Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, vol. 16 (2006) pp.

287307
doi:10.1017/S0957423906000336  2006 Cambridge University Press

IBN BA
z JJA AND THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE
SCIENCES IN AL-ANDALUS
MIQUEL FORCADA
I. INTRODUCTION

Arabic-Islamic scholars of many di#erent kinds were interested

in the classification of the sciences. The Ikhwan al-S
* afa,
philosophers such as al-Kind, al-Farab and Ibn Sna, religious
scholars and theologians such as al-Ghazal, Abu Umar ibn
Abd al-Barr and Ibn H
* azm, a court servant, perhaps a lexicographer, Abu Abd Allah al-Khwarizm, and others studied
the various kinds of knowledge that were present in ArabicIslamic culture, and the interrelations between them.1 Thanks
to the wealth of edited sources and secondary bibliography on
these classifications there is no need to survey them all in this
introduction. However, for the purposes of this paper it is
worth noting that underlying these classifications of the
sciences are two cultural traditions which many authors
sought to harmonize. The first is the classical tradition of
structuring knowledge in a systematic and comprehensive
corpus, which dates back to Aristotle and was developed by
Hellenistic and Roman authors, and, over the course of its
evolution, eventually became an educational program. The
second is the Islamic framework, defined by an intellectual
tradition of a legal-religious kind; inside this framework,
Greek science and philosophy, together with some Hindu and
1
The main works and writings of these authors are well known and there is no
need here either to list them or to provide an exhaustive secondary bibliography.
I address the reader to the following titles, which contain the necessary
references: Louis Gardet & M. M. Anawati, Introduction la thologie musulmane. Essai de thologie compare (Paris, 1948), pp. 94133; Jean Jolivet
Classifications of the sciences, in Roshdi Rashed (ed.) (in collaboration with
Rgis Morelon), Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Sciences, 3 vols.
(London-New York, 1996), vol. III, pp. 100825; Osman Bakar, Science, in
Seyyed Hosein Nasr & Oliver Leaman (eds.), History of Islamic Philosophy
(London-New York, 1996), pp. 92646. This last author has written one of the
most recent monographs on the subject, Classification of Knowledge in Islam. A
Study of Islamic Philosophies of Science (London, 1998; first ed. Kuala Lumpur,
1992).

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Iranian elements (the so-called sciences of the ancients),

were incorporated in several di#erent ways.
From the mid 5th / 11th century onwards, al-Andalus was a
fertile ground for the speculation on the classification of the
sciences. Ibn Abd al-Barr (368 / 978463 / 1071), Ibn H
* azm
(384 / 994456 / 1064), S
* aid al-Andalus (420 / 1029462 / 1070)
and Ibn Bajja (d. 533 / 1139) all addressed the subject, from the
two perspectives we have described above: Ibn Abd al-Barr
and Ibn H
* azm from a religious viewpoint, S
* aid al-Andalus and
Ibn Bajja from a purely scientific one. In spite of the di#erences
all their analyses share two common features. The first is their
proximity in time: all these scholars belong to the same era.
The second is that, in their own way, they all represent a mirror
in which the growth and evolution of scientific knowledge are
reflected at both social and material levels. The chronological
coincidence of these scholars2 is due to the internal evolution
of Andalus culture: Ibn Abd al-Barr, Ibn H
* azm, S
* aid, and the
young Ibn Bajja belong to an era in which, for the first time,
both religious and rational sciences attained the levels of
Mashriq knowledge. What is more, these scholars lived in an
environment in which knowledge was expanding in various
centres (namely the cities of Toledo, Saragossa and Seville)
under the protection of learned sovereigns who promoted the
two spheres of ilm without any serious conflict emerging
between them. So in a setting in which a large number of
scholars were active in both fields, it is no surprise to discover
that several authors (Ibn H
* azm, Ibn al-Sd, al-Waqqash and
Ibn Sda) engaged in serious discussion on the harmony
between reason and faith, and assessed the interrelation and
usefulness of the sciences drawn from both.3 And in a period of
2

Note that Ibn H

* azm is a disciple of Ibn Abd al-Barr and that both are
contemporaries of S
* aid al-Andalus, who, in turn, has been credited with having
been a disciple of Ibn H
* azm and mentions him in T
* abaqat al-umam. Moreover,
there is a clear link between the reality that S
* aid describes in this treatise and
Ibn Bajja, as we will see below. It is also worth noting an early precedent. Said
ibn Fath
* un ibn Mukram al-H
* imar, who flourished in Cordova in the second half
of the 10th century, wrote two treatises that seemingly deal with that question,
Shajarat al-h
* ikma and Risala f Tadl al-ulum (cf. S
* aid al-Andalus, T
* abaqat
al-umam, ed. H
* ayat Bu Alwan [Beirut, 1985], p. 165).
3
Cf. pp. 36374 of the art. by Miguel Asn Palacios, La tesis de la necesidad de la
revelacin en el islam y en la escolstica, Al-Andalus, 3 (1935): 34589; Marie
Genevive Balty-Guesdon, Mdecins et hommes de science en Espagne musulmane
(IIe / VIIIeVe / XIe s.), unpublished doctoral dissertation (Universit de la
Sorbonne Nouvelle), issued in microfiche (Lille, 1992), pp. 3024; Daro Cabanelas,

IBN BA
z JJA AND THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES

289

such scientific productivity it is natural that someone such as

S
* aid al-Andalus should have written a historical treatise,
Kitab T
* abaqat al-umam, to record the progress of al-Andalus in
this field.4
The classifications of Ibn H
* azm and Ibn Abd al-Barr are
already known, and the role that the classification of the
sciences plays in S
* aids work has also been discussed. The
present paper aims to add to this collection by describing Ibn
Bajjas classification.5 We will begin with a brief survey of the
writings of the authors mentioned above, with three aims in
mind: first, to provide a context for Ibn Bajjas work; second, to
evaluate his work and to reassess its forerunners with regard to
the intellectual environment of the time; and third, to study the
influence of the Aristotelian classification of the sciences and
of the Ih
**sa al-ulum6 by al-Farab on Andalus scientists and
philosophers of the 5th / 11th century.
II. ANDALUSIz CLASSIFICATIONS: IBN H
* AZM AND IBN ABD
AL-BARR

As is well known, the only extant monograph that focuses on

the classification of the sciences written in al-Andalus is
Maratib al-ulum by Ibn H
* azm. This work has a precedent in
the ideas that his master Abu Umar ibn Abd al-Barr expounds
Ibn Sda de Murcia. El mayor lexicgrafo de al-Andalus (Granada, 1966),
pp. 724.
4
More explicitly, Ibn H
* azm wrote his Risala f Fad
* l al-Andalus to celebrate
the intellectual achievements of al-Andalus, and mentions a large number of
scientists.
5
A study on Andalusian classifications of sciences can be found in the
introductory study of the edition of Ibn H
* azms Maratib al-ulum by Anwar G.
Chejne, Ibn H
* azm (Chicago, 1982), in which the author also deals with Abu
Umar ibn Abd al-Barr and S
* aid al-Andalus. An interesting chapter on this
question and on the same authors can be found in Balty-Guesdon, Mdecins et
hommes de science, pp. 45873. Further bibliographical references will be given
below.
6
I have used the edition of ngel Gonzlez Palencia, Al-Farab. Catlogo de
las ciencias (Madrid-Granada, 1953). This book contains a translation into
Spanish, the edition by Guilelmus Camerarius of Dominicus Gundissalinus Latin
translation and the Latin translation by Gerard of Cremona. As for the secondary
bibliography, I refer the reader to the titles listed in note 1 above and also to the
most interesting study by Muhsin S. Mahdi in his Al-Farab and the Foundation
of Islamic Political Philosophy (Chicago-London, 2001), chapter 4. A recent
summary of its contents can be found in Majid Fakhry, Al-Farab Founder of
Islamic Neoplatonism. His Life, Works and Influence (Oxford, 2002), pp. 4053.

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in a chapter in Kitab Jami bayan al-ilm.7 Ibn Abd al-Barr was

one of the outstanding religious scholars in the al-Andalus
of his time, and the Jami is a wide-ranging manual on the
importance of religious disciplines, their learning, transmission and teaching, compiled on the basis of the prophetical
h
* adth. He devotes a short chapter to the classification of
the sciences, where he distinguishes between religious (ilm
al-diyanat) and rational knowledge (here called sair al-ulum
al-muntah
* ala, the rest of the professed sciences).8 He gives
two classifications of science, one according to philosophers
(ahl al-falsafa), and the other according to religious scholars
(ahl al-diyanat). Both divide sciences into three levels:
superior, intermediate, and inferior. For the religious scholars,
the superior sciences are the ones that require knowledge of
divine revelation; intermediate sciences deal with worldly
things (such as medicine and geometry); and inferior
sciences with elementary knowledge such as writing, and arts
and crafts. The author says that philosophers have a similar
classification, in which the philosophical sciences are the
superior ones. Just as he omits philosophy from the religious
disciplines, Ibn Abd al-Barr does not state the place of the
religious disciplines in the philosophers classification, but he
explains the di#erences between the intermediate sciences
of the philosophers and religious scholars. Philosophers divide
them into arithmetic (ilm al-h
* isab), astronomy, medicine, and
music. After stating that religious scholars do not accept
music, Ibn Abd al-Barr describes in great detail the subjects
dealt with by mathematics, astronomy and medicine from the
point of view of what is acceptable in religion. The only subject
explicitly denounced is astrology: the author devotes a long
paragraph to its condemnation. He also includes a three-tier
classification of the religious sciences.
7
Kitab Jami bayan al-ilm wa-fad
* lihi wa-ma yanbagh f riwayatihi wa-h
* amlihi
(Beirut, s.a.), pp. 3640. A complete, recent biography and bibliography of Ibn
Abd al-Barr can be found in the art. Ibn Abd al-Barr, Abu Umar, by Maribel
Fierro, in Jorge Lirola and Jos Miguel Puerta Vlchez (eds.), Enciclopedia de
al-Andalus. Diccionario de autores y obras andaluses (Granada, 2002), I, pp. 287
92. On his classification of the sciences, see Chejne, Ibn H
* azm, pp. 8992 and
index, and Balty-Guesdon, Mdecins et hommes de science, pp. 4712.
8
Note the ecumenical spirit of the author, who refers to religious scholars and
sciences in plural, suggesting that the same conception of knowledge can be
found in any religion. By the same token, he qualifies profane sciences with the
adjective muntah
* al, in much the same way as if they were religious doctrines.

IBN BA
z JJA AND THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES

291

Though not strictly speaking a scientist or a philosopher, Ibn

Abd al-Barr was by no means ignorant of these subjects.
Indeed, he wrote an important treatise on faraid
* (arithmetic
applied to inheritances) which is known to have influenced
Ibn Sayyid al-Kalb, one of the most important al-Andalus
mathematicians of the 5th / 11th century.9 In this chapter on
the classification of the sciences, he shows an awareness of
many of them, and Balty-Guesdon even suggests that the
structure of his classification may have been influenced by that
of the Ikhwan al-S
* afa. From his pages we can infer an
acceptance (found also in other religious scholars of his time)
of a wide range of subjects which did not challenge orthodoxy
and were also socially useful, though the criterion of social
utility is not explicitly stated. Nonetheless, he does not bring
together the sciences of reason and faith in a single corpus; in
fact, the two spheres are presented as if they were two separate
worlds.
Ibn H
* azm10 attempts to combine reason and faith, perhaps
because unlike his master he was well trained in philosophy,
though not in science, apart from some knowledge of medicine.11 In the Maratib al-ulum the author presents a syllabus
to enable the student to acquire a global knowledge that
harmonizes rational and religious sciences. This syllabus is
structured in three tiers that coincides faithfully with the three
levels of sciences defined by Ibn Abd al-Barr. At the elementary level, the student must learn to read and write and
memorize the Koran. At the intermediate stage, he must learn
grammar, poetry, mathematics, geometry, astronomy (not
astrology), then logic, botany, zoology, mineralogy and
9
Cf. Heinrich Suter, Die Mathematiker und Astronomen der Araber und ihre
Werke (Leipzig, 19001902; reprinted in Amsterdam, 1981), p. 104, no. 236. On Ibn
Sayyid, see Ahmed Djebbar, Deux mathmaticiens peu connus de lEspagne du
XIe sicle: al-Mutaman et Ibn Sayyid, in Menso Folkerts & Jan P. Hogendijk
(eds.), Vestigia Mathematica: Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Mathematics
in Honour of H.L.L. Busard (Amsterdam-Atlanta, 1993), pp. 7991.
10
We should mention some additional bibliography relating to Ibn H
* azm. He
deals with the classification of the sciences in his Maratib al-ulum, as stated, and
in some other works which are listed in note 2 on p. 50 of the article by Salvador
Gmez Nogales, Teora y clasificacin de la ciencia segn Ibn H
* azm,
Miscelnea de Estudios rabes y Hebraicos, 1415 (196566): 4973. This article
remains a useful approach to this subject. More recent studies can be found in
Balty-Guesdon, Mdecins et hommes de science, pp. 46873; Juan Vernet, Lo que
Europa debe al Islam de Espana (Barcelona, 1999), pp. 589.
11
Cf. Chejne, Ibn H
* azm, pp. 389.

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MIQUEL FORCADA

anatomy. At the superior level, the student must study what

Jolivet calls a sort of rational theology.12 Underlying this
classification is an Aristotelian-Farabian order distorted by
Ibn H
* azms own criteria, the most important of which was,
obviously, the subordination of any knowledge to the revealed
truth, that is to say, to the only sciences that lead to salvation.
Rational sciences are merely a propaedeutic tool for the
religious.
III. S
*A
z ID AL-ANDALUSIzS CLASSIFICATION OF THE
SCIENCES: BETWEEN AL-FA
z RA
z BIz AND IBN BA
z JJA

S
* aid al-Andalus was a judge, but also a pure scientist, an
astronomer, who was interested in history. Merging the two
disciplines he wrote his famous Kitab T
* abaqat al-umam,13 in
which he intended to present a systematic summary of the
history of science and scientists since time immemorial. The
book deals almost exclusively with the sciences of the ancients,
and, unlike the works mentioned above, includes astrology.
However, religious sciences are omitted, as is the religious
perspective on sciences, which is at the core of Ibn H
* azm and
Ibn Abd al-Barrs classifications. As noted above, S
* aids book
is a true celebration of rational sciences. Astronomy was his
lifes work; it is the science that occupies him most in T
* abaqat,
in which he also discusses other mathematical disciplines. He
possibly had some knowledge of medicine, due, perhaps, to the
importance of the discipline in Toledo and to his personal
relationship with some of the outstanding physicians of this
city such as Ibn Wafid.
Though we do not know whether S
* aid was trained in
philosophy, he must have had some knowledge of the discipline. In the learned Toledan circles to which he belonged14
there were many people with a knowledge of philosophy and, in
12

Jolivet, Classification, p. 1008.

As for the bibliography about the author and the work, I refer the reader to
my article Biografas de cientficos, in MaI Luisa vila and Manuela Marn
(eds.), Estudios Onomstico-Biogrficos de al-Andalus, VIII. Biografas y gnero
biogrfico en el occidente islmico (Madrid, 1997), pp. 20148, and Gabriel
Martinez Gros, S
* aid al-Andalus, Encyclopdie de lIslam, 2nd ed. (Leiden,
1995), VIII, p. 889.
14
On philosophy in the kingdom of Toledo at that time, see Rafael Ramn
Guerrero, La filosofa en la corte de al-Mamun de Toledo, Miscelnea de
Estudios rabes y Hebraicos, 3233 (198384): 16779, and Balty-Guesdon,
Mdecins et hommes de science, pp. 298314.
13

IBN BA
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293

T
* abaqat, we can see that he held the discipline in high esteem:
he tries to draw attention to it by highlighting the works of the
few Andalus philosophers he knew at that time (namely Ibn
H
* azm and Ibn Sda, both mentioned as logicians); he describes
in great detail all the scientists who were knowledgeable of
philosophical disciplines, although they were not philosophers;
finally, he shows an adequate knowledge of the falsafa, particularly of Aristotle and al-Farab. He describes the latters books
on logic, the Ih
**sa al-ulum, and some of his most important
works,15 so accurately that he may actually have studied them.
The clearest evidence that he had read some al-Farab can be
found in the description of Aristotelian works and in the
enumeration of the Greek philosophical schools presented in
T
* abaqat, which are practically literal quotations from the
short tract Risala f ma yanbagh an yuqaddam qabla taallum
al-falsafa.16
The classification of the sciences appears in T
* abaqat in two
ways. First, directly, in S
* aids extremely favourable description of the Ih
**sa al-ulum: There had never been a book like it
and no one has tried to imitate it. No student of any of the
sciences can do without it or proceed without it;17 and second,
indirectly, in the way in which S
* aid arranges the various
disciplines and authors included in the book.18 In this connection, we should note that the Farabian order does not appear as
such, for obvious reasons: being a work of the *tabaqat genre,
the chronological criterion had to be respected; most of S
* aid
biographees were active in several disciplines, a fact that
makes a stratification science-by-science impossible; finally, an
experienced scientist like S
* aid had his own criteria and
preferences. What is really of interest to us is the idea that the
Ih
**sa is a guide for correct scientific training, even though this
book has not a pedagogic purpose. In the biography of one of
15

S
* aid, T
* abaqat, pp. 13740.
I have used the editions by F. Dieterici, Al-Farabs philosophische
Abhandlungen (Leiden, 1890), pp. 4955 and Muh
* ammad T. Daneshpazuh,
al-Mant*iqiyyat li-al-Farab, I (Qum, 1408 / 19878), pp. 110, together with the
Spanish translation by Rafael Ramn Guerrero, Una introduccin de al-Farab a
la filosofia, Al-Qant*ara, 5 (1984): 514. Compare pp. 501 of the ed. by Dieterici
and 14 of the ed. by Daneshpazuh with pp. 7681 and 923 of T
* abaqat.
17
S
* aid, T
* abaqat, pp. 2056; English translation by Semaan I. Salem and Alok
Kumar, Science in the Medieval World by S
* aid al-Andalus (Austin, 1991), p. 50.
18
On the classification of the sciences in S
* aid and al-Farabs influence, see
Balty-Guesdon, Mdecins et hommes de science, pp. 45863, and Forcada,
Biografas de cientficos, pp. 2218.
16

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the outstanding Jewish scholars of Saragossa, Abu al-Fad

*l
H
* asday ibn Yusuf ibn H
* asday, the relationship between classification of the sciences and education is explicitly described:
Among their youths who live in our era, we name Abu al-Fad
*l H
* asday b.
Yusuf b. H
* asday of the city of Saragossa and of the Jewish nobility in
al-Andalus; he is a descendant of the Prophet Moses peace be upon
him. Abu al-Fad
* l studied the sciences in the proper order, adopting the
best methods. He learned with precision the Arabic language, its
rhetoric, and the composition of poetry. He excelled in the science of
number, geometry and astronomy. He understood the art of music and
tried to practice it. He showed deep interest in the science of logic and
practiced the various methods of research and observations in this field.
Then he elevated himself to the study of the natural sciences and began
by studying [sam] the Kitab al-Kiyan [Physics] of Aristotle until he
understood it well, then he took to the study of Kitab al-Sama
wa-al-A
z lam [De Caelo et Mundo]. This is when I left him in A.H. 458
[A.D. 1066], while he was uncovering the unknown. If Allah provides
him with His protection, and he lives long, he shall perform well in the
field of philosophy and all its branches.19

This paragraph is important for several reasons. First of all, as

Balty-Guesdon notes, because it lays out S
* aids conception of
the classification and order of the sciences.20 Second, as BaltyGuesdon also remarks, because the list of disciplines given
coincides closely with the order of the Ih
**sa, even though logic
is placed between mathematical disciplines and physics and
not before mathematics, as it is in the Ih
**sa. In this connection,
it is worth noting that Abu al-Fad
*l H
* asdays biography, Ibn
H
* azms Maratib and al-Kinds classification of the sciences put
logic in the same place.21 Actually, the order of disciplines in
al-Kinds Risala f Kammiyyat Kutub Arist*u*tals, which has a
didactic purpose, is the one that coincides best with the
paragraph by S
* aid quoted above. The third reason for stressing the importance of this text is that it records actual
facts (since the author knew the biographee personally),
and explains how the sciences of the ancients were taught
and learned in Ibn Bajjas homeland. We thus see that the
19

S
* aid, T
* abaqat, pp. 2056; English trans., pp 812. On this author, see Jos
M Mills Vallicrosa, La poesa sagrada hebraicoespanola (Madrid, 1940), pp. 445
and 83, Eliahu Ashtor, H
* isdai ibn H
* isday, Abu l-Fad
* l, Encyclopaedia Judaica
(Jerusalem, 1972), VIII, p. 533, and section 4.1. below.
20
Balty-Guesdon, Mdecins et hommes de science, p. 459.
21
Jolivet, Classification, pp. 100910. See al-Kind, Risala f Kammiyyat
Kutub Arist*u*tals, ed. Muh
* ammad Abd al-Had Abu Rda (Cairo, 1950), I, pp. 369
and 378.
a
I

IBN BA
z JJA AND THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES

295

Aristotelian classification, known through al-Kind or alFarab, was vital to the learning of the sciences; that young
students were expected to have acquired wide training in most
of the sciences; and finally, that the teaching of the sciences of
the ancients had been systematized since Abu al-Fad
*l H
* asday
ibn Yusuf ibn H
* asday learned the Physics by listening to a
master and not via his own study. Seen in connection with Ibn
Bajja, the text appears to be more than a mere description of a
given context.
IV. IBN BA
z JJAS CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES

4.1. Autobiographical aspects

It is well known that during the time of the muluk al-t*awaif
(5th / 11th century) many scholars frequented and settled in
Saragossa, which was ruled by a learned dynasty. Al-Muqtadir
and al-Mutaman ibn Hud, both described as knowledgeable of
many scientific and philosophic disciplines (the latter in fact
was the author of the Kitab al-Istikmal, one of the most
important mathematical treatises ever written in al-Andalus),
promoted an intellectual climate in which the influence of the
Ikhwan al-S
* afa and al-Farab was widely felt.22
In such an environment, it is hard to see Ibn H
* asdays
training as an exception rather than the rule. It seems to have
been an example of a system that was relatively common among
the minority (quite a large minority in Saragossa) of the
followers of the sciences of the ancients. This model of learning
according to the Aristotelian classification was followed by Ibn
Bajja,23 as he himself acknowledges in a letter24 to Abu Jafar
22

There is a huge bibliography on Saragossan scholars. I refer the reader to

the following introductory surveys and summaries: Joaqun Lomba, La filosofa
islmica en Zaragoza (Saragossa, 1987), and El Ebro: puente de Europa.
Pensamiento musulmn y judo (Saragossa, 2002), particularly pp. 133207 y 329
483; Balty-Guesdon, Mdecins et hommes de science, pp. 32543; Julio Sams, Las
ciencias de los antiguos en al-Andalus (Madrid, 1992), index; p. 258 of Juan Vernet
and Julio Sams, The development of Arabic science in Andalusia, in
Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science, I, 24375.
23
Ibn Bajjas life has been widely studied. I refer the reader to the most recent
biography, Joaqun Lomba and Jos Miguel Puerta Vlchez, Ibn Bajja,
Enciclopedia de al-Andalus, I, 62463.
24
Ibn Bajja, Rasail falsafiyya li-Ab Bakr ibn Bajja. Nus*u*s falsafiyya ghayr
manshura, ed. Jamal al-Dn al-Alaw (Beirut-Casablanca, 1983), pp. 789. This
letter appeared together with a manuscript of his Physics, as we can see on

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Yusuf ibn H
* asday (an Andalus physician who emigrated to
Egypt)25 in which he explains the order in which he learned
various sciences: after having mastered music, he studied
astronomy and then physics. Before starting on physics he must
have studied logic while trying to acquire a thorough knowledge of astronomy in Seville. Like Ibn H
* asday, Ibn Bajja
progressed from mathematical to philosophical matters via the
study of logic and physics, as we can see in the following lines
of the above mentioned letter:
Meanwhile [in the course of his studies of astronomy] I did not
understand properly al-Farabs treatment of the various types of
apodictic demonstration (burhan) which he enumerated, and this
remained a subject that I have only recently been able to elucidate. Then
I devoted myself to speculation on physics, which is the task I most
prefer. Of all the issues of the Physics [. . .]. I have commented it because
it contains the principles and all that comes after is its consequence.26

Many years ago, following Sterns suggestion,27 Pines proposed

that there was a link between the Saragossan and the Egyptian
H
* asdays (Abu Jafar Yusuf may have been a son of Abu
al-Fad
* l). Since then, this relationship has been accepted by
other scholars who have studied the biographical sources in
great detail.28 Vernet goes as far as to suggest that the H
* asdays
were one and the same person, speculating that he may have
died around 515 / 1121, at the age of seventy-five. Whatever the
case, these biographical considerations strengthen the link
between Ibn Bajja and a method of teaching that was structured according to the Aristotelian classification and in which
logic had an essential function. Let us now look at the role of
pp. 4434 of Shlomo Pines, La dynamique dIbn Bajja, Mlanges Alexandre
Koyr (Paris, 1964), I, pp. 44268; reprinted in The Collected Works of Shlomo
Pines (Jerusalem, 1986), vol. II, pp. 44068.
25
Ibn Ab Us*aybia, Uyun al-anba f *tabaqat al-at*ibba, ed. N. Rid
* a (Beirut,
1965), pp. 499500.
26
Ibn Bajja, Rasail, p. 79. The blank corresponds to some words that make no
sense to the editor. Pines (La dynamique, p. 444), who acknowledges the
di$culties of this text, renders the last part of it as: Puis je me suis consacr
la spculation concernant la physique. Je nai pas pris cette dcision pour
travailler sur les choses claires qui se trouvent dans lAkroasis Physik (sama
al-t*ab ) [. . .] Je lai prise parce que cet ouvrage contient les principes, et tout ce
qui vient aprs en est une consquence.
27
Pines, La dynamique, p. 444, n. 7.
28
J. Vernet, La transmisin de algunas ideas cientficas de oriente a occidente y
de occidente a oriente en los siglos XIXIII (Rome, 1992), pp. 2531; Lomba, El
Ebro, pp. 3367.

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logic in Ibn Bajjas approach to mathematical sciences and

physics.
4.2. Logic and scientific method in Ibn Bajjas work: an
overview
As regards the role of logic, the autobiographical text already
seen is consistent with the textual evidence in Ibn Bajjas
works. This discipline was an essential element in his training
and left a decisive imprint on his early work. Unfortunately,
little is known on the subject since his writings on logic have
not been thoroughly studied.29 Though we cannot survey in
depth either his logic or his conception of the scientific method,
it is worth noting that, to him, logic is something more than a
propaedeutic and instrumental discipline. Indeed, it is more
than the underlying skeleton of any reasoning: it is an art that
provides the ultimate certainty, against which the scientist
(understanding the term in its modern sense) must always
check his conclusions. The Organon, and specifically the book
that deals with the scientific method, Posterior Analytics
(Kitab al-Burhan),30 thus becomes an important reference in
several of his works such as his commentary on the Physics31
and at least three short tracts on science, particularly his
Kalam f al-haya.32 This last treatise, which seems to have been
29

Lomba, El Ebro, pp. 2323.

Ibn Bajja knew Posterior Analytics via the commentary by al-Farab, which
he glosses in Talq Kitab al-Burhan. This work has been edited by M. Fakhry,
al-Mant*iq inda al-Farab. Kitab al-Burhan wa-Kitab Sharait* al-yaqn maa
taalq Ibn Bajja ala al-burhan (Beirut, 1987), pp. 10659, and Muh
* ammad T.
Daneshpazuh, al-Mant*iqiyyat li-al-Farab, 3 (Qum, 1410 / 198990), pp. 295381.
31
Pp. 1516 of M. Fakhrs ed. of Ibn Bajjas Physics, Abu Bakr Ibn al-S
* aig.
Sharh
* al-Sima al-t*ab li-Arist*u*tals (Beirut, 1973). See also pp. 82 and 1301 of
the same work, and Paul Lettink, Aristotles Physics and its Reception in the
Arabic World with an Edition of the Unpublished Parts of Ibn Bajjas
Commentary on the Physics (Leiden-New York-Kln, 1994), pp. 13, 111 and 599
600. In Ibn Bajjas commentaries to On Generation and Corruption and
Meteorology we also find significant references to logical works (vz. p. 33 of the
ed. by Josep Puig Montada, Avempace, Libro de la generacin y corrupcin
[Madrid, 1995], and pp. 41523 of the ed. by P. Lettink in Aristotles Meteorology
and its Reception in the Arabic World [Leiden-Boston-Kln, 1999]).
32
See the epistle addressed to Ibn H
* asday quoted above (Rasail, ed. Alaw,
pp. 7781) and another addressed to Ibn al-Imam (Rasail, ed. Alaw, pp. 88102).
The Kalam f al-haya is contained in the famous ms. Berlin no. 5060, now extant
in the Jagellonian Library of Krakow fols. 203r204v. I owe a photocopy of these
pages to the generosity of Prof. Joaqun Lomba, to whom I am extremely grateful.
This treatise has been partially edited by Salm Yafut in Ibn Bajja wa-ilm
30

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conceived as an appendix of his commentary to al-Farabs

Burhan, consists of a study on the correctness of the scientific
method used by the astronomers in order to criticise them. He
also addresses essential epistemological concepts such as
tas*dq and tas*awwur and, albeit only in passing, the order and
primacy of sciences.33 In other works he also studies the
problematic of scientific method in non-mathematical sciences
such as biology and medicine, and devotes to the subject a large
number of pages in which he also addresses mathematical
sciences.34
4.3. Ibn Bajjas classification of the sciences
Ibn Bajjas longest text on the subject appears as an explanatory interpolation in his glosses to al-Farabs commentary to
Porphyrys Isagoge.35 So the classification of the sciences is
inserted in the introduction to the Organon; in other words, a
propaedeutic question appears at the very beginning of Ibn
Bajjas process of understanding a propaedeutic discipline. The
text is the following:36

al-falak al-bat*lmus, Dirasat f tarkh al-ulum wa-al-ibistmulujiya, coord. S.

Yafut (Rabat, 1996), pp. 65-73. On this treatise, see p. 151 and passim of the
article by Gerhard Endress, Mathematics and philosophy in medieval Islam, in
Jan P. Hogendijk and Abdelhamid I. Sabra (eds.), The Enterprise of Science in
Islam (Cambridge-London, 2003), pp. 12176.
33
The study of tas*dq and tas*awwur in Ibn Bajja is beyond the scope to this
article. He addresses the famous couplet in many treatises and his glosses to
al-Farabs logic are the most important source on this question (see, particularly,
his Taalq to Burhan, already quoted, and to al-Isaghuj and al-Fus*ul al-Khamsa,
edited by M. Fakhry in Taalq Ibn Bajja ala Mant*iq al-Farab (Beirut, 1994),
and by Daneshpazuh in al-Mant*iqiyyat li-al-Farab, 3). Consequently, Ibn Bajjas
thought about this issue is profoundly indebted to that of al-Farab; on the latter,
see the following studies: Deborah L. Black, Logic and Aristotles Rhetoric and
Poetics in Medieval Arabic Philosophy (Leiden et al., 1990), pp. 718; Miriam
Galston, Opinion and Knowledge in Farabs Understanding of Aristotles
Philosophy, unpublished Ph.D. thesis of the University of Chicago, 1973, pp. 204
10; Joep Lameer, Al-Farab and Aristotelian Syllogistics. Greek Theory and
Islamic Practice (Leiden et al., 1994), pp. 266 and seq. and 275 and seq.
34
See Ibn Bajjas Kitab al-H
* ayawan, ed. Jawwad al-Ammarat (CasablancaBeirut, 2002), particularly pp. 6577, and Ibn Bajjas commentary to Hippocratess
Aphorisms, unedited work preserved in ms. Berlin 5060, fols. 85a90a.
35
The glosses of Ibn Bajja to Farabian Isagoge are gathered in two short
tracts, Kitab Isaghuj and Gharad
* Ab Nas*r f Isaghuj which can be found in the
above quoted editions by Fakhry in pp. 2362, and by Daneshpazuh in pp. 1651.
36
Ed. Fakhry, pp. 279; ed. Daneshpazuh, pp. 1719.

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The syllogistic arts are those whose object consists of being used once
integrated and perfected, and they do not have among their aims the
doing of some particular work. They are five: philosophy and its arts.
Philosophy is the art that comprehends all beings (mawjudat)37 in so far
as they are known via a certain science. Its parts are established
according to the parts of beings.
Among them, there is theology [al-ilm al-ilah], which comprehends
the beings which are the ultimate causes of anything a#ected by them,
and are neither a body nor in a body.
Among them, there is physical science [al-ilm al-t*ab], the theoretical art by which the true science in natural bodies, and in the accidents
of the essence as well, is attained. It comprehends all beings whose
existence does not originate in the human will,38 which are the bodies
composed by matter and form and their inherent accidents with respect
to matter and form.
Among them is the science of the will [al-ilm al-irad, politics], which
comprehends the beings that exist through human will and choice. They
consist of virtues and vices.
Among them are the mathematical sciences [al-taalm], which comprehend beings separated from matter but not from number and
measure. They are divided into seven classes: the first is arithmetic [ilm
al-adad], which studies the properties and characters of numbers; the
second is geometry [ilm al-handasa], which studies the line, the surface
and the body taken in themselves; the third is optics [ilm al-manaz*ir,
the science of the aspects], which studies the line, the surface and the
body in so far as they are objects of observation; the fourth is astronomy
[ilm al-nujum], which studies the quantity of movements of celestial
bodies, their structure, and the dimension of their sizes and distances;
the fifth is music, which studies the sounds and their relations, as well
as their harmony and discord, and enumerates their properties concerning their measure; the sixth is statics [ilm al-athqal, the science of the
weights] which studies either their measure or what is measured by
them, and the way of lifting and moving them from a place to another;
the seventh is the science of artifices [ilm al-h
* iyal],39 which studies the
way of making real many things that can be proved theoretically by
means of mathematical sciences. The artifice seeks to remove the
obstacles that impede its existence and also the contrary. There are
37
The term mawjudat is employed very frequently by al-Farab to designate the
object of the sciences, as we can see, for example, in the Ih
**sa in the chapter
devoted to metaphysics and Tah
**sl al-Saada (vz. pp. 89 of Hyderabads edition,
1344 / 1925; pp. 1819 of Muhsin Mahdis translation in Al-Farabs Philosophy of
Plato and Aristotle [New York, 1962]). On the equivalence of this term, see pp.
1812 in Richard Lemay, Gerard of Cremona, Dictionary of Scientific Biography,
XV (supplement I), (New York, 1978), pp. 17392.
38
The negative sense that this sentence requires is not recorded in the
editions. The whole sentence should be read, in my opinion, as: wa-huwa
yashtamilu ala al-mawjudat allat wujuduha [laysa] bi-iradati al-insan as*lan.
39
I prefer not to translate this term by its standard equivalent engineering
because in al-Farab and Ibn Bajja this word has a more general meaning, as we
will see presently.

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mathematical artifices [adadiyya] such as algebra, geometrical artifices

[handasiyya] and static artifices [athqaliyya].
Among them is the art of logic, which comprehends all the inherent
properties of beings that appear to the human mind when it speculates
about each one of these beings. Because of those properties and their
knowledge, [the art of logic] is a tool that permits the comprehension of
what is correct and certain in beings. For this reason, some consider it
only as an instrument of philosophy, not as a part of it, but, in so far as
those properties are, in turn, beings, and their knowledge, the science of
a certain kind of beings, some others consider it as a part of philosophy.
Both aspects occur in it. Philosophy has thus become a word that
comprehends theology, physics, the science of the will and mathematical
sciences.
The art of logic which provides the rules to grasp the true knowledge
in these beings and in the various arts that philosophy comprehends as
well, is named demonstration [burhan].
As for dialectics [jadal], it is the art that comprehends beings in so
far as it employs in them the confirmation and refutation through
known methods, and its most important aim is to give a solid opinion
from them. It is a technique [mihna] that employs practice in refuting
and confirming some position. The part of logic that gives the rules of
this art is also named dialectics, and its name is given by homonymy
[bi-al-ishtirak].
As for sophistry, it is the art that comprehends beings in so far as one
disguises and misleads them, and their truth is represented in the form
of error and the error in the form of truth. Its most important aim is to
induce error about truth and to oppose it. The part of logic that gives the
rules of this art is named sophistry, and its name is also given by
homonymy.
As for rhetoric [khit*aba], it is the art that comprehends beings in so far
as they are studied through the accepted methods and what is believed
without further consideration. Its most important aim is the trust in
something. It is a technique employed to teach common people the
demonstrative things of sciences that they cannot judge for themselves.
The part of logic that gives the rules of this art is also named rhetoric,
and its name is given by homonymy.
As for poetry [shir], it is the art that comprehends beings in so far as
they are imagined and represented with images. It is a technique
employed to teach common people what they can themselves represent
of the things conceived in the sciences. Its most important aim is to
compare a thing with its image, in as much as the form of Zayd can be
seen in a mirror. The part of logic that gives the rules of this art is also
named poetry, and its name is also given by homonymy.
All these are the syllogistic arts, whose operation and aim, once
perfected, consists of applying syllogisms. All of them, with the exception of philosophy, have recourse to syllogisms only for discourse
[mukha*taba], whereas philosophy for discourse and deduction. Among
the practical arts [s*anai amaliyya], there are some which use syllogisms, such as medicine and agronomy, but they are not termed

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syllogistic because their ultimate aim is not to discourse and to employ

syllogism but to do some kind of work.

This text is like a set of Russian dolls. The general framework

is set out by the abovementioned work by al-Farab, Kitab
Isaghuj ay al-Madkhal,40 which begins with the following
words: Our purpose in this book is the enumeration of
the things of which judgments are composed and into which
they are divided, viz., the parts of the syllogistic expressions
employed in general in all the syllogistic arts. Ibn Bajja
devotes more than a page to glossing this sentence, often word
by word, until he reaches the expression syllogistic arts, the
commentary of which is the text translated above.
The text is framed with the materials provided by another of
the introductory works by al-Farab, usually known by the
heading of one of its manuscripts, Risala S
* udira biha alKitab.41 At the beginning, al-Farab sums up and briefly
explains the disciplines that use the syllogism, in a text which,
though lacking any reference to religious and linguistic disciplines, seems to be the archetype of his Ih
**sa al-ulum. From
here, Ibn Bajja extracts the main issues of his text, sometimes
reproducing them literally: the absence of an explanation
of the distinction between *sinaa and ilm; the distinction
between syllogistic and non-syllogistic disciplines; parts of
logic. Since this Farabian text contains only extremely brief
explanations of these subjects, particularly of the mathematical sciences, Ibn Bajja completes it by extracting several
parts of Ih
**sa al-ulum.42 Thus, four mathematical disciplines
(arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music) become the seven
seen above and are defined with the words of the Ih
**sa. Ibn
Bajjas text is not particularly original, but in some instances
40
I have used the edition by Daneshpazuh, al-Mant*iqiyyat li-al-Farab, 1,
pp. 2839, together with the edition and translation into English by Donald M.
Dunlop, Al-Farabs Eisagoge, Islamic Quarterly, 3 (1956): 11738. See also the
Spanish translation and a helpful introduction by R. Ramn Guerrero, Al-Farab
lgico. Su exposicin a la Isagog de Porfirio, Revista de Filosofa, 3 (1990):
4567.
41
I have used the edition by Daneshpazuh, al-Mant*iqiyyat li-al-Farab, 1,
pp. 1117, together with the edition and translation into English by D. M.
Dunlop, Al-Farabs Introductory Risalah on Logic, Islamic Quarterly, 3 (1956):
22435.
42
D. M. Dunlop noted many years ago the presence of materials from Risala
S
* udira and Ih
**sa in this text by Ibn Bajja (cf. Al-Farabs Introductory Risalah,
p. 224).

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he di#ers from the two Farabian referents. The following

features are worth noting:
(a) The author adds a general definition of philosophy that
is consistent with the statements of al-Farab in Tah
**sl al43
saada.
(b) He attributes a secondary role to metaphysics and politics (named al-ilm al-madan by al-Farab and al-ilm al-irad
by Ibn Bajja).
(c) However, he deals with physics and mathematical
sciences in more detail.
(d) He questions the status of logic as a science. In Risala
S
* udira al-Farab mentions it as a philosophical tool, but he
does not pose the question of whether it is in fact a science. In
Ih
**sa, logic is not named a theoretical science in the chapter
devoted to it, but it is considered one of the theoretical sciences
(together with mathematics and natural sciences) in the chapter devoted to theology.44 Ibn Bajjas reason for considering
logic as a science coincides with the thought of al-Farab, who
maintains that the subject of logic is a particular class of being,
di#erent from mathematical and natural beings.45
The third point deserves our attention, because it appears to be
connected with Ibn Bajjas own intellectual evolution and it is
here that we find the main di#erence from the usual arrangement of sciences in al-Farabs works: the order of the three
major disciplines (the other is that Ibn Bajja presents them in
descending order). The subjects that Ibn Bajja focuses on here,
physics and mathematics, are those which he says dominated
before the start of his epoch focused on philosophical disciplines, as we have seen before. His concern with physical
sciences seems to be the reason for his alteration of al-Farabs
arrangement of the major disciplines. Ibn Bajja presents them
43
Cf. Tah
**sl, p. 40; p. 44 of Mahdis translation: Now when one acquires
knowledge of the beings or receives instruction in them, if he perceives their
ideas themselves with his intellect, and his assent to them is by means of certain
demonstration, then the science that comprises these cognitions is philosophy.
44
Al-Farab, Ih
**sa, Arabic text, p. 88.
45
Cf. Mahdi, Al-Farab and the Foundation of Islamic Political Philosophy,
p. 80, and al-Farab, Falsafat Arist*u*tals, trans. by Mahdi, Al-Farabs Philosophy
of Plato and Aristotle, p. 82. About this classical question, see also A. I. Sabra,
Avicenna on the subject matter of logic, The Journal of Philosophy, 77 (1980):
74664 (reprinted in A. I. Sabra, Optics, Astronomy and Logic [AldershotBrookfield, 1994]), and Chejne, Ibn H
* azm, pp. 161-3.

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in descending order as follows: theology, physics and politics.

In Risala S
* udira and other texts such as Ih
**sa and Tah
**sl,
al-Farab places physics, theology and politics in ascending
order, after logic and the mathematical sciences. His criterion
is the order of instruction, which, in the path towards human
happiness, starts with the disciplines whose principles of
instruction are easier to grasp and finishes with the most
di$cult matters.46 Ibn Bajja, in the text we are dealing with,
only states that the parts of philosophy are established
according to the parts of beings and omits any further
explanation. His reasons are explicitly and thoroughly expounded in a later work, the commentary to Aristotles On the
Soul, in which he ranks psychology after metaphysics and
before politics. In this regard, it must be taken into account
that psychology, in spite of Aristotle hesitations, can be considered one of the physical sciences, and this is the position
that Ibn Bajja adopts in his commentary to On the Soul, which
is also consistent with al-Farabs Ih
**sa:47
All sciences, according to Aristotle, are a beautiful good, but some of
them are nobler than others, and the ranks of the nobility of the sciences
have been enumerated48 in many places. The science of the soul [i.e.
psychology] precedes the rest of the natural sciences, and the mathematical disciplines as well, in all kinds of nobility. By the same token,
all sciences are obliged to have recourse to the science of the soul since
it would be impossible for us to grasp the principles of sciences without
grasping the soul and knowing by the definition what is it, as has been
explained in many places. Also, it is well known that he who is not sure
of knowing the condition of his soul, is more likely to be unsure of the
knowledge of any other condition [. . .] The science of the soul permits
the investigator the possibility of employing premises without which the
physical science could not be complete. As for the political science
(al-h
* ikma al-madaniyya) it is not possible to say anything about it in an
appropriate order before the knowledge of the issues of the soul. Science
is noble either by the consistency (wathqa), which is the patent
certainty of its phrases, or by the nobility and admirable condition of its
subject, as in the case of astronomy. The science of the soul has both
conditions and it is worthy of being the noblest of the sciences with the
46

For a study of the reasons that underlie al-Farabs conception of the

hierarchy of the sciences and their classification, see Bakar, Classification of
Knowledge, pp. 43151 and 2636.
47
In this book psychology is also ranked among the physical sciences (cf.
Ih
**sa, Arabic text, p. 87).
48
This verb, here read as uddidat, can also be rendered by the first person of
singular and in active voice. I have no sound reason for preferring one or other
reading.

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exception of the science of the first principle (i.e. metaphysics). It seems

that the latter might be considered science in another way, distinct from
the rest of the sciences, due to the distinctiveness of the beings that it
deals with. It is not possible to know the first principle without a
previous knowledge of the soul, because the knowledge of it would be
incomplete. The most complete way of understanding the first principle
is the science that uses the possibility a#orded by the science of the
soul.49

We see in this paragraph that Ibn Bajja simultaneously applies

two di#erent criteria, ontological and methodological, which
he wisely combines. From the ontological point of view, the
nobility of the soul saves him from the contradiction of preferring the physical sciences (which also deal with the lowest part
of the hierarchy of beings) to politics, whose subject matter
could be seen as nobler; on the other hand, and for the same
reason, metaphysics must be placed ahead of any other science.
Regarding methodology, primacy corresponds to metaphysics
insofar as it is, according to al-Farabs Ih
**sa, Risala S
* udira
and related texts, the science of the principles par excellence.
Notwithstanding this, at the end of the paragraph he states
that we can only understand it once we are acquainted with the
very process of knowing, the mastery of which is considered the
key to any other scientific speculation. In this regard, politics
is explicitly said to be dependent on psychology.
The classification of the sciences that Ibn Bajja includes in
his glosses to al-Farabs Isagoge shows two complementary
facets. On the one hand, we see in it a relatively inexperienced
Ibn Bajja arranging some of the sciences he knows according to
a method that he still has not mastered, following a system that
leads him from the auxiliary and instrumental disciplines to
the superior ones. On the other, we can consider this classification against the background of his peculiar approach to
science. In this extension, these notes to al-Farabs commentary of Isagoge might be understood as a preliminary step in Ibn
Bajjas scientific (understanding the term in its broadest sense)
project. Within this project, we can include the commentaries
to the Organon in al-Farabs version, which are followed by
49

Ibn Bajja, Kitab al-Nafs, ed. Muh

* ammad S
* aghr H
* asan al-Mas*um (Beirut,
1992), pp. 2930, and ed. Jamal Rashiq (Fas, 1999), pp. 934. As it is well known,
psychology plays an essential role in Ibn Bajjas philosophy, but an account of
this question is far beyond the scope of this paper. I refer the reader to the
updated bibliographical references in the article by Lomba and Puerta Vlchez,
Ibn Bajja, quoted above.

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the commentaries to Aristotles theoretical science. This program has, in turn, a second side, whose object is the sciences
(understanding the term in its modern sense), some of which
would be revised according to the Aristotelian-Farabian
scientific method. In a sense, this aspect seems to result from a
slightly di#erent conception of the role of logic; whereas in
al-Kinds work it is placed between mathematical sciences and
philosophy, in al-Farabs Ih
**sa it is placed after the linguistic
disciplines and ahead of any of the sciences.
Since Ibn Bajja exerted a profound influence on the early
work of Ibn Rushd and on Ibn T
* ufayl, we can consider these
short lines about classification of the sciences a sort of prelude
to a new chapter in Andalus sciences, which was to reach its
highest point in the revolt against Ptolemaic astronomy.50
We know, albeit indirectly (through Maimonides), that Ibn
Bajja was a forerunner of that movement, even if the evidence
we have suggests that he was a follower of Ptolemy rather than
of Ptolemys critics.51 Nonetheless, works such as Kalam f
al-haya (whose influence can be traced in Ibn Rushds
Summary of the Almagest)52 and Ibn Bajjas concern with the
scientific method show that he (and perhaps other authors from
the Saragossan circles), may well have paved the way for Ibn
T
* ufayl, Ibn Rushd and al-Bit*ruj and their attempts to reformulate astronomy and medicine in order to make them compatible
with the fundamental tenets established by the philosophical
disciplines, particularly by Aristotles theoretical science and
logic. This conception of the sciences of the ancients as a
cohesive unit requires thorough training in most of them (if not
in all), particularly in logic and philosophical disciplines. An
50
As is well known, this expression was coined by Sabra in his The
Andalusian revolt against Ptolemaic astronomy, in Everett Mendelsohn (ed.),
Transformation and Tradition in the Sciences: Essays in Honor of I. Bernard
Cohen (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 13353 (reprinted in Sabra, Optics, Astronomy and
Logic).
51
On this subject and on Ibn Bajjas contribution, see M. Forcada, Averroes y
la ciencia, Averroes y los averrosmos. Actas del III Congreso Nacional de
Filosofa Medieval (Zaragoza, 1999), pp. 49102. This paper contains the necessary
bibliographical references, with the exception of the recent article by Jos Luis
Mancha, Al-Bit*rujs theory of the motions of the fixed stars, Archive for the
History of Exact Sciences, 58 (2004): 14382, which sheds new light on the
question, and the article by G. Endress quoted above.
52
Cf. pp. 53 and 567 of Juliane Lay, LAbrg de lAlmageste, un indit
dAverros en version hebraque, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 6 (1996):
2361.

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education of this kind was given in Saragossa and was strongly

influenced by Aristotelian classification of the sciences and,
perhaps, by al-Farabs works on this subject. Therefore, it
seems reasonable to hypothesize that the scientific and
philosophical program of some of the Andalus scholars who
flourished under the Almohads in the second half of the
6th / 12th century may have started at the end of the 5th / 11th
century in Saragossa. Ibn Bajja, the most outstanding scholar
to emerge from Saragossa, can be seen as a link between the
two generations, between the science of the 11th century and
that of the second half of the 12th.
V. CONCLUSIONS

The classifications of the sciences in al-Andalus can be considered as reflections of the scientific activity of the 5th / 11th
century, in so far as all of them mirror a relevant issue in the
question. The classifications by religious scholars and theologians (Ibn Abd al-Barr and Ibn H
* azm) show the problem of the
relationship between reason and faith, between ulum aqliyya
and ulum naqliyya, in a context of relative consensus that was
favourable to intellectual debate. Philosophy is potentially
seen as a conflictive science, particularly by Ibn Abd al-Barr,
but Ibn H
* azm solves the problem by appealing to its condition
as an ancilla theologiae. S
* aid al-Andalus complements the
perception of the earlier authors with a faithful portrait of
scientific progress in al-Andalus. His work reflects a fairly high
level of accomplishment in medicine, astronomy and other
mathematical disciplines, and a notable interest in philosophy,
although no major philosopher (apart from Ibn H
* azm) had yet
appeared in al-Andalus. He describes the breeding ground on
which the great Western falsafa was to flourish in the following
century. He tells us that the Aristotelian classification of the
sciences contributed to the scientific training in a way that we
are still far from understanding completely and that al-Farabs
Ih
**sa was known. Aristotle and al-Farabs order and classification of the sciences are thus linked to the flourishing of the
Andalus sciences of the ancients, and the best lesson that one
can learn from them the unity of knowledge seems to have
been particularly well understood in Saragossa, the most
important centre of mathematical and philosophical studies at
the time. Ibn Bajja, the major representative of this school,

IBN BA
z JJA AND THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES

307

writes a short text on the classification of the sciences, under

al-Farabs influence. These lines are merely a note to another
note to a minor tract by al-Farab, but show that a di#erent
conception of sciences and philosophy prevails among some
Andalus scholars. This text presents sciences as syllogistic
disciplines, in which accurate reasoning, structured according
to a given set of rules, must guide the work of the scientist. This
methodology would be followed by Ibn Bajja in several studies
that foreshadow an important chapter in Andalus science in
the 6th / 12th century.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Profs. Joaqun Lomba Fuentes, Julio Sams and Charles
Burnett for their extremely helpful suggestions and corrections on the
preliminary version of this paper.
Note added on proofs: Complementary references worthy of note appear
in a very recent title which deals briefly (pp. 1579) with the classification by Ibn Bajja studied in the present paper: Josep Puig Montada,
Philosophy in Andalusia: Ibn Bajja and Ibn T
* ufayl, in Peter Adamson
and Richard C. Taylor (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Arabic
Philosophy (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 15579.