The Book of Substances

Isaac al-Isrā’īlī

Kitāb al-jawāhir

Early 10th Century

[The light of “nature”] is the least bright and that farthest removed from spirituality, because it is at the farthest distance from the true light and pure brilliance, as it merely receives its light from the vegetative soul. For this reason its light is weak and its powers are dispersed and the matter which carries it acquires bodily shape and…

Please login or register for free access to Posen Library
Register
Already have an account?
Engage with this Source

The Book of Substances (Kitāb al-jawāhir) treats some of the most important topics in Neoplatonist thought: how God created the world and the relationship of the Creator to created existence. These excerpts describe the gradations of the emanation of reality, from its source in God, through the various levels of soul (rational, animal, and vegetative), to “nature,” or the corporeal world. As evident in this excerpt, light imagery was commonly used in Neoplatonic texts to depict emanation from the source of being. Some have argued that this text is a reworking of a lost Arabic original, but that claim is not certain.

Read more
Restricted
Some content is unavailable to non-members, please log in or sign up for free for full access.

Related Guide

Intellectual Culture in the Early Medieval World

6th to 12th Century

You may also like

The Book on Spirit and Soul

Kitāb fī l-rūḥ wa-’l-nafs, 1-3, 7-9, 15

The Book on Spirit and Soul and the Difference between the Two, compiled by Rabbi Isaac, the Son of Solomon, known as the Israelite, the Physician, may his Soul rest in Peace Isaac, the son of Solomon…
View Source

The Book of Urine

Kitāb al-bawl, Chapter 5

[As Hippocrates affirmed in his letters:] If the digestion increases, the urine necessarily diminishes; and vice versa, if the urine increases, the digestion must diminish. Urine [emitted]…
View Source

Admonition to the Physicians

Musar ha-rof’im, 1, 3, 5, 11, 13, 20-21, 30, 37-39, 47-48

1. Since it is the nature of living creatures to seek their sustenance and to concern themselves with those things that maintain their being; so, too, is man, whose image is the image of God…
View Source

Commentary: On the Book of Creation (Sefer yetsirah)

Commentary on Sefer yetsirah (Book of Creation), Introduction, Chapters 3, 8 (selections)

[ . . . ] I say then that of these nine schools of thought, there is only one, the first, that does not firmly hold to the doctrine of the creation of existent things. That is, there are…
View Source