An account of what Arabic scholars have written, either as commentators or as more independent authors, on the subjects treated in Aristotle's
Meteorology, this work investigates how they were influenced by one another and by previous Greek commentators.
For each subject a survey is given of the content of the Greek commentaries (by Alexander, Philoponus and Olympiodorus) as well as of a later treatise, ascribed to Olympiodorus and extant only in Arabic. Then, the Arabic version of Ibn al-Bitrīq is investigated; it was one of the sources used by the Arabic writers which are discussed after that: al-Kindī, Ibn Sīnā and later scholars who were inspired by him, Ibn Bājja and Ibn Rušd.
Two Arabic treatises on subjects from the
Meteorology are edited and translated.
Paul Lettinck, Ph.D. (1973) in physics and (1991) in Semitic languages, Free University, Amsterdam. He teaches History of Islamic Science at the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization, Kuala Lumpur. He has published a study on the reception of Aristotle's Physics in the Arabic world. (Brill, 1994).
'
The book as a whole is a piece of impressive scholarship, a valuable item in the series Aristoteles Semitico-Latinus.'
Keimpe Algra,
Phronesis, 2001.
Scholars of Arabic philosophy and literature, history of science, Aristotelian philosophy.