Ibn Miskawayh's Tartīb Al-Saʿādāt

IBN MISKAWAYH’S TARTĪB AL-SAʿĀDĀT (THE ORDER OF HAPPINESS)

Roxanne D. Marcotte

Labeled the “chief moral philosopher of Islam,” Aḥmad Ibn Muḥammad Ibn Yaʿqūb Ibn Miskawayh (d. 421/1030) was the product of the rich intellectual milieu that radiated from Baghdad.1 The city was one of the most important centers of learning during the ʿAbbasid period which nourished the likes of al-Kindī (d. ca. 256/870), al-Fārābī (d. 338/950), and Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī (d. 364/894–974).2 Serving for some time the Būyid ʿAdud al-Dawla (ruled from 367/978 to 372/983),3 Miskawayh was from a Zoroastrian family of the district of Rayy (near present day Tehran) that had converted to Islam, at least from the time of Miskawayh’s grandfather (according to his nasab or genealogy); and he may have been a Shīʿī.4 Miskawayh is one of the important proponents of the philosophical trend of ethics in Medieval Islamic culture, along with al-Kindī, al-Rāzī (Rhazes) (d. ca. 313/925), al-ʿĀmirī (d. 381/992), al-Fārābī, Ibn Sīnā (d. 428/1037), Ibn

1 Joel L. Kraemer, “Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam: A Preliminary Study,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 104.1 (1984), 135–164, esp. 148; and idem., Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam: The Cultural Revival during the Buyid Age, 2nd rev. ed. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992). 2 For an earlier study on the social and intellectual contexts of the time, cf. Mohammed Arkoun, L’Humanisme arabe au IVe/Xe siècle: Miskawayh, philosophe et historien, 2nd rev. ed. (Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 1982). 3 M.S. Khan, “Miskawayh and the Buwayhids,” Oriens, 21 (1968/1969), 235–247. Ibn Misk- awayh, Kitāb Tajārib al-Umam (The Eclipse of the Abbasid Caliphate), ed. H.F. Amedroz and E.D.S. Margoliouth, 7 vols. (Cairo-Oxford-London, 1914–1921); see Miskawayh, History of Ibn Miskawayh, ed. L. Caetani (Leiden-London, 1901–1917) and for a partial English translation, see H.F. Amedroz and E.D.S. Margoliouth (1920–1921), vols. IV, V, VI. 4 According to Yāqūt, Miskawayh would have been from a Majūsī (Magian) family which had converted to Islam, something that would explain his connection to the pre- Islamic Iranian literary tradition. Miskawayh worked for the Shīʿī Buyid princes and viziers in Bagdad and Rayy primarily as librarian, although serving on occasions as ambassador and once as private secretary and physician. This has led al-ʿĀmilī to include him among the Shiʿis in his Aʿyān al-Shiʿa, cf. M. Abdul Haq Ansari, The Ethical Philosophy of Miskawaih (Aligarh: The Aligarh Muslim University Press, 1964), 141; cf. ʿAbd al-Haq Ansari, “Misk- awayh’s Conception of God, the Universe and Man,” Islamic Culture, 37 (1963), 131–144. The best biographical and bibliographical work on Miskawayh remains Arkoun’s L’Humanisme arabe. 142 roxanne d. marcotte

Rush (Averroes) (d. 1198),5 Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274), and Jalāl al-Dīn al-Dawwānī (d. 907/1501).6 Miskawayh’s Tahdhīb al-Akhlāq (The Refĳinement of Character)7 remains an important milestone in the devel- opment of philosophical ethics in Islamic civilization.8 The work may have been inspired by the Tahdhīb al-Akhlāq (with which it shares title, structure and much content) of Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī (d. 363/974), a Jacobite Christian philosopher of Baghdad, via the latter’s best known disciple, (Abū al-Khayr) al-Ḥasan Ibn Suwār (d. ca. 407/1017) (also known as Ibn al-Khammār) who wrote on psychological and ethical subjects,9 whom Miskawayh mentions

5 See, e.g., Lawrence V. Berman, “Excerpts from the Lost Arabic Original of Ibn Rushd’s Middle Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics,” Oriens, 20 (1967), 31–59. 6 Majid Fakhry, Ethical Theories in Islam, 2nd exp. ed. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994). 7 Miskawayh mentions the work as the Kitāb al-Ṭahāra (The Book of Purifĳication), the Ṭahārat al-Nafs (Purifĳication of the Soul) and the Ṭahāra fī Tahdhīb al-Nafs (Purifĳica- tion concerning the Refĳinement of the Soul), cf. Miskahwayh, Tahdhīb al-Akhlāq, edited by Constantine Zurayk (Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1977), 91.19, 104.13–14 and 222.18. For the English translation, see Constantine K. Zurayk, The Refĳinement of Character: A Translation from the Arabic of Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad Miskawayh’s Tahdhīb al-Akhlāq (Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1968), 196 [henceforth Zurayk]. The work is some- times called Ṭahārat al-Aʿrāq (The Purity of Dispositions), cf. Fakhry, Ethical, 107. 8 Fakhry, Ethical, 107–139. The section on the cure for the fear of death from the sixth and last discourse on the health of the soul of the Tahdhīb circulated as an independent epistle, entitled al-Khawf min al-Mawt (The Fear of Death) and was wrongly attributed to Ibn Sīnā, cf. Miskawayh, Risāla fī al-Khawf min al-Mawt, presentation and commentary by Muḥammad Isbir (Damascus: Bidāyāt lil-Ṭibāʿa wa al-Nashr wa al-Tawzīʿ, 2007) a reprint of Louis Cheikho 1893 edition where he attributed the text to Avicenna as did Ḥasan ʿĀṣī in his critical edition of the text included in his al-Tafsīr al-Qurʾānī wa al-Lugha al-Ṣūfĳiyya fī Falsafat ibn Sīnā (Beirut: al-Muʾassasa al-Jāmiʿiyya lil-Dirāsāt wa al-Nashr wa al-Tawzīʿ, 1983/1403), 272–280; in his 1911 edition, Cheikho attributed it, however, to Miskawayh, cf. Risāla fī al-Khawf min al-Mawt wa Ḥaqīqatihi wa Ḥāl al-Nafs baʿdahu and ʿIlāj al-Ḥuzn in Louis Maalouf, ed. Iddīh Khalīl and Louis Cheikho, Maqālat Falsafĳiyya Qaḍā li baʿḍ Mashāhīr Falāsifat al-ʿArab al-Muslimīn wa al-Naṣārā (Beirut, 1911), 103–117; reprinted in Miskawayh, Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad Ibn Muḥammad (d. 421/1030). Texts and Studies. Collected and Reprinted, ed. Fuat Sezgin (Frankfurt am Main: Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, 2000), 34–48; cf. Miskawayh, Tahdhīb, 209.5–217.9 (Zurayk, 185–192). 9 Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī, The Reformation of Morals: A Parallel Arabic-English Text, trans. and intro. Sidney H. Grifffĳith (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2002); cf. Marie- Thérèse Urvoy, “Traité d’éthique” d’Abū Zakariyyāʾ Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī. Introduction, texte et traduction, preface Gérard Troupeau (Paris: Cariscript, 1991). See Khalil Samir, “Le Tahd̠ib al-Akhlāq de Yaḥya b. ʿAdī (m. 974) attribué à Ğāḥiẓ et à Ibn al-ʿArabī,” Arabica, 21 (1974), 111–138 and Khalil Samir, “Nouveaux renseignements sur le Tahdīb al-Ah̠lāq de Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī et sur le ‘Taymūr Ahlāq 290,’” Arabica, 26.2 (1979), 158–178. Other important works include Gerhard Endress, The Works of Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī: An Analytical Inventory (Wies- baden: Reichert, 1977) and Emilio Platti, La grande polémique antinestorienne de Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī, edited and translated by E. Platti (Lovanii: E. Peeters, 1981–1982) and Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī, théologien chrétien et philosophe arabe: sa théologie de l’Incarnation (Leuven: Departement Oriëntalistiek, 1983).