Fragmenta graeca in litteris arabicis: 1. Palladios and Aristotle

H. Ritter has referred again to the Arabian manuscript Tübingen Weisweiler, nr. 81, in Islam, 21 (1933), p. 91. It contains the only copy hitherto known of the oldest mystic book on the subject of love, the k. 'aṭf al-alif al-ma'lūf 'alā' l-lām al ma'ṭūf of Abū'l-Ḥasan 'Alī b. Muḥammad al-Dailamī. The year of al-Dailamī's death has hitherto not been established; he was a pupil and the rāwī of the well-known author on mysticism, Abū 'Abdallāh Muhammad b. Khafīf (died 371 h. = a.d. 981), therefore probably one of the older contemporaries of Ibn Sīnä (died 428 h. = a.d. 1037). A year ago, Dr. Arberry kindly drew my attention to the fact that this manuscript contained some quotations of ancient authors which could not be traced and which might be worth considering. The opinions of the astronomers, scientists, and on love are discussed in the first part of the book; the passage on the scientists (32b 7–33b 9) is specially interesting, as it offers two hitherto absolutely unknown fragments, one of the last century of the Alexandrian-Greek literature, the other very probably of a lost dialogue of Aristotle.