Three Arabic Treatises on Aristole's Rhetoric : The Commentaries of al-Farabi, Avicenna, and Averroes

It is increasingly well documented that western rhetoric’s journey from pagan Athens to the medieval academies of Christian Europe was significantly influ­enced by the intellectual thought of the Muslim Near East.

Lahcen Elyazghi Ez­zaher contributes to the contemporary chronicling of this influence in Three Ar­abic Treatises on Aristotle’s Rhetoric: The Commentaries of al-F?r?b?, Avicenna, and Averroes, offering translations of three landmark medieval Arabic commentaries on Aristotle’s famous rhetorical treatise in one volume. Elyazghi Ezzaher’s trans­lations are each accompanied by insight­ful scholarly introductions and notes that contextualize—both historically and culturally—these immensely significant works while highlighting a comparative, multidisciplinary approach to rhetorical scholarship that offers new perspectives on one of the field’s foundational texts.

Elegant and practical, the translations give English-speaking scholars and stu­dents of rhetoric access to key medieval Arabic rhetorical texts while elucidating the unique and important contribution of those texts to the revival of European interest in the rhetoric and logic of Aris­totle, which in turn influenced the rise of universities and the shaping of Western intellectual life.