Why al-Jahiz needs Slonimsky's Earbox.

Montgomery, James E.

Monographs in European languages on Ab[u.bar] 'Uthman 'Amr ibn Bahr al-J[a.bar]hiz (d. 255/868-9) are as rare as hen's teeth. (1) They are to be welcomed with a fanfare. Monographs in European languages on al-J[a.bar]hiz's magnum opus, Kitab al-Bay[a.bar]n wa-l-taby[i.bar]n, are rarer than hen's teeth. In fact, to the best of my knowledge this stimulating monograph by Lale Behzadi is the first. It is therefore to be welcomed with a royal fanfare.

It is hardly surprising perhaps that few have fostered the ambition to write a monograph on the Bay[a.bar]n. Although it is available in a good edition by 'Abd al-Sal[a.bar]m Muhammad H[a.bar]r[u.bar]n, a negligible amount of it has been translated into European languages and there have been few article-length studies of its riches. In this regard, the Polish scholar Krystyna Skarzynska-Bochenska was a trailblazer, the more so since she realized that al-J[a.bar]hiz's writings and this text in particular had much of interest to offer what we now refer to as semiotics, meta-textuality, and other modern approaches to writing. (2) But this situation seems to be changing. Several doctoral students (I can think of five offhand) are currently investigating aspects of al-J[a.bar]hiz's oeuvre, from his works on the Imamate to the Hayaw[a.bar]n, and established scholars have followed the trajectories of the concept of bay[a.bar]n from al-Sh[a.bar]fic'[i.bar] and through the mature legal tradition, including its role in the study of Arab rationality by Muhammad '[A.bar]bid al-J[a.bar]bir[i.bar]. (3) In 2005 an international conference on al-J[a.bar]hiz was convened by the American University of Beirut and the Orient-Institut of Beirut at which many distinguished scholars participated. (4)

This activity betokens a recuperation of al-J[a.bar]biz. It also suggests that the scholarly establishment has started to take him seriously and read him seriously. That this general avoidance of al-J[a.bar]hiz is a phenomenon characteristic of Anglo-American and European scholarship is obvious when one notes the number of scholarly studies and books devoted to al-J[a.bar]biz written in Arabic, although even here he is perhaps not as central to the Arabic intellectual heritage as he might warrant. (5)

I do not mean to be unfair to the staggering contribution that Charles Pellat made to our current appreciation of al-J[a.bar]hiz. Much of what is now envisioned would not be possible without the editions and translations he produced of so many key texts. And I would be prepared to admit to a certain foolhardiness in wanting to imply that we should aspire to studies of a writer before we are in possession of sound, scientifically edited editions of the writings of that writer. Editing, translating, and reading are, of course, cognate rather than distinct processes. But Pellat's work on al-J[a.bar]hiz forces on me the following paradox: his editions are magisterial, his translations of an exceptionally high standard, but his studies of al-J[a.bar]hiz's texts suggest that he often did not quite know how to read al-J[a.bar]hiz. Pellat reads al-J[a.bar]hiz in a phenomenological manner that I find evocative of the "Geneva School" as practiced by Georges Poulet and Jean Starobinski in the 1950s and 1960s. The "Geneva School" conceived of literature as an expression of consciousness and saw the task of the critic as an endeavor to enter the consciousness of an author through his writings. In the process the consciousness of the author becomes somehow (re)duplicated in the mind of the reader/critic. Simultaneously a contrary process occurs in which the reduplicated consciousness.demands a reconstruction of context and so seeks the eradication of itself. (6)

Far be it from me to suggest in all hubris that we know how to read al-J[a.bar]biz (there is probably not one correct way, of that at least I am confident), but I do feel a fundamental unease with many of the assumptions and presumptions that Pellat brought to al-J[a.bar]hiz and which informed his critical responses to his writings. Not least of these is a tendency, almost universally discernible in the European persona of al-J[a.bar]hiz, to seek refuge in humor, irony, and parody (all synonyms in the fabrication of this persona) when al-J[a.bar]hiz in his writings refuses to conform to the very persona we have fashioned for him. And this is a most comforting and facilitating hermeneutic circle in J[a.bar]hizian studies: al-J[a.bar]hiz is not a serious writer and therefore when he appears to be serious he must not be serious because he is not a serious writer.

It is not that al-J[a.bar]hiz is not playful or that he does not voice his characters uttering jokes and witticisms--sometimes he also voices his own various auctorial personae as uttering these witticisms. He does this often and repeatedly. And then we have his notoriously celebrated (and famously misconstrued) iterations and alternations of gravity (jidd) and levity (hazl), the merits and demerits of which he intones, theorizes, and problematizes in many works, characteristics that have been forced upon the writer and not upon the writer's attempts to fashion out of his audience an ideal audience. There then looms the forbidding obstacle: the item of faith upholding and upheld by this persona, that al-J[a.bar]hiz is not a serious writer.

Behzadi 's book is all the more remarkable therefore in that she takes al-J[a.bar]hiz seriously. This is not a monograph in which you will find al-J[a.bar]hiz the "plaisantin sans interet." Quite the opposite. Behzadi presents al-J[a.bar]hiz as a serious writer with important things to say about the human communicative process meaningful things that comparativists who do not know Arabic ought to be better informed about.

The book has five chapters. In the introduction (pp. 9-19) Behzadi situates her work in terms of previous approaches to al-J[a.bar]hiz and signals her intention to consider the Bay[a.bar]n in terms of the emergence and development of the Arabic linguistic sciences, especially literary criticism (naqd) and adab. She identifies as typical of the third century hijr[i.bar] a phenomenon that she describes as a linguistic turn which became profoundly determinative of the development of the disciplines. For her this is the point at which Arabic changed from being the natural medium of intellectual discourse to become an object of analysis in its own right, one central to the production of meaning. She thus stresses the need to consider aspects of naqd such as bal[a.bar]gha as more than just aesthetically driven obsessions with elegance and decoration, placing them instead at the very boiler-room of the fully fledged tradition. (7)

These approaches are fleshed out in chapter two (pp. 20-56), which has three foci: "Zeitgeschichte," on the question of the status of the maw[a.bar]l[i.bar], engagements with the Shu'[u.bar]biyya, and the appropriation of theological discourse by caliphal power (pp. 20-27); "Die arabische Sprache als gegenstand der Wissenschaft," on the late Umayyad and early 'Abb[a.bar]sid codification of poetry and poetical criteria typified by al-Asma'[i.bar] and Ibn Sall[a.bar]m al-Jumah[i.bar], the development of evaluative criteria and the systematic presentation of information on poetry and poets in entextualized form, and the grammatical and exegetical traditions (pp. 27-47); (8) and "Kit[a.bar]b al-bay[a.bar]n wat-taby[a.bar]n," on the formal structure, organization of materials, and stylistic features of the text (pp. 47-56). Behzadi is a careful and scrupulous scholar. She adheres to the multum in parvo principle, packing much material in a short compass, and she seeks to discover what is unique (in terms of the activities of his contemporaries) in al-J[a.bar]hiz's approach. She draws out how al-J[a.bar]hiz is not content merely to describe how language works but also offers an account of why it works as it does. To her analysis should be added the seminal study of Ramzi Baalbaki, "The Place of al-J[a.bar]hiz in the Arabic Philological Tradition." (9)

Chapter three, the longest in the book (pp. 57-130), is the heart and soul of the monograph. Behzadi identifies both the nuts and bolts and the intellectual ambit and reach of al-J[a.bar]hiz's theory of human communication predicated upon the two complementarities of understanding (fahm) and making others understand (ifh[a.bar]m). These are distinct processes that describe the actions of locutor and recipient but are at their optimum when they can be encapsulated in the one utterance.

This chapter comprises seven main sections: (1) an introductory overview of the notion of bay[a.bar]n (pp. 57-58); (2) on meanings (i.e., al-ma'ani, pp. 58-62); (3) on the ways and means for communicating these ideas (pp. 62-77), a discussion structured along the quin-quepartite scheme for practicing bayan outlined by al-J[a.bar]hiz in the bab al-bay[a.bar]n of the work; (4) qualities and aspects of discourse, divided into khit[a.bar]ba, bal[a.bar]gha, fas[a.bar]ha, [i.bar]j[a.bar]z, and samt (pp. 77-96); (5) speech defects ('iyy) and defective speech (lahn), central facets to al-J[a.bar]hiz's analysis of communication (pp. 96-107); (6) the signifier (lafz) and the signified (ma'n[a.bar]) (pp. 107-13); and (7) the unique nature of the Arabic language, including a section on the role of the desert Arabs (pp. 113-25); and ends with a summary (pp. 125-31).

In the summation Behzadi elucidates how al-J[a.bar]hiz positions his concept of bay[a.bar]n as central to, if not indispensable for, God's creation. In correct communication lies the essence of takl[i.bar]f, man's moral obligatedness (though this is not a term that she uses); without it, the purpose of God's creation as a system of signs of His majesty and omnipotence is lost and God's organization of the mutual dependency of humans in society, congealed through the bay[a.bar]n, is impeded and impaired.

It is thus a biparous process--bay[a.bar]n expresses how humans communicate with one another and how they communicate their thanks to God through accurate decipherment of His created signs. Behzadi also remarks that bay[a.bar]n is both synchronic and diachronic: it is how earlier peoples and earlier books communicate with us and we with them. Key among them, as emerges from volume one of Kit[a.bar]b al-Hayaw[a.bar]n, is the Qur'an. Without the bay[a.bar]n of the Qur'an man could not fulfil his duty to God and so be saved. Thus Arabic assumes its unique position among human languages: it is the language best designed to make it possible for man to join diction (lafz) with conception (ma'n[a.bar]); and it is God's chosen language, in which the perfect bay[a.bar]n of His Revelation (the Qur'an) becomes the alpha and omega of chaste Arabic usage and Arabic books. In this section Behzadi reads the Bay[a.bar]n and the Hayaw[a.bar]n together and brings out how we are often constrained to read one work by al-J[a.bar]hiz in terms of at least one, if not many other, works of his, and vice versa.

One of the problems we encounter when reading al-J[a.bar]hiz, and it is one that many of his earlier readers within the tradition draw attention to, is the diffuseness of his discussions of a given topic. Thus, for example, comments, animadversions, notes and explications on the topic of [i.bar]j[a.bar]z. stylistic brevity, all are to be encountered scattered throughout the Kit[a.bar]b al-Bay[a.bar]n, and in other works like the Kit[a.bar]b al-Hayaw[a.bar]n or the Ras[a.bar]'il. This diffuseness is a feature that al-J[a.bar]hiz's brand of reasoning and his method of presentation share with a work from the mature Mu'tazil[i.bar] tradition, the Mughni of the Oaf 'Abd al-J[a.bar]hir. (10) It reflects both the notion of 'apl, 'intellect', expressed metaphorically through "hobbling" an idea or concept just as one does a camel, and the gesture of orality that both al-J[a.bar]hiz's writings and the Mughn[i.bar] valorize. It is also the direct consequence of the tendency of both thinkers to prefer the illustration, the revealing detail, over the theory or the generalization in other words, these are texts that live in the particular and demand of their audiences that they take the necessary steps to the universal. Behzadi is to be commended for carefully sifting through the corpus and collating significant references to the many topics that she discusses. The study of al-J[a.bar]hiz can only really proceed with more instances of such an inventory.

Two future trajectories of al-J[a.bar]hiz's musings on communication and language are explored in chapter four: the writings of Ab[u.bar] Hil[a.bar]l al-'Askar[i.bar] and 'Abd al-Q[a.bar]hir al-Jurj[a.bar]n[i.bar]. This is an important exercise. Through contrasting their respective notions of nazm, Behzadi (as I understand her) proposes the challenging interpretation that al-J[a.bar]hiz's theory places more weight on the moral indebtedness of the agents in communication, whereas al-Jurj[a.bar]n[i.bar] makes room for God to make the connections between speaker, expression, and the appropriate image. It is impossible for me not to draw the conclusion that there are divergent cosmologies behind these stances.

In chapter five Behzadi reviews the professionalization of knowledge and emergence of disciplines (pp. 162-66); the mean (pp. 166-67); and bay[a.bar]n as unachievable (pp. 167-72).

I have benefited from reading this book, and al-J[a.bar]hiz's concept of bay[a.bar]n now emerges in sharper focus, cast in a more positive light from Behzadi's analysis. His thinking is shown to be radically perceptive. And yet al-J[a.bar]hiz inhabited more contexts than just the tradition of naqd and adab. Can we really understand his thoughts on communication while seeking to keep him within these contexts?

As Behzadi notes, al-J[a.bar]hiz's society was informed by debate, discussion, and disagreement. Many of these contexts are lost to us because they did not give rise to any written manifestations or because those written manifestations have been lost. But often our ears are simply not attuned to hearing them when they have in fact left echoes behind.

We need a sort of "Slonimsky's earbox," after the title of a 1996 composition by John Adams (intended to capture the spirit of Nicholas Slonimsky's manual The Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns written in 1947). How would we go about constructing a Slonimsky's earbox for al-J[a.bar]hiz?

Pellat, H[a.bar]r[u.bar]n, and Muhammad T[a.bar]h[a.bar] al-H[a.bar]jir[a.bar] took the most obvious step: the making available of the corpus in the best possible editions. A natural extension of this is to make al-J[a.bar]hiz available to those who do not read Arabic by translating his corpus. Alas, many of us are tempted, and we have all in one way or another failed. We should not be discouraged though--such failures are refractions of the daunting challenge that al-J[a.bar]hiz presents us as part of his invitation that we become model readers (and so model humans).

Behzadi has provided us with another method, which she has accomplished with confidence: the collocation of relevant passages from the corpus J[a.bar]hizianum on a select theme, the unearthing of their ramifications and commitments, and the setting of them in a given tradition. (In this she follows the predominant model of history of ideas as practiced within our discipline.)

Another method would be to undertake a prosopography of all the agents, locutors, and locutions (for many utterances are left unidentified) thronging and swarming across his pages. Behzadi notes that al-J[a.bar]hiz mentions some 2,500 names--in about 1,000 pages of text (p. 56). H[a.bar]r[u.bar]n's edition is remarkable for the success with which he managed to identify so many of them. This would be no mere inventory of names in al-J[a.bar]biz's universe, who says what is absolutely crucial to how we are to react to what is said.

At the basic level, however, we might pay heed to the language that al-J[a.bar]hiz uses. On the one hand, we need to fashion a J[a.bar]hizian lexicon of items from his corpus and explicated in terms of his corpus, as Behzadi, Charles Vial, and Ibr[a.bar]h[i.bar]m al-Samarr[a.bar]'[i.bar] for example, have done, following the practice set by Pellat, who often appended glossaries to his editions and translations. (11) On the other hand, we must attempt an intertextual lexicon, by seeking to juxtapose this J[a.bar]hizian lexicon with the lexica of contemporary writings and texts, be they grammatical, lexicographical, poetic, theological, legal, medical, or philosophical. I do not underestimate the compass of such a project. It is open ended and quite likely unfinishable, which does not mean we should not give it perhaps a modest go. The following is a small sample devoted to several key passages and lexemes from the b[a.bar]b al-bay[a.bar]n of the sort of exercise I have in mind.

Bay[a.bar]n, 1.75.1-16: The ma'[a.bar]n[i.bar] (1.75.4) are immaterial objects whose existence cannot be described unambiguously as "found" (mawj[u.bar]da), though the sense of the phrase mawj[a.bar]da fi ma'n[a.bar] ma'd[u.bar]ma (which would later become a technical formulation) suggests that they are real and so are to be classed as entities, ashy[a.bar]'. (12) Al-J[a.bar]hiz seems to represent an earlier stage of speculation to the notions later developed by Ab[u.bar] H[a.bar]shim al-Jubb[a.bar]'[i.bar] (235-303/849-915) and his followers, according to which the nonexistent (al-ma'd[u.bar]m) is a thing and as such was closely identified with the possible, "grounded ultimately in God's having the power to cause it to exist." (13) The means whereby the possible mana becomes material is man's use of language (dhikr, ikhb[a.bar]r, and isti'm[a.bar]l), as al-J[a.bar]hiz explains at 1.75.7-8. The subsequent doctrine of the Basran Mu'tazila was that "the non-existent is not directly accessible to human knowing." (14) For al-J[a.bar]hiz, the non-existent, i.e., possible, ma'[a.bar]n[i.bar] require mediation through language to become accessible. For both him and the Basrans, these objects are ontologically ambiguous, though what they both intend by means of the formula differs, since the Basrans argued that God's power (qudra) was what makes the possible come into existence as things in the world.

Bay[a.bar]n, 1.75.10: On al-muqayyad and mutlaq as 'restricted' and 'unrestricted', see Cornelia Schock, Koranexegese, Grammatik und Logik: Zum Verhtaltnis von arabischer und aristotleischer Urteils-, Konsequenz-, und Schlusslehre (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 186-87 on the use of this doublet by Ab[a.bar] Han[i.bar]fa (d. 150/767) to outline the possibility of belief 'al[a.bar] l-itl[a.bar]q without knowing the circumstances by which statements are determined or restricted. (15)

Bay[a.bar]n, 1.76.6-8: The use of hukm probably anticipates the usage of the later Basran Mu'tazila. Frank proposes "characteristic" as the most viable English equivalent. (16) The characteristics are the means whereby the attributes are known and can be defined; in our case, for example, the attribute of the ma'ani is limitlessness and so its characteristics (ahk[a.bar]m) are, in al-J[a.bar]hiz's words, "extensive, with no terminus, and ... comprehensive" (mabs[u.bar]ta il[a.bar] gh[a.bar]yr gh[a.bar]ya wa-mumtadda il[a.bar] ghayr nih[a.bar]ya), that of the asm[a.bar]' is finitude, and so their ahk[a.bar]m are "restricted, calculable, definite, and definable" (maqs[u.bar]ra ma'd[u.bar]da muhassla mad[u.bar]dada).

Ray[a.bar]n, 1.76.8: On the distinction between muhassala and mahd[u.bar]da in the early translations, see F. Zimmermann, "Some Observations on al-F[a.bar]t[a.bar]b[i.bar] and Logical Tradition," in Islamic Philosophy and the Classical Tradition, ed. S. M. Stern et al. (Oxford: Cassirer, 1972), 539 n. 11. His statement that "muhassal and its opposite ghayr muhassal apparently owe to Ish[a.bar]q [i.e., b. Hunayn, JEM] their introduction as terms of logic" needs slight modification in the light of al-J[a.bar]hiz's usage. As Zimmermann points out, mahd[a.bar]da belongs to the lexicon of the early translations as a standard rendering of Greek horistos ('defined') (see Ibn al-Muqaffa', Mantiq, [section][section]62, al-hur[u.bar]f ghayr al-mahd[a.bar]da, and 73, asm[a.bar]' ghayr mand[a.bar]da), (17) and the Arabic philosophical lexicon's establishment of Odd in the sense of 'definition' (which is demonstrably very early) would have constrained philosophically minded translators to search for another lexeme to render 'indefinite'. That this process had begun to take place by the time of the composition of the Bay[a.bar]n is clear from the technical use of muhassala in this passage.

B[a.bar]y[a.bar]n, 1.76.12-14: I wish to consider the possible provenance and adaptation of three seemingly innocuous termini in this passage: 'ayn, s[a.bar]ra, and hilya.

The Kit[a.bar]b al-Mantiq is attributed to ('Abd Allah) Ibn al-Muqaffa' (d. ca. 139/757). It is an epitomizing translation (or a translation of an epitome) of four works that formed part of the late antique tradition of Aristotle's Organon: Porphyry's Eisagoge and Aristotle's Categories, De Interpretatione, and Analytica Priora (to the end of the seventh part of the first book). Much uncertainty surrounds the work, and a range of questions has been posed: Who is the epitomator if it is not Ibn al-Muqaffa'? Is the nature of the source material textual or oral, or a combination? What is the source language of the work? In response to the last, Pahlavi, Syriac, and Greek have all been championed, (18) and the role of Ibn al-Muqaffa' (or his son) as epitomator has been both proposed and contested. In the absence of new textual discoveries, an answer to the second query remains even more speculative than an answer to the first. Emma Ganage s work on the Kit[a.bar]b al-Mantiq of J[a.bar]bir b. Hayy[a.bar]n is very promising. (19)

It is often argued, however, that the work should in fact be attributed to his son Muhammad b. Abd Allah: the conclusion of the text itself declares it to be a translation done by Ab [u.bar]? MuhammadAbd 'Abd [a.bar]h b. al-Muqaffa' (Mantiq, [section]93). It has been established that the work exerted no terminological influence on the Kit[a.bar]b of S[i.bar]bawayh and it seems to have exerted little influence on philosophical or grammatical terminology until the second quarter of the ninth century C.E. or so.

These two observations suggest that the Mantiq is a work of the type that Gregor Schoeler has identified as a work written (here translated) originally (by or for Ibn al-Muqaffa') and intended for private use, or as an aide-memoire or for circulation only within a school (or a family). There is no evidence to suggest that Ibn al-Muqaffa' was ever involved in the pedagogical activities of a school tradition, and given the involvement of his son in the attribution of the work, it seems that this was a work that was kept within the family and then, presumably after the death of his father, made public by Muhammad b. 'Abd All[a.bar]h b. al-Muqaffa'. (20)

What is clear about the provenance of the work is that it belongs squarely within the Alexandrian logical tradition as developed by Syriac Christianity. (21)

In the Mantiq, two of the words I have spotlighted in al-J[a.bar]hiz's passage ('ayn and s[u.bar]ra) occur as part of the work's technical vocabulary, while in the case of the third (hilya), the context suggests that it is either quasi-technical or it may be a fossil of an alternative, perhaps, discarded technical vocabulary.

The tradition repudiated the logical terminology that Ibn al-Muqaffa' had provided for the Aristotelian categories and was especially dismissive of the use of the lexeme 'ayn (as opposed to jawhar) to render Aristotle's primary category, ov[sigma]ia (nature, essence, or substance). (22) The terminology is obscure and laconic and my renderings (especially of 'ayn as 'essence') are provisional. In al-Mantiq. the first category is described as follows: Then he said: We found existents (ashy[a.bar]) that had shapes (ashkh[a.bar]s) and subsistence (qiw[a.bar]m), such as "sky," "earth." "man," "riding beast," "bird," "tree," "water," "wind," and "lire," and many other existents (ashy[a.bar]') in addition to these. So we sought for a comprising name (i.e., noun) (ism j[a.bar]mi') and we found it to be "essence" ('ayn), because the names [nouns] provide information only about the very essences of the existents (a'yan al-ashy[a.bar]') and do not point to their attributes (yadull 'al[a.bar] sif[a.bar]tih[a.bar]). (Mantiq, [section]18) (23)

In other words, the 'ayn of a thing is that which makes it what it is, and which is not preceded (categorially and ontologically) by anything else (wa-lam najid al-'ayn yuqaddimuhu shay': Mantiq, [section] 33). It is only in a rudimentary philosophical sense that it is an "essence," i.e., insofar as we take this to mean what makes a particular thing that particular thing and as such can be distinguished from its attributes. Perhaps "it-ness" is a more accurate rendering. According to this tradition, then, since for al-J[a.bar]hiz. the ma'[a.bar]n[i.bar] are immaterial things that exist as possible existents (mawj[a.bar]da f[i.bar] ma'n[a.bar] ma'd[a.bar]ma), they can be said to have a'y[a.bar]n (essences, "it-nesses"), because in this regard they are no different from the nouns by which things such as "heaven," "earth," and so on are designated, and effectively no different from the things that are thus designated.

This approach to possible (immaterial) existents is also found in an obscure passage in another of al-J[a.bar]hiz's works, the cornucopian polemic KIt[a.bar]b al-Tarb[i.bar]' wa-l-tadw[i.bar]r (The Treatise of Quadrature and Circumference), where the phrase a'y[a.bar]n al-'ilal ("the very essences of the causes"--the causes of things also being mawj[a.bar]da f[i.bar] ma'n[a.bar] ma'd[u.bar]ma) has occasioned some perplexity. (24) It forms the second half of a doublet, the first of which is khas[a.bar]'is al-asb[a.bar]b, where the asb[a.bar]b seem to be material causes or "occasions," and the 'ilal immaterial causes. (This use of khas[a.bar]'is requires investigation in its own right.) Compare this with the sense of the passage in al-Mantiq at the beginning of the De Interpretatione, [section]56, where we find h[a.bar]l al-um[u.bar]r 'al[a.bar] arba'a awjuh imm[a.bar] th[a.bar]bita bi-a'yanih[a.bar] wa-imm[a.bar] th[a.bar]bita f[i.bar] hum[u.bar]m al-qalb wa-imm[a.bar] fi l-kal[a.bar]m wa-imm[a.bar] f[i.bar] l-kit[a.bar]b: "the condition of things is according to four ways--either secure through their essences [i.e., their existence (be they material or immaterial) is continuous], or secure in the thoughts of the heart [i.e., their existence is continuous even when immaterial, as thoughts in the mind], or in speech or in writing."

This use of 'ayn is an extension of its denotation of an individual material object: al-Sh[a.bar]fi'[i.bar], al-Ris[a.bar]la, [section]65, fa-dallahum ... idh[a.bar] gh[a.bar]b[u.bar] 'an 'ayn al-masjid al-har[a.bar]m 'al[a.bar] saw[a.bar]b al-ijtih[a.bar]d "so He [God] pointed them, ... when they were absent from the sacred mosque itself, to the correct use of individual reasoning"; (25) al-Kind[i.bar], F[i.bar] l-ib[a.bar]na 'an suj[u.bar]d aljirm al-aqs[a.bar] (On Clarification of the Prostration of the Outermost Body), p. 195.6 (al-intiq[a.bar]l min 'ayn il[a.bar] 'ayn).(26)

When it is used, for example, of the color of a peacock's tail, it combines both elements: al-J[a.bar]hiz, Tarb[i.bar]', [section]173, lawnan bi-'aynihi, as also when it occurs in mathematical or catoptric treatises to refer, for example, to a diagram: al-Kind[i.bar], Taqw[i.bar]m al-khat' wa-l-mushkil[a.bar]t allat[i.bar] li-[U.bar]ql[i.bar]dus f[i.bar] kit[a.bar]bihi al-maws[u.bar]m bi-l-Man[a.bar]zir (Rectification of Errors and Problems due to Euclid in His Book Known as Optics), 195.11 (h[a.bar]dh[a.bar] al-shakl bi-'aynihi); or to the line of a diagram: p. 217.19-20. (27)

We also find in al-J[a.bar]hiz's Tarb[i.bar]' an unambiguous use of ('ayn as ov[sigma]ia: Tarb[i.bar]', [section]126, akram 'aynan ("more noble as to essence"), sarcastically, of the addressee's ill-founded self-esteem; and in another treatise the phrase ma'rifat al-'ayn wa-l-ism wa-l-sabab wa-l-nasab, "knowledge of the essence, the name (noun), the reason, and the relationship." (28) Finally, its proliferation in a passage in al-Kindi's (d. after 252/865) Fi l-falsafa al-[u.bar]l[a.bar] (On First Philosophy), in a discussion of alf[a.bar]z words, confirms that this is the technical sense of the lexeme in al-J[a.bar]hiz's phrase a'y[a.bar]n al-ma'[a.bar]n[i.bar]: "thoughts as essences." (29)

Ibn al-Muqaffa' employs the term s[u.bar]ra to denote "species," as in Mantiq, [section]11: Two other names (nouns) that function together are the genus (jins) and the species (s[u.bar]ra) ... the species is every noun that is applied to names (nouns) that vary as to their shapes (ashkh[a.bar]s) but are comprised of one species, as when someone says "people," thereby comprising one person and someone else who have different shapes, even if the species of "peopleness" comprises them.

As the technical term for "species," s[u.bar]ra was soon largely replaced by naw' just as 'ayn was by jawhar, though its occurrence in a number of early translations (as in Aristotle's De Caelo) attests to its erstwhile currency.30 The Theology of Aristotle reserves sura for "form" (Gr. [epsilon][~.i][delta][zeta]) and naw' for "species." In his F[i.bar] l-falsafa al-Kind[i.bar], too, uses this vocabulary: kull malf[u.bar]z lahu ma'nan imm[a.bar] an yak[u.bar]n jinsan wa-imm[a.bar] s[u.bar]ratan, "every thing put into a word has a concept which is either a genus or a species" (Rashed and Jolivet, p. 45.12; also at p. 45.14 and 18: al-jins wa-l-s[u.bar]ra; further pp. 43.23 and 45.1-2). See, too, his epistle F[i.bar] wahd[a.bar]niyyat All[a.bar]h (On the Oneness of God), where he employs the cognate phrase h[a.bar]fizan al[a.bar] fikrika s[u.bar]rat al-qawl: Rashed and Jolivet, p. 137.11, in the sense of the "form" or the "shape" of the words.

In Ibn al-Muqaffa''s lexicon the term hilya (lit. an adornment or ornamentation, used in the Arabic Plotinus to render Greek [mu]o[rho][phi][eta] "shape") occurs on three occasions. Two have the air of technicality about them--they appear to be formulaic. The context is a discussion of the modalities necessity (wuj[u.bar]b) and possibility (imk[a.bar]n): (31) Either by using (lit. "placing," wad') a name (noun) and providing some information about it, as when one says "So-and-so is writing." This is the [type of] speech that he [i.e., Aristotle] calls composed (mu'allaf) of one name (noun) and one predicate (harf); Or by using a name (noun) and adorning it with an appearance (yulyliyahu bi-hilya), then providing some information about it, then describing the matter about which he is providing the information, as when one says "So-and-so, the tall one, is writing." This is the [type of] speech that is composed (mu'alla) of one name (noun) and two predicates (harf); Or by using the name (noun) and adorning it with an appearance (yulyliyahu bi-hilya), then providing some information about it, then describing the matter about which he is providing the information, as when one says "So-and-so, the tall one, is writing and excels [at it]." Now, this combines information about so-and-so as being "the tall one" with [a reference] to his act of writing and it describes his writing and provides the information that he excels [at it]. This type of speech is the one that the philosophers (faylasuf[u.bar]n) name the "descriptive" (w[a.bar]sif), because it describes the matter by means of which it provides information concerning the thing.

This act of "adorning" a noun with an appearance is similar to but not the same as the process described by al-J[a.bar]hiz according to which the five types (asn[a.bar]f) of bay[a.bar]n are each distinct from one another in not only the ways in which they are used and the forms that they take but also the types of information that they relay. The principal difference for al-J[a.bar]hiz is that bay[a.bar]n can be non-verbal.

The pairing of s[u.bar]ra and hilya found at Bay[a.bar]n, 1.76.13 is very rare indeed in texts from the period. In fact, to the best of my present knowledge, in the philosophical corpus it is found only in the so-called Dicta. Pronouncements, of the Greek Sheikh (al-shaykh al-y[u.bar]n[a.bar]n[i.bar], i.e., Plotinus, and specifically in Rosenthal's edition of the fragments: [section][section]A4 and A8. (32)

Al-J[a.bar]hiz may have this version of Neoplatonic cosmology in mind, though its full implications for the "enwording" of thoughts described in the Bay[a.bar]n, for the dating of the Dicta, and for their relation to the Arabic Plotinus must await the new edition being prepared under the direction of Cristina D'Ancona and Gerhard Endress.

The use of the technical term ism j[a.bar]mi' at Bay[a.bar]n 1.76.1 (33) is another indication that al-J[a.bar]hiz's vocabulary draws largely on Ibn al-Muqaffa''s version of the Categories (or at the least on a common source, maybe an alternate translation in the same tradition). That it is Ibn al-Mugaffa''s work on which al-J[a.bar]hiz draws and not some other component of the early logical tradition finds a degree of support from the reference to Ibn al-Muqaffa' among a list of translators of Aristotle in his Kit[a.bar]b al-Hayaw[a.bar]n, 1.76.5-8.34

There is further evidence of al-J[a.bar]hiz's close reading of Ibn al-Muqaffa' in a hierarchical chain of communication described in the latter's treatise which explains a passage on the communicative insufficiency of writing in al-J[a.bar]hiz's Kit[a.bar]b, al-Bukhal[a.bar]': Writing does not provide you with the form (l[a.bar] yusawwir) of everything, nor does it give you its kernel (kunh), its definitions (hud[u.bar]d), or its true realities (haq[a.bar]'iq). (35)

Al-J[a.bar]hiz is a passionate advocate of writing and books, but they occupy the end of the communicative chain. In the Mantiq, [section]56, we find: Writing (kit[a.bar]b) provides clarity for (yub[a.bar]n li-) speech, while speech clarifies (yub[i.bar]n 'an) thoughts (hum[u.bar]m) and thoughts clarify essences (a'y[a.bar]n)

This communicative sequence is also found in al-Kind[i.bar]'s F[i.bar] l-falsafa: There can exist some homonymous names (nouns) that are the cause (illa) of others, Such as that which is written (makht[u.bar]t), that which is put into words (malf[u.bar]z), that which is thought (al-mufakkar fihi) and the subsisting essence (al-'ayn al-q[a.bar]'ima); for the writing (khatt), which is a substance (jawhar), provides information about the word (lafz), which is a substance (jawhar); the word (lafz), which is a substance (jawhar), provides information about the thought (al-mufakkar fihi); the thought (al-mufakkar fihi) provides information about the essence ('ayn) [of the thing], which is a substance (jawhar). "One" can be applied to all of these [as a predicate], I mean concerning the essence [of the thing] itself (fi 1-'ayn dh[a.bar]tih[a.bar]), concerning the thought Okra), concerning the word, and concerning the writing, for the essence [of the thing] in itself (al-ayn f[i.bar] dh[a.bar]tih[a.bar]) is the cause (illa) of the essence [of the thing] in the thought (al-ayn f[i.bar] 1-fikr), the essence [of the thing] in the thought (al-'ayn fi 1-fikr) is the cause ((ilia) of the essence [of the thing] in the word (al-ayn fi 1-lafz), and the essence [of the thing] in the word (al-'ayn fi 1-lafz) is the cause (cilia) of the essence [of the thing] in the writing (al-'ayn fi 1-khatt). This species (maw) of "one" is multiple also, since it can be said [as a predicate] of many [things]. However, the One Truth is not "one" in any manner (lit. species, naw') in which a name (noun) can be homonymous. (36)

The full sense of al-Kind[i.bar]'s argument is difficult, and he may be drawing on a Neoplatonist precursor of whom I am unaware. I find that the argument becomes opaque without reference to Ibn al-Muqaffa''s (and al-J[a.bar]hiz's) communicative chain. Writing is a concrete substance (i.e., a jawhar) that ultimately owes its existence to (is caused by) the it-ness of the thing that it is intended to communicate (and which presumably can be an idea--ma'n[a.bar]--as much as a material object; recall al-J[a.bar]hiz's a'y[a.bar]n al-ma'[a.bar]n[i.bar] in the passage above). It is only in a very tenuous and weak sense that writing here can be said to be "symbolic" of the essence it communicates. s7 The clash of philosophical lexica in this passage ('ayn vs. jawhar, for example) is also very telling and appears heavily indebted to a prior stratum of philosophical activity. (38)

In sum, bay[a.bar]n in the early 900s C.E. was what one historian of science has recently labeled a "theory domain," and it might be sensible for us to reconsider how we go about studying and charting such theory domains insofar as they can be recovered from the textual tradition. (39)

So much for a possible J[a.bar]hizian earbox. For Behzadi Kit[a.bar]b al-Bay[a.bar]n is a debate text, a book designed to incorporate and contribute to contemporary debates. It is also, it appears, a book designed to transcend these debates by striving to achieve the unachievable ideal of bay[a.bar]n. Because the ideal bay[a.bar]n is a balanced achievement of the mean, al-J[a.bar]hiz's attempt to realize the ideal mean has raised the book from the toil and moil of argument and even (if I read Behzadi properly) from patronage. It is, according to her, a work of al-J[a.bar]hiz's mature old age and I have the impression, though she does not quite say so, that she approaches it as the work in which al-J[a.bar]hiz weaves together strands of his earlier writings and in so doing brings them to completion and fulfilment. I am tempted to say that as such the book for her may be both his signature work and his swan song. Whatever else it has been, is, and may become, the Kit[a.bar]b al-Bay[a.bar]n wa-l-taby[i.bar]n is an account of the human condition domiciled in the abode of language.

This is a review article of Sprache and Verstehen: Al-G[a.bar]hiz uber die Vollkomnzenheit des Ausdrucks. By LALE BEHZADI. Diskurse der Arabistik, vol. 14. Wiesbaden: HARRASSOWITZ, 2009. Pp. 186. [euro] 48 (paper).

(1.) S. Enderwitz, Gesellschaftlicher Rang and ethnische Legitimation: Die arabische Schriftsteller Ab[u.bar] 'Uthm[a.bar]n al-G[a.bar]hiz uber die Afrikaner, Perser and Araber in der islamischen Gesellschaft (Freiburg: Schwartz, 1979); M. H. Echiguer, Al-G[a.bar]hiz et sa doctrine mu'tazilite (Rabat: Arabian al-Hilal, 1986). Two others, not devoted exclusively to al-J[a.bar]hiz, are I. Genies, Un genre litteraire arabe: al-Mabasin wa-l-Masawi (Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 1977) and F. Malti-Douglas, Structures of Avarice: The Bukhal[a.bar]' in Medieval Arabic Literature (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985).

(2.) "Les opinions d'al-G[a.bar]hiz sur l'ecrivain et I'ceuvre litteraire," Rocznik Orientalistyczny 32 (1969): 105-22; "Les ornaments de style selon la conception d'al-G[a.bar]hiz," Rocznik Orientalistyczny 36 (1973): 5-46; "Some Aspects of al-J[a.bar]hiz's Rhetorical Theory," Occasional Papers of the School of Abbasid Studies 3 (1991): 89-116; "Al-J[a.bar]biz on Poetry and Poets," Occasional Papers of the School of Abbasid Studies 4 (1994): 62-94; "Entre al-G[a.bar]hiz et Bakhtine: Le theorie de la communication chez un drudit arabe du 9e siecle et chez chercheurs europeens contemporains," in Problems in Arabic Literature, ed. M. Maroth (Pilisecaba: Avicenna Institute of Middle Eastern Studies, 2004), 91-101.

(3.) J. E. Lowry, "Some Preliminary Observations on al-S[a.bar]fii and Later Used al-Fiqh: The Case of the Term Bay[a.bar]n," Arabica 55 (2008): 505-27; A. Belhaj, "Perspectives sur le concept du Bayan d'al-S[a.bar]fi'[i.bar] a al-G[a.bar]bir[i.bar]," Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 62 (2009): 395-404.

(4.) The proceedings were published as Al-J[a.bar]hiz: A Muslim Humanist for Our Time, ed. A. Heinemann et al. (Beirut: Orient-Institut and Wurzburg: Ergon, 2009).

(5.) See. e.g.. among Behzadi's secondary materials, M. S. al-Bann[a.bar]ni, al-Nazariyy[a.bar]t al-lis[a.bar]niyya wa-l-bal[a.bar]ghiyya wa-l-balaghiyya 'inda l-J[a.bar]hiz min khilal al-Bay[a.bar]n wa-l-taby[i.bar]n (Algiers: Diw[a.bar]n al-Matbu'[a.bar]t al-J[a.bar]mi'iyya, 1983); M. 'A. Z. Sabb[a.bar]gh. al-Bal[a.bar]gha al-shi 'riyya fi kit[a.bar]b al-Bay[a.bar]n wa-l-taby[a.bar]n (Sayd[a.bar]: al-Maktaba al-'Asriyya, 1998).

(6.) R. Holub, "Phenomenology," in The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, vol. 8: From Formalism to Poststructuralism, ed. R. Selden (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2005), 289-318, esp. 310-16.

(7.) See also the study of P. Heck, The Construction of Knowledge in Islamic Civilization: Qud[a.bar]ma b. Ja'far and his Kit[a.bar]b al-Khar[a.bar]j wa-Sin[a.bar]'at al-Kit[a.bar]ba (Leiden: Brill, 2002).

(8.) See the works of G. Schoeler, The Oral and the Written in Early Islam, tr. U. Vagelpohl, ed. J. E. Montgomery (London: Routledge, 2006); The Genesis of Literature in Islam: From the Aural to the Read, in collaboration with and translated by S. Toorawa (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 2009).

(9.) In Al-J[a.bar]hiz A Muslim Humanist, 91-110. See also Y. Suleiman, "Bayan as a Principle of Taxonomy: Linguistic Elements in Jahiz's Thinking," in Studies on Arabia in Honour of G. Rex Smith, ed. J. E Healy and V. Porter (Supplement to Journal of Semitic Studies) (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2001), 273-95. In al-J[a.bar]hiz's insistence on the communicative process and on effective communication, I am reminded of aspects of Galen's approach to language as studied by B. Morrison, "Language," in The Cambridge Companion to Galen, ed. R. J. Hankinson (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2008), 116-56. If we wish to seek a theory domain in which to set al-J[a.bar]hiz's ideas in this regard, it is probably to the Galenic corpus in Arabic that we should turn.

(10.) See the perceptive remarks of S. Vasalou. "Subject and Body in Swan Mu'tazilism, or: Mu'tazilite Kalam and the Fear of Triviality." Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 17 (2007): 267-98.

(11.) Al-J[a.bar]hiz, Quatre essais, tr. Ch. Vial (Cairo: Institut Francais d'Archeologie Orientale, 1976-1979) (part 2 is an extensive glossary); I. al-Samarr[a.bar]'[i.bar], Min mu'jam al-J[a.bar]hiz (Baghdad: D[a.bar]r al-Rash[i.bar]d li-I-Nashr, 1982).

(12.) "Present in the sense of not-actual": R. M. Frank, "Meanings Are Spoken of in Many Ways: The Earlier Arab Grammarians," Le Museon 94 (1981): 265.

(13.) R. M. Frank, Beings and Their Attributes: The Teachings of the Basrian School of the Mu'tazila in the Classical Period (Albany: State Univ. of New York Press, 1978), 57.

(14.) R. M. Frank, "Al-Ma'd[u.bar]m wal-Mawj[u.bar]d: The Non-Existent, the Existent, and the Possible in the Teaching of Ab[u.bar] H[a.bar]shim and His Followers," Melanges de l'Institut Dominicain d'Etudes Orientales du Caire 14 (1980): 195-96.

(15.) Schtick's articles are vital reading for anyone interested in the ambience of al-J[a.bar]hiz's reflections on communication; see, e.g., her discussion of Ab[u.bar] l-Hudhayl and Bishr al-Mar[i.bar]s[i.bar], in C. Schack, "Discussions on Conditional Sentences from the Year AH 17/AD 638 to Avicenna (d. AH 428/AD 1037)," in Classical Arabic Philosophy: Sources and Reception, ed. P. Adamson (London and Turin: The Warburg Institute and Nino Agrano, 2007), 63-67.

(16.) Frank. "Al-Ma'd[u.bar]m," 192; Frank, Beings, 62. See further ibid., 58-64. See also R. M. Frank, "Al-Ahk[a.bar]m in Classical As'arite Teaching," in De Zenon d'Elee a Poincare: Recueil d'etudes en hommage a Roshdi Rushed, ed. R. Moreton and A. Hasnawi (Les Cahiers du MIDEO, vol. 1) (Leuven and Paris: Peeters, 2004), 753-79.

(17.) Ed. M. T Daneshpazhuh (Tehran, 1357/1978).

(18.) Pahlavi: G. Furlani, "Di una presunta versione araba di alcuni scritti di Porfirio e di Aristotele," Rendiconti della Reale Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, series 6.2 (1926): 213; Greek and/or Syriac: P. Kraus, "Zu Ibn al-Mugaffa'," Rivista degli Studi Orientali 14 (1933-34), 1-20, esp. 1-14; Greek: Zimmermann, "Some Observations," 542 n. 37; Pahlavi, Syriac, or Greek: J. Lameer (with a guarded preference for Syriac), Al-F[a.bar]r[a.bar]b[i.bar] and Aristotelian Syllogistics: Greek Theory and Islamic Practice (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994), 12 and 87.

(19.) "Sur les Categories d'Aristote: Un fragment inedit en version arabe," Melanges de l'Universite Saint-Joseph 58 (2005): 81-105.

(20.) For Ibn al-Muqaffa''s son, see P. Kraus, "Zu Ibn al-Muqaffa'," 1-14; F. Gabrieli, "Ibn al-Mulsaffa'," [El.sup.2],3: 883; J. van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1992), 3: 27. For Ibn al-Muqaffa', Ch. Hein, Definition und Einteilung der Philosophic: Von der spatantiken Einleitungsliteratur zur arabischen Enzyklopadie (Frankfurt am Main: P. Lang, 1985), 41-46; Zimmermann, "Some Observations"; Lameer, Al-F[a.bar]r[a.bar]b[i.bar], 11-12; T Street, "Arabic Logic," in Handbook of the History of Logic, ed. D. M. Gabbay and J. Woods (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2004), 1: 530-31. On its (lack of) influence on Arabic grammar, see G. Troupeau, "La Logique d'Ibn al-Muqaffa' et les origins de la grammaire arabe," Arabica 28 (1981): 242-50; R. Talmon, "Nahwiyy[a.bar]n in S[i.bar]bawayhi's Kitab," Zeitschrift fur Arabische Linguistik 8 (1982): 12-38. For this type of writing, see Schoeler, The Genesis of Literature.

(21.) H. Hugonnard-Roche, "L'Organon: Tradition syriaque et arabe," in Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, ed. R. Goulet (Paris: CNRS, 1989), 1: 502-10,513-21,524,526-28; H. Hugonnard-Roche, La Logique d'Aristote du grec au syriaque: Etudes sur la transmission des texts de l'Organon et leur interpretation philosophique (Paris: Vrin, 2004); Street, "Arabic Logic," 531.

(22.) See Troupeau, "La Logique." 244-45.

(23.) Other instances: [section][section]19. 20, 29 (al-'arad wa-l-'ayn). 32 (al-rajul d[a.bar]khil fi b[a.bar]b al-'ayn bi-annahu 'ayn rajul), 33, 56 (a'yan al-ashya').

(24.) Al-J[a.bar]hiz, Kit[a.bar]b al-Tarb[i.bar]' wa-l-tadw[i.bar]r, ed. Ch. Pellat (Damascus: Institut Francais de Damns. 1955), 144.

(25.) Al-Sh[a.bar]fi'i al-Ris[a.bar]la, ed. A. Sh[a.bar]kir (Beirut: al-Maktaba al-'Ilmiyya, n.d.).

(26.) CEuvres philosophiques et scientifiques d'al-Kind[i.bar], vol. 2: Metaphysique et cosmologie, ed. R. Rashed and J. Jolivet (Leiden: Brill, 1998).

(27.) CEuvres philosophiques et scientifiques d'al-Kind[i.bar], vol. 1: L'Optique et la catoptrique, ed. R. Rashed (Leiden: Brill, 1997).

(28.) Al-J[a.bar]hiz, Kit[a.bar]b Kitm[a.bar]n al-sirr wa-hifz al-lis[a.bar]n, in Majm[u.bar]' ras[a.bar]'il al-J[a.bar]hiz, ed. P. Kraus and T. al-H[a.bar]jir[i.bar] (Cairo: Lajnat al-Ta'lif wa-I-Tarjama wa-I-Nashr, 1943), 59.19.

(29.) Nine times: Rashed and Jolivet, p. 87.14-19 translated below. This use also finds a parallel in S[i.bar]bawayhi's Kit[a.bar]b, as in the phrase al-shay' bi-'aynihi in the discussion of the priority of the indefinite over the definite; see Frank, "Meanings Are Spoken of in Many Ways," 276.

(30.) See G. Endress, Proclus Arabus: Zwanzig Abschnitte aus der Institutio Theologica in arabischer Ubersetzung (Beirut and Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1973), 134-35.

(31.) Al-Mantiq, [section]87: the third occurrence is Mantiq, [section]44; on the terminology of modalities in the treatise, see Zimmermann, "Some Observations," 538 n. 9.

(32.) E. Rosenthal. "As-Sayh al-Yunani and the Arabic Plotinus Source." Orientalia 21 (1952): 461-92; repr. as article 111 in his Greek Philosophy in the Arab World (Aldershot: Variorum, 1990): hilya (which may be masked in some sources as jibilla) is discussed on p. 470.

(33.) See Frank. "Meanings Are Spoken of in Many Ways," 275. for a discussion of this term.

(34.) Kit[a.bar]b al-Hayaw[a.bar]n, ed. 'A. S. M. Hint n (Beirut: Dar al-Kit[a.bar]b al - 'Arab[i.bar], 1969).

(35.) Al-J[a.bar]hiz, nab al-Bukhala'. ed. T. al-H[a.bar]jir[i.bar] (Cairo: Dar al-Ma'[a.bar]rif, n.d.). 58.6-7.

(36.) Rashed and Jolivet, 87.13-16.

(37.) Pace A. Ivry, Al-Kindi's Metaphysics (Albany: SUNY, 1974), 186 n. [155.21.sup.2].

(38.) See the discussion of jawhar as "atom" in A. Dhanani, The Physical Theory of Kal[a.bar]m: Atoms, Space and Void in Basrian Mu'tazili Cosmology (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994), 55-62. 1 am deeply indebted to Sophia Vasalou of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, with whom 1 discussed some of these passages and whose philosophical acumen has made it possible for me to discern (with an approximation of philosophical respectability) the contours of the preceding lexemes.

(39.) M. G. Kim, Affinity, That Elusive Dream: A Genealogy of the Chemical Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003); reviewed by M. Terrell, "Public Science in the Enlightenment," Modern Intellectual History 2 (2005): 265-76.

JAMES E. MONTGOMERY UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE