Avempace

Background

Avempace was born around 1085 in Zaragoza, Taifa of Zaragoza, Al-Andalus.

Career

Besides Saragossa and Fez, Avempace lived and worked in Seville and Granada. He is said to have been a vizier serving an Almoravid prince and to have been poisoned by physicians who were jealous of his medical skill. Ibn Bâjja is often described as the earliest Arabic Aristotelian in Spain, which is correct but rather less significant than a characterization made by a friend and editor of his work, Abu’l-Hasan ‘Alt of Granada, who indicates that Ibn Bâjja had a preeminent part in establishing in Spain a systematic method for the study of the philosophical sciences. Such a method was already in existence in the Muslim East, but not in the peripheral Muslim West.

It can be taken as certain that, in working out his curriculum, Ibn Bâjja, like the philosophers of the East, attached the greatest importance to the study of the corpus Aristotelicum. In spite of far-reaching doctrinal divergences he appears to have modeled his philosophical method on that of al-Fârâbl rather than on that of Ibn Sïnâ (Avicenna), whose influence was at that time predominant in the eastern centers of learning. In this and in various other respects he seems to have been responsible for the distinctive character of Spanish Aristotelianism, which counts among its representatives Ibn Rushd (Averroes) and Moses Maimonides. Among his extant works are the following:

Tadblr al-mulawahhid (“The Regimen of the Solitary”). The work deals with the various categories of men - those interested only in the bodily functions, those swayed by such “spiritual” faculties as imagination, and those governed by reason - in relation to man’s final end, which is intellectual perfection; with various regimens; and with the position that the philosopher should adopt in relation to the imperfect communities in which he has to live (the reference is to the Islamic states of the time). In the absence of any hope for the creation of a perfect philosophical body politic (the conception of which goes back to Plato), the philosopher should regard himself as a stranger in his own community and as a citizen of the ideal State constituted by the happy few, i.e., the men, in whatever country they live, who in the past or the present have attained intellectual perfection.

A treatise on the union of man with the Active Intellect. Risalat al-widá (“The Epistle of Farewell”). The work treats some of the themes discussed in the Tadbir.

A book on the soul. Commentaries and notes on some works or parts of works belonging to the corpus Aristotelicum, including treatises of the Organon (there is also a commentary on Porphyry’s Isagoge), the Physics, De generatione et corruptione, the Meteorológica, and The Book of Animals. There is also a “Book of Plants.”

In a letter to Abü Ja'far Yflsuf Ibn Hasday, Ibn Bajja gives some details concerning his intellectual biography. After having learned the art of music, he studied astronomy; he then went on to study Aristotle’s Physics. In astronomy Ibn Bajja rejected the theory of epicycles as being incompatible with the (Aristotelian) physical doctrine. He thus seems to have been one of the initiators of the tendency - which, after him, came to the fore in Muslim Spain - to reject and attempt to replace the Ptolemaic system.

As for the causes of his death, several sources point to poisoning. He died in 1130 at Cordova, and lived in Seville most of his life.

Achievements

• Avempace’s chief philosophical tenets seem to have included belief in the possibility that the human soul could become united with the Divine. This union was conceived as the final stage in an intellectual ascent beginning with the impressions of sense objects that consist of form and matter and rising through a hierarchy of spiritual forms to the Active Intellect, which is an emanation of the deity. Many Muslim biographers consider Avempace to have been an atheist.
  
  Avempace’s most important philosophical work is Tadbīr al-mutawaḥḥid (“The Regime of the Solitary”), which he was unable to complete before his death. He also wrote a number of songs and poems and a treatise on botany; he is known to have studied astronomy, medicine, and mathematics.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Taʻālīq Ibn Bājah ʻalá manṭiq al-Fārābī
  • Ilm al-Nafs

Views

In Avempace’s view a magnet does not directly cause a piece of iron that is not immediately contiguous to it to move; the latter’s motion is occasioned by the air, or some other body, such as a piece of copper or silver, that is placed between the magnet and the piece of iron. In another context Avempace refers to, but rejects, the belief that an attraction of the earth, similar to the attraction exerted upon a piece of iron by a magnet (rather than the tendency to reach their natural place), is the cause of the downward motion of heavy bodies.

In Latin Europe, the most influential of Avempace’s physical theories was the one sometimes described as the doctrine concerning the original time of motion. This theory attacks the Peripatetic conceptions concerning the role of the resistance of the medium (air or water), regarded as one of the factors determining the velocity of a moving body. According to the Aristotelians, the function of this factor is such that, in the absence of any resistance on the part of a medium, i.e., in a vacuum, the velocity of a moving body must become infinite. The impossibility of this proves that there is no vacuum.

Although Avempace did not hold a brief for the existence of a vacuum, he refuted the Aristotelian argumentation. His view on this question is similar to a doctrine set forth by his contemporary Abu’l-Barakat al-Baghdadl as well as by John Philoponus, by whom Avempace may have been influenced, but it also derives in a logical way from Avempace’s theory concerning the relation between a mover and a moved body. As stated above, it is this relation that determines the velocity of a moved body. Avempace contends that, in the absence of a medium, the body would move with this original velocity, which is clearly finite. This velocity would decrease in proportion to the resistance of a medium. As has been shown by E. A. Moody, this theory, which was known in Latin Europe through the exposition of Ibn Rushd, who refuted it, influenced Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and other Schoolmen.

Quotations: "The ultimate end of man, namely the contemplation of truth, with the active intellect joining the human intellect in a contemplative and almost mystic way."

“Art (sina‛a) is the elaborated form abstracted from matter; it is abstracted from its matter. The artificial form which exists in its matter does not have any power to move that which is in it nor to move something else. This is the difference between artificial and natural forms."

“If there is a house, there is a foundation by necessity, and this kind of necessity is a relationship between the causes of the existing [object] and the final [cause]. If [the final cause] is described, the various kinds of the causes follow it by necessity, and the form acts in a similar way. If the form is the final [cause] of a motion, motion follows it by necessity, and it is something evident because, if there is building activity, there will be a house, and if there is building, there is the art of construction, but if there is only the art of construction, there will be no building. If [form] is acquired ‘by design,’ the other causes result in an orderly way from the final cause by necessity.”

Personality

Besides science and philosophy, Avempace also had a talent for singing and composition in music. According to biographer al-Maqqarī, Avempace's passion for music was due to poetry and had “the virtue of dispelling the sadness and pain of the hearts [sic].” He included his scientific knowledge and wit in many poems.

Interests

• music, poetry

Connections

Friend:

Abu l-Hasan ‛Ali ibn ‛Abd al-‛Aziz Ibn al-Imam al-Ansari

Ibn al-Imam was from Saragossa too and was vizier of Abu Tahir Tamim Ibn Yusuf Ibn Tashfin al-Mu‛izz, (1072–1126) the eldest son of Yusuf Ibn Tashfin, brother of the ruling Sultan and governor of Granada and later of the whole al-Andalus. Ibn al-Imam and Avempace were friends for years; we have several letters that Avempace wrote to him on philosophical issues.

Friend:

Abu Ja‛far Yusuf ibn Hasday

Abu Ja‛far Yusuf ibn Hasday is also the recipient of a letter from Avempace in which he refers to the astronomer az-Zarqalluh, Azarquiel (d. ca. 1000), and also writes about his own order of learning. Abu Ja‛far (d. 1123) was the great-great-grandson of the famous Jewish scholar and statesman Hasday Ibn Shaprut (ca. 910–ca. 970; Stroumsa 2016). Ibn Abi Usaybi‛a includes in Abu Ja‛far’s biography his history of physicians, and reports his friendship with Avempace.

References

• Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  1970
• Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine: An Encyclopedia Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine details the whole scope of scientific knowledge in the medieval period in more than 300 A to Z entries. This resource discusses the research, application of knowledge, cultural and technology exchanges, experimentation, and achievements in the many disciplines related to science and technology. Coverage includes inventions, discoveries, concepts, places and fields of study, regions, and significant contr
  2005