(G. W. T.)
IBN TIBBON, a family of Jewish translators, who flourished in Provence in the 12th and 13th centuries. They all made original contributions to philosophical and scientific literature, but their permanent fame is based on their translations. Between them they rendered into Hebrew all the chief Jewish writings of the middle ages. These Hebrew translations were, in their turn, rendered into Latin (by Buxtorf and others) and in this form the works of Jewish authors found their way into the learned circles of Europe. The chief members of the Ibn Tibbon family were (1) Judah Ben Saul (1120-1190), who was born in Spain but settled in Lunel. He translated the works of Baḥya, Halevi, Saadiah and the grammatical treatises of Janaḥ. (2) His son, Samuel (1150-1230), translated the Guide of the Perplexed by Maimonides. He justly termed his father “the father of the Translators,” but Samuel’s own method surpassed his father’s in lucidity and fidelity to the original. (3) Son of Samuel, Moses (died 1283). He translated into Hebrew a large number of Arabic books (including the Arabic form of Euclid). The Ibn Tibbon family thus rendered conspicuous services to European culture, and did much to further among Jews who did not understand Arabic the study of science and philosophy.
(I. A.)
IBN ṬUFAIL, or Ṭofail [Abū Bakr Maḥommed ibn ‘Abd-ul-Malik ibn Ṭufail ul-Qaisī] (d. 1185), Moslem philosopher, was born at Guadix near Granada. There he received a good training in philosophy and medicine, and is said to have been a pupil of Avempace (q.v.). He became secretary to the governor of Granada, and later physician and vizier to the Mohad caliph, Abu Ya‘qūb Yūsuf. He died at Morocco.
His chief work is a philosophical romance, in which he describes the awakening and growth of intellect in a child removed from the influences of ordinary life. Its Arabic title is Risālat Hayy ibn Yaqzān; it was edited by E. Pococke as Philosophus autodidactus (Oxford, 1671; 2nd ed., 1700), and with a French translation by L. Gauthier (Algiers, 1900). An English translation by S. Ockley was published in 1708 and has been reprinted since. A Spanish translation by F. Pons Boigues was published at Saragossa (1900). Another work of Ibn Ṭufail, the Kitāb Asrār ul-Hikma ul-mashraqīyya (“Secrets of Eastern Science”), was published at Bulāq (1882); cf. S. Munk, Mélanges (1859), pp. 410 sqq., and T. J. de Boer, Geschichte der Philosophie im Islam (Stuttgart, 1901), pp. 160 sqq. (also an English translation).
(G. W. T.)
IBN USAIBI‘A [Muwaffaquddīn Abū-l-’Abbās Aḥmad ibn ul-Qāsim ibn Abī Usaibi’a] (1203-1270), Arabian physician, was born at Damascus, the son of an oculist, and studied medicine at Damascus and Cairo. In 1236 he was appointed by Saladin physician to a new hospital in Cairo, but surrendered the appointment the following year to take up a post given him by the amir of Damascus in Salkhad near that city. There he lived and died. He wrote ‘Uyūn ul-Anba‘fī Ṭabaqāt ul-Aṭibba‘ or “Lives of the Physicians,” which in its first edition (1245-1246) was dedicated to the vizier of Damascus. This he enlarged, though it is uncertain whether the new edition was made public in the lifetime of the author.