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The Arabic Background to Ramon Lull's Liber Chaos (ca. 1285)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Charles Lohr
Charles Lohr*
Affiliation:
Raimundus-Lullus-Institut der Uniuersität Freiburg i. Br.
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Extract

One of the earliest works of the Majorcan Ramon Lull (1230/35–1315/16) was a Compendium logicae Algazelis (1271/72), a work based on the first section of the Maqâsid al-falâsifa (that is, “Opinions of the Philosophers”) of the great Muslim theologian, Abû Ḥâmid al-Ghazâlî (d. 1111). Algazel was Persian and his Maqâṣid an Arabic form of a Persian work by the celebrated philosopher Ibn Sînâ (d. 1037), known to the Latins as Avicenna. Algazel summarized the philosophy of Avicenna with the intention of refuting it in his Tahâfut al-falâsifa (that is, “Destruction of the Philosophers”). As is generally known, the Cordovan philosopher and jurist, Averroes (Ibn Rushd, d. 1198), sought to refute this latter work in his Tahâfut al-tahâfut or “Destructio destructionis.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Traditio , Volume 55 , 2000 , pp. 159 - 170
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University 

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References

1 Lohr, C. H., “Raimundus Lullus' Compendium logicae Algazelis: Quellen, Lehre und Stellung in der Geschichte der Logik” (diss., Univ. Freiburg i. Br., 1967), 94–123 (text of the Compendium, cited according to paragraphs), 116–23 Additiones. Google Scholar

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3 Cf. the three degrees of knowledge enumerated in figura T of the Art (Ars demonstrativa, dist. 1 de figuris [Lulli, Raymundi Opera latina , 3 (Mainz, 1722; repr. Frankfurt a. M., 1965), 96]). This figure was retained in the later forms of the Art (Ars inventiva [Opera latina, 5 (Mainz, 1729; repr.), 6–8] and Ars generalis ultima [Raimundi Lulli Opera latina, 14, ed. Madre, A. (Turnhout, 1986), 12–18]).Google Scholar

4 Magnus, Gregorius, Hom, in Evv. 2, 26, 1 (PL 76: 1197).Google Scholar

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11 Eth. Nic. 6, 3.Google Scholar

12 Khaldûn, Ibn, Muqaddimah , 6, 16 (Rosenthal 3, 87–91). Cf. Lohr, “Christianus arabicus,” 71.Google Scholar

13 Khaldûn, Ibn, Muqaddimah , 6, 16 (Rosenthal, 3, 92).Google Scholar

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16 See Chittick, W. C., Ibn al-'Arabi's Metaphysics of Imagination: The Sufi Path of Knowledge (Albany, N.Y., 1989); idem, Principles of Ibn al-'Arabî's Cosmology: The Self-Disclosure of God (Albany, N.Y., 1998); Austin, R. W. J., Ibn al-'Arabi: The Bezels of Wisdom (Mahwah, N.J., 1980). Cf. Chodkiewicz, M., Seal of the Saints: Prophethood and Sainthood in the Doctrine of Ibn 'Arabî , trans. Sherrad, L. (Cambridge, 1993).Google Scholar

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18 Chittick, , Ibn al-‘Arabî's Cosmology , xxviii–xxxii.Google Scholar

19 Khaldûn, Ibn, Muqaddimah , 6, 16 (Rosenthal, 3, 89).Google Scholar

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21 Liber chaos (Lulli, Raymundi, Opera latina , 3 [Mainz, 1722; repr.], 249–91).Google Scholar

22 The Arabic word qaws means “bow” or “arc,” so that when the Quran speaks of God's coming to within two bows' length of the Prophet, the two bows are understood by Ibn al-'Arabî as completing the circle which is the totality of the Real and creation. See Chittick, , Ibn al-'Arabî's Cosmology , 227–37, 368–70. Cf. Elmore, G. T., trans., Islamic Sainthood in the Fullness of Time: Ibn al-‘Arabî's “Book of the Fabulous Gryphon” (Leiden, 1999), 445, and Wehr, H., A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic , ed. Cowan, J. M. (Wiesbaden, 1961), 796b.Google Scholar

23 For Lull's notion of chaos see Lohr, C. H., “Chaos-Theory According to Ramon Lull,” in: Festschrift Jocelyn Hillgarth (forthcoming).Google Scholar

24 Lull, Ramon, Liber de natura, pars 1 de definitione naturae, no. 2 (Lulli, Raymundi Liber de natura [de Mallorca, Palma, 1744; repr. Frankfurt a. M., 1971], p. 4).Google Scholar

25 Lull, Ramon, Liber de natura , pars 2 de quo est natura, no. 2; pars 3 quare est natura, no. 2 (ed. cit., p. 6–7).Google Scholar