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Similar The Book of Misers, Kitab al‑Aghani, Resalat Al‑Ghufran, Al Ketab, Calila e Dimna | ||
The Kitāb al-Hayawān (كتاب الحيوان, English: Book of Animals) is an Arabic translation in 19 treatises (maqālāt) of the following zoological texts by Aristotle:
Historia Animalium : treatises 1-10
De Partibus Animalium : treatises 11-14
De Generatione Animalium : treatises 15-19
While the book is often attributed to Yahyà bin al-Bitrīq, the translator is unknown. However, from certain oddities in the Arabic, it has been deduced that it is a translation of a lost Syriac version. The complete text is available only in MS form (in Tehran), but treatises 11-14 (De Partibus) have been edited as Ajzā’ al-hayawān (The Parts of Animals) and 15-19 (De Generatione) as Fī kawn al-hayawān (On the Being of Animals).
In the Christian West
Finally, Michael Scot’s early 13th-century Latin translation of the Kitāb al-hayawān, De Animalibus, is worthy of mention as the vehicle of transmission into Western Europe. It was alleged by Roger Bacon that Scot "had appropriated to himself the credit of translations which more properly belonged to one Andreas the Jew." This may mean that he had help with the Arabic MS, or that he worked fully or in part from a Judaeo-Arabic or Hebrew version. Scot's De Animalibus is available in a partial edition.