Encyclopedia of Philosophy: al-Baghdadi, Abu 'l-Barakat

The Kitab al-mu'tabar contains many other, no less innovative ideas that have no modern counterpart; for example, the claim that each type of body has a characteristic velocity that reaches its maximum when its motion encounters no resistance. Although al-Mu'tabar is not a systematic work, comprising instead notes on various subjects that al-Baghdadi wrote for himself over the years, Pines showed that the paramountcy of a priori knowledge underlies many of the work's criticisms and innovations. The impact of al-Mu'tabar on Islamic thought seems to have been limited to the Ishraqi (illuminationist) tradition, broadly defined. Indeed, the work's tripartite structure (logic, physics, metaphysics), the pride of place given to a priori knowledge, and the consequent primacy given to the author's own speculations, are the distinguishing features of Ibn Sina's Isharat wa-'l-tanbihat, the earliest prototype of the genre, and of al-Suhrawardi's al-Talwihat, its most important representative. However, the spiritual tone of the latter two books is far less prominent in al-Baghdadi's work, although perhaps not entirely absent.