Empedocles

Empedocles is the Greek philosopher whose name the Arabs wrote as Anbaduklis, often corrupted into Abiduklis. ¹

Some authentic information about his doctrines reached the Muslims through the works of Aristotle and the doxography of Pseudo-Plutarch, quoted by Abu Sulayman al-Mantiqi in the Siwan al-Hikma and by al-Maqdisi. The authentic Empedocles, however, plays no role in Islamic philosophy. ¹

Late Neoplatonic circles appropriated his figure, and treatises with Neoplatonic speculations were put into his mouth and translated into Arabic. The main example is the Book of the Five Substances, whose Arabic is lost but whose parts survive in a Hebrew translation made from the Arabic. Quotations in Pseudo-Madriti's Ghayat al-Hakim and in al-Shahrastani derive from related sources; Ammonius's Ara' al-falasifa, which distributes Neoplatonic doctrines among the Greeks, was al-Shahrastani's main source for the ancient philosophers. ²

Ibn Masarra knew books by Empedocles, according to Sa'id al-Andalusi. The biographical literature counted Empedocles as the first of the five great philosophers, with Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, and made him a contemporary of David who took his philosophy from Luqman. ³