Filename: Abu L-Barakat Al-Baghdadi.
Filename: Abu L-Barakat Al-Baghdadi.
Filename: Abu L-Barakat Al-Baghdadi.
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Table of Contents
2. Projectile Motion
3. The Acceleration
5. Meteorology
The attention to his work was drawn in modern scholarship by Shlomo Pines,
a scholar who devoted as early as 1938 a great attention to Ab l-Barakt's
innovative ideas in natural philosophy, especially to his Al-Kitb al-Mutabar.
Pines proposed to translate this titles as "The book of what has been
established by personal reflection" [1].
Famed as Awhad al-Zamn (unique of his time), Hibat-Allh ibn Al ibn Malk
The anecdotes related by the biographers reveal his often difficult relations
with his various patrons and their courts. Having become blind at the end of
his life, he died in Baghdad probably after 560 H/1164-65 CE. Rival of the
Christian physician Ibn al-Tilmdh, he had as his disciple and friend Ishq b.
Abraham b. Ezra, who composed on him a panegyric in Hebrew. Ibn
Khallkn's biographical dictionary describes him as very presumptuous', his
hauteur being revealed in his many disputes with contemporary scholars. His
involvement in philosophy seems to have been informal (even by the
standards of the time) and tentative, although this led him to genial insights
into natural philosophy, as it will be shown below.
4. A treatise on the cause of the visibility of the stars at night and their
invisibility at daytime, Risla f sabab zuhr al-kawkib laylan wa khaf'ih
nahran, written in answer to a question of Sultan Muhammad Tapar. In some
manuscripts it is wrongly ascribed to Ibn Sn [8]. It is preserved in Berlin [9],
Hyderabad and Mashhad [10].
5. A treatise on using the universal (astronomical) plate (Risla f l-amal bi-lsafha al-fqiyyah), preserved in Nide, Turkey [11].
2. Projectile Motion
But the path of the cannon ball made no sense within the context of
Aristotelian doctrine. The Aristotelian laws of motion stated that the natural
state of all earthly' objects was to be at rest. Motion away from the centre of
the Earth was only possible with a mover' which had to be in contact with the
object being moved. When the mover was removed, the object should fall
straight down to Earth.
But cannon balls (or projectiles generally) did not fall straight down to Earth
after they left the muzzle of the gun; they followed a curved path. Even the
most ardent supporter of Aristotle could see that there was a flaw in the
Aristotelian laws of motion. An alternative to the Aristotelian attempts to
explain the motion of projectiles was the concept of the impressed force that
gave rise to the famous impetus theory that was developed in Latin natural
philosophy between the 14th and 16th centuries. This theory can be traced
back to the critics addressed by Philoponus to the Aristotelian theory on this
issue. Joannes Philoponus (ca. 490ca. 570 CE) [15], also known as "John the
Grammarian", is Yhann al-Nahw for the Arabic tradition. His critics were
developed by Arabic scholars, including Ibn Sn, Ab l-Barakt al-Baghdd
and Ibn Bjja in the 12th-century Andalus. According to the theory of
impressed force, an incorporeal motive force that is imparted to the projectile
causing it to continue moving [16].
identical with, the one indicated by the term impetus that was coined by the
French philosopher and scientific theorist Jean Buridan (1300-1358) [18]. Ab
l-Barakt, like Ibn Sn, subscribes to the doctrine positing a "violent
inclination" (mayl qasr in Arabic). "Violent inclination" is opposed to the
"natural inclination" in virtue of which bodies removed from their natural
place tend to return to it; it is regarded as having been imparted by the
mover to a body in a state of violent motion (for instance, to a stone thrown
upward or to an arrow shot from a bow). The notion of violent inclination is
used to account for the continuation of violent motion after the separation of
the projectile from the mover. Like Buridan, and contrary to Ibn Sn, Ab lBarakt regards "violent inclination" as self-expending; it is used up in the
very process of violent motion [19].
The works of Ibn Sn, Ab al-Barakt al-Baghddi, Ibn Bjja and others led to
the development of the idea of impetus and momentum in Galileo's physics
in the 17th century [20].
3. The Acceleration
(2) The second cause of the acceleration of the motion of falling bodies is that
the force (i.e., gravity) generating natural inclination resides in the falling
body and produces a succession of natural inclinations in such a way that the
strength of the inclination increases throughout the fall.
He explains the acceleration in the fall of heavy objects by the fact that the
principle of natural inclination (mayl tab, a philosophical term developing to
a large extent the Greek famous rhope) [22] contained in them, furnishes
them with successive inclinations. In the trend of the commentaries in natural
philosophy inspired by Philoponus, it seems that the text of the Mutabar
treating of this doctrine is the first one, as far as is known at present, where
one finds implied this fundamental law of modern dynamics: a constant force
gives rise to an accelerated movement [23].
5. Meteorology
The interplay between words and concepts is given particular attention in the
al-Mutabar. For example, al-Baghdd developed his strikingly innovative
theory of time after reaching the conclusion that the word "time" as used in
everyday speech stands for a very fundamental concept, the true nature of
which has been obscured by scholastic analysis. According to Langermann,
perhaps most interesting among al-Baghdd's achievements is his
reappraisal of the idea of time. Dissatisfied with the regnant approach, which
treated time as an accident of the cosmos, he drew the conclusion that time
is an entity whose conception (maql al-zamn) is a priori and almost as
general as that of being, encompassing the sensible and the non-sensible,
that which moves and that which is at rest. Our idea of time results not from
abstraction, stripping accidents from perceived objects, but from a mental
representation based on an innate idea. Al-Baghdd stops short of offering a
precise definition of time, stating only that "were it to be said that time is the
measure of being (miqdr al-wujd), that would be better than saying [as
Aristotle does] that it is the measure of motion". His reclassification of time as
a subject for metaphysics rather than for physics represents a major
conceptual shift, not a mere formalistic correction. It also breaks the
traditional linkage between time and space. Concerning space, al-Baghdd
held unconventional views as well, but he did not remove its investigation
from the domain of physics [32].
space. In effect, he shows that the apperception of time, of being, and of self,
is anterior in the soul to any other apperception the soul might have, and that
the nature of being and that of time are closely linked. According to his
definition, time is the measure of being (not, as the peripatetics held, that of
movement). He does not admit the diversity of the various levels of time, the
gradations of zamn, dahr, sarmad assumed by Ibn Sn and other
philosophers. In his opinion, time characterizes the being of the Creator as
well as that of created things. He identifies prime matter with the body
considered merely from the point of view of corporality, apart from any other
characteristic; corporality being an extension susceptible of being measured.
Among the four elements, earth alone is, in his view, constituted of
corpuscles, indivisible because of their solidity [33].
Lettinck, Paul, Aristotle's Physics and its Reception in the Arabic World. With
an Edition of the Unpublished Parts of Ibn Bjja's Commentary on the Physics.
Leiden: Brill, 1994. [Fundamental study of the Arabic tradition of translation
and commentary on the Physics of Aristotle, with a special focus on the
commentaries of the Andalusian school (Ibn Bjja et Ibn Rushd). Note also the
Epilogue on "The influence of Arabic philosophers on the development of
dynamics in the Middle Ages" (pp. 665-673), and the publication of an
unpublished part of Ibn Bjja's commentary on Aristotle's Physics].
Lettinck, Paul, Aristotle's Meteorology and its Reception in the Arab World.
With an Edition and Translation of Ibn Suwr's Treatise on Meteorological
Phenomena and Ibn Bjja's Commentary on the Meteorology. Leiden: Brill,
1999.
Lettinck, Paul, "Aristotle's Physical' Works in the Arabic World." Medioevo.
Rivista di storia della filosofia medievale (Padova, Italy) vol. 27 (2002): pp.
22-52.
Mahdi, Muhsin, "Science, Philosophy and Religion in al-Frb's Enumeration
of the Sciences." In: The Cultural Context of Medieval Learning. Edited by
John E. Murdoch and Edith D. Sylla. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1975, pp. 45-113. [On
Ihs' al-ulm, the major book of classification of sciences by al-Frb].
Peters, Francis E., Aristoteles and the Arabs: the Aristotelian Tradition in
Islam. New York/London: New York University Press, 1968.
Pins, Salomon, "Les prcurseurs musulmans de la thorie de l'impetus"
Archeion vol. 21 (1938): pp. 298-306.
Pins, Salomon, "Etudes sur Awhad az-Zamn Ab l-Barakt al-Baghdd."
Revue des Etudes Juives vol. 3 (1938), pp. 3-64; vol. 4 (1938): pp. 1-33.
Pins, Salomon, "Quelques tendances anti-pripatticiennes de la pense
scientifique islamique." Thals (Paris) vol. 24 (1940): pp. 210-219.
Pins, Salomon, "Un prcurseur Baghdadien de la thorie de l'impetus." Isis
vol. 44 (1953): pp. 247-251.
Pins, Salomon, "La dynamique d'Ibn Bjja." In: L'Aventure de la science:
Mlanges Alexandre Koyr. Edited by I.B. Cohen and R. Taton. Paris: Hermann,
1964, vol. 1, pp. 442-468.
Pins, Salomon, Collected Works. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1979-86. Vol. 1: Studies
in Ab l-Barakt al-Baghdd. Physics and Metaphysics; vol. 2: Studies in
Arabic Versions of Greek Texts and in Mediaeval Science. [Reprint of the
works of Pins, including "Etudes sur Awhad az-Zamn Ab l-Barakt al-
[2] Khayr al-Dn Al-Zirikl, "Awhad al-Zamn" in Al-A'lm, Beirut, vol. 8; Wilferd
Madelung, "Ab l-Barakt al-Bagdd", Encyclopedia Iranica, vol. 1, pp. 226228; Shlomo Pines, "Abu l- Barakt Hibat Allh b. Malk al-Baghdd alBalad", Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.), vol. 1, p. 111; Y. Tzvi Langermann,
"Al-Baghdadi, Abu l-Barakat (fl. c.1200-50)", Routledge Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, New York: Routledge Publishers, 1998, reproduced on
www.muslimphilosophy.com (accessed 17 June 2008); Jon McGinnis, "Arabic
and Islamic Natural Philosophy and Natural Science", on Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (first published 19 December, 2006, accessed
online 17 June 2008).
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966, ss. 217, 228-229; Ahmed Ate: "Arabic
Manuscripts in the Libraries of Anatolia" (in Arabic), Revue de l'institut des
manuscrits arabes, tome 4, 1958, pp. 33-35; Ramadan een et al.,
Catalogue of Islamic Medical Manuscripts in the Libraries of Turkey, Istanbul:
Research Center for Islamic History, Art and Culture, 1984, pp. 90-91.
[5] Dietrich, op.cit., pp. 229-230; A. Ate: "Arabic Manuscripts in the Libraries
of Anatolia", op. cit.
[11] Ibid.
[13] Y. Tzvi Langermann, "Al-Baghdadi, Abu l-Barakat (fl. c.1200-50)", op. cit.
[20] The classical study tracing the fate of the Arabic contributions to the
genesis of the impetus theory is Ernest A. Moody, "Galileo and Avempace:
The Dynamics of the Leaning Tower Experiment", Journal of the History of
Ideas vol. 12 (2) (April 1951), pp. 163-193; vol. 12 (3), pp. 375-422. See also
Paul Lettinck, Aristotle's Physics and its Reception in the Arabic World, op. cit.,
"Epilogue": "The influence of Arabic philosophers on the development of
dynamics in the Middle Ages", pp. 665-673; and Abel B. Franco, "Avempace,
Projectile Motion, and Impetus Theory", Journal of the History of Ideas vol. 64,
[25] Paul Lettinck: Aristotle's Meteorology and its Reception in the Arab
World, Leiden: Brill, 1999, pp. 83-85.
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