This volume presents a panorama of Syriac engagement with Aristotelian philosophy primarily situated in the 6th to the 9th centuries, but also ranging to the 13th. It offers a wide range of articles, opening with surveys on the most important philosophical writers of the period before providing detailed studies of two Syriac prolegomena to Aristotle’s Categories and examining the works of Hunayn, the most famous Arabic translator of the 9th century. Watt also examines the relationships between philosophy, rhetoric and political thought in the period, and explores the connection between earlier Syriac tradition and later Arabic philosophy in the thought of the 13th century Syriac polymath Bar Hebraeus. Collected together for the first time, these articles present an engaging and thorough history of Aristotelian philosophy during this period in the Near East, in Syriac and Arabic.

This volume contains the Syriac text, edited for the first time, of the commentary on Aristotle’s Rhetoric by Bar Hebraeus (died 1286) in his Cream of Wisdom. The text is accompanied by an English translation, and the volume also includes an introduction, commentary, and three glossaries (Syriac, Greek and Arabic). Bar Hebraeus’ commentary is based on the lost Syriac version of Aristotle’s treatise, but the author also drew heavily on the commentary of Ibn Sina (Avicenna). The text therefore provides a unique insight into the nature of that lost version, and also exemplifies the way Bar Hebraeus blended the Aristotle of the Graeco-Syriac translation literature with the more recent philosophy of Ibn Sina.

This volume deals with the part on practical philosophy in Barhebraeus's "Butyrum sapientiae" or " Cream of Wisdom". The practical philosophy in this large encyclopaedia of Aristotelean thinking in this Syriac language consists of three books: Ethics, Economy and Politics. The books of Ethics and Politics have been edited, translated and commented upon for the very first time in this publication. These books are unique and probably the only specimens of its kind, surviving in the Syriac language and literature. They were written at the end of Barhebraeus's life (1285/86) during a period in which the Syriac language had been rapidly losing ground to Arabic and was to almost disappear as a living language not long after the author's death.

The present volume makes available for the first time the earliest translation of Aristotle into a Semitic language. It will open the way to a fuller understanding of the transformation of Greek logic in Syriac and Arabic.

This is the second, revised and updated, edition of this foundational work introducing a reading of Avicenna's philosophical works that is consistent with his intention and purpose in philosophy. Its usefulness is enhanced with a new appendix offering a critical inventory of Avicenna's authentic works that incorporates and updates Mahdavi (1954).

This volume contains a collection of articles focusing on the philosophical and theological exchanges between Muslim and Christian intellectuals living in Baghdad during the classical period of Islamic history, when this city was a vibrant center of philosophical, scientific, and literary activity. The philosophical accomplishments and contribution of Christians writing in Arabic and Syriac represent a crucial component of Islamic society during this period, but they have typically been studied in isolation from the development of mainstream Islamic philosophy. The present book aims for a more integrated approach by exploring case studies of philosophical and theological cross-pollination between the Christian and Muslim traditions, with an emphasis on the Baghdad School and its main representative, Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī. Contributors: Carmela Baffioni, David Bennett, Gerhard Endress, Damien Janos, Olga Lizzini, Ute Pietruschka, Alexander Treiger, David Twetten, Orsolya Varsányi, John W. Watt, Robert Wisnovsky

Aristotle's moral and political thought formed the backbone of education in practical philosophy for centuries during the classical and medieval periods. It has often been presumed, however, that with the advent of the Protestant Reformation, this tradition was broken. Countering this widespread view, Manfred Svensson discusses dozens of commentaries on Aristotle's Ethics and Politics that emerged from Protestant universities and academies throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, showing that early modern Protestants never lost their connection to Aristotle. He offers a broad contextualization of these works and in-depth discussion of their key ethical and political concepts.

The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Religion is the first to bring together an extensive interdisciplinary engagement with the multiple ways in which the concepts and practices of translation and religion intersect. The book engages a number of scholarly disciplines in conversation with each other, including the study of translation and interpreting, religion, philosophy, anthropology, history, art history, and area studies. A range of leading international specialists critically engage with changing understandings of the key categories ‘translation’ and ‘religion’ as discursive constructs, thus contributing to the development of a new field of academic study, translation and religion. The twenty-eight contributions, divided into six parts, analyze how translation constructs ideas, texts or objects as 'sacred' or for ‘religious purposes’, often in competition with what is categorized as ‘non-religious.’ The part played by faith communities is treated as integral to analyses of the role of translation in religion. It investigates how or why translation functions in re-constructing and transforming religion(s) and for whom and examines a range of ‘sacred texts’ in translation—from the written to the spoken, manuscript to print, paper to digital, architectural form to objects of sacred art, intersemiotic scriptural texts, and where commentary, exegesis and translation interweave. This Handbook is an indispensable scholarly resource for researchers in translation studies and the study of religions.

Centres of Learning deals with the relation between learning and the locations in which that learning is carried out. It is the editors' belief that the character (and, in part, the content) of a particular aspect of learning is determined — or at least influenced — by the circumstances in which the learning process takes place. The contributions in this book deal with various aspects of learning, in a broad historical and geographical perspective, which ranges from Ancient Babylon, via classical Greece and Rome, and the Middle East (both Christian and Islamic), through to the Latin and vernacular cultures of the Christian West in the Middle Ages and the Early Renaissance.

The Letter before the Spirit underlines the importance for scholars to have at their disposal reliable scientific text editions – book editions or digital editions – of Aristotle’s works in the Semitico-Latin, and the Graeco-Latin, translation and commentary traditions.