Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

CHAPTER 2: IBN RUSHD: HIS LIFE AND WORKS

2.1 His life

Abu al Walid Muhammad Ibn Ahmad Ibn Muhammad Ibn Rushd al-Hafid was born right after the death of his named grandfather, who was qadi (judge) and Imam at the Great Mosque at Cordoba and a prominent jurist of the Malikite School then dominant in Almoravid Spain and Morocco, in 1126 in a family which was one of those dynasties with a tradition of learning and service to the state. He was the last great philosopher in Islam in the twelfth century, and is the most scholarly and scrupulous commentator of Aristotle.

Ibn Rushd was inspired for his study in philosophy by his friend Ibn Thufyl, a great thinker and after he translated and elaborated the works contented with Aristotelian thoughts. Totally, he worked as a commentator of Aristotle through the intervention of Ibn Thufyl[14] and perhaps Ibn Harun, his medical teacher who was the doctor of Seville and future caliph. Ibn Thufyl fetched him to the sultan requesting to make accessible the works of Aristotle and to comment on them. So that Ibn Rushd started to write commentaries on the works of Aristotle and after bore a position in court of Marrakesh. ‘He was taught Tradition by Abu’l Qasim, Abu Marwan Ibn Masarrat, Abu Jafar Ibn Aziz and Abu Abdullah Marzi. He learnt fiqh from Hafiz Abu Muh~ammad Ibn Rizq. Abu Jafar, a reputed scholar, taught him medicine. Ibn Rushdsoon acquired great scholarship in literature, law, philosophy and medicine. He was a contemporary of some of the outstanding thinkers of Muslim Spain, including Ibn Zuhr, Ibn Baja and Ibn Tufayl.’[15]

In 1149, complaints were made largely to the authority of sultan against Ibn Rushd due to the disagreement of his ideas to the religious norms and their traditional customs. As a result, he was briefly exiled, and it was burned his books. They banned him to write on philosophy politics or religion. ‘The major reason to his fall was his defense of rationalism and the frankness of his social criticism’[16] . Perhaps too many people agreed with him. This period of unpopularity for Ibn Rushd, however, did not last long. The ban against him was cancelled, but as far as history tells us, he wrote no more, though his son began to publish about this time. ‘He was a great lover of his native land. Like Plato who in his Republic has highly praised Greece, Ibn Rushd has claimed his native land, Spain, to be the rival of Greece. According to Ptolemy[17] , Greece possessed the best climate in the world, but Ibn Rushd claims the same distinction for Cordova, the capital of Muslim Spain.’[18]

Along his lifetime, he had to write more than more than 100 books and treatises, and it was in Marrakech that he began his first philosophical work, sometime before 1159. As a start of his long voyage of writing philosophical concepts with no consideration of old traditional beliefs or some other religious traits, this was the publishing of his most famous Compendium of Philosophy (Kitab al-Jawami’ al-Sighar fil-Falsafa) with its separate sections on discussing physics, heaven and earth, generation and corruption, meteorology and metaphysics.

In 1169 he was appointed as qadi of Seville, the former capital of Andalusia, present Spain. He returned to Cordoba ten years later as qadi, and then appointed a second time to Seville in 1169 and he became chief qadi three years later. That Ibn Rushd held the position in not one but two cities indicate the respect in which he was held. But he moved on along with his service in law, studied medicine, and it is for this aspect of his learning and writing that he was most esteemed in the Islamic world.

As historians refer to the fact, the major part of Ibn Rushd’s philosophy is derived from the Greeks, especially from Plato and Aristotle, whom Ibn Rushd had admired and on whose works he wrote ample commentaries and paraphrases, books that to a large amount won him the echelons of respect he enjoyed in the West, where the struggle to reconcile science and faith still goes on.

The impact of this man’s thought grew again and again infinite though his name is hardly famous in the West today, and though his works are now largely unread. In 1171, at age 45, Ibn Rushd returned to Córdoba. There, for the rest of his life, he maintained his major residence and his library. The constant political tensions caused by the Almohad conquest of Al Andalus and the struggles with the Christians to the north seem not to have much affected the relative peace and prosperity of Seville and Córdoba, Ibn Rushd produced ample works on a wide range of subjects, from his paraphrase of the Kitab al-Akhlaq, which has not survived intact, to his analysis of Aristotle’s Poetics from the Talkhis Kitab al-Shi’r, as well as his Supplement to Questions on Ancient Science (Damima li-Mas’alat al-Ilm al-Qadim) and further medical treatises. His work on Ptolemy’s Almagest may also belong to this period. After another visit to Marrakech, he found time to write one of his most famous works, his sidestep of al-Ghazali’s Incoherence of the Philosophers, entitled Incoherence of the Incoherent Philosophy of al-Ghazali (Tahafut al-Tahafut al-Falasifa lil-Ghazali). As a result, Ibn Rushd’s fame was spreading into the eastern Islamic world, and by 1190 his books were available and under analysis in Cairo. However, this work contains almost unclear presentation of the arguments and mere ridiculous response for al Ghazali’s comments. And it also has been reported that his writings in Latin were often attacked by theologians such as Albertus Magnus[19] , Bonaventure[20] , and Thomas Aquinas[21] , while those same teachings and arguments inspired the Latin Averroist movement.

It was on December 11, 1198 Ibn Rushd died at Marrakech. Three months later his body was returned, as he had wished, to rest in the soil of his beloved Córdoba. His rival, the mystic Ibn al- Arabi, explains his funeral: “When the coffin with his body was laid upon the bier, they put his works on the opposite side to serve as a counterweight. I was standing there…and I said to myself, ‘On one side the master and on the other his works. But, tell me, were his desires at last fulfilled?’ it can be considered Ibn Arabi’s words to show his ample writings in different fields rather what he says ‘tell me, were his desires at last fulfilled?’ can be taken only as an opinion of Ibn Arabi on the great philosophy of Ibn Rushd because of his stand against certain religious facts but it was not to diminish his personality.

Al islam wa al nasraniyyah ma’al ilmi wal madaniyyah (Islam and Christianity and their respective attitudes towards learning and civilization), an article published in Al Jamiah by a Christian editor, in which he sums up the matters under discussion. The article also ascribed that the denial of the efficacy of secondary causes and asserted that in reality Ibn Rushd was an unbeliever. In an article in response to the former Muhammed Abduh[22] discusses at length the causes which have brought about the present day the rigidity of Islam as a system, and its deleterious effects upon the conditions of the philosophy of Ibn Rushd and his attitude and that of the Muslim theologians regarding the matter and existence, with reference to the question of that Christian editor.[23] Likewise, there are too many historians who criticized him positively and negatively according to his works which encounter the Islamic principles. The oxford Islamic encyclopedia underlines that ‘After Ibn Rushd, Islamic philosophy began to wane in the west but did not disappear completely.’

2.1.1 Historical Background of His Time

When Ibn Rushd was young, Al Andalus was about to witness the great concatenation of crusades and to be divided into small localities and localities which known as the taifa[24] kingdoms. Though a bit weak was, these kingdoms cared for a competitive manner each other to overtake others in greatness and in giving scholastic instructions. As the crusades began, the newly unified Christians from the north had embarked on the reconquest of Spain from the Muslims and it was finally concluded in 1492.[25]

In the twelfth century, Sufism was winning much importance in the Islamic world even as Ibn Rushd’s doctrines had a little influence for its contradictory approach to that of Islamic doctrines. Although, in the west he became very prominent scholar, who find out Aristotle through his ideas and he developed certain philosophical doctrines. Here, it is to be noted that the philosophical career of Ibn Rushd often assumed as the end of Islamic philosophy. During his lifetime, two distinguished philosophers, became extremely influential later in the Islamic world were Yahya Suhrawardi[26] and Muid ad din Ibn Arabi[27] . Ibn Arabi followed the footsteps of Ibn Sina with a huge attempt to fuse philosophy with Sufi spirituality.[28]

‘Through the great philosophers writing in Arabic, notably Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd, Islamic civilization made a significant contribution to the development of philosophy in the western world and this might lead those unfamiliar with that civilization to suppose that the philosophical movement was a prominent part of the stream of Islamic thought. Despite the separateness of philosophy, the body of thought which they represented had a powerful influence on Islamic thought’.[29]

In the historical backdrop of the political disorder of Ibn Rushd’s years would also lead to the dispersion across Europe of educated men from southern Spain who spread new ideas, new techniques and new books like seeds. Among those scholars of secular institutions, Ibn Rushd was one of the most accepted by the West as a bridge between two faiths and between past and present. ‘In fact, after Islamic philosophy came to an end in the Islamic world with the demise of Ibn Rushd, it found a new life in the Sunni world, especially in Persia, and has continued as a living tradition in that country to the present day’.[30]

2.1.2 The Classification of Knowledge of Ibn Rushd

Ibn Rushd has classified the philosophy of science into three:

1. Science of theory- it aims at the knowledge and learning

2. Science of practice- it is to make practical in order to what one has learnt.

3. Science of logic- it is a science of certain laws or specific devises to keep the mind free from the mistakes and lapses.

The science of reason has been counted under these three sciences. But, Science of theory has been divided into kulliyyah and juziyyah. The former one is the investigation on the beings and what is added into its essences. Science of metaphysics is also counted as its branch. And this is the science named according to Ibn Rushd as the philosophy of science.

Ibn Rushd asserts that it implies either the science of the essences of the beings or it is the science of the supernatural matters. Anyway, the kulliyyah kind of theoretical science is the discussion on the existence and the juziyyah kind is sometimes referred to the Science of theory as it is the investigation of Aarad which is the essentialities of the beings.

Here, juziyyah kind has again been divided into two:

1. Natural science: it is to investigate the natural things belong to the motion and change.

2. Mathematical science: it is referred simply to the numbering free from hayula:

The natural science has been divided also into eight, which is described respectively.

1. Natural audition: to investigate the usual causes in the nature along with its motion and change in location and time. Theses causes are four: the active, the objective causes, the conformity and hayoola

2. Sky and the world: to investigate the secrets of heavenly bodies and all that exists here excluding the God.

3. The happening and the decay

4. Heavenly bodies

5. Metals

6. Plants

7. Animals

8. The soul (rooh): especially the source of the faculty of the soul in order to think and do certain actions.[31]

2.1.3 The Controversy over Ibn Rushd

Some of the Muslim scholars of that time arrive with a conclusion that the study of logic (mantiq), it is quite improper to a good believer. Simply, what Ibn Rushd did in his works was to combine philosophy with religion, and, in particular, he promoted logic as the key to a true understanding of religion. As for whether the results were attacking the Islamic creed, like all the great philosophers, Ibn Rushd arrived at his share of improper views to attack conventional ideas of Islam.

Here, we consider the three main issues Ibn Rushd made and which was the major element spoiled his future and his acceptance.

1. He asserts that both philosophy and the text of the Qur’an point concludes that the world has always existed in some form or another that although God has created the nature of creatures, the physical world itself has eternally existed, just as God himself has. But Islam asserts that the world is only temporary and it is destructible not just as God, he is eternal and has some other attributes refer to his omniscience and omnipresence.

2. He asserts that although our souls survive death; our bodies do not, and will not be resurrected. And our souls will have a type of body (jasad) in the next life, but he denies that this will be the same body (jasad) that we have now, or even the same kind of body (jasad), and he further denies that we should take literally Qur’an’s various attractive statements about the paradise (jannath) that awaits the believer. But Islam insists the body will be the same to be resurrected as we belong today in accordance with the scriptural evidences.

3. And most strange is that Ibn Rushd denies that we each have our own intellect (aql). Instead, he thinks, the intellect (aql) is something other than our souls, immaterial thing that we are able to access when we think, and that we all share. This assertion also can’t come in term with Islamic creed.

In fact, Ibn Rushd had thought that each could be decisively recognized on philosophical grounds, drawing on the instructions of Aristotle rather each of these views was countered, and broadly regarded as unconventional to the creed of Islam. In one of his best-known works, the Decisive Treatise, (Faslul maqal) Ibn Rushd argues amply for the value of philosophy: not just that it should be permitted, but that its study is, in fact, required for those who would truly understand religion. To ban philosophy would be “a wrong to the best sort of people and to the best sort of existing things.” Here, it could be understood the frailty and impracticality of his words which describe the necessity of philosophy to a believer.

As the onset of the attack against the philosophers, al Ghazali had attacked severely against the peripatetic philosophers along his autobiography al munqidh minal dhalal[32] then he shortlisted their views and objections in maqasid ul falasifa and it led the critics to refer him as a peripatetic. And eventually, he wrote tahafuth al falasifah with a severe attack of heresy against them and accusing them the deviation from the Islam to deny the creation of the world, God’s knowledge of particulars and bodily resurrection. And after that, as in a good deal of his work, Ibn Rushd is opposing Al-Ghazali, who had urged Muslims after he made a reach out to every branches of knowledge to set aside secular learning in a Sufi-influenced program of spiritual refinement. Al-Ghazali’s famous work Revivification of the Religious Sciences argues that believers should set aside not just philosophy and logic, but also the controversial debates of the theologians unless they may go astray while choosing their path of life. Here, it is to be noted that Al-Ghazali had searched for the ultimate truth and eventually he identified that Sufism was the most ultimate subject contained truth and the only shortcut to salvation. Al-Ghazali himself was writing in opposition to al-Farabi and Ibn Sina, who had been at the forefront of incorporating Aristotle’s philosophy into the Islamic worldview. Al-Ghazali’s goal was to tear down that whole construction of learning founded on Greek philosophical thought, and to put in its place the sort of spiritual practices promoted by Sufism. He himself acted on these theories and he avoided his eminent position as professor of theology in Baghdad, and submitted the next decade to a life of ascetic meditation to bear in the minds of the world the isolated sanctity of the Sufi branch of knowledge and its single practicality in a modus Vivendi of a Muslim.

Ibn Rushd was working within an Islamic milieu as the historical background of his life, he would recognize pleasure and sadness with some aspect of the afterlife, but as we have understood, he was unable to accept the traditional view of the afterlife as containing surviving individuals like ourselves. Without religious language and images, ordinary believers may find it complex to grasp that our moral actions affect not only ourselves but the pleasure of the whole community, not just at a particular time or in a particular place but as a species. When we behave badly, we damage our own chances of human being successful, and this affects our personal opportunities for achieving pleasure and growing as people. It also affects our relationships with other people, resulting in the decline of society. The importance of the notion of an afterlife is that it points to the wider terms of reference in which only the moral actions have life.

2.2 HIS WORKS

The list totals sixty-seven works of Ibn Rushd, including twenty-eight on philosophy, five on theology, eight on law, four on grammar and twenty on medicine[33] .

Among them some Arabic editions and their translations are listed as follows:

Tahafuthu tahafuth

Faslul maqal

Bidayath al- mujthahid wa nnihayathul muqthaswid

Kitab al-Kulliyat fil-Tibb

Kashfu manahijil adilla

Fasl al-maqal: this book was written during 1179-80. G. Hourani has translated it into English with the title, Ibn Rushd on the Harmony of Religion and Philosophy, (Translation and analysis of the Fasl al-maqal and two other short pieces on the same topic.)

Tahafut al-tahafut:(The Incoherence of the Incoherence), this was written during 1180(ed. S. Van den Bergh, Ibn Rushd’ Tahafut al-Tahafut The Incoherence of the Incoherence), the standard translation of Ibn Rushd’s response to Al-Ghazali, incorporating the latter’s text.

A number of his invaluable works were spoiled when the Christian conquerors set fire to the intellectual treasures of the Moors (Spanish Muslims) amassed after centuries of intellectual activity. More than eighty thousand rare manuscripts were reduced to ashes in Grenada alone. Muslim thinkers like Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd formulated their ideas with logical precision and in the latter Arabic philosophy reached its apogee. It is all the more creditable for the learned Averroes that he compiled his varied and invaluable works in such a distracted state of mind and disturbed conditions.[34] He was an astronomer of repute who wrote "Kitab fi Harkati’l Falaq", a treatise dealing with the motion of the sphere. But, Some of Ibn Rushd’s works do now only exist in Hebrew or Latin, and some don’t at all. But what was found from his Latin editions such as his commentaries are listed as follows:

Commentaries on Aristotle, was written between the years 1169-98. Aristotelis opera... cum Averrois Cordubensis vards in eosdem commentariis.

Middle Commentaries on Aristotle, was written in 1174, ed. C. Butterworth, Ibn Rushd’ Middle Commentaries on Aristotle’s Categories and De Interpretatione.

Short Commentaries on Aristotle, was written before 1175, ed. C. Butterworth, Ibn Rushd’ Three Short Commentaries on Aristotle’s ‘Topics’, ‘Rhetoric’ and ‘Poetics’,

Long Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, was in the year 1190, ed. C. Genequand, Ibn Rushd’s Metaphysics.

Middle Commentary on Plato’s Republic, was published in 1194, ed. R. Lerner, Ibn Rushd on Plato’s ‘Republic’.

2.2.1 Tahafuthu Tahafuth (The Incoherence of Incoherence)

Although Ibn Rushd did discuss theological topics in his commentaries occasionally, he usually used to discuss them for his more polemical works. His Tahafuthu tahafuth (The Incoherence of Incoherence), was a response to an earlier attack upon philosophy, Tahafut al falasifa (Incoherence of the Philosophers), written by al-Ghazali argues in this work that there are two major problems with Islamic philosophy. The first problem he argues is that the very philosophical techniques which it advocates contradict with their arguments which philosophy itself advocates. The other problem is that the conclusions of philosophy contradict the principles of Islam, which the philosophers pretend they are supporting. Al-Ghazali produced accurate descriptions of philosophical arguments and then set about demolishing them one by one, using the same philosophical principles which his opponents try to employ with a sharp shooting for every single discussion.

Tahafuthu tahafuth (The Incoherence of Incoherence) is the major work of Ibn Rushd consists of about twenty analyses[35] with well arranged replies of his rebuttal of certain facts Imam al Ghazali made in his famous work tahafuthul falasifah (The incoherence of philosophers) which could be entitled also the incoherence of Mutakallimun,

Al Ghazali claims that the philosophers, their judgments are based not on verified and certain knowledge, but on speculation and probability, he argues also the credibility of philosophers has to be defined as per their visions and philosophical ideas. He finds out three areas wherein kalam and philosophy may come into conflict are semantics, physics and metaphysics. He regards as an unredeemable contradiction the conflict between usul ul din and the rational study of divinity (ilahiyath).[36]

2.2.2 (Kashful Manahijl Adillah) An exposition of the methods of argument concerning the doctrines of religion

His main principle is that philosophy must agree with religion; this in fact was the belief and hope cherished by all the Muslim philosophers. Like Francies Bacon, Ibn Rushd believed that though a little philosophy might incline a man towards atheism a deeper study of it would enable him to have a better understanding of religion.

He describes the state of the soul in this work ‘The basic assumption of all the permissible views is the immortality of the soul. It can be proved from the Qur’an, which equates death with sleep; now since we know that the soul is not dissolved in sleep, the same applies to death. In both cases the organ, not the soul itself, ceases’[37] on the contrary of Asharites’ explanations that it is therefore not eternal and it becomes anew in the case of afterlife not the same what we have today.

2.2.3 Faslul Maqal (Decisive Treatise)

The decisive treatise authored by him is to examine the relationship between divine law and human intelligence on the one hand, and the objective of the law on the other hand, the author sets out to epistemology, psychology, religious and which has been established. Since God's purpose with the Quran is to reveal the truth to all his creatures and instruct them in the proper way of life, there are three different ways to access to the approval of the religious law, which is in accordance with the significant difference in intellectual skill among men through rhetorical, dialectical and clear arguments.

It was aimed the solution of the problems of the relation between sharia’ and hikmah’. It is a compendium which applies philosophical and theological methods to the interpretation of the texts of scripture (shar’). He defines philosophy as the investigation of existing entities in so far as they point to the maker in so far as they are made since existing entities exhibit the maker[38] .

It states that holy Quran itself recommends rational study, as it ‘urges people of understanding to reflect’[39] and asks ‘have they not considered the kingdom of the heavens and the earth and all things God has created’[40]

“Ordinary religion is enough for the masses, but the philosophy is necessary to satiate the educated persons. There are two languages, symbolic for the masses and demonstrative for the philosopher, which don’t oppose each other”[41] . Ibn Rushddoes not hesitate to defend the philosophy against the accusation of Impiety through a legal form of argument as the methodological relation between fasl and bidayah becomes obvious.

2.2.4 Bidayath Al- Mujthahid Wa Nnihayathul Muqthaswid

He was an eminent legist of his time and worked as a Qadi for a considerable period. His "Bidayatu’l Mujtahid wa Nihayatu’l Muqtasid" is, according to Abu Jafar Dhahabi, the best book ever written on this subject. Bidayath al- mujthahid wa nnihayathul muqthaswid (Beginning for whoever makes a personal effort and an end whoever is satisfied) dates from around 1168, a monument of logical explication of Muslim law. It is a treatise of ikhthilaf (The science of comparing different schools of legal interpretation) considering not only the major schools of interpretation, but also each solution proposed by small schools or certain individuals. According to Ibn Rushd ikhthilaf is a method in its self, a matter of bringing to light the principles which produce differences.

What bidaya aims is to show that all jurists would have to see if they had not been blinded by allegiance to a particular school. This is exactly extended through the application of an Aristotelian formula. The contents of bidaya ought to be sufficient to give capacity to true jurists conspicuous through their capacity to apply them to each situation. Ibn Rushd points out that whether there is a point of inconsistence it must be due to differences of interpretation of the sources. He persuaded that the law itself cannot be deficient. The ikhthilaf is a commentary on the law which is supposed to deal with each point in an ideal order.

2.2.5 Kitab Al-Kulliyat Fil-Tibb (Compendium of Medical Knowledge)

The other major work which he produced during these years at Marrakech was became a standard text for generations of physicians in both East and West, the first sketch of his Compendium of Medical Knowledge (Kitab al-Kulliyat fil-Tibb). It was written by the request of the sultan; it is divided into seven books: anatomy, health, disease, symptoms, food and medicines, preservation of health and treatment of illness. It is to the Kulliyat and other medical works that Ibn Rushd owes his fame in the East today, where he is remembered as a great doctor. Indeed, versions of it were still appearing on medical school reading lists around Europe as recently as 100 years ago. It is to be mentioned that The Kulliyat was a great success for Ibn Rushd.

2.2.6 The Talkhis (Middle Commentary) on De Anima

This Talkhis occupies an intermediate position between Al-Mukhtasar and Al-Sharh, exhibiting similarities and differences, regarding these texts, in both form and content. With respect to form, Al-Talkhis is a commentary on Aristotle's De Anima, being in fact Ibn Rushd's first commentary on this work and its structure differs from that of Al-Mukhtasar, while bearing some similarities to that of Al-Sharh. With respect to content, particularly in its conceptualization of the problem of the intellect, Al-Talkhis is closer to Al-Mukhtasar and differs from Al-sharh.

Al-Talkhis does indeed differ from Al-Mukhtasar in two significant ways: in the varying number of extant manuscripts and by the fact that Al-Talkhis still only exists in manuscript form. Nevertheless, the difficulties involved in reconstructing the two texts are similar in principle, although they are less evident in Al-Talkhis. It should be pointed out at the outset that, whereas our analysis and conclusions concerning Al-Mukhtasar were based on significant variants among the manuscript copies, the two important manuscripts of Al-Talkhis agree more closely with each other. Yet it can be concluded that the Talkhis manuscripts represent two different versions, with one manuscript, particularly in respect of those chapters relevant to this study, representing an earlier version, and the other containing additions and amendments made to the text at a later date.[42]

2.2.7 Al-Mukhtasar

It is of the two versions and the major distinctive differences between the two versions can best be summed up by saying that the first constitutes a coherent and well-organized text, while the second contains additions to the first which create uncertainties over the actual meaning. The differences between the two versions may be treated with respect to two factors.

The particular features of the first version are as follows:

(1) The analogy of the tablet is used to define the capacity of the imaginative faculty (al-quwwa 'I-khayaliyya) to accept intelligibles, which are represented by the writing on the tablet, while the subjective self (al-nafs al-mawdk`a) of this capacity is represented by the tablet itself. It is clear that parts of this analogy reflect certain perspectives on the material intellect, imaginary representations and the theoretical intellect different from those set out in Al-Talkhis, and significantly different from the conclusions reached in Al-Sharh al-kabir. Interestingly, these perspectives are similar to those held by Ibn Bajja. The absence or omission of this analogy from the other manuscript copies is the first indication of Ibn Rushd's changing position on the structure of the material intellect.

(2) The long chapter discussing the rational faculty is divided into two parts: in the first part Ibn Rushd summarizes a portion of ibn Bajja's Risalat al-ittisal, while in the second he sets out what appears to be a summary of Ibn Bajja's method-in such a way as to suggest support for it. The conspicuous absence or omission of these passages from later versions can be interpreted as a disavowal, by Ibn Rushd, of Ibn Bajja's theory of conjunction. A probable explanation for this is to be found not in Al-Talkhis but in relevant sections within Al-Sharh al-kabir of De Anima, with further evidence also to be found in Sharh ma bad al-tabi`a under the heading Al-Ta' and Al-um.