Muhammad ibn Muhammad Tabrizi
Encyclopedia
Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr ibn Muhammad Tabrizi was a thirteenth century Persian Muslim, known for his Arabic commentary on the twenty five propositions at the beginning of Book II of the Jewish philosopher Maimonides
Maimonides
Moses ben-Maimon, called Maimonides and also known as Mūsā ibn Maymūn in Arabic, or Rambam , was a preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the greatest Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages...

's Guide for the Perplexed
Guide for the Perplexed
The Guide for the Perplexed is one of the major works of Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides or "the Rambam"...

, on which Maimonides then based his proof of the existence
Existence of God
Arguments for and against the existence of God have been proposed by philosophers, theologians, scientists, and others. In philosophical terms, arguments for and against the existence of God involve primarily the sub-disciplines of epistemology and ontology , but also of the theory of value, since...

, unity
Divine simplicity
In theology, the doctrine of divine simplicity says that God is without parts. The general idea of divine simplicity can be stated in this way: the being of God is identical to the "attributes" of God. In other words, such characteristics as omnipresence, goodness, truth, eternity, etc...

 and incorporeality of God. The propositions, derived from Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

's Physics
Physics (Aristotle)
The Physics of Aristotle is one of the foundational books of Western science and philosophy...

and Metaphysics
Metaphysics (Aristotle)
Metaphysics is one of the principal works of Aristotle and the first major work of the branch of philosophy with the same name. The principal subject is "being qua being", or being understood as being. It examines what can be asserted about anything that exists just because of its existence and...

, were merely summarised by Maimonides; Tabrizi gives a detailed discussion of them, based on the work of Arabic authors. It is the earliest known commentary on a part of the Guide.

Tabrizi's book was later translated into a strongly Arabicised Hebrew by Isaac ben Nathan of Cordoba. This translation formed the main basis of Hasdai Crescas
Hasdai Crescas
Hasdai ben Judah Crescas was a Jewish philosopher and a renowned halakhist...

's review in Or Adonai of the various demonstrations proposed for Maimonides's principles, prior to his embarking on a thorough critique of their inadequacies; it was also used by Moses ben Joshua of Narbonne
Moses ben Joshua
Moses ben Joshua, also known as Moses of Narbonne, Maestro Vidal Blasom, and Moses Narboni, was a medieval Catalonian philosopher and physician. He was born at Perpignan at the end of the thirteenth century and died sometime after 1362. He began studying philosophy with his father when he was...

. The translation was probably made in Majorca around 1347; it was printed in Ferrara in 1556. A second translation, into a more native idiomatic Hebrew, also exists in manuscript. (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, cod. héb., 974).

Tabrizi evidently thought highly of Maimonides. His book concludes "The author of these Propositions is the chief whose sceptre is "wisdom" and whose throne is "understanding," the Israelite prince, that has benefited his nation and all those who love God, etc. Moses ben Maimon ben Ebed-elohim, the Israelite... May God lead us to the truth. Amen!" A remark in the introduction to the commentary suggests that Tabrizi intended to prepare a commentary on the whole Guide. However, some suggest that he may not have had access to the Guide in its entirety: comments about Maimonides's view of the human soul are badly flawed.

Apart from his authorship of this work, nothing else is known about Tabrizi's life.

Further reading

  • A. M. Tabrizi, Commentary on the Twenty Five Premises from the Guide of the Perplexed, ed. M. Mohaghegh
    Mehdi Mohaghegh
    Mehdi Mohaghegh, sometimes alternately transliterated Mahdi Muhaqqiq, is an Iranian scholar specializing in Persian literature, Islamic studies and philosophy....

    (Tehran 1981). :translation / :quotations / :introduction
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