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The article presents a hitherto neglected fragment which proposes a division of Aristotle’s categories and which is attributed to the ninth century philosopher Aḥmad Ibn al-Ṭayyib al-Saraḫsī, the most prominent student of the so-called first philosopher of the Arabs, al-Kindī. Al-Saraḫsī’s division of the categories into simple and composite ones is linked to its ultimate source in the Alexandrian tradition of the Aristotelian commentators and contextualized within Arab philosophy, from Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, al-Kindī and the Brethren of Purity to Abū l-Faraǧ Ibn al-Ṭayyib. It is further suggested that the division reached the Arab-Islamic world via Greek and Syriac collections of philosophical definitions and divisions. Besides, the edited fragment shows that al-Saraḫsī did not always follow al-Kindī’s lead with regard to Aristotelian philosophy.