laws of Plato, translated into Arabic by Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq al-ʿIbādī (d. 260/873), began to exercise direct influence on Islamic thought prior to al-Fārābī, and it is Plato who, in addition to the Muʿtazilites, influenced Saadia’s conception of the Law. In particular, Saadia follows the “Platonic” exposition of the rational laws when employing dialectical arguments to prove the rational character of this kind of precept.23 Unlike Saadia, Miskawayh does not embed a theory of the religious law and reason in his ethics and, moreover, does not pay much attention to the distinction between “revealed” and “reasonable” requirements. Nevertheless, the distinction between the divinely revealed law (the Law) and reason as two mutually complementing sources of ethical knowledge is not alien to him. For example, addressing vices, Miskawayh defines frigidity as “abstinence from the pursuit of the legitimate pleasure which the body needs for its normal functioning and which is permitted by the Law and by reason” (mā turakhkhiṣu fīhi al-sharīʿa wal-ʿaql).24 In another context, discussing justice, Miskawayh notes that when a human being becomes accustomed to leading a virtuous life, he merely “follows the counsel of pure reason (al-ʿaql al-ṣarīḥ) and observes the right Law (al-sharīʿa al-qawīma)”.25 The following discussion demonstrates that, as in the view of Saa18 Saadia, al-Amānāt: 113–115; Saadia, Beliefs: 137–140. 19 Saadia, al-Amānāt: 117; Saadia, Beliefs: 143. 20  On this difference, see Hourani 1976: 61–62. 21 Saadia, al-Amānāt: 118–119; Saadia, Beliefs: 145–147. 22 Saadia, al-Amānāt: 21; Saadia, Beliefs: 27. 23  Altmann 1944: 323, 337. 24 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 27; Miskawayh, The Refinement: 24. 25 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 129; Miskawayh, The Refinement: 114.

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dia, reason cannot, in Miskawayh’s thinking, serve as an independent source of ethical requirements. While all of them have to be given in revelation, reason, being a complementary source of knowledge, allows one to establish their rational basis and thus prove their veracity. 2.2.  Religious Law Contains Fuller Wisdom than Reason Attains The Muʿtazilites hold that the veracity of scripture can be proven by reason after the basic truths of theology have been established. These truths are subject to rational proof. In particular, man is able to know by reason which acts are obligatory and which are wrong. Consequently, ethical norms – though a manifestation of God’s will – can be known, at least to some degree, without a revelation. Under this premise, the commands of God become merely an additional source of ethical knowledge, while reason is the major one.26 Likewise, in Hellenistic philosophy, the practical wisdom approach implies that ethical knowledge is perceived by reason. A crucial difference between Jewish thought and Muʿtazilite ideas is that the former see the divinely revealed law as the only source of ethical knowledge, which contains not just prescriptions, but fundamental truths available to all and implying free will to accept and observe it.27 Interestingly, Miskawayh shares this kind of conception in developing his virtue ethics and outlines of the human’s way to perfection. Both Saadia and Miskawayh argue that reason coheres with the divine law, but the latter contains fuller wisdom than reason could attain. Therefore, religious precepts should be carried out regardless of whether their truth is intelligible to reason or not. Besides, both also share the view that a deeper understanding of the reasons behind the divine commands is useful as it supports people in obeying them. Apparently, in Saadia’s time, there were sages who feared that inquiry into reasons would undermine the authority of the divine commands. Rejecting the opinion that speculation leads to unbelief, and is conducive to heresy, Saadia explains:

ّ ّ ّ ّ ‫كل ما نحتاج إليه من أمور ديننا‬ ّ ‫بتوسط أنبيائه بعد ما‬ ‫صحح لهم النبوة‬ ‫إن ر ّبنا تبارك وتعالى لقننا‬ ‫آ‬ ّ ّ ‫وعرفنا أنا إذا نظرنا وفحصنا أخرج لنا‬ ‫عندنا باليات والبراهين فأمرنا بأن نعتقد تلك المعاني ونحفظها‬ ّ .‫النظر الصحيح المستوفى في كل باب مثل ما ّنبأه به في قول رسله‬

Our Lord, blessed and exalted be He, has namely given us complete instructions in regard to our religious requirements through the medium of His prophets. [He did this] after [first] confirming for us their possession of the gifts of prophecy by means of miracles and proofs. Thus, He has enjoined us to accept these matters as binding and observe them. He 26  27 

Hourani 1976: 82; Ben-Shammai 1997: 120; Madelung/Schmidtke 2006: vii. Jacobs 2010: 54–60, 109–111.



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has furthermore informed us, however, that, if we would engage in speculation and diligent research, inquiry would produce for us in each instance the complete truth, tallying with His announcement to us by the speech of His prophets.28

Opening the treatise on command and prohibition, Saadia formulates the same idea:

ّ ّ ً ‫أن له علينا‬ ّ ‫جل‬ ّ ‫دينا ندين به فيه شرائع‬ ّ ‫شرعها علينا يجب أن نحفظها‬ ‫وعز على قول أنبيائه‬ ‫عرفنا ر ّبنا‬ ‫آ‬ ‫ […] وأقام لنا رسله على تلك الشرائع البراهين واليات المعجزات فحفظناها‬.‫ونعمل بها مخلصين‬ ّ ‫وعملنا بها من وقتنا ّثم وجدنا النظر يوجب أن‬ .‫تشرع علينا‬ Our Lord, exalted and magnified be He, has informed us by the speech of His prophets that he has assigned to us a religion, whereby we are to serve him. It embraces laws prescribed to us by Him that we must observe and carry out with sincerity. […] Moreover, in support of the validity of these laws, His messengers executed proofs and wondrous signs. Consequently, we observed and carried out these laws immediately. Afterwards, through investigation we found out the [rational] consideration that necessitated them [i. e., these laws] having been legislated for us.29

Miskawayh conveys the same idea and, akin to Saadia, formulates it more than once in almost the same form. Outlining the life course that leads to happiness and perfection, he writes:

ّ ‫ ويؤخذ بوظائفها وشرائطها‬،‫فمن ّاتفق له في الصبا أن ير ّبى على أدب الشر يعة‬ ّ ‫حتى‬ ‫ ّثم ينظر‬،‫يتعودها‬ ‫آ‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ّ .‫حتى تتأ كد تلك الداب والمحاسن في نفسه بالبراهين‬ ‫بعد ذلك في كتب الخالق‬

He who has the chance in youth to be trained to follow the morality of the Law (al-sharīʿa) and to be required to observe its duties and requirements until they become as habits to him; who later studies first the works of ethics so that these morals and fine qualities become confined in him by rational demonstrations …30

A very similar formulation appears in another context:

ّ ّ ،‫ويتعود جميع ما تأمره به‬ ّ ‫حتى‬ ،‫السعيد هو من اتفق له في صباه أن يأنس بالشر يعة ويستسلم لها‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ‫ فوجدها موافقة لما تقدمت‬،‫إذا بلغ المبلغ الذي يمكنه معه أن يعرف السباب والعلل طالع الحكمة‬ .‫عادته به‬ The happy person is the one who has the opportunity in his childhood to become familiar with the Law (al-sharīʿa), to give himself up to it, and to get accustomed to following all that it commands, until – when he attains the stage in which he is able to comprehend 28 Saadia, al-Amānāt: 22; Saadia, Beliefs: 28 (slightly adjusted). Rosenblatt’s translation has “miracles and marvels”, but “proof ” fits better to render the term burhān. 29 Saadia, al-Amānāt: 113; Saadia, Beliefs: 138 (adjusted). The translation by Rosenblatt reads “signs and wondrous miracles” for al-barāhīn wa-l-āyāt al-muʿjizāt, but “proofs” and “signs” are more exact terms to translate barāhīn and āyāt. Wajadnā al-naẓar (trans. by Rosenblatt as “we discovered the rational basis”) would be translated more exactly as “[through investigation] we found out the [rational] consideration”. 30 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 49; Miskawayh, The Refinement: 45.

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motives and causes – he takes up the study of philosophy (al-ḥikma) and finds it in agreement with that which had become ingrained in him by habit.31

Taking into consideration the views of learning advanced later by al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) and Ibn Rushd (d. 595/1198), one could understand Miskawayh’s idea as follows: While learning the religious law is the way to inner virtue and spiritual perfection, the natural mental abilities of humans are “God-given” and therefore constrained. Due to this limitation, the revealed divine law cannot be directly inferable to human beings. In the view of Miskawayh, in childhood humans are naturally restricted to believing in the literal meaning of scripture and practicing moral commandments (turning them into habits) in order to learn through sensory perception as the major means available. In adulthood, humans can study philosophy and discover the veracity of the religious law, thus compensating for natural intellectual limitations by individual learning efforts.32 In their stances, Saadia and Miskawayh accentuate different elements, because they each employ the same concepts for different purposes. Saadia’s task here is to argue the absolute justice of the Creator. Accordingly, he promotes the idea that since God is all-wise and all-generous in giving His commands, humans must accept their veracity and carry them out. For Miskawayh, philosophy is not merely “true education” (adab ḥaqīqī), but the way to salvation (najāt).33 The primary concern of his virtue ethics is the attainment of perfection and happiness. Consequently, in his view, humans must not only submit to the divine law, but have to practice the revealed commandments, converting them gradually into habits. Regardless of this difference and the fact that the provided quotations do not allow us to establish textual links, certain parallels are evident which lead us to the following points of consideration: First, both Saadia and Miskawayh are of the opinion that God, by means of revelations, has generously provided perfect laws which allow us to obtain happiness.34 The validity of these laws is not always obvious and is initially unintelligible to humans. The latter, however, upon being exposed to God’s commandments, are expected to choose, by exercising free will, to obey them. 31 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 129; Miskawayh, The Refinement: 114 (adjusted). 32  In the view of Ibn Rushd, however, the majority of the common people

need to be restricted to the first way of learning not merely in childhood, but during all stages of life. As Sebastian Günther (2020: 290–291) demonstrates, as opposed to al-Ghazālī, Ibn Rushd considers that humans cannot compensate for natural intellectual limitations through individual learning efforts. Consequently, in the view of Ibn Rushd, believing in the literal meaning of scripture and practicing as means of learning through sensory perception is the way of learning to which the majority of the common people need to be restricted. 33  Kraemer 1986: 231. 34  God and prophets are not mentioned in Miskawayh’s quotations above, but, as we shall see further on, in his conception, as in Saadia’s, “the Law” implies divine revelations and the covenantal relationship with God.

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Second, for both Saadia and Miskawayh, the rational basis of the requirements is not revealed in the human mind by itself, simply because a part of the laws (as generally presumed by the Muʿtazilites) are directly inferable. Both scholars share an opinion that the rational basis of God’s commandments is discovered over time by virtue of man’s ability of research, study and speculation. Third, both scholars reflect on the idea that even those laws that were potentially intelligible to reason had to be first given in revelation. This was because all laws, ethical laws in particular, were necessary to humankind earlier than the veracity of some of them could have been proven rationally. Thus, Saadia explains, there was a period in the history of humanity when individuals did not know how to employ reason and speculation, yet they were in need of ethical guidance to sustain their living. Miskawayh points to the same idea at the level of individual lives. Fourth, recognising a basic role of reason in understanding the revealed laws, both scholars encourage humankind to search for the rational basis of the commandments. Accordingly, Saadia stresses the justice of the Creator who has generously provided men not only with laws, but also with the capabilities and tools necessary to perceive their truth. Miskawayh emphasises the importance of studying and reading, which help in establishing the truth of the commandments and contribute to self-perfection. 2.3.  The Fundamental Role of the Covenant While in Greek philosophy laws, being supreme for gods and humans alike, are not granted to establish covenantal relationship, in Jewish thought covenant with God plays the central role: the Law is regarded as a gracious gift for which humankind should give gratitude to God. After Saadia had grounded this principle in rationality, it retained its central position in Jewish moral thought.35 In Islamic moral thought, Miskawayh, very much akin to Saadia in this regard, stresses the central role of the covenant and even argues for it in the same way, drawing an association between the requirements that regulate human relationships and the requirements that regulate relations between God and man. This association is based on the idea of the human imitation of divine activity, which, being linked to the notion that human beings are created in the divine image, is actively employed in Jewish thought.36 In Saadia’s concept, the religious precept of serving God and being grateful to Him is linked to the fundamental moral duty of gratitude. Likewise, the precept not to associate anyone else with God is linked to the moral duty of respect. Accordingly, justice in what people perform towards God is associated with justice in the relationships between humans: 35  36 

Jacobs 2010: 76–105. Jacobs 2010: 63–74.

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ّ ّ ً ّ ‫محتاجا إليه‬ ّ ‫وإما بشكر إن كان‬ ‫غنيا‬ ‫وأقول إن العقل يوجب مقابلة كل محسن ّإما بإحسان إن كان‬ ّ ّ ّ ‫فلما كان هذا من واجبات العقل الكليات لم يجز أن يمهله الخالق جل‬ ّ ‫عن المكافأة؛‬ ‫وعز في أمر‬ ّ .‫بالتعبد له وشكره لما خلقهم‬ ‫نفسه بل وجب أن يأمر مخلوقيه‬ I say, then, that the intellect (ʿaql) demands that whoever does something good be compensated either by means of a favour shown to him, if he is in need of it, or by means of thanks, if he does not require any reward. Since, therefore, it is one of the general obligations of the intellect (wājibāt al-ʿaql al-kulliyyāt), it would not have been seemly for the Creator, exalted and magnified be He, to postpone it in His own case. It was, on the contrary, necessary for Him to command his creatures to serve Him and thank Him for having created them.37

In the same way, Miskawayh, paraphrasing and summarising Aristotle to express his own theological position, associates justice in what people perform towards God with justice in the relationship between human beings, and thus demonstrates that the covenant is rooted in the fundamental idea of justice:

ّ ّ ‫ فمن المحال أن ال يكون هلل‬،‫وذلك أن العدل إذا كان إنما هو عطاء من يجب ما يجب كما يجب‬ ّ ‫ […] وهو أن العدالة‬.‫تعالى الذي وهب لنا هذه الخيرات العظيمة واجب ينبغي أن يقوم به الناس‬ ‫أ‬ ‫ من‬،‫ وجب أن يكون لما يصل إلينا‬،‫والعطاء وفي الكرامات التي ذكرناها‬ ‫ّلما كانت تظهر في الخذ إ‬ ً ّ ّ ّ ،‫وجل ونعمه التي ال تحصى‬ ّ ‫عطيات الخالق‬ ّ ‫ وذلك أن من أعطي خيرا ما وإن‬.‫حق يقابل عليه‬ ‫عز‬ ً ّ .‫كان قليال ثم لم ير أن يقابله بضرب من المقابلة فهو جائر‬

If justice actually consists in giving to the right person what ought to be given in the right way, it would be inconceivable that humans should not owe God (exalted is He!), who granted us all these immense goods, an obligation that humans should fulfil. […] As justice manifests itself in receipt and payment and in the [various] honours which we have mentioned,38 it is necessary that, in return for the gift and the innumerable favours which reach us from the Creator (mighty and exalted is He!), He should have on us a claim that must be fulfilled. For whoever is given a certain good, no matter how slight it may be, and does not see the necessity of repaying it in some way is an unjust man.39

By virtue of the association between divine and human, love and respect are assigned to human beings for activities that affect humankind in the same way as 37 Saadia, al-Amānāt: 114; Saadia, Beliefs: 139 (slightly adjusted). The translation by Rosenblatt has here “to neglect it in His own case”, however the meaning of the verb amhala is rather “to give a period of grace”, “to postpone”. Saadia thus most likely implied not complete neglect, but that it would not have been seemly for God even to postpone receiving compensation for His favours. 38  Perhaps by “various honours” Miskawayh implies “various kinds of honour” he mentions in the beginning of his treatise. In Miskawayh’s virtue ethics, one of the three faculties of the soul is responsible for the desire for dominance, self-esteem and the different kinds of honour (ḍurūb al-karāmāt), which are however not specified. The ability to bear honour is an expression of one’s greatness of spirit (kibar al-nafs). See Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 15, 21; Miskawayh, The Refinement: 15, 19. 39 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 119–120; Miskawayh, The Refinement: 106.



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the divine activities do. Thus, in Miskawayh’s concept, teachers are assigned, and deserve, the second highest stage of love – second only to God because of the position they occupy in the education of the human soul. Since teachers, akin to God in their educational activities, allow people to obtain perfect happiness by providing them with knowledge and wisdom, the teacher receives the ascendency of “a human God” (rabb basharī).40 Furthermore, also by virtue of the association between divine and human in Miskawayh’s conception, the law of God (nāmūs Allāh) or the religious law (alsharīʿa), being the highest law (al-nāmūs al-akbar), serves as the model for all other laws. Introducing this idea, Miskawayh refers to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, which, however, nowhere states that “The highest law is from God”.41 Ascribing the idea of covenantal relationship with God to Aristotle, Miskawayh describes the establishing of the covenant as follows:

ّ‫أ‬ ّ ‫ لن‬،‫فالمتمسك بالشر يعة يعمل بطبيعة المساواة فيكتسب الخير والسعادة من وجوه العداالت‬ :‫قال‬ ‫أ‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ّ‫أ‬ ّ ‫ وال تأمر إال بالخير وإال بالشياء التي‬،‫الشر يعة تأمر بالشياء المحمودة لنه من عند هللا عز وجل‬ .‫تفعل السعادة‬

He [Aristotle] said [furthermore]: He who abides by the Law acts according to the nature of equality and gains both the good and happiness through the various ways of justice. For the Law, being from God (mighty and exalted is He!), commands humans to perform praiseworthy deeds and does not prescribe anything but the good and whatever leads to happiness.42

Thus, both Saadia and Miskawayh, using the same argumentation, maintain the foundational role of the covenant between God and man in the establishing of laws, practicing of virtues, and observance of commandments. In the conceptions of both thinkers, it is the covenant with the Creator that brings about good and leads men to happiness.

3.  The Wider Intercultural Context of Intellectual Exchange Studying parallels between two types of literary material, one has at hand three modes of historical comparison: 40  On Miskawayh’s conception of the teacher as a spiritual father and human God, see El Jamouhi 2020: 213–214. 41 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 116; Miskawayh, The Refinement: 103. Although Miskawayh’s Tahdhīb al-akhlāq adopts the global vision of Nicomachean Ethics, its reception did not occur directly. It has been established only that, at least in part, the text cited by Miskawayh as Aristotle’s Nīqūmākhyā is in fact the Arabic version of the Summa Alexandrinorum, an epitome of the Nicomachean Ethics, which not only Miskawayh, but also some other thinkers who refer to the text, assumed to be the Arabic version of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (Harvey 2008: 383). 42 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 117; Miskawayh, The Refinement: 104.

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a) the analysis of influences and borrowing; b) genetic comparison, applicable when two phenomena originate from the same root; and c) typological comparison, which explains similarities resulting from identical conditions of development. Likewise, in our case the commonalities between the concepts of two thinkers could be explained by a) a chain of succession bringing the ideas of the first to the second; b) a shared source of ideas; and c) a similarity of tasks, leading to the adoption of similar views and practices. In the case of Saadia and Miskawayh, it would be difficult to ascertain the most relevant of the three factors – which could, as it were, also have acted in combination. Apparently, the close parallels between the concepts of the divinely revealed law, covenant and reason shared by these two thinkers may be better explained by the wide and vivid intercultural intellectual exchange in the 4th/10th century in Baghdad. At the same time, some hypotheses for certain more specific ways by which an assumed influence may have taken place can be made. These are examined in the final part of this study. 3.1.  Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī (d. 363/974) While it is rather unlikely that Miskawayh actually “read” Saadia’s work, the ideas shared and promoted by the Jewish philosopher-exegete may have influenced him via the Syriac Orthodox Christian philosopher Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī (d. 363/974), who was active in Baghdad in the same years as Saadia, is known to have been in scholarly exchange with Iraqi Jewish scholars,43 and was one of Miskawayh’s more important teachers. Miskawayh’s Tahdhīb al-akhlāq is conceptually comparable to the treatise on acquiring virtues by Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī  – a work which had been written less than fifty years earlier, also in Baghdad, and for which the same title was adopted by the later copyists.44 Miskawayh does not mention Yaḥyā’s book on ethics with the same title as his own Tahdhīb al-akhlāq, and, as Majid Fakhry points out, his acquaintance with this work of his teacher cannot be readily determined.45 Mohammad Arkoun, arguing that Miskawayh was trained by Yaḥyā’s students, writes that the Muslim thinker must have known the work of his Christian pred-

43  44 

Sklare 1996: 115; Platti 2015: 62–65. Refinement of Character is Constantine Zurayk’s English rendering of Tahdhīb al-akhlāq, which perfectly reflects the contents of the treatise. This conception of Yaḥyā’s book allowed Sidney H. Griffith to translate the same Arabic title as Reformation of Morals. 45  Fakhry 1991: 107.



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ecessor.46 In either case, the influence of Yaḥyā’s thought on Miskawayh is not doubted in modern scholarship.47 It would be more difficult to argue in favour of any direct link between Saadia and Yaḥyā. Scholars who inquire into the frames of reference of Yaḥyā’s ethics mention the pre-Islamic Arabic tradition as refracted by Muslim scholars, the Persian tradition of “mirrors for princes”, and the dominant Greek philosophical traditions as Yaḥyā’s major sources of inspiration.48 Emilio Platti, who has most extensively studied Yaḥyā’s theological works, mentions interactions between the scholar and contemporary Muslim and Jewish intellectuals, but does not name Saadia in this context.49 At the same time, parallels between Yaḥyā’s and Saadia’s ideas are remarkable and should be noted here in particular because of the importance of Yaḥyā as a major scholarly figure in the intercultural intellectual exchange in 4th/10th-century Baghdad. Yaḥyā is characteristic of Baghdad’s intellectual milieu and the climate of communication within it, because the interaction of languages, religions and points of view is clearly perceivable in his figure.50 His Tahdhīb al-akhlāq contributed to the religiously pluralistic discourse in Baghdad.51 The intercultural intellectual milieu of Baghdad was represented by Muslim, Christian and Jewish thinkers. Although coming from different religious traditions, they used to defend theological doctrines by means of philosophy, drawing on Greek science, Aristotelian logic and Muʿtazilite theology for this purpose. The divine law revealed in scriptural form was seen by thinkers of these different cultural and religious backgrounds as containing fundamental truths which could be discovered by philosophy. Thus Yaḥyā, following religious philosophy elaborated by his Muslim teacher al-Fārābī (d. 339/950), treats theological notions as embodiments of philosophical concepts introduced by Aristotle.52 Promoting the rational basis of the religious tradition he represents, Yaḥyā laid the foundations for Oriental Christian scholasticism. In this respect, his project is indeed comparable with the thoughts of Saadia, who philosophised to prove that the traditional doctrines of Judaism were compatible with reason and, by so doing, laid the foundation for Jewish scholasticism. Akin to Yaḥyā, Miskawayh adopted much of the infor46  Arkoun 1982: 97–98. 47 On Miskawayh’s reception

of Yaḥyā’s thought, see Ute Pietruschka’s and Christian Mauder’s contributions to this volume. 48  Al-Takriti 1978; Urvoy 1991; Griffith 2017: 130–131. 49  Platti 2015: 62–65. 50  On this, see Lizzini 2015: 257. 51  On this, see Christian Mauder’s contribution to this volume. 52  For instance, as Kraemer (1986: 107) observes, Yaḥyā interprets the persons of the Trinity (the Father, the Son and the Spirit) as symbolic representations of intellect, subject and object (Aristotelian ideas). Yaḥyā’s Muslim teacher al-Fārābī treated Islamic theological notions as embodiments of Aristotelian concepts. Thus, as Fakhry (2002: 93) notes, al-Fārābī identified the Aristotelian idea of Active Intellect, with which humankind is now conjoined, with the Quranic Faithful Spirit (al-rūḥ al-amīn) or Gabriel (Jibrīl) and the Holy Spirit (al-rūḥ al-qudsī).

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mation on Greek science from al-Fārābī. Most likely, Miskawayh received it via Ibn Sīnā (428/1037), al-Fārābī’s immediate successor in exposing Aristotelian teaching in Islamic philosophy.53 Promoting morality based on faith, both the Jewish scholar Saadia and the Christian thinker Yaḥyā, as later the Muslim ethical philosopher Miskawayh, argue for the superiority of the divinely revealed law which contains fuller wisdom than reason could attain on its own. Yaḥyā is far from being a pure rationalist and does not argue for the superiority of logical demonstration over other sources of knowledge. In particular, he regards revelation as the ultimate criterion for truth, and Gospel miracles – as the primary warrant for the spread of the Christian faith.54 Likewise, being a rationalist religious scholar, Saadia argues in favour of the superiority of the revealed laws over logical demonstration (in the sense that the latter is fully coherent with the former, but revelation is the primary source of knowledge). Precisely as Yaḥyā does, Saadia too regards Biblical marvels (the miracles of the prophets) as the primary warrant for the spread of faith (on this, see Saadia’s quotations in 2.2). Yaḥyā’s vision of the relationship between the divinely revealed law and its rational basis is close to Saadia’s concept, and to the vision adopted later by Miskawayh. When Yaḥyā argues the necessity to strengthen the rational faculty of the soul, his major point is that this would allow human beings to better perceive their own virtues and vices. As in the thinking of Saadia and Miskawayh, in Yaḥyā’s view too, rational capabilities allow humans to know by reason of ethical laws, which exist regardless of one’s conscious awareness of them. In the process of discovering the rational basis of these laws, Yaḥyā, as later Miskawayh (as we have seen in 2.2), stresses the importance of studies and of examining the books of ethics. (The latter is reasonable as both thinkers offer their own books of this sort). Thus, Yaḥyā writes:

ّ ّ ‫أ‬ ّ ّ ‫وأحست نفسه بفضائلها وأنفت‬ – ‫العقلية ودقق النظر فيها ودرس كتب الخالق‬ ‫فإنه إذا نظر في العلوم‬ .‫من رذائلها‬

When one studies the rational sciences, refines [his] investigation of them, and examines the books of morality – his soul will perceive its [own] virtues and reject its [own] vices.55

3.2.  Al-Muqammaṣ (early 3rd/9th Century) The Jewish practice of combining religion and reason – reflected most notably and formulated most explicitly in Saadia’s Book of Beliefs and Opinions – may 53  54  55 

On Ibn Sīnā as al-Fārābī’s successor, see Fakhry 2002: 130–134. Platti 1983: 78–79; Platti 2015: 68. Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī, Reformation: 84–85 (slightly adjusted). The translation by Griffith has here “refines his study of them”. In order not to use the same root word in the second instance, I find the term “investigation” to render naẓar better.



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have had parallels in the virtue ethics of Miskawayh, because both he and Saadia, each in his time, were producing their works under the influence of the same currents thought. These are currents of Muslim Muʿtazilites, Jewish Muʿtazilites56 and Christian proponents of kalām. For example, Dāwūd b. Marwān alMuqammaṣ,57 who was active in the early part of the 3rd/9th century, deserves attention here as a possible link for both sides of this scholarly interaction. Like Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī in the 4th/10th century, perceiving the interaction of languages, religions and points of view in the 3rd/9th century is characteristic of al-Muqammaṣ. Sarah Stroumsa observed in this regard that al-Muqammaṣ’s position was at a crossroads of cultures: between the Arabicised Jewish community of his days on the one hand, and the Syriac-Christian community he joined on the other.58 Appraising the significance of al-Muqammaṣ as a scholar, the contemporary historian of Jewish philosophy David Sklare notes that his biography demonstrates the importance of the Syriac Christian intellectual tradition in the development of rational theological speculation in the realm of Islam.59 Al-Muqammaṣ was born in al-Raqqa, converted from Judaism to Syriac-Orthodox Christianity and received philosophical training from Christian teachers. In particular, he had long been influenced by the Monophysite theologian and exegete Nonnus of Nisibis.60 Later, for unknown reasons, he reconverted to Judaism and polemicised against Christianity, addressing Arabicised Jews. As Christian religious thinkers, he demonstrates familiarity with basic concepts of the Aristotelian system and freely integrates it into his own system of thought.61 At the same time, he is a mutakallim in terms of style, methodology, and terminology. His major treatise, ʿIshrūn maqāla (Twenty Chapters), deals with epistemology, the nature of the world, divinity, humanity and revelation, and the description and refutation of other religions. Its overall structure has become 56  By the beginning of the 3rd/9th century, significant elements of the Arabicised Jewish population had assimilated the methods of Muʿtazilite kalām and, by the middle of the 4th/10th century, Muʿtazilite ideas had been integrated into Jewish thought and were understood to be original, authentic views of Judaism. Remarkable Jewish Muʿtazilites of the 4th/10th century are Yefet ben ʿEli (active in the second half of the century), the Karaite author of biblical commentaries, and Daniel al-Qūmisī (active around 900), who employed kalām to expose theological principles found in a Hebrew sermon. Sharing the basic Muʿtazilite concern with divine justice, the need for revelations, and free will, Jewish Muʿtazilites maintained the primacy of God’s commandments over reason, and the central role of prophecy in conveying God’s message and the Law, understood specifically as the Hebrew Bible (Sklare 2017: 150; Ben-Shammai 1997: 100). 57  In previous decades, the name of the philosopher was considered to be al-Muqammiṣ, and the first edition of the Judeao-Arabic text of his ʿIshrūn maqāla (Twenty Chapters) was published by S. Stroumsa in 1989 under that name. Further research has since led to the conclusion that the name was al-Muqammaṣ. It is under this name that the text of ʿIshrūn maqāla (this time, transcribed into Arabic characters) was published in 2016 (see Bibliography). 58 Al-Muqammaṣ, Twenty Chapters: xviii. 59  Sklare 2017: 153–154. 60  Van Ess 2017: 500. 61  Ben-Shammai 1997: 99.

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most typical for kalām works. As S. Stroumsa stated, it is similar to the structure of later works of kalām, although it was probably following the model of earlier Christian works no longer extant.62 As for his Jewish Muʿtazilite stand, al-Mu­ qammaṣ is considered the earliest known mutakallim to polemicise against the rejection of prophecy.63 His pioneering work had a lasting influence on Jewish thought and in particular on philosophy of Saadia. A close similarity between alMuqammaṣ’s and Saadia’s chapters on reward and punishment indicates that, most likely, Saadia was familiar with al-Muqammaṣ’s Twenty Chapters.64 The common basis of al-Muqammaṣ’s, Saadia’s and Miskawayh’s conceptions should not be overlooked. First, in the conceptions of all three scholars, reason, tradition, and the religious law are all regarded as sources of normative authority. Second, all three scholars share the notion of human freedom of action. Being central for Muʿtazilite theology, this point necessitates the idea that man is able to distinguish between good and evil.65 This ability, in its turn, implies responsibility for just and unjust acts and, consequently, reward for right deeds and punishment for wicked ones. This in turn entails the Muʿtazilite premise of God’s justice. The Muʿtazilite point that God created in humankind intellect along with understanding, and thus granted the ability to choose actions by intellect and distinction, was actively developed in the time of al-Muqammaṣ in Arabic Christian theology.66 As a Jewish Muʿtazilite educated by Christian teachers, al-Muqammaṣ emphasises both the role of God as the issuer of wise commandments and the idea that God, expressing His justice, grants the ability to choose good and avoid evil. In the scholar’s view, since God does not want for humans anything but the good and whatever leads to happiness, He has given them freedom to do as they wish only after teaching them by means of command and prohibition which deeds are right and which are wicked.67 Another important stream of influence on the development of this idea in Baghdad is Aristotelian thought adopted by al-Fārābī, whose ethics, as those of 62 Al-Muqammaṣ, Twenty: xxxi–xxxii. 63  Ben-Shammai 1997: 100. 64  Schreiner 1926: 25. 65  Campanini (2012) studies the principle

of freedom of human action as one of the three fundamental principles around which the Muʿtazila developed (when the other two are oneness and justice of God, and the creation of the Quran). Bennett 2016: 146 mentions the “unicity of God” and “the justice of God” (tawḥīd and ʿadl) as two separate principles in the list of five. The other three are the “promise and the threat (i. e., eternal punishment or reward)”, “the state in between” (regarding the status of the Muslim sinner) and “the commandment to do right and the prohibition of its contrary”. Hourani (1976: 61) outlines a different list of five main points. Formulating them briefly, these are: 1) the objectivity of values; 2) the oneness of God; 3) the ability of man to know rationally the values of many things and acts; 4) freedom of human action and, consequently, responsibility for just and unjust acts; 5) reward and punishment. 66  An example is the Nestorian ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī (d. ca. 225/840). See Varsányi 2015: 114–115. 67 Al-Muqammiṣ, Twenty Chapters: 277–278, 286–289.



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Yaḥyā and Miskawayh following him, aim at the attainment of happiness via the acquisition of virtues.68 In the process of actualising the human intellect, alFārābī distinguishes the development of the “acquired intellect” (ʿaql mustafād), the potency contrasted to the “actual intellect” (ʿaql bi-l-fiʿl). The “acquired intellect” is the highest intellectual faculty, and it is responsible for the rational aspiration to perfection. Adopting Aristotle’s philosophy, al-Fārābī explains that the human beings are not given their perfection at the outset, but, on the contrary, are only given the least of their perfections. In addition, however, they are provided with principles for labouring toward perfection. Through ikhtiyār (choice), the particular type of will associated with the “actual intellect”, humans actually choose to behave or not to behave in accordance with the principles provided, and thus to seek or not to seek happiness.69 Drawing upon al-Fārābī’s reception of the Aristotelian idea, Miskawayh opines that the human’s seeking of perfection on the way to happiness results from the free choice made after being provided with guiding principles. At the same time – and here the possible influence of the Jewish Muʿtazilites and Christian proponents of kalām manifests itself – Miskawayh stresses that it is due to God’s will that human beings are able to choose good and avoid evil. In his view, God issues commands that encourage humans to choose good and practice virtues. “It is the Law (sharīʿa) which reforms the young, accustoms them to good deeds, and prepares their souls to receive wisdom, seek virtue, and attain human happiness through sound thinking ( fikr) and correct reasoning (qiyās)”, he explains.70 Miskawayh also stresses the role of the parents – at the stage when children may still not perceive the reason behind the revealed law – in training the young and stimulating them to observe all forms of good conduct, either by promising favours or by warning of punishments. As in al-Muqammaṣ’s and Saadia’s thinking, it is important for Miskawayh that God’s laws are issued and brought to humankind’s attention in a way that, having the freedom of action, they could act as they wish, and God’s punishment for wrong acts would be just. In Miskawayh’s virtue ethics, as in the philosophy of al-Muqammaṣ and Saadia, the tradition serves for the elaboration of the divine law. Miskawayh writes in this regard:

ّ ّ ‫واستمروا عليه‬ ّ ّ ‫مدة من‬ ّ ‫حتى إذا‬ ّ ‫ أمكن فيهم حينئذ أن يعلموا براهين ما‬،‫الزمان طويلة‬ ‫تعودوا ذلك‬ ّ ً ّ ّ .‫ وتنبهوا على طرق الفضائل وا كتسابها والبلوغ إلى غاياتها بهذه الصناعة التي نحن بسبيلها‬،‫أخذوه تقليدا‬ .‫وهللا المعين والموفق وهو حسبنا‬ Then, after they [i. e., children] have become accustomed to proper conduct and have followed it for a long period of time, they will be able to learn the proofs (barāhīn) of what 68  Fakhry 2002: 92–95. 69  Reisman 2015: 61–63. 70 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 35; Miskawayh, The Refinement: 32.

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they had adopted through compliance (taqlīd) [with the divine laws] and perceive the ways of virtues, their acquisition, and the attainment of their ends by the art which we are treating now. Verily, God is the Helper and the Guide to success, and He is Sufficient unto us.71

4. Conclusion Several points should be highlighted, especially with respect to Saadia’s and Miskawayh’s views on the Law, reason and revelation. First, Saadia and Miskawayh share the premises of Hellenistic philosophy and Muʿtazilite theology that humans can know by reason what is good and evil, that they are able to distinguish between preferable and wrong acts, and that they are free to choose either of them. Consequently, both scholars proceed from the presumption that humans can use a discerning mind to achieve fulfilment and perfection, which requires being trained in good moral qualities. However, unlike Plato and Aristotle, whose reason ensures the availability of ethical requirements without the aid of revelation, Saadia and Miskawayh admit no possibility of human dependence exclusively on reason – without religious ethical guidance in the form of God’s laws. Second, following Muʿtazilite viewpoints, Saadia and Miskawayh distinguish between reasonable and revealed laws. At the same time, unlike the Muʿtazilites, both thinkers accept reason only as a complementary source of ethical knowledge and authority. Admitting that the same laws can be revealed and intelligible, they maintain the primacy of God’s commands over reason. Consequently, both Saadia and Miskawayh attribute fundamental importance to revelation as the primary source of ethical knowledge. In the conceptions of both thinkers, the divine law includes not simply prescriptions, but truths. Reason coheres with the revealed law, but the latter contains fuller wisdom than the former can attain on its own. Thus, both Saadia and Miskawayh promote morality based on faith and, although applying reason to God’s commands, argue for carrying out religious precepts regardless of whether their truth is intelligible to reason or not. Third, the major factor responsible for commonalities between the virtue ethics of Saadia and of Miskawayh is the significance of God as creating first cause. For both thinkers, developing in the direction of self-perfection is the way to happiness, but the mere possibility of this development exists inasmuch as God has graciously given His commands, to be studied and practiced daily. 71 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 35; Miskawayh, The Refinement: 32 (slightly adjusted). The translation by Zurayk has here “what they had adopted by tradition”. I opted to translate “what they had adopted through compliance [with the divine laws]”, because taqlīd here alludes to the first stage of learning and implies conforming or compliance to what children had to learn in order to become accustomed to proper conduct.



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In the view of both scholars, it is within the capability of humans to recognise the “intrinsic rightness” of the divine commandments, along with the religious law itself. Fourth, in their virtue ethics, Saadia and Miskawayh stress the central role of the covenant between God and man. Both thinkers suggest that God’s commands (above all, His moral requirements) must be fulfilled by way of covenantal obligations, because humans owe the Creator for the benefits and the favours He continuously grants them. Considering that the covenant is based on the fundamental principles of gratitude and justice, both thinkers argue its role by drawing an association between actions that humans perform towards God and actions they perform towards each other. Fifth, a direct impact of Saadia’s thought on Miskawayh, despite direct textual links between their treatises, cannot be established with any kind of certainty at this point. An intermediation via the Syriac Orthodox Christian philosopher Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī, that is, Saadia’s younger contemporary and one of Miskawayh’s important teachers, is only a plausible hypothesis. In the conceptions of all three thinkers, the divine law is the supreme source of ethical knowledge and contains fuller wisdom than reason can attain. The truths of this law are valid regardless of one’s conscious awareness of them, for which reason all three thinkers stress the importance of revelation. Also, all three scholars promote the rational bases of the religious traditions they represent and therefore encourage the development of capabilities that allow one to perceive the rationale behind the revealed laws. Therefore, as long as we do not have more definite textual proof, it remains merely an assumption that the idea that the human being must (a) accept the divine law, (b) give himself up to it and grow accustomed to following all its commands and, later, (c) learn of its rational basis through studying, was adopted by Miskawayh through intermediation of Yaḥyā and his students. Sixth, it is still a matter of modern scholarship to do more research on the question of whether or not Saadia and Miskawayh could have benefitted independently of one another from the currents of Jewish Muʿtazilites and Christian proponents of kalām. Dāwūd b. Marwān al-Muqammaṣ, who was active in the early part of the 3rd/9th century, is such a possible intermediary, for he belonged to both the Arabicised Jewish and the Syriac-Christian community. Moreover, al-Muqammaṣ, Saadia, and Miskawayh share the idea that the religious law, tradition, and reason are all mutually complementary sources of normative authority. The most notable parallel between their conceptions is the way they adopt the Muʿtazilite thesis related to the freedom of action and God’s justice. Furthermore, Miskawayh’s and Saadia’s virtue ethics also share the notion, earlier expressed by al-Muqammaṣ, that God first reveal his laws to teach humans which deeds are right and which are wicked. This point has special importance in terms of the freedom of action and God’s justice: after divine commands and prohibitions are revealed, the ability to choose good and avoid evil

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is granted so that humans could act as they wish, and God’s reward and punishment would be just. Seventh, shared views on the relationship between the revealed law and freedom of action draw from an intercultural discussion led in the 3rd/9th and 4th/10th centuries within an intellectual milieu including Muslim, Christian and Jewish thinkers who employed different religious traditions, but all engaged in defending theological doctrines and, in particular, used Greek sciences, Aristotelian logic and Muʿtazilite theology for this purpose. Thus, again, direct chains of influence, leading from Saadia to Miskawayh via Yaḥyā, or from al-Muqammaṣ to both Saadia and Miskawayh, cannot be proved at this point. It is possible, however, to substantiate that, owing to the productive intercultural atmosphere and the academic openness of the scholars with multicultural backgrounds and experiences, prominent thinkers such as al-Muqammaṣ, Saadia, Yaḥyā, and Miskawayh benefitted considerably from the respective intellectual discourse of the 3rd/9th and 4th/10th centuries. The prominent figure of al-Fārābī – a direct and indirect teacher for Saadia, Yaḥyā and Miskawayh – seems to have provided important textual ground for their systems of philosophical and ethical thought. Saadia contributed much to the continuation of the discussion on religion, reason, education, and human perfection in the first half of the 4th/10th century, while Miskawayh greatly stimulated it during the later decades of this century and, as we know today, beyond.

Bibliography Sources Miskawayh, Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad b. Muḥammad: Tahdhīb al-akhlāq, ed. by Constantine K. Zurayk (Beirut: al-Jāmiʿa al-Amīrikiyya, 1966). –: The Refinement of Character, trans. by Constantine K. Zurayk (Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1968). Al-Muqammaṣ, Dāwūd ibn Marwān: Twenty Chapters (ʿIshrūn maqāla), ed., trans. and annot. by Sarah Stroumsa (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2016). Al-Muqammiṣ (sic), Dāʾūd: Twenty Chapters (ʿIshrūn maqāla). An Edition of the JudeoArabic Text, Transliterated into Arabic Characters, with a Parallel English Translation, Notes, and Introduction, by Sarah Stroumsa (Leiden et al.: Brill, 1989). Saadia Gaon: al-Amānāt wa-l-iʿtiqādāt, ed. by Samuel Landauer (Leiden: Brill, 1880). –: The Book of Beliefs and Opinions, trans. by Samuel Rosenblatt (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 21976; first ed. 1948). Saadya Gaon: The Book of Doctrines and Beliefs, trans. and abridged by Alexander Altmann; new Introduction by Daniel H. Frank (Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 2002; originally published in London: East and West Library, 1946). Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī: The Reformation of Morals. A Parallel Arabic-English Text, trans. and intr. by Sidney H. Griffith (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2002).



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Studies Abdel Haleem, Muhammad (1996): “Early kalām”, in Seyyed Hossein Nasr/Oliver Leaman (eds.): History of Islamic Philosophy (London/New York: Routledge) 71–88. Altmann, Alexander (1944): “Saadya’s Conception of the Law”, in Bulletin of the John Rylands Library Manchester 28/2, 320–339. Arkoun, Mohammed (1982): L’humanisme arabe au IVe/Xe siècle. Miskawayh, philosophe et historien (Paris: Vrin). Ben-Shammai, Haggai (1997): “Kalām in Medieval Jewish Philosophy”, in Daniel H. Frank/Oliver Leaman (eds.): History of Jewish Philosophy (London/New York: Routledge) 115–148. Bennett, David (2016): “The Muʿtazilite Movement (II)”, in Sabine Schmidtke (ed.): The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press) 142–158. Campanini, Massimo (2012): “The Muʿtazila in Islamic History and Thought”, Religion Compass 6/1, 41–50. El Jamouhi, Yassir (2020): “Educational Discourse in Classical Islam. A Case Study of Miskawayh’s (d. 421/1030) Tahdhīb al-akhlāq”, in Sebastian Günther (ed.): Knowledge and Education in Classical Islam. Religious Learning between Continuity and Change, vol. i (Leiden, Boston: Brill) 200–222. van Ess, Josef (2017): Theology and Society in the Second and Third Centuries of the Hijra, trans. by Gwendolin Goldbloom, vol. ii (Leiden/Boston: Brill). Fakhry, Majid (1991): Ethical Theories in Islam (Leiden et al.: Brill). – (2002): Al-Fārābi, Founder of Islamic Neoplatonism. His Life, Works and Influence (Oxford: Oneworld). Gil, Moshe (2004): Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, trans. From Hebrew by David Strassler (Leiden et al.: Brill). Griffith, Sidney H. (2017): “Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī’s (d. 974) Tahdhīb al-Akhlāq”, in Khaled ElRouayheb/Sabine Schmidtke (eds.): The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press) 129–142. Günther, Sebastian (2020): “‘Only Learning That Distances You from Sins Today Saves You from Hellfire Tomorrow’. Boundaries and Horizons of Education in al-Ghazālī and Ibn Rushd”, in Sebastian Günther (ed.): Knowledge and Education in Classical Islam. Religious Learning between Continuity and Change, vol. i (Leiden/Boston: Brill) 260–297. Harvey, Steven (2008): “Review of A. Akasoy et al. (eds.), The Arabic Version of the Nicomachean Ethics”, in JAOS 128, 382–384. – (2013): “Jewish and Muslim Philosophy. Similarities and Differences”, in Abdelwahab Meddeb/Benjamin Stora (eds.): A History of Jewish-Muslim Relations. From the Origins to the Present Day (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press) 737–763. Hegedus, Gyongyi (2013): Saadya Gaon. The Double Path of the Mystic and the Rationalist (Leiden/Boston: Brill). Hourani, George F. (1976): “Islamic and non-Islamic Origins of Muʿtazilite Ethical Rationalism”, IJMES 7, 59–87. Hyman, Arthur/Walsh, James (eds.) (21973): Philosophy in the Middle Ages. The Christian, Islamic, and Jewish Traditions (Indianapolis: Hackett). Jacobs, Jonathan (2010): Law, Reason, and Morality in Medieval Jewish Philosophy. Sadia Gaon, Bahya ibn Pakuda, and Moses Maimonides (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

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Kobler, Franz (1978): Letters of Jews through the Ages. From Biblical Times to the Middle of the Eighteenth Century (2 vols.; London: East and West Library). Kraemer, Joel L. (1986): Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam. The Cultural Revival during the Buyid Age (Leiden: Brill). Lizzini, Olga (2015): “What Does Tawḥīd Mean? Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī’s Treatise on the Affirmation of the Unity of God between Philosophy and Theology”, in Damien Janos (ed.): Ideas in Motion in Baghdad and Beyond. Philosophical and Theological Exchanges between Christians and Muslims in the Third/Ninth and Fourth/Tenth Centuries (Leiden/Boston: Brill) 253–280. Madelung, Wilferd/Schmidtke, Sabine (2006): Rational Theology in Interfaith Communication. Abu l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī’s Muʿtazilī Theology among the Karaites in the Fāṭimid Age (Leiden/Boston: Brill). Mittleman, Alan (2012): A Short History of Jewish Ethics. Conduct and Character in the Context of Covenant (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell). Platti, Emilio (1983): Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī, théologien chrétien et philosophe arabe. Sa théologie de l’Incarnation (Leuven: Departement Oriëntalistiek). – (2015): “Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī, Disciples and Masters”, in Douglas Pratt et al. (eds.): The Character of Christian-Muslim Encounter. Essays in Honour of David Thomas (Leiden: Brill) 60–84. Poznanski, Samuel (1897): “The Anti-Karaite Writings of Saadjah Gaon”, Jewish Quarterly Review 10, 238–276. Reisman, David C. (2005): “Al-Fārābī and the Philosophical Curriculum”, in Peter Adamson/Richard C. Taylor (eds.): The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 52–71. Schmidtke, Sabine (2018): “The People of Justice and Monotheism. Muʿtazilism in Islam and Judaism”, in Sabine Schmidtke (ed.): Studying the Near and Middle East at the Institute for Advanced Study (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press) 164–169. Schreiner, Martin (1926): Der Kalam in der jüdischen Literatur (Berlin: H. Itzkowski). Schweid, Eliezer (2008): The Classic Jewish Philosophers. From Saadia through the Renaissance, trans. by Leonard Levin (Leiden/Boston: Brill). Sklare, David (1996): Samuel Ben Ḥofnī Gaon and His Cultural World. Texts and Studies (Leiden et al.: Brill). – (2017): “Muʿtazilī Trends in Jewish Theology. A Brief Survey”, in Islâmî İlimler Dergisi, 12/2 (Güz 2017) 145–178. Stroumsa, Sarah (2003): “Saadya and Jewish kalam”, in Daniel H. Frank/Oliver Leaman (eds.): The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 121–146. al-Takriti, Naji (1978): Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī. A Critical Edition and Study of his Tahdhīb al-akhlāq (Beirut: Oueidat). Urvoy, Marie-Thérèse (1991): Traité d’éthique d’Abû Zakariyyâ Yaḥyâ Ibn ʿAdi. Introduction, texte et traduction (Paris: Cariscript). Varsányi, Orsolya (2015): “The Concept of ʿaql in Early Arabic Christian Theology. A Case for the Early Interaction between Philosophy and kalām”, in Damien Janos (ed.): Ideas in Motion in Baghdad and Beyond. Philosophical and Theological Exchanges between Christians and Muslims in the Third/Ninth and Fourth/Tenth Centuries (Leiden/Boston: Brill) 109–113.

Zur Rezeption von Koran und Scharia in Miskawaihs Bildungsdiskurs Eine Studie anhand des Werkes al-Hawāmil wa-š-šawāmil Mahmoud Haggag Abstract:  This chapter studies al-Hawāmil wa-l-shawāmil, a work consisting of questions the littérateur and philosopher al-Tawḥīdī posed to Miskawayh, and the responses Miskawayh gave to him. The focus in this regard is on Miskawayh’s use of legal statements drawn from the Quran and the Sharia. Certain respective ideas expressed in this book are analyzed in the light of questions such as: In what ways and in which thematic contexts are the Quran and the Sharia being referred to in this work? What theses does Miskawayh indicate in his responses to al-Tawḥīdī when referring to the Quran and the Sharia, and what does he say about the role of “reason” in cases when legal scholars disagree in their views and judgments? Finally, in what ways in this philosophical exchange between these two classical Muslim thinkers is the Sharia linked to ethics on the one hand, and to reason on the other?

Miskawaih ist anerkanntermaßen neben einflussreichen muslimischen Philosophen wie al-Kindī (gest. ca. 256/866), ar-Rāzī (gest. ca. 311/925), al-Fārābī (gest. 338/950), Ibn Sīna (lat. Avicenna) (gest. 428/1037), al-Ġazālī (gest. 555/1111) und Ibn Rušd (lat. Averroes; gest. 595/1198) einer der wichtigsten Vertreter der arabisch-islamischen Philosophie. Dies zeigt auch die Tatsache, dass Miskawaih in der islamischen Wissenschaftsgeschichte nach Aristoteles (322 v. Chr.) und alFarābī als „der Dritte Lehrer“ (al-muʿallim aṯ-ṯāliṯ) bezeichnet wird.1 Doch anders etwa als al-Māwardī (gest. 450/1058) und al-Ġazālī schrieb Miskawaih intensiv über die Ethik im vergleichenden Kontext.2 Im arabisch-islamischen Wissenschaftsdiskurs wird Abū ʿAlī Miskawaih (gest. 450/1058) in erster Linie aufgrund seines Werkes Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq wataṭhīr al-aʿrāq (Die Kultivierung der Charakterzüge und die Läuterung der natürlichen Veranlagungen) mit dem griechischen Gedankengut, hier vor allem mit Aristoteles (322 v. Chr.), in Beziehung gesetzt. Im Vordergrund stehen dabei ne1  2 

ʿUbaid 1995: 5. Vgl. auch die Einleitung der Studie von az-Zuġbī 1995. Siehe hierzu die Einleitung zu diesem Band.

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ben Aristoteles’ Wissenschaftstheorie, seiner Naturphilosophie und der Logik insbesondere auch dessen Aussagen zur Ethik.3 Geboren wurde Miskawaih im iranischen Raiy; er starb in Isfahan. Einen großen Teil seines aktiven Lebens verbrachte er jedoch vor allem in Bagdad und in Isfahan, wo er in verschiedenen Funktionen für Herrscher und Wesire der Buyiden (r. 333–447/945–1055) wirkte, u. a. für den Wesir Muʿizz ad-Daula (gest. 356/967), bei dem er als Berater tätig war. In Raiy war er Bibliothekar des buyidischen Wesirs Abū l-Faḍl Ibn al-ʿAmīd (gest. 360/970) und dann von dessen Sohn Abū l-Fatḥ. Weiterhin stand Miskawaih in enger Verbindung zu dem Wesir ʿAḍuḍ ad-Daula (gest. 372/983), für den er ebenfalls als Bibliothekar tätig war, wie u. a. der Historiker Ibn al-Qifṭī (gest. 646/1248) in seinem Buch Iḫbār alʿulamāʾ bi-aḫbār al-ḥukamāʾ (Die Benachrichtigung der Gelehrten über die Nachrichten der Philosophen), bekannt auch als Tārīḫ al-ḥukamāʾ (Die Geschichte der Philosophen) mitteilt.4 Der Geograph Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī (gest. 626/1229) wiederum berichtet in seinem Muʿǧam al-udabāʾ (Das Literaten-Lexikon):

‫أ‬ ً .‫ وكان عارفا بعلوم الوائل معرفة جيدة‬،‫كان مجوسيا وأسلم‬

Er [Miskawaih] war ein Zoroastrier bevor er zum Islam übertrat. Zudem hatte er profunde Kenntnis über die Wissenschaften der Altvorderen.5

Miskawaih stand mit zahlreichen Gelehrten seiner Zeit in engem Kontakt. Hierzu zählten der schon erwähnte Abū Ḥaiyān at-Tauḥīdī (gest. 414/1023) ebenso wie der Universalgelehrte Ibn Sīnā. Allerdings sollen diese beiden Gelehrten über Miskawaih geäußert haben, dass dieser nicht besonders klug gewesen sei.6 Ungeachtet dessen stand Miskawaih vor allem mit at-Tauḥīdī in einem regen intellektuellen Austausch, obwohl sich das Leben der beiden Gelehrten in vieler Hinsicht unterschied. So lebte Miskawaih im Gegensatz zu at-Tauḥīdī im Wohlstand, pflegte enge Verbindungen zu den buyidischen Herrschern und galt insgesamt als eine Person mit guten Sozialkontakten. Miskawaih wird ferner eine optimistische Lebenseinstellung nachgesagt. Er sei jemand gewesen, der mit sei3  Es gibt inzwischen mehrere Studien auf Arabisch, die sich mit einer Gegenüberstellung von Miskawaih und Aristoteles detailliert beschäftigen. Ein Beispiel hierfür ist Falsafat al-aḫlāq baina Arisṭū wa-Miskawaih (Die Moralphilosophie zwischen Aristoteles und Miskawaih) von Naǧī at-Takrītī. In diesem Buch vergleicht der Verfasser anhand von acht Kernbegriffen bzw. Begriffspaaren die entsprechenden Vorstellungen von Aristoteles und Miskawaih. Es handelt sich hierbei um Konzeptionen zur Seele (nafs), Tugend ( faḍīla), Vernunft (ʿaql), Gerechtigkeit (ʿadl), Moderation (iʿtidāl), Freundschaft (ṣadāqa), Güte und Glückseligkeit (al-ḫair was-saʿāda) und zum Genuss (laḏḏa), vgl. dazu at-Takrītī 2012. Zwei andere wichtige Werke zur Moralphilosophie bei Miskawaih wurden von ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ʿIzzat 1946 und Fatḥī az-Zuġbī 1995 verfasst. 4 Al-Qifṭī, al-Iḫbār: 247. 5 Yāqūt, al-Iršād: ii, 495. Zu Maǧūs als Bezeichnung für die Zoroastrier in den arabischen Quellen, siehe Melvinger 1986. 6 Al-Qifṭī, al-Iḫbār: 247; Yāqūt, al-Iršād: ii, 495–496.

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nen Lebensumständen gut zurechtkam. In einigen Quellen heißt es, er sei Schiit gewesen.7 At-Tauḥīdī hingegen lebte in Armut. Er hatte kaum Kontakt zu Herrschern, lebte eher isoliert und galt als Pessimist, was auch seine Schriften, die oftmals einen klagenden Ton anschlagen, in gewisser Weise bestätigen. Die islamische Geschichtsschreibung berichtet einmütig, dass at-Tauḥīdī Sunnit war. Neben seinem Hauptwerk zur Ethik Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq hinterließ Miskawaih außerdem eine ganze Reihe von Schriften zu einer Vielzahl von Themen. Zu nennen sind unter anderem: Uns al-farīd (Die Geselligkeit des Alleinlebenden), al-Fauz al-akbar (Der größere Triumph; übersetzt auch als Die größere Schrift über den [Weg zum] Erfolg [und zum Glück]), al-Fauz al-aṣġar (Die kleinere Schrift über den [Weg zum] Erfolg [und zum Glück]), Tartīb as-saʿādāt wa-manāzil al-ʿulūm (Die Einteilung der Glückseligkeit und die Rangstufen der Wissenschaften), Ṭahārat an-nafs (Die Reinheit der Seele), al-Adwīya al-mufrada (Die einzigartigen Medikamente) sowie sein großes Geschichtswerk Taǧārib al-umam (Die Erfahrungen der Völker). Miskawaihs Antworten auf at-Tauḥīdīs Fragen in al-Hawāmil wa-š-šawāmil gehören chronologisch gesehen zu seinen frühen Texten.

1.  Al-Hawāmil wa-š- šawāmil: historische Hintergründe und moderne Reflexionen Das Buch al-Hawāmil wa-š-šawāmil (Aufgeworfene Fragen und erschöpfende Antworten), das der Gegenstand unserer Untersuchung ist, wird sowohl atTauḥīdī als auch Miskawaih zugeschrieben. Das Werk enthält 175 Fragen, die atTauḥīdī an Miskawaih richtete, sowie die Antworten, die Miskawaih darauf gab. Der ungewöhnliche Titel al-Hawāmil wa-š-šawāmil erzeugt eine Vorstellung, die im Buch näher erläutert wird. So werden die von at-Tauḥīdī (unsystematisch) gestellten Fragen mit „freigelassenen, Kamelen“ (hawāmil, Sing.: haml und hāmila)8 verglichen, die in der Wüste ohne einen Hirten weiden. Miskawaihs Antworten auf diese Fragen wiederum werden mit Tieren verglichen, die dem Schutz und der Kontrolle (šawāmil, Sing.: šāmil) dieser freilaufenden Tiere dienen.9 Insofern handelt es sich bei diesem Buch also tatsächlich um zwei Verfasser, nämlich at-Tauḥīdī, der die hawāmil genannten Fragen stellte, und Miskawaih, der die als šawāmil bezeichneten Antworten schrieb. Dies ist festzuhalten, da bestimmte Druckausgaben dieses Werk nur dem fragenstellenden at-Tauḥīdī 7  8 

Vgl. hierzu die Einleitung zu diesem Band. Diese Bedeutung des Wortes hawāmil (die Pluralform von hamal und hāmila) gibt auch Ibn Manẓūr in seinem Standardwerk Lisān al-ʿarab (Sprache/Zunge der Araber) an; vgl. Ibn Manẓūr, al-Lisān: vi, 4701–4702. 9  Vgl. at-Tauḥīdī/Miskawaih, al-Hawāmil, Einleitung des Herausgebers: 36 (d).

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zuschreiben.10 Grundsätzlich sind Miskawaihs Antworten auf at-Tauḥīdīs Fragen umfassend und philosophisch tiefgreifend, wenngleich einige seiner Aussagen  – etwa zu naturwissenschaftlichen Phänomenen (so zum Gewitter und zur Wolkenbildung) – unscharf bleiben.11 At-Tauḥīdī und Miskawaih waren zwei recht unterschiedliche Charaktere. Dass der Erstere in einfachen Verhältnissen und ohne Kontakte zu den Herrschern lebte, während Miskawaih Wohlstand und die Anerkennung der Herrscher genoss, mag eine gewisse Spannung auch in der intellektuellen Beziehung dieser beiden Gelehrten zueinander erzeugt haben. So beklagt at-Tauḥīdī in verschiedenen seiner Schriften – etwa im Kitāb al-Imtāʿ wa-l-muʾānasa (Das Buch über den Zuspruch und den vertrauten Umgang) sowie in aṣ-Ṣadāqa wa-ṣ-ṣadīq (Die Freundschaft und der Freund), al-Muqabasāt (Buch der Anleihen [von Weisheiten]), al-Baṣāʾīr wa-ḏ-ḏaḫāʾir ([Ansammlungen von] Einsichten und Schätzen) und al-Išārāt al-ilāhīya (Die göttlichen Zeichen), dass seine Person und sein Wissen weder von den Mächtigen noch von anderen Personen angemessen gewürdigt würden.12 Miskawaih wiederum kritisierte den Unmut at-Tauḥīdīs darüber am Anfang des al-Ḥawāmil wa-š-šawāmil mit den folgenden Worten:

‫ واستبطأت بها‬،‫قرأت مسائلك التي سألتني أجوبتها في رسالتك التي بدأت بها فشكوت فيها الزمان‬ ّ ُْ ،‫الإخوان‬ ‫ فإني أرى لك إذا أحببت معايشة‬:‫فوجدتك تشكو الداء القديم والمرض العقيم […] وبعد‬ ّ ّ‫ وتغالط نفسك […] وال تعود‬،‫ أن تسامح أخاك‬،‫ وآثرت لذة العمر وطيب الحياة‬،‫الناس ومخالطتهم‬ ّ ‫ وال تكثر عليه من العتب فيألفه‬،‫ ّثم ال ُيشكيك‬،‫عشيرك وجليسك استماع شكواك فيأنس بها‬ .‫ثم ال ُيعتبك‬ Ich habe deine mir gestellten Fragen gelesen, um deren Beantwortung du mich in deinem Brief (risāla) gebeten hast, in dem du dich über die Zeit beklagst und die Mitmenschen kritisierst. Ich habe [auch] bemerkt, dass du dich über das alte Leiden und die unheilbare Krankheit beschwerst. […]   Nun denn, ich empfehle dir, wenn du mit den Menschen [in Frieden] leben und umgehen und dabei das Leben genießen willst, dass du deinen Mitmenschen vergibst und vielmehr dich selbst kritisierst. […] Du solltest es für deine Freunde und Begleiter auch nicht zur Gewohnheit werden lassen, dass sie dich [immer wieder] klagen hören. Denn sie werden dich dann [zwar] gerne hören, dir aber nicht weiterhelfen. Außerdem solltest du sie nicht zu oft tadeln, sodass sie sich [auch] daran gewöhnen und dann nichts [mehr] dagegen unternehmen.13 10  So

wird das Buch eher at-Tauḥīdī als Miskawaih bei der offiziellen Edition des al-Haiʾa al-ʿāmma li-quṣūr aṯ-ṯaqāfa (Allgemeine Organisation für kulturelle Paläste) in Ägypten zugeschrieben. Bei dieser Edition schreibt Ṣalāḥ Raslān eine ausführliche Einleitung über atTauḥīdī (von Seite 7–33) als Autor, ohne auf Miskawaih einzugehen. 11  Vgl. at-Tauḥīdī/Miskawaih, al-Hawāmil, Einleitung des Herausgebers: 44–45 (l–m). Die Edition von Aḥmad Amīn (1951), erfolgt auf der Basis einer Handschrift in der türkischen Bibliothek Aya Sophia, merkt dies an. Siehe jetzt auch die neue Edition und englische Übersetzung des Werkes von Orfali et al. 2019. 12  Vgl. die Einleitung des Herausgebers Aḥmad Amīn des Buches at-Tauḥīdī/Miskawaih, al-Hawāmil: 36 (d). 13 At-Tauḥīdī/Miskawaih, al-Hawāmil: 1–3.



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Diese Worte Miskawaihs lassen die pessimistische Grundhaltung in at-Tauḥīdīs Persönlichkeit erkennen. Doch ganz ungeachtet dieser Kritik an seiner Person war at-Tauḥīdī – wie Aḥmad Amīn, der erste Herausgeber des Werkes, anmerkt – schon zu seinen Lebzeiten als Autor wohlbekannt und hochgeschätzt. Aus heutiger Sicht erscheint at-Tauḥīdī für uns als ein Gelehrter mit Weitblick und einem womöglich sogar stärker ausgeprägten interdisziplinären Zugang in philosophischen und sprachlich-literarischen Fragen als Miskawaih. At-Tauḥīdī stellt in der überlieferten Fassung des al-Hawāmil wa-š-šawāmil 175 Fragen, die Miskawaih auf den insgesamt 399 Druckseiten (in der Kairiner Ausgabe) beantwortet. Bei diesen Fragen handelt es sich vor allem um philosophische, ethische und soziale Fragen, aber auch um Fragen zu Wissen, Sprache und Religion. Ursprünglich sollen 180 Fragen in dem Buch enthalten gewesen sein; fünf dieser Fragen sind demnach verloren gegangen. Obgleich die Fragen – wie bereits der Titel hawāmil andeutet – keine thematische Einheit bilden und unterschiedliche Einzelthemen behandeln, lässt das Werk bestimmte Oberthemen erkennen. Diese kommen nicht zuletzt in den Termini zum Ausdruck, die at-Tauḥīdīs Einzelfragen jeweils überschreiben. Diese Themen beziehen sich auf: – die Ethik, gekennzeichnet als „auf die Charakterzüge bezogene Frage“ (masʾala ḫuluqīya), – die Linguistik oder Lexikographie: „philologische Frage“ (masʾala luġawīya), – das korrekte Verhalten: „[wegen schlechter Charakterzüge] auf den Tadel bezogene Frage“ (masʾala zaǧrīya), – die Natur: „natürliche bzw. auf die Natur bezogene Frage“ (masʾala ṭabīʿīya), – die freie Entscheidung des Menschen: „Entscheidungsfrage“ (masʾala iḫtīyārīya), – die Psychologie: „auf die Seele bezogene Frage“ (masʾala nafsānīya), und – den inneren Antrieb des Menschen: „willensbezogene Frage“ (masʾala irādīya). Darüber hinaus gibt es auch „Mischfragen“, die bezeichnet werden als: – philologisch-naturbezogene Frage (masʾala luġawīya ṭabīʿīya), und – philologisch-ethische Frage (masʾala luġawīya ḫuluqīya).14 Das Werk al-Hawāmil wa-š-šawāmil ist aufgrund der feinsinnigen Beschreibung des kulturellen und sozialen Lebens zugleich ein wertvoller Spiegel der buyidischen Gesellschaft im 4./10. und 5./11. Jahrhundert. So werden in diesem Werk auch soziale Erscheinungen (von Reichtum und Armut) sowie geistesgeschichtliche Diskurse (etwa zu theologischen und philosophischen Themen) behandelt,15 die sich in dieser Prägnanz in kaum einem anderen Werk jener Zeit 14  Siehe dazu auch die Einleitung der Herausgeber zur Neuedition und englischen Übersetzung des Werkes, Orfali et al. 1999: xxviii–xxix. 15  Vgl. at-Tauḥīdī/Miskawaih, al-Hawāmil, Einleitung des Herausgebers: 38 (w).

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finden. Dabei werden sowohl bei at-Tauḥīdīs Fragen (hawāmil) als auch bei Miskawaihs Antworten (šawāmil) die rationale Herangehensweise der beiden Gelehrten und der klare Stil der Darstellung auch komplexer Sachverhalte deutlich, die in einem seit der Antike bekannten und im Islam weitergeführten Frage-undAntwort-Muster behandelt werden. Vor allem im theologisch-rechtlichen Kontext herrschte dieses Frage-und-Antwort-Muster vor.16 Zudem werden auch im Koran mehrere Verse mit Verbalsätzen durch yasʾalu (er fragt), yastaftī (er bittet um Rechtsgutachten/Auskunft) und yastanbiʾu (er erkundigt sich) eingeleitet.17 Das Gedankengut des al-Hawāmil wa-š-šawāmil wurde in der Moderne u. a. von progressiven Islamgelehrten und nicht zuletzt von dem Philosophen Mohammed Arkoun (gest. 2010) rezipiert bzw. für ihre eigenen Argumentationsmodelle herangezogen. Arkoun formulierte auf Grundlage des klassischen arabischen Schrifttums seine These zur Existenz eines „arabischen Humanismus“ im 4./10. Jahrhundert.18 In diesem Zusammenhang betrachtet er Miskawaih als ein bedeutendes Beispiel für diese intellektuelle Strömung.19 Arkoun verfasste sogar ein eigenes Buch, dem er den Titel al-Hawāmil wa-š-šawāmil gab und in dem er Fragen zum zeitgenössischen Islam reflektiert. Nach dem Frage-undAntwort-Muster von at-Tauḥīdī und Miskawaih geht Arkoun in diesem Buch auf zwanzig Fragen eines französischen Journalisten ein.20 Das bis in die Moderne reichende Interesse an al-Hawāmil wa-š-šawāmil zeigt auch seine von einem Herausgeberteam im Jahr 1999 in zwei Bänden publizierte, ansprechende Neuedition und englische Übersetzung des Werkes.21

2.  Koran und Scharia in al-Hawāmil wa-š-Šawāmil Obwohl al-Hawāmil wa-š-šawāmil ein philosophisches Werk ist, enthält es dennoch auch theologisch relevante Aussagen, etwa zur Rezeption des Korans und der Scharia. Im Folgenden wollen wir diese Problematik näher betrachten: 16  17 

Vgl. dazu Motzki 1994: 3–22. Beispielsweise kommt das Verb aftā in verschiedenen morphologischen Formen an folgenden Koranstellen vor: Sure 4:124 yastaftūnaka (sie bitten Dich um Auskunft), 4:126 yuftīkum (er gibt euch Auskunft), 12:46 aftinā (gib uns Auskunft), 12: 43 und 27: 32 aftūnī (gebt mir Auskunft), 18:22 wa-lā tastafti (bitte [sie] nicht um Auskunft), 12:41 tastaftiyān (ihr beiden bittet um Auskunft), 37:11 und 149 istaftīhim (bitte sie um Auskunft). Auch in der Sunna begegnet einem der Wortstamm f-t-w in einigen prophetischen Überlieferungen. Vgl. hierzu Haggag 2019: 55. Der Universalgehrte Abū Muḥammad ibn Qutaiba (gest. 276/889) schrieb beispielsweise alMasāʾil wa-l-aǧwiba (Die Fragen und die Antworten) über erklärungsbedürftige Themen des Korans und der Sunna; vgl. Ibn Qutaiba, al-Masāʾil. Vgl. hierzu auch Daiber 2012. 18  Siehe hierzu die Einleitung zu diesem Band. 19  Vgl. Arkoun 1970; arabische Übersetzung von Hašim Ṣāliḥ 1997. 20  Auch dieses Buch von Arkoun wurde von Hašim Ṣāliḥ ins Arabische unter dem Titel alHawāmil wa-š-šawāmil ḥaul al-islām al-muʿāṣir 2010 übersetzt. 21  Orfali et al. 1999.



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At-Tauḥīdī geht in seinen Fragen nicht direkt auf den Koran ein; und auch Miskawaih verweist in seinen Antworten nur gelegentlich auf den Koran.22 In einigen Passagen, die rechtliche Aussagen im engeren Sinne betreffen, nimmt atTauḥīdī jedoch indirekt auf den Koran Bezug. Miskawaih wiederum beantwortet gerade diese Fragen bemerkenswert ausführlich, obwohl seine Antworten zu anderen Themen z. T. eher knapp ausfallen. Diese verkürzte Beantwortung begründet Miskawaih am Ende des Buches mit den folgenden Worten:

َ ْ ‫واليماء ِإلى النكت‬ ‫الذي اخترته واقترحته من االخ ِت َصار إ‬ ِ ‫َوقد سلكت ِفي الجواب عن جميعها المسلك‬ َ َ َْ َ ّ .‫– ِإلى مظانه من الكتب‬ ‫يحتاج ِإلى شرح‬ ‫– ِفيما‬ ‫والإحالة‬

Bei der Antwort auf alle [Fragen] habe ich mich für zusammengefasste Antworten und hinweisende Anmerkungen entschieden. In dem, was erklärungsbedürftig ist, verwies ich auf Bücher, die sich ausführlich damit beschäftigen.23

Miskawaihs Interesse an einer philosophisch orientierten Ethik ist auch in alHawāmil wa-š-šawāmil ausgeprägt. Besonders deutlich wird dies unter anderem, wenn er seine Antworten rational begründet, ohne sich dabei auf den Koran und die Sunna bzw. andere traditionsgebundene Texte zu berufen. Miskawaih erwähnt in seinen šawāmil den Koran ohnehin nur zweimal ausdrücklich.24 An zwei anderen Stellen bezieht er sich ausdrücklich auf den Koran, wenn er von kitāb munazzal (der „Offenbarungsschrift“) bzw. kitab mubīn (dem „deutlichen Buch“) spricht. Insgesamt werden Koranstellen in al-Hawāmil wa-š-šawāmil neun Mal zitiert: vier Mal in den Fragen at-Tauḥīdīs und fünf Mal in den Antworten Miskawaihs. Diese Bezüge betreffen die Koranstellen 19:62 (Gottes Fürsorge für die Menschen), 59:7 (Güterverteilung unter Menschen), 21:22 (Gottes absoluter Monotheismus) und 39:15 (die Verlierer im Jenseits).25 Das Wort šarīʿa (d. h. der Ausdruck für das im Koran und in der Sunna göttlich geoffenbarte Recht) kommt in al-Hawāmil wa-š-šawāmil vierzehn Mal in verschiedenen Kontexten vor.26 Rechtliche Konzepte und Begriffe, die uns 22  Anders ist dies in Ibn Qutaibas al-Masāʾil wa-l-aǧwiba, vgl. n. 18 (oben). 23 At-Tauḥīdī/Miskawaih, al-Hawāmil: 369. 24 At-Tauḥīdī/Miskawaih, al-Hawāmil: 330, 332. 25  Die in Rede stehenden Koranverse betreffen den von Gott den Menschen

gewährten Lebensunterunterhalt (rizq): „Und morgens und abends bekommen sie darin ihren Unterhalt.“ (K 19:62). Siehe at-Tauḥīdī/Miskawaih, al-Hawāmil: 102. Des Weiteren: „[Geld soll unter anderem an die Waisen und die Armen verteilt werden], damit es nicht (als zusätzlicher Besitz) unter denen von euch umläuft, die (schon) reich sind.“ (K 59:7); siehe at-Tauḥīdī/Miskawaih, alHawāmil: 102. „Über die geschäftliche Partnerschaft zwischen Menschen und warum diese oft scheitert: Gäbe es in ihnen (Himmel und Erde) Götter außer Allah, dann wären wahrlich beide zerrüttet.“ (K 21:22); siehe at-Tauḥīdī/Miskawaih, al-Hawāmil: 66. Über untätige Menschen, die die angeborene Fähigkeit zum Fleiß haben, diese jedoch verlieren, sagt der Koran: „Fürwahr, die Verlierenden werden jene sein, die sich selbst und die ihren verlieren am Tage der Auferstehung“ (K 39:15); siehe at-Tauḥīdī/Miskawaih, al-Hawāmil: 166. Übersetzungen aus dem Koran werden hier und im Folgenden in der Übertragung Rudi Parets (1966) wiedergegeben. 26  Das Wort šarīʿa hat im Kontext scholastischer Überlegungen verschiedene Bedeutun-

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im Buch begegnen, sind šarʿ (Offenbarung/Religion), šarʿī (Scharia-bezogen), faqīh/fuqahāʾ (Rechtsgelehrter/e) und ḥukm/aḥkām (Rechtsurteil bzw. Rechtsurteile).

3.  Der vermeintliche Widerspruch zwischen der Scharia und der Vernunft Eine ausführliche Frage (Nr. 147) richtet at-Tauḥīdī an Miskawaih zum vermeintlichen Widerspruch zwischen der Scharia und der Vernunft.27 Bei seiner Formulierung zeigt sich at-Tauḥīdī betont bescheiden und respektvoll gegenüber Miskawaih. At-Tauḥīdī sagt hierzu:

َ ََ َّ َ ََ ُ ‫– ب َما يأباه العقل َو ُي َخال‬ ‫الشر َيعة من قبل هللا َت َع َالى‬ ‫فه ويكرهه‬ ‫ َهل يجوز أن ترد‬:‫َسألني َسائل فقال‬ ِ ِ ِ َ ْ َ ّ ُ ‫َ َول ُيج‬ ّ ‫جهزت ْال َم ْسأ َلة إ َل ْيك‬ َ ‫الد َية على‬ ّ ‫الع ِاق َلة؟ َوقد‬ ‫يزه كذبح ال َح َي َوان‬ ‫ووجهت أملي‬ ِ ‫ات وكإيجاب‬ ِ ِ َ َ ْ ْ َّ َ ْ َ ّ ‫ َوأنت‬.‫في الجواب َع ْن َها ن ْحوك‬ ّ ‫ فإن‬.‫المدخر لغر يب العلم ومكنون ال ِحك َمة‬ َ ‫تفضلت بال َج‬ ‫اب و ِإل‬ ‫و‬ ِ ِ ً ِ َ َ ِ َّ ‫عرضت َع َل ْيك َما قلت‬ ّ ‫للسا ِئل َورويت َما َدار بيني َو َبين المجادل َف ِإن َك َان سديدا‬ ‫عرفتنيه َو ِإن كان‬ َ ْ َ َْ َ َ َّ ‫ فالعلم بعيد‬.‫َض ِعيفا نصحتني ِف ِيه‬ ‫ َول ْول فضل هللا ال َع ِظيم على َهذا‬.‫احل عميق الغ ْور ش ِديد الموج‬ ِ ‫الس‬ ْ َ َ ّ ‫لكنه لطيف بعباده رؤوف يبتدئ ب‬ ّ ‫الضعيف لما وقف على َش ْيء َول نظر في ش ْيء‬ َّ ‫الن ْع َمةِ قبل‬ ‫ال‬ ِ ِ ‫خلق‬ ِ َ َّ ‫ْال َم ْسأ َلة وبالخير قبل‬ .‫الت َع ُّرض‬

Jemand fragte mich: „Ist es möglich, dass die Scharia von Gott, dem Erhabenen, mit etwas einhergeht, das die Vernunft ablehnt, verabscheut und nicht zulässt, wie beispielsweise das Schlachten von Tieren und die Auferlegung von Blutgeld (diya) gegenüber dem [unschuldigen] blutrechtlichen Sippenverband (ʿāqila)?“   Ich habe dir diese Frage gestellt in der Hoffnung, dass du sie beantwortest. Du bist wohl derjenige, der über das ungewöhnliche Wissen (gharīb al-ʿilm) und die verborgene Weisheit (maknūn al-ḥikma) verfügt. Wenn du sie beantwortest, [ist es gut]. Ansonsten würde ich dir vorlegen, was ich dem Fragenden geantwortet habe und dir erzählen, was zwischen dem Disputanten und mir [im Gespräch] vorfiel. Wenn [meine Antwort] richtig ist, sage mir Bescheid; und wenn sie töricht ist, gib mir Ratschläge.   Denn das Wissen ist so tief mit heftigen Wogen [wie das Meer] und die Ufer sind so weit entfernt. Ohne Gottes Huld, des Erhabenen, gegenüber diesem schwachen Geschöpf [d. h. mir selbst], hätte er nichts erreichen und untersuchen können. Doch Gott ist milde und barmherzig gegenüber seinen Geschöpfen und gewährt ihnen die Gnade schon bevor sie ihn darum bitten, und er gewährt ihnen die Güte schon bevor sie sie (d. h. die guten Handlungen) verrichten.28

In seiner Antwort bestätigt Miskawaih dann ausdrücklich die Vereinbarkeit der Scharia mit der Vernunft und betont, dass es keinen Widerspruch zwischen diegen. Diese betreffen die göttlichen Attribute, die erlaubten und die verbotenen Dinge im Islam, das Wissen, bestimmte Bezeichnungen im allgemeinen und religiös terminologischen Sprachgebrauch oder auch die Erziehung. 27 At-Tauḥīdī/Miskawaih, al-Hawāmil: 315–320 [Nr. 147]. 28 At-Tauḥīdī/Miskawaih, al-Hawāmil: 315.

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237

sen beiden Konzeptionen gebe. Er unterscheidet dabei jedoch zwischen der Vernunft (ʿaql) und den Gewohnheiten (ʿāda) bzw. dem Charakter (ṭabʿ) insofern, als dass er diese Dinge unterschiedlich charakterisiert: Die Urteile der Vernunft seien endgültig und ewig, während die der Gewohnheiten und die Charaktere von anderen Faktoren – wie Zeit, Ort und Gegebenheiten – abhängig sind. Miskawaih antwortet folgendermaßen:

َ َ ُ ََُ ْ َ َ َ َّ ّ ‫فه َول َِكن الشاك ِفي َه ِذه‬ ‫– ِب َما يأباه العقل ويخا ِل‬ ‫– ت َعالى‬ ‫ل ْي َس يجوز أن ترد الش ِر َيعة من ِق َب ِل هللا‬ َ ْ ْ َ َ ّ ّ ‫ويظن أن ّتأبى الطباع من‬ ‫– يخلطه بالعادات‬ ‫– أبدا‬ ‫ ف ُه َو‬.‫اضع ل يعرف ش َرا ِئط العقل َو َما يأباه‬ ِ ‫ال َم َو‬ ْ َ َ ُ َُ ْ َ َّ َ َ َ َ َ َ ‫ وقد س ِمعت َكثيرا من الناس يتشككون ِبه ِذ ِه الشكوك وحضرت خصوماتهم‬.‫شيء هو مخالفة العقل‬ ْ ْ ّ ََ َ َ َ ّ ‫وجدالهم َفلم‬ ‫َ نبين ِف ِيه الفرق َبين َما يأباه‬،‫ َو َين َب ِغي أن نوطئ للجواب ت ْو ِطئة من كم‬.‫يتعدوا َما ذكرته‬ َ َ َّ ْ َُ ْ ْ َ ْ ْ ُ ّ ‫ إن العقل إذا أبى ش ْيئا ف ُه َو‬:‫الن َسان بال َع َاد ِة ف َنقول‬ ّ ‫ويتكرهه‬ ‫العقل َو َبَين َما يأباه الط ْبع‬ ،‫الباء له‬ ‫إ‬ ‫أبدى إ‬ ِ ِ ِ ِ َ ََ ْ ْ َ ْ َ َ َ َ .‫ َو َهكذا َج ِميع َما يستحسنه َالعقل أو يستقبحه‬.‫ل يجوز أن َيتغ َّير ِفي َوقت َول يصير ِبغ ْير ِتلك ال َحال‬ َ ْ ْ َ َ َ َ .‫احدة أزلية ل يجوز أن َ َيتغ َّير َعن َحاله‬ ِ ‫َو ِب َال ُج َ ْملةِ ف ِإن َج ِميع قضايا العقل ِه َي أبدية َو ِاج َب َة على َحال َو‬ ْ َّ ‫أ‬ ‫َ َ َّ َ َ ُّ ْ أ‬ ّ ُ ْ َ ُ َ ْ َ ‫ فأما أمر الط ْبع َوال َعادة فقد يتغير ِبتغير الحوال والسباب‬.‫َو َهذا أمر ُمسلم غير َم ْدفوع َول َمشكوك ِف ِيه‬ َّ ‫َو‬ .‫الز َمان والعادات‬ Es ist nicht möglich, dass die göttliche Scharia im Widerspruch zur Vernunft steht. Jemand, der daran zweifelt, kennt weder die Regeln der Vernunft noch die Dinge, die sie ablehnt. Ein solcher, der so glaubt, verwechselt die Vernunft mit den Gewohnheiten und denkt, dass, wenn die Gewohnheiten etwas verabscheuen, sie dann auch im Widerspruch zur Vernunft stehen. Ich habe viele Menschen mit solchen skeptischen Äußerungen gehört und habe ihre Streitgespräche und Auseinandersetzungen insofern erlebt, als sie das – was ich oben wiedergegeben habe – erwähnten.   Wir müssen unsere Antwort [deshalb] so einleiten, dass wir den Unterschied zwischen dem, was die Vernunft ablehnt und dem, was der Charakter (ṭabʿ) ablehnt bzw. dem, was der Mensch gewohnheitsmäßig verabscheut, aufzeigen.   Wir sagen dementsprechend Folgendes: [Tatsächlich,] wenn die Vernunft etwas ablehnt, dann gilt diese Ablehnung auf ewig; sie kann sich niemals ändern oder abgeändert werden. Dies bezieht sich dementsprechend auf all das, was die Vernunft für gut bzw. für schlecht hält. Im Allgemeinen sind alle Angelegenheiten [bzw. Urteile] der Vernunft ewig, müssen für alle Zeiten gelten und können sich nicht ändern. Das ist eine Selbstverständlichkeit und man kann diese weder anzweifeln noch bestreiten. Was den Charakter (ṭabʿ) und die Gewohnheit (ʿāda) betrifft, so ändern sich diese [bzw. die Beurteilung dieser] entsprechend den Gegebenheiten, Ursachen, Zeiten und Gewohnheiten.29

Die Idee, die Miskawaih hier zum Ausdruck bringt, dass nämlich die Religion und die Vernunft vereinbar sind, ist in unseren heutigen Tagen oft Gegenstand wissenschaftlicher Diskurse sowohl in islamwissenschaftlichen als auch in islamtheologischen Kontexten.30 Doch dieses Thema war auch schon in der Frühzeit des Islams präsent. So beschäftigen sich klassische muslimische Gelehrte 29 At-Tauḥīdī/Miskawaih, al-Hawāmil: 315–316. 30 Beispielhaft genannt seien hier die Arbeiten

2019; Akasoy 2007.

von Poya 2010. Elliesie/Schneider/Ucar

238

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im Rahmen ihrer hermeneutischen Zugänge zu Koran und Sunna mit diesem Themenkomplex. Die Lehren von muškil al-Qurʾān und muḫtalif al-ḥadīṯ – wie etwa bei dem Theologen und Literaten Ibn Qutaiba (gest. 276/889) – beschäftigen sich unter anderem mit „scheinbar widersprüchlichen“ Koranversen und prophetischer Überlieferung oder mit „scheinbarem Widerspruch“ zwischen Offenbarungstexten der Scharia (Koran und Sunna) und der Vernunft. Die Intensivität dieser Ansätze variierte dabei je nach geistesgeschichtlicher bzw. theologischer Ausrichtung der betreffenden Autoren. Vor allem die Muʿtaziliten betonen den absoluten Einklang zwischen Religion (einschließlich der rechtlichen Urteile) und der Vernunft.31 Aber auch bei anderen theologischen Schulen wie den Ašʿarīten und Maturīditen hat diese Vorstellung Eingang gefunden, etwa im Hinblick auf Fragen der theologischen und spekulativen Interpretationen.32

4.  Rechtliche Meinungsverschiedenheiten und die Hermeneutik des Korans Eine andere Frage (Nr. 153) in al-Hawāmil wa-š-Šawāmil betrifft die Meinungsverschiedenheiten bei den Rechtsgelehrten und die Hermeneutik des Korans in Bezug auf die Rechtsurteile (aḥkām). At-Tauḥīdī vermerkt hierzu, dass diese Frage eigentlich nicht zum Thema des Buches (kitāb) gehöre. Er wolle aber, dass dieses Buch (als einen besonderen Segen) auch etwas über die Scharia enthält:

َ َُْ َّ ْ َّ َ‫َ َ أ‬ َ ‫َو َه ِذه َم ْس َأ َلة َل ْي َس يجب َأن يكون َم َك‬ ‫ ِلن َها ترد على الفق َهاء أو على ال ُم َتك ِلمين‬،‫الرسالة‬ ‫انها ِفي َه ِذه‬ َ َ ْ َ َّ ّ َ ّ ‫الناصر ين‬ ُ ‫يدل على‬ ‫ َو ِإن‬.‫أصول الش ِر َيعة‬ ‫ لكني أ ْح َب ْبت أن يكون ِفي َهذا الكتاب بعض ما‬،‫للدين‬ ْ ً ً ّ ّ َ َ ‫كان جل َما ِف ِيه منزوعا من الطبيعة ومأخوذا من ِعلية الفالسفة وأشياخ التجر بة وذوي الفضل من كل‬ َ ْ ُ َ َ ‫– ُبلوغ إ‬ ‫– ت َعالى‬ ‫وعلى هللا‬ َ .‫جنس ِونـحلة‬ .‫ال َرادة والسالمة من طعن الحسدة‬ ِ 31  Davon zeugen die fünf Hauptprinzipien der Muʿtazila (al-uṣūl al-ḫamsa): 1. der absolute Monotheismus (at-tauḥīd), 2. die göttliche Gerechtigkeit (al-ʿadl), 3. die Belohnung und die Bestrafung [der Menschen wegen ihrer im Diesseits vollzogenen Taten] (al-waʿd wa-l-waʿīd), 4. die Idee einer Zwischenstufe im Jenseits für die im Diesseits begangenen großen Sünden (kabāʾir) sowie dass diese Personen weder zu den Leuten des Paradieses noch zu denen der Hölle (almanzila baina l-manzilatain) gehören, und schließlich 5. die Verpflichtung des Menschen, das Rechte zu gebieten und das Verwerfliche zu verbieten (al-amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa-n-nahy ʿan almunkar). Diese Hauptprinzipien drücken neben dogmatischen Einstellungen die Überzeugung der Muʿtaziliten von dem Einklang von Vernunft und Religion aus. 32  In seinem Buch al-Islām. ʿAqīda wa-šarīʿa (Der Islam: Glaube und Gesetz) brachte der ehemalige Großscheich der Al-Azhar, Maḥmūd Šaltūt (gest. 1963), dieses klassische Gedankengut zum Ausdruck, indem er die rationale Seite des Islams und seine Kompatibilität mit modernen Einstellungen der Menschen und der Zivilisationen betont. Bei Šaltūt sind die rechtlichen Urteile der Scharia sowie die Glaubenslehre und das Allgemeinwohl kompatibel. Für ihn überzeugt die Religion den Menschen nicht durch Zwang (ikrāh), sondern durch das rationale Denken (an-naẓar al-ʿaqlī) und das ihnen angeborene Gefühl (al-wiǧdān al-fiṭrī) gegenüber Gott. Alles gehöre zu einem System des Kosmos, das in sich nicht widersprüchlich sei. Vgl. Šaltūt 2018: 10–13.



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Diese Frage (masʾala) sollte [eigentlich] keinen Platz in diesem Brief (bzw. Traktat, risāla) einnehmen, da sie [im üblichen Verständnis] die Rechtsgelehrten oder die Theologen, die die Religion unterstützen, betrifft. Mir ist aber daran gelegen, dass in diesem Buch (kitāb) einiges enthalten ist, das auf die Grundlagen der Scharia (uṣūl aš-šarīʿā) hinweist, selbst wenn das Überwiegende seines Inhaltes aus der Natur, den Meinungen der renommiertesten Philosophen, den erfahrensten Menschen und den Angesehensten eines jeden Volkes und einer jeden Religionsrichtung stammt. Durch Gott, den Erhabenen, erreichen wir das, was wir wollen; und Gott schütze uns vor den Sticheleien der Neider.33

Miskawaihs Antwort auf die oben genannte Frage zeigt deutlich einen interdisziplinären Zugang zu den Quellen der Scharia, den Koran eingeschlossen. Daraus wird zudem deutlich, dass Miskawaih ähnlich wie andere klassische Theologen eine traditionelle Rezeption des Korans vornimmt. Er stimmt mit den Rechtsgelehrten dahingehend überein, dass der Koran eine umfassende – und keineswegs widersprüchliche – Quelle der Scharia ist. Auch sieht er den Koran als die Grundlage für die direkte oder indirekte Ableitung rechtlicher Bestimmungen durch Deduktion (istinbāṭ):

َ َ َ َّ َ َ َ‫ْ أ‬ َ َ‫ْ أ‬ ّ َُْ ‫– َب ّين ال ْحكام َونصب ال ْعلم َولم ْيت َرك رطبا َول َي َابسا ِإل ِفي كتاب‬ ‫– ت َعالى‬ ‫ ِإن هللا‬:‫ّأما قول الفق َهاء‬ َ َ َ َ َ َ َ َ َ َ َ ْ ّ ِ ‫– فكم ِفي غ َاية الصدق َوِن َه َاية‬ ‫ُمبين‬ ‫ َوكيف ل يكون كذ ِلك َوأنت ل تقدر أن تأتي ِبحكم ل‬.‫الص َ َّحة‬ َْ َ َ َ َ َ ُ ْ َ َ َّ ْ َ َ َ َ ُْ َ ُ ْ ‫أصل ل ُه من الق ْرآن من تأ ِويل ُيرجع ِإل ْي ِه أو نص ظاهر يقطع علي ِه ثم ل يخلو مع ذ ِلك من إنباء ِبغيب‬ َ َ َ ُْ ‫وإخبار َع َّما سلف من الق ُرون َومثل لما نوعد ِب ِه َو ِإش َارة ِإلى َما ننقلب ِإل ْي ِه وتنبيه على َما نعمل ِب ِه من‬ .‫آخ َرة‬ ِ ‫سياسة دنيا ومصلحة‬

Was die Aussage der Rechtsgelehrten betrifft, „dass Gott alle Urteile dargestellt und die [klaren] Wegweiser [für das Erkennen der Religion] gesetzt hat und Er nichts – nichts Feuchtes und nichts Trockenes – außer Acht gelassen hat, das nicht in einem deutlichen Buch [d. h. der Koran] verzeichnet wäre“,34 so ist dies vollkommen wahr und richtig.   Wie könnte es auch anders sein? Du kannst kein Urteil finden, für das du keine Grundlage im Koran findest,35 entweder als [indirekte] Andeutung, in der man Hilfe sucht, oder als klarer Text, der [die religiösen Sachverhalte] direkt und definitiv entscheidet. Darüber hinaus ist er [der Koran] nicht frei von Verkündigungen über Verborgenes, Benachrichtigungen über vormalige Gemeinden, Beispielen von dem, was uns verheißen wurde, Hinweisen auf das, was uns erwartet, und Mahnungen in Bezug auf das, was wir tun sollen, damit die Reglungen im Diesseits und das Gedeihen im Jenseits gelingen.36

33 At-Tauḥīdī/Miskawaih, al-Hawāmil: 328–329. 34  Dieser Stelle liegt der Koranvers 6:59 zugrunde.

Dort heißt es: „Er (allein) besitzt die Schlüssel (für den Zugang) zum Verborgenen. Keiner kennt sie außer ihm. Und er weiß, was auf dem Festland und auf dem Meer ist. Und kein Blatt fällt (zu Boden), ohne dass er darüber Bescheid weiß. (Es gibt) auch kein Korn, das in der finstern Erde ruht, und nichts Feuchtes und nichts Trockenes, das nicht in einer deutlichen Schrift (verzeichnet) wäre.“ 35  Diese Argumentationen klingen ähnlich wie bei den klassischen Rechtsgelehrten. Der bedeutende Rechtsgelehrte aš-Šāfiʿī argumentiert beispielsweise so in seinem Standardwerk arRisāla fī uṣūl al-fiqh (Traktat über die Grundlagen des Rechts). 36 At-Tauḥīdī/Miskawaih, al-Hawāmil: 330.

240

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Für Miskawaih basieren die Meinungsverschiedenheiten unter den Rechtsgelehrten grundsätzlich auf dem bisweilen Fehlen eines klaren, gesetzgebenden Textes (naṣṣ) der Scharia. Dies sei so, da – solange es keinen klaren Text zu den zu beurteilenden religiösen Sachverhalten gibt – die Rechtsgelehrten von zwei (in der islamischen Rechtsmethodologie, uṣūl al-fiqh) verankerten, anerkannten Konzepten Gebrauch machen können; d. h. vom: 1. iǧtihād, der Findung von Normen durch eigenständige Urteilsbemühung, und 2. maṣlaḥa, der Berücksichtigung des Allgemeinwohls in der Gesetzgebung.37 Miskawaih unterscheidet hierbei zwischen zwei theologischen Ebenen: einer, die auf den Glauben (ʿaqadī) und einer anderen, die auf das Recht bezogen ( fiqhī) ist. Für die Glaubensebene benutzt er auch den Ausdruck al-umūr al-wāǧiba (die verbindlichen Dinge). Er drückt damit aus, dass die Urteile auf rechtlicher Ebene variieren können und somit Meinungsverschiedenheiten zwischen den Rechtsgelehrten gestatten. Seine Vertrautheit mit den Prinzipien des uṣūl al-fiqh und den allgemeingültigen Regeln rechtlicher Bestimmungen (aḥkām) sowie den Rechtsgutachten ( fatāwā), in der diese vorgenommen werden, bis hin zum Gewohnheitsrecht (ʿurf ), werden in der folgenden Antwort deutlich:

َ ُ ُ َ َ ّ َ‫َّ َ َ َ َ َ أ‬ َ َّ َ ُ ّ ‫َفأ ّما َّال ِذي‬ ‫واجتهاد‬ ،‫حر َام ف ِلن ذ ِلك الش ْيء ترك‬ ‫احد ِإنه حلل و‬ ‫سوغ‬ ِ ‫للفقهاء أن َيقولوا ِفي ش ْي َء َو‬ َ ُ َ َّ َ َ َ ‫ْأ‬ ّ َ ََ ْ َ ْ َّ َّ ْ َْ َ ‫ن ِال ْج ِت َهاد لُ يكون ِفي ال ْحكام‬ ِ ‫الناس ِف‬ ِ ‫يه لمصَ ّلح َة أ َخ َرى َتتعلَق على هذ َا الوجه ِب َالن‬ َ‫اس وذاك أ ْ أ‬ َ ْ ‫أ‬ ْ َ َ ‫ أ‬،‫ُمت َس َ ِاويا‬ ‫ َو َب َيان‬.‫ ك َ َما يكون ذ ِلك ِفي غير ال ْحكام من ال ُمور ال َو ِاج َبة‬،‫احد‬ ِ ‫عني أنه ل ُيؤ ِّدي ِإلى أمر َو‬ ِ َ َ َ ّ ّ ْ ْ ‫َهذا أن كل من‬ َ َ – ‫احد َو ُه َو‬ – ‫محالة‬ ِ ‫احد فطر يقه َو‬ ِ ‫– َو‬ ‫– ت َعالى‬ ‫اجتهد ِفي ِإ َص َابة الحق ِفي أن هللا‬ َ َ ‫ل‬ َ ْْ ّ ْ َ ُ ْ َ ّ ّ ّ ّ ‫النظر َحقه فإن عدل َعن‬ ّ ‫يجده إذا َو ّفي‬ َّ ‫النظر‬ ‫الرشاد أو‬ ‫الص ِح َيح ضل وتاه َ َولم يجد مطلوبه واستحق ِ إ‬ ِ ِ ِ َ َ َ ‫أ‬ ‫أ‬ ‫أ‬ ْ ْ َ َ ُ ْ َّ ‫ َول ْي َس َكذ ِلك االجتهاد ِفي ال ْحكام ِلن بعض ال ْحكام َيت َغ َّير ب َحسب‬.‫عق َوبة إن عاند‬ ‫الز َمان وبحسب‬ ‫ال‬ ِ ِ َ َ ْ ْ ْ َ ْ‫أ ْأ‬ َ َ َ َُ ْ ُ َّ َ َ َ َ َ َ ْ ‫ ور بما كانت المصلحة‬.‫العادة وعلى قدر مصالح الناس ِلن الحكام موضوعة على العدل الوضعي‬ ْ َ َ ْ َ َ َ ‫مصلحة ولعمرو مف‬ َ .‫سدة‬ ‫ال َي ْوم ِفي ش ْيء َوغدا ِفي ش ْيء آخر َوكانت لز يد‬ Was die Rechtsgelehrten dazu veranlasste, dass sie ein und denselben Sachverhalt einmal als erlaubt und ein andermal als verboten beurteilen, liegt daran, dass der Sachverhalt [in den Scharia-Texten nicht konkret beurteilt ist, sondern als solcher so] belassen wurde. Die Menschen bemühen sich dabei in unterschiedlicher Weise darum, den Menschen Nutzen (maṣlaḥa) zu erbringen. Das Sich-Bemühen um die Rechtsurteile (iǧtihād) fällt dabei nicht immer gleichartig aus, d. h. es führt nicht immer zu denselben Urteilen (aḥkām), wie das auch bei den verbindlichen Dingen (al-umūr al-wāǧiba, gemeint ist die Glaubensebene) der Fall ist.   So kann man Folgendes erklären: Jeder, der sich um die Bestätigung der Einheit Gottes bemüht, soll einen bestimmten Weg einschlagen, den er ganz selbstverständlich finden wird, wenn er tiefgreifend [danach sucht]. Wer aber vom richtigen Weg abweicht, der wird in die Irre gehen und sein Ziel verfehlen. Er sollte eigentlich [zum Rechten] geleitet 37 

Zu diesem Thema vgl. Ucar/Haggag 2020.



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241

bzw. sollte er sogar bestraft werden, wenn er weiterhin darauf (d. h. auf den falschen Weg) beharrt.  Der iǧtihād in Bezug auf die Rechtsurteile [im Fiqh] ist aber etwas anderes, weil einige Rechtsurteile von der jeweiligen Zeit, dem Gewohnheitsrecht und dem Allgemeinwohl (maṣlaḥa) der Menschen abhängig sind. Bei den Zielen der Rechtsurteile geht es schließlich um die auf Konvention beruhende [positive] Gerechtigkeit, die Gott will. Es mag auch sein, dass die Berücksichtigung des Allgemeinwohls (maṣlaḥa) heute in dem einen liegt, und es sich morgen in etwas anderem wiederfindet. Auch könnte dies eine Sache zum Nutzen für die eine Person X („Zaid“) und zum Nachteil für eine andere Person Y („ʿAmr“) sein.“38

Miskawaih lobt in seiner Darstellung den iǧtihād als einen religiös-intellektuellen Prozess – solange dieser auf wissenschaftlicher und rechtlich-religiöser Grundlage stattfindet, und dies ganz unabhängig von den Ergebnissen dieser Rechtsfindung. Um seine Auffassung zu verdeutlichen, vergleicht er den iǧtihād bzw. dieses „Bemühen“ mit einer Sportart, bei der der Ball mit einem Schläger geworfen wird. Es gehe hierbei aber nicht in erster Linie darum, ob man den Ball wirklich trifft, da dies in diesem Spiel weder Schaden noch Nutzen verursache. Vielmehr gehe es darum, dass man sich bewegt und Sport treibt, um gesund zu bleiben. Zur Veranschaulichung des iǧtihād-Prozesses führt Miskawaih noch ein weiteres Beispiel an. Danach habe ein Weiser einen Schatz in der Wüste vergraben und den Menschen gesagt, dass sie danach suchen sollten. Demjenigen, der den Schatz findet, verspricht er eine Belohnung. Mit diesem Vorgehen beabsichtigte der Weise, das Bemühen und die Ausdauer der Menschen zu testen und die Menschen miteinander zu vergleichen – ganz unabhängig davon, ob sie den Schatz finden oder nicht. Das Ziel sei für den Weisen schon erreicht, wenn es ihm gelungen ist, die Menschen dazu zu bringen sich zu bemühen – ganz gleich ob sie den Schatz letztlich finden oder nicht. Miskawaih erweist sich mit dieser Argumentationsweise ausdrücklich als Lehrer in moralphilosophischen Fragen. Diese Einschätzung wird noch verstärkt durch seine Aussage in dem oben genannten Kontext, wonach es beim Suchen nach „Wissen“ nicht in erster Linie darum gehe, ob ein Schüler die richtige Lösung findet oder nicht. Vielmehr stehe die Bemühung und die geistige Aktivität im Vordergrund: zum einen das Nachdenken und das Lernen und zum anderen die Ausdauer und die Geduld, damit sich die Seele auf diese Weise die Fähigkeit zum tiefen Nachdenken aneignet. Im Weiteren ist Miskawaih der Auffassung, dass – wenn es um rechtsrelevante Sachverhalte und die Scharia gehe, zu denen eindeutige Textaussagen vorliegen, die aber verschiedenartig interpretiert werden können – die Durchführung von analytischer Betrachtung und eigenständiger Urteilsfindung (ḥuṣūl an-naẓar wa-l-iǧitihād) anzuwenden sei. Dies solle in dem Sinne geschehen, dass man 38 At-Tauḥīdī/Miskawaih, al-Hawāmil: 330.

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nachsinnt, studiert und sich um die Formulierung rechtlicher Entscheidungen bemüht. Was daraus folgt, müsse von Korrektheit und Weisheit (ṣawāb wa-ḥikma) gekennzeichnet sein. Miskawaih unterstreicht damit sowohl die Pluralität als auch die Relativität und die methodische und inhaltliche Korrektheit von den auf diese Weise erstellten Urteilen, die die individuelle Perspektive und den rechtlichen Standpunkt der betreffenden Personen in angemessener Weise einbeziehen. Er sagte dazu:

َ َ ْ َ ْ َّ َ ً ْ ْ ‫الشاف ِعي وحراما‬ ‫احد أن َيكون َحلال ِب َحسب النظر‬ ِ ‫الن َسان من الش ْيء ال َو‬ ‫َول ْي َس َين َب ِغي أن يتعجب ِ إ‬ ِ َ َ ْ ْ ‫أ‬ ‫أ‬ ْ َ َ َ ْ ‫الشرع َّية ل ْي َس ْيجري‬ َ ‫ِب َحسب نظر َمالك َوأبي حنيفة ف ِإن ال َحلل َوال‬ ‫مجرى‬ ‫حرام ِفي ال ْحكامَ والمور‬ ِ ِ ُ‫ْ أ‬ َ َ ‫أ‬ َّ َ ْ ّ َ َ َ َ ْ َ ‫ال ُمور الطبيعية َو‬ ‫ ِلن ِتلك ل ي ْست ِحيل أن يكون الش ْيء‬،‫مجراها‬ ‫جرى‬ ‫ا‬ ‫م‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ف‬ ‫المتناقضين‬ ‫و‬ ‫أ‬ ‫الضدين‬ ِ َ ْ َُ ْ َ َ ََ َْ ً ْ َ َ َ َ ْ ‫ أو على ما ضر بنا له المثل من ضرب الكرة‬،‫احد ِمنها حلال وحراما ِبحسب حالين أو شخصي ِن‬ ِ ‫ال َو‬ َّ ْ َ ْ َْ .‫بالصولجان َو ُو ُجود َد ِفين الح ِكيم على الوجه ال ِذي اقتصصناه‬ Man darf sich nicht wundern, wenn nach aš-Šāfiʿīs tiefgreifender Untersuchung (naẓar) etwas als erlaubt, aber nach jener durch Abū Ḥanīfa und Mālik verboten ist, weil das Erlaubte und das Verbotene (al-ḥalāl wa-l-ḥarām) in den Rechtsurteilen (aḥkām) und [generell] in religiösen Angelegenheiten nicht wie zwei Antonyme (ḍiddain) bzw. Widersprüche (mutanāqidain) anzusehen sind, so wie es normalerweise in übrigen Dingen der Natur und dergleichen der Fall ist.   Vielmehr ist es bei der Beurteilung von Rechtssachverhalten nicht ausgeschlossen, dass ein Sachverhalt sowohl als erlaubt als auch als verboten beurteilt werden kann: also je nach den vorliegenden Zuständen und den betroffenen Personen, nämlich genauso wie in der Art und Weise, die wir [oben] am Beispiel des Ballspiels mit dem Schläger sowie des Auffindens eines vergrabenen Schatzes dargelegt haben.39

Schließlich stellt Miskawaih fest, dass eine Person – die eine für die Religion relevante Angelegenheit analysiert und die über die dafür nötigen Voraussetzungen zum iǧtihād verfügt – sich bemühen und nach den Prinzipien des iǧtihād handeln müsse.40 Gleichzeitig könne sich eine andere Person, die sich ebenfalls mit dem iǧtihād gut auskennt, um das Erstellen eines Rechtsurteils bemühen, auch wenn der iǧtihād dieser Person zu einem anderen Ergebnis gelangt. Diese andere Person solle ihr Rechtsurteil dann selbstbewusst formulieren, so dass deutlich werde, dass ihr diesbezüglicher iǧtihād bewusst in dieser Weise durchgeführt wurde und dass kein Problem darin besteht, dass dieser im Ergebnis zu einem anderen Urteil kommt. Davon ausgenommen sind allerdings Urteile in der Glaubenslehre (ʿaqīda). Diese sind verschieden von den oben genannten Rechtsurteilen und den dort angeführten bildhaften Vergleichen. Denn in Fragen der ʿaqīda gehe es ausschließlich um die Wahrhaftigkeit und Richtigkeit einer Aussage oder Hand39 At-Tauḥīdī/Miskawaih, al-Hawāmil: 331–332. 40  Damit ist gemeint, dass der muǧtahid ein Kenner

des Korans, der prophetischen Überlieferungen und des Gelehrtenkonsens sowie der arabischen Sprache, der Rechtswissenschaft und -gegebenheiten sein soll.



Zur Rezeption von Koran und Scharia

243

lung als solcher; es genüge hier nicht, sich lediglich zu bemühen bzw. nachzudenken. Miskawaih vergleicht die Beurteilung in Fragen der Glaubenslehre – so z. B. die Gotteslehre im Sinne der Namen und Attribute Gottes – mit einem Aderlass ( faṣd). Hier gehe es auch nicht – wie beim Ballspiel – um die Handlung an sich („das Ballschlagen mit einem Stock, unabhängig davon, ob man den Ball trifft oder nicht“). Beim Aderlass gehe es vor allem darum, „die richtige Ader zu treffen“, sodass die betreffende Person infolge der dann getroffenen Maßnahmen gesundet. Miskawaih sagt ausdrücklich, dass es hierzu keine Alternative gebe. Am Ende appelliert er an at-Tauḥīdī, dass dieser genau zwischen zwei Methoden des Forschens (naẓar) unterscheiden solle: 1. Die eine betreffe das Lernen und das Verstehen; diese sei inklusiv und beziehe sich auf den Bereich des fiqh. Hier könne es Meinungsverschiedenheiten und Diversität geben und die Urteile (aḥkām) dürften voneinander variieren. Diese Art des Forschens sei mit den o. g. Beispielen zum Ballspiel und der Schatzsuche zu vergleichen. Demnach können mehrere Antworten auf ein und dieselbe Frage gleichzeitig richtig sein. 2. Die andere Art der Forschung sei exklusiv und beziehe sich auf die Erforschung der Grundlagen der Glaubensfragen (uṣūl al-ʿaqīda), in denen die Urteile bindend seien und es keine Diversität geben dürfe. Diese Methode sei mit dem o. g. Aderlass (bei dem nur eine Antwort richtig sein kann) zu vergleichen. Erst, wenn man sich darüber im Klaren sei, könne man die Meinungsverschiedenheiten der Rechtsgelehrten verstehen und richtig einordnen. Miskawaih erläutert dies folgendermaßen:

َ ْ َ َّ ّ ‫الطر َيق ْين من‬ َّ ‫النظر وأعطيتهما قسطهما من‬ ّ ‫َوإذا‬ ‫الت ْم ِييز لم يعرض لك العجب ِف َيما‬ ‫حصلت هذ ْين‬ ِ ِ ِ ْ َ َ ْ َ َ َ َ َ َ .‫حكيته من مسألتك وخرج لك الجواب عنها ص ِحيحا ِإن شاء هللا‬

Erst wenn du die Kenntnisse über diese zwei Methoden des Forschens (aṭ-ṭarīqatain min an-naẓar) erlangt hast und zwischen ihnen genau unterscheidest (tamyīz), wirst du dich nicht mehr so sehr darüber wundern, wie du dies in deiner Frage formuliert hast. Du wirst dann – so Gott will – die richtige Antwort auf [deine Frage] finden.41

5.  Koran und Scharia in anderen Schriften Miskawaihs In Miskawaihs Standardwerk zur Ethik, dem Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq, ist ein ähnliches Verständnis zum Koran und zur Scharia erkennbar. Auch im Tahḏīb stellt der Autor die Scharia nicht lediglich als Normensystem dar, sondern als einen 41 At-Tauḥīdī/Miskawaih, al-Hawāmil: 332.

244

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grundlegenden Faktor mit positiver Wirkung auf die Moral und die Erziehung von Jugendlichen.42 Doch die Scharia hat im Tahḏīb eine vordergründig pädagogische und intellektuelle Funktion, wenn es dort heißt, dass sie Einsichten und moralisches Handeln ermöglicht. So schreibt Miskawaih:

‫أ‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ‫المرضية‬ ّ ‫الحداث‬ ّ ‫والشر يعة هي التي‬ ّ ‫وتعد نفوسهم لقبول الحكمة وطلب‬ ‫وتعودهم الفعال‬ ‫تقوم‬ ّ ّ .‫النسية بالفكر الصحيح والقياس المستقيم‬ ‫الفضائل والبلوغ إلى السعادة إ‬

Die Scharia ist es, die [das Verhalten] der Jugendlichen korrigiert. Sie lässt sie sich an die angenehmen Handlungen gewöhnen, bereitet sie darauf vor, Weisheit zu empfangen und nach Tugenden zu suchen und die gesellige Glückseligkeit durch fehlerfreies Denken ( fikr ṣaḥīḥ) und korrekte Analogiebildung (qiyās mustaqīm) zu erreichen.43

Miskawaih meint hier, dass die Eltern (und die Lehrer) in diesem Sinne ihre Rolle als Erzieher wahrnehmen und sowohl die Scharia als auch die anderen guten Regelwerke der Ethik für das Gelingen der Erziehung ihrer Kinder einsetzen sollen, bis sich die Kinder an die guten Tugenden gewöhnen. Er spricht auch über die Notwendigkeit der Scharia in Bezug auf die menschlichen Interaktionen und sieht in ihr ein Mittel zur Kontrolle des gegenseitigen Verhaltens sowohl der Jugendlichen als auch der Erwachsenen. So lehre die Scharia die Menschen, wie sie sich moderat verhalten und handeln sollen:

‫أ‬ ّ ّ‫أ‬ ّ ‫الشياء‬ ‫التوسط واالعتدال لن الناس هم مدنيون‬ ‫والشر يعة هي التي ترسم في كل واحد من هذه‬ ّ ‫بالطبع وال‬ .‫يتم لهم عيش إال بالتعاون‬ Die Scharia ist es, die in allen diesen Dingen das Mittelmaß und die Moderation (at-tawassuṭ wa-l-iʿtidāl) verzeichnet. Die Menschen sind von Natur aus sozial und in ihrem Leben auf Zusammenarbeit angewiesen.44

Miskawaih unterstreicht die soziale Rolle der Scharia auch dadurch, dass er rituelle Handlungen wie das rituelle Gebet (ṣalāt) mit dem sozialen Leben und den Anforderungen der Gesellschaft in Verbindung setzt:

ّ ّ ‫والشر يعة ّإنما أوجبت على‬ ّ ‫كل يوم خمس ّمرات‬ ‫وفضلت صالة‬ ‫الناس أن يجتمعوا في مساجدهم‬ ‫أ‬ ‫آ‬ ّ ‫بالقوة‬ ّ ‫الحاد ليحصل لهم هذا النس الطبيعي الذي هو فيهم‬ ‫حتى يخرج إلى‬ ‫الجماعة على صالة‬ ّ .‫الفعل ّثم يتأ كد باالعتقادات الصحيحة التي تجمعهم‬ Die Scharia erlegt es den Menschen als Pflicht auf, sich fünfmal täglich [zur Verrichtung des rituellen Gebetes] in ihren Moscheen zu versammeln. Auch zieht sie das gemein42  Miskawaih erwähnt das Wort šarīʿa mehr als zwanzig Mal in seinem Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq. 43 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 269. Miskawaihs Verwendung des Terminus qiyās mustaqīm bzw.

„ostensiven Syllogismus“ zeigt erneut seine Vertrautheit mit der aristotelischen Logik. Aristoteles stellt in der Analytica priora fest, dass ein ostensiver Syllogismus vorliegt „im Falle des direkten Beweises, bei dem die Konklusion das zu Beweisende ist. Hierbei ist es im Unterschied zum indirekten Beweis weder erforderlich, die Konklusion im Voraus zu kennen, noch zu wissen, ob sie wahr oder falsch ist.“ Vgl. dazu Brands/Kann 1995: 304, Anm. 304. 44 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 340.



Zur Rezeption von Koran und Scharia

245

schaftliche Gebet dem individuellen Gebet vor, auf dass für die Menschen diese natürliche Geselligkeit, die ihnen kraftvoll innewohnt (bi-l-quwwa), [durch das gemeinschaftliche Gebet] verwirklicht wird. Sodann wiederum werden die Menschen durch korrekte Glaubensinhalte, die ihnen gemeinsam sind, gestärkt.45

In seiner Erklärung zur sozialen Funktion der Scharia weist Miskawaih neben den täglichen Gebeten auch auf das wöchentliche Freitagsgebet sowie auf weitere rituelle Gebete und Handlungen, in denen Muslime ein- oder zweimal im Jahr zusammenkommen, hin. Beispiele hierfür seien die beiden Festgebete (nach dem Monat Ramadan und der Pilgerfahrt) und das Zusammentreffen der Pilger während ihrer Pilgerfahrt.46

6. Fazit Im Ergebnis unserer Untersuchung sollen folgende Punkte noch einmal hervorgehoben werden: Erstens, bei Miskawaih zeigt sich im Kontext seiner Bildungsauffassungen sowohl eine traditionsorientierte als auch eine progressive Rezeption von Koran und Scharia: einerseits unterstreicht er die Autorität von Koran und Scharia, plädiert aber andererseits auch für Legitimität des iǧtihād-Konzeptes. Dabei hebt er die enge Verbindung von Religion und Vernunft ausdrücklich hervor. In seinen Antworten auf at-Tauḥīdīs Fragen (hawāmil) betont Miskawaih in seinen Antworten (šawāmil) die „Rationalität“ rechtlicher Bestimmungen (aḥkām) und verbindet die rituellen Handlungen (ʿibādāt) bzw. ihre Auswirkungen mit der Realität. Der Blick ist hierbei ganz auf die menschlichen Interaktionen (muʿāmalāt) und die gesellschaftlichen Gegebenheiten gerichtet. Zweitens, Miskawaihs Auffassungen zur islamischen Rechtstheorie, den uṣūl al-fiqh, zeigen sich vor allem in seinen Erläuterungen zum Gewohnheitsrecht (ʿurf ) und zur Berücksichtigung des menschlichen Allgemeinwohls (maṣlaḥa). Dabei deuten seine positive Haltung gegenüber einer flexiblen Auslegung der Scharia-Texte sowie seine Ausführungen zu ihrer ethischen Dimension und ihrer Kompatibilität mit der Vernunft in bemerkenswerter Weise auf ein tiefes Verständnis der hehren Ziele der Scharia (maqāṣid aš-šarīʿa) hin. Diese Feststellung ist auch deshalb hervorzuheben, da die maqāṣid aš-šarīʿa bekanntlich erst über drei Jahrhunderte später vor allem durch den sunnitischen Rechtstheoretiker Abū Isḥāq aš-Šāṭibī (gest. 790/1388) – mit seinem hermeneutischen Zugang zum koranischen Text – maßgeblich systematisiert und als Lehrsystem etabliert wurden. Drittens, Miskawaihs Antworten auf rechtliche Fragen in al-Hawāmil wa-ššawāmil fallen im Vergleich zu seinen Antworten auf andere Fragen at-Tauḥīdīs 45 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 364. 46 Miskawaih, at-Tahḏīb: 364.

246

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ausführlicher, philosophisch tiefgreifender und in gewisser Weise auch stärker vernunftorientiert aus. Vor diesem Hintergrund fällt einerseits auf, dass Miskawaih eher selten aus dem Koran zitiert, aber andererseits verstärkt philosophische Überlegungen wie seine lehrhaft formulierten Argumentationen einbringt. Viertens, ob Miskawaih in dieser Hinsicht verstärkt schiitisch oder sunnitisch geprägt war, lässt sich anhand seiner rechtlichen Meinungen und seines Gedankengutes im al-Hawāmil wa-š-šawāmil nicht mit letzter Gewissheit beantworten. Augenfällig ist allerdings auch hier, dass Miskawaih auf sunnitische Rechtsprinzipien und Argumentationsmuster wie die maṣlaḥa und den qiyās (bzw. qiyās mustaqīm, den ostensiven Syllogismus, wie er ihn nennt) rekurriert, die in der schiitischen Rechtsliteratur nicht eingesetzt werden. Die Zwölfter-Schiiten lehnen den qiyās sogar ausdrücklich ab und benutzen die damit verbundene Konzeption als Kritikpunkt in ihren Polemiken gegen Sunniten.47 Zudem spricht Miskawaih im al-Hawāmil wa-š-šawāmil ausschließlich von den traditionellen sunnitischen Rechtsschulen und es findet sich in diesem Werk an keiner Stelle rechtlich relevantes Gedankengut in Bezug auf den Koran und die Scharia, das als typisch schiitisch zu bezeichnen wäre. Abschließend ist festzuhalten, dass at-Tauḥīdīs Fragestellungen keinesfalls lediglich Bitten um Auskünfte zu einfachen Sachverhalten sind. Vielmehr kommen schon in den Fragestellungen tiefgreifende philosophische Betrachtungen zum Ausdruck, die Miskawaih zu Antworten auf wichtige Probleme des gesellschaftlichen Miteinanders im religiösen Kontext anregten und die auch heute noch  – im humanistischen Sinne  – Impulse für die Entwicklung von religiös geprägten Gesellschaften ermöglichen. Dies erklärt u. a., warum al-Hawāmil wa-š-šawāmil  – ein Werk, dessen Autoren zwei bedeutende muslimische Gelehrte sind –, in vielfacher Hinsicht einen besonderen Platz in der arabisch-islamischen Geistes- und Literaturgeschichte einnimmt und nicht zuletzt für den multidimensionalen islamischen Bildungsdiskurs auch heute noch von Bedeutung ist.

Bibliographie Quellen Ibn Manẓūr, Muḥammad: Lisān al-ʿarab (6 Bde.; Kairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1981). Ibn Qutaiba, Abū Muḥammad: al-Masāʾil wa-l-aǧwiba fī l-ḥadīṯ wa-l-Qurʾān, hg. von Marwān al-ʿAṭiyya/Muḥsin Ḫarāba (Damaskus: Dār Ibn Kaṯīr, 1990). Miskawaih, Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad b. Muḥammad: Tahḏīb al-aḫlāq, hg. von ʿImād al-Hilālī (Bagdad/Beirut: Manšūrāt al-Ǧamal, 2011). Paret, Rudi (Übers.): Der Koran (Stuttgart/Berlin/Köln: Kohlhammer, 1966). 47 

Vgl. Gleave 2002: 267–293. Siehe auch Mas 1998: 113–128.



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al-Qifṭī, Ǧamāl ad-Dīn: Iḫbār al-ʿulamāʾ bi-aḫbār al-ḥukamāʾ, kommentiert von Ibrāhim Šams ad-Dīn (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīya, 2005). at-Tauḥīdī, Abū Ḥaiyān/Miskawaih, Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad b. Muḥammad: al-Hawāmil waš-šawāmil li-Abī Ḥaiyān at-Tauḥīdī wa-Miskawaih, hg. von Aḥmad Amīn/as-Sayyid Aḥmad Saqr (Kairo: al-Haiʾa al-ʿĀmma li-Quṣūr aṯ-Ṯaqāfa, 1951). –: al-Baṣāʾīr wa-ḏ-ḏaḫāʾir, hg. von Wadad Kadi (10 Bände; Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1988). –: al-Išārāt al-ilāhīya, hg. von Wadad Kadi (Beirut: Dār aṯ-Ṯaqāfa, 1982). –: Kitāb al-Imtāʿ wa-l-muʾānasa, hg. von Haiṯam Ḫalīfa aṭ-Ṭuʿaimī (Beirut: al-Maktaba al-ʿAṣrīya, 2011). –: al-Muqabasāt, hg. und erklärt von Ḥasan as-Sandūbī (Kuwait: Dār Suʿād aṣ-Ṣubāḥ, 1992). –: aṣ-Ṣadāqa wa-ṣ-ṣadīq, hg. von Ibrāhīm al-Kilānī (3 Bände; Damaskus: Dār al-Fikr, 1998). Yāqūt, Ibn ʿAbdallāh ar-Rūmī: Kitāb Iršād al-arīb ilā maʿrifat al-adīb, hg. von Iḥsān ʿAbbās (7 Bde.; Beirut: Dār al-Ġarb al-Islāmī, 1993).

Studien Akasoy, Anna (2007): „Glaube und Vernunft im Islam“, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 26– 27, 10–17. Arkoun, Mohammed (1961): „L’humanisme arabe au IVe/Xe siècle, d’après le Kitâb al-Hawâmil wal-Šawâmil. II. Miskawayh, ou l’humaniste serein. Analyse des Šawâmil (suite et fin)“, SI 15, 63–87. – (1970): Contribution à l’étude de l’humanisme arabe au IVe/Xe siècle. Miskawayh (320/325–421) = (932/936–1030), philosophe et historien (Paris: Vrin). – (1997): Nazʿat al-insānīya fī l-fikr al-ʿarabī. Ǧīl Miskawayh wa-t-Tauḥīdī, übers. aus dem Französischen von Hašim Ṣāliḥ (Beirut: Dār as-Sāqī). – (2010): Al-Hawāmil wa-š-šawāmil ḥaul al-islām al-muʿāṣir, übers. von Hašim Ṣāliḥ (Beirut: Dār aṭ-Ṭalīʿa). Brands, Hartmut/Kann, Christoph (Hgg.) (1995): William of Sherwood. Introductiones in Logicam – Einführung in die Logik. Lateinisch – Deutsch (Hamburg: Felix Meiner). Daiber, Hans (2012): „Masāʾil Wa-Aḏj̱wiba“, EI2 Online; http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15733912_islam_SIM_4993 (letzter Zugriff am 21. April 2020). Elliesie, Hatem/Schneider, Irene/Ucar, Bülent (Hgg.) (2019): Islamische Normen in der Moderne zwischen Text und Kontext (Reihe für Osnabrücker Islamstudien; Berlin u. a.: Peter Lang). Gleave, Robwert (2002): „Imāmī Shīʿī Refutations of qiyās“, in Bernard G. Weiss (Hg.): Studies in Islamic Legal Theory (Leiden: Brill) 267–293. Haggag, Mahmoud (2019): „Welche Bedeutung hat eine Fatwā angesichts von Globalisierung und Digitalisierung?“, in Reinhold Mokrosch/Habib El Mallouki (Hgg.): Religionen und der globale Wandel. Politik, Wirtschaft, Bildung (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer) 55–62. ʿIzzat, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (1946): Ibn Miskawayh. Falasafatuhu al-aḫlāqīya wa-maṣādiruhā (Kairo: al-Ḥalabī). Mas, Ruth (1998): „Qiyās: A Study in Islamic Logic“, FO 34, 113–128. Melvinger, Arne (1986): „Maḏj̱ūs“, EI2 v, 1110–1121.

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Motzki, Harald (1994): „Religiöse Ratgebung im Islam. Entstehung, Bedeutung und Praxis des muftī und der fatwā“, Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft 2, 3–22. Orfali, Bilal et al. (Hgg.) (2019): The Philosopher Responds. An Intellectual Correspondence from the Tenth Century, Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī, Abū ʿAlī Miskawayh, übers. von Sophia Vasalou/James E. Montgomery (2 Bde.; New York: New York University Press). Poya, Abbas (2010): „Ijtihad, Scharia und Vernunft“, in Thorsten Gerald Schneiders (Hg.): Islamverherrlichung. Wenn die Kritik zum Tabu wird (Wiesbaden: Springer VS) 83–93. Šaltūt, Maḥmūd (2018): al-Islām ʿaqīda wa-šarīʿa (Islam als Glaube und Gesetz), übers. von Mahmoud Haggag (Kairo: al-Azhar-Zentrum für Übersetzung). at-Takrītī, Naǧī (2012): Falasafat al-aḫlāq baina Arisṭū wa-Miskawaih (Amman: Diǧla). ʿUbaid, ʿAlī Imām (1995): Falasafat Miskawayh aṭ-ṭabīʿīya wa-l-ilāhīya (al-Manṣūra: alIslāmīya). Ucar, Bülent/Haggag, Mahmoud (2020): Allgemeinwohl der Menschen als Zweck der Scharia. Debatten über maṣlaḥa und maqāṣid aš-šarīʿa (Berlin u. a.: Peter Lang, im Druck). az-Zuġbī, Fatḥī (1995): Falasafat al-aḫlāq ʿinda Miskawaih. Dirāsa taḥlīlīya muqārina liahamm maṣādirihā wa-abraz ǧawānibihā (Ṭanṭa: al-Aṣwal).

IV.

Miskawayh’s Literary Strategies in Promoting Human Development

Miskawayh’s (Re-)Framing of Wisdom as Perennial and Universal in Jāwīdhān Khiradh Lutz Richter-Bernburg Abstract:  In Jāwīdhān Khiradh (Perennial Wisdom), Miskawayh collected apophthegms by sages from – notionally – all nations and periods as an illustrative supplement to his theoretical exposition of ethics in Tahdhīb al-akhlāq (Refinement of Character). Examples of concrete ethical attitudes and behavior were to increase his efficacy as an instructor and educator. At the same time he undertook to prove the invariant validity of human wisdom regardless of place and period of origin. The focus of the present study will be on the argumentative strategies Miskawayh employed to this end.

By his own profession, Miskawayh (d. 421/1030) supplemented, and illustrated, his theoretical exposition of moral philosophy in Tahdhīb al-akhlāq1 with a selection of wise sayings from all nations and ages.2 By such practical application of the precepts established in al-Tahdhīb he wanted to contribute to the uplift and betterment of himself and every subsequent generation of mankind. The nucleus of his anthology and point of departure for his collecting activity had been the allegedly ancient Iranian book of wisdom known as Jāwīdhān Khiradh.3 Miskawayh takes great pains to establish its venerable antiquity and prestige as well as its universal validity. In evidence, he gathers wisdom literature from the civilized, or one might say philosophical, nations within his purview: 1 Miskawayh, at-Tahdhīb (ed. Zurayk 1966 [with added English title: The Refinement of Character]). Cf. Endress 2012: 210–238. 2 Miskawayh, Khirad (ed. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī) 1952: 25, ll. 1–4. Badawī should have kept the early New Persian inter- and postvocalic spirantization of the voiced occlusive /d/ as represented by the better manuscripts; see, e. g., Miskawayh, Khirad (ed. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī) 1952: (59), l. 2; Arberry 1963: 145–158, esp. 147, l. 1, 156, l. 20, 157, l. 7 (pertinent readings from the magnificent Oxonian codex Marsh 662 of 439/1047). On the spirantization phenomenon generally, see Lazard 1963: 143–144 with n. 1. Arabic attestations prove that it was indeed “a genuine linguistic phenomenon”, pace Orsatti 2019: 39–72, esp. 47–50. For the reception of Miskawayh’s work cf. ns. 9 on al-Khafājī and 11 on al-Ṭurṭūshī; de Fouchécour 1986: 34–37 (re Persian excerpts in Kheradnāme [VI/XII cent.?]); Tafażżolī 1374: 503–507. On Persian translations see Shūshtarī 2535/1976; Moḥammad Ḥosayn [1065/1054–1055] 1294/1876–1877. 3  Arkoun, in Shūshtarī 2535/1976: 1–24; Arberry 1963; al-Rājkūtī 1929: 129–139, 193–200 [=  al-Rājkūtī 1995: ii, 230–249]; Giese 1999: 326–355; cf. (not entirely without reservations) ­Endress 2012: 225; Gutas 20212: 467–468, and Pellat 1982: 263a–264a.

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the Indians, Persians, Arabs and Greeks.4 However, this limitation was not to undercut his universalist aspiration; the testimony he presents5 is to demonstrate that “all nations’ minds move concordantly along the same path,”6 not differing by region or changing with time, nor being rebutted through the years and ages.7 The present study on Miskawayh’s ‘wisdom collection’ will focus on the argumentative strategies he employs to enhance both its didactic effectiveness and its historico-philosophical import. Miskawayh opens his work by calling on the witness of an authority he himself and presumably also his intended audience must have deemed unassailable, Abū ʿUthmān al-Jāḥiẓ.8 Miskawayh claims that ever since in his youth he read al-Jāḥiẓ’s Istiṭālat al-fahm (The Superiority of Understanding)9, he was fascinated by the author’s unaccustomedly fulsome praise for Jāwīdhān Khiradh10, although he quoted from it but briefly, and tried to locate a copy in the course of his own peregrinations. Eventually, he came across one in the possession of the grand mōbed (mawbidhān mawbidh [‘priest of priests’]) of the province of Fārs. The question of the genuineness – however unlikely – of al-Istiṭāla as al-Jāḥiẓ’s is of no immediate concern in the present context, especially since the work is independently attested elsewhere.11 Thus Miskawayh cannot be suspected of having authored the work himself, although it would appear that his is the only witness for the title al-Istiṭāla. More importantly, the alleged al-Jāḥiẓ’s dating of the Arabic version of Jāwīdhān Khiradh (henceforth Khiradh) to al-Maʾmūn’s reign 4  5 

E. g., Miskawayh, Khirad: 5, ll. 10–11, 14–15, 282, l. 4. He expressly refers to ‘the sages from every nation and every denomination’ (al-ḥukamāʾ min kull umma wa-kull niḥla, Miskawayh, Khirad: 25, l. 4; cf. Miskawayh, Khirad: 375, 1. 6ff ). 6  ʿUqūl al-umam kullihā tatawāfā ʿalā ṭarīqa wāḥida, Miskawayh, Khirad: 375, l. 17–376, l. 1. 7  Wa-lā yarudduhā rādd ʿalā l-duhūr wa-l-aḥqāb, Miskawayh, Khirad: 376, l. 2. 8 Miskawayh, Khirad: 5, l. 6; of the vast bibliography on al-Jāḥiẓ a single title will be cited here: Montgomery 2013. 9  This title does not figure in any of the more reliable lists of works by al-Jāḥiẓ, but exclusively in association with quotations from Miskawayh, even though the work did exist before Miskawayh (see below, with n. 12); see al-Khafājī, al-Ṭirāz (ed. Cairo): 104, l. 10–105, l. 2 [= ed. Ṭanṭā 1327/1909: 108–109]. Al-Khafājī’s claim to have used all three pertinent works is disproved immediately by his copying Miskawayh’s attribution of Jāwīdhān Khiradh to ‘Hūshanj al-ḥakīm’ (see below, with n. 17). Pellat appears to accept al-Istiṭāla as genuine, see Pellat 1956: 147–180, esp. 162, no. 83, and Pellat 1984: 117–164, esp. 144, no. 114. See also below, n. 11. 10 Miskawayh, Khirad: 5, l. 8: thumma yuʿaẓẓimuhū taʿẓīman yakhruju fīhi ʿani l-ʿādati fī taʿẓīmi mithlih. 11  Obviously, such attestations are no proof of authenticity; see al-Ḥuṣrī (d. 413/1022), alJamʿ: 91, l. 20–96, l. 1 from bottom. Al-Ḥuṣrī’s excerpt, being more circumstantial than Miskawayh’s and truer to their common (remote?) Vorlage, provides essential independent testimony for its circulation under al-Jāḥiẓ’s name, although without naming the title al-Istiṭāla. Al-Ṭurṭūshī similarly quotes ‘al-Jāḥiẓ’ from al-Istiṭāla without the title; see Sirāj al-mulūk (completed 516/1122) 1414/1994, esp. ii, 737, l. 6–739, l. 1 from bottom. Al-Ṭurṭūshī’s proximate source remains to be identified. Arberry 1963 did not notice that the Chester Beatty manuscript of Khiradh that he edited also depends on ‘al-Jāḥiẓ’; otherwise the paragraph on ‘Dhawbān’ would remain unexplained.



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is confirmed by an external witness, its protagonist being Abū l-Hudhayl al-ʿAllāf (d. no later than 227/842).12 The actual existence of both al-Istiṭāla and the Arabic Khiradh throws Miskawayh’s distortions of the facts into high relief. Leaving aside for a moment the overlap of content between Khiradh and, e. g., al-Rayḥānī’s Jawāhir al-kilam (Gems of adages)13, the circulation of Khiradh was common knowledge; surely Miskawayh’s readership was aware of it and thus alert to the fictitiousness of his account.14 Khiradh having been available in Arabic for at least one and a half centuries, the question is whether there was added value in presenting it as a rare find in a remote, likely non-Arabophone environment. After all, Miskawayh wrote for an Arabic Muslim readership that may have deferred to ‘alJāḥiẓ’s’ and other Arabic intellectuals’ praise of Khiradh, but to whom a provincial grand mōbed ’s attachment to his notional forebears’ ethical thought cannot have meant much. To engage in a bit of speculation, Miskawayh might have been addressing, in addition to said Arab(ic) audience, a particular Iranian stratum of readership who wanted – and were able – to reconnect with ‘their’ past even if through the medium of Arabic. In his ‘wisdom collection’ Miskawayh pursues a twofold purpose. On the one hand, it is directly didactic; he aims to provide ethical instruction through illustrative, concrete application of general principle. On the other hand, he endeavors to demonstrate the systematic and historical value of philosophical ethics. In order to achieve the latter – and indirectly also the former – he resorts to risky textual maneuvers, as discussed above. But his revision, not to say falsification, of history goes further. In ‘al-Jāḥiẓ’, the alleged author of Khiradh was said to have been one Kanjūr b. Isfandiyār, ‘vizier of the king of Īrānshahr’ (wazīr malik Īrānshahr)15. Not surprisingly, his exact circumstances remained hazy. The ad12  See Mourad 2008; van Ess 1983. For Abū l-Hudhayl’s appreciative quotation from Khiradh see al-Tawḥīdī, al-Baṣāʾir (period of composition 350–375/961–986): juzʾ 6 [vol. iii], 123, l. 8–124, l. 2; cf. al-Tawḥīdī, al-Baṣāʾir: juzʾ 9 [vol. iv], 233–234 (secondary witness, after alTawḥīdī, in al-Ābī [d. 421/1030], al-Nathr, vii/vol. 4/2, 106, l. 9–107, l. 4); al-Ḥuṣrī, al-Jamʿ: 91, ll. 2–8. 13  See Zakeri 2006: i, 73–77. 14  For additional quotations from Khiradh see, e. g., al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, Muḥāḍarāt aludabāʾ (most likely written no later than 399/1008, see Rowson 1994): i, 158, 436; ii, 742. 15  This supposed author’s name and occupational title bear the mark of fictitiousness, sounding like a pastiche of incongruous Iranian components. Obviously Īrānshahr, the country’s Sasanian imperial designation, still resonated with ancient grandeur; see Mackenzie 1998: 534. Among Arabic authors see, e. g., Ibn Khurradādhbih, K. al-Masālik: 5, l.13, 15, ll. 13–14, 16, l. 6; al-Bīrūnī, al-Hind: 27, l. 8. For a late witness cf. al-Qazwīnī, Kosmographie: 155, ll. 3–10. Ibn Khurradādhbih surely was not the only educated person to know that the Iranian great king’s style was not simply malik (or an Iranian equivalent), but ‘king of kings’ or shāhānshāh (Ibn Khurradādhbih, K. al-Masālik: 16, l. 6). Nor was the sovereign’s chief counsellor called wazīr, but wuzurg framādār; see MacKenzie 21986: 93; Khaleghi Motlagh 1989: 428b. As for the alleged author’s and his father’s names, Isfandiyār owed its persistent renown and popularity to the eponymous Kayānian king and great hero; see Yarshater 1998. It remained in regular

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mittedly late Rampur manuscript of Khiradh, which borrowed ‘Kanjūr’s’ catchy title Taṣfiyat al-adhhān wa-nafādh al-fikar wa-shaḥdh al-qulūb (Cleansing of Minds, Incisiveness of Thoughts and Honing of Hearts), thus was free to welcome him into the Muslim fold and accord him the pious post-mortem eulogy tawallā llāhu mukāfaʾatah (may God undertake his requital).16 Miskawayh’s intentions were different. He boldly reassigned authorship to the primeval Iranian king Hōshang who was widely revered as a culture hero, paragon of justice17 and the founder of Iranian kingship.18 Not least he was said to have exhorted his fellow men to monotheist worship.19 While the formulation of laws and norms of rul­ ership and polyglot writing skills were also cited as being among his pioneering achievements,20 the attribution to him of an ethical testament such as Khiradh cannot be traced back beyond Miskawayh’s version of it; at any rate, in his Tajārib al-umam (The Experiences of the Nations), which predates Tahdhīb alakhlāq and thus the supplementary ‘wisdom collection’, Hōshang does not yet figure as an author.21 In Miskawayh’s view, however, a hitherto ‘undiscovered’ use, for which see just two random examples: al-Ṭabarī, al-Tārīkh: iii, 1350, l. 1, sub anno 231: ʿAmr b. Isfandiyār; al-Bākharzī, al-Dumya: i, 117, l. 10: Abū l-ʿAlāʾ Wishtāsif b. Isfandiyār [before 467/1075]. In contrast, the history of Kanjūr, originally ‘treasurer’ (Pahlavi ganjwar, see MacKenzie 21986: 35, q. v.), was far less distinguished; the word’s phonetics – the Arabic renditions of Middle and early New Persian voiced velar stop (g) and voiced postalveolar affricate (j[ǧ]) – date the borrowing approximately to the turn of the third century AH/c. 810. As a name Kanjūr appears to have gone out of use during the fourth/tenth century; see the following small sampling of witnesses: al-Nuwayrī, al-Nihāya: xxii, 239, ll. 15–18: in 259/872–873 the military Kanjūr al-Turkī, governor of al-Kūfa, is killed for insurrection (cf. al-Nuwayrī, al-Nihāya: xxv, 45, ll. 18–24). Al-Ṭabarī, al-Tārīkh: iii, 1925, ll. 18–19, sub anno 264 (cf. Index, 482, q. v.): the military Kanjūr al-Bukhārī killed in skirmish in Wāsiṭ. In 272/885–886, a certain Dāʾūd b. Hāshim b. Kanjūr figures as a usurper in ‘Ṭukhāristān, Balkh and Samarqand’, see Ibn al-ʿAdīm, al-Bugh­ ya: vii, 477, ll. 11–12. In Cairo, a Kanjūr was chief of police (al-shuraṭ) from 310/922–923 to just after the turn of 313/925, see al-Kindī, Wulāt Miṣr: 201–202. A  few traditionists of the same name are recorded as well; Abū Muḥammad Kanjūr b. ʿĪsā al-Farghānī, active in Damascus during the last quarter of the third/ninth century, Ibn ʿAsākir, al-Tārīkh: i, 260–261, no. 5831. Ibn al-Ṭaḥḥān [d. 416/101), al-Tārīkh: 109, no. 528, relates that his teachers transmitted from Abū l-ʿAbbās Kanjūr b. Saʿd al-Ṣaydalānī. To conclude, the name Kanjūr would be entirely plausible in a broadly defined Iranian environment under the reigns of al-Maʾmūn and his first successors, or differently put, during the lifetime of the real or fictitious al-Jāḥiẓ. 16  See al-Rājkūtī 1995: 231–232, 245 with ns. 8–9. 17 His by-name Pēshdādh, the precise meaning of which had fallen into oblivion, was through some superficial etymologizing interpreted as ‘the first just ruler’; phonetically, the Persian /p/ was alternatively rendered as /b/ or /f/, and the majhūl vowel /ē/ as /ī/ or /ā/; see Shahbazi 2004: 491–492 and cf., e. g., al-Ṭabarī, al-Tārīkh: i, 171, ll. 14–15. 18  See Shahbazi 2004 and, for merely exemplary comparison, al-Ṭabarī, al-Tārīkh: i, 170, l. 21–171, l.15, and al-Thaʿālibī, Histoire: 5–7. 19  See al-Maqdisī, al-Badʾ: iii, 138, l. 1 from bottom–139, l. 1. 20  See al-Maqdisī, al-Badʾ: iii, 139, l. 1. Some authors credit only his successor Ṭahmūrath with the invention or at least adoption of writing, e. g., Miskawayh’s source in al-Tajārib: i, 61, l. 18. 21 Miskawayh, al-Tajārib: i, 61, ll. 2–14. In passing, it might be noted that Miskawayh appears to have relied exclusively on Arabic authorities, nor was he interested in etymologizing



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literary work may well have agreed with or even completed Hōshang’s received image. Also, in following the tradition which dated him to shortly after the deluge, Miskawayh succeeded in anchoring his wisdom collection at the misty inception of recorded history and establishing, as it were, a bridgehead from which to span the distance to his own place and age. By marshalling evidence from the wisdom traditions of the four representative nations outside of Islam – including the pre-Islamic Arabs – as well as of Islam, he satisfied himself of the truth of the proposition he set out to prove – that the human mind functions in the same way everywhere at all times.22 In his view, such underlying identity occasions a certain repetitiveness in his presentation23 – unavoidable in making his point. At the same time, he insists on the exemplary nature of the few, out of potentially infinite, ‘particulars’ ([al]-juzʾiyyāt) that he adduces and appeals to his readers’ ability to draw the proper conclusions on their own.24 Miskawayh extends his postulate of human agreement on ethical doctrine even to the various religious traditions, from ‘ancient inspiration’ to ‘the Messiah’ (al-Masīḥ) and to Islam’s Quran and Ḥadīth.25 In insisting on the consonance of human wisdom and divine dispensation, Miskawayh yet ostensibly gives precedence to the latter, denying access to the sages’ counsel to those devoid of understanding about God.26 At the same time, Miskawayh still accords human reason almost the same dignity as revealed religion, bestowing the attribute ‘divine’ on the apophthegms he collected.27 He certainly was not alone in positing a pre-established harmony, as it were, between reason and revelation. To return to Miskawayh’s exposition of the fundamental, perpetual validity of the methods and results of human reasoning across time and space, he concludes that such was what justified the title of the work at hand, ‘I mean Jāwīdhān Khiradh’. However clear the allusion is to readers with an inkling of Persian, Miskawayh’s skirting a straightforward translation invites speculation about his motives and the identity of his intended audience. We have seen that in contrast to Pēshdādh, as e. g., al-Ṭabarī (as in n. 17) did. Whereas in al-Ṭabarī Hōshang’s name appears in various forms, Miskawayh only uses the – relatively early – borrowing Ūshhanj. Unlike his younger contemporary al-Thaʿālibī (as in n. 18), he shows no awareness of the linguistic background of such variants. 22  See n. 6. 23 Miskawayh, Khirad: 5, l. 10: wajadtu lahū ashkālan wa-naẓāʾira kathīratan min ḥikami l-Furs ilkh; cf. wa-[mini]ttifāqihim maʿa tabāʿudi aqṭārihim, Miskawayh, Khirad: 22, l. 7, and 375, ll. 16–17; further the same passage in the Leiden ms. (381, Warner 640), Miskawayh, Khirad [introd.] (59), para. 3. 24  E. g., Miskawayh, Khirad: 282, ll. 4–6, and pronouncedly at the very end, 375, l. 11–376, l. 4. 25  Regardless of the ‘historicity’ of his pre-Islamic references, ‘ancient inspiration’ (al-waḥy al-qadīm), including the Delphic oracle, and the Messiah (al-Masīḥ) figure together with Quran and Ḥadīth, Miskawayh, Khirad: 23, l. 15–24, l. 5. 26 Miskawayh, Khirad: 24, l. 4 from bottom. 27 Miskawayh, Khirad: 282, l. 6.

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what he wants us to believe, Jāwīdhān Khiradh was by no means entirely unknown to an Arabic, most likely predominantly non-Persophone readership. In withholding an Arabic version of the title, it would seem that Miskawayh’s intention was to let them enjoy their reading as accustomed, i. e., without the encumbrance of extraneous information.28 The cognoscenti to whom he nods in the concluding sentence might have to be sought, again as suggested above, among a presumably more limited group of the educated stratum, those culturally and religiously Arabicized Iranians whose Muslim sensibilities did not reject as blasphemous, but rather were ready to embrace, the qualification of human wisdom as eternally valid. If Miskawayh undertook to establish the perpetuity of autonomous human wisdom, it was well-nigh inescapable that he anchored it in a primeval past; now the only non-prophetic tradition reaching back into time immemorial was the Iranian, which had bequeathed to the Muslims Jāwīdhān Khiradh as it was. All Miskawayh had to do – if he did not actually follow in an unknown’s footsteps – was to retroject it into a suitably remote age and preferably to attribute it to an author of indubitable renown. No better candidate could be found than the early post-diluvial cultural primogenitor of almost Adamic stature, Hōshang.

Bibliography Sources al-Ābī, Abū Saʿd Manṣūr b. al-Ḥusayn: Nathr al-Durr, ed. by Khālid ʿAbd al-Ghanī Maḥfūẓ (7 pts. in 4 vols.; Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1424/2003). al-Bākharzī, ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan: Dumyat al-qaṣr, ed. by Muḥammad Altūnjī (3 vols.; [Damascus:] Dār al-Fikr 1388, 1392, 1392/1968, 1972, 1972). al-Bīrūnī, Abū l-Rayhān Muḥammad: Kitāb fī taḥqīq mā li-l-Hind, ed. by Edward Sachau as Alberuni’s India (London: Trübner, 1887). al-Ḥuṣrī, Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. ʿAlī: Jamʿ al-jawāhir fī l-mulaḥ wa-l-nawādir, ed. by ʿAlī Muḥammad al-Bijāwī (Beirut: Dār al-Jīl, 1953). Ibn al-ʿAdīm, ʿUmar b. Aḥmad: Bughyat al-ṭalab fī tārīkh Ḥalab, ed. by Suhayl Zakkār (11 vols.; Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1409/1988–1989). Ibn ʿAsākir, ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan: Tārīkh madīnat Dimashq, ed. ʿUmar al-ʿAmrawī (80 vols.; Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1995–2000). Ibn Khurradādhbih, ʿUbaydallāh b. ʿAbdallāh: Kitāb al-Masālik wa-l-mamālik, ed. by Michael J. de Goeje (Bibliotheca geographorum arabicorum 6; Leiden: Brill, 1889). Ibn al-Ṭaḥḥān, Yaḥyā b. ʿAlī al-Ḥaḍramī: Tārīkh ʿulamāʾ ahl Miṣr, ed. by Maḥmūd alḤaddād (Riyad: Dār al-ʿĀṣima, 1408/1987–1988). al-Khafājī, Aḥmad b. Muḥammad: Ṭirāz al-majālis (Cairo: al-Maktaba al-wahbiyya, 1284/1868; Ṭanṭā: Tāj al-Kutubī, 1327/1909). 28  In his edition (1952), ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī plainly missed Miskawayh’s point, else he would not have padded the title with an Arabic translation of his own devising.



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al-Kindī, Muḥammad b. Yūsuf: Wulāt Miṣr, ed. by Ḥusayn Naṣṣār (Beirut: Dār Bayrūt, 1959). al-Maqdisī, Muṭahhar b. Ṭāhir: Kitāb al-Badʾ wa-l-tārīkh, ed. by Clément Huart (6 pts.; Publications de l’École des langues orientales vivantes. Sér. 4, t. 16–18, 21–23; Paris: Leroux, 1899–1919). Miskawayh, Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad b. Muḥammad: Jāwīdān Khirad. Al-ḥikma al-khālida, ed. by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī (Cairo: Maktabat al-Nahḍa al-Miṣriyya, 1952). –: Tahdhīb al-akhlāq [with added English title: The Refinement of Character], ed. by Qusṭanṭīn K. Zurayq (Beirut: al-Jāmiʿa al-Amīrikiyya, 1966). –: Tajārib al-umam, ed. by Sayyid Kasrawī Ḥasan (7 vols.; Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-­ ʿIlmiyya, 1424/2003). Moḥammad Ḥosayn-e bn-e Ḥājj Shamso d-Dīn (trans.): Ketāb-e Jāvīdān Kherad, ed. by “Darvīsh-e Fānī” (Teheran: Karbalāʾī Ebrāhīm, 1294/1876–1877). al-Nuwayrī, Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb: Nihāyat al-ʿarab fī funūn al-adab, ed. by Mufīd Qumayḥa et al. (33 vols.; Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1424/2004). al-Qazwīnī, Zakariyyāʾ b. Muḥammad: [ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt] El-Cazwini’s Kosmographie, Zweiter Teil: [Āthār al-bilād] Die Denkmäler der Länder (Göttingen: Dieterich, 1848). al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, Abū l-Qāsim al-Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad b. al-Mufaḍḍal: Muḥāḍarāt al-udabāʾ, ed. by ʿUmar Fārūq aṭ-Ṭabbāʿ (2 vols.; Beirut: Dār al-Arqam, 1420/1999). Shūshtarī, Taqiyyo d-dīn Moḥammad (trans.): Jāvīdān Kherad, ed. by Behrūz Sarvatīān [on Romanized back title: Thirvatian] (Wisdom of Persia XVI; Teheran: McGill University, Institute of Islamic Studies, Tehran Branch 2535/1976). al-Ṭabarī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Jarīr: Tārīkh al-rusūl wa-l-mulūk, ed. by Michael Jan de Goeje et al. (3 ser., 15 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1879–1901). al-Tawḥīdī, Abū Ḥayyān: Kitāb al-Baṣāʾir wa-l-dhawākhir, ed. by Wadād al-Qāḍī (6 vols. [9 pts. in 5, index]; Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1988). al-Thaʿālibī, ʿAbd al-Malik b. Muḥammad: [Ghurar akhbār mulūk al-furs wa-siyarihim] Histoire des Rois des Perses, ed./trans. by H[ermann] Zotenberg (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1900). al-Ṭurṭūshī, Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. al-Walīd: Sirāj al-mulūk, ed. by Fatḥī Abū Bakr (2 vols.; Cairo: al-Dār al-Miṣriyya al-Lubnāniyya 1414/1994).

Studies Arberry, Arthur J. (1963): “Jāvīdhān Khiradh”, JSS 8, 145–158. Arkoun, Mohammed (1976): “Introduction à la lecture du Kitâb Jâvîdân Khirad”, in Shūshtarī (as above) 1–24. Bondarev, Dmitry et al. (eds.) (2019): Creating Standards (Berlin et al.: De Gruyter). Endress, Gerhard (2012): “Antike Ethik-Traditionen für die islamische Gesellschaft. Abū ʿAlī Miskawaih”, in Ulrich Rudolph (Hg.), unter Mitarbeit von Renate Würsch: Philosophie der islamischen Welt. I. 8.–10. Jahrhundert (Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie; Basel: Schwabe) 210–238. van Ess, Josef (1983; updated Jul 2011): “Abu’l-Hoḏayl”, EIr i, 318–322; http://iranicaonline. org/articles/abul-hodayl-al-allaf-mohammad-b (last accessed on 22 July 2020). de Fouchécour, Charles-Henri (1986): Moralia. Les notions morales dans la littérature persane du 3e/9e au 7e/13e siècle (Bibliothèque iranienne 32; Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les civilisations).

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Giese, Alma (trans.) (1999): “Perennial Philosophy (Wisdom). Al-Ḥikmat al-khālidah [sic] or Jāwīdān-khirad”, in Seyyid Hossein Nasr/Mehdi Aminrazavi (eds.): An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia. I. From Zoroaster to ʿUmar Khayyam (London/New York: I. B. Tauris) 326–355. Khaleghi Motlagh, Djalal (1989): “Bozorgmehr-e Boḵtagān”, EIr iv, 427b–429b; https:// iranicaonline.org/articles/search/keywords:bozorgmehr-e-boktagan (last accessed on 22 July 2020). Lazard, Gilbert (1963): La langue des plus anciens monuments de la prose persane 1 (Paris: C. Klincksieck). [Also: Études linguistiques (Paris: Klincksieck, 1962–1981) 2]. MacKenzie, David Neil (21986): A Concise Pahlavi Dictionary (London etc.: Oxford University Press). Mac[K]enzie, David Neil (1998; updated Dec 2011): “Ērān, Ērānšahr”, EIr viii, 534; http:// iranicaonline.org/articles/eran-eransah (last accessed on 18 July 2020). Montgomery, James E. (2013): Al-Jāḥiẓ. In Praise of Books (Edinburgh: University Press). Mourad, Suleiman A. (2008): “Abū l-Hudhayl”, EI3, 2008–1, 43a–45b; https://reference​ works.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-3/abu-l-hudhayl-SIM_0289?s. num=13&s.f.s2_parent=s.f.book.e (last accessed on 21 July 2020). Orsatti, Paola (2019): “Persian Language in Arabic Script”, in Dmitry Bondarev/Ales­ sandro Gori/Lameen Souag (eds.): Creating Standards (Berlin etc.: De Gruyter) 39– 72. Pellat, Charles (1956): “Ǧāḥiẓiana III: Essai d’inventaire de l’œuvre ǧāḥiẓienne”, Arabica 3, 147–180. – (1982): “Djāwīdhān Khirad” [sic], EI2 xii, 263a–264a. – (1984): “Nouvel essai d’inventaire de l’œuvre ǧāḥiẓienne”, Arabica 31, 117–164. al-Rājkūtī, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Maymanī (1929): “Aqdam kitāb fī raʾyī au Jāwīdhān-Khiradh”, Majallat al-Majmaʿ al-ʿilmī al-ʿarabī [bi-Dimashq] 9 (1929), 129–139, 193–200 [reprint 1995: al-Maymanī al-Rājkūtī, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz: Buḥūth wa-taḥqīqāt, ed. by Muḥammad ʿUzayr Shams et al., vol. ii (2 vols.; Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī) 230–249]; https:// al-maktaba.org/book/33630/724 (last accessed on 20 July 2020). Rowson, Everett K. (1994): “al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī”, EI2 viii, 389b–390b. Shahbazi, Shapur A. (2004; updated Mar 2012): “Hōšang”, EIr vii, 491–492; http://www. iranicaonline.org/articles/hosang (last accessed on 20 July 2020). Tafażżolī, Aḥmad (1374/1996): “Jāvīdān Kherad va Kheradnāme”, Taḥqīqāt-e eslāmī 10, 503–507. Yarshater, Ehsan (1998; updated Jan 2012): “Esfandīār”, EIr viii, 584–592; http:// iranicaonline.org/articles/esfandiar-1-son-gostasp (last accessed on 22 July 2020). Zakeri, Mohsen (2006): Persian Wisdom in Arabic Garb. ʿAlī b. ʿUbayda al-Rayḥānī (d. 219/824) and his Jawāhir al-kilam wa-farāʾid al-ḥikam (2 vols.; Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science. Texts and Studies 66; Leiden etc.: Brill).

“An Art That is Learned and Acquired” Human Happiness in Miskawayh’s Tartīb al-saʿādāt Ali Rida K. Rizek* Abstract:  The concept of eudaimonia, happiness, formed a major part of the classical ethical discourse. Translated into Arabic as saʿāda, Arabic and Muslim philosophers contributed much to the spread and development of the discussion on happiness in the context of Islam and its intertwining relation with other major philosophical themes, such as the classification of sciences. The present contribution studies Miskawayh’s views on the subject of happiness as articulated in one of his early philosophical writings, namely Tartīb al-saʿādāt wa-manāzil al-ʿulūm (known also as Kitāb al-Saʿāda), with a twofold objective. First, it presents Miskawayh’s account on the different levels of happiness with particular focus on his discussion of the ultimate happiness (al-saʿāda al-quṣwā). Second, it suggests a recontextualization of this treatise of Miskawayh’s as part of a larger tradition of philosophical writings concerned with the theme of happiness in Arabic-Islamic culture. Corroborated by textual evidence, this study draws on the findings of previous research that focused on sources which might have had an influence on Miskawayh’s concept of happiness. Specifically, it scrutinizes the instances where Miskawayh’s Tartīb al-saʿādāt apparently shares thoughts, ideas and terminology with those found in al-Fārābī’s Risālat al-tanbīh ʿalā sabīl al-saʿāda.

َ َ ﴾‫﴿ف ِم ُنهم ش ِق ٌّي َو َس ِع ٌيد‬

1.

The happiness that is genuinely satisfying is accompanied by the fullest exercise of our faculties, and the fullest realization of the world in which we live.2 Bertrand Russell

*  I am thankful for the comments and suggestions offered to me by the participants of the first Miskawayh workshop held in Göttingen in 2017, especially Dr. Elvira Wakelnig, Professor Dr. Alexander Knysh, and Dr. Enrico Boccaccini. I am likewise grateful to the anonymous reviewer for the valuable comments. I would also like to thank Professor Dr. Sebastian Günther and Dr. Yassir El Jamouhi for valuable comments and feedback on this study. Many thanks are due to Maha Kaouri and Rida Jichi (Cambridge, UK) for their help in accessing some sources I used for this paper. 1  “And some will be wretched, and some will be happy;” see: The Qurʾan 11: 105 (trans. Khalidi). The quotation in the title makes reference to Miskawayh’s al-Saʿāda: 42. 2 Russell, The Conquest: 110.

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Eudaimonia, translated usually into “happiness,”3 is a recurrent theme in philosophical ethical discourse as early as pre-Socratic times. The centrality of the quest for what makes the human being happy, flourishing, satisfied and living well – only few aspects of what eudaimonia might allude to – constitutes a major component of ethical thought and contemplation.4 In Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle remarks that human actions are conducted for the sake of various ends: In medicine, for instance, it is health that is sought; in war, it is victory. But since these aims are chosen as means to reach an ultimate end, and not for their own sake, they cannot be the final good that human beings seek to reach. The ultimate end towards which all ends converge, the “chief good,” as termed in the Aristotelian text and context, is one that is “complete” or “the most complete” among the ends of human action. Aristotle terms this good “happiness” (eudaimonia) and states:5 Happiness in particular is believed to be complete without qualification, since we always choose it for itself and never for the sake of anything else. Honour, pleasure, intellect, and every virtue we do indeed choose for themselves (since we would choose each of them even if they had no good effects), but we choose them also for the sake of happiness, on the assumption that through them we shall live a life of happiness; whereas happiness no one chooses for the sake of any of these nor indeed for the sake of anything else.

Nonetheless, there is a variety of opinions on how to reach this status of happiness. From his side, Aristotle argues that the conscious and thorough pursuit of knowledge allows humans to lead a happy life. Wisdom, Aristotle explains, “produces happiness not as medicine produces health, but as health does. For by being a part of a whole system of virtues, it [i. e., happiness] makes a person happy through its being possessed and being exercised.”6 Therefore, although the path of happiness is considered primarily an intellectual one, Aristotle advises that the kind of wisdom that can provide the human being with the ultimate happiness is one that is not limited to a theoretical perfection, but that 3  See Ansari 1964: 319; Bremner 2011: 12–13; Taylor 1998. Taylor remarks that eudaimonia in classical thought is linked to the status of possessing “an objectively desirable life,” while the modern concept of happiness is conceived within “a subjectively satisfactory life.” The key difference, as is clear, resides in maintaining an objective or subjective perspective. Similarly, Adamson, Ethics, distinguishes between the “objective sense of flourishing” and the “subjective sense of finding one’s life enjoyable.” Being “geared” towards the former, Adamson qualifies Arab-Islamic ethical philosophy as “eudaimonistic.” For lack of a better alternative, whenever happiness is mentioned in this article in a philosophical context, it refers to the concept of eudaimonia. The German language, it is worth mentioning, has a better term, namely “Glückseligkeit,” denoting an almost all-encompassing happiness. A German translation of the Quran, for instance, renders the above epigraph as: “und die einen von ihnen sollen elend sein und (die andern) glückselig.” (emphasis added), see Der Koran 11: 105 (trans. Henning). 4 On eudaimonia in Aristotelian thought and corpus, see Nagel 1980; Ackrill 1980. 5 Aristotle, Nicomachean: 10–11. Cf. Lawrence 2006: 45–47. 6 Aristotle, Nicomachean: 116.



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evolves into a practical code of conduct.7 It is through this twofold achievement that the human being attains the supreme and desirable good: a happy life. Inspired by this “eudaimonistic” tradition,8 the Arabic-Islamic culture made major contributions to this theme, framed here by the Arabic term saʿāda, happiness, through various disciplines and discourses, such as those pertaining to exegeses, ḥadīth, theology, mysticism, poetry and prose literature, including in particular the mirrors for princes, and certainly falsafa (philosophy in the Aristotelian tradition).9 While philosophers in the Islamicate world10 opted for various approaches to the concept of ultimate happiness, a particular and dominant approach to the subject is the one that follows the Aristotelian scheme in relating ethical conduct to intellectual formation. Considered a major contribution from al-Fārābī (d. 339/950), the view that happiness could be attained in this world through knowledge acquisition echoes, again, an Aristotelian spirit that is discussed in Nichomachean Ethics.11 Until relatively recent times, this Arabic-Islamic philosophical tradition on the quest of happiness remained, to a large extent in its classical form, in circulation,12 thus inviting modern scholarship to examine its origins, developments and characteristic features. This paper studies the contribution of Abū ʿAlī Miskawayh (d. 421/1030)13 on the theme of saʿāda, particularly in one of his earliest philosophical writings, titled Tartīb al-saʿādāt wa-manāzil al-ʿulūm (The Order of Happiness and the Classification of Sciences), or simply, Kitāb al-Saʿāda (The Book of Happiness).14 It begins by presenting Miskawayh’s views on the theme of happiness with particular focus on the ultimate happiness (al-saʿāda al-quṣwa) to which he devotes a relatively large part of his work.15 Next, it proposes a recontextualization of this 7  Daiber 2012b. 8  See Adamson 2015. Cf. Rosenthal 1971. 9  See Fakhry 1991: 79–85, 119–124, 133–134,

201–204; Daiber 2012b; Michel 2019; Endress 2006; Arkoun 1970: 284–285; Ansari 1964; Rosenthal 1971; Mattila 2011; Schulze 2011; Jabbali 2017. 10  Hodgson’s suggestion of the usage of the term “Islamicate” is explained, for instance, in his The Venture of Islam (1977: 57–60), yet it remains a point of debate among modern scholars of Islam. However, particularly in what relates to philosophy, the present research takes recourse to this notion to denote the various religious and cultural backgrounds of the participants of scholarly discourses in Arab-Islamic civilization; see Hodgson 1977: 434. 11  Fakhry 2002: 92–93; Fakhry 1991: 80–82; Daiber 2012b; cf. Adamson 2016: 67; Adamson 2015; Endress 2006: 36–43; Günther 2010: 19–20. 12  For example, al-Narāqī 1428/2007. 13  On Miskawayh’s life and work, see the introduction to this volume. 14  On this work by Miskawayh and its various titles, see Arkoun 1970: 107–108; Gutas 1983: 231–232; Marcotte 2012: 146–147. All of these studies touch upon the fact that this book on happiness was mentioned by Miskawayh in his Opus Magnum Tahdhīb al-Akhlāq. Marcotte discusses the relevant passages in al-Tahdhīb at some length. Cf. Endress 2012: 211, 213–214. Arkoun (1970: 107) suggests that the book was compiled sometime between 358/969 and 360/970. Cf. Marcotte 2012: 146. 15  The notion of saʿāda as conceived by Miskawayh in his various extant works, not only in

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short epistle by Miskawayh as part of a larger tradition of philosophical writings concerned with the theme of happiness in Arabic-Islamic culture. This entails revealing certain textual borrowings, along with thought sharing, parallelism, and plausible influences on K. al-Saʿāda from contemporary sources, as well as pointing out particularities that pertain to Miskawayh’s own views.16 It is hoped that this contribution adds insights on the emerging interest in Islamic studies of the concepts of happiness in Islamic contexts generally, and, more specifically, on Miskawayh’s respective interaction with his intellectual milieu, his ability to grasp the ideas and thoughts flourishing in the academic life of his time, and the ways in which he handled the exposition of philosophical themes in his own works.17

1. Miskawayh’s Kitāb al-Saʿāda Miskawayh explains, in the introduction to his K. al-Saʿāda,18 that he was approached by a certain ustādh (“master”)  – later identified as the Buyid vizier Ibn al-ʿAmīd (d. 360/970)19 – requesting advice from him on the different kinds of happiness that correspond to the different ranks of human beings (aṣnāfu saʿādāti l-nāsi ʿalā marātibihim). The inquirer, in fact, was asking Miskawayh about the highest degree of happiness (aʿlāhā; aqṣāhā), so that he could embark on the long quest for it without being distracted or misled by struggling for lower degrees or less rewarding pursuits. The author’s introduction to his work is marked by a series of questions that then determine the respective discussion; the one here examined, has been scrutinized by many scholars. It is possible, however, to distinguish between “two lines” of research in this regard: the first deals with the concept of saʿāda in all of Miskawayh’s philosophical writings, but arguably with more emphasis on Tahdhīb alakhlāq as is the case in Arkoun 1970: 284–315; Fakhry 1991: 19–124; Ansari 1963; Muhājirniyā 2004: 138–149; Khairy 1972: 47, 50–53, 56–59, 61–63; Bucar 2018: 211–213; Michel 2019. The second focuses largely on his Tartīb al-saʿādat; such as Jumʿa 2012: 308–309 (summarizing K. alSaʿāda); Marcotte 2012; Gutas 1983 and the present contribution. 16  On the reception of Miskawayh’s general ethical views, see Miskawayh al-Tahdhīb/The Refinement (trans. Zurayk 1968): preface (xvii–xviii); Fakhry 1991: 131–134, 143–144; Adamson 2016: 96–97; El Jamouhi 2020. The particular reception of K. al-Saʿāda among later thinkers and philosophers is still a desideratum. 17  Examples of previous studies taking this course of thought include Ansari 1964; Fakhry 1975; Gutas 1983 (adopting the most elaborate source-critical approach to K. al-Saʿāda; cf. Perkams 2019); Walzer 1962. 18  A summarizing study on this specific book of Miskawayh can be consulted in Marcotte 2012, especially at 150–152. The version of K. al-Saʿāda used here is the 1928 print that is, although somewhat defective, the most widely circulated and cited version. Upon finishing this paper, the recent, and less accessible, edition of the book by Abū l-Qāsim Emāmī was available to me, but only in fragments. 19  Arkoun 1970: 107.



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for example:20 What is happiness? How is happiness attained? Does it happen to someone coincidentally? Or does it require a special effort? Is it of one degree or of more? Is the average lifespan of a human being sufficient to attain happiness or not?21 Miskawayh’s entire work is composed of two parts: the first deals with the notion of happiness and its different degrees, thus answering many of the abovementioned questions by taking recourse to a philosophical and ethical discourse; the second provides a classification of the constituents of wisdom (tartīb al-ḥikma). The direct implication of combining the two subjects in one compilation is that the ultimate and the greatest happiness is attained through wisdom;22 that is, through an intellectual and practical endeavor. Being of gradual ranks, a thorough classification of wisdom (in its theoretical part) must be presented. Miskawayh’s inquirer – and thus the reader of this text – is not only provided with an answer about the nature of the ultimate happiness, but with a curriculum that helps in achieving this goal as well. This twofold partition of the subject is, to start with, reminiscent of other Arabic philosophical writings on the theme of saʿāda, especially an epistle of al-Fārābī’s titled Risālat al-tanbīh ʿalā sabīl alsaʿāda (The Direction to the Attainment of Happiness).23 But before turning to this relation between Miskawayh’s account and that of al-Fārābī, it is worthwhile to delineate briefly the guidelines of happiness according to Miskawayh’s short contribution. 1.1.  The Order of Happiness In a teleological spirit, Miskawayh remarks that every being is destined for a special form of perfection that represents the ultimate purpose of its very existence (li-kulli mawjūdin kamālan yakhtaṣṣu bihi wa-ghāyatan wujida lahā).24 In 20 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 31–32. 21  In view of other philosophical works on saʿādā, this specific, “didactic” aspect of the epis-

tle, exemplified in the series of questions that are followed by answers throughout the discussion, seems to be unique to Miskawayh in his time. This question-answer laying out of the issue serves, it can be said, as a logical model that dissects the major question into all its components and aspects in an attempt to cover them comprehensively. See Daiber 2012a for a general discussion on writings adopting the pattern of questions and answers in Arabic and Islamic culture. 22  See more below. From the very beginning of the epistle, wisdom is linked to “great happiness” (al-saʿāda al-ʿaẓīma); Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 32. Wakelnig (2009: 105–115) studies a similar text attributed to Miskawayh (related to his al-Fawz al-aṣghar [The Minor Triumph]) where a discussion of happiness is linked also to a classification of sciences. See also Wakelnig’s contribution to this volume. 23  Another similar work by al-Fārābī is Taḥṣīl al-saʿāda (Attainment of Happiness), see Fakhry 2002: 92–93. Fakhry (2004: 114–115) speaks also of this “union of speculative [theoretical] and practical philosophy as being necessary for man’s happiness” in al-Fārābī’s thought and singles out its relevance to subsequent philosophical Arabic and Islamic thought. 24 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 34; cf. Marcotte 2012: 150–151; Ansari 1963: 320.

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what concerns the human beings, the most noble beings of the universe (ashrafu l-mawjūdāt fī hādhā l-ʿālam al-kawnī), the philosophers (al-ḥukamāʾ) remarked that they are more entitled to seek the ultimate perfection; that is, the distant but greatest happiness (al-kamāl al-baʿīd; al-saʿāda al-quṣwā).25 Thus it is appropriate, according to Miskawayh, to delineate various levels of happiness that correspond to the various ends which the human being may reach in life, starting from the most common and general form of happiness and reaching the final end and the greatest perfection (al-gharaḍ al-akhīr wa-l-kamāl al-aqṣā).26 Miskawayh provides the following scale of the different forms and levels of happiness:27 1. Common happiness of all living beings (mā kāna minhā ʿāmman li-l-insān wa-l-bahāʾim); 2. General happiness common to all human beings (mā kāna … khāṣṣan bi-linsān; ʿāmm li-jamīʿ al-nās). 3. Specific happiness for each individual human being (mā huwa khāṣṣ bi-insān insān). 4. Ultimate happiness to which all other forms of happiness aspire; a form of happiness that is exclusive to the elite (mā huwa khāṣṣ l-khāṣṣ). Miskawayh then elaborates on each level of these levels of happiness accordingly. 1.2.  Common Happiness First there is the common happiness attainable by humans and all other living beings alike (al-amr al-ʿāmm li-jamīʿ al-nās wa-li jamīʿ al-ḥayawān); that is, the one that humans share with animals, which includes such aspects as looking for food, drink, and sexual intercourse. The fulfillment of these corporeal and living requirements falls under the broad notion of “pleasure” (wa-hādhā huwa l-ladhī yusammīhi l-nās bi-l-ladhīdh); Miskawayh here, as in later works,28 categorically rejects the idea that this could be the ultimate happiness sought by the human being.29

25 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 36–37. 26 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 38. 27 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 36. 28  Fakhry 1991: 120–121. 29 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 36–37; Ansari 1963: 322. Marcotte (2012) does not count this type

among types of happiness that she discusses perhaps because Miskawayh, himself, says that this is not a happiness (laysa bi-saʿādatin). Nevertheless, his account seems to be rejecting some proposed opinions on happiness. Moreover, the present overview tries to reflect the content of K. al-Saʿāda as it is presented by its author.



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1.3.  General Human Happiness Then Miskawayh speaks of the general happiness that is common to all human beings in their ability to attend to the requirements of their humanity (al-saʿāda al-ʿāmma li-l-insān min ḥaythu hum nās [sic.];30 man qua man).31 According to the philosophers, this happiness consists in behaving according to reason, discernment and what is stipulated by the intellect as the right thing to be done (ṣudūru l-afʿāli bi-ḥasabi al-rawiyya wa-l-tamyīz wa-ʿalā mā yuqṣiṭuhu l-ʿaql).32 Although accessible to each one of them (mawjūdatun li-kulli insān), this form of happiness is not attained by all human beings on the same level; nevertheless, each one of them attains the happiness that matches his or her human abilities (bi-qadari rutbatihi). This fact, in turn, allows for considering that one human being might be more “human” than another (wa-huwa alladhī yuqālu fīhi fulānun aktharu insāniyyatan min fulān), for some humans discern the good and the evil (al-ḥasan wa-l-qabīh) better than others. Miskawayh remarks that this happiness has been provided to human beings in their natural disposition and primordial character (wa-hādhā l-maʿnā mawhūbun li-l-nāsi ʿāmmatan bi-lfiṭra wa-l-jibbillati l-ūlā). But they differ in how much they profit from it, hence some of them become more happy than others (wa-yatafāḍalūna bi-ḥasabi istiʿmālihim iyyāhā).33 This form of happiness, particularly the ability to act according to reason, seems to be – in Miskawayh’s scheme – the basis from which a human being can start the active and thorough quest for the ultimate happiness (wa-hādhihi awwalu darajatin yanbaghī ʾan tulḥaẓa wa-yasʿā lahā wa-yajtahida fī taḥṣīlihā) that leads to improving the humanity of the human being (yaṣīru bihādhihi akhtara insāniyyatan).34 1.4.  Specific Human Happiness There is, third, a more restricted form of happiness that is specific to each individual human being (al-saʿāda al-khāṣṣa bi-ḥasabi insānin insan).35 It is a happiness that is special to every person in accordance with his field of specialization in (noble) theoretical and/or practical arts that he or she36 masters (yakhtaṣṣu 30  In the edition of Abū l-Qāsim Emāmī (Miskawayh, al-Tartīb: 106) the text correctly reads: “al-saʿāda al-ʿāmma li-l-nās min ḥaythu hum nās”. 31 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 37. Cf. Marcotte 2012: 152; Ansari 1963: 323. 32 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 37. Cf. Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 34–35. 33 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 37. 34 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 44. 35 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 37–38. Cf. Marcotte 2012: 152–153. The account provided here is more elaborate than what is summarized by Marcotte. 36  This is not an attempt to impose a gender-sensitive language on a classical text; throughout K. al-Saʿāda, Miskawayh is concerned with the notion of a “human being” (insān) in general, not a “man” (rajul) for instance, although often masculine constructions and adjectives are used.

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bihā ṣāḥibu ʿilmin aw ṣināʿatin fāḍila). Again, this is not attainable according to common degrees, but rather according to each one’s level in these arts and with respect to his or her status (yatafāwatūna fīhā ʿalā qadari marātibihim fi l-ʿulūmi wa-l-ṣināʿāti wa-bi-hāsabi l-aḥwāl). Statuses may differ from one person to another, but this plays almost no role in detecting the person’s degree with regard to this specific happiness, because it is acting in accordance with the stipulation of sound reason and discernment (mā yūjibuhu l-raʾyu wa-l-tamyīz) that judges this or that action as being higher or lower than another. For instance, the happiness of the poor and the happiness of the rich, although the two kinds of individuals live in different statuses, are congruent in the way their respective actions are judged (muttafīqāni fī tartībi l-afʿāl): a) The happiness of the rich is manifested in the ability to spend money where it has to be spent, just as b) the happiness of the poor is manifested in the quality of having patience and endurance in appropriate circumstances. Notwithstanding these aspects, persons practicing different arts, such as physicians, scribes and philosophers, have different levels and forms of happiness according to the subjects of their arts and sciences. However, it is important to know, Miskawayh warns us, that this specific happiness occurs only when the general kind of happiness (al-saʿāda al-ʿāmmā mentioned above) is also attended to. Each person, according to his or her profession, practices a special kind of actions that are related to this person’s specific specialization (li-kulli wāḥidin … afʿālun takhuṣṣuhu min ḥaythu huwa ṣāḥibu ʿilmin aw ṣināʿatin mā): A physician for instance may perform a good action in his capacity as a physician (bi-mā huwa ṭabīb), but may behave otherwise (i. e., in a faulty way) as a human being (bi-mā huwa inṣān). Therefore, the specific happiness that may occur from his good (or “happy”) action as a physician is annulled (yabṭulu) by the bad (“unhappy”) action performed as a common human being.37 Since forms of human happiness may differ from one person to another, Miskawayh finds it necessary at this point to bring to the attention of the reader that this plurality of happiness does not entail that the ultimate happiness is also of multiple form. Indeed, human beings may attain different forms of happiness. This also will help them to avoid being in a standing misery; Miskawayh, alluding to his notion of the ultimate happiness, writes:

ّ ً ‫السعيد في الحقيقة‬ ُ َّ ‫ وهو َمن‬،‫واحدا من الناس‬ ّ ‫أن‬ ‫حصل‬ ‫ لكان‬،‫السعادات كثيرة وعلى ضروب‬ ‫ولوال‬ َّ َ ُّ ّ ‫ لكان‬،‫ ولو كان ذلك كذلك‬.‫جميع أجزاء الفلسفة وفهم [جميع] الصنائع َوت َوف َـر حظه من الحكمة كلها‬ َ َ ً .‫ ول َح َصلوا أشقياء‬،‫ ال غاية لهم وال كمال‬،‫سائر الناس عبثا‬ ِ ‫وجود‬ 37 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 37–39.



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If happiness was not numerous and of multiple forms, the happy person would, in reality, be of one kind among the people. It is the one who acquires [knowledge of ] all parts of philosophy, understands all forms of the arts, and assures his abundant share of the totality of wisdom. If this were the case, the existence of all other human beings would be unavailing, for no purpose, and without [the disposition of attaining] perfection (kamāl), and they would live in misery.38

But since this result, i. e., that the happy person is unique, cannot be sustained, as has been maintained through reason and mentioned by the people of knowledge, it must be that forms of happiness are multiple (kathīra). Though noble in character and useful in product, none of these “many forms of happiness” result in ultimate happiness, as Miskawayh suggests in his account (ḥādhihi l-saʿādāt laysa shayʾun minhā huwa al-kamāl wa-lā l-ghāya). In fact, the forms of happiness of this “specific” level are subdivided into two major parts:39 a. Non-ordered forms of happiness (al-mawḍūʿa ʿaraḍan); for instance, happiness generating from non-ordered arts that exist side by side without a prescribed hierarchical arrangement. Hence, one needs no order to move from one to the other, such as the case of trade, commerce, carpentry work, and tailoring. b. Ordered forms of happiness (al-mawḍūʿa ʿumqan); for instance, happiness generating from ordered arts where moving from one specialization to another requires the fulfillment of perquisite skills and qualities within a preorganized arrangement. Each skill or art is under (marʾūsa) another one in a hierarchical scheme, and one leads to the next until an ultimate art is reached. Miskawayh gives here the example of saddle making (ṣināʿat al-surūj), which is under equestrian arts ( furūsiyya), which, in turn, is under the art of warfare (ḥarb), which is under kingship (mulk), which, ultimately, is under the general art of governance and law keeping (al-sharʿ). As far as Miskawayh’s account on this point is concerned, it is possible to think of these two groups in terms of discontinuity and continuity. The forms of happiness generating from the first group are discrete in nature, where pursuing an art starts from a certain point and ends at a different form of happiness (alakhdhu ilayhā min-mabādin mukhtalifa wa-tantahī ilā ghāyatin mutabāyina). In the second group, however, an “itinerary of happiness” is anticipated where the lower art is “serving the higher” (khādimun li-mā huwa aʿlā).40 Miskawayh seems to be less interested in the first group, whereas the second seems to be approaching the notion of the ultimate happiness that forms the target of his book. For instance, he remarks that wealth (māl) is required for the ful38 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 39. 39 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 39–40.

In this section, Miskawayh’s examples are derived from the realm of arts (ṣināʿāt) or specializations. 40 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 39–40.

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filment of one’s needs (ḥājāt), which is pursued to keep the human body healthy (yurādu li-ṣiḥḥati l-badan); but a healthy status is only required for the attainment of ultimate happiness or the forms of happiness that are beneath it (li-tublagha bihā l-saʿāda al-akhīra aw al-saʿādāt allatī dūnahā).41 At this point, Miskawayh turns to a discussion of how forms of happiness could be ordered under one another until ultimate happiness is attained. Drawing on an Aristotelian division, Miskawayh states that three forms of happiness can be discerned:42 a. The happiness of the soul (saʿādat al-nafs): the one leading to ultimate happiness for Aristotle  – and hence for Miskawayh  – and which is achieved through the acquisition of knowledge and sciences (discussed below). In this division, this form of happiness is the complete and perfect happiness (kāmila tāmma). It is the best form of happiness since it is the one that is pursued for itself and not for other ends (wa-hiya afḍaluhā li-annahā turādu lidhātihā lā li-shayʾin ākhar). b. The happiness of the body (saʿādat al-badan) attained by meeting corporal needs such as handsomeness (jamāl) and maintaining good health. c. The happiness outside the body or around it (saʿāda khārij al-badan wa-fī mā yuṭīfu bi-l-badan) derived from having friends, children or wealth and power. 1.5.  Ultimate Happiness and the Classification of Knowledge This “hierarchy of happiness” leads into the discussion of the last and ultimate form of happiness in Miskawayh’s account.43 As alluded to in the previous discussions, Miskawayh identifies this happiness as residing in the soul, not in the human body or around it, and then remarks that the attainment of ultimate happiness requires both the intention (al-ikhtiyār) of and the effort in seeking it (alsaʿī, al-ijtihād).44 41 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 39–40. 42 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 40–42. Cf. Marcotte 2012: 153. 43  The discussion of the ultimate happiness in Miskawayh’s

K. al-Saʿāda (41–49) is somehow redundant and muddled by repetitions and unclear organization. But it can be said that the ultimate happiness is approached in Miskawayh’s work from the different perspectives that he discusses. For instance, when the non-ordered and ordered forms of happiness (Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 39–40) are considered, the ultimate happiness pertains to the second group where one form leads to another higher form of happiness until the ultimate is reached (Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 41–42., 44). When the Aristotelian tripartite scheme is considered, the ultimate happiness finds its place in the soul where acquisition of knowledge and science flourishes (Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 41–42; cf. Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 46). Of course, the two perspectives can be, theoretically, combined, but that is not what Miskawayh does in the text. In all cases, Miskawayh’s text is clear in that it is particularly the gradual development of one’s ability to take recourse to reason and discernment (al-tamyīz wa-l-rawiyya) which guarantees the ultimate happiness (Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 35–37, 39–42, 44–46). 44 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 41, 44–45. The text of the edition used here states that the other



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269

It necessitates a long term of speculation, an abundant amount of discernment and a status of steady and continuous habitude (naẓarun tawīlun wa-tamyīzun kathīrun wa-ʿtiyādun dāʾim). For that reason, it is not attainable by every person, and only few can enjoy it after moving up through its gradual ranks (al-taraqqī fīhā darajatan daraja).45 Miskawayh dwells relatively long on the discussion of this ultimate happiness. A remarkable feature of his account is that this happiness is rendered – by calling upon an Aristotelian tradition – into a special art or specialized expertise that can be learned and acquired step by step (ṣināʿatun tutaʿallamu wa-tustafādu awwalan bi-awwal).46 It is the second part of the book that introduces these suggested steps towards ultimate happiness.47 Once attained, Miskawayh provides an account on the status of the “happy person:”

forms of happiness might occur “through search” (bi-l-baḥth), whereas Abū l-Qāsim Emāmī’s edition (Miskawayh, al-Tartīb: 110, 113) reads “by luck” (bi-l-bakht). The second reading fits the context better. 45 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 41. Cf. Marcotte 2012: 153–154. Marcotte elaborates then on this ultimate happiness from the accounts of Miskawayh in his Tahdhīb al-akhlāq. 46 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 42. This establishes the link between the two parts of Miskawayh’s book (the exhibition of forms of happiness and the classification of knowledge). The book advances gradually from detecting the appropriate perfection (kamāl) of the human being to the different forms of happiness, and then to ultimate happiness that is attained by a special curriculum. As will be discussed below, this is also the main line of thought in al-Fārābī’s Risālat altanbīh ʿalā sabīl al-saʿāda. Gutas 1983: 232 says in this regard that the work of Miskawayh “falls naturally into two parts” (emphasis added), but does not explain why it is “natural” to be so. He also locates the connection between the two parts just before the beginning of the classification of knowledge in Miskawayh’s K. al-Saʿāda (48–49), which simply states that the ultimate happiness is sought through the pursuit of theoretical and practical wisdom. Cf. Miskawayh, alSaʿāda: 47–48 for a similar reflection. However, I find the remark of Miskawayh that happiness is rendered by Aristotle into an art or expertise (ṣināʿa) to be the actual reason why an outline of the order of happiness entails “naturally” the description of a suggested curriculum, in the work of both al-Fārābī and Miskawayh. In Miskawayh’s work, the abovementioned passage is followed by a remark by the author that this art will be discussed once the current topic (i. e., the ultimate happiness) was completely dealt with (wa-sa-nadhkuru hādhiha al-ṣināʿa … idhā tammamnā hādhā l-faṣl). Arguably, this is an indication pointing to the second part. Marcotte, Ibn Miskawayh’s Tartīb (149) remarks in this regard that “the first part of the work [is] distinct from, although not unrelated to, the second part,” without, however, elaborating on this topic. 47  Combining the discussion of happiness with a classification of sciences now seems to be a dead tradition. It is worthwhile, however, to ponder the case of Ṭashköprüzāde (Ṭāshkubrīzāda; d. 968/1561) and his Miftāḥ al-saʿāda wa-miṣbāḥ al-siyāda fī-mawḍūʿāt al-ʿulūm (The Key to Happiness and the Lamp of Supremacy in the Classification of Sciences). In his introduction to al-Miftāh (i, 67) Ṭashköprüzāde once again emphasized the idea that happiness is only attained through combining knowledge and practice (iʿlam anna al-kulla mutafiqūn ʿalā anna alsaʿāda al-abadiyya wa-l-siyāda al-sarmadiyya lā tatimu illā bi-l-ʿilm wa-l-ʿamal). Though not fully identical with Miskawayh’s approach, what follows in Miftāḥ al-saʿāda is an extended discussion of the various aspects of knowledge; a remarkable difference here is that the discussion of these arrangements excludes any other philosophical treatment of the question of saʿāda, as if the two parts studied in conjunction by Miskawayh had become separate.

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ً ‫َ أ‬ َ ً ‫يوج َد‬ َ ‫قوي الرجاء‬ َ ‫وصل إلى هذه المنزلة أن‬ َّ ‫المل‬ َ ‫ثابت الجأش‬ ‫غير‬ ‫أبدا نشيطا فسيح‬ ‫ِومن عالمة َمن‬ ًّ َ َ ّ ‫مضطرب وال ُمكت ِر ٍث‬ ‫ وهذه‬.‫يسير جدا … ثم هو ج ِذل مسرور بنفسه ال بغيرها‬ ٍ ٍ ‫ إال بمقدار‬،‫بأمور ّالدنيا‬ ‫أ‬ ‫أ‬ ّ َ َ ّ ‫الحالة الزمة له ال‬ ،‫ لن سرور الناس [الذي] يوجد لهم على ال كثر إنما هو بالع َرض ِومن خارج‬،‫تتغير‬ ً َ َ َ َ ً َ ‫حاله‬ َّ ‫زال المسرور به أو‬ ‫تغير‬ ‫ومتى‬ ‫مغت ِبط بذاته‬ ‫صار ذلك كآبة وحزنا … والسعيد الذي وصفناه وذكرنا‬ ِ ً ‫تتغير وال تستحيل‬ ً ‫أل ّنه يشاهد‬ ّ ‫أمورا ال‬ .‫أبدا‬ Among the signs of the one who attained this rank [i. e., the ultimate happiness] is that he is always found in a state of liveliness, possessing a bright hope and strong anticipation, showing a calm and composed heart. He is not interested in worldly matters save a little …. He is happy and content with himself not with anything else. This status is permanent and unchangeable, because laymen’s contentment is in most cases contingent and occurring from outside themselves; when the source of contentment is removed, their status transforms into misery …. The happy one we described and mentioned is pleased with himself because he witnesses matters that do not change or transform.48

As a form of human happiness, as Miskawayh emphasizes, ultimate happiness resides in the human capability of discerning the good from the evil. Nevertheless, this capability needs to be practiced until it becomes a natural disposition (sajiyya). This is the first level that should be attained and secured through pursuit and efforts since it enhances one’s share of human qualities (yaṣīru bihādhihi akthara insāniyyatan). A  good rational discernment (al-tamyīz bi-ldhihn), Miskawayh adds, is only one status of the human statuses (aḥwāl) that are subject to a judgement of praise or dispraise (madḥun wa-dhamm). To this should be added human actions (al-afʿāl) and soul contingencies (ʿawāriḍ alnafs), such as desires, wrath, and pleasure. To ascend in the levels of happiness, humans should observe that one’s actions are deemed good if one’s soul contingencies are appropriate and one’s discernment is sound and correct (an takūna afʿālunā jamīlatan wa-ʿawāriḍunā ʿalā mā yanbaghī wa-tamyīzunā jayyidan ṣaḥīḥan). The power of the mind (quwwatu l-dhihn) is associated with good discernment, and decent character traits (khuluq) with the appropriate conduct of contingencies, whereas the upright actions (al-afʿāl) emerge from these two together.49 Here again, Miskawayh takes recourse to an Aristotelian scheme to explain how each one of the abovementioned statuses can be acquired.50 Aristotle, Miskawayh maintains, suggested the study of logic (manṭiq) as a means to improve one’s discernment, and ethics (akhlāq) as a means to acquire a decent character. These two components are, Miskawayh continues, the two parts of wisdom 48 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 42–43. Cf. 61 where the happy person is said “to depart from his

physical body (badan) to another existence (al-wujūd al-thānī) that is the final end and the ultimate perfection.” Cf. Marcotte (2012: 154) on the happy person. Fakhry (1975: 54–55.) speaking of a “mystical language” employed by Miskawayh here. 49 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 44–46. 50 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 46. Cf. Fakhry 1975: 56.



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(juzʾā l-ḥikma). It follows, then, that philosophy is divided into two parts: the theoretical and the practical, corresponding to discernment and ethical conduct. The perfect happiness stems from the mastery of the two parts.51 Miskawayh concludes:

َ َ ّ ّ ّ ‫ فحصلت له حقائق‬،‫وصح تمييزه‬ ‫تبي َن أن الحكيم السعيد الكامل السعادة فهو َمن ق ِو َي ذهنه‬ ‫فقد‬ َ ‫أ‬ ً ّ َ ‫المور في الموجودات كلها‬ َ ‫وقويت عز يمته في إنفاذ ما‬ ‫ أعني‬،‫ ّثم دامت طر يقته في هذين‬.‫علم ُه عمل‬ ّ ّ ّ ً َ َّ ّ ‫أن جزء النظر ُم َّقد ٌم على جزء العمل إذ كان بجودة التمييز‬ َ ‫وقوة‬ ‫ وتبين أيضا مما تقدم‬.‫العلم والعمل‬ ِ َ ُ ُ ّ .‫التمييز يدرك الصواب في كل ما يقصد معرفته‬ It has been made clear that the happy sage possessing the perfect happiness is the one whose reason is strong, and whose discernment is correct. He acquired the realities of all beings, and he is intended firmly to employ his knowledge in practice (infādhu mā ʿalimahu ʿamalan). Then, he persists in accomplishing these two tracks, i. e., knowledge and action (al-ʿilm wa-l-ʿamal). It has been also made clear that the theoretical part (juzʾ alnaẓar) takes precedence over the practical part (juzʾ al-ʿamal), since it is through good and strong discernment that one comes to know the right in everything one intends to know.52

The theoretical part of wisdom is intended for acquisition of the realities of things (ḥaqāʾiq al-umūr), whereas through the practical part of wisdom, good deeds (maḥāsin al-afʿāl) are performed. The arrangement of these two parts is presented by Miskawayh following an Aristotelian classification of sciences that is evident in a text attributed to the 6th-century Christian theologian, philosopher and Aristotle commentator, Paul the Persian, which had been dedicated to Anūshirwān (Khosrow, r. 531–578 CE).53 The different parts of the Aristotelian corpus are then discussed in K. al-Saʿāda;54 a relatively long dissection of the different parts of the science of logic is dealt with first, and then sciences of the theoretical part of philosophy are presented, namely physics (al-ṭabīʿiyyāt), and metaphysics (mā baʿda l-ṭabīʿa). Practical philosophy is briefly mentioned towards the end, along with other works of Aristotle.55 The search for the ultimate happiness – or, as has been proven, acquiring philosophy in its two parts – requires a period of ten to twenty years with the condition that the person follow a 51 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 46. Cf. Marcotte 2012: 156–159; Ansari 1963: 325–326. 52 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 47–48. Cf. Ansari 1963: 330–331. Marcotte 2012: 158 for

another translation of the passage. 53 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 49. Cf. Gutas 1983: 222–223. For Paul the Persian see Gutas 1983: 238–241 and Elvira Wakelnig’s contribution to this volume; Arkoun 1970: 227–228. Pines 1971: 123–124. Gutas’s findings have been followed up by Perkams (2019) with an examination on Paul’s possible sources. See also Wakelnig 2009: 105–115 for another text attributed to Miskawayh and containing a similar, but abridged, account on happiness and the classification of sciences. 54  A detailed summary of this section of the book is provided in Gutas 1983: 233–236, 263. Cf. Perkams 2019: 133. 55  See Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 51–59 respectively.

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condensed curriculum, have a qualified instructor, and be shielded from worldly distractions.56 Nevertheless, this classification is summarized again at the end of the text of the K. al-Saʿāda and in an abridged, and slightly different, version of the philosophical curriculum is provided:

َّ ‫أ‬ ّ ّ ‫المتعل ُم] لها بكتب الخالق لتتهذ َب‬ [ ‫ومدرسي كتبه أن يبتدئ‬ ‫وقد رأى بعض أصحاب أرسطو‬ ِ َ ََ ّ … ‫نفسه وتصفو من كد ِر الشهوات … ثم ينظر في شيء من التعاليم ليعرف طر يق البرهان‬ ّ ‫الطبيعيات وما بعدها على‬ ‫ ّثم ينظر في‬.‫ّثم ينظر في المنطق الذي هو آلة في جميع ما يقصد‬ ّ ‫الترتيب الذي‬ .‫تقدم‬ Some companions of Aristotle and teachers of his books were of the opinion that the disciple of philosophy starts first with the books of ethics, in order for his soul to be refined and purified from the distractions of desires. … Then, he must study parts of mathematical sciences (al-taʿālīm) in order to learn sound syllogism (ṭarīq al-burhān). … He moves after that to logic (manṭiq) which is a useful tool in all what he intends to learn. Then, he starts with physics and metaphysics, as revealed in the previous discussion.57

Although theoretical wisdom is deemed to have precedence over practical philosophy, this curriculum suggests starting with ethics (akhlāq), not with logic, for instance. As is revealed in the text, acquiring good manners through ethics helps the disciple to refine his character and purify his soul, in order to rid himself of desires and their implications. In this way, the learner is in a more favored position to acquire wisdom (tatamakkana min qabūl al-ḥikma); thus the soul, knowing that many bodily desires are indeed despicable, transcends worldly restrictions through ethical learning. Miskawayh reports, on the authority of Paul the Persian, some suggestions on philosophical curricula; what stands out, however, in the above-quoted arrangement of learning in the K. al-Saʿāda is that it reflects Miskawayh’s own form of engagement with philosophy. It is beyond dispute that in his philosophical writing, he dwelled on “ethics”58 significantly more than he did on other philosophical topics in his other works.59 One might 56 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 59–60. 57 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 60. This

edition of the text has al-muʿallim (teacher) but the context fits al-mutaʿallim (the disciple). Emāmī’s edition (Miskawayh, al-Tartīb: 126) has also mutaʿallim. 58  See for example Fakhry 1991: 107–108; Bucar 2018: 206–208. 59  That Miskawayh was “incompetent” in philosophy is an accusation that Abū Ḥayyān alTawḥīdī (d. 414/1023), Miskawayh’s friend and contemporary writer, uttered. The famous account of Abū Ḥayyān goes on to describe Miskawayh as “a poor among the rich and incapable among the most eloquent” ( faqīrun bayna aghniyāʾ wa-ʿayiyyun bayna abyināʾ ). There he mentions that he had given Miskawayh a commentary on Aristotle’s Isagoge – a preliminary to logic; apparently assuming that he has just started the philosophical curriculum – written by a certain disciple of Abū l-Ḥasan al-ʿĀmirī (d. 381/992) whom Miskawayh never learned anything from. Al-Tawḥīdī’s account adds that Miskawayh is now feeling sorry (muḥissun li-l-ḥasra) for the time he spent on other concerns, namely his fascination with alchemy. See the references and



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argue, therefore, that Miskawayh’s own writings later reflect his commitment to this particular curriculum, thus devoting much of his remarkable compilations to practical wisdom. From this perspective, the K. al-Saʿāda not only addresses the Buyid vizier at whose request it was compiled; it mirrors Miskawayh’s own aspiration and quest for ultimate human happiness.

2.  Between al-Fārābī and Miskawayh: The K. al-Saʿāda in Context The question of the sources that Miskawayh relied on in the K. al-Saʿāda, as well as in his other works, is still a matter of discussion in modern scholarship.60 The most remarkable study that tackles this issue is that of Dimitri Gutas (1983), “Paul the Persian on the Classification of the Parts of Aristotle’s Philosophy.” There, Gutas focuses on the second part of the book (i. e., the classification of sciences) revealing the similarities between Miskawayh’s K. al-Saʿāda and al-Fārābī’s Iḥṣāʾ al-ʿulūm (The Enumeration of the Sciences) in what concerns the study of logic within the Aristotelian Corpus.61 Gutas is more concerned with Paul’s introduction to Aristotle’s works; among his many convincing and documented results is that both al-Fārābī and Miskawayh took recourse to an early Arabic translation of this classification that is connected to the Alexandrian school of philosophy flourishing in the 5th to 6th century CE.62 The present contribution draws upon these insights and attempts to provide a further possible foundation for the suggestion that Miskawayh and al-Fārābī shared important ideas on the question of human happiness. Specifically, it proposes that, in the first part of his K. al-Saʿāda, Miskawayh’s account on happiness is very similar to that of al-Fārābī in his epistle alTanbīh ʿalā sabīl al-saʿāda (The Direction to the Attainment of Happiness). The fact that the K. al-Saʿāda, or other works by Miskawayh, are much indebted to a Greek tradition adapted by philosophers of the Islamicate civilization is not surprising.63 For instance, on his particular theory of happiness, Fakhry remarked that: [T]here are really three strains or layers in Miskawayh’s theory of happiness: (1) A mystical or Plotinian strain expressed in experiential or visionary terms; (2) an intellectualist or Aristotelian, in which happiness is described in line with N. E. X, 7 [Nichomachean Ethics], commentary in Arkoun 1970: 39–41; Endress 2012: 213. Cf. Miskawayh’s remark in Tahdhīb alAkhlāq (42–43) [Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb/The Refinement: 45–46] that might be alluding to the fact that he started the philosophical path at a relatively late period of his life. 60  For example, Arkoun 1970: 142–160. See also the comments of Endress 2012: 213–226 on Miskawayh’s oeuvre, and the bibliography in Endress 2012: 254–259. 61  The classification of sciences in al-Fārābī’s corpus forms the first part in Bakar 1998: 9–147. 62  Gutas 1983: 236–238, 243–243, 251–252 nb. 51, 255. 63  See Arkoun 1970: 253–270, and passim; Ansari 1963: 318, 321–323, 327–329; Walzer 1962; Fakhry 1975; Fakhry 1991: 107–108; Fakhry 2004: 191–196; Endress 2006: 47; Adamson 2016: 100–102; Hayes 2015: 210; Khairy 1972: 51–52.

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as a mode of self-divinization; and (3) a realistic and dualistic strain affiliated to the more mundane aspects of Aristotle’s psychology and ethics and which are probably the farthest removed from Platonism which served as the groundwork of Miskawayh’s ethics.64

Connecting Miskawayh to major currents in Greek philosophy can be arguably qualified as positing a historically remote source of inspiration for his thought, as well as for the generation of Arab-Islamic philosophers he flourished among. The following attempt, however, aims at narrowing the scope and exploring a closer inspiration for Miskawayh’s K. al-Saʿāda, suggesting thus a better contextualization of this work as part of a broader line of cerebration in Arabic-Islamic philosophy. Gutas’s study calls for a further investigation of possible links between al-Fārābī and Miskawayh in the case of K. al-Saʿāda.65 Indeed, beside the “Fārābian” corpus there are other works that could, in future studies, be examined for parallelism or influence on the text by Miskawayh. The impact of Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī (d. 363/974), for instance, is highly relevant in studying Tahdhīb al-akhlāq (The Refinement of Character).66 Abū l-Ḥasan al-ʿĀmirī (d. 381/992) might also offer an intriguing basis for comparison between his own and Miskawayh’s thought, namely in al-ʿĀmirī’s al-Iʿlām bi-manāqib al-Islām (Advising on the Virtues of Islam), where he presents a slightly different classification of knowledge. Also tempting for scrutiny is a work attributed to al-ʿĀmirī and titled al-Saʿāda wa-l-isʿād fī l-sīra al-insāniyya (The Happiness and the Making of Happiness in Human Life) where an extensive discussion of happiness along with features of practical wisdom are presented.67 However, al-Fārābī might be seen as the main precursor of a mode of writing on happiness in Arabic-Islamic philosophy. Two of his epistles feature the term saʿāda (happiness) in their titles; the first, which is the focus of this paper, being Risālat al-tanbīh ʿalā sabīl al-saʿāda, and the second, Risālat taḥṣīl al-saʿāda (The Attainment of Happiness).68 Miskawayh’s K. al-Saʿāda shares common thought and conceptual background with both works; however, Risālat al-tanbīh suggests itself, as it will become clear, as 64  Fakhry 1975: 55–57. Fakhry’s remarks are derived from his study of Miskawayh’s oeuvre in general, K. al-Saʿāda included. Cf. Fakhry 1991: 122–123. 65  Common features between al-Fārābī and Miskawayh are already suggested in Walzer, 1962: 223–226, 233. Cf. Khairy 1972: 51f; al-Jabbali 2017: 81–82 (on Miskawayh’s reception of the notion of “justice” (ʿadl) from al-Fārābī). Cf. Khan 1962. 66  Cf. Marcotte 2012: 142. On Yaḥyā, see Fakhry 2004: 197–207. 67 See al-ʿĀmirī, al-Iʿlām: 83–93, for an enumeration of philosophical sciences. Michel 2019 compares the theme of happiness as addressed in the works of al-Fārābī, Miskawayh and pseudo-ʿĀmirī; as noted there, the attribution to al-Saʿāda wa-l-isʿād to al-ʿĀmirī is questioned in recent studies. See Wakelnig 2006: 35–39. Cf. Attieh 1991. 68  For these works, see Bibliography. On Attainment of Happiness see Fakhry 1991: 80–82. On Fārābī’s concept of happiness see Fakhry 2002: 92–93; al-Jabbali 2017. Cf. Endress 2006: 36–43. Al-Fārābī deals with the concept of happiness in many other works, for instance in his Ārāʾ ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila (The Opinions of the Inhabitants of the Virtuous City). See al-Fārābī, al-Ārāʾ: 85–87.



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the main work according to which Miskawayh’s K. al-Saʿāda was modeled in terms of both text and structure.69 The most obvious agreement between these two works by al-Fārābī and Miskawayh is in the structure of the text, where the discussion of happiness leads to a classification of sciences and parts of philosophy, the latter being identified with the attainment of the ultimate happiness.70 This has resulted, in both works, in a twofold structure where the first discusses the theme of happiness and the second addresses the classification of sciences. Concerning the second part,71 Gutas’s study – although tracking al-Fārābī’s Iḥṣāʾ al-ʿulūm and not Risālat al-tanbīh as such – is still valid in revealing the common ground on which the classification of knowledge72 stands in the works of the two philosophers.73 The present study addresses certain parallel thoughts pertaining to the first part of K. al-Saʿāda (discussion on happiness) and shows similarities with corresponding parts in Risālat al-tanbīh, suggesting a relation between the two works. These shared sections appear before the discussion on the classification of sciences in the K. al-Saʿāda and correspond to comparable sections in Risālat al-tanbīh. The examples examined below might be considered the most important shared thoughts between al-Fārābī and Miskawayh; they are not meant to posit necessarily a direct borrowing from al-Fārābī on the part of Miskawayh. Rather, the intersection between the two texts, lexically and in terms of arrangement, suggests two possibilities: 1. A Farabian influence on Miskawayh, either through al-Fārābī’s circle in Baghdad of which many names appear to be of persons contemporaneous with Miskawayh and in direct contact with him,74 or through al-Fārābī’s works circulating in the intellectual milieu of the Abbasid capital. The extensive exchange between Miskawayh and those members (especially al-Tawḥīdī, Miskawayh’s colleague and friend) speaks for this possibility;75 69  The editor of al-Fārābī’s Risālat al-tanbīh traces, in the third part of his introduction to the book, at 83–122, the reception of this work in later philosophical and ethical treatises by remarkable figures such as Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī, al-ʿĀmirī and al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111); but Miskawayh’s K. al-Saʿāda is not studied there. 70  See n. nb. 46 above. 71  See the classification in each of the two works: al-Fārābī, al-Risāla: 224–237; Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 49–61. 72  A noteworthy example in the second part concerned with the classification of knowledge is the similarity between al-Fārābī’s account of the relation between syntax (naḥw) and logic (manṭiq) in Risālat al-tanbīh 230–231 and the corresponding discussion in Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 51–52. 73  In the introduction to al-Fārābī, al-Iḥṣāʾ: 12–13, the editor maintains that the classification found in detail in al-Iḥṣāʾ is abridged in Risālat al-tanbīh. On the reception of al-Iḥṣāʾ, see al-Fārābī, al-Iḥṣāʾ: 14–23. 74  See the introduction to this volume and Netton 1992: 3, passim. 75  See Arkoun 1970: 39–51, 364–366; Kraemer 1984.

276

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2. A common source used by both al-Fārābī and Miskawayh. However, this idea lacks textual evidence since, as far as the sources are concerned, no specific philosophical work – beside a general Greek inspiration, particularly in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics – could be considered the origin of discussions on happiness in both works. Turning now to the texts of the Risālat al-tanbīh and the K. al-Saʿāda, the following considerations can be presented. 2.1.  Pursuing the Ultimate Happiness for Its Own Sake In an Aristotelian spirit,76 both al-Fārābī and Miskawayh stress the point that ultimate happiness ought to be sought for its own sake and independently from any other external factor. In this, one must be fully aware of one’s choice and the efforts one must exert. The “good actions” (al-afʿāl al-jamīla) must be conducted of one’s own free will and because one views them as “good”. al-Fārābī, Risālat al-tanbīh

Miskawayh, K. al-Saʿāda

َ ُ ‫َ أ‬ ّ ‫… ظهر بذلك أن السعادة تؤثر لجل ذاتها وال تؤثر في‬ ‫أ‬ ‫أ‬ .‫وقت من الوقات لجل غيرها‬

ّ ّ ‫وال ُت‬ ‫حصل السعادة إل بأن يختارها لذاتها‬ .‫ال لشيء آخر‬

‫أ‬ ُ ‫والسعادة ليست تنال بالفعال الجميلة متى كانت عن‬ ّ ‫ ولكن أن تكون له وقد‬،]‫النسان بهذه الصفة [باتفاق‬ ‫إ‬ ً .‫فعلها طوعا وباختياره‬

‫أ‬ ّ‫أ‬ ‫وأعني بذلك أن يؤثر الفعال الجميلة لنها‬ .‫جميلة‬

… it has been revealed that happiness is preferred for its own sake, and in no case it is preferred for something else.77

Happiness is not attained through good actions done by a human being [accidently]; these actions must be done voluntarily and by one’s [free] choice.79

Happiness is not attained unless it is chosen for its own sake, not for something else.78

I mean that [the human being] must prefer the good actions because they are good.80

2.2.  Moral Characters (akhlāq) are Acquired (muktasaba) Building on the idea of the human being’s free will, acquiring good character traits does not occur coincidentally. They are acquired mainly through a course of education and cultivation of the soul. Miskawayh adds to this the idea that 76  See n. 4 and 5 above. 77 Al-Fārābī, al-Risāla: 178. 78 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 45. 79 Al-Fārābī, al-Risāla: 183. 80 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 45.



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without this kind of approach, the people will never be able to educate children and the young generation, a concern that he also uttered in his Tahdhīb alakhlāq.81 al-Fārābī, Risālat al-tanbīh

Miskawayh, K. al-Saʿāda

‫أ‬ ّ ‫– هي‬ ‫– الجميل منها والقبيح‬ ‫… الخالق كلها‬ ُ ‫النسان متى لم يكن له خلق حاصل‬ ‫ ويمكن إ‬،‫مكتسبة‬ ً ‫ ومتى صادف‬،‫حصل لنفسه ُخ ًلقا‬ ّ ‫أن ُي‬ ‫أيضا نفسه في‬ ُ ّ ‫ ّإما جميل‬،‫شيء ما على خلق ما‬ ‫ أن ينتقل‬،‫وإما قبيح‬ ُ ‫ضد ٍذلك‬ ّ ‫بإرادته إلى‬ .‫الخلق‬

ّ ّ ُ ‫… وبها يتمكن كل واحد من تحصيل خلق‬ ً ‫ فإذا‬،‫موجودا له‬ ‫لنفسه جميل إذا لم يكن‬ ُ ‫كانت على خ ٍلق قبيح أمكنه بها أن ينتقل‬ ّ … ‫عنه بإرادته إلى ضده‬

All moral characters  – the good and the evil  – are acquired (muktasaba). A  person who does not possess a moral character can acquire it for himself. When it happened that he found himself possessing a certain character, be it good or evil, one is able, through his own will, to move to acquire the opposite of that character (an yantaqila biirādatihi ilā ḍiddi dhālika al-khuluq).82

… through it [i. e., the faculty of discernment], each one is able to acquire (taḥṣīl) for himself a good character if it did not happen to him. If it happened that he possessed a bad character, one is able to move to acquire the opposite of it through his own will (an yantaqila ʿanhu bi-irādatihi ilā ḍiddihi) …83

2.3.  Character Traits (akhlāq) Require Repetition (takrīr) and Habitude (iʿtiyād) The effort required to enjoy a good character is of a repetitive nature. Perseverance is the way to turn one’s morals from being in a condition in which good character traits happen accidentally to a condition in which they become a natural disposition (sajiyya). Both philosophers express this notion in similar way: al-Fārābī, Risālat al-tanbīh

‫النسان الخلق أو ينقل نفسه عن‬ ‫… والذي به يكتسب إ‬ ‫ وأعني باالعتياد تكر ير‬.‫خلق صادفها عليه هو االعتياد‬ ً ً ً ً ‫فعل الشيء الواحد‬ ‫مرارا كثيرة وزمانا طويل في أوقات‬ ّ ّ ،‫ فإن الخلق الجميل إنما يحصل عن االعتياد‬.‫متقار بة‬ ّ .‫وكذلك الخلق القبيح إنما يحصل عن اعتياد‬

Miskawayh, K. al-Saʿāda

ُ ‫… فإذا كانت على خ ٍلق قبيح أمكنه بها‬ ّ ‫أن ينتقل عنه بإرادته إلى‬ ‫ضده ّثم يلزمه‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ‫االعتياد وتكر ير الفعال المالئمة له حتى‬ ّ ‫يصير ذلك‬ ‫ وهذه ّأول درجة ينبغي‬.‫سجية‬ ُ .‫أن تلحظ‬

81 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 46. On educating young children, see: Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 47–55 [al-Tahdhīb/The Refinement: 50–57]; Gamāl al-Dīn 1994; Günther 2016: 80–82. See also Yassir El Jamouhi’s contribution to this volume. 82 Al-Fārābī, al-Risāla: 190. 83 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 44.

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Habitude (iʿtiyād) is what allows human being to move from a status where [good] character is possessed by his soul accidentally; what I mean by habitude is the repetition of the same action many times and over a long period of time and in close intervals. Indeed, the good character occurs through habitude, and the bad character occurs, too, through habitude.84

… if [soul] was found to be possessing a bad character, one is able to move to acquire the opposite of it through his own will. Then, habitude (iʿtiyād) is required as well as the repetition of appropriate actions until this becomes a natural disposition (sajiyya). This is the first rank that should be observed.85

2.4.  The Free (al-ḥurr) and the Enslaved (al-ʿabd) Human Being Knowing that wisdom is what guarantees ultimate happiness, one is required in the K. al-Saʿāda to master both parts of wisdom, the theoretical and the practical. Maintaining an equilibrium of both aspects, where one does not dominate over the other, is the ideal status of the happy, wise person. But Miskawayh remarks that it might, for several reasons, be the case that one’s theoretical capabilities are better than his practical ones, or vice versa.86 Miskawayh adds that if one’s theoretical faculties are weak but his practical conduct is of a firm nature, he might be entitled to a greater happiness than someone for whom the opposite is the case, for the latter is, in fact, “the slave” of his own desires and worldly needs. In this regard, Miskawayh speaks of three levels of “human freedom” that should be observed in the quest for happiness; human beings can fall into any one of these categories:87 1. The truly free man (al-ḥurr bi-l-ṭabʿ; al-ḥurr bi-stiʾhāl in al-Fārābī’s text) is the one whose determination is firm, and who is therefore able to suppress his desires and follow his rational discernment (al-tamyīz; al-rawiyya). In fact, this person is the only one who deserves to be called “free”, even if he is legally the slave of someone else (ʿabdun bi-l-sharʿ); 2. The true enslaved man (al-ʿabd bi-l-ṭabʿ) is the one who is driven by his desires that suppress his knowledge; even if he is legally a free person (ḥurr bil-sharʿ), the reality is that he is a slave of mundane desires. 3. The beast-like man (al-insān al-bahīmī) is the one who is deprived of rational qualifications, unable to overcome the human desires and incapable of acquiring a good character; his weakness in both parts of wisdom (ḍaʿufa fī hādhayn al-wajhayn) is manifest.

84 Al-Fārābī, al-Risāla: 191. 85 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 44. 86 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 46–47. 87 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 47.



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279

These “layers of human freedom” are expressed in both texts in a rather similar way: al-Fārābī, Risālat al-tanbīh

Miskawayh, K. al-Saʿāda

ّ ّ ‫الروية‬ ‫وقوة العز يمة‬ ‫والناس منهم من له جودة‬ ‫ فذلك الذي جرت عادتنا‬،‫على ما أوجبته الروية‬ ّ ‫أن‬ ّ ‫نسميه‬ .‫الحر باستيهال‬ ‫ومنهم من نقصه الك هذين فذلك هو الذي‬ ّ ‫جرت عادتنا أن‬ ّ ‫البهيمي والعبد‬ ‫النسان‬ ‫نسميه إ‬ .‫باستيهال‬ ‫ومنهم من نقصته ّقوة العز يمة فقط وله جودة‬ ّ ّ ‫الروية وهو الذي جرت عادتنا أن‬ ‫نسميه العبد‬ .‫بالطبع‬

ّ‫أ‬ ً ‫سم َي‬ ِّ ‫ومن كان بهذه المنزلة‬ ‫عبدا بالطبع لن من‬ ّ ‫لم يقدر على قمع شهواته مما يوجبه التمييز فهو‬ ًّ ‫عبد بالطبع وإن كان‬ .‫حرا بالشرع‬ ًّ ‫ومن كان‬ ّ ‫قويا على قمعها فهو حر بالطبع وإن كان‬ ً .‫عبدا بالشرع‬ ّ ً ّ ّ ‫فأما من كان تابعا للذاته غير عارف بما يتبعها‬ ‫أ‬ ّ ‫من الذى فإنه ال ينتظر منه فعل جميل وال يهون‬ ‫عليه ترك قبيح …ومن ضعف في هذين الوجهين‬ ً ّ … ‫البهيمي‬ ‫النسان‬ ‫جميعا فهو إ‬

Some people have a good discernment and firm determination in doing what reason stipulates; we are accustomed to call such a person “the free person by deservedness” (al-hurr bi-istīhāl).88

He who is in this position [i. e., weak in conduct but good in discernment] is called “the true enslaved man” (ʿabd bi-l-ṭabʿ), because he was unable to suppress his desires according to what is stipulated by discernment. He is truly enslaved even if he was legally a freeman (ḥurr bi-l-sharʿ). He who is strong in suppressing [his desires] is “the true freeman” (ḥurr bi-l-ṭabʿ) even if he was “legally a slave” (ʿabdan bil-sharʿ). As for the one who is following his pleasures and is ignorant of the harm that they bring thereafter, it is not expected from him to do any good action or to abstain from any bad one … and the one who is weak in both faculties [the theoretical and the practical] is the “beast-like man” (alinsān al-bahīmī).90

Some are deprived of both faculties; we are accustomed to call a such person “the beastlike man” (al-insān al-bahīmī), or “the slave by deservedness” (al-ʿabd bi-istīhāl). And some lack the firm determination only, but possess a sound discernment; we are accustomed to call a such person “the true enslaved man” (al-ʿabd bi-l-ṭabʿ).89

88  In my reading, this expression is the verbal noun of istaʾhala – yastaʾhilu (to deserve) – that is, istiʾhāl. The edition I used has here yāʾ instead of hamza, a spelling which is not uncommon in Arabic to “weaken” or “suppress” (tashīl) the glottal stop, for which the hamza stand, and turn it into a long vowel. “Deservedness” denotes the exertion of effort in enhancing one’s both rational and practical faculties in order to enjoy a certain level of freedom. Similarly, if one fails to improve oneself in this regard, one would “deserve to be called a slave” (al-ʿabd bi-stīhāl). 89 Al-Fārābī, al-Risāla: 216. 90 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 47.

‫‪Ali Rida K. Rizek‬‬

‫ ‪280‬‬

‫)‪2.5.  The Divisions of Arts (ṣanāʾiʿ‬‬ ‫‪Beside the similarities in the detailed account on the classification of sciences‬‬ ‫‪in the second part of the K. al-Saʿāda, Miskawayh’s categorization of the types‬‬ ‫‪of arts (ṣanāʾiʿ) is largely shared with a parallel text in Risālat al-tanbīh. The sec‬‬‫‪tion, in both works, introduces the detailed classification of sciences. The sec‬‬‫‪tion below indicates certain reasons for which the arts – comprising the parts of‬‬ ‫‪wisdom – are divided into theoretical and practical arts: the former being what‬‬ ‫‪ought to be understood, and the latter, what ought to be performed.‬‬ ‫‪A further classification of the arts is also provided in which they are consid‬‬‫‪ered on the basis of their reward; if they generate the good (al-jamīl), in both‬‬ ‫‪discernment and action, they ought to be part of the theoretical or practical wis‬‬‫‪dom. But they might be simply generating what is useful (al-nāfiʿ) in the process‬‬ ‫‪of attaining the good in which case, they might be called parts of wisdom only‬‬ ‫‪in an allegorical sense.‬‬ ‫‪Miskawayh, K. al-Saʿāda‬‬

‫‪al-Fārābī, Risālat al-tanbīh‬‬

‫ُ َ‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫علم وال ُي َ‬ ‫للنسان علمها صنفان‪ :‬صنف‬ ‫ولمـا كانت المعارف صنفين أحدهما ي‬ ‫عمل واألشياء التي إ‬ ‫آ‬ ‫ُُ ُ َ‬ ‫َ‬ ‫ً‬ ‫ُ‬ ‫ُ‬ ‫النسان‪،‬‬ ‫والخر يعلم ّثم يعمل‪ ،‬صارت الصنائع أيضا صنفين شأنه أن يعلم‪ ،‬وليس شأنه أن يفعله إ‬ ‫َ‬ ‫َ‬ ‫ُ َ‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫علم وال ُي َ‬ ‫عمل مثل العلم بأن لكن إنما ُيعل ُم فقط‪ ،‬مثل علمنا أن العالم‬ ‫بـحسبهما‪ .‬وأعني بما ي‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ُ‬ ‫ٌ ّ‬ ‫وأما ما ُم َ‬ ‫هللا ّ‬ ‫أزلي مبدع للعالم‪ّ ،‬‬ ‫وأنه ّ‬ ‫حدث وأن هللا واحد … وصنف شأنه أن‬ ‫عز وجل واحد‬ ‫ُ ََ‬ ‫َ‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫أن ّبر الوالدين حسنٌ‬ ‫َ‬ ‫ُ‬ ‫َ‬ ‫ويعمل فمثل السيرة الجميلة في المعامالت يعلم ويفعل‪ ،‬مثل علمنا‬ ‫ُيعلم‬ ‫َ‬ ‫ٌ‬ ‫ٌ ّ‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫وأن الخيانة قبيحة وأن العدل جميل […]‪.‬‬ ‫والبراعة في الصناعات […]‪.‬‬ ‫ً‬ ‫ُ‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫تحصل لنا به‬ ‫ولـمـا كان من هذين الجزئين ما هو مقصود لذاته فالصنائع إذا صنفان‪ :‬صنف‬ ‫َ‬ ‫ُ‬ ‫ُ‬ ‫يحصل لنا به‬ ‫ومطلوب لنفسه [الجميل]‪ ،‬ومنه ما هو نافع فيما معرفة ما يعلم فقط‪ ،‬وصنف‬ ‫ُيطلب لذاته‪ ،‬انقسمت الصناعة ً‬ ‫أيضا قسمين آخر ين‪ .‬علم ما ُيمكن أن ُي َ‬ ‫عمل […]‪.‬‬ ‫ً‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫إدراك الحق فإذا الصنائع صنفان‪ :‬صنف مقصوده تحصيل‬ ‫والصناعة التي غايتها العلم فقط فقصدها ُ َ‬ ‫واالعتقاد الصادق واليقين ال محالة‪ .‬فهذا مؤثر لذاته الجميل‪ ،‬وصنف مقصوده تحصيل النافع‪.‬‬ ‫ال لغيره‪ .‬وكذلك الصناعة التي غايتها العمل الجميل فالصناعة التي مقصودها تحصيل الجميل‬ ‫ً‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫وتسمى‬ ‫تسمى الفلسفة‪،‬‬ ‫جميعا كما قلنا جزءا الحكمة‪ .‬فقط هي التي‬ ‫والخلق الفاضل‪ .‬وهما‬ ‫ً‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ُ‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫الطالق‪.‬‬ ‫وس ِّم َي كل‬ ‫النسانية على إ‬ ‫واحد منهما حكمة بالصحة وعلى الحكمة إ‬ ‫ٍ‬ ‫أ‬ ‫ُ‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫الحقيقة‪ .‬فأما الصناعات الخر النافعة في هذين فقد والصناعات التي يقصد بها النافع فليس منها‬ ‫ً‬ ‫ً‬ ‫ُي ّ‬ ‫حكمة‪ ،‬وذلك على المجاز ال على الحقيقة … شيء ُي ّ‬ ‫سمى‬ ‫الطالق‪ ،‬ولكن ر ّبما‬ ‫سمى حكمة على إ‬ ‫سمون هذا ً‬ ‫والحكماء ُي ّ‬ ‫كيسا وال ُيطلقون عليها اسم ُس ّمي بعضها بهذا االسم على طر يق التشبيه‬ ‫الحكمة …‬ ‫بالفلسفة‪.‬‬



Human Happiness in Miskawayh’s Tartīb al-saʿādāt

Matters that the human being is entitled to know are of two types: the first is what ought to be known but not performed; it is only meant to be known, such as our knowledge that the universe is created (muḥdath) and that God is one … the second is what ought to be known and performed, such as our knowledge that obeying and venerating one’s one parents (birr al-wālidayn) is good, and that treachery is bad […].91 Accordingly, arts are of two types: the first is that by which we acquire the knowledge of what ought to be known only; the second makes us to acquire the knowledge of what can be performed […].92 Therefore, arts are also of two types: the first aims at acquiring the good, the ­second aims at acquiring “the useful” (al-nāfiʿ). Hence, art that aims at acquiring the good only is called philosophy and is also called, unrestrictedly, “the human wisdom” (ḥikma ʿalā l-iṭlāq). Whereas arts that aim at acquiring the useful, none of it is called unrestrictedly wisdom; it might be that some are called “wisdom by analogy” (al-ḥikma ʿalā ṭarīq al-tashbīh).93

281

Since knowledge is of two types  – the first, what ought to be known but not performed, the second, what ought to be known and then performed – arts are accordingly of two types. What I mean by knowledge that ought to be known but not performed is similar to the knowledge that God is one, eternal and that He is the creator of the universe. What is known and performed is similar to the celebrated conduct of life (al-sīra al-jamīla) and the skillfulness in forms of expertise (al-barāʿa fī l-ṣināʿāt) … and since among these two types there could be discerned two categories – the first, what is sought for and requested for its own sake [that is the good]; the second, what is useful for the first category – arts are divided further into two other types. The art that aims at knowledge only has for purpose the conceiving of truth, the firm belief and “certainty” (al-yaqīn); this is preferred for its own sake and not for something else. It is also the case for the art that has for purpose the performance of “good action and the attainment of a virtuous character” (al-ʿamal aljamīl wa-l-khuluq al-fāḍil). As we have said, the two together are the two parts of wisdom; each one of them is called, correctly and in reality, wisdom. As for the other useful arts [in the two parts of wisdom], they might be called wisdom but in an allegorical sense, not in real meaning … the philosophers called this [kind of the arts] “cleverness” (kays) but they do not call it wisdom (ḥikma).94

2.6.  Departing from al-Fārābī’s Account in K. al-Saʿāda It is important to keep in mind that, despite these similarities with Risālat altanbīh, Miskawayh’s K. al-Saʿāda has a claim to originality nonetheless. Remarkably, Miskawayh’s departed from al-Fārābī’s exposition of happiness in more than one aspect. The following are the most significant instances:

91 Al-Fārābī, al-Risāla: 220–221. 92 Al-Fārābī, al-Risāla: 221. 93 Al-Fārābī, al-Risāla: 223. 94 Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 48–49.

282

Ali Rida K. Rizek

1. A brief discussion of the notion of pleasure (al-ladhdha) in the K. al-Saʿāda seems to summarize a relatively long passage in al-Fārābī’s Risālat al-tanbīh.95 The aim in both cases is to reject the idea that pleasure denotes, or can lead to, happiness. 2. The omission of a discussion of the Aristotelian “mean” (al-waṣat; al-tawassuṭ) in Miskawayh’s account, whereas it appears to occupy a large part of alFārābī’s work.96 Despite its centrality in al-Fārābī’s account of happiness (as a state between excess and deficiency), the concept of “mean,” as far as the K. al-Saʿāda is concerned, seems to fail to attract Miskawayh’s attention while discussing the theme of happiness. 3. The most important difference, however, remains in the philosophical curriculum given by Miskawayh at the end of his work. While Miskawayh proposes starting with the formation of character traits (al-akhlāq), al-Fārābī’s account retains the classical preference of logic as the starting point of acquiring knowledge.97 Miskawayh might indeed draw here on the source he used, that is, Paul’s text, but this does not exclude the fact that he was aware of this difference in his views vis-a-vis the classical Greek approach. In fact, as suggested before, it is this “remarkable concern” with ethics as part of the practical wisdom that gives Miskawayh his unique position in Arabic-Islamic philosophy.

3. Conclusion In current scholarship, it has been suggested that Miskawayh be understood as a representative of a generation of philosophers who were exposed to a flow of philosophical ideas that they were set to refine and synthesize. In this regard, Peter Adamson writes: [Miskawayh] was not a particularly original philosopher but was extremely well-read. His philosophical works tend to weave together themes from a wide range of sources, everything from Plotinus and Aristotle to Islamic religious proverbs. He thus represents a kind of cultured, popular understanding of philosophy that was current in the tenth and eleventh centuries.98

Arkoun also proposed approaching the contribution of Miskawayh in his capacity as an “animator of a classical discipline” (un simple animateur d’une discipline classique), not necessarily as independent thinker (penseur) who is revising an already established system of philosophical values in a new socio-cultural set95 Al-Fārābī, al-Risāla: 212–215; Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 36, 40. Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean: 6–7, 14, 183–192. 96 Al-Fārābī, al-Risāla: 194–211. Cf. Aristotle, Nichomachean: 29–36. 97 Al-Fārābī, al-Risāla: 228; Miskawayh, al-Saʿāda: 60. 98  Adamson 2016: 97. Cf. Kraemer 1984; Wakelnig 2014.

Human Happiness in Miskawayh’s Tartīb al-saʿādāt



283

ting.99 In this, Miskawayh is not denied his role and position; instead, the focus is shifted to his achievement in “using” available texts and ideas, and “maintaining” the values that philosophical ideas convey.100 The previous textual findings examined in this study corroborate this understanding with substantial testimonies. In particular, it calls for a recontextualization of Miskawayh’s K. al-Saʿāda as part of a larger philosophical trend that, on the one hand, was under the impact of a Farabian tradition in circulation, particularly the Risālat al-tanbīh ʿalā sabīl al-saʿāda, and, on the other hand, did not abandon the intellectual realm established by classical philosophical schools that lie at the heart of Arab-Islamic philosophy. In this, Miskawayh succeeded in answering the question of that inquirer to whom K. al-Saʿāda was addressed, thus attending to the direct needs of his contemporary audience. More importantly, his work – a conscious and well-reflected exhibition of circulating philosophical conceptions on happiness – thrived as one of the most representative contributions to an ongoing enquiry. Today’s young generation is acquainted with the concept of happiness through various forms of modern life. For instance, a recurrent saying declares that “happiness is amazing. It’s so amazing, it doesn’t matter if it’s yours or not.”101 So is philosophy in Miskawayh’s K. al-Saʿāda. Whether he was a genuine philosopher or not, throughout his works and particularly in K. al-Saʿāda, Miskawayh praised and admired philosophy – the bearer of theoretical and practical wisdom – considering it the only way to bring happiness to human life.

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Marcotte, Roxanne D. (2012): “Ibn Miskawayh’s Tartīb al-saʿādāt (The Order of Happiness)”, in Yithzak Tzvi Langermann (ed.): Monotheism and Ethics. Historical and Contemporary Intersections between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Leiden: Brill) 142– 161. Mattila, Janne (2011): Philosophy as a Path to Happiness. Attainment of Happiness in Arabic Peripatetic and Ismaili Philosophy (PhD Dissertation, University of Helsinki). Michel, Karine (2019): “L’art politique et sa visée téléologique. Le bonheur chez Farabi, Miskawayh et le pseudo al-ʿĀmiri”, Archives de Philosophie 82, 701–718. Muhājirniyā, Muḥsin (2004): al-Fikr al-siyāsī li-Miskawayh al-Rāzī. Qirāʾa fī takwīn alʿaql al-siyāsī al-Islāmī, trans. by Haider Hubballah (Beirut: Al-Ghadir). Nagel, Thomas (1980): “Aristotle on Eudaimonia”, in Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (ed.): Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics (Los Angeles: University of California Press) 7–14. al-Narāqī, Muḥammad Mahdī (1428/2007): Jāmiʿ al-saʿādāt (2 vols.; Qom: Ismāʿīlīyān). Netton, Ian R. (1992): Al-Fārābī and His School (London: Routledge). Perkams, Mattias (2019): “The Syro-Persian Reinvention of Aristotelianism. Paul the Persian’s Treatise on the Scope of Aristotle’s Works between Sergius of Rēšʿaynā, Alexandria, and Baghdad”, Studia Graeco-Arabica 9, 129–145. Pines, Shlomo (1971): “Ahmad Miskawayh and Paul the Persian”, Irân Shinâsî 2/2, 121–129. Rosenthal, Erwin J. (1971): “The Concept of ‘Eudaimonia’ in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Philosophy”, in Erwin J. Rosenthal (ed.): Studia Semitica, vol. ii (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 127–134. Russell, Bertrand (1932): The Conquest of Happiness (London: George Allen & Unwin). Schulze, Reinhard (2011): “Glück im Islam. Das Glück der Sinne und das Glück der Spiritualität”, in Dieter Thomä et al. (eds.): Glück. Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch (Stuttgart/Weimar: J. B. Metzler) 357–361. Taylor, Christopher C. W. (1998): “Eudaimonia”, REP Online; https://www.rep.routledge. com/articles/thematic/eudaimonia/v-1 (last accessed on 02 May 2020). Wakelnig, Elvira (2006): Feder, Tafel, Mensch. Al-ʿĀmirīs Kitāb al-Fuṣūl fī l-Maʿālim alilāhiyya und die arabische Proklos-Rezeption im 10. Jh. (Leiden/Boston: Brill). – (2009): “A New Version of Miskawayh’s Book of Triumph. An Alternative Recension of al-Fawz al-aṣghar or the Lost Fawz al-akbar?”, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 19, 83– 119. – (ed.) (2014): A Philosophy Reader from the Circle of Miskawayh. Text, Translation and Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Walzer, Richard (1962): “Some Aspects of Miskawayh’s Tahdhīb al-Akhlāq, in Richard Walzer (ed.): Greek into Arabic. Essays on Islamic Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press) 220–235.

V.

Miskawayh’s Significance for Later Intellectual Discourses

Virtue and the Law in al-Ghazālī’s Ethics Sophia Vasalou Abstract:  This essay aims to illuminate al-Ghazali’s ethics of virtue and to situate it against its philosophical sources, including the works of Miskawayh, by focusing on one key feature of his account: the relationship between virtue and the religious Law. In treating evaluative questions in works of law and theology, al-Ghazālī focuses on action as the chief object of ethical attention. In many of his works of normative ethics, by contrast, notably the Scale of Action and the Revival of the Religious Sciences, it is rather character that constitutes his central concern. How do these two evaluative objects – actions and states of character – relate? Does one have explanatory primacy over the other? A careful reconstruction of al-Ghazālī’s view reveals that it is states of character that carry primacy. This ontological view is reflected in al-Ghazālī’s understanding of the function of the religious Law. This function is pedagogical: the performance of the actions commanded by the Law serves to educate character. Al-Ghazālī’s account of this relationship forges rich connections to the concerns of Islamic law, theology, and Sufism, and contributes new chapters to their intellectual development. It also betrays important philosophical debts, evoking ideas that had currency both among ancient philosophers and among their successors in the Muslim world, including al-Fārābī, Miskawayh, and Avicenna.

Among al-Ghazālī’s (d. 505/1111) many enduring contributions to the Islamic intellectual tradition, one of the most outstanding was his role in crystallising a distinctive theological approach to the virtues. A project begun in his early treatise The Scale of Action (Mīzān al-ʿamal), it achieved consummate form in his magisterial work The Revival of the Religious Sciences (Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn). There, over more than 3,000 pages of printed text, al-Ghazālī unfolded a complex vision of the religious life whose hallmark was an emphasis on the state of the heart as the focus of ethical attention. This was a vision with both Sufi and philosophical inspirations, and one of its key achievements was to integrate more firmly ethical ideas stemming from the Greek philosophical tradition into a scriptural framework. In doing so, it built on and took forward the efforts of earlier thinkers, such as the 5th/11th-century scholar al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī. Despite its significance, many questions about al-Ghazālī’s ethics of virtue remain open, and both its internal terrain and its external contexts and relations are in large part unmapped. My aim in this essay is to help advance this cartography by focusing on a question that is central for understanding the na-

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ture of al-Ghazālī’s ethical project and its creative interleaving of philosophical and scriptural resources: the relation between virtue and the religious Law. It is a question that imposes itself naturally coming from contemporary moral philosophy, where the battle lines are often crisply drawn between theories that make virtue foundational and theories oriented around duty. Yet the question also rises organically from within the Islamic context itself. Although we may have moved on from narrow accounts of Islam as a nomocracy and of Islamic values as exhausted by behavioural stipulations, the importance of law for what we may call Islamic ethics is beyond dispute. The key concepts in the disciplines of jurisprudence ( fiqh) and legal theory (uṣūl al-fiqh) were obligation and prohibition, and the concomitant focus was on action as an object of evaluative assessment. Al-Ghazālī himself was an eminent contributor to these disciplines and their partner genre, dialectical theology (kalām), and in those contexts, he engaged in high-level debates about what makes actions right or wrong, how we know they are right or wrong, how free we are to perform these actions, or what value they carry when God performs them. Looking across from one genre to the other, from works of jurisprudence and theology to works on the virtues, it will be natural to puzzle over how their ethical viewpoints cohere. In part, this is a question – vexed, as students of Islamic intellectual history know – about how we unify Ghazālī’s perspective as expressed across different works and times. From another angle, it is also a question about how we understand the relations between these different genres and how we unify Islamic ethics as a discourse. Approached philosophically, the sense of puzzlement can be distilled into a simple question. Just how does the evaluative focus on right action in theological and juridical works relate to the focus on right character in al-Ghazālī’s works on the virtues? Could we, for example, ask whether one of the two – action or character – is primary? To the extent that the focus on character reflects the concerns of Greek philosophical ethics, answering this question holds the key to a more fine-grained understanding of the Islamic reception of this ethics and to documenting how its distinctive concerns enter into conversation with the premises of the Islamic faith. Yet the answer to this question is a chapter in at least two other stories. Given the additional Sufi roots of the concern with character, it is equally a chapter in the parallel story about Sufi attitudes to the sharīʿa and Sufi attempts to account for the relation between Sufi spirituality and the requirements of the Law. It is also, as will emerge, a chapter in the story of longstanding theological questions about the nature of the religious Law, and the role of reason in confronting revealed scripture. And of course, it is a chapter in our evolving understanding of al-Ghazālī’s specific relation to these different contexts and fields.



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While al-Ghazālī’s attitude to philosophy has been a subject of debate, in questions of ethics his philosophical debts are clearer and less open to dispute.1 This is reflected in the open if qualified welcome al-Ghazālī extends to ethics from among other philosophical subjects in his autobiography, The Deliverer from Error (al-Munqidh min al-ḍalāl).2 These debts are visible on a number of levels, including al-Ghazālī’s understanding of human psychology and the constitutive powers of the soul, his account of how the virtues relate to these powers, and his identification and ordering of the specific virtues. They are evident in his general conceptualisation of virtue as a mean between extremes, as well as in his conceptualisation of human happiness, taken as the actualisation of intellectual capabilities that represent the distinctively human perfection. And they are also evident in the way he connects the two ideas, presenting virtue as necessary for happiness, in line with a familiar philosophical conception of eudaimonia. Some of these debts are plainer to behold in the Scale of Action than in the Revival of the Religious Sciences, where they are embedded in a more composite intellectual mosaic that imparts a different glaze to some of the philosophical elements. In this essay, my focus will chiefly fall on the Revival, as it is there that al-Ghazālī delivers the richest material for answering the question I outline concerning the relation between virtue and the religious Law, or character and action. The Law commands certain modes of acting: it commands us to behave in certain ways and avoid others.3 Al-Ghazālī, in this book, commends certain modes of being: he commends that we think and feel in certain ways and avoid others. In the Revival, these modes of being include familiar philosophical virtues such as courage, temperance, and justice, as well as spiritual qualities foregrounded by the Sufis, such as hope, gratitude, patience, love, and trust in God. How do these two sets of values – actions and states of character – relate? Does one have explanatory primacy over the other, serving in a foundational role? 1  At least at the present time, where scholarly opinion is more strongly inclined to acknowledge the continuity between the more philosophical Scale of Action and the Revival of the Religious Sciences, along the lines suggested by Kenneth Garden in Garden 2015 (see e. g., the concluding statement at p. 228) and also in Garden 2014. The same assumption shapes the helpful work of Mohamed Ahmed Sherif (Sherif 1975). For some context on earlier debates, and a particular take on them, see Abul Quasem 1974. 2  See the remarks in Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī, al-Munqidh: 86–90. For an in-depth analysis of these remarks, see Kukkonen 2016; also Sherif 1975: 17–18, and Abul Quasem 1974. For further discussion of al-Ghazālī’s relationship to philosophical ethics focusing on al-Ghazālī’s treatment of one specific ancient ideal of character, the virtue of greatness of soul, see also Vasalou 2019: part 1. 3  This phrasing may seem misleading if we take “Law” in an inclusive sense, where it designates the totality of norms indicated in scriptural texts, and not merely the rules elaborated in books of jurisprudence. Many writers on the virtues, including al-Ghazālī, considered their ideals of character to enjoy scriptural support (in addition to any support they found in extrascriptural discourses). The hadith compilations on the topic of makārim al-akhlāq provide the readiest token of this. In this essay, “(religious) Law” will be generally used in the more restrictive sense.

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The answer to this question, to preview it, is unequivocal (a few interpretive wrinkles to the side). It is states of character, in al-Ghazālī’s view, that possess evaluative primacy. This ontological view is reflected in a particular understanding of the function of the religious Law. This function is pedagogical: the performance of the actions commanded by the Law serves to educate character. In setting out al-Ghazālī’s account, my aim will be twofold: to probe the content of his account (the task of sections 1–3); and to situate it in a broader context (the task of section 4). This is an aspect of al-Ghazālī’s ethical thought that again betrays important philosophical debts, evoking ideas that had currency both among ancient philosophers and among their successors in the Muslim world, including al-Fārābī (d. 339/950–951), Miskawayh (d. 421/1030), and Avicenna (d. 428/1037). The distinctive character of al-Ghazālī’s development of these ideas only emerges by setting it against this canvas.

1.  Action and Character: A Question of Primacy In philosophical circles, the notion of “explanatory primacy” was introduced by the philosopher Gary Watson to identify a claim that he took to be distinctive of an ethics of virtue. In an ethics of virtue, “how it is best or right or proper to conduct oneself is explained in terms of how it is best for a human being to be.”4 The value of action is grounded in the value of virtue, rather than the reverse. Watson’s distinction can be seen as a more rigorous restatement of the common observation that the central question in an ethics of virtue is not “What ought I to do?” but rather “What kind of person should I be?” It will be helpful to keep this distinction in mind in turning to consider al-Ghazālī. Among other things, it suggests that al-Ghazālī’s answer to the question of primacy will also determine the answer to another basic question: Is al-Ghazālī’s ethics in fact a type of virtue ethics? To locate the relevant evidence, one has to cast one’s nets wide over the Revival, as this evidence only emerges piecemeal across different contexts. A normative work with a strong theoretical backbone, the Revival often broaches higher-level questions ad hoc as its normative exposition demands. And on a first hearing, the evidence for this particular question appears to tip the balance in one very specific direction: it is action that carries explanatory primacy. This is the obvious import of a statement that appears at a nodal juncture of the Revival, in the book titled Discipline of the Soul (Kitāb Riyāḍat al-nafs), where al-Ghazālī lays out his core concepts and offers to define them. The term “character trait” (khuluq) is then defined as follows: it is “a stable disposition (hayʾa rāsikha) of the soul which causes actions to issue with facility and ease, without need for 4 

Watson 1990: 451.



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study and reflection. If the disposition is such that it issues in fine actions praised by … the Law (sharʿan), it is called a good character trait (khuluq ḥasan)”5 – or as al-Ghazālī elsewhere couches it, a virtue ( faḍīla). The message seems clear: whether we call a state of character a virtue depends on first considering the actions to which it leads. If these actions conform with the Law, then it is a virtue; otherwise, a vice. The Archimedean point, on this model, is the value of actions, which we know through the services of the revealed Law. If we wished to give this model a name, we might call it “virtue legalism,” in analogy with “virtue consequentialism” in its philosophical usage, which grounds the status of a trait as a virtue or vice in its tendency to produce certain kinds of consequences.6 This understanding is reinforced in several other places of al-Ghazālī’s work, where the emphasis appears to fall squarely on action as the locus of value. It is actions that are named as the causes of reward and punishment in the book On Knowledge (Kitāb al-ʿIlm), and that feature in al-Ghazālī’s account of posthumous reckoning in The Remembrance of Death (Kitāb Dhikr al-mawt), where deeds are presented as transferrable capital that can be used to settle moral accounts.7 In the vertiginously moralised picture of daily life set out in Vigilance and Self-Judgement (Kitāb al-Murāqaba wa-l-muḥāsaba), where al-Ghazālī shows his reader how to call the seconds and minutes of his day to account, it is actions that feature as the object of ever-watchful attention. The present is never neutral: at every moment a person will be confronted with an obligatory action he must perform, a prohibited action he must abstain from, a recommended action he has been encouraged to perform, or a permissible action that benefits his body or mind – so let him keep passing his actions through these sieves. Going over one’s day when present has become past, vigilance ceding to self-judgement, it is one’s actions one must pass in review.8 Much of this perspective reflects, and is articulated by reference to, important bodies of scriptural evidence. The Quran promises that anyone who has “done (yaʿmalu) an atom’s weight of good” or “atom’s weight of evil” shall see it requited (Q 99:7). The Quran and ḥadīth speak of a scale (mīzān) to be brought out on the Day of Judgement, on which good deeds and bad deeds (ḥasanāt, 5 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: viii, 1434, emphasis added. The word dropped from the quoted text is reason (ʿaql), which introduces a different set of gnarled questions that are beyond the scope of this essay. 6  See Driver 2004: chapter 4, for a prominent statement of this view, and for a more recent account, Bradley 2018. If conformity with law is included in the scope of “consequences,” this model of course becomes a subset of the consequentialist one. 7  See respectively al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: i, 126 (ṭāʿāt/thawāb, maʿāṣi/ʿiqāb), and xvi, 2161– 2163 (xvi, 2963: yasʾaluhu … ʿan qalīl ʿamalihi wa-kathīrihi; cf. 2969–2970 for the point about transferrable credit). Cf. xv, 2917, emphasising the beneficial and harmful nature of actions (mā yaḍurruhu wa-yanfaʿuhu min ḥasanātihi wa-sayyiʾātihi). 8  For the former point, see al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: xv, 2754–2755, and for the stage of selfjudgement, 2759–2760.

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sayyiʾāt) will be weighed.9 This perspective, as already mentioned, also meshes with the one expressed by al-Ghazālī in many other works, notably in legal theory and dialectical theology. It is a question about the status of actions (aḥkām alafʿāl) that focuses al-Ghazālī’s energies in his work on legal theory, the Quintessence of the Principles of Law (al-Mustaṣfā min ʿilm al-uṣūl), and a question about what we mean when we call actions “good,” “bad” or “obligatory” (ḥasan, qabīḥ, wājib) that preoccupies him in his kalām work, Moderation in Belief (al-Iqtiṣād fī l-iʿtiqād). A few pages down from the passage of the Discipline of the Soul quoted above, al-Ghazālī restates the key point: “salvation is only obtained through righteous works (aʿmāl ṣāliḥa), and righteous works only issue from fine character traits.”10 The message, again, rings clear: the main bearer of value is action, and inner states are only valued insofar as they lead to its performance. Part of the interest of this model lies in the historical parallels it evokes with other religious contexts. Arguing against a common narrative about the historical development of the virtues, the intellectual historian Jerome Schneewind has suggested that during the formative period of modern European philosophy, the virtues were not so much neglected as filtered through a Christian viewpoint that carried a strong legalistic emphasis. The resulting conception of virtue found paradigmatic expression in John Locke’s statement that the “rectitude or obliquity” of the virtues and vices respectively “consists in the agreement with those patterns prescribed by some law,” and again in the definition of virtue given by one 17th-century scholar commenting on the Nicomachean Ethics: it is “a constant disposition of the soul to live according to law.” Schneewind concludes: “The assumption almost universally made is that if the virtues are important it is precisely because they are the habits … of obeying the moral laws.”11 Yet however things may stand with Christian authors theorising the relation of virtue and the Law, a wider sweep of the evidence makes clear that “virtue legalism” does not represent al-Ghazālī’s considered view in the Revival. The evidence surveyed above is itself far from decisive. Al-Ghazālī’s discussion of vigilance and self-judgement, for example, does not entirely leave mental states out of view.12 Similarly, al-Ghazālī elsewhere draws a distinction between salvation (najāt) and happiness (saʿāda) in the next life, with the latter representing a higher state than the former, and it is not impossible that this distinction con9 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: i, 158–159. 10 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: viii, 1453. 11  Schneewind 2010: 180. 12  At the stage of vigilance, for example, al-Ghazālī also applies a virtue-themed sieve to the

present moment: at every moment one will either have cause to exercise the virtue of gratitude or that of patience (al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: xv, 2754). And at the self-judgement stage, he also refers to the need to review one’s inner states (khawāṭiruhu wa-afkāruhu) and to attend to acts of disobedience perpetrated by the heart (maʿṣiyyatuhu bi-l-qalb) (al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: xv, 2759– 2760). Al-Ghazālī’s use of maʿṣiyya to refer to violations of a mental kind also means this term cannot be automatically taken as a reference to actions in a simple bodily sense.



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ditions and serves to relativize the significance of his last-quoted remark.13 No less importantly, the posthumous scale was explicitly reported by the Prophet to measure not only a person’s actions but their character.14 In a sign of the delicacy of these interpretive questions, in fact, a number of scholars, including alGhazālī himself, take the term ʿamal, which I have translated as “work,” to include “character” in its semantic scope.15 Thankfully, the evidence al-Ghazālī provides elsewhere in the Revival is definite enough that we need not rely on an unpicking of such delicate points in order to distil his position. The clearest expression of his understanding is given in a series of remarks appearing in the book On Patience and Gratitude (Kitāb al-Ṣabr wa-l-shukr), in the context of a discussion of the relative merits of patience and gratitude as “stations” (maqāmāt) of the spiritual life. “Stations” is alGhazālī’s Sufi term of choice, which, in the fourth quarter of the Revival, dedicated to the spiritual virtues, mostly supplants other ways of speaking about character, notably through the vocabulary of “virtue” ( faḍīla) or even “character (trait)” (khuluq). His more philosophical perspective on character in Discipline of the Soul, as a stable disposition that manifests in action, here yields to a different scheme involving three structural elements: cognitions or beliefs (maʿārif ), states (aḥwāl), and actions (aʿmāl). “Stations” are formed out of (tantaẓimu) these three elements.16 There are interesting and somewhat difficult questions about how this scheme relates to the more philosophical scheme presented earlier in the Revival. The hardest question here is whether, if we wished to identify one of these three elements with the “stable disposition” named earlier (hence with the concept of “character trait” or “virtue”), we should settle on “station” or “state” as the most immediate correlate. For our purposes, we are best off treating both of these as potential correlates, and hearing al-Ghazālī’s ensuing comments about the relation of states and actions as a direct contribution to our question about the relation of virtue and action. One important observation is that there is not a single way of characterising this relation, or a single direction in which this relation moves. One way, or direction, is picked out by al-Ghazālī at the opening of Patience and Gratitude, where he observes that among these three items, “cognitions are the foundation 13 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: i, 90. 14  In one of its versions, cited by al-Ghazālī in al-Iḥyāʾ: vii, 1428: “The heaviest things that

will be placed on the Scale on the Day of Judgement are fear of God and good character.” 15  This is a pervasive pattern, but it is exemplified, indicatively, in the remark opening the Discipline of the Soul that “good character (al-khuluq al-ḥasan) is … the most excellent work (afḍal aʿmāl) of the righteous” (al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: viii, 1426). Even more directly: “… faith and good character … by which I mean knowledge (ʿilm) and action (ʿamal)” (al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: xii, 2236). This equation is also on display in the very title of al-Ghazālī’s treatise, The Scale of Action, an otherwise strange choice of title for a work dealing mainly with questions of character. Would a better translation of the title be The Scale of Character? 16 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: xii, 2171.

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(uṣūl); these produce states; and states generate actions.”17 The characterisation here is one of causal and temporal priority: A leads to B, which leads to C. It is difficult to say more about this characterisation without broaching the difficult question just mentioned, but the simplest way of illustrating what al-Ghazālī has in mind in broad brushstrokes is through the examples of love (maḥabba) and renunciation (zuhd), both discussed at length in the last quarter of the Revival. To love God (a state), one must first know God (cognition); and this love is then expressed in a host of devotional and contemplative activities (action). Similarly, a cognition of the relative superiority of the next world over the present world results in the turning-away of desire from the present world (a state) and thereby in the (act of ) abstaining from it. If we rolled “states” and “cognitions” into one as dispositions, we would recognise as the kernel the familiar insight that virtue manifests in action.18 Yet it is another way of characterising the relation that engrosses al-Ghazālī’s attention later in the book, in that section on the relative merits of patience and gratitude. There, his main focus is not on the question of what comes first causally, but what comes first evaluatively. And his answer to that question rings out with crystalline clarity. When these three elements are measured against each other, people who attend solely to the outer aspect of things (ẓawāhir) imagine that cognitions are desired for the sake of states and states are desired for the sake of actions, actions having the greatest value (afḍal). People of insight, however, take the opposite view. Actions are desired for the sake of states, and states are desired for the sake of cognitions. So cognitions have the greatest value, then states, then actions; because when something is desired for the sake of something else, the latter inevitably has greater value than the former.19

Adumbrated here is an understanding of the importance of character that receives pervasive expression throughout the Revival, as also the Scale. The value of improving one’s character – or in al-Ghazālī’s more Sufi idiom, the state of one’s heart – is not intrinsic but instrumental. It is to be understood under its description as a means for attaining the end that does carry intrinsic value, namely knowledge. The dignity and perfection of human beings lies in their ability to know, and the highest knowledge is knowledge of God. What prevents us from realising this natural tendency of our being, in which our true happiness (ʿayn 17 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: xii, 2171. This type of causal characterisation here and elsewhere may invite tantalising questions about the deeper ontological commitments that underpin it, given the extensive debate that al-Ghazālī’s understanding of causality has provoked among commentators. This is not a debate I can enter into (al-Ghazālī himself calls little attention to higher-order metaphysical questions in this practical context), but for a good starting point, see Griffel 2009. 18 A philosophical insight that al-Ghazālī himself formulates clearly elsewhere: al-afʿāl natāʾij al-akhlāq. E. g., al-Ghazālī, al-Mīzān: 247. 19 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: xii, 2297–2298.



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al-saʿāda) lies, are the desires and attachments that cloud the soul.20 In one important sense, virtuous character simply consists in the mastery of these desires and the removal of these attachments.21 Between character and action, then, it is the former that possesses explanatory primacy.22 But absolute explanatory primacy is carried by a cognitive status that is distinct from both. In light of this, how we answer the related question – “Is al-Ghazālī’s ethics a type of virtue ethics?” – will partly depend on whether we think this cognitive status can be articulated, not, as al-Ghazālī generally invites us, in terms of the possession of a set of correct beliefs or determinate mental content (ʿulūm or maʿārif ), but in dispositional terms, as an intellectual virtue.23 The resulting view would be familiar to philosophers: moral virtue is subservient to intellectual virtue and its value lies in facilitating the latter. Bracketing the last point, it is the ramifications of this core idea that should engage us. I said that al-Ghazālī’s emphasis is on what comes first evaluatively rather than causally. Yet a concern with causal relations is not in fact absent from his discussion. This may already have been evident from the statement already quoted, but it becomes even clearer elsewhere. “The purpose (or benefit: fāʾida) of improving the state of the heart (ḥāl al-qalb),” he writes close on the heels of the passage quoted above, “is that the majesty of God be revealed to one in His essence, attributes, and actions.” And “the purpose of improving action is to improve the state of the heart.”24 In one respect, this merely restates the understanding of the evaluative relations between the three elements (action, virtue, cognition) just sketched out. Yet it does so by drawing sharper attention to a point about action that is logically distinct from the claim of evaluative primacy taken in its simplest form. It is not simply that action is inferior in value to a person’s character or inner state. It is that it serves as a means of improving one’s character or state. Unlike the former, the latter is a factual claim about cause and 20  These ideas receive expression in the lines that immediately follow the quoted passage: al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: xii, 2298. Al-Ghazālī’s instrumental view of virtue is expressed in many other locations. See e. g., al-Ghazālī, al-Mīzān: 194–197, and even more clearly 217–221 (220: ethical refinement is mā urīda li-ghayrihi, knowledge is mā urīda li-nafsihi). Cf. al-Ghazālī, alIḥyāʾ: xv, 2806: it would be a waste of one’s life if one spent it in pursuit of self-improvement (iṣlāḥ nafsihi) and never got to the real point (maṭlab), which is self-forgetful contemplation of God’s majesty and beauty. 21  E. g., al-Ghazālī, al-Mīzān: 218–219: “what is meant by ‘action’ (ʿamal = ethical refinement) is the breaking of the power of the appetites … so that the malignant dispositions and the vicious attachments that bind the soul to the lowly region are effaced from it.” 22  This conclusion is also supported from a different direction by al-Ghazālī’s discussion of inner beauty as a cause of love in the book On Love. It is a person’s qualities of character, not the acts she performs (though this is how her character will be manifested externally), that forms the true bearer of beauty and object of love. See al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: xiv, 2586. 23  Al-Ghazālī certainly brings up the virtue of wisdom (ḥikma) in various contexts, and especially in the Mīzān al-ʿamal he has plenty to say about the intellectual virtues, but this emphasis does not shape the Gestalt. 24 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: xii, 2298.

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effect. The causal sequence at stake, it may be noted, is the very reverse of the one outlined above (cognitions lead to states which lead to actions), which I suggested may be understood most intuitively via the simple idea that virtue manifests in action. Yet the idea conveyed by the present sequence will seem no less intuitive. It is a basic educational insight associated most strongly with Aristotle: we acquire virtue through action. In a familiar lapidary formulation: we become by doing. As Aristotle put in the Nicomachean Ethics, just as “we learn a craft by producing the same product that we must produce when we have learned it,” so that “we become builders, for instance, by building, and we become harpists by playing the harp,” similarly “we become just by doing just actions, temperate by doing temperate actions, brave by doing brave actions” (1103a32–1103b2).25 This pedagogical insight can be found widely among Muslim authors familiar with Aristotle’s philosophy, such as al-Fārābī and Miskawayh.26 This insight underpins al-Ghazālī’s understanding of character education in the Revival, receiving programmatic expression in the book Discipline of the Soul and mobilised in many of the subsequent books that treat the individual virtues and vices. It is often couched using the medical analogy that forms of a staple of philosophical writing on ethics, as can be seen from a key statement from the Discipline of the Soul. Just as the cause that disturbs the balance of the body and induces malady is treated through its opposite – heat through cold, for example, and cold through heat – likewise vice, which is the malady of the heart, is treated through its opposite. Thus, the malady of ignorance is treated by learning, the malady of miserliness by deliberately acting generously (tasakhkhī), the malady of pride by deliberately acting humbly (tawāḍuʿ), and the malady of gluttony by effortfully abstaining from the object of desire.27

Even faith (īmān) can be viewed from this perspective, so that actions serve to confirm and increase it.28 Actions, al-Ghazālī pithily puts it in Patience and Gratitude, are a form of medicine: they are “a way of treating the malady of human hearts.”29 Just how seriously al-Ghazālī takes Aristotle’s insight about action as a means of effecting character change is made startlingly clear in the book On Fear and Hope (Kitāb al-Khawf wa-l-rajāʾ). The reason our character can no longer be modified after we die, al-Ghazālī observes there, is because character is modified through action, hence through the body, and our bodily parts cease to exist upon death.30 25  I draw on the translation of the Nicomachean Ethics by Terence Irwin. 26  See e. g., al-Fārābī, al-Fuṣūl: 30, and see below for some of Miskawayh’s relevant ideas. 27 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: viii, 1448; and see the concentrated discussion of this principle at

pp. 1443–1447. This approach does not exhaust al-Ghazālī’s view of the methods of character reform, as this includes a more cognitive type of therapy. 28 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: ii, 211–212. This is also a contribution to a larger theological debate about whether faith can increase and decrease. 29 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: xii, 2300. 30 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: xiii, 2364.

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2.  Law and the Education of Character Action, then, is not only evaluatively secondary to virtue, but serves as a means for cultivating it. Yet to fill out this picture, and to bring into view some of its bolder implications for the relation between virtue and the religious Law, we need to take a further step. Above, we heard al-Ghazālī speak of the improvement of the heart as the “purpose” or “benefit” of improving action, and of action as something that is “desired” (murād) for the sake of action.31 The reference, here, would seem to be to the reasons that human agents might have for choosing particular actions – as a means for reforming their character. Yet the more audacious part of al-Ghazālī’s claim involves transposing this intentional language from human beings to the divine Law. The education of character is the purpose of the Law in mandating the performance and avoidance of particular actions. This is a claim that al-Ghazālī puts clearly in a number of places, as at a juncture of the Discipline of the Soul, where he frames it relative to ritual observances or acts of worship (ʿibādāt). “The larger the number of acts of worship one performs over one’s lifetime,” he writes, the greater one’s reward, the purer and more righteous one’s heart, and the firmer and more established one’s traits of character. For the intended aim (maqṣūd) of acts of worship is that they impact on the heart, and this effect is reinforced the more assiduously one practises them.32

This is also the context of al-Ghazālī’s description of actions as a “way of treating the malady of human hearts,” which comes precisely in response to an objector who points out the enormous interest taken by the sharīʿa in actions. How can al-Ghazālī’s account of the primacy of virtue be squared with this obvious fact? “When a doctor extols a particular medication,” al-Ghazālī counters, “this does not indicate that the medication is desired for its own sake, or that it is better than the state of health and the healing it results in.” His continuation is interesting in implicitly acknowledging the need to explain the gap between the surface message of the scriptural texts and their underlying aim, the apparent order of values and the true one. Often a person will be sick and be unaware of it, so that if you were to recommend a treatment point-blank they would refuse it. Take a person with a skin condition on her face where she cannot see it. The only way to get her to wash with the type of water that would cure her condition would be to sing the praises of washing with that water – without, that is, mentioning the real purpose (maqṣūd). (Maybe you tell her it will make her smell nice, or that washing relieves stress). Similarly, the real aim served by the Law’s injunction 31  Cf.

the use of the term maqṣūd at al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: xii, 2298: “bi-sabab al-qurb min al-maqṣūd …” 32 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: viii, 1444. Cf. viii, 1364: “the point (murād) of all acts of obedience and bodily actions is the purification of the heart.”

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that we feed the poor is not simply that the poor be fed and benefited. The beggar who takes your money helps remove the “evil of miserliness and the love of the present world” from your soul. Thus, “almsgiving purifies one’s interior (alṣadaqāt tuṭahhiru al-bawāṭin).”33 So the real aim of the sharīʿa may not be the one written on its sleeve. When the sharīʿa commands particular acts, its true concern is not with these acts as ends in themselves, but as agents of inner transformation – a result they may effectuate even unbeknownst to us.34 In Patience and Gratitude, the understanding of the religious Law just limned is set out programmatically but succinctly. To see it unfold more fully, it is to a different part of the Revival that one must turn: the first quarter of the book, which al-Ghazālī dedicates to acts of worship. In the introduction to the Revival, al-Ghazālī offers his reader a neat compass to the structure of the book. Its focus will be on the science of praxis (muʿāmala) to the exclusion of the science of disclosure (mukāshafa). The science of praxis divides into the exoteric (ẓāhir) and the esoteric (bāṭin), which respectively concern the actions of the body and the actions of the mind. The exoteric in turn divides into (1) acts of worship (ʿibādāt) and (2) customary acts (ʿādāt), while the esoteric divides into (3) blameworthy or deleterious qualities (muhlika) and (4) praiseworthy or salvific ones (munjiya).35 These four subjects represent the themes of each of the four quarters of the Revival. Yet this schema in many ways misrepresents the character of al-Ghazālī’s discussion in the first half of the book. In approaching acts of worship, and to a large extent customary acts, his concern is not with purely external or bodily action. The chief ground, after all, for his provocative characterisation of jurisprudence ( fiqh) as a mundane science (ʿilm al-dunyā) concerned with merely mundane interests (maṣāliḥ al-dunyā), in the book On Knowledge, is that its scope is confined to externals. The jurist asks whether you have uttered the testimony of faith – not whether you truly believe it in your heart or rather spoke it for fear of the sword. He asks whether you bowed or prostrated correctly – not whether your mind was busily toting up the profits from your latest business deal. He checks whether you have followed the forms for the zakāt – not whether you twisted the legal forms so far that you upheld the letter of the Law but thwarted its spirit. And it is the spirit in which we do things, the state of the heart, that 33  See al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: xii, 2299–2301, for all the above. The two examples are not entirely analogous of course (unless perhaps the therapeutic water really does relieve stress, etc.), as the Law also aims at benefiting the receiver and not just the giver of alms, as al-Ghazālī himself points out elsewhere (see below). 34  This last point is in overt tension with al-Ghazālī’s emphasis on the importance of knowing the purposes of the Law in other parts of his discussion (see below). I hope to explore this interpretive-cum-philosophical puzzle elsewhere. 35 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: i, 5.

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makes action effective for the afterlife.36 “External” action cannot be separated from its internal conditions. This credo comes to life in al-Ghazālī’s treatment of acts of worship. Taking them up one by one – moving from purification to prayer, from zakāt to fasting and then to the hajj – his concern is to show how the outer actions prescribed by the Law must be inhabited from the inside and populated with spiritual significance. For the pilgrim embarking on the hajj, for example, each and every one of the concrete activities that enter the experience can be approached as a metaphor pointing to a deeper spiritual meaning. Having secured a mount for his journey, the pilgrim should recall how he will be carried to the next world on the day of his funeral. Upon purchasing his garments for the pilgrimage, he should be reminded of the shroud in which he will be wrapped. Entering the desert and embarking on the long road to the holy precincts, he should be reminded of the arduous journey between death and the Day of Judgement. Physical acts and events serve as reminders (tadhkira), admonitions (ʿibra), and pointers (ishāra).37 Elsewhere, this metaphorical cognition gives way to a richer concern with the emotional attitudes and spiritual states that ought to accompany the performance of ritual observances. Prayer forms a case in point. It is only properly executed when a person realises a number of internal conditions (maʿānin bāṭina) during its performance. These include, above all, undivided attention and presence of mind, a sense of veneration (taʿẓīm), awe (hayba), and shame (ḥayāʾ) balanced by hope (rajāʾ). Departing from a view common among jurists, al-Ghazālī in fact declares the mind’s presence in prayer a condition for its validity.38 The aspects of al-Ghazālī’s account just outlined tie in with an approach to legal requirements taken by a number of his Sufi predecessors. In articulating their distinctive attitude to the sharīʿa, prominent Sufis had on the one hand emphasised the importance of full adherence to its precepts. As al-Qushayrī (d.  465/1074) put it in his Epistle (al-Risāla al-Qushayriyya): “Every sharīʿa which is not supported by truth is not accepted. Every truth which is not bound by the sharīʿa is not accepted.” The Sufi pathway or ṭarīqa is an offshoot of the broader highway of the Law and thus presupposes it.39 The distinctiveness of the 36  See

al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: i, 30–34. A  more accurate representation of al-Ghazālī’s task in the first half of the book comes on i, 29, where he describes it as “the knowledge of how the qualities of the heart percolate to the body in the performance of acts of worship and customary acts.” 37  The last point is from al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: iii, 482; and see 485–486 for the other points. 38 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: ii, 285–292. 39  Abū l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla: i, 296. My phrasing here reflects Annemarie Schimmel’s remarks about the relationship between the Sufi ṭarīqa and the sharīʿa in Schimmel 1975: 98–99. For more on this relation, see also Ayoub 1990. And see Nicholson 2002: 64–65 for a comment on the Sufi “allegorization” of religious rites and a widely discussed example of this tendency.

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Sufi approach rather lay in “interiorising” or “spiritualising” legal obligations, ensuring they were carried out in the right spirit and with the right attitudes. This approach finds its reflection in the prominent work of the Sufi author Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī (d. 386/996), the Nourishment of the Hearts (Qūt al-qulūb), which, as we know, exerted a strong influence on al-Ghazālī. Discussing prayer, al-Makkī emphasises the importance of humility and sincerity; the person who says “God is great” must be fully behind their words and hold nothing greater than God in their heart of hearts. Discussing the zakāt, he highlights the need to give cheerfully, out of a desire for God rather than praise or renown, free from any feelings of superiority toward the recipient, and rather nursing a sense of love and even reverence toward them as the enabling condition for one’s piety. The person performing the pilgrimage must do so in a spirit of awe and singleminded dedication to God, their heart empty of competing desires and concerns.40 In calling attention to the importance of fulfilling certain interior conditions in carrying out the directives of the Law, al-Ghazālī thus evokes lines of thinking cultivated by several other Sufi writers before him. The actions commanded by the Law must be accompanied by certain kinds of inner states and attitudes. The more distinctive aspect of al-Ghazālī’s account of ritual observances in this part of the Revival emerges when he resumes the language of “aims” and “purposes” we saw in Patience and Gratitude to frame the last point as a claim about the reasons why these actions were instituted by the Law. This intentional focus is already flagged by the terms al-Ghazālī uses to caption his discussion in this part of the Revival, where the titles of individual books refer to the “Secrets” or “Mysteries” (asrār) of the various ritual observances. It becomes far clearer in the body of his discussion of the individual observances, and nowhere more so than in a fascinating set of programmatic remarks he offers early in the book on The Mysteries of Zakat (Kitāb Asrār al-zakāt). There, he distinguishes between three kinds of duties established by the Law. First, there are duties that were instituted purely as a means for human beings to express their servitude to God, and where the aim of the Law (maqṣūd al-sharʿ) is to test human beings for their obedience (imtiḥān, ibtilāʾ). A second class of duties was instituted for the sake of some human interest (ḥaẓẓ). Yet a third is a class that represents a mixture of the first two, with God’s claims and the claims of human beings combining.41 This positioning view packs a wealth of insights that here I will have to leave unmined, apart from observing that the boundaries between the three classes seem to be drawn a little too sharply. As other jurists would sometimes note, all 40  These points appear passim in al-Makkī’s discussion of the five pillars of Islam in the 33rd chapter of the Qūt al-qulūb: iii, 1171–1268. 41 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: ii, 385–386.



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commanded acts contain a divine claim insofar as they have been commanded, and all commanded acts contain a human claim (impacting on human interests) insofar as obedience to God’s command will be rewarded.42 I will return to this point shortly from a different direction. Be that as it may, this view forms the backdrop of al-Ghazālī’s approach to zakāt, which he places in the third class. As an act of charitable giving that benefits the poor, it serves human interests. But the specific rules that must be followed also involve a kind of difficulty (taʿab) that range it with duties intended to test and express servitude.43 A few pages down, this general outline of the purposes of zakāt is succeeded by a more detailed exposition which both nuances and in certain respects modifies the first, while also illuminating the role that an understanding of these purposes is expected to play in the inner life of the individual. The very first task for a person interested in the proper fulfilment of the Law – that is, with a view to the hereafter – is in fact to acquire a clear conception of the purposes of zakāt, grasping “its meaning, the type of test (imtiḥān) it involves, and the reason it was made a pillar of Islam.” Al-Ghazālī picks out three key meanings in this context. Firstly, zakāt was legislated in order to test the testimony of faith, which affirms God as the sole object of worship and therefore love, by forcing us to part with money and worldly possessions. The second point of zakāt is to express gratitude for the blessing of wealth. It is the third that will seem especially interesting to us, which is to “purify people from the quality of miserliness (bukhl).” For “the way to eliminate the quality of miserliness is to habituate oneself to giving out money; our love of something is only uprooted by forcing ourselves to part with it until it becomes a habit.”44 If we wished to relate this scheme to the previous one, we would most naturally align the first point with the expression of servitude and the last with the promotion of human interests.45 Unlike the first scheme, however, whose focus was on the benefit reaped by the recipient of alms, here the focus is on the benefit reaped by the giver. And while the previous scheme touched on a type of well42  The later Mālikite jurist Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qarāfī (d. 684/1285) provides an emblematic expression of the first point: “God’s claim consists in his command and prohibition,” hence “there is no human claim that does not contain a divine claim, which is God’s command that this claim be discharged.” K. al-Furūq: i, 312. Al-Ghazālī himself calls attention to the latter point when he observes, apropos zakāt, that the giver should feel grateful to the receiver for benefitting him by enabling him to fulfil God’s claim and thus obtain salvation (= further his own good). The person who gives alms should in fact realise that in doing so he is ultimately benefitting himself (muḥsin … ilā nafsihi). Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: iii, 393. 43 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: ii, 385–386. 44 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: ii, 387–389. I have slightly altered al-Ghazālī’s order of presentation. 45  It would also seem reasonable to range the second point, which concerns gratitude, with the third; gratitude is after all one of the praiseworthy/salvific qualities included in the last quarter of the Revival. Yet, al-Ghazālī does not emphasise the character-forming intention of the Law in this case. Perhaps because it is less plausible to view the promotion of gratitude as a direct pedagogical effect of the act of giving?

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being involving the satisfaction of worldly or material needs, the focus in this one is on a type of ethical or spiritual well-being functional for the higher ends of the next life. The intention of the Law here is to promote the ethical health of the believer, removing vice and instilling virtue. The structural role played by the Aristotelian maxim “we become by doing” in grounding this idea will be evident. Repeated often enough, the act of giving will loosen the attachment we feel toward our possessions and cure us of the vice of miserliness. This core idea finds expression in al-Ghazālī’s treatment of the other ritual observances. The observance of fasting can thus be linked to the aim of learning to control physical appetites, helping cure people of gluttony (shahwat albaṭn).46 Elsewhere al-Ghazālī frames the point by reference to the ideal of godlikeness that ought to orient the spiritual efforts of the believer. “The purpose of fasting is to acquire one of the character traits of God, namely self-subsistence (ṣamadiyya), and to emulate the angels in abstaining from the appetites as far as possible.”47 The most intuitive name for the virtue cultivated by this observance, taken as a disposition concerned with the regulation of physical appetites and pleasures, would be temperance or self-control, for which the most common Arabic expressions are ʿiffa and ṣabr. It is thus relevant to note the clear links established by some of the scriptural sources cited by al-Ghazālī between fasting and the latter concept. As one well-known prophetic tradition has it, “fasting is one half of temperance (al-ṣawm niṣf al-ṣabr).”48 Yet in al-Ghazālī’s work, this particular term carries a far wider range of meanings, with important implications for how we understand the relation between religious commands and moral virtue. As a virtue, ṣabr can be translated in at least two different ways: as “patience” or “fortitude,” and as “temperance” or “self-control.” This double profile mirrors the duplicity of the domains over which it presides: the endurance of evils and the regulation of pleasures. This in turn reflects the grammatical possibilities of the Arabic: “to endure” (ṣabara ʿalā), “to refrain from” (ṣabara ʿan).49 Taken in the second sense, it is a quality that al-Ghazālī conceptualises in more inclusive terms that transcend the narrower domain picked out above – the regulation of physical appetites and pleasures, such as food and sex – tying it to the mastery of passions and desires more broadly. In this capacity, it arguably serves as the master virtue of his ethics, and indeed presents itself as effectively co-extensive with the concept of virtuous character. This reflects 46 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: xii, 2299. 47 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: iii, 429. This

seems a reasonable translation of ṣamadiyya in the context, though the term has a somewhat more complex and ambiguous reach. Compare e. g., al-Ghazālī’s remarks in al-Maqṣad: 144. 48  Quoted by al-Ghazālī in al-Iḥyāʾ: iii, 420. 49  This simplifies what is a rather complex (and at times downright complicated) discussion. For the full detail of al-Ghazālī’s account of ṣabr, see al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: xii, 2171–2173, and compare al-Mīzān: 323–325.



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one of the key features of al-Ghazālī’s ethics, which is its tendency to conceptualise good character as fundamentally concerned with, and manifested in, the subjugation of bodily drives and desires and by extension worldly attachments. At one place in Patience and Gratitude, the chief component of good character (ḥusn al-khuluq) is thus simply named as “refraining from following the demands of the appetites and the irascible drive (tark muqtaḍā al-shahawāt wal-ghaḍab).” The virtue term that al-Ghazālī uses to designate this component in this context is ʿiffa.50 Elsewhere in the book it is ṣabr that is enthroned in this capacity. Temperance or self-control is the quality that enables us to resist our appetites and desires and act as we ought. “Acting as we ought” is here understood most immediately in terms of acting as the religious Law commands. Self-control is thus presented as the quality that enables “the motive of religion” (bāʿith aldīn) to triumph over the “motive of wanton desire” (bāʿith al-hawā).51 The basic opposition between the commands of the Law and wanton desire is reflected in al-Ghazālī’s remarks about the aim of fasting. Its purpose (maqṣūd), he writes in The Mysteries of Fasting (Kitāb Asrār al-ṣawm), is “to break down wanton desire (hawā) so that the soul can become capable of righteousness.”52 The same emphasis shapes al-Ghazālī’s discussion of the hajj in the relevant book. The only means of reaching God is to “free oneself from the appetites and abstain from pleasures” and devote oneself wholly to God. This is a goal that the ascetics of earlier religions (rahbāniyyūn) had pursued by making a wholesale break with society and worldly pleasures and fleeing to the wilderness. It is this same spiritual possibility, in a gentler form, that God sought to rekindle by instituting the hajj with all the rigour of its constituent rites. It was part of God’s wisdom “to make human salvation contingent on their acting in ways that oppose the wanton desire of their nature (ʿalā khilāf hawā ṭibāʿihim).”53 Whether the command of the religious Law must always conflict with our desires is an interesting and (very) large question. Yet, in many places, including the focused remarks in On Patience and Gratitude, this is the emphasis that shapes al-Ghazālī’s thinking; and in one place, he goes so far as to indicate one of the deepest reasons why. Acts of obedience (ṭāʿa), he observes, “require selfcontrol (ṣabr); and it is difficult to endure acts of obedience, for the soul naturally recoils from the state of servitude (ʿubūdiyya) and covets the state of lordship (rubūbiyya).”54 Part of the importance of this remark lies in the delicate 50 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: xii, 2240. The other component is observing a just measure in so doing, which philosophically would seem to be inseparable from, if not implicit in, the first, to the extent that the first is a virtue. 51 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: xii, 2173. 52 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: iii, 428. 53 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: iii, 482–483. 54 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: xii, 2184. For another comment on the human yearning for lordship, see Vasalou 2019: 37–40.

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qualification it introduces to al-Ghazālī’s earlier account of the different types of religious duties. All duties, this suggests, to the extent that they are instituted and upheld through a command, express God’s status as master and demand an expression of the human status as bondsman. One of the most powerful reasons why we experience such an expression as onerous is because it is in our nature as human beings to resist governance by another. This may change as one’s character is remoulded through conformity to the Law across one’s lifetime; whether it can be uprooted entirely is another question. To the extent that the Law requires us to perform actions that oppose our desires – a point that al-Ghazālī underscores in his account of the purposes of ritual acts55 – most if not all of its commands can be seen as requiring, and by the same token inculcating, a virtue. At the most fundamental level, in fact, we could say that the acts commanded by the Law serve to cultivate one single virtue, namely the virtue of self-control in the inclusive sense outlined above. Most of the other virtues (and vices) could be said to reduce, with some analysis, to this master attribute. This includes temperance in the narrower sense and its opposite vice, gluttony, mentioned by al-Ghazālī in connection with fasting. It also includes generosity and its opposite, the vice of miserliness, mentioned by al-Ghazālī in connection with zakāt. Both virtue-vice pairs can be reduced to a successful or defective mastery of desire (for physical pleasures and wealth respectively). This characterisation opens out to larger questions about the structure of al-Ghazālī’s ethics, and in particular how we should understand the status of individual virtues in his scheme given his overwhelming focus on the mastery of bodily desires and the removal of worldly attachments as the paradigm of virtuous character. Can individual virtues such as temperance or generosity be reduced to the master virtue of self-control without remainder? Although this is an interpretive question, it would be hard to settle it without engaging with philosophical approaches to the question of how we individuate the virtues.56 I will not try to resolve this question here; but I would argue that even if, on alGhazālī’s terms, the domains of individual virtues such as temperance or generosity were to collapse into the domain of self-control, there is one distinction that it would still be important to preserve in approaching his account of the pedagogical function of the religious Law. Because there are, it may be noticed, at least two ways of parsing the desire opposed by the religious Law in the various cases considered above – two kinds of desires that we have as human beings, which might be respectively characterised as first-order and second-order in kind. On the one hand, as human beings 55  An interesting exception to this precept is prayer: see al-Ghazālī’s discussion at al-Iḥyāʾ: ii, 285–286. 56  For a recent engagement with this question, see Russell 2009: chap. 6.



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we desire specific goods such as physical pleasures, or wealth, or honour. (These goods, on a more traditional view, carve out the domains of the different individual virtues, whose task it is to regulate our attitude to them.) On the other hand, as human beings we desire to make our decisions about which desires we satisfy, to govern ourselves and determine our own actions. This drive to self-determination partly manifests as a need to make choices on the basis of intelligible reasons – to know why we do the things we do. Though the Law’s command, qua command, will always oppose the latter desire and often also a desire of the first type, in some cases its opposition to the desire for self-determination will be felt more strongly than in others; the command will be felt more openly as a command. These are cases in which precisely the purposes of the religious Law, the reasons why we are being commanded to a course of action, elude our understanding. Among the ritual observances al-Ghazālī discusses, it is the hajj that he singles out as the prime exemplar. Contrary to other ritual observances, many of the acts that comprise the hajj seem unintelligible to us. Why does the Law command us to run between the hills of Safa and Marwa? Why does it command us to throw stones at a particular pillar – a specified number of stones at that? Yet our incomprehension, our failure to uncover reasons, is here of the essence. For “the purpose of the law (maqṣūd al-sharʿ) in this,” al-Ghazālī explains, “is to test a person by means of action, so that he should exhibit his bondage and servitude by performing an act in which he cannot discern an intelligible meaning (li-yuẓhira al-ʿabd riqqahu wa-ʿubūdiyyatahu bi-fiʿl mā lā yaʿqilu lahu maʿnan).”57 The moment our minds identify a reason or purpose behind a command, our desire for self-determination receives a kind of satisfaction, and we cease to act purely because we were commanded, in order to exhibit our servitude and fulfil God’s right to be worshipped and obeyed. In other words, it is essential to obedience that it be blind. This is the insight reflected in al-Ghazālī’s account of religious duties, and his claim that only some of them were instituted with the pure aim of testing human obedience. Al-Ghazālī himself does not invite us to think of obedience as a virtue, but given the emphasis that shapes his account, it would not be a stretch to frame his point in these terms. The Law’s distinctive character-forming effect in this subset of duties, we could then say, is to cultivate the virtue of obedience. Yet, to the extent that all commands qua commands engage our desire for self-determination to varying degrees, as mentioned above, the same could be said of all commands. Obedience and self-control then stand out as the two master virtues inculcated by the religious Law.

57 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: ii, 385; cf. iii, 483.

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3.  Al-Ghazālī’s Account in Context: Between Jurisprudence and Philosophy Beginning from a question about the relation between virtue and action, I sought to reconstruct al-Ghazālī’s response to this question as it unfolds in the Revival. It is virtue, we saw, that carries indisputable primacy over action. This evaluative claim finds its complement in a distinctive pedagogical vision of the religious Law. The purpose of the Law in instituting a number of key requirements – on one argument, all its requirements – is to educate human character.58 In piecing together this account, I drew on al-Ghazālī’s direct pronouncements on the topic, while also spinning out some of their less obvious implications using a stronger interpretive yarn. This account, it must be said, is not free from questions, or indeed difficulties. Some of these are philosophical, bearing on its cogency, while others concern its relation to the broader economy of al-Ghazālī’s views and commitments. Without trying to address these here, I will only mention one of the largest – and most incendiary – questions, which flows logically from al-Ghazālī’s answer to the question of explanatory primacy. Al-Ghazālī’s answer, as we saw, involves a rejection of the thesis that what makes a disposition praiseworthy (i. e., a virtue) is that it leads us to perform particular actions whose value is identified through other means, notably through the Law commanding them. Rather, an action is praiseworthy if it manifests a virtuous disposition, or leads to its formation. Yet in Patience and Gratitude, he takes this point one step further through a delicate yet telling shift in vocabulary. Any given action either leads to a state that impedes disclosure (mukāshafa) and serves to darken the heart … or to a state that is amenable to disclosure, serves to purify the heart, and severs worldly attachments. The first is called ‘an act of disobedience’ (maʿṣiyya) and the latter ‘an act of obedience’ (ṭāʿa).59

In this statement, the subordinate status of action is made startlingly plain. Right action simply is whatever promotes a good state of the heart. Yet al-Ghazālī does not simply speak of “right action,” but of acts of obedience and disobedience. These are terms that belong to a religious frame of reference, and are inextricably linked to the concept of the divine Law. Obedience consists in conformity with a command. As such, they crystallise a natural question: If ethical judgements on action can be derived directly from consideration of their impact on character – which, as al-Ghazālī crucially highlights in the same context, will vary from person to person – where does this leave the unconditional judgements of the reli58 

The therapeutic view of ritual acts is also expressed in other works, including the Deliverer from Error. For further discussion and a particular interpretation of the context of this view, see Kukkonen 2016: esp. 283–291. See also Abul Quasem 1976: chapter 6. 59 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: xii, 2298.



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gious Law? If in a given case an action would promote ethical health but violate the strict letter of the Law, would a person be licenced to choose it? This question revives an old spectre that has sometimes haunted Sufi approaches to the Law – its antinomian potential. Without confronting this spectre, our picture of al-Ghazālī’s attitude to virtue and the Law will remain incomplete.60 Leaving this confrontation to another occasion, here my concern is to finally begin scaffolding al-Ghazālī’s account with a broader context. Considered from one perspective, part of the interest of his account lies in the way it engages longstanding questions about the foundations of the religious Law and the relation between reason and the Law, which were commonly fought out in the corridors of theology and legal theory. What is the nature and basis of God’s commands? Do they track objective features of actions, or are they untethered from our ordinary sense of what matters? To what extent can the human mind plumb God’s reasons for instituting the laws he did? Al-Ghazālī’s contribution to these questions across his works of theology and legal theory was farreaching, and was unified by an emphasis on utility or human welfare (maṣlaḥa) as the foundational evaluative concept. His works on legal theory played a critical role in crystallising the mature theory of the aims of the Law (maqāṣid alsharīʿa), which identified a set of key human interests that the Law seeks to promote (namely religion, reason, life, property, and progeny). To the extent that God’s laws serve our interests, they coincide with “our ordinary sense of what matters” in a significant sense.61 A claim of the intelligibility of the Law, similarly, was enshrined in the use of analogy (qiyās) as a tool of legal reasoning among the majority of legal schools, and was especially strongly reflected in the use of suitability (munāsaba) as a means of identifying legal causes. In one regard, the account presented in the Revival will seem continuous with this perspective insofar as the purpose of legal observances is linked to the promotion of human ethical health, which in turn facilitates the intellectual condition in which the distinctive perfection and happiness of human beings lies. The thicker ethical concepts of virtue and perfection mark an important extension of the minimalist utilitarian currency foregrounded by al-Ghazālī elsewhere. At the same time, unlike the five interests picked out in al-Ghazālī’s legal works, which represent worldly interests, the type of human well-being at stake in the Revival speaks to the otherworldly domain, in which our truest well-being is vested. More striking than these comparisons, however, will be another point, which concerns the rational claims imported by al-Ghazālī’s account in the Revival. 60  We would certainly need to tackle this question before we could evaluate Kukkonen’s interesting suggestion that al-Ghazālī’s aim in offering his account of the character-forming effect of ritual law was to affirm its importance in the face of the antinomian tendencies of the views of religious ordinances expounded by the likes of al-Fārābī and Avicenna. See Kukkonen 2016: 283–291. 61  For a more nuanced discussion of this point, see Vasalou 2016: chapter 4.

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Legal scholars often distinguished between two types of laws: those which concerned human transactions (muʿāmalāt) – such as buying and selling, lending and borrowing, or matters of marriage and inheritance – and ritual observances (ʿibādāt). From an epistemological perspective, one of the most important differences between these categories lay in how amenable they were to rational understanding, as reflected in the ability to use analogy for extending the Law in each case. The former, which revolved around human interests, offered fertile ground for rational investigation. Faced with the latter, human reason came up against its limits.62 Al-Ghazālī’s treatment of the purposes of the Law in the Revival broaches precisely this dark continent, offering a bold account of the reasons that underlie the acts of worship commanded by the Law. It is not simply that we can know these reasons, but that we must know them in order to properly carry out the Law’s command, aligning our minds with the Law’s intentions. Al-Ghazālī made a special exception, as we saw, for one subset of ritual acts, exemplified by the hajj, where the realisation of the divine purpose depends on the limits of intelligibility having been reached. Yet a closer analysis (which I will not try to offer here) would raise questions as to whether even this is a limit that alGhazālī ultimately manages to observe. The lure of intelligibility – the power of the human drive to self-determination – is too great. Al-Ghazālī’s approach, to be sure, was not entirely unexampled in the development of the legal sciences. As Kevin Reinhart has shown, there was a vanguard of early jurists, including ones belonging to al-Ghazālī’s own school, who had pursued a similar project. The best example is the 4th/10th-century Shafiʿite jurist al-Qaffāl al-Shāshī (d. 365/976), who had offered a daring rationalist analysis of the purposes served by ritual law. His analysis, Reinhart comments, struck al-Qaffāl’s fellow-jurists as “too flimsily grounded” to take root.63 Against this backdrop, al-Ghazālī’s articulation of related ideas stands out both for its greater depth and intellectual power, and also for the broad range of intellectual paradigms he brings into conversation in offering it. His distinctive account emerges through the synergy of at least three intellectual perspectives, welding together an emphasis on legal purpose at home in legal theory, an emphasis on the inner life of the mind at home in Sufism, and a concern with virtue and its pedagogy at home in philosophical texts. So on the one hand, al-Ghazālī’s account of the relation between virtue and the religious Law represents an important chapter in the unfolding of large-print questions negotiated in the disciplines of theology and legal theory, which thus provide a crucial context for situating its significance. Yet even more important, especially for the purposes of this volume, will be another context; and this is 62  For a deeper exploration of these issues and the relation between these two domains of law, see Reinhart 2014. 63  Reinhart 2014: 74–76. For further context on al-Qaffāl’s project, see El Shamsy 2014.

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the one provided by works of philosophical ethics. Some of al-Ghazālī’s philosophical debts already came up for comment earlier. One of the most important debts, here, was the fundamental Aristotelian idea about how virtue is acquired, and character formed. Yet there are other natural comparisons to be drawn that drive even deeper into the heart of al-Ghazālī’s account. Modern philosophers, I noted at the start, tend to think of virtue and duty – and by extension law – as evaluative concepts that are at some level antagonistic. Yet the idea that the two are not just related but necessarily related is as old as the idea that ethics cannot get off the ground without politics. Virtue can only flourish when the right political provisions are made for it. As Robert George observes in Making Men Moral, there was a key consensus in what he calls “the central pre-liberal tradition” of thought about morality, politics, and law that laws have an important role to play in helping people “establish and preserve a virtuous character.”64 The idea that law can and should educate character is pervasive in Plato’s work, arguably in the Republic but especially in his last work, the Laws.65 It is also found in Aristotle, both in the Politics and also in the Nicomachean Ethics. “The city-state,” as he puts it in the Politics, “must be concerned with virtue,” and law be “such as to make the citizens good and just” (1280b6–8, 1280b12).66 In the Nicomachean Ethics, it is a point that shapes Aristotle’s concluding remarks, where he raises the difficult question of just how successful the kinds of philosophical arguments he has been offering can be in changing people for the better. In fact, it is hard for them to have such an effect unless people have already acquired a love of the noble, which means acquiring the right kinds of habits. And how can such habits be formed? It is here, Aristotle suggests, that the laws can play a role: It is difficult … for someone to be trained correctly for virtue from his youth if he has not been brought up under correct laws;67 for the many, especially the young, do not find it pleasant to live in a temperate and resistant way. That is why laws must prescribe their upbringing and practices; for they will not find these things painful when they get used to them (NE 1179b31–1180a1).

As he puts it elsewhere – in the significant context of formulating the pedagogical maxim that virtue is acquired through the performance of virtuous actions, and as evidence of the truth of that maxim – “the legislator makes the citizens good by habituating them” (1103b3–4).68 64  65 

George 1993: 1. For an excellent discussion of Plato’s account of the relation between law and virtue focusing on both texts, see Annas 2017. 66  I draw on the translation by C. D.C. Reeve. 67  Or as Christopher Rowe translates: “laws that aim at that effect”. 68  Cf. more epigrammatically at 1180b25: “… laws are a means to make us good”.

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These ideas would be taken up in the Islamic world by a number of thinkers engaging with the Greek philosophical tradition. This includes al-Fārābī, whose political ideals are deeply informed by the belief that a key task of the statesman is to foster the virtues among the members of the polis – healing their souls the way physicians heal their bodies, as the Aphorisms of the Statesman (Fuṣūl muntazaʿa) puts it – and to thereby enable them to achieve happiness.69 Al-Fārābī is also known to have produced a summary of Plato’s Laws70 in which the connection between law and the cultivation of virtue is distinctly enunciated. It also includes Miskawayh, whose debt to Aristotelian lines of thinking stands out especially clearly at this juncture. In the Refinement of Character (Tahdhīb al-akhlāq), he reprises a point Aristotle had made in the chapter on justice of the Nicomachean Ethics (NE 1129b19–23), albeit with a telling twist. “The Law (sharīʿa) commands praiseworthy things (maḥmūda) because it comes from God; it only commands the good (khayr) … it commands all of the virtues and prohibits all the vices.”71 The term sharīʿa delicately broadens the perspective from the manmade law of the polis which Aristotle had in mind to the religious Law. It will be hard not to hear in this statement an echo of the well-known Quranic verse: “Surely God commands justice and good-doing” (inna Allāha yaʾmuru bi-l-ʿadl wa-l-iḥsān, Q 16:90). This was the verse, we may observe, that had served as crucial ammunition for Muʿtazilite theologians defending the claim that the Law commands what is objectively good – understood, in their framework, in terms of right actions rather than virtuous traits. Drawing on Aristotle, Miskawayh thus puts out a claim about the conformity of the sharīʿa’s commands to objective goodness. Even more relevant to our line of inquiry, he also puts out a claim concerning the pedagogical effect of these commands in cultivating goodness. Taken most simply, the Law features as part of a two-stage developmental model in which habituation forms the first stage and philosophical understanding the second. In the first instance, young people acquire good habits by performing the actions required by the religious Law. “It is the sharīʿa,” Miskawayh states, “that puts the young straight and habituates them to appropriate acts.”72 At this stage, behavioural compliance is grounded in non-virtuous motives of reward and punishment. Once they have acquired these good habits, as adults they can go on to achieve a deeper rational understanding of their evaluative foundations (al-asbāb wa-l-ʿilal).73 The Aristotelian 69 Al-Farābī, al-Fuṣūl: 24–45. This is also an important theme in the Book of Religion (Kitāb al-Milla) and a number of other works. 70  Or possibly a summary of Galen’s summary. For a defence of this view see Gutas 1997. Contrast Druart 1998: 112. 71 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 117. Note that Aristotle had more specifically stated that the law commands the actions corresponding to the virtues. Yet Miskawayh’s developmental model (see below) clearly aligns itself with that specification of the idea. 72 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 35. 73 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 129.



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resonance will be evident: knowing the that, we can ask questions about the why (NE 1095b6–7). Philosophical insight comes to fortify the principles acquired through religion, revealing the confluence of reason and scripture. Thus, the happy man is “one fortunate enough to be brought up as a child under the discipline (adab) of the Law and held to its requirements and provisions until he grows habituated to them, and who later on consults books of ethics and finds those principles of conduct and fine qualities reinforced in his soul through demonstrative proofs.”74 The affinities of these philosophical accounts with al-Ghazālī’s model as we reviewed it will be suggestive. The core idea is the same: a key function of law is to educate character, which it does by first securing the performance of certain kinds of actions. For both al-Ghazālī and Miskawayh, this pedagogical purpose is transparent, at a basic level at least, to human reason. Both, in their respective works, seek to educate their readers’ moral cognition, deepening their grasp of the purpose and meaning of the things they (have learned to) do. Although the evidence is not strong that al-Ghazālī read Greek ethical texts in translation directly, his acquaintance with the works of Muslim philosophers was wide-ranging, and his ethical writings leave no room for doubting that he was familiar with works of philosophical ethics more specifically, including those of Miskawayh. Was it these philosophical sparks that stimulated the development of his own account of the relation between virtue and the religious Law? It is possible; certainly, the affinities are too suggestive to leave these philosophical precedents out when one seeks to build an intellectual context for al-Ghazālī’s ideas. At the same time, these very affinities throw into relief a number of important differences that separate al-Ghazālī’s account from its philosophical analogues. These differences give part of the reason why one might be led to doubt the philosophical paternity of al-Ghazālī’s ideas. Yet in either case, they train a spotlight on the distinctive character of his account, and as such it is important to briefly pick them out. Coming from the ancient context, the deepest difference concerns the kinds of laws at issue, and what this reveals about the larger horizon in which the life of virtue is located. Thematising the connection between law and virtue in a key passage of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle had illustrated it through a number of examples. The law thus “instructs us to do the actions of a brave person – for instance, not to leave the battle-line, or to flee, or to throw away our weapons; of a temperate person – not to commit adultery or wanton aggression; of a mild person – not to strike or revile another; and similarly requires actions in accord with the other virtues” (1129b19–23). One element that unifies these examples is that they concern actions that affect others. In this regard, they derive their significance from a social context. The same focus is reflected in some of the Muslim authors taking up philosophical ideas about virtue and the law and seeking 74 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 49.

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to adapt them to a religious framework. Discussing the religious determination (taqdīr) of actions in The Book of Religion (Kitāb al-Milla), al-Fārābī thus singles out “actions by which the mutual dealings of the inhabitants of the cities are regulated.”75 This calls attention to a point that may already have stood out in my above survey of al-Ghazālī’s account of the religious Law and its pedagogical effect. In documenting this effect, my analysis focused exclusively on one specific class of actions, namely ritual observances or acts of worship (ʿibādāt). Yet legal scholars, as noted earlier, distinguished between two categories of legal actions: acts of worship and human transactions (muʿāmalāt). Unlike the former, which speaks to the relation between man and God, the latter category speaks to the social context of the human community. So why my monocular focus on the former? Now one of the most memorable sequences of the first book of the Revival is al-Ghazālī’s treatment of jurisprudence ( fiqh), which, as briefly mentioned earlier, he labels a “worldly science” concerned with merely mundane interests. The only reason jurisprudence is needed, he explains elsewhere in the book On Knowledge, is on account of our bodily needs. Human beings are not self-sufficient, so they are forced to live in communities in order to meet these needs. Human nature being what it is, human association would naturally descend to anarchy and strife as people conflicted over objects of desire. This is why jurisprudence is necessary: to supply a principle of just arbitration (al-siyāsa wa-lʿadl) for ordering human transactions (muʿāmalāt).76 This rather saturnine view provides an important context for al-Ghazālī’s attitude to the laws governing human transactions. Yet this domain is by no means wholly overlooked in the Revival; that, after all, would have been inconsistent with al-Ghazālī’s aim of reclaiming the outer and spiritualising it in the best way possible (as also with his evident aspiration to offer a comprehensive guide to life). In the second quarter of the Revival, dedicated to “customs” (ʿādāt), many of the themes of al-Ghazālī’s discussion overlap with the types of topics addressed in books of jurisprudence under the heading of muʿāmalāt. Entire books, for example, are dedicated to marriage and economic activity. Al-Ghazālī’s treatment of these topics reflects his broader agenda in the Revival, to filter all activity sub specie aeternitatis and to ensure we have the right motivations and spiritual priorities in all we do. Addressing the person who makes a living as a trader in the book The Etiquette of Earning a Living (Kitāb Ādāb al-kasb wa-l-maʿāsh), he counsels him on how to ensure his activity accords with justice and beneficence and is ordered by an awareness of his true spiritual telos.77 Even mundane activities such as these can be inhabited in better and worse ways. 75 Alfarabi, The Political Writings: 96. The Arabic term is muʿāmalāt. 76 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: i, 92; cf. al-Ghazālī, al-Mīzān: 359. 77  See the discussion in al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: iv, 775–v, 801.



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Missing from these discussions, however, is the purposive emphasis of the books dealing with the ritual observances – the idea that the commands of the Law in this domain were instituted with particular ethical and pedagogical ends. It seems highly telling that, in the classification of religious duties we saw, alGhazālī declares the intention with which the action is performed irrelevant to successful fulfilment of one’s legal obligation in the case of the second class of duties, which was the one connected to the promotion of human interests and was illustrated precisely through examples filed under the heading of “transactions,” such as repaying debts or returning usurped objects. To fulfil the basic aims of the Law here, all that matters is that you do these things, not how you do them.78 The implication, overall, appears to be that these kinds of laws have little formative importance. The most important ethical and spiritual formation happens not in the transactions between human beings but in the transactions between human beings and God – in the domain, thus, of ritual acts.79 This reflects a larger point, and larger difference with the philosophical perspectives just outlined. Going through the Revival, the human community appears to recede into the background as a location in which virtue is acquired and practiced. Human society in fact often registers as a source of grave moral danger rather than improvement and edification. It is the source of one of the greatest moral temptations, to which the Revival keeps dizzily returning like a moth to a flame: the concern with status and appearance, which poisons the deepest foundations of the spiritual life. Far from fostering virtue, human society antagonises it. Al-Ghazālī’s broader view of society as a scene of internecine conflict between appetite-driven agents has a Hobbesian quality to it. Unlike Aristotle, he seems to think we need society to live, not to live well;80 we are contingently forced into communities to meet our physical needs, not our higher – intellectual or spiritual – ones. His more positive discussion of human relations in the book devoted to brotherhood (ukhuwwa) and companionship (ṣuḥba) does little to mitigate this overall impression, though more could be said about this. One of the most astonishing features of that discussion is the almost complete absence of any reference to the ways in which other human beings may intentionally further our moral (as against intellectual) education and help us move toward a virtuous 78  This is how I understand the relevant passage in al-Ghazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: ii, 385, though there is an aspect of al-Ghazālī’s framing of the point I find opaque. This, of course, does not mean that it does not matter on another level if one carries out these actions angrily or spitefully or wishing one could keep the money. This is where Sufi morality becomes, as Paul Heck puts it, hypernomian, finding the special context of its exercise in the domain of discretion or ibāḥa. See Heck 2006. 79  Though, of course, it may be noted that one of these acts has an other-regarding aspect, namely zakāt. 80  Aristotle draws this distinction in various places in the Politics, e. g., 1252b29–30; cf. 1280b39–1281a2.

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character.81 If, as has been recently argued, al-Ghazālī’s project in the Revival had a this-worldly political dimension, this is not something that can be easily read off the body of the text itself. In the body of the text, ethics and politics seem to come apart.82 This is a very different picture of the relationship between the individual and the community from the one that emerges from the work of many of the ancient philosophers, and also of philosophers operating in al-Ghazālī’s own context. Al-Fārābī is the most brilliant example, but the same holds true of Miskawayh. The ethical vision he presents in the Refinement of Character is threaded through the basic Aristotelian insight that human beings are political animals. We need others not only to fulfil our material needs but to achieve our proper perfection: “we cannot perfect ourselves through our own resources” (lā yaktafī bi-nafsihi fī takmīl dhātihi).83 The virtues can only be acquired in a community; and they can only be exercised in a community. In fact, the moral virtues take their point from human relations and transactions.84 This is the basis of Miskawayh’s condemnation of the practice of withdrawing from society among ascetics, who thereby give up an essential part of the human good. Taking up Aristotle’s preoccupation with friendship, he emphasises that human happiness is only completed among friends (tamām saʿādatihi al-insāniyya ʿinda aṣdiqāʾihi). The highest form of friendship is the one that is grounded in a desire for the good and the pursuit of virtue (qaṣd al-khayr wa-iltimās al-faḍīla). Perhaps even more openly 81  The

operative word is intentionally; al-Ghazālī has far more to say about how human society may unintentionally help us cultivate virtue by forcing us to endure hardships and evils. This, for example, is the emphasis in the only section that brings up moral education as a benefit of human association in the book On the Etiquette of Seclusion: vi, 1067–1068; the fleeting reference to the spiritual direction provided by a Sufi master on p. 1068 is as far as I’m aware the only occasion on which he brings up this relation in the two books devoted to the topics of companionship and seclusion. Outside this context, there are a few isolated remarks on the Sufi master’s ethical guidance e. g., in Discipline of the Soul (e. g., viii, 1449–1450, 1454), though they are cushioned in deeply pessimistic statements about the availability of true masters. In this regard, I find it very hard to agree with the reading of spiritual friendship as a locus for charactertraining offered by Paul E. Heck in Heck 2017. Al-Ghazālī has far more to say about relationships built on the (intentional) aim of cultivating and transmitting knowledge. 82  This is the view of Kenneth Garden, who recommends that we revise our understanding of al-Ghazālī as a “reclusive, inward-directed spiritual seeker” and view him instead as “an engaged, outward-directed campaigner for a religious agenda” with an interest in promoting a particular “social and religious order for Muslims in this world” (Garden 2014: 11, 28). AlGhazālī often counsels his reader to forget about the well-being of the community and look to his own salvation. “Look to your own soul!” (Or “Save your own skin!” Unju bi-nafsika). See alGhazālī, al-Iḥyāʾ: vi, 1051, for a good example, in a context that conveys a strong sense of despair about the possibility of reforming society and significantly shows al-Ghazālī blunting the force of the moral imperative to command right and forbid wrong. 83 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 29. 84 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 167: inna al-faḍāʾil al-khuluqiyya innamā wuḍiʿat min ajl almuʿāmalāt wa-l-muʿāsharāt allatī lā yatimmu al-wujūd al-insānī illā bi-hā.



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than Aristotle, Miskawayh highlights that the highest form of friendship, character friendship, is a school for virtue.85 There could not be a more telling difference in this regard than Miskawayh’s striking analysis of the purpose of a pair of key ritual observances, communal prayer and the hajj, which he grounds in their tendency to nourish human bonds of love (maḥabba) by forcing people to come together on progressively larger scales.86 If conflict occurs among human beings in the way al-Ghazālī took to be endemic to human society, this, Miskawayh would say, is the result of a shortfall of love.87 Were there enough virtue to go around, coercive laws would not be needed. And although coercive laws will always be needed given human imperfection, we should not simply accept such imperfection as a fact but make it our goal to cultivate the social virtues that would temper it.

4. Conclusion Writing about the development of what he calls “Islamic humanism,” Lenn Goodman suggested that the transition from Miskawayh to al-Ghazālī presented a Faustian bargain to the values of Greek civilization, buying them influence at the price of diluting their content almost beyond recognition. “Their pietist colorations mask the foreign origin and structure of the underlying Greek ideas about the mean and the good life and deeply penetrate the ethical thinking of generations of Muslim thinkers of orthodox stamp. The ancient structure is strikingly preserved – Aristotle’s profound and profoundly original conceptualization of the virtues. But, like the mosaics in the Byzantine basilicas, the faces are erased or plastered over.” Goodman speaks of the “poignant sense of loss” one may experience moving from Miskawayh’s humanistic ethics to al-Ghazālī’s Sufi recasting of it.88 Goodman’s emphasis on the “courtly” character of Miskawayh’s ethics seems to me overstated. Yet in the above I suggested that important shifts did indeed occur in the passage from philosophical ethics to the novel brand of scripturally-grounded ethics of virtue forged by al-Ghazālī. Drawing on a number of key philosophical ideas  – notably the Aristotelian pedagogical insight that we become by doing, and arguably the widely articulated idea that law is and ought 85 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: respectively 155 and 144. 86 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 140–141. By contrast, Avicenna’s analysis of ritual observances in

the Book of the Healing is rather closer to al-Ghazālī’s in emphasising their role (at least for the elite) in helping one master the animal/bodily powers, producing ethical dispositions that prepare one for liberation from the body and the attainment of happiness in the next life. Avicenna, al-Shifāʾ: ii, 445–446. 87 Miskawayh, al-Tahdhīb: 133. Justice is needed only because of a shortfall in love. Cf. Aristotle’s point at NE 1155a26–27. 88  Goodman 2003: 119, 121.

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to be a means of educating character – al-Ghazālī takes the project of a scripturally-grounded ethics of virtue forward by offering a distinctive and intellectually complex account of the relation between virtue and the religious Law. Within its framework, states of character are accorded primacy over action, and the intelligible function of the Law is tied to the promotion of virtue. This account creates a rich network of links to the concerns of Islamic law, theology, and Sufism, and contributes new chapters to their intellectual development. Al-Ghazālī executes this project with a breadth of vision, depth of thought, moral seriousness, and power of religious feeling that set him apart from many writers on the topic, past and present. The history of ideas is not settled on Faustian terms, but the price for these merits is one that many would think worth paying.

Bibliography Sources Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics, trans. by Terence Irwin (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1999). –: Nicomachean Ethics, trans. by Christopher Rowe with introduction and commentary by Sarah Broadie (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). –: Politics, trans. by C. D.C. Reeve (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1998). Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā): Kitāb al-Shifāʾ. Al-Ilāhiyyāt, ed. by Muḥammad Yūsuf Mūsā et al., vol. ii (Cairo: al-Hayʾa al-ʿĀmma li-Shuʾūn al-Maṭābiʿ al-Amirīyya, 1960). al-Fārābī, Abū Naṣr: Alfarabi. The Political Writings. Selected Aphorisms and Other Texts, trans. by Charles E. Butterworth (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001). –: Fuṣūl muntazaʿa, ed. by Fauzi M. Najjar (Beirut: Dār al-Mashriq, 1971). al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid: Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn (16 vols., Cairo: Lajnat Nashr al-Thaqāfa alIslāmiyya, 1356–1357 AH [1937–1938]). –: al-Maqṣad al-asnā fī sharḥ maʿānī asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā, ed. by Fadlou A. Shehadi (Beirut: Dār al-Mashriq, 1971). –: Mīzān al-ʿamal, ed. by Sulaymān Dunyā (Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1964). –: al-Munqidh min al-ḍalāl, ed. by Jamīl Ṣalībā and Kāmil ʿAyyād (Beirut: Dār al-Andalus, 71967). al-Makkī, Abū Ṭālib: Qūt al-qulūb, ed. by Maḥmūd ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad alRaḍwānī (3 vols.; Cairo: Maktabat Dār al-Turāth, 2001). Miskawayh, Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad b. Muḥammad: Tahdhīb al-akhlāq, ed. by Constantine K. Zurayk (Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1966). al-Qarāfī, Shihāb al-Dīn: Kitāb al-Furūq. Anwār al-burūq fī anwāʿ al-furūq, ed. by Muḥammad ʿUthmān (4 vols., Cairo: Maktabat al-Thaqāfa al-Dīniyya, 2009). al-Qushayrī, Abū l-Qāsim: al-Risāla al-Qushayriyya, ed. by ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm Maḥmūd and Maḥmūd b. al-Sharīf (Cairo: Dār al-Kutub al-Ḥadītha, 1972).



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Studies Abul Quasem, Muhammad (1974): “Al-Ghazālī’s Rejection of Philosophic Ethics”, Islamic Studies 13, 111–1127. – (1976): The Ethics of al-Ghazālī. A Composite Ethics in Islam (Petaling Jaya: Muhammad Abul Quasem). Annas, Julia (2017): Virtue and Law in Plato and Beyond (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Ayoub, Mahmoud M. (1990): “Law and Grace in Islam. Ṣūfi Attitudes toward the Sharīʿa”, in Edwin Firmage et al. (eds.): Religion and Law. Biblical-Judaic and Islamic Perspectives (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns) 221–229. Bradley, Ben (2018): “Contemporary Consequentialist Theories of Virtue”, in Nancy E. Snow (ed.): The Oxford Handbook of Virtue (Oxford: Oxford University Press) 388–412. Driver, Julia (2004): Uneasy Virtue (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Druart, Therese-Anne (1998): “Le Sommaire du Livre des ‘Lois’ de Platon (Ǧawāmiʿ Kitāb al-Nawāmīs li-Aflāṭūn)”, BEO 50, 109–155. El Shamsy, Ahmed (2014): “The Wisdom of God’s Law: Two Theories”, in Robert Gleave/ Kevin Reinhart (eds.): Islamic Law in Theory. Studies in Jurisprudence in Honor of Bernard Weiss (Leiden: Brill) 19–37. Garden, Kenneth (2014): The First Islamic Reviver. Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī and His Revival of the Religious Sciences (Oxford: Oxford University Press). – (2015): “Revisiting al-Ghazālī’s Crisis through his Scale for Action (Mīzān al-ʿAmal)”, in Georges Tamer (ed.): Islam and Rationality. The Impact of al-Ghazālī (Leiden: Brill) 207–228. George, Robert P. (1993): Making Men Moral. Civil Liberties and Public Morality (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Goodman, Lenn E. (2003): Islamic Humanism (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Griffel, Frank (2009): Al-Ghazālī’s Philosophical Theology (New York: Oxford University Press). Gutas, Dimitri (1997): “Galen’s Synopsis of Plato’s Laws and Fârâbî’s Talḫîs”, in Gerhard Endress/Remke Kruk (eds.): The Ancient Tradition in Christian and Islamic Hellenism (Leiden: Research School CNWS) 101–119. Heck, Paul E. (2006): “Mysticism as Morality. The Case of Sufism”, Journal of Religious Ethics 34, 253–286. – (2017): “Adab in the Thought of Ghazālī (d. 505/1111). In the Service of Mystical Insight”, in Francesco Chiabotti et al. (eds.): Spirituality and Ethics in Islam. Sufi Adab (Leiden: Brill) 298–324. Kukkonen, Taneli (2016): “Al-Ghazālī on the Origins of Ethics”, Numen 63, 271–298. Nicholson, Reynold A. (2002): The Mystics of Islam (Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom). Reinhart, Kevin A. (2014): “Ritual Action and Practical Action. The Incomprehensibility of Muslim Devotional Action”, in Robert Gleave/Kevin Reinhart (eds.): Islamic Law in Theory. Studies in Jurisprudence in Honor of Bernard Weiss (Leiden: Brill) 55–103. Russell, Daniel C. (2009): Practical Intelligence and the Virtues (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Schimmel, Annemarie (1975): Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press). Schneewind, Jerome (2010): “The Misfortunes of Virtue”, in Jerome Schneewind: Essays on the History of Moral Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

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Sherif, Mohamed Ahmed (1975): Ghazālī’s Theory of Virtue (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press). Vasalou, Sophia (2016): Ibn Taymiyya’s Theological Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press). – (2019): Virtues of Greatness in the Arabic Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Watson, Gary (1990): “On the Primacy of Character”, in Owen J. Flanagan/Amélie O. Rorty (eds.): Identity, Character, and Morality (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press) 449– 469.

The Theory of Justice between the Humanism of the Classical Muslim Thinker Miskawayh and the Contemporary Thought Project of Mohammed Arkoun Kaouther Karoui Abstract:  This paper examines Mohammed Arkoun’s contribution to an understanding of the philosophical humanism of Miskawayh in particular and to the concept of justice more generally. Miskawayh defines the concept of justice as a harmonization between Plato’s definition of what it means to be just and Aristotle’s account of what it means to act justly. Miskawayh’s aim thereby is to find a correlation between the theoretical and practical aspects of ethics and the concept of justice. I intend to show in which manner Mohammed Arkoun has interpreted and used the “humanist thought” of Miskawayh for re-thinking and re-reading Islamic intellectual history. The focus here is on Mohammed Arkoun’s doctoral thesis, which deals with Arab humanism from the 3rd/9th to the 4th/10th century, looking at Miskawayh as a principal intellectual figure and educator of Muslim ethics. My paper will argue that Mohammed Arkoun urges Muslims to ‘rethink’ Islam based on productive pedagogic tools such as those offered by the history of thought, understood by Arkoun as a means to help “liberate” Islamic traditional thought from dogmatic ideas.

Nine years ago, uncommon protests took place in several Muslim countries. People were mobilized in the streets of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria to call “for an end to authoritarian rule and corruption in government, and greater equality”1. In a normative grammar, these protests can be understood as a demand for justice2 in different spheres of society. In several countries, the transition process resulted in democratic elections which brought about new governments. For example, in Tunisia, the ‘Islamic party’ gained power. In Egypt too, after the fall of the military regime, the victory went to the Brotherhood-affiliated Freedom and Justice Party and other Islamists in 2011–2012.3 Thus the primary lesson of the Arab revolution could be determined as a demand for justice in contemporary 1  Esposito/Sonn/Voll 2016: 21. 2  It is difficult to retrace the social

and political circumstances of the Arab Spring. For example, transitional justice is the convenient way of describing the search for a just society in the wake of an undemocratic and violent political system. Transitional justice offers a broader vision of justice. It addresses the needs of victims and assists the start of a process of reconciliation and transformation. See Fisher/Stewart 2014. 3  Robbins 2015: 86.

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‘Arab’ Muslim modern societies. The secondary lesson of the Arab revolution is the emergence of Islamic regimes, which could be a basis for claiming that political parties with an Islamic orientation are promising to bring about more justice. Therefore, it is our task today to rethink and renovate our understanding of justice within this cultural and religious idiom. Indeed, this paper engages with the rethinking of the concept of justice, according to the tradition of the Islamic philosophical ethics of Miskawayh (d. 421/1030), together with the contemporary Islamic thinking of Mohammed Arkoun (d. 2010). On the one hand, I chose to focus on the Islamic philosophical ethics of Miskawayh because he conceives that justice is to be fulfilled in relation to Islamic religious ethics. This is relevant to our present time if we are considering how Islamic parties could contribute to establishing justice. On the other hand, it is relevant to engage with the contemporary thought of Mohammed Arkoun who considers that Islamic intellectual history must be rethought to promote justice. The first step is to introduce the concept of justice as it was represented by Miskawayh. To take his reliance on Plato’s concept of what it means to be just – in the realm of abstract thought – and Aristotle’s meaning of what it means to act justly in practical observation: to show that Miskawayh was not a pure imitator of Greek philosophical thought, but rather that he associates aspects of Islamic religious ethics with Greek philosophical ethics. In the second part, the humanist thought of Miskawayh is demonstrated by drawing two perspectives of Miskawayh’s Arab humanism: to show firstly that Miskawayh, within the fusion of Platonic idealism and Aristotelian ethical praxis, participates in the formation of a humanist study based on an Islamic perspective, and secondly that the fusion between Greek philosophical ethics and Islamic religious ethics illustrates the multicultural humanism of Miskawayh. The multicultural humanism signifies the unification between two different realms of cultural thinking: Western philosophical thought and Islamic philosophical thought. An analysis of the Arab humanism of Miskawayh is the aim of this paper, as well as showing the significance of Mohammed Arkoun’s interpretation of Miskawayh’s philosophical humanist thought. Following from this, Mohammed Arkoun’s approach to deconstructing and re-interpreting Islamic traditional thought is presented at the end of the paper. This will be done in order to highlight how Mohammed Arkoun, as a contemporary Muslim thinker, appealed for a ‘rethinking’ of Islam based on the rereading and ‘re-energizing’ of Islamic intellectual history.4 In this manner, the study of the history of thought within the field of the humanities is characterized by a search for new perspectives and approaches to thinking which promote the creation of new intellectual movements and schools, or the consolidation of existing theoretical and methodological approaches.5 4  5 

Arkoun 2011: 157. Günther 2004: 128.

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1.  Miskawayh’s Conception of Justice and the Influence of Plato’s and Aristotle’s Framework Miskawayh wrote a groundbreaking ethical treatise in Arabic, Tahdhīb al-akhlāq (1961), which appeared in English under the title The Refinement of Character (1968).6 Considering this manuscript, in the following the concept of justice will be explained according to the Islamic philosophical ethics of Miskawayh. A comment on Miskawayh’s conception of divine justice will be mentioned. In addition, Miskawayh’s detailed analysis of justice, as it applies to human activity, will be introduced. The key to denoting Miskawayh’s Islamic philosophical ethic is to highlight his mediation on Plato’s and Aristotle’s theories of justice and, most importantly, to show that Miskawayh was not a pure imitator of the Greek philosophical thought, but rather he associates aspects of Islamic religious ethics with Greek philosophical ethics. 1.1.  Divine Justice as an Expression of the Purification of the Soul Divine justice7 in Islamic ethics deals with the relationship between humankind and the Divine. Humankind has the ability to train the soul in divine virtues. Divine justice is attained when humans find a balance between those faculties of their soul which aim to produce happiness, perfection, and excellence. In this sense, Miskawayh’s notion of divine justice can be presented by pointing out the characteristics of the faculties of the soul. I address the questions: How does the rational soul achieve the virtue of justice? And how does purification of the soul enable humankind to approach the divine? In the first discourse of The Refinement of Character, subtitled “The Principle of Ethics: The Soul and its Faculties; the Good and Happiness; Virtues and Vices”, Miskawayh discusses the nature of the soul. He affirms that by definition and properties the soul is opposite to the body and parts of the body, and by its actions the soul is opposite to the actions and properties of the body.8 Thereby he 6  7 

Fakhry 1975a: 245. Divine justice is expressed in the Quran as follows: God is not an “unjust dealer (zallam) with His servant” (3:182); “My Lord has ordered Justice” (7:29); “Indeed, God orders Justice and good conduct and giving to relatives and forbids immorality and bad conduct and oppression” (16:90), “God does not like the wrongdoers” (3:57, 140); “And the retribution for an evil act is an evil one like it … Indeed, he does not like the wrongdoers” (42:40). See https://quran.com. Majid Fakhry argues that the most explicit prediction of divine justice occurs in verse 16:90. This verse is translated by Rodwell as follows: “Verily God enjoins justice and the doing of good and gifts to kinsmen; and He forbids wickedness and wrong and oppression. He warneth you haply ye may be mindful”. I would further like to mention that divine justice is also prescribed in terms of adjectival nouns which describe divine justice. These nouns are in the List of 99 beautiful names of God, see: Fakhry 1991: 14–15. 8 Miskawayh, The Refinement: 5. See also Dorothee Pielow’s and Ute Pietruschka’s contributions to this volume.

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affirms that the soul is striving for the sciences and forms of knowledge to constitute its virtue.9 Indeed, humankind shall “pay greater attention to his soul and puts in [strives with] all his power and capacity to renounce the things which hinder him from achieving the virtue.”10 Like Plato in his theory of the soul, Miskawayh distinguishes between the soul and the body, and joins a virtuous characteristic to the soul. This is to claim that the soul is the essence of humankind because it is incorporeal and immortal. Miskawayh also, like Plato, perceives that the soul is striving for knowledge to achieve virtue. This is achieved by training the soul to perform rationally. The question must be asked: How can the soul abandon desire and realize virtue? From a psychological level Miskawayh argues that there exist three faculties of the soul, which human beings shall temper to achieve virtue: “The rational faculty is called the kingly, and the organ of the body it uses is the brain. The concupiscent is faculty called the beastly, and the organ of the body which it uses is the liver. The irascible faculty is the leonine, and the organ of the body which it uses is the heart.”11 This is similar to how Plato classifies the soul. Indeed, for Plato, reason, spirit, and appetite are the three faculties of the soul: Appetite enhances the worldly desires and selfishness; the spirit soul is courageous and has a strong will; reason is to calm desire and selfishness caused by the appetite soul and balance the bold and strong will that characterizes the spirit soul.12 As we see, Plato accords a principle role to the rational soul. In this way, we understand that the rational soul is the responsible agent for moderating yearnings. In the same line of thought, Miskawayh conceives that the rational faculty is an intermediary between the beastly and the leonine faculties. The rational faculty produces virtuous acts because the rational soul is supervised by reason. When the soul is guided toward knowledge it will not act wrongly. As Miskawayh explains, when the activity of the rational soul is moderate, and when the soul seeks true knowledge, it achieves the virtue of knowledge followed by that of wisdom. When the activity of the beastly soul is moderate, when it yields to the rational soul, and does not reject what the latter allots to it, and when it does not indulge in the pursuit of its own desires, it achieves the virtue of temperance followed by that of liberality. Similarly, when the activity of the irascible soul is moderate, when it obeys the rational soul and what it allots to it, it achieves the virtue of magnanimity followed by that of courage.13 “Then, when all these three virtues are moderate and have the proper relation one to another, a virtue is produced, which represents their perfection and completeness, namely the virtue of justice.”14 9 Miskawayh, The Refinement: 10. 10 Miskawayh, The Refinement: 10. 11 Miskawayh, The Refinement: 15. 12  See Plato, The Republic: book 4

which contains a great deal of information about the three parts of soul. Or, among other places, books 8 and 9 of the Republic. 13 Miskawayh, The Refinement: 15. 14 Miskawayh, The Refinement: 15–16.

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Besides the discussion of the nature of soul underlying its faculties to achieve purification, in the fourth discourse of The Refinement of Character, which clearly deals with the matter of justice, Miskawayh goes on to cite a statement by Plato, from which he highlights the question of how the soul of humankind, by the achievement of the virtue of justice, as the completeness of the other virtues, becomes nearer to God. He argues that when man acquires justice, every part of his soul illuminates every other part. Thereby all the other virtues are achieved in the soul in the best possible way. This is the happy man’s nearest approach to God.15 In this regard, we notice that Miskawayh’s concept of divine justice is “defined not as governing the moral relationship among gods but as the relationship between God and man.”16 As I understand it, Miskawayh based the concept of divine justice on the principle of God’s oneness because it is related to the spread of monotheism as a common characteristic of the Abrahamic religions. Indeed, Miskawayh as a Muslim philosopher denies the multiplicity of gods and trusts in one God. Moreover, on this basis one may claim that Miskawayh connects the Greek philosophical thought with the religious concept of monotheism to establish his ethical theory of justice. The main characteristics of divine justice, according to Miskawayh, consist of the harmony between the soul and the body. Divine justice is realized only if man is able to harmonize the excesses of his natural passions by equilibrium or proportion (iʿtidāl). It exceeds materiality and seeks the apprehension of the intelligible. In a word, divine justice is a spiritual relationship between God and man. It transcends the relationship between man and nature or between man and man.17 On the one hand, I assume that it is pivotal to rethink the abstract conception of divine justice that encourages the self-divinization of humankind, where the soul as divine agent could moderate the corporal. On the other hand, I suggest that the conception of divine justice introduced by Miskawayh, under Plato’s influence, is still insufficient in the realm of practical ethics. The conception of divine justice is mainly restricted to the individual sphere of the human being and his relationship with God. Indeed, it does not include justice in the social sphere of human interaction. This leads me to discuss how Miskawayh reflects on the concept of justice as human action. 1.2.  Justice in Relation to Human Social Interactions Human justice in Islamic ethics deals with the ability of human beings to imitate or to reproduce the values of divine justice in the sphere of human interactions, for instance in terms of economic, political, and social spheres. Miskawayh conceives that the measure to establish justice on a practical level is 15  16  17 

Khadduri 1984: 110–111. Khadduri 1984: 111. Fakhry 1975b: 42. See Fakhry 1975a: 246 and Khadduri 1984: 111, 112.

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related to the concept of equality. He argues that equality gives the meaning of justice; therefore, when equality is applied justice will be established. He defines the term equality as follows: “the etymology of the word equality indicates to you its meaning. For counterbalance (ʿidl) in loads, equilibrium (iʿtidāl) in weights, and justice (ʿadl) in actions are all derived from the meaning of equality (musawah)”18. He observes that the notion of equality “in its basic meaning, it is unity or a shadow of unity”19. Thus, as I understand it, equality could not be a principle of measuring to define economic and social justice. For this reason, Miskawayh draws on Aristotle’s concept of proportion to realize human justice. He explains: when we cannot attain that equality which is sameness within multiplicity, we resort to proportion (iʿtidāl) to achieve equality.20 In Aristotelian terms, proportion is to equally grant distributive justice between individuals on their own merits.21 In this respect, Miskawayh distinguishes between three types of proportions to establish justice. The first is discrete proportion, the second is continuous proportion, and the third is geometrical proportion.22 According to these proportions, Miskawayh numerates three types of justice regarding human activity: The first is justice according to the division of money and honors; second is justice according to the division of voluntary transactions such as selling, buying and exchange; and third is justice of involuntary transaction, in which injustice and violation of rights could be committed.23 To promote a clear understanding of Miskawayh’s theories of justice in the realm of human activities and in accordance to their proportions, I suggest calling the first and second types of justice a transactional justice, by which I understand the economic exchanges between individuals. Justice of involuntary transaction will be identified by social justice, dealing with mutual assistance between humans. I shall now explain the three types of justice and how they function with their appropriate proportion (iʿtidāl) to determine equality. Miskawayh explains that the first type, which is justice according to the division of money and honors, a type of transactional justice, takes the form of a discrete proportion. An instance of this is the equitable distribution of privileges between people of the same rank. The second type of transactional justice, justice according to the division of voluntary transactions such as selling, buying and exchange, sometimes takes the form of discrete and continuous proportions. In this manner, the discrete propor18 Miskawayh, The Refinement: 101. 19 Miskawayh, The Refinement: 101. 20 Miskawayh, The Refinement: 101. 21 In Nicomachean Ethics book 5,  Aristotle  discusses

“Distributive  justice  in accordance with geometrical proportion”. Aristotle claims “awards should be ‘according to merit’; for all men agree that what is just in distribution must be according to merit in some sense”. 22 Miskawayh, The Refinement: 101. 23 Miskawayh, The Refinement: 102.



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tion entails that, in economic change, each man shall share the same transaction as others in the same rank.24 I conceive that the notion of transactional justice has the same meaning as Aristotle’s concept of distributive justice, in that distributive justice involves dividing benefits and burdens fairly among members of a community.25 The last, justice of involuntary transaction, called social justice, is nearer to the geometrical proportion. It deals with human relationships between one man and another. When the latter annuls this relation by doing injustice to the former, justice requires that the former does the same injustice to the latter by involuntary action.26 The concept of social justice is equivalent to Aristotle’s notion of corrective justice. In this sense, corrective justice restores a fair relationship between individuals.27 In sum, human justice is dealing with justice in actions. It is produced in the realm of human interaction as in the economic and social spheres. It is to provide a fair and just distribution of goods among individuals in the transactional realm; further, it calls for just conduct among individuals. 1.3.  The Three Laws: The Divine Law of al-Sharīʿa, a Key Law between a Just Ruler and Money In the next step, the three laws which are to determine justice in transactional and social realms are demonstrated. My main aim is to show that Miskawayh’s theory of ethical justice is influenced by Greek philosophical ethics and Islamic religious ethics. By definition, law is used to regulate the conduct of individuals. It is also related to particular traditions of society or community. In this sense, the medieval Muslim philosopher Miskawayh uses laws to determine justice which are in connection to the Islamic religious tradition. Miskawayh argues that there exist three laws by which justice should be established in the sphere of human interaction. He declares “the highest law is from God (blessed and exalted is He!), the ruler is a second law in His behalf, and money is a third law.”28 By paraphrasing Miskawayh’s words, the “highest law” means the religious law (al-sharīʿa) which is revealed by God. The second is the just ruler, identified by Miskawayh with the Caliph or Imam, who acts in the image of God and thus is the only being who can justly imitate the religious law to establish the sense of justice between individuals because he is infallible. The third is money, which is only an imitator.29 Hence, in social relation, the law (al-sharīʿa) is the measure in 24 Miskawayh, The Refinement: 102. 25  See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics: 67–74, 76; 1129a–1132b, 1134a. 26 Miskawayh, The Refinement: 102. 27  See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics: 67–74, 76; 1129a–1132b, 1134a. 28 Miskawayh, The Refinement: 103. 29  Fakhry 1975a: 248.

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one sense, whereas it is the ruler in another. In economic relation, the measure is money, which is the principle regulating and equalizing commercial transactions. In contrast to Aristotle, who “derives the Greek nomisma (money) from nomos (law)”30 by considering money as a principle law to establish justice, Miskawayh inserts the divine law of the sharīʿa, the ruler Imam, and money as the principles to determine transactional and social justice. Importantly he determines the divine law of the sharīʿa as the principle law; the other two laws are imitators. Thus, if we interpret ethical justice theory of Miskawayh more carefully, we understand that Miskawayh was not a mere interpreter of Plato and Aristotle’s theory of justice in the way he joins Greek philosophical ethics and Islamic religious ethics. First, he does so by considering the principle of God’s oneness to determine divine justice. Second, he asserts the principle of the divine law of the sharīʿa and the Imam, the ruler, to establish justice in transactional and social realms. This assumption leads me to point out how Mohammed Arkoun as contemporary thinker interpreted the Arab humanism of Miskawayh.

2.  Mohammed Arkoun’s Interpretation of Miskawayh’s Humanism Mohammed Arkoun devotes his doctoral dissertation which is entitled Contribution à l’étude de l’humanisme arabe au IVe/Xe siècle: Miskawayh, philosophe et historien (1970) to the humanist thought of Miskawayh. As a Muslim researcher who studies at the Sorbonne, Arkoun aspires to transmit and to translate the ethical humanist philosophy of the Medieval age to Western readers, and to make the “Arab” Muslim intellectuals aware of their humanist heritage. Mohammed Arkoun’s interpretation of Miskawayh’s Arab humanist thought is outlined in the following. 2.1.  Humanista studia Based on the Faculty of Reason Arkoun highlights that Miskawayh points out the general orientation of the virtue of justice, dependent upon the works of Plato. In addition, he gives a definition and offers a particular description of the concept of justice, developed under the influence of Aristotle.31 The general orientation of the virtue of justice signifies Plato’s concept of divine justice, which Arkoun understands as being possible once humankind achieves a harmonization between divine and human justice.32 The particular description of the notion of justice implies justice in 30  31  32 

Zurayk 2002: 204. Arkoun 1970: 292. Arkoun 1970: 293.

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transactional and social realms, which were demonstrated earlier. Thus, Arkoun realizes that Miskawayh’s ethical project contributes to the practical ethics of Aristotle and the psychological approach of Plato.33 In this sense, based on Arkoun’s interpretation of the ethical project of Miskawayh, I  propose that Miskawayh develops a notion of humanista studia as the key success of the symbiotic relationship between the notion of divine justice and human justice. In this manner, “Humanism – in particular, humanista studia – was the key to the success of this symbiotic relationship (i. e., between theory and praxis).”34 The theoretical realm is the divine concept of justice; the practical realm is justice in relation to human interaction. Moreover, the humanista studia of Miskawayh is more developed through the concept of reason. In this way, the faculty of reason realizes divine justice. Furthermore, reason exists to supervise human behavior in the realm of praxis. In this case, I agree with Radez who claims that Miskawayh has not only drawn link between Platonic and Aristotelian ethics, but he also has placed moral knowledge in a rationalist context, thereby giving reason an organized and theoretical structure.35 This means reason organizes ethics in the practical and theoretical realms. 2.2.  Multicultural Humanism as a Fusion Between Greek Philosophical Ethics and Islamic Religious Ethics Arkoun maintains that Miskawayh’s concept of justice is drawn within an Arabo-Islamic perspective.36 By Arabo-Islamic perspective Arkoun refers to the principle of the ruler, the infallible Imam. Arkoun affirms that Miskawayh “était hanté par l’idéal iranien de souverain juste, la figure de l’Imam, maître de Justice et le spectacle quotidien d’une cité égarée.”37 Besides the principle of the ruler, the Imam, there exists the principle of God’s oneness and the divine law of the sharīʿa. In this connection, I suggest that Miskawayh joins Greek philosophical ethics with Islamic religious ethics to establish his ethical project. ‘Greek philosophical thought’ in this regard refers to Miskawayh’s correlation between Plato’s and Aristotle’s ethics. This was explained earlier. And ‘Islamic religious ethics’ refers to the three laws for determining justice. In this context, I would highlight the multicultural humanism of Miskawayh as a fusion between Islamic religious ethics and Greek philosophical ethics. I understand that Miskawayh does not escape from the philosophical tradition of his time. Miskawayh believes that ethics shall be determined throughout philosoph33  Arkoun 1970: 365. 34  Radez 2015: 32. 35  Radez 2015: 33–34. 36  Arkoun 1970: 365. 37  Arkoun 1970: 249, English

translation: “was haunted by the Iranian ideal of a righteous ruler, the figure of the Imam, master of justice and the daily spectacle of a city gone astray.”

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ical thought and Islamic tradition. Here one should remember that medieval Muslim philosophers attempted to reconcile philosophy with religion, aiming to show that philosophy could not contradict the revealed truths of Islam.38 In sum, the humanista studia and the multicultural humanism of Miskawayh are developed through an Arabo-Islamic perspective and importantly they are developed through a philosophical perspective. This leads me to another perspective of Miskawayh’s humanism. 2.3.  Philosophical Humanism as Unification between Reason and Good Conduct At the end of his doctoral dissertation (1970), mentioned earlier, Arkoun highlights three forms of humanism: religious humanism, literary humanism – in the sense of humanitas (adab) – and philosophical humanism (adab discipliné).39 In this regard, I introduce here the characteristics of philosophical humanism because it is the relevant form that corresponds to my elucidation of Arkoun’s contemporary project based on the rethinking of the Islamic traditional thought. In this context, Arkoun affirms that philosophical humanism integrates elements of religious humanism and literary humanism, but philosophical humanism is the most promising and relevant of the three. I point out characteristics of philosophical humanism, “distingue par une discipline intellectuelle plus rigoureuse, une quête plus inquiète, plus solitaire de la vérité sur le monde, sur l’homme et sur Dieu.”40 That is, philosophical humanism is based on reason, which guarantees a rational understanding of religion to get beyond the dogmatic closure of thought.41 Therefore it is fruitful to indicate that Miskawayh’s classical humanist project is elaborated within the method of logical reasoning. In this manner, Arkoun demonstrates that Miskawayh adopted the methods of logical reasoning illustrated in the Organon of Aristotle.42 Arkoun holds that Miskawayh displays a rationalist quest in his scientific posture. This rationalist tendency is reinforced by rigor, exactitude, and consciousness – qualities which dominate Miskawayh’s style.43 Thus I contend that the method of thinking shaped through the theoretical approach of philosophical humanism is not applied with the approach of humanitas adab, in equivalence to the concept of literary humanism. In essence, “le mot humanitas, comme adab, désigne une culture complète où un savoir 38  Khadduri 1984: 79. 39  Arkoun 1970: 356. See on this also the Introduction to this volume, section 1.5. 40  Arkoun 1970: 357, English translation: “is distinguished by a more rigorous intellectual

discipline, a more restless, more methodical, more solitary quest for truth on the world, on humankind and on God.” 41  Arkoun 1970: 145. 42  Arkoun 1970: 196. 43  Arkoun 1970: 213.



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sans défaut est mis en valeur par l’élégance morale, une tenue agréable, des manières raffinées, un sens élevé des rapports sociaux.”44 Thus, humanitas adab is related to the aristocracy of the spirit, wealth and power.45 I clarify the meaning of humanitas adab to remind the reader that Miskawayh’s philosophical humanism adab discipliné differs from humanitas adab by its methodological and epistemological way of thinking. It is beyond the scope of this paper to detail the method of logical reasoning introduced in the classical project of Miskawayh. Still, it helps our understanding to mention that Arkoun develops his contemporary project of the rethinking of the traditional Islamic thought based on Miskawayh’s philosophical humanism. In this connection, Arkoun develops a more critical approach to the relationship between human reason and religious thought. This leads me to introduce Arkoun’s later theory of the rethinking of Islamic traditional thought, which aims to liberate Islam from dogmatic and fundamentalist interpretation.

3.  Mohammed Arkoun: Rethinking Islamic Ethics in Light of Miskawayh’s Philosophical Humanism As outlined earlier, scholars who are interested in the field of the Arabo-Islamic philosophy argue that the earlier Muslim philosophers tend to define and determine the concept of justice in accordance with reason and revelation. Thus the question arises in our modern time: How can justice derive from revelation while the latter is dominated and manipulated by unchanging reading, which renders it unable for any interpretation or rethinking? In Arkoun’s terms the study of religion is handicapped by the rigid definitions and methods inherited from theology and classical metaphysics.46 For this reason, Arkoun maintains, it is necessary today to study Islam as an epistemological project open to several interpretations. That means to open the gate to a new ijtihād for Muslims and to initiate a process of new thinking on Islamic studies.47 To do so, Arkoun suggests critically studying all the cultures and systems of thought related to pagan societies, and which in our modern societies remain unthought of in the domain of orthodox Islamic thought, such as the concepts of Tradition, orthodoxy, myth, authority, and historicity.48 44  Arkoun 1970: 375, English translation: “The term humanitas, like adab, designates a complete culture or a faultless knowledge highlighted by moral elegance, an agreeable outfit, refined manner, and a high sense of social relation.” 45  Arkoun 1970: 375. 46  Arkoun 2003: 19. 47  Arkoun 2003: 18. 48  Arkoun 2003: 20.

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Following on from this, I will briefly expound on the example of the revelation and the Tradition. The purpose is to point out by which method Mohammed Arkoun rethinks these written corpuses. Arkoun provides a normative definition of the two concepts. He claims that both the revelation49 and Tradition (Ḥadīth) are collections of “authentic” texts recognized in each Islamic school (Shiʿi, Sunni, and Khariji).50 He explains that “Islamic conception of revelation is called tanzīl (descent), a fundamental metaphor for the vertical gaze human beings are invited to cast toward God, transcendence.”51 Tanzīl essentially refers to the object of the Quran, which is transformed, according to Arkoun, from the word of God into the written muṣḥaf.52 Besides the Quran there exists a second source or foundation (aṣl). That is the prophetic Tradition (Ḥadīth), which are the prophet’s utterances in his role as guide of the Community of Believers.53 In the same line of thought, the Quran is transmitted by Gabriel to the prophet Muhammad in the form of an oral message, when the prophet went, as was his routine, to Mount Hira for meditation and for a spiritual retreat.54 Similarly, Tradition is a written corpus which includes acts and sayings of the prophet Muhammad. Traditions came up after the death of the prophet (632 CE).55 With the death of Muhammad, Quran as Tradition was “elevated to the status of a closed official corpus according to procedures developed and supervised by scholars”56. Hence, “experts” elaborate a body of religious knowledge, called the science of jurisprudence, or fiqh.57 What Arkoun suggests is to liberate these written corpuses from the dogmatic enclosures which are founded by some Muslim scholars. He claims, “there is need for a new ranking of rational process; we cannot stick to the ranking established by the two foundational disciplines developed by Muslim theologians and jurists under the name of uṣūl al-dīn and uṣūl al-fiqh.”58 Before applying his methods of critical discourse analysis, Arkoun first specifies to which types of Islamic discourse his critique is directed. In this realm he outlines three types of discourse: First, the current Islamic discourse, tends to dominate all the historical circumstances by its political power and great social and psychological scope. It is deeply rooted in the mythical dimension of the 49  See Arkoun 2016. Readings of the Quran, originally published in 1982, is a key work for Arkoun’s approach of critical discourse analysis, based on the scientific tool of Epistème. Arkoun mobilizes all the resources of linguistics, semiotics, sociology, and the history of mentalities to deconstruct the classical discourse of the Quran. 50  Arkoun 2003: 21. 51  Arkoun 1994: 31. 52  Arkoun 1994: 35. 53  Arkoun 1994: 45. 54  Mernissi 2002: 28. 55  Mernissi 2002: 28. 56  Arkoun 1994: 33. 57  Mernissi 2002: 28. 58  Arkoun 2002: 39.

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Tradition while unwittingly secularizing the religious contents of the Tradition. Second, the classical Islamic discourse, explains the Tradition in the period of its being formed and fixed in authentic texts. Third is the orientalist discourse, which applies to the forming and fixing stage of a philological and historical critique, predominantly historicist and positivist and which belongs to the 19th century.59 The common characteristic between these discourses is that they provide a tenuous and a fixed study of Islam without considering “the inclusion of the concrete historical and social conditions in which Islam always has been practiced.”60 Hence, Arkoun introduces Epistème61 as a better criterion for rethinking Islamic thought. In this sense, “to control the epistemological validity of any discourse, it is necessary to discover and analyze the implicit postulate”62. By the implicit postulates Arkoun means the historical, theological, ideological, psychological, and anthropological approach. Episteme will thereby reveal the hidden meaning of the written corpuses of the Revelation and the Tradition and lead to new interpretation in a manner by which the rethinking of these written texts will create subdivisions in Islamic jurisprudence ( fiqh).63 As a result, when putting Arkoun’s method of Episteme into application, the corpuses of the revelation and of the Tradition – from which the divine law of alsharīʿa derives – cannot be assumed to establish justice. Rather, they lend themselves to several rereadings and interpretations. Indeed, by means of his critical methodology Arkoun challenges the notion of the divine law of al-sharīʿa outlined earlier as a measure to determine justice. In this sense, Arkoun makes an appeal for intellectual modernity, and affirms that Islamic intellectual history should be rethought and modernized. Here, he urges Muslim individuals to examine and to understand their Islamic heritage (turāth) as a tenet to achieve thought advancement.64 This assumption leads me to briefly outline how the Islamic heritage played a great role in the intellectual formation of Mohammed Arkoun. Mohammed Arkoun returns to the subject of Arab humanism that occupied him in his doctoral dissertation. In his book entitled The Struggle for Humanism in Islamic Contexts 59  60  61 

Arkoun 1985: 90. Arkoun 1998: 207. Arkoun adopts the term “episteme” from Michel Foucault. It describes a system of meanings and cognitive schemata of values/categories which build the foundation for knowledge, science, and philosophy at a specific time. This means all imaginations, religious doctrines and postulates which have an influence on a system of thought and are channeling the discourse – the way people talked about reality – at a certain epoch, see Günther 2004: 267. This clarification of the origin of the method of Episteme is outlined by Thomas Schönberger in his work entitled “Pushing the limits: Introduction to the ideas and methods of Mohammed Arkoun with special regard to his interpretation of Revelation.” See Schönberger 2010: 6. 62  Arkoun 2003: 20. 63  Arkoun 2003: 21. 64  El Ayadi 1993: 69.

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(2001), Arkoun obviously highlights his influence in the field of humanism. Arkoun mentions an interdisciplinary humanism based on dialogue between different cultures and different schools of thinking.65 I propose that Arkoun introduces the interdisciplinary humanist mindset in his contemporary intellectual project. He does this by combining the classical Islamic thought of Miskawayh, acknowledged for its appraisal of reason, with post-modern thought such as the method of Epistème of Michel Foucault as a critical approach applied for the renewal of Islamic intellectual history. Moreover, the field of humanism at the time was characterized by a search for new intellectual movements and schools.66 In this sense, Arkoun claims that the term adab, which in the classical period designated a humanist position with regard to knowledge and its attendant practices, now lacks these values and they are only applied to adab in the aesthetic sense.67 In this manner, humanism comes to mean “a tradition of writings on human ethics, education and behavior and sometimes also identified as Islamic humanism or Islamic humanist culture itself ”.68 In the course of his intellectual career Mohammed Arkoun further elaborates the concept of humanism to render it an approach for critical discourse analysis. Hence, Arkoun presents the concept of adab ansana. He declares “I used a strange and new term such as ansana, I wanted to attract to the need to rethink religious humanism […] I wanted at the same time to rethink philosophical humanism inspired by philosophy”.69 In this sense, Arkoun’s contemporary humanism serves in our modern time for the ‘opening of the gate of ijtihād’, which is the exertion of mental energy or the maximum effort sustained by the mujtahid, as opposite to the muqallid, for the purpose of discovering God’s law, and the search for an optimal legislation within the Islamic legacy.70

4. Conclusion This paper introduced Mohammed Arkoun’s contemporary reception of the philosophical humanism articulated by the medieval philosopher Miskawayh. The purpose was to explore the manners in which Arkoun re-interprets Miskawayh’s ethical doctrine, aiming to rethink Islamic intellectual history. Three parts were identified in this regard. First, Miskawayh’s ethical doctrine of justice was mainly identified through the concept of justice which combines ideas from both Plato and Aristotle. Mis65  66  67  68  69  70 

Arkoun 2011: 155. Günther 2004: 128. Arkoun 2011: 158. Völker 2015: 204. Arkoun 2011: 158. Hallaq 1984: 4.



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kawayh’s abstract conception of divine justice as well as his practical observation of the detailed concept of justice were demonstrated. The aim was to point out that Miskawayh was not a mere translator or interpreter of Greek philosophical thought. Second, Arkoun’s interpretation of the humanism of Miskawayh was exhibited. Three aspects of humanism were defined. Humanista studia is based on the correlation between the theoretical and practical ethics of Plato and Aristotle. Multicultural humanism is based on the fusion between Islamic religious ethics and Greek philosophical ethics. Following from this, the concept of philosophical humanism was introduced, which is based on the classical method of logical thinking. Third, it was demonstrated that Mohammed Arkoun was influenced by the philosophical humanism of Miskawayh in his aim to rethink Islamic intellectual history by applying the criterion of Episteme as a critical method for discourse analysis. It was pointed out that Arkoun draws on the field of classical humanism, but suggests a more radical, critical approach to the Islamic sources throughout his intellectual career. As I claimed in my introduction, the aftermath of the Arab revolution adjures us to rethink and renovate our understanding of justice in accordance with our cultural and religious idioms. The intellectual trajectory of Mohammed Arkoun which I have traced in this article demonstrates what this might look like. Arkoun’s call to rethink contemporary Islam is a humanist project that demands a reconceptualization of justice by scholars through critical, philosophical, humanist reflection on the diverse aspects of Islamic thought. In other words, a vibrant philosophical, inter-religious, and multicultural debate is indispensable for contemporary Islamic societies.

Bibliography Sources Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics, trans. by Harris Rackham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975). Miskawayh, Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad b. Muḥammad: The Refinement of Character, trans. by Constantine K. Zurayk (Chicago: Kazi Publications, 2002). Plato: The Republic of Plato, ed. by James Adam, vol. i (10 vols.; Cambridge: University Press, 22009).

Studies Arkoun, Mohammed (1970): Contribution à l’étude de l’humanisme arabe au IVe/Xe siècle. Miskawayh Philosophe et Historien (Paris: Vrin). – (1985): “Discours Islamique, discours orientalistes et pensée scientifique”, Comparative Civilisations 13/13, 90–107.

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– (1994): Rethinking Islam. Common Questions, Uncommon Answers, ed. and trans. by Robert D. Lee (San Francisco/Oxford: Westview Press). – (1998): “Rethinking Islam Today”, in Charles Kurzmann (ed.): Liberal Islam. A Sourcebook (Oxford: University Press) 205–222. – (2002): The Unthought in Contemporary Islamic Thought (New Delhi: Saqi Books). – (2003): “Rethinking Islam Today”, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 1, 18–39. – (2011): “The Struggle for Humanism in Islamic Contexts”, trans. by Zakia Pormann, Levantine Studies Summer 1, 153–170. – (2016): Lectures du Coran (Paris: Albin Michel). El Ayadi, Mohamed (1993): “Mohammed Arkoun ou l’ambition d’une modernité intellectuelle”, in Mohamed Tozy/Abdou Filali Ansary (eds.): Penseurs maghrébins contemporains (Casablanca: Editions Eddif ) 43–71. Esposito, John L. et al. (2016): Islam and Democracy after the Arab Spring (Oxford: University Press). Fakhry, Majid (1975a): “Justice in Islamic Philosophical Ethics: Miskawayh’s Mediating Contribution”, The Journal of Religious Ethics 3/2, 243–254. – (1975b): “The Platonism of Miskawayh and its Implication for His Ethics”, Studia Islamica 42, 39–57. – (1991): Ethical Theories in Islam (Leiden: Brill). Fisher J. Kristen/Stewart, Robert (2014): Transitional Justice and the Arab Spring (London/New York: Routledge). Hallaq, Wael (1984): “Was the Gate of ijtihad Closed?”, International Journal of Middle East Studies 16/1, 3–41. Khadduri, Majid (1984): The Islamic Conception of Justice (London: The Johns Hopkins University Press). Günther, Ursula (2004): “Mohammed Arkoun. Towards a Radical Rethinking of Islamic Thought”, in Suha Taji-Farouki (ed.): Modern Muslim Intellectuals and the Qurʾan (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press) 125–167. – (2004): Mohammed Arkoun. Ein moderner Kritiker der islamischen Vernunft (Würzburg: Ergon). Mernissi, Fatima (2002): Islam and Democracy. Fear of the Modern World, trans. by Mary Jo Lakeland (New York: Basic Books). Robbins, Michael (2015): “People Still Want Democracy”, Journal of Democracy 26/4, 80– 89. Radez, John Peter (2015): La vie est plus belle que les idées. Existentialist Humanism, Intersubjectivity and Transcendence in the Unified Civic humanism of Abu ʿAli Ahmad ibn Mohummed ibn Yaq’ub Miskawayh (PhD dissertation; Indiana University Bloomington). Schönberger, Thomas (2010): “Pushing the Limits”. Introduction to the Ideas and the Methods of Mohammed Arkoun with Special Regard to His Interpretation of Revelation; https://globulous2.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/arkoun-e28093-paper.pdf (last accessed on 03 June 2020). Völker, Katharina (2015): “The Humanisti[c] (sic) Heritage of Muhammad Arkoun”, Philosophical Investigations 9/17, 204–227.

What, to the Modern, is Miskawayh? An Epilogue Ruth Mas We are facing a showdown. By the time this much anticipated volume on the classical Muslim intellectual Miskawayh (d. 421/1030) and his thought is published, matters – the social, political, and environmental matters of such concern to the entire world today – will be coming to a head and exposing the cards in the hands of those of us who have a seat at the table. Fortified, well-steeled, and weaponised powers are ranged against other forces girded with little more than justice and virtue but nonetheless prepared to confront violence and the dangers threatening to take away our breath, but especially the breath of so many black, brown and indigenous people. Mortality; unspeakable loss; the ephemerality, vulnerability, and constraining of bodily existence; economic devastation; the need to arrest the destruction of the planet and its stolen future have let loose a thunderous search for different values, principles that are guided by integrity, equity, and transformative justice. In this time of great reckoning, it is urgent that we come to terms with how to read an intellectual like Miskawayh. The essays presented in this book attest to Miskawayh’s fundamental relevance to what could be called an Islamic discursive tradition, one that engages with the founding texts of the Quran and Hadith that authorise Islamic practices and specify their proper performance and with the reasonings and argumentations that regulate and discipline these practices, and to the importance of examination of the varying social and historical conditions that support them.1 Yet they signal more than a long-awaited and overdue expansion of an Islamic (meant in all its intersectional glory) tradition into the galleries of Euro-American knowledge, where accumulation and acquisition are conspicuously on display. We might recall the triumphant entry of classical Islamic intellectuals such as Ibn Sīnā (d. 428/1037) and Ibn Rushd (d. 595/1198) into the European academy, and the subsequent dissemination of their work, 1  Asad, Talal (1986): The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam (Occasional Papers Series; Centre for Contemporary Arab Studies; Washington D. C.: Georgetown University): 14–17. On the issue of humanism and secular liberalism, cf. my publications: 2012: “Why Critique?”, MTSR 24/4–5, 1–19; 2018a: “The Modesty of Theory”, in Matt Sheedy (ed.): Identity, Politics, and Scholarship. Current Dilemmas in the Study of Religions (Sheffield: Equinox Publishing) 19–42; 2018b: “The Time of Critique”, in Lucian Stone/Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh (eds.): Manifestos for World Thought (London: Rowman and Littlefield) 209–228.

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marked by the persistent Latinising of their names and then, more insistently, the recrudescence of their “rationalism.” At which point, then, do we decide to mistrust, with the critical suspicion worthy of our moment, the repeated calls for Muslims to prove their rational mettle, the singling out of classical Islamic thinkers and reductive evaluation of their Aristotelian or neo-Platonic qualifications, the torrent of print and paper dedicated to the rational temperance, sophistication, cultivation, and enlightenment of Muslims? The foregoing essays are interdisciplinary and pay attention to the historical, political, and cultural conditions for, and qualities of, Miskawayh’s thought, in this way, they avoid simply rehearsing his expertise in Greek philosophy. Nonetheless, there remains a larger question about the ways in which the politics of our preoccupation with the rational lineage and credibility of Muslim thinkers is in reality an interpellation of the grounds on which the subjectivity and agency of Muslims are built, and a questioning of their integrity. The Western consumption of the philosophical rationalism of classical Islamic thinkers has too often involved discarding from their thought the Quranic and jurisprudential ties that regulate Islamic practice and are bound to revelation, to the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad, and to the sentiments and attachments devoted to the ideals of his perfectibility. This shedding accompanies the retrieval from history of other mores, which is often executed in the name of inclusivity and plurality, for the purposes of the expansion of contemporary values. As such, it must be called out not only for its assent to an ever-expanding secularising system of political governance whose horizons are straining under the weight of the injustices it has provoked, but because its compliance with this system completely disqualifies, without any serious consideration, Islamic notions of justice that govern moral values and practice. One of its most serious injuries is its refusal to recognise that the philosophical traditions of Islamic thought do not simply transport Greek thinking, namely, the Platonic and Aristotelian rationalism so crucial for the self-fashioning of Europe’s superiority, into post-Christian secular modernity, but are indeed constitutive of modernity itself. The failure to recognise that Islamic thought (regardless of how we judge its rationalism) is intrinsic to modernity is not so much an erasure of history as it is wilful ignorance of an indelible part of the Western tradition at the moment of modernity’s imperial expansion of what it deems its “own” values across the globe – including, of course, the colonised Islamic world  – which then doubles down on the injury it has caused by force-feeding the progressive values of civilised enlightenment. We really do not need any more evidence to understand that modernity has not delivered on its own principles despite its drive to refashion and refurbish everybody else’s. Why, then, and in the name of what exactly, is this Western shedding of the Islamic tradition and its practices necessary? Because, and it is worth restating, for Muslims, the values that govern ethical comportment and right action, behaviour, and con-

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duct must at the very least make sense to them as Muslims, which is not simply an ethnic or cultural category, but also one that is quranically, i. e., morally, constituted and legitimised. Won or lost in such an examination is the Islamic foundation on which Miskawayh’s thought rests, and here we step onto the stage of forces outside of modernity’s conventions of power and present during his time. Miskawayh, a Muslim of Persian ethnicity writing in Arabic, was, in his political function, accustomed to servicing power – he was writing when the Islamic empire was beginning to expand and Shiʿi and Sunni powers were well into their confrontation. What it means to think of empire, imperialism, colonialism, and secularity in Miskawayh’s pre-modern context, distant temporally and spatially from the West, is also salient to what is constituted as “Islamic” within that context and to the notions of Islamic authority, ethics, and traditions and frameworks of sharīʿa and fiqh that emerged therein, that is, in relation to Islamic power and empire. This is significant for Miskawayh’s discussions of virtue, ethics, and literature, and for determining the ways in which he navigated the secular and the Islamic. After all, the Islamic tradition did not simply materialize within the pre-modern period unscathed by power and un-scathing in its power, only to be in-authenticated, defiled, oppressed, and halted by Western secularism’s unjust and violent fortification of modernity. This volume considers such concerns by signposting the relevance for EuroAmerican thought of Mohammed Arkoun’s (d. 2010) treatment of Miskawayh’s body of work. Born in the Kabyle region of Algeria, Arkoun sought the reform of Islamic thought along secular and philosophical lines as the means to solve the enduring violence in Algeria and in other parts of the Islamic world. This preoccupation with political violence shapes his calls to rethink the conditions of social and political organisation along the speculative lines of philosophical reasoning. In their introduction, the editors highlight Arkoun’s treatment of the potentially Islamic or Arab vision of Miskawayh’s humanism. Furthermore, they rightly raise the issue of the epistemological grounds on which the term “humanism” operates, and how fraught and imprecise its use is. One can add to their caution the ways in which “humanism” has been forged from the modern amalgam of secular-liberalism and speculative reason as one of the principles by which justice will be meted out. And even though those seeking the further inclusion of Arabic-Islamic content in the Western canon of intellectual history have applauded Arkoun’s by now well-known claim that Miskawayh, thanks to his humanism, evinces a “secularised consciousness,” all the plaudits and hurrahs of the modern world cannot silence the operations of secular violence that pass off as humanism. If one can ignore that sweeping and baseless essentialist claims can arise from making judgments about anybody’s “consciousness,” it is worth considering what it actually means to suggest that Miskawayh’s consciousness was secularised, especially when his thought is located within a tradition of Islamic think-

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ing. Such a claim presupposes that there is an “authentic Islamic consciousness” against which a secularised one is understood and does not render explicit what being “authentically Islamic” is or who it represents. Moreover, the verb-forming suffix “ise” that turns “secular” into a transitive verb announces the subjectivising and making process in which something non-secular is rendered secular. In other words, stating that something has been secularised assumes that it was never secular in the first place. To consider whether Miskawayh’s consciousness was ever purely “Islamic,” and if so, what this would look like, how he would have understood it, and how, in turn, we understand it now, is to ask what the trajectory from the Islamic to the secular looks like. Those convinced by the rhetoric of progressive modernity will quickly point to the escalating trajectory of socio-political virtue depicted by the model of history in which tradition has been left in the wake of modernity’s ethical ascension. Those of us who are concerned with the inequity produced by this alleged march forward will point to the impossibility of temporally constraining tradition and secularity into distinct historical periods. The first thing thus demanded is a genealogy of the secular that refuses to fall into the trap set by an understanding of its origins as contained within the moment of modernity and the formation of the nation state, and the modern and governing apparatus that this presupposes. Excavating Greek, Persian, Arabian, and Islamic sources for notions of the secular that are organic to Miskawayh’s time has substantial implications. Not only does it necessarily complicate the idea of an “authentic Islam” sealed off from secularity, it forces a direct confrontation with the fact that the condition of Islamic sacrality can only ever exist and be understood in its relationship to the secular. The same holds true for the relationship of the Islamic tradition, intellectual or otherwise, to other cultures and other traditions. What is at stake is not so much an “authentic Islam” as it is the recognition that the exercise of power frames the relationship between Islam and its secular or intellectual/cultural other, how that relationship came to be, and how it is understood in the present. The difficulty in recognising and addressing the co-acting nature of the sacred and the secular stems from the common refusal to acknowledge the continued attachment of the secular to its Christian foundation as that which grounds and legitimises secularity, and secularism, in a modern context. This obfuscates not only the possibility of Islamic underpinnings of the secular but also the inherent and unchallenged prejudice of the political project of modernity against Muslims and their adherence to Islamic notions of the sacred. The political project of modernity depends on its exercising of secularism, the system of governance that organises and is organised by the nation state. It relies on a notion of the secular as a fact of modernity, that is, engendered by modernity, which, in turn, only allows for certain types and modes of sensibilities, sociabilities, and forms of socio-political organisation. This is a masking of the violence of the project of modernity and its secularising forms of govern-

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ance, and of the modern nation state, a point which is all the more striking given the forceful imposition of secular governance in the colonial contexts of Islamic countries, where violence has continued and has in many ways been amplified after their moment of independence when they traded foreign colonialism for a local despotism of rule. In other words, in a world which sees the combining of tradition/religion and politics as violent to the core, it is imperative to remind ourselves that there is absolutely nothing inherently neutral, peaceable, and equitable about secularism as a lived political fact, neither in its origin nor in the way it has materialised historically and been imposed. The secularising project of the nation state has produced a grammar and a vocabulary that supports it, including terms such as “humanism,” “religion,” and “ethics” that already take as a given the privatisation of belief and the dismantling of ritual and practice in the public sphere, which functions by its proclaimed separation from “religion” even as it is continually attached to Christianity. For secularism to be effective, it has to be able to claim its constant need to separate itself from the sacred in order to remain legitimate as a source of political governance. In other words, once the presence and actuality of the sacred is fully vanquished, the role of secularism is fulfilled, which means that secularism too is vanquished; there is no longer any need for the political governance that it produces and promotes, but the aim of politics is never to be overcome by something else. The fact that secularism cannot function without the sacred at the same time as it claims to subvert it is a paradox that conceals its Christian roots in order to subjugate all other forms of sacredness that would challenge its secular power and authority. This vocabulary deploys the contradiction of secularism’s post-Christian ambition by subsuming and almost erasing entire trajectories of thinking within the Islamic tradition. This is most obvious in the equation of the term “religion” with “Islam,” or “ethics” with adab. The same holds true for the notion of “humanism” that scholars so insistently endorse especially in relation to their proposals for the reform of Islam. It would be intellectually and politically dishonest to ignore the fact that there also emerges from European thinking itself a very important and relevant critique of the traditions of humanism for the ways in which the term assumes an already formed westernised, gendered, and racialised subject. Given all of this and the secular ties that bind humanism to modernity, the stakes of referring to the secular have to do with how willing we are to accept that the secular is inextricable from the sacred and vice versa, which opens up the cultural, intellectual, literary, and aesthetic discursive fields of the Islamic tradition. We will also need to consider the fact that Jewish, Christian, and Islamic notions of revelation underpin the secular, and that we cannot ignore how the unifying framework that organises the plurality of revelation purposefully eliminates certain political possibilities for the organisation of Muslim and Islamic and other communities.

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The recuperation of history that forms a specific subject position for Muslims makes reading Miskawayh’s writings as a paean to humanism attractive. However, what that recuperation looks like and its potential for transforming society, and dislodging categories of confinement and/or oppression, will depend on how we determine the individual and collective worth and agency of humans. As we hold up our decolonising fists to racism, misogyny, Islamophobia, airborne wars, poverty, and the assault on our environment and communities – this list is not complete – we also raise them to the chill hypocrisy of the politics of secular European reason and progress, to the imperialist aggression it has spawned. Right now, at a moment of such heightened, powerful, and profound awareness of injustice, is the time to evaluate whether the individual and collective value of humans, and the freedom to speak, write, organise, campaign, protest, and disobey in their defence, can or should be articulated only in the secular humanist terms that have availed themselves to the politics of modernity. This is our role as scholars: to raise awareness, awareness of other cultures, other traditions, other values, other ways of living and believing, other social and collective organisations of life, and awareness of injustices to be corrected. We put so much energy into research, teaching, lecturing, and writing that it is almost inconceivable that a system not be changed, and that nothing be done about the troubles that surround all of us. But what will it take? It is with this in mind that we should turn to thinkers such as Miskawayh in our search for different values and virtuous principles that render dignity, transform justice, and translate into direct action for all. New York City, August 2020

Contributors Hans Daiber held the chair of Oriental languages at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt/M, 1995–2010, until his retirement. He also taught at the Free University of Amsterdam, 1977–1995; the University of Tokyo, 1992; and the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization, Kuala Lumpur, 2001. His fields of research include Islamic philosophy, theology, the history of sciences, and the field of Greek-Syriac-Arabic-Latin translations. Yassir El Jamouhi is a scholar of intercultural communication and contemporary thought in the Arab world, based in Berlin. He received his PhD in 2015 from the University of Göttingen. From 2015 to 2019, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Collaborative Research Centre 1136 “Education and Religion” at the University of Göttingen. His current research focuses on discourse and dialogue analysis, intercultural communication as well as Islamic ethics and education. Gerhard Endress is Emeritus Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, and a Fellow of the Academy of Sciences of North Rhine-Westphalia, Düsseldorf. His research interests include the intellectual history of medieval Islam, Arabic literature, and especially the reception of Greek philosophy and science in the Arabic-Islamic milieu. Sebastian Günther is professor and chair of Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Göttingen. He received his PhD in 1989 from Martin Luther University, Halle-Wittenberg. From 1998 to 2008 he was assistant and associate professor of Arabic language and literature at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on the intellectual heritage of the Arabic-Islamic world and Arabic belleslettres. Several of his major studies are devoted to Islamic ethics and education. Mahmoud Haggag holds the substitute professorship of Islamic law and religious practice at the University of Osnabrück. At the same time he is an associate professor of Islamic studies at Al-Azhar University, Cairo. He received his PhD in 2009 from the University of Kassel. Since then he has held several appointments as lecturer and faculty staff member at Al-Azhar University and the Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Göttingen. His research focuses on the hermeneutics of normative religious texts in Islam as well as the field of tension between language, law and education in classical Islam, includ-

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ing in particular the Islamic legal doctrine of maqāṣid al-sharīʿa (the objectives of Islamic law). Wadad Kadi is the Avalon Foundation Distinguished Service Professor of Islamic Thought, Emerita, at the University of Chicago. Prior to her retirement in 2009 she taught at the American University of Beirut, Harvard, Columbia, Yale, and the University of Chicago. She received several honors, among them the King Faisal International Prize in Ancient Arabic Prose in 1994. She has published widely on early Arabic prose, Islamic political thought, the impact of the Quran on Arabic literature, early Islamic theology and sectarianism, and most recently on Umayyad bureaucracy and administrative history. Kaouther Karoui is a PhD candidate at the the University of Münster’s Department of Philosophy. She received her MA in Philosophy from the Institut Supérieur des Sciences Humaines de Tunis in 2015. From 2016 to 2019 she held a position as a research assistant within the DFG-funded research project “Diversity, Power, and Justice: Transcultural Perspective”. Her main fields of interest include Islamic philosophy, post-modern philosophy, and postcolonial studies. Ruth Mas is a scholar of critical theory and modern Islamic thought, based in New York City. She received her PhD in 2006 from the University of Toronto. She has held several academic and research positions in Canada, the United States, England, and Germany, including a post at the Berlin Graduate School of Muslim Cultures and Societies. Christian Mauder is associate professor in the study of religions with specialization in Islam at the University of Bergen. He received his PhD in 2017 from the University of Göttingen. Before coming to Bergen, he held appointments at the University of Bonn, NYU Abu Dhabi, the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton), and Yale University. His research focuses on the intellectual, religious, and cultural history of the Islamicate world in the late middle and early modern periods and on Christian-Muslim relations. Dorothee Pielow (Lauer) is an academic staff member at the University of Göttingen’s Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies. In 1994 she received her PhD in Arabic Studies and Ethnology from this university and has held several academic appointments since then, including one in the Database of Classical Islamic Pedagogy project in Göttingen. Her current research focuses on the history of the occult science and magic in Islam. Ute Pietruschka is Senior Researcher at the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities (Union Catalogue of Oriental Manuscripts in Germany). She received her PhD in 1986 from the Martin Luther University, Halle-Wittenberg. Her fields of research include Christian Arabic literature and the transmission of Greek thought in Egypt and Ethiopia.

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Lutz Richter-Bernburg retired as chair of Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Tübingen in 2010. He was awarded the degrees of Dr. phil. and Dr. phil. habil. at the University of Göttingen in 1969 and 1986. Before his position at the University of Tübingen, he held research and teaching appointments at Los Angeles (UCLA), Göttingen, Aleppo, Bonn, New York (Columbia), Berlin (Freie Universität), and Leipzig. Ali Rida K. Rizek is a PhD candidate at the University of Göttingen’s Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies. He received his MA in Arabic language and literature from the American University of Beirut in 2014. His main fields of interest include the intellectual and social development of Shiʿi Islam and Quranic and exegetical studies. Steffen Stelzer is professor of philosophy and was chair of the Department of Philosophy at the American University in Cairo. He received his PhD from the Freie Universität Berlin in 1976. His areas of specialization include comparative analyses of Western and Islamic concepts of knowledge, as well as the ethical dimension of Islamic education. Sophia Vasalou is a Birmingham Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Philosophical Theology at the University of Birmingham, UK. She received her PhD in 2006 from the University of Cambridge. Between 2005 and 2015 she held various teaching and research fellowships, including one at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, and another at the European College of Liberal Arts in Berlin. She has published widely on Islamic ethics and other philosophical subjects. Elvira Wakelnig is assistant professor of Arabic Philosophy at the University of Vienna’s Department of Near Eastern Studies. After having received her PhD from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, she held research positions at the Warburg Institute, the Universities of Bochum, Halle, Warwick, Vienna, Lausanne, and Pisa. Her research focuses on the transmission of Greek sciences into Arabic and on the intellectual history of the Islamicate World. Maxim Yosefi is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Göttingen. He received his PhD in 2016 from the Ben Gurion University of the Negev (Beersheba). His major fields of interest include classical Arabic poetry and Islamic ethics.

Notes on the Indexes This volume includes the following six indexes: 1. Index of Proper Names 2. Index of Geographical Names and Toponyms 3. Index of Book Titles and Other Texts 4. Index of Scriptural References 5. Index of Prophetic Traditions (Ḥadīth) 6. Index of Topics and Keywords – The Index of Proper Names includes the names of mortal figures (incl. Prophets and Biblical characters). – The Index of Geographical Names and Toponyms lists earthly places as well as (educational) institutions and other organizations. – The Index of Book Titles and Other Texts includes book titles and texts in their original language as well as manuscripts. – The Index of Scriptural References lists all references to specific Quranic and Biblical verses. – The Index of Prophetic Traditions refers to the ḥadīth by topic. Discussions related to the science of ḥadīth are included in the Index of Topics and Keywords under “ḥadīth” – Apart from topics and keywords, the Index of Topics and Keywords includes the names of non-earthly and fictive figures (e. g. God), the names of groups of people (e. g. Ashʿarites, Daylamis) and unearthly places. Specific explanatory notes can be found at the beginning of each index. The following criteria apply to all indexes. – In some cases cross-references (“→”/“see also”) refer to entries in one of the other indexes. For example, some entries in the Index of Topics and Keywords refer to persons in the Index of Proper Names and to titles of works in the Index of Book Titles and Other Texts. – Page references in bold type indicate pages where a subject of the entry has been dealt with in more detail compared to other page references.

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Neglected in sorting are: –  “al-” and “l-” at beginning of name and following “Ibn” or “Abū” or Kitāb –  “b.” (always) – ʿayn (ʿ) and hamza (ʾ) (always)

All indexes have been written in English and cover both the contributions in English and in German. In addition, key technical terms from contributions in German have been added as a main entry with a “→” cross-reference to the English terms. The English transliteration guidelines of the International Journal of Middle East Studies have been followed for names, terms, and titles in Arabic.

Index of Proper Names This index includes the names of mortal figures (incl. Prophets and Biblical characters). Groups of people, angels, God and other deities, mythological characters, and characters in narratives, however, are included in the Index of Topics and Keywords. The following rules for sorting classical Arabic names have been applied: 1. Persons whose names start with “Abū” are sorted under “Abū” 2. Persons whose names start with “ʿAbd/ʿAbdallāh” are sorted under “ʿAbd/ʿAbdallāh” 3. Persons most known by their father’s given name are sorted under “Ibn” 4. If persons are not subject to the sorting rules mentioned under 1–3, they are sorted by their given names, unless the last component of the name indicates a place or tribal name (beginning with a definite article “al-” or “l-” and ending with “i” or “y” ). In the latter case, the place/tribal element was used for sorting. 5. Exception: if authors have referred to a person by another name element or if a person is more known by another name, sorting has been done under that name. In these cases, cross-references have been made. 6. Neglected in sorting are: a. “al-” and “l-” at beginning of name and following “Ibn” or “Abū” or Kitāb b. “b.” (always) c. ʿayn (ʿ) and hamza (ʾ) (always) The English transliteration guidelines of the International Journal of Middle East Studies have been followed for names in Arabic. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ʿIzzat 230n3 Abū l-ʿAbbās Kanjūr b. Saʿd al-Ṣaydalānī 254n15 Abū ʿAbdallāh al-Muḥāsibī (d. 243/857) 142n22 Abū ʿAbdallāh b. Saʿdān (d. 374/984–985) 12, 25ill. Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Yaʿqūb al-Ḥāzin → Miskawayh/Miskawaih Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan Ibn al-Samḥ (d. 418/1027) 111, 166, 180 Abū ʿAlī ʿĪsā Ibn Zurʿa → Ibn Zurʿa, Abū ʿAlī ʿĪsā Abū ʿAlī al-Khāqānī (vizier, d. 312/924– 925) 59 Abū ʿAlī Miskawayh → Miskawayh/Miskawaih

Abū Bakr Aḥmad b. Kāmil al-Qādī (d. 349–350/961) 11, 25ill., 36, 56n2 Abū Bakr (d. 13/634) 93tab. Abū Bakr al-Khwārizmī (d. 383/993) 12, 25ill. Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. al-Walīd alṬurṭūshī → [al-]Ṭurṭūshī Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā al-Ṣūlī (d. 335/947) 25ill., 36n112 Abū Bakr al-Rāzī → al-Rāzī, Abū Bakr Abū l-Barakāt b. Kabar (d. 724/1324) 181, 198 Abū Bishr Mattā ibn Yūnus (d. ca. 328/940) 111, 166, 179 Abū l-Faḍl Ibn al-ʿAmīd (Buyid vizier, d. 360/970) 3, 4, 11, 12, 25ill., 27, 37, 65, 230, 262, 273

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Abū l-Faḍl Jaʿfar b. ʿAlī al-Dimashqī (fl. 7th/12th c.) 93 Abū l-Fatḥ Ibn al-ʿAmīd (son of Abū l-Faḍl Ibn al-ʿAmīd) 12, 230 Abū l-Fatḥ ʿUthmān Ibn Jinnī (d. 392/1002) 19 Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) → [al-]Ghazālī Abū l-Ḥasan al-Āmirī (d. 381/992) 12, 15, 25ill., 34, 272n59 Abū l-Ḥasan Ibn al-Furāt (wazīr, d. 312/924) 61, 62 Abū l-Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham → Ibn alHaytham Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī → [al-]Tawḥīdī Abū l-Hudhayl al-ʿAllāf (d. no later than 227/842) 253 Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. ʿAlī al-Ḥuṣrī → [al-] Ḥuṣrī Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Hilāl al-Ṣābiʾ (d. 384/994) 25ill., 36n112 Abū l-Khayr al-Ḥasan b. Suwār → Ibn alKhammār Abū Manṣūr al-Taʿālibī → [al-]Taʿālibī Abū Muḥammad Kanjūr b. ʿĪsā alFarghānī (fl. last q. 3rd/9th c.) 254n15 Abū Muḥammad al-Muhallabī → [al-]Muhallabī Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī → [al-]Fārābī Abū l-Qāsim al-Kātib → [al-]ʿĀmirī Abū l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1074) 301, 301n39 Abū Sahl al-Masīḥī (d. 401/1010) 119 Abū Sulaymān al-Sijistānī al-Manṭiqī (d. ca. 374/985) 12, 14n24, 23, 25ill. Abū Ṭahir al-Qarmaṭī (d. 332/943–944) 60–61, 62 Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī (d. 386/996) 302 Abū l-Ṭayyib al-Rāzī (alchemist, 10th c.) 11, 25ill. Abū ʿUthmān al-Dimashqī (d. after 301/914) 24ill., 78n18 Abū ʿUthmān al-Jāḥiẓ → [al-]Jāḥiẓ Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb b. Isḥāq al-Kindī → [al-] Kindī Abū Zakariyyāʾ → Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī Adam 192 Adamson, Peter 38, 145n36, 260n3, 282

ʿAḍud al-Dawla (Emir of Fars, d. 372/983) 3, 4, 11–12, 21, 21n57, 26, 36n112, 65, 230 Alboacen → [al-]Māwardī Alexander of Aphrodisias (fl. ca. 200 CE) 22, 24ill., 77n18, 166 ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (d. 40/661) 10, 93tab. ʿAlī ʿĪsā Ibn Zurʿa → Ibn Zurʿa Altmann, Alexander 205–206n2 Amedroz, Henry 37 Amīn, Aḥmad 33, 232n11, 233 al-Amīn, al-Sayyid Muḥsin (d. 1952 ) 10– 11 al-ʿĀmirī, Ġulām (Abū l-Qāsim al-Kātib, d. 420/1029) 14n24, 15 Ammonius (d. 242 CE) 80–81, 84, 110n2– 3, 113–114 Anidjar, Gil 67 Anūshīrwān → Khosrow I Anūshīrwān Ardashīr I (Shahanshah of the Sasanian Empire, d. ca. 242 CE) 93tab. Arendt, Hannah (d. 1975) 39, 69 Aristotle (d. 322 BCE) 15, 23, 24ill., 39, 93tab., 112, 115, 135, 166, 180, 206n4, 229–230, 244n43, 272n59, 282, 315, 315n80 – on action 298 – on (classification of ) the sciences 67, 271, 273 – logic 3, 122, 130, 219, 226, 230, 270, 273 – mathematics 124, 125, 130 – philosophy 2–3, 109, 110, 110n3, 111, 117, 119, 123–125, 162, 223, 261 – physics 2–3, 180 – classification of works of 122, 123, 130 – on covenant 216, 217 – on the divine 83, 114 – on ethics 3, 38, 75, 82, 109, 184, 189, 230, 260, 261, 270, 329; see also Nicomachean Ethics – four Aristotelian causes 128, 128n66, 130 – on friendship 316–317 – on happiness 3, 29, 118, 119, 217, 260– 261, 269, 269n46, 270, 273–274, 276, 316



Index of Proper Names

– on justice 30, 35, 43, 321, 322, 323, 326, 327, 328, 328–329, 334–335 – on law educating character 311, 312– 313 – on metaphors 137 – on perfection 223, 224 – on the soul 41, 139, 150, 185 – on virtue 31, 298, 313, 315 – on wisdom/ultimate knowledge 113, 117, 260–261 Arkoun, Mohammed (d. 2010) 24ill., 27, 37, 39, 162, 174, 218, 282 – on (Arab) humanism 7, 15, 89, 90, 234, 321, 328, 333, 339 – on humanism of Miskawayh 7, 15, 43, 91, 107, 320, 321, 322, 328–331, 334– 335, 339 – on humanism and philosophical rationalism 18, 19 – on Islamic ethics 69, 70, 331–334 – on justice 322 Asad, Talal 8n4 Asclepius of Tralles (d. 560–570 CE) 115n20 Avempace → Ibn Bājja Averroes → Ibn Rushd Avicenna → Ibn Sīna Badawi, Abdurrahman 17–18, 19, 34, 37 Barḥadbshabba ʿArbaya 123 al-Baṣrī, ʿAmmār (d. ca. 225/840) 222n66 al-Bayḍāwī (d. 691/1292) 208, 209n12 Bennett, David 222n65 Biesterfeldt, Hans Hinrich 38 Bin Omar, Mohammed Nasir 37 Brockelmann, Carl 9n8 Bryson (fl. ca. 100 BCE-2nd c. CE) 22, 24ill., 93tab., 195n89 – Oikonomikos 40, 89, 93–107 al-Bukhārī, Kanjūr 254n15 Campanini, Massimo 222n65 Carter, Michael 18–19 Cheikho, Louis (d. 1927) 93, 94 Cyrill of Alexandria (d. 444) 193 Daiber, Hans 40, 109 Dāʾūd b. Hāshim b. Kanjūr 254n15

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David 110n2, 113, 114, 115–116 al-Dawānī, Jalāl al-Dīn (d. 908/1502– 1503) 5, 22–23, 25ill. Dāwūd b. Marwān al-Muqammaṣ → [al-] Muqammaṣ, Dāwūd b. Marwān Druart, Thérèse-Anne 182 Elias 110n2–3, 116 El Jamouhi, Yassir 40 Endress, Gerhard 30, 37, 38, 77n18, 163, 166, 169, 172, 180, 197 Ess, Josef van 142 Fakhry, Majid 15, 37, 217n52, 218, 323n7 al-Fārābī, Abū Naṣr Muḥammad (d. ca. 339/950–951) 11, 15, 22, 24ill., 26, 40, 89, 91, 161, 166, 179, 211, 219, 226, 229, 259, 292, 298, 314 – on acquired vs. actual intellect 149, 222–223 – on division of the arts 278–279 – on free and enslaved human beings 278–279 – on happiness 81, 259, 261, 269n46, 273–277, 281–282 – on kalām al-dīn 208, 208–209n12 – on law educating character 312 – Miskawayh and/vs. 75, 109, 111–112, 122, 126–129, 130, 259, 269n46, 273– 283 – on moral character/character traits 167, 276–278 – on natural sciences 126–129 – on (prophetic) leaders 77, 82, 85, 312 – on the soul 143 al-Fayyūmī, Saʿīd b. Yūsuf → Saadia Gaon Foucault, Michel 333n61, 334 Galen (d. ca. 200 CE) 2, 15, 24ill., 93tab., 137, 193n89 – anthropology of 3, 5 – on the soul 144, 147, 147n40, 150, 182, 185 Gamāl al-Dīn, Nadia 101n56 Garden, Kenneth 291n1, 316n82 George, Robert 311 Gerard of Cremona (d. 1187) 136

352

Index of Proper Names

al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid (d. 505/1111) 15, 25ill., 142n22, 214, 214n32, 229 – on causality 296, 296n17, 297–298 – on jurisprudence 314 – on Law and education of character 299–308, 309, 311, 313–315 – Miskawayh as source of inspiration for 5, 22, 43, 289, 292 – on primacy of character/virtue vs. ­actions 290–300, 308 – on virtue 289–293, 297n20 – virtue and action 306, 308–309 – virtue and religious law 291, 294, 299, 310, 318 – on worship and ritual acts 299, 301– 302, 306, 307, 308n58, 310, 315 – fasting 304–305, 306 – ḥajj 307, 310 – zakāt 302–303, 306 Goodman, Lenn 15–16, 19, 37, 317 Griffith, Sidney 164, 167n20, 169, 171, 181, 187, 218n44, 220n55 Gude, Marquard 193n86 Günther, Sebastian 38, 89*, 214n32 Gutas, Dimitri 38, 111, 111n8, 122–123, 124n53, 269n46, 271n53 Haggag, Mahmoud 42 al-Ḥakīm, ʿAṭif Khalīl 180 al-Hamadānī, Badīʿ al-Zamān (d. 398/1008) 12 al-Ḥamawī, Yāqūt (d. 626/1229) 14, 23, 230 al-Ḥasan b. Suwār → Ibn al-Khammār Hatem, Jad 181 Heck, Paul 315n78, 316n81 Hegedus, Gyongyi 206n2 Hippocrates (d. ca. 370 BCE) 24ill., 93tab. Hodgson, Marshall 261n10 Hōshang (Pēshdādh, primeval Iranian king) 252n9, 254–255, 254n17, 254– 255n21 Hourani, George F. 222n65 Ḥunayn Ibn Isḥāq → [al-]ʿIbādī, Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq ʿHūshanj al-ḥakīmʾ → Hōshang al-Ḥuṣrī, Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. ʿAlī (d. 413/1022) 252n11

Iamblichus (d. 330 CE) 40, 75, 77–78n18, 79, 81, 82, 84n74–75, 85 – on hierarchy between God, angels and “godlike” 83–84 – on virtues 80, 84 al-ʿIbādī, Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq (d. 260/873) 144, 147, 211 Ibn ʿAbbād → Ṣāḥib ibn ʿAbbād Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa b. a (d. 668/1270) 181, 198 Ibn ʿAdī → Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī Ibn al-ʿAmīd → Abū l-Faḍl Ibn al-ʿAmīd Ibn ʿArabī (d. 638/1240) 172, 173, 192 Ibn Bahrīz (fl. end 2nd-3rd/8–9th. c.) 110, 124–125, 125n57,n59 Ibn Bājja (d. 533/1138) 15 Ibn Farīghūn (fl. middle 4th/10th c.) 188– 189, 188ill. Ibn al-Furāt → Abū l-Ḥasan Ibn al-Furāt Ibn al-Haytham (d. 432/1041) 172, 193, 197–198 Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456/1064) 15 Ibn Jinnī → Abū l-Fatḥ ʿUthmān Ibn Jinnī Ibn Kāmil → Abū Bakr Aḥmad b. Kāmil al-Qādī Ibn Khaldūn (d. 808/1406) 64, 208, 209n12 Ibn Khallikān (d. 681/1282) 14 Ibn al-Khammār, Abū l-Khayr al-Ḥasan ibn Suwār (d. after 407/1017) 11, 24ill., 111, 166, 180 Ibn Khurradādhbih 251n15 Ibn Manẓūr 231n8 Ibn al-Muqaffaʾ (ca. 759) 25ill., 110, 125n57 Ibn al-Nadīm (d. 385/995 or 389/998) 179, 181, 198 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 751/1350) 142n22 Ibn al-Qifṭī (Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qifṭī, d. 646/1248) 13, 230 Ibn Qutayba (d. 276/889) 238 Ibn Rushd (Averroes, d. 595/1198) 15, 112n12, 214, 214n32, 229, 337 Ibn Saʿdān → Abū ʿAbdallāh b. Saʿdān Ibn Samḥ → Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan Ibn alSamḥ



Index of Proper Names

Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna, d. 428/1037) 15, 24ill., 89, 135, 229, 292, 337 – Miskawayh and/vs. 13, 13n23, 22, 33, 41, 135, 136–137, 151–154, 220, 230 – on ritual observances 317n86 – on the soul 41, 143, 144, 148–154 – sources of inspiration 138, 143–144 Ibn al-Taḥḥān (d. 416/101) 254n15 Ibn al-Ṭayyib (d. 435/1043) 110n1, 111, 186 Ibn Ṭufayl (d. 581/1185) 15, 149n47 Ibn Zurʿa, Abū ʿAlī ʿĪsā (d. 398/1008) 24ill., 94–95, 111, 166, 180 Ibrahīm b. Sinān (d. 334/946) 196 al-Iṣfahānī, Mirzā ʿAbdallāh (d. 1130/1718) 11n13 al-Iṣfahānī, al-Rāghib (fl. ca. 409/1018) 32, 289 al-Isfizārī 40, 109, 110n1, 112, 114–116, 130 Isḥāq b. Ḥunayn (d. 297/910) 24ill. Iwannīs of Dārā (fl. 3rd/9th. c.) 76n8, 186 Izdebska, Anna 84n75 ʿIzz al-Dawla Bakhtiyār (Buyid Emir of Iraq, d. 367/978) 4 al-Jabiri, Mohammed Abed/al-Jābirī, Muḥammad ʿĀbid (d. 2010) 7, 15, 24ill. al-Jāḥiẓ, Abū ʿUthmān (d. 255/868) 22, 25ill., 34, 35ill., 172, 192, 252, 252n9, 252n11, 253, 254n15 Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qifṭī → Ibn al-Qifṭī John Chrysostomos 193 Kadi, Wadad 14n24, 39 Kanjūr b. Isfandiyār (vizier of the king of Īrānshahr) 253–254 Kant, Immanuel (d. 1804) 39, 68 Karoui, Kaouther 43 Kermani, Navid 39, 70 al-Khafājī, Aḥmad b. Muḥammad 252n9 Khalidi, Tarif 191 Khalil, Samir 180; see also Samir, Khalil Khan, Mohammed 36–37, 37 Khosrow I Anūshīrwān (Shah of the ­Sasanian Empire, r. 531–578 CE) 111, 121, 271

353

al-Khwānsārī, Muḥammad Bāqir (d. 1313/1895) 10, 10n12 al-Kindī, Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb b. Isḥāq (d. ca. 252–256/866–870) 22, 24ill., 75, 84n74, 85, 89, 91, 93tab., 110, 112n13, 142, 172, 229 – division of mathematics by 126, 126n60 – on happiness 2 – on the soul 81, 84, 142–143 – on wisdom 2 Kraemer, Joel 15, 18, 19, 85, 89, 166, 180, 219n52 Leaman, Oliver 15, 27 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 8 Locke, John 294 McDougall, Duncan (d. 1920) 140 Maimonides (d. 1204 CE) 206, 206n4 al-Maʾmūn (Abbasid caliph, r. 198– 218/813–833) 125, 252, 254n15 al-Manṭiqī → Abū Sulaymān al-Sijistānī alManṭiqī Marcotte, Roxanne 37, 261n14, 262n18, 264n29, 265n35, 269n46 Margoliouth, David 36, 36n112 Mas, Ruth 17 al-Masʿūdī (d. 345/956) 196–197, 198 Mauder, Christian 41 al-Māwardī (d. 450/1058) 227 al-Mawṣilī, Ibn Abī Saʿīd (fl. 4th/10th. c.) 34, 196 Mernissi, Fatima 18 al-Miqdādī, Faiṣal Ibrāhīm 13n23 Mīr Dāmād (d. 1041/1631) 10, 11n13 Miskawayh/Miskawaih (d. 421/1030) – career 3, 4, 8, 11–12, 56, 65, 136, 230, 339 – character of 230–231 – on classification of the sciences – arts 280–281 – philosophy 271–272 – contemporary scholars/patrons/followers and/vs. 12–13, 14n24, 22–23, 24– 25ill., 32–33, 40, 84–85, 230 – al-Fārābī 75, 109, 111–112, 126– 129, 130, 257, 259, 269n46, 273–283

354

Index of Proper Names

– al-Ghazālī 5, 22, 43, 289, 292 – Ibn Sīnā 13, 13n23, 22, 33, 41, 135, 136–137, 151–154, 220, 230 – al-Isfizārī 40, 109, 112–115, 116, 130 – al-Muqammaṣ 205, 220–224 – Saadia Gaon 205–206, 209–218, 220–221, 222, 223–224 – al-Tawḥīdī 13, 33, 55, 229, 230– 231, 232–233, 272n59; see also alHawāmil wa-l-shawāmil – Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī 41, 161–163, 172–173, 179, 218, 223, 225, 226 – education 11–12, 218 – on existence of God 26–27 – on free and enslaved human beings 278–279 – on friendship 316–317 – on happiness 27–30, 262–276, 269n46, 281–282, 283, 316 – humanism of 15, 19, 91–93, 320, 322, 328–331, 334–335, 339, 342 – on justice 35, 323–329, 334–335 – life 8–20, 136, 230 – in modern context 337–342 – on (moral) character/character traits/ human faculties 31–32, 276–278 on law educating character 312–313 – name 9–10, 9n8, 10n9 – origins and confession 8, 9–11, 10n9, 230–231, 246, 339 – political developments in lifetime of 1, 20–22, 339 – reputation/reception/status of 13–16, 66, 68, 136, 229, 230, 272n59, 282–283 – on the soul 26, 30, 31–32, 145–147, 151–153, 323–324 – sources of inspiration 8, 15, 22, 24– 25ill., 40, 92, 93tab., 107, 109, 112–117, 119, 122, 126, 136–137, 143, 147, 163, 218–219, 226, 252, 273–274, 275– 276, 282–283, 327; see also ­Aristotle; ­Bryson; al-Fārābī; Galen; al-Jāḥiẓ; al-Kindī; Paul the Persian; Plato; ­Porphyry – studies on 37–44 – on the virtues 30–31 – works 22–37, 136, 231 Mistrih, Vincent 170n34, 171

Mittleman, Alan 209 al-Muhallabī, Abū Muḥammad (vizier, d. 352/963) 12, 25ill., 63, 65 Muhammad/Muḥammad (the Prophet, d. 11/632) 93tab., 332, 336, 338 Muhanna, Elias 37 Muʿizz al-Dawla (Buyid Emir of Iraq, d. 356/967) 12, 25ill., 65, 230 Mullā Ṣadrā (Ṣadr ad-Dīn Muḥammad Shīrāzī, d. 1050/1640) 14 al-Muqammaṣ, Dāwūd b. Marwān (fl. early 3rd/9th c.) 186, 220–223, 225 – Miskawayh and/vs. 205, 220–224 – Saadia Gaon and/vs. 222, 225–226 al-Muqammiṣ → [al-]Muqammaṣ, Dāwūd b. Marwān Mushkōye → Miskawayh/Miskawaih al-Muʾtaman b. al-Assāl (d. between 668/1270 and 684/1286) 198 Najḥ (chief of police) 61 Nicomachus of Gerasa (d. ca. 120 CE) 114, 126n60 Nietzsche, Friedrich (d. 1900) 39, 69 Nöldeke, Theodor 9n8 Nonnus of Nisibis (d. after 862 CE) 221 Oliver, Mary 67 Olympiodorus (d. after 565 CE) 110n3, 166 Paul the Persian (fl. 6th c. CE) 25ill., 40, 109, 111, 121 – on classification of the sciences/philosophy 111–112, 122–124, 125, 126, 130, 271, 271n53, 272, 273, 282 Pellat, Charles 252n9 Perkams, Matthias 121–122, 122–123, 123n50, 271n53 Phaidros (d. no later than 393 BCE) 139 Philo of Alexandria (d. ca. 50 CE) 209 Philoponus (d. ca. 570 CE) 110n3, 114, 115 Pielow, Dorothee 41 Pietruschka, Ute 41 Pines, Shlomo 77n18, 111n8, 196 Plato (d. 347/8 BCE) 15, 22, 24ill., 34, 77n18, 78n24, 124, 135, 166



Index of Proper Names

– on ethics 38, 75, 79, 82, 85, 184, 189, 192, 329 – on happiness 76 – on justice 43, 321, 322, 325, 328, 328– 329, 334–335 – on Law/Law educating character 211, 311, 312 – on likeness to God 79, 80 – on reason 224 – on the soul 41, 80, 84, 138–139, 144, 146, 150, 152, 182, 184–185, 324, 325; see also tripartite soul – as source of inspiration for Miskawayh 93tab., 152, 154, 324, 328, 328–329, 334–335 Platti, Emilio 219 Plessner, Martin 94–95 Plotinus (d. 270 CE) 23, 77n18, 81, 124, 282 – on the soul 79, 139–140 – on virtues 79, 80, 84 Porphyry (d. ca. 305 CE) 22, 24ill., 75, 76, 77–78n18, 82, 84, 93tab., 110 – on the soul 80, 81 Pseudo-Dionysius 124 Ptolemy (d. ca. 170 CE) 126 Pythagoras (d. ca. 480 BCE) 24ill., 76, 93tab., 116 al-Qāḍī Nūr Allāh → al-Ṭūstarī, Nūr Allāh al-Marʿashī al-Ḥusaynī al-Qaffāl al-Shāshī (d. 365/976) 310 al-Qarāfī, Shihāb al-Dīn (d. 684/1285) 303n42 al-Qifṭī, Jamāl al-Dīn → Ibn al-Qifṭī al-Qūmisī, Daniel 221n56 Radez, John Peter 37, 329 Raslān, Ṣalāḥ 232n10 al-Rāzī, Abū Bakr (Rhazes, d. 313/925 or 323/935) 22, 25ill., 192–193, 229 al-Rāzī, Fakhr al-Dīn (d. 606/1210) 15 Reinhart, Kevin 310 Rhazes → [al-]Rāzī, Abū Bakr Richter-Bernburg, Lutz 42 Ritter, Helmut 93, 94 Rizek, Ali Rida K. 43 Rodwell, J. M. 323n7

355

Rosenblatt, Samuel 205n2, 213n28–29 Rukn al-Dawla (Buyid Emir of Jibal, d. 365/976) 3–4, 12, 25ill. al-Rūmī, Jalāl al-Dīn (d. 672/1273) 23, 24ill. Russell, Bertrand 259 Saadia Gaon (Saʿadyā Ben Yōsēf Gaon/ Saʿīd b. Yūsuf al-Fayyūmī, d. 942 CE) 24ill., 41–42 – al-Muqammaṣ and/vs. 222, 225–226 – career 206–209 – Miskawayh and/vs. 205–206, 209–218, 220–221, 222, 223–224 – sources of inspiration 211 – Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī and/vs. 219–220, 226 Ṣadr ad-Dīn Muḥammad Shīrāzī → Mullā Ṣadrā Ṣafā, Georges 93 al-Safi b. al-ʿAssāl (d. after 650/1253) 198 Ṣāḥib ibn ʿAbbād (d. 385/995) 12, 25ill. Samir, Khalil 172, 181, 192; see also Khalil, Samir Schimmel, Annemarie 301n39 Schneewind, Jerome 294 Schöller, Marco 16 Schönberger, Thomas 333n61 Sergius of Rēshʿaynā (d. 536 CE) 120n39, 122, 124n54, 125 al-Shāfiʿī, Muḥammad ibn Idrīs (d. 204/820) 239n35 Shaltut, Mahmoud (d. 1963) 238n32 Sharif, Mian M. 15 Sherif, Mohamed Ahmed 291n1 Shīrāzī, Ṣadr ad-Dīn → Mullā Ṣadrā Sībawayh (d. 180/796) 9n8 Simplicius of Cilicia (fl. ca. 490–560 CE) 22, 24ill., 110n3, 119 Sinān b. Thābit (d. 330/942) 196, 198 Sklare, David 221 Socrates (d. 399 BCE) 5, 39, 67, 76, 138– 139 Stelzer, Steffen 38, 39 Stroumsa, Sarah 221 Swain, Simon 94, 97 al-Taʿālibī, Abū Manṣūr (d. 429/1038) 10n9, 12, 25ill., 253n21

356

Index of Proper Names

al-Ṭabarī, Muḥammad b. Jarīr (d. 310/923) 11, 25ill., 36, 56, 255n21 al-Takrītī, Najī 162, 181, 230n3 Ṭashköprüzāde/Ṭāshkubrīzāda (d. 968/1561) 267n47, 269n47 al-Tawḥīdī, Abū Ḥayyān (d. 414/1023) 5, 10n9, 12, 14n24, 24ill., 26n65, 111, 166, 229 – Miskawayh vs. 13, 33, 55, 229, 230– 231, 232–233, 272n59; see also alHawāmil wa-l-shawāmil Taylor, Christopher 260n3 Taymūr, Aḥmad Pāshā (d. 1930) 93 Thābit b. Qurra (d. 288/901) 196 Thābit b. Sinān (d. 365/976) 25ill., 36n112 Themistus (d. after 388 CE) 166 Theodore Abū Qurra (d. ca. 209/825) 120n39, 122, 186 Theophrastus (d. ca. 287 BCE) 166 al-Turkī Kanjūr (governor of al-Kūfa) 254n15 al-Ṭurṭūshī, Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. alWalīd 252n11 al-Ṭūsī, Naṣīr al-Dīn (d. 672/1274) 5, 22, 25ill., 93 al-Ṭūstarī, Nūr Allāh al-Marʿashī alḤusaynī (al-Qādī Nūr Allāh, d. 1019/1610) 10, 11n13

Ullmann, Manfred 38 Urvoy, Marie-Thérèse 179 Vasalou, Sophia 43 Versteegh, Kees 9n8 Wakelnig, Elvira 37, 40, 118, 271n53 Walzer, Richard 77n18, 126n60, 163–164 Watson, Gary 292 Wisnovsky, Robert 128n66 Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī (d. 363/974) 11, 24ill., 34, 91, 111, 119, 193n86 – career 179–180, 218 – Christian confessional identity in work 41, 167–172, 173 – ethical writings 41, 169–172, 193, 218– 219; see also Tahdhīb al-akhlāq – Miskawayh and/vs. 41, 161–163, 172– 173, 179, 218, 223, 225, 226 – Saadia Gaon and/vs. 219–220, 226 Yefet ben ʿEli 221n56 Yosefi, Maxim 41–42 Zaidān, Yūsuf 13n23 Zargar, Cyrus A. 38 al-Zughbī, Fatḥī 230n3 Zurayk, Constantine K. 67, 77n18, 97, 162, 218n44, 224n71

Index of Geographical Names and Toponyms This index includes earthly places as well as (educational) institutions and other organizations. Afsana (Uzbekistan) 136 Aleppo 20, 207 Alexandria 3, 109, 193 Algeria 339 Amu-Darya (river) 12 Athens 3 Babylonia 207, 207n9, 208 Baghdad 1, 2, 12, 20, 41, 42, 58, 60, 62– 63, 64, 65, 110–111, 130, 136, 159, 161, 163, 164, 165, 166, 174, 179, 180, 205, 206, 207, 218, 219, 222, 230 Balkh 254n15 Basra 20, 22, 29n79, 144 Beirut 93, 94 Bukhara (Uzbekistan) 136 Cairo 14, 20, 254n15 China 20 Chiwa → Khiva/Chiwa Córdoba 20 Damascus 14, 20, 181, 254n15 Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) 89* Dilaz (Upper Egypt) 206 Egypt 192, 193, 198, 206, 207, 232n10, 321 Fars 252 Fergana (Uzbekistan) 20 Fez 20 Georg-August-Universität (Göttingen) 89*

Göttingen 38, 89* Hamadān (Iran) 136, 149 Indonesia 20 Iran 1, 4, 136, 149, 253–254 Īrānshar (Iran) 253 Iraq 1, 4, 198, 207 Isfahan 12, 20, 230 Israel 207 Kabyle (region, Algeria) 339 Kairouan (Tunisia) 20 Khiva/Chiwa (Uzbekistan) 12 Kufa 5, 20, 254n15 Libya 321 al-Mahdiyyah (Tunisia) 196 Marwa (hill, Mecca) 307 Mashhad/Meschhed (Iran) 20, 35 Morocco 20 Mosul 124 Mount Hira 332 Najaf 207 Near East 2 Nishapur 20 Nisibis (Mesopotamia, today Nusaybin, Turkey) 123 Palestine 207, 207n9 Qom 20 Ramle (Palestine) 207n9

358

Index of Geographical Names and Toponyms

Rampur (India) 254 al-Raqqa (Syria) 221 Rayy/Raiy (Iran) 3, 4, 8, 9, 12, 14, 20, 136, 230 Rhagai/Rhagae → Rayy/Raiy Safā (hill, Mecca) 307 Samarqand 254n15 Seville 20 Sorbonne (Paris) 328 Sura (Babylonia) 207, 208 Syria 192, 198, 321

Tehran 8 Tigris 12, 59 Toledo 20 Tukharistan (former district near Balkh) 254n15 Tunis 20 Tunisia 321 Uzbekistan 12, 136 Wadi al-Natrun (Egypt) 198 Wasit (Iraq) 254n15 Western Iran 4

Index of Book Titles and Other Texts This index includes texts in their original language and, if known, their authors. Individual manuscripts are listed under the main entry “manuscripts”. Translated titles in English and German have been included as a main entry with a “→” cross-reference to the original title, if known. The Bible and the Quran are included in the Index of Topics and Keywords, whilst Biblical and Quranic verses are included in the Index of Scriptural References.   Italics were used for book titles, regular font chapters and manuscripts. Quotation marks were used to indicate a chapter.   The English transliteration guidelines of the International Journal of Middle East Studies have been followed for titles in Arabic. Abhandlung über Enthaltsamkeit (Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī) → Maqāla fī tabyīn ḥāl tark ṭalab al-nasl Abhandlung über Seele und Intellekt (Miskawayh) → Risāla fī jawhar al-nafs; Risāla fī l-nafs wa-l-ʿaql Ādāb al-ʿArab wa-l-Furs (Miskawayh) → Jāwīdhān Khiradh al-Adwīya al-mufrada (Die einzigartigen Medikamente, Miskawayh) 231 ʿAhd Aradhashīr (pre-Islamic Persian classic on government) 56 Aḥwāl al-rūḥ (Die Zustände des Geistes, Miskawayh or Ibn Sīnā) 137 Akhlāq-i Jalālī (al-Dawānī) → Lawāmiʿ alishrāq fī makārim al-akhlāq Akhlāq-i Nāṣirī (Nasirean Ethics, al-Ṭūsī) 22, 93 Alive, son of Awake (Ibn Sīnā) → Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān De anima (Aristotle) 80n32 An. Post. (Aristotle) → Posterior Analytics [Ansammlungen von] Einsichten und Schätzen (al-Tawḥīdī) → [al-]Baṣāʾīr wal-dhakhāʾir Die Ansichten der Einwohner des vortrefflichen Staates (al-Fārābī) → [al-] Madīna al-fāḍila

Aphorisms of the Statesman (al-Fārābī) → Fuṣūl muntazaʿa The Attainment of Happiness (al-Fārābī) → Taḥṣīl al-saʿāda Aufgeworfene Fragen und erschöpfende Antworten (Miskawayh) → [al-] Hawāmil wa-l-shawāmil al-Awrāq (Die Blätter, al-Ṣūlī) 36n112 Aʿyan al-Shī ʿa (Die hervorragenden Persönlichkeiten der Schia, al-Sayyid Muḥsin al-Amīn) 10–11 al-Baṣāʾīr wa-l-dhakhāʾir ([Ansammlungen von] Einsichten und Schätzen, alTawḥīdī) 232 Die Benachrichtigung der Gelehrten über die Nachrichten der Philosophen (Ibn al-Qiftī) → Tārīkh al-ḥukamāʾ The Bezels of Wisdom (Ibn ʿArabī) → Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam Die Blätter (al-Ṣūlī) → [al-]Awrāq Book of Beliefs and Opinions (Saadia Gaon) → Kitāb al-Amānāt wa-l-iʿtiqādāt Book of Commandments (Maimonides) → Sefer ha-Mitzvot Book of Comprehending the Oral Torah’s Laws (Saadia Gaon) → Kitāb Taḥṣīl alsharāʾiʿ al-samʿiyya

360

Index of Book Titles and Other Texts

Book of Directives and Remarks (Ibn Sīnā) → Kitāb al-Ishārāt wa-l-tanbīhāt Book of Enjoyment and Bonhomie (alTawḥīdī) → Kitāb al-Imtāʿ wa-lmuʾānasa Book of Healing (Ibn Sīnā) → Kitāb alShifāʾ Book of Household Management (Bryson) → Oikonomikos Book of Letters/Particles (al-Fārābī) → Kitāb al-Ḥurūf Book of Religion (al-Fārābī) → Kitāb alMilla Book of the Seasons (Saadia Gaon) → Sefer ha-Mōʿadīm Book of Wisdom → Jāwīdhān Khiradh; Kitāb al-Ḥikma Borrowed Lights (al-Tawḥīdī) → [al-] Muqābasāt Buch Brysons über die Führung des Haushaltes durch den Mann → Oikonomikos Buch der Anleihen [von Weisheiten] (alTawḥīdī) → [al-]Muqābasāt Buch der Glückseligkeit über Moralphilo­ sophie (Miskawayh) → Tartīb al-saʿādāt wa-manāzil al-ʿulūm Buch der Heilung → Kitāb al-Shifāʾ Buch der Hinweise und Belehrungen (Ibn Sīnā) → Kitāb al-Ishārāt wa-l-tanbīhāt Buch der Reinigung [der Seele] (Miskawayh) → Tahdhīb al-akhlāq Buch des Hinweises auf die Schönheiten des Handels (al-Dimashqī) → Kitāb alIshāra ilā maḥāsin al-tijāra Buch über den Zuspruch und den vertrauten Umgang (al-Tawḥīdī) → Kitāb al-Imtāʿ wa-l-muʾānasa Buch über die Leitung der Haushaltsführung (Bryson) → Oikonomikos Buch über die Seele (Ibn Qayyim al-­ Jawziyya) → Kitāb al-Rūḥ The Canon of Medicine (Ibn Sīnā) → Kitāb al-Qānūn fī l-ṭibb Categories (Aristotle) 110, 111, 113–114, 119, 120n39, 121–122 Cause of the Foundation of Schools (Barḥadbshabba) 123

“Chapter” on the Kinds of Happiness and the Division of Philosophy ­( Miskawayh) 111–112, 117–121, 118n30 – classification of the sciences in – mathematics 125–126 – natural sciences 126–130 – theoretical philosophy 118–121, 125 – Iḥṣāʾ al-ʿulūm (al-Fārābī) vs./and 126– 129 – sources of inspiration 118, 119, 121– 122, 126 Chronik (al-Ḥarrānī) 36n112 Cleansing of Minds, Incisiveness of Thoughts and Honing of Hearts → Taṣfiyat al-adhhān wa-nafādh alfikar wa-shaḥdh al-qulūb Compendium on the Soul (Sinān b. Thābit) → Risāla Siyāsat al-nufūs Contribution à l’étude de l’humanisme arabe au IVe/Xe siècle (Mohammed Arkoun) 328 The Criterion of Action (al-Ghazālī) → Mizān al-ʿamal Darüber, dass die Kräfte der Seele der Mischung des Körpers folgen (Galen) → Quod animi mores corporis tempera­ menta sequantur Davānīs Ethik → Lawāmiʿ al-ishrāq fī makārim al-akhlāq Definitions of Logic (Ibn Bahrīz) → Ḥudūd al-manṭiq The Deliverer from Error → [al-]Munqidh min al-ḍalāl Das Depositum der Weisheit → Ṣiwān alḥikma The Direction to the Attainment of Happiness (al-Fārābī) → Risālat al-tanbīh ʿalā sabīl al-saʿāda Discipline of the Soul (al-Ghazālī) → Kitāb Riyadāt al-nafs Discourse on the Soul (al-Kindī) → Risāla fī l-qawl fī l-nafs al-mukhtaṣar min Kitāb Arisṭū wa-Aflāṭūn wa-sāʾir al-falāsifa Drāmā aʿlām al-ʿarab (Theaterstücke über arabische Persönlichkeiten, Faiṣal Ibrāhīm al-Miqdādī) 13n23



Index of Book Titles and Other Texts

Die drei Fragen, die das Wissen insgesamt umfassen (Miskawayh) → al-Fawz alaṣghar al-Durra al-fākhira (The Precious Pearl, al-Ghazālī) 142n22 The Eclipse of the Abbasid Caliphate ­( Miskawayh) → Tajārib al-umam Die Einteilung der Glückseligkeit und die Rangstufen der Wissenschaften (Miskawayh) → Tartīb al-saʿādāt wamanāzil al-ʿulūm Die einzigartigen Medikamente ­( Miskawayh) → [al-]Adwīya al-­ mufrada Enneads (Plotinus) 79, 124 Entlehnte Inspirationen (al-Tawḥīdī) → [al-]Muqābasāt The Enumeration of the Sciences (alFārābī) → Iḥṣāʾ al-ʿulūm Epistle of the Birds (Ibn Sīnā) → Risālat al-ṭayr Epistle on Soul and Intellect (Miskawayh) → Risāla fī l-nafs wa-l-ʿaql Die Erfahrungen der Völker (Miskawayh) → Tajārib al-umam Die Erzählung von den Vögeln (Ibn Sīnā) → Risālat al-ṭayr Eternal Wisdom (‘collection of wisdom sayings’, Miskawayh) → Jāwidhān ­K hiradh The Etiquette of Earning a Living (alGhazālī) → Kitāb Ādāb al-kasb wa-lmaʿāsh Die ewige Weisheit (‘collection of wisdom sayings’, Miskawayh) → Jāwidhān Khiradh The Experiences of the Peoples ­( Miskawayh) → Tajārib al-umam Faḍāʾil al-nafs (ps.-Plato) → Maqāla fi ithbāt faḍāʾil al-nafs Falsafat al-akhlāq bayna Arisṭū wa-­ Miskawayh (Die Moralphilosophie zwischen Aristoteles und Miskawaih, alTakrītī) 230n3 Fardaqān (Die Festung, Yūsuf Zaidān) 13n23

361

al-Fawz al-akbar (The Greater Triumph, Miskawayh) 27, 37, 118, 231 al-Fawz al-aṣghar (The Minor Triumph, Miskawayh) 26–27, 118n30, 231 – dating of 37 – on happiness 29, 263n22 – on knowledge of God 112 – Masāʾil al-umūr (al-Isfizārī) vs. 112, 114–115, 116 – on prophecy 57 – on the soul 145 – sources of inspiration 112–113, 114, 116–117, 130 Die Festung (Zaidān) → Fardaqān Die [ freudige] Unterhaltung und die Geselligkeit (al-Tawḥīdī) → Kitāb al-Imtāʿ wal-muʾānasa Die Freundschaft und der Freund (alTawḥīdī) → al-Ṣadāqa wa-l-ṣadīq Fuṣūl muntazaʿa (Aphorisms of the Statesman, al-Fārābī) 312 Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam (The Bezels of Wisdom, Ibn ʿArabī) 192 Die Gärten der Domänen des Paradieses (al-Khwānsārī) → Rawḍāt al-jannāt Die Gärten der Gelehrten (al-Iṣfahānī) → Riyāḍ al-ʿulamāʾ Die Geschichte der Gottesgesandten und der Herrscher (al-Ṭabarī) → Tārīkh alrusul wa-l-mulūk Die Geschichte der Philosophen (Ibn alQifṭī) → Tārīkh al-ḥukamāʾ Die Geselligkeit des Alleinlebenden ­( Miskawayh) → Uns al-farīd Glanzlichter der Erleuchtung über den Adel der Sitten (al-Dawānī) → Lawāmiʿ alishrāq fī makārim al-akhlāq Golden Verses/Goldene Verse (Pseudo-­ Pythagoras) 40, 75, 83, 84–85, 84n75 Die göttlichen Zeichen (al-Tawḥīdī) → [al-] Ishārāt al-ilāhiyya The Greater Triumph (Miskawayh) → alFawz al-akbar Das größere Gelingen (Miskawayh) → alFawz al-akbar Die größere Schrift über den Weg zum Erfolg (Miskawayh) → al-Fawz al-akbar

362

Index of Book Titles and Other Texts

Guide to the Merits of Commerce (al-Dimashqī) → Kitāb al-Ishāra ilā maḥāsin al-tijāra Guide to the Perplexed (Maimonides) 206, 206n4 Harmonics (Ptolemy) 126 al-Hawāmil wa-l-shawāmil (ed. Aḥmad Amīn) 33, 232n11, 233 al-Hawāmil wa-l-shawāmil (Mohammed Arkoun) 234 al-Hawāmil wa-l-shawāmil (Searching [Questions] and Compendious [Answers]), Miskawayh/al-Tawḥīdī 26n65, 33–34, 55, 229 – on ʿāmma (common people) 57–58 – on ʿaqīda (creed, Article of Faith) 240, 242–243 – historical background/themes and modern reflexions 231–233 – on ijtihād (independent reasoning) 240–242, 245 – on ʿimāra (cultivation) vs. kharāb (dilapidation) 64 – on maṣlaḥa (concept of the public interest or welfare) in 240–241, 245, 246 – on Quran 42, 234–235, 239, 245 – on sharia/sharīʿa 42, 234–239, 245 – sharia vs. reason 236–238 – on the soul 145 Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān (Living, Son of Wakeful, Ibn Sīnā) 149–151, 153 Die hervorragenden Persönlichkeiten der Schia (al-Sayyid Muḥsin al-Amīn) → Aʿyan al-Shīʿa al-Ḥikma al-khālida → Jāwīdhān Khiradh Die Hinleitung des Klugen zur Kenntnis über den Gebildeten (al-Ḥamawī) → Irshād al-arīb ilā maʿrifat al-adīb History of Islamic Philosophy (Oliver Leaman) 15 History of Learned Men (Ibn al-Qifṭī) → Tārīkh al-ḥukamāʾ History (Miskawayh) → Tajārib al-umam History of Muslim Philosophy (Mian M. Sharif ) 15 History of the Prophets and Kings (alṬabarī) → Tārīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk

Ḥudūd al-manṭiq (Definitions of Logic, Ibn Bahrīz) 110, 124–125 Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam (Joel Kraemer) 85 Iḥṣāʾ al-ʿulūm (The Enumeration of the Sciences, al-Fārābī) 111, 112, 122, 208– 209n12 – “Chapter” on the Kinds of Happiness and the Division of Philosophy vs./and 126–129 Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn (The Revival of the Religious Sciences, al-Ghazālī) 5, 289, 291n1 – on jurisprudence 314 – Kitāb Ādāb al-kasb wa-l-maʿāsh (The Etiquette of Earning a Living) 314 – Kitāb al-Maḥabba wa-l-shawq wa-l-uns wa-l-riḍā (On Love, [Longing, Intimacy and Contentment]) 297n22 – Kitāb Asrār al-ṣawm (The Mysteries of Fasting) 305 – Kitāb Asrār al-zakāt (The Mysteries of Zakat) 302 – Kitāb Dhikr al-mawt (The Remembrance of Death) 293 – Kitāb al-ʿIlm (On Knowledge) 293, 300, 314 – Kitāb al-Khawf wa-l-rajāʾ (On Fear and Hope) 298 – Kitāb al-Murāqaba wa-l-muḥāsaba (Vigilance and Self-Judgement) 293 – Kitāb Riyāḍat al-nafs (Discipline of the Soul) 292–293, 294, 295, 295n15, 296, 298, 299, 316n81 – Kitāb al-Ṣabr wa-l-shukr (On Patience and Gratitude) 295–296, 298, 300, 302, 305, 308 – on Law and education of character 299–308, 314, 315 – On the Etiquette of Seclusion 316n81 – on primacy of character/virtue vs. ­actions 290–300, 308 – on the purposes of Law 308 – on worship and ritual observance 297, 298–299, 304, 305, 308, 313 – fasting 301, 304, 305, 306 – ḥajj 305, 307, 310



Index of Book Titles and Other Texts

– zakāt 302–303, 306 Ikhbār al-ʿulamāʾ bi-akhbār al-ḥukamāʾ (Ibn al-Qifṭī) → Tārīkh al-ḥukamāʾ al-Imtāʿ wa-l-muʾānasa (al-Tawḥīdī) → Kitāb al-Imtāʿ wa-l-muʾānasa Introduction to Arithmetic (Nicomachus) 114, 126n60 al-Iqtiṣād fī l-iʿtiqād (Moderation in Belief, al-Ghazālī) 294 Irshād al-arīb ilā maʿrifat al-adīb (Die Hinleitung des Klugen zur Kenntnis über den Gebildeten, Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī) 14, 23–24 Isagoge (Aristotle) 272n59 Isagoge (Porphyry) 78n18, 110, 111 al-Ishārāt al-ilāhiyya (Die göttlichen Zeichen, al-Tawḥīdī) 232 ʿIshrūn maqāla (Twenty Chapters, al-Muqammaṣ) 186, 221, 222 Islamic Humanism (Lenn E. Goodmann) 19 Istiṭālat al-Jāḥiẓ (The Superiority of ­Understanding, al-Jāḥiẓ) 252–253, 252n11 al-Jamʿ (al-Ḥuṣrī) 252n11 Jawāmiʿ al-ʿulūm (Ibn Farīghūn) 188–189, 188fig., 190tab. Jāwīdhān Khiradh (‘wisdom collection’ by Miskawayh) 34, 42, 179, 251–256 The Key to Happiness and the Lamp of Supremacy in the Classification of Sciences (Ṭashköprüzāde/Ṭāshkubrīzāda) → Miftāḥ al-saʿāda wa-miṣbāḥ al-siyāda fī mawḍūʿāt al-ʿulūm Kitāb Ādāb al-kasb wa-l-maʿāsh (The Etiquette of Earning a Living, al-Ghazālī) 314 Kitāb al-Akhlāq (Galen) → [De] moribus Kitāb al-Maḥabba wa-l-shawq wa-luns wa-l-riḍā (On Love, al-Ghazālī) 297n22 Kitāb al-Amānāt wa-l-iʿtiqādāt (The Book of Beliefs and Opinions, Saadia Gaon) 205, 208–209 – on fundamental role of Covenant 215– 217, 225

363

– on reasonable vs. revealed law 210– 211, 224 – on religious law, reason and wisdom 212–215, 224 – Tahdhīb al-akhlāq and/vs. 206, 209– 218, 220, 224–226 Kitāb Asrār al-ṣawm (The Mysteries of F ­ asting, al-Ghazāli) 305 Kitāb Asrār al-zakāt (The Mysteries of Zakat al-Ghazālī) 302 Kitāb Brīsun fī tadbīr al-rajul li-manzilihi (Bryson) → Oikonomikos Kitāb Dhikr al-mawt (The Remembrance of Death, al-Ghazālī) 293 Kitāb al-Furūq (Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qarāfī) 303n42 Kitāb al-Ḥikma (Book of Wisdom) “Chapter” on the Kinds of Happiness and the Division of Philosophy (Miskawayh) 111–112, 117–121, 118n30, 125–130 Kitāb al-Ḥurūf (Book of Letters/Particles, al-Fārābī) 128, 128n66 Kitāb al-ʿIlm (On Knowledge, al-Ghazālī) 293, 300, 314 Kitāb al-Imtāʿ wa-l-muʾānasa (Book of Enjoyment and Bonhomie, al-Tawḥīdī) 13, 232 Kitāb al-Ishāra ilā maḥāsin al-tijāra (Das Buch des Hinweises auf die Schönheiten des Handels, al-Dimashqī) 93 Kitāb al-Ishārāt wa-l-tanbihāt (Book of ­Directives and Remarks, Ibn Sīnā) 149 Kitāb al-Khawf wa-l-rajāʾ (On Fear and Hope, al-Ghazālī) 298 Kitāb al-Milla (The Book of Religion, alFārābī) 314 Kitāb al-Murāqaba wa-l-muḥāsaba ­(Vigilance and Self-Judgement, alGhazālī) 293 Kitāb Murūj al-dhahab wa-maʿādin aljawhar (al-Masʿūdī) 196–197 Kitāb al-Qānūn fī l-ṭibb (The Canon of Medicine, Ibn Sīnā) 136 Kitāb Riyaḍāt al-nafs (Discipline of the Soul, al-Ghazālī) 292–293, 294, 295, 295n15, 296, 298, 299, 316n81 Kitāb al-Rūḥ (Das Buch über die Seele, Qayyim al-Jawziyya) 142n22

364

Index of Book Titles and Other Texts

Kitāb al-Saʿāda fī falsafat al-akhlāq (Miskawayh) → Tartīb al-saʿādāt wamanāzil al-ʿulūm Kitāb al-Ṣabr wa-l-shukr (On Patience and Gratitude, al-Ghazālī) 295–296, 298, 300, 302, 305, 308 Kitāb al-Shifāʾ (Book of Healing, Ibn Sīnā) 148–149, 317n86 Kitāb al-Sīra al-falsafiyya (The Philosophical Life, al-Rāzī) 196 Kitāb Tadbīr al-manzil (Bryson) → Oikonomikos Kitāb al-Ṭahāra (Miskawayh) → Tahdhīb al-akhlāq Kitāb Taḥṣīl al-sharāʾiʿ al-samʿiyya (Book of Comprehending the Oral Torah’s Laws, Saadia Gaon) 207n7 Kitāb al-Tājī 36n112 Kitāb al-Ṭibb al-rūḥānī (The Spiritual Physic, al-Rāzī) 192–193 Die Klassifikation des Glücks und die Rangstufen der Wissenschaften (Miskawayh) → Tartīb al-saʿādāt wamanāzil al-ʿulūm Das kleinere Gelingen/Der kleinere Triumph/Die kleinere Schrift über den Weg zum Erfolg (Miskawayh) → [al-]Fawz al-aṣghar Die Krone der Glaubensgemeinschaft → Tāj al-milla Die Kultivierung der Charakterzüge und die Läuterung der natürlichen Veranlagungen (Miskawayh) → Tahdhīb alakhlāq Die Läuterung der Sitten (Miskawayh) → Tahdhdīb al-akhlāq Lawāmiʿ al-ishrāq fī makārim al-akhlāq (al-Dawānī) 22–23 Laws (Plato) 184, 211, 311, 312 Lebendiger, Sohn des Wachen (Ibn Sīnā) → Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān Die Lehrsitzungen der Gläubigen (alShūstarī) → Majālis al-muʾminīn Lisān al-ʿarab (Die Sprache/Zunge der Araber, Ibn Manẓūr) 231n8 Das Literaten-Lexikon (al-Ḥamawī) → Muʿjam al-udabāʾ

Lustres of Illumination on the Noble Virtues (al-Dawānī) → Lawāmiʿ al-ishrāq fī makārim al-akhlāq al-Maʿānī (De castigatione animae, Hermes) 193, 195n89 al-Madīna al-fāḍila (The Perfect State, alFārābī) 26, 82, 85 Majālis al-muʾminīn (Die Lehrsitzungen der Gläubigen, al-Shūstarī) 10, 11n13 Majmūʿ uṣūl al-dīn (Al-Muʾtaman b. alʿAssāl) 198 Making Men Moral (Robert George) 311 manuscripts – British Library, MS Add 7473 196–197, 197ill. – Cairo, Dār al-Kutub, MS Taṣawwuf 2241 193 – Cairo, Dār al-Kutub, MS Taymūr Akhlāq 290 195 – Damascus, MS Ẓahirīya 4871 (d) 125n58 – Istanbul, MS Ragıp Paşa 125n58 – Jerusalem, Dayr Mār Murqus 272 193– 194, 195ill. – Vatican, ar. 182 193, 194ill., 195, 197 – Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, Gud. graec. 106 193n86 Maqāla fī ithbāt faḍāʾil al-nafs (The Virtues of the Soul, ps.-Plato) 76, 77–80, 186–187 Maqāla fī l-nafs (al-Mawṣilī) 196 Maqāla fī tabyīn ḥāl tark ṭalab al-nasl (Treatise on the Clarification of the State of Abandoning the Striving for Offspring/Treatise on Continence, Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī) 41, 161, 170–172 al-Masāʾil al-thalāth allatī tashtamilu ʿalā l-ʿulūm kullihā (Miskawayh) → [al-] Fawz al-aṣghar Masāʾil al-umūr al-ilāhiyya wa-hiya thamāniya wa-ʿishrūn masʾala (Twentyeight Questions on Metaphysical Topics, al-Isfizārī) 112, 114–115, 116 al-Mashriq (Lebanese journal) 94



Index of Book Titles and Other Texts

Metaphysics (Aristotle) 112, 124 Miftāḥ al-saʿāda wa-miṣbāḥ al-siyāda fī mawḍūʿāt al-ʿulūm (The Key to Happiness and the Lamp of Supremacy in the Classification of Sciences, Ṭashköprüzāde/Ṭashkubrīzāda) 269n47 Mishne Torah (Maimonides) 206n4 Mizān al-ʿamal (The Criterion/Scale of Action, al-Ghazālī) 5, 289, 291, 291n1, 295n15, 296, 297n23 Moderation in Belief (al-Ghazālī) → [al-] Iqtiṣād fī l-iʿtiqād Die Moralphilosophie zwischen Aristoteles und Miskawaih (al-Takrītī) → Falsafat al-akhlāq bayna Arisṭū wa-Miskawayh De moribus (Galen) 147, 147n40 Muʿjam al-udabāʿ (Das Literaten-Lexikon, al-Ḥamawī) 230 al-Munqidh min al-ḍalāl (The Deliverer from Error, al-Ghazālī) 291 al-Muqābasāt (Borrowed Lights, alTawḥīdī) 33, 232 al-Mustaṣfā min ʿilm al-uṣūl (Quintessence of the Principles of Law, al-Ghazālī) 294 The Mysteries of Fasting (al-Ghazālī) → Kitāb Asrār al-ṣawm The Mysteries of Zakat (al-Ghazālī) → Kitāb Asrār al-zakāt De mysteriis (Iamblichus) 80 Nasirean Ethics (al-Ṭūsī) → Akhlāq-i Nāṣirī Die Nasirenische Ethik (al-Ṭūsī) → Akhlāq-i Nāṣirī Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle) 75, 77n18, 82, 184, 217n41, 294 – on happiness 260–261 – on human action 260, 298 – on law and educating character 311, 312–313 – on law of God 217 – on virtues and vices 189, 190tab. Die Nikomachische Ethik des Aristoteles in arabischer Übersetzung (Manfred Ullmann) 38 Nourishment of the Hearts (al-Makkī) → Qūt al-qulūb

365

Oikonomikos (Kitāb Tadbīr al-manzil, Bryson) 40, 89, 93–107, 195n89 – parenting/child-rearing in 97–98 – Tahdhīb al-akhlāq vs. 95–96, 99–106 – translations 93–97 On the Etiquette of Seclusion (chapter in Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, al-Ghazālī) 316n81 On Fear and Hope (al-Ghazālī) → Kitāb alKhawf wa-l-rajāʾ On Knowledge (al-Ghazālī) → Kitāb al-ʿIlm On Love [Longing, Intimacy and Contentment] (al-Ghazālī) → Kitāb alMaḥabba wa-l-shawq wa-l-uns wa-lriḍā On the Method of How to Dispel Sorrow (al-Kindī) → Risāla fī l-ḥīla li-dafʿ alaḥzān On Patience and Gratitude (al-Ghazālī) → Kitāb al-Ṣabr wa-l-shukr On Soul’s Virtues (Iwannīs of Dārā) 186 On Traits of Character (Galen) → Peri ēthōn On Virtues and Vices (ps.-Aristotle) 186 The Order of Happiness and the Ranks of the Sciences (Miskawayh) → Tartīb alsaʿādāt wa-manāzil al-ʿulūm Organon (Aristotle) 110, 330 Particles (al-Fārābī) → Kitāb al-Hurūf Perennial Wisdom (Miskawayh) → Jāwīdhān Khiradh The Perfect State (al-Fārābī) → [al-]Madīna al-fāḍila Peri ēthōn (Galen) 185, 195n89 Phaidros (Plato) 138–139, 152 The Philosophical Life (al-Rāzī) → Kitāb al-Sīra al-falsafiyya Philosophus Autodidactus (Ibn Sīnā) → Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān A Philosophy Reader from the Circle of Miskawayh (ed./trans. Elvira Wakelnig) 118, 118n29–30 Physics (Aristotle) 128n66 Politics (Aristotle) 311, 315n80 Posterior Analytics (An. Post., Aristotle) 115 The Precious Pearl (al-Ghazālī) → [al-] Durra al-fākhira

366

Index of Book Titles and Other Texts

The Principles of the Insights of the Inhabitants of the Perfect State (al-Fārābī) → [al-]Madīna al-fāḍila The Prostration of the Outermost Sphere to God Most High (al-Kindī) → Sujūd alfalak al-aqṣā li-llāh taʿālā Questions of Moral Philosophy (Hannah Arendt) 69 Quintessence of the Principles of Law (alGhazālī) → [al-]Mustaṣfā min ʿilm aluṣūl Quod animi mores corporis temperamenta sequantur (Galen) 144 Qūt al-qulūb (Nourishment of the Hearts, al-Makkī) 302 al-Radd ʿalā ʿĀnān (The Response against ʿAnan, Saadia Gaon) 207 al-Radd ʿalā Ibn Saqawayh (The Response against Ibn Saqawayh, Saadia Gaon) 207n7 al-Radd ʿalā l-mutaḥāmil ʿalā l-mishna ­wa-l-talmūd (Response against the ­Detractor of the Mishnah and the Talmud, Saadia Gaon) 207n7 Rambling and Comprehensive Questions (Miskawayh) → [al-]Hawāmil wa-lshawāmil Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ 85, 95, 144 Rawḍāt al-jannāt (Die Gärten der Domänen des Paradieses, al-Khwānsārī) 10, 14 Readings of the Quran (Mohammed ­Arkoun) 332n49 The Refinement of Character (Miskawayh) → Tahdhīb al-akhlāq De regressu animae (Plotinus) 80 Die Reinheit der Seele (Miskawayh) → Tahdhīb al-akhlāq The Remembrance of Death (Miskawayh) → Kitāb Dhikr al-mawt Republic (Plato) 184, 196, 211, 311 The Response against ʿAnan (Saadia Gaon) → [al-]Radd ʿalā ʿĀnān The Response against the Detractor of the Mishnah and the Talmud (Saadia Gaon) → [al-]Radd ʿalā

l-mutaḥāmil ʿalā l-mishna wa-ltalmūd The Response against Ibn Saqawayh ­(Saadia Gaon) → [al-]Radd ʿalā Ibn Saqawayh The Revival of the Religious Sciences (alGhazālī) → Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn Risāla fī l-ḥīla li-dafʿ al-aḥzān (On the Method of How to Dispel Sorrow, alKindī) 32, 81 Risāla fī jawhar al-nafs (Abhandlung über Seele und Intellekt, Miskawayh) 145 Risāla fī māhīyat al-ʿadl (Abhandlung über das Wesen der Gerechtigkeit, ­Miskawayh) 35 Risāla fī l-nafs wa-l-ʿaql (Abhandlung über Seele und Intellekt, Miskawayh) 145 Risāla fī l-qawl fī l-nafs al-mukhtaṣar min Kitāb Arisṭū wa-Aflāṭūn wa-sāʾir al-falāsifa (Discourse on the Soul, alKindī) 81 Risāla fī uṣūl al-fiqh (Traktat über die Grundlagen des Rechts, al-Shafiʿī) 239n35 Risāla al-Qushayriyya (Epistle, al-­ Qushayrī) 301 Risāla Siyāsat al-nufūs (Compendium on the Soul, Sinān b. Thābit) 196–197 Risālat al-tanbīh ʿalā sabīl al-saʿāda (The Direction to the Attainment of Happiness, al-Fārābī) 259, 263, 283 – on division of the arts 280–281 – on free and enslaved human beings 279 – on happiness 261, 269n46, 273–276, 281–282 – on moral character/character traits 277–278; see also Taḥṣīl al-saʿāda Risālat al-ṭayr (Epistle of the Birds, Ibn Sīnā) 149 Riyāḍ al-ʿulamāʾ (Die Gärten der Gelehrten, al-Iṣfahānī) 11n13 al-Ṣadāqa wa-l-ṣadīq (Die Freundschaft und der Freund, al-Tawḥīdī) 232 Salāmān wa-Absāl (Ibn Sīnā) 149 The Scale of Action (al-Ghazālī) → Mizān al-ʿamal



Index of Book Titles and Other Texts

Sefer Egron (Saadia Gaon) 207 Sefer ha-Mitzvot (Book of Commandments, Maimonides) 206n4 Sefer ha-Mōʿadīm (The Book of the Seasons, Saadia Gaon) 208n9 Sendschreiben der Lauteren Brüder → Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ Sendschreiben über den Kunstgriff zur Abwehr von Betrübnissen (al-Kindī) → Risāla fī l-ḥīla li-dafʿ al-aḥzān Sich [die letzten Dinge] Vorstellen (alMuḥāsibī) → [al-]Tawahhum Siddūr (Saadia Gaon) 207n7 Sifra (anonymous, 3rd-4th c. CE) 210 Die Sitten[-Sprüche] der Araber und der Perser (Miskawayh) → Jāwīdhān ­K hiradh Ṣiwān al-ḥikma (Das Depositum der Weisheit) 14, 14n24 Siyāsat al-nafs (Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī) → Tahdhīb al-akhlāq Sociability of the Solitary (Miskawayh) → Uns al-farīd The Soul’s Journey After Death (Qayyim al-Jawziyya) → Kitāb al-Rūḥ The Spiritual Physic (al-Rāzī) → Kitāb alṬibb al-rūḥānī Die Sprache/Zunge der Araber (Ibn Manẓūr) → Lisān al-ʿarab The Struggle for Humanism in Islamic Contexts (Mohammad Arkoun) 333– 334 Sujūd al-falak al-aqṣā li-llāh taʿālā (The Prostration of the Outermost Sphere to God Most High, al-Kindī) 172 Summa Alexandrinorum 217n41 The Superiority of Understanding (alJāḥiẓ) → Istiṭālat al-Jāḥiẓ Ṭahārat al-nafs (Miskawayh) → Tahdhīb al-akhlāq Tahdhīb al-akhlāq (The Refinement of Character, Miskawayh) 2, 5, 10, 13n23, 27, 29n79, 30–34, 39, 84n74, 95, 110, 179, 229, 251, 272–273n59 – audience/reception 57, 82–83 – on character/character traits 31–32, 67 – dating of 37, 252

367

– on friendship 316–317 – on fundamental role of Covenant 215– 216, 225 – on happiness 29, 67, 213, 316 – on justice 321, 322, 323–327 – Kitāb al-Amānāt wa-l-iʿtiqādāt (Saadia Gaon) and/vs. 206, 209–218, 220, 224, 225–226 – on law and educating character 312– 313 – Oikonomikos vs. 95–96, 99–106 – parenting/child-rearing in 40, 98–105 – Quran and sharia in 243–245 – on reasonable vs. revealed law 211– 212, 224 – on religious law, reason and wisdom 91–92, 210–213, 222 – on the soul 80n33, 145–147, 152, 185– 186, 323–324 – sources of inspiration 75–76, 85, 93tab., 95, 97, 106, 145–146, 162–163, 180–181, 206, 215, 217n41, 218 – translations 67 – on virtues 30–31, 185–186 Tahdhīb al-akhlāq (The Refinement of Character, Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī) 41, 161, 162, 177, 179, 182–184, 218 – on abstinence (ʿiffa) 170 – audience/reception 167, 179–180, 181– 182 – authorship 180–181, 197–199 – Christian confessional identity in 167– 169, 178, 217–218 – compared to other ethical writings 184–192 – history of transmission 172–173 – manuscripts/editions 181, 192–197, 194–195ill., 197ill. – on morals/moral quality 182–183 – religious pluralism in 163–167 – on renunciation 183 – on the soul 182–183, 185–186, 189 – sources of inspiration 75–76, 179, 217 – on virtues and vices 182, 183, 184, 185–186, 187–191, 190tab. Taḥṣīl al-saʿāda (The Attainment of Happiness, al-Fārābī) 128, 128n66,n68,

368

Index of Book Titles and Other Texts

263n23; see also Risālat al-tanbīh ʿalā sabīl al-saʿāda Tāj al-milla (Die Krone der Glaubensgemeinschaft, al-Ṣābiʾ) 36n112 Tajārib al-umam (The Experiences of the Peoples, Miskawayh) 1, 3–4, 14, 21n57, 36–37, 56, 254 – on ʿāmma (common people) 58–63, 64–65 Tārīkh al-ḥukamāʾ (History of Learned Men, Ibn al-Qifṭī) 13, 230 Tārīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk (History of the Prophets and Kings, al-Ṭabarī) 11, 36, 56 Tartīb al-saʿādāt wa-manāzil al-ʿulūm (The Order of Happiness and the Ranks of the Sciences, Miskawayh) 43, 109, 111, 121, 231, 259, 261–263 – audience 27–28, 262, 273 – on classification of knowledge 271–272 – dating of 27, 37 – on division of the arts 278–279 – division of theoretical philosophy in 122–125 – on free and enslaved human beings 278–279 – on happiness 27–30, 118, 262–276, 281–282, 283 – common happiness 264 – general human happiness 265 – specific human happiness 265– 268 – ultimate happiness and classification of knowledge 263, 264, 265–268, 269, 271 – on moral character/character traits 276–278 – sources of inspiration 111, 111–112, 119, 122, 271 Taṣfiyat al-adhhān wa-nafādh al-fikar washaḥdh al-qulūb (Cleansing of Minds, Incisiveness of Thoughts and Honing of Hearts) 254 al-Tawahhum (Sich [die letzten Dinge] Vorstellen, al-Muḥāsibī) 142n22 Theaetetus (Plato) 80 Theology (Pseudo-Aristotle) 79 Timaeus (Plato) 184–185

Die Todesfälle bedeutender Persönlichkeiten und die Nachrichten über die Söhne der Zeit → Wafayāt al-aʿyān waabnāʾ al-zamān Traité d’Ethique → Tahdhīb al-akhlāq Traktat über die Grundlagen des Rechts (al-Shāfiʿī) → [al-]Risāla fī uṣūl al-fiqh Treatise on the Clarification of the State of Abandoning the Striving for Offspring (Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī) → Maqāla fī tabyīn ḥāl tark ṭalab al-nasl Treatise on Continence (Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī) → Maqāla fī tabyīn ḥāl tark ṭalab alnasl Treatise on the Logic of Aristotle the Philosopher addressed to Khosrow I Anūshīrwān (Paul the Persian) 122, 129–130 Treatise on the Sayings of Socrates (alKindī) 81 Twenty Chapters (al-Muqammaṣ) → ʿIshrūn maqāla Twenty-eight Questions on Metaphysical Topics (al-Isfizārī) → Masāʾil al-umūr alilāhiyya wa-hiya thamāniya wa-ʿishrūn masʾala Über das Wesen der Gerechtigkeit (Miskawayh) → Risālā fī māhīyat al-ʿadl Universalchronik (al-Ṭabarī) → Tārīkh alrusul wa-l-mulūk Uns al-farīd (Sociability of the Solitary, Miskawayh) 231 Die Unterrichtung der Gelehrten über die Nachrichten der Philosophen (Ibn alQiftī) → Tārikh al-ḥukamāʾ Vigilance and Self-Judgement (al-Ghazālī) → Kitāb al-Murāqaba wa-l-muḥāsaba The Virtues of the Soul (ps.-Plato) → Maqāla fī ithbāt faḍāʾil al-nafs Vita pythagorica (Porphyry/Iamblichus) 81 Wafayāt al-aʿyān wa-anbāʾ abnāʾ al-zamān (Die Todesfälle bedeutender Persönlichkeiten und die Nachrichten über die Söhne der Zeit, Ibn Khallikān) 14



Index of Book Titles and Other Texts

Die wertvolle Perle über die Enthüllung des Wissens vom Jenzeits (al-Ghazālī) → [al-]Durra al-fākhira Die Wiederbelegung der Wissenschaften von der Religion → Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn

369

The Works of Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī: An Analytical Inventory (Gerhard Endress) 180 Die Zustände des Geistes (Miskawayh or Ibn Sīnā) → Aḥwāl al-rūḥ

Index of Scriptural References This index includes all references to specific Biblical and Quranic verses.

Bible (Old Testament) Deuteronomy – 26:16 210

Leviticus – 18:4

210

Quran 2 (al-Baqara) – 2:233 – 2:286 3 (ʾĀl ʿImrān) – 3:57 – 3:140 – 3:182 – 3:185 6 (al-Anʿām) – 6:59 – 6:61 – 6:152 7 (al-ʾAʿrāf ) – 7:29 – 7:42 10 (Yūnus) – 10:45 11 (Hūd) – 11:105 12 (Yūsuf ) – 12:53 15 (al-Ḥijr) – 15:28 16 (an-Naḥl) – 16:90 19 (Maryam) – 19:62 20 (Ṭāʾ-Hāʾ )

141 141 323n7 323n7 323n7 141 237n34 141 141 323n7 141 141 258n3, 260n1 141n17 141 312, 323n7 235, 235n25

– 20:103 141 21 (al-Anbiyāʾ ) – 21:22 235, 235n25 – 21:35 141 29 (al-ʿAnkabūt) – 29:57 141 32 (al-Sajda) – 32:11 142 39 (al-Zumar) – 39:15 235, 235n25 – 39:42 141 42 (al-Shūrā) – 42:40 323n7 59 (al-Ḥashr) – 59:7 235, 235n25 65 (al-Ṭalāq) – 65:7 141 75 (al-Qiyāma) – 75:1–2 141n18 79 (al-Nāziʿāt) – 79:46 141 82 (al-ʾInfiṭār) – 82:5 141 89 (al-Fajr) – 89:27 141n19 99 (al-Zalzala) – 99:7 293

Index of Prophetic Traditions (Ḥadīth) This index refers to the ḥadīth by topic. Discussions related to the science of ḥadīth are included in the Index of Topics and Keywords under “ḥadīth”. ethics 70

punishment of the grave 154

fasting 304

safety 70 scale on Day of Judgement 293–294

makārim al-akhlāq 291n3

temperance 304

Index of Topics and Keywords (incl. non-earthly characters) Apart from topics and keywords, this index includes the names of non-earthly and fictive figures (e. g. God), the names of groups of people (e. g. Ashʿarites, Daylamis), and unearthly places.   Please note that certain cross-references (“→”/“see also”) in this index may refer to the Index of Proper Names or the Index of Book Titles and Other Texts.   The English transliteration guidelines of the International Journal of Middle East Studies have been followed for terms in Arabic. Abbasid caliphate/period 1–2, 58, 125, 136, 161, 162n4, 163, 206, 275 abhorrent moral qualities 183 abstinence (ʿiffa) 165, 170–171, 172, 184, 190tab., 211; see also temperance abuse of power 101 accidents (al-aʿrāḍ) 127, 128, 129, 130 acquired intellect 223 action/actions – acts of obedience/disobedience 294n12, 299n32, 302, 305, 307, 308 – affecting others 313–314 – good/right, bad/wrong and obligatory 212, 223, 224, 271, 290, 293–294 – for own self vs. for others 78–79 – primacy of character/virtue vs. 289, 290, 291, 292–299, 308 – religious law and 289, 290 – to treat malady of heart 297, 298, 299; see also human transactions active intellect 143, 149, 151, 153, 154 actual intellect 223 adab (education, erudition) 4, 5, 69, 69n5, 189, 191, 331n44 – adab ansana 334 – equation with ethics 107, 341 – humanitas adab vs. adab discipliné 90, 330, 331, 331n44 – literary culture of 2, 191

– term 67–68n3, 189, 334 adab literature 167n23, 182, 184, 187, 189, 191, 198; see also Tahdhīb al-akhlāq ʿadl → justice affinity – between man and God 80 afterworld 69, 142, 154, 238n31, 239 akhlāq → ethics alchemy/alchemists 8, 11, 13, 136, 272n59 alcohol consumption 96, 102–103 Alexandrian school/philosophers 80–81, 84, 85, 109, 273 allegories 137–138 – of the soul 139, 149–153; see also metaphors allgemeines Glück → happiness almsgiving (zakāt) 300, 300n33, 301, 302–303, 306 ʿāmma → common people analogy (qiyās) 137, 207n7, 244, 281, 298, 309, 310 angelic soul 143 angels – of death 141–142 – hierarchy between God, “godlike” and 83 – likeness to 165, 185 anger 142, 144, 150



Index of Topics and Keywords

animals 145, 153 – common happiness of 264 – human beings vs. 145, 153, 182, 192 – riding animals (metaphor) 146–147 – slaughtering of 236 animal soul 139, 143, 144, 145, 146, 153, 182; see also appetitive soul; irascible soul anthropology Galenian 3, 5 apologetics 169–170, 180 apophthegms → wisdom quotes Apostolic Church of the East 166 appetite, physical 297n21, 304 appetitive soul (epithymētikón, al-nafs alshahwāniyya) 80, 139, 146, 165, 182, 185 – virtues and vices of 138, 185, 186tab., 324 Arab humanism 5, 7, 15, 16–17, 19, 43, 90, 107, 234, 321, 322, 328–331, 333, 334, 339; see also Islamic humanism Arabic/Arabo-Islamic philosophy 124, 282, 283, 330, 331 – on happiness 261, 274 – influence of late antique prolegomena on 110, 130; see also Islamic religious ethics Arabic Christian philosophers/intellectuals → Christian(-Arab) philosophers/ intellectuals Arabic intellectual heritage 2, 34, 179, 187, 252, 340 Arabic-Islamic philosophy/philosophers 261, 274 Arabicized Iranians 256 Arabicized Jews 186, 221, 221n56, 225 Arabic language 2, 4, 8, 20, 208 Arabic translations – of Greek works 34, 75, 77, 85, 110, 125, 139, 144, 147, 166, 181, 184–185, 186, 211 – of Persian works 111, 184 – of Syriac works 179 – of Torah 207n7 Arab Spring/Revolution (2010-2012) 321–322, 335 Aramaic 207n7 Aristotelian causes 128, 128n66, 130

373

Aristotelian epistemology 3 Aristotelian ethics 3, 38, 75, 82, 109, 184, 189, 230, 260, 261, 270, 329 Aristotelian happiness 3, 29, 118, 119, 217, 268, 268n43, 269, 269n46, 270, 273–274, 276 Aristotelian justice 30, 35, 43, 321, 322, 323, 326, 327, 328, 328–329, 334–335 Aristotelian logic 3, 122, 130, 219, 226, 230, 270, 273 Aristotelian philosophy 2–3, 109, 110, 110n3, 111, 117, 119, 123–125, 162, 223, 261 Aristotelian physics 2–3, 180 Aristotelian sciences 67, 230 arithmetic 21, 125, 126 artificial bodies natural and/vs. 127–130 arts (ṣanāʾiʿ) 28, 29, 32, 267n39 – classification of the 280–281 – happiness generated from 267 – term 28–29n79 ascetism/ascetics 58, 64, 76, 81, 164, 165, 168, 184, 305, 316 Ashʿarites 209, 238 assimilation of God → likeness to God association → human interaction/association/society; political association astronomers 2, 116, 117n26, 136, 193, 196, 198 astronomy 21, 125, 126 audience/readership of Miskawayh’s work 253, 255–256 “authentic Islam” 340 ayyārūn (vagabonds, warriors) 59, 61 Babylonian school (Judaism) 207, 207– 208n9 bad → evil bad/wrong deeds/actions 212, 223, 224, 290, 293, 294 Baghdadi scholarly circle/school 15, 25ill., 110, 130, 136, 161 ball games (metaphor) 241, 242, 243 bats (animals) 113, 115, 116 beast-like man 278–279 beastly soul → appetitive soul beatitude 3; see also ultimate happiness Begierdenseele → appetitive soul

374

Index of Topics and Keywords

behavior – of boys 97–98; see also upbringing – of common people 57, 60, 61, 62 – correct 233 – criminal 61, 62 – of kings and other rulers 167–168, 181–182, 191; see also mirrors-forprinces literature – towards fellow human beings 83 being, modes of 291; see also virtue/­ virtues beliefs (maʿārif ) 59, 206n2, 208, 209, 209n12, 295, 297 biblical commentary 207 biblical translation 207 Bildung → education; upbringing biographers 181 biography of Miskawayh 8–19 birds (metaphor) 149 bloodletting (metaphor) 243 blood money (diya) 236 bodily desire 272, 304, 305, 306 bodily happiness 29, 118, 120, 268 bodily mist/cloud 297 – eyes of the soul vs. 113–115 bodily things – spiritual things vs. 76–77 body/bodies – artificial vs. natural 127–130 – sensible 126 – soul and/vs. 113–115, 138, 139–140, 143–144, 148, 153, 324 – transience of 142, 144, 149 boys – character traits of 97 – development of intellect 98–99 – shame of 97, 98 – upbringing and education of 40, 89, 97–106 – eating and drinking habits 102–104 – lying 105 – main themes in 98, 99, 100tab. – (mis)behavior/manners 97–99 – punishment 98, 101, 105 – sleeping habits 104–106 Buyid dynasty/period 1–2, 16, 21, 34, 56, 85, 136, 180, 233 Buyid rulers 3, 4–5, 21, 21n57, 25ill., 26,

58, 65, 230, 232, 252–253; see also viziers Byzantine invasion (361/972) 4 calendar – Hebrew 207, 207–208n9 – Muslim 171 caliphs/caliphate 59, 327; see also Abba­ sid caliphate/period; Fatimid caliphate/ period cardinal virtues → virtue/virtues career of Miskawayh 3, 4, 8, 11–12, 56, 65, 136, 230, 339 causality 143, 296n17 – Aristotelian causes 128, 128n66, 130 – causal priority 296, 297, 298 character (traits) 233, 237, 282, 295 – for acquiring knowledge 282 – character change/reformation 192, 298 – definition/term 292–293 – education by (religious) law 299–308, 311, 312–313 – good vs. evil 277–278 – of Miskawayh 230–231 – moral character 276–277 – primacy of character/virtue vs. actions 289, 290, 292–299, 308 – refinement of 165, 189 – role of tripartite soul 41, 135–136, 146, 152, 154, 189 – study of ethics to refine character traits 270, 272 – requirement for repetition and habitude 277–278 – of rulers/kings 167–168; see also virtue/virtues chariot allegory/metaphor 139 chastity 180, 192; see also temperance “chief good” 260; see also happiness child-rearing/child education → education; parenting; upbringing children – education and upbringing of 97, 277 – boys 40, 89, 97–106 – rich/noble children 99, 101, 106 – happiness from having 268 – intellect of 98–99



Index of Topics and Keywords

– punishment and reward of 223; see also boys Christian(-Arab) philosophers/theologians/intellectuals 23, 24ill., 38, 40, 41–42, 81, 90, 161–174, 179–181, 184, 192, 193, 193n86, 196, 197–199, 218– 220, 222, 225, 226, 294; see also SyriacChristian intellectual heritage Christian ethical writings 163, 164, 167– 172, 179, 180–199 – reception and transmission 172–174, 180 Christianity 169–170, 208 – cardinal virtues in 31 – conversion to 221 – secularism and 17, 341 Christian Orthodox masses 70–71 Christians/Christian community 2, 165 – church officials 168 – dhimmī/protected status of 21, 164, 168–169, 170, 173 chronicles 1, 4 cities/city-states (polis) 68, 70, 92 – governance of 82, 121, 311–312, 314 citizenship 75 civic virtues 79 class → common people; elite classical Islam 2, 5, 15, 16, 21, 23, 89, 90, 142, 229, 234, 238n32, 334, 335 classical Islamic intellectuals 7, 22, 26, 38, 40, 106, 107, 135, 237–238, 239, 332n49, 333, 334, 337, 338 classification – of Aristotle’s writings 122, 123, 130 – of the arts 280–281 – of (cardinal) virtues 78, 170, 182, 183, 185–188, 189, 190tab. – of happiness 27–30, 43, 109, 118, 262, 263–273; see also ultimate happiness – of human beings 76–77 – of knowledge 120–121, 124–125, 188, 268–273, 269n46-47, 275 – of mathematics 125–126, 126n60, 130 – of metaphysics 130 – of natural sciences 126–129, 130 – of philosophy 109, 111–112, 116, 118– 119, 275

375

– theoretical philosophy 119, 122– 125, 271 – of sciences 116, 117, 120–121, 271– 272, 273, 275 – of the soul 79–80, 138–139, 140–141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 150, 152, 153, 154, 185, 187, 188ill.; see also tripartite soul – of wisdom 263 cogitation 186 cognitions 295–296, 297, 298 colleges 20 commandments → God’s commandments; moral commandments commendable moral qualities 183 common happiness 264, 264n29 common people (ʿāmma) 39 – classification of 58, 59 – (criminal) behavior of 57, 60, 61, 62 – as deprived entity in society 60 – elite vs. 39, 58–59 – governance of 121 – historical view on 58–63, 64–65 – irrational/superstitious belief of 57, 59, 59n19 – mental capacity of 57–58, 214n32 – political association of 58, 59, 63–64 – rebellions by 58, 60–63, 64–65 community – acquisition of virtue within 315–317; see also cities/city-states complaining 232 concupiscent soul 324; see also appetitive soul confession of Miskawayh 8, 9–11, 231, 246, 339 conscience 141 contemporaries/patrons of Miskawayh 12–13, 14n24, 22–23, 24–25ill., 32–33, 40, 84–85, 230; see also [al-]Fārābī; [al-] Ghazālī; Ibn Sinā; [al-]Muqammaṣ; Saadia Gaon; [al-]Tawḥidī; Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī continence → temperance continuous proportion (justice) 326 conversion – to Christianity 221 – to Islam 166

376

Index of Topics and Keywords

conviction (iʿtiqādāt) 206n2, 209 Copts/Coptic intellectuals 181, 193, 198 corporal punishment 98, 105 corrective justice 326 correct reasoning (qiyās) 223, 246 cosmology 143 couches (as metaphor/example) 129 courage (shajāʿa) 31, 138, 139, 185, 186tab., 190tab. courtiers 2, 15, 56, 65, 136, 188, 206n4 covenant (primordial “agreement”, “treaty” between God and humankind) – fundamental role of 215–217, 218, 225 – justice and 215–216, 225 cowardice 186tab., 190tab. crime/criminal behavior 60, 61, 62 crisis of reason 70 criticizing 98, 141, 232 cultivation (ʿimāra) – dilapidation vs. 58, 63–64 cultural diversity 21–22 curricula – institutionalized vs. non-institutionalized Islamic teaching 21 – philosophical curriculum 271–273 customary acts (ʿādāt) 300, 301n36 customary law 240, 241, 245 Cynicism 184 Day of Judgement 141, 142, 293–294, 295n14, 301 Daylamīs 60, 61 death – afterworld 69, 142, 154, 238n31, 239, 301 – departure of soul from body after 141– 142, 144, 154 – resurrection 209 deduction (istinbāṭ) 239 desire 296–297 – bodily 272, 304, 305, 306 – divine 79 – for evil 141, 141n17, 191 – friendship vs. 184 – for material things/money 183, 305, 306 – religious law and/vs. 305–307 – for self-determination 307 desubstantivation 103–104, 106

dhimmīs 168–169, 170, 173 dialectical theology → kalām al-dīn dialectics 21 dictionaries 207 dilapidation (al-kharāb) – cultivation vs. 58, 63–64 discernment 265, 266, 268n43, 269, 270– 271, 277, 278, 279 discipline 183 disclosure (mukāshafa) 300, 308 discrete proportion (justice) 326 dishonesty 186, 190tab. disobedience 294n12, 308 disputes – between legal scholars 238–243 distributive justice 326, 327 divine commands → God’s commandments divine desire 79 divine intellect 79 divine justice 35, 37, 221n56, 222, 222n65, 225, 238n31, 323n7, 335 – as expression of purification of the soul 323–325 – harmonization between human and 328–329 – human interaction and 325 – rational soul/faculty of reason and 329 divine knowledge 79 divine law → religious law; revealed law; sharīʿa divine power 76, 80, 165 divine reason 78, 80 divine science (al-ʿilm al-ilāhī) 120, 121 divine virtues 78, 83, 84, 323 divinity – human being’s process to 3, 78, 79, 80 doctrine – judgement in doctrinal issues 242–243 dogs (metaphor) 146–147, 147n40 dreigeteilte Seele → tripartite soul drinking 144, 147 – of alcohol 96, 102–103 – of water 102 dwellers 58, 64 dynasties 20; see also Abbasid caliphate/ period; Buyid dynasty/period; Fatimid caliphate/period



Index of Topics and Keywords

eating 138, 144, 147, 150 – eating/drinking habits of boys 102–104 economics 109 education 15 – of boys 40, 89, 95–96, 97–106 – of character by/pedagogical function of (religious) law 289, 292, 299–308, 306, 308, 311, 312–313, 314, 315 – ethics and 38, 68, 107, 179, 272 – of Miskawayh 11–12, 218 – paideia 68, 68–69n5, 107, 189, 191 – religious 165 – of rich/noble children 99, 101, 106; see also mirrors-for-princes literature – of the soul 185, 189, 217; see also ­philosophical education; upbringing efficient cause 128 elders 59, 164 elite (khāṣṣa) 20, 65, 66 – common people vs. 39, 58–59 emirs 26, 58; see also Buyid rulers endurance 266 engelsgleiche Seele → angelic soul Enlightenment 17 epistème (methodology) 333, 333n61, 334, 335 epistemology 75, 82, 121, 126, 128, 143, 209, 331, 333, 339 – Aristotelian 3, 67 epistolographers 4, 12 epithymētikón → appetitive soul equality – justice and 326 Erkenntnistheorie → epistemology erudition → adab essence, real 3, 78, 79, 80 ethical conduct – achievement of happiness through 260–261 – code of 14, 38 ethical doctrine – in different religious traditions 255 ethical health 304, 309 ethical instruction – wisdom quotes for 253 ethical knowledge – reason and religious law as sources of 210, 211–212, 224, 225

377

ethical works 41, 161–163, 218 – attribution/authorship 192–193, 196, 197–199 – Christian 164, 167–172, 179, 180–182, 184 – manuscripts 192–197, 194ill., 195ill., 197ill., 198 – of Miskawayh 30–33, 39, 41, 75, 161; see also Tahdhīb al-akhlāq – readership/reception 167, 191, 193 – religious pluralism in 163–167; see also adab literature ethics (akhlāq) 23, 26, 121 – Aristotelian 3, 38, 75, 82, 109, 184, 189, 230, 260, 261, 270, 329 – division of 109 – as a door (Arkoun) 69 – equation with adab 107, 341 – in Greek philosophy vs./and Islamic philosophy 68, 81, 322, 328, 329–330, 335 – of Miskawayh 5, 15, 75, 82, 85, 109, 317, 329; see also Arab humanism – moral/virtue ethics 209, 210, 214, 216n38, 221, 223, 224, 225, 289, 292, 297 – Neoplatonic ethical tradition 40, 75, 82, 84, 85, 109, 184 – (philosophical) education/pedagogy and 38, 68, 107, 130, 179, 272 – Platonic 38, 75, 79, 82, 85, 184, 189, 192, 329 – positive 3 – propaedeutical 3, 110, 117, 130 – rethinking of Islamic 331–334 – as science 68, 69; see also moral philosophy; virtue/virtues ethics proper 109 ethos (khuluq) 3, 69 eudaimonia → happiness Europe – reception of classical Islamic thought in 337–339 evaluative primacy 292, 296, 297, 299, 308 evil 143 – ability to distinguish between good and 210, 222, 223, 224, 224–225, 270, 276 – desire for 141, 141n17, 191

378

Index of Topics and Keywords

– good vs. evil character 277–278 – radical 69–70 evil soul (al-nafs al-ammāra) 141 existence of things 128 explanatory primacy (Watson) 291, 292, 297, 308 external causes 128n66 external goods – happiness from 118; see also material things eyes of the soul – bodily mist vs. 113–115 faḍāʾil → virtue/virtues fairness 211 Faithful Spirit (al-rūḥ al-amīn) 219n52 family – happiness from 118 famine 62 fasting 301, 304, 305, 306 fatāwa 240 father of Miskawayh 9–10, 10n9 Fatimid caliphate/period 20 feminism 18 final cause 128 fiqh → jurisprudence First Cause 78, 224 “First Principle” – man’s actions vs. actions of 78 flying people (metaphor) 149 followers of Miskawayh 22–23 folly 186, 190tab. fools 58 forgiving 232 formal cause 128 fortitude 304 four elements theory (Galen) 144 freedom – levels of human 278–279 freedom of human action 222, 222n65, 225 – revealed law and 225–226; see also free will free sciences → metaphysics free will 8, 209, 210, 212, 214, 221n56, 222, 223, 224, 233, 276 friendship – desire vs. 184

– human happiness and 118, 268, 316– 317 frigidity 211 fruit 104 funerals 301 Fürstenspiegel → mirrors-for-princes literature Gabriel (Jibrīl) 219n52, 332 Galenic anthropology 3, 5 Gaons 207–208 general human happiness 264, 265 general public → common people generosity (sakhā) 31, 97, 186tab., 306 geometrical proportion (justice) 326, 327 geometry/geometers 21, 116, 117n26, 125, 126 Gerechtigkeit → justice Gewöhnung → habits/habituation/­ habitude girls – upbringing/education of 101 Glaubenslehre → doctrine Glück/Glückseligkeit → happiness; ultimate happiness gluttony 298, 304, 306 God – hierarchy between angels, the “godlike” and 83 – knowledge of 84, 109, 112, 255, 296 – likeness/nearness to God 80–81, 84, 109, 109–110n1, 130, 304, 325 – oneness of 209, 222n65, 240, 325, 328 – proof of existence and unity of 26–27 – “treaty” between God and humankind (covenant) 215–217, 218, 225 God’s commandments 214, 221n56, 222 – authority of 212 – reason and/rational basis of 206n2, 209, 215 – superiority over reason 224, 225 good deeds/actions 271, 290, 293, 294 – philosophical humanism as unification between reason and 330–331 good, the – ability to distinguish between evil and 210, 222, 223, 224, 224–225, 270, 276 – division of the arts and 280–281



Index of Topics and Keywords

– good vs. bad/evil character 277–278 Gospels 169 governance 267, 306 – secular 338, 340–341 – types of 121 Graeco-Arabic texts 196 Graeco-Roman antiquity 18 grandfather of Miskawayh 9–10, 10n9 gratitude 211, 215, 225, 294n12, 295, 296, 303, 303n45 grave 142 – punishment of the 141, 154 greed 186tab., 190tab. Greek cultural heritage – Islamic reception of 15, 18, 90, 317 Greek educational theories 40; see also Oikonomikos Greek intellectual heritage 2, 8, 20, 126, 164, 166, 206, 229, 252 – Arabic translations of 34, 75, 77, 110, 125, 139, 144, 147, 166, 181, 184–185, 186, 211 Greek philosophical ethics and/vs. Islamic religious ethics 5, 22, 39, 68, 81, 179, 212, 224, 289, 290, 317, 322, 328, 329–330, 335, 338 Greek philosophy 2, 24ill., 55, 124, 215, 219 – Islamic reception of 23, 89, 90, 137, 180, 273–274, 312, 338 – use of prolegomena 130 – on virtues 76, 79, 187 Greek science 4, 219, 226 habits/habituation/habitude (iʿtiyād) 29n80, 185, 214, 237, 277–278, 294, 303, 311, 312, 313 ḥadīth 255, 293, 332–333, 333, 337 ḥajj → pilgrimage/pilgrims happiness (saʿāda) 39, 69, 70, 145, 213– 214, 222, 223, 259–261, 262–263, 283 – Arabic works on 263, 263n21,n23, 274–275 – Aristotelian 3, 29, 118, 119, 217, 268, 268n43, 269, 269n46, 270, 273–274, 276 – classification/ranking of 27–30, 43, 109, 118, 262, 263–273 – bodily happiness 29, 118, 120, 268

379

– common happiness 264, 264n29 – general human happiness 264–265 – happiness outside/around body 268 – ordered vs. non-ordered forms of happiness 267 – specific human happiness 264, 265– 268, 268n43; see also ultimate happiness – definition/concept 260, 260n3, 261– 262n15 – ethical conduct leading to 260–261 – friendship and 118, 268, 316–317 – from external goods/material things 118 – generated from arts 267 – knowledge leading to 3, 30, 259–262, 268 – Miskawayh’s theory of 273–274; see also Tartīb al-saʿādāt wa-manāzil alʿulūm – philosophy and 118–120, 119n35 – plurality/multiple forms of 266–267 – rational science and 2, 3 – salvation vs. 294–295 – virtue as precondition for 291 harm, not causing 211 harmony – physic 185 al-hawāmil (here: questions in alHawāmil wa-l-shawāmil) 33, 55, 231, 245; see also [al-]Hawāmil wa-lshawāmil Ḥayy ibn Yaqzān (character in Ḥayy ibn Yaqzān, Ibn Sīnā) 150–151 health 260, 268, 299 – ethical 304, 309 – of the soul 2, 32 heart – (improvement of ) state of the 297, 298, 299, 300, 301n36, 308 – power of the soul in 153, 324 heaven – intermediate court in 141 Hebrew 207n7 Hebrew Bible 221n56 Hebrew calendar 207, 207–208n9 Hellenism 18

380

Index of Topics and Keywords

Hellenistic philosophy → Greek philosophy heresy 212 hermeneutics → Quranic interpretation Hermes Trismegistus 193, 195n89 hermits 165, 184 ḥikma → wisdom ḥilm → prudence historiographical works 36–37, 36n112; see also Tajārib al-umam history/historians 7, 8, 11, 16, 136, 161, 181, 294 – philosophers/philosophy vs. 39, 55, 56, 64–66, 253 – revision/falsification of history 254– 255 höchstes Glück → ultimate happiness Holy Spirit (al-rūḥ al-qudsī) 219n52 honor 57, 79, 326 hope 138, 270, 291, 301 horse and carriage (metaphor) 139, 154 horsemen (metaphor) 147, 147n40 horses (metaphor) 139, 147, 147n40, 151 household management 23, 121, 168; see also Oikonomikos ḥukamāʾ → sages human action 225 – freedom of 222, 222n65, 225 human beings – animals/plants vs. 145, 153, 182, 192 – “likeness to God” 78–79, 80–81, 83, 84 – natural intellectual limitations/mental capabilities of 77, 83, 214, 215, 225 – as political animals 77, 316 – (process to) divineness 3, 78, 79, 80 – ranking of 76–77 – role of covenant in relation with God 215–217, 218, 225; see also human perfection human freedom – levels of 278–279 human happiness → happiness (saʿāda) human intellect 222, 223; see also intellect human interaction/association/society 64, 244 – cultivation of virtue and 315–317, 316n81

– justice and 325–327, 329 – moral danger of 314, 315 – relation between individuals and ­society 316–317 humanism – classical vs. contemporary 334 – definition/term 16, 89, 334, 341 – foundations of 17–18 – rationalism and 18 – rethinking of 334 – types of 17, 18–19, 90 – Arab humanism 5, 7, 15, 16–17, 19, 43, 90, 107, 321, 322, 328–331, 333, 334, 339 – Islamic humanism 16–17, 18, 19, 317, 334 – legal humanism 19 – literary humanism 18, 19, 90, 330 – modern humanism 18, 334, 341 – multicultural humanism 17, 322, 329–330, 335 – philosophical humanism 19, 90, 330–331, 334, 335 – religious humanism 18, 19, 90, 330, 334 – secular humanism 18, 341 humanista studia 329, 335 humanitas – adab vs. 90 – term 331n44 humanitas adab 90, 330, 331 human justice 325–327 – harmonization between divine and 328–329 – proportion (iʿtidāl) to realize 326– 327 – transactional justice 326–327 human perfection 3, 148–149, 152, 165, 180, 183, 185, 189, 195, 212, 213, 215, 223, 224, 264, 296 – perfect kings/rulers 167–168; see also divinity; ultimate happiness human transactions (muʿāmalāt) 310, 314, 315, 316 human welfare → maṣlaḥa hunger 62 hunters (metaphor) 147, 147n40 Hushang (mythical Iranian king) 35, 42



Index of Topics and Keywords

ʿibādāt → ritual observances; worship, acts of ʿiffa → abstinence; temperance ignorance 57, 186tab., 298 ijtihād (independent reasoning) 240, 241, 242, 245, 268, 331, 334 Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ 22, 26, 29n79, 85, 144–145 iktisāb (acquisition of acts) 170 illness – caused by the soul 144, 153 ʿilm → knowledge imams 10, 327, 328, 329 ʿimāra → cultivation immanent cause 128n66 immaterial things 123, 124 imperceptible things 124, 125 impudence 186 incarnation 170 independent reasoning → ijtihād Indian intellectual heritage 2, 34, 89, 252 injustice 35, 190tab., 326, 327, 338, 342 al-insān al-kāmil 192 instructive images → metaphors intellect 3, 31, 82, 153–154 – acquired intellect 223 – active/tenth 143, 149, 151, 153, 154 – actual intellect 223 – of children 98–99 – divine science in 120, 121 – (treating) weaknesses of 112–115, 115n20 – understanding and 222 intellectual circles/networks → learning circles; scholarly circles intellectual exchanges 33–34, 55, 218, 221, 226, 229, 231–234, 245; see also [al-] Hawāmil wa-l-shawāmil intellectual power 310 intelligibility 307, 309, 310 intelligibles – first 3 – sensibles vs. 114 – visibility of 114–115 interconfessionalism → religious pluralism/diversity intermediate court (in heaven) 141 intermediate science (al-ʿilm al-awsaṭ) 116, 117, 120, 121; see also mathematics

381

involuntary transactions – justice of 326, 327 Iranian intellectual heritage 2, 5, 89, 179; see also Persian intellectual heritage; Persian philosophers/intellectuals Iranian kings 253–255, 256 irascibility 186 irascible soul (thymoeidēs, al-nafs al-ghadabiyya, spirit soul) 79–80, 138, 139, 146, 182, 183, 185, 324 – virtues and vices of 186tab. Islam 208 – “authentic Islam” 340 – future/different/non-religious 69, 331, 335 Islamic consciousness 339–340 Islamic discourse 332–333, 335 Islamic Golden Age/Renaissance 18, 20, 180 Islamic humanism 16–17, 18, 19, 317, 334; see also Arab humanism Islamic intellectual heritage 179 – modernization/reform of 321, 322, 333, 339 – Western/secular reception of 337–338, 337–339, 340 Islamic law → religious law; sharīʿa Islamic philosophical ethics 180, 322, 323 Islamic philosophy/philosophers 7, 11, 12, 15, 16, 24ill., 34, 38, 41, 81, 130, 136, 179, 180, 219, 220, 226, 261, 274; see also Arabic/Arabo-Islamic philosophy Islamic regimes 322 Islamic religious ethics – and/vs. Greek philosophical ethics 5, 22, 39, 68, 81, 212, 224, 289, 290, 322, 328, 329–330, 335, 338 Islamic sciences – curriculum 21 Islamic studies 13, 15, 16, 19, 22, 38, 237, 262, 331 Islamic teaching – institutionalized vs. non-institutionalized 21 Ismāʿīlism/Ismāʿīlī 20 isolation – living in 57, 64 iʿtiqādāt → conviction

382

Index of Topics and Keywords

iʿtiyād – term 29n80; see also habits/habituation/habitude ʿIzrāʾīl (Angel of Death) 141, 142 jähzornige Seele → irascible soul Jenseits → afterworld Jewish intellectual heritage 89, 90, 184, 186 Jewish philosophers/intellectuals 24ill., 34, 38, 42, 207, 218, 219, 221, 222, 226; see also [al-]Muqammaṣ, Dāwūd b. Marwān Jewish religious law 206n4, 207n5,n7, 209, 209n15 Jewish theology/theologians 209, 212, 219, 222; see also Saadia Gaon Jews/Jewish community 2, 21, 164, 165, 208, 221 – Arabicized Jews 186, 221, 221n56, 225 Judaeo-Arabic language 208 Judaism 206, 221 – cardinal virtues in 31 – Karaite 207, 207n7 – rabbinic 207–209, 207n5,n7, 219 judgement 241 – Day of 293–294, 295n14, 301 – disputes in Quranic interpretation 238–245 – of doctrinal issues 242–243 – ethical vs. unconditional 308–309 – self-judgement 241, 294, 294n12; see also ijtihād (independent reasoning) jurisprudence ( fiqh) 333 – key concepts of 290 – as (mundane) science 21, 300, 314, 332 – philosophy and/vs. 308–317; see also legal theory justice (ʿadl) 30, 34, 38, 209, 211, 214 – Aristotelian 30, 35, 43, 321, 322, 323, 326, 327, 328, 328–329, 334–335 – categories of 35–36, 326 – distributive justice 326, 327 – justice according to division of money and honors 326 – justice of involuntary transactions 326, 327

– justice of voluntary transactions 35– 36, 326–327; see also divine justice; human justice – covenant and 215–216, 225 – definition 321, 328 – for dhimmīs 169 – equality and 326 – in modern Arab societies 322 – as (most noble) virtue 31, 162–163, 186, 190tab. – Plato on 43, 321, 322, 325, 328, 328– 329, 334–335 – rational soul/faculty of reason and 324, 329, 331 – reconceptualization of 335 – revelation and 209, 331; see also divine justice; human justice kalām al-dīn (dialectical theology) 205, 208, 221, 221n56, 222, 223, 225, 290, 294 – definition 208, 208–209n12; see also Muʿtazilite theology Karaite Judaism 207, 207n7 Kenntnis → knowledge al-kharāb → dilapidation Kharijites 332 khāṣṣa → elite khuluq → character (traits); ethos; moral quality kings – character traits of 167–168 – moral behavior of 167–168, 191 – virtues of 191; see also mirrors-forprinces literature; political leaders; rulers Klugheit → wisdom knowledge of God 84, 109, 112, 255, 296; see also ultimate happiness knowledge (ʿilm) 69, 185, 186tab. – achievement of happiness/virtue through 3, 187, 189, 260–261, 268, 324 – classification of knowledge 120–121, 124–125, 188, 268–273, 269n46 – ultimate happiness and 3, 120, 268– 273, 269n47, 275 – divine 79 – features of 31–32



Index of Topics and Keywords

– logic vs. character traits for acquiring 282 – perfect knowledge of philosophers 2, 81 – self-knowledge 30; see also science; wisdom kuluq → moral quality Kunstfertigkeit → arts Latin translations of Islamic intellectual heritage 136 Lautere Brüder → Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ laws – rules vs. 210 – to guide on practicing good morals 121, 191 – types of law for justice of human interactions 327–328; see also religious law; sharīʿa learning circles (majālis) 13, 15, 183; see also scholarly circles learning process – ethical code of conduct in 38 legal humanism 19 legal scholars – disputes between 238–243; see also judgements legal theory 21, 240, 245, 290, 294, 309, 310; see also jurisprudence leonine soul/faculties 139, 146; see also irascible soul lexicography 233 libraries/librarians 3, 4, 12, 20, 136, 229 lifetime of Miskawayh 1, 20–22, 339 likeness to God 78–79, 80–81, 83, 84, 109, 109–110n1, 130, 304, 325 – hierarchy between God, angels and “godlike” 83 linguistics 233 lions (metaphor) 139, 150, 151; see also leonine soul/faculties literary humanism 18, 19, 90, 330 living beings – phases in development of 26, 145, 153 logical demonstration → reason logic (manṭiq)/logicians 11, 21, 68, 116, 117n26, 180, 209, 271, 272, 282 – Aristotelian logic 3, 122, 130, 180, 219, 226, 230, 270, 273

383

logistikón (rational soul) 138, 139; see also rational soul lordship – servitude vs. 305–306 love 83, 85, 115–116, 165, 168, 171, 184, 216–217, 296, 297n22, 303, 317, 317n87 löwenartige Seele → irascible soul lowest knowledge (al-ʿilm al-asfal) 125 lowest science (al-ʿilm al-adnā) 120; see also natural sciences; propaedeutics lying 105, 150, 190tab. madaniyya → political association madrasas (schools, institutions of higher learning, colleges) 21 Magianism 10n9 majālis → learning circles majmūʿ (composite/multiple text ms.) 193, 195, 196, 198 Mamluk period 192 manners 97–98, 191, 272; see also adab manuscripts – of ethical writings 192–197, 194ill., 195ill., 197ill., 198 maṣlaḥa (concept of the public interest or welfare) 240, 241, 245, 246, 309 masses, Christian Orthodox 70–71 material things 123, 124–125 – desire for 183, 305, 306 – happiness from 118 mathematicians 2, 136, 193, 196, 198 mathematics 2, 272 – classification of 124, 125–126, 126n60, 130 – as intermediate science 117, 120, 121 matter 115 – things in vs. things not in matter 123, 124–125; see also material things Maturidis 238 mean (concept) 282 medical sciences/medicine 11, 21, 144, 260 memorization – of poems 101 Messiah (al-Masīḥ) 255 messianic redemption 209 metaphors – definition 137

384

Index of Topics and Keywords

– intermediary role between religion and philosophy 135, 137, 154 – for judgements and ijtihād 241, 242, 243 – origins and application of 137 – for the soul 139, 146, 149–153, 154 metaphysics 21, 149, 271, 272, 331 – classification of 130 – as most elevated science 120 – ultimate happiness and 119 miracles 212, 220 mirrors-for-princes literature 35, 167, 167n23, 181, 181–182, 187, 188, 189, 191, 219, 261 misbehavior – of boys 97–99 miserliness 303, 304, 306 misery – state of 267, 270 Mishna 207n5 Miskawayh-Symposium (Göttingen University) 38 mist of the body – eyes of the soul vs. 113–115 moderation (taʿdīl) 31, 78, 184, 192, 244; see also temperance modernity – humanism and 18, 334, 341 – power and 339, 340, 341 – secularism and 339–341 modernization/reform – of Islamic intellectual heritage 321, 322, 333, 339 monasteries/monastic circles 186, 187, 193, 195, 198 money 97 – desire for wealth and 183, 306 – happiness and 266 – as third rank of law 327–328 monks 164, 165, 183 Monophysites 221 monotheism 238n31, 325 moral behavior 187 – of rulers 167–168, 181–182, 191 moral philosophy 2, 8, 22, 251, 290 – psychology and 30; see also ethics; ­virtue/virtues moral quality (khuluq) 180, 182, 183

– commendable vs. abhorrent 183–184 morals/morality 69, 164–165 – collapse of morality 69 – moral character 276–277 – moral duties 211 – reformation/improvement of 180, 183, 187, 189 – role of covenant in 215 – role of intellectuals in guiding to practice good 191 moral/virtue ethics 209, 210, 214, 216n38, 221, 223, 224, 225, 289, 292, 297 most elevated science/knowledge (al-ʿilm al-aʿlā) 116, 120, 125; see also metaphysics mothers – qualities of 97, 101, 106 mukāshafa → disclosure multicultural humanism 17, 322, 329– 330, 335 music 21, 125, 126 Muslim calendar 171 Muslim dynasties → Abbasid caliphate/ period; Buyid dynasty/period; Fatimid caliphate/period Muslim intellectual heritage → Islamic intellectual heritage Muslim philosophy/philosophers → Islamic philosophy/philosophers Muslims/Muslim community 2, 164, 165 – reception of Christian ethical writings 172–174, 180 mutakallim (scholar of kalām, theologian) 205, 209, 221, 222 Muʿtazilites 205, 209, 221, 238 Muʿtazilite theology 205, 210, 211, 212, 219, 221, 222, 222n65, 225, 226, 238n31; see also kalām al-dīn muthafte Seele → irascible soul mysticism 22 – philosophy and 23; see also Sufism/ Sufis nafs – al-nafs al-ammāra (soul commanding evil) 141 – al-nafs al-ʿāqila → rational soul – al-nafs al-ghadabiyya → irascible soul



Index of Topics and Keywords

– al-nafs al-lawwāmā (self-aware/self-accusing soul) 141 – al-nafs al-muṭmaʾinna (peaceful/self-atpeace soul) 141 – al-nafs al-nāṭiqa → rational soul – al-nafs al-shahwāniyya → appetitive soul; see also soul name of Miskawayh 9–10, 9n8, 10n9 nation state 340–341 natural bodies – artificial and/vs. 127–130 natural justice 35 natural philosophy 21 natural sciences – classification of 116, 120, 121, 126– 129, 130 nearness to God → likeness to God Neoplatonic ethics 40, 75, 82, 84, 85, 109, 184 Neoplatonic philosophical heritage 40, 130, 162 Neoplatonism 3, 27, 80 niggardliness 183, 190tab. non-Muslims → dhimmīs obedience 299n32, 302, 303, 305, 307, 308 obligatory deeds/actions 212, 290, 293, 294 Offenbarung → revelation old men (metaphor) 150, 151 oneness of God 209, 222n65, 240, 325, 328 Oriental Christian scholasticism 219; see also Christian(-Arab) philosophers/intellectuals origins of Miskawayh 8, 9–11, 230–231 ostensible syllogism (qiyās mustaqīm) 244n43, 246 Ottoman period 192 paideia (education/training) 68, 68–69n5, 107, 189, 191 Palestinian school (Judaism) 207, 207– 208n9 paraphrasing 102, 103–104, 106–107 parenting 97–106 – parent’s role in good conduct of children 223

385

– qualities of mothers 97, 101, 106 particles 128 passion 79, 81, 186, 190tab., 304, 325 patience (ṣabr) 84, 266, 291, 294n12, 295, 296, 304 patrons 20 – of Miskawayh 12, 25ill. peaceful/self-at-peace soul (al-nafs almuṭmaʾinna) 141 pedagogy 40 – ethics and 68 – role of metaphors in 137–138; see also education; upbringing perceptible things 124–125 perfection → divinity; human perfection; ultimate happiness perfect state 75, 82 Peripatetic philosophers 170 Persian intellectual heritage 20, 180, 181, 184, 252, 340; see also Iranian intellectual heritage Persian kings – child-rearing methods of 99, 101, 106 Persian philosophers/intellectuals 24– 25ill., 34 Pflanzenseele → vegetative soul philological questions 233 philosophers 117n26 – historians vs. 39, 55, 56, 64–66, 253 – perfect 81 – prophecy as prerequisite of 82; see also Christian(-Arab) philosophers/intellectuals; Islamic philosophy/philosophers; Jewish philosophers/intellectuals; ­Syrian-Orthodox philosophers/theologians philosophical education 11, 130, 179, 214 – curriculum 214, 271–273, 282 philosophical humanism 19, 90, 330–331, 334, 335 philosophy – aim of 109, 119 – Aristotelian 2–3, 109, 110, 110n2, 111, 117, 119, 123–124, 125, 162, 223, 261 – classification/division of 109, 111–112, 116, 118–119, 122–125, 271, 275 – definition/term 109–110, 110n2, 115– 116

386 – – – –

Index of Topics and Keywords

happiness and 118–120, 119n35 history and/vs. 39, 55, 56, 64–66, 253 jurisprudence and/vs. 308–317 metaphors in philosophical texts 135, 137, 154 – mysticism and 23 – political philosophy 75 – practical philosophy 109, 119, 121, 123, 271 – prolegomena to 109, 110–117, 110n2,4,5, 119, 122, 123, 130 – religion and 5, 22, 39, 68, 81, 212, 224, 289, 290, 322, 328, 329–330, 335, 338 – salvation and 214 – teaching → philosophical education – theoretical philosophy 109, 119, 122– 125, 271 – understanding of/insight in 312–313 – universalist claim 2 physical appetite 297n21, 304 physic harmony 185 physicians 11–12, 12, 32, 36n112, 116, 136, 196 – happiness of 266 – on the soul 2, 143–144 physicists 136 physics 68, 271, 272 – Aristotelian 2–3, 180 pigs (metaphor) 150, 151 pilgrimage (ḥajj)/pilgrims 60, 62, 92, 245, 301, 302, 305, 307, 310, 317 plants 145, 153; see also vegetative soul Platonic ethics 38, 75, 79, 82, 85, 184, 189, 192, 329 Platonic justice 43, 321, 322, 325, 328, 328–329, 334–335 Platonic soul → tripartite soul Platonism 2, 3, 5, 274 pleasure 83, 170, 184, 192, 211, 260, 264, 270, 279, 282, 304, 305, 307 pneuma (Stoic concept, intermingling of all [essences]) 79–80 poems – memorization of 101 – on the soul 148, 152 poetry/poets 4, 12, 13, 23, 136 polemical literature 207n7 polis → cities/city-states

political advisors 191 political association (madaniyya) 58, 63–64 political authority 64 political leaders 312 – moral obligations of 167, 173–174; see also kings; rulers political philosophy 75 political violence 339 politics 15, 23, 109 – human beings as political animals 77, 316 – virtue/ethics and 311, 316 pomp and splendor – love of 164 poor people – happiness of 266 – treatment of 65, 168, 299, 303 positive ethics 3 power 331 – abuse of 101 – animal/bodily powers 317n86 – divine 76, 80, 165 – happiness from having 268 – intellectual 310 – modernity and 339, 340, 341 – political 64, 332 – of the soul 98, 145, 152, 153, 182–183, 270, 291, 324 practical philosophy 119, 121, 123, 271; see also ethics practical wisdom 120, 121, 271–273, 278, 280–281 praxis – science of (muʿāmala) 300 prayer 207 – communal 317 – daily 92 – internal conditions during performance of 301, 302 – prayer formulas 207n7 – sharīʿa on 244–245 prayer books 207n7 preachers 164, 165 pre-eternal “agreement” → covenant preferable acts 224 primacy – character/virtue vs. actions 289, 290, 291, 292–299, 308



Index of Topics and Keywords

primordial “agreement” → covenant princes – upbringing/education of Iranian 99, 101, 106; see also mirrors-for-princes literature procreation 172 prohibition 210, 213, 222, 222n65, 225, 290, 303n42 prolegomena material 109, 110–117, 110n2,n4-5, 119, 122, 123, 130 propaedeutical ethics 3, 110, 117, 130 propaedeutics (al-riyādiyyāt, ʿilm al-adab) 113, 116, 117, 125 prophecy 149, 212, 221n56 – as prerequisite for philosophers 82 – prophets vs. 57 – rejection of 222 prophetic tradition → ḥadīth prophets/prophethood 26 – divine revelation 75, 81–82, 85, 211, 212–213, 214n34, 221n56, 224 proportion (iʿtidāl) – to realize human justice 326–327 prudence (ḥilm) 31, 186tab. psychology/psychologists 30, 32, 187, 189, 233, 274, 291 public interest → maṣlaḥa punishment – actions as causes of 293 – of boys/children 98, 101, 105, 223 – corporal 98, 105 – divine 209, 222, 222n65, 238n31 – of the grave 141, 154 purification of the soul 3, 80, 85, 144, 152, 182, 323–325 Qarmaṭīs 60, 62 qiyās → analogy; correct reasoning quantity vs. quality 125–126 questions and answers (format) 33–34, 55, 231–234, 263n21, 283; see also [al-] Hawāmil wa-l-shawāmil Quran 255, 332 – founding texts of 337 – in al-Hawāmil wa-l-shawāmil 42, 234– 235, 235n25, 246 – reception of 234, 245 – on the soul 140–141, 154

387

– as source of sharīʿa 239 Quranic interpretation disputes between legal scholars 236–243 rabbinic Judaism/Rabbinites 206–208, 206n4, 207n5,n7 – rationalism and 208–209, 219, 220– 221 rabbinic writings 208 rabbis 205, 206, 206n4 radical evil 69–70 Ramadan 245 ranks/ranking → classification rationalism 338 – humanism and 18 – rabbinic Judaism and 208–209, 219, 220–221 – Western reception of Islamic 337–338 rational law (sharāʾiʿ ʿaqliyya) – revealed law vs. 210–215, 218, 219, 220, 221n56, 224, 225 rational sciences (ʿulūm ʿaqlīyya) 2, 3, 4, 21, 38, 183; see also astronomy; mathematics; physics rational soul (logistikón, nafs ʿāqila) 138, 143, 144 – justice and 324, 329, 331 – power of 182–183 – relation with/intermediary between appetitive and irascible soul 165, 185, 186tab., 189, 192, 324 – virtues and vices and/of 81, 84, 145, 146, 152, 154, 171, 186tab., 187, 323 reading – importance of 215, 220 real essence 3, 78, 79, 80 reason 185, 206 – ability to act according to 192, 265, 266 – authority of 222, 224, 225 – correct reasoning (qiyās) 223, 246 – crisis of 70 – divine 78, 80 – God’s commandments and 206n2, 209, 215, 224, 225 – philosophical humanism and 330 – religion and/vs. 212, 236–238, 245, 255, 312–313

388

Index of Topics and Keywords

– religious law and/vs. 206n2, 209–210, 219, 220–221, 224, 225, 229, 236–238, 309, 310 – as source of ethical knowledge 210, 211–212, 224, 225 – to distinguish between good and evil 224, 224–225 – unchangeability of 237; see also ijtihād; rational law; rational soul rebellions – by common people 58, 60–63, 64–65 reception of ethical works 193 – Christian writings 172–174, 180, 182, 191 reception of Miskawayh 13–16, 66, 68, 136, 229, 230, 272n59, 282–283 Rechtsurteile → judgements Reinheit der Seele → purification of the soul religion – equation with Islam 341 – philosophy and/vs. 5, 22, 39, 68, 81, 212, 224, 289, 290, 322, 328, 329–330, 335, 338 – reason vs./and 212, 236–238, 245, 255, 312–313 – religious disciplines vs. rational sciences 3–4 – rethinking of study of 331, 335 religious duties 302–303, 306, 307, 315 religious ethics → Islamic religious ethics religious humanism 19, 90, 330, 334; see also Islamic humanism religious law 206, 209n15 – actions and 289, 290 – authority of 222, 224, 225 – (classes of ) duties in 302–303, 306, 307, 315 – desire and/vs. 305–307 – education of character by/pedagogical function of 289, 292, 299–308, 306, 308, 311, 312–313, 314, 315 – foundations/aims of 309, 310 – Jewish 206n4, 207, 207n5,n7, 209, 209n15 – learning 214 – reason and/vs. 209–210, 212, 219, 220– 221, 237, 245, 309, 310, 312–313

– as source of ethical knowledge 210, 211–212, 224, 225 – spiritual approach to legal obligations and 290, 300–302, 309 – virtue and 5, 43, 289, 290, 291, 294, 299, 307, 310, 312, 313, 318; see also ­revealed law; sharīʿa religious leaders 164, 165, 183, 207, 327, 328 religious pluralism/diversity 2, 21, 41, 42, 161, 164, 179–180, 208 – in ethical writings 163–167 religious terminology 166 renunciation (zuhd) 164, 183, 296 reputation/reception of Miskawayh 13– 16, 66, 68, 136, 229, 230, 272n59, 282– 283 research institutions 20 research/studies on Miskawayh 37–44, 38–39 respect 211, 215, 216 resting 138, 147, 149 resurrection 141–142, 141n18, 209 revealed law (sharāʾiʿ samiʿiyya) 210, 211 – freedom of action and 225–226 – human’s mental restrictions and 214 – rational law/reason vs. 210–215, 218, 219, 220, 221n56, 224, 225; see also religious law; sharīʿa revelation (tanzīl) 206, 210, 225, 333 – ethical knowledge without need for 212 – Islamic conception of 332 – justice and 209, 331 – plurality of 341 – as primary source for ethical knowledge 211–212, 221n56, 224, 225 – prophetic 75, 81–82, 85, 211, 212–213, 214n34, 221n56, 224 – term 332 – theurgic 82, 84, 85 revolts 60, 321, 321n2; see also rebellions; revolts reward – actions as causes of 293 – of children 223 – divine 209, 222, 222n65, 238n31



Index of Topics and Keywords

rhetorics 21 rich people – happiness of 266 – upbringing of children 99, 101, 106 riding animals (metaphor) 146–147 right actions/righteous works → good deeds/actions ritual observances (ʿibādāt) 80, 299, 301, 302, 304, 306, 307, 308n58, 310, 314, 315, 317; see also theurgy al-riyāḍiyyāt (propaedeutics, mathe­ matics) – term 117; see also mathematics; propaedeutics Romans – cardinal virtues 31 rūḥ (“breath of God”, wind) 141 rulers 75, 82 – character traits of 167–168 – justice and 329 – moral behavior of 167–168, 181–182, 191 – philosophical interest of 111 – as rank of law 327, 329 – virtues of 188–189, 188ill., 191, 312; see also Buyid rulers; mirrors-forprinces literature; prophets/prophethood; religious leaders; viziers rules – law vs. 210 saʿāda → happiness saʿāda al-quṣwā → ultimate happiness Sabian philosophers/intellectuals 25ill., 36n112 Sabians 21, 23 ṣabr – term 304; see also self-control; temperance saddle making 267 sages (ḥukamāʾ ) 2, 29, 210, 210n17 – apophthegms by → wisdom quotes sakhā → generosity salvation 294 – happiness vs. 294–295 – philosophy and 214 ṣanāʾiʿ → arts sayings → wisdom quotes

389

scale (on Day of Judgement) 293–294, 295n14 scholarly circles 13, 15, 23 – Baghdadi circle 15, 25ill., 110, 130, 136, 161 scholars 164, 165 – government support to 65; see also philosophers science of disclosure (mukāshafa) 300 science of praxis (muʿāmala) 300 sciences – classification of the 116, 117, 120–121, 271–272, 273, 275 – intermediate sciences 116, 117, 120 – lowest sciences 116, 120 – most elevated sciences 116, 120, 125 – happiness through 2, 3, 268; see also knowledge; wisdom scripture – literal meaning of 214 – veracity of 212 secrets 14 secular humanism 18, 341 secularism/secularity 8, 8–9n4, 17, 107, 174 – modernity and 339–341 secular (term) 340 Seele → soul Selbsterkenntnis → self-knowledge Selbstverwirklichung → self-realization self-aware/self-accusing soul (al-nafs allawwāma) 141 self-confidence 68 self-contentment 270 self-control (ṣabr) 31, 170, 304, 305, 306, 307 self-criticism 232 self-determination 189, 191, 278, 279, 307, 310; see also intelligibility self-divinization 274, 325 self-judgement 241, 294, 294n12; see also ijtihād self-perfection 215, 224 sensible bodies 126 sensibles – intelligibles vs. 114 sensible soul 80 sensory perception 214, 214n32

390

Index of Topics and Keywords

sentence construction – imperative 102, 103 servants 97 servitude 303 – lordship vs. 305–306 Sevener Shiʿa 20 sexual activities 138, 144, 170, 264 sexuality 98, 101, 106, 172 shajāʿa → courage shame – of boys 97, 98 sharīʿa 223, 240, 333 – aim of 300 – in al-Hawāmil wa-l-shawāmil 42, 55, 234–236, 235–236n26 – as highest law 217, 327–328 – interpretation of 240, 241 – in Miskawayh’s work 243–245 – on moderation 244 – on pilgrimage 92 – on prayer 92, 244–245 – Quran as source of 239 – reason vs. 236–238 – reception of 234, 245 – role in upbringing of children/youth 244 – Sufi approach to 290, 301–302 – term 312 – virtues and 43, 289; see also religious law; revealed law al-shawāmil (here: answers in al-Hawāmil wa-l-shawāmil) 33, 55, 231, 245; see also [al-]Hawāmil wa-l-shawāmil Shiʿism/Shiʿis 2, 8, 10–11, 20, 332, 339 – Sunnis vs. Shiʿis 61, 246 ṣināʿat/ṣanāʿiʾ – term 28–29n79; see also arts slaughtering of animals 236 sleeping habits – of boys 104–105 sluggishness 186 social interaction → human interaction/association/society social justice 326, 327 social status 167, 168, 169 society – cultivation vs. dilapidation 58, 63–64; see also human interaction/association/ society

soul (nafs) 26, 40, 75, 124, 136 – allegoric narratives on/metaphors for the 139, 146, 149–153, 154 – Aristotle on the 41, 139, 150, 185 – body and/vs. 113–115, 138, 139–140, 143–144, 148, 153, 324 – in classical Islam 142–145 – classification/types of 79–80, 138–139, 140–141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 150, 152, 153, 154, 185, 187, 188ill.; see also appetitive soul; irascible soul; rational soul; tripartite soul – departure from body after death 141– 142, 144, 154 – faculties of the 186, 216n38, 220, 323, 324 – Galen on the 144, 147, 147n40, 150, 182, 185 – governance/control of the 121, 182 – happiness and → ultimate happiness – health of the 2, 32 – Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ on the 144–145 – illnesses caused by 144, 153 – immortality of the 138, 152, 153, 154 – al-Kindī on the 81, 84, 142–143 – nature of the 30, 32, 68, 79–80, 145, 148, 149, 152, 153 – organs in body used by 139, 153, 324 – Plato on the 41, 80, 84, 138–139, 144, 146, 150, 152, 182, 184–185, 324, 325; see also tripartite soul – Plotinus on the 79, 139–140 – power of the 98, 145, 152, 153, 182– 183, 270, 291, 324 – purification of the 3, 80, 85, 144, 152, 182, 323–325 – Quran on the 140–141, 154 – substance of the 145, 148, 153 – term 140, 152 – training of the 185, 189, 217 – virtues of the 76, 77, 79, 145, 146; see also virtue/virtues – weight of the 140 sources of inspiration (of Miskawayh) 8, 15, 22, 24–25ill., 40, 92, 93tab., 107, 109, 112–117, 119, 122, 126, 136–137, 143, 147, 163, 218–219, 226, 252, 273–274, 275–276, 282–283, 327; see also Aris-



Index of Topics and Keywords

totle; Bryson; al-Fārābī; [al-]Fārābī; Galen; al-Jāḥiẓ; al-Kindī; [al-]Kindī; Paul the Persian; Plato; Porphyry specific human happiness 264, 265–268 – non-ordered vs. ordered 267, 268n43 spiritual life – stations in (Sufism) 192, 295 spiritual qualities/virtues 291, 295 spirit(ual) soul → irascible soul spiritual things – bodily things vs. 76–77 spiritual well-being 304 stable disposition 295 stars – brightness of 115 states (aḥwāl) 295, 296, 297, 298 statesmen → political leaders; rulers stations in spiritual life (Sufism) 192, 295 Stoics/Stoicism 76, 137, 184 strangers – treatment of 168 studying – importance of 215, 220 stupidity 186 stylistic devices 102–106 substantivation 103–104, 106 Sufism/Sufis 192, 198, 289, 310 – spiritual approach to religious law 290, 300–302, 309 – spiritual qualities 291 – stages in spiritual life 192, 295 sun – brightness of 113, 115, 116 Sunna 235, 238 Sunnism/Sunnis 2, 21, 332, 339 – Shiʿis vs. Sunnis 61, 246 superstition 59n19 supreme happiness → ultimate happiness sweets 104 syllogism/syllogistic reasoning 171, 272 – ostensible syllogism (qiyās mustaqīm) 244n43, 246 Syriac-Christian community 225 Syriac-Christian intellectual heritage 89, 90, 112, 122, 123, 124, 125, 130, 163, 186, 187 Syriac language 168 Syriac translations of Greek philosophical heritage 110

391

Syrian Orthodox Church 161, 168, 169 Syrian Orthodox philosophers/theologians 169, 170, 173, 179, 198, 205, 218; see also [al-]Muqammaṣ, Dāwūd b. Marwān; Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī Syrian Orthodox works 163; see also Christian ethical writings taʿdīl → moderation Talmud 208 Talmudic academy 207, 207n9 tanzīl → revelation tawḥīd → unity of God taxes 60 teachers – as “human Gods” 216–217 – of Miskawayh 161; see also Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī teaching institutions 20 teaching process – ethical code of conduct in 38 temperance (ʿiffa) 170–171, 185, 186tab., 304, 305, 306; see also moderation temporal priority 296 tenth intellect → active intellect theology/theologians 12, 124, 136, 180, 309, 310, 331 theoretical philosophy 271 – classification of 119, 122–125, 271 theoretical sciences 121 theoretical wisdom 120, 271–273, 278, 280–281 theurgy (practice of rituals) 80 – theurgic revelations 82, 84, 85 – theurgic virtues 80, 84, 85 things – bodily vs. spiritual 76–77 – existence of 128 – perceptible vs. imperceptible 124–125 thought → wahm thymoeidēs → irascible soul tierische Seele → animal soul timidity 186 Torah 209, 210, 211 – Arabic translation 207n7 tradition – normative authority of 222, 225; see also habits/habituation/habitude

392

Index of Topics and Keywords

traditional justice 35 traditional sciences 21 transactional justice 326–327 transcendent cause 128n66 translation/translators 20–21, 180 – of Miskawayh’s work – in English 67 – in French 67, 67–68n3 – Muslim translators 11, 24ill.; see also Arabic translations transmission of ethical works 172–173 – Christian writings 172–174, 182 treasure hunt (metaphor) 241, 242, 243 treasuries 58–59 “treaty” between God and humankind → covenant Trinity 170 tripartite soul (Plato) 41, 80, 138–139, 142, 150, 152, 154, 182, 184–185, 192– 193, 198, 324 – epithymētikón 138, 139 – logistikón 138, 139 – role in upbringing and refinement of character traits 41, 135–136, 146, 152, 154, 189 – thymoeidēs 138, 139 – training of 185, 189; see also appetitive soul; irascible soul; rational soul; virtue/virtues true enslaved man 278–279 truly free man 278–279 trust 70 truth 150, 212, 220 Tugenden → virtues Turks 61 turmoil, periods of 4, 58; see also rebellions Twelver Shiʿa 246 ultimate happiness (al-saʿāda al-quṣwā) 29–30, 41, 43, 67, 77, 81, 109, 118–119, 130, 145, 152, 262, 268n43 – classification of knowledge and 3, 120, 268–273, 269n47, 275 – plurality of 76, 266–267 – ways/conditions to achieve 224 – acquisition of moral character 276– 277

– levels of human freedom in quest for ultimate happiness 278–279 – philosophical curriculum for achieving 119, 271–273, 275 – pursuing ultimate happiness for its own sake 120, 268, 276 – role of revealed and rational law 213–215, 217 – steps towards ultimate happiness 120, 268, 269–270 – through theoretical and practical wisdom 260–261, 263, 271–273, 278; see also happiness; knowledge of God; Tartīb al-saʿādāt wa-manāzil al-ʿulūm; virtue/virtues ʿulūm ʿaqliyya → rational sciences ʿulūm naqliyya → traditional sciences unbelief 212 understanding – about God 255 – intellect and 222 – of philosophy 312–313 unity of God (tawḥīd) 170 universal history 36–37, 36n112; see also Tajārib al-umam universalist aspirations of Miskawayh 251–252 universities 20 upbringing 97 – of boys 40, 89, 97–106 – child-rearing methods of Persian kings 99, 101, 106 – of rich/noble children 99, 101, 106; see also mirrors-for-princes literature – role of sharīʿa/religious law in 244, 311 – role of tripartite soul in 41, 135–136, 146, 152, 154, 189 Ursächlichkeit → causality uṣūl al-dīn (Islamic theology) 332; see also theology/theologians uṣūl al-fiqh → legal theory vagabonds → ʿayyārūn value recognition 5 vegetative soul 139, 143, 144, 145; see also appetitive soul Vernunft → reason Vernunft- und Geistesseele → rational soul



Index of Topics and Keywords

Verstand/Verstandeskraft → intellect vices 164, 183, 211, 304 – classification of 182, 186, 186tab., 187, 190tab. vigilance 293, 294, 294n12 virtue consequentialism 293 virtue ethics → moral/virtue ethics virtue legalism 293, 294 virtue/virtues 22, 30 – for achievement of (ultimate) happiness 223, 244, 291 – cardinal virtues 30–31, 162, 185–186, 188, 190tab. – civic 79 – classification of 78, 162–163, 170, 182, 183, 185–186, 189, 190tab. – definition 294 – divine 78, 83, 84, 323 – historical development of 294 – human interaction/association/society and 315–317, 316n81 – imperfection of human virtues 83 – knowledge to achieve 324 – politics and 311, 316 – primacy of character/virtue vs. actions 289, 292–297, 299, 308 – religious law and 5, 43, 289, 290, 291, 293, 294, 299, 307, 310, 312, 313, 318 – of rulers 188–189, 188ill., 191, 312 individuals vs. rulers and ruled 75, 82– 83, 85 – of the soul 76, 77, 79, 145, 146 – theurgic virtues 80, 84, 85; see also character (traits); justice; Tahdhīb alakhlāq; ultimate happiness viziers 3–4, 12, 25ill., 27, 58, 59, 60, 62, 206n4, 230, 253, 262, 273 Vollkommenheit → human perfection; ultimate happiness voluntary transactions – justice of 35–36, 326–327

393

wahm (thought) 121n42, 124, 125 warriors → ʿayyārūn water – drinking 102 weak people – treatment of 168, 169, 173 wealth 76, 118, 267–268, 303, 306, 307, 331 Weisheit → wisdom Weltseele → universal soul Western intellectual heritage – Arabic-Islamic content in 339 Willensfreiheit → free will wine consumption 102–103 wisdom (ḥikma) 77, 82, 185, 186, 186tab., 187, 190tab., 297n23 – classification of 120–121, 263, 270–273 – features of 31–32 – foundations of 2 – theoretical vs. practical 3, 271–273, 278, 280–281; see also knowledge; ­virtue/virtues wisdom quotes 34, 42, 251–256; see also Jāwīdhān Khiradh Wissen → knowledge women 97; see also mothers works of Miskawayh (overview) 22–37, 136, 231 worldly things 78, 83, 172, 270, 304, 305, 314 worship, acts of (ʿibādāt) 299, 300–301, 301, 301n36, 310, 314 wrong acts → bad/wrong deeds/actions youth – education of 244, 277 zakāt → almsgiving Zoroastrianism/Zoroastrians 2, 10, 21, 208