Isaac Israeli Ben Solomon
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Isaac Israeli ben Solomon ( ; ; – ), also known as Isaac Israeli the Elder and Isaac Judaeus, was a Jewish physician and philosopher. He was one of the foremost Jewish academics living in the
Arab world The Arab world ( '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, comprises a large group of countries, mainly located in West Asia and North Africa. While the majority of people in ...
of his time, and is regarded as the father of medieval Jewish Neoplatonism. His works, all written in
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and subsequently translated into
Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
,
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, and Spanish, entered the medical curriculum of European universities in the early 13th century and remained popular throughout the rest of the
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.


Biography

Little is known of Israeli's background and career. Much that is known comes from the biographical accounts found in ''The Generations of the Physicians'', a work written by the Andalusian Arab author Ibn Juljul in the second half of the 10th century, and in '' Tabaqāt al-ʼUmam (Categories of Nations)'' by Sa'id of Toledo, who wrote in the mid-11th century. In the 13th century, Ibn Abi Usaybi'a also produced an account, which he based on Ibn Juljul as well as other sources, including the ''History of the Fatimid Dynasty'' by Israeli's pupil Ibn al-Jazzar. Israeli was born in around 832 into a Jewish family in
Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
. He lived the first half of his life in
Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...
where he gained a reputation as a skillful oculist. He corresponded with Saadya ben Joseph al-Fayyumi (882–942), one of the most influential figures in medieval Judaism, prior to his departure from Egypt. In about 904, Israeli was nominated court physician to the last Aghlabid prince, Ziyadat Allah III. Between the years 905–907 he travelled to Kairouan where he studied general medicine under Ishak ibn Amran al-Baghdadi, with whom he is sometimes confounded ("Sefer ha-Yashar," p. 10a). Later he served as a doctor to the founder of the
Fatimid The Fatimid Caliphate (; ), also known as the Fatimid Empire, was a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries CE under the rule of the Fatimid dynasty, Fatimids, an Isma'ili Shi'a dynasty. Spanning a large area of North Africa ...
Dynasty of North Africa, 'Ubaid Allah al-Mahdi, who reigned from 910–934. The caliph enjoyed the company of his Jewish physician on account of the latter's wit and of the repartees in which he succeeded in confounding the Greek al-Hubaish when pitted against him. In Kairouan his fame became widely extended, the works which he wrote in Arabic being considered by the
Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
physicians as "more valuable than gems." His lectures attracted a large number of pupils, of whom the two most prominent were Abu Ja'far ibn al-Jazzar, a Muslim, and Dunash ibn Tamim. Israeli studied
natural history Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...
,
medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...
,
mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...
,
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, and other scientific topics; he was reputed to be one who knew all the "seven sciences". Biographers state that he never married or fathered children. He died at Kairouan,
Tunisia Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...
, in 932. This date is given by most Arabic authorities who give his date of birth as 832. But Abraham ben Hasdai, quoting the biographer Sanah ibn Sa'id al-Kurtubi ("Orient, Lit." iv., col. 230), says that Isaac Israeli died in 942. Heinrich Grätz (''Geschichte'' v. 236), while stating that Isaac Israeli lived more than one hundred years, gives the dates 845–940; and Steinschneider ("Hebr. Uebers." pp. 388, 755) places his death in 950. He died in Kairouan.


Influence

In 956 his pupil Dunash Ibn Tamim wrote an extensive commentary on
Sefer Yetzirah ''Sefer Yetzirah'' ( ''Sēp̄er Yəṣīrā'', ''Book of Formation'', or ''Book of Creation'') is a work of Jewish mysticism. Early commentaries, such as the ''Kuzari'', treated it as a treatise on mathematical and linguistic theory, as opposed t ...
, a mystical work of cosmogony which attributes great importance to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet and their combinations in determining the structure of the universe. In this work he cites Israeli so extensively that a few nineteenth-century scholars misidentified the commentary as Israeli's. Israeli's medical treatises were studied for several centuries both in the original Arabic and in Latin translation. In the eleventh century, Constantine Africanus, a professor at the prestigious Salerno school of medicine, translated some of Israeli's works into Latin. Many medieval Arabic biographical chronicles of physicians list him and his works. Israeli's philosophical works exercised a considerable influence on Christian and Jewish thinkers, and a lesser degree of influence among Muslim intellectuals. In the twelfth century, a group of scholars in Toledo transmitted many Arabic works of science and philosophy into Latin. One of the translators, Gerard of Cremona, rendered Israeli's ''Book of Definitions'' (''Liber de Definicionibus/Definitionibus'') and ''Book on the Elements'' (''Liber Elementorum'') into Latin. Israeli's work was quoted and paraphrased by a number of Christian thinkers including Gundissalinus, Albertus Magnus,
Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas ( ; ; – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican Order, Dominican friar and Catholic priest, priest, the foremost Scholasticism, Scholastic thinker, as well as one of the most influential philosophers and theologians in the W ...
, Vincent de Beauvais, Bonaventura,
Roger Bacon Roger Bacon (; or ', also '' Rogerus''; ), also known by the Scholastic accolades, scholastic accolade ''Doctor Mirabilis'', was a medieval English polymath, philosopher, scientist, theologian and Franciscans, Franciscan friar who placed co ...
and Nicholas of Cusa. Isaac Israeli's philosophical influence on Muslim authors is slight at best. The only known quotation of Israeli's philosophy in a Muslim work occurs in Ghayat al-Hakim, a book on magic, produced in eleventh-century Spain, translated into Latin and widely circulated in the West under the title Picatrix. Although there are passages which correspond directly to Israeli's writings, the author does not cite him by name. His influence also extended to Moses Ibn Ezra (c. 1060–1139) who quotes Isaac Israeli without attribution in his treatise ''The Book of the Garden'', explaining the meaning of
Metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide, or obscure, clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are usually meant to cr ...
and Literal Expression. The poet and philosopher Joseph Ibn Tzaddiq of Cordoba (d. 1149) authored a work ''The Microcosm'' containing many ideas indebted to Israeli. As Neoplatonist philosophy waned, in addition to the Galenic medical tradition of which Israeli was a part, the appreciable influence of Isaac Israeli diminished as well.


Claimed works

A number of works in Arabic, some of which were translated into Hebrew, Latin and Spanish were ascribed to Israeli, and several medical works were allegedly composed by him at the request of al-Mahdi. In 1515 ''Opera Omnia Isaci'' was published in
Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...
,
France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
, and the editor of this work claimed that the works originally written in Arabic and translated into
Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
in 1087 by Constantine of Carthage, who assumed their authorship, were a 'plagiarism' and published them under Israeli's name, together in a collection with works of other physicians that were also and erroneously attributed to Israeli. Those works translated by Constantine of Carthage were used as textbooks at the University of Salerno, the earliest
university A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...
in Western
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, where Constantine was a professor of medicine, and remained in use as textbooks throughout Europe until the seventeenth century. He was the first physician to write about tracheotomy in Arabic. He advised a hook to grasp the skin in the neck as Paulus of Aegina did and afterwards
Avicenna Ibn Sina ( – 22 June 1037), commonly known in the West as Avicenna ( ), was a preeminent philosopher and physician of the Muslim world, flourishing during the Islamic Golden Age, serving in the courts of various Iranian peoples, Iranian ...
and Albucasis.


Medical works

*''Kitab al-Ḥummayat'', ''The Book on Fevers'', in Hebrew ''Sefer ha-Ḳadaḥot, ספר הקדחות'', a complete treatise, in five books, on the kinds of
fever Fever or pyrexia in humans is a symptom of an anti-infection defense mechanism that appears with Human body temperature, body temperature exceeding the normal range caused by an increase in the body's temperature Human body temperature#Fever, s ...
, according to the ancient physicians, especially
Hippocrates Hippocrates of Kos (; ; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician and philosopher of the Classical Greece, classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine. He is traditionally referr ...
and
Galen Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus (; September 129 – AD), often Anglicization, anglicized as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a Ancient Rome, Roman and Greeks, Greek physician, surgeon, and Philosophy, philosopher. Considered to be one o ...
. ''The Book on Fevers'' appeared in the Articella. *''Kitab al-Adwiyah al-Mufradah wa'l-Aghdhiyah'', a work in four sections on remedies and aliments. The first section, consisting of twenty chapters, was translated into Latin by Constantine under the title ''Diætæ Universales'', and into Hebrew by an anonymous translator under the title ''Ṭib'e ha-Mezonot''. The other three parts of the work are entitled in the Latin translation ''Diætæ Particulares''; and it seems that a Hebrew translation, entitled ''Sefer ha-Mis'adim'' or ''Sefer ha-Ma'akalim'', was made from the Latin. *''Kitab al-Baul'', or in Hebrew ''Sefer ha-Shetan'', a treatise on urine, of which the author himself made an abridgement. *''Kitab al-Istiḳat'', in Hebrew ''Sefer ha-Yesodot'' and Latin as ''De Elementis'', a medical and philosophical work on the elements, which the author treats according to the ideas of
Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...
, Hippocrates, and
Galen Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus (; September 129 – AD), often Anglicization, anglicized as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a Ancient Rome, Roman and Greeks, Greek physician, surgeon, and Philosophy, philosopher. Considered to be one o ...
. The Hebrew translation was made by Abraham ben Hasdai at the request of the grammarian David Kimhi. *''Manhig ha-Rofe'im'', or ''Musar ha-Rofe'im'', a treatise, in fifty paragraphs, for physicians, translated into Hebrew (the Arabic original is not extant), and into German by David Kaufmann under the title ''Propädeutik für Aerzte'' (Berliner's "Magazin," xi. 97–112). *''Kitab fi al-Tiryaḳ'', a work on antidotes. Some writers attribute to Isaac Israeli two other works which figure among Constantine's translations, namely, the ''Liber Pantegni'' and the ''Viaticum'', of which there are three Hebrew translations. But the former belongs to Mohammed al-Razi and the latter to 'Ali ibn 'Abbas or, according to other authorities, to Israeli's pupil Abu Jaf'ar ibn al-Jazzar.


Philosophical works

*''Kitab al-Ḥudud wal-Rusum'', translated into Hebrew by Nissim b. Solomon (fourteenth century) under the title ''Sefer ha-Gebulim weha-Reshumim'', a philosophical work of which a Latin translation is quoted in the beginning of the ''Opera Omnia''. This work and the ''Kitab al-Istiḳat'' were severely criticized by
Maimonides Moses ben Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (, ) and also referred to by the Hebrew acronym Rambam (), was a Sephardic rabbi and Jewish philosophy, philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah schola ...
in a letter to
Samuel ibn Tibbon Samuel ben Judah ibn Tibbon ( – ), more commonly known as Samuel ibn Tibbon (, ), was a Jewish philosopher and doctor who lived and worked in Provence, later part of France. He was born about 1150 in Lunel, Hérault, Lunel (Languedoc), and die ...
(''Iggerot ha-Rambam'', p. 28, Leipsic, 1859), in which he declared that they had no value, inasmuch as Isaac Israeli ben Solomon was nothing more than a physician. *''Kitab Bustan al-Ḥikimah'', on
metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of ...
. *''Kitab al-Ḥikmah'', a treatise on
philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
. *''Kitab al-Madkhal fi al-Mantiḳ'', on
logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...
. The last three works are mentioned by Ibn Abi Uṣaibi'a, but no Hebrew translations of them are known. *''Sefer ha-Ruaḥ weha-Nefesh'', a philosophical treatise, in a Hebrew translation, on the difference between the spirit and the soul, published by Steinschneider in '' Ha-Karmel'' (1871, pp. 400–405). The editor is of opinion that this little work is a fragment of a larger one. *A philosophical commentary on Genesis, in two books, one of which deals with Genesis i. 20.


Attributed works

Eliakim Carmoly ("Ẓiyyon," i. 46) concludes that the Isaac who was so violently attacked by Abraham ibn Ezra in the introduction to his commentary on the Pentateuch, and whom he calls in other places "Isaac the Prattler", and "Ha-Yiẓḥaḳ," was none other than Isaac Israeli. But if Israeli was attacked by Ibn Ezra he was praised by other Biblical commentators, such as Jacob b. Ruben, a contemporary of Maimonides, and by Ḥasdai. Another work which has been ascribed to Israeli, and which more than any other has given rise to controversy among later scholars, is a commentary on the "Sefer Yeẓirah." Steinschneider (in his "Al-Farabi," p. 248) and Carmoly (in Jost's "Annalen," ii. 321) attribute the authorship to Israeli, because Abraham ibn Ḥasdai (see above), and Jedaiah Bedersi in his apologetical letter to Solomon ben Adret ("Orient, Lit." xi. cols. 166–169) speak of a commentary by Israeli on the "Sefer Yeẓirah," though by some scholars the words "Sefer Yeẓirah" are believed to denote simply the "Book of Genesis." But David Kaufmann ("R. E. J." viii. 126), Sachs ("Orient, Lit." l.c.), and especially Grätz (''Geschichte'' v. 237, note 2) are inclined to attribute its authorship to Israeli's pupil Dunash ibn Tamim.


Notes


References

* *


Further reading

* ;Older sources * Jewish Encyclopedia bibliography: Ibn Abi Usaibia, ''Uyun al-Anba'', ii. 36, 37, Bulak, 1882; * 'Abd al-Laṭif, ''Relation de l'Egypte'' (translated by De Sacy), pp. 43, 44, Paris, 1810; * Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, ''Literaturgesch. der Araber'', iv. 376 (attributing to Israeli the authorship of a treatise on the pulse); * Wüstenfeld, ''Geschichte der Arabischen Aerzte'', p. 51; * Sprenger, ''Geschichte der Arzneikunde'', ii. 270; * Leclerc, ''Histoire de la Médecine Arabe'', i. 412; * Eliakim Carmoly, in ''Revue Orientale'', i. 350–352; * Heinrich Grätz, ''Geschichte'' 3d ed., v. 257; * Haji Khalfa, ii. 51, v. 41, et passim; * Moritz Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. cols. 1113–1124; * idem, Hebr. Bibl. viii. 98. xii. 58; * Dukes, in Orient, Lit. x. 657; * Gross, in Monatsschrift, xxviii. 326: Jost's Annalen, i. 408.


External links


Isaac Israeli
Stanford University. {{DEFAULTSORT:Israeli People from Kairouan Medieval Jewish physicians of Egypt Jews from Ifriqiya Philosophers of Judaism 10th-century physicians 10th-century Jews Medieval Jewish philosophers 10th-century people from Ifriqiya Physicians from the Fatimid Caliphate 10th-century people from the Fatimid Caliphate