Minima Onomastica Graeca Alpharabia: Notes on the Treatise "Tafsir Asma Al-Hukama"
Minima Onomastica Graeca Alpharabia: Notes on the Treatise "Tafsir Asma Al-Hukama"

Summary/Abstract: One of the treatises attributed to the scholar and philosopher al-Farabi is the fascinating single- page manuscript entitled “tafsir asma al-hukama”, a small document containing a shorthand inventory of fourteen Greek names. Although the authenticity of the attribution is still debated, the treatise itself demonstrates that its author had a strong interest in the interplay of philology and philosophy – a theme that first appears in a remarkable passage in Plato’s Politeia, namely Book IX, 582e. This paper therefore will examine the nature of the “tafsir asma al-hukama”, especially with regard to the title, which I leave untranslated until the last part of the paper, since the exact meaning of the words in the title forms a major part of my argument. Although the “tafsir asma al-hukama” is seemingly a very minor text, I believe that it represents a fascinating moment in the history of the dialogue between philology and philosophy. The result of my examination, then, will be a kind of maxima in minimis or hologram on a minor scale. I shall begin with a discussion of the importance of ism in al-Farabi.

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