## 1. The Fundamental Texts, the Approaches, the Issues



The above considerations show that the fate of metaphysics as a branch
of philosophy in the Arabic speaking world and in Muslim societies
coincides, by and large, with the reception, transmission and
transformation of Aristotle's *Metaphysics*. The
anti-Aristotelian tendencies of the early phase of Arabic philosophy,
marked by the adoption of a decidedly Platonic stance in metaphysics
and the consequent rejection of Aristotle's teaching, evident in
the views of Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn Zakariya`
al-Razi (d. ca. 925), remained a local and short-lived
phenomenon. In mainstream Arabic philosophy, the *Metaphysics*
represented for centuries the centerpiece of the corresponding
discipline. Aristotle's work is the only Greek work mentioned in
connection with metaphysics in the Arabic classifications of the
sciences. No other Greek metaphysical work was translated and
commented upon in the same continuous, widespread and multiform
manner, or quoted so often and extensively in original treatises.
Other vehicles of Greek metaphysical thought, like the *Theologia
Aristotelis*, whose avowed aim was to make Aristotle's work
compatible with Islamic creationism by means of the Neoplatonic
doctrine of emanation, stress from the outset the primacy of the
*Metaphysics* as the fundamental text of metaphysics, and
fictively portray Aristotle as the author of the adaptation of the
Plotinian material by means of which the desired completion of the
*Metaphysics* is performed. If the
*Metaphysics*--as well as the entire Aristotelian
*corpus*--underwent a gradual eclipse in post-Avicennian
Arabic philosophy, this was not due to a decline of its prestige, but
to the success of Avicenna's incorporation of the text and the
doctrine of Aristotle's work in his new encyclopedia of the
philosophical sciences, *The Cure or Healing
(Al-Sifa`*) where he constantly stresses his
reliance on the teaching of the "First Master" (Aristotle)
and his disciples.



Schematically, Arab authors adopted three main ways of approaching the
text of Aristotle's *Metaphysics*, corresponding to three
different literary genres. The first approach, which can be called
"taxonomical", is found in classificatory essays whose
goal is to outline the content of the *Metaphysics* and to
clarify its place in the Aristotelian *corpus*, and to indicate
the position of the discipline of metaphysics in the system of
knowledge. The "exegetical" approach is represented by
commentaries that aim at explaining, with different degrees of
literalness and comprehensiveness, the content of the
*Metaphysics*. The tendency to adaptation, finally, is visible
in metaphysical treatises that reformulate the doctrine of
Aristotle's work and are intended as original elaborations,
regardless of the degree of dependence on their Greek model. All main
authors who considered metaphysics approached Aristotle's
*Metaphysics*, to different extents and degrees, from these
various perspectives.



From the doctrinal point of view, Arabic interpreters of the
*Metaphysics* debated three basic theoretical issues. First of
all, they reflected on the scientific configuration of the discipline
presented by Aristotle in his work, with special focus on fundamental
aspects such as its subject-matter (namely the issue of whether
metaphysics is a philosophical theology, or an ontology, or both),
structure, method, and position in the system of knowledge. This
consideration of the epistemic status of metaphysics took into account
an enlarged Aristotelian *corpus*, which included within
theoretical philosophy a mathematics based on Euclid and Ptolemy
(since Aristotle himself wrote no treatise on mathematics), and
complemented the *Metaphysics* with pseudo-Aristotelian
Neoplatonic metaphysical works (the Plotinian *Theologia
Aristotelis* and the Proclean *Liber de causis*). The
second concern is the investigation of specific doctrines related to
the distinct issues within the *Metaphysics*. The prominent
topics within the study of being *qua* being, or ontology, are
the various aspects of the theory of essence, like the clarification
of its relationship with form and substance, the discussion of the
epistemological and ontological status of universals, etc. Of central
importance in cosmology is the debate about the eternity vs. the
origination of the world, and the mode of the universe's
production by the First Principle, whether by way of emanation from
Its own essence or creation *ex nihilo*. In philosophical
theology, finally, the features that Aristotle ascribes to the divine
Unmoved Mover, with particular regard to Its unity, necessity and
intellectual nature, provide the starting-points for far-reaching
developments. The third concern is the discussion of the relationship
of the philosophical theology contained in Aristotle's
*Metaphysics* with Islam, namely the assessment of the degree
of compatibility between the rational conception of the divinity
transmitted by Greek philosophy, on the one hand, and the image of God
conveyed by Islamic prophetic revelation, on the other. The assumption
of the oneness of truth, common among Arabic philosophers, allows the
metaphysical part of philosophy to provide a rational and coherent
account of the same divine realm disclosed by revelation, thereby
putting it in competition with Islamic theology. The results of these
three doctrinal concerns are interconnected, since a certain view of
metaphysics as a science, and a certain stand on specific doctrinal
points, can enhance or reduce the affinity of metaphysics with Islamic
religion and the possibility of its integration into Muslim culture. A
conception of metaphysics that limits the scope of this science to
philosophical theology and minimizes the relevance of the general
doctrine of being is particularly apt to underscore its compatibility
with Islam. By contrast, a view of metaphysics in which the
ontological dimension, in addition to the theological, plays a
prominent role, and in which the First Principle's properties
are discordant, rather than congruent, with the Islamic divine
attributes, goes in the opposite direction.



The different textual approaches and theoretical solutions to the
aforementioned problems are assumed here as guidelines for the
articulation of the history of the Arabic reception of the
*Metaphysics*. On this basis, seven main chronological periods
can be roughly distinguished. The first five phases culminate in the
sixth, i.e., in Avicenna, who emerges, at the present stage of
research, as the turning point of the history of Arabic
metaphysics.


## 2. The Arabic Translations of the *Metaphysics*



The translation activity regarding the *Metaphysics* continued
uninterruptedly for three centuries (the ninth to the eleventh), with
the production of several Arabic versions of Aristotle's text,
some of which might have depended on Syriac intermediaries, and the
involvement of a number of different translators, belonging to the
main schools of Arabic philosophy. These translations display
different degrees of inclusiveness (from integral versions of
Aristotle's work to translations of its single books) and
literalness (from strict word for word procedures to styles more akin
to paraphrase). Cumulatively, the Arabic translations of the
*Metaphysics* evidence the intention of making the entire text
of Aristotle's work accessible to Arabic readers, extending the
translation activity from the main bulk of the work towards more
peripheral books, like Alpha Meizon (I) and Nu (XIV). Equally clear is
the effort to provide an Arabic version increasingly faithful to the
Greek original and more respondent to philosophical clarity, and a
special focus on the repeatedly translated book Lambda (XII). Also
remarkable is the inclusion in the translation activity of the main
available Greek commentaries on the *Metaphysics*, namely those
of Alexander of Aphrodisias and Themistius (less certain is the case
of Syrianus' commentary), whose explanations of book Lambda
(and, in the case of Syrianus, Beta (III)) were translated together
with the corresponding books of Aristotle's work. Since other
Greek works intimately related to Aristotle's
*Metaphysics* were also translated into Arabic--like
Theophrastus's *On First Principles*, the metaphysical
section of Nicholas of Damascus's *On the Philosophy of
Aristotle*, Alexander of Aphrodisias's *On the Principles
of the Universe*, the *De aeternitate mundi contra
Aristotelem* and other cosmological writings of
Philoponus--the entire Greek exegetical tradition of the
*Metaphysics*, from Aristotle's first disciples
(Theophrastus) to his last interpreters/reformers (Philoponus), was
available to Arabic-speaking scholars.



On account of its long duration, the high rank of the scholars it
engaged, and the breadth of its scope this area of the overall
translation movement from Greek into Arabic cannot be reduced to a
mere preliminary phase of the Arabic reception of the
*Metaphysics*, but rather provides a specimen of the main
trends that characterized the first centuries of its history.


## 3. Al-Kindi and His School



Al-Kindi (d. after 870) engaged in a taxonomic approach to
Aristotle's *corpus*, on the basis of a number of
unidentified Greek sources of Neoplatonic heritage (*Treatise on
the Quantity of Aristotle's Books and What is Required to Attain
Philosophy*, *Risala fi kammiyyat kutub
Aristatalis wa-ma yuhtagu
ilayhi fi tahsil al-falsafa*). In this
treatise, he expresses an ambivalent view of the place of the
*Metaphysics* in the *corpus*, by presenting
Aristotle's work as the culmination of a four-fold division of
philosophy into mathematics, logic, physics, and metaphysics, but also
as preliminary to the knowledge of ethics. The description of the
content of the *Metaphysics* is limited to the part of this
work dealing with philosophical theology (the study of immaterial
things), and contains explicit references to Islamic tenets such as
God's oneness, the divine names, and providence.



Due to the loss of what might have been a specific commentary on the
*Metaphysics* (attested under the title of *Inclusive
Philosophy, Falsafa dahila*), the exegetical tendencies
of al-Kindi can only be guessed. His extant works on metaphysics
indicate the adoption of the paraphrase as explanatory technique, and
a special attention to book Alpha Elatton (II, the first book of the
*Metaphysics* in the Arab tradition), intended as introductory
to the theological themes of book Lambda.



Al-Kindi's main metaphysical treatise (*Book on First
Philosophy*, *Kitab fi l-falsafa
al-ula*, only partially extant) displays monotheistic
concerns (the insistence on the theme of God's unity, with
recourse to a model of the God-world relationship reminiscent of the
Neoplatonic metaphysics of *Theologia Aristotelis* and
*Liber de causis*), and the adoption of the doctrine of the
creation of the universe in time (derived from Philoponus). The
explicit encomiastic references to Aristotle occurring at the
beginning (with extensive paraphrastic excerpts of
*Metaphysics* Alpha Elatton) and the abrupt switch to the
themes of Book Lambda (albeit treated in an un-Aristotelian vein)
confirm that the one-sided theologizing approach to the
*Metaphysics* is directed at showing the compatibility of Greek
metaphysics with Islamic religion. Thus, al-Kindi often portrays
philosophy in general, and metaphysics in particular, as the
discipline deputed to give full articulation and rational explanation
to the miraculous conciseness of the prophetic message (besides the
central section of *On the Quantity of Aristotle's
Books*, see also the *Epistle on the Explanation of the
Prosternation of the Extreme Body and its Obedience to God,
Risala fi l-Ibana 'an sugud al-girm
al-aqsa wa-ta'atihi
li-llahi*).



The view of metaphysics as essentially a science of the divine being,
rather than of being in general, and the intent of underscoring its
affinity, once assimilated with philosophical theology, with Islam,
was also characteristic of al-Kindi's direct disciples and
the "school" of authors inspired by his teaching or
dependent on his same sources. This is evident both in classifications
of the sciences (Qusta ibn Luqa, d. 912; Ibn
Farigun, 10th century, the *Rasa`il*
of the Ihwan al-Safa`, written around
961-986; Miskawayh, d. 1030), and in independent treatises
related to metaphysics (see Abu Sulayman
al-Mantiqi al-Sigistani, d. ca. 985, and his
school; Abu l-Hasan Muhammad ibn Yusuf
al-'Amiri, d. 992).


## 4. Tabit ibn Qurra



According to historical sources, Tabit ibn Qurra (d. 901)
might have revised the translation into Arabic of Themistius'
paraphrase of *Metaphysics* Lambda. More importantly, this
author wrote the first known extant Arabic commentary on the
*Metaphysics*, still glossed by Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) four
centuries later, according to the method of concise exposition
(*talhis*), i.e., isolating the most relevant
points of the commented text. This commentary shares with
al-Kindi's works a special regard for the place of
philosophical theology within metaphysics, since it focuses on book
Lambda of Aristotle's *Metaphysics*. Also Kindian is the
effort to accommodate Islamic monotheism, by insisting on the oneness
and willful action of God, and by adopting the Porphyrian theme of the
harmony between Aristotle's and Plato's teaching. At
variance with al-Kindi, by contrast, is Tabit's
endorsing of the doctrine of the eternity of the world, rather than
its creation in time, against Philoponus, and the minimal reliance on
Neoplatonic writings. The background of the commentary is decidedly
Aristotelian, with some possible influence of the Peripatetic
commentators (most notably Themistius, who however is never
mentioned); nonetheless, Tabit revises some crucial tenets
of Aristotle's philosophical theology, by understanding, for
example, the First Mover as the first cause not only of the motion of
the universe, but also of its existence.


## 5. Al-Farabi



Besides more traditional overviews of the works of Aristotle and the
place of the *Metaphysics* among them (*What Ought to be
Premised to the Learning of Aristotle's Philosophy, Ma
yanbagi an yuqaddama qabla ta'allum falsafat
Aristu*; *Aristotle's Philosophy and Its
Parts, Falsafat Aristutalis
wa-agza` falsafatihi*),
al-Farabi (d. 950) also provided taxonomic accounts in
which the *Metaphysics* is related to the system of the
philosophical and Islamic sciences, rather than to the Aristotelian
*corpus* of writings. In the most important and influential
essay of this type, the *Enumeration of the Sciences*
(*Ihsa` al-'ulum*), he portrays
metaphysics as a discipline having a precise method (demonstration)
and an articulated structure, in which a full-fledged ontology (the
study of being *qua* being) in its different aspects precedes,
first, a part dealing with the foundation of the other sciences and,
second, a philosophical theology concerned, among other things, with
Islamic issues such as God's attributes, divine names and
actions. In all these classificatory treatises, the position of the
*Metaphysics* with respect to the other works of Aristotle, or
of metaphysics with respect to the other philosophical disciplines, is
not stable, but varies according to the particular perspective that
al-Farabi adopts: significantly, in some of them
metaphysics is presented as the culmination of the entire system of
knowledge, for example, in *The Philosophy of Aristotle*.



The consideration of the entire *Metaphysics*, and the view of
metaphysics as universal science, are the pivotal elements of the
short introduction to the *Metaphysics* written by
al-Farabi, following the model of the Prolegomena of
Greek Late Antiquity and the teaching of Ammonius Son of Hermeias and
his Aristotelian school in Alexandria. This essay, *On the Goals of
the Sage* [= Aristotle] *in Each Treatise of the Book Marked by
Means of Letters* [= *Metaphysics*] (*Maqala
... fi Agrad al-hakim fi
kull maqala min al-kitab al-mawsum
bi-l-huruf*), represents the first integral exegesis of
the *Metaphysics* extant in Arabic and reveals
al-Farabi's dependence on the epistemology of the
newly translated *Posterior Analytics*.
Farabi's use of a style of exegesis stemming from
the Peripatetic tradition is a manifestation of his affiliation with
the coeval school of Baghdad Aristotelians. The main point of the work
is that metaphysics is more encompassing than, and not reducible to,
the philosophical theology of book Lambda. Following this aim,
al-Farabi first rejects the attempts to interpret
Aristotle's work along Neoplatonic and monotheistic lines (in
this he has probably in mind al-Kindi's theologizing
conception of metaphysics), and advocates a type of explanation akin
to that of the Greek commentators (Alexander of Aphrodisias and
Themistius). Then he derives from the universal nature of metaphysics,
understood as the science having being *qua* being as its
subject-matter, indications regarding its scope (it incorporates a
part on philosophical theology, namely on the doctrine of the first
causes of being), as well as on its oneness as an universal science
(there cannot be more than one universal science), its name (by being
more general than physics it is also "after" physics) and
its overall content. Finally, he concludes with a brief description of
each of the books of Aristotle's work known to him, in which the
content of book Lambda is summarized with no religious overtones. In
this way, al-Farabi extracts from Aristotle's
work a coherent and all-encompassing outline of an "ideal"
science of metaphysics; this project will guide the following
generations of Arabic metaphysicians, in particular Avicenna, to build
a new science of metaphysics according to Farabian parameters.



In al-Farabi's main works on political
philosophy, philosophical theology is the only part of metaphysics
that functions as preliminary--together with human noetics,
man's destiny in the after-life, and prophecy--to the
account of the organization of the ideal state (*Principles of the
Opinions of the Inhabitants of the Virtuous City, Mabadi`
Ara` Ahl al-Madina al-Fadila*).
Other works of his, on the other hand, deal specifically with
ontological themes. Among them, the *Book of Letters*
(*Kitab al-Huruf*, which is not, properly
speaking, a commentary on the *Metaphysics*, despite the title
echoing one of the Arabic names of Aristotle's work) follows a
pattern analogous to that of Book Delta (V) of the
*Metaphysics*; the treatise *On One and Unity*
(*Fi l-wahid wa-l-wahda*) is thematically
linked to Book Iota (X); the refutation of Philoponus' criticism
of Aristotle is a reassessment of the thesis of the eternity of the
world. Scattered references to the *Metaphysics*, with regard
to distinct topics, surface also in the famous *Book on the
Agreement of the Opinions of the Two Sages, the Divine Plato and
Aristotle* (*Kitab al-Gam' bayna ra`yay
al-hakimayn Aflatun al-ilahi
wa-Aristutalis*), which resumes the
Porphyrian theme of the harmony between Aristotle's and
Plato's views, that had been taken up by al-Kindi and
Tabit ibn Qurra, but seems alien to
Farabi's conception of the history of philosophy.
For this and other reasons, the Farabian authorship of this treatise,
despite the manuscript evidence, has been repeatedly questioned in
recent scholarship.



The view that metaphysics is the universal science of being
*qua* being, and thus exceeds the boundaries of philosophical
theology by including it as one of its parts, functions in
al-Farabi to underscore the irreducibility of
metaphysics to Islamic religion: at the level of content, metaphysics
ranges over a thematic spectrum wider than the Muslim creed; on
epistemic grounds, the demonstrative method of metaphysics (and of
philosophy in general) is superior not only to the rhetorical and
poetical character of prophetic discourse, but also to the dialectical
procedures of Islamic theology (*kalam*). This helps to
explain why al-Farabi does not indulge in the
philosophical explanation of the *Qur`an*, and why in
the political works does he treat topics pertinent to religion from a
strictly philosophical point of view, with no concession to religious
terminology or theological motives.


## 6. The Baghdad Aristotelians



The *Metaphysics* held an undisputable importance for the
school of Christian Aristotelians that flourished in Baghdad during
the X-XI centuries, who took over from the Aristotelian scholars
of Alexandria the project of providing a systematic commentary on
Aristotle's works. Many members of this school--starting
from its founder, Abu Bisr Matta ibn Yunus (d.
940), through to its later leader, Abu Zakariya`
Yahya Ibn 'Adi (d. 974), and to one of its last
representatives, 'Isa ibn Zur'a (d.
1008)--contributed decisively to the translation of the
*Metaphysics* into Arabic. Moreover, some of these authors are
credited with the translation into Arabic of parts of the main Greek
commentaries on the *Metaphysics* (Alexander of Aphrodisias and
Themistius on book Lambda, by Abu Bisr Matta), or
they were reported to be familiar with the Arabic translation of
further Greek commentaries on Aristotle's work, as well as with
treatises on metaphysics by some of Aristotle's immediate
disciples (for example, Yahya Ibn 'Adi was said
to be familiar with the commentary on book Beta by Syrianus and the
original treatise on metaphysics by Theophrastus of Eresus). Finally,
numerous literal commentaries on the *Metaphysics*, following
in the footsteps of Alexander of Aphrodisias' exegetical style,
were produced within the school. Thus, later sources inform us that
Abu Bisr Matta commented on books Alpha Elatton,
Beta (III) and Theta (VIII) of the *Metaphysics*; he is
also quoted in Avicenna's exegesis of book Lambda (XII).
Yahya Ibn 'Adi's commentary on book Alpha
Elatton is extant. Abu l-Farag ibn al-Tayyib's
(d. 1043) commentary on the *Metaphysics*, preserved in
fragments in Hebrew translation, is famous for its length and its
extremely detailed character, an exegetical style decidedly resented
by Avicenna.



The literal style of exegesis allowed Yahya Ibn
'Adi to introduce religious concerns into his
*Metaphysics* commentary. The broadly speaking
"Platonic" theories of some of his treatises devoted to
ontological issues, like the postulation of divine forms within the
discussion of the mode of existence of universals, can be seen as
Platonizing solutions to Aristotelian problems, rather than signs of
affiliation to non-Aristotelian philosophical traditions.


## 7. Ibn Sina (Avicenna)



Outlines of metaphysics, of various lengths, can be found in
Avicenna's treatises on the classifications of the sciences, as
well as in the surveys of the different branches of philosophy
interspersed in many of his other works. These epistemological
sketches are substantiated in his *summae*, a literary genre of
which he can be considered the inventor. In all these
"encyclopedias" of philosophy--addressed to different
audiences and displaying various formats, methodologies and
styles--metaphysics constitutes, together with logic and natural
philosophy, a permanent and pivotal part of philosophy. In those
written in Arabic, after the propaedeutic treatment of logic, the
sequence of theoretical disciplines is given--along traditional
lines--as natural philosophy, mathematics, and metaphysics, or
simply as natural philosophy and metaphysics, with mathematics
frequently omitted. By contrast, in the Persian *summa, Philosophy
for 'Ala` al-Dawla*
(*Danisnamah-yi 'Ala`i*),
and possibly also in the incompletely extant *Eastern
Philosophy* (*Al-Hikma al-masriqiyya*), the
order is reversed and, as Avicenna himself avows, much more original:
metaphysics constitutes the beginning, rather than the end, of
theoretical philosophy. These two opposite arrangements are in fact
compatible and underscore complementary aspects of the primacy of
metaphysics within theoretical philosophy: metaphysics is last in the
order of learning as the pinnacle of philosophical instruction, while
it is first in the order of reality on account of the supreme rank of
the things it deals with.



In Avicenna's literal commentaries on the philosophical
*corpus*, most of which are lost, metaphysics represents the
section about which we are best informed by either Avicenna himself or
his disciples (e.g., *The Available and the Valid,
Al-Hasil wa-l-mahsul*), or by
the surviving portions (e.g., *Book of the Fair Judgment,
Kitab al-Insaf*). Judging from the extant
fragments, conciseness and selectiveness appear to have been the
stylistic and methodological hallmarks of Avicenna's exegesis of
the *Metaphysics*.



Avicenna's original adaptation of the *Metaphysics* can
be best appreciated in the metaphysical sections of his
*summae* of philosophy, which combine the taxonomical and
exegetical approaches to Aristotle's work (see
 section 1),
 with the main intent of updating and upgrading Aristotle's
metaphysical model. On the one hand, in so far as they are collections
of the different branches of philosophy, and expound metaphysics
together with logic, natural philosophy, and mathematics, these works
give metaphysics a precise position in the system of the philosophical
disciplines. On the other hand, they provide an explanation of
Aristotle's text by incorporating it into Avicenna's own
discourse by means of a report which modifies the formulation of the
original text and changes the arrangement of its parts. More
importantly, they adapt the scientific profile and the specific
content of the *Metaphysics* to new epistemological
requirements, to the doctrinal progress of post-Aristotelian
philosophy, and to the Islamic setting with which metaphysics is now
called to interact. Specifically, they adjust the tentative scientific
configuration assigned to *Metaphysics* by Aristotle himself to
higher epistemological standards; they refine the doctrine of the
*Metaphysics* and mold it with theories taken from other
authors and works within the Aristotelian tradition, or from the
fruits of Avicenna's own mind; and they make the final treatment
of philosophical theology in metaphysics compliant with religious
concerns and the theological agenda of the Islamic milieu in which
Avicenna's *summae* are produced.



Among Avicenna's *summae*, the most extensive,
influential, and, by the author's own admission, the most
dependent upon Aristotelian sources is the *Book of the
Cure/Healing* (*Kitab al-Sifa`*). The
"traditional" character of the work, however, far from
preventing originality, allows the reader to observe more keenly the
author's subtle and wide-ranging adaptation of the Aristotelian
model and his free disposal of the received material. This applies to
metaphysics in an eminent way. The metaphysical section of the
*Cure/Healing, The Science of Divine Things*
(*Ilahiyyat*), comes at the end of a massive work
consisting in a collection of twenty-two volumes, which is unique
among Avicenna's *summae* not only with regard to length
(more than 5000 pages in the current printing of the Arabic text, one
of the longest works ever written in the history of philosophy) but
also because it is the only *summa* that contains both a
full-fledged mathematics before metaphysics, and an extensive
treatment of practical philosophy as an appendix to metaphysics. In
this way, only in *The Science of Divine Things*, metaphysics
figures as a real cornerstone of the entire philosophical curriculum,
both with respect to what precedes (logic and the other two parts of
theoretical philosophy), and with respect to what follows (practical
philosophy).



As to the text of the *Metaphysics*, Avicenna uses several
Arabic translations of Aristotle's work, and adopts various
techniques for quoting it: his way of referring to the
*Metaphysics* is usually very selective in content and free in
style, although in a few cases his quotations become continuous and
resemble a real paraphrase. This latter case happens with
*Metaphysics* a, 2, which Avicenna cites in its entirety,
with explicative expansions, in the eighth treatise, introducing into
the paraphrase frequent references to the *Metaphysics*
("First Teaching") and its author ("First
Teacher"), as well as an explicit mention of book Alpha Elatton
itself, and defending the doctrines at stake by offering solutions to
a series of possible objections. Within the ninth treatise, the same
special treatment is given, to a lesser degree, to *Metaph.*
L, 6-10.



The liberty with which Avicenna reports the text of the
*Metaphysics* is paramount to his effort of adapting it to a
new context. With respect to Aristoteles' work, *The Science
of Divine Things* exhibits three radical aspects of modification.
Avicenna changes, first of all, the "form", i.e., the
scientific profile, of Aristotle's work. Accordingly, he also
modifies its "content", namely the disposition and
doctrinal purport of the individual treatises of the work. These two
modifications are concomitant with a third, more general, change,
regarding the position and role of the science of metaphysics in the
system of the sciences. The change regarding the "form"
affects all the fundamental aspects of a science singled out by
Aristotle in the *Posterior Analytics*: the theme of
metaphysics, its structure, and its method. The content of the
*Metaphysics*, on the other hand, is reworked by means of a
different arrangement of its parts, the integration of
Aristotle's thought with subsequent metaphysical speculation,
both Greek and Arabic, the introduction of some original key
doctrines, and a treatment of the divine realm very attentive to the
concerns of Islamic religion and theology. The change regarding the
systemic function of metaphysics, finally, involves a precise view of
its relationship with the other sciences as both foundational and
crowning discipline, thus overcoming Aristotle's veto in the
*Posterior Analytics* on the subalternation under a single
science of all other disciplines. Cumulatively, in these three ways
one observes on Avicenna's part a thorough and radical revision
of the authoritative text on metaphysics, which can be rightly
regarded as a sort of second "edition" of the
*Metaphysics*, or second "beginning" of the Western
metaphysical speculation.



In the context of the epistemological reshaping of the metaphysics,
Avicenna shows first that the subject-matter of this science conforms
to all the different characteristics that Aristotle assigns to it in
the *Metaphysics*. Thus, metaphysics is a study of the First
Causes and God (cf. *Metaph.* A, 1, 981b28-29;
A, 2, 982b9-10), since the First Causes and God are its
"goal". But it is also a study of "the
existent" (cf. *Metaph.* G, 1, 1003a20-26),
since "the existent *qua* existent" is its
subject-matter. Finally, metaphysics is a study of immaterial and
unmoved things (cf. *Metaph.* E, 1, 1026a13-23),
since both the First Causes and God, and "the existent
*qua* existent" are realities of this kind. This
harmonization of Aristotle's different points of view is
undertaken with the intent of conforming metaphysics to the
epistemological canons of the *Posterior Analytics*, which
posit the subject-matter as the fundamental element of every science.
Avicenna is the first thinker in the history of philosophy to have
devoted a distinct and articulated treatment to the issue of the
subject-matter of metaphysics, whose later impact on Arabic and Latin
philosophy has been enormous, insofar as it settled the issue of how
metaphysics can be both an ontology and a philosophical theology. The
other aspects of the scientific reform of metaphysics introduced by
Avicenna are also the result of applying the epistemological
requirements of the *Posterior Analytics* to this discipline.
In this way, Avicenna bestows on metaphysics an articulated and
coherent structure, based on the main elements that the *Posterior
Analytics* spell out as fundamental to every science: the parts,
properties, and principles of its subject-matter, and a method that
is, as much as possible, demonstrative, in keeping with the
*Posterior Analytics*' claim that demonstration is the
most perfect type of proof.



As to the recasting of the content of the *Metaphysics* in
*The Science of Divine Things*, Avicenna quotes all the
fourteen books into which the *Metaphysics* is traditionally
divided (apart, perhaps, from book K), but according to an order
that is strikingly different from that of Aristotle's work. In
*The Science of Divine Things*, however, Avicenna not only
modifies the content of the *Metaphysics*; he also integrates
themes taken from other sources, either from other Aristotelian
writings; or from texts belonging to the Greek and Arabic Peripatetic
tradition, in which Aristotle's *Metaphysics* was
commented, elaborated, and expanded; or from his own cultural context.
In this last respect, the philosophical theology of *The Science of
Divine Things* includes a series of themes familiar to the Muslim
audience of the work (the existence of God, His attributes,
providence, theodicy, man's destiny in the afterlife, prophecy
etc.), which are treated on a strictly philosophical basis, but with
occasional recourse to examples, terminology, and scriptural
quotations of clear Islamic provenance, used to confirm the rational
conclusions reached. This, together with the theological views debated
throughout the work, indicates Avicenna's intention to show that
the philosophical world-view expressed in metaphysics is not contrary
or alien to the Islamic one, and that it can provide rational access
to some of the tenets of the Muslim creed. *The Science of Divine
Things*, however, is not the mere sum of its many sources. Within
the framework of metaphysics, Avicenna introduces original doctrines,
some of which are narrower in scope and occur in localized parts of
the work, while others are recurrent and serve to connect and unify
its various themes. Most notorious among this latter category
are--besides the already mentioned account of the subject-matter
of metaphysics--the distinction between essence and existence in
created beings, which is the theoretical leitmotif of the work, and
the metaphysical proof of God's existence, grounded in
Avicenna's view of the subject-matter of metaphysics and of
causation, and placed at the beginning of the section on philosophical
theology (chapters 1-3 of treatise VIII). The distinction
between essence and existence is the most famous among
Avicenna's own doctrines and underlies many themes of
Avicenna's metaphysics: it justifies, for instance, the
difference between the primary concepts "thing" (i.e.,
"that which has an essence") and "existent" at
the beginning of the work; it grounds the theory of universals
(universality is an attribute that belongs to an essence not as such,
but when this latter exists in the human mind, abstracted from the
extra-mental things in which it is instantiated); and it leads to the
fundamental characterization of God as the only being that has no
essence apart from existence, or whose essence is totally identical to
its existence. Equally important in *The Science of Divine
Things* is the proof of God's existence, which is announced
at the beginning of the work (I.6) and completed towards its end
(VIII.1-3). It involves a precise view of the relationship
between metaphysics and natural philosophy, being properly
metaphysical and independent from the conclusions reached in physics;
it turns out to be original with regard to the other metaphysical
writings of Avicenna, because it is based not only on a precise
doctrine of the *Metaphysics* (the finiteness of causal chains
in *Metaph.* a, 2), but also on the text itself of this
chapter of Aristotle's work, as we have seen.



As to the role of metaphysics among the sciences, this discipline for
Avicenna holds a position of eminence with respect to all other
branches of philosophy. The series of disciplines constituting the
*Sifa`* amounts to a concrete classification
of the sciences: in it, metaphysics functions as the "queen of
the sciences" that ascertains the principles taken for granted
by all the other sciences, and interconnects and orders hierarchically
the system. Metaphysics is foundational insofar as it is the universal
science of the existent *qua* existent (ontology). The
scientific principles assessed by metaphysics are, on the one hand,
the logical laws common to all the sciences (the axioms), and the
universal concepts that every science uses without examining them (the
primary concepts like "existent", "thing",
"necessary", "one"). On the other hand,
metaphysics clarifies the principles that are proper to each of the
particular sciences, i.e., their specific assumptions or hypotheses.
Thus, metaphysics proves the very existence and the mode of existence
of the subject-matters of the other sciences (for example, the
existence of universals and categories in logic, of matter and form in
natural philosophy, and of discrete and continuous quantity in
mathematics).



In Avicenna, all the previous trends of the Arabic tradition of the
*Metaphysics* converge and find their synthesis. This is
particularly manifest in the philosophical theology that invariably
concludes his accounts of metaphysics in the *summae* and that
finds its most lucid expression in *The Science of Divine
Things*. In this section, Avicenna reiterates the connection
between *Metaph.* a, 2 and L, 6-10 that is
typical of al-Kindi's selective way of approaching the
*Metaphysics*, while also incorporating procedures of
explanation *ad litteram* and by way of questions (*per
modum quaestionis*) of *Metaph.* a, 2 that are
reminiscent of the Baghdad Aristotelians' exegetical method, and
discussing a sequence of themes that mirrors the structure of the
theological philosophy of al-Farabi's political
treatises. The Aristotelian core of this section is then expanded by
means of accretions taken from Alexander of Aphrodisias' and
Themistius' works on metaphysics (the Aristotelian commentators
mentioned by al-Farabi and translated into Arabic by
the Baghdad Aristotelians), and from the pseudo-Aristotelian,
Neoplatonic works that were commonly appended to the
*Metaphysics* in Arabic philosophy, i.e., the Plotinian
*Theologia Aristotelis* and the Proclean *Liber de
Causis*, produced within al-Kindi's circle. As a
result, Avicenna's metaphysics harmonizes al-Kindi's
emphasis on the theological component of the *Metaphysics* with
al-Farabi's vindication of the foundational role
of ontology; by the same token, Avicenna reconciles
al-Farabi's view of metaphysics as a science
modeled on the epistemology of the *Posterior Analytics* with
the Baghdad Aristotelians' project of an integral explanation of
Aristotle's text. In this way, the congruence of metaphysics
with Islamic theology is not realized in a "Kindian" way,
i.e., by limiting the scope of this discipline to a part of the
*Metaphysics*, but depends, in a more "Farabian"
vein, upon the entire work of Aristotle once its inner structure has
been properly underscored. Likewise, the task of conforming
metaphysics to the methodological standards of the *Posterior
Analytics* is accomplished at the same time as the goal of
elucidating the textual obscurities and the interpretative problems of
the *Metaphysics*.



The other metaphysical *summae* by Avicenna single out and
emphasize particular aspects of the overarching architecture of
metaphysics displayed in *The Science of Divine Things*. Thus,
*The Book of Pointers and Reminders* (*Kitab
al-Isarat wa-l-Tanbihat*) underscores
the importance of philosophical theology within metaphysics by
expanding it with respect to a much thinner ontology; the Persian
*The Book of Science for 'Ala`-al-Dawla*
(*Danesname-ye 'Ala`i*)
places metaphysics as first theoretical discipline (before natural
philosophy and mathematics), after the preliminary logic, in order to
signal its priority in the system of the sciences; the lost
metaphysics of *The Easterners*
(*Al-Masriqiyyun*) or *The Eastern
Philosophy* (*Al-Hikma al-masriqiyya*) might
have assigned a clear-cut epistemological role to the divide between
ontology and philosophical theology within metaphysics by splitting
metaphysics into two distinct sciences corresponding to these two
parts. The metaphysics of *The Book of Salvation*
(*Kitab al-Nagat*), finally, though structurally
similar to *The Science of Divine Things*, differs from it in
specific points and formulations, in so far as it incorporates
doctrines from Avicenna's previous metaphysical works.



Besides the overall treatment of metaphysics in the *summae*,
Avicenna investigates particular metaphysical areas in specific
treatises, such as the *Book of Provenance and Destination*
(*Kitab al-Mabda` wa-l-ma'ad*), which
focuses, within metaphysics, on philosophical theology, or the
*Epistle of Immolation about Destination* (*Al-Risala
al-adhawiyya fi amr al-ma'ad*), which
concentrates on a specific topic of philosophical theology, or in
allegorical writings, such as the *Hayy Ibn
Yaqzan* or the *Epistle of the Bird*
(*Risalat al-Tayr*). Various issues pertaining to
metaphysics are extensively debated in works that contain his
reflections on key philosophical themes, such as the *Notes*
(*Ta'liqat*), or that derive from the teaching
activity and the dialectical practices performed within his circle,
i.e., the *Discussions*
(*Mubahatat*). Related to metaphysics are
the specific essays ascribed to Avicenna and devoted to the
philosophical and allegorical interpretation of some Qur'anic
verses, whose authenticity however remains to be assessed.


## 8. Post-Avicennian Period



The pivotal position of Avicenna in the history of Islamic philosophy
emerges in all clarity if we consider that the three approaches to
Aristotle's *Metaphysics* considered here
(classification, commentary, adaptation), as well as the main schools
of thought of the formative period (the Kindian, on the one hand, and
the Farabian-Baghdadian, on the other), ended or began to wither with
the rise of Avicenna's metaphysics. Although the text of
Aristotle's *Metaphysics* continued to circulate in
Arabic after the eleventh century, the metaphysical works of Avicenna
gradually superseded the *Metaphysics* as the text to be
copied, commented upon, and evaluated (either favorably or
critically), until Avicennism replaced Aristotelianism by
incorporating it. Likewise, in the post-Avicennian tradition, issues
regarding Avicenna's distinction between essence and existence,
and the primacy of the former over the latter, are widely debated, and
the prerogatives of an Avicennian philosophical theology over Islamic
dialectical theology, or *kalam*, to be the discipline
more properly entitled to speak about God, hold pivotal
importance.



The reception of Avicenna's metaphysics in subsequent Arabic
thought is multifaceted, and detailed work in this immense area has
only begun in recent decades. Previous scholarship has established the
following landmarks:



First, a clear distinction between the direct vs. the indirect
influence of Avicenna's metaphysics, i.e., between those who
actually consulted his works, and those whose knowledge depended on
earlier readers of Avicenna. A case of the latter are the two very
influential text-books of Coranic schools (madrasas), Atir
al-Din al-Abhari's (d. 660H/1262 or 663H/1265),
*Hidayat al-hikma*, and Nagm al-Din
al-Katibi al-Qazwini (d. 1276), *Hikmat
al-'ayn*, whose metaphysical sections are largely dependent
on Avicenna.



Second, three main attitudes towards Avicenna's metaphysics in
post-Avicennian Arabic philosophy can tentatively be outlined:
acceptance; revision; and rejection of Avicenna's standpoint. A
decidedly pro-Avicennian camp is represented by a network of scholars
encompassing at least three generations of school members who
explicitly connected themselves with Avicenna's teaching.
Significantly, some of these direct disciples of Avicenna, like
Abu l-'Abbas Fadl Ibn Muhammad
al-Lawkari (V-VI/XI-XII c.), are the models to which later heirs
of Avicenna's metaphysics ideally refer (see, for instance,
Giyat al-Din Mansur ibn Muhammad
Husayni Dastaki Sirazi,
d. 948H/1542).



On the opposite side, a "conservative" reaction to
Avicenna's metaphysics (and to Avicenna's philosophy in
general) was represented by the efforts of reinstating the
pre-Avicennian status of this discipline. This goal was pursued in
various ways. Some, like Sihabaddin
al-Suhrawardi (d. 1191) and the fabricators of Arabic
Pseudo-Platonica in the twelfth century, took Pythagoras' and
Plato's thought as true philosophy, thus supplanting the
Aristotelian tradition to which Avicenna belonged. Others, like Ibn
Rushd/Averroes (d. 1198), whose three commentaries on the
*Metaphysics* contain recurrent criticisms of Avicenna,
redirected attention to the Aristotelian *Metaphysics* itself,
with the aim of restoring the original purport of Aristotle's
foundational text against Avicenna's innovations. Still others,
such as 'Abd al-Latif al-Bagdadi (d.
1231), conceived metaphysics as a mere juxtaposition of the Kindian
and Farabian perspectives on metaphysics, where Aristotle's
*Metaphysics* inaugurates a curriculum of works that includes
the *Liber de causis* and the *Theologia Aristotelis*,
as in al-Kindi, but also has an ontological dimension, as in
al-Farabi, so that the Avicennian synthesis is reduced
to its constituents. In addition to these anachronistic attempts that
surface both in the East and in the West of the Muslim world and are
advanced by philosophers in the strict sense, there were also the
attacks launched against philosophy in general, and metaphysics in
particular, by Muslim theologians, most famously by Abu
Hamid al-Gazali (d. 1111) in *The
Incoherence of the Philosophers* (*Tahafut
al-Falasifa*). Significantly, however, all the critics of
Avicenna, regardless whether philosophers or theologians, are also
indebted to his thought, and in their eyes Avicenna's
metaphysics represents metaphysics *tout court*.



A further intermediate line of influence, which is the one that
ultimately prevails, is the fruitful and positive
"contamination" of Avicenna's metaphysics with
systems of thought originally foreign to it. This trend towards
combining approaches and developing in new directions takes place, for
example, with regard to the theory of illumination (Muhammad Ibn
Mahmud al-Sahrazuri, 2nd half
of the VII/XIIIc.), or to sufism (Muhyi` al-Din
Ibn 'Arabi, d. 1240; Ibn Sab'in of Murcia, c.
1217-1270; Sadr al-Din al Qunawi,
1207-1274). But the most noteworthy aspect of this
tendency--which possibly starts in the cultural environment where
al-Gazali was formed--is the adoption of
Avicenna's metaphysics by Muslim theologians or
*mutakallimun*. In general, the tendency to integrate
Avicenna's metaphysics into new doctrinal settings represents
the most interesting area of the reception of Avicenna's
thought, since it requires a thorough revision of Avicenna's
original stance to adapt it to an illuminationist, mystical, or
theological context. Together with the trends towards acceptance or
rejection, this tendency to revise stretches over a period which is
much longer than the pre-Avicennian phase of *falsafa*.



Third, in a diachronic perspective, within the vast scenario of the
reception of Avicenna's philosophy, after the first main period
of impact already singled out in scholarship (from Avicenna's
death until the middle of the VIII/XIV c.), further later significant
phases of influence in different areas of the Islamic world (Persia,
India, Ottoman empire) are emerging. Of course, this temporal
progression and this geographical expansion also involve
metaphysics.



A key factor in the evaluation of the later impact of Avicenna's
metaphysics is the assessment of those of his works which mainly
influenced later reflections on metaphysics, their ways of
transmission, and their audience, since each of them, as we have seen,
conveys a particular version and format of metaphysics. Among them,
the metaphysical section of the *Book of Pointers and
Reminders* has been singled out in scholarship because of the
proliferation of independent commentaries on this work from the late
XII until the early XVIII century by leading figures of Arabic-Islamic
philosophy like Fahr al-Din al-Razi (d. 1209) and
Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (d. 1274).
Scholars attribute the success of Avicenna's *Pointers and
Reminders* to doctrinal, stylistic, and chronological factors.
Doctrinally, Avicenna's use of the essence-existence distinction
to support the distinction between what is intrinsically necessary in
something (like its essence) and what is extrinsically necessary in it
(like its existence) was particularly obvious in the *Pointers and
Reminders*. Stylistically, the work's abbreviated and
allusive style invites elaboration and commentary. Chronologically,
this was Avicenna's final comprehensive work and therefore could
be presented as the definitive expression of his views. For these
reasons, the *Pointers and Reminders* are currently considered
to be the work of Avicenna privileged by subsequent Muslim
philosophers (including the *mutakallimun*).



*The Science of Divine Things* also played an important role in
spreading Avicenna's metaphysics among later advocates of this
discipline. This is evident from its extensive manuscript tradition,
the vast exegetical activity devoted to *The Cure/Healing*, and
the frequent and widespread quotations of *The Science of Divine
Things* among post-Avicennian authors. Transmitted by a huge
number of manuscripts (more numerous and older than the ones of the
*Pointers and Reminders* currently known), *The Science of
Divine Thing* and the other parts of the *Cure/Healing*
were copied uninterruptedly for nine centuries, from the end of V/XI
century, a few decades after Avicenna's death, until the XIV/XX
century. Its exegetical tradition is first attested in the form of
marginalia, which never circulated independently from manuscripts
before the X/XVI c. The earliest extant "commentaries" on
the text are in fact collections of marginal glosses of this kind,
which gained independent circulation in self-standing book format at
the time of a new-born interest in *The Cure/Healing*, and of
an apparent loss of interest in the *Pointers and Reminders*,
whose commentatorial activity starts decreasing then: the
*ta'liqat* of Giyat al-Din
Dastaki Sirazi and of
Sadra al-Din (Mulla Sadra)
al-Sirazi (d. 1640) are noteworthy instances of
this trend. Later lemmatic commentaries, like the one by
Muhammad Mahdi ibn Abi Darr al-Naraqi
(d. 1794/5), cover only parts of *The Science of Divine
Things*, since the work in its entirety--455 pages in the
current printing--was too huge to be commented upon in this way,
and no one has ever commented integrally on even one of the twenty-two
books of *The Cure/Healing*, let alone the *summa* in
its entirety. Finally, *The Science of Divine Things* is
abundantly quoted by a wide array of scholars and writings, and even
the commentators on the *Pointers and Reminders* cite
it--as they do with *The Cure/Healing* in general--as
the reference work to be consulted in case of theoretical
uncertainties or for doctrinal integrations and developments.



In this context, the metaphysical sections of *The Book of Science
for 'Ala`-al-Dawla* and of *The Book of
Salvation* should also be taken into account. The former work
obtained wide resonance since it was taken as model and incorporated
by al-Gazali in his exposition of philosophy (*The
Aims/Doctrines of the philosophers, Maqasid
al-Falasifa*), a conduit for Avicenna's metaphysics in
the West as well. The latter work was copied in manuscripts at a very
ancient stage, and it was commented upon by important scholars like
Zahir al-Din Ibn Funduq al-Bayhaqi (d.
1169-1170) and Fahr al-Din
al-Isfara`ini al-Nisaburi (fl.
VI/XII c.).



At the present stage of research, we can tentatively conclude that no
single work of Avicenna conveyed his metaphysical thought to later
centuries, although it is premature to assess how, when, and where
these different writings interacted and competed in transmitting
Avicenna's view of metaphysics, and which of them enjoyed the
status of Avicenna's most influential metaphysical work. Among
them, the manuscript diffusion, the commentatorial activity, and the
consideration and esteem of *The Science of Divine Things*
deserve special attention, since they cross the centuries and
represent an uninterrupted trail of post-Avicennian philosophy, from
Avicenna's first disciples until today. Such a continuity looks
unattested in the case of the other metaphysical works by Avicenna. In
the continuum represented by the circulation of *The Science of
Divine Things*, one may discern a peak: this is the Safavid era in
Iran (XVI-XVIII c.), which--if we decide to call
"golden" the period 1100-1350--can be labelled
the "platinum" age of the reception of Avicenna's
metaphysics through *The Science of Divine Things*. But this
peak has firm roots in previous centuries, especially in the
key-figure of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi and
his school, and extends both backwards and forwards, according to a
comprehensive view of post-Avicennian *falsafa*.


## 9. Conclusion



The study of Arabic metaphysics can be approached from a variety of
interconnected perspectives. On the one hand, a group of historical
issues emerges, such as the ways according to which the
*Metaphysics* was transmitted into Arabic and integrated in the
culture of its new environment, the synergy of its transmission with
the Arabic reception of other fundamental works of Aristotle (above
all the *Posterior Analytics*, but also the
*Categories*), and the continuation in Arabic philosophy of the
main Greek paradigms of interpretation of the Aristotelian
*corpus*, such as the Athenian background of
al-Kindi's philosophy vs. the Alexandrian heritage of the
Aristotelians of Baghdad, or the purer Peripatetism of
al-Farabi vs. the Platonizing Aristotelianism of
Yahya Ibn 'Adi and his followers. On the other
hand, the epistemological reflection on metaphysics as a science
undertaken by Arabic philosophers, in the effort to transform
Aristotle's still imperfect discipline into a full-fledged and
rigorous scientific discourse, discloses a theoretical area of
investigation that produces a progressive switch of attention from the
*Metaphysics* (with capital "M") to metaphysics
(with lower-case "m"). Outside the narrower scope of
philosophy and its history, it is interesting to note how the
introduction of a foreign pagan discipline, like metaphysics, into a
monotheistic social context, like the Islamic one, determines either
the accordance or the antagonism between philosophical theology and
revealed theology, or, in other words, between the quintessence of
*falsafa*, on the one hand, and the speculation of
*kalam*, on the other. The study of the ways in which this
confrontation took place in the Islamic culture of the Middle Ages may
shed light on the contemporary debate on the relationship between
reason and faith and contribute to the promotion of dialogue among
different cultures.