Ibn 'Adi, Yahya (893-974)

Ibn ‘Adi, Yahya (893-974) Following in the footsteps of the Greek philosophers, Ibn ‘Adi concerned himself with the ultimate human end, happiness, which he found in knowledge. However, he was primarily occupied with defending the compatibility between the concept of God’s unity and that of the trinity. He reasoned that a thing can be one in one respect and many in another. Therefore, there is no inconsistency in holding that God is both one and three. Ibn ‘Adi can best be described as the Christian philosopher of unity, as he devoted most of his career and used all his logical skills to defend the concept of God’s unity and its consistency with the concept of trinity. Ash-Shaykh Abu Zakariyya’ Yahya ibn ‘Adi was a Jacobite Christian who lived in Iraq. Born in Takrit, he moved as a youth to Baghdad, one of the most important centres of learning in the tenth century. Of Syriac origin, he was Arabized like many other Syriacs at that time. He learned logic and philosophy with the well-known logicians, Abu Bishr Matta ibn Yunis and al-Farabi, and after their deaths he became the leading logician of his time. He translated Greek philosophical works from Syriac into Arabic, wrote a number of logical, philosophical and theological treatises – the most important of which are Tahdhib al-akhlaq (Refinement of Character) and Maqala fi at-tawhid (Essay on Unity) - and established the Aristotelian school at Baghdad. His students, a mixture of Muslims and Christians, included Ibn Miskawayh, Ibn al-Khammar, who wrote a treatise on the harmony between philosophy and dogma (which may have influenced Ibn Rushd in his treatment of the same subject), and Ibn Zur‘a. In Tahdhib al-akhlaq, Ibn ‘Adi sets out his ethical philosophy along Greek lines (see Ethics in Islamic philosophy). It is based on his view of the human soul, which is divided into three parts or souls: the appetitive, the courageous and the rational. The first is the lowest and is shared by humans with other animals. The last is the noblest and the distinguishing mark of being human. To follow the first is to fall into ignorance and evil; to follow the last is to adhere to goodness and happiness. While all human beings have the natural capacity for reasoning, some have the skill to reason and some do not.

Those who do not may acquire it by learning the rational sciences. Ibn ‘Adi’s concern with God’s unity, however, was his main preoccupation. He identifies the meaning of the word ‘one’ as it applies to God, and investigates whether God is one in all respects or one and many. Asserting that the one is that in which there is no otherness inasmuch as it is one, he classifies six things as one: the genus, the species, the relation, the continuous, the indivisible and the definition. He then offers arguments to show that God cannot be one except in the sense of definition  (definition being a descriptive statement of the essence of a thing, in that it gives the essence as it is).

Since every definition mirrors an essence, God must also be one in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Version 1.0, London: Routledge

List of works

Ibn ‘Adi (893-974) Tahdhib al-akhlaq (Refinement of Character), ed. N. at-Takriti, Beirut: ‘Uweidat, 1978.(An Arabic edition of Tahdhib al-akhlaq and a critical study of this treatise, showing the significant impact it had on Christian and Islamic circles. Unfortunately, the English sections suffer from a number of typographical errors and inaccuracies, and must therefore be read with caution.) Ibn ‘Adi (893-974) Maqala fi at-tawhid (Essay on Unity), ed. S. Khalil, Juni: Al-Maktaba al-Bulisiyya; Rome: al-Ma‘had al-Babawi ash-Sharqi, 1980.(The best and most comprehensive treatise of Ibn ‘Adi on the concept of God’s unity.) Ibn ‘Adi (893-974) Maqalat Yahya Ibn ‘Adi al-falsafiyya (Yahya ibn ‘Adi’s Philosophical Essays), ed. S. Khulayfat, ‘Amman: Manshurat al-Jami‘a al-Urduniyya, 1988. (Includes twenty-four of Ibn ‘Adi’s essays carefully edited and annotated. The introduction examines Ibn ‘Adi’s general thought and its influence on various students and later philosophers. This wwork is a fairly reliable source for Ibn ‘Adi’s logical, philosophical and theological thought.) References and further reading Endress, G. (1977) The Works of Yahya Ibn ‘Adi: An Analytical Inventory, Wiesbaden: Reichert.(The best available classification of Ibn ‘Adi’s works.) Platti, E. (1983) Yahya Ibn ‘Adi, théologien chrétien et philosophe arabe: sa théolgie de l’Incarnation (Yahya Ibn ‘Adi, Christian Theologian and Arab Philosopher: His Theology of the Incarnation), Orientalia Lovanensia analecta vol. 14, Leuven: Departement Orientalistiek.(Deals with a major theme in Ibn ‘Adi’s thought.) Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Version 1.0, London: Routledge