“Euclide geometra e Tolemeo...

“Euclide geometra e Tolemeo, Ipocrate, Avicenna e Galieno, Averois, che'l gran comento feo.” (Dante, “Inferno,” IV, 142-44) It is related that he wrote three kinds of commentaries: the great, the middle, and the lesser. The great commentaries are called tafsir , following the model of the exegesis of the Qur'an. He quotes a paragraph from Aristotle and then gives its interpretation and commentary.

We have now in Arabic his great commentary of the Metaphysica , edited by Bouyges (1357-1371/ 1938-1951). The lesser ones are called the talkhis . In the Arabic language talkhis means summary, resume or precis. One may say that these comment­aries although Aristotelian in the main, reveal also the true Rushdian philosophy.

A compendium called the Majmu`ah or Jawami ` comprising six books ( Physics , De Caelo et Mundo, De Generations el Corruption, Meteorologica, De Anima and Metaphysica ) has now been published in Arabic. In these commentaries, Ibn Rushd did not follow the original text of Aristotle and, the order of his thought. An example of the middle commentaries is to be found in the “Categories,” edited by Bouyges in 1357/1932.

At the beginning of the paragraph, Ibn Rushd says: “ qala ” (“ dixit ”) referring to Aristotle, and sometimes (not always) gives an excerpt of the original text.[^7] This method was current in eastern Islam, and Ibn Sina followed it in his al-Shifa' , reproducing in many places the very phrases of the Arabic translation of Aristotle.

In fact, Ibn Sina, declared that in his al-Shifa' he was following the “First Master.” It is true that most of the commentaries are found in their Latin or Hebrew translations, or conserved in Hebrew transliteration, but the original Arabic texts are more sure and accurate. On the whole, the value of Ibn Rushd's commentaries is historical, except for the lesser ones which reveal to a certain extent his own thought.

His own philosophical opinions are to be found in three important books, the Fasl , the Kashf , and the Tahafut , and in a short treatise called al-Ittisal . His Colliget ( Kulliyat ) in medicine is as impor­tant as the Canon of Ibn Sina, and was also translated into Latin, but it was less famous than that of Ibn Sina's. In jurisprudence ( Fiqh ) his book Bidayat al-Mujtah id is used as an Arabic reference book.

He was better known and appreciated in medieval Europe than in the East for many reasons.