Professor Estiphan Panoussi’s study reassesses the Arabic transmission of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, examining how the work passed across languages and how editors have interpreted its surviving text. Drawing on the unique Arabic manuscript held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the study argues that direct comparison between Greek and Arabic cannot adequately explain the text’s complexities.

Panoussi emphasizes the importance of Syriac mediation, demonstrating how Syriac spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar may explain unusual Arabic expressions, proper names, and constructions. These explanations help distinguish authentic translation practices from copying errors and later editorial misunderstandings. The manuscript’s corrections, marginal notes, additions, and uncertain readings are therefore treated as historical evidence deserving careful examination before changes are proposed.

The study also evaluates the editorial contributions of Badawī, Kassel, and Lyons alongside Panoussi’s own research. It identifies recurring risks, including unsupported additions, omissions, transpositions, and the incorporation of marginal variants into the main text. Throughout, Panoussi advocates a transparent method that separates manuscript readings, editorial corrections, conjectures, and historical reconstructions.

Beyond correcting individual passages, the work proposes a framework for a new critical reassessment integrating manuscript transcription, Greek comparison, Syriac reconstruction, translation analysis, and a structured digital apparatus. Its broader significance lies in connecting classical and Semitic philology with translation studies and intellectual history. Ultimately, the study presents the Arabic Rhetoric as both a philosophical translation and a layered historical artifact, preserving evidence of Aristotle’s intellectual legacy as it moved through Greek, Syriac, and Arabic traditions and into the scholarship of the modern era.