Journal of Islamic Studies 14:2 (2003) pp. 149-203 © Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies 2003. A MAMLUK THEOLOGIAN’S COMMENTARY ON AVICENNA’S RISALA ADHAWIYYA BEING A TRANSLATION OF A PART OF THE DAR’ AL-TA‘ARUD OF IBN TAYMIYYA, WITH INTRODUCTION, ANNOTATION, AND APPENDICES PART I YAHYA J. MICHOT Faculty of Theology, Oxford University Avicenna’s Epistle on the Ma‘ad for the Feast of the Sacrifice (al-Risalat al-Adhawiyya fi amr al-ma‘ad)' is probably his most important work on eschatology. It starts with a definition of ma‘ad as the place or state reached by humans when they die. It surveys and refutes what the philosopher calls ‘false ideas’ about the hereafter. It then demonstrates the purely immaterial nature of the human self and, consequently, its necessary permanence after death. Finally, it distinguishes various categories of humans and their respective future destinies, and examines the question of bodily resurrection. Because of its sometimes very daring views, the work has been judged by various modern scholars as ' See G.C. Anawati, Essai de bibliographie avicennienne-Mwallafat Ibn Sina (Cairo: Al-Maaref, Millénaire d’Avicenne, 1950), 256-7, no. 200; Y. Mahdavi, Bibliographie d’lbn Sina-Fibrist-e nuskhatha-ye musannafat-e Ibn-i Sina (Tehran: Tehran University, 1333/1954), 39-41, no. 30. Editions by S. Dunya, Thn Sina, al-Risalat al-Adhawiyya ft -ma‘ad (Cairo: Dar al-fike al-‘Arabi, 1328/ 1949); F Lucchetta, Avicenna, al-Risalat al-Adhawiyya fi |-ma‘ad-Epistola sulla Vita Futura (Padova: Antenore, 1969), 5-227; H. ‘Asi, al-Adbawiyya fi I-ma‘ad i-lbn Sina (Beirut: al-Mu’assasat al-jami‘iyya li-l-dirasat wa-l-nashr wa-ltawzi', 1404/1984), 85-158. Translations into Italian by E. Lucchetta, Epistola, 4-226; Persian in H. Khadiw-i Djam, al-Adbawiyya by Ibn Sina (Tehran: Ettelaat Publications, 1364/1985), 31-85. I use F. Lucchetta’s edition (hereafter L), which is the one most commonly referred to in Western scholarship.150 YAHYA J. MICHOT particularly ‘esoteric’, reserved for the circle of Avicenna’s closest disciples and friends, and—even—justifying Abi Hamid al-Ghazali’s accusations of heresy against him!” As for the dating of the Adhawiyya, these scholars have generally taken the view that such a work could have been written only when Avicenna’s thought had fully matured, during the last years of his life, ‘nelle ultime tappe del suo burrascoso peregrinare’. I have contested the usefulness of the concept of ‘esotericism’ as an approach not only to the Adbawiyya but to Avicenna’s writings in general, and I have argued that this epistle is an early work.* In my opinion, it must be identified with the Book on the Return (Kitab al- Ma‘ad) mentioned in Avicenna’s long bibliography, and therefore was written during his stay in Rayy in 405/1014-15. According to al-Bayhaqi (d. 565/1169),° it was dedicated to the vizier Aba Sa‘d al-Hamadhani. This statement can be accepted and helps to understand the circumstances in which the epistle was composed: it was not directed to any circle of close disciples or friends but to a potential patron, in a period when Avicenna, a young Bukharan immigrant newly arrived in one of the most brilliant Bayid courts, was facing social and professional difficulties.° In this respect, Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328) is completely right when, referring to its introduction, he writes that the philosopher composed the Adbawiyya ‘for some of the statesmen (ra’is) whom he was seeking to get closer to so that they would give him what he sought from them: a position (jah) and money. He stated that openly at the beginning of this epistle’.” As established by F. Lucchetta,® the Adbawiyya almost certainly remained unknown to the medieval European philosophers. It was translated for the first time into Latin at the beginning of the sixteenth 2 See eg. G. C. Anawati, ‘Un cas typique de Pésotérisme avicennien: Sa doctrine de la résurrection des corps’, in La Revue du Caire, 141, special number: Millénaire d’Avicenne (Abou Ali Ibn Sina) (Cairo, June 1951), 68-94; 90-4; F. Lucchetta, Epistola, xiv-xvi; ‘La cosidetta “teoria della doppia verita” nella Risala adhawiyya di Avicenna e la sua trasmissione all’Occidente’, in Oriente e Occidente nel Medioevo: Filosofia e scienze (Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1971), 97-116. * See F Lucchetta, Epistola, xvii; Teoria. * See Y. Michot, Ibn Sind, Lettre au vizir Abu Sa‘d (Paris: Albouraq, 1421/ 2000), 28°. ° See al-Bayhaqi’s text translated in Y. Michot, Vizir, 27°. © On this important aspect of Avicenna’s career, see Y. Michot, Vizir, 31*-51". 7 See p. 10. (References in bold are to the pages of the Arabic text of Ibn ‘Taymiyya’s commentary translated below, where they are given in square brackets). 5B Lucchetta, Teoria, 108-9.IBN TAYMIYYA ON AVICENNA’S RISALA ADHAWIYYA — 151 century, by Andrea Alpago of Belluno (c.1450-1522).° From about 1487 to, it seems, 1517, the Italian served as physician to the Venetian consulate in Damascus. Apart from medicine and philosophy, he also became interested in the political developments of that time in Syria (the last Mamluks and the Ottoman menace), the economic situation of that region, and Arabo-Islamic culture, for which he shows sympathy and admiration in various writings. It is, however, for his Latin translations of Avicenna that he is most famous: he not only revised Gerard of Cremona’s translation of the Canon of Medicine (twelfth century)'? but produced the first translation of a group of minor writings often concerning psychology, among others the Adhawiyya. Alpago died too soon after his return from the Middle East to see his translations in print. However, his nephew Paolo, who had accompanied him in Syria, ensured they were eventually published. The Canon came out in 1544; the Libellus Avicennae de Almahad in 1546, in Venice, apud luntas. Alpago had been able to acquire his impressive knowledge of Arabic, medicine, and philosophy because, as his nephew reports, he ‘had sought out, in his old age, the hiding places of the Arabic language and trustworthy manuscripts (fides codicum) in Cyprus, Syria, Egypt, and virtually the whole Orient’.’* Moreover, during his long stay ° A. Alpago, De mabad .i. de dispositione, seu loco, ad quem revertitur homo, vel anima eius post mortem, in Avicennae philosophi preclarissimi ac medicorum principis Compendium de anima, De mahad [...], Aphorismi de anima, De diffinitionibus & quesitis, De divisione scientiarum [. ..] ex arabico in latinum versa cum expositionibus eiusdem Andrew collectis ab auctoribus arabicis, omnia nunc primum in lucem edita (Venice: Apud Iuntas, 1546). Offset reprint (Westmead, Farnborough: Gregg International, 1969), fos. 40-102. On ‘A. Alpago, see the pioneering studies of M.-T. d’Alverny reprinted in her Avicenne en Occident (Paris: J. Vrin, 1993), §§xii-xv; G. Levi della Vida, ‘Alpago, Andrea’, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, ii (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960), 524-7; the authoritative monograph by FE Lucchetta,| I! medico e filosofo bellunese Andrea Alpago (+ 1520), traduttore di Avicenna; Profilo biographico (Padova: Antenore, 1964); G. Vercellin, I] Canone di Avicenna fra Europa e Oriente nel primo Cinquecento: L'Interpretatio Arabicorum nominum di Andrea Alpago (Turin: UTET, 1991). © On the historical and scientific importance of Alpago’s version of the Canon, see N. G. Siraisi, Avicenna in Renaissance Italy: The Canon and Medical Teaching in Italian Universities after 1500 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987). 1 Paolo Alpago quoted in C, Burnett, ‘The Second Revelation of Arabic Philosophy and Science: 1492-1562’, in C. Burnett and A. Contadini (eds.), Islam and the Italian Renaissance (London: Warburg Institute, 1999), 185-98; 191.