A CRITICAL MIND 127
introduction to the Treatise presents its composition as having been sug-
gested by “an eminent man, one of those engaged in the sciences of reli-
gious law and of those possessing both clarity of style and eloquence in
the Arabic language.”^14 This eminent man— who may or may not have
been a Muslim—“had asked a man who was studying the art of logic”
to explain to him the meaning of some oft- repeated logical terms.^15 The
tortuous formulation does not support the generally accepted interpre-
tation, that this Treatise was commissioned from its author. In formu-
laic introductions to commissioned works the opening words would
normally be: “You have asked me... .” The treatise has been shown to
depend closely on Farabi (who is also the only phi losopher cited in it),
and in par ticular on Farabi’s Introductory Treatise on Logic.^16 Rather
than a commissioned work, it seems more likely that Maimonides was
summarizing (and adapting) a work by another person, perhaps Farabi.
He also did not make any attempt to present it as an original work: he
introduced it as the summary that it was, describing the circumstances
of the original text’s composition.
More than a century ago, Julius Derenburg, followed by Moritz Stein-
schneider, suggested that this Treatise was a youthful work, composed by
Maimonides in Spain.^17 This suggestion, widely adopted by scholars, has
been dismissed by Davidson as “asserted without a shred of evidence.”
Davidson, for whom the Treatise on Logic is spurious, regards the idea
that Maimonides could have written such a treatise when he was still in
his teens as utterly fanciful. In par ticular, he rejects the notion that “a
Muslim of rank would select a teenage Jewish Talmudic student” and
would commission him to write an introduction on logic, as the product
of a “singularly unfettered imagination.”^18
monides’ Arabic Treatise on Logic,” PAAJR 34 (1966), Hebrew section 9– 62; M. Türker,
“Al-maqala fisinaat al- mantiq de Musa Ibn Maymun,”Review of the Institute of Islamic
Studies 3 (1959– 1960): 55– 60, 87– 110.
(^14) Cf. Kraemer, “Maimonides on the Philosophic Sciences,” 77; see Efros, “Maimonides’
Treatise on Logic,” 5 (Hebrew section); cf. Efros’s translation in ibid., 34.
(^15) Cf. Kraemer, “Maimonides on the Philosophic Sciences,” 78; see Efros, “Maimonides’
Treatise on Logic,” 5 (Hebrew section); Davidson, Moses Maimonides, 318– 19.
(^16) See. Kraemer, “Maimonides on the Philosophic Sciences,” 81; D. M. Dunlop, “Al-
Farabi’s Introductory Risala on Logic,” Islamic Quarterly 4 (1957): 224– 35; Hasnawi,
“Réfl exions sur la terminologie logique de Maïmonide et son contexte farabien,” 39– 78.
(^17) J. Derenburg, review of Beer, Leben und Wirken des Rabbi Moses ben Maimon,
Wissentschaftliche Zeitschrift für jüdische Theologie 1 (1835): 424 (cited by Davidson);
M. Steinschneider, Die hebräischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Juden als Dol-
metscher (Berlin, 1893; reprinted Graz, 1956), 434.
(^18) H. A. Davidson, “The Authenticity of Works Attributed to Maimonides,” in E. Fleischer
et al., eds., Me’ah Shearim: Studies in Medieval Jewish Spiritual Life in Memory of Isadore
Twersky (Jerusalem, 2001), 118– 25 ; idem, Moses Maimonides, 318.