IBN KAMMUNA AND THE ‘‘NEW WISDOM” OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, vol. 15 (2005) pp. 277–327doi:10.1017/S0957423905000202 � 2005 Cambridge University Press

IBN KAMMUz NA AND THE ‘‘NEW WISDOM’’ OF THE

THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Y. TZVI LANGERMANN

Sa‘d ibn Mans*ur Ibn Kammuna was a Jewish physician-philosopher of Iraqi origin who flourished in the thirteenthcentury (d. 1284). Best known for his original and comparativeinquiry into the three monotheistic faiths, whose publicationnearly cost him his life, he was, in fact, a very productivethinker, and a scholar well in tune with developments in thephilosophy and science of his day. He had personal contactwith some leading intellectuals, and he played an importantrole in the di#usion of some new trends of thought. His legacy,in the form of commentaries, correspondence, and originalworks, is now being studied in earnest.1

The present study is grounded in Ibn Kammuna’s mostsuccessful original writing – if we may guage success by thenumber of extant manuscripts, which indicate the treatise’spopularity – namely, the encyclopedia which he chose to callal-Jadıd fı al-h*ikma, or ‘‘The New Wisdom’’.2 The very title ofthis book is striking. Historians of early modern Europeanscience, that which usually bears the proud title of ‘‘TheScientific Revolution’’, have called attention to such bookstitles as Kepler’s Astronomia Nova, which indicate that the

1 For a full and up-to-date account, see Sabine Schmidtke’s heavily annotatedstudy, to appear in Persica; however, some of her judgments concerning theauthenticity of writings attributed to Ibn Kammuna seem premature to thiswriter. Moshe Perlman published the Arabic text of Ibn Kammuna’s study incomparative religion (Examination of the Inquiries into the Three Faiths[Berkeley, 1967] as well as annotated English translation (Ibn Kammuna’sExamination of the Three Faiths. A Thirteenth Century Essay in ComparativeStudy of Religion [Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1971]). For a summary treatment andshort bibliography, see Y. Tzvi Langermann, ‘‘Ibn Kammuna,’’ in RoutledgeEncyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 4 (London, 1998), pp. 621–3.

2 We cite from the edition of H* amıd al-Kabısı (Baghdad, 1982) (hereafterreferred to in the footnotes simply as ‘‘Ed.’’ ). Despite the many faults of thisedition, it does provide a usable printed text, and some of the comparanda in thereferences are helpful. On occasion we have emended the text on the basis of MSAyasofia 2447, which was not taken into consideration in the edition.

authors were aware of the novelty of their enterprise and proudto proclaim it.3 Ibn Kammuna’s encyclopedia is one of the veryfew medieval writings to advertise itself as containing some-thing ‘‘new’’. The other examples known to me are limited to afew astronomical monographs.4

In the very brief introduction to al-Jadıd, Ibn Kammunastates that he will display the best of the ancient (al-awa’il) andmodern (al-awakhir) scholars.5 Its newness, then, is not in acomplete rejection of the old – what John Donne, speaking ofthe European phenomenon described as ‘‘new philosophy callsall in doubt’’ – but rather a new synthesis, in which modernfindings are integrated into established tradition. With oneexception, again, in the field of astronomy, Ibn Kammuna doesnot, in the exposition of the ‘‘new wisdom’’, trumpet thenovelty of the information he presents.

This study is composed of three sections. First we discuss theliterary form in which the new wisdom is presented, namely,the encyclopedia. Despite the theoretical minefield surround-ing discussions of ‘‘encyclopedism’’, as well as the dearth ofeven preliminary explorations into encyclopedism in its medi-eval Islamic context, we still feel that the literary genre o#ersthe best avenue towards historical contextualization. In thesecond section we examine the widening of the epistemologicalbase for science made possible by the newly enhanced stand-ing given to h*ads, ‘‘insight’’ or ‘‘intuition’’. Much has beenwritten, and much claimed, concerning the pivotal role of h*adsin Ibn Sına’s most mature thought as well in the systems of hisfollowers. However, we feel that we o#er here, for the first time,an historical account of actual claims to have secured scientificknowledge by means of intuition, as well as the connection, ifany can be established, between these claims and the status ofh*ads within logic. In the final section, we o#er some samplingsof the contents of the new wisdom. Three topics – astronomy,mineralogy, and the theory of motion – have been chosen for

3 I. Bernard Cohen, Revolution in Science (Cambridge, USA, and London, 1985),pp. 80–1.

4 One such work is Ibn al-Shat*ir’s al-Zıj al-Jadıd, a set of tables that built uponthe achievements of Ibn Kammuna’s contemporaries, especially Nas*ır al-Dınal-T*usı. Sonja Brentjes kindly called my attention to ‘Ala’ al-Dın al-Kirmanı(10th / 11th centuries), Risal dar s*ifat-e kur-ye jadıd. Jacob ben Machir Ibn Tibbon,a contemporary of Ibn Kammuna who lived in the western Mediterranean basin,is famous for the ‘‘new’’ quadrant that he designed.

5 Ed., p. 147.

278 Y. TZVI LANGERMANN

relatively brief forays, and a fourth – the theory of time – forlengthy analysis.

ENCYCLOPEDISM

For the purposes of the present discussion an encyclopedia is aliterary composition that aims to convey in coherent andunified fashion knowledge that is developed within related butdistinct disciplines. I deliberately exclude from this definitionmanuscript codices whose contents comprise a wide expanse ofsubject matter, in the form of treatises written by a numberof di#erent authors. Such codices are indeed studied in themeager literature on Islamicate encyclopedias. Though theyconvey a certain degree of selection and organization on thepart of the copyist (or the owner), the selection and organiz-ation of materials are of a much higher order when a singleauthor undertakes to present the knowledge in a single work ofhis own doing. The di#erence may be compared to the accumu-lation of a private library covering many fields, as opposed towriting a single book that achieves the same purpose.6 It is thechallenge to select, formulate, and organize the items of knowl-edge that interests us here; all the more so, when the sameauthor experiments with di#erent formats.

By any definition al-Jadıd should qualify as an encyclopedia– at the very least, there should be no objection to dubbing it anencyclopedia of science and philosophy.7 Although the con-tents are billed as ‘‘new’’, the format certainly is not. More-over, al-Jadıd is just one of several highly encyclopedic works

6 Thus, for example, we shall not be concerned with the type of codicesrecently described with great erudition by Gerhard Endress, ‘‘PhilosophischeEin-Band Bibliotheken aus Isfahan,’’ Oriens, 36 (2001): 10–58 [Festschrift FranzRosenthal], whose article was published in tribute to Franz Rosenthal, andmodeled after the latter’s report on MS Carullah 1279, ‘‘From Arabic books andmanuscripts V: A one-volume library of philosophical and scientific texts inIstanbul,’’ Journal of the American Oriental Society, 75 (1955): 14–23.

7 That felicitous rubric appears in the title of an excellent collection of essaysedited by Steven Harvey, The Medieval Hebrew Encyclopedias of Science andPhilosophy (Dordrecht, 2000). In her review of this book, Irene Zwiep (Journal ofJewish Studies 65 [2003]: 177) observes, ‘‘Harvey’s pioneering collection of papersfails to come up with one definition, one typology, one unequivocal synthesis[. . .],’’ yet she concludes nevertheless, ‘‘Implicitly as well as explicitly, however,his proceedings o#er us a rich new research agenda.’’ See also Geert Jan vanGelder, ‘‘Mirror for princes or vizor for viziers: the twelfth-century Arabicpopular encyclopedia Mufıd al-‘ulum and its relationship with the anonymousPersian Bah*r al-fawa’id,’’ Bulletin of the SOAS, 64 (2001): 313–38, an interestingpiece of work which makes no attempt at all to define the genre of ‘‘popularencyclopedia’’ and su#ers not in the least from this omission.

IBN KAMMUz NA AND THE ‘‘NEW WISDOM’’ 279

written during the thirteenth century.8 If only on account ofthe rather paltry treatments that the encyclopedias of thatcentury have received in the scholarly literature, we feelobligated to put forward some general and preliminary obser-vations.9 Our survey will necessarily be mainly bibliographical,though we shall attempt to provide along the way someobservations and suggestions concerning content and context.

The one attempt to deal with the subject, Charles Pellat’sentry ‘‘Mawsu‘a’’ in the Encyclopedia of Islam, is not veryhelpful.10 Pellat suggests that the Mongol invasions spurredthe writing of encyclopedias, out of fear that the accomplish-ments of Islamic civilization were in danger of being erased. Heasserts that al-Qalqashandı and others had no ‘‘calculatedconcern for enrichment’’ when preparing their encyclopedias;he then moves from al-Qalqashandı directly to Tashkopruzade.The only thirteenth century work mentioned is al-Nuwayrı’sNihayat al-arab fı funun al-adab.

In fact, our preliminary and admittedly superficial investi-gations suggest quite the opposite. The thirteenth centurywitnessed a very considerable spurt in encyclopedic writing.The encyclopedias did not set as their goal merely the preser-vation of old knowledge, but the integration of new knowledgewith the old. Moreover, the great literary challenge of com-pressing human wisdom into formats of varying length appearsto be as much at play as the collection, selection, analysis andrefinement of the contents of that wisdom.

What other original encyclopedias were written in thethirteenth century? Similar in form to al-Jadıd is Yanabi‘

8 The book by Syrinx von Hees, Enzyklopädie als Spiegel des Weltbildes.Qazwını’s Wunder der Schöpfung – eine Naturkunde des 13.Jahrhunderts(Wiesbaden, 2002), came to my attention as I was preparing the final draft of thispaper. The Qazwını who authored that work should not be confused with Najmal-Dın al-Katibı al-Qazwını, Ibn Kammuna’s associate, whose name will come upmore than once in the course of this essay.

9 Perhaps the best published survey is that of Hinrich Biesterfeldt, ‘‘MedievalArabic encyclopedias of science and philosophy,’’ in Steven Harvey (ed.), TheMedieval Hebrew Encyclopedias of Science and Philosophy (Dordrecht, 2000),pp. 77–98. Abstracts of the papers presented at Agha Kahn UniversitySymposium, ‘‘Encyclopaedic Activities in the Pre-Eighteenth Century MuslimWorld’’ are accessible on-line at http:/ / www.aku.edu / news / majorevents /ismcconf-nov-abs.shtm. The conference proceedings are now being prepared forpublication in book form.

10 Charles Pellat, ‘‘Mawsu‘a 1. In Arabic,’’ Encyclopedia of Islam, secondedition, vol. 6 (Leiden, 1991), pp. 903–7.


al-‘Ulum by Shams al-Dın Ah*mad ibn Sa‘d, completed in 1233.11

Like al-Jadıd, it is in seven sections. However, Yanabi‘al-‘Ulum is much more ambitious in its scope, combiningreligious sciences (Qur’an, hadith), which receive the greatestamount of space, with arithmetic and medicine. More closelyrelated in content and in direction is al-Nur al-Bahir fıal-h*ikam al-z*awahir by Sayf al-Dın al-Az midı (d. 1234). Thatvery rich text has recently been published in facsimile form.12

Structurally it follows Fakhr al-Dın’s al-Mulakhkhas*, dividinginto logic and the sciences, the second half (called ‘‘the secondscience’’, al-‘ilm al-thanı) subdividing further.13 What littleresearch has been done on al-Az midı indicates that he is astrong thinker;14 chronologically he fits between Fakhr al-Dınal-Razı, the great critic of Ibn Sına, and Ibn Kammuna andhis circle, who flourished in the middle of the thirteenthcentury.

Another thirteenth century encyclopedist whose name isclosely connected to Ibn Kammuna is Najm al-Dın Ah*mad ibnAbı Bakr ibn Muh*ammad al-Nakhjuwanı, a seemingly eccen-tric thinker of the thirteenth (?) century. Al-Nakhjuwanı is anall but forgotten figure in the history of philosophy. IbnKammuna’s extracts from al-Nakhjuwanı’s writings, were,until the disappearance of a much-lamented autograph codexby Ibn Kammuna, the only extant remains. Fortunately, how-ever, Muh*ammad Rid*a al-Shabıbı, who inspected the manu-script in 1911, provides a detailed description.15 Ibn Kammuna

11 This text remains unstudied; I inspected the manuscript at Vienna describedby G. Flügel, Die arabischen, persichen, türkischen Handschriften der k.u.k.Hofbibliothek zu Wien, vol. 1 (Vienna, 1865; repr. Hildesheim, 1977), pp. 12–13, no.6 (N.F. 406).

12 Edited by Fuat Sezgin, under the title Splendid Light on Bright Wisdom,three volumes (Frankfurt, 2001).

13 This important text too remains unstudied. I have studied a number ofmanuscripts, especially Leiden, Or. 36, which has the very extensive commentaryof al-Katibı al-Qazwını.

14 See George Saliba, ‘‘The Ash‘arites and the science of the stars,’’ in R. G.Hovannisian and L. Sabagh (eds.), Religion and Culture in Medieval Islam (NewYork, 1999), pp. 79–92, esp. pp. 87–90. Note that Saliba studies one of al-Az midı’swritings in kalam. One of the interesting features of the synthesis of thirteenthcentury is a more fruitful interaction between the kalam and falsafa.

15 Turathuna al-Falsafı: H* ajatuhu ila al-naqd wa-al-tamh* ıs* (Baghdad, 1965),pp. 100–4. This is presumably the codex reported looted from the Kirkuk Museumin 1991 and listed in Hideo Fuji and Kazumi Oguchi, Lost Heritage: Antiquitiesfrom Iraq’s Regional Museums (Tokyo, 1996), no. 263 on their list. Following up alead in al-Shabıbı’s book, I have rediscovered al-Nakhjuwanı’s commentary onIbn Sına’s Qanun in a manuscript at Paris, BNF arabe 2936.


compiled extracts from two writings of al-Nakhjuwanı. Thefirst of these, Naqd* Qawa‘id al-Isharat wa-kashf tamwıhal-Shifa’ wa-al-Najat, must have been directed, as the titleindicates, against Ibn Sına’s three major Arabic works ofphilosophy. Ibn Kammuna put together his extracts, which hecalled Zubdat al-naqd* wa-lubab al-kashf, because he felt thatmost of al-Nakhjuwanı’s objections could be answered. Specialattention was given to the critique of al-Isharat.

The second book, which bore the title Lubab al-mant*iqwa-khilas*at al-h*ikma, was divided into three parts, calledjumal. Part One dealt with logic; it was divided into amuqaddama and five fus*ul. The second and third parts dealtwith a wide range of issues, in the form of doubts and theirresolution, or questions and answers. Shabıbı copied out oneseries of passages, apparently from the third part. These are adoubt and its resolution concerning the perennial question,how could God create any evil; and a passage, partly quotedand partly summarized, which, as Shabıbı informs us, addressesthe doctrine of metemsomatosis, which al-Nakhjuwanı is saidto have endorsed.

A special subgroup, possibly the most important for the studyof science and philosophy, are the tri-partite encyclopedias.These follow the format set down by Ibn Sına in his al-Najat,which is divided into logic, physics (or natural philosophy),and metaphysics (or divine science). A slightly di#erent modelis utilized in the same writer’s al-Isharat wa-al-Tanbıhat, whichdivides knowledge into logic, the basic tool for scientificreasoning, and the contents of scientific knowledge, whichthen is usually subdivided into physics and metaphysics. Thepre-Avicennian history of this sub-genre is irrelevant to thepresent discussion What is important is the fact that a trulyenormous body of commentary coalesced around al-Isharat –Ibn Kammuna contributed to this corpus as well – and thesecommentaries (which, on account of their sheer bulk but alsotheir involved discussions should not be called glosses) are oneof the key loci of encyclopedic expression in the thirteenthcentury.

Moreover, al-Suhrawardı al-maqtul chose the tripartiteformat for his al-Talwıh*at, another treatise that instigateda great deal of interpretative writing. In this case, IbnKammuna’s commentary is the earliest known and likely themost influential. The Ishraqıs, of which school al-Suhrawardı is


considered the ‘‘founder’’, were considered to be an alternativeto the falsafa of Ibn Sına and others, though (as is always thecase) they owed a great deal to their rivals. We have notundertaken in this study a comparison of Ibn Kammuna’s viewsas expressed in his various works. However, we shall onoccasion refer to his commentary to al-Talwıh*at, particularlywhere the stance taken there di#ers from al-Jadıd. This isinstructive with regard to the choices made by Ibn Kammunafor the personal synthesis he produced in al-Jadıd, as opposedto positions that he elaborated qua commentator.

The encyclopedism of the commentaries is derivative – notonly in the sense that the agenda has been set by the originalwork, and not just because the commentator must find his voicewithin a well-established tradition of commentary. (In the caseof al-Isharat in particular, the tenor and trajectory of the tra-dition had been set by Fakhr al-Dın in his scathing critique, andIbn Kammuna for his part follows closely Nas*ır al-Dın al-T*usı,the great defender of Avicenna.) The commentaries are deriva-tive insofar as, by the rules of the game (violated by Fakhral-Dın) they must on the whole explicate rather than criticize,reject, or suggest alternatives.16 It is for this reason, we submit,that Ibn Kammuna occasionally argues a certain point in hiscommentary to al-Talwıh*at, but ignores the issue in al-Jadıd.

Encylopedias written in languages other than Arabic mustalso be brought into the picture. Consider, for example, H* elwatH* ekmta ( ‘‘The Cream of Science’’) by Gregory Bar-Hebraeus,written in Syriac. Not only does Bar-Hebraeus fit into ourtheme chronologically and geographically; he also spent sometime at Maragha and thus knew personally Nas*ır al-Dın al-T*usıand other key players. Bar Hebraeus drew upon new writingsin Persian (al-T*usı’s book on ethics) as well as much earlierGreek materials (Summa Alexandrinorum, also on ethics) inorder to supplement his Arabic sources.17 Thus his encyclo-pedia contains a new mix of sources, made possible by the newrealities set in place by the Mongol conquests.

Ibn Kammuna produced several original encyclopedic books,in addition to al-Jadıd. These display considerable originality

16 Y. Tzvi Langermann, ‘‘Criticism of authority in Moses Maimonides andFakhr al-Dın al-Razı,’’ Early Science and Medicine, 7 (2002): 255–75.

17 Mauro Zonta, ‘‘Structure and sources of Bar-Hebraeus’ ‘practical philosophy’in The Cream of Science,’’ in R. Lavenant (ed.), Symposium Syriacum VII [OrientaliaChristiana Analecta 256] (Rome, 1998), pp. 279–92.


and experimentation with regard to length, breadth of cover-age, literary structure, and content. His investment in this sortof writing signals, we believe, a project aimed at compactingessential knowledge in di#erent book forms. Here follows abrief listing; we must caution that in most cases we have seenonly one manuscript, and in some cases we have seen none atall. Our purpose is limited to establishing Ibn Kammuna’senthusiasm for the genre; important questions concerningcontents, shifts in view, response to patrons, etc., cannot bedealt with here.

(1) Risala fı al-h*ikma. This work has the same tripartitestructure as al-Najat and al-Talwıh*at. However, it is muchshorter than either, taking up only 77 folios in onemanuscript (Ayasofia 2447) or 49 in another (Esad 1933).Together with Livnat Holzman, I am preparing a criticaledition, translation, and commentary to this work. SabineSchmidtke has now called into question its attribution toIbn Kammuna.18 That issue will have to be looked atclosely, but even at this early stage I can confidentlyreport that this text matches, in its interests, emphases,and teachings, the intellectual setting of the thirteenthcentury. Even if it proves not to be by Ibn Kammuna,it furnishes additional testimony to the blossoming ofencyclopedic writing in his time.

(2) Talkhıs* al-‘ulum al-h*ikmiyya. As both the title and openingstatement indicate, the purpose of this tract was to presentthe sciences in the most concise form possible. Thus, inEsad 1933 it takes up only six folios. The beautifullywritten codex Ayasofia 2447 comprises Risala fı al-h*ikma,Talkhıs* al-‘ulum al-h*ikmiyya, and al-Jadıd. The copyisthas thus provided himself with three thirteenth-centuryencyclopedias of greatly varying length, but all coveringmore or less the same subject matter, and very likelywritten by the same author.

(3) Al-Mat*alib al-muhimma min ‘ilm al-h*ikma. Like al-Jadıd,hebdomads define the structure of this writing: it isdivided into seven sections, each of which contains seveninquiries. It is however a much shorter work.19

18 See her forthcoming paper in Persica.19 Published just now by Seyyed Husayn Seyyed Musa in Kherandnameh-y-

Sadra, vol. 8, no. 32 (September, 2003): 64–86. I thank Sabine Schmidtke for


(4) Kalima wajıza mushtamila ‘ala nukat lat*ıfa fı al-‘ilm wa-al-‘amal. Another concise compendium. It is divided intotwo main sections, each of which is further divided intotwo parts, each of which is then finally apportionedinto five chapters. The scope of this work is more ambi-tious. The section of ‘amal deals with moral improvement,family and social matters.20

Ibn Kammuna’s encyclopedias bear at least a superficialresemblance to some of the writings of Najm al-Dın al-Katibıal-Qazwını, an important intellectual and close associate of his.Three works of al-Qazwını should be mentioned in this connec-tion. The first and most important is H* ikmat al-‘ayn, which hasproven to be one of the best received products of medievalphilosophy in the Muslim world.21 A very compact tract, it isdivided into two main sections, each of which is subdividedinto five sections. Both in its conciseness and its structure it isvery similar to Ibn Kammuna’s Kalima wajıza. However,the scope of the latter was broader; H* ikmat al-‘ayn coversonly theology (al-‘ilm al-ilahı) and natural science (al-‘ilmal-t*abı‘iyy).

Another writing of al-Katibı al-Qazwını, al-Daqa’iq fı kashfal-h*aqa’iq, as yet unpublished and unstudied, has the sametripartite division of al-Najat, al-Talwıh*at, and Ibn Kammuna’sKitab fı al-h*ikma. Moreover, the last-named work contains aclear response to al-Daqa’iq on the question of metemsomatosis(tanasukh). Granting that the soul enters the specific bodywhose physical constitution requires its governance, and thatthis rule applies to all bodies, al-Qazwını maintains nonethe-less that the soul that enters need not have been newly made.There is no logical reason why it cannot be a soul that existedbefore the body’s formation, and which suits the new body justas it suited the body it had inhabited previously. The risala, forits part, acknowledges that this very argument forces one tolook for a new rebuttal of metemsomatosis. If we are correct,then, even a concise encyclopedia such as the Risala fı

quickly sending me a photocopy which, nonetheless, arrived after this article hadbeen completed.

20 This book goes by several other titles, e.g., al-Lum‘a al-juwayniyya fıal-h*ikma al-‘ilmiyya wa-al-‘amaliyya. I have inspected the copy found in MS Fatih3141.

21 This book has been printed many times. I consult the recent edition of SalihAz yadın al-Turkı (n.p., n.d.).


al-h*ikma takes pains to acknowledge the most recent develop-ments.22

Al-Katibı al-Qazwını tried his hand at another genre: a shortbook which he himself, the author, expands upon in a commen-tary. Neither the book, ‘Ayn al-qawa‘id fı al-mant*iq wa-al-h*ikma, nor the commentary, Bah*r al-qawa‘id, has been studiedat all. The same author also commented upon encyclopedicwritings by others; he has left us a very extensive explication ofFakhr al-Dın’s al-Mulakhkhas*. Here too both the original andthe commentary remain unpublished and unstudied.

H* ADS (INTUITION)

Is the new wisdom the product of a new or modified epistemol-ogy? There is good reason to suspect that, at least to someextent, this is the case; specifically, that a newly legitimizedsource of knowledge, h*ads or intuition, has enriched thestorehouse of wisdom. H* ads is named repeatedly in al-Jadıd asthe source of items of knowledge. Here follow some examples.Intuition indicates, even where logical necessity does not, thatthe planets require more than one orb in order to completetheir motions.23 We know by means of intuition that irrationalanimals carry out their biological functions unconsciously.24

Intuition judges that intellect is more perfect than soul.25

Similarly, intuition leads to the conclusion that bodies (ortheir species) are but shadows of spiritual entities.26 Intuitionand repeated experience (tajriba) together indicate that thebody is the only impediment to the soul’s conjunction with thepure forms.27

So much for a registry of some scientific facts said to bevalidated by h*ads. These examples could be multiplied, and weshall adduce several more. However, we should first broachthe more di$cult question of the place of h*ads within the

22 Daqa’iq al-h*aqa’iq, MS Paris BNF arabe 2370, fol. 127b; Risala fı al-h*ikma,MS Ayasofia 2447, fol. 58a. Note that in H* ikmat al-‘ayn (ed. al-Turkı, pp. 54–5),al-Katibı al-Qazwını rejects tanasukh outright, displaying none of the uncertaintythat is manifest in the Daqa’iq.

23 Ed., p. 402.24 Ed., p. 424.25 Ed., p. 517.26 Ed., p. 522.27 Ed., p. 492. The connection between intuition and experience will be

discussed in detail below.


epistemology of science. What are the characteristics of thedata that are acquired by h*ads? Is there anything systematic inthe appeal to h*ads; that is to say, are there particular problemsor types of problems that can solved by no other means? Is theappeal to h*ads part of a new program to enlarge the scope ofscience? We shall first examine h*ads in theoretical terms andhistorical context. After that we shall take a closer look atsome examples of its application in al-Jadıd. Finally weshall set down some tentative replies to the questions justformulated.

Let us first illustrate how h*ads yields results by means of aspecific example. An observer notices that the moon is oftenilluminated. H* ads grants her the intuition or insight that theilluminated portion of the moon always faces the sun. This thenserves as the crucial middle term in the syllogism whichestablishes the fact that the moon’s light derives from the sun.This example may seem odd, but it is crucial that we deploy itfor reasons that will become clear as our discussion progresses.This is in fact the sole example furnished by Aristotle, and it isduly repeated in all subsequent theoretical discussions.28 Notethe close connection between intuition and repeated obser-vation of a phenomenon, in this case, a rather obvious one. Onthe other hand, it seems that h*ads is not a skill to be acquiredbut rather an endowment that one either receives or does notreceive at birth. True, Aristotle does not say this explicitly, buthis Arabic interpreters, Ibn Sına in particular, certainly tookthis to be true.29

In attaching importance to h*ads Ibn Kammuna is, indeed,following a trend established by Ibn Sına. Herbert Davidsonhas clearly and precisely described the essential di#er-ences between h*ads and cogitation30 – that is, the procedureemployed by those not endowed with h*ads, in the thinking ofIbn Sına. They are the following:

(i) ‘‘Cogitation must labor to e#ect the first conjunction withthe active intellect vis-à-vis a given thought,’’ after whichthe soul can reestablish contact without resorting again to

28 Posterior Analytics, 1.34.89b. The Arabic translation of the passage (butomitting the example) is available in Herbert A. Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna,and Averroes, on Intellect (Oxford, 1992), p. 99.

29 Ibn Sına’s statements will be examined below.30 Arabic fikr, which is sometimes rendered ‘‘reflection’’ (see below).


cogitation. However, for the person gifted with h*ads, thevery first conjunction is as e#ortless as it is for the ungiftedwho labored by means of cogitation to reestablish contact.

(ii) H* ads presents the middle terms instantaneously, whereascogitation requires (each time) the process of finding anappropriate image, presenting it to the intellectual faculty,preparing the soul for conjunction, receiving an emana-tion and, finally, di#erentiating the middle term out of theemanation.

(iii) Cogitation must draw the conclusions from the syllogismby itself, and hence is subject to error. H* ads, by contrast,receives the conclusion along with the middle term, fromthe active intellect. Thus, so it seems, it never errs.31

Davidson adds:

Securing not merely the conclusion of a syllogism but the middle term aswell is essential, for if insight furnished the conclusion without the restof the syllogism, it would not provide genuine scientific knowledge.32

This last observation is central to our discussion. Ibn Sına andhis followers were concerned that the knowledge secured byh*ads be qualitatively the same as that arrived at by othermeans; in other words, that it be backed up by full demon-stration, rather than being simple quasi-prophetic utterancesaccepted on the basis of tradition or authority.

Dimitri Gutas has emphasized the crucial importance of h*adsin the thought of Ibn Sına.33 The main contribution of Ibn Sına,Gutas argues, is the integration of h*ads into a ‘‘comprehensiveepistemology’’, as a result of which Ibn Sına presents a ‘‘coher-ent and systematic’’ theory.34 The shift in the definition of theterm between al-Shifa’ and Ibn Sına’s last major statement,al-Isharat, is thought to be particularly significant. In theformer work, h*ads is ‘‘an accurate motion’’ of the mind which

31 Davidson, Alfarabi, pp. 101–2. Davidson translates h*ads ‘‘insight’’ ratherthan ‘‘intuition’’, and I tend to think that that is the better choice. Nevertheless,‘‘intuition’’ is the term used by all other writers, and I have gone along with thistrend.

32 Davidson, Alfarabi, p. 102.33 Dimitri Gutas, ‘‘Intuition and thinking: The evolving structure of Avicenna’s

epistemology,’’ in Princeton Papers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Middle EasternStudies, vol. 9 (2001): 1–38 [Special Issue: Aspects of Avicenna, edited by AndrasHamori and Bernard Lewis]; id., Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition (Leiden,1988), pp. 162–76.

34 Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition, pp. 169, 172.


takes place in ‘‘an infinitesimally short period of time’’; but inthe latter, it is said to occur when the middle term ‘‘presentsitself to the mind all at once [. . .] without any motion [of thesoul].’’35

Gutas summarizes:

Once the absolute centrality of the concept of Intuition not only inAvicenna’s epistemology but also in his entire philosophical system as awhole is recognized and duly appreciated, it clarifies a number ofproblems that have chronically plagued the understanding of hisphilosophy and hampered the reading of his philosophical works.36

These include the ‘‘apparently vainglorious statements’’ in IbnSına’s autobiography as well as a whole slew of issues con-nected to the acquisition of knowledge, especially throughmeans other than books. For the present purposes it is import-ant to stress that, to the extent that this observation may becorrect, it is strictly confined to the domain of theory. As far asI have been able to determine, the only concrete example ofscientific knowledge attained by h*ads mentioned by Ibn Sına isAristotle’s example of the moon’s light.

Oddly enough, however, there is one instance in which IbnSına asks the reader to intuit (fa-ah*dis! ). It occurs near thebeginning of the section on natural philosophy (t*abı‘iyyat) ofal-Isharat, in the sixteenth fas*l, which he calls tadhnıb.37

Coming after a series of arguments which show the unaccept-able consequences of assuming hyle to be totally devoid(mujarrad) of form, Ibn Sına, in the fas*l under discussion,finally asks the reader to intuit that hyle is not totally devoidof bodily form. The commentators have all noticed the appealto h*ads, but none seem to make too much of it, nor do theyattempt to finger the middle term which, according totheory, h*ads is supposed to reveal. Instead of introducing anew and di#erent source of knowledge, the appeal to h*adsin this instance is taken – both by critics and supporters ofIbn Sına – to convey the simple fact that Ibn Sına has notspelled out all the necessary steps for a full and completeproof.

35 Ibid., pp. 163, 165. Davidson does not make much of this shift, and, as weshall see, neither Maimonides nor Ibn Kammuna ascribe to it any significance atall.

36 Ibid., p. 173.37 Al-Isharat wa-l-tanbıhat li-Abı ‘Alı bin Sına ma‘a sharh* Nas*ır al-Dın al-T* usı,

ed. Sulayman Dunya, third printing (Cairo, n.d.), part two, p. 207.


According to Fakhr al-Dın al-Razı, Ibn Sına appeals to h*adsbecause his arguments are not su$cient – specifically, he hasnot refuted all the alternative possibilities – to justify a demandthat the reader confirm (thabbata) his conclusion (Lubabal-Isharat, MS Istanbul, Yeni Cami 764, fol. 107b; cited in partby al-T*usı ad loc. ). Al-T*usı instead reformulates Ibn Sına’sverbal arguments in the preceding fas*l into simple logicalpropositions. From this it emerges that what Ibn Sına hasshown is that hyle that is associated (muqtaran bi-) with formcannot be totally devoid (of form). Intuition is required, then,to conclude that hyle associated with bodies cannot be totallydevoid of bodily form.38 Ibn Kammuna, in a strategy similar tothat of al-T*usı though deploying di#erent arguments, tries tofill in the gaps. He concludes, ‘‘Perhaps these proofs (adilla)will have occurred to someone astute (li-dhı fat*ana) afterassimilating the preceding. Even though they have not actuallybeen stated, by having them come to his mind (bi-khut*uriha) hewill intuit the desired result.’’39

But there is another worry here as well. H* ads, as we haveseen, is not an acquired skill but a native disposition. So is IbnSına, even at this very early stage of al-Isharat, deliberatelyleaving behind all but the very gifted? We may explore thistantalizing possibility on some other occasion; for now, let usreturn to al-Jadıd.

Let us now review the theoretical discussions of h*ads inal-Jadıd. In the chapter dealing with demonstration (burhan)Ibn Kammuna lists the seven types of judgment (h*ukm) bywhich one asserts or verifies (tas*dıq) premises that are to beemployed in a syllogism. H* adsiyyat, intuitive judgments, arethe last on the list, and Ibn Kammuna defines them simply as‘‘what the soul judges to be certain on the basis of evidence(qara’in) other than that found in the [six] sources (mabadi’)that have been mentioned above.’’40 Ibn Sına does not include

38 See the commentary of al-T*usı in Dunya, loc. cit., which also summarizesal-Razı. I have also consulted al-Razı’s Lubab al-Isharat, MS Istanbul, Yeni Cami764, fol. 107b.

39 MS London, British Library, India O$ce, Loth 484, fol. 68b. Someone (Qut*bal-Dın al-Razı?) has simply copied into the margin, to the side of al-T*usı’scommentary, the passage from al-Najat that explains how h*ads reveals the middleterm (MS Cambridge, University Library, Or. 205, fol. 24a). Finally, A.-M.Goichon, who cites this passage in her Lexique, s.v. h*ads, renders the imperative‘‘conclure’’ – no trace of intuition here!

40 Ed., p. 196.


h*adsiyyat in his classification of premises, though in his sum-mation he does assign to h*ads a role in tas*dıq.41 Note thatSuhrawardı does include h*adsiyyat in his lists, both in his‘‘peripatetic’’ al-Talwıh*at as well as in his ‘‘illuminationist’’H* ikmat al-ishraq; but neither of those lists is identical to theone found in al-Jadıd.42 The naming of h*adsiyyat as a separateclass of premises may signify a further upgrading in the statureof h*ads. Note, however, that in this discussion Ibn Kammunasupplies exactly the same time-worn example used by Ibn Sına(and before him by Aristotle), i.e., the fact that the moon’s lightderives from the sun.

However, in a later section of al-Jadıd Ibn Kammuna repro-duces almost word-for-word the final definition of h*ads given byIbn Sına. He begins by noting that progress from first intelli-gibles to secondary ones can be either by means of fikr(cogitation or reflection) or by h*ads, ‘‘in that the middle termpresents itself to the mind all at once, either as the result of asearch and desire [shawq] for it, without any [corresponding]motion [of the soul], or without any impulse [ishtiyaq] ormotion.’’ This is exactly what we find in al-Isharat.43 IbnKammuna continues, ‘‘Along with it, the object of the search[i.e. the conclusion of the syllogism] and that which it entailspresent themselves. There is no di#erence between reflectionand intuition, other than the presence of motion in reflectionand its absence in intuition.’’44

The definition of h*ads given in al-Isharat is preceded by adiscussion of the four gradations in the intellect, which IbnSına illustrates by referring to the rich imagery of the Qur’anic‘‘light verse’’.45 Ibn Kammuna as well describes these grada-tions, which he exemplifies by referring to four degrees of skill

41 See al-Najat (Teheran, n.d.), pp. 60–6. Mujarrabat are listed; as we shall see,tajriba and h*ads are closely associated with each other.

42 Suhrawardı’s list of seven premises, drawn from al-Talwıh*at, is discussed byHossein Ziai, Knowledge and Illumination (Atlanta, 1990), p. 54. Ziai explicatesthe list in al-Talwıh*at on the basis of Ibn Kammuna’s commentary, which isincluded in the edition of A. A. Fayyaz, Mant*iq al-Talwıh*at (Teheran, 1334 solar).The five premises listed in H* ikmat al-ishraq are discussed by Ziai, pp. 71–2.

43 The text is translated by Gutas, Avicenna, 165 (text L11.8). I have followedGutas’ translation closely, with one exception: I translate ishtiyaq ‘‘impulse’’,thus distinguishing it from shawq, ‘‘desire’’. Just how significant the overalldistinction between the two Arabic words may be is not yet clear to me, but Ithink that there is a di#erence here, especially as the first has a technicalapplication in the theory of motion.

44 Ed., p. 441.45 See Gutas, Avicenna, p. 164.


in writing. The very same examples were used by Ibn Sına inal-Shifa’.46 The inclusion of both Avicennian definitions inal-Jadıd, as well Ibn Kammuna’s grafting of the second defini-tion to a text drawn from al-Shifa’, suggests that Ibn Kammunawas indi#erent to the disparity between the two definitionsformulated by Ibn Sına. Perhaps, then, Gutas has overempha-sized the significance of this specific adjustment in Ibn Sına’sdefinition. Indeed, Moses Maimonides, an important thinkerwhose work Ibn Kammuna certainly studied, also did not takemuch stock in the distinction, in this context, between littletime and no time at all, which, as I understand it, amounts tothe same thing as the distinction between being or not being a‘‘motion’’. In the second of his ‘‘Eight Chapters’’ he writes:‘‘Sharpness and excellence in understanding (al-dhaka’ wa-jawdat al-fahm) is excellence in intuiting something quickly,in no time, or in a very short time.’’47 I note further that thetwo theoretical discussions in al-Jadıd harbinger no majorshift in applied epistemology; the reader has no indicationhere that h*ads will be cited as the basis for scientific state-ments much more extensively than in any of the writings of IbnSına.

So much for theory; we now turn to some specific discoveriesor solutions that are named as products of h*ads. Let us begin byexamining closely two instances of ‘‘intuition’’ in astronomy.In the first case, intuition yields the existence of an additionalorb for both Mercury and the moon. In the second, it seems toconfirm the model for eclipses, despite an apparent di$culty. Inboth cases, the data said by Ibn Kammuna to be secured byintuition is not new, nor does Ibn Kammuna claim that is. Thenovelty, from our perspective, lies in the validation of thesefacts by means of intuition. The passage I wish to look at moreclosely is the following (ed., p. 402, corrected in places byAyasofia 2447, 224b–225a):

If these principles are incumbent in the very fact of the matter (wajibafı nafs al-amr), then each star must have a number of orbs to account forits observed motions. But if they are not incumbent, then intuition(h*ads) determines them to exist in the heavens in most cases (fıal-aghlab), and [determines as well] the multiplicity of orbs for eachstar. Thus most of what I have said is confirmed (yus*addaq).

46 Davidson, Alfarabi, p. 84.47 Moses Maimonides, Commentary to the Mishnah, ed. Y. Qafih* (Kapah), vol. 4

(Jerusalem, 1965), p. 377.


Don’t you see how the soul intuits, in the cases of the moon andMercury, from the center of epicycle’s coming to the apogee twice ineach circuit, and [so also with regard to] the perigee as well, that theepicyclic orb of both does not traverse the deferent by means of its[the deferent’s] motion alone, but rather moves (mutah*arrik) throughthe agency of (bi- ) the motion of the deferent orb [that carries] it? And[don’t you see] how it intuits from the duration of the moon’s eclipsebeing shorter, the more distant it is from the earth, despite its shadowbeing narrower, the more distant it is from it [the earth], and despite thesun’s being greater than it?

Perhaps, though, the decision of individuals with regard to this maydi#er, just as they [the individual people] di#er from each other, inaccordance with how the scientific and cogitative evidence (al-qara’inal-‘ilmiyya wa-al-i‘tibariyya) from the states of motions and other thingsmay be put in order.

Let us briefly describe the two problems in astronomy men-tioned by Ibn Kammuna and name his source for their solutionby means of intuition. The first of these concerns similarmodifications made by Ptolemy to his models for the moon andMercury. In each case this meant the addition of an additionalorb, the so-called dirigent (al-mudır). The net e#ect of thesemodifications is that the epicycle is not simply carried aroundthe earth by the deferent, as is the case in the other planetarymodels. Instead, the epicycle participates in, or, as IbnKammuna says, moves along with the deferent in the latter’smotion (which motion is due to the dirigent), at the same timethat the deferent moves it, the epicycle, about the earth.48

Ibn Kammuna’s source for the claim that Ptolemy ‘‘intuited’’these devices is undoubtedly Mu’ayyad al-Dın al-‘Urd*ı, one ofmost important astronomers of the so-called Maragha school.49

A contemporary of Ibn Kammuna, he is the only Muslim savantmentioned by name in al-Jadıd. As we shall see in the nextsection, al-‘Urd*ı’s new findings with regard to the planetarydistances are acknowledged later on in the same chapter ofal-Jadıd.50 Al-‘Urd*ı describes Ptolemy’s invention of theMercury’s dirigent orb in these words: wa-h*adasa Bat*lamyus,

48 For a full technical discussion and explanatory figures see Olaf Pedersen, ASurvey of the Almagest (Odense, 1974), pp. 184–7 for the moon, and pp. 314–15 forMercury.

49 George Saliba, ‘‘The first non-Ptolemaic astronomy at the Maraghahschool,’’ Isis, 70 (1979): 571–6. This and other studies pertaining to astronomy inthe thirteenth century have been collected in George Saliba, A History of ArabicAstronomy: Planetary Theories in the Golden Age of Islam (New York, 1994).

50 That passage will be discussed below, in the first section of part three.


that is, ‘‘Ptolemy intuited’’.51 I have not found a correspondingpassage in connection with this feature of the lunar theory.52

The point raised with regard to lunar eclipses is of a di#erentcharacter. Ibn Kammuna has in mind the fact that the durationof an eclipse can be longer when the moon is in the upper partof its epicycle – even though the section of the earth’s shadowcone which it traverses then is relatively small – than it is whenthe moon is in the lower part of its epicycle, and traverses alarger surface cut o# from the shadow cone. The reason for thisis that the moon’s motion is slower in the first case, and thismore than compensates for the di#erence in size between thesections of the cone.

This phenomenon is cited by al-‘Urd*ı in his discussion of theearth’s shadow, specifically, at the end of the chapter in whichhe demonstrates that the sphere of the sun is greater than thesphere of the earth, including the encompassing sphere ofwater. Al-‘Urd*ı writes:

[. . .] for the cause of this is the moon’s slowness in the upper parts of itsepicycle and its quickness in the lower parts, not the shadow’s lackinga conic shape. But were the earth larger [than the sun], the matter wouldbe much more unattainable. Hence the sun is larger than the earth.53

We have seen that al-‘Urd*ı explicitly states that Ptolemy‘‘intuited’’ Mercury’s dirigent orb. Later on in the same dis-cussion, al-‘Urd*ı says that Ptolemy noticed that earlierastronomers had made their contributions by means ofintuition and conjecture (takhmın); and that Ptolemy began todevise his own configuration by means of intuition (shara‘awa-h*adasa hay’a min nafsihi).54 Speaking of Ptolemy’s study ofthe lunar motions, al-‘Urd*ı employs three di#erent terms,each with a specific application in the process of acquir-ing knowledge: he intuited the complex of the astronomicalconfigurations (majmu‘ hay’a), he carried out (ista‘mala)observations, and he determined (qarara) the motions;55

al-‘Urd*ı, however, later intuited that the direction of some

51 The Astronomical Work of Mu’ayyad al-Dın al-‘Urd* ı, ed. George Saliba(Beirut, 1990), p. 206, 18–19 [hereafter: al-‘Urd* ı].

52 See below for a general statement concerning Ptolemy’s intuition of thelunar model.

53 Al-‘Urd* ı, pp. 158, 15–159, 5.54 Al-‘Urd* ı, p. 213, 14–15, 17.55 Al-‘Urd* ı, p. 121, 14.


motions was di#erent from that they are in Ptolemy’s model.56

Later on, al-‘Urd*ı describes his own success at arriving at asolution as an inspiration (ilham).57

Having said all of this, we would like to know if there is anysignificant epistemological intention to al-‘Urd*ı’s remarksabout his own discoveries or those of Ptolemy. Are they anydi#erent from a modern scholar’s assertion that Ptolemy’ssolutions are ‘‘ingenious’’? Al-‘Urd*ı is very concerned withepistemology – not as a theoretical branch of philosophy, butrather as a tool allowing the astronomer to see how conclu-sions have been, or should be, reached, and where and howearlier workers in the field may have gone wrong. On the otherhand, he evinces hardly any interest in propositional logic –not in his Hay’a, nor in any of other his extant writings, to theextent that these have been studied.58 When dealing withal-‘Urd*ı, then, perhaps it would be better to translate h*ads by‘‘conjecture’’, following Saliba.59 Alternatively, h*ads maymean for al-‘Urd*ı ‘‘inspiration’’ as it is now employed incommon speech, that is, something sensed by scientists whenthey hit upon a solution. In any event, there is no indicationthat he has in mind specifically a process, method, or event thatreveals the middle term of the syllogism.

Ibn Kammuna, on the other hand, is very interested in logic,and he is well-aware of the technical sense in which h*ads isemployed. Has he simply taken over al-‘Urd*ı’s examples ofastronomical intuition without paying attention to the strictsense in which the term is employed? Is h*ads – even for IbnKammuna – just a shorthand for an inspired solution to aproblem that has yet to be obtained by some other means?

The issue is complicated further when we bring into thediscussion Nas*ır al-Dın al-T*usı, astronomer and logician, whohad contact both with al-‘Urd*ı and Ibn Kammuna. At the end ofbook II, chapter I of his Tadhkira, al-T*usı informs us that theproofs that he has just given for the sphericity of the earth andof the heavens, of the earth’s being at the center of the sphereconstituted by the heavens, and the earth’s being stationary,are all inniyya proofs, that is, of the type that determine the

56 Al-‘Urd* ı, p. 122, 1.57 Al-‘Urd* ı, p. 191, 6–8.58 These writings are reviewed by Saliba in his introduction, al-‘Urd* ı, pp. 30–1.59 Al-‘Urd* ı, p. 59.


existence of something.60 This is the only place in his treatisethat al-T*usı applies any of the technical terminology of logic;nowhere at all does he mention h*ads. On the hand, IbnKammuna makes no mention at all of inniyya proofs in hischapter on astronomy.

Our tentative conclusion – and it is indeed tentative, sincewe have subjected just this one passage from al-Jadıd to closeanalysis – is that the repeated invocation of h*ads must be takenas an important statement, but it is not indicative of anyprogram. H* ads is not a tool of scientific investigation that is tobe honed and applied in order to solve problems, but rather away of explaining, post facto, how a thinker hit upon thesolution to a di$cult problem.

One possible exception to this conclusion is a greater legiti-mization of tajriba, or ‘‘experience’’, which is made possible bythe enhanced role assigned to h*ads in epistemology. Tajribadenotes conclusions drawn from repeated observation, specifi-cally between an e#ect and its purported cause, even when nodemonstrative argument, other than the purported connectionbetween cause and e#ect that has been ‘‘experienced’’, justifiesthose conclusions. Tajriba is not induction, at least in thetechnical sense that istiqra‘ is employed. As Ibn Sına explains,induction applies to inferences drawn from particulars thatmandate a conclusion which applies to a universal. Forexample, noting that humans, horses, and oxen, are long-livedand have but little gall, one may induce the general proposi-tion, ‘‘All long-lived animals have little gall.’’61 Tajriba, bycontrast, does not yield universals, but rather isolated facts; forexample, one concludes from the repeated observation of, say,the e#ect of scammony on the human body that it is apurgative. Medicine had to rely upon tajriba to some extent,since many medicinal preparations were ‘‘experienced’’ to bee$cacious, even though their cause could not be formallydemonstrated. This situation, however, did not vitiate thelegitimacy and respect enjoyed by medicine.

The case of what later came to be known as the ‘‘occult’’sciences was quite di#erent. Opponents of astrology andalchemy rejected those branches of knowledge in toto. The

60 F. Jamil Ragep, Nas*ır al-Dın al-T* usı’s Memoir on Astronomy (al-Tadhkira fı‘ilm al-hay’a) (New York, 1993), vol. 1, p. 106, and the extensive commentary byRagep in vol. 2, pp. 386–8.

61 Al-Najat, p. 58.


assertion that those two disciplines relied entirely upon tajribawas an important part of the attack, as it undermined theirepistemological foundation.62 Asserting that in such cases thelinkage between causes and e#ects is ‘‘intuited’’, once h*ads hasbeen admitted as a source of scientific knowledge, legitimizes‘‘experience’’ as a source of knowledge. The claims of theoccult are now demonstrative, since they are founded uponsyllogisms whose middle terms have been intuited. At the sametime, this move hints that the failure of some to recognize thehidden causes is due to their, the opponents, faulty nativedisposition. Let us now see how this idea comes into play.

An entire chapter of al-Jadıd is devoted to natural phenom-ena that are not the result of the composition of elements(tarkıb).63 These include phenomena as diverse as earthquakes,wellsprings, and the evaporation and condensation of water inhot baths. I shall summarize the problem in Aristotelian terms.The material causes of these phenomena are the dry and wetexhalations; the problem is to identify their e$cient causes. Itis in this connection that Ibn Kammuna appeals twice tointuition. In general, determining the causal connection ofthese phenomena with other events accompanying their occur-rence requires ‘‘intuition, which leads to certainty’’; andpeople di#er in this regard, some achieving certainty, othernot. Moreover, even though standard causal explanations, forexample, referring to a thing’s composition, may provide apartial answer, other causes must also be present. In particu-lar, intuition mandates that ‘‘spiritual forces’’ (quwaruh*aniyya) also play a role.64 This last point is made moreclearly and succinctly in Ibn Kammuna’s commentary toal-Talwıh*at. In particular, he states there that the ‘‘spiritualforces’’ ensue from celestial configurations.65

Al-Jadıd contains a long discussion of the sulfur-mercurytheory of metals; this ties into Ibn Kammuna’s interest inalchemy, to be discussed separately below. He concludes that‘‘most of the judgments concerning composition and other[operations] upon these minerals are determined by intuition

62 See Y. Tzvi Langermann, ‘‘Maimonides’ repudiation of astrology,’’ Maimoni-dean Studies, 2 (1991): 123–58, esp. pp. 134–8.

63 Ed., pp. 363–71.64 Ed., p. 370.65 Hossein Ziai and Ahmed Alwishah, Ibn Kammuna: al-Tanqıh*at fı sharh*

al-Talwıh*at (Costa Mesa, 2003), p. 254 [hereafter: Ziai and Alwishah].


and tajriba, in a manner analogous to the case of the higher andlower phenomena.’’66 The ‘‘higher and lower phenomena’’(al-athar al-‘ulwiyya wa-al-sufliyya) are the atmospheric andterrestrial events described in the preceding paragraph. Hereas well, pure empiricism is paired to intuition.

Tajriba had always enjoyed currency as a source of knowl-edge, at least to a certain extent. We have already mentionedthat medicine in particular had to make some allowances inthis direction. Two texts relating to the legitimacy of tajriba inmedicine, the one by Ibn Sına and the other by Abu al-Barakatal-Baghdadı, were studied by Shlomo Pines. It is striking thath*ads is not mentioned at all in either of them.67 In other words,according to those two earlier sources, discovering the middleterm by means of repeated experience does not require anyspecial psychic endowment. I should also call attention to thefact that Ibn Kammuna also joins h*ads with ras*ad, whichmeans ‘‘observation’’ as done in astronomy. The greater inten-sity of the sun’s heat in the southern regions is known ‘‘by wayof h*ads, in addition to what has been found by observation.’’68

From a modern perspective, astronomical observation looksvery di#erent from the tajriba that supposedly corroboratesastrology or the existence of spiritual forces. From the stand-point of epistemology, on the other hand, it does seem to be ofthe same stock: a repeated viewing of a phenomenon, fromwhich the quick-witted intuits the middle term or cause.

A discussion of h*ads by Shams al-Dın al-Shahrazurı, one ofthe first (along with Ibn Kammuna) exponents of the Ishraqıphilosophy, provides an interesting contrast to the trend thatwe have just traced out.69 In his commentary to al-Suhrawardı’sH* ikmat al-ishraq, al-Shahrazurı defines intuitive judgments(h*adsiyyat) much as Ibn Kammuna does in al-Jadıd. Moreover,he too relies upon the same time-worn example of the moon’slight, adding only this clarification:

66 Ed., p. 377.67 Shlomo Pines, ‘‘La conception de la conscience de soi chez Avicenne et chez

Abu’l-Barakat al-Baghdadi,’’ Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du MoyenÂge, 21 (1954): 21–98, appendice (pp. 95–8) [reprinted in The Collected Works ofShlomo Pines, vol. 1, Studies in Abu’l-Barakat al-Baghdadı. Physics andMetaphysics (Jerusalem and Leiden, 1979)].

68 Ed., p. 397.69 Al-Shahrazurı was still alive in 1288; he was thus a younger contemporary of

Ibn Kammuna. See Pierre Lory, ‘‘Al-Shahrazurı,’’ Encyclopedia of Islam, secondedition, vol. 9 (Leiden, 1997), pp. 219–20.


If we add to it a hidden reasoning (qiyas), namely, ‘Were this due tochance, it would not be always the case, or most often so,’ then we reachthe conclusion, ‘Its light derives from the light of the sun.’

Then, however, al-Shahrazurı adds:

They distinguished between h*ads and tajriba. H* ads does not dependupon (yatawaqqafa ‘ala) human action, so that one arrives at what issought after by means of some intermediary; instead, it comes upon oneall at once, without any repetition of the impression (athar). Tajribadoes depend upon this. Had scammony not been experienced manytimes, one would not have arrived at the judgment that it purges yellowbile.70

It seems, then, that al-Shahrazurı is pulling in quite a di#erentdirection. Ibn Kammuna seeks, at least in al-Jadıd, to exploitthe new-found importance of h*ads in epistemology in order towiden the scope of wisdom by including fields of knowledgethat had been considered to be problematic. This could beachieved by linking h*ads and tajriba into one combined sourceof knowledge. Indeed, Ibn Sına had already linked them. Inal-Najat, tajriba or h*ads are said to be the means by whichsensation or imagination may aid the intellect in a$rming(tas*dıq) premises.71 Al-Shahrazurı, however, aims to widen thegap between h*ads and tajriba. It may well be that he wishes toreserve h*ads for the illumination of higher truths granted togifted individuals – this despite his rehearsing the example ofthe moon’s light – and to distance it from the mundaneknowledge acquired by repeated experience.

A number of related issues should be mentioned beforeleaving this topic. We call attention to three other words inArabic that refer in some way to intuition: badıhiyy, dhawq,and h*ud*ur. The first two are found in al-Jadıd; the third is, asfar as I know, conspicuously absent. Whereas h*ads is used todescribe how the middle term of the syllogism is grasped, orhow premises may be asserted, badıhiyy most often denotesprimal concepts or self-evident propositions, to whose truth themind spontaneously assents.72 We shall give some examplesbelow, in our discussion of time and motion. Note thatal-Suhrawardı connects badıhiyy with h*ads, asserting that

70 Shams al-Dın Muh*ammad Shahrazurı, Commentary to the Philosophy ofIllumination, ed. Hossein Ziai Torbati (Tehran, 2001), p. 122.

71 Al-Najat, p. 66.72 Gutas, Avicenna, p. 170.


intuitive judgments enjoy the same certainty as self-evidentpropositions.73

In contrast to badıhiyy, which, in al-Jadıd, refers to some-thing quite di#erent than h*ads, dhawq, literally ‘‘taste’’,appears to be entirely synonymous. Dhawq is a Sufi term andrefers to a usually fleeting, intense religious experience, whichleaves the adept knowing something more than he knewbeforehand. It is thus not di$cult to see how it came to meanintuition as a source of knowledge. It is used in exactly thissense by Ibn Sına – significantly, in the monograph on therational soul considered by Gutas be his very last work.74

Suhrawardı adopted the term for his version of knowledgebased upon intuition, h*ikma dhawqiyya.75

Dhawq occasionally appears in al-Jadıd together with h*ads,in manner indicating that they denote the same thing. Thus, forexample, at the end of a subtle and involved argument that theintellect comprehends itself, Ibn Kammuna writes: ‘‘Togetherwith this [intricate argument], it is h*ads and robust dhawqthat lead to this demonstration.’’76 Shortly thereafter, IbnKammuna observes that ‘‘robust dhawq’’ leads to our knowingthat there are many (and not just one) intellects.77 H* ads isclearly Ibn Kammuna’s preferred term for intuition; if there isany special reason why, in some instances, he prefers dhawq, Icannot detect it.78 Most likely both derive from di#erenttraditions and are only loosely brought together in al-Jadıd.

Intuition as a tool of scientific inquiry may possibly connectto Ibn Kammuna’s work in ophthalmology. He is known tohave written a comprehensive treatise on the subject, al-Kafı fıal-kuh*l. However, all that survives of it are some quotationsin a later work in the same field, al-Shadhilı’s al-‘Umdaal-kuh*liyya fı al-amrad* al-bas*ariyya.79 Al-Shadhilı has a long

73 Ziai, Knowledge and Illumination, p. 130.74 Gutas, Avicenna, p. 176; see also, p. 78, where the term appears in a letter

written by an anonymous disciple of Ibn Sına. For the Sufi usage see, e.g.,Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill, 1975), p. 193.

75 Ziai, Knowledge and Illumination, p. 22.76 Ed., p. 516.77 Ed., p. 520.78 Ziai, Knowledge and Illumination, p. 14, n. 3, writes that the di#erent terms

used by Suhrawardı with reference to intuition – dhawq, al-h*ikma al-dhawqiyya,al-‘ilm al-h*ud*urı, al-‘ilm al-shuhudı – all di#er in specific detail.

79 A detailed description of al-Shadhilı’s treatise, on the basis of onemanuscript, is available in Victor Rosen, Les manuscrits arabes de l’Institut deslangues orientales (repr. Amsterdam, 1971), pp. 100–9; the references to Ibn


discussion of the application of h*ads to medicine, particularlywith regard to hidden ailments that cannot be readily observed.He cites in this connection from the works of both Fakhr al-Dınal-Razı and Qut*b al-Dın al-Shırazı, and perhaps also from IbnKammuna.80 It is interesting to observe the strong impact thisimportant component of the ‘‘new wisdom’’ had upon medicine.

Let us sum up this section of our study. Two chief influenceson Ibn Kammuna, Ibn Sına and Suhrawardı, both accord tointuition an important place in the epistemologies that theydevelop. I employ the plural because each of these thinkers infact revamped his epistemology at least once. However, theirdiscussions remain entirely theoretical and tell us nothingabout which items of knowledge have been secured for ‘‘wis-dom’’ by means of intuition. Ibn Kammuna has undertaken todo just that. He produces no catalogue of these items in thechapters on logic; in fact, his theoretical treatment of h*ads addlittle to either of the two masters. Instead, as Ibn Kammunamoves through the various branches of learning in al-Jadıd,he specifies certain items as having been demonstrated orotherwise arrived at by means of intuition.

But how does Ibn Kammuna know, or on what basis does hedecide, that those particular data have been acquired by meansof h*ads? Some specific items pertaining to astronomy have beentaken over directly from al-‘Urd*ı, Ibn Kammuna’s most import-ant authority in that field. However, al-‘Urd*ı does not seem tohave any special interest in epistemology; as we have alreadysuggested, his use of h*ads and similar terms all of which refer,perhaps somewhat loosely, to ‘‘inspiration’’, does not seem torelate to any systematic reassessment of astronomical knowl-edge in terms of logic. Other items mentioned in al-Jadıdconnect to branches of learning that have traditionally beenbased upon tajriba, or repeated experience; in these cases, theappeal to h*ads does seem to be part of a plan to widen theepistemological base. I cannot as yet comment on any possible

Kammuna are noted on pp. 101–2. I plan to publish these extracts as part of aforthcoming study on ‘‘Ibn Kammuna in Aleppo’’.

80 I consulted National Library of Medicine, MS A 29.1, fols. 120b–122a. See thedescription in the on-line catalogue prepared by Emily Savage-Smith,<www.nlm.nih / hmd / arabic / mon7.html>. Although I am still unsure as towhere the citation from Ibn Kammuna ends, and the remarks of al-Shadhilı begin,I tend to think that the citation from Ibn Kammuna includes a discussion ofh*ads.


significance of the appeal to h*ads in fields such as psychologyor metaphysics.

In sum, then, the treatment of h*ads in al-Jadıd and, mostespecially, the repeated identification of h*ads as the source ofparticular items of knowledge, appear to be new developments.However, they do not interconnect as theoretical elements oractual fruits of a unified program to set the scientific enterpriseupon a new epistemological footing. ‘‘The New Wisdom’’ seemsfrom this perspective to be a low grade synthesis, that is, acollection of ideas drawn from diverse sources, not contradic-tory, but then not fully in tune with each other.

TOPICS

In this section we examine some specific topics treated inal-Jadıd. We begin with very modest samplings from threetopics: astronomy, mineralogy, and dynamics. Only in thesection on astronomy does Ibn Kammuna name a source, and itindeed is a relatively new name: his contemporary al-‘Urd*ı,whose views we have already encountered. Alchemy presentsus an opportunity to score a di#erent point, namely, that the‘‘New Wisdom’’ is a selection, in which some areas of knowl-edge, cultivated by Ibn Kammuna in other writings, wereselected out of the new synthesis. In the cases of motion –specifically, the concept of mayl as it comes to play in thetheory of motion – we shall see, once again, the dependence ofthe ‘‘New Wisdom’’ upon Ibn Sına. The concepts of motion andtime are deeply entwined. Ibn Kammuna labored to find anadequate treatment for each that would not involve himself incircular reasoning: that is, he labored hard not to employ timein the definition of motion and then to appeal to motion for theelucidation of the concept of time. In the final section, whichtreats of the theory of time, we do go into considerable depth,but without any complete resolution of the historical or philo-sophical issues at hand. Ibn Kammuna does indeed provide uswith new wisdom on the subject, but it builds upon extensivediscussions in the writings of predecessors and contemporariesthat have yet to be dealt with adequately in the scholarlyliterature.

i. AstronomyAs noted above, astronomy is the only field where IbnKammuna cares to name one of his contemporaries, Mu’ayyad


al-Dın al-‘Urd*ı. According to Ibn Kammuna, al-‘Urd*ı ‘‘ascer-tained (h*aqqaqa) things that were not ascertained by anyonebefore him.’’81 The data reported from the investigations ofal-‘Urd*ı all appertain to the planetary sizes and distances.These are: the volumes of Mercury (the smallest star) and thefirst magnitude stars (the largest celestial bodies) relative tothe earth; the volumes of the other planets and the smallest ofthe fixed stars (sixth magnitude) relative to the earth; themoon’s closest distance, the sun’s furthest distance, andthe distance of the fixed stars; the diameter of the earth; andthe distance covered by the encompassing orb in one equatorialminute of its rotation.

Al-‘Urd*ı was an astronomer and instrument designer whowas chosen by al-T*usı to take charge of the new observatoryand research center that he built, under Mongol patronage, atMaragha. Al-‘Urd*ı’s special contribution to the determinationof bodies and distances has been the subject of a careful studyby B. R. Goldstein and N. Swerdlow, on the basis of a textwhose author was at the time unknown; George Saliba lateridentified him as al-‘Urd*ı.82 According to Goldstein andSwerdlow, al-‘Urd*ı’s treatment of the bodies and distances is a‘‘remarkable exception’’ to the standard medieval discussionson the subject. Al-‘Urd*ı neither attacks Ptolemy nor does heo#er new data, but rather modifies Ptolemy’s procedures in amanner that leads to radically di#erent results.83

Although it is precisely on the topic of the bodies anddistances that Ibn Kammuna cites al-‘Urd*ı, there is no indica-tion that he was aware of the ingenuities revealed by Goldsteinand Swerdlow in their study. He does not tell us why he feelsal-‘Urd*ı’s data to be so outstanding. We note, however, that thecosmos according to al-‘Urd*ı is considerably larger thanPtolemy described it. For example, the outer limit has beenincreased seven fold, from Ptolemy’s 20,000 to a little over140,000 terrestrial radii. The volumes of the first magnitudestars have ballooned from about 95 to over 32,000 earths.84

81 Ed., p. 403.82 Bernard R. Goldstein and Noel Swerdlow, ‘‘Planetary distances and sizes in an

anonymous Arabic treatise preserved in Bodleian Ms. Marsh 621,’’ Centaurus, 15(1970): 135–70. The treatise studied by Goldstein and Swerdlow was later shown bySaliba (al-‘Urd* ı, English section, pp. 14–18) to be part of the book of al-‘Urd*ı.

83 Goldstein and Swerdlow, ‘‘Planetary distances and sizes,’’ p. 136.84 See the tables in Goldstein and Swerdlow, pp. 143 and 145; the data are

reported in al-Jadıd, ed., pp. 403–4.


Ibn Kammuna portrays astronomy ( ‘ilm al-hay’a) as ‘‘one ofthe sciences relevant to the soul (al-‘ulum al-nafsiyya), point-ing to the greatness of the Creator.’’85 He thus may have had atheological goal in reproducing al-‘Urd*ı’s data. The cosmosaccording to al-‘Urd*ı is more awesome and thus more condu-cive to religious exultation. If this is his point, then he has, atleast in this particular instance, the same goal as Zakariyya’ibn Muh*ammad al-Qazwını (1202–1283), another contem-porary, in his very famous ‘Aja’ib al-makhluqat, namely, toinspire awe.86 Moses Maimonides, a Jewish writer whose worksIbn Kammuna studied, appears to have had similar motivationswhen he included the planetary sizes in the synopsis ofastronomy which he presents in his legal code, MishnehTorah.87 On the other hand, in none of his writings that havecome to our attention does Ibn Kammuna take note of thetheoretical advances of the Maragha astronomers. In particu-lar, he knows al-T*usı only as a philosopher and not as anastronomer. His notebook contained extracts from the work ofal-‘Urd*ı and from al-Bırunı’s al-Qanun al-Mas‘udı; unfortu-nately we do not know which sections of those books attractedhis attention.88

Al-‘Urd*ı was Syrian. Moreover, the only citations of his workother than those brought by Ibn Kammuna are found in theQut*b al-Dın al-Shırazı and Bar Hebraeus, both of whom haveSyrian connections.89 New information that I have uncoveredindicates that Ibn Kammuna spent time in H* alab (Aleppo).90

Al-Shırazı, Bar Hebraeus, al-‘Urd*ı, and al-T*usı all were atMaragha; it is not unconceivable that Ibn Kammuna passedthrough there on his eastward journey to Baghdad. To be sure,some of these items of information remain speculative, but thismuch is certain: al-Jadıd conveys to a new, eastern reader-ship, astronomical advances that were achieved by Syrianastronomers.

85 Ed., p. 403.86 See the review by Ewald Wagner of the book by von Hees (above, n. 7),

Zeitschrift für Geschichte der arabisch-islamischen Wissenschaften, 15 (2002 / 2003):335.

87 Y. Tzvi Langermann, ‘‘Maimonides and the sciences,’’ in Daniel H. Frankand Oliver Leaman (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Medieval JewishPhilosophy (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 157–75, at pp. 160–1.

88 Al-Shabıbı, Turathuna al-Falsafı, p. 108.89 Al-‘Urd*ı, pp. 62–5.90 See note 76 above.


The political unification imposed by the Mongols over vastexpanses of Asia facilitated an exchange of information in awide range of fields, including but by no means limited toastronomy. Investigators have studied closely the manifoldinterchanges between Islamic (Arabic and Persian) culturesand China.91 Our modest findings call attention to anotherchannel, in which information traveled eastward, and involvedinterchange between those under Mongol rule and those domi-nated by their bitter rivals, the Mamluks.92

ii. Mineralogy and AlchemyAn inspection of the theory of metals displayed in al-Jadıd andsome brief comparisons with other works a#ord us a di#er-ent perspective on the ‘‘new wisdom’’. Al-Jadıd has a fairlydetailed account of the sulfur-mercury theory of metals. This isnot unexpected; Ibn Sına and al-Katibı al-Qazwını also adoptedit.93 Ibn Kammuna’s exposition is introduced, however, by thecautious remark that ‘‘perhaps’’ the combinations of those twosubstances can account for the seven metals and their proper-ties. Ibn Kammuna clearly displays an interest in the subject,remarking that a full treatment would be lengthy and require‘‘other arts’’.94

Is alchemy one of the ‘‘other arts’’ that Ibn Kammuna has inmind? One would think so, given the close connection betweenalchemy and the sulfur-mercury theory. However, I find noreference at all to alchemy in al-Jadıd. This absence seems allthe more noteworthy in the light of the extensive discussionfound in Sharh* al-Talwıh*at. It is clear that Ibn Kammuna hadstudied al-Talwıh*at before writing al-Jadıd; some passagesfrom the former are reproduced in the latter word for word. Avery close comparison between the two texts is not possiblehere. We shall call attention to the significant points raised inSharh* al-Talwıh*at; afterwards we shall inquire into the signifi-cance of these di#erences for the encyclopedism of al-Jadıd andthe ‘‘new wisdom’’ expounded therein.

91 See most recently Thomas T. Allison, Culture and Conquest in MongolEurasia (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 161–75.

92 In this connection note that Ragep, Memoir, has identified two versions ofal-T*usı’s astronomical chef d’œuvre: the first version, written at Maragha, and alater version, revised by al-T*usı in Baghdad shortly before his death.

93 Paul Kraus, Jabir ibn H* ayyan. Contribution à l’histoire des idées scientifiquesdans l’Islam. Jabir et la science grecque (1942; reprint, 1986), p. 1, n. 1.

94 Ed., pp. 375–6.


Suhrawardı fully endorses the sulfur-mercury theory, statingthat those two substances are ‘‘the fathers’’ of all seven metals.Ibn Kammuna notes the doubt raised by Abu al-Barakat,namely, that we do not find always gold and silver wheremercury and sulfur are present, and vice versa. He does not findthis objection to be compelling. However, after presenting aclear and detailed explanation as to how the seven metals aresupposed to be produced from combinations of sulfur andmercury, he distances himself from the theory. According toIbn Kammuna, the theory holds true only for some metals, inparticular, for gold and silver. Adhering to the rules ofthe commentary, he does not attack Suhrawardı, but rather‘‘explains’’ him. In asserting that it applies to all seven metals,Ibn Kammuna tells us, Suhrawardı deliberately overstated hiscase in order to indicate that the theory may apply only to theseven metals, but not to other minerals.

In Sharh* al-Talwıh*at Ibn Kammuna accepts, though againwith some hesitation, the soundness of alchemy, as we learnfrom this passage:

Alchemy (kımiya’) is a term for stripping metallic substances of theirspecial properties and giving them the special properties of other[substances], [thereby] giving to some the special properties of others, inorder to arrive at the formation (ittih*ad, literally unification) of goldand silver from other bodies. It is one of the branches of natural science.The author of al-Mu‘tabar [Abu al-Barakat] and others deny it, whereasthe ra’ıs Ibn Sına was among those who accept it.95 It is likely to be

95 The reference here to Ibn Sına is somewhat surprising, given the latter’swell-known rejection of alchemy, most famously in the mineralogy of his al-Shifa’.However, the following points should be taken into consideration. First, not all ofthe alchemical treatises attributed to Ibn Sına have been shown conclusively tobe pseudepigraphs; see Georges C. Anawati, ‘‘Avicenne et l’alchimie,’’ in Oriente eOccidente nel medievo: filosofia e scienze (Rome, 1971), pp. 285–341. Second, somealchemical ideas were certainly accepted by Ibn Sına and incorporated in hisgeology, and, in turn, impacted upon his thinking on critical issues such as theeternity of the universe; see Gad Freudenthal, ‘‘(Al-)chemical foundations forcosmological ideas: Ibn Sînâ on the geology of an eternal world,’’ in SabbetaiUnguru (ed.), Physics, Cosmology and Astronomy, 1300–1700: Tension andAccommodation (Dordrecht, 1991), pp. 47–73. Finally, chemical processes akin tothose applied in alchemy that are described in Ibn Sına’s al-Qanun fı al-t*ibbplayed a significant role in alchemy; see the essays edited by Chiara Crisciani andAgostino Paravicini Baliani, Alchimia e medicina nel Medioevo (Florence, 2003),passim (index, s.v. Avicenna). We still lack an investigation into Ibn Sına’s imagein the Islamic east during the thirteenth century; was Ibn Kammuna alone inregarding Ibn Sına as an important alchemist?


correct from the perspective of intellect.96 For gold and silver aredi#erent from other minerals only because of some things that are addedto their common materiality accidentally, such as the color and poise ofgold. There is no reason why a [di#erent] body could not take them on,though the way to achieve this is doubtlessly di$cult.97

What are we to make of the di#erences between these twoexpositions? Presumably, in his encyclopedia Ibn Kammunawished to present an acceptable synthesis; but in his scholasticcommentary he felt free, or perhaps obligated, to go into detail,not just concerning the theories, but also the doubts and con-troversies that accompany them. It is nonetheless striking thathe omits alchemy from the ‘‘new wisdom’’ despite its supposedendorsement by Ibn Sına. One interesting common denomina-tor between Sharh* al-Talwıh*at and al-Jadıd is the uncertaintyin Ibn Kammuna’s voice: ‘‘perhaps’’ the sulfur-mercury theoryis correct; the claims of the alchemist are ‘‘probable’’.

iii. Theory of MotionOur next concern is with the various types of ‘‘inclination’’, ormayl, an important concept in medieval dynamics, which canbe traced back to Aristotle’s rhope. It characterizes the innatetendency of bodies to move in a certain manner. Its elaborationby post-Aristotelian thinkers, from Philoponus down to thelater Latins, is considered by historians of science to beimmensely significant. It is these reformulations, especially inthe theory of impetus, rather than the pure Aristotelian doc-trine, which constitute the accepted teachings of physics thatGalileo set out to refute. The studies of Shlomo Pines havedemonstrated the important role of several Islamic thinkers inthis episode.98 More than any other thinker, though, it was IbnSına who pressed the investigation of mayl, giving the topicnew impetus (no pun intended).99

96 This is the best I can do to make render the sentence correctly into passableEnglish. The text published by Ziai and Alwishah, p. 269, 2–3, reads: wa-al-ih*timalal-‘aqlı banat fıhi. The Judaeo-Arabic transcription (Berlin Fol. 1321, fol. 86a; thismanuscript was apparently not consulted by the editors) has thabit instead ofbanat, and this reading seems preferable.

97 Ziai and Alwishah, pp. 268–9.98 Pines’ studies are critically reviewed and confirmed by Fritz Zimmermann,

‘‘Philoponus’ impetus theory in the Arabic tradition,’’ in Richard Sorabji (ed.),Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science (London, 1987), pp. 121–9.

99 See now the thorough survey of Ahmad Hasnaoui, ‘‘La dynamique d’IbnSına,’’ in Jean Jolivet and Roshdi Rashed (eds.), Études sur Avicenne (Paris,1984), pp. 103–23.


Mayl receives considerable attention in Ibn Kammuna’sSharh* al-Talwıh*at. Suhrawardı’s talwıh* on mayl stimulatesa thorough analysis, in the form of seven inquiries.100 Discus-sions of mayl are found elsewhere in the commentary as well.For example, Ibn Kammuna states that mayl mus‘id, theinclination to rise, is a property bestowed upon bodies by heat.This is one of the possible interpretations of Aristotle’saccount, which is not totally clear.101 Interestingly enough, theissue is raised in connection with the natural formation ofminerals. Ibn Kammuna goes to sketch out what looks like avector analysis of circular motion: it is said to result from theinseparable, opposing tendencies (upwards and downwards) oftwo other motions.102

In al-Jadıd, by contrast, mayl is not an important part of thetheory of motion. To be sure, as we have indicated, theattention the concept receives in Sharh* al-Talwıh*at results inlarge measure from its presence in Suhrawardı’s text. ShlomoPines has called attention to the great interest later Ishraqithinkers, especially al-Shahrazurı, have shown in mayl,especially mayl qasrı.103 Does Ibn Kammuna’s relative reti-cence on the subject in al-Jadıd tell us something about theminor role of Ishraqi physics in the ‘‘new wisdom’’? This is oneof the questions that we hope to address, with the help ofadditional texts by Ibn Kammuna and his contemporaries.104

The discussion of the causes of the celestial motions providesa good example of the di#erent approaches of the two texts. In

100 Ziai and Alwishah, pp. 111–17.101 Ziai and Alwishah, p. 269; see Zimmermann’s detailed review of the problem

in his ‘‘Philoponus’ impetus theory,’’ note 4 on pp. 121–2.102 Ed., p. 270. The circular motion is connected to gold; I presume that it

connects to some observed motion that takes place when gold is melted in theprocess of its refining or malleation. Al-Katibı al-Qazwını, Daqa’iq al-h*aqa’iq, MSParis, BNF arabe 2370, in the chapter presenting a typology of motion (h*araka),lists the motion of the wheel (h*arakat al-‘ajala) as compound, but he does notelaborate.

103 See especially the excursus on Shahrazurı’s al-Shajara al-ilahiyya appendedto Shlomo Pines’ ‘‘Saint Augustin et l’impetus,’’ Archives d’histoire doctrinale etlittéraire du Moyen Âge, 36 (1969): 7–21, reprinted in Studies in Arabic versions ofGreek Texts and in Medieval Science [ = The Collected Works of Shlomo Pines, vol.2] (Jerusalem and Leiden, 1986). See also the following note.

104 Much information, culled from texts of the Ishraqi’s, al-Isharat and itscommentaries, al-Katibı al-Qazwını, and others, can be found in Shlomo Pines,‘‘Études sur Awh*ad al-Zamân Abû ’l-Barakât al-Baghdâdî,’’ Revue des étudesjuives, 103 (1937): 3–64 and 104 (1937): 1–33, reprinted in Studies in Abû‘l-Barakât al-Baghdâdî [ = The Collected Works of Shlomo Pines, vol. 1](Jerusalem and Leiden, 1979), especially in the footnotes.


al-Jadıd Ibn Kammuna exhibits a lengthy analysis of thearguments in favor of each of the standard explanations for thecelestial motions – volitional, compelled, or natural – afterwhich he decides that these motions must have a higher,spiritual cause; this is the judgment indicated by intuition.105

Suhrawardı’s al-Talwıh*at rejects the possibility that the celes-tial motions are natural, proving instead that they are voli-tional. In his commentary Ibn Kammuna does bring up thepossibility that they are compelled, something that Suhrawardıdoes not do. Moreover, he criticizes some of Suhrawardi’sarguments, adding that there are sounder proofs in the latter’sal-Muqawamat. However, he does not challenge Suhrawardı’sclaim that volition (irada) is the cause sought after in thisinquiry.106

Theory of Time

Once again, al-Jadıd’s treatment of the topic is by and large anexpansion or some other form of response to Ibn Sına.107 Thelatter’s exposition, in turn, depends heavily on the legacy ofAristotle. The study of time – its definition, relation to motionand change, possible typologies of time, indeed, the basicquestion of whether it can be said to exist – generated rich andvariegated discussions in late antique and Islamic cultures.108

When we turn to discussions in the thirteenth century, we findthat neoplatonic ideas concerning ‘‘higher’’ times have a majorpresence in philosophical discussions. The positions that aredeveloped certainly depend upon some ancient sources whosetransmission remains to be traced; we shall identify someimportant markers, but nothing more, later on. Moreover,atomistic conceptions refined, reinforced, and reinvigorated bythe kalam, also play an important role. In discussions of time,

105 Ed., p. 478.106 Ziai and Alwishah, pp. 447–52; the criticism begins at the bottom of p. 449,

and the reference to al-Muqawamat is found on p. 452, 4.107 Ibn Sına’s theory of time is studied in the doctoral dissertation of Jon

McGinnis, Time and Time Again: A Study of Aristotle and Ibn Sînâ’s TemporalTheories (University of Pennsylvania, 1999).

108 The best survey of the multifarious approaches to time in the Islamicatecontext – religious, philosophical, and others – is Ahmed Hasnaoui, ‘‘Certainnotions of time in Arab-Muslim philosophy,’’ in Time and the Philosophies (Paris,1977), pp. 49–79; also noteworthy is Franz Rosenthal, ‘‘The ‘Time’ of Muslimhistorians and Muslim mystics,’’ Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 19(1995): 5–35.


atomism could not be summarily dismissed the way it was inthe physics of bodies. In brief, then, a new Islamic discourse ontime is displayed in the writings of Ibn Sına, his followers, andhis critics.

I shall try to clarify as best I can the salient features of thetheory of time expounded in al-Jadıd. Because the issues are sodi$cult, and their exposition so involved, I shall first attemptto set down the basic ideas as I understand them; clarity ofexposition seems to me to be my primary obligation, and thiswould not be possible were I too stick slavishly to the Arabictext. However, even a concise synopsis of the basic theoryseems, at least to the modern reader, cumbersome if notpatently incoherent. In order to flesh out the various com-ponents that make up this theory, we shall then take a closerlook at some passages from al-Jadıd.109 Moreover, we shallconfront some those texts with their most important immedi-ate source, which is undoubtedly al-T*usı’s commentary toal-Isharat. Nonetheless, in the light of what has been said inthe preceding paragraph, I have no hope of providing here afull and satisfactory account of the developments in the theoryover the preceding centuries which led to this specific formu-lation. The loose ends that dangle from any historical inquirywill, in this case, be longer and looser.

The conception of time set forth in al-Jadıd, bab 3, fas*l 2, isthe following:

Time is instability or impermanence. Think of discrete magni-tudes joined together, linked insofar as the extinction of one isjoined to the renewal of the next. The succession of thesemagnitudes (which we may call the parts of time), as they meshinto a series, defines the before and after; it is the reality of time.

When shown this paragraph, a friend and highly esteemedcolleague in philosophy commented:

To be perfectly honest, I can’t say I really understand the paragraph.Why don’t you say in the last clause ‘the irreality’ or ‘unreality’ of time.Is an instant a magnitude? Don’t you mean something like a moment orinstant rather than a magnitude? And don’t you mean ‘creation’ or‘generation’ rather than ‘renewal’? It is hard to think of time as asuccession, if no two magnitudes ever exist at the same time, since thecoming into existence of one means the going out of existence ofanother.

109 I do not examine here the entire chapter; in particular, I leave out thediscussion of the instant or moment. See also n. 104.


In fact, most of the terms that strike my friend as out of place– and I would expect any intelligent reader to react in the sameway – are precise translations of the Arabic. They were usedintentionally by their authors, who aimed for maximum preci-sion. Ibn Kammuna speaks of the reality (h*aqıqa) of time, notits unreality; he specifically refers to magnitude (miqdar),rather than instant; and he chooses renewal (tajaddud) ratherthan generation.110 (Perhaps the last term ought to be renderedregeneration, in order to highlight the problem.) All of thisgoes to show, so I think, how involved the discussion of timehad become by the thirteenth century, and how the laboriouse#orts at maneuvering the theory around the problems relatedto atomism, theories of motion, creation, etc. led to formula-tions that may seem to us to be patently incoherent.111

With these preliminary remarks in mind, we are now ready toexamine Ibn Kammuna’s text. The title of the chapter alreadystates that time is an instable or impermanent quantity: kam-miyya ghayr qarra. The instability seems to lie in the presentmoment, which never endures. However, Ibn Kammuna iscareful not to say that. Instead, time is ‘‘the thing that isunstable in its essence with regard to the antecedent towardsthe occurring, joined together as magnitudes are joined’’. It –time – is joined – this must mean, the succession of occurrencesthat destabilize into antecedents are joined – as magnitudes arejoined together – that is, time does not coalesce the waynon-dimensional points form the line. The whole phrase readsin Arabic:112

Ibn Kammuna immediately goes on to say:

110 Note that in al-Kabısı’s edition of al-Jadıd, this word is consistentlymisspelled as tah*addud.

111 The challenge of formulating a non-atomistic conception of time, in the faceof the refinements and deliberations of the kalam, was perhaps the mostimportant stimulus to Ibn Sına’s theoretical explorations and innovations. Thisside of the problem, which I do not address at all here, is skillfully analyzed byJon McGinnis, ‘‘Time’s topology: An analysis of Medieval Islamic accounts ofdiscrete and continuous time,’’ forthcoming in The Modern Schoolman. For mypart, I have tried to emphasize the problematics rather than the proposedsolution; hence, for example, I translate ittis*al, muttas*al, by ‘‘joined together’’rather than ‘‘continuous’’. Although ‘‘continuous’’ is certainly an acceptabletranslation, it masks the di$culties inherent in the issue, rather thanhighlighting them, as I wish to do.

112 Ed., p. 272.


This can only mean that they are joined by extinction and regeneration.Since the mind does not suppose in this [type of] joining an actualdivision into parts, there therefore is neither coming before (taqaddum)nor coming afterwards (ta’akhkhur). The parts supposed for it [time]cannot be supposed to possess ‘coming before’ or ‘coming after’.

This leads to the following refinement:

Rather, the conception (tas*awwur) of their [the parts] lack of perma-nence, which is requisite for the conception of ‘coming before’ and‘coming after’ is the true reality (h*aqıqa) of time.

Notions of ‘coming before’ and ‘coming after’ are obviouslynecessary components of any theory of time. However, intro-ducing them into the definition would, so it appears, lead to atautology, that is, defining time by some temporal construct,which amounts to defining time by time itself. Ibn Kammuna ispainfully aware of how di$cult it is to avoid doing just that,and the involved nature of his presentation is, in part, a resultof his attempt not to fall into that pit. As we shall see, he alsostrives to avoid any atomic numbering of the parts.

Hence the two notions, ‘‘coming before’’ and ‘‘coming after’’,cannot be part of the definition of time. Instead, they followupon the intrinsic instability of the magnitudes that jointogether in time. ‘‘Coming before’’ and ‘‘coming after’’ areessential properties (lah*iq bi-dhat) of time, and they areproperties of ‘‘anything else’’ on its – time’s – account. Butspecific requirements pertain to that ‘‘anything else’’. Itincludes everything ‘‘possessing a true reality (h*aqıqa) thatis not unstable, which coexists [or: is associated] withinstability.’’ Here too let us cite the Arabic sentence in full:

Only those things qualify as temporal. As examples IbnKammuna o#ers ‘‘motion and other [things]’’, but it is not clearwhat those ‘‘other [things]’’ may be.

There follow a few sentences in which Ibn Kammuna con-fesses the near-impossibility of defining time without employ-ing time, or some temporally-dependent concept. He refers tothe illustrations with which the chapter opens, calling it ‘‘theabove-mentioned call to attention (al-tanbıh al-madhkur)’’, andhe concludes: ‘‘Instead, what has been said here is by way ofcalls to attention (munabbihat) to the true reality of time.’’113

113 Ed., p. 273.


These remarks are, in fact, unprocessed borrowings from IbnKammuna’s chief source for this entire discussion, namely,al-T*usı’s commentary to Ibn Sına’s al-Isharat wa-al-Tanbıhat,the text to which we shall turn next.

Al-T*usı takes up the topic of time in his commentaries to thefourth and fifth chapters of the fifth namat*, wherein Ibn Sınadiscusses the two related concepts of s*an‘, generating some-thing out of something else, and ibda‘, causing something to beex nihilo. Al-T*usı begins his commentary by stating that IbnSına wishes to explain that every generated thing (h*adith) ispreceded (masbuq) by ‘‘an existent unstable [or: impermanent]in its essence, joined together as magnitudes are joined, I meanto say, time.’’114 He goes on to explain: generated things possessan ‘‘afterness’’ (ba‘diyya) that is adjoined to a ‘‘beforeness’’that has disappeared. This follows immediately from the open-ing sentence of the tanbıh that he is commenting upon, whichstates that ‘‘the thing generated after it had not existedpossesses a ‘before’ (qablun) in which it had not been.’’115 IbnSına also says clearly that this ‘‘beforeness’’ is not like the‘‘beforeness’’ possessed by the number one vis-à-vis the numbertwo, since the number one continues to exist along with thenumber two – presumably, he means to say, after the numbertwo has been generated from it, as it always is.116 With regardto the concept being refined here, al-T*usı explains, the ‘‘before-ness of the before’’ disappears with the ‘‘renewal’’ [or: ‘‘regen-eration’’ (tajaddud)] of the ‘‘afterness’’. Two other optionsmust be excluded. We can not be speaking here of the ‘‘before-ness’’ of non-existence ( ‘adam), because that may remainafterwards; nor can we be talking about the ‘‘beforeness’’ of themaker, since it may exist before, together with, and after thething it generated.117

There is something here that renews and elapses and, there-fore, is unstable in its essence. However, it is also extended in

114 Al-Isharat wa-l-tanbıhat, ed. Dunya, part three, p. 71.115 Strictly speaking Arabic does not have a pluperfect, and I might have

translated ‘‘in which it did not be’’.116 Again, strictly speaking, one was not considered to be a number in the

science of arithmetic, nor did everyone consider two be a number. Ibn Sına andhis commentators speak always of ‘‘the one’’ and ‘‘the two’’. I have added ‘‘thenumber’’ for clarity of exposition in English; this does no violence to the ideasbeing expounded.

117 This last remark may intend to exclude the definition given in al-Khayral-mah*d*, which will be discussed below.


its essence. We learn of this fact by supposing that thegeneration of the thing in question is linked to a certainmotion. Consider a motile traversing a certain interval, andsuppose that the thing in question is generated just as themotion of the motile stops. The motion then began beforethe thing was generated, and, moreover, a series of ‘‘before-nesses’’ and ‘‘afternesses’’ elapsed and renewed, in tally with(mut*abaqa) with the parts of the interval and of the motion.The ‘‘beforenesses’’ and ‘‘afternesses’’ are thus joined in thesame manner of extension as distance and motion; but Ibn Sınahas already shown that an extension of this sort cannot becomposed of indivisible parts or atoms. Therefore, concludesal-T*usı:

It has been established that every generated thing is preceded by anexistent that is unstable in its essence, joined together the way magni-tudes are joined; that is what was sought after.118

This, as we have seen, is precisely Ibn Kammuna’s descriptionof time.

‘‘What was sought after’’ in this chapter, however, was toestablish some properties of the generated thing. Ibn Sına hasnot mentioned here at all the word ‘‘time’’; that term ismentioned only at the end of the next chapter, where Ibn Sınadefines it as ‘‘the quantity of motion, not from the aspect of theinterval (masafa), but rather from the aspect of the ‘comingbefore’ and ‘coming after’, which two do not coalesce.’’119

Apparently, Ibn Sına feels that the concept of time is sofleeting, and so intertwined with other di$cult notions, thatany definition must be prefaced by some significant discussionof the requisite building blocks or pointers. Al-T*usı is alive tothis strategy; he observes at the very beginning of his commen-tary to the tanbıh that Ibn Sına is talking about time, but notesthat ‘‘he did not take care to name it here, but only later’’. Evenin the briefer, ostensibly simpler presentation of the topic inal-Najat, Ibn Sına cannot do without a preliminary discussionof motion; the very word zaman appears only about a third ofthe way through the chapter dedicated to the concept. Indeed,Ibn Sına concludes there:

118 Ed. Dunya, p. 72.119 Ed. Dunya, p. 78.


For this reason, time cannot be conceptualized without motion. Whenno motion is sensed, neither is any time sensed. It is like the story of thepeople of the cave (al-kahf).120

The opening discussion in al-Najat concerns motions of equalvelocities which do not begin together, or motions that begintogether but have di#erent velocities. Ibn Kammuna begins hischapter in a similar fashion. I shall not delve into the intrica-cies of these discussions, or what they aim to prove.121 Instead,I shall call attention only to an unusual twist that IbnKammuna gives to his presentation. He chooses to illustrate bymeans of three equal spheres, set in motion by three individ-uals, in di#erent directions; one is swift, another slow, and thethird intermediate between them. If they are set in motiontogether, the swift makes two revolutions, and the slow butone, but they both finish together; the intermediate makes onerevolution, but finishes before the other two. Hence the swiftand the slow share the same starting and stopping points, butdi#er with regard to the interval traversed. The intermediateshares with the slow sphere the interval traversed. All threeshare in ‘‘duration (mudda) and time (zaman)’’, two of them –presumably, the swift and slow – fully, and the third par-tially.122 The thought experiment with the three spheres istaken from Abu al-Barakat al-Baghdadı, and it appears to bethe latter’s original contribution towards the isolation of timefrom velocities, motiles and movers, and other motion-relatedconcepts.123

One purpose of this strategy, however, should be mentioned.Ibn Sına and, following him, al-T*usı and Ibn Kammuna, wishto stress that time does exist, even if its nature is evasiveor concealed. In their technical language, time’s ‘‘thatness’’(anniyya) – ‘‘that it exists’’ – is manifest, but its ‘‘whatness’’

120 Al-Najat, p. 116. The reference may be to Qur’an, sura 18, but perhaps alsoto Plato’s famous analogy to the cave dwellers, who can see only a shadow ofreality. But Jon McGinnis calls my attention to Aristotle, Physics, IV, 11, at thevery beginning of the chapter, which does seem to be the most relevant sourcehere.

121 McGinnis, ‘‘Time’s topology,’’ cogently and clearly shows how Ibn Sınautilizes these examples in order to prove the existence of time.

122 Ed., pp. 271–2.123 See the discussion and extensive citation from al-Mu‘tabar in Shlomo Pines,

‘‘Nouvelles études sur Awh*ad al-Zamân Abû ’l-Barakât al-Baghdâdî,’’ Mémoiresde la Société des Études Juives, I (1955): 7–88, pp. 75–6 [repr., id., Studies in Abû’l-Barakât al-Baghdâdî, above n. 104].


(mahiyya) is hidden.124 Al-T*usı is clearly Ibn Kammuna’ssource for the elaboration, to the extent that this is possible, ofthe ‘‘whatness’’ of time, which is the joining together ofextinction and renewal. Their extension can be divided intoparts only in thought (wahm); it takes on ‘‘beforeness’’ and‘‘afterness’’ only after division into parts. However, ‘‘before-ness’’ and ‘‘afterness’’ are not accidents that befall the parts.Instead, ‘‘the conception (tas*awwur) of the lack of perma-nence, which is the true reality (h*aqıqa) of time, is requisite forthe conception of ‘coming before’ and ‘coming after’ for theassumed parts, on account of (li-) the lack of permanence.’’125

These words of al-T*usı match the formulation cited above fromal-Jadıd, almost word for word. Al-T*usı goes on to concludethat ‘coming before’ and ‘coming after’ can therefore apply tothings ‘‘possessing a true reality (h*aqıqa) that is not unstable,which coexists [or: is associated] with instability’’, for example,motion.126 In brief, then, the discussion of time in al-Jadıdsummarized above, which comprises about half of the chapter,has been borrowed from al-T*usı.

We shall briefly look at two other features of the theory oftime in al-Jadıd.

The first of these is the worry that time not meet thetechnical definition of wajib al-wujud, that is, the (or a) beingwhose existence is necessary in its own right, and not contin-gent upon anything else. Were time to fit that bill, it wouldthen, in e#ect, be God, or, perhaps, a god – neither possibility,of course, could be accepted by a Muslim, despite some osten-sibly supportive texts from the h*adıth literature. Pagan Greekwriters, on the other hand, were not reticent to speak of thedivinity of time. According to Simplicius, ‘‘Proclus [. . .]attempts to show that time is not only Intellect but also God,being even summoned to appear in magical manifestations bythe theurgists.’’127

The relevant passage in al-Jadıd is the following:

It does not follow from this that time is necessary [i.e., necessarilyexistent] in and of itself (wajiban li-dhatihi). That would follow only

124 Al-T*usı, comm., ed. Dunya, p. 72.125 Al-T*usı, comm., ed. Dunya, p. 75.126 Ibid.127 Samuel Sambursky and Shlomo Pines, The Concept of Time in Late Neoplaton-

ism (Jerusalem, 1987), pp. 48–9, citing from Simplicius’ commentary to the Physics;see also pp. 52–3, a citation from Proclus’ commentary to the Timaeus.


were the supposition of its non-existence impossible, no matter how(kayfa kana). However, if the impossibility follows [only] from itsnon-existence prior to its establishment, or after its establishment – butnot unconditionally – then its necessity, in and of itself, does notfollow.128

The paragraphs preceding this passage demonstrate that timehas no ‘‘temporal’’ (zamanı) beginning or end. I am not surewhether the phrase ‘‘from this’’ in the first sentence of theparagraph cited above refers to that specific discussion, orwhether it refers to the entire chapter. In any event, the thrustof our passage is clear. A being whose existence is necessary inand of itself is a being whose non-existence, were one toentertain that possibility, leads to an impossibility or absurdityunder any and all circumstances. This does not hold true fortime. Presumably – Ibn Kammuna says here nothing more onthe subject – the entities not ‘‘under time’’ would not bea#ected by time’s non-existence. Hence assuming time’snon-existence does not lead to an impossibility.

Ibn Kammuna’s treatment of this theme is brief and perhapsunsatisfactory. I have not found any corresponding discussionin al-T*usı or in Ibn Sına. However, the question of time’s beinga necessary existent – which amounts to the same thing as itsdivinity – was certainly on the agenda of some thinkers. Fakhral-Dın al-Razı takes up the question at length and in depth inhis al-Mat*alib al-‘aliya, citing, in the course of his discussion,a variety of viewpoints that had come to his attention. Let usthen briefly review the deliberations recorded in al-Razı’s book.

The topic is subsumed under al-Razı’s discussion of thePlatonic theory of time, a theory that he warmly endorses.129

According to this conception, time is ‘‘a substance, self-standing, independent with regard to its essence (jawhar qa’imbi-nafsihi mustaqill bi-dhatihi).’’ Adherents of this teachingdivide into two groups: those who maintain that time isnevertheless contingent, or, to give the full scientific descrip-tion, ‘‘possible with regard to its essence, necessary on accountof something else (mumkin li-dhatihi wajib bi-ghayrihi)’’; andthose who contend that time is ‘‘a substance, necessarilyexistent with regard to its essence, impossible of non-existence

128 Ed., p. 274.129 Al-Mat*alib al-‘aliya min al-‘ilm al-ilahiyy, vol. 2, part 5 (Beirut, 1999),

pp. 45–7; see also Langermann, ‘‘Criticism of authority,’’ concerning Fakhral-Dın’s ideas on time.


on its own account (jawhar wajib al-wujud li-dhatihi mumtani‘al-‘adam li-‘aynihi).’’

The adherents of the first school rely on the arguments, givenelsewhere, that there can be only one necessary existent. Thesecond school subdivides into two camps. The one of them,whom al-Razı brands extremists, goes so far as to state outrightthat time is ‘‘the Existent Who is the God of the World, and Itis the Governor of all contingent beings.’’ This group adducessome arguments in support of its position, but they also relyupon the h*adıth, ‘‘God is eternity (fa-inna Allah huwa al-dahr),’’ which they obviously take in its literal sense. Themajority, however, hold that there are five ‘‘primal necessaryexistents (al-qudama’ al-wajibat al-wujud)’’: God, hyle, soul,eternal time (al-dahr), and the void. Fakhr al-Dın observes thatthis view is ascribed to ‘‘the ancient philosophers’’.130

Fakhr al-Dın, perhaps not surprisingly, ends the chapter byrejecting the characterization of time as a necessary existenton the grounds of its inextricable entwinement with change ofsome sort. The short paragraph in al-Jadıd is thus a faint echoof a vibrant debate concerning a touchy topic, which, as far asI know, has yet to be treated in the scholarly literature.

Finally, let us have a look at the two- or three-tieredconceptions of time that found expression in Ibn Sına, hiscritics and followers, including Ibn Kammuna.131 These notionsare elaborated in the last three paragraphs of the chapterunder discussion here from al-Jadıd. Here they are in mytranslation from the Arabic:

Something bears a relation to time as deriving from it (bi-annahu h*as*ilminhu) only when that thing is one of the things that comprise withinthemselves ‘coming before’ and ‘coming after’, past and future, andbeginning and end. That would be motion or something having motion.

130 These are the same five principles ascribed by al-T*usı to the Harranians; seeShlomo Pines, Studies in Islamic Atomism (Jerusalem, 1997), p. 81, and also p. 82n. 105 for other systems based on five principles. (Concerning pseudo-Empedocles,see also n. 138 below.)

131 These appear to me to be quite di#erent from the three aspects of dahr inthe thought of Abu Ya‘qub al-Sijistanı, as described by Paul Walker, ‘‘Eternalcosmos and the womb of history: Time in early Ismaili thought,’’ InternationalJournal of Middle Eastern Studies, 9 (1978): 355–66, at p. 361. See also FazlurRahman, ‘‘Mır Damad’s Concept of H* uduth Dahrı: A contribution to the study ofGod-world relationship theories in Safavid Iran,’’ Journal of Near Eastern Studies,39 (1980): 139–51. Rahman’s valuable study is based entirely on writings of MırDamad; he cites Ibn Sına only indirectly, by way of citations in Mır Damad, andtakes no notice of the criticism of Fakhr al-Dın al-Razı.


Every temporal thing has a ‘when’, and it is true to speak of itsdisplacement within its finite [interval]. Whatever does not meet these[criteria] exists ‘together with’ time, but not ‘in’ it.

If this ‘state of being together with’ (ma‘iyya) is through somereference (qiyas) of a fixed entity to an unstable one, then it [the ‘stateof being together with’] is dahr. If it is through a reference of a fixedentity to another fixed one, then it is more proper to call it sarmad. This[state of] being (kawn), I mean, the fixed entity’s being together with theunfixed, and the fixed entity’s being together with the fixed, compares to(bi-iza’ ) the temporal beings’ (al-zamaniyyat) being in time. This ‘stateof being together with’ is, as it were, a ‘when’ for fixed things.

One cannot imagine an extension (imtidad) in either dahr or sarmad;otherwise, the magnitude of motion and time would be as if it werecausally dependent (ma‘lul) upon dahr, and dahr as if it were causallydependent upon sarmad. For were it not for the persistence (dawam) ofthe relation (nisba) of the causes of bodies to their origins, the bodieswould not exist – all the more so, their motions! Moreover, were it notfor the persistence of the relation of time to the origin of time, timewould not truly be (ma tah*aqqaqa al-zaman). The persistence of theexistence within the past is eternity (azal), and its persistence into thefuture is perpetuity (abad); absolute persistence applies to [both] dahrand sarmad.132

Let us recapitulate the main points raised in the first twoparagraphs. Time, or temporality, is inextricably connected tomotion. Things that do not participate in motion are not ‘intime’. They are, however, ‘together with’ time. This secondstate, which some may choose to call higher time, is comprisedof two: one is the state in which fixed, i.e. motionless, entitiesexist together with entities that participate in motion. It iscalled dahr. The other is the state in which fixed entities existtogether with other fixed entities. It is called sarmad.

As with the other themes treated in this paper, so also withregard to time: the renewed interest, as well as some specifictrends of thought, can be traced to Ibn Sına. However, someparticular items in Ibn Kammuna’s discussion are not to befound, to the best of my knowledge, in Avicennian texts, andtheir source – assuming, as Ibn Kammuna avers, that theopinions collected in al-Jadıd have a source in either ancientor modern texts – remains unidentified.

I summarize here, with some extensive citations, the dis-cussion in al-Shifa’.133 Entities to which the categories ‘comingbefore’ and ‘coming after’ do not apply are not ‘in time’, though

132 Ed., p. 277, corrected in places on the basis of Ayasofia 2447, fol. 162a.133 Al-T*aba‘iyyat, al-Sama‘ al-t*abı‘iyy, ed. Ibrahım Madhkur (Qum, 1984),

pp. 171–2.


they may be ‘together with time’.134 Entities that possess‘coming before’ and ‘coming after’ from one aspect, i.e., insofaras they are in motion, but do not possess it from some otheraspect, i.e., insofar as they may be an essence (dhat) orsubstance (jawhar), are both ‘in’ and ‘together with’ time;which of the two applies depends upon the aspect from whichthe entity is being considered. After these preliminaries, IbnSına is ready to define dahr:

The existence of the entity that is ‘together with’ time but is not ‘in’time, together with the continuation of time in its entirety (istimraral-zaman kullihi), is dahr. Every ‘continuation of a single existence’ is‘in dahr’. I mean, the continuation of its existence exactly as it is(bi-‘aynihi), each moment (waqt) after the other, continuously.

So far, it appears that dahr answers a need for fullness incategorical relationships to motion. Every substance oressence that, insofar as it is a substance or essence, does notpossess ‘coming before’ and ‘coming after’ and, therefore, itsexistence persists throughout time, is called dahr; it may besaid to be ‘in dahr’. Ibn Sına continues: dahr is thus like therelationship of the fixed to the unfixed, because dahr comprisesboth of the categories, ‘together with time’ and ‘not in time’.However, we may consider the first of these categories on itsown. An existence that is solely ‘together with time’ is ‘abovedahr’; this third category may be labeled sarmad. This last termis then refined as follows: ‘‘Every continuation of existence, inthe sense of an absolute negation of change, without [i.e., thuslacking] reference (qiyas) to moment after moment, is sarmad.’’

As it seems to me, Ibn Sına conceives of two families of time.The first family describes objects. From whatever aspect theyparticipate in motion, they are in zaman. However, from theaspect of their being fixed as substances – that is, temporallyfixed in their substantiality even though they do partake ofmotion – they are in dahr. Thus dahr is the instantiation ofeternity in particular substances. The second family comprisesuniversals, and they are three: change and motion, signified byzaman; fixedness in some relation to change, signified by dahr;and unmitigated fixity, signified by sarmad. This second family

134 It is interesting that Ibn Sına chooses to illustrate this option by theexample of the world, which exists together with the mustard seed. In discussionsof the atomism of bodies, the mustard seed and the mountain are often cited intandem, in Islamic, Indian, and other sources; see Pines, Atomism, pp. 15–16,129–30.


may not emerge from al-Shifa’. It does, however, aptly describehow Ibn Sına was read by his nemesis, Fakhr al-Dın al-Razı.

Fakhr al-Dın devotes an entire chapter of his al-Mat*alib tothe elucidation of the concepts dahr, sarmad, and zaman.135 Hebegins by observing that Ibn Sına, ‘‘in most of his books’’, hasthis to say:

Consideration (i‘tibar) of the states of changes together with thechanging things is time (zaman); consideration of the states of fixedthings together with changing things is dahr; and consideration of thestates of fixed things is sarmad. This is what we have seen in his [IbnSına’s] books; we have not found from him any expanded clarification orexplanation for these divisions.

These remarks are indeed strange, given the treatment of thetopic in al-Shifa’, which, unsatisfactory as it may be, is asubstantive inquiry, and not just a brief enunciation.

Two problems beset Ibn Sına’s set of three concepts, accord-ing to Fakhr al-Dın. The first concerns the status of the dahrand sarmad: do they do nothing more than describe therelationships mentioned in their respective definitions, or arethey ‘‘something else’’ which necessitates those relation-ships to set in? If they are nothing other than the relationships,then why cannot we simply define time (zaman) as the setof ‘beforenesses’, ‘togethernesses’, and ‘afterwardnesses’(qabliyyat, ma‘iyyat, ba‘diyyat), and dispense with all otherconcepts and the redundant terminologies they introduce? Butif dahr and sarmad are, in fact, ‘‘something else’’, then Ibn Sınaought to have told us what they are: substance or accident; ifthe former, then material or ‘‘abstract spiritual’’; etc.

The second objection, which I find to be particularly perspi-cacious, can be restated as follows. The function of the middleconcept of the triad, i.e., dahr, is to mediate between theeternally fixed (sarmad) and the always changing (zaman).However, the possibility of executing this function presupposesthe possibility of some interaction between the fixed andchanging. If that is so, then why do we need dahr to mediate?Why cannot the interaction that supposedly goes on withindahr occur via a direct contact between sarmad and zaman?This option, in which some of the changing things bear rela-tionships with some of the fixed entities, is the one chosen byPlato; at least Fakhr al-Dın thinks so.

135 Al-Mat*alib, loc. cit., pp. 51–52 (eighth fas*l).


Fakhr al-Dın then adduces another citation from Ibn Sına –perhaps the existence of this passage may be seen to contradictthe opening paragraph of this chapter, but that is beside thepoint. The source is named – ‘Uyun al-h*ikma – and thestatement is the following: ‘‘Dahr essentially belongs tosarmad (al-dahr min dhatihi min sarmad), but with referenceto zaman it is dahr.’’136 This statement shows clearly that dahris fixed, like sarmad, yet it maintains some relationship withthe ever-changing zaman. In other words, Ibn Sına, at leastin this writing, accepts the Platonic doctrine. Fakhr al-Dınconcludes:

Now that you know this, we say: this is the very teaching of Plato. Time(zaman) is a substance, self-standing, independent with regard to itsessence, but it requires some measurement (taqdır) of these variegatingstates. It has been established that those who support the Aristotelianteaching that time is the measure of motion (miqdar al-h*araka) cannotpossible penetrate deeply into any of the troublesome inquiries con-nected to time without having recourse to the doctrine of Plato.

Thus, according to Fakhr al-Dın – who, as we have seen, insiststhat he follows Plato on this topic – there is only one conceptof time, which, in fact, looks very much like a Platonic idea: itis an independent, self-standing substance. It can bear a directrelationship to the flux of the world of transformation, and, forthis, some means of measurement is required. Nonetheless,Fakhr al-Dın does not dispense with the terms dahr andsarmad. Instead, they stand for di#erent ways in which therelationship of time with other things (or classes of things) canbe contemplated (i‘tibar). When contemplated vis-à-vis otherfixed essences, we call it sarmad; vis-à-vis the setting in (h*us*ul)of motion and change, it is called ‘‘everlasting dahr’’ (al-dahral-dahir);137 when contemplated with regard to the fluctuationsin so far as they go hand-in-hand with it, and set in togetherwith it, it is called zaman.

So much for Plato, as interpreted by Fakhr al-Dın. But whatabout the alternative theory, which speaks of three levels oftime? This is the theory said to be adopted by Ibn Sına in ‘‘most

136 The passage is found in the edition of ‘Uyun al-h*ikma, together with thecommentary of Fakhr al-Dın, prepared by Ahmed Hijazı (Teheran, 1415 A.H.),part two, p. 145; for a synopsis of Fakhr al-Dın’s commentary to this section ofthe ‘Uyun, see Langermann, ‘‘Criticism of authority,’’ pp. 271–3.

137 On this phrase, see Lane’s Lexicon, s.v.; it is similar to the expressional-abad al-abıd. Nonetheless, it may be significant that the same phrase wasapparently used by Ibn Gabirol; see below.


of his books’’; it is present in the passages from al-Jadıd citedabove; and it resurfaces in Fakhr al-Dın’s final summation, ifonly as three ways of contemplating time, rather than threeentities. Does this conception have a source in Greek thought?I submit that it traces back to the innovations in the theory oftime introduced by Iamblichus.

Our understanding of Iamblichus’ contributions is duealmost entirely to the work of one scholar, Samuel Sambursky,from whose essay I shall now cite liberally.138 Iamblichusinitiated a ‘‘radically new conception, substantializing time asan hypostatic entity of its own in a way that di#ered fromanything ever said before of the nature of time.’’ The essentialfeature of Iamblichus’ system of hypostases is its replacementof Plotinus’ two levels of Soul and Intellect by three levels: theintelligible (ideas or objects of thought), intellectual (thinkingsubjects), and soul. The intelligible world is entirely static,though it does contain some multiplicity; soul, the lowest, isentirely dynamic. The middle level, that is, the intellectualworld, ‘‘is characterized by an ambivalent state, which is partlystatic and partly dynamic.’’139

Further on, Sambursky expands upon the ambivalence of themiddle level.

Intellectual time ranks between eternity and the sensible world, and itsposition is ambivalent because of the coexistence of time and thesensible world on the one hand, and the ordering of time with regard toeternity on the other. Intellectual time resembles eternity; it is a patternof eternity; it accordingly governs the sensible world, and physical timeparticipates in it. The ambivalent position of time in the other world, asIamblichus frequently calls intellectual time, is the result of an ambiva-lent essence that is simultaneously at rest and in motion. It is in motionwith regard to Eternity, but at rest with regard to our time thatparticipates in it.140

It seems clear that Iamblichus’ Eternity is Ibn Sına’s sarmad,intellectual time dahr, and ‘our time’, zaman. The ambivalenceof dahr is patently clear, even from the simple definitions

138 Samuel Sambursky and Shlomo Pines, The Concept of Time in LateNeoplatonism (Jerusalem, 1987). The section of the introductory essay fromwhich we shall be quoting was written by Sambursky and originally publishedin the Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 2 (1968),pp. 153–67. Richard Sorabji, Time, Creation and Eternity (London, 1983), p. 37,acknowledges his debt to Sambursky and Pines, despite some occasionaldisagreements.

139 Sambursky and Pines, Concept of Time, pp. 12–13.140 Sambursky and Pines, Concept of Time, p. 16.


provided by Fakhr al-Dın in his opening quotation. Thisambivalence, I submit, is the troublesome feature of Ibn Sına’sdahr that Fakhr al-Dın seizes upon. Note further that sarmad,the highest level, is static, but not unitary, insofar as itdescribes the relationship of multiple (though unnamed) fixedentities one to the other.

Multi-tiered conceptions of time are known from otherArabic sources. Fons Vitae, the philosophical dialogue ofSolomon Ibn Gabirol, is one of the more important texts for theclarification of this issue. As is well known, the text wasoriginally written in Judaeo-Arabic, but survives in full only inLatin. Shem Tov Ibn Falaquera prepared an anthology ofexcerpts, which he translated into Hebrew; and a few passagesfrom the original have been recovered as citations in otherbooks.141

The main passage of interest lies in III.13 (III.7 in the Hebrewextracts), which states that the motion of the substance bear-ing the nine categories is in time. Time is below eternity, butthe first agent is above eternity. Hence eternity mediatesbetween time and the first agent. We have here ostensibly, athree-tiered system, as in Iamblichus as well as in the Avicen-nian tradition. Moreover, we can be sure that the Arabic termsignifying eternity here is dahr. This passage is one of thoseexcerpted by Ibn Falaquera, and he simply transcribed dahrinto Hebrew characters, apparently because he could find noprecise equivalent. But there is more. Following the remarksjust cited, Ibn Gabirol writes (in Munk’s translation from theHebrew): ‘‘Mais l’éternité est éternité pour quelque chose (quiest éternel) [. . .]’’. This is not at all clear, and taking intoaccount the Latin rendering, which is ‘‘sed sempiternitas estsempiternitas sempiterno,’’ Munk suggests emending theunique Hebrew manuscript to read doher in place of dabhar( instead of ), a relatively minor modification in termsof Hebrew orthography.142 However, doher is the Hebrew

141 The Hebrew extracts are published and translated by S. Munk in hismonumental Mélanges de philosophie juive et arabe (Paris, repr. 1988); thecitations in the original Judaeo-Arabic are conveniently gathered by PaulFenton, Philosophie et exégèse dans le jardin de la métaphore de Moïse ibn Ezra(Leiden, 1997), appendix 1, pp. 393–403.

142 Munk, Mélanges de philosophie juive et arabe, p. 40 and esp. n. 1. A secondmanuscript of the extracts has been since discovered and incorporated in RobertoGatti, Shelomoh ibn Gabirol, Fons Vitae, Meqor hayyim (Genoa, 2001) butunfortunately the passage of interest is missing there.


morphological analogue of the Arabic dahir, so that we wouldhave in Ibn Gabirol the same phrase as in Fakhr al-Dın, al-dahral-dahir.

Some sort of multi-tiered conception of time is evident inanother neoplatonic text, Kitab al-Khayr al-mah*d*, the digestand reworking of Proclus’ Elements of Theology; as Liber decausis, this treatise played a significant role in Latinthought.143 Chapter two is particularly relevant; there it isstated that every thing (anniyya) is either ‘‘higher than dahrand before it’’, ‘‘together with dahr’’, or ‘‘after dahr but abovetime (zaman).’’144 It has already been suggested that thepassage from Fons Vitae cited above derives from Proclus (orProclus arabus).145

It is no simple matter to sort out the di#erent texts andtraditions that entered into the discussion which, in thepresent study, we pick up only in the writings of Ibn Sına andhis followers. Proclus, via al-Khayr al-mah*d*, seems definitely tobe a source. Sambursky, however, has shown that, in his theoryof time, Proclus builds upon the innovations of Iamblichus, sothat, were al-Khayr al-mah*d* the source for the texts that wehave been discussing, the ideas they convey would perhaps betraceable to Iamblichus.146 Note, however, that the section onProclus in the study of Sambursky and Pines, with the excep-tion of a single quote from Simplicius’ commentary to thePhysics, takes into account only Proclus’ commentary to theTimaeus; the Elements of Theology are left out completely.

143 Concerning this work see Richard C. Taylor, ‘‘A critical analysis of thestructure of the Kalam fı mah*d* al-Khair (Liber de causis),’’ in Parviz Morewedge(ed.), Neoplatonism and Islamic Thought (Albany, 1992), pp. 11–40, and esp. n. 2–4(on pp. 23–6) for detailed information concerning citations and other utilizationsof this treatise in Arabic literature. Walker, ‘‘Eternal cosmos,’’ pp. 362–3, refersto proposition 55 of Proclus, but not to al-Khayr al-mah*d*; in any event, as notedabove, the disquisition of al-Sijistanı does not appear to bear directly upon thetexts under review here.

144 I cite from the Arabic text published by ‘Abd al-Rah*man Badawı,Al-Aflat*uniyya al-muh*datha ‘inda al-‘Arab (Kuwait, 1977), pp. 4–5. An Arabicversion of proposition 54 from Proclus’ Elements circulated as an independenttext carrying the title, Fas*l ma bayna al-dahr wa-al-zaman; see Gerhardt Endress,Proclus Arabus (Beirut, 1973), pp. 271, [22].

145 Jacques Schlanger, Salomon ibn Gabirol, Livre de la Source de Vie (FonsVitae) (Paris, 1970), p. 110 and n. 9; see also n. 2, where Schlanger cites theHebrew fragments of Pseudo-Empedocles published by David Kaufmann, Studienüber Salomon Ibn Gabirol (Budapest, 1899; repr. Jerusalem, 1971), pp. 22–3.Interesting as this passage is, I do not think it has anything in common withFons Vitae other than the employment of the term dahr.

146 Sambursky and Pines, Concept of Time, p. 17.


Nonetheless, I detect some significant contrasts between IbnSına, Fakhr al-Dın, and Ibn Kammuna, on the one hand, andal-Khayr al-mah*d* and the texts that clearly depend upon it, onthe other. Setting aside for the moment di#erences in terminol-ogy, which may or may not be instructive, I call attention totwo points. First, the second group has the category ‘‘afterdahr but above time (zaman)’’, which is conspicuously lackingin the first. Second, and, to my mind, even more significant, isthe omission of any reference to the soul in the first group.Al-Khayr al-mah*d* identifies the third category – ‘‘after dahrbut above time (zaman)’’ – with soul (nafs), because she is ‘‘inthe horizon of dahr, at the bottom (suflan), but above time.’’147

Moreover, one of the interpreters within the al-Khayr al-mah*d*tradition, Ibn Sab‘ın, states that ‘‘it has been said about dahr,that it is the relation (id*afa) of the fixed to soul within thetotality of time (zaman).’’148 In none of the sets of relations orreferences that we have examined in the Avicennian texts (inwhich I include as usual critics and followers of Ibn Sına) doessoul play any role.

The third, and perhaps weightiest consideration, is thethree-tiered structure of time in the Avicennian tradition.Though there are three components in the passage fromal-Khayr al-mah*d*, there are only two time-related entities: timeand eternity. Iamblichus, however, recognizes three types oftime, one of which seems to correspond to the flow of events,and two to be above them.149 Though these observations aredecidedly preliminary and tentative, still I do not hesitate toput forward the hypothesis that Iamblichus’ views came to beknown in the Islamic world, and not just by way of al-Khayral-mah*d*. How they came to be known, and what furtherclarification is to be found in the final paragraph cited fromal-Jadıd, are questions for which I have no answer at present.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a grant from the German-IsraelFoundation for Scientific Research and Development. I would like tothank my collaborator, Sabine Schmidtke, for sharing with me apreprint of her ‘‘Studies in Sa‘d b. Mans*ur Ibn Kammuna,’’ to appear in

147 Badawi, p. 5.148 Ibn Sab‘ın, Al-Kalam ‘ala al-masa’il al-s*iqliyya, ed. Serefettin Yaltkaya

(Paris, 1941), p. 22.149 This point is emphasized by Sorabji, Time, Creation and Eternity, p. 44.


Persica, as well for making available to me copies of some books andmanuscripts. Charles Manekin was kind enough to o#er his commentson the section on h*ads. Jon McGinnis read the section on time andsupplied me with a preprint of his ‘‘Time’s topology.’’ My thanks areextended to all of these colleagues. Responsibility for the contents ofthis article rests solely with the author.


IBN KAMMUNA AND THE ‘‘NEW WISDOM” OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

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