Nestorian Christian logician of Baghdad who translated Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics and Poetics into Arabic from Syriac, taught al-Fārābī and Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī, and is remembered for his debate with the grammarian al-Sīrāfī on logic and grammar.
Life
Abū Bishr was born near Baghdad; according to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi the nisba ‘Yūnānī’ given to him points to Greek (Rūm) origin. He was a Nestorian Christian and was educated at the school of the monastery of Mār Mārī at Dayr Qunnā, about 90 km south of Baghdad. In Baghdad his teachers included Abū Yaḥyā al-Marwazī and Abū Isḥāq al-Quwayrī, who taught in Syriac and transmitted the on Aristotle, and the Muslim theologian Ibn Karnīb. Ibn al-Nadīm calls him the leading logician of his day, and he taught many students, al-Fārābī and Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī among them. He died in Baghdad on 11 Ramaḍān 328 (20 June 940).
Most of his work consisted of translations of the books of Aristotle’s Organon and of the on them, or commentaries of his own; some twenty titles are listed. Only three survive: the Arabic version of the Posterior Analytics, made from Isḥāq b. Ḥunayn’s Syriac translation; the Arabic ; and the record of his debate with al-Sīrāfī. The sources say he worked from Syriac, not Greek, and the TDV describes his versions as translations of sense rather than word-for-word renderings, shaped by the Alexandrian commentaries and by the Muslim scholarly audience of Baghdad. Ibn al-Qifṭī says his aim was ‘teaching and making understood’ and that his works were relied upon for that. The Stanford Encyclopedia counts him and al-Fārābī as the leading of the Baghdad Peripatetics who claimed to restore Aristotle’s true teaching.
He is best known for a debate held before a vizier, reported by Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī in al-Imtāʿ wa-l-muʾānasa. Against the grammarian Abū Saʿīd al-Sīrāfī, who argued that speakers of Arabic did not need Greek , Abū Bishr answered that the logician has no need of grammar while the grammarian needs logic, because logic deals with meanings and grammar with expressions. Al-Sīrāfī confounded him with grammatical subtleties and taunted him for not knowing Greek. The Stanford Encyclopedia notes that his view ‘weathered Sīrāfī’s storm of criticism badly’ and that it prompted al-Fārābī to give a better account of how logic, grammar and language relate.
Uncertain or disputed
- Whether he knew Greek: some historians of science said he translated from Greek, but the medieval sources say he worked from Syriac, and al-Sīrāfī claimed in the debate that he knew no Greek.
Works
- Arabic translation of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics (Kitāb al-Burhān)From Isḥāq b. Ḥunayn’s Syriac version; preserved in the Baghdad Organon and edited by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī in Manṭiq Arisṭū.translation
- Arabic translation of Aristotle’s Poetics (Kitāb al-Shiʿr)From Syriac (Ibn al-Nadīm); edited by Margoliouth (1887), Tkatsch (1928–32), Badawī (1953) and Shukrī ʿAyyād (1967).translation
- Commentaries on the books of the OrganonListed by Ibn al-Nadīm; mostly lost.commentary
Reception
His translations stand at the end of the long movement that brought Aristotle’s into Arabic; after him the TDV sees original works, beginning with al-Fārābī, take the place of translations.
The debate with al-Sīrāfī became the classic statement of the grammarians’ objections to ; it was translated into English by D. S. Margoliouth (1905) and into French by Taha Abderrahmane (1978).
Sources (2)