diff --git a/pkgs/development/libraries/xapian/bindings/default.nix b/pkgs/development/libraries/xapian/bindings/default.nix
index eeb480e6847b..4db6e57546ae 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/libraries/xapian/bindings/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/libraries/xapian/bindings/default.nix
@@ -1,15 +1,18 @@
 { stdenv, composableDerivation, fetchurl, xapian, pkgconfig, zlib
-, python ? null, php ? null, ruby ? null }:
+, python ? null, sphinx ? null, php ? null, ruby ? null }:
+
+assert (python != null) -> (sphinx != null);
 
 let inherit (composableDerivation) wwf; in
 
 composableDerivation.composableDerivation {} rec {
 
-  name = "xapian-bindings-1.2.23";
+  name = "xapian-bindings-${version}";
+  version = (builtins.parseDrvName xapian.name).version;
 
   src = fetchurl {
-    url = "http://oligarchy.co.uk/xapian/1.2.23/${name}.tar.xz";
-    sha256 = "05929d9bq9df25kh2i6gk2w09w7p5qknf9cc7mrm2g46finbbd0r";
+    url = "http://oligarchy.co.uk/xapian/${version}/${name}.tar.xz";
+    sha256 = "0lv2zblayfax4v7z3sj067b0av0phf3gc2s2d1cvkw0bkl07mv1s";
   };
 
   buildInputs = [ xapian pkgconfig zlib ];
@@ -19,7 +22,7 @@ composableDerivation.composableDerivation {} rec {
          wwf {
            name = "python";
            enable = {
-            buildInputs = [ python ];
+            buildInputs = [ python sphinx ];
             # export same env vars as in pythonNew
             preConfigure = ''
               export PYTHON_LIB=$out/lib/${python.libPrefix}/site-packages
diff --git a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
index f723fedd2da8..284b7e8148fe 100644
--- a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
+++ b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
@@ -9800,6 +9800,7 @@ in
 
   xapianBindings = callPackage ../development/libraries/xapian/bindings {  # TODO perl php Java, tcl, C#, python
     php = php56;
+    sphinx = pythonPackages.sphinx;
   };
 
   xapian-omega = callPackage ../tools/misc/xapian-omega {