Physician and translator in Baghdad whose Arabic version of Porphyry’s Isagoge is the only one that survives complete.
Life
Abū ʿUthmān Saʿīd ibn Yaʿqūb al-Dimashqī, as his name (nisba) suggests, was connected with Damascus. He became known as a successful physician and translator in Baghdad during the reign of the caliph al-Muqtadir (295–320/908–932) and was private physician to the vizier ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā.
According to Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa, citing Thābit ibn Sinān, when ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā restored a hospital in Baghdad in 302/914 he made Saʿīd its chief physician and gave him responsibility for the hospitals of Baghdad, Mecca and Medina. He died some time after that; no death date is recorded.
He translated widely from Syriac and Greek material: besides Porphyry’s Isagoge, Aristotle’s Topics and parts of the Physics, Book X of Euclid’s Elements with Pappus’ , works of Galen, and many works by or attributed to Alexander of Aphrodisias (TDV).
Uncertain or disputed
- Birth date and exact death date are unknown; TDV says only that he died after 302/914.
- His translation was not the first Arabic version: earlier ones are reported (Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ or his son, al-Raqqī, perhaps Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq), but they are lost or disputed.
Works
- Arabic translation of Porphyry’s Isagoge (Kitāb Īsāghūjī) كِتَابُ إِيسَاغُوجِي — on PorphyryMade from the Syriac version of Athanasius of Balad (SEP, citing Gyekye). The only complete Arabic translation that survives, in the Paris Organon manuscript BnF arabe 2346 (Di Vincenzo). Edited by A. F. al-Ahwānī and by ʿA. Badawī, both 1952. Used by Ibn Sīnā and quoted in Ibn al-Ṭayyib’s commentary.translation
- Arabic translation of Aristotle’s Topics (Kitāb al-Jadal) كِتَابُ الجَدَلِ — on AristotleSeven books, according to TDV.translation
- Introduction to the categorical syllogisms attributed to Porphyry — on PorphyryMentioned in SEP (D’Ancona).translation
Sources (7)
- TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, ‘SAÎD b. YA‘KŪB’
- ISMI (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science), person record: Abū ʿUthmān Saʿīd ibn Yaʿqūb al-Dimashqī
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ‘Greek Sources in Arabic and Islamic Philosophy’ (Cristina D’Ancona)
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ‘Greek Sources in Arabic and Islamic Philosophy’, notes 14, 15 and 79
- Silvia Di Vincenzo, doctoral thesis on Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Madkhal (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa)
- TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, ‘ÎSÂGŪCÎ’ (Abdulkuddüs Bingöl)
- HunaynNet (Austrian Academy of Sciences): digital edition of the Isagoge in Greek, Syriac and Arabic