Abu l-Barakat al-Baghdadi: Outline of a Non-Aristotelian Natural Philosophy

by: Lutfallah Gari and Mohammed Abattouy

Ab 'l-Barakt al-Baghdd (flourished in the 11th-12th centuries in Baghdad)
was a scholar of the Arabic-Islamic tradition. An original philosopher and
respected medical authority, he is well known by his Al-Kitb al-Mu'tabar, a
philosophical essay in which he submitted some of the fundamental concepts
of natural philosophy to a penetrating analysis. He suggested in it many
interesting alternatives that found an echo in modern developments in
physics, such as his ideas about the physics of motion and the concept of
time.

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This article is the result of a close collaboration between our colleague
Lutfallah Gari (Yanbu, Kingdom of Saudia Arabia) and the editorial board of
www.MuslimHeritage.com (the Chief Editor).

Table of Contents

1. His Life and Works

2. Projectile Motion

3. The Acceleration

4. Other Innovative Ideas on Motion

5. Meteorology

6. Time and Space

7. References and Further Reading

image alt text

Figure 1: Front cover of the first volume of Ab l-Barakt's Kitb al-Mu'tabar
(edited in Haydarabd, 1357/1938).
Ab l-Barakt al-Baghdd was a scholar of the Arabic-Islamic tradition. Being
of Jewish origin, he flourished in the 11th-12th centuries in Baghdad. An
original philosopher and respected medical authority, he is well known by his
Al-Kitb al-Mutabar, a philosophical essay in which he submitted some of the
fundamental concepts of natural philosophy to a penetrating analysis. He
suggested in it many interesting alternatives that found an echo in modern
developments in physics, such as his ideas about the physics of motion and
the concept of time.

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].

image alt text

Figure 2: Shlomo Pines (19081990). (Source).
The following article is a concise presentation of Ab l-Barakt's views in
natural philosophy. A complete list of his extant works was generated from a
number of partial lists mentioned in the modern scholarship. At the end, the
article reflects ongoing debates on the issues and concepts of natural
philosophy in the Arabic tradition.

1. His Life and Works [2]

Famed as Awhad al-Zamn (unique of his time), Hibat-Allh ibn Al ibn Malk

Ab l-Barakt al-Baghdd (ca.1077-1152) is an 11th-12th century physician

and philosopher of Jewish origin. He was born in Balad, a town on the Tigris
above Mosul. Precise biographical information is unavailable. We know that
he was born into a Jewish family and later in life he converted to Islam. Early
in his life, he had for master Ab l-Hasan Sad b. Hibat Allh and became a
famous physician, serving in this quality the caliphs of Baghdad where he
resided and the Seljuk sultans. The appellation Awhad al-Zamn, the
singular [personage] of his time', probably reflects his medical rather than
philosophical achievements. His formal teaching seems to have been limited
to medicine, in which he had a number of students.

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.

A biographical compendium and complete list of the works attributed to Hibat

Allh Ab l-Barakt is given by Ibn Ab Usaybia in Uyn al-anb ' f tabaqt
al-atibb', where the author relates some anecdotes and sayings and lists
several of al-Baghdd's medical works.

Despite his conversion to Islam, al-Baghdd's works continued to be studied

at the yeshivah of Baghdad, then the centre of Jewish theology, into the 13th
century. Al-Baghdd's commentary to the Book of Ecclesiastes continued to
be copied at the same yeshivah, with full acknowledgement of its authorship.
Shmu'el ben Eli, head of the yeshivah and archrival of Moses Maimonides,
cites the Mutabar in support of his contention that even the philosophers'
are forced to admit the possibility of bodily resurrection. Ben Eli does not
reveal his source; it appears to have been Maimonides' disciple Yosef ben
Yehudah who tracked down the reference [3].

Ab l-Barakt's extant works include:

1. A pharmacological treatise titled Sifat Barshath (i.e. prescription of

Barshath); it is about an Indian compound drug. Three copies are preserved
in Turkish libraries [4].

2. Another pharmacological treatise titled Tiryq amr al-arwh (Prince of

Souls' antidote); a manuscript copy of this text is held in Kitapsaray Library in
Manisa, Turkey (MS 1781, folios 157b-159a) [5].

3. Maqla fi'l-aql is a treatise on the intellect, preserved in Tehran [6] and

Leipzig [7].

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].

6. Largely unpublished is a lengthy detailed commentary on Ecclesiastes in

Arabic, containing discussions of philosophical problems; it is of considerable
philosophical interest. Ab l-Barakt dictated it at an advanced age to his
student, the Jewish poet Ishq b. Ibrhm b. Azr of Cordova [12]. It is almost
entirely unpublished, except four selected passages with translation and
analysis, in Hebrew [13].

7. The chief work of Abu l-Barakt is undoubtedly the Kitb al-mutabar,

composed at a mature age on the basis of notes containing his philosophical
reflections collected over a long period of time. Dealing with logic, physics,
natural sciences, and metaphysics, it is patterned after Ibn Sn's Kitb alShif, which in some parts is copied almost literally. In other parts, however,
Ab l-Barakt refuted the theses of Ibn Sn and espoused radically different
views [14].

2. Projectile Motion

Gunpowder, an invention imported from China, proved immensely popular

with the warring princes of 15th-century Europe. These princes were using
gunpowder in their frequent wars, to hurl large projectiles at or over the walls
of towns and cities they were attacking. By the middle of the 16th century
the casting and boring of cannons had progressed to a stage where serious
consideration had to be given to aiming and firing of guns. All over Europe
gunners began to look at ways of increasing the range and aim of their
artillery.

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].

Building on the views of Philoponus and Ibn Sn, Ab l-Barakt accepts,

though with modifications, the theory according to which the cause of this
movement is a violent inclination', that is to say a force imparted by the
projecting body to the projectile [17]. This type of force is similar to, or

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

The acceleration of the motion of falling bodies is attributed by Ab l-Barakt

to two causes:

(1) He holds that a violent and a natural inclination can simultaneously

coexist in a projectile. Thus, when a body begins to fall, a residue of violent
inclination still subsists in it and opposes the natural inclination that causes
the body to descend, slowing down its fall. The acceleration of the fall is due
to the gradual weakening of the violent inclination.

(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.

Ab l-Barakt's conception of the second cause seems to anticipate the

fundamental law of classical mechanics, according to which a continually
applied force produces acceleration. This is contrary to the Aristotelian

doctrine of natural philosophy which assumes that such a force produces a

uniform motion [21].

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].

4. Other Innovative Ideas on Motion

Ab l-Barakt al-Baghdd had many new ideas concerning the physics of

motion. In addition to the law of acceleration, he suggested that motion is
relative, that is, that there is motion only if the relative positions of the bodies
in question change. These ideas are highlighted here because of their
resemblance to modern thoughts on the same subjects. The Kitb al-Mutabar
contains many other, no less innovative, ideas that have a modern
counterpart; for example, the claim that each type of body has a
characteristic velocity that reaches its maximum when its motion encounters
no resistance. Although al-Mutabar is not a systematic work, comprising
instead notes on various subjects that al-Baghdd wrote for himself over the
years, Pines showed that the paramountcy of a priori knowledge underlies
many of the work's criticisms and innovations [24].

5. Meteorology

As mentioned above, Ab l-Barakt has some quotations from al- Shif' of

Ibn Sn; but on the whole he differs from Ibn Sn in formulation and
phrasing, often also in opinion. He says that phenomena such as shooting
stars, comets, the halo and the rainbow cannot be explained by terrestrial
causes only, but that in fact they are caused and maintained by celestial
forces [25]. The same holds for wind: it is air moved by celestial forces [26].
Furthermore, he disagrees with Ibn Sn and Aristotle about the explanations
of the formation of hail [27], rivers [28] and thunder [29]. The Milky Way is a

phenomenon of the celestial world, not of the upper atmosphere, as Aristotle

thinks [30]. On the whole, as pointed out by researchers, the account of Ab
l-Barakt is quite original and independent [31].

6. Time and Space

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].

In his physics, Ab l-Barakt employs a method similar to the one he utilized

in his psychology. Like his 10th-century predecessor al-Rz (by whom he may
have been influenced, although there is no evidence either way) and in
contrast with the Aristotelians, he relies in his physical theories, just as he
does in his doctrine of the soul, on what he regards as self-evident, i.e.,
immediately perceived truths that are not dependent upon empirical data.
Applying this method, he rejects the Aristotelian contention that time is the
measure of movement. He denies the Aristotelian theory of space, the
existence of a three-dimensional space. With John Philoponus he refutes the
proposition denying the possibility of movement in the void. Having
demonstrated the fallacy of the peripatetic arguments to the contrary, he
proves the infinity of space by the impossibility for man to conceive a limited

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].

According to him, the notion of time is ontologically prior to the notion of

movement. Nor does he regard time as being merely a subjective
phenomenon. It is in fact the measure of Being, and as such it should not be
regarded as external to Being. Comparisons between the lengths of two or
more durations are, however, due to a mental comparison between the two
[34].

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End Notes

[1] Pins Salomon [Shlomo Pines], "Les prcurseurs musulmans de la thorie

de l'impetus", Archeion (Paris), vol. 21 (1938): pp. 298-306; "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; "Quelques tendances antipripatticiennes de la pense scientifique islamique" Thals (Paris) vol. 24
(1940): pp. 210-219; "Un prcurseur Baghdadien de la thorie de l'impetus",
Isis vol. 44 (1953): pp. 247-251. Those studies were reprinted in Shlomo
Pines, Collected Works. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1979-86.

[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).

[3] Langermann, "Al-Baghdadi, Abu l-Barakat (fl. c.1200-50)", op. cit.

[4] Albert Dietrich: Medicinalia Arabica: Studien ber arabische medizinische

Handschriften in trkischen und syrischen Bibliotheken, Gttingen:

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.

[6] M. T. Dnepah, Fehrest-e mkrfilmh-ye Ketbkna-ye Markaz-e

Dnegh-e Tehrn, Tehran, 1348 ./1969, p. 609, cited by Wilferd Madelung,
Ab'l-Barakt al-Bagdd', Encyclopedia Iranica, vol. 1 (1987), pp. 226-228.

[7] Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, the Arabic

translation, Cairo: The Egyptian General Organization of Books, vol.9 (Section
5), 1995, pp. 72-73.

[8] Translated by E. Wiedemannn in Eders Jahrbuch fr Photographie 1909,

pp. 49-54; see W. Madelung, op. cit. See also S. Pines, "Ab l- Barakt alBaghdd", Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.), op. cit.

[9] Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, op. cit.

[10] Boris A. Rosenfeld & Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Mathematicians,

Astronomers, and Other Scholars of Islamic Civilization and their Works (7th19th Centuries), Istanbul: Research Center for Islamic History, Art and
Culture, 2003, p. 184.

[11] Ibid.

[12] S. Pines, "Ab l-Barakat Al-Baghdadi", Encyclopaedia of Islam, op. cit.;

W. Madelung, op. cit.

[13] Y. Tzvi Langermann, "Al-Baghdadi, Abu l-Barakat (fl. c.1200-50)", op. cit.

[14] S. Pines, "Ab l-Barakat Al-Baghdadi", Encyclopaedia of Islam, op. cit.;

W. Madelung, op. cit.; Langermann, "Al-Baghdadi, Ab l-Barakat", op. cit.
Kitb al-Mutabar is edited in three volumes by erefettin Yaltkaya,
Hyderabad: Osmania Publication Bureau, 1357-58/1939-40.

[15] Christian Wildberg, "John Philoponus", Stanford Encyclopedia of

Philosophy (first published 11 March, 2003, substantive revision 8 June 2007,
accessed online 17 June 2008).

[16] Prabhakar Gondhalekar, The Grip of Gravity: The Quest to Understand

the Laws of Motion and Gravitation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2001, pp. 51-52. See also the works of Pines quoted in footnote 1. The most
up-to-date source on this issue is Paul Lettinck, 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.

[17] S. Pines, "Ab l-Barakt al-Baghdd", Encyclopaedia of Islam, op. cit.

[18] P. Gondhalekar, The Grip of Gravity, op. cit.

[19] Shlomo Pines, "Ab l-Barakt al-Baghddi", Dictionary of Scientific

Biography, New York: Scribners Publishers, vol. 1 (1970), pp. 26-28.

[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,

No. 4 (October 2003), pp. 521-546.

[21] S. Pines, "Ab l-Barakt al-Baghdd", Dictionary of Scientific Biography,

op. cit.

[22] On this important subject, see M. Abattouy, "Greek Mechanics in Arabic

Context: Thbit ibn Qurra, al-Isfizr and the Arabic Traditions of Aristotelian
and Euclidean Mechanics", Science in Context (Cambridge University Press)
vol. 14, No. 1-2, (2001): pp. 179247; pp. 203-205.

[23] S. Pines, "Ab l-Barakt al-Baghdd", Encyclopaedia of Islam, op. cit.

[24] Langermann, "Al-Baghdadi, Abu l-Barakat (fl. c.1200-50)", op. cit.

[25] Paul Lettinck: Aristotle's Meteorology and its Reception in the Arab
World, Leiden: Brill, 1999, pp. 83-85.

[26] Ibid, pp. 183-184.

[27] Ibid, pp. 114-115.

[28] Ibid, pp. 146-147.

[29] Ibid, p. 237.

[30] Ibid, p. 85.

[31] Ibid, p. 11.

[32] Langermann, "Al-Baghdadi, Abu l-Barakat (fl. c.1200-50)", op. cit.

[33] S. Pines, "Ab l-Barakt al-Baghdd", Dictionary of Scientific Biography,

op. cit.; S. Pines, "Ab l-Barakt al-Baghdd", Encyclopaedia of Islam, op. cit.

[34] S. Pines, "Ab l-Barakt al-Baghdd", Dictionary of Scientific Biography,

op. cit.

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