Appendix A
Introduction
The book of Abū Naṣr Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Fārābī on the ranks of the sciences.1
He said: In this book, we intend to enumerate the well-known sciences, science by science, and to draw awareness to the sum of what each one of them comprises, the parts of each one that has parts, and the sum of what is in each of those parts. We set that down in five chapters: the first is about the science of language and its parts; the second about the science of logic and its parts; the third about the sciences of mathematics, namely, arithmetic, geometry, optics, astronomy, music, measuring, and engineering; the fourth about physical science and its parts, as well as divine science and its parts; and the fifth about political science and its parts, the science of jurisprudence, and the science of dialectical theology.
What is in this book is useful. For when a human being wants to learn one of these sciences and look into it, he will know what to begin with, what to look into, what he will derive by looking into it and what its value is, and what excellence is to be gained from it so that he proceed through the sciences in an aware and insightful manner and not in a blind or confused manner. [44] By means of this book, a human being will be able to compare the sciences so as to know which are more excellent, more useful, more certain, more trustworthy, and more powerful and which are more feeble, more fragile, and weaker.
It will be of use as well in uncovering someone who claims to have insight into one of these sciences but does not. For when he is asked to give an account of what is in it and to enumerate its parts and the sum of what is in each of its parts and he is not conversant with this, the falseness of his claim will become evident and his deception will be uncovered. By means of it as well, one who has a good grasp of one of the sciences will discern whether he has a good grasp of all of it or of some of its parts and of what extent he has a good grasp.
And it will be useful both to the educated person intent on gaining a summary acquaintance with each science and to the one who would like to resemble scientific people and thus be presumed to be one of them.
1. See Iḥṣā’ al-‘Ulūm li-al-Fārābī, edited, with an introduction and notes, by ‘Uthmān Amīn (Cairo: Dār al-Fikr al-‘Arabī, 1949), 43–44.