Fire, Air, Water, and Earth: Elements, Mixtures and Natural Bodies between Arabic Medicine and Natural Philosophy

Abstract

This dissertation examines the transformation and development of the study of plants and animals in the medieval Islamicate world within the context of the Graeco-Arabic translation movement. I explore how the textual tradition of Aristotelian natural philosophy and Galenic medicine was expanded and developed through the works and efforts of multiple Islamic scholars in the 9th-11th centuries. I focus specifically on the theory of mixtures, which provided the foundation for explaining the composition of physical bodies from the four elements and how it developed into a framework to understand the natural world and its order. I illustrate how this theory was transformed through textual, methodological, and theoretical developments. A thriving book culture in the 9th century fostered many textual genres that ensured the dissemination of mixtures theory. I survey several genres, including a medical compendium composed by Ibn Rabban al- Ṭabarī Paradise of Wisdom, an Arabic anonymous summary of Aristotle's On Generation and Corruption, and an epistle by al-Kindī, to show how mixtures theory became an integral part of medieval Arabic works of medicine and natural philosophy. Next, I examine two works by the 10th-century physician Aḥmad Ibn Abī al-Ashʿath (d. 970). In his Book "On the Powers of Simple Drugs," he developed systematic empirical and reasoning methods to determine the power of drugs and expand the Greek textual tradition of materia medica. In his "Book of Animals" (k.al- Ḥayawān) he devised an innovative animal classification system that relied on mixtures theory for its formulation. I investigate how the theory of mixtures provided a theoretical and practical framework for explaining natural diversity. This process required keen observational skills, a deep understanding of the environmental conditions, and a thoughtful approach to deducing “rules” (qawānīn) to derive new knowledge from existing one. I argue that this focus on rules as a compromise between theoretical and empirical knowledge fostered an increasing awareness of the open-ended process of science-making. In my final chapter, I trace how Avicenna developed the theory of mixtures by combining Neoplatonic metaphysics, Aristotelian natural philosophy, and Galenic medicine and applied this theoretical framework to his zoological work in the enormous eighth volume of "al-Shifā’". Across all these works, the various scholars of this time period displayed a keen awareness of the new environment (both intellectual and natural) in which they practiced their science. These scholars provide a valuable new window into the wider scientific culture of this formative period of Islamic history.