Germany, Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Or. fol. 3176

Germany, Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Or. fol. 3176

Averroes' Long Commentary on the Posterior Analytics
Physical Description
  • Material: Paper
  • Pages: 117 leaves
  • Leaves Format: not available
  • Dimensions: not available
Detailed Description
  • Foliation:
    No old foliation, it was done by a modern oriental hand.
  • Collation:
    The text of ff. 80r- 80v belongs between ff. 91v- 92r . The manuscript is wrongly stabled at the end. This is the correct order: 115r- 115v , 114r- 114v , 113r- 113v , 116r- 116v , 109r- 109v , 110r- 110v , 111r- 111v , 112r- 112v , 117r- 117v
  • Condition Description:
    In general good condition; on ff. 1r- 20v the upper outer margin has been repaired, therefore little text loss on ff. 2r- 13v .
    Worm damage: mainly in the margins, particularly in the last third of the manuscript on the upper margin from f. 80r- 80v on. Therefore and due to repairs of the holes on f. 113v , f. 116r , and f. 117r- 117v we have small text loss.
  • Decoration:
    Brown ink Section headings in big, bold letters
  • Layout:
    Text is set in one column

    25 lines to the page
  • Hand Description:
    The manuscript is written in maghribī style (scarcely dotted, carried out in elegant calligraphy), body of text: 140 x 215 mm (slight variations).
    The scribe is named in the colophon: ʿAbdalkabīr b. ʿAbdalḥaqq(?) b. ʿAbdalkabīr al-Ghāfiqī al-Ilbīlī followed by "fakka llāh asraḥū"; he says he is coming from Seville .
    The person of the scribe could not be identified. His familiy, the Ghāfiqī was widely spread in Arabic . With certainty an older relative of the scribe was Abū Muḥammad ʿAbdalkabīr b. Muḥammad al-Ghāfiqī - 1142 (536 h.) - 1220 (617 h.) -, a scholar of fiqh and ḥadīth who was born near Ronda and moved to Seville later on. If we consider the extreme rareness of the name " ʿAbdalkabīr " it seems possible - according to G. Schoeler (Catalogue p. 124) - that this scholar is nobody else than the grandfather of our scribe. Schoeler assumes consequently that the sribes father was born about 1172 (568 h.) (when the scholar ʿAbdalkabīr b. Muḥammad was about 30 years old) and concludes that the scribe himself in turn was born about 1202 (598 h.) (again 30 years later). Therefore the manuscript must have been written in the first half or - at the latest - in the mid of the 13th / 7th h. century .
    In the preface of his edition (p. 38, see also p. 486 note 2) Badawī reads the formulation "fakka llāh asraḥū" after the scribe's name as an indication that the scribe was in Christian captivity (in or in another European country) when he composed the manuscript.
    As for the manuscript's text the scribe noted on f. 97r that his draft had been incomplete and that he had left space on the following page in order to fill the gap.
  • Binding Description:
    Oriental black leather binding with flap, decoration in blind tooling.
  • Provenance:
    The manuscript was owned by several members of the Judeo-Spanish family Abū l-Āfiya .
    Their owner inscriptions are found on f. 1r : Abū l-Āfiya b. ʿAun [b.[?]] Ibrāhīm b. Shūshān , Abū l-Āfiya b. Shūshān , and Abū l-Āfiya b. Abū(!) Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Dāwūd b. Shūshān (all names written in Arabic script). Gregor Schoeler was not able to identify one of these persons.
History
  • Origin Date: beginning or mid 13th century
  • Origin Place: Western Islamic World
  • Gregor Schoeler , Arabische Handschriften Vol. Vol. II, Stuttgart (1990) , pp. 124 ff.
Content
Averroes Long Commentary on the Posterior Analytics 1v - 117v
  • Incipit:
    F. 1v :
    الغرض فى هذا القول شرح ابولوطيقى (!) الثانية ، وهو المعروف بكتاب
    البرهان ، اذ لم يقع الينا لاحد من المفسرين فيه شرح على اللفظ

    F. 3v :
    المقالة الاولى . قال ارسطاطاليس : كل تعليم وتعلم ذهنى انما يكون من معرفة
    متقدمة الوجود وهذه القضية يظهر لنا صدقها بالاستقراء … …

    F. 4r :
    التفسير : هذه القضية ، كما يقول ابو نصر ، تحتوى بموضوعها على جميع ما فى
    هذا الكتاب
  • Explicit:
    F. 112v :
    قال ارسطاطاليس : اما المقايس (!) التى تبين الايجاب فان الوسط ليس
    يقع فيها خارجا … … واما فى الضرب الثالث ، فلا سبيل الى ان نأخذ السلب خارجا
    عن الطرف المسلوب …
    التفسير : قوله اما المقاييس التى يتبين الايجاب فان الوسط ليس فيها خارجا …
  • Note:
    This is the unique manuscript whith the original Arabic text of the treatise. It contains, however, only the main part (23 chapters) of the "first book" (sifr) (34 chapters in total). The second book is lacking completey.
  • Colophon:
    F. 117v :
    وذلك مستحيل لان ما بين الاطراف المتناهية متناه ضرورة . هنا كمل السفر
    الاول من شرح … بن رشد … لكتاب البرهان لارسطاطاليس على يد …