ABU AL-FARAJ IBN AL-™AYYIB ON SPIRIT AND SOUL

ABU AL-FARAJ IBN AL-™AYYIB ON SPIRIT AND SOUL*

Presentation and Discussion

Islamicate civilization appropriated a huge and diverse body of scien-

tific, philosophical, and other branches of literature, especially during
the early Abbasid period. Philosophical and scientific texts, employing
technical terms that had taken on specific usages within the different tra-
ditions of Hellenistic and other cultures, were all rendered into Arabic.
This led inevitably to the need to clarify the precise meaning of these
terms, especially when the same word was differently employed in the
various disciplines. One especially important case in point is the pair of
terms, nafs and ruÌ, “soul” and “spirit” respectively. Both terms carry
an array of meanings in biology, psychology, and metaphysics; each can
mean, in one (con)text or another, or in one way or another, a quasi-bio-
logical organ that maintains the vitality of the human organism, an in-
strument of data collection, processing and cognition, or a metaphysical,
other-worldly entity that represents the imperishable quintessence of the
human individual, which is subject to divine reward or punishment. Two
scholars who flourished in the early years of Arabic science, the Chris-
tian Qus†a bin Luqa and the Jew Isaac Israeli, penned monographs on the
meanings that each of these terms take on in different contexts. Both of
these treatises have been published and studied1. Discussions of the

* Research on this project was supported by The Israel Science Foundation (grant
No. 192/05).
1
 An introductory note, translation, and comments to Israeli's tract (including refer-
ences to earlier studies by M. STEINSCHNEIDER) can be found in A. ALTMANN —
S.M. STERN, Isaac Israeli: A Neoplatonic Philosopher of the Early Tenth Century,
Oxford, 1958, p. 106-117. However, the edition promised by STERN never appeared; see
now A. TREIGER, Andrei Iakovlevic Borisov (1903-1942) and his Studies of Medieval
Arabic Philosophy, in Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 17 (2007), p. 159-190, note 82 on
p. 181. The Arabic text of Qus†a was published by G. GABRIELI, La Risalah di Qus†a b.
Luqa, Sulla Differenza tra lo spirito e l'anima, in Atti Rendiconti della Reale Academia
die Linceiser, 5.19 (1910), p. 622-655, and a year later by L. CHEIKHO, Al-Risala fi ‘l-farq
bayna al-nafs wa-l-ruÌ, in al-Mashriq, 14 (1911), p. 94-109, reprinted in IDEM, Maqalat
falsafiyya li-mashashir falasifat al-‘arab, muslimin wa-naÒara, 3rd printing, Cairo, 1985
(= Ed. CHEIKHO); both editions have a useful introduction and notes. The dissertation of
J. WILCOX, The Transmission and Influence of Qusta ibn Luqa's ‘On the Difference be-
tween Spirit and the Soul', New York, 1985, is particularly helpful in studying the Latin
tradition; it includes editions of some Latin versions and, in an appendix, an edition of the
medieval Hebrew translation as well.

Le Muséon 122 (1-2), 149-158. doi: 10.2143/MUS.122.1.2037155 - Tous droits réservés.

© Le Muséon, 2009.

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 150 Y.T. LANGERMANN

same problem are embedded in treatises of a more general nature as

well2.
We publish here a short disquisition on this very problem by Abu al-
Faraj ibn al-™ayyib (d. 1048), a Christian philosopher, physician, and
theologian of Baghdad, and one of the key figures in the transmission
and both the Aristotelian and Galenic traditions3.
The text is found in three manuscripts, all of which have been con-
sulted for this study: Escorial 888, ff. 85b-86a; Nurosmaniye 3095, ff.
125a-b; Russian State Library, Moscow, Ginzburg 724, 111b-112a4. The
Moscow manuscript is a copy, Arabic in Hebrew letters, of this same
essay in a manuscript whose remaining contents have nothing at all to do
with Ibn al-™ayyib, or, for that matter, with philosophy and science. We
publish the text here in Arabic characters, but the variants from the Mos-
cow manuscript are displayed in Hebrew characters.
The two Arabic letter copies are found in collections of short and me-
dium length writings by Ibn al-™ayyib. MS Escorial was inspected by
the late Franz Rosenthal, who published one of the texts found there5.
The present writer has a microfilm of the same codex. The texts are
quite diverse; they include unaltered extracts from the writings of others
as well as original contributions by Ibn al-™ayyib. MS Nurosmaniye has
not been studied as closely; however, the texts there by Ibn al-™ayyib
are listed by Ferrari6. The essay of concern to us is certainly not a collec-
tion of passages cut from the treatise of Qus†a; the exposition and termi-
nology are different, and, so it seems, there are some differences in doc-
trine, albeit minor. Moreover, one cannot rule out the possibility that Ibn
2
 Some of the earliest discussions in Arabic letters are found in the genre known as
Khalq al-insan; I sample some of these texts in my study, Medical Isra’iliyyat? Ancient
Islamic Medical Traditions Transcribed into the Hebrew Alphabet, in Aleph, 6 (2006),
p. 373-398. The discussion later expanded, taking on religious or mystical dimensions,
e.g., in al-Ghazali's al-Risala al-laduniyya, Cairo, 1327 A.H., p. 7-14; see also my study,
David Ibn Shoshan on Spirit and Soul, in European Journal of Jewish Studies, 1 (2007),
p. 63-86.
3
 A recent and very thorough summary of Ibn al-™ayyib's life and works, with full
bibliography, can be found in C. FERRARI, Der Kategorienkommentar von Abu l-Farag
‘Adballah Ibn a†-™ayyib, Leiden, 2006, p. 17-42 (= FERRARI, Der Kategorienkommentar).
4 Only the first of these is listed in FERRARI, Kategorienkommentar, p. 41; however, it

is Dr Ferrari whom we must thank for alerting us to the Nurosmaniye copy, as well as for
supplying us with a photocopy. The Hebrew letter copy was first noted by M. STEIN-
SCHNEIDER, Schriften der Araber in hebraeischen Handschriften, in Zeitschrift der
deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft, 47 (1893), p. 335-384, at p. 366-7.
5 F. ROSENTHAL, The Symbolism of the Tabula Cebetis, according to Abu l-Farag Ibn

a†-™ayyib, in Recherches d'Islamologie: Recueil d'articles offerts à Georges C. Anawati

et Louis Gardet par leurs collègues et amis, Louvain, 1977, p. 273-283.
6
 FERRARI, Kategorienkommentar, p. 34-42, third column, identifies three treatises; as
noted above, the essay on spirit and soul is missing from this list.

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 ABU AL-FARAJ IBN AL-™AYYIB ON SPIRIT AND SOUL 151

al-™ayyib may have exploited his own extensive commentary to Galen's

On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body. Unfortunately I have no ac-
cess to the manuscripts of that commentary7.
Ibn al-™ayyib's essay is limited almost in its entirety to the concept of
spirit (ruÌ). All that he has to say about soul is this: “Spirit is a body
that serves as an instrument; soul exploits it for its activities. Soul is not
a body.” As such it is, oddly enough, complemented by Isaac Israeli's
tract, which for all practical purposes deals exclusively with the soul,
especially its survival after the death of the body. Both authors agree that
spirit is material and is responsible for psychic and physiological func-
tions; soul is immaterial. However, for whatever reasons, Ibn al-™ayyib
felt the need to clarify the different types of spirit and their functions,
whereas Israeli wished to expand upon the afterlife.
The “distinction” between spirit and soul, according to Ibn al-™ayyib,
is clear enough: spirit is a body, specifically a fine (la†if) body, whereas
soul is not a body at all. However, as just noted, only one sentence is
devoted to soul; the rest of the essay addresses the question of spirit ex-
clusively. The three spirits of the Galenic tradition – natural (†abi‘iyya),
vital (Ìaywaniyya), and psychic (nafsaniyya) – are described briefly, and
their loci – the liver, heart, and brain, respectively –, are announced8.
The key distinction between spirit and soul, i.e., that the former is ma-
terial and the latter is not, is the same as that taught by Qus†a. The basic
theory concerning the psychic pneuma and the functions of the ventri-
cles can be traced to some writings of Galen (especially De Usu
partium) and Nemesius' On the Nature of Man9. Nonetheless, some ele-
ments of Ibn al-™ayyib's exposition are not found in any of these writ-
ers.
His text is unclear, however, on this question: is there a particular
sub-category of psychic spirit that is charged with functions such as
memory or cogitation? In that case, the quality of the brain's perform-
ance would depend upon the quality of each special spirit. Alternatively,

7 F. SEZGIN, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, III, Frankfurt, 1970, p. 107, lists

two Teheran manuscripts, only one of which is certainly the text in question.
8 I say “Galenic tradition”, because Galen himself recognized only two types of

pneuma, vital and psychic; see most recently J. ROCCA, Galen on the Brain: Anatomical
Knowledge and Physiological Speculation in the Second Century AD, Leiden – Boston,
2003, note 95 on p. 65-6 (= ROCCA, Galen on the Brain).
9
 NEMESIUS, Nature of Man, ch. 12, states that the middle ventricle of brain, as well as
the spirit that is found there, is the “organ” of thought; and, in ch. 13, on memory, that
organ of memory is the posterior ventricle of the brain, as well as the spirit contained
there. The only accessible copy to me at present is the translation of M.J.B. THIBAULT,
Némésius, De la Nature de l'homme, Paris, 1844.

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 152 Y.T. LANGERMANN

the brain's ability to perform each of these activities may well depend
upon the quantity of spirit found in each ventricle.
Ibn al-™ayyib asserts that each mental function (“internal sense”) has
its own special spirit, each of which may be in a different state of health:
“It can happen that the spirit that has imagination as its special care is
disturbed, while the rest are healthy. So is it also for each one of them.”
However, Ibn al-™ayyib immediately proceeds to “prove” this conten-
tion on the basis of some observations of spontaneous human behavior.
When people wish to remember something, they tilt their head back-
wards, so as to increase the flow of spirit to the rear-brain, which is re-
sponsible for recollection. On the other hand, when people want to con-
centrate upon a problem, they lean their head forwards, so as to increase
the flow to the midbrain, which has cogitation in its charge.
I cannot identify a source for Ibn al-™ayyib's remark that spirit found
in one ventricle of the brain is finer than that found in another. According
to Galen, pneuma may undergo three stages of “elaboration” (ergasia,
literally “working over, crafting”; it seems to me that “processing” is
the best translation into current English): first in the lungs, next in the
lungs and arteries (especially the retiform plexus), and then a final elabo-
ration in the ventricles of the brain, which results in the production of
psychic pneuma10. According to Qus†a this “elaboration” is a process
similar to digestion: “It [vital spirit] becomes fine and thin there [the rear
ventricle], it purifies, and it becomes disposed towards accepting the psy-
chic faculty. This is for it something like digestion (ha∂am) and the trans-
formation to a spirit that is thinner, finer, and clearer”11.
Ibn Sina provides a much more detailed description of the progressive
refinement of spirit in the brain in a succession of coctions (in†ibakh) by
means of which spirit becomes accommodated to the temperament of the
brain. The passage of interest is found near the beginning of the third
book of his monumental al-Qanun fi al-†ibb:
“The transformation of spirit from the temperament of the heart to the
temperament of the brain is completed only when it undergoes a coction,
by means of which it acquires its [the brain's] temperament. Now, when
it is brought to the brain, it is brought to the first cavity (jawf), and it
undergoes coction there. Then it penetrates into the middle ventricle,
10
 ROCCA, Galen on the Brain, p. 20, based on book I of De Usu partium.
11
 Ed. CHEIKHO, p. 251. Though Galen does not describe the process is any detail, it is
analogous to coction; see ROCCA, Galen on the Brain, p. 65. It is interesting to observe
that a Latin commentator to Johannitius, in the course of his description of the
compartmentalization of mental activities within the brain, states that reason discerns by
distilling (decoquendo); see M.D. JORDAN, The Construction of a Philosophical Medi-
cine, in Osiris, 2nd series, vol. 6 (1990), p. 42-61, at p. 52 (= JORDAN, Construction).

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 ABU AL-FARAJ IBN AL-™AYYIB ON SPIRIT AND SOUL 153

where its coction increases. Its coction is finished in the rear ventri-
cle”12.
Qus†a attributes psychic and mental functions to the spirit found in
each particular part of the brain, but he does not indicate that there is any
difference between these spirits, other than their being found in particu-
lar places. [p. 253] Ibn al-™ayyib, if I am not reading too much into his
very concise exposition, holds that there is a qualitative distinction be-
tween the different spirits that inhabit the brain. He speaks of the “the
spirit that has imagination as its special care”, and indicates that there
are spirits that have other psychic functions under their care, e.g.
memory. At the end of his essay he observes that the spirit in the rear
and mid-brain is more subtle than that found in the forebrain. I do not
know that any such distinction is implicit in the Galenic tradition, but,
whatever the case may be, Ibn al-™ayyib has made it explicit13. In any
case, the head movements allow greater quantities of spirit to move to
different compartments, so the qualitative difference is apparently not
enough.
Ibn al-™ayyib also describes the compartmentalization of mental ac-
tivities within the brain. The ventricular localization of brain functions
has been described as “one of the longest themes in the history of
knowledge of the brain”. Though Galen did not devise this theory, “his
handling of ventricular function led inexorably to the later concep-
tualisation of ventricular localisation”14. The set of observations con-
cerning spontaneous head movements that Ibn al-™ayyib associates with
specific mental tasks is not found in Galen, nor in Nemesius. To the con-
trary, these earlier writers identified the cerebral localization of specific
psychic functions by studying the effects of lesions upon those areas15.
Galen, for example, says (speaking of the brain), that “all that has been
said and will be said has without exception been discovered in part from
the construction of the members and in part from the symptoms that fol-
low incisions or pressures”16. Qus†a does speak of this phenomenon at

12 IBN SINA , al-Qanun fi al-†ibb, III.1.1.2, ed. Bulaq, vol. 2, top of page 5. Cfr

N.H. STENECK, Albert the Great on the Classification and Localization of the Internal
Senses, in Isis, 65 (1974), p. 193-211, esp. p. 208-209.
13
 ABU BAKR AL-RAZI, al-Îawi fi al-†ibb, I, Hyderabad, 1955, p. 92 (= AL-RAZI, al-
Îawi), cites the following passage from (PSEUDO-)ARISTOTLE, al-Masa’il al-†ibbiyya:
“Man is more understanding than animals, because his spirit is finer; and his spirit is
finer because his blood is finer.”
14 ROCCA, Galen on the Brain, p. 245.
15
 See, e.g., JORDAN, Construction, p. 52.
16
 GALEN, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato, edition, translation and com-
mentary by Phillip DE LACY, Berlin, 1978, p. 447.

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 154 Y.T. LANGERMANN

some length17. His exposition differs in its language somewhat from Ibn
al-™ayyib; I cannot say whether or not he is Ibn al-™ayyib's source.
Qus†a's own source, if a source is to be sought after here, has not been
identified.
I have found the appeal to spontaneous head tilting in a variety of me-
dieval texts. Presumably they draw upon Qus†a, whose treatise was
widely read; but the reader will notice some small variations in their ac-
counts, that are not be found either in Qus†a or in Ibn al-™ayyib. Rabbi
Elhanan ben Yaqar, who flourished in London around the year 1200, has
this to say in one of his two commentaries to Sefer Yesira, a very brief
and enigmatic Hebrew text which Jewish thinkers everywhere in the
early medieval period read as a book of science: “The soul (neshama) is
the fountain of wisdom in three places within the head: in the forehead,
the top of the head (?qodqod), and between them in the brain. Memory
is in the qodqod, at the back of the neck; the beginning of every thought
about what to do resides in the forehead; and the fountain (?) for both of
them is in the brain. Understand: if someone thinks about what to do, he
tilts his face downwards. But if thinks to remember, he tilts his qodqod
downwards, and his face upwards. Thinking about the present, he tilts
his head neither forewards nor backwards, but rather leaves it straight
up, like a pile of yeast (?qomat ha-loven)”18.
This text was studied rather closely by the late Georges Vajda, who
traced the medical and biological passages back to two early Hebrew
writings, Sefer Asaf and Shabbetai Donnolo's Îakhemoni. Neither
source, however, has a clear statement of the compartmentalization of
brain functions, nor does either one mention at all the spontaneous head
movements. Sefer Asaf is likely to be a product of the Byzantine cultural
sphere, and Donnolo certainly worked in Byzantine Italy; Donnolo
flourished in the late tenth century, and Sefer Asaf predates Donnolo19.
17
 Ed. CHEIKHO, p. 251. Translation from the Latin in the dissertation of WILCOX,
p. 216-7; I find nothing in WILCOX about earlier observations of this phenomenon.
18
 G. VAJDA, The First Commentary of Rabbi Elahanan Yitzhak ben Yaqar of London
to Sefer Yesira, in Qobes al Yad, 16 (1966), p. 149-197, at p. 195-6; the terminology
employed by R. Elhanan and other early Ashkenazi writers is not the same that later be-
came standardized under the influence of the Ibn Tibbon's, and the meanings of terms are
not always clear. On Sefer Yesira and its early commentaries, see Y.T. LANGERMANN, On
the Beginnings of Hebrew Scientific Literature and On Studying history Through
Maqbilot (Parallels), in Aleph, 2 (2002), p. 169-189.
19
 On Donnolo, see A. SHARF, The Universe of Shabbetai Donnolo, Warminster –
New York, 1976, and on Sefer Asaf, E. LIEBER, Asaf's Book of Medicines: A Hebrew
Encyclopedia of Greek and Jewish Medicine, possibly compiled in Byzantium on an In-
dian Model, in Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 38 (1983), p. 233-249; see as well my article
cited in the previous note.

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 ABU AL-FARAJ IBN AL-™AYYIB ON SPIRIT AND SOUL 155

A Hebrew writer, living in some German-speaking region around the

end of the fourteenth century, records a slightly different phenomenon:
“The philosophers say that there are three ventricles in the head… When
a person forgets something, he leans to the right, against the back of the
neck, thus opening that gate. He immediately recalls it”20.
The terms ruÌ and nafs along with their associated issues remained of
interest to later Islamic thinkers. However, the precise distinction be-
tween the two terms was no longer the pressing question, but rather is-
sues such as the ultimate destiny (or meaning) of humanity and the after-
life. The most extensive treatment is to be found in Kitab al-RuÌ of Ibn
Qayyim al-Jawziyya (1292-1350), an erudite work that nonetheless
achieved great popularity; it continues to be reprinted frequently21. Ibn
al-Qayyim does devote considerable space to the distinctions that have
been proposed between the two terms, and he also refers to another,
even more detailed work on his on the subject. However, Ibn al-
Qayyim's true worry is to prove that some substantive entity survives
death and is able to receive the rewards and punishments promised in the
Islamic tradition. He prefers to call that entity ruÌ, as is evidenced by the
title of his book, but one may call it nafs as well, so long as one upholds
the proper beliefs concerning its quiddity and destiny22.

Edition

The best readings are in the Escorial manuscript. Variants in Arabic

script are from the Nurosmaniye copy, in Hebrew letters from the Mos-
cow manuscript. The variants are keyed to the line numbers in our edi-
tion. On a few occasions the Nurosmaniye version appears to be more
correct, and we list the Escorial variant with the siglum E. We have not
corrected gender agreement and the like.

20 MS Berlin Or. Phillip 1392, f. 142a. Folia 141-147 of this manuscript are a collec-

tion of diverse and highly interesting notes on philosophy and science; I discuss them in
detail in my forthcoming article, Was there no science in Ashkenaz?, in a collection to be
edited by G. FREUDENTHAL and I. BARTAL. The “gate” is the cerebellar vermis, a worm-
like valve that regulates the flow of psychic pneuma.
21 B. KRAWIETZ, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya: His Life and Works, in Mamluk Studies

Review, 10 (2006), 19-64; L. HOLTZMANN, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, in D. STEWART –

J.E. LOWRY (ed.) Dictionary of Literary Biography, Arabic Literary Culture 1350-1830,
forthcoming.
22
 I may refer to a study of mine in progress, The Naturalization of Science in Ibn
Qayyim al-Jawziyya's Kitab al- RuÌ, to appear a special issue of Oriente Moderno, edited
by C. BORI and L. HOLTZMAN.

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 156 Y.T. LANGERMANN

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Translation

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.

On the Distinction between Spirit and Soul.

Spirit is a subtle body found in the brain, the heart, and the liver. The
spirit of the liver comes from moist, sanguine vapors. It is called “natu-

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 ABU AL-FARAJ IBN AL-™AYYIB ON SPIRIT AND SOUL 157

ral spirit”. Its utility is that it eases the heat23 of the blood. “Vital spirit”
is a subtle body found in the heart. It passes through the arteries, carry-
ing the vital force24. “Psychic spirit” is a transparent, subtle body found
in the fore and rear of the brain. The psychic force makes use of it for its
actions, which are sensation, motion, imagination, cogitation and
memory. For this reason, when it is balanced, clear and salubrious, its
actions are salubrious; but if the opposite holds true, then its actions are
perturbed. It can happen that the spirit that has imagination as its special
care is perturbed, while the rest are healthy. So is it also for each one of
them [the spirits].
The proof that the [mental] faculties make use of it is this: when a
person wants to remember something, he tilts his had backwards, so that
all of the spirit be abundant in the rear-brain. Thus it will be strength-
ened, and its action will be strengthened. Likewise, when he cogitates,
he lowers his head downwards, so that all of the spirit be abundant in the
place of cogitation, which is the middle.
Spirit is a body that serves as an instrument25; soul exploits it for its
activities. Soul is not a body. The temperament of the spirit follows upon
the temperament of the body, for better or for worse. So also with regard
to the powers of the soul, according to the school of the physicians26.
The spirit of the heart is coarser, on account of the coarseness of its ac-
tion. The spirit of the brain is fine, on account of the subtlety of its ac-

23
 In both the Nurosmaniye and Moscow manuscripts, the text states that this spirit's
utility lies in easing the flow of blood. Both readings present us with curt and unsatisfac-
tory explanations. According to the version that we have accepted, the text seems to
refer to the process of combining pneuma, blood, and heat, concerning which see
ROCCA, Galen on the Brain, p. 65. I do not know how pneuma plays a role in the flow of
blood.
24
 On the connection between spirit (pneuma, ruÌ) and power (dunamis, quwwa), see
ROCCA, Galen on the Brain, note 97 (bis) on p. 67.
25 Jism aliy, literally “an instrumental body”, that is, a body that functions as an in-

strument.
26 It was an accepted maxim that the powers or faculties of the soul follow upon

the temperament of the body. According to Qus†a (p. 259), this is the view of the
philosophers. A well-known treatise on this topic by Galen has been published by
H. BIESTERFELDT, Galens Traktat ‘Das die Kraefte der Seele den Mischungen des
Koerpers Folgen' in arabische Uebersetzung, Wiesbaden, 1973; see also idem, Galinus
Quwa-n-nafs, in Der Islam, 63 (1986), p. 119-136. Ibn al-™ayyib's elaborates upon this
idea, so that the temperament of spirit (which is a body and thus possesses a tempera-
ment) follows upon the temperament of the body, and the psychic faculties in turn are
affected by the temperament of the spirit. Soul is not a body and hence has no tempera-
ment nor, one assumes, would it be affected by the temperament of the body and spirit.
Another level of detail is introduced by AL-RAZI, al-Îawi; see the passage cited above,
n. 13.

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 158 Y.T. LANGERMANN

tion. That which is in the middle and the rear is finer than that which is
the forepart, on account of the subtlety of the action.
Praise and thanks to God!

Bar-Ilan University Y. Tzvi LANGERMANN

Faculty of Humanities
Department of Arabic
Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel
arabic.chair@gmail.com

Abstract — The question of the precise distinction between, nafs and ruÌ,
“soul” and “spirit” respectively, occupied Arabic-writing thinkers of all faiths.
We publish here a short disquisition upon the subject by Abu al-Faraj ibn al-
™ayyib (d. 1048), a Christian philosopher, physician, and theologian of Bagh-
dad, and one of the key figures in the transmission and both the Aristotelian and
Galenic traditions. The essay of Abu al-Faraj is concerned almost exclusively
with ruÌ, specifically the different types of psychic pneuma, each inhabiting one
of the three ventricles of the brain, and each responsible for a specific psychic
function.

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