al-Muqabasat
- Author died
- 400 AH
- Editions
- Dār Su‘ād al-Ṣabāḥ
al-Muqabasat (The Borrowings of Fire / Philosophical Exchanges) is a work on philosophy, dialectics, and literature by the fourth-century AH scholar Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi (d. c. 400 AH / 1010 CE), recording intellectual debates and discussions among the leading philosophers and men of letters in Baghdad .
Composition and Context
The book compiles conversations that took place primarily in the philosophical salon held at the home of Abu Sulayman al-Mantiqi (Muhammad ibn Tahir ibn Bahram al-Sijistani), from whom al-Tawhidi drew the vast majority of his material and recorded it largely from memory . Internal chronological references indicate the extended timeline across which these sessions took place: in the thirty-fifth session al-Tawhidi mentions being fifty years old; in the sixty-first he states that he read Aristotle's Kitab al-Nafs (De Anima) with Abu Sulayman in Baghdad in 371 AH; and in the fifty-second he notes an individual who died in 386 AH . Manuscripts also show variant dates for the dictation of the eighty-second session, citing either 371 AH or 391 AH, placing the overall timeframe of the sessions between roughly 370 AH and 386 AH or 391 AH .
The circle featured scholars of diverse intellectual backgrounds and religious confessions, united by their pursuit of wisdom and philosophy . Among the participants whose discourses and questions are preserved in the text are Abu Sulayman al-Mantiqi, Abu Zakariyya al-Saymari, Abu al-Fath al-Bawshanjani, Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi al-Arudi, Abu Bakr al-Qumisi, Yahya ibn Adi, Isa ibn Thaqif al-Rumi, Ibn Miqdad, Abu al-Qasim al-Antaki, Abu Muhammad al-Andalusi the grammarian, Abu Ishaq al-Sabi, al-Khwarizmi the scribe, Wahb ibn Ya'ish al-Raqqi, Ibn Siwar, Mani the Magian, Abu al-Hasan al-Amiri, Ubayd the scribe, al-Badihi, Abu Ishaq al-Nasibi, Isa ibn Zura, Mazhar the scribe, and Abu al-Khattab the scribe .
Structure and Method
Al-Muqabasat opens with the supplication اللهم إليك نرغب ("O God, unto You we yearn") and is arranged into 103 discrete sections or sessions (muqabasat) treating various scientific and philosophical inquiries .
The work proceeds predominantly through a question-and-answer format, reproducing dialogues and dialectical exchanges between interlocutors . Al-Tawhidi records discussions touching upon Aristotelian logic, metaphysics, natural philosophy, epistemology, asceticism, and the nature of speech and intellect . Specific entries address the distinction between logic and grammar—such as Abu Sulayman's characterization that grammar is an Arabic logic while logic is a rational grammar—as well as definitions of eloquence (balagha), rhetoric, and inquiries directed to grammarians such as Abu Said al-Sirafi on the linguistic sense of terms like nature (tabi'a) . The book also provides historical details regarding philosophical groups of the period, including the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwan al-Safa) .
Publication History
The work was printed in a lithograph edition in India without specifying publication date or location, published alongside ten other treatises . It was later edited with commentary by Hassan al-Sandubi (Cairo: al-Matba'a al-Rahmaniyya, 1347 AH / 1927 CE) and by Abd al-Razzaq Muhyi al-Din (Baghdad, 1371 AH / 1951 CE) .
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