More Than the Sum of Its Parts:

Animal Categories and Accretive Logic

in Volume One of al-Jis Kitb al-ayawn

by

Jeanne Miller

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies
New York University
January, 2013

____________________________________
Philip F. Kennedy

UMI Number: 3557020

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 Jeanne Miller
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Fig. 1 Dogs savaging a donkey carcass. Oscar Lsgren and Renata Traini, Arabic
Manuscripts in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, vol. 2 plate 1. This illustration is from MS
Cat. No. CXXX Kitb al-ayawn, al-Ji, folio f1a. It occurs at I:222:13 according
to the pagination of Hrns edition.

DEDICATION

To
Margaret Bachelder
and

(William) Nathan Alexander

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I do not have the words to thank my team of advisors, who have offered
enthusiasm and generous insight both on the dissertation itself, and in forming my
understanding and approach to classical Arabic literature along the way. I have
been blessed with true mentors.
Philip Kennedy inspired me from the beginning, demonstrating that it is
possible to learn to read classical Arabic literature joyfully, with subtlety and
sensitivity. His love for reading texts, as he puts it, was contagious, and I will
always remember the many hours spent as we discovered new texts together,
interrupted only when he realized he was late for whatever he was meant to be
doing next. He guided me safely through the dissertation process, providing
security in an endeavor that is always a voyage into the unknown.
Everett Rowson filled in the nuts and bolts of my Arabic education with
patience, kindness, and a sense of humor that seemed to spring directly from the
classical Arabic tradition itself. He also introduced me to aspects of intellectual
history that ended up being crucial for this project. He commented on several drafts

of this dissertation in minute detail, correcting innumerable errors, and generally

demanded precision in my translations and interpretations.
Over the course of an idyllic summer in Cambridge, James Montgomery
generously introduced to me an understanding of al-Ji that had taken him
decades to develop. Then with enviable restraint, he gave me the freedom to take
this dissertation in the direction I wished. His intermittent but thorough comments
on drafts have invariably proved deeply challenging. Indeed, at one point a single
comment of his provoked months of research and the re-writing of two chapters. At
times, his intuitions resounded like cryptic oracles, the significance of which only
appeared gradually as I progressed through the research.
Jacques Lezra became involved in the final stages, when I had drafts of many
chapters but could not settle on a single narrative thread. It is no exaggeration to
say that I wrote the final version of the dissertation because of him; his deadlines,
enthusiasm, and perfectly timed questions about the bigger picture convinced me to
stop stalling. He offered the possibility of greater theoretical sophistication, only a

vi

touch of which appears here. Most importantly, he agreed to meet with me

regularly through the final phase.
Finally, Marion Katz encouraged me to pursue the legal references al-Jahiz
makes. She provided erudite and trenchant commentary on my argument, which
could not be reflected in the dissertation in the time allotted.
Needless to say, all of the misjudgements, mistakes, and mis-statements are
my own responsibility.
Last of all, I would like to thank the institutions that gave me a space to work,
financial support, and an institutional framework in which to write: the NYU Middle
Eastern and Islamic Studies Department, the Humanities Initiative, the Dolores
Zohrab Liebmann fellowship, and the NYU Deans Dissertation award.

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

LIST OF FIGURES

xi

LIST OF APPENDICES

xii

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE: Animal Kinds

24

The Shared Notion of Animal Kind in the ayawn

26

A Dispute about the Term Pigeon (amm)

29

Outlying Ideas About Cross-Breeding

53

Al-Ji and Aristotles Kitb al-ayawn

58

A Jiian Reading of Aristotles Biology

62

Al-Jis Adaptation of Aristotles Notion of Hybrids

72

Mushtarak: Intercategory at the Class Level

77

Conclusion

90

CHAPTER TWO: Animal Classification Between Logic and Language

91

PART ONE: The Introduction as a Response to Logic

93

viii

The ayawns Long Introduction

93

Summary of I:26:1-37:8, the Monovocal Passage that Introduces

the Books Topic

97

The Introduction to the Topic at I:26-37 Mirrors Ibn al-Muqaffas

Epitome of Porphyrys Isagoge

100

Classification as a Style Particular to the Logicians and Philosophers

106

How to Use Language?

110

every animal is either eloquent (fa) or a foreign-speaker (ajam)

118

Classification of Wisdom

136

PART TWO: The Classification of Material Being

143

Bird/Flyer (ir) as a Category

151

Unstable Hierarchy

161

Sabu and bahma

165

CHAPTER THREE: The Intercategory: One Plus One Plus One

183

Is the Dog-Rooster Debate Worthwhile?

188

The Addressees Attitude Toward the Intercategory

193

The Dogs Combination of Opposites, and Man as Microcosm

211

Al-Jis Theory of Benefit (Malaa)

216

Equivalence and Differentiation Among Created Beings

221

Abstraction vs. Materiality

234

ix

Balancing Ones Attention and Listing

242

The Whole is Made of Parts (lil-kull ab)

249

Against a Hierarchy of Knowledge

256

CHAPTER FOUR: The Intercategory in the Dog-Rooster Debate

262

Overview of the Dog-Rooster Debate

267

The Intercategory in the Dog-Rooster Debate

274

The Proponent of the Rooster: The Cycle of Ingestion

280

Proponent of the Dog: Separation of Attributes

310

Proponent of the Dog: Comparison and Law

317

The Proponent of the Dog: Comparison and Poetry

336

Accretive and Absolute Measures of Disgust

343

When is Comparison Impossible?

348

Conclusion

366

APPENDICES

368

BIBLIOGRAPHY

406

LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 1

Dogs savaging a donkey carcass.

iii

Oscar Lsgren and Renata Traini, Arabic Manuscripts in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, vol. 2

plate 1. This illustration is from MS Cat. No. CXXX Kitb al-ayawn, al-Ji, folio
f1a. It occurs at I:222:13 according to the pagination of Hrns edition.

xi

LIST OF APPENDICES

APPENDIX A

368

OUTLINE OF THE INTRODUCTION TO AL-JIS KITB AL-AYAWN

APPENDIX B

370

TRANSLATION OF AL-JI, KITB AL-AYAWN I:26:1 I:37:8

APPENDIX C

384

OUTLINE OF THE FIRST HALF OF THE DOG-ROOSTER DEBATE, I:224:3-389:8

xii

INTRODUCTION
Al-Jis last large-scale work, Kitb al-ayawn, has often been cited as a
key example of the large-scale compilatory genre of adab that al-Ji is said to
have had a major hand in creating. James Montgomery has emphasized its
multivocal qualities, going beyond the fact that the text is composed of citations
from a culture-defining range of sources, to note that even these compilations are
performed by a variety of speakers, including the author himself as well as a host
of Proponents of various animals. 1 He has also pointed out that in addition to
all of the self-declared debates throughout the ayawn, the introduction itself is
structure as a debate as well, against the unnamed but very hostile Addressee of
the work. 2 In this dissertation, I will examine several ways in which al-Ji
presents not just disagreeing voices, but incompatible epistemologies confronting
one another. In order to make this more than simply a hyperbolic restatement of
the recognized fact that al-Jis writing is multivocal and multi-disciplinary, I
focus in particular on the logical structures involved in his presentation of
1
2

Montgomery, In Praise of Books.

Montgomery, In Praise of Books.
1

categories, and a concept that he introduces, the shared (mushtarak) which I

refer to using Mary Douglass term the intercategory. 3 Since this is a major
theme in Volume One of the ayawn, there is ample opportunity to examine in
fine logical detail the way in which al-Ji is able to depict a dialogue of the deaf
between incompatible world-views.
Classical Arabic intellectual society has been aptly described by Michael
Cook as a debate culture, which ostentatiously represented its willingness to
engage with all manner of beliefs and doctrines. 4 Al-Jis representation of
debate, however, differs from any other representation that survives from this
period. Other debates are firmly grounded within a particular discipline, usually
law or theology. This may be because the compilers were in the process of
defining these areas as disciplines, recording what would become the canonical
debates and arguments and establishing the grounds for each kind of debate,
including the kinds of questions and arguments that they encompassed. AlJis debate accounts, by contrast, range through a spectrum of intellectual
3
4

Douglas, Purity and Danger.

Cook, Ibn Qutayba and the Monkeys, 43.
2

worlds, and the debate partners often respond with arguments from a different
discipline, or respond in a way that invalidates the original reason for asking the
question. In allowing the debate partners to shift the grounds of debate in this
way, these debates manage to represent entirely incompatible worldviews, with
distinct epistemologies that should not be able to comprehend one another or be
represented on the same page by the same pen. In his quest to simultaneously
represent mutually impenetrable perspectives, al-Ji shares a similar ambition
to the projects of modern anthropology and novel-writing.
This kaleidescopic multi-perspective habit of representation is not limited
to the confrontation of different voices in debate, but suffuses even al-Jis
sentence level composition in his own voice, through his method of using
multivalent terms in ways that take into account all of their meanings. Technical
terms in particular tend to oscillate in his writing between their technical and
their original usages. It has been assumed, particularly among historians of
rhetoric (balgha), a discipline whose terminology had not yet crystallized in alJis time, that this ambivalent use of technical terms in his writing derives

simply from the early period in which he wrote, when the terms had not fully
been recognized as technical. My approach is different, partly because I do not
deal with balgha terms at all in this dissertation. I assume that the effects
produced by this play of technical and natural meanings is a meaningful part of
al-Jis text. My main close analysis of text in al-Jis voice occurs in Chapter
Two, where I interpret al-Jis taxonomy of animals as a representation of what
I call accretive logic, an intellectual approach that recognizes the
incompatibility of the ways that logic and natural language handle and
manipulate categories, and yet insists on combining the two.
This dissertation examines the first volume of al-Jis magnum opus, the
last of his major works, Kitb al-ayawn, a title which translates as The Book of
Animals or The Book of Animal Life. Kitb al-ayawn addresses Creation as a
whole, including human nature, the natural world, and the relations between the
two. Volume One consists of two debates: the debate between al-Ji and an
unnamed addressee that dominates the introduction to the ayawn, and the first
half of the Dog-Rooster Debate. Both of these debates focus primarily on the

dogs nature, particularly the question of whether the dog was intercategory
between the fundamental animal categories of predator (sabu) and prey (bahma),
and if so what this intercategory status meant about its nature. The dissertation
thus lays out al-Jis strategies in presenting multiple epistemologies using the
case of the intercategory as presented in Volume One of the ayawn. (I leave out
the second half of the Dog-Rooster Debate because it contains almost no
discourse in the voice of one of the debate partners, the Proponent of the
Rooster, and because it focuses much less closely on topics associated with the
intercategory.)
Intellectual history scholarship on al-Ji has for the most part been
careful to extract only elements of al-Jis texts that are spoken in his voice,
that are intended to be taken as part of his official doctrine. Al-Ji was careful
to protect his name from any ascription of doctrines he considered heretical. His
name, like that of any public authority, operated as a trusted brand labelling a
particular body of doctrines. This practice of managing authorship corresponds
to the management of the poets names in the classical Arabic tradition described

by Kilito. 5 In order to protect his name, al-Ji at times interrupts the flow of an
otherwise non-doctrinal text to clarify his person opinion on a particular matter. 6
Thus the intellectual historians who seek al-Jis opinions have clear signals to
follow when ascertaining which passages represent the al-Ji brand name. Yet
in limiting themselves to this fraction of al-Jis texts, they eliminate the vast
bulk of his work from their purview.
What of al-Jis non-doctrinal texts then, texts like the Dog-Rooster
Debate? In what sense then are they meaningful? What was at stake for al-Ji
in crafting these debates and compilations if he was not directly advocating an
opinion that could be ascribed to his name? Answering these questions requires
reading the texts in a literary manner, for it involves going beyond the literal
statements being made, to consider messages implicit in the form of the text, and
in its methodological and logical habits. Several recent works have made a good
start at interpreting non-doctrinal passages of al-Jis. Michael Cooperson in
his article on the Bukhal shows the relation between the reported discourses of
5
6

Kilito, The Author and His Doubles.

Al-Ji, ayawn, II:9.
6

the misers and certain contemporary adth discourses, 7 while Ibrahim Geriess
Un Genre Littraire Arabe is the main work of literary history that is relevant to
Volume One of the ayawn, for he traces the evolution of the masin wa-masw
literary genre with its sources in Persian rhetoric and ancient Arab poetry
expressing tribal competition (the mufkhara genre). 8 Geries concludes that the
underlying message transmitted by this debate genre that al-Ji so frequently
employed was a rejection of Dualist doctrines, and an affirmation that all beings
contain both good and evil. His procedure is thus to discover implicit in the form
of the debate a doctrine that al-Ji was known to have held. Geriess analysis,
however, holds true for any example of the masin wa-masw form. The
fundamental task of this study is instead to examine the particularities of alJis text, in particular its rhetorical and logical habits, focusing on the the DogRooster Debate and the debate between al-Ji and the addressee in the
introduction, to identify some of the uniqueness of al-Jis debate form in

7
8

Cooperson, Ji, Misers, and Proto-Sunni Ascetics.

Geries, Un Genre Littraire.
7

particular, and to speculate about the message this unique aspect of the form
conveys.
For the introduction to a book purporting to present all living beings, the
introduction to Kitb al-ayawn spends a huge amount of time and energy
discussing the accusation made by an unnamed Addressee that the dog should
not be discussed because it is a freak, a horrible combination of attributes that
should rightly be divided between predators and prey, the two fundamental
categories of the animal kingdom. This accusation is made in order to discredit a
purportedly historical debate that had taken place between two leading
theologicans, al-Nam and Mabad, comparing the merits and defects of the dog
and the rooster. Al-Ji defends the historic debate by subsuming this defense
into a general argument for the importance of studying material Creation as it
appears to us in its material manifestation. In the process, he is also defending
the Dog-Rooster Debate that he presents himself over the course of Volume Two
and the rest of Volume One. The portion of the debate presented in Volume One
in fact mirrors much of the discussion of the dogs intercategory status that was

presented in the introduction. Thus al-Ji begins his study of the natural world
with an extended debate about the intercategory and whether it is horrible. And
this insistance on discussing the intercategory is more or less presented as the
natural manifestation of a commitment to studying material reality.
In this dissertation, I take al-Ji at his word, and accept that the horror
of the dog is in fact a major intellectual question deserving of careful study, and
that this perception of horror is intimately connected with questions of
categorization. In doing so, I heed James Montgomerys sharp critique of what he
calls Bukhalism after al-Jis widely popular Book of Misers (Kitb al-Bukhal).
This interpretive habit is constantly on the alert for hints of humor or the
grotesque, and immediately dismisses these passages in al-Jis work as
entertaining digressions, on the assumption that literary enjoyment precludes
the presence of any message or intellectual content. In order to recuperate the
intellectual value of al-Jis work, Montgomery has largely avoided discussion
of satire, humor, or the grotesque, instead focusing on the plentiful other themes
in al-Jis work. Here, I return to the question of the grotesque, but I approach

it in the highly significant intellectual terms in which al-Ji presents it.

Eunuchs, cross-breeds, and intercategory beasts are a key topic of intellectual
debate because they reveal fault-lines in al-Jis society, distinguishing between
fundamentally different approaches to the material world.
Mary Douglas has powerfully articulated the view that all cultures afford a
special status to objects they perceive to be intercategory, and that a societys
treatment of its intercategory is highly significant about structural features of
that society. She interprets ritual impurity, for example, as an expression of this
culturally fraught relation to the intercategory. Al-Ji seems to have embarked
from a similar insight about the differences in approaching intercategory beings
being the key to understanding a cultural divide present in his own society.
Certainly he did not set out to analyze approaches to the intercategory on
Durkheimian grounds as Douglas does, but he does identify a similar set of
emotive responses to it: disgust and horror. And he similarly sets about analyzing
these reactions from a firmly grounded analytic standpoint. It is this standpoint
that this dissertation aims to uncover. What was al-Jis method for

10

investigating his cultures divided and mutually incomprehensible perception of

categories and the intercategory?
The two debates found in Volume One of the ayawn are in many ways
parallel, for when it comes to the nature of the dog and the approach to the
intercategory, the viewpoint of the Addressee largely matches that of the
Proponent of the Rooster, and the viewpoint of al-Ji matches the Proponent of
the Dog. This is not to say that the Proponent of the Dog is in any way a stand-in
for al-Ji I certainly do not think it right to ascribe doctrines to al-Jis
name that he did not explicitly espouse, given his degree of care in separating his
own doctrinal speech from the arguments of his Proponent characters. But the
debates are certainly parallel in many ways and deserve to be examined together.
Briefly put, I argue that whereas the Addressee and the Proponent of the Rooster
hold that intercategory creatures are essentially horror-inducing, the Proponent
of the Dog and al-Ji employ a materialist epistemology in which a creatures
essence is only the sum of its attributes, and in which these attributes are
separable and can always be compared to similar attributes in other creatures.

11

Chapter One temporarily sets aside the question of multiple

epistemologies, considering only the materialist approach to animal species and
cross-breeds. The Addressee compares the horror of the dog to the unspeakable
horror of cross-breeds, prompting al-Jis performative demonstration that
cross-breeds are in fact perfectly susceptible to scholarly examination. Al-Ji
understood that defining species was a valid intellectual problem, even among
materialists, for he crafts a debate about the limits of the pigeon species, between
the Proponent of the Pigeon and the Proponent of the Rooster, who apparently
share a generally materialist epistemology. All of the debate partners thus agree
on certain principles about the nature of animal species. I call this shared
doctrine about animal species the doctrine of the large kind. This doctrine is
firmly grounded in an almost clinical sense of biological neutrality in analyzing
procreative patterns. It posits that all crossbreeds are the product of procreation
within a large animal kind, such as equines or bovines, and thus places limits on
procreative possibility that avoid the sense of marvellous monstrosity often
associated with crossbreeds. The chapter traces this doctrine of large kinds, as

12

well as al-Jis terms for crossbreed (mutawallid) and intercategory animal

(mushtarak) back to a mis-reading of Aristotles biology in Arabic translation. It
concludes by noting that al-Ji presents an affectively neutral account of crossbreeds and intercategory animals, which he likely considered to be an
Aristotelian stance. Whereas medieval Europe ascribed its ideas about
monstrosity to Aristotle, for al-Ji Aristotle represented a firmly clinical and
affectively neutral approach to creatures. No creature is left out of comparative
consideration in Aristotles corpus, and this total inclusivity is a principle that alJi emphatically adopts, in contradiction to the concepts of monstrosity and
incomparability espoused by the Addressee and the Proponent of the Rooster.
Chapter Two argues that al-Jis introduction to the topic of the
ayawn pits his multi-volume text on the material world against Aristotles
Organon, by critically imitating the form of logical introductions like Ibn alMuqaffas epitome of Porphyrys Isagoge. Like Ibn al-Muqaffas epitome, alJis introduction to the topic of his book includes a classification of wisdom, a
classification of being, a discussion of how language should be used in

13

scholarship, and a discussion of the significance of speech (nuq) in distinguishing

humans from animals. Whereas Aristotelianism defined man as a speaking
(niq) animal, al-Ji here points out that the Arabic language frequently refers
to animals as speaking. He embarks on a spirited onomatopoetic discussion of
animal vocalization and demonstrates that animals and even inanimate objects
communicate wisdom to us. His classification of wisdom insists on the semiotic
character of the material world, which presents us with signs of the Creator.
Al-Jis reliance on Arabic idiom to defend animal speech is
representative of his explicit commitment to natural language. It is this rejection
of monovalent terminology that grounds his classification of material being,
which I analyze closely in Chapter Two. Whereas previous commentators have
assumed this taxonomy to represent a fully worked out hierarchical
classification, I instead read the passage linearly, as a demonstration of an
iterative process of definition and classification that juxtaposes rational analysis
with the intuitive claims of natural language. I operate under the working
assumption that each effect produced by the text is meaningful. The resulting

14

theory of animal categories does not treat a category as a firmly delimited area,
but rather as an impressionistic set of qualities, some of which do not always
occur together. This is a method of analysis that has no fixed end, for it does not
achieve a final definition for the category. At the same time, neither is it
approximative, for the iterations do not necessarily introduce less and less
significant corrections to the standing understanding of the category. Instead, it
is a pure confrontation of impressions, combined with an analytic filigree that
traces with inexhaustible energy the precise points of agreement and
disagreement in these impressions.
This approach to animal categories justifies al-Jis later insistance that
the dog is a predator (sabu) despite its friendly behavior. If satire is the mere
debasement of form, al-Jis adaptation of the logical introduction is a much
more sophisticated critique of logic as a method. In particular, he critiques the
demand that terms be monovalent in logical systems, and he critiques the idea of
hierarchical classification. Instead, he presents an animal taxonomy that is not a
final classification but rather a meditation on the process of analyzing the

15

categories that already exist implicitly in natural language. I call this approach to
terms and classification accretive logic, in contradistinction to Aristotelian
logics demand for monovalent terms and hierarchical classification. Accretive
logic does not reveal the object of knowledge so much as it reveals with crystal
clarity the state and limits of our knowledge about that object.
In the last two chapters, al-Jis accretive approach to generating and
describing knowledge butts against the more esoteric and essentialist approach
favored by the Addressee and the Proponent of the Rooster. The interactions
that result demonstrate the incompatibility of these two epistemologies in ways
that are sometimes hard to grasp; when a debate partner utters a response
drawing on his distinct epistemology, the context of the initial question and its
assumptions can often be lost. Chapters Three and Four make an effort to
highlight this process while revealing the operation of accretive logic in the
discourses of al-Ji and the Proponent of the Dog.
In Chapter Three al-Jis responses to the Addressee provide theoretical
background justifying his accretive logic. Specifically, he uses a comparison of

16

animals as parts of the worlds totality to atoms as parts of a body, in order to

demolish a hierarchical conception of knowledge. We saw in Chapter Two that
al-Ji rejects the hierarchical classifications of Aristotelian logic; here, he
rejects as well the hierarchy of knowledge that places abstraction (and thus the
larger categories) as more important than specifics.
The debate context for these points is a response to the Addressees
complaint that the intercategory dog is horribly too-human, and that elite
theologians like al-Nam and Mabad should be making abstract doctrinal
arguments rather than wasting their time in frivolous disputes about horrible
animals. The Addressees argument primarily condemns the dog and the rooster
specifically, but leans for support on a general condemnation of the study of
specifics. Al-Ji here does not respond to the claims about the dog as
intercategory, or about the lowly stupid nature of the rooster, but instead
reframes the argument as a debate about the role of parts in a whole the role of
atoms in a body, of specifics in the totality of knowledge, and of animals in the
totality of creation. These theoretical points serve to justify studying the dog and

17

the rooster. The chapter thus places al-Jis famous argument that perfect
benefit (tamm al-malaa) for humanity lies in a combination of good and evil in
its original debate context, revealing that the core of this argument lies in its
approach to totality and its physical theory comparison. The chapter relies
heavily on Geriess insights about the importance of the concept of relativity to
al-Jis argument, and builds on his initial treatment of the passage.
In response to the Addressees comments about the dogs intercategory
status, al-Ji defends the boundaries between predator and prey, and between
human and animal, by allowing these categories to be less rigid. An animal can
belong to a category without exhibiting every single attribute associated with
that category. This approach is a natural corrolary to the approach to animal
classes that we examined in Chapter Two. It is also, however, a natural corollary
to an approach to the natural world that is based in physical theory. Kalm
viewed the essence of an object to be located in its particular combination of
attributes, but it saw those attributes as fundamentally separable. Thus where
the Addressee finds it horrible for the dog to combine attributes belonging to two

18

categories, expecting these category-attributes to come in inseparable bundles,

al-Ji views these attributes as naturally separable, since they come in a unique
combination for each creature. It is because he so heavily grounds his theoretical
approach to animals in physical theory that I call al-Jis accretive method
materialist. Just as a category is defined by an open list of definitions that cannot
be entirely subsumed in abstraction, similarly knowledge of the material world
ultimately takes the form of a list. Certainly it will be a list linked with extensive
analytic and comparative commentary, but this process of pattern-recognition
and comparison cannot ever reach finality as long as the process is based in
matter rather than in abstract principles.
The Addressee in his initial attack certainly did not present a theory of
Creation and the material world; nor did he address theological questions like the
presence of evil in the world. Instead, he simply listed the degraded aspects of
the dog and the rooster, in an attempt to show that these animals are unworthy
of attention. In order to respond, al-Ji has to reset the entire frame of the

19

debate, and start from the beginning in his defense of a balanced attention to
every detail of material reality.
Chapter Four finally moves on to examine the Dog-Rooster Debate itself.
It shows a correspondence between the Addressees view of the dog as
intercategory and the ideas expressed by the Proponent of the Rooster, except
that the Proponent of the Rooster leans harder on the supernatural associations
of intercategory horror. It discovers in the Proponent of the Dog a comparative
method that could be called materialist and accretive in its inexhaustibility. This
comparative method examines the highly affective descriptions of the dog that
his opponent presents, and separates out each affect-inducing behavior and
physical attribute ascribed to the dog, in order to submit these material facts to
comparative analysis. This process strips the horrible image of the dog of its
power, and naturalizes the dog by comparing each of its attributes with those of
other animals.
The Dog-Rooster Debate represents the process of shifting the grounds of
debate in a number of ways. Undercutting a disciplinary approach is one clear

20

way that the Proponent of the Dog rebuts his opponent. When the Proponent of
the Rooster, for example, presents invective poetry degrading the dog, the
Proponent of the Dog responds at one point by mounting a lengthy theoretical
argument about the historical significance of invective, shifting the debate
method from poetry recitation to poetry analysis. 9 Similarly, when the
Proponent of the Rooster presents adth deriding the dog, the Proponent of the
Dog responds with pure mockery. When he does take a moment to respond
seriously, he does not cite adth in favor of the dog, but rather turns a corner
into hermeneutic analysis based on historical context. It is largely the Proponent
of the Dog who shifts the grounds of the debate, since throughout the DogRooster Debate, it is he who responds to the Proponent of the Roosters initial
claims. The Proponent of the Dog is so effective that one might be forgiven for
assuming that the Proponent of the Rooster is employing a purely compilatory
strategy, simply citing excerpts from the cultural heritage that reflect poorly on
the dog. Part of Chapter Four is therefore devoted to reconstructing the

I:352:9-356:4.
21

coherence of the Proponent of the Roosters horror-inducing image of the dog, so

that the responses of his opponent can be better appreciated. I conclude that the
comparative method employed by the Proponent of the Dog has the same
accretive and inexhaustible features as the accretive, materialist logic examined
in Chapter Two and theorized by al-Ji in the passages examined in Chapter
Three.
By dividing up the discourse among multiple voices, al-Ji is able to
perform an analysis of the human response to freaks that does not silence the
more intense emotional reactions that he rejects on doctrinal grounds. And it
allows him in the end to prove the centrality of the concept of the intercategory
as a watershed issue provoking differing reactions from people, and thus redrawing the heresiographical map according to his views of an approach to
materiality.
Like the natural philosophers of the seventeenth century, al-Ji was
creating a self-consciously new scientific approach which used direct observation
to challenge Aristotles claims; he was particularly interested in exceptions and

22

freaks; and he was actively engaged in an encyclopedic project of sorts. Yet unlike
them, he was critical of the systematizing impulse, preferring overlapping
categories to taxonomy and comparative arguments to a hierarchy of
information. Moreover, while observation was an important source of knowledge
for him, he also included revelation and the Arabic language (poetry, proverbs,
and linguistic usage) among his main sources of knowledge. In this sense, he
represents an alternative kind of materialism to that represented by the
Enlightenment.

23

CHAPTER ONE: Animal Kinds

This chapter describes al-Jis conceptions of kind (species) and breed, and
what constitutes cross-breeding. It identifies ideas about animal kinds that are taken
for granted by al-Ji and the fictionalized debate partners he cites (the Proponent of
the Pigeon, ib al-amm, and the Proponent of the Rooster, ib al-dk). It then
distinguishes these shared ideas about animal kinds from other ideas which, while
available, were apparently not taken for granted by al-Ji, as he associates them
with specific groups. This section draws from the passage on cross-breeds in the
Introduction, as well as from Bb al-amm in volume 3 of the ayawn.
Many of al-Jis ideas are reminiscient of modern biology yet distinct from it.
Thus it will perhaps be helpful to recall the precise modern meaning of terms like
species, breed, proximity, animal family, and so forth, in order to flush out
assumptions that might obscure an understanding of al-Jis similar yet distinct
concerns and concepts. Modern taxonomy has invented a concept of proximity or
relation between animal kinds that distinguishes between the many levels at which an
animal can be categorized: breed, species, genus, family, order, class, phylum, and
kingdom. This system posits a concept of similarity based on genetic relation and
24

observable physical features, that determines the level at which a distinction between
varieties should occur in the classification system. A difference in kingdom marks a
much greater genetic and observable difference than a difference only in breed. The
systematization of category levels implies that the difference between two genera will
always fall within a certain range: two genera will be more different than two species
within a genus and more similar than two distinct families.
Post-Darwin, species is defined as the set of individuals that can regularly
procreate. In many cases (often among birds), species distinctions are unclear as
groups shade into one another. Frequently, however, one group of varieties diverges
from an adjacent group that it may previously have occasionally interbred with,
leading to the elimination of intermediate varieties and thus the observable
phenomenon of obviously distinct species. A species is thus circumscribed by the
phenomenal fact that the individuals it subsumes procreate with one another, whereas
they do not procreate with individuals outside the species. Breeds are varieties within
the species, and they can interbreed. For the purposes of modern taxonomy,
incomplete procreation does not count; thus the horse and the ass are separate species
but belong to the same genus (equus).
25

The Shared Notion of Animal Kind in the ayawn

Although al-Ji nowhere explicitly distinguishes between levels of animal
categories, there are many indications that he did have a concept of species, one that
was based primarily on recognizable similarity but that also took into account the
ability to procreate. I will refer to this idea as kind, not species, in order to preserve
the distinction between al-Jis idea of kind and the post-Darwinian idea of species
(and Aristotles quite different concept of eidos). Any concept of kind or species must
distinguish it from categories at other levels (breeds, or animal families), and al-Ji
does this on the basis of the degree of proximity or relation between them. Although
he does not use distinct terms for them, in practice he distinguishes between the
following levels of proximity:
Individuals within a breed: Procreation between individuals within a breed
produces offspring that are not crossbreeds.
Breeds or Races within a kind: Procreation between breeds produces crossbreeds.
Kinds within the same group: They are clearly recognizably as one basic kind;
procreation between kinds is impossible.
26

Group of kinds: Categories, at various levels, to be discussed in the section on

categories.
Groups of animals at these levels are referred to haphazardly using the same words
interchangeably: jins, shakl, and naw, without any explicit distinction between these
terms. In his understanding of the distinction between breed and kind, al-Ji seems
to use two criteria: capacity to procreate, and recognizable similarity. As stated above,
the concept of breed or race is inter-dependant with the concept of the cross-breed,
which al-Ji refers to as mutawallid (produced) or murakkab (composite).
Although al-Ji seems quite certain about which animals are crossbreeds and which
are not, his theory of how they differ from normal animals and thus what
distinguishes a breed difference from a kind difference is vague.
In order to distinguish between these nested categories (breed, kind, group) alJi has a concept of proximity or relation, which he calls qarba; he also uses the
terms distinction (tafwut) and difference (ikhtilf). Al-Ji discusses proximity at
a conceptual level and through examples, but he never coins terms for specific
category levels (breed, kind, group), thus following his general practice of refusing to
coin new terms. Indeed, the definition of these category levels largely takes place
27

when he needs to define which known animal types are subsumed under a particular
animal name.
In several passages, al-Ji and various fictionalized dispute partners he
introduces propose the following relations between animals:
sheep : goat ::
horse : ass ::
domestic cattle : wild cattle : buffalo ::
Bactrian camel : dromedary ::

fkhita dove : qumr dove ::

Slavic human : African human
These passages explicitly discuss the notion of proximity (qarba), distinction
(tafwut), or difference (mukhlafa) between varieties, specifying that the distance
between sheep and goats for example is the same as the distance between the horse
and the ass. Clearly, this list contains some pairs that in modern biology are
considered distinct species and others that are considered breeds of a single species.
Al-Ji and the dispute partners appear to share a concept of proximity which takes
for granted that bovines, equines, and so on are single basic kinds, categories
28

comparable to human. This idea of the large kind serves the function of limiting
the phenomenal incidence of hybridity to cases of cross-breeding (procreation
between different breeds of the same kind) thus eliminating the potential for
monstrosity; yet at the same time sketching a relatively broad spectrum of difference
within which free variation is natural. The large kind therefore introduces a
circumscribed area within which free variation is possible, natural, and not
monstrous.
A Dispute about the Term Pigeon (amm)
Several passages describing these large kinds occur during a debate about
the extension of the term amm in volume 3, Bb Dhikr al-amm, between the
Proponent of the Pigeon (ib al-amm) and the Proponent of the Rooster (ib aldk). Modern interpretations typically gloss amm (sing. amma) as doves or pigeons
(synonyms in English) and this reflects medieval usage. Dove raising and breeding
were lucrative activities avidly pursued in Baghdad and other cities of the Abbsid
Empire, 1 and most references to amm refer to pigeons that were raised, bought, and
sold. A history of artificial breeding had by this time already created a vast array of

Vir, amm, EI2.

29

dove breeds (comparable to dogs) which looked quite different from one another. The
odd mix of medieval dictionary definitions for amm cited in Lane reflects this state
of affairs; Lane summarizes the state of affairs thus: the pigeon, both wild and
domestic, but more properly the former; and sometimes not strictly confined to
denote the pigeon kind. 2 Vir and Lane also both cite a definition of amm as birds
that drink continuously (abba) 3 and coo; and they assimilate the following kinds
mentioned by al-Ji into the amm category: fkhita (collared turtle-dove, pl.
fawkhit), the qumr (turtle dove, pl. qamr), sq urr and warashn (synonyms for, or
varieties of the ring dove, also called the wood pigeon), qa (sandgrouse), and yamm
(stock dove or blue dove). 4 Lane cites several attestations for usages that extend
beyond the pigeon itself to desert birds and the sandgrouse (qa), indicating that the
term amm was indeed used to extend beyond the pigeon to pigeon-like birds. 5 Vir
simply suggests that the sandgrouse must have been believed to drink continuously,

Lane, s.v. amm.

Doves are unusual birds in that they can drink water without tilting their heads back
after each gulp to swallow.
4
These interpretations of bird kind names are drawn from Vir, amm, EI2.
5
Lane, s.v. amm.
2
3

30

and thus to be a kind of pigeon (of the columba genus). 6

The dispute in the ayawn about the terms extension proposes several
definitions: (1) amm refers to all songbirds (2) amm refers to all doves including
breeds called fkhita, qumr, shifnn, and warashn (3) amm refers only to the breed of
doves that has no other name besides amm. All three opinions assume that amm is
most properly a kind name, and thus the debate is about the extent of that kind, and
the degree of diversity acceptable within a single basic kind, comparable to bovines,
humans, equines, and camels. The first opinion, that amm refers to all songbirds, is
expressed by the Proponent of the Pigeon at the very beginning of the chapter on
doves (III:144:9-146:12). When the Proponent of the Rooster later proposes the overly
restrictive third opinion (III:200:3-201:9), the Proponent of the Pigeon softens his
stance to the second opinion, admitting that amm refers only to doves, but insisting
that it refers to all doves (III:201:10-205.4).
In what follows, I will cite the passages in this debate about the extension of
the term amm, omitting intervening arguments about the respective merits of the
dove and the rooster, and I will comment along the way about implicit conceptions of

Vir, amm, EI2.

31

kind, breed, and cross-breed that are being expressed. I will also cite comparable
passages from the introduction in the voices of al-Ji himself and the hostile
Addressee. Through all of this, I hope to show that all of the voices here take for
granted a particular conception of breed, kind, and cross-breed. They differ, however,
in their qualitative assessment of the cross-breed, seeing it as positive, negative,
evidence of fertility, evidence of demonic qualities, and so on.
The passage defining amm as any songbird at the start of the amm Chapter
articulates the difference between kind and breed:
Chapter Discussing amm
The Proponent of the Pigeon said: amm are: wild (wash), tame (ahl),
caged for breeding (buyt), and the wild rock-dove (rn) 7. All birds
that are known for monogamy, 8 a beautiful voice, song (al-hadl), calling
(du), and trilling (tarj) are amm, even if some of them are different
from others in voice, color, size, and the tune of their song (lan alhadl).
Likewise, the kinds (ajns) of chicken differ in the same way, but this
does not disqualify them from being chickens (l yukhrijuh dhlika min

Vir provides convincing glosses, of ahl as roof-pigeons that are tame but mate
freely, versus buyt which are kept in different cages to control bloodlines, and of
rn as the rock-dove (columba livia) from which all domestic pigeons are descended,
though it is not the only variety of wild pigeon. Vir, amm, EI2.
8
Al-Ji elsewhere points out that pigeons exhibit a wide range of sexual behavior,
including but certainly not limited to monogamy.
7

32

an takn dajjan). The Indian rooster, the khils rooster, 9 and the naba
rooster, for example. Or like the Sind chicken, the African chicken, and
others. Likewise, the camel: dromedary (irb), pack-camels (bukht),
Bactrian (fawlij), and various crosses between them (bahwaniyya,
ararniyya), 10 wild camels (sh), those descended from wild camels
(nujub), 11 and other noble camels (ful al-ibil). 12 This does not
disqualify them from being camels (l yukhrijuh dhlika min an takn
ibil).
This is the same as the difference (mukhlafa) between rats and mice, or
large and small ants, or like the difference (ikhtilf) between sheep (alHrn tells us that the khils chicken is a cross between an Indian and a Persian
chicken. Al-Ji, al-ayawn, III:145, fn. 4.
10
Flij pl. fawlij typically refers to the two-humped camel brought from Sind for the
purpose of breeding with Arabian dromedaries (irb) to produce the cross-bred pack
camel called bukht (Lane, s.v. flij and bukht. Pellat, Ibil EI2).
Al-Ji does not seem to use the terms to this degree of technical perfection at
I:138:4-13: When fawlij al-bukht are crossed with inth al-bukht [the results are
monstrous and become more and more monstrous with each generation] but irb
(dromedaries) are not like this; if fawlij mount irb, the results are those jawmiz and
noble bukht that combine the good traits of bukht and irb. Here, fawlij refers to
two-humped stallions that are not cross-bred, and bukht seems to have a primary
denotation of the cross-bred pack camel, but also refers to any kind of camel (whether
crossed or not) that in fact had two humps, and thus more broadly refers to all the
character traits that come with two humps.
Both the bahwniyya and the ararniyya are crosses between male dromedaries and
Bactrian (bukht) female camels (I:138:14-16).
11
Lane cites the lexicographers hesitating between treating al-ibil al-sh as
equivalent to wild camel (al-ibil al-wash), or glossing it as a jinns camel, according
to a legend that the stallions of jinn from the land of sh mounted domestic camels of
the Arabs, producing a variety called nujub. (s.v. sh.) Hrn glosses sh as a wild
camel.
12
Literally: and other stallions. Since I cannot understand the relevance of sex here, I
translate it according to the oft-used metaphorical meaning.
9

33

an) and goats (al-maz), and the kinds (ajns) of domestic and wild
cattle, and like the relation (qarba) between them and the buffalo
(jawms).
Snakes and scorpions each differ in many ways but this does not
disqualify them from being scorpions and snakes. The same is true of
dogs and corvids 13.
You have only to consider the distinction between people (asbuka
tafwut m bayn al-ns), as between Africans and Slavs (al-zanj walaqliba) for example, in their hair and their color, or like Gog and
Magog, or d and Thamd, or like the Canaanites and the Amalekites.
For the sheep (ina) and the goat (miza) differ so greatly that they
do not copulate or procreate. Thus they are known collectively as
ghanam (goats) and sh (sheep). 14
He said: the turtle-dove (qumr) is [a kind of] amm; the collared turtledove (fkhita) is [a kind of] amm; the ring-dove (warashn) is [a kind
of] amm; the turtle-dove (shifnn) is [a kind of] amm; and so are the
stock dove (yamm) and the female sandgrouse (yaqb) 15. Other kinds
as well are all amm. The meritorious qualities in them come from
(tarja il) the amm that are known by no other name [than amm].
He said: Polemon, the master of physiognomy, claimed that amm are
kept for various reasons. Some are raised for companionship, women,
and houses. 16 Others are raised for homing and racing. (Homing is
Ghirbn is often translated as crows, but the references at III:438:11-12 to the black
and spotted varieties of ghirbn, and at II:315:4-316:4 to nocturnal and diurnal varieties
(where ghurb al-layl is so called because it resembles the nature of owls rather than
crows rather than because it is black in color) and to ravens (ghidfn) being a type of
crow, make it likely that the term really refers to all corvids: ravens, crows, and so on.
14
One could interpret to mean, yet they are known collectively for both ghanam
and sh can apply to both sheep and goats.
15
Vir, amm, EI2.
16
It was considered appropriate to keep pigeons in the house with women for
companionship (i.e. as pets). Al-Ji again mentions the interest women have in
pigeons at III:147:9, and explains that pigeons are among the blessed birds, not among
13

34

when you send out amm that know their way.) 17

The passage aims to convince the reader/listener that the term amm designates all
songbirds as a kind name, despite the wide variation between them. The Proponent of
the Pigeon admits a homonymy between the songbird (amm) and specific breeds of
pigeon called amm, but his wording makes it seem that the breeds are called by the
general name amm only because they have no breed name (which have no other
name besides amm). Thus the Proponent of the Pigeon advocates a primary
meaning for amm as songbird, while admitting that the term was most commonly
used to refer to domesticated doves. He argues that in fact all songbirds belong to a
single basic kind. The great variety of colors and shapes of songbird are, he argues,
comparable to the varieties of breed found within other kinds.
The basic kinds listed by the Proponent of the Pigeon include some categories
which would be called a species in modern biology, and some that would be
considered a genus or an even higher-level more general category: humans with their
component races, dogs, and camels are all considered species; but scorpions, snakes,
the animals for whom the genitalia and the size of the penis are apparent, like the dog,
the donkey, and other similar animals, for those are animals that men must not allow
to enter their homes. Al-Ji, al-ayawn, III:147:10-12.
17
Al-Ji, al-ayawn, III:144:7-147:1.
35

bovines, equines, caprinae (sheep and goats), ants, and murinae (mice and rats) are
animal groupings at the level of genus or even higher. The Proponent of the Pigeon
specifically likens the degree of similarity (proximity qarba, distinction tafwut,
and difference ikhtilf) 18 between the kinds of songbird included in the range he
proposes for amm to the degree of similarity between human races, kinds of chicken,
kinds of bovine, sheep and goats, and so on. This repeated insistence that the degree
of proximity is equivalent leads me to conclude that the Proponent of the Pigeon is
here adducing a specific category level that can subsume varieties exhibiting a specific
degree of difference. He is not just expressing the more general idea that animals
designated by a single term can be various, but rather he is placing the term amm at
a specific level of generality comparable to certain other animal groupings. What level
is this?
Although the Proponent of the Pigeon does not here introduce a concept of
kind, circularly defined in conjunction with the concept of cross-breed (murakkab or
mutawallid), I believe that this is precisely what he is getting at when expressing that
amm subsumes varieties at a specific level of generality comparable to camel (ibil),

18

Al-Ji, al-ayawn, III:145:8; III:146:3.

36

sheep/goats, humans, and so forth. The Proponent of the Pigeon later in the same
discourse returns to this idea again, repeating the point that these groupings are at
the same level of generality, but this time he includes the idea of cross-breed in his
explanation. (And this time he employs the terms ghanam and alf 19 unambiguously
as a kind-name for sheep/goats.) The Proponent of the Pigeons discussion of kind is
couched in a polemical statement that the amms ability to cross breed is a great
virtue:
Another praiseworthy attribute of songbirds (amm) is this: Whereas
the mule, a cross (mutawallid) between a donkey and a packhorse mare
(al-ramka), produces no viable offspring, the rib is a cross (mutawallid)
between the amm and the ring dove (warashn), and it procreates a
great deal, lives a long life, and has many young. The pack camel
(bukht) and the Bactrian camel (fawlij), if they mate, produce defective
offspring which are no good. But the amm, however you turn it and
however you mate it, with those like it or those different from it, always
produces viable offspring of which good things are expected. Among
the cross-bred (murakkab mushtarak) offspring of the amm are, for
example, the rib and the wardn. The wardn has an unusual color
and an attractive build, 20 and the rib has a special feature in the size of
its body and its chicks. It has a kind of song that its parents don't have,
Although alf literally means cloven-hooves, al-Ji uses it here and elsewhere as a
designation for sheep and goats, to the exclusion of bovines, even though bovines are
the classic example of cloven-hoofed animals. Kitb al-Ayn, s.v. ilf: Cloven hooves.
The cloven hooves of a cow or of cud-chewing animals like it are its nails.
20
I follow Hrns interpretation of arfat qadd as usn haya. Al-Ji, al-ayawn,
III:163, fn. 3.
19

37

and this has resulted in an increase in its price and a high desire to own
it.
Ghanam are in two categories (qismayn): sheep and goats.
Cattle are in two categories. One of the two consists of buffaloes,
excluding wild cows. [Presumably, the other category includes wild
cows.] Cloven-hoofed animals (al-ilf) when they differ do not mate and
do not conceive. This is a good trait in favor of the amm from the
perspective of procreating and conceiving, and the receptiveness of
their wombs to various types (anf) of conception. So there is mating
and procreation between all the different kinds (ajns) of amm,
including the warashn, the qamr, and the fawkhit. 21
This passage parallels the one that came before, in that it compares the category of
amm to the categories of bovines, and sheep/goats. It does not specify that these
categories involve a comparable degree of proximity (qarba), but it does clarify that
procreation within any of these categories amounts to cross-breeding, and that
different kinds have different capacities to cross-breed. Thus, the basic identification
of kind (species) is not dependant on ability to procreate, but it does cause any
procreation of varieties within the kind to be labeled as crossbreeding.
The following passage from the introduction is in al-Jis own voice, and
adduces the same examples, and uses the same term to designate the degree of
proximity between individuals qarba. In this case, al-Ji also provides terms for
21

Al-Ji, al-ayawn, III:162:9-163:9.

38

the kinds: caprinae (sheep and goats) are cloven-hoofed (alf); equines are singlehoofed (al-awfir); and camels are footed (al-akhff).
If offspring (nitj) and what is produced through crossing (m
yudath bil-tarkb) and what comes out of couplings (m yakhruj min
al-tazwj) went according to the judgment of reason and that which
seems most plausible (m huwa aqrab il al-ann), then animals with
cloven hoofs (al-alf) would follow the same pattern (majr) as
those with integral hoofs or feet (akhff). Don't you see that the
relation of sheep (an) to goats (miz) is precisely the proximity
(qarba) of Bactrian camels to dromedaries, or of warhorses (alkhayl) to asses (al-amr)?
But the offspring of animals with cloven hooves (al-ilf) are
different. For the goat, despite the intensity of its lust, never
approaches the ewe except in a few rare occurrences hardly worth
mentioning. Furthermore, if a child (wuld) is produced from them,
it either is not carried to term or it is not viable. It is the same with
the she-goat and the ram: they do not approach one another, let
alone produce offspring. (For it is possible to copulate without
conceiving, but it is not possible to conceive without copulating.)
The billy-goat hardly ever approaches the ewe; this is rarer than
rare, and the same goes for the ram and the she-goat. And it is even
more uncommon for this to result in conception, and if it does the
offspring are never viable. 22
Al-Ji here, like the Proponent of the Pigeon in the passage cited above, assumes
that what constitutes a kind is obvious, and discusses the different reproductive
capacities within different kinds as a topic of interest. Thus, kind is determined by
22

Al-Ji, al-ayawn, I:142:2-12.

39

something other than procreation, but procreation is nonetheless associated with

being a single basic kind, making sheep and goats into an exception or unusual case.
In any case, procreation between breeds within a kind results in cross-breeds
(murakkab, mutawallid.) Like the Proponent of the Pigeon, al-Ji here specifies that it
is proximity (qarba) which defines a kind as such:
How similar is the proximity between the ass, the packhorse, and the
warhorse mare (qarbat al-imr bil-ramka wal-ijr), to the proximity
between the Bactrian camel (flij ) and the dromedary (irb). 23
Al-Ji does not explicitly defend his perception that these groups comprise the same
level of proximity, but his references to rationality (according to the judgement of
reason and that which is most plausible), and the sense of obviousness he adduces
(Dont you see that...) both hint that sheep and goats are considered breeds of a
single kind because of their recognizable similarity, meaning the similarity in their
forms. 24

Al-Ji, al-ayawn, I:139:4-5.

This usage of qarba as justifying the inclusion of the animals within a single kind
differs from the term mushkala, which indicates a more limited similarity, a
resemblance in specific features that does not necessitate grouping the animals within
a single kind. The concept of mushkala is key to the ayawn, justifying the concept of
man as a microcosm that resembles all the animal kinds, and justifying al-Jis
23
24

40

Al-Ji here treats alf as a kind-name for sheep and goats rather than a
general family name for any cloven-hoofed beast, which would then include bovines.
Whereas al-Ji typically uses terms according to the usages of natural language, the
natural usage of alf here conflicts with the consistent presentation of his idea that
there are large kinds like sheep/goats, horses/asses, and so on. In this passage, he
distinguishes between these large kinds on the basis of foot type, making a parallel
between the different kinds he lists. Implicitly, he is constructing a super-category,
perhaps of terrestrial quadrupeds, according to which sheep/goats, equines, and
camel/dromedaries are distinguished from one another by their feet. For this to work,
he must omit bovines, as they too are cloven-hoofed this inclusion would point out
that there are two large kinds, bovines and caprinae, under the term alf.
At this point, we have fully examined the Proponent of the Pigeons claim that
the amm is a kind comparable to other kinds, subsuming many breeds, and that the
interbreeding of distinct varieties within the category of amm should be considered
ordinary cross-breeding. However, we still have not achieved a definition of the
degree of proximity (qarba) between members of these basic kinds (bovines, equines,
invention of animal-wide categories such as nocturnal or predatory. Al-Ji, alayawn, II:315:4-5; I:27:11.
41

amms, and so on) as distinct from larger categories (e.g. land creatures) or from subcategories like breeds. The Proponent of the Pigeon gives a clear answer to this
question in response to the Proponent of the Roosters challenge to his claim that the
term amm refers to all songbirds. In this debate, everyone agrees that the amm
represents a single basic kind, and everyone agrees that kind refers to groups like
bovines and humans. The difference of opinion is about the extension of the basic
kind called amm, and thus the debate hinges on defining the level of similarity
represented by the basic kind.
We have already described the Proponent of the Pigeons claim that the term
amm applies to all songbirds. Now we can hear his opponents rebuttal. This
rebuttal comes well into the dispute, and allows the Proponent of the Rooster to deny
that poetry about the ring-necked one refers to the amm as opposed to the rooster
(dk), categories whose extension he opens up for debate as well:
The Proponent of the Rooster said:
As for [the poets] saying:
A ringed one clothed by God with a ring - He did not grace another bird besides
this one with it.
How can you say He did not grace another bird besides the amm with
a ring, when the francolin (tadrij) is more rightly and more beautifully
ringed than it, and when rings are more common among their males?
For he did not describe as ringed the amma which you praise over the
42

rooster, since the amma is not ringed but rather rings are for the
males of the warshn and their like, such as the nawi and hawtif and
singers among birds. For this reason your poet said 25:
Oh tik, I will not forget you, so long as the breeze rises
or the qumr pigeon (amm) coos.
Another poet said 26:
The wailing of a qumr awakened my desire,
that ecstatic singer of the dusk, that distant voice of dawn.
He said, describing it:
A ringed one clothed in finery
At Noahs request, when he prayed for it. 27
If you claim that the amm, the qumr, the yamm, the fawkhit, the
dabbs, the shafnn, and the warshn are all amm, then we say: We
claim that the male tadrij (francolin) and the male qabaj (partridge) and
the male ajal (red-legged partridge) are all roosters. For if this is so,
then it is we who most deserve to glory in the ring-neck. 28

Abdallh b. Ab Bakr (al-iddq), d. 632-3. This line is cited in a longer excerpt by the
Proponent of the Pigeon at III:199:1-2. For biographical references, see III:198 fn. 4, 5.
According to the sources, this poem was written out of longing for his wife, tika,
who had so distracted him from warfare that his father had forced him to divorce her.
This poem convinced his father to let him reunite with her. III:199, fn. 1.
26
Jahm b. Khalaf al-Mzin, a late eighth-century Baran poet, poetry scholar, and
lexicographer. Sezgin, GAS, II:525. This and the next cited line of poetry are drawn
from a longer excerpt cited by the Proponent of the Pigeon at III:199:5-8.
27
The Proponent of the Pigeon explains at III:196:1-4 that Noah prayed to God to honor
the pigeon with a ring when it brought the olive branch back to the Ark.
28
Al-Ji, al-ayawn, III:200:3-201:9.
25

43

He argues here that the rooster deserves credit for a beautiful ring neck as much as
the amm, since neither the dk nor the amm proper have a ringed neck, but both
are closely related to birds that do have a beautiful ringed neck. He says that if the
term amm can include what the Proponent of the Pigeon suggests are breeds, such
as warashn, fawkhit, yamm, and so on, then the term dk can also refer to related
kinds such as tadrij (francolin), qabaj (partridge), and ajal (red-legged partridge).
This implies that the partridge and francolin are as closely related to the dk as the
amm proper is to the other breeds of dove. This is a reductio argument which
assumes that it is obvious that the francolin is not of the same species as the chicken
(and presumably that a species cannot be entirely composed of males), and he uses
this to prove that the various birds listed cannot all belong to the same species as
amm either, since the level of similarity is comparable. There is a clear challenge
here to the self-evidence of the Proponent of the Pigeons claim that all dove breeds
are a single kind comparable to camels or snakes or equines. The Proponent of the
Pigeons response to this is the closest we have to a definition of what places a group
at the precise level of proximity (qarba) I am calling kind. He has to show that the

44

chicken is further from the francolin and partridge than the breeds of amm are from
one another.
The Proponent of the Pigeon starts off with an appeal to lexicography, claiming
that the ancient Arabs referred to all doves as amm, and that specific breed names
were subcategories within that group. Yet he is not content to rely on the authority of
the Arabic linguistic tradition, but goes on to make an argument that the amm is
indeed a natural kind as well.
The Proponent of the Pigeon said:
The Arabs call all of these kinds amm, gathering them together under
the general name (al-ism al-mm), and separating them using the
specific name (al-ism al-kh). 29
We judge (raayn) their forms (uwar) to be similar, despite a degree of
difference in their bodies (ajsm). For there is a degree of congruence
(itilf) in their bulk (juthath) 30 and likewise in their beaks. We found
that they are similar in the way they pair off, the nature of their call
(du), song (ghin), and wailing (naw), and likewise a similarity in
their size (qudd), the form of their neck, the shafts of the feathers, and
the shape of their heads, feet, legs, and toes.
This is typical fiqh terminology, used to distinguish between general (often
conceptual) terms or usages and specific terms or usages. Al-abar for example
distinguishes between usn (beauty) as a generic term for all kinds of beauties, versus
asan (beautiful) a specific term for visual beauty. (Tafsr, 2:83) Thus the Proponent of
the Pigeon argues here that amm is a general term subsuming variants.
30
The text is written as if there is a significant difference in meaning between juthath
and ajsm; I havent understood.
29

45

The groups (ajns) that you have enumerated do not share a single
name, a single locale, a single form (ra) or a single mode of marrying.
There is no link between the rooster and these males you mention,
except that they are all birds described as copulating a great deal, and
their chicks (firkhah wa-farrjah) come out of their eggs already
having feathers, and the duck [like them] is too heavy to fly well
(muthqal). 31 But then you would have to call a duckling a chickenchick (farrj), the female duck a hen, and the male a rooster.
We find the amm and the warshn mating with one another and
procreating together, and producing the rib and the waradn; and we
find the fawkhit and the qumr mating and procreating, along with
what we have already mentioned of their similarity on many counts.
All this shows that their relation one to the other is like the relation of
Bactrian camels and dromedaries, and the offspring between them; or
like packhorses and thoroughbreds (itq), all of which are horses
(khayl), just as the others are all camels. None of the factors we have
listed are [shared] between the francolin (tadrij) and the partridge
(qabaj) and the red-legged partridge (ajal) and the chicken. Similarly,
we found neck-rings to be general among those amm that have a
white spot on their forehead, because these birds have more colors,
spots, forms, and feather-colors than any other bird. If we were to
argue based on mating that does not lead conception, then there would
be room for critique (la-kna li-qil maql). But we have found them to
Hrns edition reads muthqal, which could be read to mean it is a bird too heavy to
fly well. Kitb al-Ayn defines muthqal as a slow beast of burden, or as something
burdened beyond its capacity, citing Qurn, Fir 18, which it says refers to the heavy
burden of sin upon the soul. In this case, the duck would fit into the vexing issue of
birds like the chicken that do not fly well. Cf. I:30:1-7. Compare to Aristotles
discussion of birds with heavy bodies (al-ayr al-thaql al-juththa) such as the francolin
(durrj) and the partridge (qabaj), that do not build nests because they are not good at
flying. Ibn al-Birq, ib 8.8 391:13-14.
31

46

combine the two characters [proving that successful interbreeding

takes place].
Indeed, we often find idiots, youths with no sense of repugnance, and
people whose lust increases during puberty, who have few avenues to
relieve it, and who have been bachelors for a long time, as for example
shepherds who travel into particularly remote regions we find that
this type of person copulates with every female camel, cow, ewe, sheass, packhorse mare (ramaka), warhorse mare (ijr), and bitch, not
omitting a single one.
If it werent for something in peoples souls (nufs) and desires that calls
them to this filth, you would not find this act to be so widespread
among people of this kind. If you were to bring them together, you
would find that they outnumber the population of Baghdd and Bara.
However, not one of these people has ever impregnated any of these
animal kinds, even though some of the animal kinds welcome this
attention with extreme desire.
One of my friends, whose testimony I dont doubt, told me that a
particular slave owned by a fiscal agent under al-Rab used to mount a
she-mule, and that she used go into heat and smack her lips, and
sometimes she would move backwards, demanding more, while he was
shoving his penis into her. The slave kept on moving backward, and she
did as well, until she pinned him into a corner of the stable, and she
crushed him until he went cold. Someone came in later on and seeing
him in this position screamed at her. She stepped aside, and the boy fell
down dead.
A friend of mine told me this story: I heard about a pack-horse owned
by the kalm practitioner Zurqn, who used to accommodate mules,
donkeys, and packhorses allowing them to mount him. He said: One
day I went to that stable, and I took a shovel and put the handle of it
into its anus, more than a cubit and half. It was rough and rugged,
47

because the handle wasnt sanded or smoothed. I buried it in him until I

reached the end of the handle, and was prevented from inserting it
further by the head of the shovel. He swore that he didnt see the
horse bend or curve.
The Proponent of the Pigeon said: Thats the difference between us and
you. 32
Here, the Proponent of the Pigeon mentions bestiality, a barren sexual activity, in
order to distinguish it from sexual activity between kinds that can and does lead to
conception, such as copulation between breeds of amm. If conception is a
possibility, then the two creatures are in fact one kind, even if they are different
breeds or varieties of that kind. By implication, this move also associates the
Proponent of the Rooster with bestiality, polemically casting the claim that partridges
are roosters as a legitimation of inter-kind sex, and by implication bestiality. In
order to show that breeds of amm successfully cross-breed, the Proponent of the
Pigeon describes which breeds are produced from which crosses, and contrasts this
with the lack of cross-breeding between the birds claimed by the Proponent of the
Rooster as chickens (the francolin, the partridge, and the red-legged partridge).
The positive valence assigned to cross-breeding through the association with

32

Al-Ji, al-ayawn, III:201:10-205:4.

48

fertility parallels an argument made by the Proponent of the Dog elsewhere, that
rabies should be viewed not as a monstrosity particular to dogs, but rather as a form of
enhanced fertility. This is because it allows dogs to infect people with rabies by biting
them, and rabid people apparently bark like dogs; by turning them into barkers
(nabbn) a rabid dog has the power to make people dog-like. 33 As I mentioned
earlier, the ayawn presents a consensus regarding the meaning of kind, breed, and
crossbreed, but it presents sharp disagreements about the qualitative nature of
crossbreeds. The hostile Addressee and the Proponent of the Rooster see cross-breeds
as monstrous, with all the vague and evocative connotations of the term. Al-Ji and
the Proponent of the Dog, on the other hand, both naturalize the idea of the crossbreed, while the Proponent of the Pigeon here considers the ability to cross breed a
positive virtue as a mark of fertility, and he points out that crossbreeds themselves
often fetch a higher price. 34 The point about cross-breeding as fertility thus fits into
the large debate about the intercategory. In effect, both the dog-rooster debate and
the rooster-dove debate examine forms of procreation viewed as abnormal, and
debate whether they represent abominations or enhanced fertility.
33
34

Al-Ji, al-ayawn, II:9:9-10:9.

Al-Ji, al-ayawn, III:163:4
49

In sum, the Proponent of the Pigeon here takes refuge in a definition of kind
through procreation despite having discussed exceptions to this association earlier.
He then goes on to make a new point, that the ringed neck appears on all breeds of
amm that have enough spots and stripes. Thus he implicitly suggests that the ringed
neck is part of the underlying nature of doves, though it appears only in spotted
varieties. In other words, when they are spotted, doves have a characteristic spot
pattern that includes a ringed neck. This is a way of generalizing the ringed neck to
the amm kind while admitting that not all doves have rings. This reasoning suggests
that the Proponent of the Pigeon did have an idea of kind as abstracted from
individuals, though this was certainly not the kind of essential form (ra) defining
an animal kind that was being discussed in logical circles of al-Jis day.
While al-Ji does bring up an Aristotelean climate theory to explain races of
amm and humans, the theorys implicit distinction between form and matter is
never made explicit or followed up in any other context.
Chapter: There is no kind (jins) on the earth more susceptible to white
blazes and spots, and no kind with more solid colors, and varieties
(anf) of embellishment than the amm. Some of them are solidcolored and dark (akhar), or solid red, or solid black, or solid white, or
other kinds (urb) of solid colors. However, homing is only possible for
the dark-colored (al-khur) and the one with black spots (al-numr).
50

White amms like the faq are like Slavs among humans, for Slavs are
badly undercooked, and did not cook in their wombs, for the wombs
were in countries with weak sunlight. Black amm are black from
being burnt, for they exceeded the point of being properly cooked.
They are like Africans among humans, for their wombs exceeded the
point of being properly cooked, reaching the point of burning. 35
If this theory were followed consistently, we might conclude that al-Ji, like
Aristotle, believed that the distinction between breed and kind was the distinction
between material and formal/essential differences. (Kind differences are differences
in form; individual and climate differences are differences in matter.) But neither
essence nor form are mentioned here and as we will see shortly, al-Ji almost
certainly did not have access to Aristotles theoretical comments about kind in
relation to matter and form. Thus I prefer to read this and other climate theory
passages as a simple acknowledgement on al-Jis part of the impact of climate on
animals, an idea that does not necessarily carry implications about kind in relation to
matter and form. 36
In sum then, procreation is only one of the criteria that the Proponent of the
Pigeon here proposes for identifying when a group is all one kind. He also points to

35
36

Al-Ji, al-ayawn, III:244:7-245:11.

Its relation to Ptolemaic ideas is clear. Cf. Mansur, Worldview.
51

the existence of a shared name for all amms in natural language, and the similarity
in form (ra) and behavior. By contrast, the francolin, partridge, and rooster do not
share a single name, a single locale, a single form (ra) or a single mode of mating.
Their only common feature is that they are all birds described as copulating a great
deal, and their chicks (firkhah wa-farrjah) come out of their eggs already having
feathers. He specifies the shared form (ra) among amm as consisting in a
congruence (itilf) in their bodies (juthath) and beaks, and a similarity in their size
(qudd), the form of their neck, the stem of the feathers, and the shape of their heads,
feet, legs, and talons. They also exhibit a behavioral similarity in their song and
mating behaviors. He specifically brings up a comparison to camels and bovines,
indicating that the proximity (qarba) he finds to define this level of difference is
defined by crossbreeding as well as by the similarities he has mentioned, of form (ra)
and behavior.
I have cited the Addressee, al-Ji, and the Proponent of the Pigeon in order
to show that although the various speakers in the ayawn may have very different
attitudes toward crossbreeds, they are for the most part all in agreement in how they
conceptualize kinds, breeds, and crossbreeds. (In my reading, the Proponent of the
52

Rooster here acts as a challenge demanding more precise conceptualization, rather

than an opposing voice.) Kinds are recognizable by their similarity of form and
behavior, by productive interbreeding, and by sharing a common name. The
interbreeding criteria are sometimes not met (e.g. sheep and goats) and a common
name is not emphasized outside the context of a debate over poetry interpretation
regarding the ring-necked one (al-muawwaqa), so perhaps similarity in form and
behavior could be identified as a primary criterion for unity of kind. According to
these ideas, a crossbreed is distinguished from a normal creature purely on the basis of
how different from one another its parents are. Two individuals may be different
without being of different breeds and produce offspring that are not considered
crossbreeds; or their differences make them different breeds. Thus the definition of
crossbreed and the definition of breed are mutually dependent, and so far they both
appear to rest on the relative similarity (qarba) of the parents.
Outlying Ideas About Cross-Breeding
Before concluding this section, I would like to note two alternative definitions
of cross-breed that are mentioned in isolated instances in the ayawn, ideas that are
not really taken seriously or followed through by al-Ji or his fictionalized debaters.
53

The first is a more conceptually (if not biologically) rigorous definition of crossbreed
as any kind which was not among the original animals created by God along with
Adam and Eve. The hostile Addressee in the introduction refers to the mule as a
creature that has no root on this earth (laysa la-hu f l-ar al). 37 In al-Jis
disquisition on cross-breeds and eunuchs that responds to this passage, he cites many
old and venerable people, and those with discernment and experience who
apparently recorded the lifespans of eunuchs and crossbreeds over a long time period.
He cites this group of lifespan investigators as using the terms root (al) and
branch (far) in a similar way to mean originals and crossbreeds: We also found that
some composite offspring (ba al-nitj al-murakkab), and some artificial branches (ba
al-fur al-mustakhraja) are bigger than the root (al). 38 While this conception of kind
treats it as immutable, it is not the same as essentialism, for it does not posit a single
ideal form from which real manifestations deviate more or less. Instead, it identifies
some species as original while others are derived from them. This concept mirrors the
etymological connotations of the term mutawallid for cross-breed, in that mutawallid
refers in kalm to that which is produced through secondary causation.
37
38

Al-Ji, al-ayawn, I:103.

Al-Ji, al-ayawn, I:137:15-16.
54

Later on in his disquisition on cross-breeds, al-Ji makes the point that many
animals are falsely considered to be cross-breeds. In that section, he includes the
following story:
Some exegetes and transmitters (ab al-akhbr) said that the people of
Noah's ark suffered from mice. Then the lion sneezed a huge sneeze and
expelled from its nostrils a pair of cats. For this reason, the cat is the
closest thing there is to a lion. And the elephant defecated a pair of
pigs, and for this reason the pig is the closest thing there is to an
elephant. Kaysn 39 said, This cat must have been the Adam of all cats,
and the other one was their Eve. Abu `Ubayda said to Kaysan Didnt
you know that every kind of animal has an Adam and an Eve? And he
laughed, and so did the group. 40
This story takes for granted a common understanding of kind as that which derives
from an originary progenitor from mythical times, and mistakenly suggests that cats
are less original than lions since lions were created by God but cats were created by
lions. Although this is not actually a story about cross-breeds, it is a story about
derived (mutawallid) animal kinds, as opposed to original ones.
The distinction between original and derived animal kinds need not have any
overtones of the unnatural, as we can see from examining the rich history of
Ab Sulaymn Kaysn b. al-Muarraf, a lexicographer who studied with Ab Ubayda.
Biographical references are cited in a disambiguating paragraph by H. Fleisch, Ibn
Kaysn, EI2.
40
Al-Ji, al-ayawn, I:146:9-14.
39

55

discussions of original versus derived language. Starting already with Ab al-Hudhayl,

we find in kalm and soon after in ul al-fiqh discussions of hermeneutic practice a
concept of wa al-lugha, the idea that there is an originary Arabic language that has
hermeneutic primacy, but also that this primordial Arabic was laid down (maw)
by a people. Thus the original language (al-lugha al-mawa) has just as human an
origin as later derivations and adaptations (al-mualat) yet it retains a unique
hermeneutic primacy simply by virtue of being laid down in an integral fashion in a
primoridial moment, as an originary language. Moreover, hermeneutic primacy was a
fairly neutral technical concept which demanded that scripture be interpreted
according to original language (al-lugha al-mawa) rather than derived language
(al-lugha al-mualaa) or figurative language (majz) unless indications were present
within the text indicating the validity of another interpretation. 41 In the domain of
language then, we find concepts of original and derived, and while primacy is afforded
to the original, this does not entail condemning or extirpating the derived. Similarly,
al-Ji does not express horror or indignation at derived animals (cross-breeds) but
he does maintain a distinction between original and derived varieties.
Cf. Weiss, Language in Orthodox Muslim Thought and Medieval Muslim Discussions of
the Origin of Language, as well as Carter, Adam and the Technical Terms.
41

56

There is also a second conceptualization of breed that distinguishes between

crossbreeds and offspring from same-breed parents. This is an idea that al-Ji cites
briefly in his disquisition on cross-breeds, ascribing it to the Persians. When
explaining that the buffalo is not really a cross between a goat and a cow despite being
called in Persian kw msh or cow-goat, 42 he says that the Persians called it this
merely because they saw in the buffalo similarities to both the cow and the goat. He
goes on to explain:
The Persians claimed that animals that give birth to animals like
themselves, and walk on four legs, can be classed as sheep-animals or
goat-animals. So buffaloes are the sheep among cows; Bactrian camels
are the sheep among camels; and packhorses are the sheep among
horses. (I:152:4-6)
He does not explain this fascinating idea further, so we do not know what qualities are
identified as sheeply or goatly. However, this passage proposes a dichotomy running
through all the animal kinds, producing sheeply and goatly versions of every kind.
Thus every kind has exactly two breeds, and these breeds are produced by the goatlysheeply dichotomy. While this idea plays an extremely minor role in the passage
where it appears, it nevertheless resonates with the sib - bahim dichotomy that alLikely a reference to gvmsh, Persian for buffalo; gv is indeed cow, and msh in
modern Persian is a ewe.
42

57

Ji introduces, in that the sib - bahim dichotomy also extends beyond its technical
definition as carnivore-herbivore, to represent a more fuzzy and expansive characterbased dichotomy.
Al-Ji and Aristotles Kitb al-ayawn43
Modern scholarship on Aristotles biology has hotly debated whether the
concepts of genos and eidos in Aristotles logic are compatible with his conception of
animal species and class as presented in the biological works, or with the usage of the

History of Animals, Parts of Animals, and Generation of Animals were translated into
Arabic together under the title Book of Animals (Kitb al-ayawn). (Brugman,
introduction to GA, 38; Kruk, introduction to PA, 15-17.) The famous bibliographer Ibn
al-Nadm (d. 995) claims that the translator was Ibn al-Birq (fl. in the first part of
ninth century), but according to modern scholars, the manuscripts surviving could not
have been translated by him, based on linguistic comparisons to known texts
translated by him. Endress suggests Usth (ninth century) as the translator, while
Lulofs and Kruk reserve judgement, declaring the question to be as yet unanswered.
(Lulofs, introduction to GA, 2-4; Kruk, introduction to PA, 18-23.)
I refer to the three texts comprising Aristotles Kitb al-ayawn by their accustomed
scholarly acronyms, HA, PA, and GA, and when citing them I refer to the Greek MS page
numbers, listed in Kruks edition of the Arabic PA and Lulofss and Brugmans edition
of the Arabic GA, or, in the case of HA, by both the Greek MS pagination and the page
and line numbers in Badaws edition, which I cite specifically as ib following
Badaws title for it, ib al-ayawn. The Arabic version follows an order of books
attested in Greek but not followed in most Greek editions, so I provide separate
book:chapter numbers for the Arabic and the Greek. In the few places where I
reference the Greek text, I cite the Loeb edition.
43

58

terms genos and eidos in the biological works. 44 For the most part, scholars recognize a
massive difference between the approach taken in the biological works (which has
been taken by some to be based on a continuum model for kind difference) and the
typological or essentialist and classificatory approach in the logical and
metaphysical works. 45 From the 1960s to the 1980s, much energy was devoted to
attempts to reconcile the two bodies of Aristotelian texts, whether by challenging the
degree to which the logical and metaphysical works are indeed essentialist, or by
challenging the degree of continuity between kinds in the biology, or by discovering
ways in which these apparently opposed approaches could fit together when matter is
involved. 46

Pellegrin, Animal Classification; Pellegrin, Logical Difference; Balme, Aristotles

Biology Was Not Essentialist; Lennox, Kinds, Forms of Kinds; LeBlond, Logique et
mthode chez Aristote; Balme Genos and Eidos in Aristotles Biology.
45
This difference was most famously noted by Lovejoy, who suggested that biological
kinds operate along a continuum whereas logical kinds are discrete: Great Chain of
Being, 55-66. The sweeping nature of his account has been challenged, but the basic
question remains intact and forms the introduction to many of the articles cited in fn.
43: what, if anything, do biological genos and eidos have to do with logical genos and
eidos?
46
Granger, The Scala Naturae. Lennox, Genera Species and the More and the Less;
Kinds, Forms of Kinds, and the More and the Less. Pellegrin, Animal Classification;
Logical Difference and Biological Difference: The Unity of Aristotles Thought.
44

59

This will not concern us here very much, as al-Ji was probably not
acquainted with the more theoretical parts of the biological corpus where Aristotle
makes links to ideas from the logic. 47 At the same time, Aristotles biological works
were translated in a way that masked the possible relations between the biology and
the logic, by garbling some of the theoretical passages making that link 48 and by
translating eidos variously as form (ra), kind (inf), genus (jins), or appearance
(manar), thus separating the concept of kind in relation to form in the logic from the
concept of species in its relation to form in the biology. 49 Moreover al-Ji likely had
access only to the History of Animals, a text that contains no explicit theoretical

Balme, Aristotles Biology was Not Essentialist; Genos and Eidos in Aristotles
Biology. Kosman, Animals and Other Beings.
47
Brugman in his introduction to the edition of the Arabic Generation of Animals points
out that all of al-Jis direct citations of Aristotle are drawn from History of Animals.
(Brugman, introduction, 41.) Najm and Ab al-abbs detailed investigations of
these citations confirm this impression. (Najm, Manqlt; Ab al-abb, Nuql.) In the
last section of this chapter, I will propose a minor exception to this rule in that the
closing section of Parts of Animals is paraphrased at I:29:12-31:4.
48
The passage defining ultimate species, for example is nearly incomprehensible in
the Arabic. PA 1.4 644a24 and 30.
49
Kruk, glossary in PA, 73; Brugman and Lulofs, glossary in GA, 204-287. Peck
summarizes the theory in his introduction to the Loeb edition, xii-xv. Lulofs reviews
the Arabic translators approach to translating the specific passages dealing directly
with this theory of generation in his introduction to GA, 28-30.
60

comments (even garbled) about kind that could have made those links apparent. 50 At
the same time, al-Ji was not directly acquainted with Aristotles logical and
metaphysical corpus. Aristotles logic was transmitted through the neo-Platonic lens
of late antiquity, a process that emphasized the essentialist and hierarchical aspects of
his thought while eliding many of its subtleties. 51 I will argue in Chapter Two that alJi used concepts and examples from Aristotles biology to critique the hierarchical
classifications put forth by students of Porphyrys Isagoge and his commentaries on
Aristotles Organon. For now, I merely wish to show that even though al-Jis theory
of animal kinds (broadly speaking) has little in common with what modern scholars
understand Aristotles biological theory to have been, he nonetheless very likely
derived it from Aristotles History of Animals.
Al-Jis concepts and terminology for kind, breed, animal class, hybrids, and

Balme goes so far as to except HA when discussing the compatibility of the biology
and the logic in how they use genos and eidos, on the grounds that HA was merely a
catalogue of information, not an attempt to theorize animal kinds or classify animals.
Balme, Aristotles use of Differentiae in Zoology, 189, 192. This should start to give
an idea of how theoretically limited HA is in comparison to the rest of the biology, and
how different it must have seemed from the logic when read without PA or GA.
51
For a fairly detailed overview of the Syriac approach to Aristotelian logic, which was
largely what was available before the unayn/Isq translations at the turn of the
tenth century, see Huggonard-Roche, La Logique dAristote.
50

61

inter-class animals are clearly in part derived from the Arabic version of History of
Animals. I propose here a Jiian reading of History of Animals that finds buried in
Aristotles text the very theory of large kinds that al-Ji explains so transparently
in his own Kitb al-ayawn. Al-Ji adapts the term for cross-breeds (mutawallid)
from Ibn al-Birq, and self-consciously adapts Aristotles theory of dualizing
(epamphoterizein) animals, translated by Ibn al-Birq as shared (mushtarak) animals.
Al-Ji generalizes the term mushtarak, using it for inter-breed and inter-class
animals, and for this reason I refer to al-Jis concept of mushtarak as the
intercategory broadly speaking, though in translations I stick to the literal term
shared. It is this concept which he presents as the most controversial element of the
Dog-Rooster Debate, as I will demonstrate in Chapter Three.
A Jiian Reading of Aristotles Biology
Aristotles biological works discuss differences at the level of individuals, kinds
(indivisible species/eidei atomon), 52 and animal classes (universal genera/megista
gene). 53 Aristotle needs the terms universal genus and indivisible species since he

PA 1.4 644a30. I use the word species rather than kind when discussing Aristotle,
following scholarly convention.
53
ib 1.6 25:1 = HA 1.6 490b7
52

62

usually uses the terms genus (genos) and species/form (eidos) in a flexible manner,
so that they do not signify absolute category level, but rather are used relative to one
another. 54 (Genos is always a larger category level than eidos.)
Al-Ji likely did not have access to Aristotles distinction between individual
and kind category levels based on a distinction between features with a material cause
and features with a final cause. 55 He also probably did not read about Aristotles
theories regarding form and matter, according to which all members of a species are
equivalent in form but differ in matter, and according to which the father contributes

Peck, lxiv-lxvi. Pellegrin vociferously points this out in Aristotles Classification of

Animals and Logical Difference, and this observation has been accepted by his peers:
Balme, Aristotles Biology was Not Essentialist and Genos and Eidos; Lennox, Kinds,
forms of kinds.
55
According to this theory, individual differences have a material cause not a final
cause, and are not reflected in the account (logos/kalima) of the animal. Features of
the species have a final cause (i.e. they are functional, or for the state of something
li-l shay GA 5.1, 778b11) and are essential. The classic example is eye color: having
eyes to see is for the sake of something, and thus is an essential feature of the
species, but having blue eyes rather than brown is not for the sake of anything, and
thus amounts to an individual variation with a material cause. This theory is
expounded in GA 5.1. The term ultimate species appears at PA 1.4 644a24 and 30,
which al-Ji also likely did not read. Moreover, the term is garbled in Arabic, though
this may be a product of transmission since the ninth century. The Arabic reads
ends (al-awkhir). Perhaps the phrase originally read al-uwar al-awkhir or al-anf
al-awkhir, or perhaps the garbling happened prior to the Arabic version.
54

63

the form and the mother the matter when generation occurs. 56 However, he certainly
did read about the distinction between kind and class differences, for this distinction
occupies History of Animals 1.1 and 1.6. 57 History of Animals 1.6 describes the seven
universal classes (ajns kulliyya) or in Greek large classes (megista gene): birds, fish,
shellfish, etc., and 1.1 explains that the parts of ultimate species resemble one another
perfectly, or according to augmentation and diminishment (bil-ziyda wal-naq),
traditionally called excess and defect in Aristotle scholarship, whereas universal gene
relate to one another only by analogy (analogian/bil-mulama). 58 For example, birds
relate to fish by analogy in that birds have feathers where fish have scales, but the
relation between various bird species is a relation of excess and defect for they have
longer and shorter feathers, legs, necks, and so on. 59 In this case, one feather is

GA 2.4, 738b18-739b31; GA 4.4, 771b20-28. Aristotle presents a different account of

generation in which the mother and the father both contribute form at GA1 725b3,
728a26, 728b22 and GA2 737a28.
57
ib 1.6 25:1-27:2 = HA 1.6 490b7-491a6.
58
ib 1.1 8:3-5 = HA 486b18-22. The passage as a whole runs from ib 1.1 6:11-8:10 =
HA 1.1 486a15-487a27, and is analyzed in Peck lxvi-lxvii and Lennox, Kinds, forms of
kinds, 352-3. Al-Ji draws extensively upon the passage directly following this,
ib 1.1 9:4-12:11 = HA 1.1 487a14-487b32 in his Classification of Animals discussed in
Chapter Two, making it almost certain that he read it.
59
Aristotle admits that this is a relative distinction between category levels, since
some species differences involve the presence or absence of parts such as the crest.
56

64

identical to another feather, or differs only in size, but a feather resembles a scale only
through the relationship of analogy. Species distinctions of excess and defect
depend on the species sharing that which is more or less; to have longer or shorter
feathers they all must have feathers to begin with. 60
This passage could very well be seen to propose a structure according to which
discrete classes like birds and fish, that differ based on either/or features like feathers
or scales, subsume differences that operate along a continuum. 61 Thus although I am
about to propose the possibility that al-Ji read Aristotles species as discrete large
kinds, nonetheless this theoretical passage could well have provided the conceptual
apparatus for conceiving of the large kind system, where discrete species subsume a
continuum of breeds. The clearest image expressing the continuity of breeds for alJi is his discussion of the ever-shortening neck of cross-bred Bactrian camels and
ib 1.1 7:15-8:1 gives three terms for crest: qanzaa, niya, and urf, whereas HA 1.1
486b12-14 mentions spurs and crests.
60
This concept is expressed explicitly only in PA 1.4, but the example in HA 1.1 is fairly
clear even if read on its own: birds differ from one another by excess and defect,
whereas birds are analogous to fish.
61
Lennox has most recently resolved the interminable debate about whether
Aristotles biological species are discrete or continuous by suggesting that the excess
and defect model provides logically for continuity, but that this possibility is limited
by the teleological niche defined by the speciess way of life, and thus in reality species
are discrete. Lennox, Genera, Kind, and the More and the Less.
65

dromedaries. 62 The limit is reached only when the animal cannot physically reach its
head to the ground to feed, and yet even this physiological limit can be breached if
human breeders are willing to hand-feed the animal. It is also worth noting that he
preserves nothing of Aristotles teleological assumption that animals are created to
best fit their way of life, for he sees the range of variation as potentially extending
beyond any natural way of life.
If al-Ji really was ignorant of the connection between form (ra/eidos) and
species (jins, inf, naw/eidos), and thus did not consider species-forms to be indivisible,
this would have allowed him to read Aristotle as espousing the doctrine of large
kinds. To see how this kind of misreading could occur, consider the passage
describing the seven universal classes (ajns kulliyya). After listing them, Aristotle
briefly explains that not all animals fit into the seven universal kinds:
As for the rest of the animal classes (ajns), they are not large
(am), because they do not encompass many kinds (anf) but
rather some are simple (mabs) and within them is no other
class (jins), such as humans. And some contain different kinds
(anf) but they are not designated with clear and well-known
names. 63
I:138:4-11. (I read fawlij in this passage as crosses between Bactrian and Arabian
camels.)
63
ib 25:11-12.
62

66

Note that the kinds or classes within the class are referred to using jins and inf
interchangeably. The Greek version of this passage uses a term meaning large (megala)
that is clearly etymologically linked to the term for the seven largest classes, but in
the Arabic that connection is lost through the use of the term am, which is not
necessarily linked to al-ajns al-kulliyya. 64 Aristotle then discusses the features defining
the class of oviparous quadrupeds, and identifies that group as containing no named
classes other than species names. The passage states that most members of the
universal class of viviparous quadrupeds have no intervening class between the
universal class and the species, while other animals do have such an intervening class
equines, for example are a class within viviparous quadripeds but contain multiple
species. 65 The purpose of the passage is to discuss the presence or absence of
intermediate classes.
Here is a translation of the Arabic, with inserted or significantly changed
elements underlined:
In the seas are kinds (anf) of animal that cannot be grouped
For commentary on the Greek version of the passage, see Peck, lxvii and 33, fn. a.
My understanding of the Greek is mainly based on Pecks translation in the Loeb
edition.
64
65

67

together under a single shared class (jins wid mushtarak). And

on the land there are also animals like this, that do not belong to
a single class (jins) encompassing them. Rather, each one of
them has its own specific individual form (ra mufrada kha
lahu), like a human or a lion or a deer or a horse or a dog and so
on. All animals with a bushy tail belong to a single class (jins).
This includes packhorses, warhorses, donkeys, and those
animals in Syria called by the name hmiyn, a name derived
from their similarity to mules, even if they are not entirely the
same kind (naw), for they copulate and procreate with one
another. 66
The Arabic text introduces the idea that some animals (e.g. humans, lions, deer) have a
form unto themselves, whereas the Greek text speaks only of animals carrying
individual names (eipein). And where the Arabic speaks of not belonging (yunsab) to a
single class, the Greek speaks of being nameless as a class (anonyma). Thus, the Arabic
text is innovative in suggesting that whereas animals without an intermediate class
have individual forms (e.g. lion, human) animals that do belong to an intermediate
class (e.g. equines) share a single form.
The list of equines in the Greek text reads, horse, ass, mule, ginnos, and
animals known as half-asses in Syria because they resemble mules though actually
they are not the same type. This list contains no varieties or breeds within the same

66

ib 1.6 26:11-27:2 = HA 1.6 490b32-491a5.

68

species; mules are hybrids between horse and ass, and the ginnos is a dwarf horse. The
Arabic text on the other hand includes both packhorse and warhorse (birdhawn and
khayl), which are breeds of the same species and can interbreed freely without
sterility. It thus could be taken to represent not a group of different species within the
equine class, but a group of more closely related animals. The Greek text says that the
hmiyn is not simply in substance (ouk ousiai hapls) the same species as the mule,
where the Arabic reads not entirely the same. That phrase, even if they are not
entirely the same kind (wa-in lam takun min nafs al-naw tamman), for they copulate
and procreate with one another could grammatically in Arabic apply either to
equines or the hmiyn. However, it is very clear in the Greek text that the phrase
applies to the hmiyn, providing a way to differentiate between the mule (which is
sterile) and the hmiyn, which is named for the mule but in fact procreates. This
interpretation is supported by a passage at HA 6.36 that is missing from the Arabic, in
which the situation of the half-asses is clearly laid out:
In Syria there are the so-called half-asses, a different animal
from those which are the offspring of horse and ass, though
similar in appearance, just as wild asses are compared with
domestic ones, and this accounts for their name. Like the wild
asses, these half-asses are exceptionally swift of foot. They
breed with their own kind, as is proved by the following
69

incident: Some of them came to Phrygia in the time of Pharnakes

the father of Pharnabazus, and some are there still. There are
three of them there now, though in the old days there were
nine, so it is said. 67
Aristotle here states that the half-asses breed only with one another and not with
other equines, proving this by the insularity of the group that migrated to Phrygia. In
the Arabic however, given that some of the equines listed do inter-breed freely, the
concluding sentence could well be read as a comment on the equine group as a whole:
they are not entirely the same species, since they procreate, but perhaps they are
partially or in a certain sense one kind. This amounts to the same concept of large
kinds that we found in al-Jiz. While the passage could be read in other ways, it
certainly contains enough elements of al-Jizs theory of large kinds that it could
have been an inspiration, particularly since the contradictory theoretical information
remained unavailable to him.
In this case, then, we find Ibn al-Birqs accumulation of translation shifts
conspiring with al-Jis ignorance of the relation between form (ra) and species
(naw/inf/jins) proposed in Generation of Animals, to allow a Jiian reading of this
passage according to the theory of large kinds. In the Greek, we have a passage simply
67

HA 6.36 580b1-9, tr. Peck.

70

explaining that some categories within a universal genus contain a single species,
while others contain many species. But a Jiian reading of the Arabic would suggest
that some animal kinds have their own form, while others share a form with other
creatures that are partially but not entirely the same species.
Between the two passages cited above, Aristotle introduces the features of
oviparous quadrupeds, and has a few side comments about snakes as a contrasting
group. The Greek text reads [Animals] footless by nature that are blooded and
terrestrial are the class (genos) of serpents, while the Arabic reads, The class (jins) of
serpents is a single simple class (jins wid mabs) of creeping [animals] that is
blooded by nature. Thus the Arabic text identifies serpents as simple and thus
comparable to humans according to the passage explaining that some animals do not
fit into a larger class but simply have their species name. Like humans, serpents are a
single species that is its own class (jins). This brief hint that snakes may also be a large
kind and still be called jins fits well with Aristotles habit of referring to groupings like
crocodiles, pigs, cranes, corvids, and mice as species (inf or jins) while also
discussing differences between varieties within these groupings. Such usages could be
interpreted as fitting within the theory of large kinds.
71

Al-Jis Adaptation of Aristotles Notion of Hybrids

Hybrids have been analyzed as potential test-cases for understanding
Aristotles theory of species. 68 In Generation of Animals, which al-Ji probably never
read, Aristotle says that any deviation from kind is a monstrosity or deformation
(terata). The most common examples of terata in Aristotles biology are deformed
births. Since kind comes from the father, even female offspring are in fact monstrous
to a degree, although females are required for the course of nature. 69 The concept of
monstrosity is, however, entirely elided in Ibn al-Birqs translation, for he either
omits phrases indicating monstrosity 70 or translates the term terata as astonishing
(ajb). 71 In practical discussions of hybrids, which al-Ji likely did read, Aristotle

Scholars have suggested that perhaps hybrids, since they revert to the form of the
mother over several generations, were considered deformed versions of a pure kind;
or perhaps the discreteness of kinds implicit in GA could be challenged. Granger, The
Scala Naturae; Lennox, Genera Species and the More and the Less; Kinds, Forms of
Kinds, and the More and the Less; Preus, Eidos as Norm; Preus, Reply to Jacobs.
69
GA4.3 767a36ff. Peck summarizes Aristotles theories of generation in his
introduction to the Loeb edition, xxiv-xxix.
70
ib 6.2 245:16 = HA 6.2 559b19-20. Such phenomena are regarded as monstrosities
is missing from the Arabic.
71
al-awld al-ajba: GA 4.3 769b27; GA 4.3 769b31; GA 4.4 770a9.
al-ajib: GA 4.3 769b10; GA 4.3 769b17.
Kull m kn min hdh al-inf fa-innahu yunsab il al-ajib: ib 2:17 87:10 = HA 2:17
507a24.
68

72

never applies his theory of generation, and he never calls hybrids monstrous, even
though they obviously diverge from the form of the father. When the term
astonishing (ajb) comes up, it would likely not have been immediately recognizable
as related to deformity. 72 In one discussion of hybrids, Ibn al-Birq does insert into his
translation a phrase calling hybrids foreign or strange (gharb): ...and there is
produced from them (yatawallad minhu) a strange animal (ayawn gharb). 73
Elsewhere, he uses the term foreign when comparing hybrid animals to plants
transplanted to foreign soil. 74 It is hard to read into this use of gharb a strong
emotive tone on the order of terata in the Greek.
I point this out in order to show that although Aristotle is traceable as the
source of medieval European ideas about monstrosities, 75 this is not the case for the
many ideas about monstrosity in the ninth-century Arabic milieux that I will examine
in Chapters Three and Four. Aristotles discussions of monstrosity were elided in
translation, masked as astonishing when they did come through, and even the term

Al-Ji uses the term maskha to refer to deformities resulting from in-breeding in
Al-Radd Al al-Nara in al-Ji, Rasil III:316:10.
73
ib 7.28 366:5-6 = HA 7:28 606b23.
74
GA 2.4 738b30-36.
75
Cf. Card, La Nature et les Prodiges.
72

73

astonishing was not linked to hybrids specifically. The most emotive term applied
to hybrids in Ibn al-Birqs ayawn is strange (gharb), and this seems to derive in a
fairly mundane manner from the idea that matter changes when in a foreign climate.
Monstrosity is thus not a concept al-Ji could have found in Ibn al-Birqs
translation of Aristotles ayawn. Instead, hybrids are presented in a factual, evenhanded manner.
Ibn al-Birq regularly uses the verb yatawallad to refer to the production of
hybrids, and to spontaneous generation. In doing so, he creates a specific concept
where there was none in Aristotle, for yatawallad translates several Greek terms which
appear in other contexts and are translated differently in those other contexts:
gignontai/gignetai, meaning are produced or are generated, 76 is translated as
comes into existence from (yakn min) 77 or is created (yukhlaq) 78 when used outside

yatawallad for gigontai or gignetai referring to spontaneous generation:

ib 6.15 277:16 = HA 6.15 569a16 (gignomenois).
ib 6.15 278:11,13,15,17 = HA 569a25,27,29; 569b1 (epigignetai)
yatawallad for gigontai/gignetai referring to hybrids:
ib 7.28 366:12 = HA 8.28 607a1, 3, 4. (ginetai, gennosi, ginesthai)
GA 2.7 746a35 (gennontai)
Yatawallad for a description of crossbreeding using no particular Greek term:
ib 8.1 372:14-16 = HA 9.1 608a30-31.
77
yakn min for gigontai/gignetai
76

74

the context of spontaneous generation or hybrids; and phyesthai/phyetai meaning is

produced. 79 I have provided only some of the many examples from HA 6:15-16s
discussion of spontaneous generation. 80 The technical nature of tatawallad becomes
particularly clear when tatawallad is used for fish arising from mud or water,
whereas tatawlad is used to refer to ordinary procreation from fish to fish. 81
Ibn al-Birqs Aristotle thus does not have the specific concept of a hybrid
mutawallid as a unique category of animal in the way that we find in al-Ji, but he
does use the term in precisely the same situations where al-Ji uses mutawallid. In
adapting the verb expressing ambiguous processes of generation into a noun
designating cross-breeds, al-Ji likely had in mind the kalm concept of secondary
causality which was also typically expressed using the noun form mutawallid

ib 6.15 278:2, 4 = HA 6.15 569a18, 19.

ib 6.15 280:4.
ib 6.16 280:13.
78
yukhlaq for gigontai/gignetai
ib 6.15 277:12-13 = HA 6.15 569a12-13 in three places.
79
yatawallad for phyesthai/phyetai referring to spontaneous generation:
ib 6.15 278:8, 10 = HA 6.15 569a22, 24.
80
Thanks to Liza Blake for helping me with the Greek here. These examples do not
appear in GALEX, although the fifth-form verb yatawallad is cited by GALEX in other
contexts also translating [produces], in biological though not reproductive contexts.
81
ib 6.15 278:17 = HA 6.15 569a30 (agonos barren)
75

(secondarily caused phenomenon).

Al-Ji explicitly denies most of the examples of hybrids that Aristotle cites, in
effect denying hybridity in favor of an investigation of cross-breeding procreation
between breeds rather than procreation between kinds. 82 To my knowledge, Aristotle
never unambiguously discusses mating between breeds, likely because he did not
conceive of the breed as an intellectually interesting category. The closest he comes is
in the following passage, where Aristotle insists that there is no difference between
breeds of dog, except for the salqiyya, which he has only a few pages earlier identified
as a cross between a dog and a fox 83, and thus not of the same species exactly:
As for the kind (jins/genos) of dog that is in the country called in
Greek Mliyya, 84 I mean the hunting kind, there is no
difference between it and other kinds. As for the kind that
follows sheep, there is no difference (ikhtilf/diapherei) between
it and others, in size, in endurance, and in opposition to wild
beasts and fighting them. Dogs that are produced (tatawallad)
from [either of] these two kinds (jinsayn) that are both in the
land of Mliyya, and salqiyya dogs, are larger in size and have
greater endurance than other dogs, and there is a great

Al-Ji rejects Aristotles claim that dogs mate with foxes, wolves, and wild beasts
(I:183:15-185:11).
83
ib 7.28 366:12-13 = HA 7.28 607a3-4.
84
Molottia was an area in the Epirus region in ancient Greece. Balme, HA 8.1, p. 217 fn.
a.
82

76

difference between them and other kinds (anf) of dogs. 85

Aristotle here acknowledges the existence of different kinds of dogs, but when species
is not part of that difference, he insists that there is no difference (ikhtilf). Aristotle
does mention varieties within a kind that are due to climate variation, but does not
discuss cross-breeding between them.
Al-Ji thus goes out of his way to deny the existence of the inter-kind hybrids
that Aristotle proposes, but then turns around and adapts the verb applied to hybrids
(yatawallad) to create a technical term for cross-breed (mutawallid) between varieties of
a single large kind. Al-Ji explicitly says he believes that Aristotle included
reports about true inter-kind hybrids only because he was not adequately checking his
source material before inclusion. 86 Thus al-Ji may still have attributed a theory of
large kinds to Aristotle, assuming that the comments on hybrids were a mistake, and
noting that Aristotles discussion of breeds did not extend to investigation of their
breeding. From Aristotle, al-Ji retains the three category levels, as well as having
discrete classes subsume classes on a continuum.

Mushtarak: Intercategory at the Class level

85
86

ib 8.1 372:11-16 = HA 8.1 608a28-33. My translation is from the Arabic.

Al-Ji, al-ayawn, I:185:6-8
77

This chapter has been devoted to al-Jis concept of the animal kind as a
distinct category level from the individual, the breed, and the animal class, in relation
to Aristotles conception of animal species. This discussion has necessarily included
cross-breeds, since al-Ji defines species in concert with cross-breeds. Before
concluding, I will discuss one more concept that al-Ji adapts from Aristotles
biology: the mushtarak, or shared animals.
Much ink has been spilled over the dualizers in Arisotles biology, as Peck has
aptly translated the term epamphoterizein. 87 They are the main example motivating
Lovejoys claim that Aristotles scala naturae exists on a continuum, and have been
cited ever since by proponents of that idea against a view of Aristotles animal kinds as
essentialist or typological. 88 Scholarship has debated whether these are fraught cases
disturbingly challenging natural categories, 89 or whether they are unproblematic
cases that naturally arise as a result of Aristotles descriptive as opposed to taxonomic
Peck identifies the concept and term in his introduction to the Loeb edition of HA,
lxxiii-lxxv.
88
Lovejoy, Great Chain of Being, 55-58; Preus, Eidos as Norm; Jacobs, Preus on
Aristotles Eide; Preus, Reply to Jacobs. For a recent statement of the opposing view,
see Granger, Scala Naturae and the Continuity of Kinds.
89
Lloyd uses Mary Douglass theory that the intercategory disturbs epistemology in
Science Folklore and Ideology, 44-53, reviewed in Parker, Sex, Women, and Ambiguous
Animals.
87

78

use of category labels. 90 Moreover, it is unclear whether they are truly intercategory
beings, or whether they are simply members of one category that happen to exhibit
specific features of an opposing category. 91 Sometimes Aristotle describes dualizing
animals as ultimately belonging to one or the other category; seals are classed as
acquatic animals despite dualizing between the nature of aquatic and terrestrial. 92
But he also writes elsewhere that seals and swifts (khuf, probably should have read
khuffsh for bats) belong to both kinds or neither. 93
Ibn al-Birq translates the majority of cases of the term dualizer
(epamphoterizein) as shared (mushtarak):
An animal called crab (al-saran) is shared (mushtarak)
between the soft-shelled aquatics (testaceans) and the hardshelled aquatics (crustaceans). 94
The kind of monkey (qird) called qbs in Greek has a nature
Lennox argues this in Genera Species and the More and the Less.
Granger dismisses the idea of dualizing as a misperception of these animals based
on ambiguous category labels, and posits that any good Aristotelian classification
would settle on one specific meaning for each category term. His ascription of
Aristotles use of ambiguous categories to an unexplained commitment to natural
language is insufficient, for surely this very approach to natural language is one of the
most intellectually interesting aspects of Aristotles biology. Granger, Scala Naturae
and the Continuity of Kinds.
92
HA 6.12 566b27-31.
93
PA 4.13 697b1-5. See also PA 689b32-35 on the ape between biped and quadruped.
94
ib 4.4 171.15-16 = HA 4.4 529b24
90
91

79

that is shared (mushtarak al-aba) between humans and

quadrupeds (dhawt al-arbaa arjul). 95
The seal (al-fq) is shared (mushtarak) between aquatic and
terrestrial animals. 96
The swift (al-khuf) is shared (mushtarak) between birds and
terrestrials. 97
Humans (al-insn) are shared (mushtarak) between animals
that bear single or multiple births at once. 98
Certain fish (the list is too long to represent here) are shared
(mushtarak) between the class of deepwater fish and the class
of fish that stick to the shallows. 99
Several other cases of epamphoterizein are translated using similar terms sharing a root
with mushtarak: the animal shares in (yushrik f) different categories, 100 or it has a

ib 2.8 68:2-3 = HA 2.8 502a16

ib 6.12 269:14-15 = HA 566b27.
PA 4.8 697b1.
97
PA 4.8 697b1-2. The Greek refers to bats, not swifts; perhaps the text should read
khuffsh. Al-Jis passage derived from PA 4.8 refers to bats (al-waw wal-khuffsh)
not swifts.
98
ib 9.4 472:5 = HA 7.4 584b28.
99
ib 7.13 335:10 = HA 8.13 598a15.
100
Pigs share in solid-hoofed and cloven-hoofed. ib 3.1 59:2-3 = HA 3.1 499b21.
Cetaceans (dolphins and their like) share in aquatic and terrestria both. ib 7.2
308:3 = HA 3.1 589b5.
The seal shares in acquatic and terrestrian animals, and the bat shares in birds and
terrestrials. PA 4.8 697b2,3.
95
96

80

share in (la-hu shirka f) them. 101

It is not entirely clear whether Ibn al-Birq considered this to be its own
technical term, since he also frequently uses the term shared (mushtarak) to
translate the concepts of common or general, as a synonym of mm, 102 and at one
point appends mm as a synonym to mushtarak in the sense of intercategory. 103 AlJi, however, certainly does treat mushtarak as a technical term denoting a specific
concept, and this is a concept he has clearly adapted from Aristotle. He formally
introduces the concept at the end of his classification of animals, in order to discuss
animals like the sparrow that share features of carnivores and herbivores:
Regarding the kind (fann) which unites these two behaviors in a
composite nature (al-khalq al-murakkab) and a shared character
(al-ab al-mushtarak), there is a discourse which we will come to
in its correct location, God willing.
The shared (mushtarak), according to them, [refers to things] like
the sparrow (ufr), for it does not have curved talons or a
hooked beak (minsar), and it collects grain and yet despite this it
The bat has a share in birds and terrestrials. PA 4.8 697b5. Brugman and Lulofss
glossary to GA includes a number of other examples, but here I cite only those from
texts we can be fairly certain al-Ji read.
102
Eg. PA 1.1 639a15. Kruks glossary to PA and Brugman and Lulofss glossary to GA, s.v.
mushtarak.
103
ib 171:15.
101

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hunts ants when they fly, and it hunts locusts and eats meat. It
doesnt regurgitate for its young as the dove (amm) does, but
feeds them chunks as the birds of prey do. There are many
examples like sparrows of the mushtarak, and we will mention
them in their place, God willing. 104
The phrase I have translated as according to them is ambiguous in the original, but
clearly refers to a group of people, and based on what I have just described he is likely
referring to Aristotle and his followers, though whether from Aristotles or al-Jis
time is unclear. The phrase also likely references a hesitation al-Ji has just
expressed earlier in the passage about coining neologisms not used by the scholars
(al-ukam); 105 the term mushtarak by contrast has been used by past scholars. AlJi here describes a number of features that differ between of birds of prey, and
grain- and seed-eating birds talons, beak shape, diet, and regurgitation and he
explains how the sparrow falls between the two categories as a result of its
combination of features. This clearly resembles Aristotles approach to dualizing
animals which he describes as being in some ways classifiable in one category but in
other ways closer to an opposing category.
In the same passage, al-Ji goes on to explain the concept further, and gives a
104
105

Al-Ji, al-ayawn, I:29:9-15.

I:26:3.
82

set of examples, largely drawn from PA 4.8, of animals that are shared (mushtarak)
between aquatic and terrestrial, or between terrestrial and avian. The passage at PA
4.8 only uses the term mushtarak in relation to the seal and the bat, but it also
mentions ostriches, dolphins, and cetaceans in general. Al-Ji includes all of these
examples when he introduces the concept of the shared mushtarak:
Dont you see that bats (khuffsh and waw) are birds even
though they are bald and have no feathers or down or downy
hair or locks, and even though they are famous for pregnancy,
live birth, and nursing and for the prominent size of their ears,
and their numerous teeth. Whereas the ostrich has feathers and
a beak and eggs and wings but is not a bird.
Similarly, not every thing that swims is a fish, even if it fits the
category of fish in many ways. Dont you see that the
following live in water: the beaver (lit. water-dog), the watergoat, 106 the dolphin (lit. water-pig), 107 the tortoise (riqq), the
turtle, the frog, the crab, the baynb (another cetacean), the
crocodile, the dolphin (dukhas and dulphn), the seal (lukhm), the
shark (bunbuk), and other species as well. The swordfish is the
father of the seal, and the swordfish has no known father. All of
these live in the water, but sleep outside of the water. They lay
eggs on the shore, and their eggs have yolks, eggwhites, and
eggshells. Despite this, they are found in the water with fish. 108

Lane, s.v. anz, citing 13th and 14th c. lexica: a large fish which a mule can hardly
carry.
107
Hava, s.v. khinzr al-m.
108
Al-Ji, al-ayawn, I:30:10-31:4.
106

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While al-Ji certainly presents the explanation in a new fashion, the chief examples
are clearly the same. Al-Ji assimilates cetaceans to the category of animals that live
in the water and sleep outside the water, and does not repeat Aristotles argument
about the way cetaceans breathe water yet otherwise act like fish. In any case, it
seems fairly clear that the concept and examples are both drawn from Aristotles
biology, and particularly PA 4.8.
Since scholars are entirely uncertain about the logical specifics of dualizers
in Aristotles biology, we can examine al-Jis interpretation of how the
intercategory worked logically in a fairly open-minded way. Are mushtarak animals
ultimately classed in one of the opposed categories? Are the categories really
opposed? Are they both or neither so that we as researchers cannot determine
which? Or are they clearly both? Or clearly neither? More generally, is there space for
categories to overlap? Al-Jis debate with the hostile Addressee in the introduction
hits many of these highly abstract questions head-on.
In that debate, both parties agree that the dog shares features of predators and
prey, particularly in how it relates to humans in both friendly and aggressive manners.
Whereas al-Ji casually continues to refer to the dog as a predator, the
84

introductions Addressee identifies the dog explicitly as mushtarak between predator

and prey based on these features, and compares the dog to a host of other examples of
the inter-category, including cross-breeding, gender ambiguity, and chemical
reactions, and he confers a sense of danger, unnaturalness, and unspeakability upon
mushtarak beings in general. In doing so, the Addressee imposes a particular logical
role on mushtarak beings, arguing that they belong fully to neither category:
When that through which a male (dhakar) becomes manly (falan) was
cut, the eunuch leaves the category (add) of perfect masculinity
through the loss of his penis. And yet he has not completely become
female because of his original nature (gharza) and remaining essence
(jawhariyya)...This is like date-wine that has gone bad from excessive
heat. This disqualifies it from the category (add) of vinegar but does
allow it to remain in the category (add) of date-wine. 109
According to this model, certain changes can disqualify a being from membership in
one category without necessarily allowing it membership in an opposing category.
Thus, the intercategory being poses a threat to the exhaustiveness of category
divisions like male/female.
My translation of add with category elides a spatial metaphor that pervaded
discussions of categories by al-Ji and his contemporaries: a category is conceived as

109

Al-Ji, al-ayawn, I:105:2-6.

85

a territory, and the term add has a double meaning, as definition and as
boundary. So a being is disqualified from category membership when it exits the
bounds of something, and qualifies for category membership when it enters the
bounds of that thing. This metaphor of definition as a wall or border demarcating a
territory was common already in the Greek and Syriac logical traditions. 110 Much
more proximately, Ibn al-Muqaffa in an epitome of Porphyrys Isagoge, or introduction
to Aristotles Organon, explains that a definition should be imagined as a border
demarcating a territory. 111 Ibn al-Muqaffa uses the metaphor of a house with rooms
separated by walls, thus foreclosing the possibility of beings that are between
categories and belong to neither (unless we start to imagine the doorways and
thresholds that Ibn al-Muqaffa does not mention). The hostile Addressee thus has a
slightly different idea about categories than Ibn al-Muqaffa: for him, adjacent
categories have a space between them for the intercategory.
Zimmerman, Farabi, 535. Porphyry uses the related terms horismos (definition)
and horos (boundary or border) when discussing definitions, both of which are
translated as add by al-Dimashq (fl. 900 CE). Gutas and Endress, GALEX website:
http://telota.bbaw.de/glossga/.
111
Ibn al-Muqaffa, al-Maniq, 1, paragraph 2. Kraus suggests that this was actually
written by Ibn al-Muqaffas son in Zu Ibn al-Muqaffa but dAncona suggests that
recent scholarship now attributes it to Ibn al-Muqaffa himself. DAncona, Aristotle,
EI3.
110

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Al-Ji responds to this idea by arguing that although the dog does exhibit
features of prey animals, most notably its friendliness with humans, it nonetheless
should be classified as a predator (sabu). He also extends the discussion to the level of
the species, arguing that while the dog shares human features, it never exits the
bounds of dogness. In making this argument, he addresses an idea that was implicit in
his opponents discourse: that because dogs are so friendly with people, they may have
a spark of humanness in them. 112 These three paragraphs appear separately within a
single passage articulated by al-Ji in response to the Addressee in the introduction
to the ayawn:
[You said...] that the dog is neither completely a prey animal (bahma)
nor completely a predator (sabu). But the degree to which it is friendly
with people does not at all make it exit the category (udd) of dogs into
the category (udd) of people. For a thing can have a degree of
similarity to something else, without this forcing the two of them out of
their own statuses (akm) and definitions (udd). 113
The dog is a predator (sabu) even if it is companionable to people. One
or two features that approximate certain natures of people (mimm
qraba ba abi al-ns) does not make it exit from dog-ness (alkalbiyya). He said: This is true of all of them. You know of the dogs

A fuller range of ideas on this topic that come up in the ayawn will appear in
Chapters Three and Four.
113
Al-Ji, al-ayawn, I:211:4-7.
112

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internal similarity to people, and the monkeys external similarity to

people.... 114
This degree of proximity (al-muqraba) does not make the monkey exit
from the bounds (udd) of monkeys into the bounds (udd) of
people. 115

According to al-Ji, then, proximity is possible between beings of different

categories. One imagines the dog as located near the boundary with humans, but still
firmly situated within the territory of dog-ness or located near the boundary with
prey, but still firmly situated within the bounds of predator.
The term kalbiyya, for dog-ness takes a form also found regularly in logical
epitomes of this early period. We find Ibn al-Muqaffa in his epitome of the Prior
Analytics using the terms imriyya and insiyya for donkey-ness and human-ness
when explaining syllogisms. 116 This is a rare occurance for al-Ji, who typically
avoids such awkward neologisms. But it does importantly indicate that ontology will
Al-Ji, al-ayawn, I:215:1-4.
Al-Ji, al-ayawn, I:215:11-12.
116
Then donkey-ness, the content of the first premise, must apply to some animals,
the content of the second premise. Ibn al-Muqaffa, al-Maniq, 81 (see also 66). While
the donkey example is absent from what we know as the Greek text of Aristotles Prior
Analytics, it seems to have dominated the medieval commentaries. Ibn al-Muqaffa
uses both letter symbols (alif, b, jm, etc.) and examples from the natural world
(flying, donkey, animal, etc.).
114
115

88

be a central topic of the Dog-Rooster Debate, specifically these questions: What is a

dog, really? What is a dog like? When we compare dogs to other things, especially
people, what does this mean? His approach has little to do with the kind of
Alexandrian ontology presented by Ibn al-Muqaffa, but as I will argue in Chapter Two
al-Ji does intentionally present the ayawn as a radically distinct alternative to it.
We might compare his idea that the dog can resemble humans without being
human to al-Nams theory of interpenetration (mudkhala), which posits that a
resemblence (mushkala) between entities is based on chemical similarity, at the
humoral or atomic level. His theory, like most kalm physical doctrines, assumes that
the nature of a being is the result of a composite of attributes, which may each be
shared with other creatures. 117 Thus specificity comes through the precise
combination of attributes. In the Dog-Rooster Debate, al-Ji engages deeply with
logics question about the nature of dog-ness while affirming that dog-ness has

For treatments of al-Nam on mudkhala, see van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft,
I:355-358, III:331-355; Dahani, Physical Theory, 38-47. It is van Ess who proposes the idea
that kalm generally regarded identity as a composite of attributes, in Logical
Structure of Islamic Theology, following Franks study of this idea in Ab al-Hudhayl
al-Allf, Created Being.
117

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components and that any of these components can be shared without threatening the
uniqueness of dog-ness.
CONCLUSION
In this chapter I have examined the biological and logical assumptions al-Ji
seems to have held about the animal categories, at the level of the breed, species, and
animal class, mainly focusing on his theory of the large kinds, a theory that may
have been commonly held in his day or may have been al-Jis invention. In any
case, it seems fairly clear that al-Ji derived his articulation of the theory of large
kinds from Ibn al-Birqs translation of Aristotles biological works, and in particular
History of Animals. I have refrained from discussing the issue of hierarchy in categories
whether there is a tree of animal classes subsuming one another, or whether
animal classes are more like qualitative labels that can overlap. This is a question that
I will address in the next chapter.

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CHAPTER TWO: Animal Classification Between Logic and Language

Chapter One examined the ayawns distinctions between the category
levels of breed, kind, and animal class. We saw that al-Ji had a concept of large
kinds that was unique in allowing free variation within limits and that this concept
of species may have derived from his reading of Aristotles biology in translation.
That chapter concluded with an examination of the term mushtarak as it is presented
at the end of al-Jis classification of material being. This chapter re-examines alJis classification of material being, discovering that it occurs within a larger
passage that is best read as a response to the approach to categories and their interrelation represented by Aristotelian logic. The first part of the chapter will
demonstrate a relation in both form and content between this passage and typical
introductions to Aristotles Organon, while the second part of the chapter will
examine in detail the classification of animals, finding that al-Ji uses the example
of the bird/flying creature (ir) as discussed by Aristotle in the biology to model a
complex anti-logical approach to categories, and in particular to the categories of
sabu and bahma, and the intercategory creatures between them.

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This classification of material being has been frequently quoted and

summarized as representative of al-Jis approach to animals, taxonomy, and the
place of animals within Creation. Its deviations from hierarchical classificatory logic
have also been noted, usually to show that al-Ji was on the path toward a
scientific (i.e. modern) classification, but had not yet fully achieved a systematic
approach; or that his unsystematic presentation obscures a presumed underlying
system. 1 Here I will not treat al-Jis deviations from system as mistakes, but
rather as symptoms of a different approach to categories.
The classification uses the language of division (e.g. birds are divided into
) to associate itself with Aristotelian logic as it was available at the time. But the
classification does not follow logics classificatory practices. Instead, it uses
examples from natural language and its outflows (proverbs, poetry, usage, and so
on), and from Aristotles biology to mount a critique of logics monovalent category
terms and its hierarchical nesting of categories. Aristotelian logics hierarchical
Najm, Manqlt, 19-29. Mansur, Worldview, 234-244. Bumilim suggests that alJahiz here attempts a systematic taxonomy as Aristotle did but, like Aristotle, failed.
Bumilim, , al-Man, 82. He and Pellat both systematise the classification on alJahizs behalf. Pellat, EI2, ayawn.
1

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classification method requires selecting a single essential differentia at every

point of division, thus viewing creatures and categories in a single very specific way,
expressed in monovalent formal definitions. Al-Ji on the other hand does not
settle on unique essential differentiae that would allow for systematic hierarchy and
thus formal definitions. Instead, he describes the outlines of already existing animal
categories within natural language by drawing a series of not quite identical
distinctions that together describe the range of meanings the category name carries.
Thus a common-sense category with fuzzy boundaries is sketched through an
iterative process of sequential re-definition. At every iteration, we find what would
appear to be flagrant self-contradiction when read by a logician. I argue that this
apparent self-contradiction was a technique that al-Ji used to highlight the
divergence between his approach and that of Aristotelian logic.
PART ONE: The Introduction as a Response to Logic
The ayawns long Introduction
The 200-page introduction to the ayawn has been deemed digressive by
many readers, but in fact it follows a fairly tight structure, its so-called digressions

93

often being performative rather than discursive responses to the Addressees

arguments. 2 The overall structure of the introduction is similar to the format of an

I take the entire opening section of the Hayawan up to the first section heading at
222:11 to be a single coherent, albeit long, introduction. For an outline of it, see
Appendix 1.
Most previous commentators have not seen the passage on eunuchs and crossbreeds
(I:106:3-190:9) as an integral part of the introduction. Bumilim calls it a digression
on castration, while Susanne Enderwitz simply does not include it in the
introduction she describes. Bumilim, Man, 84. Enderwitz, Introduction of the
Kitb al-ayawn. Many have identified it as jest (hazl), assuming it to therefore
be intellectually inconsequential, but both Cheikh-Moussa and Rowson have put
forward serious studies of it. Cheikh-Moussa, i et les eunuques; Rowson,
chapter in Homosexuality in Medieval Islamic Societies, forthcoming.
This passage comprises an essay on the virtues and defects of the eunuch (masin
wa-masw al-kha, I:166:12), including a comparative discussion of cross-breeds
(I:137:14-157:13) and concludes with a link between this discussion and the previous
discussion of crossbreeds (I:181:9-10) at I:181:9-190:9. If read in context, however,
the passage on eunuchs and cross-breeds is clearly integrated into the discursive
context of the long introduction. It immediately follows the hostile Addressees
critique of the Dog-Rooster Debate on the grounds that the dog is unmentionable
since it is similar to cross-breeds and eunuchs in its combination of categories. After
responding performatively by demonstrating that in fact it is perfectly possible to
engage in scientific discussion of eunuchs and crossbreeds, al-Jahiz cites the critique
again (I:190:10-203:10), in order to respond discursively with a rational argument for
the study of all Gods creatures (I:203:11-218:2). He follows this with an ad hominem
attack (I:218:6-22-:10), thus concluding the long introduction.
2

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formal epistle, albeit with each section hugely expanded. 3 It has all of the fraught
inter-personal and political stance-taking that we have come to expect from early
Arabic literary epistles. It runs like this: After a reluctant 5-line prayer for the
Addressee, we find 24 pages of interaction with the Addressee, which concludes with
the transitional formula I say: (wa-aql) at I:26:1. This format matches many
epistles of al-Ji, which start out with a prayer for the Addressee, a citation of the
Addressees request for the letter and a brief indication of the authors attitude
toward this request, transitioning to the main subject with or without a transitional
phrase such as amm bad or simply a nominal phrase indicating the letters topic. 4

For an overview of formal influences on al-Jahizs epistolary style, see Thomas

Hefter, You Have Asked, 1-14. A detailed discussion of the introduction as a
formal feature in classical Arabic prose of various genres and periods can be found in
Freimark, Das Vorwort als literarische Form. Certain elements of the Arabic epistolary
introduction were likely related to Syriac introductions as described in Riad, Syriac
Preface.
4
E.g. al-asad wal-Masd, al-Mutaallimn, F Khalq al-Qurn, al-Radd Al al-Nar.
Referring specifically to philosophical introductions, Harvey calls the passage before
amm bad the khuba, but implies that it consists only of the basmala and amdala,
with the accessus ad auctores prolegomenon following the amm bad transition.
Harvey also links a philosophical convention of citing the Addressees request for
the book to Syriac preface conventions. Harvey, Authors Introduction, 15-16, 1920. Al-Jahiz developed this formal interaction with the Addressee into a highly
3

95

In this case, both parties roles are inverted. Instead of citing the Addressees praise
and request for the book, al-Ji cites his rejection of all his past works, and his preemptive rejection of this one as well. Al-Ji then uses insulting taunts to convince
him to read the book, suggesting that this will help the Addressee improve himself.
Incorporated into this epistolary frame is a mono-vocal section (in al-Jis
voice only), that introduces the topic and form of the ayawn. The mono-vocal
passage has two parts: First, an introduction to the topic (animals, and the wisdom
of God stored in the natural world), starting with the transition marker I say (waaql) and ending at I:37:8 with a Qurnic citation as a summational capping device:
Praise be to God, the best Creator (fa-tabraka llhu asanu l-khliqna). 5 And
second, there is an introduction to the books form (it is a compendious book kitb

sophisticated form, as evidenced by the dissertation that has been written entirely
about the authors interaction with the Addressee in al-Jahizs Rasil: Thomas
Hefter, You Have Asked. When the interaction with the Addressee takes up
several pages, al-Jahiz often uses transition markers during the interaction with the
Addressee, as well as to mark its end.
5
Qurn, al-Muminn, 23:14.

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jmi - a book that contains many voices, tones, disciplines, and styles I:37:9-I:102:6). 6
This is followed by a second multi-vocal passage in which al-Ji debates with the
same hostile Addressee about the validity of writing a Dog-Rooster Debate in the
first place. This chapter will focus on the mono-vocal passage introducing the topic,
for it is here that classification of animals is found; the hostile Addressees objections
to writing the Dog-Rooster Debate will be discussed in Chapter Three.
Summary of I:26:1-37:8, the Part of the Mono-vocal Passage that Introduces the
Books Topic
The introduction to the books topic implicitly addresses the entire
readership rather than the Addressee specifically, and it describes the contents of
the book directly. It begins as follows:
Al-Jahiz applies the term compendious (jmi) to both scholars and books. It has
the general sense of gathering dispersed knowledge, and thus implies a broadness
extending beyond a single field of study. (For a counter-example, a single-discipline
usage of jmi, see I:101:1) The meaning is certainly not a synopsis or summary as in
the usage of jmi described by Gutas in Aspects of Literary Form, 38. The
discussion of vocal multiplicity recalls a similar discussion in the introduction to
Manqib al-Turk, although in that work the concept refers to a political-polemical
stance, as opposed to a formal feature. Al-Ji, Rasil, III:189:5-190:11; III:196:1198:6. The compendious nature of the ayawn is however described as both a
stance and a formal feature.
6

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I say: The world along with all the bodies in it is of three kinds
(an): similar, different, and contrary. 7
Generally speaking (f jumlat al-qawl), everything is either
inanimate (jamd) or growing (nmin).
Being is at the most fundamental level divided according to the relations between
atoms; or alternatively according to whether it is alive. That which is living is
further divided, resulting eventually in a classification of animals (I:27:7-31:4). In
the classification of animals, humans are distinguished from non-human animals
only in that they are neither predator (sabu) nor prey (bahma). 8 Once al-Ji has
reached an endpoint to his taxonomy, he writes:

Muttafiq, mukhtalif, and mutadd. Al-Nam uses these terms for the three
relations possible between attribute-bodies (ajsm) such as color and taste.
(ayawn V:57-58, Chapter entitled Complete exposition on the contrary, the
different, and the similar.) I do not know of another physical theorist who uses
precisely the same terms. For an explanation of al-Nams mudkhala theory, that
the only accident is motion, and all other attributes are interpenetrating bodies
(attribute-bodies), see Dhanani, Physical Theory, 38-47; van Ess, Theologie und
Gesellschaft, I:355-358, III:331-355.
8
The kind (naw) that walks has four divisions: people (ns), prey (bahim),
predators (sib) and vermin (ashart). I:27:9-11.
7

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Furthermore, according to the language of the Arabs, every animal is

either eloquent (fa) or a foreign-speaker (ajam). 9
Al-Ji goes on to explain that although the pair of opposites al-arab wal-ajam refer
to Arabs and foreigners, when ajam is paired with fa, fa then refers to all
humans speaking any language, while ajam refers only to non-human animals. Thus
all animals can be divided into eloquent humans and foreign-speaking animals.
This provides an alternative to his earlier fundamental classification of animals into
walking, flying, swimming, and creeping, and it provides a stronger distinction
between human and non-human animals. This is where Aristotles definition of man
as a speaking animal is implicitly rejected.
Finally, there follows a passage redefining the material world as wisdom
(ikma) or alternatively signs, and a classification of those signs into signs that
interpret (humans) and signs that do not interpret (all other beings).
We have found the generation of the world (kawn al-lam), along with
everything in it, to be wisdom (ikma). And we found that wisdom is
of two kinds (arbayn) 10

I:31:6.
I:33:4-5.

10

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This passage leads to what sounds like a creation myth for Communication (bayn),
as one of the consistutive elements of Creation.
Then, there was made for the interpreter of signs (al-mustadill)
[namely humans] a connection (sabab), for him to indicate
(yadullu al) elements of his interpretation and elements that
have resulted from his interpretation. And this was called
COMMUNICATION (bayn). 11
A cosmic feeling is here engendered by the sudden appearance of the passives (juila,
was made) indicating Gods creative agency, a component that is left out of the
earlier taxonomy. The entire passage outlining the books topic, namely the world
and the bodies in it (al-lam bi-m fhi min al-ajsm), concludes with a Qurnic
verse, Blessed be God, the best Creator. 12
The Introduction to the Topic (I:26-37) Mirrors Ibn al-Muqaffas Epitome of
Porphyrys Isagoge
The introduction to the topic of the ayawan consists of: a classification of
material being (al-lam bi-m fhi min al-ajsm), according to biological categories
(I:26:1 I:31:4) and then according to kind of vocalisation (I:31:5-33:3); and a
11
12

I:33:11-12
Qurn, al-Muminn, 23:14.

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classification of knowledge (ikma) according to the nature of the signs that express
it in the world (I:33:4-37:8). The passage as a whole corresponds to Ibn al-Muqaffas
epitome of the Isagoge (which may in fact have been written by Ibn al-Muqaffas
son). 13 Like this passage of al-Jis ayawn, the epitome contains extensive
classifications of being (wujd) and wisdom (ikma), and it returns at several points
to discuss the definition of man as a speaking animal, comparing this definition to
a definition of the horse as a neighing animal, a phrase that sets al-Ji up for his
lengthy discourse on animal vocalization. Moreover, both passages stress the
importance of their particular way of using language for scholarly study.
For comparison, Ibn al-Muqaffas epitome of the Isagoge runs as follows
(particularly relevant passages are underlined):
Paragraph 1 Technical terminology is important.
Paragraph 2-5 - Definition (add) and division (qisma), the basic tools of logic
Paragraph 6-9 - The purpose of logic is to acquire wisdom. Classification of
wisdom (ikma) into action and knowledge (ilm); knowledge of bodies, the
suprasensible (al-ghayb), and the intermediate topics of the quadrivium,
called adab (paragraph 6-9).
Paragraph 10 Form and matter (al-ana wal-na)

13

Ibn al-Muqaffa, al-Maniq.

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Paragraph 11 - Genus and species (al-jins wal-ra). Example: classification of

being (wujd)
Paragraph 12 Difference (furqn) and its classes
Paragrpah 13 Property (nisba) and its classes
Paragraph 14-15 A proper definition can be reversed. So can a pure
attribute (al-nisba al-khlia), e.g. man is that which laughs and horse is is
that which neighs.
Paragraph 16 Accident (ara) and its classes
Clearly this epitome of the Isagoge is structured around terms; each paragraph
addresses specific technical terms belonging to the equipment (mat) of logic. AlJis introduction ignores this structure, and instead draws on all of the lengthier
passages here, skipping over the paragraphs that briefly define and classify a term;
thus he adopts the classification of being (paragraph 11), the classification of
wisdom (ikma, paragraphs 6-9), and the discussion of definitions of man and various
animals via their vocalizations (paragraphs 14-15). In each case, however, his
approach drastically differs from Ibn al-Muqaffas, as I will explain shortly.
Surely each of these topics was common in any introductory discussion of
Aristotles logic. Why focus on Ibn al-Muqaffa specifically? In short, because his
text survives, and because it is the only surviving example containing both a
classification of wisdom and a classification of being, thus paralleling the passage in

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the ayawn. Available in the mid-800s were a number of epitomes and paraphrases
of Porphyrys Isagoge, 14 as well as various introductory abridgements of the Organons
books, particularly the early ones. 15 Porphyrys Isagoge itself has no classification of
wisdom, but it does contain a very brief model classification of being within its
explanation of genus and species. 16 It seems that Syriac forms were also available,
such as the accessus ad auctores, a form composed of eight sections used by
Alexandrian and Syriac commentators introducing Aristotle and the Organon. 17 The

Al-Kindi suggests that youths and beginning students typically start off by
reading the Isagoge. Adamson, al-Kindi, 141. Treatments of Porphyrys Isagoge
certainly available by the mid-800s in Arabic include: Ibn al-Muqaffas extant
epitome in al-Maniq; Ab Ns now lost translation mentioned in a letter by the
Patriarch Timothy (Brock, Two Letters, 241); possibly a now lost translation by Ibn
al-Birq as part of his translation of the first part of the Organon (Dunlop,
Translations of al-Birq, 145); and al-Kinds lost commentary mentioned by Ibn
al-Nadm in al-Fihrist 256:11. More peripherally, its content appears in Ibn Bihrzs
extant udd al-Maniq and in al-Kinds patient reiteration of its concepts in the
argument of al-Falsafa al-l 43:8-49:23. Al-Dimashqs full translation was probably
not yet available. Cf. Peters, Aristoteles Arabus, 8-9.
15
Gutas, Literary Form, 35, fn. 27.
16
Badaw, Maniq Aris, 1061:4-6.
17
Gutas insists on formal continuity between the Syriac Christian logical tradition
and the early Arabic logical tradition. Gutas, Literary Forms and Paul the
Persian. I follow Harveys use of the Latin term accessus ad auctores in Authors
Introduction. It is described in more detail in Westerinck, Alexandrine
14

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accessus tradition demanded an internal division of the topic (which al-Frb later
called qisma) and a location of the topic within a broader classification of wisdom
(which al-Frb called martaba). 18 This pedagogical ordering of Aristotles works to
correspond to a classification of wisdom was a key feature of accessus texts, but was
absent from Porphyrys Isagoge.
While there is no particular reason not to combine these textual traditions,
both of which served to introduce Aristotles Organon, the fact is that the only text
Commentators. While references to the accessus ad auctores form, and elements
from it can be found in the earlier Arabic tradition, it was not until al-Frb that the
accessus form was formalized in Arabic, as a series of eight points. For references, see
Harvey, Authors Introduction, 17, fn. 7.
18
Al-Frb, Kitb al-Alf, 94:15-95:16. See Harvey, Authors Introduction. While it
seems that al-Frbs account of the eight elements in the accessus tradition
corresponds to the earlier tradition in Syriac and Greek, al-Jahizs description of the
accessus form at the end of his discussion of the form of the ayawn diverges in a
garbled manner from the standard description:
Democritus said: You must know that every learned book composed by a scholar
must have eight things: a purpose (himma), a benefit (manfaa), a relation (nisba),
truth (ia), a kind (inf), composition (talf), an attribution (isnd), and an order
(tadbr). The first means that the author has a purpose; that he wrote it for some
benefit; and that it has a relation that it is related to; that it is true; that it is
according to one of the known kinds of books; that it is composed of five parts; and
that it is attributed to a well-known scholar; and that it has a described order. It is
said that Hippocrates joined these eight elements in the book called Aphorisms,
which means Excerpts (Ful). I:101:15-102:6.

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we know of to combine a classification of wisdom with a classification of being is Ibn

al-Muqaffas epitome of Isagoge. Thus, while it seems likely that al-Jis formal
choice to use classification in the first place was directed at the mid-800s practice of
logic broadly speaking, I will focus most heavily on Ibn al-Muqaffas text specifically
as a comparand. When relevant, I will also reference al-Kind, mainly passages from
On First Philosophy, and al-Dimashqs full translation of the Isagoge completed several
decades after al-Ji died. 19
Before providing a close-reading of al-Jis classification of being (which
comes first in the text of the ayawn), I will outline the critique implicit in the two
following sections, both to support my claim that the passage as a whole responds to
Ibn al-Muqaffa and the logical tradition broadly speaking, and also to identify some

Al-Kind, F al-Falsafa al-l. For al-Dimashqs translation of Isagoge, I have

consulted Badaw, Mantiq Arist, with corrections proposed in Stern, Ibn al-ayyibs
Commentary. Though the al-Dimashq translation is admittedly anachronistic,
probably dating from roughly 900 CE, a half-century or so after the composition of
the ayawn, presumably, al-Dimashq was working within existing school
traditions, and from an existing Syriac translation that may have been well-studied
already by Christian scholars. I use it sparingly.
19

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of the content of al-Jis critique before examining more carefully how he conveys
that critique in the classification of being.
Classification as a Style Particular to the Logicians and Philosophers
Al-Ji starts the introduction to the books topic with a classification of
the world along with all the bodies in it, that repeatedly uses the division form A
is divided into three parts: B, C, and D; D is divided into . While I will save the
content of this classification for the second part of this chapter I will comment here
on the classification form itself as a reference to the discipline of logic. None of alJis letters contain classifications, and the form was heavily associated with logic,
philosophy, and grammar, as opposed to the linguistic and religious sciences. To
start a text with a formal classification was linked if not to the Organon prefaces
themselves, at least to a logical or philosophical (likely neo-Platonic) approach, as
opposed to lexicography, hadth, and other religious and linguistic sciences. 20 The

Sbawayhs foundational grammar of Arabic is an interesting exception, in that it

starts out with a formal classification of parts of speech: Speech is noun, verb, and
particle that is used [to convey] a meaning and is neither noun nor verb. (fa-l-kalim
ism wa-fil wa-arf ja li-man laysa bi-sm wa-l bi-fil). Sibawayh, al-Kitb, 12:2.
Moreover, Talmon points out that Kitb al-Ayn often mentions a number of kinds
20

106

muannaft distributed adth texts into chapters using a process that was neither
exclusive not hierarchical in this way. We do not have many complete theological
treatises this early, but it is unlikely that kalm would have employed any such
format, and indeed kalms output at this time seems to have been mainly oral
debates rather than systematic treatises. Al-Jis theological letters certainly do
not use classification, but as an exception the heavily neo-Platonic text of the Ib
Ab al-Mundhir (d. 908) starts with a typical neo-Platonic division of being into
material, immaterial, and in-between. 21 Taqsm, defined in later kalm theory, refers
to a technique common already from this early period, according to which the
possibilities are exhaustively listed and then eliminated one by one to prove the
remaining possibility to be true. 22 This type of division, however, was used only for
statements, not for objects, and it uses no hierarchy.

comprised within a particular category (women, ages, drunkenness, heresy, darts),

and that his definitions of jins and ra appear Aristotelian. Talmon, Arabic Grammar,
45, 120-121.
21
Ab al-Mundhir, Early Ib Literature, 7-8.
22
See al-Juwayn, al-Kfiya f al-jadal, chapter 13 on taqsm, 394-6.

107

Ibn al-Muqaffas classification of being illustrates the correct usage of the

terms genus (jins) and species (ra) according to the discipline of logic, by
presenting a version of the rigorously hierarchical classification method known as
Porphyrys tree 23:
It is like the steps of a ladder, of which one is at the top with none
above it, and one is at the bottom with none below it, and the rest are
both above and below, below that which is above them, and above
that which is below them.
When a person says being, it is related to this. For if he places being
in the position of genus, then there is nothing above it. Then, if he
looks into its two divisions, he finds body and soul (r). If he divides
body, he finds living and dead. If he divides living, he finds humans
(insn), beasts (bahim), bugs (hawmm), and many fish (n kathr).
If he divides humans he finds Fuln and Fuln. Once the division
reaches fuln, it cannot be divided or separated further. In this way,
that which has no category above it is called genus of genera, (jins
al-ajns) and that which has no form under it, of diverse individuals
(rat al-ashkh al-mutabyina) that a single form unites, is called
species of species. The one that is not to be divided or separated is
called the individual. (page 4-5, paragraph 11)

This was a scholastic mis-representation of Aristotles (and Platos) classification

system(s). For current investigations of the actual classification system Aristotle
employed in the (Greek version of) his biological works, see: Pellegrin, Logical
Difference and Aristotles Classification; Balme, Aristotles Use of Differentiae,
Aristotles Biology was Not Essentialist, and Genos and Eidos; Lennox, Kinds,
Forms of Kinds and the More and the Less.
23

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The terms jins and ra are relative to one another, so that jins is always larger than
ra, but could apply to any level of the category system. Individuals (ashkh) are
identified as the most basic species (species of the species rat al-ra) while
totality (al-wujd) is identified as the most comprehensive genus (genus of genera
jins al-ajns). Although there is no explicit discussion of these concepts, the passage
implies that species are 1) mutually exclusive 2) collectively exhaustive of the genus
and 3) completely subsumed within the genus. Moreover, the system assumes that
every division occupies a single specific position within a hierarchy, one rung on
the ladder, that has its place and could never switch places with adjacent rungs.
And as we saw earlier, Ibn al-Muqaffa demands that terms be philosophically
defined and be used according to these stable and unambiguous definitions. Finally,
a correct definition according to al-Dimashqs translation of the Isagoge, and
according to al-Kind, involved identifying an objects genus and its specific
difference. Classification was therefore an essential requirement for definition, and
the correspondence of a classification of things to the essences of those things was
crucial to the efficacy of the classification in producing definitions.

109

Ibn al-Nadm uses the term mushajjar to describe texts that use visual tree
diagrams, and cites in particular various abridgements and summaries of the
Categories: This book has abridgements (mukhtaart), and synopses (jawmi), both
diagrammed and undiagrammed. 24 We have an example that al-Ji may have
seen in Ibn al-Bihrz, udd al-Maniq, which refers to its charts as tawr. While the
tree form can be used simply for pedagogy and need not imply a tree-style
hierarchical category structure, the association of the Organon with this form may be
worth mentioning.
How to Use Language?
Throughout the classification of material being, al-Ji, like Ibn al-Muqaffa
at the outset of his epitome, discusses the role of language in scholarly study; but his
understanding of this role is diametrically opposed to the idea presented by Ibn alMuqaffa. Ibn al-Muqaffa begins his epitome with the following praise of technical
terms:
The compiler began his book by saying:

24

Ibn al-Nadm, al-Fihrist, 249:21. See Gutas, Literary Form, 33.

110

Every craft has its equipment (mat). The equipment consists of

terms (asm) that the people of the craft know but others do not.
Among the equipment of the craft of logic are terms for matters
unknown to the masses. Thus we are incapable of knowledge except
by knowing the matters (umr) that these terms designate, and their
signs (almt). We cannot know the terms until we explain (nufassir)
their interpretation (tawl) along with the terminology (tasmiya), for
we will not know what they mean except by doing this. So too there
are aspects of the crafts that we cannot know except by using [the
crafts] own equipment and its own tools (la). [These are] things
known [only] to the people of this craft, that [when] people of people
of ignorance look upon them, for them it is raving and folly (hadhw
wa-lab). 25
Ibn al-Muqaffa cites the unnamed compiler of this epitome here as explaining the
crucial importance of technical terms for gaining knowledge, and he acknowledges
that because of these terms ordinary people will not understand the speech of logic
practitioners, but on the contrary what they will hear is a mere raving. This
introduction is designed to valorize definitions and technical language as the key
tool allowing students to understand texts, and allowing discussions within the craft
of logic.

Paragraph 1. The last sentence is not well transmitted; this is my guess at its
meaning.
25

111

Al-Ji, on the other hand, repeatedly expresses almost exactly the opposite
opinion in several passages within his introduction to the topic of the ayawn:
If the philosophers (al-ukam) had assigned (waa) a word (ism) to
designate all that is not growing, in the way that they assigned a
name to designate that which is growing, then we would have
followed in their path. But we only go as far as they did. 26
As for us, at this point (f hdh al-mawi) we express [things] only
according to our language (innam nuabbir an lughatin). In our
language there are only [the terms] we have mentioned [to refer to
that which is not growing]. 27
But (ill anna) in all of this, we follow the existing (qima) well-known
names, which are clear in themselves and distinct from one another
in the ears of [any] listener, as long as he is among the people who
speak this language and have mastery of this tongue. We only
distinguish what they have distinguished (innam nufridu m afrad),
and we group together what they have grouped together (wa-najmau
m jama). 28
Thus al-Ji follows Ibn al-Muqaffa in explicitly laying out his approach to
language in his classificatory introduction to the books topic; but his approach to
language is diametrically opposed to the Aristotelian reliance on definition and

I:26:3-6.
I:26:14-15.
28
I:27:12-15.
26
27

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technical terms. Al-Ji admits he is willing to use technical terms already in use
among scholars, likely referring to kalm terminology which was certainly just as
monovalent as the terminology of logic or philosophy. While accepting existing
technical terms, he refuses to engage in neologism. Moreover, al-Ji explicitly
makes a connection between refusing to invent terms and refusing to invent
categories: We follow the existing well-known names, and we only distinguish
what they have distinguished, and we group together what they have grouped
together. The categories present within natural language are thus posited as the
tools and subject matter of this classification.
We are familiar with the early tenth-century clash between linguistic and
logical approaches to language and cognition, a dispute that is most famously
preserved in al-Tawds account of a debate between the logician Matt b. Ynus
(d. 940) and the grammarian al-rf (d. 979). 29 Mutakallimn typically weighed in on
the side of the lexicographers, as when Ab Hshim (d. 933) in the generation after
al-Ji asked Matt b. Ynus, Is logic, maniq, anything more than a mere
Van Ess, Logical Structure. Mahdi, Logic and Language. For an English
translation of the debate, see Margoliouth, Merits of Logic and Grammar.
29

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derivative of nuq, normally articulated speech? 30 In explaining how kalm could

dispense with the newly introduced formal Aristotelian logic while still engaging in
logical disputes, van Ess associates kalm with Stoic logic, composed of definitions
that served only to identify and distinguish the object (tamyz) and arguments based
on the form If x then y (istidll). It is entirely unclear to what extent these
practices had been theorized in al-Jis time, but they certainly help explain alJis regular misinterpretation of, and resistance to, basic Aristotelian ideas such
as definition by division and hierarchical classification. For him, lexicographical
definition (rasm) was sufficient for clarifying the meaning of a term, and there was
not a more philosophically technical side to definition. Whereas hierarchical
classification was crucial to logics formal process of definition by division, hierarchy
in classification was both irrelevant and unrealistic for al-Ji. Rather than
refuting or rejecting it explicitly, he simply ignores its demands, making divisions
that turn out not to follow the rules of hierarchical division at all.

30

The terms share a root, of course. Van Esss paraphrase, in Logical Structure, 21.

114

In the passage cited above, al-Ji categorically opposes the invention of

technical terminology, preferring to express ideas in natural language. At first
glance, this might appear somewhat odd since kalm certainly did have a reserve of
technical terms of its own, which al-Ji uses regularly. In fact, however, al-Ji
draws from kalm technical terminology only when he is citing or engaging in kalm
discourse, and he typically introduces those passages as topics (masil) in kalm. 31
The technical terminology of kalm is then no more privileged in the ayawn than
are the other the ways of using language that appear when al-Ji draws on other
discourses, disciplines, and crafts: law, various material crafts, Shiite discussions,
poetry, dirty stories, and so on.
Al-Jis rejection of neologism is likely linked in some way to his sensitivity
toward the identity-specific expressivity of natural language. But he means
something more precise and more principled in this case. Each time these protests
against neologism come up, it is in response to a logical train of thought that leads
al-Ji to a category that has no existing name in Arabic. The first two protests

31

Cf. Hrns list of theological masil in the index to his edition of the ayawn.

115

against neologism follow al-Jis rejection of the common terms inanimate

(jamd) and dead (mawt) to refer to the inanimate, since they are not
idiomatically used for many inanimate beings such as air and celestial bodies. He
suggests instead a negative category not growing (ghayr nmin) which could then
include celestial bodies and properly apply to all earthly inanimate bodies.
(Presumably he chose not growing rather than not living so as to avoid
discussing the question of whether celestial bodies are alive; al-Kind uses the same
term growing to distinguish earthly from celestial life. 32) Here al-Ji finds there
is no term for the concept of the inanimate, since natural language specifies
inanimateness only for objects that are sometimes animate; rather than coin a term
he uses a negative one. He apologizes for using a negative category, but this seems
to be his way of apologizing for using a nameless category, rather than being a
reference to Aristotles critique of negative categories in division. 33
The third protest against neologism follows an argument that though it is not
natural to refer to vermin as predator and prey, these terms could still be thought to
32
33

Al-Ibna an sujd al-jurm al-aq, in Rasil al-Kind vol. 2 191:8.

PA 1.3 642b23-643a27, on privative terms.

116

apply analogically to vermin in a conceptual but linguistically incorrect manner of

speaking:
Conceptually however, vermin can be traced back to resemble
the nature of prey and predators.
al anna al-ashart rjiatun f l-man il mushkalat ib al-sib
wal-bahim. 34
Al-Ji thus uses an analytic mode of thinking that takes him beyond lexicography
to an understanding of nameless concepts but at the same time, he refuses on
principle to leave the bounds of existing terminology in order to assign monovalent
names to these concepts. In the case of not growing, he invents, but does not use a
monovalent negative term, but with sib and bahma he is content to use extremely
multivalent terminology, and simply take the time to explain what he means as he
goes along. This tension between analytic thought and an insistent and
appreciative reliance on the ambiguities of natural language runs through the
classification, producing its hesitations, ambiguous uses of terms, and its logical
discomforts. This tension is ultimately left unresolved, creating a residual sense of
the undecidable nature of this problem. Al-Ji seems to have considered it
34

I:27:11-12.

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obvious and fundamental that the possibility of a statement (whether it is jawz)

should be assessed by this double standard of language and reason. He writes later
on in this introduction to the topic, Anyone who says is speaking in an acceptable
(jawz) manner according to the Arabic language and the testimony of reason. 35
every animal is either eloquent (fa) or a foreign-speaker (ajam). 36
Ibn al-Muqaffa cites in paragraph 1 of his epitome the Aristotelian definition
of a human as a mortal rational living being (ayy niq mit). Al-Ji cites this
definition explicitly in the body of the ayawn, in order to contradict it with a host
of Qurnic statements about animals and inanimate objects speaking:
They said: Man is a speaking mortal animal. God said: 37
Al-Ji here contrasts the words of the philosophers with the true words of God,
including the Qurns description of the golden calf made to speak to prove

I:35:6-7.
I:31:5.
37
VII:49:6-7.
35
36

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Mosess prophethood, the speech of the birds that Solomon was made to
understand, and so on. 38
Arabic logical texts habitually provided this definition of man as their
sample definition, contrasting it with that which laughs, which is not a definition
of a human, although it is a reversible attribute. In other words, it is true to say, All
things that laugh are humans and all humans laugh. Ibn al-Muqaffa calls this kind
of reversible attribute a pure attribute (nisba khlia) 39 while al-Dimashqs c. 900
translation of Porphyrys Isagoge calls it a true specificity (kha al al-aqqa) of
humans, listing it as the fourth type of specificity. 40 Al-Kind simply calls the
reversible specificity a specificity (kha). 41 The Isagoge explains that a dividing
attribute (fal), on the other hand, functions in a formal definition (add) by dividing
the genus (jins) of the defined object. This is not the case for a reversible specificity,
presumably since the specificity does not rely on a genus. 42 A fal such as rational

The passage in its entirety is VII:49:6-58:4.

Ibn al-Muqaffa, al-Maniq, 7:18.
40
Badaw, Maniq Aris, 1075:11-1076:3.
41
Al-Kind, F al-Falsafa al-l, 45:9-10.
42
Badaw, Maniq Aris, 1072-1085.
38
39

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is often applied to many species and serves in the definition in combination with
other attributes, whereas a specificity (kha) can only apply to one species. 43 AlKind directly addresses the question of why laughing cannot be a definition of
human: Although laughing is unique to humans, it is not an essential (jawhar)
feature, whereas the specific difference (fal) used in a definition must be essential. 44
Van Esss distinction between kalm definitions and Aristotelian definitions
comes in handy at this point for explaining al-Jis reading of this kind of passage.
He writes:
Many mutakallimn comprehended things as mere
conglomerates of accidents, without any substance of their
own; Aristotelian definition, however, pre- supposes an
ontology of matter and form. Definition as used by the
mutakallimn usually does not intend to lift individual
phenomena to a higher, generic category; it simply
distinguishes them from other things (tamyz). One was not
primarily concerned with the problem how to find out the
essence of a thing, but rather how to circumscribe it in the
shortest way so that everybody could easily grasp what was
meant. This, however, could already be attained by verbal
definition; most theologians of the early centuries seem to
have contented themselves with this variety. To mention the
43
44

Badaw, Maniq Aris, 1099:1-5.

Al-Kind, F al-Falsafa al-l, 45:14-15.

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genus was sometimes considered a sin against conciseness:

Aristotelian definition could not avoid mentioning at least two
different things; identity, however, may already be stated by
pointing to the "most special quality" (akha al-awf) two
things have in common. One did not proceed from the concept
of a certain hierarchy of notions; one tried to classify
particular facts by comparing them to other ones (analogy) or
by differentiating them from each other (tamyz) - analogy is,
as later systematizers always used to stress, inference from
one particular thing to another. 45
While van Ess draws most of the more technical aspects of this from later
mutakallimn, it is fairly clear that al-Ji, in keeping with the general approach van
Ess describes, made no distinction between a specificity and a definition when
reading Aristotelian logic. All the logical texts compare the human specificity (nisba
khlia/kha) of laughter to sounds unique to other animals. Ibn al-Muqaffa and
al-Dimashqs Isagoge translation cite the horse neighing, 46 while al-Kindi cites the
ass braying. 47 Al-Ji seems to have taken this kind of typical passing reference to
animal vocalization that appears regularly in logical texts, and placed it in
contradistinction not to the human specificity of laughter, but rather to human
Van Ess, Logical Structure, 37-38.
Ibn al-Muqaffa, 7:19. Badaw, 1070:1.
47
Al-Kind, F al-Falsafa al-l, 45:9.
45
46

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nuq, logics term for reason/logos, a term that in Arabic can equally mean speech.
Thus, for al-Ji, neighing is to horses as speech (nuq) is to humans, whereas in
logic, neighing is an inessential specificity whereas reason (nuq) is an essential
defining feature of humans. Al-Kinds modern interpreter Peter Adamson is
certainly right to translate nuq as reason in al-Kinds usage; when al-Kind claims
that stars are niq, he means not that they speak, but that they are rational. 48 AlJi, however, takes it for granted that nuq means articulated speech, and argues
on that basis against the logical-philosophical claim that a humans nuq is what sets
it apart from the other animals. He follows kalm terminology in using the less
ambiguous term qil for rational. 49
Following his first classification of animals, in which humans are not clearly
distinguished, al-Ji provides a second classification of animals based on
vocalization. This distinction between humans and animals based on their vocal
communication seems at first like it may be a confirmation of the Aristotelian

Adamson, al-Kind, 115; al-Kind, sujd al-jurm al-aq, Rasil al-Kind, vol. 2,
193:1,4,9.
49
See for example, I:33:6.
48

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definition of man, but it turns out in fact to undermine any such clear-cut
distinction:
Furthermore, according to the language of the Arabs, every
animal is either eloquent (fa) or a foreign-speaker
(ajam).
This is said in a collective sense (f al-jumla), just as something
is called silent (mit, literally: keeping silent) even though it
has never become silent, nor can it do otherwise [than be
silent]. 50 And a thing is called speaking (niq) even though
it has never once spoken (yatakallam). So they refer to that
which groans, bleats, brays, neighs, caws, bellows, moans,
yelps, barks, crows, meows, lows, whistles, squeaks, clucks,
hoots, roars, bells, rustles, and hisses 51 following [the term for]
human speech (nuq), when the one is gathered to the other. 52
There are other examples of this, as when males and females
are taken together [and are referred to as male] or like a
caravan of camels that is called a lama [because the camels
are carrying loads], or like the word uun [which refers to
camels carrying litters]. These things, when they are found
I will translate mit as mute from here on out. This sentence plays on the
grammatical form of the word, for it is an active participle of the verb meaning to
be silent or to be mute.
51
The passage is onomatopoetic to the degree that it forces an aural recognition of
the resemblance between linguistic and animal phonemes. The order of sounds
alternates between phonetic and taxonomic logic.
52
I understand this to mean: We would call the horse neighing (hil) and a crow
cawing (muaqiq) but when speaking of animals collectively we use the term niq
speaking even though this term applies in the fullest sense only to human animals.
50

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one added to the other, or when one is drawn from the other,
are called by the better known or the stronger of the two
things.
The eloquent is man, and the foreign-speaker is anything
that has a sound whose intent (irda) is not understood except
by its own kind.
By my life, we understand [through its vocalization] most of
the intents, needs and wants of the horse, and the donkey, and
the dog, and the cat and the camel, just as we understand the
desire of a young child in its cradle. We comprehend and this
comprehension is a general (jall) thing - that his crying
indicates something other than what his laughter indicates,
and that the neigh of a horse when it sees a nosebag indicates
something other than its neigh when it sees a mare, and the
cry of a female cat to a tomcat is different from her cry to her
child, and there are many other examples.
Man is eloquent (fa) even if he expresses himself in Farsi,
Hindi, or Greek. The degree to which an Arab understands the
chattering of a Greek-speaker is no worse than the Greekspeakers understanding of clear expression in the Arabs
language. Every person from this perspective is called
eloquent. When people say eloquent and foreign-speaking
(fa wa-ajam) this is what they mean by saying ajam. When
they say Arabs and foreigners (al-arab wal-ajam), and do not
use the words eloquent and foreign-speaking, then this is
not the meaning they have in mind, but rather they mean that
he doesnt speak Arabic and that Arabs cannot understand
him.

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Kuthayyir said:
Blessed be what Ibn Layl gave to fulfill his vow /
Both the mute (mit) and the vocal (niq)
People say, He brought the vocal (m a) and the mute (m
amat). 53 The term the mute applies to things like silver and
gold, while the term vocal applies to all animals, and its
meaning is to speak (naaqa) and then be quiet (sakata). And
the mute applies to everything that is not an animal. 54
In this passage, al-Ji argues that according to Arabic linguistic usage, the term
niq (speaker) can indeed apply to any animal that vocalizes; or rather to any
group of vocal animals that are not of the same species and thus do not share a
specific vocalization. Thus for a group of horses one would say they are neighing
(tahil) but for a group of horses and crows, one would say, they are speaking,
(taniq). This usage is compared to the grammatical use of male pronouns to refer to
groups of men and women. As men are stronger and more well-known than
women, so is human speech stronger and better-known than animal vocalization.
He also cites the idiomic use of speaking to refer to animals when opposed to
mute inanimate objects. Both cases are examples of idiomatic application to
53
54

Lane, s.v. a.
I:31:6-I:33:3.

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animals of the term speaking in specifical linguistic contexts. Thus in both

examples, the term niq applies most properly to humans, but is also correct to
apply it to animals in specific contexts.
The passage is thus primarily a linguistic correction to Aristotles
formulation as it was expressed in Arabic, and a doctrinal refusal to condemn the
formulation of the Qurans text. But it also goes beyond a purely linguistic critique
of the claim that the criterion of nuq can provide a definitive distinction between
animal and human. Al-Ji could have substituted for niq a term that could more
acceptably be claimed to be specific to humans mutakallim (speaker of language), or
perhaps qil (rational) thus correcting the translation of logos but accepting the
idea. This is not al-Jis approach. Instead, he argues not just against the term
nuq, but against the Aristotelian claim that speech is what definitively distinguishes
human from animal. Communication (bayn), in his view, suffuses the material
world at every level: inanimate, animal, and human. Al-Ji argues here not just
that animals can make their needs known, but that they do this using
distinguishable vocalizations that have specific meanings. He proposes a distinction

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between human and animal that uses the terms native- and foreign-speaker (fa ajam). This metaphor suggests a difference of degree between human and animal
communication that is comparable to the degree of difference between Arabs and
foreigners attempting to speak in Arabic. Thus human and non-human animals are
all rightly subsumed within the category of speaker, even though humans
exemplify the qualities of speech (nuq) most fully and completely.
The discussion of horse and cat vocalizations is quite similar to other
passages throughout the body of the ayawn where al-Ji places animal and
human vocal communication on a single spectrum. He refers to animal vocalization
as articulated sound (aw muqaa), almost exactly the term used in kalm to
define language. 55 (Kalm uses the phrase articulated sound with meaning aw
muqaa dh man). He also refers to the sounds animals make as phonemes
(makhrij al-awt), 56 a term typically used in linguistic study, and he enumerates the

55
56

VII:57:11-12.
IV:22:7.

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letters that each animal can articulate. 57 He urges the reader to listen to cats at
night, and you will observe a number of letters (urf) that would form a sound
language of middling status, if [the cats] had needs, reason, and agency (istia), and
if the letters were composed. 58 Elsewehere he cites the Indians to the effect that
cats have five expressions (uwar) with distinct meanings, and that each animal
has a number of expressions proportional to its needs in communicating. 59 A similar
idea appears in al-Jis own voice in a passage where he argues for a literal
interpretation of the Qurnic phrase bird speech (maniq al-ayr): 60 These fixed
amounts (aqdr) of composed sound are the limit of [each speciess] needs, and the
communication (bayn) of them. 61 The complexity of a speciess language is in
proportion to the wishes it needs to express. In other words, animal vocalizations

V:289-91. The qa bird says three sounds q--a and the sheep says two letters
amounting to m, but the cat has many letters.
58
V:289:2-7.
59
IV:21:10-22:7.
60
Qurn, al-Naml, 27:16.
61
VII:56:3-5.
57

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constitute communication of the same kind as human speech, but animals have less
to communicate and their communication tools are simpler. 62
Moreover, human languages differ from one another based on the same
criterion of phonetic complexity. Al-Ji explains that languages are more or less
difficult to learn due to their differing phonemes (amkin, makhrij). 63 We might
then conclude that the spectrum of communicative capacity runs from the
phonetically simple animal languages (such as the qa bird or the goat, that only say
qa or m) up through more phonetically complex animal languages (such as that
of cats) to simple human languages (Zanj, which can be learned in a month) and
more complex human languages (he gives the example of Khz). 64 There is a limit,

Bilmal, al-Ruya al-Bayniyya, 36-37, describes this idea as well, and ascribes
animal speech (maniq) to animals resemblance (mushkala) to humans, a doctrine
described by al-Jahiz as the relation of animals as parts of the macrocosm to the
human microcosm.
63
V:289:8-12.
64
The Zanj and Khz comments appear as examples of the differing phonetic
complexity of human languages, at V:289:8-12.
Yasir Suleiman discovers a spectrum of this sort, from animal communication
through human languages up to Arabic, implicit within the very terminology used to
divide animals and humans, thus raising what is artificial (arab versus ajam) to the
62

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however, to the equation of phonetic complexity with a languages perfection, since

as we saw in the comments about cats, having plenty of phonemes is not enough to
create a complex language; multiple communicative needs are also required.
That al-Ji takes literally the Qurnic claims about animal speech is shown
by the way he analyzes idea by idea the speech ascribed to ants 65 and the hoopoe, 66
to draw conclusions about the animals mental capacity. In the case of the hoopoe,
he considers this a one-time event that took place through divine intervention,
whereas for the ants he makes comparisons with observable reality such as the fact
that an ant unable to carry some food will fetch helpers.
Al-Ji explains terms mute (mit), speaking (niq), eloquent (fa), and
foreign-speaking (ajam) again in his own voice later on in the body of the ayawn,
again relating them to the distinction between animals and humans. This occurs in
a passage the general purpose of which is to laud cats:

status of that which is natural (mit versus niq). Suleiman, Linguistic Elements,
274-277.
65
IV:6:12-10:14.
66
IV:77-85.

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We know that the foreign-speakers (al-ujm) among

predators and prey are more noble the more they approach a
resemblance (mushkala) to people. Man is the eloquent (fa)
and the speaker (niq).
They sometimes use in an idiomatic sense (qad yashtaqqn) 67
the term speaker (niq) for the rest of the animals that
make noise (yuawwit) and cry out (ya), when they mention
them coupled with the mute (al-mit) [i.e. inanimate objects].
It is due to this distinction (farq) that they ascribed to [the
animals] this resemblance (mushkala) and this idiom
(ishtiqq). 68
He repeats the example of the speaking and the mute here to show that niq
applies to animals, but this time refers to this usage as a derivation (ishtiqq) based
on a resemblance in reality between animal and human vocal communication.
Communication exists on a spectrum, and niq applies to humans primarily and to
animals secondarily.

Heinrichs writes, The meaning of ishtiqq is not entirely clear to me; it is used
several times in al-Jahiz to refer to figurative language. Heinrichs, aqqa-Majz
Dichotomy, 134, fn. 1.
68
Al-Ji, al-ayawn, V:286:8-1.
67

131

In yet another passage, al-Ji presents the following rebuttal to an

argument rejecting the reality of the bird speech (maniq al-ayr) mentioned in the
Qurn:
If someone were to say, This [bird speech] is not speech
(maniq), the response would be:
The Qurn has stated (naaqa) that it is speech (maniq). The
poems call it speech (maniq) as well, as does Arabic usage
(kalm al-arab). If you were to exclude it from the definition of
communication (bayn) and if you were to claim that it is not
speech (maniq) only because you dont understand it, well,
you also dont understand the speech of most nations (mmat
al-umam) and when you call their speech babbling and
stammering, that doesnt prevent you from also admitting that
it is their language (kalm) and their speech (maniq). Most
nations also dont understand your language (kalm) and your
speech (maniq), so it is possible that they could exclude your
speech from the defined limits of communication (bayn) and
speech (maniq). Isnt their speech (kalm) considered to be
communication (bayn), precisely because of their mutual
understanding of one anothers needs through it? And because
it is composed sound (awtun muallafun) which comes out of
the tongue and mouth? Then arent the sounds made by the
various kinds of birds and wild beasts (al-wush) and herds
(al-bahim) also communication (bayn) and speech (maniq)?
For you know that they are articulated (muqaaa) and shaped
(muawwara) composed (muallafa) and ordered (munaama)
and through these sounds they mutually understand needs,
and [the sounds] issue from the tongue and the mouth. If you
dont understand any of it except a little, well these kinds also

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do not understand anything of your speech except a little.

These fixed amounts (aqdr) of composed sound [each species
portion of language] are the limit of all their needs and the
expression (bayn) of them. Likewise, your composed sound is
the limit of your needs and your expression of them. Along
these lines, you can teach birds sounds and they can learn, just
as a person is taught speech (kalm) and so he speaks, as in the
education of a young boy or a foreigner.
The difference between a person and a bird is that [for the
bird] this attribute (man) is called speech (maniq) and speech
(kalm) [only] according to a comparison with people (al altashbh bil-ns), and according to a valid link (al al-sabab
alladh yajr), whereas people have this attribute in any case
(al kull l). 69
This passage argues strenuously that there is only a difference in degree between
animal language and human language, since every species possesses a means of
vocal communication that is in proportion to its needs as a species. Al-Ji thus
here repeats ideas that we saw earlier ascribed to the Indians. Yet the passage
uses the term comparison (tashbh) for the ascription of speech to birds, while the
passage we saw earlier used the term derivation (ishtiqq). Both of these terms are
used in ways that might be considered majz figurative as opposed to literal, thus
VII:57:3-58:4. For an alternative translation, see the last passage in the appendix to
Agha, Arab Identity.
69

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perhaps diluting the strength of his direct statement about birdsong, it is speech. 70
Yet the passage still unequivocally argues that animal and human vocal
communication differs in degree only.
In such discussions, al-Ji maintains a firm boundary between animals and
humans, but on the basis of moral responsibility (taklf) and agency (istia) alone,
not language, communicative capacity, or even reason. 71 He even suggests that the
hoopoe that informed Solomon about the Queen of Sheba might through Gods
exceptional intervention have acquired a degree of reason comparable with a small
child, making it able to speak reasonably but not rational enough to be saddled with
Al-Jahizs use of words for modes of signification that were on their way to
becoming technical terms is very interesting and complex, but I cannot investigate
it here. For an overview see Skarzyniska- Bochenska, "Les ornements du style, and
Bilmal, al-Ruya al-Bayniyya, 161-251. I do think that he did not limit his analysis of
modes of signification to a classification under monovalent names (al al-aqqa; al
al-tashbh; etc.) but rather that he used these terms to express specific cases. In this
case, we have a term (niq) that applies most properly to humans, but is idiomatic
for animals in some cases, and is supported by reason for animals in a less perfect
way than for humans.
71
He clearly states that reason (aql) and knowledge (marifa) are required for agency
(istia), and thus agency implies reason and knowledge, but having reason and
knowledge does not guarantee agency. V:543:4-6. Similarly, language is required to
fulfill the requirement of investigation (naar) demanded by moral agency (taklf),
but language does not guarantee the presence of taklf.
70

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moral responsibility (taklf), or escape the shared fate (many) of animals to be

subject to just slaughter by humans. 72 Since the distinction between humans and
animals in the body of the ayawn is located in taklf rather than language, or even
reason, it is surprising to see that in his introduction to the topic of the book al-Ji
instead chooses to use language as the means for distinguishing humans from
animals. Clearly, he is not here making any effort to identify the essential defining
distinction between animals and humans, as a logical classification would require. 73
Instead, he leaves taklf for later, and here focuses on logics misuse of the term niq
to falsely distinguish humans from animals. He thus uses the passage on animal
communication to clear away certain elements of contemporary Aristotelianism

Al-Ji, al-ayawn, IV:77:12-86:10.

Ibn Frak (d. 1015) records a Mutazil refutation of the philosophers definition of
man as ayy niq mit, based on the impossibility of being dead and alive at the same
time, and on the fact that many humans, such as children, mutes, and sleeping people,
do not speak. He cites one kalm definition of a human as an acting, living totality
capable of acting (al-jumlaal-fila al-ayya al-qdira), and presents this definition as
a response to questions about the definition of mankind given Gods metamorphosis
of some humans into the forms of monkeys and pigs, and the angel Gabriels
appearance in the form of a man, Daiyya al-Kalb. Ibn Frak, Maqlt al-Ashar, 2247.
72

73

135

that could not accommodate his semiotic view of the material world, 74 according to
which every element of the material world is a storehouse for divine wisdom, 75 and
participates in communication (bayn) in different degrees, whether intentionally or
unintentionally. This semiotic view of material reality is presented in the
classification of wisdom that immediately follows the discussion of animal
communication.
Classification of Wisdom
Ibn al-Muqaffa and al-Ji have almost nothing in common when it comes
to defining and classifying wisdom (ikma). 76 Ibn al-Muqaffa divides wisdom into
knowledge (ilm) and action (amal), both of which he says take place in the heart:
Al-Jahizs semiotic view of the world has been a justly emphasized theme in Jahiz
criticism. Bilmal, al-Ruya al-Bayniyya, takes this semiotic perspective as the
main thesis of his book, and brings in modern semiotic theory. Suleiman discusses
the semiotic nature of material reality expressed in this particular passage in
Linguistic Elements, 277-280. Al-Numn critiques the traditional interpretation
that all material signs point to God, suggesting instead that they point to one
another, creating a plurality of voices which in their plurality express Gods wisdom,
Mafhm al-Majz, 197-200.
75
Al-Jahiz refers to what has been stored (m stukhzina) or what God has stored in
it (m stakhzanah allh tal). I:34:2 and I:35:7.
76
For some meditations on the significance of using the term ikma to describe
philosophical knowledge, see Endress, Circle of al-Kind, 65.
74

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knowledge is the hearts perception while action is the hearts movement. Al-Ji
on the other hand places ikma not in a humans heart, but rather within the
material instantiation of the world:
We have found the generation of the world (kawn al-lam) along with
everything in it to be wisdom (ikmatan).
This is a fundamentally different view of wisdom. While both scholars presumably
see wisdom as originating in God, Ibn al-Muqaffa assumes that on earth knowledge
exists in human minds (uql) or hearts (qulb), whereas for al-Ji it exists within
the natural world itself, whether or not it is comprehended by an observer. Human
comprehension is irrelevant, for him, to the existence of wisdom within material
reality.
According to Ibn al-Muqaffas epitome, the higher levels of knowledge are
those whose object is the most immaterial. The knowledge of bodies (ajsd) is the
lowest knowledge, and is shared between humans and beasts. People who only have
knowledge of bodies (ilm al-ajsd) are at the level of beasts (bi-manzilat al-

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bahim). 77 The middle level is the knowledge of subjects used to train the mind
(adab), and the highest is the knowledge of the unseen (al-ghayb), which can only be
perceived by the rational mind (al-uql). 78 This division corresponds to Ibn alMuqaffas enumeration of the sciences. One could also easily link it to his
classification of being, in that the classification starts off by dividing being (al-wujd)
into body (al-jasad) and soul (al-r). 79 Al-Kind similarly proposes an extremely
hierarchical classification of sciences, based on the degree to which the objects of
knowledge are related to bodies. 80 This is also related to the hierarchy based on
level of generality, according to which knowledge of particulars is infinite and
thus unworthy of philosophical study. The relationship between matter, particulars,
and exceptions to generalizations and categories will be discussed in Chapter Four.
Whereas the logicians create a hierarchy of wisdom based on the object of
knowledge, al-Ji here classifies wisdom according to the signs conveying it. He
distinguishes between signs that also interpret (dall yastadill) and those that cannot
Ibn al-Muqaffa, al-Maniq, 3:11.
Ibn al-Muqaffa, al-Maniq, 2:23-3:16.
79
Ibn al-Muqaffa, al-Maniq, 4:24.
80
Al-Kindi, F al-Falsafa al-l, 19:1-27:6.
77
78

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interpret (dall l yastadill). The wisdom itself is left undifferentiated. Thus the
distinction between animals and humans for al-Ji lies in the humans ability to
interpret (istidll) the wisdom stored in nature. Animals often know the wisdom
they convey to humans: ants, for example know that they are storing grain for the
winter when they store it. But they cannot interpret the other signs stored around
them: ants cannot learn anything from a bird building a nest. Only humans are able
to interpret signs. Thus for al-Ji, animals may know some of the most refined
wisdom a human can acquire but they lack the ability to interpret. Al-Ji does
not include an enumeration of the sciences, but rather distinguishes only between
different types of signs of wisdom signs that interpret and comprehend, namely
humans, signs that do not interpret, namely animals, and signs that do not
comprehend even the wisdom that they themselves store, namely inanimate
beings. 81

Suleiman has already summarized this set of ideas clearly in Linguistic Elements,
277-280. Susanne Enderwitz also discusses it, but her interpretation differs at times
from mine. Introduction of the Kitab al-hayawan, 231-233.
81

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Al-Ji places the study of the natural world at the same level as abstract
theoretical study, even calling the interpretation of the natural world by the name
istidll (literally: sign-seeking), the very term that was used to describe abstract
reasoning among the mutakallimn, according to van Ess. 82 Al-Ji vaunts the
human capacity to interpret nature as the feature that distinguishes humans from
animals. This approach stands in stark contrast to the derision of particulars
(juziyyt, or for Ibn al-Muqaffa singulars d) prevalent among the philosophers
and logicians. Ibn al-Muqaffa derogates the level of beasts as only achieving
singulars (d). 83 Al-Dimashqs translation of Isagoge reads:
The species of species is found in a certain number, and is not
infinite. But the individuals within the species of species are
infinite. For this reason, Plato advises those descending from
the genus of genuses to the species of species to stop there
[rather than continuing on to individuals]. Their descent is
through intermediaries once they divide them using new
differentia for species. He says that those things that are
without end should be left aside, for knowledge cannot
encompass them. 84

Van Ess, Logical Structure, 26-28.

Ibn al-Muqaffa, al-Maniq, 3:11.
84
Badaw, Maniq Aris, 1068:5-1069:4
82
83

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Al-Kind writes:
Philosophy does not seek particular things, because
particulars have no end and what has no end cannot be
encompassed by knowledge. Philosophy knows about things
whose truths can be known, so it only seeks universal finite
things that knowledge can encompass, so as to acquire
knowledge of their truths. 85
Only that which is common to one of the finite species (of animal or something else)
or classes of being above species is worthy of philosophical study, and the most
worthy object is the most general, namely, God. This certainly does not mean that
al-Kind was opposed to studying the details of material reality in all their
specificity. On the contrary, many of his lost works seem to have been detailed
studies of this type. 86 But he did consider the study of particulars to be less
prestigious than the study of philosophy, and incapable of yielding general truths
about God (or unicity). Al-Ji here is arguing directly against this kind of
thinking, proposing instead that the material world contains transcendant wisdom
revealing aspects of the Creator. It is true that in practice al-Ji tends to

85
86

Al-Kind, F al-Falsafa al-l, 43:11-14.

Adamson, al-Kindi, 7-10.

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investigate based on animal kinds, finding patterns and trends, and interpreting
from there so he is not usually concerned with particulars in the strict sense of
that which is particular to an individual. I will discuss the relation between matter,
particulars, and exceptions further in Chapter Three.
Critique of Aristotelian logic is nothing new when ascribed to mutakallimn;
van Ess has explains this well in Logical Structure of Islamic Theology. Al-Jis
critique is somewhat different in that it pre-dates the widespread use of syllogistics
in philosophical and logical argumentation by several decades. 87 Thus much of the
vitriol and accusations of obfuscation that we find in the tenth-century debates is
absent here. Instead, al-Ji directly critiques the philosophical approach to
knowledge, to language, and to the distinction between humans and animals and
he does so while misinterpreting the basic example of definition used in logic (man
is a speaking mortal animal) in significant and symptomatic ways.
The introduction to the topic thus consists of three sections, each responding
to a passage in Ibn al-Muqaffas epitome of Porphyrys Isagoge (or a similar text): the
Al-Kind purportedly used geometric proof (burhn handas), derived from Euclid
instead. Gutas, Mathematics.
87

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classification of being, the discussion of animal and human vocalization, and the
classification of wisdom. I read this adaptation of the form of a logical introduction
as al-Jis way of presenting the ayawn as an alternative to the Organon. Both of
these multi-volume works are concerned with language, with logical thought in the
broad sense, and with the relation of these both to ontology. (The Dog-Rooster
Debate is fundamentally about the questions What is a dog? What is it like? How
can we tell?) But the approach of the ayawn is the opposite of Aristotles
approach, at least as Aristotle was understood in al-Jis day. Rather than
subordinating language to a finite number of logical relations, al-Ji uses natural
language and the messiness of particulars to press the limits of concepts, and to
discover an ever more nuanced set of possible relations between them.
PART TWO: The Classification of Material Being
In the classification of material being, categories are presented in the form of
a nested hierarchical classification:

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That which is growing is divided into two groups: animals and plants.
Animals are divided into four groups: that which walks, that which
flies, that which swims, and that which creeps 88
This enumeration, listing, and nesting of categories creates a sense that al-Ji is
presenting an already worked out system. This form invites a logical reading, a
reading that expects monovalent terms and defined borders for categories based on
clearly identified and unequivocal essential features. The result is rampant selfcontradiction, which I read as al-Jis way of highlighting the divergences between
his approach and the approach of the logicians.
Al-Jis classification includes descriptive definitions of many animal
classes, but none escapes without being immediately followed by caveats,
exceptions, emendations, or specifications that qualify or overturn the initial
statement. In the example cited above, in which animals are divided by mode of
locomotion, the next sentence reads, However (ill anna), all flying things also walk,
though that which walks but does not fly is not called a flying thing/bird (ir).
These specifications, corrections, qualifications, and clarifications (quibbles, in

88

I:27:8-9.

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short) create an important sense that the categories are in process, rather than being
part of an already settled system.
In logic and philosophy, definitions and classifications are preliminaries.
They set out a stable groundwork and basis upon which argumentation can be built.
Thus the very practice of quibbling over such initial divisions and definitions is
contrary to the philosophical method of textual composition. By presenting
multivalence through the stylistic feature of quibbles, al-Ji highlights the
logical contradictions that result from seeing multiple differentiae simultaneously
from classifying in many ways at once.
Al-Ji uses an accretive process of definition, considering in succession
each of the multiple differentiae that compose natural categories. There is usually a
fairly small group of classic examples for each category (humans are the classic
example of niq; wolves and lions are the classics examples of sabu). The categories
extend, however, beyond these classic examples, dropping at times certain
differentiae that nonetheless are part of the common qualitative understanding of
the category. Al-Ji considers the terms from a series of standpoints. What would

145

happen to the classification if we considered weaponed to be the essential feature

of sabu? What if carnivorous were? Each time he shifts from one essential
differentia to another, the hierarchy is upended, and contradictions proliferate. Yet
the aim in the end is not to determine a sole criterion for division at each level, but
rather to accurately present a complex map of relation between categories that
themselves have fuzzy boundaries. Al-Ji thus goes beyond the closed set of
possible relations between categories in logic (subset, opposed category, and so on)
to create an expanded set of possible relations that he makes no attempt to limit
through formal names.
His categories are internally differentiated based on modes of signification,
so that some category members belong to the category more than others. This is
where the multiple modes of signification come into play. Not only are terms
sometimes multivalent in their most proper signification, but Arabic allows them to
be used according to various modes of signification. In discussing animal language,
we saw mentioned: ordinary language (qim/mashhr) versus logical or technical
usages (ind ba al-dhikr wal-sabab); proper, literal designations (aqqat al-

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qawl/maw), perhaps synonymous with designations in every case (al kull l),
versus designations that apply only collectively (jumlat al-qawl), by comparison (al
al-tashbh), by derivation (ishtiqq), and according to a prevalent link (al al-sabab
alladh yajr) or a resemblance (mushkala). While it is tempting to schematize this
into literal and non-literal, following the needs of religious hermeneutics and the
direction of later balgha theory, it is fairly clear that al-Ji is investigating modes
of signification in a more complex manner than this dichotomy between literal and
figurative. 89
Peter Heath has said the following about al-Jis lack of interest in formally
defining the key term bayn, meaning communication or eloquence:
Providing concise definitions of eloquence is in fact easy; in
the course of the book [al-Bayn wal-Tabyn] al-Ji provides
scores, perhaps hundreds, of such definitions. Producing a
single definition is not, however, the point of al-Jis book.
He does not seek to provide his own designation of what
eloquence is, at least not directly. Rather he offers a wide
survey of the literary and cultural tradition that he has
inherited - and that he is himself shaping - to discover what
participants in this tradition have contributed in regard to
understanding and judging eloquence. Al-Ji certainly has
89

Heinrichs, aqqa-Majz; Skarzyniska- Bochenska, Les ornements du style.

147

his own point of view, but he is more engaged in experientially

exploring the cultural geography that he has inherited in
order to delineate the details of its mountains, rivers, valleys,
and boundaries and in this way to immerse his audience in its
textures, the warp and woof of its fabric. lt would be simple to
define a forest as a bunch of trees, but the experience of
actually walking in one differs. 90
I agree with Heath that monovalent definition is often not al-Jis aim, and that
iteration (tree after tree after tree after tree) is a key component of his practice.
But what is missing from Heaths discussion of al-Jis approach to definition is
that the experience described is not just of walking through the forest, but rather of
walking through the forest and seeing specific trees one after the next and in
relation to one another, while at the same time making generalizations about
forests, each generalization being continually proved wrong through example.
Moreover, al-Ji is not merely describing the cultural contours of a term, but
rather intervening dramatically in this portrait by contrasting different visions of
the term in question, and bringing into conflict areas of Arabic usage that could
have remained separate. In the classification of material being that we are about to

90

Heath, Art of the Essay, 157-8.

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examine, the juxtapositions demonstrate the inadequacy of monovalent thinking for

coming to terms with the natural world.
Al-Jis commitment to natural language extends beyond that of
lexicographies and religious hermeneutics (in tafsr and fiqh), in that he seems to
believe that natural language accurately reflects reality. While lexicographers are
often quite comfortable with multivalence, simply inserting the connectors thumma
or wa- between contrasting explanations of a terms meaning, lexicography and
religious hermeneutics still assume that each instance of a term will correspond to a
single definition, effectively making each occurance of the term monovalent. AlJi, by contrast, regularly uses terms in manners that straddle several closely
related meanings, and, as will see here in the case of sabu, his sequential definitions
are ultimately conflated into an impressionistic sketch. Moreover, exegesis
designates only two modes of signification: literal (maw) and figurative (majz), in
each case supposing that the term can without loss be replaced by a synonym that
corresponds to it literally or figuratively. Al-Ji here has put forward four or five
modes of signification without suggesting that this is exhaustive. In other words, his

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investigation of the practical consequences of multivalence for peoples natural

understanding of animal categories incorporates an expansive and finely
differentiated description of multivalence in Arabic.
The classification of material being is written as if it were logical, and yet the
many logical contradictions, highlighted by the quibbling style, draw attention to
the vast difference between al-Jis and a logical approach. Each quibble marks a
transition from one frame of reference to another, from selecting one differentia as
essential to selecting another, from settling on one meaning for a term to
recognizing another meaning for the same term. While definition through
juxtaposition is al-Jis approach through his many works, this particular passage
makes juxtaposition into active contradiction, thus drawing our attention to the fact
that definition through juxtaposition cannot be understood using a logical approach.
I will investigate two main examples to show what I mean step by step. The
first, bird (ir) is simpler, and I use it to show precisely what I mean by my claims
about multivalence and non-hierarchical classification based on multiple
differentiae. Once this is clear, I will investigate al-Jis presentation of the terms

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predator (sabu) and prey (bahma), terms that will be keywords for the Dog-Rooster
Debate. It is my contention that al-Ji uses Aristotles comments in the biology
about the category bird to defend his approach to definition and classification, and
then uses this approach to introduce a specific understanding of sabu and bahma
which depends on this multivalent and multi-perspective approach to definition and
classification.
Bird/Flyer (ir) as a Category
The classification starts out with the division growing/inanimate
(nmin/jamd). Al-Ji immediately critiques the semantic range of the term jamd
in natural language, showing that neither jamd nor mawt (dead) have the same
extension as that which does not grow (ghayr nmin). So though the conceptual
division remains the same, the initial terms are replaced with growing/not
growing (nmin/ghayr nmin), with a brief apology for the lack of a positive term to
designate the not growing. 91 This initial division with its correction provides a

Bumilim suggests that this apology is for using negative definition, something
Platonic dichotomous definition often necessitates, and something that Aristotle
railed against. I see no reason to insert this genealogy here, instead reading the
91

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template for the later critiques that al-Ji provides of his own terms and divisions.
In each case, the reader is held in suspense regarding whether the quibbles on the
one hand mark qualifications, clarifications, or specifications of the initial division;
or on the other whether they will result in a rejection or replacement of that initial
division. Thus these divisions and definitions do not set up a groundwork or basis
for future discussion in any simple way.
Al-Ji oscillates in how he uses terms, refusing to pin himself to a
consistent meaning. There is no endpoint to the equivocation process; clarity is
achieved asymptotically. For example, consider the fraught relations between the
two expressions bird (ir pl. ayr), literally the active participle of the verb to fly,
and that which flies (shayun yar):
Animals are divided into four categories (aqsm): that which
walks (shayun yamsh) that which flies (shayun yar) that
which swims (shayun yasba) and that which creeps (shayun
yans: literally, flows). Except that every flying thing (kullu

passage as an apology for not having a stand-alone name (ism). Bumilim, Man,
71.

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ir) walks, but that which walks and does not fly is not called
a flying thing/bird (ir). 92
Here, the clarification that flying refers to animals that can both fly and walk is
explicitly marked as a quibble with the phrase except (ill anna), and its content is
drawn from Aristotles biology. 93 The quibble itself casually substitutes the term

This quadripartite division of animals based on locomotion is identified by Pellat

with the division of animals in 1 Kings 4:33. He spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and
of creeping things, and of fishes. (wa-takallama an al-bahim wa-an al-ayr wa-an aldabb wa-an al-samak). Pellat, EI2 ayawn. Ab al-abb sensibly points out that
the same division, using more similar language, is also found at PA 1.1, 638b30-639a2:
There is a difference in the kinds of locomotion among animals. I mean that among
them are those that fly (m yar), those that swim (m yam), those that walk (m
yamsh) and those that go on their bellies and crawl (m yasr al banihi wa-yadubb).
Ab al-abb, Nuql, 49-50.
The word yans (literally: flows) for creeps may seem odd but it is consistent with
al-Jahizs usage elsewhere. At IV:271:4-278:13, al-Jahiz presents a theological issue
(masala) with his response. The opponent claims that since animals are divided into
four, citing the exact division presented here, and since God intended to provide a
classification of creatures (tanf urb al-khalq) at Qurn, al-Nr, 24:45, his use of
walking for that which walks on its belly is a mistake, and the correct term for
the locomotion of snakes and worms is yans. Al-Jahiz responds by showing that
the passage is not meant to be an exhaustive classification, and that the usage is an
eloquent use of majz. Both parties agree on yans as the most proper term for the
locomotion of snakes.
93
All birds can walk, and everything whose wings are of skin can walk as well, like
the bat, for it has two legs. ib 1.1 12:3-5 = HA 1.1 487b21-24.
92

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bird/flyer (tir) for that which flies, implying an equivalence between the
terms. A few lines later, al-Ji sub-divides that which flies as follows:
Birds (al-ayr) are a totality of predator, prey, and flying bugs (hamaj). 94
wa-ayru kullu sabuin wa-bahmatin wa-hamajin
He here progresses from the singular tir, which retains the apparent etymology of
flying thing, to the collective ayr, which at first glance would have to be
interpreted as birds.
Al-Ji then treats each of these categories, first subdividing predatory
birds. When moving on to discuss prey birds (al-bahim min al-ayr) he uses a
different term for them (small creatures, al-khashsh 95), and introduces the
discussion with the accretive particle thumma as if this were merely a case of
introducing the next term requiring a lexicographical treatment. Indeed, rather
than subdividing al-khashsh, he merely defines the term:
Kitb al-Ayn: Hamaj: Every worm that hatches from a fly or a gnat. In this
context, then, flying bugs.
95
IV:232:5-233:8 includes among khashsh al-ar: the spiny-tail lizard, waral-lizard
(large and venomous), snake, hedgehog, and that which resembles them. Kitb alAyn defines khashsh al-ayr as small birds, while khashsh al-ar are the small
creepers (dawbb) of the earth, where the verb dabba, to creep, has the ant as its
locus classicus.
94

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the ones with delicate bodies and small figures, devoid of

weapons such as [those possessed by] the tiercel goshawk
(zurraq), the merlin (yuyu), or the sparrowhawk (bshiq). 96
Then he moves on to discuss flying bugs (hamaj) in a similarly accretive
lexicographic style for starting the discussion of a new term: as for bugs (faamm al-hamaj):
As for flying bugs (hamaj), they are not birds (al-ayr), although
they do fly. Bugs are among that which flies in the same
way that vermin (al-ashart) are among that which walks. 97

Hrns footnote proposes bshiq for bdanjr in the MS, offering II:188 in support
of his reading.
97
Kitb al-Ayn on ashara: Small terrestrial creatures that walk (dawbb al-ar), such
as jerboas, hedgehogs, lizards, and such. arr said: ashara include locusts, hares,
and mushrooms (kamt). They can be creepers (dawbb) or not.
I have no explanation for the inclusion of truffles.
Al-Mukhaa cites Ab atim [al-Sijistn, d. between 862-869]: ashara of the earth
are small creepers (dawbb), including the jerboa, the spiny-tail lizard (abb), the
monitor (waral), the hedgehog, the mouse, the zabba (a large red rodent like a rat),
the rat, the chameleon, the aya lizard, umm ubayn lizard, the araf-lizard (small
and white), the un lizard (similar to umm ubayn), the gecko (smm abra), and the
dasssa (red venomous snake). And they include the shiqdhn chameleon, the jackal,
the cat, the hare.
Both definitions of ashara mainly refer to rodents and lizards vermin, in short.
Michael Cook discusses ashart al-ar as an important category in Islamic dietary
law, but a category with unclear membership, largely including rodents and lizards.
Cook, Early Islamic Dietary Law, 252-3.
96

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fa-amma l-hamaju fa-laysa min al-ayr, wa-lkinnahu mimm yar.

Wal-hamaj mimm yar kal-ashart mimm yamsh
First bugs are a subdivision of ir; then they are not ayr at all, but rather they fly
(yar), but al-Ji provides no acknowledgement of this contradiction. This is the
first time we hear a distinction between bird and that which flies, and this
distinction is presented as a lexicographical observation rather than as a definition
or a rule for consistent usage. Nonetheless, it does pose a problem for treating ir
as the name for the category of that which flies. The comparison of vermin
(ashart) to flying bugs is particularly apposite since there is no confusing active
participle like bird/flyer (ir) for walking animals. Just as flying birds are divided
into predator, prey, and hamaj, walking animals are divided into people, predator,
prey, and ashart. The term al-ashart refers primarily to lizards and rodents,
although Kitb al-Ayn explicitly leaves the term open to additional applications. AlJis classification, however, makes it seem like ashart must include all walking
creatures other than dangerous predators or domestic livestock from ants to hares
to lizards. Thus flying bugs are part of the taxonomic category that which flies
even though they do not fit into natural languages category bird, just as vermin

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(ashart) fit into the taxonomic category walking without sharing any natural
language category with the other terrestrial animals.
The text, however, immediately destroys any clarity this comparison may
have temporarily afforded by immediately overturning the previously transparent
role of ashart as a subset of that which walks: Snakes are a kind of vermin (min alashart) Snakes certainly do not walk (yamsh). In fact, the category of that
which walks was explicitly set up in contrast to that which flows, namely snakes
and worms. The entire point of using ashart as a comparison for hamaj was that
ashart fit within that which walks without sharing a name with other walking
creatures. If snakes are the prime example, this basis for comparison is lost, and it is
not only the place of ashart within the classification system that is challenged but
that of hamaj as well. The entire classificatory hierarchy starts to fall apart.
Regarding the term ir, the division between bird (ir) and that which
flies (shay yar) seems fairly clear, and could be considered to correct any prior
deviations from this usage. Toward the end of the classification passage, however,
al-Ji returns to the topic of that which flies:

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Not everything that flies with two wings is a bird. Black dungbeetles (jiln), jal beetles, wild bees, flies, wasps, locusts, ants,
moths, gnats, termites, cultivated bees, and other things all
fly, but they are not called birds. However, they could be
called birds in a certain manner of speaking and on certain
occasions (ind ba al-dhikr wal-sabab). People call the chicken
a bird but they dont call a locust a bird, even though the
locust is much more of a flier, and is more famously proverbial
for it. Angels fly and have wings but are not birds. And Jafar
b. Ab lib has two wings and flies with them in Heaven
wherever he wishes; but Jafar is not a bird. 98
Als brother, d. 629 who lost his arms and legs in the Battle of Muta and died.
Mainly Shite adth cite the Prophet Muammad narrating a dream vision in which
he entered heaven and saw that God had replaced these lost limbs with wings, so
that Jafar could fly about in heaven. He was referred to as Jafar al-ayyr Dh alJanayn, and his grandson was favored for the Imamate by a group called alJaniyya. Hodgson, EI2, Janiyya. Crone tells us that this group was also known
as the arbiyya, the rithiyya, and the Muwiyya, and that they believed in
reincarnation into animal forms (maskh). Crone, Nativist Prophets, 92-95, 234-7.
The following adth have the same wording as al-Jis citation (yaraythu
yash):
Al-abarn (d. 971), al-Mujam al-Kabr (Cairo, Ibn Taymiyya, 1994) 2:107 #1467,
11:313 #12112.
Other adth in which the Prophet confirms that Jafar was given wings:
Ibn Ab im (d. 900), al-Jihd, 2:551-2 #218.
Al-abarn (d. 971), al-Mujam al-Kabr (Cairo, Ibn Taymiyya, 1994), 11:286-7 #12020,
19:167-8 #378.
Al-akim al-Naysbr (d. 1014-15), al-Mustadrak al al-aayn, III:40:12-15,
III:209:14-16, III:212:13-22.
al-Bukhr only goes so far as to confirm that Umar addressed Jafar as dh aljanayn. Bukhr, a, 6:119 #3311, in bb manqib jafar b. ab lib.
98

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This passage repeats the same analytic distinction between bird and that which
flies, making this into the last word, it would seem. But then there is a sharp turn
toward a more descriptive approach, as al-Ji begins to emphasize common usage
as a criterion, rather than any analytic distinction between the animals in each
category. A thing is rightly a bird if natural language calls it a bird. All the examples
given show that common usage corresponds to the analytic distinction between
bird and that which flies. Yet this equivalence between the two criteria still
feels a bit uncertain given the easy and natural-feeling slip from shay yar to tir to
al-ayr as a category including insects that we saw in the first part of the passage.
Finally, whether we imagine the distinction between bird and that which flies to
be based on analytic principles (insects vs. avians) or on linguistic ones (what we
naturally call bird vs. what we dont), al-Ji undermines it by introducing the
idea that flying insects could be called birds in a certain manner of speaking. The
idea of varying modes of speech intervenes to allow apparently unlimited
exceptions to the just-established rule, thus thwarting the impulse toward strict
rules for correct usage or category membership.

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Clearly, al-Ji is not interested in establishing a monovalent technical term

that can be used within the confines of a discipline. He keeps close tabs on common
usage, whether proper or metaphorical, and considers proverbs as giving extra
weight to a sense of linguistic rightness. Although he insists regularly that he only
uses terms the scholars use or according to the Arabic language, this last
passage demonstrates a neologism, but one that he permanently denies the status of
being proper. He seems to suggest that there should be a term for that which flies,
since it is a natural category, and that the active participle of the verb to fly (ir) is
a reasonable proposal but since the term is not used that way in natural language,
and since a clear logical distinction is apparent between the extent of ir and the
extent of that which flies, any usage of ir in this way must be relegated to the
status of being so in a manner of speaking. It is thus a provisional neologism, a
stand-in term. Thus the text ends up clarifying natural usage, discovering a logical
basis for that usage, proposing another concept not present in natural language, and
proposing a stand-in term to designate that concept. Clearly, the tension between
analytic and descriptive approaches to categories is at stake, and al-Ji here

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demonstrates his ability to master both, and even integrate them. He takes pleasure
in the apparent conflict, turning it into word-play.
Unstable hierarchy
The same kind of approach is apparent in the passages treatment of
hierarchy in classification. We saw already the confusion that arises when al-Ji
lists snakes as a subset of ashart, themselves a subset of that which walks, in
contradistinction to that which creeps, of which we would expect snakes to be the
locus classicus. There are a number of other cases when an animal falls into two
different slots in the classification, or a division appears at two different levels in the
hierarchy. Ultimately, the system he presents does not demand that subsets be
entirely subsumed within their supercategory. Indeed, that which walks but is not a
person, a sabu, or a bahma is placed in the category of ashart; but ashart extend
beyond that category of that which walks, to include (perhaps) the entire category
of that which flows as well. Similarly, predatory birds (al-sib min al-ayr) are
divided into noble (arr) and bughth, the latter of which he explains as follows:
any large birds, whether it be predator or prey, as long as it
does not have weapons or curved talons, such as vultures,

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white carrion vultures, and corvids, and lowly (lim) birds

like them.
Thus, birds are divided into predator and prey; predatory birds are divided into
noble and bughth; and bughth are divided into predator and prey. This is a fairly
disorienting system of divisions.
Whereas al-Jis play with the instability of terms is a key purpose of the
passage, I think that these disorienting elements of the classification may be simply
a by-product of using the classification style to express an approach to categories
that is fundamentally not hierarchical. Both the case of bughth and the case of
ashart are simply cases of cross-cutting categories. According to the relations
between categories that al-Ji expresses, the predator/prey division exists in fact
at the same level of hierarchy as the divisions large/small and with
weapons/without weapons. Thus bughth are large birds without weapons; khashsh
are small birds without weapons; small birds with weapons dont exist; and large
birds with weapons are arr. All arr are predatory; some bughth are predatory;
and no khashsh are predatory. Similarly, ashart is a category at the same level of
hierarchy as that which flies/ swims/ walks/ creeps. So ashart are composed of

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some creepers and some walkers. This is a system of cross-cutting categories. The
style of division is used to think through the relations between these categories on a
case by case basis, not necessarily to establish any hierarchy, for the hierarchy
established by the division style is not the hierarchy expressed by the content.
Al-Jis insouciance about preserving the semblance of hierarchy expresses
his general disregard for classification as an ontologically substantive set of
relations. He treats categories as kalm attributes, designating something specific
and having a specific extension, but relating in various non-hierarchical ways to
other categories. Thus two categories might be mutually exclusive, and a third
might apply to individuals in both categories, but this does not mean that the two
subcategories together exhaust the supercategory, or that they are entirely
subsumed within it. Hierarchy is irrelevant. Thus the hierarchical tangles in this
classification can be read as a natural outgrowth of the clash between a logicians
style and a mutakallims mode of thought; or as al-Jis implicit commentary on the

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absurdities involved when imagining genus and species as a strict hierarchy with
more ontological reality than the individuals they describe. 99
In this classification, the quibble about all flying creatures also being able to
walk is drawn from Aristotles biology, HA 1.1. Further quibbles about the concept
bird arise later on, after al-Jis classification of animals has resulted in the
introduction of the sparrow as intercategory (mushtarak) between sabu and bahma.
As if to explain and justify this concept, al-Ji turns back to Aristotles biology, this
time PA 4.8 and HA 1.1, for examples of the fuzzy borders between aerial and
terrestrial creatures, and between aquatic and terrestrial creatures, pointing out as
Aristotle did that fish and aquatic are not equivalent categories, and neither are bird
and aerial. There is thus a certain association being built between recognizing the
intercategory and recognizing the fuzzy borders of multivalent categories, both of
which are justified with reference to Aristotles biology in the case of bird and fish,

Al-Kindi describes genus as a universal thing (shay kull) as opposed to a particular

thing (shay juz) and specifies that it is perceived directly by the intellect (al-aql)
rather than through the senses. Al-Kind, F al-Falsafa al-l, 19:16-21:5.
99

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and applied in a more complex manner to the new Jiian categories of sabu and
bahma.

Sabu and bahma

We have now examined some key features of the classification: the multivalence
of category names, the multiple modes of signification, and the misleading use of
hierarchical classificatory language for a set of categories that are not necessarily
hierarchical. Al-Ji adopts a process of division that was the primary technique
for Aristotelian definition, while at the same time rejecting the very aim of
definition: to establish monovalent terms. Instead of striving for monovalence, alJi falls back on a descriptive approach, but lexicographic description cannot help
him express the new concepts he invents when those concepts do not have names
in natural language. Now it remains for us to ask what is the point of all this where
is al-Ji going with it, and why does he need a mock-classification in the first
place?
I propose that the main purpose of the passage is to introduce the radical
idea that there is a universal dichotomy running through all animals, namely the

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division into sib and bahim, predators and prey, and to establish the idea of an
intercategory group of animals that buck this most fundamental division. The
passage thus sets up the concepts that will motivate the Dog-Rooster Debate as a
response to concerns that the dog might be one of those intercategory animals
falling between sabu and bahma. In order for any dichotomy to be this universal, it
has to be rather fuzzy, and al-Ji here uses his facility with the many ways that
words can signify to reveal the already existing fuzziness of these terms within
natural language. This is why the terms sabu and bahma recur so many times,
defined and redefined in different ways.
Lets examine the serial definitions that create this fuzzy aura around the
two key terms. The terms sabu and bahma first come up in the following division of
walking animals:
The kind (naw) that walks has four divisions: people (ns),
prey (bahim), predators (sib) and vermin (ashart).
At this point none of the categories is clear, except that of people (ns). According to
the lexicographies, bahim are quadrupeds, and sib are dangerous animals that

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sometimes attack flocks, the locus classicus being lions and wolves. 100 ashart is a
vague designation, but the typical examples listed by the lexicographies are rodents
and lizards.
Reading the text, one would not accept these immediate designations at face
value, since sib and ashart fall within the category of quadrupeds (bahim),
destroying the sense that the items are alternatives within the class of that which
walks. (While al-Ji does not respect hierarchy, and sometimes disobeys mutual
exclusivity by allowing overlap between alternative categories, he does still use
division to present alternatives within a class.)

Kitb al-Ayn describes bahma as four-legged walking creatures, of the land or the
sea, (dhawt arba qawim min dawbb al-barr wal-bar) and al-Mukhaa cites this
definition. This definition is also supported by exegeses of the term jawri (trained
hunting animals) in Qurn, Srat al-Mida, 5:4. Al-abar, for example, has
jawri: hunters that are sib, whether quadrupeds (bahim) or birds, such as dogs
and eagles.
Kitb al-Ayn (q.v. s-b-) treats sabu as too common to bother defining, but defines
the verb sabaa as to harmfully attack, and uses the term sib to refer to wild
beasts attacking livestock within its definition of musba: the shepherd whose flocks
have been attacked by sib, and who shouts at the sib and at his dogs. The author
then goes on to justify metaphorical usages applying the term sabu to things for
their daring to attack people (li-jaratihi al al-ns).
For ashart see footnote 92.
100

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The most obvious second option would be to interpret bahim as edible

quadrupeds, or perhaps even more specifically, livestock. This association is
heavily attested in religious literature surrounding dietary law, and places bahim in
relation to sib, also a key term from texts on dietary law: bahim are edible
quadrupeds, and sib are the animals that compete with humans to eat them, and
that defile these pure food animals with their bite. The terms are not usually put
forward as a pair of opposites in texts regarding dietary law, even though their
meanings are complementary. This opposition is introduced by the text of the
ayawn although al-Ji references existing usages by al-Nam 101 and by the
hostile Addressee.
In the Qurn, bahma appears only within the phrase bahim al-anm (the
quadrupeds among livestock), an apparently redundant phrase that is used several
times to describe the animals God has provided for human consumption. 102 Alabar tells us that there is a difference of opinion regarding the bahim among
livestock, some claiming that bahim is redundant, and the phrase means all
101
102

I:281:9-16.
Qurn, al-Mida 5:1; al-jj, 22:28 and 22:34.

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livestock (anm) including camels, cattle, sheep, and goats; while others suggest it
refers to unborn fetuses in slaughtered livestock; and still others interpreting the
phrase to mean wild livestock (washiyyuh), including gazelles, oryx, and
onagers. 103 Muqtil glosses the phrase as simply comprising both livestock and
hunted animals (ayd). 104 The term sib occurs prominently in adth listing eating
prohibitions, since it is prohibited to eat meat that has been partially eaten by a
sabu. So to retain the sense that people, bahim, predators (sib), and vermin
(ashart) are alternatives, a natural first assumption might be to consider bahim as
edible quadrupeds, or livestock, rather than quadrupeds in general. This is where
we stand after the first division.
Al-Ji then goes on to say:
Conceptually, however, vermin can be traced back to resemble
the nature of prey and predators. (al anna al-ashart
rjiatun f l-man il mushkalat ib al-sib wal-bahim). But in
all of this, we follow the existing well-known names, which are
clear in themselves and distinct from one another in the ears
of [any] listener among the people who speak this language
and have mastery of this tongue. We only distinguish what
103
104

Al-abar, Jmi al-Bayn, 6:50-51, on al-Mida 5:1.

Muqtil, Tafsr Muqtil, 291, on Qurn, al-Mida, 5:1.

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they have distinguished (innam nufridu m afrad), and we

group together what they have grouped together (wa-najmau
m jama).
It seems that in this case when al-Ji says f almana, he means that in reality,
ashart fall into the classes sib and bahim, even though in natural language they
are not in fact referred to as such. 105 Thus he is implicitly proposing a new division
other than those implicit in natural languages category terms, between sib and
bahim. Yet he refuses at this point to formally define sib and bahim as technical
terms for these new categories. So we have some categories with no names in
natural language, which al-Ji has yet to define. All we know is that they apply
conceptually to all walking animals except humans, but most properly to livestock
and wild dangerous beasts. At this point one might imagine that the distinction is
beasts that eat other beasts, and beasts that are eaten by other beasts: predators and
prey.
Al-Ji next divides flying creatures into sib, bahim, and hamaj,
mimicking the division of walking creatures, minus the category for humans. The
This usage would parallel the exegetic terms al-tafsr al al-laf and al-tafsr al alman.
105

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category sib for birds was already idiomatic for birds of prey. Al-bahim min alayr was not idiomatic, however. Indeed the primary meaning of quadruped flatly
contradicts the category the bahim among birds. We could thus consider albahim min al-ayr to be a neologism. Al-Ji further divides al-sib min al-ayr into
noble sporting hunting birds (al-itq wal-arr wal-jawri); and bughth, large
weaponless birds, a category that according to al-Ji can also include some bahim
birds, but mainly includes scavengers, which he calls lowly(lim) birds of the sib
category.
This division matches the way the terms hunting birds (jawri), birds of
prey (al-sib min al-ayr) and bughth are used in lexica, with one key difference. I
draw here primarily on al-Mukhaa by Ibn Sda (d. 1066) since it has such an
extensive themed discussion of birds, but I will be sure to cite the authorities that alMukhaa cites, as the compilation of these citations post-dates al-Ji. AlMukhaas cites al-Ama (d. 828) as defining the term al-jawri by equating it with
hunters (al-awid), earners (al-kawsib), and birds of prey (al-sib min al-ayr).
The biggest bird in this category is the eagle (uqb), for there is no bird bigger than

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the eagle, other than the vulture (nasr). 106 This suggests that the vulture was
excluded from the category since it was a scavenger. Thus birds of prey are here
taken to be birds that hunt, excluding scavengers from the category. This differs
from al-Ji, who includes both hunting birds and scavengers within birds of
prey (al-sib min al-ayr).
The lexicographers cited by al-Mukhaa oppose birds of prey (al-sib min
al-ayr) to bughth, described by Ab Khab as birds that do not hunt, by Ab
Ubayda as weak birds, and by al-Ama as lowly birds (lim al-ayr), comprising
corvids, and rakham vultures. The lexicographic understanding of bughth thus
seems to match al-Jis usage. Like the lexicographers, al-Ji refers to bughth as
lowly (lim) and cites the same examples. Instead of specifying that they do not
hunt, however, he states that they have no weapons. And most importantly, he
considers the scavengers among the bughth to be members of the birds of prey
category.

Al-Mukhaa, 6:145. Earlier, the text cites Ab tim defining jawri as trained
hunting birds specifically, birds of sport that is, so that the term is not synonymous
with hunters, awid, meaning any hunting bird whether trained/trainable or not.
106

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At this point, certain attributes have been mentioned, none of which can
serve to distinguish sib from bahim: large physical size presumably applies to the
bahim in the bughth category; hunting is an attribute of some sib but not of the
scavengers among them; and the same goes for weapons. Al-Ji then has a
sentence for small weaponless birds (khashsh), and a sentence describing bugs
(hamaj). Structurally, it seems fairly clear that the sentence on small weaponless
birds (khashsh) corresponds to the bahma category, but this is not made explicit. It
seems that he here replaces his neologism the bahim among birds with the
standard term for small birds, khashsh. 107
At this point (I:28:9), it is entirely unclear in which sense al-Ji thinks the
sib/bahim dichotomy could extend beyond its natural applications to divide the
ashart or any other group of animals. So far we have a common-language meaning
of sib as dangerous wild beast, as well as several rejected criteria for sib
membership: large size, hunting, and weaponry. The dichotomy is central to his
subdivision of both walking and flying animals, but the meanings of the terms are

107

Al-Mukhaa, 6:144.

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still unclear. Until this point, al-Ji has still ostensibly been primarily pursuing a
taxonomy, albeit one in which the terms sib and bahim are central. At this point,
however, instead of pursuing his taxonomy further, al-Ji begins to focus entirely
on these concepts. The next section discusses the ways snakes can be considered
sib and the ways in which they cannot; after this, we find an examination of the
criterion of weapons for al-sib min al-ayr, followed by a clear definition of al-Jis
conceptual usage of sib, and a discussion of animals that are mushtarak between the
categories sabu and bahma, followed by a general discussion of mushtarak beings.
In favor of a sib designation for snakes, al-Ji cites the following: they
have fangs (anyb), they habitually eat meat (akklat al-lum), and they are
enemies to people and all the bahim. We now have several components to a
descriptive definition of sib - they are dangerous to people and bahim, they are
carnivorous, and they have fangs or canines. These components reflect a
contemporary legal debate about the extension of a category of animals called
predators with canines/fangs (kull dh anyb min al-sib). 108 Legal scholars agreed

108

Cook, Early Islamic Dietary Law, 248-251.

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that the typical examples for this category were lions and wolves. Sunnis typically
included dangerous or harmful (rr) within the definition of sib while Shiites
did not, leading to Shiite inclusion of many rodents as sib.
Another legal topic comes into play with the phrase habitual eaters of meat
(akklat al-lum). It was prohibited to eat quarry that a sabu had bitten from, and
birds of prey (al-sib min al-ayr) were included in this class, while trained hunting
birds were excepted from it. In this context, scavengers were not only included in
the category of predatory birds (al-sib min al-ayr), but were the primary referents,
since it was they who would be likely to eat from a carcass killed by human hunters
and their trained animals. 109 Thus the legal meaning of sib most certainly includes
both scavengers and hunters, and al-Ji seems to have used this legal definition
for birds of prey rather than the one that appears in the lexica.
Al-Ji uses the phrase in a certain manner of speaking, and for a certain
reason (ind ba al-qawl wal-sabab) to describe the way in which snakes are called
sib, without explaining what this means. It is possible that he simply intends to
Certain legal debates make this explicit, asking whether this prohibition is due to
the fact that al-sib eat carrion. ann, Al-Mudawwana al-Kubr, III:64:14-65:2.
109

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contrast category membership with proper animal names; but we already saw alJi using an almost identical phrase in the following passage:
Not everything that flies with two wings is a bird. Black dungbeetles (jiln), jal beetles, wild bees, flies, wasps, locusts, ants,
moths, gnats, termites, and cultivated bees, and other things
all fly, but they are not called birds. However, they could be
called birds in a certain manner of speaking and on certain
occations (ind ba al-dhikr wal-sabab).
In this case, we saw that the certain manner of speaking refers to the use of an
existing term for a new concept the designation is not proper, but it is a reasonable
stretch of language. If this is what he means when he uses the phrase again here,
then he is likely not actually suggesting that it is correct linguistically to call the
snake a sabu, but rather is proposing a new technical and law-derived incorrect
meaning for the term sabu, to refer to animals that 1) have fangs or canines 2) eat
flesh and 3) are dangerous. 110 But the term bahim is somewhat unclear, as for the
most part snakes eat small animals and rodents, which we would expect to be
classed as ashart, an alternative to bahim.
I:28.12-13. Interestingly, he points out in this passage that snakes are eaten by all
kinds of animals, both sib and bahim. If eating meat is part of the new definition
of sabu being proposed, then what are bahim doing eating snakes?
110

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Canines are one example of what al-Ji calls weapons (sil), and
presumably it is weapons that make animals dangerous to people and bahim.
The next few paragraphs test the criterion of weaponry for membership in the sib
category against the categories of birds. Al-Ji explains that there is one kind of
bird classed as a sabu that has talons (eagles etc.), and another with only beaks
(vultures, rakham, and corvids) that we have only called sib because they
habitually eat meat (akklat al-lum). The phrase solves our question about the
definition of birds of prey, but since it implies that sib most properly applies to
hunters, it does not help clarify whether the sib designation is proper, conceptual,
stretched or what when applied to scavengers. Birds of the bahim class also have
weapons, including beaks, teeth, spurs, and repellant excrement. So all kinds of
birds have weapons; the most properly sib birds have a unique kind of weapon
setting them apart (talons); but other birds called sib share a weapon (beaks) with
bahim birds. Weaponry seems not to be a useful criterion for distinguishing sib
from bahim. Finally, al-Ji confirms the habitually eating meat as the
definitive distinction between the two terms. To do so, he uses the form of a

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lexicographic definition, that states the term followed by a description: The sabu
among birds is that which eats only meat, and the bahma is that which eats only
grain/seeds. Sib are carnivores and bahim are herbivores! This clear definition
does away with some of the components of sabuiyya attributed to snakes earlier:
being dangerous, and having canines or fangs (anyb).
While al-Ji appears at first to build up to a sharp conceptual distinction
between carnivore and herbivore, the many other resonances of sabu and bahma
reappear almost immediately. Only a paragraph later, al-Ji cites all of these
rejected differentiae in order to explain what it means for a creature to falls between
the two categories:
Regarding the kind (fann) which unites these [behaviors] in a
mixed nature (al-khalq al-murakkab) and a shared character
(al-ab al-mushtarak), there is a discourse which we will come
to in its correct location, God-willing.
According to [the philosophers], the shared (mushtarak)
includes the sparrow (ufr), for it does not have curved
talons or a hooked beak (minsar), and it collects grain and yet
despite this it hunts ants when they fly, and it hunts locusts
and eats meat. It does not regurgitate for its young as the
dove (amm) does, but feeds them chunks as the birds of prey

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do. There are many mixed birds like sparrows and we will
mention them in their place, God-willing.
In this passage, al-Ji references not only the sparrows omnivorous diet, but also
many other ways in which it combines features typical of carnivorous and
herbivorous birds: weaponry like curved beaks and talons, and the method for
feeding chicks. Al-Ji thus retains those rejected differentiae as part of the terms
meanings, even if the rejected differentiae are not firm criteria for membership.
Just as some creatures are more firmly classed as sabu than others, some aspects of
the nature of being a sabu are more important than others yet they are all part of
this nature, which appears as unified and clearly intuited through natural languages.
This is a very different kind of category from the kind of category that would be
encompassed by a definition.
The structure of dividing items into two classes plus an unclassed remainder
is unique to al-Ji, and it depends on having categories with fuzzy boundaries. To
understand this, consider the difference between Aristotles division based on diet
and al-Jis. In Ibn Birqs translation, Aristotle says:

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Some birds eat seeds; some eat everything; some eat seeds; and
some eat specialized food, for example bees and spiders. 111
For Aristotle then, the sparrow would fall squarely within the category of
omnivore. When only diet is in play as a criterion, then each kind of diet forms a
single category. Classification becomes simple. Al-Jis categories of sabu and
bahma employ numerous criteria, however. As a result al-Ji can give us a strong
intuitive sense of the nature of predator and prey, but there are many animals
that share aspects of one and aspects of the other.
We saw already in Chapter One that the Arabic Aristotle discusses the
concept of dualizers (mushtarak), and that al-Ji adapts this term and concept
into his idea of the intercategory. Yet al-Jis concept of the intercategory is
fundamentally different from Aristotles. For Aristotle, dualizers are animals that
are difficult to classify, mainly because categories often have multiple criteria that
only approximately overlap. Dualizers challenge the notion that multiple criteria
equivalently identify a category. Al-Ji addresses the same concern with his

ib 1.1 14:6-8 = HA1.1 488a15-18. In the Greek, the first seeds is rather more
sensibly meat.
111

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discussion of the multiple meanings of sib and bahim, pointing out that
predator/prey, carnivorous/herbivorous, dangerous/helpless, and so on are not
equivalent criteria. Yet his concern for the sparrow (and the debaters concern for
the dog as intercategory later on) is not about the misalignment of criteria. Instead,
it is about the idea that sib and bahim are true and essential categories that
should be recognizable and clear. They are intuitively, emotively, poetically, and
undeniably categories with a strong character of their own, and this is only possible
because they are not limited to a single differentia, but rather are composed of a
potentially infinite series of redefinitions. Through the juxtaposition of definitions,
there emerges a strongly characterized category that appears to be part of the
essential nature of the world, recognized through natural language.
Al-Ji makes the choice to introduce these key category concepts (porous
and strongly characterized concepts; and the unclassed remainder as intercategory)
within an introductory passage that I have shown operates in reaction to logical
introductions. He adopts a logical classification style in order to introduce an
entirely different set of concepts regarding categories. The quibbles and logical

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contradictions within the classification passage, then, are symptoms not only of alJis divergence from logical classification but also of the juxtaposition of
apparently incompatible perspectives on the category and its boundaries yet
through this juxtaposition, the true nature of the category emerges.

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CHAPTER THREE The Intercategory: One Plus One Plus One

In the last two chapters, I examined the way al-Ji deals with animal
species and categories, concluding each chapter with a brief glance toward the
concept of the intercategory, which I have suggested is a key and controversial topic
of the Dog-Rooster Debate. To provide background about the controversy
surrounding the perception that the dog (and to a lesser extent the rooster) was
intercategory, I reduced the scope of analysis in those chapters to very precise
logical formations. I discovered that a certain logical flexibility prevailed, according
to which distinct ways of defining categories were juxtaposed, and through a
process of accretion formed an intuitively clear category with imprecisely defined
boundaries. In the chapters that follow, I will turn to the Dog-Rooster Debate and
the controversy that al-Ji tells us surrounded it, in order to discover why al-Ji
felt that these discussions of sabu and bahma were the most appropriate
introduction to the Dog-Rooster Debate. In this chapter, I will examine in detail the
passages from the introduction to the ayawn in which the Addressee disputes with
al-Ji whether the Dog-Rooster Debate is worthwhile. In these passages, al-Ji

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presents the Dog-Rooster debate as controversial because of its treatment of animals

perceived to be intercategory. He thus implies that he conceived of the Dog-Rooster
Debate as a way to get at a controversy surrounding the intercategory, a controversy
that he saw as symptomatic of differing ways of viewing the material world more
generally.
The discussion about whether the Dog-Rooster Debate is worthwhile hinges
on differing conceptions of what it means to combine things. The Addressee is
specifically concerned with the dog, which he claims combines characteristics
indicative of contrary categories, and he assumes that these contrary characteristics
could never possibly congeal into their own integral dog character as do the
complementary characteristics of firmly categorized creatures like cows, for
example. Instead, they create a monstrous patched together (mulaffaq) animal,
whose contradictions are so similar to the contradictions exhibited in human
character that the Addressee sees the dog as eerily too human. Al-Ji argues to
the contrary that dogs are as integral as any other creature, and denies that the
features cited by the Addressee make the dog intercategory, or particularly similar

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to humans. More broadly, he denies the very idea of an animal being too-human,
and he denies the qualitative distinctness of the intercategory (though as we saw in
Chapters One and Two, he does accept the intercategory as a logical or genetic
designation). For al-Ji, all of Gods creations are integral creatures.
Al-Jis response goes beyond merely discussing dogs and roosters, to
present a vision of creation as a totality offering perfect benefit (malaa) to
mankind, and man as a microcosm of this creation. This passage has been
frequently discussed in works on Islamic intellectual history. In this chapter I will
re-open the topic in order to show that these famous arguments are in fact written
with the Addressees arguments about the intercategory in mind, as one would
expect from their placement in the dialogue. Moreover, the comparisons to physical
theory within these arguments have not been noted in the scholarship, and I argue
that the complex philosophy of combination that these comparisons provides is one
of the crucial aspects of the passage. The passage is grounded in a complex of ideas
about parts and wholes that surfaces repeatedly in ninth-century kalm and legal
argumentation. According to these ideas, there are different modes of combination

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 simple addition, in which two atoms, for example, form two atoms; and
integration, in which a larger number of atoms form a body (juththa) with all the
characteristics of matter as we know it. This difference between addition and
integration was one of the great methodological tools in ninth-century kalm. AlJi references physical theory in order to draw upon its useful theorization of the
many ways that things can combine.
My argument dovetails with Geriess interpretation of the Dog-Rooster
Debate and the malaa argument as ways of insisting on comparative argument in
analyses of creation due to the relativity of creatures characteristics, and with
Montgomerys vision of the ayawn as a totalising work. 1 In this chapter,
however, I focus on the parallelism between the many types of combination that alJi brings forward in this pasage. Just as al-Ji rejected hierarchy in his
taxonomy, he here rejects the Addressees hierarchy of knowledge, insisting instead
that scholars must balance their attention evenly, imitating God in the apportioning
of attention, and dutifully making an attempt to achieve the impossible annotation

Geries, Un Genre Littraire, 35-58. Montgomery, In Praise of Books.

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of all aspects of Gods Creation. As with the accretive category definitions we saw in
the previous chapter, and the non-hierarchical and varied way that these categories
interact, we see here a similarly accretive and non-hierarchical approach to
knowledge of creation on a broader scale. It is no accident that two of the three
famous lists in the introduction to the ayawn occur in this passage where al-Ji
theorizes combination and totality; lists are the stylistic epitome of an open-ended
practice of combination, in which the relations between elements can be as
ambiguous and shifting as the relations between animal categories or beings in
creation. The total effect of the list is an overall impression that is intuitively clear,
despite the inexhaustiveness of the list and the lack of explicit definition of what
category the elements are meant to fit under. This concept of totality based not on
hierarchical either/or logic, but rather on a logic encompassing the many
meanings of and, underlies al-Jis distinctive list style, his denial that some
creatures are patched-together (mulaffaqa), his project of studying animals in the
first place, and his commitment to the Mutazil doctrine of the optimum (ala),
which in his presentation relies on a concept of totality.

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Is the Dog-Rooster Debate Worthwhile?

The Addressees outrage at the Dog-Rooster Debate is paraphrased at I:102106 and I:190-200, while al-Jis discursive responses to these attitudes appear at I:
I:200-221. 2 The Addressee argues that intercategory creatures are not worth
discussing because they detract from more important matters, namely key doctrinal
debates in kalm. Along the way, he lists many negative features of the dog which,
as I will show here, largely boil down to its intercategory status, and which the
Addressee seems to interpret as its being too human. The Addressee anticipates a
counter-argument that each human should be allowed to follow his calling, each
contributing toward society in the way most natural for him 3; but he argues that
even if these scholars find the Dog-Rooster Debate compelling, it is still immoral to

In contradistinction to the performative response in the form of the passage on

eunuchs and cross-breeds. James Montgomery has translated I:190-222 in In Praise of
Books, and my citations from these pages are adaptations of his translation. The
citations from I:102-106 are my own.
3
I:201:7-I:202:12.
2

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engage in it when it involves distracting talent away from important issues of

doctrine. 4
Al-Jis response has several distinct arguments, which I present here
roughly in order:
1) All creatures are equally worthy of investigation because they are equally
integral to the beneficial character (malaa) of creation for humans, and because
they are epistemologically equivalent for knowing the Creator. 5 Intercategory and
insignificant beings are thus no less worthy of investigation than other beings. This
passage includes an evocation of the great wisdom within each creature waiting to
be interpreted, comparing it to the wisdom found in books, but does not specify
what or how we can learn from creatures, or whether they are instructive
individually or in combination. 6 Al-Ji explains that the dog and rooster were
selected among all creatures simply because they are frequently discussed, and

I:202:13-I:203:10.
I:204:1-206:16.
6
I:208:16-210:2.
4
5

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scholars have already extracted many secrets from them. 7 They are thus not
inherently special, but rather the attention already lavished upon them allows the
possibility for a comparative study that would be impossible with less studied
animals.
2) Al-Ji denies that the dog is intercategory, or that any creature could
possibly be too human since part of the structure of creation is for mankind to be
a microcosm, sharing features with all creatures. 8 Combination is natural, and there
is no eerie too-human intercategory as claimed by the Addressee.
3) Any arguments justifying the study of physical theory (atoms, geometric
planes, and the infinitessimal distances used in Zenos paradox) also justify the study
of creatures. Both provide knowledge of finitude and of the difference between
those believing in the worlds eternity (Dahriyya) and those believing in Gods unicity
(Muwaidda), and [both] give knowledge of hidden wisdom and divine

7
8

I:210:16-I:211:2.
I:211:8-I:215:12.

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providence. 9 The modality for studying creatures remains unclear at this point,
since the ways in which al-Nam in particular had adapted physical theory for use
in proving doctrinal points were not likely to have been useful in applying insights
from biology to doctrinal debates.
4) Al-Ji acknowledges the Addressees concern that apportioning
attention is a difficult and important task, but he insists that al-Nam and Mabad,
the two sheikhs participating in the Dog-Rooster Debate, have in fact shouldered
this burden responsibly. He suggests that every part needs attention in order for
the Gods wisdom (ikma) and governance (tadbr) in creation to be revealed. The
key is balance and fairness in apportioning attention. 10 This implies that the
ultimate goal is to study the entire material world species by species and being by
being, to gain knowledge of the wisdom and governance in creation via that totality
of knowledge of individuals and species.

I:216:9-I:217:16. On arguments for and against the eternity of the world, see
Davidson, Proofs for Eternity.
10
I:218:3-14.
9

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5) Al-Ji concludes the passage by accusing the Addressee of being too

single-minded in demanding that scholars focus only on doctrine. 11 Whereas the
Addressee had earlier implied that that two sheikhs are by nature obsessed with
dogs and roosters, 12 al-Ji argues that in fact the accusation of extreme singlemindedness applies better to the Addressee himself. By contrast, the two sheikhs
are exhibiting balance and justice in how they divide their attention among
everything that exists.
Overall, we can see that the Addressee is advocating a hierarchy of topics,
whereas al-Ji insists on equality and balance between topics. It is also likely that
where the Addressee was looking to solve immediate political problems, al-Ji had
in mind a more long-term cumulative investigation process. 13 In any case, al-Jis
idea of balance depends on a concept of totality in which the whole is more than the
sum of its parts. Creation is more than a collection of beings, for it has

I:218:15-I:220:10.
I:201:7-I:202:12.
13
On this idea of progess in al-Jahizs thinking, see Khalidi, Mosquitos Wing.
11
12

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overwhelming value as a whole that is greater than the value of any individual
creature, in the same way that a creature is more than a collection of atoms.
The Addressees Attitude Toward the Intercategory
Once al-Ji has finished defending the book form of the ayawn, the
discussion of the Dog-Rooster Debate in particular begins, inaugurated by a long
citation of the hostile Addressees comments explaining why the dog is an unworthy
topic of discussion. The refrain of his criticism, appearing in various forms at the
start of each articulated attack, is the phrase How important/valuable/etc. the dog
and/or rooster must be for two important sheikhs to waste their time discussing
it. Most of the attacks then list negative features of the dog or rooster that make its
presumed importance seem absurd. The first complaint is that the dog is
intercategory between sabu and bahma. In this passage, the hostile Addressee
compares the dog to such a diverse range of examples of the intercategory that the
list itself implicitly sketches out an abstract concept of the intercategory. This
movement from the dog in particular to the intercategory as an abstract concept
supports the hypothesis I sketched out at the end of the last chapter: because the

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distinction between sabu and bahma is presented as a primary dichotomy running

through all the classes of animal species, the dog as violator of this primary
dichotomy can be used as an archetype of all intercategory beings. This passage
runs as follows:
You said: How great must be the value of the dog [given the
time and energy these scholars expend discussing it]!
Despite the lowliness (lum) of its root (al), the vileness
(khubth) of its nature (ab), the worthlessness of its value, 14 the
degradation of its spirit, and the little good and great evil in it;
despite the agreement of all the nations in considering it
worthless and inferior; despite people striking proverbs from
the dog about all these negative attributes; despite the
helplessness for which it is famous, for it is incapable of
attacking wild beasts (sib) and has no power against them. It
has no knowledge of their protected vulnerable places,
because it is not completely a predator (sabu) and not
completely prey (bahma). Thus it is like one of the crossbreeds (mutawallid), patched-together (mulaffaqa) natures, and
imported mixes like the mule, with its capricious nature and
its many faults, born as it is from a mix.
For the worst of natures is that which is created from
opposing bloodlines, vastly divergent characters, and distant
essences, such as the rib among doves. The rib has lost the
cooing of the tame turtledove, the form of its song, and the
speed of its flight. It has also lost the long life of the wild
14

suq implies a change but I couldnt interpret this so I used worthlessness.

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turtledove (warashn), the strength of its wings, the strength

of its sinews, its beautiful voice, the openness of its throat, the
way it is colored, the power of its moving song, and its ability
to put up with being struck by pellets and wounded by claws.
The rib has feathered legs and is sluggish, and it has a larger
body and a heavier weight than either its father or its mother.
The mule is similar, for it has left behind the idea that two
animals should produce an animal like them, so that their
offspring lives the same lifespan they do. No child of the male
mule survives even when he is not sterile. And no child of the
female mule survives even when she is not barren. But this is
combined with an increase in their strength and power. The
mule has sexual desire and excitement more than its father,
and the female mule is more lustful and seeks intercourse
more than her mother. This is all an example of an additional
measure of strength, paired with a defect in construction. Its
foal comes out bigger than the foals of its uncles and aunts,
leaving aside any resemblance to them, and tending toward
something else that has no origin (al) on this earth. It also
turns out to have a longer life than its parents and it is more
patient in bearing heavy loads.
This is similar to the son of a masculine woman with a
feminine man, for this child is even more horrible a product
(akhbath nitjan) than the mule, and has a more corrupt
bloodline (afsad arqan) than a cross between a wolf and a
hyena (al-sim), and it is has more defects than a hyena crossed
with a wolf (the other way al-isbr). Every creature has a
certain character when crossed with its opposite (idd), and
every tree when grafted with a different one (khilf).

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However, this problem does not affect animals like the khuls
among chickens or the waradn among turtledoves.
Every weakness that enters into a nature, and every frailness
affecting an animal is according to its kind. According to its
measure and capacity do incapacity and defects appear.
Al-Ama claimed that no thin (aham) horse ever won a race.
Muammad b. Sallm said that no piebald (ablaq, balqa), male
or female, ever won a race.
The cooing of doves, and the strength to fly long distances are
only found in the solid-colored (mumata) dark (khur) doves.
They claim that spots (shiyt) are always indicators of
weakness and defect. Shiya means any color entering upon
another color. God said: {He said: A heifer not trained to till
the soil or water the fields; sound and without spots (l shiya
fh).} 15

Qurn, al-Baqara 2:71, tr. Yusuf Ali, except that he interprets l shiya fh as
"without blemish." This passage narrates Moses telling his people what kind of
heifer to sacrifice to God following the incident of the golden calf. The
characteristics of the heifer include the restriction that it ought to have no shiyt.
Al-Qurub, al-abar, and Ibn Kathr interpret this to mean solid-colored without
spots just as the Addressee does here, though al-abar and Ibn Kathr transmit the
alternative glosses without white or black, and without blemish. Al-Qurub, alJmi li-akm al-Qurn, I:454-5; al-abar, Tafsr, 351-3. Ibn Kathr, Tafsr, I:115.
15

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Uthmn b. al-akam 16 claimed that the son of a masculine

woman by a feminine man takes the worst features of his
father, and the most despicable features of his mother. United
in him are great wile, and many specific faults. When he goes
out, adab has no effect on him and no physician desires to cure
him. He says that he saw among the houses of Thaqf a youth
exhibiting these qualities, and a day did not pass without the
people talking about something he did. Compared to this
youth, the worst sin attributed to a person appears small!
You claimed that: The dog in this regard is like the
hermaphrodite (al-khunth), who is neither male nor female,
or like the eunuch, who when that which makes a male virile
is cut from him, exits from the category (add) of perfect
masculinity through the loss of his penis. Yet he does not
completely become female, because of his original instinct and
remaining essence (jawhariyya).
And you claimed that: This is like date-wine that has gone bad
from excessive heat. This disqualifies it from the category
(add) of vinegar but does not let it remain in the category of
date-wine.
Mirds b. al-Khadhm 17 said:
We poured a drink in Thawiyya for a noble man (iql)
Hrn identifies him as Uthmn b. al-akam b. akhr al-Thaqaf, a contemporary
of Hrn al-Rashd. Al-Ifahn, Kitb al-Aghn, 17:17.
17
Umayyad poet. Al-Aghn, 10:87. This poem is said to have been written for his
cousin, a member of the Khil tribe. Al-Marzubn, Mujam al-Shuar, I:370. It is also
cited in al-Thalib, Thimr al-Qulb, 261, s.v. umm al-khall.
16

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and the reins (iql) veered, bringing along the Khils heart.
I said, Wise man, drink this morning, for indeed it is the very wine
That we had conjured up in our imaginations.
I aimed the core of his heart at the mother of vinegar
and he didnt sober up for three nights.
He calls wine the mother of vinegar because vinegar is
produced from it. But wine can also be produced from vinegar
if it is bitter.
Sad b. Wahb 18 said:
Why not? as long as you are desired for the dampness of your face,
Gently youthful, and smooth of cheek.
But now that a beard has begun on your cheek,
it has stolen your sweetness 19 like a grasping hand.
This is also the case with mediocre poetry and mediocre
singing and lukewarm jokes that do not exit from hot to
cold to make people laugh heartily and dont exit from cold to
hot to make people laugh heartily. 20
In this passage, the dog is identified as a combination of sabu and bahma, and for
this reason it is compared to a variety of other combinations: crossbreeds mixing
breeds of similar animals (mule, rib, the child of an effeminate and a butch, tree

Ab Uthmn Sad b. Wahb al-Bar, a poet under the Barmika, who wrote on
wine and love, and was a friend of Ab l-Athiyas. Cf. Zirikl, al-Alm, 3:157.
19
Literally, saltiness.
20
I:102:7-106:2.
18

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grafts); spotted animals mixing colors; hermaphrodites and eunuchs mixing male
and female features; incomplete chemical transformations like wine that has only
partly become vinegar, and like a youth (adath) who has outgrown his appeal to
men but not yet fully developed into manhood; and lukewarm mediocrity in
poetry, song, and jokes. Although nowhere does the Addressee use an explicit term
for the abstract concept of the intercategory, it seems fairly clear that this is what is
intended in this passage. By listing examples diverse enough to admit no more
specific explanation, the Addressee prompts the reader to supply an abstraction
from the examples, namely the abstract concept of the intercategory.
The list contains examples of items that combine elements of opposed
categories, in such a way that an integral self-standing composite character is not
formed. The examples involve complex combinations of natures, like crossbreeds,
the dog, and the eunuch; as well simpler material examples like combinations of
color, matter (wine/vinegar), and temperature. 21 The simple material combinations

The concept of lukewarm as a combination of pure hot and pure cold, rather than
a point on a spectrum of temperatures, makes sense within contemporary
assumptions about the nature of temperature as a combination of heat-matter and
21

199

make reference to some of the concerns of physical theory, regarding the nature of
heat and cold, and the nature of chemical change. 22 This brings the natures
discussed in physics into direct contact with nature at the level of a whole
creature. The extension to the poetic in the last paragraph is particularly telling,
despite its vagueness. The passage seems to propose a need for decisiveness,
opinionation, and passion in poetry, song, and joke-telling. This inclusion of intercategory emotion in this list expands the conception of the abstract intercategory
beyond the material. All the examples provided here are negative, since the
Addressee is proving the undesirable nature of the intercategory. The Addressee
presents things which are fully themselves (wine, vinegar; cold, hot) as the contrary
cold-matter, which scientists of atomism, including al-Nam as quoted by Jahiz in
volume 5 of the ayawn, conceive of as atoms of cold and atoms of heat. There was
debate about the nature of those atoms, and how their dependency on the presence
of other matter could be conceived.
22
See Dhanani, Physical Theory. Throughout the ayawn, al-Jahiz regularly relates
physics to the larger scale essences discussed in biology and ritual purity. For
example, at V:304:7-305:7 al-Jahiz compares the transformation of excrement into
flesh to the transformation of blood into miskh perfume, and cites a Mutazil
perfumer whom he seems to respect as explaining that it is not the matter itself (aljawhar bi-aynihi) that is forbidden, but rather the accidents (al-ar wal-ilal) that
determine its nature (aba), form (ra), and designation (ism) as either blood or
perfume.

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of things which awkwardly and incompletely combine characters (wine that has
gone off; lukewarm; uncertain jokes). The intercategory being is described as
patched-together (mulaffaqa), and its combination of opposites is thus presented
as a failure of character, of selfhood, of firmness, and of ones nature. The Addressee
does not explicitly make the leap from undesirable to not worth talking about,
though perhaps the lukewarm joke example rhetorically supports this leap.
Al-Jis immediate response starts as follows: Chapter Discussing what
Befalls Men Upon Castration, and How They Were Before Castration. 23 The
chapter in question runs from page 106 to page 190, includes lengthy discussions
of crossbreeds, and al-Ji refers to it as the merits and defects of eunuchs
(masin al-kha wa-maswhi). 24 There is thus no discursive response before al-Ji
launches into a performance of the speakability of eunuchs and cross-breeds, the
creatures that the hostile Addressee had just suggested were the most unspeakable
and unworthy of scholarly discourse. Al-Jis chapter on eunuchs (and

I:106:3-5.
I:166:12. See Geries, Un Genre Littraire, for the phrase merits and defects of as a
genre designation.
23
24

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crossbreeds I must add) is eminently scholarly, the narration of a full file of texts
and observations on the topic culled from a broad range of sources. 25
After the chapter on eunuchs and cross-breeds, we return again to hear more
of the Addressees critique before al-Ji launches into his discursive response.
You said: If the dog were to have a complete predatory essence
(man) and nature, then it would not: be friendly with
humans, be averse to predators, hate thickets, frequent
houses, fear deserted areas, avoid wastelands, and frequent
meeting-places and courtyards. If it had a complete prey
essence (man) in its nature (al-ab), its behaviors (al-khuluq),
and its diet, then it would not eat animals or attack people.
Yes, for a dog will even attack and leap upon its owner and
attack its family. 26
Already this passage contains a transition from the theme of the dog as
intercategory to a more general list of the dogs faults (masw): The dog attacks its
owners, drinks human blood, is treacherous, is a thief, exhibits thieving behavior
like being nocturnal and digging, eats human flesh, exhibits its greed by sniffing,
sniffs other dogs anuses, is greedy for the cruel gifts of its human tormentors, is not

I dont intend here to suggest that because it narrates a file the chapter is not
structured and composed.
26
I:190:12-191:2. My translation.
25

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what the Qurn referred to when commanding that we give a share of our property
to the deprived (al-marm), 27 and is repulsive to any but the grossly ignorant.
These faults are not presented discretely, but rather one draws the next
behind it, so that they depend on and complement one another to characterize the
dogs nature. Here, the dogs failure to be completely predator or completely prey is
indicated by the way it attacks and eats its owners, after having been friendly with
them, preferring human company to the wilds. Montgomery explains this as the
dogs becoming rabid, which is likely correct. However, the text presents it not as a
disease, even though rabies was understood as a disease (d) at the time. 28 Instead
dogs aggression appears as an integral part of the dogs nature, through the proverb
Fatten your dog and it will eat you, 29 and associated poems. The hostile Addressee
juxtaposes this proverb against a proverb that describes a complementary fault of
the dog, also cited with accompanying poetry: The dog grows fat during its familys

Qurn, Marij, 70:25.

Cf. II:5:6.
29
I:191:15.
27
28

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hunger. 30 This refers to times of camel plague, when the camel owners begin to
starve but the dogs grow fat on beasts that died from the disease. Between these
two proverbs, we learn that the dogs best interest is the opposite of its owners best
interest. Contrary to the ethic demanded by adab, of loving your friends and hating
your enemies, while always accurately distinguishing between the two, the dog here
is presented as a creature that hates its friends. The Addressee tells us that given
these clear dangers, people only take in a dog so that it can warn them about where
thieves are located and yet the dog is a guard that must be guarded against due to
its thieving nature. 31 This neat formulation, ris mutaras minhu, emphasizes the
opposition of these characteristics, reminding us of our theme, that the dog has two
characters, and is a friend and an enemy in one.
Not only does the dog steal from its owners (food, one assumes) but its very
nature is thieving as we can see from its nocturnal habits and its compulsion to dig.
In ninth century Baghdad, thieves often entered peoples dirt-floor houses by
digging under the walls. This is of course a perfect figure for the intercategory: Ibn
30
31

I:192:7.
I:192:10; 9.

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al-Muqaffa may think that the walls of a house can firmly separate individuals into
discrete categories, but the dog digs under the walls, moving between inside and
outside, room and room, category and category. The only examples of what dogs
actually steal are dung and tripe, and human flesh. I suspect that this last example
refers to dogs stealing corpses, whether from the battle-field or elsewhere,
though it may also refer to rabid dogs biting people. In any case, this provides a
transition to the theme of the dog as desiring disgusting things. The Addressee goes
on to accuse the dog of day-time thievery as well, citing as evidence the dogs habit
of sniffing the ground, on the assumption that it sniffs to find something to steal.
But it combines night-time thievery with daytime thievery.
You never see it walking (in a storage space, a kitchen, the
courtyard of a house, the street, a wasteland, on the top of a
mountain, or in the depth of a valley) without its snout to the
ground, sniffing and snuffling (whether the terrain is clay and
pebbles, or smooth desert, or rocky and level) eagerly,
greedily, with gluttony and desire. 32
This dramatization of the dogs desire as theft shifts smoothly into a horrified
account of the disgusting things the dog desires: the anuses of other dogs, and the

32

My translation. I:193:1-6.

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cruel stones thrown at it by enemies. Not only does it hate its friends and destroy
them; it also loves its enemies, invites cruelty upon itself, and desires the most
horrible objects: excrement and human corpses.
This is not a scattered list of miscellaneous faults, but rather an interlinked
set of characteristics that amount to the dog encroaching on the nature of humans.
Not only is the dog extraordinarily friendly with human beings. It is also like
humans in that it is unpredictable, neurotic, self-destructive, and perverse. And
furthermore, the Addressees emphasis on the dog bucking the sabu-bahma
dichotomy suggests another way in which the dogs intercategory features make it
too-human: In the taxonomy of being discussed in Chapter Two, humans are the
only creature to escape the universal dichotomy of animals into sabu and bahma,
and thus the dogs purported intercategory status between these categories makes it
similar to humans in another way besides its psychological complexity and
capriciousness.
We can look to the genre of animal fables for evidence that humans were
seen to be self-destructive in ways that animals simply were not. In Kalla wa-Dimna,

206

for example, such behaviors are typically highlighted as being exemplary for the
human readers because they divert from the naturalistic behavior of animals. Real
animals naturally fear their predators and are aggressive to competitors and prey.
They avoid harmful things and seek beneficial things. Thus when the bird in Kalla
wa-Dimna gets killed for trying to tell its natural predators, the monkeys, that a
firefly is not a spark of fire, 33 or when the turtle falls to his death because he tried to
make a rejoinder to an insult, 34 we recognize these as essentially human behaviors.
The folly of these impulses to have the last word, or to correct other people, in
contrast to animal impulses like fearing predators, becomes all the more clear when
one tries to imagine an animal indulging in them. The animal example is thus a
perfect illustration for humans of the adab ideal of regulated behavior:
distinguishing between friends and enemies; fearing and hating enemies; and loving
and helping friends. In this context, the dog is a totally deviant animal, according to
the Addressees portrayal, because it harms its friends and fawns on its enemies. It
is utterly confused and perverted from a natural set of desires and fears.
33
34

Ibn al-Muqaffa, Kalla wa-Dimna, 107-8.

Ibn al-Muqaffa, Kalla wa-Dimna, 101-2.

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Al-Ji may have something along these lines in mind when he responds to
the Addressee as follows:
You noted that one of the motives you had for disapproving of
[the dog and the rooster] and expressing amazement at their
behaviour was the contemptible worthlessness of the dog and
the stupidity and folly of the rooster, that the dog was neither
fully a bahma nor fully a sabu, that the extent of its sociability
with humans was such as to remove it in a certain sense from
inclusion in the category (add) of dog and to put it under the
category of human. 35
The Addressee nowhere directly accuses the dog of being too human, yet al-Ji
here smoothly equates the charge of being intercategory to a charge of being too
human, and thus also of straddling the divide between humans and animals. AlJi here assumes that the dog is rightly classed as a predator (sabu), and
acknowledges that the dog possesses the trait of friendliness, something that is not
normally proper to predators.
The dog is a predator (sabu) even though it is sociable to man,
but one or two features similar to some of mans natural
qualities (abi) do not go so far as to remove it from the
category of dogness (kalbiyya). (He said.) The same holds for
the whole lot. You know how the insides of the dog resemble
35

I:211:3-7.

208

the insides of a man and how the exterior appearance of the

monkey resembles the exterior appearance of a man. But
not even the monkey, despite this extensive closeness, reaches
the point at which it will be removed from the one of the
categories of monkey and included in the categories of man. 36
This friendliness with humans could be ascribed to a prey-leaning character, as the
hostile Addressee suggests, which makes it too-human in a roundabout kind of way;
or its friendliness could be described simply as one way in which the dog resembles
humans, as al-Ji suggests. In this passage, al-Ji points out that the Addressees
complaints rest on a perception that the dog is eerily human-like.
The Addressee names some faults of the rooster as well in this passage, and
claims that the rooster is intercategory because it does not fly well and possesses
none of the virtues proper to birds (monogamy, beauty, song, and familial affection).
The Addressee compares the rooster to the classic example of birds that are not
birds mentioned in the taxonomy: the bat.
The bat is hairless and smooth but is very skilled in flight
whereas the rooster is covered in feathers but does not fly!
What could be more amazing than a feathered creature that

36

I:215:1-4; 11-12.

209

never gets off the ground and a creature with skin that is
airborne? 37
The Addressee here presents a description of the relation between humans and
animals that is tellingly distinct from al-Jis understanding of man as microcosm.
He writes that humans combine all the good qualities, and that when an animal
resembles humans, this is a virtue for the animal. He uses the same word for
resemblance (mushkala) that al-Ji does in his response to describe the way that
all animal traits are represented in mankind. Thus for the rooster, the hostile
Addressee claims to find fault with its failure to resemble humans. It resembles
humans so little, in fact, that it is almost machine-like in its predictability. It has
only the simplest passions, as it cannot recognize its own offspring and thus has no
family affection. Its desire is only for the sex act itself. The hostile Addressee thus
paints the dog and the rooster as the most complex and the simplest creatures, the
most and the least human-like. In his response, al-Ji does not respond to the
imbecilic simplicity of the rooster, or treat this as the converse of the dogs toohuman complexity. Instead, he lumps the roosters imbecility along with a number
37

194:9-10.

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of other specific faults of the two animals, and excuses himself for not responding to
these critiques immediately, on the grounds that doing so would anticipate the
actual Dog-Rooster Debate itself. As we saw, he does however point out the
Addressees subtextual idea that dogs are too similar to human beings, thus
undercutting his untenable idea that humans are all good, and resemblance to them
is always good. The Addressees deluded belief that humans are composed only of
good qualities resembles his fatuous wish that the world be entirely beneficial in the
immediate term. Al-Ji rejects this wish in his malaa argument, discussed below.
The Dogs Combination of Opposites, and Man as Microcosm
I have already cited some key passages from al-Jis microcosm argument
in order to support my interpretation that al-Ji saw the Addressees horror of the
intercategory as based in a sense that intercategory creatures were too-human. I
will therefore finish discussing this argument now, before returning to discuss the
rest of his arguments in the order that they are presented in the ayawn.
Al-Ji rejects the idea of the intercategory as a qualitatively distinct
category, despite his acceptance of it as a logical or genetic designation in the cases

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we saw in Chapters One and Two. The dogs psychological complexity and its
(purported) bucking of the fundamental dichotomy within the animal kingdom are
both examples of the dogs combining opposite character traits: It is both friendly
and aggressive, a guardian to be guarded against, loyal and treacherous, and so on.
The very presence of opposing traits in the dog could already be considered toohuman, in that humans are primarily defined, according to al-Jis theoretical
response to the Addressee, by their combination of opposing character traits.
According to al-Jis theory, humans are distinguished from other
creatures by being a microcosm of Creation, combining all the traits specific to the
various distinct animals. Humans are the ones who are rightly two-faced by every
measure, combining the extremes on every spectrum. He provides a vertiginous
list of spectrum-defining oppositions in human character as a support for this idea. 38
Ultimately, his argument against the dogs being too-human rests on the variety
within this list of oppositions. Al-Ji writes of the opposing character traits in

38

Montgomery, In Praise of Books, chapter 6.

212

humans that their number cannot be listed, and their limit is unknown. 39 Thus for
the dog, having one or two traits 40 similar to humans does not make it unusually
similar to humans, and certainly not too-human in the eerie and psychological sense
suggested by the addresee. The dogs combination of aggression and friendliness is
just one opposition, a drop in the ocean compared to the full range of opposing traits
that defines mankind as a microcosm of Creation. Indeed, the list of opposing
character traits in humans starts out with the same qualities of loyalty and
treachery the Addressee described in the dog:
[man] contains the natural qualities (abi) of intelligence
and foolishness, loyalty and craftiness, good counsel and
deception, fidelity and treachery, duplicity and sincerity, love
and hate 41
But the list of oppositions in human character goes on from this start into a diverse
and lengthy list that far outstrips the meagre portion of self-contradictory behavior
exhibited by the dog.

I:214:16.
I:215:1.
41
I:214:3-4.
39

40

213

Many of the key moments in the Dog-Rooster Debate employ a similar

argumentative strategy, in which one party has made an argument based on several
examples, but the other partys rejoinder involves such a deluge of counterexamples as to create a new reality, sweeping away or incorporating those few
examples within a mass of examples the very volume of which demands an entirely
new interpretation. In this case, the Addressee cited the dogs combination of
friendliness and aggression to argue that the dog was unusually like humans; the
lengthy and varied list of human character traits al-Ji provides makes this claim
absurd. The few examples presented by the Addressee are enough to prove that the
dog is self-contradictory in certain aspects, and similar to humans in certain aspects.
But as far as suggesting a too-human quality for the dog, they are insignificant. The
key to such argumentation is to effectively build an overwhelming list, and this
requires a balance of patterning against surprising variety, so that the reader is
forced to pay close attention rather than understanding the message right at the
start and thus relaxing. At every turn, a new dimension to the lists
comprehensiveness must appear. In this case, al-Ji explicitly tells us that he has

214

ended the list arbitrarily because one could go on forever. The explicit comment is
not entirely necessary, however, since the style itself provides this sense of infinity.
Three striking lists of oppositions occur in the introduction to the ayawn. The
first is the famous list of what a book can provide: the voices of opposing kinds of
people. 42 The second is a list of oppositions within Gods creation, 43 and the third is a
41F

42F

list of the opposing animal characteristics found in man as microcosm. 44

43F

Al-Ji supplements the lists demonstration of the meagerness of his

opponents examples with a theoretical discussion of the inevitability of an animal
having overlapping traits with humans, due to humanitys status as microcosm,
combining the traits of every animal. Any trait an animal possesses is bound to be
present in humans as well, if humans are truly the microcosm. There are thus plenty
of animals with similarities to humans, and sometimes these similarities can be quite
extreme, as in the case of the monkey which laughs, imitates, and uses its hands
similarly. Yet the monkey does not thereby stop being a monkey and become partly
I:39:1-12.
Dispersed in these locations: I:204:1-3; I:206:3-6; 207:2-5. For the history of using
oppositions in nature to prove Creation, see Davidson, Proofs of Eternity, 146-153.
44
I:214:1-16.
42
43

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man. The monkey is a monkey and the man is a man, and their relation is merely a
specific resemblance which does not bleed into a more general consanguinity or
merging of identity.

Al-Jis Theory of Benefit (Malaa)

Al-Jis first argument that the Dog-Rooster Debate is worthwhile is the
malaa argument. In it, he shows that the dog and the rooster are no less worthy of
discussion than any other animal, and that creation is worth discussing since it gives
knowledge about the Creator. This argument affirms that the dog and the rooster
are just as important to study as any other animal, and that great wisdom is
available in the study of any animal but it does not clarify how this is so, or what
kind of knowledge al-Ji has in mind. 45 Ormsby and Geries have both summarized
al-Jis position accurately, 46 and I repeat their effort here only to put the
argument in context of the dispute over the Dog-Rooster Debate, and to investigate
more thoroughly the concept of totality that is employed in this passage. Little
More details do appear later on, in the conclusion to the Dog-Rooster Debate at
II:109-116, and at III:199-304, as cited by Geries, 35-54.
46
Cf. Ormsby, Theodicy, 223-225; Geries, Un Genre Littraire, 35-54; Davidson, Proofs for
Eternity, 233.
45

216

attention has been paid to al-Jis comparison, within the argument, of creation,
composed as it is of beings, to a body composed of atoms. This comparison,
however, is key to understanding the way in which al-Ji sees creatures as both
equivalent and differentiated. I argue that at the heart of all of this is a recurring set
of questions that al-Ji cares about, regarding how things (atoms, bodies,
characteristics, opinions, list elements) combine. His thinking about this question of
the various ways to add things together is deeply influenced by contemporary
physical theory, and he applies principles from physical theory to other,
macroscopic, domains.
Al-Ji starts by arguing that mankinds benefit lies in a combination of
beneficial and harmful things, thus showing that even harmful creatures are
ultimately in mankinds best interest. In doing so, he describes the world as:
an admixture of the good with the bad, the harmful with the
beneficial, the unpleasant with the pleasing, the low with the
high, the abundant with the meagre. 47

47

I:204:1-3.

217

His list of oppositions mirrors the Addressees previous complaints against the dog:
that it is harmful to people, lowly and vile, and generally worthless. Later on in the
argument, al-Ji reiterates similar lists to this one, this time including the
opposition sociable and savage (munis wa-mish),the same terms we saw
determining the distinction between bahim, which are considered sociable, and
sib, considered savage:
pleasurable and painful, sociable and savage, small and
contemptible and large and important, between an enemy
lying in ambush and a reasoning intellect which guards you,
between a confederate who protects you and an ally who
supports you 48
Here, the last elements of the list illustrate with clear imagery the points about
relativity that Geries highlights: these positive and negative traits are only positive
and negative relative to mankind, whereas all of Creation is equal in the eyes of God,
differing only in its degree of obedience. 49 Al-Ji writes,
But these are merely differences which God the Exalted has
placed in the eyes of men, distinctions He has introduced into
the natures of His bondsmen. Some He has made closer to
48

49

I:206:3-6.
Geries emphasizes this idea of relative characteristics, Un Genre Littraire, 44-47.

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them in likeness, others keep the company of man, and yet

others are savage. He has made some nourishing, others
deadly. 50
This last line clearly distinguishes between animals that eat humans and animals
that are eaten by humans a distinction, in other words, between predator and
prey. Al-Ji here uses the ambivalent connector of the list form, and (wa-), to
ambiguously suggest an equivalence between sociable and savage and that which
is beneficial and harmful to man. In doing so, he confirms the categories of sabu
and bahma that were introduced in his Taxonomy of Being, but deprives these
categories of objective reality, at least when they are considered to be equivalent to
animals that are eaters of vs. eaten by mankind. The distinction between beneficial
and harmful is here revealed to be relative to mankind and thus of no absolute value.
As he expresses it here, all beings are equivalent in their relation to God, since He
has only distinguished them in the eyes of humans. This recognition of the
equivalence of creatures in signifying God has led to interpretations, such as pseudoJis Kitb al-Dalil wal-Itibr, which discover in each individual creature wonders

50

I:207:2-4.

219

that indicate a providential Creator. This interpretation is supported by al-Jis

description of the wonders to be found in a mosquitos wing.
Triq al-Numn asks, however, quite reasonably, how this philosophy could
be an adequate prelude to the Dog-Rooster Debate, and indeed the ayawn as a
whole, which operates within a comparative logic, examining the relations between
animals. Numn is correct to note, as Geries does as well, that the Dog-Rooster
Debate, and indeed the ayawn as a whole, is preoccupied with comparisons
between animals. Moreover, Numn asks, if each creature equally signifies God,
why study all the animals in the first place why not just stop after examining one
of them? His answer is that the animals do not each signify God, but rather the
complex relations of similarity and difference among them does. The totality
signifies God, not each individual creature. 51 In what follows I will show that this is a
misreading of al-Jis text in fact, he explicitly tells us that each creature
signifies God individually. Nonetheless, the questions Numn poses are in fact

51

Numn, Mafhm al-Majz, 194-200.

220

crucial questions and can lead to deeper understanding of the motivations behind
the Dog-Rooster Debate.
Equivalence and Differentiation Among Created Beings
Al-Ji argues that every creature is equally valuable in 1) contributing
toward a total creation that is perfectly disposed for mankinds benefit (tamm almalaa) 52 and 2) providing wisdom to those who pay attention. 53 Al-Ji suggests
that these two functions are linked, and to show the link, he makes a comparison to
physical theory.
He starts the argument by explaining good and evil are both needed for a
world perfectly disposed for mankinds benefit:
Know that wellbeing (malaa), from the beginning of the
world to the end of its term, is an admixture of the good with
52

I:206:6.
Al-Jahiz thus expresses the doctrine that the benefit (al) in this world is perfect,
but he avoids discussing Gods power hypothetically to create the world differently,
which was a much-disputed point in kalm. For overviews, see Brunschvig,
Mutazilism et lOptimum. Watt, al-Ala, EI2. Ormsby, Theodicy. Geries argues
that al-Jahiz followed al-Nams doctrine on Gods power to create a different
world as opposed to Ab Hudhayls but in my view al-Jahiz here sticks firmly to the
perfection of the world that does exist, and does not touch upon Gods disputed
power to do otherwise. Geries, Un Genre Littraire, 43.
53

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the bad, the harmful with the beneficial, the unpleasant with
the pleasing, the low with the high, the abundant with the
meagre. If badness were unadulterated, creation would
perish. If goodness were pure, the trial of mankind (mina)
would become invalid and the reasons and stimuli (asbb) of
thought would be cut off. With the absence of thought would
come the absence of wisdom (ikma). 54 When choice (takhyr)
goes, distinctions between people (tamyz) go too. The scholar
would be left without prudence, suspension of judgement
(tawaqquf) and learning, and there would be no knowledge. 55
Al-Ji argues here that without a mixture of good and evil, there would be no
testing of mankind on earth, and thus there would be no stimulus to seek knowledge
in order to succeed in the face of this testing, and ultimately therefore, no
knowledge. The distinct qualities of being human reason and agency are for alJi bound up with our position as creatures rational enough to undergo moral
testing on earth. While both are important, agency ultimately goes back to reason as

This term ikma is usually used for wisdom or providence in the global sense, as
when an unnamed Mutazil is cited offering the opinion that Gods cursing kuffr in
this life in the Qurn is justice (adl) and wisdom (ikma) but not the optimum
(ala) or benefit (al) or benificence (nima) or mercy (rama) for them. AlAshar, Maqlt 349:4ff. In this passage, justice and wisdom are perceived as global,
whereas the optimum, benefit, benificence, and mercy are considered with regard to
each individual.
55
I:204:1-6.
54

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well, since the first obligation that we can choose to fulfill is the obligation to think
about and discern moral law. 56 This argument reflects the dominant Mutazil
position prior to al-Jubb, according to al-Ashars account. This position stated
that it is impossible for God to have created us directly in Heaven with the
undeserved benefaction of pleasure rather than deserved reward. 57 The kind of
perfectly good world that al-Ji rejects is logically equivalent to humans being
created directly in Heaven.
The cause-and-effect part of this list of consequences ends here, and the next
list elements read as a description of this world without evil. In it, humans have
everything they need already, so there is no cause for people to communicate, to
avoid harm and acquire benefit, be patient in bad times and grateful in good times,

Ormsby includes only knowledge in his summary. Ormsby, Theodicy, 223. Geries
explains the centrality of knowledge and thought in al-Jahizs ethics, Un Genre
Littraire, 54-57.
57
Al-Ashar, Maqlt, 248:9-249:3. Cf. Montgomery, In Praise of Books, chapter 6, for
an explanation of the term tafaul as undeserved benefaction as opposed to
deserved reward. While this passage is normally placed in the context of the ala
debates between Ab Hudhayl and al-Nam (and Muammar, as Montgomery
points out), it is useful to see that the specific counterfactual of a completely good
world was similarly addressed in kalm.
56

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and to engage in productive debate. 58 In other words, without evil in the world, the
challenges that provoke human activity and thought would no longer produce these
desired effects. 59 He goes on to depict humans under these conditions as inanimate
objects in their lack of agency and reason. 60
Al-Ji then provides a paragraph explaining the idea of totality underlying
the theory that even harmful objects are crucial to a far more beneficial whole. The
paragraph on the idea of totality starts as follows:
Glory be to Him who made the benefits (manfi) in things a
benefaction (nima), and arranged it that their harmful
features (marruh) should derive from the greatest of
benefits (aam al-manfi); who divided them between
pleasurable and painful, sociable and savage, small and
I:204:6-7.
I see two possible ways in which a world of trial (mina) is the precondition for
seeking knowledge: 1) the trial (mina) allows God to command us to seek knowledge
2) the material threats and needs in this world are themselves part of the trial
(mina) we suffer for a later reward, and they provoke thought and agency by
demanding that we avoid harm and seek benefit. I think both are implied here. The
first argument is reflected in the kalm (al-Ashar, Maqlt, 248:13-15; al-Khayy, alIntir, 59:1-9) but in a way that presumes a premise that God cannot be known
necessarily, something that al-Jahiz is reported to have denied. Vajda,
Connaissance Naturelle de Dieu. On the other hand, the effort of reasoning (naar)
is presented here as the main precondition for knowledge.
60
I:204:15-I:205:4.
58
59

224

contemptible and large and important, between an enemy

lying in ambush and a reasoning intellect which guards you,
between a confederate who protects you and an ally who
supports you; who placed complete wellbeing (tamm almalaa) in the whole (al-jam). For the benefaction is made
complete by its being in a state of combination. 61
The beneficial is good already, in a small way, and the harmful derives from the
greatest benefit, namely the conditions for human agency and reason which are
themselves only attained through the combination of good with evil. So far so good.
The next sentence appears to sum up what al-Ji means in describing Creation as a
totality (jam, kull) in its being beneficial for mankind: The whole is invalidated by
the invalidation of any piece of it. Whereas earlier he claimed only that both good

I:206:3-7. James Montgomery has pointed out that the terms kull and jam when
used in this context usually designate finitude rather than any particular relation of
parts to a whole, and are synonymous with finite (mutanh), and possessing a
limit and an end (dh ghya wa-nihya). Thus a finite world in which many parts are
extraneous, or in which there was no total meaning or perfection beyond a random
collection of elements, would still be described as a totality (kull, jam) merely
because it is finite. Al-Ashar, for example, uses the heading Is the benefit (al) a
totality (kull) or not? to introduce a debate about whether there is a finite limit to
the amount of benefit God can provide. (James Montgomery, In Praise of Books,
forthcoming, citing al-Ashari, Maqlt, 249.12ff.) See also: Al-Ashar, Maqlt, 575:78 (l ghya li-dhlik wa-l jam), 576:5-6 (l ghya lahu wa-l kull), 576:11-12 (la-hu ghya
wa-kull wa-jam).
61

225

and evil were necessary in order to incite mankinds activity and reason, here he
claims that each and every part of creation is crucial. Even if the scorpion exists, we
still need the viper. This is then a specification of his previous claim that even bad
things are needed: now, he say that all bad things are needed.
Al-Jis proof for this statement, however, reveals that this is not an
argument about the functionally or even semiotically integral nature of creation,
but rather about the semiotic equivalence of its parts. The proof that all creatures
are equally important to the whole borrows an argument from physical theory.
Because atoms are equivalent in weight, size, and so on, it is impossible to imagine
the loss of one atom in a body without making imaginable the loss of the entire
body. Similarly, it is impossible to imagine the loss of a species without imagining
the loss of Creation as a whole.
The whole is invalidated by the invalidation of any piece of it,
according to a correct line of reasoning and a clear proof: You
see, the whole is simply one added to one added to one,
because the whole is made up of parts, 62 and every body is
Having parts is a standard phrase referring to the divisibility of matter theorized
within physical theory. See, for example, al-Khayy, al-Intir, 10:3 (al-mudatht
dht ab wa-m kna kadhlika fa-wjaba an yakn lahu kull wa-jam).
62

226

composed of atoms. If you permit the removal of one, and the

other is of equal weight with an equal effect, share, and
portion, then you have permitted the removal of the whole.
When you want to remove it the first is no better a place to
start than the second. And the same is true for the second, the
third and the fourth, on and on until you come to the whole
and you have exhausted the totality. 63
If the parts are indistinguishable, then no part can be singled out as dispensable
without making every part dispensable, and this would prove that the whole is
dispensable. Al-Ji then goes on to show that beings in the world are
indistinguishable in the same way that atoms are indistinguishable, because all
beings signify God equally:
Thus it is for <all> implied matters (al-umr al-muammana)
and restricted causes (al-asbb al-muqayyada). 64 Dont you see
that the mountain is no greater an indication of God the
Exalted than the pebble, that the peacock, so greatly admired,
is no greater an indication of God the Exalted than the pig, so
greatly loathed, and that fire and snow, for all that they differ
in terms of coldness and heat, are no different when it comes
to proof and indication? 65

I:206:7-13.
While these phrases are unclear I think they have to do with links between things
things that cause or imply other things.
65
I:206:13-16.
63
64

227

The proof that beings are indistinguishable comes from an epistemological/semiotic

consideration of them. In terms of their ability to signify God and inform humans
about God, every being is exactly the same as any other being. A pebble, a mountain,
a peacock, a pig, fire, and ice are all equally significant of God. (Whether they signify
individually or only in combination is as yet unclear.)
He does not mean that each element is required for the totality to function,
or for the totality to signify God, but rather only that no element is any more
important than any other element. It is only logically, not functionally or
semiotically, that the invalidation of a part invalidates the whole, because the loss of
one part makes logically possible the loss of any other part, leading to the loss of all
parts. Whereas evil is functionally necessary, as we saw in the earlier part of the
argument, each element is only necessary due to a logical equivalence between the
elements. This argument thus refutes the Addressees idea that some animals are
worth studying and others are not, but it does not provide the theory of totality
conveyed by the rhetoric, which leans heavily on the idea that each element has an

228

assigned place in the whole. In this impossible purely good world, things would
lose their apportioned lots and dues, due to a lack of distinction (tamyz). 66
The comparison of creation to a living body does, however, imply more
integration than is proven by the argument itself. By comparing creation as a unity
of beings to a being as a unity of atoms, al-Ji makes a parallel between the finite
totality (kull) of creation and the composite unity (jumla) of a being composed of
atoms. 67 Kalms concept of a being, especially a living being, as a composite of
atoms assumes that there is a way in which the composite being operates as a whole,
namely in the application of terms such as living to it. It is impossible for a part of
the body to be living and the rest dead, in the way that part of it can be one color
and the rest another color. 68 It was not uncommon to compare the totality of
creation to the integral unity of a living being. Al-Nam, for example, uses the
term jumla, applied by Ab Hudhayl and others to the integral unity of a living being,
to refer to the integral totality of creation: God created the world as a totality
I:206:1-2.
Ormsby points this out when he writes, The cosmos is like a living body; to
remove or alter one part is to damage all. Ormsby, Theodicy, 224.
68
For Ab Hudhayls version of this doctrine, see Frank, Created Being, 13-15.
66
67

229

(jumla). 69 By this he means that there is no way to improve on the world as it is,
because the whole fits together perfectly; but God could have created other equally
good worlds instead.
It may seem like a stretch to go from an equivalent importance in signifying
God to an equivalent importance in contributing to benefit (malaa). Atoms are
equivalent in weight, size, and so on, the very features that make them constitutive
of a body. Their equivalence in relevant features is what makes them logically
indispensable to the existence of the body. Since al-Ji has only proven that
beings are equivalent in their semiotic character, for this argument to apply to
beings, their semiotic features must be the the most relevant features making beings
constitutive of Creation. There is a hidden premise here, namely that the
determining factor indicating the existence of Creation is its signifying God. This is
not an outlandish idea for al-Ji to have held, given that the primary way in which
the mixture of good and evil in the world benefits mankind is in forcing him to
reason and learn. And once again, this idea is in line with standard Mutazil

69

Al-Khayy, al-Intir, 52:5-6.

230

doctrine, according to al-Ashar. 70 He writes that most Mutazils opine that it is

impossible for God to create something except for the purpose of His servants
learning and benefiting from it. Thus it is impossible that He should create
something that is indiscernable by the morally responsible (al-mukallafn).
Al-Ji tells us that all creatures are in an equivalent relation to God, except
in the degree of their obedience, disobedience, or exemption from responsibility to
obey. 71 The differences we perceive between the animals were created by God for
us; the animals are distinguished in the eyes of humans. 72 But this act of making
things distinct from one another in how they affect humans, both practically and
emotionally, is itself the very act of creating a world optimally beneficial to humans.
Insofar as the world is created for the benefit of mankind, the natural perceptions of
mankind are relevant in that they reveal what a perfect environment is, even if
these perceptions have no objective truth. Al-Ji also writes here that we can
overcome our relative sensory perception of animals by using reason (aql) to reach
Al-Ashar, Maqlt, 251:6-13, under the heading Creating a Thing Not for the
Purpose of [People] Learning From It. (khalq al-shay l li-yutabar bihi).
71
I:207:11-12.
72
I:207:2-6.
70

231

an objective judgement. 73 Thus humans have access through reason to some divine
judgments of the created world.
The Dog-Rooster Debate is structured as a juxtaposition of these two
judgments of created beings the relative view that arises from sensory perception
and natural reactions, viscerally expressed in poetry and other cultural productions;
and the view of reason, which attempts to even-handedly manipulate these
perceptions through the method of comparison in order to arrive at some
ontological and divinely sanctioned truth. While Gods perspective alone would
simply identify each creature as one of His creations, and a human perspective can
only reveal whether the creature harms or helps us, an examination of the relations
between animals can provide a depiction of the environment God created for
humanitys benefit. As we get to the debate, it will be interesting to see that this
rational process too is primarily focussed on the very materiality of the beings in
question.

73

I:207:2-6.

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Indeed, the only reason al-Ji provides for selecting the dog and rooster,
out of all the equally crucial animals, is that people talk about them a lot. He writes,
We chose two things which are frequently discussed and from
which many lessons have been learned, extracted by scholars
from the secrets hidden in them. If we had combined the
rooster with one of the animals I have mentioned, or the dog
with one of the animals I referred to, the discussion would
have been over before it had reached the stage of comparing
and weighing them up. 74
In other words, these animals are particularly controversial and had already been
heavily discussed. We will see upon examination of the debate itself that they had
been discussed in a wide range of literary and scholarly disciplines, upon which alJi draws heavily. And certainly the Addressee himself provides some evidence of
the intense opinions surrounding the dog. It is likely that the investment people
had in these particular animals for a variety of reasons, evidenced by the fact that
they were frequently discussed, led al-Ji to write about them in order to delve
directly into the doctrinally and politically tinged attitudes people had toward
material reality. But this is not exactly what he says here. Instead, he writes that

74

I:210:16-211:2.

233

the existing knowledge about them allowed the debate partners to progress from a
simple culling of information to the stage of comparing the two animals. Geries is
thus right to emphasis relativity in al-Jis approach to animals, but in positioning
this approach exclusively in opposition to Dualism, Geries reduces the book to a
doctrine. But al-Ji did not simply argue for the relativity of animal
characteristics; he demonstrated the methods for investigating this relativity, and
thus positions his book as an introduction to a new discipline, the study of material
reality, which is distinct from kalm or philosophy, practices that exclusively
operate in the realm of abstraction.
Abstraction vs. Materiality
The Addressees main argument against the Dog-Rooster Debate is that it is a
waste of time for eminent scholars whose expertise is highly needed in important
areas of study. There is a hierarchy in scholarship: dogs and roosters are
unimportant, whereas other things are important. When listing areas of study
neglected by the scholars, the Addressee comes up with a fairly standard set of
topics central to Mutazil doctrine, thus identifying himself as a Mutazil whose

234

main concern is polemical defense of core Mutazil doctrines. All of the examples
he cites are crucial elements of doctrine or crucial to law, and thus had a practical
and direct administrative and political import. The two passages in which he lists
valuable topics of investigation read as follows:
But if we opine that this is permissible and if it is indeed put
into practice, this style of speculation will take the place of
speculating on divine oneness (tawd), and this mode of
discernment (tamyz) will replace distinguishing between
statements implying God is just (tadl) or unjust (tajwr). 75
Discussion of the promise and the threat (al-wad wal-wad)
will cease, analogical reasoning (qiys) and the question of
whether Gods cursing of the unbelievers was a simple naming
or a judgment (al-ukm f al-ism) will be forgotten. 76 Rebuttals

There was a debate about which claims about God were inadmissable since they
implied calling Him unjust (tajwr), or admissible since they implied calling Him just
(tadl). In particular, the debate about whether God could have created a better
world than this one addresses this topic. Geries reads this pair as tadl wa-tajwz,
suggesting that the terms refer not to general principles but to specific doctrines
held by different Mutazils: tadl claims that it is impossible for God to create a
world that is not optimal, while tajwz claims that it is possible. I prefer
Montgomerys tajwr reading. In any case, this debate was likely what al-Jahiz
referred to here. For an overview and references, see Geries, 43, 48-54.
76
The topic was about how to reconcile Gods justice with passages in the Qurn
that say God curses the unbelievers. How can He punish them for disbelief that He
forced upon them? Possible solutions include that God was merely identifying them
(naming them, ism) as the unbelievers that they chose to be; or that the passage
75

235

of the other faith communities and weighing the pros and

cons of creedal systems and even speculation on how people
can best be guided and helped, on what is beneficial and
gainful employment for them, will become futile. This is
because their minds are not expansive enough to <grasp> the
totality (jam) and their tongues cannot express the whole
(kull). The best decision is for you to begin by broaching the
most important and crucial subject first, and then the next
most crucial topic. 77
And you said: It would have been more appropriate if, instead
of speculating on this, they had speculated on divine oneness
(tawid), on refuting anthropomorphism of God (tashbh), on
the promise and the threat (al-wad wal-wad), on determining
whether statements imply God is just or is responsible for
injustice (al-tadl wal-tajwr), on how to verify reports (ta
al-akhbr), and on weighing between the science of natures
(abi) and the doctrine of free will (ikhtiyr). 78
According to the Addressee, kalm practitioners are generally meant to be engaging
in abstract argument, the kind of argument that would prove it is logically
impossible for God to have physical hands (an example of tashbh) or would
determine that it does not imply accusing God of injustice to say He is the Creator of

describes Gods judging them (ukm) for deeds they have accomplished. Al-Khayy,
Kitb al-Intir, 121:14-122:1.
77
1:200:12-19.
78
I:218:3-5.

236

disease (an example of distinguishing tadl from tajwr). Comparative argument

(qiys) likely included hermeneutic challenges with all their specificities, but none of
these examples admit particulars to be important in themselves.
This is essentially a summary of the kind of argumentation we find reported
in the kalm books I have been referencing in this chapter, books like al-Ashrs
Maqlt and al-Khayys al-Intir that narrate the doctrinal positions of kalm
practitioners and the most famous arguments they used to back them up. It is not
clear to what extent kalm practitioners also engaged in debates like the DogRooster Debate that were not entirely abstract, but rather drew on observation and
on cultural reflections on the material world. 79 Al-Jis only direct response to
these claims that material reality is not relevant to doctrine relies on a comparison
to physical theory. The argument takes up significant space, so I will paraphrase it
here in the form of a dialogue, in which al-Ji anticipates two possible answers the
Addressee might give to his dialectical question:

79

Geries, 13-18.

237

Addressee: What value could the two sheikhs possibly see in

the dog that they devote such attention to it? 80
Ji: What is so valuable and significant about the atom
(an indivisible particle drawn from the sands of lij),
infinitessimal distance and Zenos paradox (the smallest
segment from when the ant begins to move to a distant
location), and a depthless surface, that venerable sheikhs
and men of mature dignity and eminence should devote their
time to controversies (jidl) regarding it as opposed to
fulfilling the pillars of religion? 81
Addressee (possibilities #1): They should not be studying
atoms, Zenos paradox, or surfaces in the first place. 82
Ji: You are so misguided that I cannot refute you in the
time allotted here. 83
Addressee (possibility # 2): Even though an atom is valueless
and small, studying it gives us knowledge about the
knowledge of finitudes (nihyt); 84 the topic of the whole and
the part 85 and of what has been and what will come to be; 86 the
topic of what knowledge can contain and what is too abundant

I:216:9-10.
81
I:216:10-217:1.
82
I:217:1-2.
83
I:217:2-4.
84
Although modern Arabic associates the synonyms nihya and ghya with teleology,
kalm used these terms synonymously with kull and jam to indicate finitude.
85
The whole and the part usually refers to the science of physical theory in
general.
86
Past and future were important concepts in discussions of the finitude of the world
and the physical theory of change specifically, whether things can stop existing.
Cf. Al-Khayy, al-Intir, 14:6-16:18, especially 15:18-16:12.
80

238

for it; 87 and knowledge of the distinction between the

approach of the Eternalists and the approach of those who
profess divine oneness. 88
Ji: The same is true of the dog and the rooster. 89
Physical theory had indeed provided arguments in the topics listed here within
kalm circles, mainly because it was under the rubric of physical theory and Zenos
paradox that the logical consequences of finitude and infinity were elaborated.
Only one example directly references a polemic against unbelievers, namely the
Dahriyya (here called Eternalists) who insisted that the universe was uncreated
and pre-eternal and would persist eternally, and that therefore there was no logical
necessity for the existence of God. While there was a strong tradition of argument
from design in Islamic culture broadly speaking, I know of only one argument

Gods knowledge was considered to be infinite, and what it is logically possible for
Him to know was a common source of debate. He knew creation, but whether this
was a finite or infinite knowledge was debated; knowing Himself would certainly be
an infinite knowledge, but it was debated whether it is logically possible for a being
to be both the Knower and the Known. Mans knowledge was agreed to be finite, and
therefore incapable of encompassing complete knowledge of God. I do not know of
any discussions of mans capacity for knowing Creation, though that topic seems
very relevant to al-Jahizs discussion below.
88
I:217:4-9.
89
I:217:9-16.
87

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against the Dahriyya that draws on physical theory to make its point, and this was
the refutation of the Dahriyya mounted by al-Jis teacher al-Nam, who
effectively made his kalm career on various applications of Zenos paradox. AlNam asked the Dahriyya whether planets all travel at the same speed, or whether
some move faster than others. Whatever answer is given implies comparing the
total distances travelled by the planets, which itself implies a starting point, since it
is impossible to compare two infinites. 90
Most arguments based in physical theory shared the same focus on the
logical consequences of finitude, infinity, and geometric principles. It is difficult to
see how the wide application of geometric and mathematical principles in abstract
For the history of this type of argument, see Davidson, Proofs of Eternity, 117-127.
This kind of bijection (one to one mapping) of infinite sets provides one way to solve
Zenos paradox: each moment in infinitely divisible time can be mapped to each
point in infinitely divisible space, thus allowing a finite distance to be crossed in a
finite amount of time despite its infinite divisibility. Al-Nam did understand the
concept of matching two infinities, as evidenced by his defense of physical
proportion despite infinite divisibility. He writes that a mountain is greater than a
mustard seed; half a mountain is greater than half a mustard seed; one fifth of a
mountain is greater than one fifth of a mustard seed, and so on. (Al-Khayy, alIntir, 36:3-9.) However, he did not conceive of matching the infinite divisibility of
time to the infinite divisibility of space, and therefore had to resort to his theory of
the jump (al-afra) to escape Zenos paradox. Cf. Dhanani, Physical Theory, 167-181.
90

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doctrinal reasoning could be used to defend the study of specific creatures like the
dog and the rooster. Any consensus about physics (e.g. whether space is infinitely
divisible or divided into discrete locations) has clear applications in making
arguments about finitude and infinity, and thus about Gods infinite knowledge and
power. This is because knowledge of any space or any atom is generalizable to all
space and all atoms. I suspect that al-Ji saw himself presenting a debate that was
ultimately about the nature of material beings broadly speaking. The principles for
understanding dogs and roosters were the same as those for understanding any
animal, particularly the principle that their capacities and significances were known
by their perceptible features and behavior, not by mystical hints offered by dubious
religious authorities. 91 In summary, al-Ji argues that if you value the material
world enough to investigate atoms, space, and time, then you must value it enough
to investigate the larger conglomerations of atoms called animals. Even so, it is hard
to imagine that discovering the nature of material beings could provide ammunition
for the abstract doctrinal debates dear to the Addressees heart.

91

More on this in Chapter Four.

241

Balancing Ones Attention and Listing

Al-Ji offers another argument for the study of material beings, but this
argument is based on an assumption that totality can only be achieved through the
combination of parts in this case, that total knowledge can only be achieved
through the combination of knowledges about parts. Unlike the philosphers we saw
in Chapter Two, who believed that particulars (juziyyt) were inappropriate to
metaphysical study because they are infinite in number, most kalm practitioners
assumed that the world was finite in size, and composed of a finite number of atoms
and accidents. 92 Debates on the finitude or infinite of Gods knowledge were rife in
kalm circles, but the general consensus at this time seems to have been that since
creation is finite, Gods knowledge of creation is finite, though His knowledge of His
infinite Self was of course infinite. 93

Al-Kind did indeed write many works on material reality, but they can be
subsumed within the domain of crafts, and thus exhibit the tendency derided by alJahiz to value material reality only for its immediate benefit rather than for its
contribution to a beneficial or signifying totality. Adamson, 8. Al-Jahizs teacher alNam was the chief opponent of the doctrine of atomism within the kalm
community, but he too believed in the finite size of the universe.
93
Al-Khayy, al-Intir, 8:17ff.
92

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The Addressees case against studying material reality in detail rests on two
grounds: first, the details of material reality are doctrinally irrelevant and thus (I
infer) irrelevant to the immediate political concerns of the court; and second, it is
impossible to study everything, so the most important things must be considered
first. It is impossible to cover everything not because particulars are infinite, but
because [the scholars] minds are not expansive enough to <grasp> the totality (aljam) and their tongues cannot express the whole (al-kull), as the Addressee puts
it. 94 As we saw earlier, the terms jam and kull were habitually used to refer to Gods
finite but super-human knowledge about creation. Since the finite totality of
knowledge is out of reach for humans, scholars should study the most important
things first, and those are matters relevant to doctrine and government.
Ab Hudhayl is the scholar who left the greatest mark in arguing for the
finitude of the universe, and thus the finitude of Gods knowledge of the universe
and Gods power over the universe. Al-Khayy records two arguments Ab Hudhayl
made in favor of the finitude of the universe. First, all created things are observed

94

I:200:17-19.

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to be divisible (to have parts, ab), and divisible things inevitably have a totality
(kull wa-jam) which implies finitude. Second, the Qurn itself implies the finitude
of the universe:
Another of [Ab Hudhayls] proofs for this is the word of God,
may He be noble and great: For God has power over all (kull)
things, 95 and [He] knows all (kull) things, 96 and [He]
encompasses all (kull) things, 97 and [He] lists the number of
all (kull) things. 98 [Ab al-Hudhayl] said: It is established with
the word of God, the Glorious and Majestic, that things (alashy) have a finite totality (kull), and He affirmed Himself to
know and encompass [that totality]. Listing and encompassing
are only possible for a finite thing (mutanhin) with a limit
(ghya). 99
Ab Hudhayl here takes the every (kull) in every thing to imply a finite set of
things drawing on the use of the term kull to mean finite totality in kalm discourse.

inna llhu al kulli shayin qadrun. A common Qurnic refrain closing a verse,
which occurs at: al-Baqara 2:20, 2:109, 2:148 l Imrn 3:165, al-Nal 16:77, alMuminn 24:45, al-Fir 35:1.
96
bi-kulli shayin almun. A common Qurnic refrain closing a verse, which occurs at:
al-Baqara 2:29, 2:231, 2:282, al-Nis 4:176, al-Mida 5:97, al-Anm 6:101,
al-Anfl 8:75, al-Tawba 9:115, al-Muminn 24:35, 24:64, al-Ankabt 29:62,
al-Shuar 42:12, al-Hadd 57:3 al-Mujdila 58:7, al-Taghbun 64:11.
97
bi-kulli shayin muun. Qurn, Fuilat 41:54.
98
wa-a kulla shayin adadan. Qurn, al-Jinn 72:28.
99
al-Khayy, al-Inir, 10:6-10.
95

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(Gods knowledge of each thing cannot itself prove the finitude of things, assuming,
as the theologians did, that Gods capacity for knowledge was infinite.) Ab Hudhayl
supports this reading of kull by pointing to the Qurns use of the terms list and
encompass, which imply a limit. Moreover, the Qurn uses the word a to refer
to Gods knowledge of each creatures every deed, good or bad, in Srat Maryam:
Not one of the beings in the heavens and the earth but must
come to (Allah) Most Gracious as a servant.
He does take an account of them (all) and hath numbered
them (all) exactly. (la-qad ahum wa-addahum addan)
And everyone of them will come to Him singly on the Day of
Judgment. 100
The term was thus already closely associated with Gods knowledge of earthly
particulars.
This discussion of the term every or all (kull) designating a finite totality,
and of the link between listing (al-i) and a finite totality was all designed to
elucidate the conception of the world that mainstream scholars in al-Jis day

100

Qurn, Maryam 19:93-95.

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held: it was a finite totality of things (ashy) 101 which could be listed by God.
Implicit in the Qurnic verses is the idea that in fact it is only God who can list the
number of all things.
Al-Ji discusses the totality of knowledge of creation in his interpretation
of the Qurnic metaphor of all the earths trees as pens and the ocean as ink:
Now God the Exalted has said: If all the trees in the world
were reed pens and the ocean <ink>, with seven seas more
replenishing it, still Gods expressions would not be
exhausted. 102 By the word expressions on this occasion He
does not mean speech and words composed of letters. He
means blessings, wonders, attributes and so on. As for a
totality (kull) of these kinds of things: If a man with a fine
tongue, a pure intelligence, sound thoughts and perfect
equipment, were to study it, he would be incessantly worn out
by thoughts, drowned in wisdom. 103
Whereas the Qurns metaphor of ocean as ink and trees as pens could well be
interpreted as simply indicating the greatest humanly imaginable amount of written
wisdom, al-Ji here denies that the text refers to writing at all, instead reading the

Thing (shay) was a technical kalm term designating existence but not
necessarily extension.
102
Qurn, Luqmn 31:27.
103
I:209:12-210:2.
101

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passage as an indication that actual trees, the actual ocean, along with the rest of the
physical world, are all themselves signs of a wisdom great enough to drown a man.
This is al-Jis image of a human being attempting comprehensive knowledge of
creation, through the study of the parts that make up creation. This scholar would
be incessantly overwhelmed, never ceasing to acquire new thoughts and new
wisdom, presumably until this experience of learning was cut short at the end of his
days. Al-Ji does not here specify that this hypothetical perfect scholar would be
able to achieve knowledge of the totality, nor does he specify otherwise. He does
suggest, however, that total knowledge is inexhaustible to this ideal scholar, thus
perhaps implying that a human could never reach the endpoint of acquiring this
knowledge of the totality of creation.
Despite its overwhelmingly large scope, this project of extracting knowledge
from a finite but impossibly large set of elements composing the totality called
creation seems to be precisely what al-Ji envisions as a project for kalm scholars.
He writes that their task is to
divide the whole proportionately and equally and to treat
the entirety fairly by giving every thing its share, so that

247

fairness could be inclusive and justice comprehensive. It is

through this that concealed <aspects> of wisdom (ikam) and
hidden governance (tadbr) can become apparent. 104
As was the case with the beneficial nature (malaa) of creation, and man as
microcosm, we again here have a concept of totality, this time a totality of the
important knowledge that kalm scholars are responsible for managing and
cultivating. According to this passage, this knowledge consists of Gods wisdom
(ikma) and governance (tadbr) toward Creation, as revealed in Creation. To learn
about concealed aspects of this wisdom and governance, scholars must give every
thing its share, being inclusive and comprehensive in assigning each part
attention so that the whole may be understood. The words he uses for the scholars
apportioning their attention (yuqassi, ia, yadil, nab) 105 through the whole
(jam) reflect the same concerns as the vocabulary he uses earlier to express Gods
apportioning of different characteristics among the totality (jam) of His creatures

104
105

I:217:9-11.
I:217:9-11.

248

(qassamah) 106, and the role of atoms in the totality (jam) of a living being (a,
nab). 107
The Whole is Made of Parts (lil-kull ab)
We have now twice seen al-Ji comparing his conception of creation as a
totality to the idea of atoms forming a body: first, he argues that the logical
necessity of each atom implies the logical necessity of each being; and second, he
argues that the utility of studying atoms proves the utility of studying animals.
These are examples of a recourse to the science of parts and wholes that recurs in
many of al-Jis works; indeed, he seems to go out of his way to link various trains
of thought to this more general theoretical concern. Sometimes the links are
spurious (as when they are attributed to misers in Kitb al-Bukhal), while at other
times they are warranted. Clearly these ideas had some cachet; al-Ji himself
indicates this when he relates a story in which Ab Luqmn al-Mamrr claims that
Al was an atom, explaining that he had probably heard scholars discussing the
atom and assumed it was something important, and thus could be equated with a
106
107

I:206:4.
I:206:10.

249

revered religious authority. 108 What interests me here is how al-Ji interprets
physical theory as a model for understanding how parts combine to form wholes,
through addition, or integration, or other types of combination.
In Kitb al-Bukhal, we hear two responses to the story of Maryam al-an
who paid for her daughters wedding apparel by saving a pinch of dough every day,
collecting it into saleable quantities, and selling it. Both responses cite the idea that
a total can be more than the sum of its parts:
Allah has approved of your idea and He set you on the right
path, said her husband. Allah has indeed blessed him with
good fortune to whom you have been a source of comfort, and
He has blessed him to whom you were allotted mate. In this
and like circumstances the Apostle of Allah said: A few shecamels (dhawd) plus a few she-camels (dhawd) make a herd of
camels (ibil). 109
Then one of [the Basran] shaykhs launched forth, saying:
[Good] folk, dont despise small things, for the beginning
(awwal) of any large thing (kabr) is small (aghr) and when
Allah wills to magnify a small thing He magnifieth it, and to
make a few (qilla) multiply (yukaththir) He maketh them
multiply. Are treasuries aught but a dirham alongside a
III:37:8-38:10.
Al-Jahiz, al-Bukhal, 30:14-15, tr. Serjeant, Book of Misers, 25-6. Parenthetical
transliterations are my additions.
108
109

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dirham and is the dirham aught but a qirat alongsite a qirat?

Are a mass of sand (raml lij) and the water of the sea not the
same? Were not the monies of treasuries only amassed by a
dirham from here and there? I have seen a junk merchant
who acquired real estate of one hundred jarbs in the land of
the Arabs. Indeed many a time Ive seen him selling a qrs
worth of pepper and a qrs worth of chick-peas and I know
that he received only a abbah profit on that pepper and
couple of abbahs on a pepper stalk, and he went on gathering
up large dirhams from small ones until they came to [enough]
for him to purchase a hundred jarbs. 110
This kind of faulty logic occurs often throughout the Bukhal, and is called binary
by Michael Cooperson who explains that it assumes that the degree of waste is
immaterial since even a tiny bit of waste makes a person entirely wasteful:
the principle that any act of self-indulgence, no matter how
trivial in itself, will open the door to profligacy. O my son!
says the miser Ab Abd al-Ramn al-Thawr, spending
qrs leads to spending dniqs; dniqs lead to dirhams; and
dirhams lead to dnrs. Spending ten opens the door to
spending a hundred, and a hundred to a thousand, until all the
moneys gone. This statement expresses what might be
called the binary principle of self-restraint: the moment one
spends even a tiny sum, all is lost. Some expenditures are
obviously more ruinous than others, but all belong to the same

Al-Jahiz, al-Bukhal, 31:2-8, tr. Serjeant, Book of Misers, 26. Parenthetical

transliterations are my additions.
110

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category namely isrf (extravagence). Once cannot be just a

little bit musrif. 111
In all of these cases, the problem is that in reality money does actually add up in a
simple additive way. One handful of dough plus another make a double-size handful
of dough, nothing more. One dirham plus another simply makes two dirhams. The
total is exactly the sum of its parts. The faulty logic of the misers lies in applying the
principle of more than the sum of its parts to money, which is the quintessential
example of something that is not more than the sum of its parts. It adds up
quantitatively, with no qualitative leaps.
The Addressee uses a very similar language to the miser cited above when he
argues earlier in the introduction that al-Jis many doctrine-related works
display Shiite tendencies in the way that they relate the opinions and arguments of
the Shiites, particularly the Zayds. He even references the concept of excess (saraf)
as opposed to economy (iqtid), which is one of the central axes of the Bukhal:
You [the Addressee] criticized my Hshim letters, my
argumentation in them, my thoroughness in treating the ideas

111

Cooperson, Jahiz, Misers 210.

252

in them, my forming them in the most beautiful image, and

my displaying them in the most complete dress.
You claimed that in doing this, I went from the category (add)
of the Mutazila into the category of the Zaydiyya, and from
the category of balance in partisanship (al-itidl f al-tashayyu)
and economy (iqtid) in it, into the category of excess (saraf)
and extremism (ifr).
You claimed that the speech of the Zaydiyya was merely a
preface to the speech of the Rafia, and the speech of the
Rafia was merely a preface to the speech of the Ghliya. You
claimed that the root of the issue, and the common course of
events, was that every great matter started out small, and
every numerous thing started out with few gathered to few. 112
In other words, by citing the opinions of the Zaydiyya, al-Ji has started out on the
slippery slope toward becoming a full-on extremist Shiite. Obviously there is in fact
a difference between Zayd and Ghl doctrine, and stating Zayd doctrines twice, or
particularly beautifully, does not add up to a Ghl doctrine. The Addressee here
suspects a gradual shift in affiliation, but expresses it by referencing this trope of
few gathered to few, using the same words as the miser from the Bukhal.
The misers language justifying the idea that the whole can be more than the
sum of its parts is reflected also in arguments made by al-Ji himself in the

112

I:7:10-16.

253

ayawn. The comment about several dhawds of camels making a herd (ibil) recall alJis comments in the taxonomy of being about the term speaking (niq)
applying to animals only collectively, just as the term ana applies only to a group
of departing women in carriages. 113 And in a passage examined earlier in this
chapter, Al-Ji, like the miser, references a mass of sand (raml lij) as being
composed of many tiny grains to express the idea of atoms forming a body. 114 All of
these passages highlight a basic question: When is the total more than the sum of its
parts? In other words, when does addition take place, and when does integration
occur, producing a qualitative change?
The misers confusion is perhaps a faint echo of certain debates in kalm
about cut-off points, when simple addition results in a qualitative change. For
example, religious law stipulated that withholding 5 dirhams or more from the zakt
tax constituted a grave sin, and merited eternal Helfire, whereas anything less was a
minor sin and merely deducted from the persons Heavenly reward. Scholars
inferred that theft of 5 dirhams or more in any context consistuted a grave sin. This
113
114

See Chapter Two, and I:31:5-32:3.

I:116:11, cited above.

254

became logically problematic because whereas zakt occurs yearly so that an

instance is easy to define, theft can happen at any time and in any combination.
Thus some kalm practitioners questioned the logic behind saying that a person who
steals four dirhams, and then another four, has committed two minor sins, whereas
the one who steals all eight at once has committed a grave sin. 115 Al-Nam
similarly believed in a cut-off of 200 dirhams for theft to be considered theft of
wealth (ml), and held that one grain (abba) less would prevent the theft from
being classified among the crimes referenced in Qurn, al-Nis 4:10. 116 That these
opinions were repeated in histories of kalm indicates that they were debated. In
this case an objection is raised by Ibn al-Rwand, but he was likely expressing a
generally shared anxiety about cut-off points. Al-Nam s many arguments
derived from Zenos paradox similarly revolve around the doctrinally tricky
question: How can a set of finites add up to an infinite?
Al-Jis simple comment, a whole [always] has parts (lil-kull ab) is thus
more complex than it may first appear, as it refers to this set of issues. Physical
115
116

Al-Khayy, al-Intir, 92:13-93:3.

Al-Khayy, al-Intir, 93:3-11.

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theory is the reference point to which al-Ji turns in making arguments about
parts and wholes. This is not because his understanding of parts and wholes is
entirely determined by physical theory on the contrary, the complex ways he
shows animals relating to one another within the Dog-Rooster Debate certainly
belies the rigid classification of atom relations that we find in any of the available
atomistic theories of the day. Rather, physical theory was seen as a window into
how parts combine to make wholes, and how this combination results in the many
qualities that make up the material world. For al-Ji, as for many others in his
time, the basis of worldly matters lay in matter itself in atoms, in space, and in the
basic components of the medical temperament.
Against a Hierarchy of Knowledge
Al-Ji concludes the passage by indirectly accusing the Addressee of
indulging in asceticism (nusk). He writes,
I will provide you with a parable, though you have merited a
much rougher response and exposed yourself to a much
severer treatment, but we still have hopes for you and eagerly
anticipate your return.

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We have noticed that all defective people without exception,

no matter what type or group they belong to, have a particular
kind of asceticism which they intend as seemly behaviour,
with which they are satisfied as proper obedience, as their way
of seeking the Reward, and in which they seek refuge. It is
determined by the corruptness of their nature and the
weakness of their primary state and the disorder of their
secondary state, in addition to the vileness of their
upbringing, and by the fact that they so rarely deliberate and
pause before reaching a decision but instead are always
changing their minds and proceeding on the basis of the first
thought that occurs to them. 117
Next comes a list of the asceticisms of kalm practitioners, Khrijs, Khurasns,
and so on, naming various religious, social and political groups. In each case, he
indicates by asceticism a behavior that the person considers pious but which he
performs to an imbalanced and extreme extent. While al-Ji does not make it
clear to which group he believes the Addressee belongs, he does indicate that the
Addressee is exhibiting this kind of automatic, imbalanced, and excessive recourse
to a particular action, under the guise of piety. He concludes the section by writing,

117

I:218:15-219:2.

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But beware lest you become one of them and know that you
resemble them in this respect and are similar to them in this
approach (madhhab). 118
The Addressee has for all intents and purposes identified himself as a Mutazil, and
al-Ji begins and ends his list with descriptions of the kalm practitioners
asceticism:
The asceticism of the dialectician of dubious and suspect
beliefs is to make himself look fine by accusing other people of
dubious beliefs and to preen himself by imputing to his
opponent that which he finds in himself, in fear lest it be
perceived in him. So he conceals this disease by accusing
others of having it. 119
When the dubious dialectician attacks those who are innocent,
he thinks that he has passed his dubiousness onto his
opponent and has attracted his opponents innocence onto
himself. 120
I read this as a multi-layered accusation that the Addressee is wrong to be singleminded in his approach to scholarship. The hierarchy of knowledge he proposes,
that puts abstract doctrinal argument at the top, is incorrect since all things are part

I:220:7-10.
I:219:2-4.
120
I:220:7-8.
118
119

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of the total knowledge of creation that will ultimately reveal God in his Creator
aspect. This single-minded focus on doctrine could itself be considered a kind of
extremisms or asceticism (nusk), but instead of saying this explicitly, al-Ji resorts
to a common accusation made against kalm practitioners: that the insults they toss
at others apply most fittingly to themselves. This argument was a common one in
kalm, as a rejoinder to a successful ilzm (reductio ad absurdum) argument. If your
opponent proves that your doctrine is tantamount to an absurdity, you can avoid losing
the debate by showing that the same argument condemns his doctrine as well. 121
Specifically, what I think al-Ji has in mind is this: Whereas the Addressee had
earlier implied that that two sheikhs are by nature obsessed with dogs and
roosters, 122 al-Ji argues that in fact the accusation of extreme single-mindedness
applies better to the Addressee himself. 123 By contrast, the two sheikhs are
exhibiting balance and justice in how they divide their attention among everything
that exists.

For an example, cf. al-Khayy, al-Intir, 14:6-7: He insulted [Ab Hudhayl] with
that which applied more fittingly to himself.
122
I:201:7-I:202:12.
123
I:218:14-I:220:10.
121

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In sum, al-Ji sees knowledge as a totality composed of equally important

parts, and the dog as an integrated being, whereas the Addressee sees the dog as a
failed combination, and sees knowledge as a hierarchy with some topics taking
precedence over others. The Addressee operates within an exclusive either/or logic,
where a predator may not also be friendly. Al-Ji, on the other hand, has a logic of
inclusion, a logic based on the principle of the connector and with all the many
things that it can signify: addition, integration, accretion, and even more ways of
combining. He includes every being in the totality of knowledge about creation that
he envisions, even those that are in his view truly intercategory, namely the
eunuchs and cross-breeds that he discusses so extensively earlier in the
introduction. And he allows the integration of the dogs features without the kind of
eerie too-human emotional tone that the Addressee associates with the dog.
When a creature exhibits features shared with another creation, al-Jis
and/and logic includes and compares, rather than excluding the creature from
discourse. And he practices an interminable listing as opposed to hierarchical
presentation of information but within these interminable lists, we find that

260

connections and patterns, similarities and contrasts are formed. These principles of
al-Jis style are to a certain degree theorized in the passage I have examined in
this chapter, where al-Ji makes links between the many ways that he espouses
totalities that can exclude nothing: the totality of created beings, the totality of
animal characters represented in mankind, and the totality of knowledge which
demands that scholars make progress by balancing their attention evenly.

261

CHAPTER FOUR: The Intercategory in the Dog-Rooster Debate

We have seen that the introduction to the ayawn uses a debate about the
intercategory in the Dog-Rooster Debate as an occasion to discuss fundamental
questions about the nature of categories, the place of mankind in Creation, and the
way that attributes combine. We should then expect these questions, in the context
of the dispute about the dog as intercategory, to play a significant role in the DogRooster Debate. When al-Ji introduces the two debate partners, he ascribes to
each one a position regarding the dogs classification: the Proponent of the Rooster
claims that the dog is between the categories of predator (sabu) and prey (bahma),
and therefore is horrible, while the Proponent of the Dog insists that the dog is a
predator (sabu). To a certain degree, and in certain passages, the debate mirrors the
dispute we examined in Chapter Three between al-Ji and the Addressee. But the
Proponent of the Rooster goes beyond the psychological characterization of the dog
as too-human that we saw in the Addressees discourses. He reveals a mythology in
which the dog and the human are bound together in a cycle of ingestion, in which
humans can become dog-like; and he suggests that all or some dogs are in fact

262

humans that have been metamorphosed into dog form. They are thus intercategory
between human and animal statuses as well as between sabu and bahma.
I proposed in Chapter Three that al-Ji was presenting a method that he
would demonstrate over the course of the ayawn, by which reason would correct
the natural human-relative impressions expressed in cultural texts, revealing the
way that animals had been differentiated in the eyes of men through Gods act of
creation. In this chapter, after showing the coherence of the Proponent of the
Roosters discourses, I will argue that it is primarily the Proponent of the Dog who
demonstrates this method. The Proponent of the Dog subjects cultural impressions
about the dog, presented by his opponent and himself through citation of poetry
and other cultural texts, to a process of comparison to other animals. This process
of comparison is fundamentally materialist in scope, since it is only the dogs
observable behaviors and qualities that can be compared. Matter can be compared
to matter because it is measurable, in size, weight, and so on; and its attributes are
therefore measurable too, at least according to all the physical theories espoused by
kalm practitioners. By contrast, the esoteric true nature of dogs as humans or jinn

263

that is posited by the Proponent of the Rooster is fundamentally incomparable, and

the Proponent of the Dogs response reflects this. The Dog-Rooster Debate thus
dramatizes the activity of comparative reason as al-Ji envisions it, correcting and
rejecting impressions presented by the Proponent of the Rooster largely by
juxtaposing them with other impressions.
The Dog-Rooster debate has often been presented as compilatory in style,
with its social significance residing in the symbolism of the two animals in question.
By contrast, I find that there is a sharp contrast in the rhetoric and mode of thought
displayed by the two debate partners, and that this contrast is where the social
significance lies. The Proponent of the Rooster for the most part employs a simple
compilatory epistemology in his discourses, arguing, for example, from disgusting
poems about the dog to a conclusion that that dog is digusting. 1 In the context of
al-Jis theory of comparative reason, the Proponent of the Rooster is merely
presenting natural, human-relative impressions of the dog through the medium of
poetry and other citations. His discourses, are, however, grounded in an implicit
In Section Four he does make a more complex argument; see Appendix C for a
summary.
1

264

image of the dog as demonic, horror-inducing, and supernaturally connected to

humans in a relation that challenges the distinction between humans and dogs. By
contrast, the discourses of the Proponent of the Dog are invariably comparative,
going beyond a simple compilatory strategy that draws conclusions directly from
proof-texts, and instead using a method that compares different impressions,
putting proof-text in perspective. In doing so, he often shifts the grounds of debate
that the Proponent of the Rooster had proposed.
Al-jir proposes that the dog represented Arabs and the rooster Persians,
drawing on the significance of the rooster in Zoroastrianism. 2 He presents
convincing evidence that ninth-century intellectuals did use dramatically stated
animal favoritism as a mediating device for expression of political and cultural
affiliation. While this background can inform our understanding of the debate
genre, it cannot explain al-Jis Dog-Rooster Debate. In the first place, since the
dog had an equally elevated status in Zoroastrianism, it is hard to take the dog as a

Al-jir, al-Ji, 401-7.

265

symbol of Arab culture. 3 In fact, the ideas that Proponent of the Rooster presents
are not particularly sectarian, but in Section Six 4 the Proponent of the Dog, and alJis own intervening voice, accuse the Proponent of the Rooster of espousing
beliefs that were in the ninth century firmly associated with Shiite tendencies. This
tendentious reclassification of wisespread beliefs as Shiite marks this passage as an
attempt to impose al-Jis brand of materialism as a criterion in heresiographical
classification of beliefs.
The Dog-Rooster Debate is a remarkably subtle experiment in representing
and juggling the discourses that were current in ninth century Abbsid society. By
attributing these discourses to semi-fictional Proponents, al-Ji avoids
identifying these discourses with social groups that had already been identified in
common perception or heresiographic literature. By cutting through these existing
categories and going straight to the discourse, focusing on epistemology rather than

Choksy, Purity and Pollution in Zoroastrianism, 18, 29, 108. The Proponent of the Dog
mentions the use of dogs as ritually pure beasts in Zoroastrian burial practice at
I:375:4-5.
4
See Appendix Three for my section divisions of the first half of the Dog-Rooster
Debate.
3

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doctrine, he is able to present a powerful new materialist way of dividing discourse

between rational and what he might call superstitious, cutting across disciplines and
affiliations in order to do so. Like the novel in modern times, this debate within
which the grounds are constantly shifting represents and juxtaposes a spectrum of
existing discourse according to the authors personal interpretation of this
spectrum.
Overview of the Dog-Rooster Debate
In his study of al-Jis pros and cons (al-masin wal-masw) texts, Geries
asks whether a debate between al-Nam as Proponent of the Dog and Mabad as
Proponent of the Rooster actually took place, and finds the question undecidable. 5 I
see no reason to doubt al-Jis claim that such a debate did occur. He writes in the
introduction that this historic debate caused the Addressee to turn away from alNam. 6 I agree with Geriess intuition, however, that the text is not meant to be
read as a faithful transcript of that proceeding. In the first place, al-Ji does not
claim to reproduce the historic debate that is mentioned in the introduction.
5
6

Geries, Un Genre Littraire, 17-18.

I:3:10.

267

Instead, he announces his Dog-Rooster Debate as That which the Proponent of the
Rooster mentioned, eliding the names of the historic personages in favor of
generic phrases to designate the parties in the debate. The unique place in which alJi explicitly cites arguments from the historic Dog-Rooster Debate, he refers to
them by name, as Mabad and Ab Isq. 7 The text then does not purport to narrate
a historic debate, but rather collates the best arguments that had been invented on
this topic, including significant explicit contributions from al-Ji himself. These
include al-Jis citation of a passage from his own epistle, Kitb al-Tarb wal-Tadwr,
at I:308:5-311:8 and an intervention at I:281:9-283:9, in which al-Ji cites the voice
of the historic al-Nam making arguments against the dog, the opposite position
from the one he apparently represented in the historic debate. And according to my
reading, the entire discourse on linguistic change, euphemisms, and disapproved
usages at I:327:6-352:8 is in al-Jis voice as well.
By assigning the debate partners generic names, al-Ji presents the
arguments in a way that is nearly as abstract as the hypothetical argument

The entire interchange is only a page long, at I:356:1-16.

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strategies introduced in theology texts: If he says., then say and so on. I read
al-Jis Dog-Rooster Debate as similar in aim to these theology texts: it is a
compilation of the best, the most logically clever, and the most eloquent arguments
that had been or could be made on the topic, and in this genre of debate that is not
discipline specific. This interpretation is supported also by al-Jis statement that
he chose (qaadn il) the dog and rooster because they are frequently discussed
(yash al-qawl fh), whereas with other creatures he would never be able to reach
the point of weighing between them and comparing them (yablagh add almuwzana wal-muqbala). 8 Like Geries, I leave undecided the extent to which the
arguments presented in the voices of the debate partners were composed by al-Ji
or influenced by prior historic performances.
There are a number of textual irregularities in the Dog-Rooster Debate, in
contrast to the introduction to the ayawn which feels more composed. In several
cases, a change in voice is left out, 9 and there is one clear example where arguments

8
9

I:210:16-I:211:2.
I:262:14, I:285:4. See Appendix C for more details.

269

appear out of order. 10 These examples read as compilation or transmission

accidents. But a more systematic issue is the way in which absent arguments, or
arguments occuring much later in the debate, are regularly cited and refuted. The
largest example is the entire second half of the debate, in which the Proponent of
the Dog responds to the Proponent of the Roosters absent praises of the rooster by
showing that the dog outstrips the rooster in every praiseworthy attribute ascribed
to the rooster. There is no extant part of the debate where the Proponent of the
Rooster provides praises of the rooster; all of these arguments are cited in summary
form by his opponent. This is not because a large chunk of text was lost, for al-Ji
also provides an introductory summary of the two positions represented in the DogRooster Debate, 11 mentioning only their ideas about the dog, and leaving the rooster
out entirely. Instead, al-Ji probably conceived of the debate as centering on the
dog, and chose not to include arguments about the rooster except when they had to
be briefly summarized in order to provide the comparative framework for
arguments about the dog. In light of this habitual practice in the second half of the
10
11

I:296:11-14 belongs at I:295:17.

I:222:1-224:2.

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debate, it becomes less problematic that at I:272:2-5 the Proponent of the Rooster
refers to arguments that will be made by his opponent in the following volume of
the ayawn.
In examining the debate, I have come to the conclusion that it is far from a
mere compilation of positive and negative cultural references about the dog.
Instead, it presents methodological models for argumentation. The debate draws on
the various and sometimes newly coalescing discipines of the ninth century: poetry
excerpt recitation organized by topos, law, theologically based exegesis, linguistically
based exegesis, and a secretarial epistolary art of discussing character and behavior.
Many oral debates of the day took place within one of these disciplines, so that the
methods, grounds, and authoritative texts to be used were more or less agreed on in
advance. This is not the case for the Dog-Rooster Debate, as certain long passages
focus on specific kinds of argument, sometimes combining disciplines in unusual
ways. And the Proponent of the Dog often responds by shifting the grounds of the
debate, responding to adth recitation with theological argument, for example, or
responding to invective poetry with legal argument. I read the text of the debate as

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a demonstration of the value of such free-wheeling debates, a demonstration of the

method that combines reason with emotional reactions to animals, allowing us to
use reason to temper our natural human-relative perceptions, and thus to discover,
as I described in Chapter Three, the way that God has differentiated [created
things] in the eyes of men. 12
The debate is divided into two halves. In the first half, the Proponent of the
Rooster takes the lead by naming negative attributes of the dog, and the Proponent
of the Dog refutes some of these claims. In the second half of the debate, the
Proponent of the Dog takes the lead by naming positive attributes of the dog, but
this time the Proponent of the Rooster rarely responds. 13 This half corresponds to
al-Jis summary of the Proponent of the Dogs argument. In this chapter I
examine only the first half of the debate, in order to compare the perspectives and
rhetroical techniques of the two debate partners; the Proponent of the Rooster is
largely absent from the second half of the debate.

12
13

I:207:2.
Except for I:149:5-151:10.

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The two debate partners are not characters in any sense of the term. They do
not hesitate, fidget, or raise their voices. The term Proponent of the Dog is only
present as a tag labelling certain discourses. Yet even though these debaters do not
have personalities or appearances, their discourses do reveal certain intellectual
tendencies, that I will uncover in this chapter. While al-jir suspects a symbolic
relation between the two animals and specific political factions (Shubs and proArabs) based on the high status of the rooster in Zoroastrianism, the fact is that dogs
too held a high status in Zoroastrianism. Moreover, excluding comments about the
dog being a jinn or a metamorphosed human, the arguments made by the Proponent
of the Rooster about dogs are quite similar to those made by the ostensibly Mutazil
Addressee. I thus find it more likely that al-Ji was introducing his own criterion
for dividing between different attitudes toward the material world, and that he drew
on innumerable political, social, and intellectual debates in order to do this.
In Appendix C, I provide an outline of the first half of the debate, which I have
roughly divided into sections. This chapter focuses on the first half of the debate
only, since it is only in the first half of the debate that we find an adequate

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representation of the Proponent of the Roosters arguments, and thus we can see
more clearly the dispute about the intercategory in the first half of the debate. Most
of the sections are introduced, often by one of the debate partners, and the type of
argumentation is sometimes specified. Section two, for example, begins: The
Proponent of the Rooster said: We will now recite invective poetry of the Arabs that
insults the dog specifically. 14 Each section can be read as a narrative, with the
debate partners responding or declining to respond to specific points, but according
to my reading at least, the sections could be rearranged without much loss. And
certainly not all of the sections have clearly defined borders, so in many cases
different dividing lines could be proposed.
The Intercategory in the Dog-Rooster Debate
Al-Ji starts out the debate by narrating, in his own voice, the points that
will be made by the two debate partners. The summary of the Proponent of the
Roosters position, represented in the first half of the debate, reads as follows:
Chapter: That which the Proponent of the Rooster
mentioned against dogs, in which he enumerated their
14

I:254:1-2.

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various faults and negative qualities, including (min)

ignobility (lum), cowardice, weakness, greed, treachery,
obscenity (badh), ignorance, rashness, stench, and
dirtiness, as well as narratives passed down (thr)
forbidding keeping them or owning them, and
commanding to kill them and chase them away. And
including (wa-min) their many misdeeds and small benefit.
And including (wa-min) proverbs about dogs ignobility,
dirtiness, ugliness, and the ugliness of their copulation.
And including (wa-min) the ugliness of their bark, their
many diseases, the repulsion Muslims feel from getting
near to them, that they eat the flesh of humans, that they
are composite creatures and sewn-together (mulaffaq)
animals like the mule among beasts and the r`ib among
doves, that they are neither predator nor prey, and neither
human (insiyya) nor jinn (jinniyya), that they are among the
inn but not the jinn;. and that they are the mounts of the
jinn, a type of the transformed species (miskh), and that
they ransack graves and eat the dead, and that rabies
afflicts them because they eat the flesh of humans. 15
This list is divided into four segments each introduced by the phrase and including
(wa-min) which refers each time back to the introductory phrase. The first segment
mentions ignobility (lum), cowardice, and weakness, all of which appeared in the
Addressees argument that the dog was not a proper predator (sabu). (Following alJis usage in the taxonomy passage treated in Chapter Two, I read lum as
15

I:222:1-12.

275

ignobility, the opposite of the terms for predator (sabu) that indicate nobility: itq,
arr.) It also mentions greed and treachery, which the Addressee mentioned when
establishing the too-human contradictory character of the dog. The Proponent of
the Rooster focuses more than the Addressee did on repellent features like
obscenity, stench, and dirtiness, which tie into a sense of horror conveyed in the last
segment.
The last segment contains elements that are less parallel, both grammatically
and in subject matter. This style technique suggests that it contains miscellaneous
topics not included in the earlier segments. It starts with noun-phrases that do not
pretend to present new information and which therefore are meant to seem obvious
(e.g. the ugliness of their bark), and gradually veers into sentence phrases that do
present new information. The phrases increase gradually in length, complexity, and
tendentiousness, thus creating an impression of mounting emotion in this case
fear, panic, and hysteria. This is particularly effective as the imagery also increases
in intensity, ending with eating the flesh of humans, which could be considered a

276

kind of veiled cannibalism since we just heard the idea that dogs are humans in form
of dog (miskh).
The concept of the intercategory is indicated in this last horror-ridden
segment by a series of examples of the intercategory to which the dog is compared.
In this case, the three examples go from small-scale to large-scale: the mule and
rib are intermediate between breeds; being neither predator nor prey involves
intermediacy between animal classes; and finally being neither human nor jinn
implies an intermediacy between earth-creatures (all animals) and fire-creatures.
The text does not here explain what is meant by between human-related and jinnrelated, other than the idea that the dog might be a jinn in dog form. This kind of
exorbitant loading of the dog with multiple ways of being intercategory conveys a
highly affective impression even without the rest of the intense imagery.
This monstrously horrible image of the dog combines a number of
potentially disparate impressions. The dog provokes disgust (taqadhdhur); it is
between human and jinn; it is like a cross-breed; it is between predator and prey; it is
a creature that was once human and has been transformed into an animal; it eats

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humans, thus perhaps participating in cannibalism; and the visible mark of this
monstrous behavior is rabies, a dangerous disease which can kill humans. The
Proponent of the Rooster thus makes the dogs encroachment on human status
literal in a way that the Addressee did not. For him, the dogs relation to humans is
figured within the central image of the dog as transformed human (miskh), and in
the idea that there is a powerfully transformative cycle of ingestion between
humans and dogs, which allows dogs to actively de-categorize humans, removing
their identities and distinguishing features. This is a transitive intercategory, and a
supernatural intercategory, and in this way it differs from the Addressees idea of an
intercategory based solely on behavioral and genealogical combinations.
The summary of the Proponent of the Dogs discourse does not focus greatly
on the question of whether the dog is intercategory, but rather presents a general
overview of information about dogs and the role they play in human life:
And when we have quoted this, then we will also quote the
speech of him who enumerated the good things about [dogs],
and classed their virtues. We will start by mentioning their
names, their lineages, their inherited traits, the prices (tafdiya)
men pay for killing them, and their fervent enthusiasm
(istihtr) for them. We will mention their hunting and

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guarding, their loyalty and their affection (ilf), and all of the
benefits and conveniences that are in them, as well as what
has been placed within them of true knowledge, wondrous
intelligence (fina), fine senses, and praiseworthy receptivity
to training (adab). This is aside from the accuracy and quality
of their sense of smell. We will mention their memory, their
effectiveness, their sense of direction, and their recognition of
the images of their masters and neighbors. Their patience,
and their knowledge of the rights due to nobles and the
derision of the lowly, their patience in the face of harsh
treatment, and their endurance of hunger. We will mention
their protective ability (dhimm), the intensity of their
protection (man) of the meeting-places of their family
(dhimr). We will mention their alertness, the paucity of their
inattention, the long reach of their voice, the multitude of
their offspring and the rapidity with which they become
pregnant, and the facility of their wombs in this matter,
despite the difference in nature between their penises and the
penises of other species; the great number of their paternal
and maternal uncles; their frequent presence among the kinds
of predators; and the fact that they are devoid of the inherited
traits of prey. We will mention their quick understanding,
their ability to imitate, their good acculturation, their hard
work, their service, the serious about them and the play (lab),
and all matters relating to them. We will use famous poetry,
transmitted adth, scriptures, and common proverbs, as well
as peoples experience with them, skillful reading of their
character (firsa), what they have observed of them, what the
interpreters of good omens have said about them, and the
reports of the augurers about them. [We will discuss] their
teeth, their life-spans, the number of their pups, the length of
their gestation period, their names and nicknames, their

279

brands and spots, their diseases and cures, how to train them
as well as those that do not learn from training, their inherited
traits, and the excellent mutts among them, as well as their
original birthplaces and the countries they come from. 16
Amidst a mass of information about the dog and its role in human life, the
Proponent of the Dog mentions only briefly that the dog is in fact a predator, with
no element of prey whatsoever: their presence among the kinds of predators; and
the fact that they are free from the bloodlines of prey. Clearly, the intercategory is
not relevant to the Proponent of the Dogs conception of the dog, and aside from
specifying the correct classification of the dog as sabu, he sees no need no mention
it. This summary of the position of the Proponent of the Dog reflects the topics
addressed in the second half of the debate, which relate less closely to questions of
categorization, and will not be addressed here. We will, however, pay close
attention to the discourses of the Proponent of the Dog in the text of the first half of
the debate, where he refutes the horror-inducing impression of the dog as
intercategory proposed by the Proponent of the Rooster.
The Proponent of the Rooster: The Cycle of Ingestion
16

I:222:13-224:2.

280

As I suggested above, the central theme running through the impressions of

the dog presented by the Proponent of the Rooster is an unnatural connection
between humans and dogs that hinges on dogs being metamorphosed humans
(mamskh) and on dogs being the agents that dissolve human identity, melting
category affiliations into a morass of undifferentiated stuff. This loss of
differentiation is figured as ingestion, and the cycle of ingestion running between
dogs and humans occupies much of the Proponent of the Roosters discourses.
While the Proponent of the Dog responds to each point separately, I will here make
some connections between the different claims about the dog that the Proponent of
the Rooster articulates. In each discourse, the Proponent of the Rooster employs a
simple compilatory rhetoric, according to which a disgusting poem about a dog
indicates that dogs are disgusting. But all of the discourses draw their persuasive
power from their interconnection, and the from the way they reference this multifaceted impression that the dog is a horror.

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The Proponent of the Rooster opens his discourse with the following three
poems about fallen warriors, leaders whose glory is reversed so extremely that even
their dead bodies are degraded by serving as food for dogs.
The Proponent of the Rooster recited that which has been
memorized regarding dogs eating human flesh:
Al-Jrd b. Ab Sabra 17 said on this topic:
Don't you see that God, my Lord, in his glory
and power has humiliated Ibn Amra 18, Mlik 19?
One who, when missing, people asked about
is now in the ground of Rufa, 20 dead.
Vicious dogs keep on savaging him
every time they tear a blackened thing in the dark night. [i.e.
rotten flesh]

Ab Nawfal al-Jrd b. Ab Sabra al-Hudhal al-Bar (d. 737) was praised for his
eloquence by al-ajjj and al-Ji. Ibn ajar, Taqrb al-Tahdhb, 1:154, #883. Cf.
rns note to this passage.
18
I'm not sure why he calls Mlik Ibn Amra.
19
Al-Baldhur offers a context for the poem, attributing it not to al-Jrd but to his
contemporary and Tamm Baran compatriot, al-Farazdaq. He suggests that the
poem refers to Mlik b. Mundhir, the police chief of Bara under the governor Khlid
b. Abdallah al-Qasr. Mlik died in prison under the Caliph Hishm b. Abd al-Mlik
(d. 720) following complaints against him made by the Baran "men of Tamm." AlBaldhur, Ansb al-Ashrf, 7:390.
20
Rufa here refers to Caliph Hishm b. Abd al-Mliks summer palace west of
Damascus. Yqt, Mujam al-Buldn s.v. "Rufat al-Shm."
17

282

Nufay b. affr al-Murib 21 a descendant of Murib b.

Khuafa 22 said about the war between Qays and Taghlib:
Fighting us has depleted Ban Jusham b. Bakr 23
Until the deviation of Taghlib was balanced and straightened
Dogs ate their noses and testicles
Cry, Taghlib, for the noses and the testicles!
Abu Yaqb al-Khuraym, also known as Isq b. assan b.
Q 24 said, about the casualties of the war in Baghdd 25:
Did you see the youths on the battlefield,
with their nostrils in the dust.
Each man defending his people
Makes the war-kindlers among them wretched in the clamor
The dogs spent the night with them, mauling them,
their claws stained with blood. 26
A contemporary of al-Farazdaq who praised Qays and insulted Taghlib. AlBaldhur, Ansb al-Ashrf 11:113.
22
A Jhil-era member of the retinue of the Lakhmid king al-Aswad b. Mundhir.
23
A subset of Taghlib.
24
d. 829-30. Sezgin, GAS, II:550-551.
25
He refers to the devastating siege of Baghdad in 813 during the war between alAmn and al-Mamn. The poem, hundrends of lines long, is cited in full in alabar's treatment of the siege. Al-abar, Trkh, 10:176-180. Michael Fishbein
translates the cited lines as follows: "I have seen the young men on the field of battle, their
noses defiled in the dust / Each was a young man who defended those he was honor-bound to
protect: kindlers of strife experienced distress in the fray because of him. / The dogs have
spent the night by him, mangling him, their claws stained with blood." Fishbein, War
Between Brothers, 147.
26
I:224:3-225:3.
21

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The selection of 3-line segments for citation has made the three citations parallel, in
that the first line describes the brave warrior(s), and the last line describes the dogs
eating his flesh in a dramatic reversal. In all three poems, it is the dogs that stand in
for Fortune and its vicissitudes (al-zamn, al-dahr), the force that drives such
reversals. The first poem describes the complete disappearance of Mlik, the police
chief who appears so prominently two lines before. His transformation comes
through in the sequence of rhyme-words: mlik-hlik-lik, meaning Mlik-deadpitchblack. Of course it is the execution itself which has killed him, but the poem
ascribes to the dogs the uncanny power to move his body parts from being to an
unbeing figured as an amorphous darkness in which objects dissolve and merge,
losing their self-identity. The dogs are described tearing off a piece of Mlik's flesh
that is identified only as a a blackened thing, basically nonexistent as part of the
"dark night" until separated and consumed. The dogs appear as agents of the
darkness, controlling the border not between life and death as the warrior or the
sovereign does, but a more extreme and mysterious border between being and nonbeing.

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The second poem specifies the body parts that are eaten, and they turn out to
be precisely those parts associated with individual, social, and sexual identity: noses
and testicles. These are the body parts comparable with the loss of name in the first
poem, when mlik becomes "dead," and then "darkness." In the third poem, the
moment of mauling does not appear directly, as the time of narration skips from the
present of the battle to the present of the next day. We do not see what mauling is,
though we know that it is something dogs do; we see only the after-effect which is
the claws stained with blood. Like the first poem which veils the mauling under
the cover of darkness, making it invisible, this poem hides it in the night through a
linguistic manipulation of tenses. It takes place while the poet and his listeners are
not present to watch.
The Proponent of the Rooster likely presents the three poems as evidence
that there was an ancient motif of dogs eating corpses on the battlefield, that had
been adapted to new, Islamic-era circumstances: an Umayyad-era imperial
execution, the Second Civil War (683-692), and a high-tech siege involving catapults
and ballistas that kill indiscriminately. The collection gives the impression that this

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social meaning of the dog is universal and unchanging: the dog controls the
boundary between being and non-being, acting as an asocial force preventing
corpses from receiving death rites, so that death becomes not merely loss of life, but
loss of all identity and category markers as well. Digestion does in fact make what is
eaten disappear, but by assimilating this process to the process of being engulfed by
darkness, the dogs activity takes on an element of uncanny power to not only kill
but to make something vanish from existence and from its own self-identity, so that
it merges into a surrounding nothingness. The conventional social disgrace of being
consumed by dogs is expressed and imagined as digestion and darkness, a
disappearance worse than death.
Part of the horror involved with dogs eating human corpses lies in the
common belief that dogs contract rabies by eating human corpses, 27 and pass rabies
on by biting living people. The Proponent of the Dog in Volume Two argues that the
dog is more virile than the rooster, despite the roosters ability to fertilize many eggs

Al-Ji mentioned this in his summary of the Proponent of the Roosters position,
I:222:11-12, and the Proponent of the Dog mentions this as well at I:304:14-15.
27

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by mounting a hen once, because in transmitting rabies, it somehow makes that

person dog-like, and thus has in a way propagated its nature:
For when the dog bites a person, the first thing to happen is
that it transforms him into a barker like it (yulahu il
nabb mithlahu), and converts him to its nature (wa-yanqulahu
il ibihi), so that he starts to bark. Then it impregnates him,
and it inseminates him with little puppies, so that he urinates
a blot clot, in the image of dogs. This is despite the distance
between the two essences (al-unurayn), two natures (alabayn) and the two kinds (al-jinsayn). What is generated
(yatawallad) in the wombs of hens is closer in resemblance to
the nature of the rooster, but the dog is the wondrous wonder,
for it impregnates the male of another species, and because in
addition to this impregnation and insemination, it transforms
him into a barker like it. Even if they are not viable, these
puppies and little dogs are still offspring and progeny. You
(pl.) are aware that the offspring of mules are not viable,
though insemination can occur, and this is why the male mule
is kept apart from the female. 28
Transmission of rabies was figured as an act of making the person dog-like, because
it caused him to literally become barking man (nabb), and rabid (kalib), the term
for which is etymologically derived in such a way as to mean doggish. 29 Once rabid
or doggish, the human must in turn himself consume another human in order to
28
29

II:9:9-10:11.
II:10:3.

287

be cured: he must drink the blood of a king to reinscribe his own categorization as
human.
Soon after this, we find an anecdote describing a brutal governor, Wak b.
Ab Sd, attempting to claim legitimacy by demonstrating interest in the details of
law: 30
Someone told me that Ab Bakr al-Hudhal 31 said: We were at
al-asan's house when Wak b. Ab Sd 32 came in and sat
down. He said, "Oh Ab Sad [al-asan], what is your opinion
on the blood of a tick when it gets on clothing? Can you pray
in it?"
He replied: "It's incredible! He laps up the blood of the
Muslims like a dog, and then he asks about tick blood!" Wak
got up, shaking as he walked the way a crazy person shakes,
A similar anecdote describes an unnamed man asking Abdallh Ibn Umar (d. 693)
about the legality of killing ticks, and Ibn Umar mocks him because one of them
attacks his brother with a sword. Abd al-Razzq, al-Muannaf, IV:412-3 #8258.
It is possible that this anecdote in the ayawn is narrated in the voice of al-Ji,
since the narrator refers to himself in the singular, and following the anecdote we
hear again The Proponent of the Rooster said, returning us to his voice. On the
other hand, it is also common to repeat the phrase The Proponent of the Rooster
said when a new topic begins, even if there has been no change of speaker.
31
Salm b. Abdallah b. Salm Ab Bakr al-Hudhal (d. 159/775-6), a Baran muaddith
who narrated from al-asan al-Bar (d. 110/728), among others. Ibn al-Jawz, AlMuntaam f Trkh al-Mulk wal-Umam 8:230 #855.
32
Wak b. Hassn b. Qays b. Ab Sd, d. 715. Sezgin, GAS, II:437, fn. 4.
30

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and al-asan said, Indeed God has [placed] a blessing in each

body part on which He can rely to combat disobedience/sin.
Dear God, do not let us become strong from your blessings in
order to disobey you! 33
Wak, the brutal governor, asks the religious authority al-asan al-Bar whether
tick blood (presumably human blood that had been sucked out and ingested by the
tick) should be considered defiling when it gets on clothing. This is a reasonable
question, since everyone agreed that human blood was defiling, but bugs and their
excretions were not. Al-asan al-Bar responds with outrage, accusing the brutal
governor of lapping up the blood of Muslims like a dog, thus assimilating murder
to cannibalistic consumption, following common usage. 34 The idea is made concrete
by association with the dog, the creature known for consuming human flesh.
This anecdote references a legal-scientific view of ingestion as a chemical
transformation that affects the purity status of the consumed object. Contemporary
legal debates did indeed investigate ingestion, asking how is it that something can
lose its self-identity, merging with other matter, and becoming something other
I:225:9-14.
Al-Ji discusses similar usages of the term to eat for other kinds of harm at
ayawn V:27:1-28:3.
33
34

289

than itself, by being eaten? 35 Since the tick has already eaten the blood, but it
doesnt appear to have been digested, the blood is still part-way along its
transformation from being human blood to being incorporated into tick body, and
thus its status is indeterminate just as the corpses are in the moment when they are
devoured, as they hover between being a human body and being engulfed into a
dense blackness. The anecdote contrasts this legal-scientific view of ingestion as a
natural and material process of category change with the image of the dogs
cannibalistic ingestion, a transformation that follows no law, instantly and
horrifically negating identity and category distinctions. The jurist undermines the
governors feigned interest in category distinctions by pointing out his failure to
See the discussion of the jallla as a legal topic in this chapter. Al-Ji addresses
the same concern about chemical transformation when he cites a perfumers
discourse comparing digestive transformation to other chemical transformations: I
said to him: How is it that a lamb nurses on the milk of a sow (khinzra) but its flesh is
not forbidden? He said: Because that milk is transformed (istila) into flesh, and
exits from that nature (aba) and that form (ra) and that name (ism). This is also
true for the flesh of the jallla. Misk perfume is not blood, and vinegar is not wine.
The atom (al-jawhar) is not itself forbidden, but rather what is forbidden are the
accidents (al-ar) and the attributes (al-ilal). So do not be disgusted by it when you
remember the congealed blood [from which it was made]. Fire transforms into air,
and air into water, and the resemblance (shabah) between water and fire is very far
indeed. V:305:1-7.
35

290

recognize the legal distinction between Muslims and unbelievers in his practice of
warfare.
The Proponent of the Rooster provides the title for the next section:
Animals associated with stinky hides and a disgusting smell,
such as the smell of snakes bodies; the stench of goats and the
stink of their sweat; the stink of a dogs skin when it is soaked
with rain; and other kinds of stench besides this, which we will
mention in due time, God-willing. 36
In fact, no stinky animals are mentioned besides the dog. These sections include
invective poetry that compares its insulted object to dogs in one way or another.
Classical Arabic invective poetry frequently works by inverting the genre of praise
poetry, debasing its styles and images. In the poems cited here, it is the mention of a
dog that performs this inversion. A few examples:
Raw b. Zinb al-Judhm 37 said about his wife, using the dog as a
proverbial comparison (mathal):
The breath of noblewomen is known to have a perfume to it
But her breath smells like a dog soaked with rain.

I:226:1-4.
A close advisor and military leader of Abd al-Mlik b. Marwn. Al-Zirikl, al-Alm,
3:63.
36
37

291

He [The Proponent of the Rooster] said: The wife of Raw b. Zanb

was called Umm Jafar bint al-Numn b. Bashr 38, and it was [the
Caliph] Abd al-Mlik who married him to her. Abd al-Mlik said
about her, She's a pretty girl, so put up with her foul tongue.
Someone else said:

The smell of a mangy animal; the smell of dung;

the smell of a dog in the morning, drenched with dew.

Ab Zayd 39 recited on this topic:

As if their breath, from the vileness of their food,

were the scent of dogs when the rain drenches them. 40

The perfumed breath of a noble lady becomes the smell of a wet dog; the praised
attributes presented using the wa-rubba style in the second poem turn out to be
various stenches of dogs; and the aromatic foods provided by good hosts are in fact
the excrement that is typically eaten by dogs. The dog is the indicator of invective
in these poems, transforming noble styles into degradation. The same is true for the

umayda bt. al-Numan b. Bashr (d. 704) is mentioned in her fathers entry,
Sezgin, GAS, II:354-5.
39
assn b. Thbit, d. c. 659. The three-line poem appears in assn b. Thbit, Dwn,
I:351 #183.
40
I:226:6-14.
38

292

poems about dogs eating excrement: in each poem, the dogs presence is merely a
degrading addition to an existing scene. An example:
anala b. Arda 41 said something similar when he was discussing his
son, al-Sarand:
How could al-Sarand, may God preserve his bachelorhood

leave his father in the wild wasteland and journey off into the night?

A nasty idiot who offers the dog his food!

When it sees a moment of inattention even in its protector, it takes

advantage.

I raised him when he was like a chick, fattening him up,

As the dog under him licked black excrement off his anus. 42

Here, the butt of the invective, Sarand, is not compared to the dog, as we saw in the
earlier poems, but instead the dog completes the tableau of a disgusting infant in
disgusting conditions growing up into an adult who is disgusting both morally and
physically.

A Khurasn Umayyad poet affiliated with Tamm and Rubay. Al-Baldhur cites
another version of this poem about his son Samawal: m lil-samawal abd llha
awratahu / khall abhu awla l-hammi wa-dalaj // mijun sabtun yu l-kalba
maamahu / idh ra awratan min jrihi walaj. Al-Baddhur, Ansb al-Ashrf, 11:324.
Al-Zabd glosses mij as jhil, Tj al-Ars, s.v. mij.
42
I:226:17-227:4.
41

293

In Section Three, the Proponent of the Rooster cites invective poems

attacking various people and tribes for eating dog flesh, or human flesh, or both.
The poems about eating dog flesh and human flesh in this section are mixed
together, and the poems themselves are quite similar in attitude and style, as if
eating dog-meat were quite as horrible and in all respects equivalent to cannibalism.
Indeed, the Faqas tribe is the butt of invective about both cannibalism and dogeating:
Slim b. Dra al-Ghaafn 43 said:
Oh Faqas, why did you eat, why?
If God had feared you would eat it, he would have forbidden it! 44
And then you would not have eaten it, neither flesh nor blood. 45
And a few lines later another poem about the Faqas tribe:
Marf al-Dubayr 46 said, about their eating of human flesh:
If one day you should be the guest of a Faqas,
Died 644-656. Sezgin, GAS, II:238-9.
This is a reference to a common argument from tafsr and fiqh, which al-Ji
references in IV:41:3-42:4 when explaining that there is no prohibition on eating
monkeys because their similarity to humans makes it obvious that we should not eat
them. Al-Ji in that location argues against this logic, citing the infinite
perversion of appetite possible among humans. IV:42:5-46:4.
45
I:267:7-9.
46
I cannot find him anywhere, but Hrn refers us to al-Ji, al-Bukhal, 199.
43
44

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dont ever eat his food.

The meat is actually human, so leave it.
The best provisions are what fends off sin. 47
And one of the poems even combines cannibalism and the eating of dog meat into a
single image:
Hudhayl, Asad, Balanbar, and Bhila were all insulted for
eating the flesh of people. assn b. Thbit said about
Hudhayl:
If treachery gives you complete and unadulterated joy,
come to al-Raj and ask about the House of Liyn.
A people that advise each other to eat the protected one living among them,
dogs, sheep, and humans its the same to them. 48
Here, Liyn is accused of failure to distinguish between edible animals (sheep) and
inedible ones (dogs and humans).
In what sense is it tantamount to cannibalism when people eat dogs? I can
think of two answers. First of all, there is the belief that some dogs are
metamorphosed humans (miskh, pl. muskh), a topic that dominates Section Six of
the Dog-Rooster Debate. Michael Cook has pointed out that most of the uniquely
Shite eating prohibitions derive from a horror of cannibalism, via the belief that
47
48

I:268:4-6.
I:268:7-10.

295

the animal in question is one of the mamskh animals, and thus could once have
been human. 49 And second, I find here a horror of eating an animal that eats
humans, as if eating a dog were transitively the same as eating all the horrible things
it has eaten, from human corpses to excrement. This interpretation is supported by
the Proponent of the Dogs explicit references to this logic of you are what you eat
in ritual purity law, to be discussed briefly later in this chapter. The Proponent of
the Dog references al-Shfis prohibition on eating animals whose consumption of
excrement has made them stink of it (al-jallla), 50 since the impurity has not yet been
materially transformed. Predatory beasts were forbidden, and some schools forbade
birds of prey as well, and ann refers to these creatures as carrion-eaters (m
yakul al-jiyaf). 51 None of the jurists mention the possibility that these beasts may
have eaten a human corpse, but the same logic ought to apply. 52 In this discourse,

Cook, Early Muslim Dietary Law, 222-223.

Shfi, al-Umm, III:629:14-630:4. ann, al-Mudawwana, II:64. Referenced in alJi, al-ayawn, I:232:9-11.
51
Norman Calder traces the category carrion eater (m yakul al-jiyaf) in law
dealing with which animals pollute water. Calder, Studies in Jurisprudence, 1-9.
52
Cook mentions a Zoroastrian precedent for a prohibition on eating animals that
eat carrion. Cook, Dietary Law, 263, fn. 390.
49
50

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the material presence of impurity is not, however, the main concern, since the dogs
cannibalistic character is enough to transitively associate dog-eating with
cannibalism. As if to suggest this train of thought, the passage about humans who
eat human and canine corpses includes a few poems describing dogs consuming
human corpses.
An excellent poem was composed by Ab Adnn 53:
No black bitch rips off hunks with her teeth from the corpses,
Again and again, and bites them.
Fate has given her a male dog, but she is stingy with her bones.
He harrasses her while she chews an old bone.
Pause a moment over this poetry, for it is among the wonders
of the world. 54
And just before the cannibalism passage is announced, we hear the following verse
among a set of poems by Ab al-Shamaqmaq 55:
[Ab al-Shamaqmaq] also said:
Oh generous feeder of dogs and pigs,
birds and wild beasts in the echoing desert 56
Ab Adnn Abd al-Ramn b. Abd al-Al, ninth-century poet and lexicographer.
Sezgin, GAS, II:353.
54
I:269:14-270:3.
55
Marwn b. Muammad Ab al-Shamaqmaq, d. 806. Sezgin, GAS, II:512
56
I:264:6-7.
53

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These poems ought to appear in Section One, which addresses that topic specifically,
but they appear here instead, as if to reactivate that imagery and bring it in contact
with this equivalence between cannibalism and humans who eat dog meat. The
second poem tell us that a person is as good as dead by referring to him as food for
dogs and pigs, birds and wild beasts (sib), uniting these animals under the heading
of animals that eat human corpses. Not coincidentally, all of these are prohibited
animals in Islamic law. 57
In these poems, humans and dogs are linked in a cycle of ingestion that
creates a contagious bond linking the two species. A dog must taste human flesh
twice in order to make the human dog-like, or rabid: first it must contract rabies by
eating a human corpse, and then it must bite a living human. The cure for rabies is
for the human to commit cannibalism. And when the dog eats human flesh and
contracts rabies, it becomes part-human in that eating it becomes tantamount to
cannibalism.

57

Cook, Dietary Law, 251-2.

298

The cycle of ingestion is one way of poetically and mythically figuring the
too-human status afforded to the dog by the Addressee, and also by the Proponent of
the Rooster. Many of the complaints that the Addressee makes about the dogs
contradictory, and thus too-human, character are repeated in Section Five, where
both the Proponent of the Rooster and al-Nam attribute these character traits to
the dogs intercategory status between sabu and bahma. The Proponent of the
Rooster accuses the dog of being neither totally friendly toward its master (like a
herd animal) nor capable of truly predatory behavior. He also complains that the
dog is neither docile nor truly a warrior animal, for much of its behavior reveals a
deep-seated cowardice that is not expressed directly as typical prey that run from
danger and hide, but rather through a false show of bravado which cannot attain
true aggression as expressed by predators. This false show of bravado is the
expression of an intercategory nature, and encompasses the dogs barking, anxiety,
cowardice, and so on. Al-Jis voice intervenes here to cite his teacher al-Nam
fulminating against the dog in a late-night rant in which he expresses the
contradiction in pithy form:

299

If you are a predator (sabu), act like a predator! In that case

you should stay in the wild areas (barr) and the tree-swamps
(ghiy). But if you are a herd-animal (bahma), then shut up
and leave us alone (skut ann) like a herd animal! 58
The Proponent of the Rooster sums up his position at the end of his discourse in
Section Five, marking it off by the phrase wa-bad. This phrase typically indicates a
change of subject, but in this case, it seems to indicate a summing up of the
argument about the dogs character in a way that references another ongoing
debate, namely about whether the dog can properly be classified as a sabu. The
Proponent of the Rooster 59 says:
In sum, every behavior that differs from the behaviors of
people is blameworthy. People sleep during the night which
God has made for them to be a time of rest, and they are active

I:281:15-16.
The passage appears at the end of a lengthy citation of al-Nam, ostensibly the
historical character who played the role of the Proponent of the dog, bemoaning all
the horrible qualities of the dog in a late-night rant in response to an actual dog that
had been harrassing him. The citation is introduced with the phrase, As for myself,
I have witnessed Ab Isq al-Nam, in the voice of al-Ji himself
intervening. Thus the concluding remark may also be in the voice of al-Ji, or in
the voice of the Proponent of the Rooster. In any case, it clearly represents the
position of the Proponent of the Rooster.
58
59

300

in the day which God has made for them as a time of moving
about to fulfill their needs. 60
And the Proponent of the Dog once he has responded caps off his rebuttal by saying:
In sum, how could a person be more wrong and more unjust
than the one imposes upon sib the behavior of men and the
habits of bahim. We know that terrestrial sib, unlike other
creatures, are active at night, moving about, seeking their
nourishment, and meeting for mating and copulation at night,
for they can see at night. 61
Section Five thus recapitulates the debate we saw taking place in the introduction to
the ayawn between al-Ji and the Addressee, couching the too-human status of
dogs in their contradictory psychology.
So far, I have only mentioned examples of the disquieting connection
between humans and dogs that are based in similarity and mutual influence. But in
fact the Proponent of the Rooster also cites many reports suggesting that dogs are
actually humans. They look like animals, but their material manifestation is nothing
more than a veil masking their true essense, which is ultimately human. This idea
appears first only as a technique for dream interpretation, but later we hear from
60
61

I:283:7-9.
I:284:2-4.

301

him reports that dogs are in fact humans whom God has metamorphosed (masakha)
into the form of dogs.
In Section Three, the Proponent of the Rooster provides the following
reports providing guidance in dream interpretation:
Ibn Srn 62 said: In dreams, a dog signifies a miscreant wrongdoer (fish). If it is black, he is an Arab but if it is spotted, he
is a Persian.
Al-Ama said, quoting ammd b. Salama, quoting the
nephew of Ab Bill Mirds b. Udayya 63: I saw Ab Bill in a
dream in the form of a dog, whose eyes were flowing with
tears. He said, After you, we were transformed into dogs,
among the Dogs of the Fire.
He [al-Ama] said: When Shamir b. Dh al-Jawshan al-ibb
left to kill al-usayn b. Al (RAAH), usayn saw as in his sleep
that a spotted dog was lapping up their blood. He interpreted
this to mean that Shamir b. Dh al-Jawshan would kill them.
(Shamir was a peeling leper.) 64
Shamir b. Dh al-Jawshan is the much vilified murderer of usayn, blamed not only
by the Shiites for the schismatic consequences of this murder. Thus these historical
Early dream interpreter, d. 728. Fahd, Ibn Srn, EI2.
Early Khrij, d. 680-1, present at iffn and Nahrawn who died in battle against a
deputy of Ibn Ziyd. Levi della Vida, Mirds b. Udayya, EI2.
64
I:271:4-13.
62
63

302

dream interpretations figure dogs as evil humans, whose evilness appears in their
dog form.
The supernatural quality of black dogs becomes literal in several of the
Proponent of the Dogs discourses, where he suggests that they are a nation of jinn
that have been metamorphosed (musikha) into the form of dogs. Thus dogs do not
merely give off an eerie impression they are actually demons taking the shape of
animals. The first instance couches a adth about dogs being metamorphosed jinn
among adths commanding that dogs be killed, thus suggesting that it is because of
their abominable metamorphic and demonic nature that they ought to be killed:
Isml b. Umayya said: Two nations of jinn were
metamorphosed, and they are dogs and snakes. (ummatn
musikhat wa-hum al-kilb wal-ayyt) 65
This is another way of seeing dogs as intercategory, for it posits that they hover
between the categories of jinn and animal by quite literally combining an animal
body and a jinn soul.

65

I:279:17-18.

303

The term nation (umma) and metamorphosed (musikhat) used in this passage
typically reference another set of beliefs, about humans that are punished by
metamorphosis into animal form, as related in the Qurn. 66 This subtext of
punishment thus makes a link with the dreams that figure Shamir as a black dog.
But though I did not find references to this specific report in the sources, it was not
unheard of to imagine jinn being metamorphosed, as we hear reports that housesnakes (jnn) are metamorphoses of jinn, just as the monkeys were metamorphosed
from Jews. 67 The Proponent of the Dog treats the idea that the dog was a
metamorphorsed jinn as equivalent to ideas about other animals being
metamorphosed humans, as we will see in the last section of this chapter. And in
fact this slippage appears in the voice of the Proponent of the Rooster as well when,
just after the passage cited above, he cites the following adth:
Al-Thawr: Sammk b. arb: Ibn Abbs said on the pulpit at
Bara: Dogs are inn, and inn are weak jinn. So if one of them
comes up to you, throw something at it or chase it away, for
they have evil souls (anfus s). 68
Qurn 5:60, 2:65, and 7:166. Cf. Cook, Ibn Qutayba and the Monkeys.
Ibn Ab Shayba, Muannaf, #19908. Ibn ibbn, a, #5639, #5640.
68
I:295:12-14.
66
67

304

Ibn Qutabya cites this report verbatim, 69 and explains that evil souls refers to the
evil eye:
It means: they have eyes with which they can strike. Soul
means eye, and they say, a soul struck him, meaning that an
eye struck him. 70
This report then is telling us that the begging eye of a dog thus has the same powers
as the envious eye of a person, and that eating in front of a hungry dog carries the
same dangers as eating in front of a hungry person. These adth thus operate on a
continuum with the Proponent of the Roosters other claims about the dog as toohuman or having a nature that is somehow supernaturally intertwined with human
nature.
The other passage where the Proponent of the Rooster brings up this idea of
jinn metamorphosis reads as follows:
The Proponent of the Rooster said:
Isml al-Makk: Ab At al-Urid: Ibn Abbs: Black dogs
are jinn, and spotted dogs are inn.

69
70

Ibn Qutayba, Tawl Mukhtalif al-adth, 207:2-4.

Ibn Qutayba, Tawl Mukhtalif al-adth, 207:4-6.

305

(It is said that the inn are weak jinn, just as a jinn who does
not believe, sins, attack, and corrupts is called a shayn. And
if it is strong enough to build and carry heavy loads, and
eavesdrop, it is called a mrid. And if it is even stronger, a ifrt,
and even stronger, a abqar. Just as a man who fights in a war
courageously without hanging back is called courageous, and
beyond that he is called a hero, and beyond that he is called a
buhma and beyond that an alyas. These are the words of
Ab Ubayda.)
Some people claim that inn and jinn are different kinds
altogether. They follow what al-Arb said when he came to a
kings gate to be registered among the cripples. On this he
said:
If you write down all the cripples, then I am a cripple
with both a visible affliction and a hidden one
I spend the night tumbling amidst moaning devils
of different lineages, both inn and jinn.
Ab Anbasa: Ab Zuhayr: Jbir: The Prophet (SAAS)
commanded us to kill dogs, even the dog of a lone woman
coming from the wilderness. Then he forbade us from killing
them, saying you are only responsible for [killing] the solid
black one with the two bald spots (naktatayn) over its eyes, for
it is a shayn. 71
Ab al-Zubayr: Jbir: The Prophet (SAAS) commanded us to kill
dogs, so we were killing them all until he said, They are a

Reported in Muslim, a, #47, and Amad b. anbal, Musnad, #14575, using

nuqatayn instead of naktatayn, and Ibn Jurayj instead of Ab Anbasa.
71

306

nation among nations; kill [only] the pure black ones with the
two bald spots over their eyes, for that one is a shayn. 72
Abdallh and Ab Bakr, the sons of Nfi: Nfi: Ab Rfi: The
Prophet (SAAS) commanded us to kill dogs, so we were killing
them. I got to the outskirts (hir) of Ban mir [territory]
where I found an old woman with a dog and there was nobody
living near her. She said, Go back and ask the Prophet and tell
him that this dog is all I have to keep me company and nobody
lives near me. So I went back and told him, but he
commanded me to kill her dog, so I killed it. 73
According to another report, he said: When he got done killing
the dogs of Medna, and he had killed the womans dog, he
said, Now I can rest. They said: The report about killing all
Nearly the same report appears in Ibn Ab Shayba, Musnad, #19924, using nuqatayn
instead of naktatayn. Al-Jis use of naktatayn is apparently unique, although an
odd connection can be made with al-Barqs Kitb al-Masin. It relates a report in
which Jafar al-diq bests Ab anfa by refusing to participate in qiys argument,
and instead demonstrating his presumably divinely inspired scientific knowledge of
gestation, by explaining how the two impress-marks (naktatayn) on Ab anfas
donkey came about. Al-Barq, Kitb al-Masin, bb al-ilal, #13. On authorship, cf.
Pellat, al-Bar, EI2. The narrative al-Barq reports clearly repeats the contrast of
comparative (qiys) logic with direct religiously authoritative knowledge of the
natural world that I read in this part of the Dog-Rooster Debate, even if the impressmarks on the front of a donkey due to its gestation process do not seem to be
philologically linked to these claims that impress-marks show a dog to be a shayn.
The al-Barq passage also resembles comments about gestation made by Isidore of
Seville. Isidore of Seville, Etymologies, XI:i:108-109, p. 238.
73
See Wensinck, 6:52:23 fa-ukhbira bi-mraa la-h kalb for a list of locations for
similar adth.
72

307

dogs is true, and the report abrogating some of it, to kill only
the pure black dogs is true, along with the report that they are
jinn and inn, and that two nations were metamorphosed, and
they are dogs and snakes. 74
The Proponent of the Rooster goes on to cite adth on killing dogs, not keeping dogs
in the house, and so on, thus suggesting by propinquity that the dogs demonic
nature is linked to the legal prohibitions against it.
The adth claiming that pure black dogs are shayn are found in standard
collections, as I have indicated in the footnotes, and thus were widely known and
not particularly associated with sectarian affiliations in the ninth century. They are
part of a class of adth that permit killing various people and animals on the
grounds that they are shayn. These adth often focus on distinguishing between
believing jinn who should not be killed and the unbelieving shayn. 75 Ab Dwud
reports, for example:
Vermin (hawmm) are jinn. Whoever sees one in his house
should chase it away three times. Then if it returns, kill it, for
it is a shayn. 76
The entire passage is continuous, at ayawn I:291:8-292:18.
E.g. Abd al-Razzq, Muannaf, #8398: Kill the gecko, for it is a shayn.
76
Ab Dwud, Sunan, #5256.
74
75

308

It is the Proponent of the Dog who assimilates these fairly widely known topoi within
the adth corpus into a set of beliefs that were more specifically Shite, as we will
see in the final section of this chapter.
The key point for our purposes here is that these adth are not particularly
different from the other arguments that the Proponent of the Rooster has been
making about the dogs horrible essence. Like most of the other arguments, these
too rely on a vague sense that the dog is too similar to humans to be a normal
animal. Its expressive begging eyes add to the same too-human sense that was
presented in the dogs contradictory behavior and perverse gastronomic desires.
This is all from the perspective of the Proponent of the Rooster. From the
perspective of the Proponent of the Dog and al-Ji himself, these beliefs about
metamorphosis (from jinn or humans) turn out to be significantly different from the
Proponent of the Roosters other claims, for they imply an alternative system of
signs embedded in material reality that supersede the ones that al-Ji is looking
for. The purity of a dogs blackness, and the spots above its eyes, here are marks of
its true nature, which is not that of a dog at all. The doctrine that certain animals

309

bear the souls of humans or jinn posits that their material manifestation is nothing
more than a deceptive mask, instituted by God himself, hiding their true essense.
Al-Ji is certainly not hostile to the supernatural per se, since he frequently
intervenes in the ayawn to defend Gods miracles against the disbelief of groups he
calls the Dahriyya. But he cannot accept the idea that what we see is to be
interpreted according to some arbitrary code knowable only to those with divine
guidance. Matter is not a veil masking reality; it is real itself, and teach us about God
only if we take it seriously as matter itself.
Proponent of the Dog: Separation of Attributes
I suggested in Chapter Three that it is by making comparisons that al-Ji
thinks we can use reason to temper the natural impressions we have of animals
(rather than seeking guidance from those with supernatural insight each time we
run across a new animal). Al-Ji in the introduction to the ayawn writes that he
selected the dog and the rooster as topics because they had already been discussed
enough that he could proceed to the more important stage of comparing the two
animals. Moreover, both debate partners but especially the Proponent of the Dog

310

argue by constantly making comparisons. I mentioned in the overview of the DogRooster Debate that the Proponent of the Dog is almost always in the position of
responding to a claim made by the Proponent of the Rooster. Most of the time, this
response takes the form of a comparison to other animals. The Proponent of the
Rooster claims that the dog is disgusting because it eats excrement; the Proponent of
the Dog responds by proving that clean edible animals also eat excrement, namely
camels, sheep, goats, and chickens. 77 The Proponent of the Rooster claims the dog
has an ugly voice; the Proponent of the Dog responds by citing the ugly voices of the
mule, the peacock, lions, wolves, jackals, and even some people. 78
This kind of response is based on a logic that treats attributes comparatively;
calling something disgusting is meaningless, unless by this you mean that it is more
disgusting than something else. Al-Nam articulates this point in the single
citation explicitly drawn from his historic debate with Mabad. Mabad has cited a
Qurn verse comparing dogs to sinners; al-Nam quotes several verses comparing
edible herd animals to sinners, then says, This proves at the very least that you
77
78

I:232:9-235:9.
I:288:10-18.

311

must encompass all of them in your blame. 79 This is the Proponent of the Dogs goto argument strategy, and he seems to be able to come up with unlimited crimes
ascribed to the animal kingdoms most innocent animals.
This strategy does more, however, than just insist on a comparative
framework for each accusation. It calls into question the nature of these accusations
in the first place. In what sense can it be said of the dog that it is disgusting, ugly,
loud, and so on? How tightly do these attributes cling to the dogs inalienable
essence? We saw in the first part of this chapter that the Proponent of the Rooster
treats these attributes as expressions of a more essential truth about the dog, that it
is somehow horrible, whether this is expressed as intercategory, demonic,
metamorphosed, cannibalistic, or some other way of imagining horror incarnate.
The Proponent of the Dog habitually separates the attributes that the Proponent of
the Rooster has presented in a horrible cluster, considering each attribute separately
in a comparative context.

79

I:356:14.

312

For example, in Section One, we saw that the Proponent of the Rooster
presents a series of poems about dogs mangling and consuming human corpses,
linking this with the dogs habit of eating excrement and transforming poems into
invective. He concludes this discourse with the following summary:
One of them said about the dog: It loves a corpse (jfa) more
than fresh meat, it eats excrement, returns to eat up its own
vomit, and it sniffs its own urine, sometimes getting it in the
cavity of its mouth and nose, and rubbing it with its nostril. 80
This description of the dog as incorrigibly perverted in its horrible desires goes by
the wayside when the Proponent of the Dog responds. He addresses only the
behavioral points, leaving aside completely the sense of horror and the cycle of
ingestion linking dogs and humans. He responds, in order, to the accusations that
the dog eats jiyaf, has a stinky hide, sniffs urine, eats up its own vomit, and eats
excrement. For each of these disgusting behaviors, he shows that animals which are
not considered disgusting exhibit the behavior as well, focusing in particular on
noble animals and commonly eaten animals. Lions and humans eat raw meat that
is not fresh (cured meat, in the case of humans); goats and sheep stink and sniff their
80

I:227:12-14.

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own urine; the sheep drinks its own milk which is even more disgusting; eating
vomit is less disgusting than chewing cud; and all edible herd animals eat
excrement. The result is to strip away the power and horror from the disgusting
images that the Proponent of the Rooster has presented, leaving us with simply a
few disgusting images that can be rationally and legalistically assessed, compared,
and argued about. There is now a calculus governing disgust, where the Proponent
of the Rooster had introduced the images to support an incalculable feeling of
horror.
When in Section Seven the Proponent of the Rooster lists negative terms
derived from the word dog to prove that dogs are poorly regarded, the Proponent
of the Dog at first responds as expected, by citing positive derivations from the word
dog. But this debate quickly detours, as several unnamed people enter into the
debate, assessing the grounds for extrapolating from a derivation, based on the
reasons for which derivations are made and human names are given. Al-Ji
intervenes to give a complete theory of linguistic change. And then the Proponent
of the Dog returns to explain how invective about certain tribes accrues, based in a

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careful analysis of early Arab tribal history. His theoretical conclusions prove that
dogs are in fact illustrious if judged by the same standards that tribes are. This is a
far cry from the Proponent of the Roosters simpler approach, of citing examples of
negative cultural texts regarding the dog.
While the Proponent of the Dog uses a variety of rhetorical strategies
throughout the debate, this style of argument is the basic strategy that appears in
every section of the debate, sometimes in addition to more discipline-specific
passages. He separates attributes that together form a horrible overall impression,
in order to rationally assess each one separately in a comparative context. Part of
the interest these displays offer is the virtuosity required to come up with the most
precise parallels possible using the most innocuous animals possible.
We saw in Chapter Three that al-Ji is comfortable with the idea that
divergent attributes can combine in an animal, because he already sees each
animals essential nature (aba) as a conglomeration of attributes, each of which it
shares with other creatures. The total makes an essential character, but to analyze
it, it is still possible to break character into is component characteristics. The

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Addressee, on the other hand, sees the presence of opposing attributes, or attributes
from opposing categories (sabu and bahma) to be irreconcilable, producing not an
integral creature but rather a sewn-together (mulaffaq) creature that is
intercategory by nature and horror-inducing. Their opinions about the horror
associated with the intercategory aligns with their attitudes about the separability
of attributes. Whereas the Addressee expects the attributes associated with the
sabu category to manifest themselves in animals as an inseparable bundle, al-Ji
treats the attributes associated with the category sabu as separable. We saw in
Chapter Two that he defines the category of sabu through a juxtaposition of the
various attributes we naturally associate with sabu, but that he acknowledges that
these attributes do not come as a bundle. Instead, each attribute (carnivore,
dangerous, and so on) marks a different dividing line identifying which animals
belong to the category. Thus in his understanding of categories, there is ample
space for attributes to manifest themselves in combinations not precisely in line
with intuited categories. According to him, the dog is a sabu with the non-sabu
attribute of friendliness, and this is perfectly natural. Paradoxically, in the views of

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the Proponent of the Rooster and the Addressee, the very failure of attributes to gel
into an integral essence is what propels the dog into an intercategory status, a status
that carries with it its own bundle of horrifying attributes. In the Dog-Rooster
Debate, the Proponent of the Dog enforces this idea that attributes are separable by
refuting each new negative attribute as it is introduced, and never addressing the
overall image of essential horror.
Proponent of the Dog: Comparison and Law
The Proponent of the Dog opens his side of the argument in Section One with
a discourse that I read as an introductory and programmatic commentary on the
process of comparison that will be dominating his argumentative strategy. One
element of this commentary is its adaptation of arguments from ritual purity law, to
juxtapose them with extensive citation of scatological and otherwise odiferous
poetry. The Proponent of the Dog refers to specific recent debates in purity law,
demonstrating an awareness of cutting-edge ideas. More importantly, however, he
activates ritual puritys calculus of disgust, namely the way in which it assumed a
universally-agreed upon hierarchy of what things were dirtier than what other

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things, and assessed purity in some cases based on the material presence of this
naturally recognizable filth.
The Proponent of the Dog starts off as follows:
The Proponent of the Dog said: If you only attack the dog and bring it low
with these [arguments] and others like them, well: carrion (jfa) is more
vile (antan) than excrement, and excrement is worse (sharr) than
vomit. Yet carrion (jfa) is preferred by the most noble of wild beasts, and
their chiefs, over freshly slaughtered tender meat. The lion is lord of the
predators and it eats carrion, not attacking lawful wild animals or
hunting livestock (bahim), nor does it attack the human traveller, as
long as there is a preferable prey available. And after he drinks the blood
he starts by slitting open its belly and eating whatever is inside including
pus (ghaththa), sediment (thafl), innards (ashwa), and dung (zibl). The
lion also returns to eat up its vomit (yarja f qay'ihi), and this trait has also
been inherited from it by the civet cat.
The lion is the basis for proverbs about nobility and courage (basla), and
for the strength of its onslaught and its attack. It is said: He is a lion
with its claws! 81
More proverbs and some poetry excerpts follow, all proving the nobility and
predatory impulses of the lion. This passage starts with a declarative statement of a
hierarchy of disgust, according to which carrion is more disgusting than excrement,
which is in turn more disgusting than vomit. Since the dog has been accused of
81

I:228:1-10.

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eating excrement and vomit, this identifies the carrion-eating of the lion as a more
disgusting behavior than the dogs behavior of eating excrement and vomit.
This argument follows a common pattern of argument in eighth and ninth
century Islamic law, a pattern that starts with an assumed hierarchy of disgust, and
uses this assumed hierarchy to make comparative arguments (qiys). These
arguments apply one objects ritual purity status to another object, on the grounds
that the second thing is universally recognized to be more disgusting (antan min,
aqdhar min, sharr min) than the first thing. This kind of argument reflects a
materialist axis in legal argument, according to which investigations of ritual purity
focused heavily on material contamination of objects rather than symbolic or moral
contamination. Material dirtiness was taken as inherently obvious and universally
agreed upon, and thus served as an easy a priori fact upon which qiys arguments
could be based. On the concept of substantive impurity (najsa) in the eighth and
ninth centuries, Katz writes, "it seems probable that this was not a completely
technical concept, but a set of understood perceptions of 'dirtiness' of various kinds

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of bodily flux. 82 In legal discourse of this early period, the technical term najis
(impure) was freqently used interchangeably with the more general common-sense
term qadhir (dirty) to refer to both filth and impurity. This casual use of terminology
coincided with a practical approach to substantive impurity, with jurists frequently
making common-sense arguments, assuming that anything dirty should be
considered impure.
Al-Shafi theorizes a distinction between material dirtiness and ritual
impurity as defined by law. At the same time, he made heavy use of materialist
argument, and restricted the use of comparative argument (qiys) in ritual purity
law to materialist arguments. He calls material dirtiness rational or
comprehensible (maql), meaning that the rationale (man) for the ruling of
impurity is known, and can therefore be extended to other objects. 83 By contrast, in

Katz, Body of Text, 140.

Lowry discusses the term maql as it occurs in al-Shfis Risla, where it appears
to mean something along the lines of sensible or reasonable. (Early Islamic Legal
Theory, p. 315-317.) Nowhere does he address the term taabbud which apparently
does not appear in the Risla with a meaning other than general legal obligation.
Neither does he discuss the distinction between objective status and legal status,
which may also be absent from the Risla. These theoretical investigations are
82
83

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cases where revelation contradicts the material status of the item, the law is legal
obligation with no known rationale (taabbud bi-l man). 84 He also uses the term
maqlan as an opposite of khabaran, citing the rational (maql) argument for a
particular ruling separately from the argument from revelation (khabar) based in
adth. 85 He argues that it is important to distinguish rulings with a rational

specific to the topic of ritual purity and are confined to al-Umm. Katz treats wu
and ghusl as a way to seal off the body and in association with the concept of urma,
but does not discuss the term taabbud in relation to al-Shfis statement, If he
touches an animals penis (bahma), he need not perform wu, from the perspective
that (min qibal anna) human beings have urma and must perform taabbud, but
animals (bahim) do not have it [urma] and among them there is nothing like it.
I:44:10-11.
84
I:124:8. Lowry defines man in al-Shfi as a shared policy reason or abstract
similarity that allows application of an old law in a new situation. Early Islamic Legal
Theory, p. 143. By implication, he seems to be saying also that the man justifying a
legal ruling must be explicitly stated in a source-text and thus serves as a stronger
basis for qiys than does shabah, a perceived similarity not based in an explicitly
stated ground for the original ruling. The term man seems to be used in more loose
fashion here, denoting a known rationale which could be either explicitly stated in
the source-text or inferred. It still may be distinct from shabah which need not state
the specific similarity upon which the extrapolation is based (as is the case in the
example cited in the Risla of identifying similar herd animals to be used as
recompense for wild animals killed by a pilgrim).
85
Al-Shfi says, for example, There is no evidence that semen is najis, neither
based on revelation nor based on reason (l khabaran wa-l maqlan), after having
explained that semen should be considered hir based on a particular adth and

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objective basis (maql) from those with an incomprehensible revelatory one

(taabbudan) since it is better to perform qiys extrapolating from a rule whose
ground we understand, whereas rulings grounded in taabbud have no known
rationale (man), so the specific ground for the ruling cannot be extrapolated to
other cases. 86 In another passage he identifies taabbud (demonstrating obedience)
itself as the man (rationale) for performing wu, meaning that demonstrating
ones obedience to God was itself a valid ground for a law. 87 This distinction runs
along the same lines as the distinction identified by Kevin Reinhart in Before
Revelation between obligations that can be reasonably deduced by a mukallaf human
endowed with reason before he comes in contact with revelation, and those
additional obligations which revelation communicates to humanity. 88 Al-Shfis
language here gives ontological priority to the material status of an object, while
allowing Gods power to institute valid laws not based in an objects material status.
because it smells good (a rational piece of evidence). I:120:9. He introduces as
maql an argument about forbidden animals being clean while alive, since we ride
donkeys all the time, and donkey meat is forbidden. I:21.
86
I:21. This fits with the Rislas argument that qiys is best based on a man.
87
Al-Umm, I:122.
88
Reinhart, Before Revelation, op. cit.

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Thus in cases when Gods laws are not comprehensible, this does not seem to
indicate to al-Shfi that God can see something we cannot in an object; instead, he
assumes that our natural perceptions of dirtiness are accurate guides to material
reality, but that we must still defer to Gods judgment in determining the law.
We saw that the Proponent of the Dog argues that eating excrement is no
worse than eating carrion (jiyaf). A similar comparison takes place in al-Mudawwana
al-Kubr. ann (d. 854) asks Abd al-Ramn b. Qsim (d. 806), a Cairene student of
Mlik (d. 795), about the jallla, the beast nourished on excrement.
I [ann] said: What do you say about the jallla among
camels, cows, and ghanam (sheep and goats)? Did Mlik forbid
(yakrah) eating their flesh?
He [Abd al-Ramn b. Qsim] said: Mlik said: If I forbade
that, then I would also have to forbid birds that eat corpses (alayr allat takul al-jiyaf). Mlik said: There is no harm in the
jallla. 89
The text goes on to explain that Mlik saw no problem with eating any bird
whatsoever, including birds of prey that eat corpses (jiyaf). 90 Birds of prey are
forbidden in all the other legal schools besides the Mliki tradition, based on adth
89
90

ann, Al-Mudawwana al-Kubr, III:64:14-16.

ann, Al-Mudawwana al-Kubr, III:64:16 III:65:2.

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that expand the universally agreed upon prohibition on wild beasts with canines
(al-sabu dh anyb) to also forbid birds with talons (kull dh makhlab min al-ayr).
However, Mlik definitively and firmly permitted all birds, and did not transmit the
adth prohibiting them. 91 Mliks argumentative tactic of comparing the jallla
which eats excrement to birds of prey which eat carrion is similar to the Proponent
of the Dogs comparison of the excrement-eating dog to the carrion-eating lion.
Implicit in Mliks argument is the assumption that the Proponent of the Dog makes
explicit: carrion is more vile (antan) than excrement. 92 Thus if Mlik were to
forbid eating the jallla because it eats excrement, a filthy substance, he would a
fortiori have to forbid eating an animal which eats carrion, a substance that is
obviously at least as filthy if not more so. Both Mlik and the Proponent of the Dog
assume without hesitation that the audience will affirm this claim that carrion is
filthier than excrement. This is an example of a comparative argument based on
what was felt to be a universally recognized hierarchy of filth based on the shared
emotion of disgust.
91
92

Cook, Dietary Law, 251-2.

Al-Ji, Kitb al-ayawn, I:228.

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anns question refers to a debate about the jallla, a topic that the
Proponent of the Dog also explicitly references. Al-Shfi offers an opinion that
unambiguously espouses a materialist approach to the ritual purity of the jallla:
As for the camel whose fodder (alaf) is primarily dry
excrement (al-adhira al-ybisa), the rule is: Any edible walkingbeast (dawbb) that behaves this way is called a jallla when
the smell of the excrement is perceptible (tjad) 93 in its sweat
and its dung. That is because its flesh is nourished with it, and
accepts it. Whenever a camel or other animal mostly eats
other fodder [than excrement] but is given a small amount of
[excrement], so that it is not perceptible (l yabn) in its sweat
or in its dung, because its nourishment is from other food, that
animal is not a jallla and it is not forbidden [to eat it]. The
flesh of the jallla is forbidden until such a time as it has eaten
enough other fodder to perceptibly change its sweat and dung
from how it was before, for then it is known (yulam) that its
nourishment has changed, for its sweat and dung have
changed, and if it is like that then it can be eaten.
[Rabs comment:] We cannot find anything more clear than
this, since it has come down to us in narrations (thr):
The camel (bar) feeds for forty nights and the shh for a
number less than that, and a chicken for seven.
And in each case [al-Shfi] is describing what I just
mentioned regarding the change from a disgusting state (ib
makrha) to a state that is not disgusting but is rather
The words mawjd and qim are used by al-Shfi to refer to perceptible pollution,
while madm refers to imperceptible pollution (which may or may not be ritually
significant) in a passage discussing pollution of water. Al-Shfi, Kitb al-Umm, I:13.
93

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according to the nature (fira) of walking-beasts (dawbb). 94

Al-Shfi here follows a principle about the perceptible nature of pollution which is
consistent with other areas of his ritual purity opinions. In this case, he argues that
the smell of excrement in the animals sweat and dung gives evidence that the
animals flesh derives its nourishment and subsistence (ightid) primarily from
excrement, and therefore that the flesh of the animal is polluted by the ingested
excrement. We saw in the report from ann that al-Shfis ruling about the
jallla was not accepted by the Mlik school.
The Proponent of the Dog refers to the legal discussion of the jallla at one
point in his lengthy response in Section One to the accusation that the dog is
disgusting:
The Proponent of the Dog said: Returning to the accusation
you made against the dog, that it eats excrement (adhira). In
fact this is true of all herd animals (mshiya) whose flesh is
chosen above other flesh [for eating]. Camels and sheep are all
excrement-eaters (jallla) and they are most greedy to devour
the dry matter that exits from humans, so that once they
become accustomed to eating that which is dry on the outside
94

al-Shafi, Kitb al-Umm, III:629:14 III:630:4.

326

and moist on the inside, they start to behave just like a dog [in
eating feces]. Moving on to chickens: they are not satisfied
with excrement or with what seeds remain undigested, but
rather snatch up the worms that are in it, so that they mix two
kinds of filth (adhira) because they eat the worms of the
excrement (adhira) so they have the two kinds together. It
was for this reason that Abd al-Ramn b. al-akam, when he
insulted the Anr for their disgusting food, compared them to
chickens and not any other animal, leaving aside any mention
of dogs though they were available to him:
Indeed, the Anr in their villages eat
food more disgusting than what chickens eat.
If he had said,
Indeed, the Anr in their villages eat
Food more disgusting than what dogs eat
the meter would still be intact and correct.
Finally, when dogs are sated they don't eat excrement, and the
excrement-eating herd animals (al-anm al-jallla) are the
same way, as are excrement-eating hoofed animals. Rather it
is like pickled vegetables for them (ka-l-am idh knat lah
khallatan) for sometimes they nourish themselves with it but
other times they use it to make their food more digestible
(tataamma). And there is what there is in flesh of the
excrement-eating animal (wa-qad ja f lum al-jallla m
ja). 95
The passage argues that whereas chickens prefer to eat the most disgusting food
available, and when given the choice will exclusively consume excrement and the
95

I:232:9-233:9.

327

worms generated in it, dogs, like (clean) herd animals, consume excrement only as a
garnish, and not as a their primary nourishment. In the final sentence, the
Proponent of the Dog uses the term jallla, calling to mind al-Shfis observation
that the flesh of a jallla is contaminated with excrement, on the evidence that it
smells like excrement. He argues that because herd animals are considered
essentially clean beasts despite their habit of eating excrement, this habit cannot be
a valid ground for arguing that the dog is essentially disgusting. Even supposing one
were to follow al-Shfis view that the actual flesh of the jallla is contaminated
until the contamination dissipates, this contamination does not affect the animals
general status as edible, or its classification as essentially clean.
In the same section, the Proponent of the Dog and the Proponent of the
Rooster also engage in a back-and-forth debate that mirrors a similar debate
reported in Kitb al-Umm between the Mlik jurist Muammad b. Abd al-akam (d.
882) and al-Rab b. Sulaymn al-Murd (d. 884), a debate that has been examined by
both Marion Katz and Kevin Reinhart. The legal debate addresses the question of
whether semen is an impure substance, and involves comparing the pure bodily

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secretions (mucus, spit, sweat, and tears) with the impure ones (excrement, urine,
and blood) to discover the rationale underlying this classification. Rab concludes
the debate by positing that everything is pure while it is still in the body, and only
becomes impure when it exits the body. This explains how it is possible for a
presumably impure blood clot to grow into a pure human being, and thus it is
supposed to preserve an argument that semen is pure since it produces pure
humans. Al-Jis debate partners apply a similar reasoning to the question of
whether cud is more disgusting than vomit. The Proponent of the Dog has argued
that edible herd animals chewing of cud is more disgusting than the dogs eating of
vomit; the Proponent of the Rooster replies as follows:
The Proponent of the Rooster said:
The re-ingesting of the cud by a herd-animal (al-mshiya) and
his returning to what's in the first stomach (rujuh f al-firth)
to grind it and swallow it again is nothing like re-ingesting
vomit. You claim that the cud of a camel (bar) is more vile
(antan) than the vomit of dogs because of the length of time it
has remainded aging in the innards (li-l ghubbihi f al-jawf)
and its transformation into the nature of feces (zibl) and that it
is more vile (antan) than camel diarrhea (thal). In fact, the cud
is similar to saliva as mentioned by the poet Ibn Amar:
This praise, may I deserve to be associated with it,
-- For hope always makes the greedy person salivate --

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In fact, vomit is similar to excrement because the saliva you

mention is sweeter than honey, as long as it remains in the
mouth, more enjoyable than a light breeze, and more lovely
than cold water to a person dying of thirst. Saliva is like this
as long as it doesn't exit its place, but when it leaves the
mouth of its owner and sticks onto a piece of his skin, its
vileness (natn) becomes strong and then it becomes similar to
vomit.
Saliva and cud are similar just as vomit and feces are similar.
If a dog were to vomit until his mouth were full of it, and then
go back and swallow it without allowing it to escape his body,
then this would be more deserving of the term "clean" than
the herds with their cud, wild or tame. In fact, hares have
truly stinky (natin) menstrual blood, but the ab altaqadhdhur 96 don't loathe their meat specifically because they
share the feature of chewing cud with herd animals!97
The Proponent of the Rooster here adopts al-Rabs logic, but applies it to saliva,
which was known to be pure whether inside the body or outside of it. He is not here
investigating ritual purity status, but rather the material status of the object
whether it is innately and rationally perceptible to be disgusting. The debate
The phrase tarman bil-taqadhdhur was the phrase al-Shfi used to refer to that
which is forbidden because it was already considered disgusting by the pre-Islamic
Arabs, following Qurn, al-Arf 7:156 outlawing vile things (al-khabith). For
an example, see al-Shfi, Kitb al-Umm III:644.
97
I:231:9-232:8. In fact, the Jafar school does prohibit the hare, and adth mention
its menstruation as a possible basis for this law. Cook, Early Islamic Dietary Law,
232-237.
96

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partners are thus using the logic of the jurists to rationalize perceptions that the
jurists considered obvious. They question the very hierarchy of disgust that was
taken for granted by the jurists, demanding that al-Shfis maql statuses be
shown to actually be rational.
Legal debates used statements about what was more vile than what in
order to extend a ritual purity status from one object to another. Aside from the
examples we have seen, here is another example from al-Shfi:
We have ruled upon the dog following the command of the
Prophet. The pig, if it is not worse than (sharr min) the dog, is
certainly not better than (khayr min) it. For this reason we
ruled on the pig extrapolating (qiysan) from the dog. 98
And another:
Since the sunna gives evidence that a man must leave prayer
when he passes gas, the gas must be similar to defecating,
though defecating is worse (akthar minh). 99
The jurists in such arguments take for granted the obviousness of the pig being more
disgusting than the dog, excrement being more than gas, and carrion being dirtier

98
99

Al-Shfi, Kitb al-Umm, I:17:1-2.

Al-Shfi, Kitb al-Umm, I:38:18-19.

331

than excrement. This is a material and rationally perceptible hierarchy of filth that
can be used to inform qiys arguments within ritual purity law.
In the Dog-Rooster Debate, however, ritual purity status is not in question,
for everyone knew that the dog was impure under ritual purity law. Instead, the
Proponent of the Dog starts by calling into question the very innate perception of
the disgusting that the jurists take for granted, questioning why we find some things
disgusting and not others. After comparing the dog favorably to the habits of the
noble and clean lion, the Proponent of the Dog goes on to deny the objectivity of
considering carrion disgusting:
Moving on (wa-bad): In fact, the animal that eats carrion has
not strayed far from the nature of most people; for a lot of
people love to eat meat that is two days old (al-lam al-ghbb)
and others love to eat salted meat (namkasd). There is no
great difference between salted meat and a dried crucified
corpse (al-malb al-ybis). Also, they slaughter the rooster,
duck, chicken, and durrj at the start of the night so that its
meat can soften up, and that is the first step in turning it into
carrion (wa-hdh awwal al-tajyf). 100

100

I:229:8-12.

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The Proponent of the Dog here uses comparative logic akin to that employed by the
jurists, but instead of using perceptible material filth to inform ritual purity status
rulings, he questions those initial perceptions of material filth, seeking grounds
underlying the perceptions taken for granted by the jurists.
In these passages, the principle that certain things can naturally be perceived
to be disgusting is not questioned, and neither is the assumption that good poetry is
a reliable guide in exploring our natural reactions to material objects. At the same
time, a comparative logic is applied to these natural reactions, which leads to
unfamiliar territory. If one thing is admitted to be disgusting, these arguments
apparently demonstrate that this disgusting thing can be shown to be equivalent to
any number of other things, until even the chicken cooking in the kitchen has been
reduced to the status of excrement, or a crucified corpse.
On the one hand, this is a calculus of disgust taken to an absurd extreme,
with humorous and even satirical results. On the other hand, the passage mounts a
cogent epistemological challenge to our apparently natural reactions of digust, and
proposes a comparative logic with which to undertake an investigation of the

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grounds for these natural reactions. The arguments it employs are similar to Mary
Douglass initial demolition of the natural quality that disgust seems to have, in
which she asks why
Shoes are not dirty in themselves, but it is dirty to place them
on the dining-table; food is not dirty in itself, but it is dirty to
leave cooking utensils in the bedroom, or food bespattered on
clothing; similarly, bathroom equipment in the drawing
room... 101
The intellectual subtlety of some of al-Jis arguments, and the degree to which
they mirror the most recent developments in ritual purity law, suggests that if satire
is intended, it is a kind of in-house satire, a compliment to the intellectual rigor of
ninth century ritual purity debates couched within a deeper question about how to
examine the material world around us.
The comparative logic proposed is not, however, purely destructive of rules
and categories, but rather aims also to experiment with new ones. The Proponent of
the Dog, for example, builds a new hypothesis, namely that excrement-eating
animals are paradoxically the most tasty animals:

101

Douglas, Purity and Danger, 44-45.

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Our lords and the people of good living among us (mulkuna

wa-ahl al-aysh minn) desire nothing more than chicken, and
they place it before duck, young birds (nhi), partridge, and
francolin. Yes, and even before lambs and red camel calves
with good milch-camels as mothers. They are well aware of its
nature and its bad diet, but nonetheless they eat those left to
graze free just as eagerly as they eat the ones fattened on
grain. 102
The tastiest fish in the rivers, and the best whether cut into
strips (quddan) or skinned (kharan), the most expensive and
the most versatile, whether salted, fresh, frozen, or live
(nash), is the Shabb fish. There is no fish, whether of high
repute or obscure, that is greedier to eat excrement than [the
Shabb fish]. In this, it is even more eager than the pig on the
land or the eel in the sea.
Everyone knows how delicious pork is considered to be, and
how pigs eat [excrement], and how the Persian and Byzantine
kings (al-aksira wal-qayira) preferred it. If not for taabbud
we would eat it as they do. And everyone knows how delicious
eels are considered, because of their tails. 103
In other words, any creature that eats primarily excrement will be exceptionally
delicious, no matter how you cook it. Excrement eaters are even good for the health
This distinction derives from ritual purity law as well; Ab anfa opines that
water from which a chicken has drunk is pure if the chicken is caged (mabsa), but
polluted if the chicken is free (mukhallan), for then it will undoubtedly have
impurities upon its beak. Al-Shaybn, Kitb Al-Al, I:49.
103
I:233:11-234:8.
102

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of the body. Thus when specific animals that eat excrement are prohibited, this is
not for any rational reason but rather it is an example of taabbud, Gods inexplicable
commands that we obey blindly. This is the concluding passage of the Proponent of
the Dogs comparative response to the accusation that the dog eats excrement.
What follows is a series of poems about excrement eating animals and stench that do
not fit directly into any comparative argument, since the animals and objects in
question are not noble clean or tasty animals, and so cannot serve as examples
proving that the eating of excrement is not a sufficient reason to consider an animal
essentially disgusting.
The Proponent of the Dog: Comparison and Poetry
The legal arguments I have been discussing rely heavily on poetry to
establish initial impressions to compare. Thus when the Proponent of the Dog
argues that the ewe sucking her own teats is more disgusting than the dog eating its
own vomit, he supplies disgusting poetry about the ewe to support this point. The
Proponent of the Dog thus acknowledges the epistemological validity of poetry for
helping to reveal to us our own natural reactions to phenomena. Moreover, he

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keeps us firmly in the realm of the real material objects we are discussing, so that
the logical game does not mask the fact that we are dealing with real excrement (for
example) that really stinks and nauseates. After responding to each individual
complaint about the dog using this combination of poetry and comparative
argument, and proposing his rule about the tastiness of excrement eaters, the
Proponent of the Dog returns to dwell at more length on the topic of animals that
eat excrement. He says, the species that eat excrement are numerous 104 and goes
on to spend four pages citing poetry about animals that eat excrement.
The purpose of this passage is not argumentative in the same way as the
earlier poetic citations, for the poems cited here are about animals like the dungbeetle which can hardly serve as a noble comparison invalidating the conclusion
that the dog is disgusting because it eats excrement. Around I:239:4, this collection
of scatological poetry shades into poetry that is not about eating excrement at all,
but generally about horrible stenches. The Proponent of the Rooster initially cited a
mere five brief excerpts of poetry to prove his point about the dog, and if we take

104

I:235:7.

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poems to prove a point, it would indeed have been overkill to cite more. The effect
that the Proponent of the Dog produces here is quite different, for there is no
argumentative point to be proven from simply citing a deluge of scatological and
repulsive poetry. On the logical level, it does prove to it us that in fact it is
excrement, not the dog itself, which serves to invert praise poetry and produce
invective. Rhetorically, however, the passage has a much greater impact. Like the
lengthy discourse on eunuchs in the introduction which I have argued serves to
performatively break the taboo instituted by the Addressee on discussing the
intercategory, this study in scatology exceeds the Proponent of the Roosters limits
in discussing excrement as well. Thus the Proponent of the Dog here calls his
opponents bluff, so to speak. If the Proponent of the Rooster thought the audience
would be shocked at his horrible poems about dogs, he had no idea what a mass of
scatology the Proponent of the Dog had in store, with which to bury those paltry few
citations.
The Proponent of the Dog dramatizes the perverse desire for excrement in a
manner that trumps what the Proponent of the Rooster offered in his initial

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discourse. One poem he cites refers to the way dung-beetles follow people around in
the early morning hoping to feed on their first excretion of the day.
The poet said:
When I came to visit Sulayma,
a beetle became impassioned with love for me.
Its a miserable person
who has a dung-beetle fall in love with him. 105
And this poem is about a camel re-ingesting his own excrement before the camel
kids can get to it:
The rajaz poet said:
He pounded it and kneaded it, and made it into a pie shape.
Then the camel-kids kneeled down to eat it up again,
Desiring to feed on dough.
But he lowed, saying grace, and re-ingested. 106
As the scatological poetry mounts up, item after item in every daylife becomes
contaminated, from dough to romance in the wee hours. Excrement has been
proven to be a food for animals and a fertilizer dumped all over the vegetables we
eat. The stench of excrement has infiltrated the breath of the patron, and the noses
of their courtiers, the homes of animals like the pole cat, and the bed of brides. Any
105
106

I:237:7-8.
I:236:14-237:2.

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squeamishness that might have protected the reader or listener during the
truncated passages cited by the Proponent of the Rooster is demolished by this
flood. The desensitization process is matched by increasing variation in poetic
imagery, resulting in a kind of washing away of the reader/listeners resistance to
imagining the world as composed of excrement, and assenting to that view of
reality. The passage closes with the following vision of the entire world as
excrement:
Musabba the latrine-sweeper (al-kanns) 107 said: The word
khayr (good) is derived from khur (shit). In dreams, shit is
good. .... He claimed that the whole world is putrescent
(muntina), its walls and its earth, its rivers and its streams. But
everyone is so saturated with this stink surrounding them,
that it has annihilated their perception of it. This is because it
has been sitting in their nostrils for so long. He said: He who
doubts my story, let him refrain from rejecting it until he has
had a chance to test it out, in the first moment right when he
exits into the world from a perfumed house, by sniffing
deeply. Still, swamps are distinct in stench. This is the speech
of Musabba the latrine-sweeper. 108

107
108

He is also mentioned in an anecdote in al-ayawn, III:13:1-15:9.

Al-ayawn, I:245:8-246:1.

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Despite the possible unreliability of this low-status witness, his testimony aptly sums
up the effect of the passage, in creating an impression that the world as a whole is
contaminated with stench and excrement. The recitation of poetry and anecdotes
thus leads ultimately to the same conclusion as the passages employing a lawinspired rationality in its comparative process. Just as the Proponent of the Dog
ended up comparing chicken to jerky to a dried crucified corpse and the carrion
that lions pick at, here the whole world is enveloped in a cloud of stench that spares
nothing.
At the same time, this concluding anecdote is paired with an experiment to
discover which species of animal possesses the most vile-smelling corpse.
Salmawayh and Msawayh, leading physicians employed by the court, claim it is the
camel, but al-Ji rejects this opinion as rooted in their Persian partisanship
(aabiyya) and thus opposition to Arab culture. The governor al-ajjj is reported to
have posed this question, and experimented with dog corpses first, but finally
settled on the rotting corpse of a male cat. His purpose in this endeavor to find the

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absolute limit of stench was to fittingly punish the pretender to the caliphate, Ibn alZubayr, whom he crucified between two dead cats. 109
Al-Ji intervenes at the end of the Proponent of the Dogs discourse by
offering his own opinion about the absolute limits on the spectrum of smells.
As for me, my doctrine on unpleasant and pleasant smells is
something about which if you examine it you will perhaps
agree with me and approve of it: As for stench, I have never
smelled anything worse than the stench of a pitch-sealed
privy in which eunuchs urinate without pouring water over
their urine, for their urinations following in succession and
piling up one upon the other, and the smell of the pitch, and
the smell of the privy, and the distinct smell of the drainpipe,
have together a unique aspect of stench and a category of
vileness (jihatan min al-natin wa-madhhaban min al-makrh),
does not have an effect on the body at all (laysa baynahu wabayna al-abdn amal), but rather aims directly at the essence of
the soul, and the core of the spirit, especially if the privy is
covered, closed in, and not open. 110
The passage on scatological poetry thus comes to the same tense conclusion as the
passage using legal argument. In both cases, the very attempt at comparative
ranking leads to the admission that all objects are disgusting. Yet in both cases, the

109
110

I:246:8.
I:246:9-247:3.

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commitment to a comparative logic is retained, and al-Ji does not give up the
principle that there in fact is a hierarchy of the disgusting, with extreme limits on
either end of the spectrum. I interpret this structure of argumentation to be a
decimation of the principle of purity, a principle upon which the Proponent of the
Roosters case rests. After all, he seems to suggest that the dogs disgusting
behaviors are sufficient to declare it disgusting. Comparative logic, however, reveals
a world of absolutes to be absurd, for then everything will be absolutely disgusting.
One assumes that al-Ji could equally well argue that he world is absolutely pure.
In one sense, then, the comparative arguments amount to a reductio disproving this
purity principle. Yet they are also a clear exposition of a method for embarking on a
process of learning about the real relative relations present in the world, for
establishing a spectrum for the disgusting. Musabbas discourse sweeping
everything under the giant umbrella of excrement is thus perfectly balanced against
the final anecdotes grasping for absolute limits in the spectrum of smells as
reference points against which to measure the elusive hierarchy of disgust.
Accretive and Absolute Measures of Disgust

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Al-Jis description of the most terrible smell in the world achieves its
terrible status through accretion. Whereas each element of the smell is bad, but not
the worst in the world, it is the combination of distinct terrible smells that achieves
this superlative status. Absolute purity and impurity are the rule when it comes to
ritual purity law, and according to this system there is no more pure or less
pure. Things are either pure or impure, absolutely. But the debate partners here
are addressing not ritual purity, but rather the material reality that is intuited by
the reaction of disgust. And according to al-Jis interjected opinion about the
worst smell in the world, this hierarchy of the materially disgusting operates
according to an accretive logic.
This principle of accretion in measuring disgust is first alluded to when the
Proponent of the Dog argues that chickens are more disgusting than dogs because
they are not satisfied with excrement or with what seeds
remain undigested, but rather snatch up the worms that are in
it, so that they mix two kinds of filth (adhira) because they eat
the worms of the excrement (adhira) so they have the two
kinds together. 111

111

I:232:12-15.

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According to ritual purity law, things are either pure or impure; adding one kind of
impurity to another does not create anything special. But in the material hierarchy
of disgust, accretion is a powerful force. Excrement mixed with worms is much
more revolting than excrement alone or worms alone. Similarly, it is the gradual
accretion of all the images from the many scatological poems that results in the
effectiveness of the deluge passage. Al-Ji here seems to espouse this theory of
the accretive nature of disgust, for his proposal for the absolute limit of stench is an
accretion of a panoply of revolting smells, which he finely distinguishes for us while
asking us to imagine them together.
Section One fittingly concludes with the full citation of two strongly
accretive scatological poems by al-akam Ibn Abdal, a seventh-century composer of
invective poetry, to whom many of the scatological poetry excerpts cited earlier in
the debate are attributed. 112 The second poem ends with a recipe, itself an epitome
of the accretive genre. A recipe is not much more than a list of ingredients and
instructions, but it presumes that the sum will coaslesce into something greater

112

Pellat, al-akam b. Abdal EI2.

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than a mere collection a dish. The poem insults a governor named Muammad for
refusing a favor, and recommends for him an emetic to cure his repulsive breath,
described in excruciating detail in the first part of the poem. The recipe reads as
follows:
You must eat vomit and dog shit
and two things like these which start with N, like nad 113
Assafoetida, leeks and garlic
Two sprigs of rue, the brain of a panther
The throat of a jackal and of a weasel
and a grain's weight of faqd seeds
A handful of Spanish-flies, the tongue of a hunting-falcon,
and two mithqls of Raqd 114 flint.
Pound it, sift it, and knead it together with
stale urine and monkey dung.
Bury it for a while in barley
and take care that it is not exposed to cold.
Then smoke your mouth with what you have fermented
and don't knead in ufr or nadd perfumes.
If winter arrives and you're still alive,
then I think God must have set you on earth as a guiding
sign.
Roll it into little balls and swallow it
whenever you intend to speak, or choke it down.
Then spit out the stinky emetic into the a dish
Neither I nor Hrn can solve this riddle.
An area famous for millstones. A mithql was a measure of weight, one and a half
dirhems, or about 2/3 of a teaspoon according to Nasrallah, Caliphs Kitchen, 800.
113
114

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with a swollen gullet and jaw.

Damn you, what is wrong with your belly?
Ever since we sat down it has been echoing like rumbling thunder.
The tumor-scraper I have contains a cure;
If you will endure it, it will help you.
It will kill your worms, and you will be greedy for it
If you make a habit of it like drinking horrible medicine
Though you sprinkle it with oleander 115
And a bit of harvested capers 116 and bay.
I feel like Im dead from the stench of his mouth,
May God despise the one who converses closely with him
after me. 117
I have here argued that Section One of the Dog-Rooster Debate offers a
particularly self-reflective meditation on the comparative method and its
implications, as an introduction to the comparative process that the Proponent of
the Dog will inflict on each of the Proponent of the Roosters claims throughout the
rest of the Dog-Rooster Debate. This self-reflective concluding passage runs from
I:245:7 to 253:12, and consists of Musabbas anecdote, the quest to find the best and

Hava offers laurel-bay (the same plant as rand or ghr), oleander, and
rhododendron. Hrn identifies it as a poisonous plant in his footnote, so I used
oleander, which is highly poisonous.
116
Kitb al-Ayn equates al-laaf with al-aaf, capers.
117
I:252:13-253:12.
115

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worst smells, and the two concluding poems by Ibn Abdal. At least from the quest
to find the best and worst smells (I:246:2), this concluding passage is in al-Jis
voice, and amounts to a literary comment on the comparative process, and the
possibility for accretive attributes when absolute attributes are excluded.
When is Comparison Impossible?
Through the ensuing sections of the debate, the Proponent of the Dog
responds comparatively to the claims adduced by his opponent. When the
Proponent of the Rooster points out the command to kill dogs, the Proponent of the
Dog responds by citing Umars command to the early Muslims to kill chickens. 118
When the Proponent of the Rooster accuses the dog of having an obscene and
unsightly erection, the Proponent of the Rooster compares it to a variety of equines,
as well as the goat, and even the pigeon, rooster, chicken, duck, and pigeon. 119 It
would be pointless to list all the examples, as this is the one consistent type of
argument that the Proponent of the Dog uses throughout the debate. He also at
times uses exegetical arguments, linguistic arguments, and a variety of other
118
119

I:296:11-297:3.
I:373:14-374:8.

348

arguments to invalidate claims made by his opponent. But the Proponent of the
Dogs bread and butter is to show that the behavior or attribute adduced is shared
with respected animals as well.
There is one argument that the Proponent of the Rooster makes to which the
Proponent of the Dog cannot mount a comparative argument. This is the suggestion
that the dog is not really a natural animal at all, but rather that its most salient
feature is that it is in fact a demon (jinn) or a human that has been metamorphosed
(musikha) into the form of a dog.
We saw earlier that the Proponent of the Rooster is presenting an integrated
image of the dog as horror-inducing, so that the intimation of demonic qualities or
metamorphosis is only a slightly more literal expression of this general horror. Yet
the Proponent of the Dog was able to reduce the other accusations to an observable,
and thus comparable material reality, like eating excrement or stinking. In doing so,
he suppressed the Proponent of the Roosters central point about horror itself,
instead creating a view of material reality that left no room for the very concept of
horror. By contrast, the doctrine of maskh is fundamentally incomparable, since it is

349

not expressed in any observable way but rather only addresses the animals hidden
essence. If an animals essence is not represented in its material instantiation, then
how can it be compared?
In response to the claims of metamorphosis, the Proponent of the Dog drops
his habitual argumentative stance, and resorts to simple but brutal mockery. The
mockery, to be sure, is full of comparisons, but they are not comparisons of the dog
to other animals; instead, they are comparisons of the belief in metamorphosis to
other stupid beliefs. This is not comparison along a chart of the material world, but
rather comparisons along the heresiological chart of beliefs. The Proponent of the
Dog here takes time out from his investigation of material reality in order to
delineate what ideas do not fall under its scope.
The Proponent of the Dog singles out the adths about metamorphosis for
mockery, even though they represent only a small portion of what his opponent has
cited in his preceding discourse. Even though metamorphosis had Qurnic grounds,
and the adths referenced by the Proponent of the Rooster are transmitted by
standard sources, the Proponent of the Dog does not even dignify the topic with

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serious argument. Instead, he conflates this mention of metamorphosis (maskh)

with other reports of metamorphosis:
You (pl.) transmitted a report that the eel and the spiny-tail
lizard were two metamorphosed nations. Someone
transmitted a report that the shrimp was once a seamstress
who stole threads, that she was metamorphosed, and that
some of those threads were left on her to be a sign upon her
and an indication of the nature of her theft. You transmitted a
report that the mouse was once a miller, and that the star
called Canopus was once a tax collector in Yemen. Also, that
the snake used to be in the form of a camel, but that God
punished him, connecting him to the earth, and dividing the
punishment into 10 categories. [God did this] when it allowed
Ibls to enter into its belly to whisper to Adam from its mouth.
You said what you said about the gecko and the striped lizard.
You claimed that the camel was created from the dispositions
of demons (shayn). You made the ugliest interpretation of
this. And you claimed that dogs are a nation of
metamorphosed jinn. 120
This continues for some time, with each new idea introduced you transmitted a
report (rawaytum) or you claimed (zaamtum). The Proponent of the Dog stops to
make practical and hermeneutic arguments about these adth (I:302:6-305:15), but
then resumes his accusations by saying:
I:297:5-13. For explanations, see Pellat, Maskh, EI2 and Pellats notes to al-Ji,
Kitb al-Tarb wal- Tadwr.
120

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You transmitted about ticks (al-fawsiq) what you transmitted

about snakes, kites, scorpions, mice, and crows. And you
transmitted about the vicious dog (al-kalb al-aqr), and about
how they should be killed even by people on pilgrimage. If
you are in fact jurists (fuqah), then you are aware that calling
the crow al-fisq and the mouse al-fuwaysiqa is not the same
kind of thing (min shakl) as calling something a sinner (fsiq),
nor is it the same thing as calling it Ibls. 121
Al-Jis voice concludes the section with the following passages, between which he
cites extensively a similar list of beliefs, including many of the same examples, from
his own letter Kitb al-Tarb wal-Tadwr mocking Amad b. Abd al-Wahhb.
Talk about the metamorphosis of spiny tailed lizards, eels,
dogs, kites, and that the pigeon is a shayn it all belongs to
the class of silliness (muz) that we put in a letter to one of
our friends, who claimed to know everything. We made these
tales and little clevernesses (fian) into questions: 122
[Here he cites from Kitb al-Tarb wal-Tadwr]
If you enjoyed these questions, and found this style (madhhab)
to be clever, read my letter to Amad b. Abd al-Wahhb, the
Secretary, for they are gathered there. 123

I:306:1-5.
I:308:5-7.
123
I:311:7-8.
121
122

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The Proponent of the Rooster is not described making any of these claims or
transmitting any of these reports (if an unnamed character could even be said to
transmit adth). Normally the Proponents refer to one another in the plural, and
the Proponent of the Dog does in the second half of the debate refer to arguments
that we did not hear the Proponent of the Rooster make. So it is possible that the
Proponent of the Dog is here too referring to claims that the Proponent of the
Rooster is supposed to have made but that are not represented in the text. But since
most of these reports are irrelevant to the dog and the rooster specifically, and are
linked theoretically and doctrinally to the claim about the dogs metamorphorsis, I
find the most plausible interpretation of this passage to be that the Proponent of the
Dog is assimilating his opponents claim about the dog being a metamorphosis into a
host of other beliefs. The passage would then read as a literary reductio ad absurdum.
The implicit logic is: if you believe that black dogs are metamorphoses, you must
also believe these other things which are patently absurd. The reductio is literary
rather than logical because logically it is perfectly possible to believe one thing
without believing the other.

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The Proponent of the Dog does such a good job rejecting metamorphosis out
of hand that we have to take special pains to remember that nearly all intellectuals
of his day would probably have believed in at least some of the stories introduced
here as absurd. In the first place, metamorphosis is attested in the Qurn in the
case of monkeys and pigs, so the concept could not be dismissed out of hand. 124 AlBukhr narrates reports that the spiny-tail lizard (abb) and the mouse are
metamorphoses, and that the mouse will not drink camel milk, though it will drink
cow milk, presumably since mice are metamorphosed from a tribe of Jews. 125 He also
relates a adth commanding that the gecko be killed, corresponding to the
Proponent of the Dogs claim that ignorant people today kill geckos because their
ancestors blew on Abrahams fire and brought wood for it. 126 adths identifying
the five fawsiq that can be killed by a person on pilgrimage are present in nearly
every compendium, including al-Bukhr, who lists all the same animals that the

Qurn, al-Mida 5:60, al-Baqara 2:65, al-Arf 7:166. On metamorphosis,

see Pellat, Maskh, EI2; Cook, Ibn Qutayba and the Monkeys.
125
Al-Bukhr, a #3304. Muslim, a, 4:2294.
126
Al-Bukhr, a #3307. Al-Ji, al-ayawn, I:304. Qurn, Anbiy 21:68-69.
124

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Proponent of the Dog has listed, excluding snakes: kites, scorpions, mice, crows, and
vicious dogs. 127
Many of the beliefs that the Proponent of the Dog lists were, however,
specifically associated with Shiism. The belief that eels and shrimp are
metamorphoses is strongly associated with Shiism, for we find them mentioned only
in Shiite adth and law collections. 128 That this was well known is clear from a
passing comment we heard the Proponent of the Dog make earlier: The eel... is a
provokation to fury for the Rawfi. 129
Michael Cook distinguishes between what he calls creationism, and
metamorphism, based on al-Jis discussion of metamorphosis as a theological
masala in Volume Four of the ayawn. 130 Metamorphism is the belief that the
actual animals we see every day are in fact metamorphosed humans, or the eerily
part-human descendants of those metamorphosed humans. Creationism, by
contrast, is the belief that an animal kind existed prior to the metamorphosis of
Al-Bukhr, a #3314.
Cook, Early Muslim Dietary Law, 237-247.
129
I:234:10.
130
Cook, Ibn Qutayba and the Monkeys.
127
128

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some humans into that form, and that the current animals of that kind are
descendants of the created animals, not the metamorphosed humans. According to
Cook, most scholars followed the creationist doctrine. This was true also of Shiite
scholars, for already a contemporary of al-Jis, Amad b. Muammad al-Barq (d.
887-8 or 893-4), uses the term exemplary punishment (al-mathula) to refer to
animals that he calls metamorphosed. 131 From al-Kulayn (d. 941) onward, the
prohibition on eating what Shiites called metamorphoses (al-muskh) was
explicitly stated to derive from their similarity to the punished people, to remind
living people of that exemplary punishment:
God, blessed and mighty, metamorphosed a tribe (qawm) into
various forms (uwar) similar (shibh) to the pig, the monkey,
the bear, and [other] metamorphosed animals. Then he
forbade eating them, for the sake of exemplary punishment
(mathula), so that people would not derive benefit from them
or take their punishment lightly. 132
Thus Shiites involved with the law and adth movements were not particularly
attached to the principle that the animals in the world around us are more than

131
132

Al-Barq, Kitb al-Masin, kitb al-makil, bb al-lum al-muarrama, 469.

Al-Kulayn, Fur al-Kf, kitb al-aima, bb ilal al-tarm, p. 242 #1.

356

their material manifestation lets on. Ibn Qutayba, however, reveals himself to be a
metamorphist in F Tawl Mukhtalif al-adth, opining that monkeys today are in fact
the descendants of metamorphosed animals. 133
Extreme groups like the Khurammiyya that Crone describes living in the
arbiyya district of Baghdd believed in a doctrine of maskh that referred not to
prophetic-era events but rather to the system of animal reincarnation governing the
afterlife of all living humans and many living animals. 134 Even two of al-Nams
students, one Amad b. i or bi or Khbi, and Fal b. al-adab, were known
to have introduced into kalm discussions a belief in reincarnation (tansukh) that
they are said to have derived from reading the philosophers. This doctrine included
reincarnation as animals, and treated all creatures as one genus, as Walker puts it,
who were all subject to moral responsibility and capable of obedience and
disobedience. 135

Cook, Ibn Qutayba and the Monkeys, 58.

Crone, Nativist Prophets, 233-252. See also Walker, Metempsychosis in Islam and
Asatryan, Heresy and Rationalism.
135
Walker, Metempsychosis in Islam, 226-7.
133
134

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The list of beliefs presented by the Proponent of the Dog and al-Ji is
extensive, and fits into doctrinal history in complex ways. By lining these beliefs up
together, the Proponent of the Dog makes a clear case that they should be
considered equivalent. They are equivalent in that they all give animals a degree of
humanity, whether by claiming that they are human souls in animal bodies, or by
claiming that an animal can be punished for heretical behavior. In the arguments
that intervene in the midst of his list of transmission accusations, he addresses the
specific belief that we are commanded to kill the gecko because it blew on the flames
burning Ibrhm to fan them. 136 The Proponent of the Dog argues that this story
implies that the ancestors of the gecko
could tell the difference between a true and a false prophet,
and that they held a doctrine antagonistic to Ibrhm, either
because of a defect in the root of [their reasoning] or because
of obstinacy, when [the truth] had already become clear. [In
that case,] how could it be permitted to us to make the bearer
of burdens bear the burden of another? 137 Unless you claim
that this one that we kill is that very denier of prophecy and
I:304:16-305:9.
Qurn, Anm 6:164; Isr 17:15; Fir 35:18; Zumar 39:7; Najm 53:38.
The phrase refers to punishing one person for another persons sins, and here refers
to punishing the entire species for the sin of a single progenitor.
136
137

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disbeliever in Lordship, and that it has not propagated or

multiplied. 138
Clearly he feels that it is absurd to think that the gecko understood doctrine enough
to be considered a punishable disbeliever, and even granted that, it is equally absurd
to punish the species for the sin of the progenitor or to assume that the geckos we
see today are all that very gecko that fanned Ibrhms flames. He does conclude
with an admission that it is conceivable that God did command us to kill a species
not as punishment for the species, but either as an inexplicable command to test our
obedience (al-mina wal-taabbud) or in the same way that God has decreed that the
entire human race is to be killed at the hands of the Angel of Death.
At stake in this brief aside is a theological question about whether animals
can in any circumstances bear moral responsibility. This question is broached in a
more complete way in Volume Four, the chapter on the pig and the monkey. In
this chapter is the passage on metamorphosis that Cook uses to distinguish between
creationism and metamorphism. 139 Following the discussion of metamorphosis,

138
139

I:305:1-5.
IV:68:4-74:4.

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al-Ji leads into a discussion of Solomons threat to kill the hoopoe that would
later inform him about the Queen of Sheba, when the hoopoe was late for a military
parade. 140 Al-Ji introduces the discussion of the hoopoe as a continuation of the
kalm questions related to metamorphosis:
Now that we have discussed some kalm and the topics
(masil) involved in some kalm, we will mention the issue of
the hoopoe and the topic (masala) associated with it. 141
In this theological discussion, al-Ji affirms that moral responsibility (al-taklf) is
indeed a firm boundary between humans and animals, despite the hoopoes
apparent rationality and ability to speak. Just as even the original gecko is not
responsible for his actions and cannot be punished for the sake of punishment, so
the hoopoe cannot be justly threatened with punishment. Instead, he must be
threatening the hoopoe in the manner of behavioral training, as is done to a small
boy below the age of moral responsibility.
By affirming a firm boundary between humans and animals based on the
single criterion of moral responsibility (taklf), al-Ji is able to incorporate the idea
140
141

Qurn, al-Naml 27:21. IV:77:12-85:15.

IV:77:12-13.

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that there is a continuum of rationality between animals and humans, and a

continuum when it came to speech as well, without allowing these shared traits of
reason and speech to challenge the distinction between animals and humans. For
his opponents, by contrast, whenever an animal betrayed features perceived to be
the preserve of humans, the animal was simply reclassed as a human in animal form.
This is the same difference in imagining categories that we saw between the two
sides arguing about the dogs status. Whereas al-Ji does not demand that every
predator diplays every predatory feature, and thus does not find the dogs
friendliness to mount a challenge to its predatory status, the Addressee insists that
this trait destroys the dogs predatory status, making it intercategory.
Paradoxically, a purist approach turns out to result in doctrines like maskh and the
horrible intercategory, precisely in order to explain the various combinations that
occur in nature and do not conform to purist principles.
The Proponent of the Dog here redraws the theological map, lumping
together anyone who allows for breaches in the boundary between humans and

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animal, whether through the belief in metamorphosed animals (muskh) other than
the pig or the monkey, or through believing it is right to kill species in punishment.
Conflating ideas supported by the adth movement with exclusively Shiite
ideas turns out to have been deeply insulting to Ibn Qutayba, as he wrote a book
defending the adth movement, a large proportion of which is devoted to
responding to precisely the attacks that occur in these speeches by the Proponent of
the Dog and al-Ji. When listing the strategies for debunking adth that Ibn
Qutayba ascribes to his opponents in the motivating introduction to F Tawl
Mukhtalif al-adth, Michael Cook describes the last cited strategy as to take a single
tradition and ridicule it as so silly that it could not possibly be genuine. 142 This
pasage from the Ibn Qutaybas introduction is clearly a direct response to the
passage I have just cited from al-Jis ayawn. The passage cites unnamed
opponents attacking the ahl al-adth as follows:
And they also transmit of every idiocy (sakhfa) that sends
attackers against Islam and makes atheists (al-mulidn) laugh
at it, and makes the hesitant refrain from entering into it, and
increases the doubts of the sceptics.
142

Cook, Ibn Qutayba and the Monkeys, 43.

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For example, they transmit about the mouse it is a Jew, and it

does not drink camel milk just as Jews do not drink it. And
about the crow, that it is a fsiq, and about the cat that it is a
lions sneeze, and that the pig is an elephants sneeze, and that
the shrimp was a seamstress who stole thread and was
metamorphosed, and that the spiny-tail lizard was a Jew with
no care for his children who was metamorphosed, that the
Canopus constellation (suhayl) was a tax-collector in Yemen,
and that Venus was a prostitute who ascended to the sky by
the greatest name of God, so He metamorphosed her into a
star. And that the gecko blew on the flames against Ibrhm
[to fan them] but the aya lizard spit water on them [to put
them out] 143
The passage continues on to complete a list that overlaps to a huge degree with
accusations made here by the Proponent of the Dog, and then by al-Ji. Many of
these adth appear as chapters in the body of Ibn Qutaybas book, so that the
territory marked out for him by the Proponent of the Dog occupies a healthy
proportion of F Tawl Mukhtalif al-adth. Some of these beliefs Ibn Qutayba
dismisses as legend, while others he confirms as true.
Michael Cooks article analyzing a particular chapter in Ibn Qutaybas book
juxtaposes the passage with al-Jis discussion of metamorphosis in Volume Four.

143

Ibn Qutayba, F Tawl Mukhtalif al-adth, 54-55.

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Following Ibn Qutaybas assessment of the debate, he makes the central issue out to
be the validity of adth and the degree to which they are accepted as a source of
knowledge. Yet in the view of this debate presented by al-Ji, the central question
is not adth as a source of knowledge but rather the distinction between animals
and humans. And Ibn Qutayba was well aware of this theological concern. In his
chapter on the five sinners (al-khams al-fawsiq) among animals that can be killed
by a person on pilgrimage, he addresses the question of animals bearing moral
responsibility, giving many of the same examples cited by al-Ji on this topic: the
hoopoe, the speech of the birds, the crow and the pigeon that Noah sent out, and the
snake as a moral agent in the story of Adam and Eve. He agrees with al-Ji in
affirming that God might command for a species to be killed as taabbud rather than
punishment, but he also affirms that it is possible for animals to speak, reason, and
indeed bear moral responsibility. 144
In response to the critique of the gecko story offered in the ayawn by the
Proponent of the Dog, Ibn Qutayba insists that the material world was full of

144

Ibn Qutayba, F Tawl Mukhtalif al-adth, 210-215.

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wonders that had to be interpreted as signs. He cites beehives, the ways ants dry out
grain to prevent it from sprouting, and so on. Is animal rationality and moral
responsibility so different from these well-known wonders, he asks? These
examples had already been cited by al-Ji in the ayawn as part of al-Jis own
proof that animals have knowledge and a degree of reason and communication, and
that the world is full of signs. What is at stake here is how the world acts as a set of
signs, and how it is to be read. Whereas the stories about animals being
metamorphosed humans or jinn treat the material world as a veil masking the true
reality of things, al-Ji insists on examining the material world itself rather than
looking beyond it.
By equating every belief that ignores phenomena in favor of esoteric truths
about animals, the Proponent of the Dog and al-Ji, in his intervention, offer an
alternative sketch of the heresiographical map. Instead of associating each belief
with the groups that actually upheld it, al-Ji and the Proponent of the Dog here
create a new dividing line, based on how people interpret the signs embedded in the
material world.

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Conclusion
In this chapter I have reconstructed the coherence of the image of the dog
presented by the Proponent of the Rooster, showing that this horror-inducing image
hinges on an intercategory status that was at once between predator (sabu) and
prey (bahma) and between human and animal. The specific modality of this toohuman status varies with the different reports he cites, but it is fairly clear that the
Proponent of the Rooster is not strongly advocating any particularly controversial
beliefs. The Proponent of the Dog responds by separating out each physical or
behavioral attribute for comparison with other animals, thus appearing to respond
to the Proponent of the Roosters attacks. In fact, however, he sweeps the coherence
of this image under the carpet while enforcing a materialism and comparability
upon the claims he has made. This is fundamentally a dialogue of the deaf, since the
Proponent of the Roosters claim for an essential horror is fundamentally
incomparable. This failure to recognize one anothers views is dramatized through
the methodological cleverness of the Proponent of the Dog, when he intentionally
shifts the grounds of the debate by challenging the epistemological basis of the

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citational arguments provided by the Proponent of the Rooster. (This happens in

Section One using law, and Section Seven, with theoretical discussions of linguistic
change and the historical processes resulting in invective poetry.) The only relief
from these incompatible approaches to the debate is the moment of recognition in
which the Proponent of the Dog can offer no response to the truly too-human claims
of metamorphosis, other than derision and mockery.
The debate runs through a wide variety of disciplinary and theoretical topics,
many of which I have barely touched on, in each case offering cutting edge methods
and argument structures. On the one hand this is a demonstration of the neverending comparative process by which the impressions inherited from posterity can
be manipulated by reason. On the other hand, it is also a definition of the scope of
topics that materialist thinking could address, and this scope nearly comprehends
the entire bulk of the existing classical Arabic intellectual tradition at the time.
Thus the way that people think about the everyday material world surrounding
them is symptomatic of a host of hotly disputed epistemological stances.

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APPENDIX A
OUTLINE OF THE INTRODUCTION TO AL-JIS KITB AL-AYAWN
I: khuba
a. basmala (I:3)
b. amdala (I:3)
c. request for the book - interaction with addressee ibta (I:3-25)
II: Introduction to the books topic (I:25-37) wa-an aql
a. classification of being (I:25-31)
b. animal language and the distinction between human and animal (I:31-33)
c. classification of wisdom embedded in world; communication (I:33-37)
III: introduction to the books form
a. BOOK; combines different voices and registers. (I:37-102)
IV: your critique of the Dog-Cockerel Debate specifically
a. intercategory
i. critique (I:102-106)
ii. rebuttal: discourse on eunuchs and crossbreeds (I:106-199)
b. unimportant
i. critique (I:200-203)
ii. rebuttal (I:203-211)
Gods providence (malaa) in mixing good and bad together;
importance of small things like the fig in the Quran, or the
mosquitos wing
c. intercategory (again)
i. critique (I:211)
ii. rebuttal use of majz to compare animals and humans (I:211-212)
The dog is not intercategory but rather follows the rule of
microcosm in its resemblance to people. This does not
make it less of a dog. (I:212-215)
d. the dog is useless (I:215-216)
e. you are wasting your time

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i. critique (I:216-218)
ii. rebuttal (I:218-221) ad hominem attack

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APPENDIX B
TRANSLATION OF AL-JI, KITB AL-AYAWN I:26:1 I:37:8
I say: The world along with all the bodies in it is of three kinds (an): similar,
different, and contrary. 1
Generally speaking (f jumlat al-qawl), everything is either inanimate (jamd) or
growing (nmin).
However, to speak properly (aqqat al-qawl) about bodies (ajsm) according to this
division (qisma), one would say that they are growing and not growing. If the
philosophers (al-ukam) had assigned a word (ism) to designate all that is not
growing, in the way that they assigned a name to designate that which is growing,
then we would have followed in their path. But we only go as far as they did.
Frequently, what they refer to when they say inanimate (jamd) is the same as
what they refer to when they say dead (mawt). But these two words frequently
differ to a certain degree in the contexts where they are used (mawi).
If you take the spheres, constellations, stars, sun, and moon separately from the rest
of the world, you will find that although they are not growing, [the philosophers]
still never call them inanimate or dead. 2

Muttafiq, mukhtalif, and mutadd. Al-Nam uses these terms for the three
relations possible between attribute-bodies (ajsm) such as color and taste.
(ayawn V:57-58, Chapter entitled Complete exposition on the contrary, the
different, and the similar.) I do not know of another physical theorist who uses
precisely the same terms. For an explanation of al-Nams mudkhala theory, that
the only accident is motion, and all other attributes are interpenetrating bodies
(attribute-bodies), see Dhanani, Physical Theory, 38-47; van Ess, Theologie und
Gesellschaft, I:355-358, III:331-355.
1

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It is not because they move of their own accord that they are not called dead or
inanimate. Some people (ns) have called them a regulator that is not regulated
(mudabbira ghayr mudabbara), and a determiner that is not determined
(musakhkhira ghayr musakhkhara) and they call them more alive than animals (ay
min al-ayawn), since animals (al-ayawn) only live through [the celestial bodies]
giving life to them, and through that which they give and loan. This is one opinion,
but the nations differ from them on all of this.
As for us, at this point (f hdh al-mawi) we express [things] only according to our
language (innam nuabbir an lughatin). In our language there are only [the terms]
we have mentioned [to refer to that which is not growing].
People (al-ns) 3 call the earth (al-ar) inanimate, and they sometimes refer to it as
dead if it has never produced vegetation, using the expression dead earth
(mawt al-ar). For example, they say: He who brings to life dead earth possesses
This is the doctrine of the philosophers. Growing (nmin) implies nutriment,
generation (kawn), and corruption (fasd). Al-Kind, for example, ascribed to celestial
bodies reason, life, and an incorruptible status beyond generation and corruption.
Thus while al-Kind associated life with sensory perception (iss), he limited celestial
bodies senses to those not related to nutriment: celestial spheres have only the
senses of sight and hearing, not taste, smell, or touch. (Adamson, al-Kind, 183.) AlKind uses the term growing (nmin) to refer specifically to earthly life that
consumes, grows, and decays in al-ibna an sujd al-jurm al-aq, in Rasil al-Kind
vol. 2 191:8.
3
I take this instance of people al-ns to refer to the speakers of the Arabic
language, whereas the earlier indefinite some people ns discussed at I:26:9-14
apparently referred to philosophers like al-Kind who believed in astrological
influence. I am as yet uncertain whether these astrologically-inclined philosophers
are the same as or a subset of the philosophers (al-ukam) whose speech is
analyzed in I:26:2-8.
2

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it 4 and they do not call water or fire or air inanimate or dead, nor do they call
them alive as long as they continue as they are even though [the earth] is not
associated with growth or sensation. Earth is one of the four elements: water, earth,
air, and fire; and yet according to them these two terms [living and dead] apply only
to earth.
Now then, that which is growing is divided into two groups (qismayn): animals and
plants.
Animals are divided into four groups: that which walks (shay yamsh), that which
flies (shay yar), that which swims (shay yasba), and that which creeps (shay
yans).
However (ill anna), all flying things walk, though that which walks and does not fly
is not called a bird (ir).
The kind (naw) that walks has four divisions: people (ns), prey (bahim), predators
(sib), and vermin (ashart) 5.

Hadith, listed in: Ab Dwd al-aylis (d. 819-20), Musnad #1543; Ibn Zanjawayh
(d. 865-6), al-Amwl #1008; al-Bazzr (d. 904-5), al-Bar al-zakhkhr #132.
Here we see the opposition mawt/nmin; the opposition mawt/ay occurs Q 77:2526 Have we not make the earth a place comprehending the living and the dead?
(a-lam najal al-ara kiftan ayan wa-mawtan). Tr. Lane, s.v. kift. Here, following
the meaning in other Quranic verses (Q2:28; 2:154: 3:169; 16:21; 25:22) mawt was
taken to mean the dead, but it did at times signify the inanimate. (Lane, s.v.
mawt.)
5
I use vermin to translate ashart because it normally encompasses lizards and
rodents, while this passage also suggests that it includes snakes and terrestrial bugs.
See Chapter Two fn. 93.
4

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Conceptually however, vermin can be traced back to resemble the nature of prey
and predators. (al anna al-ashart rjiatun f l-ma`n il mushkalat ib al-sib walbahim)
But (ill anna) in all of this, we follow the existing (qima) well-known names, which
are clear in themselves and distinct from one another in the ears of [any] listener
among the people who speak this language and have mastery of this tongue. We
only distinguish what they have distinguished (innam nufridu m afrad), and we
group together what they have grouped together (wa-najmau m jama).
Birds (al-ayr) are a totality of predator (sabu), prey (bahma), and flying bug (hamaj).
Predatory birds (al-sib min al-ayr) are of two kinds. One consists of noble hunting
birds used for sport. (al-itq wal-arr wal-jawri). 6 The other kind [of predatory
birds] are weak birds (bughth) which means any large bird whether it be predator
or prey (sabuan kna aw bahmatan), as long as it does not have weapons or curved
talons, such as vultures (nusr), white carrion vultures (rakham), corvids (ghirbn),
and lowly (lim) predatory birds like them. 7

The three terms read to me in this context as synonyms, since all three were used
generally for birds of prey used by people in hunting. Cf. Vir Bayzara EI2. AlAma is alone in distinguishing between sporting birds (itq al-ayr) and hunting
birds (jawri) that hunt for themselves but are not trainable. (Al-Mukhaa 6:144-5.)
7
I take this to mean that bughth are not hunters, but some eat meat as carrion; the
carrion eaters are the ones which are considered sib.
We find an example of a bughth bird in the bahma class at I:194:1 As for the the
rooster, it is one of the prey-birds, and the bughth birds. It is a weak bird, dependent
on its masters. It is not among the noble (itq) free (arr) hunting (jawri) birds.
6

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Then there are the small birds (khashsh), which are the ones with delicate bodies
and small figures, devoid of weapons such as [those possessed by] the tiercel
goshawk (zurraq), the merlin (yuyu), and sparrowhawk (bshiq). 8
As for flying bugs (hamaj), they are not birds (ayr) although they do fly. They are
among that which flies (m yar) in the same way that vermin (ashart) are
among that which walks (m yamsh).
Snakes are included among vermin (ashart). What predator is more predatory
(adkhal f man al-sabuiyya) than vipers (af) and serpents (thabn)? Yet [sabu] is
not among their names, even though they have fangs, they eat meat, and they are
enemies of people and all prey. For they are eaten by ibex (wal), pigs, hedgehogs,
eagles, young chickens, cats, and other creatures, both predators (sib) and prey
(bahim). So he who calls snakes predators and calls them this in a certain manner
of speech and on a certain occasion is correct. But he who calls them this as if it is
a name proper to them, like the dog, the wolf, or the lion, is mistaken.
There is one kind of predatory bird whose weapons are talons, namely the eagle
(uqb) 9 and its like [i.e. falcons and hawks as well]. And there is another kind whose
Hrns footnote proposes bshiq for bdanjr in the MS, offering II:188 in support
of his reading. My translations of bird names are here drawn from Vir,
Bayzara,EI2, and Smith, Tariyyt, CHALL. They agree in all cases except that
Smith calls the zurraq a tiercel goshawk while Vir calls it a blackwing kite. In this
case I prefered the more famous sporting bird since the context seems to be a list of
classic sporting birds.
9
Eagles are both scavengers and hunters, and the uqb is thus sometimes classed as
a scavenger, sometimes as a hunter.
In al-Mudawwana, ann asks Abd al-Ramn b. al-Qsim:
Do you opine this way on all birds? Did not Malik approve of eating white carrion
vultures, eagles, vultures, kites, corvids and their like? He said, Yes. He said,
There is no problem with eating any of them, those that eat carrion and those that
8

374

weapons are their beaks, like vultures (nusr), white carrion vultures (rakham), and
corvids (ghirbn). We call the latter sib only because they eat meat.
Among prey birds (bahim al-ayr) are those whose weapons are their beaks, such as
cranes (kark) and their like. And some have weapons in their teeth like owls (bm)
and bats (waw) and their like. And some have weapons in their spurs like roosters
(al-diyaka), and some have weapons in their excrement like the bustard (ubr)
and the fox (thalab) is also like that. 10
Predatory birds are those which eat only meat, and prey birds are those that eat only
seeds. Regarding the kind (fann) which unites these [behaviors] in a mixed nature
(al-khalq al-murakkab) and a shared character (al-ab al-mushtarak), there is a
discourse which we will come to in its correct location, God willing.

do not. All birds can be eaten. (III:64:16-65:2.) This question implicitly classes the
eagle among the scavengers.
At III:181-2, al-Jahiz cites some as claiming that uqb is also a generic name
including the eagle (uqb), the booted eagle (zummj), the tiercel goshawk (zurraq),
the goshawk (bz), the four-colored hawk (jahrarnk), and the samnn hawk, in
contradistinction to the following falcons: peregrine falcon (shhn), merlin (yuyu),
and Saker falcon. This association places the eagle among the hunters.
It may seem odd for al-Jahiz here to use the eagle as his chief example clarifying the
class of hunting birds, given that eagles also scavenge. This may be explained by the
fact that the eagle was the largest hunting bird. The author of al-Mukhaa discusses
the eagle first among hunting birds (with the exception of a bird called bul that
sounds mythical), and the discussion emphasizes that it is the largest hunting bird.
Al-Mukhaa, 8:145:10 ff.
10
Foxes are known to generally smell bad, but they also emit a particularly offensive
odor when attacked. Al-Ji elsewhere cites the hoopoe as an animal that uses
excrement as a weapon of self-defense, for it repels potential predators with its
excrement.

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According to [the philosophers], 11 the shared (mushtarak) includes the sparrow

(ufr), for it does not have curved talons or a hooked beak (minsar), and it collects
grain, and yet despite this it hunts ants when they fly, it hunts locusts, and it eats
meat. It does not regurgitate for its young as the dove (amm) does, but feeds them
chunks as the birds of prey do. There are many mixed birds like sparrows and we
will mention them in their place, God willing.
Not everything that flies with two wings is a bird. Black dung-beetles (jiln), jal
beetles, wild bees, flies, wasps, locusts, ants, moths, gnats, termites, cultivated bees,
and other things all fly, but they are not called birds. 12 However, they could be
called birds in a certain manner of speaking and on certain occasions (ind ba aldhikr wal-sabab). People call the chicken a bird but they dont call a locust a bird,
even though the locust is much more of a flier, and is more famously proverbial for
it. Angels fly and have wings but are not birds. And Jafar b. Ab lib has two
wings and flies with them in Heaven wherever he wishes; but Jafar is not a bird. 13

The andecedent of indahum is unclear, but based on the genealogy of the term
mushtarak provided in Chapter Two, I supply the philosophers as opposed to
speakers of the Arabic language.
12
Kitb al-Ayn defines yasb and jal in relation to one another (they are similar but
the yasb is bigger). Al-Mukhaa cites several authorities comparing yasb and jal
to a locust, decribing them as four-winged insects that hardly walk and do not fold
their wings. This descriptions distinguishes them from both bees and locusts, which
have four wings but fold their wings. (Al-Mukhaa 8:177-178; see also Lane, s.v.
yasb.)
13
Als brother, d. 629 who lost his arms and legs in the Battle of Muta and died.
Mainly Shite adth cite the Prophet Muammad stating that God had replaced
these lost limbs with wings, so that Jafar could fly about in heaven. He was referred
to as Jafar al-ayyr Dh al-Janayn, and his grandson was favored for the
Imamate by a group called al-Janiyya. Hodgson, EI2, Janaiyya. See Chapter
Two fn. 94.
11

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The word bird (ir) is [applied] on the basis of three things: form (ra), nature
(aba), and wings. It is not according to plumage, primary wing-feathers (alqawdim), tertiary wing-feathers (al-abhir), and secondary wing-feathers (al-alkhawf) that it is called a bird (ir) and it is not by their lack that this name drops
away from it. Dont you see that bats (khuffsh and waw) are birds even though
they are bald and have no feathers, down, downy hair, or feather shafts, and even
though they are famous for pregnancy, live birth, and nursing, and for the
prominent size of their ears, and their numerous teeth. The ostrich, on the other
hand, has feathers and a beak and eggs and wings, but is not a bird [because it does
not fly].
Similarly, not every swimmer is a fish, even if it fits the category of fish in many
attributes. Dont you see that the following live in water: the beaver, the water-goat,
the water-pig, the tortoise (riqq), the turtle, the frog, the crab, the baynb, 14 the
crocodile, the dolphin (dukhas and dulphn), the seal (lukhm), the shark (bunbuk), and
other species as well. The swordfish is the father of the seal, and the swordfish has
no known father. All of these live in the water, but sleep outside of the water. They
lay eggs on the shore, and their eggs have yolks, eggwhites, and eggshells. Despite
this, they are found in the water with fish.
Furthermore, according to the language of the Arabs, every animal is either
eloquent (fa) or a foreign-speaker (ajam).
This is said in a collective sense (f al-jumla), just as something is called silent
(mit, literally: keeping silent) even though it has never become silent, nor can it do
otherwise [than be silent]. And a thing is called speaking (niq) even though it
has never once spoken (yatakallam). So they refer to that which groans, bleats,
brays, neighs, caws, bellows, moans, yelps, barks, crows, meows, lows, whistles,
I dont know what this is, but I assume it is a cetacean of some sort. I also have not
identified the water-pig or the water-dog.
14

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squeaks, clucks, hoots, roars, bells, rustles, and hisses following [the term for]
human speech (nuq), when the one is gathered to the other. 15 There are other
examples of this, as when males and females are taken together [and are referred to
as male] or like a caravan of camels that is called a lama [because the camels are
carrying loads], or like the word uun [which refers to camels carrying litters].
These things, when they are found one added to the other, or when one is drawn
from the other, are called by the better known or the stronger of the two things.
The eloquent is man, and the foreign-speaker is anything that has a sound
whose intent (irda) is not understood except by its own kind.
By my life, we understand [through its vocalization] most of the intents, needs and
wants of the horse, and the donkey, and the dog, and the cat and the camel, just as
we understand the desire of a young child in its cradle. We comprehend and this
comprehension is a general (jall) thing - that his crying indicates something other
than what his laughter indicates, and that the neigh of a horse when it sees a
nosebag indicates something other than its neigh when it sees a mare, and the cry of
a female cat to a tomcat is different from her cry to her child, and there are many
other examples.
Man is eloquent (fa) even if he expresses himself in Farsi, Hindi, or Greek. The
degree to which an Arab understands the chattering of a Greek-speaker is no worse
than the Greek-speakers understanding of clear expression in the Arabs language.
Every person from this perspective is called eloquent. When people say eloquent
and foreign-speaking (fa wa-ajam) this is what they mean by saying ajam. When
they say Arabs and foreigners (al-arab wal-ajam), and do not use the words
eloquent and foreign-speaking, then this is not the meaning they have in mind,

I understand this to mean: We would call the horse neighing (hil) and a crow
cawing (muaqiq) but when speaking of diverse animals collectively we can only
use the term niq speaking even though this term applies in the fullest sense only
to human animals.
15

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but rather they mean that he doesnt speak Arabic and that Arabs cannot
understand him. 16
Kuthayyir 17 said:
Blessed be what Ibn Layl gave to fulfill his vow /
Both the mute (mit) and the vocal (niq)
[i.e. a gift comprise of both livestock and inanimate objects]
People say, He brought the vocal (m a) and the mute (m amat). 18 The term
the mute applies to things like silver and gold, while the term vocal applies to all
animals, and its meaning is to speak (naaqa) and then be quiet (sakata). And the
mute applies to everything that is not an animal. 19
We have found the generation of the world (kawn al-lam), along with everything in
it, to be wisdom (ikma). And we have found that wisdom is of two kinds (arbayn):
One has been made as wisdom (ikma), but does not rationally comprehend (yaqil)
that wisdom (ikma) or its consequences; and the other has been made as wisdom
(ikma), and does understand that wisdom and its consequences. So the
comprehending (qil) and the uncomprehending (ghayr al-qil) are equivalent
insofar as they are each a sign (dalla) of wisdom, but they differ insofar as one of
them is a sign (dalla) that does not interpret (yastadillu) and the other is a sign that
does interpret.

The term ajam referred to any person who did not speak Arabic properly, and by
extension to non-Arabs, typically Persians. I do not have other examples of the pair
fa wa-ajam referring to the distinction between humans and animals according to
their vocalization.
17
Udhr poet, d. 723. Cf. Isn Abbs, Kuthayyir b. Abd al-Ramn, EI2.
18
Lane, s.v. a.
19
I:31:6-I:33:3.
16

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Then, there was made for the interpreter of signs a connection (sabab), for him to
indicate (yadullu al) elements of his interpretation, and elements that have resulted
from his interpretation, and this was called COMMUNICATION (bayn). 20
Communication has been made in four divisions: speech, writing, dactylometry, 21
and gesture.
The communication of the sign that does not interpret has been made as follows.
It is: its enabling of the interpreter [to understand] it, and its guidance, for anyone
who reflects upon it, toward understanding the proofs that have been stored in it,
the signs that have been placed inside it, and the wonderful wisdom that has been
deposited in it. So dumb (khurs) mute (mita) bodies can be said to speak (niqa)
insofar as [they are] signs (dalla), and they are expressive (muriba) insofar as they
give accurate testimony. For the providence and the wisdom that they contain give
information to anyone seeking it, and speak to anyone that wants them to speak
just as emaciation and pallor signify illness, while plumpness and an attractive fresh
color speak of health.
The poet 22 said:
Then they stopped and praised you for what you merit.
If they had been silent, the very saddlebags would have praised you.
Another said:
Whether you are with friend or foe
Their eyes inform you about their hearts
The divisions of bayn that follow appear also in al-Jahiz, al-Bayn wal-Tabyn, I:7583.
21
Al-aqd refers to hand positions denoting numbers, used for calculation and
communication.
22
According to Hrn, this is Nuayb b. Rabb, Sezgin, GAS, II:355.
20

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Al-Ukl 23 said about the wolfs accurate sense of smell, and the power of his senses:
He asks the breeze when he does not hear
A sound like a sharpened mallet on stones.
Antara 24 described the crows caw:
Black-winged, as if its heads two bearded jowls
Were a pair of shears, [its voice] joyful and impassioned with the news. 25
Al-Fal b. s b. Abn26 said while preaching, Ask the earth. Say, Who divided your
rivers and planted your trees and harvested your fruits? If it does not answer you in
reply, still it has answered you through a wise lesson.
The bodys position and its physical presence are a sign, giving information about its
condition, drawing attention to it, and informing about it. Dumb (abkam) mute
(khurs) inanimate objects (jamd) have a share in communication along with living
speaking humans.
So anyone who says that there are really five kinds of communication is speaking in
an acceptable (jawz) manner according to the Arabic language and according to the
testimony of reason. This is one of the two divisions of wisdom (ikma), and one of
the two meanings of the trust (wada) that God has deposited [in his appointment of
the world].
The other branch of wisdom is that varied knowledge which He has deposited in the
breasts of every kind of animal; that marvellous guidance which He has predisposed
Hrn identifies him based on al-Ji, al-Bayn wal-Tabyn, I:82 as Ab al-Rudayn
al-Dalham b. Shihb al-Ukl.
24
Sezgin, GAS, II:113-5.
25
Ghurb al-bayn: Al-Thalibi, Thimr al-Qulb, 670-2 #743.
26
Al-Zirikl, al-Alm, 5:357.
23

381

them to; and those varieties of measured tune, songful voice, moving sounds, and
ecstatic song that He has made their throats able to produce. It is often said that all
their voices are balanced, measured, and rhythmed. And also that which He in the
wondrous kindness of His craft made easy for them, what He has subordinated to
their beaks and their paws, and how He has opened for them the door of knowledge
in accordance with whatever tool He equipped them with. He has given many of
them fine senses and skillful craft, without training or education, without discipline
or instruction, without gradual learning or practice. They achieve spontaneously (to
the extent of the capacities inherent in their nature) improvisatorily,
extemporaneously, directly, and in an impromptu fashion, that which the experts,
men of insight, and the philosophers among the scholars of humanity cannot
achieve whether by hand or with tools. In fact, people of the most perfect traits and
most complete characteristics cannot achieve this, whether by improvisation and
spontaneity, by domination and force, by gradual improvement and a step-by-step
approach, or by arranging the prerequisites and setting up helpful conditions. In
this way, the effort of a human being, with his piercing senses, his complete
capacities, who can act in different areas, and who is advanced in many fields he is
powerless to achieve the instinctive behavior of many animals, when he looks upon
the various things they produce: that [capacity] which was bestowed upon the
spider and the caterpillar (surfa); that which the bee was taught; that wonderful
knowledge and strange craft which the weaver-bird (tanawwu) was made to
understand; and that which is in other creatures as well.
Moreover, He has not decreed peoples incapacity by their natures (anfus) in most
such things only in those things which flying bugs, creeping bugs, and vermin can
do. [God] gave mankind reason and capacity, agency and control, responsibility and
experience, deliberation and competition, understanding and quickness. He made
mankind so that he looks into the consequences of things, and so that when he is
good at something, he finds everything less obscure to be easier. He made the other
animals so that even when one of them is good at something that the most skilled
human does not excel at even when it is excels at something amazing it still

382

cannot do something that you would think would be simpler and easier for it; indeed
it cannot do what is actually simpler.
Mankind did not make itself this way; nor did the animals choose this. The animal
kinds excel without study (taallum) at that which is are denied to a person, even if
he studies. So he has stopped even trying since he has no hope of [attaining] it, nor
is he jealous of them, for he never hopes to catch up with them.
Then God placed these two kinds of wisdom before the eyes of those who consider,
and the ears of those who reflect, urging them to think and deduce, to take heed and
be awestruck, to know deeply and understand clearly, to pause and remember. He
made them as a reminder and a warning, and he made peoples inner natures so that
they give rise to thoughts, and cause the people having [the thoughts] to explore
different ideas. (jaala al-fiar tunshi al-khawir wa-tajlu bi-ahlih f al-madhhib)
That is, God, Lord of the worlds! Blessed be God, the best creator. 27

Qurn al-Muminn, 23:14. In the Qurn, this phrase occurs as a cap to the
famous description of a human forming from sperm within the womb; al-Jahiz here
extends the phrase to refer not only to Gods creation of humans to His creation of
the entire material world.
27

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APPENDIX C
OUTLINE OF THE FIRST HALF OF THE DOG-ROOSTER DEBATE, I:224:3-389:8
Passages in bold are translations of the text, usually of paratexts. When the paratext
adequately describes the passage, I provide no comment.
Passages in regular font are brief paraphrases or descriptions of the passages in
question. Quotation marks also indicate direct translation.
The page numbers precede translations and descriptions of their text.
I have imposed eight section divisions to make it easier to talk about the text, but
the division could well be done differently or not at all.
This outline marks an improvement over Hrns section headings only in that I
have privileged the trail of the argument, so that the whole appears much less
digressive.
Section One: Ingestion and Disgust
(I:224:3-225:14)
The Proponent of the Rooster said: That which has been memorized regarding dogs
eating the flesh of humans:
(I:226:1-13)
The Proponent of the Rooster said: Various animals associated with stinky hides and
disgusting smells like the smell of the bodies of snakes, the stink of goats and the
stench of their sweat, and the stink of dog hide when it has been soaked by the rain,
and other kinds of stink besides, which we will mention in what follows, God-willing.
In fact, he only includes examples of the dog being stinky.
(I:226:14-227:14)
Selections of what has been discussed regarding the dog eating excrement
Also includes dogs eating their own vomit, and sniffing urine.

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The Proponent of the Dog said: If this and its like are the only reasons you consider
the dog lowly and degraded
(I:228-230)
Response to accusation that dog eats corpses
- comparison to lion and humans
(I:229:15-230:11)
As for what you said about the stench of its hide, and sniffing urine...
- comparison to the goat and sheep
(I:230:12-231:2)
Citation of the Proponent of the Roosters accusation that dogs love their abusers,
and response to it.
- comparison to sheep
(I:231:3-232)
Response to accusation that dogs eat their own vomit
comparison to chewing cud
(I:231:9-232:8)
The Proponent of the Rooster said:
Refutation of the comparison to chewing cud
(I:232:9-244:9)
The Proponent of the Dog said: As for your accusation that dogs eat excrement...
- comparison to camels, other edible herd animals, chickens, menstruation, shabb
fish, pigs, and eels. (I:232:9-235:9)
- there is even a term for excrement-eating animals: anq (I:235:10-13)
- scatological poetry based on animals that eat excrement (I:236:1-239:3)
- poems about horrible stenches (I:239:4-244:9)

385

(I:244:10-253:12)
The Proponent of the Dog said:
- utility of excrement as manure and medicine (I:244:10-245:6)
- speculation about stench: Musabba al-Kanns says the world all stinks (I:245:7247:7)
- speculation about stench: physicians and mutakallimn disagree on the worst stench
(I:247:8-249:9)
- two complete scatological poems by Ibn `Abdal (I:249:10-253:12)
Section Two: Invective Poetry
(254:1-260:5)
The Proponent of the Rooster Said: We will now recite the invective poetry of the
Arabs that insults the dog specifically (mujarradan al wajhihi). Then we will
mention how they criticized its behavior, its various deeds, and its attributes. We
will start with invective poetry insulting it as a whole (f al-jumla).
- invective poetry based on the dogs characteristics: ugly, lowly, greedy,
habitually begging, accursed (shum) as evidenced by its guiding enemies
to the campsite, and killing people, presumably with rabies.
(260:6-262:13)
The Proponent of the Dog said:
Response to accusation of being dangerous:
- comparison to sheep and cattle killing people
- the dog is a fearsome warrior
- on the dogs strength: the black ones are strongest and most aggressive,
and for this reason the adth only commanded us to kill the black ones.
(I:262:14-267:4)

386

The Proponent of the Rooster said: 1

More invective poetry, much of it scatological, on the ignoble character
of the dog:
- It is: humiliated; an eater of leftovers; untrustworthy; ugly and
incapable as a puppy; a habitual eater of disgusting things; cowardly;
greedy; and easy to kill.
- The dog begs and whines. Comparison to a party-crasher (ufayl).
Section Three: Dogs and Humans

(I:267:5-271:13)
Chapter
Invective poems about people who have eaten dog meat or human meat
(I:267:5-270:5)
People who have been insulted by the term dog-victim (qatl kilb)
(I:270:6-11)
Proverbs on dogs (I:270:12-271:3)
The meaning of dogs in dreams (I:271:4-13)
Section Four: Praise Poetry
(I:272:1-276:3)
The Proponent of the Rooster said: The Proponent of the Dog has listed
the following positive attributes of the dog 2: It is quick to arrive, it can
endure long running, it has a wide chest, it stretches its limbs so far while
running that it scratches its ears with its claws, and it does not fill up
with gas despite the panting that afflicts it.

I believe the text is missing a phrase here indicating that the Proponent of the
Rooster is talking.
2
Some of the arguments referred to here occur later on, at II:26:1-8, and in the
ardiyyt by Ab Nuws cited following this up through II:45.
1

387

If this is so, then why did the poets compare noble horses to all creatures
except the dog?
- examples of poetry comparing the horse to various creatures
- Ab Ubaydas list of things that poets tend to compare dogs to, and on
what grounds
(I:276:4-10)
The Proponent of the Dog said:
- poems comparing horse to dog
(I:276:11-12)
The Proponent of the Rooster said:
What significance does one, two, or even three lines of poetry have
compared to all the poetry of the Arabs? (I:276:10-11)
(I:276:13-277:5)
The Proponent of the Dog said:
- There are many poems comparing horses to dogs; here are a few more.
(I:277:6-278:4)
The Proponent of the Rooster said:
- recites a poem in which a cat startles a camel
(I:278:5-279:4)
The Proponent of the Dog said:
This poem uses the cat because it has sharp claws, not because it is
stronger or more valiant than the dog.
- other versions of the image use the cats claws specifically, or a
waterskin or jackal in place of the cat.
(279:5-20)
The Proponent of the Rooster said:

388

- adth: taking back a gift is like the dog returning to eat up its own vomit
- Ab Bakr killed his step-sons puppy
- adth: two nations of jinn were transformed (musikhat) into dogs and
snakes
- adth: If a man knew his worth he would be more humble than a dog.
Section Five: Sabu and Bahma

(I:280:1-281:8)
The Proponent of the Rooster said regarding dogs:
The dog is lowly (lam) not a noble predator
- it eats differently from predators
- it protects its enemies and not its friends. This is not guarding but
rather mere aggression.
- its hysterical barking is a form of cowardice and is similar to low-class women.
- it acts scared and nervous like a person suffering from paranoid
hallucinations (al-sawd wal-waswasa)
(I:281:9-282:2)
[al-Ji:] 3
As for what I myself have witnessed of Ab Isq b. Sayyr al-Nam
- anecdote about al-Nam being chased by a stray dog, in which he
makes a speech against dogs, ending with: If you are a sabu, then go
with the other sib, for the wild areas and swamps are for you; or if you
are a bahma, then be quiet like a bahma, and stop harrassing us!
And I say:
I included al-Nams grammar mistake intentionally.
(I:282:3-283:9)
I believe when the text emphatically refers to I in the singular, it means al-Ji,
whereas the two debate partners refer to themselves and each other in the plural.
3

389

In addition, Ab Isq [al-Nam] said:

- the dog is easily bribed by robbers
- it has an ugly voice
- it is ugly sleeping or awake.
- it is nocturnal.
- it is constantly anxious
- like a vagrant, it sleeps anywhere, even in gathering places.
Moving on (wa-bad): All character traits opposed to those of humans are
blameworthy, including the habit of being awake at night.
(I:283:10-284:1)
The Proponent of the Dog said:
Response to accusation that the dog is nocturnal
- I could argue that being nocturnal is a kingly trait, if I wanted to.
Response to accusation that the dog is a vagrant, sleeping in
marketplaces:
- It needs to sleep around mature men to avoid being harrassed by boys.
Also, it is only guard dogs that you find in marketplaces and gatherings.
(I:284:2-285:2)
Moving on (wa-bad):
The dog is a sabu so you should not expect it to have the habits of men or
bahim.
- All sib are nocturnal
- People sleep at night for specific reasons: they cannot see in the dark, it
is cold at night, dangerous reptiles and sib are abroad in the night, and
people need to distinguish between similar objects like coins, grains,
seeds, and so on.
- Sib are active and see at night, and they have their own reasons which
it would take too long to list

390

(I:285:3-288:2)
The Proponent of the Rooster said: 4
As for what you mentioned about kings sleeping in the daytime and
staying up at night:
- They know its best to sleep at night but they are too busy, and they
need to do things in secret, and in the end they got used to it.
- They like to drink and listen to music and they must keep this a secret.
Persian kings used music for medicine, and Arab kings have adopted the
practice.
- You should not rock a baby to comfort it.
- Skilled rulers and people with great responsibility medicate themselves
with music.
(I:288:3-289:3)
The Proponent of the Dog said:
Response to the accusation that the dog takes bribes from thieves:
- If the initial expectation of loyalty to its owners was because they fed
him, why should he not be loyal also to the thief who feeds him?
- How could he know the thief is a thief?
- Maybe his owners are cruel to him.
Response to the accusation that the dog has an ugly voice:
- comparison to mule, peacock, many doves that dont sing, lion, wolf,
jackal, birds, sib, bahim. Even some people have uglier voices than the
dog.
Response to the accusation that the dog is anxious:
- the horse is even more anxious about being whipped

A phrase transitioning to the voice of the Proponent of the Rooster is missing here.

391

Section Six: Metamorphosis (maskh) and jinn

(I:289:4-290:12)
The Proponent of the Rooster said:
- 4 witty rejoineders by Zosimus (Dsms), the last about dogs: He didnt
respond to a person insulting him, saying If a dog barks at you, do you
bark back? A fool is either an ass or a dog, being full either of wickedness
(sharra) or ignorance (jahl).
(I:290:13-291:5)
The Proponent of the Rooster said:
- people are called dogs to convey that they are foolish and powerless.
- dogs are cursed (shum) because they lead the enemy to their masters
campsite
(I:291:6-295:16)
The Proponent of the Rooster said:
- Ibn Abbs said that black dogs are jinn and spotted dogs are inn; inn
are weak jinn.
- adth: The Prophet superceded his command to kill dogs: You are
responsible for (alaykum) the pure black one with two impress mark
(naktatayn) over its eyes, for that one is a shayn. A second adth
confirms this.
- adth: Kill all dogs, even the lonely old ladys dog in the countryside.
- They say: The report on killing all dogs is sound, and the report
superseding (yansukh) part of it is sound, on killing only black dogs, as is
the report that they are jinn and inn, and the report that they are two
nations that were metamorphosed, namely snakes and dogs.
- Uthmn ordered the killing of dogs and pigeons.
- adth and akhbr providing recompense rates if you kill someones dog;
for a house dog with no job, the rate is a measure (faraq) of earth, which is
not a fine on the killer of the dog, but rather a punishment for the owner
of the dog that was killed.

392

- authoritative opinions and adth on how much heavenly reward you

lose for keeping a dog in the house.
- khabar: Angels dont enter a house in which there is a dog.
- Ibn Abbs said on the pulpit in Bara that dogs are inn, which are weak
jinn, and that they have the evil eye (anfus s).
- khabar: When we were boys, the only thing we were forbidden to play
with was dogs.
(I:295:17-296:10)
The Proponent of the Rooster said: 5
- Umar commanded that a cockerel people were betting on be killed, but
he relented when reminded that roosters are a species that praises God
(umma min al-umam tusabbi allh tal).
- Ab Ms said not to bring chickens into your home lest you become
the city people mentioned in Qurn Arf 7:97. This is a false
interpretation, introduced because Ab Ms didnt want warriors to
keep chickens as if they were farmers or people who earned their living,
lest they be unprepared for the war against the Persians.
(296:11-304:16)
The Proponent of the Dog said to the Proponent of the Rooster:
Response to adth forbidding house dogs but permitting herd dogs,
hunting dogs, and field dogs:
- The rooster falls under the term (ism) chicken. Umar commanded
that chickens be killed; Ab Ms forbade raising them. 6 (I:296:11-14)
- You transmitted the command to kill pigeons, but you dont claim that
they are metamorphoses, inn, jinn, and so on. You claim that Umar
ordered this only because people were betting on cockfighting. But
This response precedes the argument it responds to. If I:296:11-14 were placed
here, the argument would make more sense.
6
This is the argument that I claim should go earlier.
5

393

perhaps the same is true of dogs at that time in Medna, and people were
betting on dogfights. (I:296:15-297:3)
- You transmitted that the following animals are metamorphoses: the eel,
the spiny-tailed lizard, the shrimp, the mouse, the Canopus constellation,
and the snake. (297:4-12)
-The wolf deserves to be called a jinn more than the dog, for it is wild and
completely harmful. (I:297:12-298:5)
-The current establishment, including judges, overlooks the sin of owning
dogs. (I:298:6-14)
-Unless you judge the entire species by one individual, then you cannot
apply this to dogs in general. Comparison to Solomons hoopoe, Noahs
crow and dove, Uhbn b. Awss wolf, and Uzayrs ass. (I:298:15-18)
- Some things happened in prophetic times that do not happen now.
(I:299:1-4)
- In the adth about a pigeon and its owner being shayn, the term is
used idiomatically. (I:299:5-301:1)
- You transmitted: stories about people kidnapped and killed by jinn.
(I:301:2-302:5)
- What other animal can be used for so many purposes? In this time of
theft and rape, we need dogs more than ever; arent markets as important
as livestock to guard? Perhaps Medna was secure from thieves, and most
of its dogs were strays/vicious (aqr), and people were betting on
dogfights. (I:302:6-304:13)
(I:304:16-305:15)
- Ignorant people today kill geckos (wazagh) because a gecko is said to
have fanned the flames Ibrhm burned in. Refutation of this logic.
(I:306:1-307:4)
- You transmitted about animals that their nicknames of the root f-s-q
indicates that they are sinners and must be killed.

394

- al-Ji intervenes: This logic is incorrect. See my book Kitb al-Ism walukm. 7
- killing for the sake of punishment, or simply to obey Gods commands
(al-imtin wal-taabbud)
(I:208:5-311:8)
Al-Ji:
Any talk about the metamorphosis of spiny tailed lizards, eels, dogs, kites,
and that the pigeon is a shayn it is all silliness (muz) that we wrote
about in a letter to one of our friends, who claimed to know everything.
We made these tales and little clevernesses (fian) into questions:
Rearranged citations from Kitb al-Tarb wal-Tadwr.
If you enjoyed these questions, and found this style (madhhab) to be
clever, read my letter to Amad b. Abd al-Wahhb, the Secretary, for
they are gathered there.
Section Seven: The Derivation of Names
(311:9-312:9)
There are too many kinds of dogs to list them here.
- Some names for hunting dogs
- poem about dog scratching its ears running valiantly; king praising a
dog.
(312:10-14)
The Proponent of the Rooster said:

This statement about my book is clearly in al-Jis voice, but there is no

paratext indicating this, so it is impossible to tell where al-Jis intervention
begins and ends. Is it continuous with the next intervention where he quotes from
Kitb al-Tadwr wal-Tarb?
7

395

Because the dog, for them, united the features of ignobility, lowliness
(nadhla), greed, gluttony, obscenity, rashness, and so on, they derived
variants of its name to insult people with these qualities.
- poem using the term kalab for rabies.
(I:313:1-316:1)
The Proponent of the Dog said:
Terms derived from dogs are used for praiseworthy things more often
than blameworthy things.
- warrior with red eyes like a dog
- people named for dogs
- places named for dogs
- dog constellation
- beaver, wolf, shark terms are all derived from dog.
(I:316:2-317:4)
The Proponent of the Rooster said:
- Khrijs and professional mourners (nawi) are called fire-dogs
Poetry excerpts:
- when times are tough, time is rabid against you
- rabid to mean insane or angry
- mother of a bitch to mean mother in law
(317:5-320:8)
That which was recited about the dogs body parts, character, attributes,
and behaviors:
- sleepiness, laziness, keeping one eye closed
- drool
- scared of noble warhorses
- it eyes people
- disgusting eating habits
- lustful

396

Includes some strong invective poetry

(320:9-324:6)
The Proponent of the Dog said:
Famous things derived from the term dog:
Examples of people with names derived from kalb, and anecdotes about
good dogs, all with poetry excerpts as proof.
He said: Al-ajjj and his secret name, Kulayb.
(I:324:7-327:5)
A debate between the initial speaker, presumably the Proponent of the
Dog, and unnamed others, about why the ancient Arabs used some terms
for inanimate objects as names (including kalb) but not others. The
speakers are indicated: He said: The other one said: The first one said:
They said: The first one said: Other ones said: One of them said:
The debate touches on linguistic change, when wondering whether
certain names for people were originally names for particular mountains.
The last speaker divides proper names into four categories: original
(al) names that are also common nouns; derived from original names
based on divination, or from the fathers name; instituted by God when
He named people; and those that originated with the advent of Islam. For
example, Friday was originally called yawm al-arba before it was
renamed for the Friday prayer, yawm al-juma.
Al-Ji: 8
(327:6-7)
We will speak of abandoned terms (asm) like this one, and about other
kinds of terms, and then we will return to our original place, God-willing.

It is unclear whether this explicit digression is presented by the Proponent of the

Dog or by al-Ji, but I suspect it is al-Jis intervention.
8

397

(327:8-330:13)
People abandoned many things that were used in the Jhiliyya:
Examples of obsolete words, with poetic evidence.
(330:14-332:6)
Some nouns arose new, and yet they did not, for they are derived from
earlier nouns, through comparison (tashbh):
Examples of new derivations from old words, with poetic evidence.
(I:332:7-334:17)
Other new derivations include:
-technical Islamic religious terms
- euphemisms related to excrement. The only original word for
excrement is khur.
(I:335:1-6)
Words (kalimt) of the Prophet (SAAS), in which nobody preceded him:
(I:335:7-336:7)
As for speech of which disapproval has been transmitted:
(I336:8-337:9)
Sometimes they diminish a thing out of pity or affection:
Examples of diminutives.
(I:337:10-339:11)
More examples of disapproved usages, citing various authorities.
(I:339:12-17)
These people disapproved of things for inscrutable reasons. According to
the opinion of our colleages [the Mutazila]: they do not disapprove of
these things. We cannot refute them when we have only heard from

398

them disapproval. If they had transmitted these matters with the

rationale for them (ilalih wa-burhntiha), then it would be easier [to
refute them]. But most of the transmissions are stripped, for they have
limited themselves to transmitting the external statements, without
narrating the reason (al-illa), and without informing about the rationale
(al-burhn), even when they witnessed both kinds at once.
(I: 340:1-343:1)
More disapproved usages. Al-Ji finds some of them to be
commonplace figurative language (majz) which should not be considered
heresy.
(I:343:2-347:4)
Ab Isq [al-Nam] used to say: Do not trust most of the exegetes,
even if they set themselves up before the masses and respond to every
question, for most of them speak without any transmitted evidence, and
without any basis. The more an exegete seems strange to them, the more
dear he is to them. Consider Ikrima, al-Kalb, al-Sudd, al-ak,
Muqtil b. Sulaymn, and Ab Bakr al-Aamm to be all on the same path.
How can I have confidence in their exegesis and trust that they are right
when they have said:
Examples of blatantly false exegesis, according to al-Nam.
(I:347:5-13)
Invented terms that have replaced the terms of the Jhiliyya include:
(I:348:1-11)
Given that the Arabs derived speech from their speech, and terms from
their terms, and given that the language was devoid in their hands of He
who had created them, enabled them, inspired them, and taught them,
and given that this activity of theirs was right in the eyes of all the
people, it follows that He who granted them this blessing is more

399

deserving of the right to make derivations, and obeying Him is more

obligatory. Just as it was up to Him to invent the first names, likewise it
is to Him to invent whatever He likes. He named His revealed book the
Qurn, and this name did not exist until it came into existance. He made
bowing to the sun disbelief
Here follows an argument about the degree to which this kind of
equivalence is transitive.
(I:348:12-352:8)
- poem about dogs barking in concert
- poems about other animals that bark: old gazelles, and the hoopoe. It is
also said that the barking dogs of the neighborhood (kilb al-ayy)
refers to its poets.
(I:352:9-356:4)
The Proponent of the Dog said:
You have associated all the techniques of invective poetry with the dog,
but in fact invective poetry has been written about many other animals
and people. Even refined people are not safe from invective poetry. Only
total obscurity (khuml) can protect a person from invective poetry.
- Invective poetry excerpts on: the fox, the sheep, scorpions, snakes,
hyenas, pigs, and the ape.
If I could gather all of it, any animals invective poetry would be as
plentiful as the dogs. Similarly if you were to gather praises of the lion
or any other animal, it would be as plentiful as the praises of the dog.
This is our argument about the level of the dog in relation to all the other
predators and prey.
(I:356:5-356:16)
When Mabad [the Proponent of the Rooster] spoke about killing the dog,
and recited the word of God: {Relate to them the story of the man to
whom We sent Our signs, but he passed them by: so Satan followed him

400

up, and he went astray. If it had been Our will, We should have elevated
him with Our signs; but he inclined to the earth, and followed his own
vain desires. His similitude is that of a dog: if you attack him, he lolls out
his tongue, or if you leave him alone, he (still) lolls out his tongue. That is
the similitude of those who reject Our signs; So relate the story} 9, Ab
Isq said:
He recites Qurn Arf 7:179, in which evil-doers are compared to herd
animals.
There is more in the Qurn against herd animals than against dogs. Try
to be fair.
(I:357:1-366:14)
The Proponent of the Dog said:
We will strike a just parable for the two of us: If two tribes are equal in
age, but one father has more offspring, and thus more warriors, wisemen,
nobles, poets and so on, then the tribe with few offspring will not have
much good or evil in it, and will be unknown (khamal), obscure, and
forgotten. It will then be safe from invective poetry. But the tribe with
many offspring will have in it great good and great evil, virtues and vices,
and thus will be the object of invective and praise.
- He then characterises the kinds of poetry that tend to attach to the
various ancient Arab tribes, showing that the unknown ones are better
off than the ones that attract lots of invective, even though the ones
attracting invective were more prominent and successful. Envy plays a
big role.
- He cites invective that insults tribes for being lukewarm and
indeterminate, and identifies obscure tribes.
- Obscurity is the worst defect, but scholars love obscure things.
- list of unknown tribes.
- He explains how it happens that a tribe is afflicted with obscurity.
9

Qurn al-Arf 7:175-6.

401

Section Eight: Practical Considerations

(I:366:15-368:14)
The Proponent of the Dog said: You mentioned the defects of the dog, and
said:
- it drains its masters heavenly reward
- it keeps up the neighbors at night and disrupts conversation in the day
- the actual barking is unpleasant
- poetry about barking dogs and hospitality
(I:368:15-369:5)
You said:
- the dog has dirtiness in its soul (nafs)
- it makes its owners dirty by defecating and urinating so much
- it defecates on the rooftops and digs and claws in them, causing
destruction
- it bites young boys, scares boys, harrasses young men, and confronts
visitors
- its nature invites young boys to beat it and throw stones at it, provoking
it
(369:6-373:6)
You said:
- its a terrible thing to have in a house because its penis is apparent and
large, so that the women of the house might see it, or commit bestiality
when the man of the house is away
- If bestiality were not a possibility, the poet would not have been
imprisoned for insulting his opponent by claiming that his mother
regularly slept with a dog called Qurn.

402

- anecdotes about bestiality with dogs; how to persuade a bitch to permit

this; speculation about why mens penises do not become stuck the way
dogs penises do.
- Dogs are susceptible to bestiality in all ways: they fuck (yank) women
and men, and are fucked by men, so they deserve to be forbidden, chased
off, and killed.
- By contrast, we are for the most part safe from predators and from
prey, except for a few accidents that happen every now and then.
(373:7-379:16)
The Proponent of the Dog said:
Response to charge of defecating, scratching up rooftops, having
particularly stinky excrement, and eating filth:
- comparison to the cat, which the adth describe as venerating God by
circling.
If the cat is excused because it is useful in eating mice, the dog is more
useful, and the dog is more deserving of the predicate faithful.
Response to the complaint about its erection:
- comparison to the horse, packhorse, mule, ass, and goat: they too should
be kept apart from women, by this logic. They are all worse than the dog
in this regard.
- comparison to the pigeon, rooster, chicken, and especially the duck:
people disapprove of bringing them into the house because when they
copulate the penis is apparent. Gazelles, camels.
- the pigeon displays all the sexual behaviors that humans do, including
all of the deviant behaviors.
Response to the charge that it attacks young boys
- dogs dont just attack at random; they recognize their masters perfectly
and would never harm them. They have a famously good sense of smell.

403

- comparison to the rooster: anecdotes about roosters pecking out

peoples eyes and attacking them with spurs. Thumma bought a rooster
that used to fight dogs, and it pecked his daughters face and eyes.
- Dogs bash with one hand and nurse with the other, for they do good
with their hunting, whereas roosters are violent but do no good to
balance it out. A roosters goodness is mixed, and its badness is pure.
- People claim that roosters protect against devils (shayn), but this
needs proof. He who compares what we know from observation about
dogs protecting against thieves and wild beasts to this claim that roosters
protect against devils knows nothing about comparison and his opinion is
worthless.
Dogs and wolves are said to howl (al-uw)
- poetry on howling
- poetry on the utility of dogs to guide visitors
This is on the topic of the howling of young camels, dogs, and wolves.
(I:380-382:2)
The Proponent of the Dog said:
Things said about the companionship and affection of dogs, and their
love for their family and for anyone who is kind to them:
- dogs wag their tails
- dogs recognize their masters scent (even if his scent is that of a drunk)
- poems about hanging up the saddle, so the dogs have time to know you
- dogs as part of hospitality
(I:382:3-383:8)
On a similar topic, [the following is] not about dogs affection, but it is something
that must be gathered to the [preceding] poems, and something that you are dire
need of:
on the first meaning:
- more poems about friendly dogs and hospitality

404

(I:383:9-387:5)
The Proponent of the Dog said:
Most invective poetry about dogs does not target dogs, but rather uses the dog as a
method for targeting a man. This is yet another way by which people benefit from
dogs.
- examples
(I:387:6-389:8)
That which has been recited about the state of the dog because of a chill from cold
weather, what was thrown at it, and how that is:

405

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