PULMONARY TRANSIT AND BODILY RESURRECTION:

THE INTERACTION OF MEDICINE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

IN THE WORKS OF IBN AL-NAFĪS (D. 1288)

A Dissertation

Submitted to the Graduate School

of the University of Notre Dame

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

by

Nahyan A.G. Fancy

________________________________
Phillip R. Sloan, Director

________________________________
Ahmad Dallal, Director

Graduate Program in the History and Philosophy of Science

Notre Dame, Indiana

December 2006
 PULMONARY TRANSIT AND BODILY RESURRECTION:

THE INTERACTION OF MEDICINE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

IN THE WORKS OF IBN AL-NAFĪS (D. 1288)

Abstract

by

Nahyan A.G. Fancy

Traditionally, historians of science have only been interested in Islamic science

because of its relationship to Greek science, and in the ways in which it was instrumental

in transporting Aristotle, Ptolemy and Galen to the West. Moreover, the successes and

failures of Islamic science have been judged according to the metric of the Scientific

Revolution. As such, the actual context of the works of Islamic scientists and physicians

has been overlooked, thereby producing a skewed picture of science in Islamic societies.

This dissertation seeks to correct this picture by placing Islamic medicine firmly within

its context. In the process, it provides a new framework with which to understand the

relationship between reason and revelation in Islamic societies, and suggests new ways to

revisit the entire problem of the decline of Islamic science.

The dissertation specifically examines the corpus of writings of an Egyptian

physician-jurist, Ibn al-Nafīs (d. 1288), best known to Western historians of science as

the discoverer of the pulmonary circulation of blood. Although his discovery has been
 Nahyan A.G. Fancy

known for a century, there has been no study that situates Ibn al-Nafīs’s discovery within

the context of his time. This dissertation seeks to fill that lacuna. Focusing on his views

on the soul (nafs) and spirit (rūh)—two concepts central to theological discussions about

the afterlife and medical physiology, this dissertation positions Ibn al-Nafis’s

philosophical and physiological discussions against the background of earlier and

contemporary philosophical, medical and theological works. Through this

contextualization, this study reveals that Ibn al-Nafīs’s new theory of the pulmonary

transit of blood is the offspring of his new psychology and physiology. It also reveals

that on the basis of his new physiology, Ibn al-Nafīs rejected the Galenic theory of

pulsation and posited a new theory in its stead—an important point that has hitherto been

missed by historians. Moreover, this work reveals that Ibn al-Nafīs’s new physiological

and psychological theories are themselves the direct result of his solution to the thirteenth

century debates over reason and revelation. Consequently, the dissertation problematizes

existing historical accounts, and seeks to replace historical models that posit an

antagonistic and destructive relationship between reason and revelation during this

period.
To Papa and Mummy,

ii
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................vi
A Note on Transliteration and Dating...........................................................................viii
Chapter 1: Building a Niche for Islamic Science in the History of Science.................1
1.1 The Theoretical Obstacles to Studying the History of Islamic Science......8
1.2 Revisionist Historiography: Its Successes and Limitations ........................17
1.3 Extending the Scope of Revisionist Studies ...............................................25
1.3.1 Rationality and the Authoritative Resources Model.......................27
1.4 Chapter Summaries.....................................................................................31
Chapter 2: Ibn al-Nafīs: A Rational Traditionalist or a Traditional Rationalist? .........34
2.1 The Socio-Political Context of Thirteenth Century Cairo and Damascus ..36
2.2 Problems in Reconstructing the Life of Ibn al-Nafīs ..................................44
2.3 Ibn al-Nafīs: A Traditionalist-Philosopher-Physician?...............................48
2.4 The Place of Reason in the Study of hadīth................................................57
2.5 Conclusion ..................................................................................................73
Chapter 3: Rationalizing Revelation, Rejecting Autodidactism: Ibn al-Nafīs’s
Response to the Falāsifa.............................................................................76
3.1 Falsafa in the Thirteenth Century and the “Heritage of Ibn Sīnā” .............79
3.2 Autodidactic Learning and Falsafa’s Challenge to Traditionalism............86
3.3 Rejecting Autodidactic Learning, Accommodating Falsafa ......................95
3.4 Anthropomorphism and the Authority of Revelation .................................109
3.5 Bodily Resurrection and the Problem of Individuation ..............................122
3.5.1 Ibn Sīnā, the Ammonian Synthesis and the Problem of
Individuation ...................................................................................128
3.5.2 Soul, Spirit and Monistic Sūfism: The Case of Ibn Tufayl ............137
3.5.3 Ibn al-Nafīs: A Traditionalist, a Faylasūf, but no Sūfī ...................144
3.6 Conclusion ..................................................................................................150

iii
Chapter 4: Pulmonary Transit and Bodily Resurrection: Fruits of a New Physiology,
Fruits of a New Psychology........................................................................157
4.1 Spirits, Faculties and Souls: The Intertwined Legacy of Aristotle and
Galen ...........................................................................................................159
4.1.1 Aristotle’s One Soul-One Chief Organ Physiology........................160
4.1.2 Galen’s Three Chief Organ Physiology..........................................168
4.1.3 Summary .........................................................................................175
4.2 Sowing the Seeds for an Aristotelian Galenism: Physiology During the
Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement .......................................................178
4.2.1 Hunayn and the “Galenic” System of Physiology ..........................179
4.2.2 Qustā ibn Lūqā: Towards a more Aristotelian Galenism................183
4.2.3 Summary .........................................................................................188
4.3 Avicennian Physiology: Reconciling and Going Beyond Aristotle and
Galen ...........................................................................................................189
4.3.1 Ibn Sīnā and the Philosophical Limits of Medicine........................190
4.3.2 Ibn Tufayl: Aristotelian Par Excellence? .......................................198
4.3.3 Summary .........................................................................................202
4.4 Ibn al-Nafīs’s Physiology: The Result of a Truly Hylomorphic
Psychology..................................................................................................203
4.4.1 The Order of Ibn al-Nafīs’s Medical and Philosophical Writings..205
4.4.2 Redefining Chief Organs and Their Relationships to Soul, Spirit
and Faculties ...................................................................................209
4.4.3 The Pulmonary Transit of the Blood and the New Physiology ......218
4.4.4 Ibn al-Nafīs’s New Theory of Pulsation .........................................224
4.4.5 The New Anatomy and Physiology in Defense of Bodily
Resurrection? ..................................................................................233
4.5 Conclusion ..................................................................................................239
Chapter 5: The Legacy of Ibn al-Nafīs .........................................................................242
5.1 The Anomaly of the Mūjaz .........................................................................244
5.2 The Mūjaz and Tibb al-Nabī: A Preliminary Excursus ..............................251
5.3 Concluding Remarks...................................................................................254

iv
Bibliography .................................................................................................................259

v
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to all my committee members for their help over the years. I took

my first graduate course in Islamic philosophy with Father David Burrell, and he has

always been there to help me navigate those treacherous waters. Prof. Robert Goulding

has provided me with insightful comments throughout the duration of this project and it is

unfortunate that he was unable to see it through. I would like to thank Prof. David

Ladouceur for stepping in at the last minute. Prof. Paul Cobb has not only been a great

mentor, but a great friend too. I cherish every interaction I have ever had with him. Prof.

Ahmad Dallal (co-chair) was kind enough to take me on as his student. Though he may

regret it now, especially after the number of times I have harassed him over the years, I

have learned a great deal from him; I only wish I could have learned more.

Thanks are also due to the University of Notre Dame, the Program in History and

Philosophy of Science and the College of Arts and Letters for all their financial support.

I also owe a debt of gratitude to my colleagues and faculty in the program who have

always been extremely helpful. Thank you all for seven wonderful and intellectually

stimulating years. A special thanks also to Kimberley Milewski for all her help and

friendship over the years.

I would also like to thank Dean Neal Abraham and the History Department at

DePauw University for offering me a pre-doctoral fellowship for this semester, so I could

dedicate more time to completing this dissertation.

vi
 I owe a special thanks to Kenneth Kinslow and the ILL office for purchasing and

securing copies of manuscripts from the University of Leiden and the Wellcome Institute,

London. I am also deeply indebted to Prof. Abdul Masih Saadi for helping me with my

Arabic skills, and for starting me off on reading these texts and manuscripts.

Thanks are also due to a number of friends and colleagues, only a few of whom

can be mentioned here. Prof. Ebrahim Moosa has read over my chapters at various times

and made insightful comments and suggestions. Shahab Mushtaq has read and

commented upon chapter drafts and other papers throughout my graduate career. Aliya

Haque, Rashied Omar and Saurabh Thapliyal have helped me flesh out my arguments

and made shrewd suggestions along the way. Kriti Kohli, Nayeer Jatala, Ali Qazilbash

and Sameer Afsar have provided me with great support and friendship over the years.

Finally, graduate school would have been insanely boring without Samy Zaka. It has

been an adventure keeping up with him, socially as well as intellectually. Thanks for

everything man. I am sorry I could not keep your face scar-free when it really mattered.

I owe a special thanks to my other committee co-chair, Prof. Phil Sloan. Without

his constant push for chapters, this dissertation would never have been completed. His

suggestions and advice have improved this work immensely. He has also been a great

role-model for the manner in which he took up the challenge of learning an entirely new

field of discourse to help a student. I hope I can successfully emulate him some day.

Last, but not least, I would like to thank my family for their lifelong love and

support. I may have been forced to stay apart from them for all these years, but they have

always been very close and dear to me. Mummy, Papa, Baji, Saibya and Taibya: I

appreciate all that you have done for me, and I love you all very, very much.

vii
 A NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION AND DATING

This dissertation follows the simplified scheme derived from the Encyclopaedia

of Islam used in the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. Arabic works have

been fully transliterated in the footnotes and in the bibliography with the following

exceptions: 1. macrons and dots have been left out of the transliteration of the names of

modern authors and editors; 2. macrons and dots have been left out of the subsequent,

short forms of references. In the case of Arabic names, the definite article al- has not

been capitalized, unless it appears at the beginning of a sentence.

Following IJMES, only common era dates have been provided.

viii
 CHAPTER 1

BUILDING A NICHE FOR ISLAMIC SCIENCE

IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE

My primary goal in this dissertation is to understand more adequately the

relationship between medicine, religion and philosophy within medieval Islamic

civilization by analyzing the works of the Egyptian physician-jurist, Ibn al-Nafīs (d.

1288), best known for his discovery of the pulmonary circulation of blood. Even though

historians have known of Ibn al-Nafīs’s work for almost a century, there has been no

scholarly attempt as yet to situate his discovery within the larger corpus of his writings or

the larger context of his time. This dissertation fills that lacuna by uncovering Ibn al-

Nafīs’s unique physiological, philosophical and theological understandings of the soul

and spirit, which underlie his anatomical discovery. Moreover, it presents Ibn al-Nafīs’s

departures from earlier ideas as a direct outcome of his engagement with twelfth and

thirteenth century discussions on the relationship between reason and revelation,

especially on the topic of bodily resurrection. Consequently, it challenges the standard

historiography, which tends to see the thirteenth century as a period of decline in Islamic

thought and explains that decline by appealing to a conflict between reason and

revelation. This study, on the other hand, provides a new framework with which to

1
examine the relationship between reason and revelation in Islamic societies, and suggests

ways to reexamine the notion of “decline” itself.

Historians of science have traditionally considered the thirteenth century only as a

period of decline in Islamic societies. As a result, they have tended to overlook this

important era in medieval Islamic civilization. However, this traditional, “declinist”

scholarship has come under considerable scrutiny in recent times, especially with regards

to the mathematical sciences. Revisionist historians have proposed an alternative

chronology to illustrate that science continued to flourish well into the sixteenth century

in Islamic lands.1 They have also shown that some of the most important developments

in the mathematical sciences, especially astronomy, took place around the turn of the

thirteenth century. Moreover, we also know that the thirteenth century played host to a

number of other important intellectual developments—in philosophy, theology,

mysticism and even the traditional religious sciences—that were extremely important for

subsequent generations.2 Hence, in order to understand adequately the historical

trajectory of science in Islamic civilization, we need to be firmly grounded in the way in

which many of these intellectual developments in the sciences, philosophy and religion

1
See, for example, George Saliba, A History of Arabic Astronomy: Planetary Theories During the Golden
Age of Islam (New York: New York University Press, 1994); and Roshdi Rashed, ed., Encyclopedia of the
History of Arabic Science, 3 vols. (London: Routledge, 1996).

2
The most influential text on the hadīth sciences dates from the thirteenth century (see chapter 2). The
“tarīqa-based Sūfism” crystallized during this period and paved the way for the meteoric rise of Sūfī
mystic orders in subsequent centuries; see Erik Stefan Ohlander, “Abū Hafs cUmar al-Suhrawardī (D.
632/1234) and the Institutionalization of Sufism” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2004). New
philosophical mystical traditions that had a lasting impact on Islamic intellectual discussions also emerged
in the thirteenth century; see John Walbridge, “Suhrawardī and Illuminationism,” in The Cambridge
Companion to Arabic Philosophy, ed. Peter Adamson and Richard Taylor (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2005), pp. 201–223; and Sajjad Rizvi, “Mysticism and Philosophy: Ibn cArabī and Mullā
Sadrā,” in Adamson and Taylor, eds., Cambridge Companion, pp. 224–246. Finally, long-lasting
developments in kalām and falsafa, and the way in which they define their relationship to one another and
the rest of the religious sciences, date from this period as well (see chapter 3).

2
were coming together in the thirteenth century. My limited goal in this dissertation is to

understand the manner in which the various intellectual developments in medicine,

philosophy, and the religious sciences came together in the works of Ibn al-Nafīs.

Nonetheless, I hope that through the window of Ibn al-Nafīs’s works, I will also be able

to illuminate, to a certain extent, the manner in which these disciplines were being unified

in the works of Ibn al-Nafīs’s predecessors, contemporaries and successors.

This study also seeks to critique the traditional, over-simplified understanding that

considers “Islam” to be antagonistic towards science. A received historiography sees

philosophy and science as independent and marginal activities within Islamic civilization

and portrays Islamic religious sciences as being antithetical to all rational activity.3 As

seen through the window of Ibn al-Nafīs’s works, however, religion, philosophy and

science emerge as incontrovertibly engaged with one another in discussing and solving

issues of prime importance for Muslims and Islamic societies. As a result, this study

illuminates the complex nature of the interactions between science and religion, or more

accurately, between reason and revelation, during this period. Furthermore, it provides

3
These views are primarily expressed in the classic works of an earlier generation of scholars; see Ernest
Renan, “L’Islamisme et la Science,” Journal des Débats (1883), reprinted in Oeuvres Complètes de Ernest
Renan, ed. Henriette Psichari, 10 vols. (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1947), vol. 1, pp. 945–965; Ignaz Goldziher,
“Stellung der alten islamischen Orthodoxie zu den antiken Wissenschaften,” Abhandlungen der Königlich
Preussichen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Jahrgang, 1915), translated as “The Attitude of Orthodox Islam
Toward the ‘Ancient Science’,” in Studies on Islam, tr. and ed. M. Swartz (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1981), pp. 185–215; Gustav von Grunebaum, Islam: Essays in the Nature and Growth of a Cultural
Tradition, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961); and Gustav von Grunebaum, “Relations of
Philosophy and Science: A General View,” in Essays on Islamic Philosophy and Science, ed. G. Hourani
(Albany: SUNY Press, 1975), pp. 1–4. They often appear in veiled forms in the works of other scholars,
for example, Franz Rosenthal, “The Greek Heritage in Islam,” Ventures: Magazine of the Yale Graduate
School 7 (1967): 55–61, p. 59. Although these views have been widely discredited by Islamicists, they
continue to exercise considerable influence over historians of science; see, for example, H. Floris Cohen,
The Scientific Revolution: A Historiographical Inquiry (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), pp.
384–417; and Edward Grant, The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages: Their Religious,
Institutional and Intellectual Contexts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 176–186. For a
critique of the essentialism that underlies these explanations of the decline of Islamic science, see A. I.
Sabra, “Situating Arabic Science: Locality versus Essence,” Isis 87 (1996): 654–670.

3
the groundwork to explore and compare the different trajectories of Islamic and Western

science, based on their different concerns and contexts. As such, it paves the way

towards gaining a better understanding of the real reasons behind the different fates of

Islamic and Western science, rather than assuming, a priori, that the scientific enterprise

came to a complete standstill in one tradition.

In order to accomplish the goal of analyzing the relationship between medicine,

religion and philosophy, I shall focus on specific concepts and illustrate how they are

used by Ibn al-Nafīs, in contradistinction to how they are used by his predecessors and

contemporaries. In particular, I shall focus on his views on the soul (nafs) and spirit

(rūh)—two concepts that are not only central to the philosophical and religious

discussions on the afterlife (chapter 3), but also to the medical physiological discussions

of his time (chapter 4). My aim is to place Ibn al-Nafīs’s discussions of soul and spirit

against the background of an extended analysis of the distinct, yet interdependent, Islamic

intellectual traditions: medicine, philosophy and the religious sciences. These

discussions will enable me to illustrate how his subtle departures from these traditions

bore upon his discovery of the pulmonary transit of blood. Moreover, they will also

enable us to develop a better understanding of the complex relationship between reason

and revelation in the medieval Islamic context.

The relevance of physiological debates for philosophical and theological

discussions of soul and spirit, and vice-versa, should hardly be surprising. After all,

Nancy Siriasi’s excellent study on Renaissance medicine has already revealed how the

Western physiological, philosophical and theological discussions on soul and spirit

4
“resemble one another closely.”4 Given that in the Islamic case the same author was

often writing tracts in physiology, philosophy and theology, it is indeed remarkable that

historians have traditionally failed to situate the Islamic physiological discussions of soul

and spirit within the larger philosophico-theological context. However, as we shall see

below, there is a general lack of historical studies that situate Islamic medical discussions

within the context of Islamic societies. Thus, for example, even though historians have

been aware of Ibn al-Nafīs’s discovery of the pulmonary transit of blood since the early

part of the twentieth century, there is yet to be a study that situates his discovery within

the corpus of his own medical writings, let alone the larger Islamic socio-intellectual

context. Instead, historians have been more concerned with addressing questions related

to priority disputes: should Ibn al-Nafīs be considered the true discoverer of the

pulmonary circulation of blood? Did his Latin successors in the field of anatomy, namely

Servetus, Colombo and Harvey, develop their own theories using Ibn al-Nafīs’s works?

Or, were his Latin successors entirely unaware of Ibn al-Nafīs and proposed the

pulmonary transit of blood independently?5 The consistent absence of contextualizing

4
Nancy G. Siriasi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1990), p. 79.

5
See, for example, Max Meyerhof, “Ibn an-Nafīs (XIIIth cent.) and His Theory of the Lesser
Circulation,” Isis 23 (1935): 100–120; S. Haddad and A. Khairallah, “A Forgotten Chapter in the History of
the Circulation of the Blood,” Annals of Surgery 104 (1936): 1–8; Owsei Temkin, “Was Servetus
Influenced by Ibn an-Nafīs?” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 8 (1940): 731–734; A. Chéhadé, Ibn al-
Nafīs et la découverte de la circulation pulmonaire (Damascus: Institut Français de Damas, 1955); C. D.
O’Malley, “A Latin Translation of Ibn Nafis (1547) Related to the Problem of the Circulation of the
Blood,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 12 (1957): 248–253; Joseph Schacht, “Ibn
an-Nafīs, Servetus and Colombo,” al-Andalus 22 (1957): 317–336; E. Lagrange, “Réflexions sur
l’historique de la découverte de la circulation sanguine,” Episteme 3 (1969): 31–44; H. M. Said,
“Knowledge of the Circulation of the Blood From Antiquity to Ibn al-Nafīs,” Hundred Medians 37 (1994):
5–37; Mina Buchs, “Histoire d’une découverte: Ibn al-Nafīs et la circulation pulmonaire,” Medicina nei
secoli 7 (1995): 95–108; Husain Nagamia, M.D., “Ibn al-Nafīs: A Biographical Sketch of the Discoverer of
Pulmonary and Coronary Circulation,” Journal of the International Society for the History of Islamic
Medicine 1 (2003): 22–28; and Sharif Kaf al-Ghazal, M.D., “The Discovery of the Pulmonary

5
Islamic medicine is also apparent in the lack of any scholarly work that attempts to trace

the fate of Ibn al-Nafīs’s discovery in the works of his Islamic successors.6 Instead, Max

Meyerhof’s a priori judgment of his discovery—that it was a “happy guess”—continues

to frame the discussions of his work.7

Unfortunately, the failure to situate isolated medical tracts within the larger

context of Islamic medicine, or the medical context within a larger socio-intellectual

context, is indicative of a general trend that has systematically limited the scope of

investigation in the field of history of Islamic science over the last century. Once we

recognize the extent to which certain assumptions have been entrenched in the

discourse—assumptions that firmly ground this restrictive framework of investigation,

we can then place ourselves in a position to pose new questions and offer new

interpretations. These new interpretations may, in turn, provide us with an alternative

understanding of Islamic science and civilization. The limited goal of this chapter is to

address these assumptions in order to begin to understand the development of Islamic

Circulation—Who Should Get the Credit: Ibn al-Nafīs or William Harvey,” Journal of the International
Society for the History of Islamic Medicine 1 (2002): 46–48.

6
The only work that tries to trace the quotations on the discovery of the pulmonary transit in later Arabic
commentaries on Ibn Sīnā’s Canon of Medicine is Albert Iskandar, A Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts on
Medicine and Science in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library (London: Wellcome Historical Medical
Library, 1967), especially pp. 43–51. The work restricts itself, however, to manuscript citations of the
works that mention Ibn al-Nafis’s discovery in the Wellcome Medical Institute’s collection of Islamic
Medical Manuscripts. Since then no one has ever attempted to study these later commentaries in any detail.

7
Meyerhof, “Ibn an-Nafis (XIIIth cent.),” (p. 118). For example, Vivian Nutton calls the discovery
“unusual,” relying on Meyerhof’s understanding of it. The only difference is that he replaces “happy
guess” with a conclusion “reached . . . by logic, not experimentation” (p. 67); Vivian Nutton, “The Rise of
Medicine,” in The Cambridge Illustrated History of Medicine, ed. Roy Porter (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996), pp. 52–81.

6
medicine within Islamic societies, without resorting to crude reductionisms and

precursorisms.8

Before we proceed, I need to defend my use of the term “Islamic science.”

Historians of pre-modern science have started to replace the term “science” with “natural

philosophy,” in an attempt to stick closely to the terms used by the historical actors

themselves.9 However, the various disciplines that can be grouped under “natural

philosophy,” along with other disciplines, such as medicine and mathematics, are all

referred to in Arabic as cilm (pl. culūm)—a word that can certainly not be translated as

“natural philosophy.” Moreover, even the religious sciences use the term cilm, as in cilm

al-hadīth (the science of traditions). Consequently, the closest counterpart to the Arabic
c
ilm is the German Wissenchaft. However, to avoid the cumbersome injection of German

on a regular basis, I have chosen to use the term “science” for cilm, albeit with the

German understanding of Wissenchaft in mind.

As far as historians of Islamic science are concerned, there is a move now

amongst them to prefer the term “Arabic science” to “Islamic science,” as is evident in

the title of Roshdi Rashed’s edited encyclopedia, Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic

Science.10 Although I agree that Arabic was the lingua franca for science in the medieval

Islamic world, I have still preferred to use the term “Islamic science” for the following

8
For a critique of such views and how they have adversely affected the history of Islamic science, see A.
I. Sabra, “The Appropriation and Subsequent Naturalization of Greek Science in Medieval Islam: A
Preliminary Statement,” History of Science 25 (1987): 223–243.

9
Andrew Cunningham, “Getting the Game Right: Some Plain Words on the Identity and Invention of
Science,” Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 19 (1988): 365–389.

10
The move is also defended by Dimitri Gutas in his, “Certainty, Doubt and Error: Comments on the
Epistemological Foundations of Medieval Arabic Science,” Early Science and Medicine 7 (2002): 276–
289, especially pp. 276–278.

7
reasons. Firstly, a non-Islamicist is very likely to understand from “Arabic science” that

scientific activity in the Islamic world was carried out mainly by those of Arab descent,

which, as Islamicists well know, is incorrect. Secondly, since there were many works

written during this time period in languages other than Arabic, especially from the

thirteenth century onwards, this underrepresented sector of research is bound to be further

marginalized by employing the term “Arabic science.” Finally, and most importantly, the

change is being suggested by historians in order to break away from the reified,

Orientalist assumptions about Islam that have truly hampered historical research—

assumptions that present Islam as being antithetical to rationality, freedom and

democracy.11 Even though moving away from essentialist understandings of Islamic

science is a noble goal, the unfortunate consequence of this change has been a move

towards systematically excluding religion from any discussion of scientific activity—a

move that itself can prove to be detrimental for a better understanding of the science of

this period (see below). Thus, since we refer to the civilization of this time as “Islamic

civilization,” the preferred term for science stemming from this civilization should be

“Islamic science.”

1.1 The Theoretical Obstacles to Studying the History of Islamic Science

The history of Islamic science, as a discipline, has been crippled throughout its

own history by two assumptions that have severely limited its scope of investigation: the

11
The term “Orientalism” refers to the Western academic tradition of studying Islamic societies as
described, and criticized, by Edward Said in his, Orientalism, 1st ed. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978).
In this dissertation I am only concerned with that part of the tradition that essentializes the characteristics
and attitudes of Islam and Islamic societies over their entire course of history and sets them against those
values that the Orientalists want to reflect on to the West by means of such a contrast, namely: rationality,
secularism and the freedom of expression.

8
assumption that only one path emanates from Greek science whose terminus is, and can

only be, the Scientific Revolution; and the essentialist, Orientalist assumption that

assumes that “Islam” is inherently irrational, authoritarian, and against scientific enquiry.

Although these assumptions are rarely stated so overtly, their more subtle forms hold

wide currency. For example, consider the assumption that the Scientific Revolution is

the oak tree that emerges from the acorn of Greek science. Many historians of science

deem the non-emergence of the Scientific Revolution in Greek times to be an enigma in

itself.12 This is clearly a subtler form of the aforementioned assumption. Consequently,

since Greek science was transmitted to the Islamic world, the fact that the Scientific

Revolution did not take place there becomes a problem in and of itself for historians of

science.13 They deem it “fair (and important) to ask why . . . Arabic-Islamic civilization

did not succeed in its march towards the development of this universal institution of

modernity [i.e. ‘modern science’ via the Scientific Revolution].”14

The theoretical pitfalls of such an approach, and the problems it creates for the

history of science and the history of ideas, have already been pointed out by Thomas

Kuhn and Quentin Skinner.15 I shall restrict myself solely to illustrating precisely how

12
For a survey of the literature on this enigma, see Cohen, The Scientific Revolution, pp. 241–259. The
subsection is entitled, “Why Did the Scientific Revolution Not Take Place in Ancient Greece?”

13
See, for example, Cohen, The Scientific Revolution, pp. 378–409; Grant, The Foundations of Modern
Science, pp. 176–182; and Toby Huff, The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West, 2nd
ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). Huff, in fact, even calls it “the problem of Arabic
science” (p. 47). Though Huff is a sociologist, he presents his analysis as a comparative history of science
(p. xiv). Moreover, he relies heavily on the works of historians of science. For this reason, in this study, he
has been grouped with the historians of science.

14
Huff, The Rise of Early Modern Science, p. 63, my emphasis. For a critique of Huff, see George Saliba,
“Seeking the Origins of Modern Science?” Bulletin of the Royal Institute of Inter-Faith Studies 1 (1999):
139–152.

15
Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1970); and Quentin Skinner, “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas,” History and Theory 8

9
firmly rooted this assumption is in the literature, and how it allies itself naturally with

Orientalist assumptions and conclusions to perpetuate certain myths about Islamic

science. It is important to illuminate the nature of this alliance because even though

Islamicists have thoroughly critiqued Orientalist conclusions over the last three decades,

Orientalist views still dominate the non-expert literature on Islamic science. The

revisionist critiques continue to fall on deaf ears because historians of Islamic science

have failed to grasp the true nature of these alliances.16

One of the defining features of history of science as a discipline has been its

analysis of the period known as the Scientific Revolution.17 Historians of early modern

science generally concur that the discovery of older Greek systems of natural philosophy

(1969): 3–53. As Kuhn makes his argument against the belief that science is a cumulative enterprise, he
also indicates that in the aftermath of scientific revolutions there is a “persistent tendency to make the
history of science look linear or cumulative . . .” (p. 139). This fallacious representation is assisted by the
fact that “new paradigms are born from old ones” and, as a result, “they incorporate much of the
vocabulary and apparatus” of the older paradigm. “But they seldom employ the borrowed elements in quite
the traditional way. Within the new paradigm, old terms, concepts, and experiments fall into new
relationships one with the other” (p. 149). A similar point about the changing expressions and relationships
of words and meanings is made by Skinner in the context of the history of ideas (p. 36–39). Moreover, the
futility of pronouncing the failure of an author(s) to arrive at some conclusion based on a teleological
understanding of history is adequately summed up by Skinner: “[I]t cannot (logically) be a correct appraisal
of any agent’s action to say that he failed to do something unless it is first clear that he did have, and even
could have had, the intention to try to perform that action” (p. 29). In a nutshell, the entire enterprise of
trying to answer why the Scientific Revolution did not take place in Greece, and, by extension, in the
Islamic world, is philosophically naïve and misguided. And since it has also hampered our understanding
of Islamic science per se (see below), these questions should be discarded.

16
For example, Dimitri Gutas and A. I. Sabra have lamented, on separate occasions, the survival of
Orientalist, essentialist understandings of Islam in the literature on Islamic science. Yet, their renewed
critiques of Orientalist theses still fail to make an impression on non-Islamicist historians of science. Thus,
even though H. Floris Cohen and Toby Huff are familiar with, and even cite, Sabra and Gutas’s critiques
respectively, they still continue to adhere to an essentialist understanding of Islam and Islamic societies; see
Sabra, “The Appropriation and Subsequent Naturalization”; Sabra, “Situating Arabic Science”; Gutas,
“Certainty, Doubt and Error”; Cohen, The Scientific Revolution, pp. 384–394, 416–417; Huff, The Rise of
Early Modern Science; and Dimitri Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation
Movement in Baghdad and Early ‘Abbasid Society (2nd–4th/8th–10th centuries), (London: Routledge, 1998),
pp. 166–175.

17
Cohen, The Scientific Revolution: “[T]he professionalization of the history of science as an academic
field crystallized intellectually around [Koyré’s] account of the Scientific Revolution” (p. 100).

10
and mathematics was an extremely important, if not the most important, pre-condition for

the occurrence of the Scientific Revolution.18 That the translation of Greco-Arabic texts

into Latin was an “indispensable, pre-condition for the Scientific Revolution” is not in

question.19 The problem is that it is usually assumed that Greek science was potentially

modern science. To employ an Aristotelian analogy, just as the context can inhibit the

acorn from developing into a full-blown oak tree, so too the historical context is assumed

to have inhibited Greek science from sprouting the branches of modern science. As H.

Floris Cohen states categorically:

In our outline the Scientific Revolution has been taken as an event inherent as a
developmental possibility in the Greek corpus of science. That is to say, the
Greek corpus was inherently capable, as its Chinese counterpart was not, of
yielding in the end something more or less akin to early modern science as we
have come to know it. Whether or not this potential outcome was ever to be
realized—that was the issue at stake throughout.20

Given this assumption about the inherent potentiality of Greek science, from the

perspective of an Islamicist, it does not matter at all whether historians of the Scientific

Revolution argue for a continuity between modern science and the medieval Western

tradition or affirm a sharp break from it.21 Regardless of the position they adopt on this

important question, they will still converge on the claim that Islamic science was by-and-

18
See for example Herbert Butterfield, The Origins of Modern Science, 1300–1800 (London: G. Bell,
1949); A. R. Hall, The Scientific Revolution, 1500–1800: The Formation of the Modern Scientific Attitude
(London: Longmans, 1954); and Richard Westfall, The Construction of Modern Science: Mechanisms and
Mechanics (New York: Wiley, 1971).

19
Grant, The Foundations of Modern Science, p. 171.

20
Cohen, The Scientific Revolution, p. 518.

21
See Cohen, The Scientific Revolution for a detailed overview of these positions.

11
large merely a repository of Greek science.22 It is important to realize how deeply this

assumption is entrenched in the literature of the history of science, for it continues to

affect the views of those historians who are consciously attacking such an understanding

of Islamic science. For example, while discussing the indisputable necessity of the

translation of Greco-Arabic works into Latin for the advent of the Scientific Revolution,

Edward Grant, a historian of medieval science, states:

Because of the importance of the translated works, the civilization of Islam must
be allotted a considerable share of the glory for the Western achievement in
science. Centuries before, Islamic scholars had translated a large part of Greek
science into Arabic and then had added much that was original, to form what is
conveniently referred to as Greco-Arabic (or Greco-Islamic) science, at the core
of which lay the works of, as well as the commentaries on, Aristotle.23

Ironically, Grant is attempting to move away from the notion that Islamic societies

merely preserved Greek science during the Dark Ages of Europe and conveyed it to

Europe at the time of the Renaissance. However, his reference to “original additions” of

Islamic scholars betrays his adherence to the assumption that Greek science was

potentially modern. Based on this assumption, Grant can only see Islamic science as

Greek science plus matters of fact, whose conglomerate falls short of the Scientific

Revolution. That is, since Islamic science springboards off of Greek science, it can only

move in the direction of modern science. Based on this understanding, Grant cannot

conceive of Islamic science as taking a trajectory whose end-point is not Copernicanism

or Newtonianism. Consequently, since Islamic science did not give birth to the Scientific

Revolution, it must have declined, and that too before or around the time of the Arabo-

22
For a recent survey of the Scientific Revolution that makes such claims, see James Jacob, The Scientific
Revolution: Aspirations and Achievements, 1500–1700 (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1998),
pp. 14–15.

23
Grant, The Foundations of Modern Science, p. 171, my emphasis.

12
Latin translation movement. The logic of this general argument can be clarified further

by referring to the standard historiography of the Arabo-Latin translation movement.

According to the standard historical accounts of the Arabo-Latin translation

movement, the real importance of Islamic science lay in its preservation of Greek

science. For example, Marie Thérèse d’Alverny, a historian of medieval science and the

Arabo-Latin translation movement, states, without reservations, that:

[t]he desire to recover Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Galen, and Ptolemy was the main
incentive that provoked the flood of translations from Greek and Arabic into
Latin. The “Arabic additions,” important as they might be, were frequently
presented as commentaries derived from the main stream of Greek ancestors.24

Similarly, another historian of the period, David Lindberg, explains the dearth of

translations from Arabic into Latin in Sicily and southern Italy by maintaining that these

regions “never had an Islamic culture as vigorous as that of Spain and because learned

Sicilians and Italians preferred to drink from the original sources and made their greatest

contribution in translating from Greek to Latin.”25

Thus, throughout this literature, there is a considerable emphasis on the role of

Islamic science as a preserver of Greek science. Its indigenous contributions are seen as

“Arabic additions.” Islamic science means Greek science, tout court, albeit as translated

into Arabic, with perhaps some added matters of fact or theory. These historians do not

envision Islamic science as an enterprise with a trajectory different than that of Greek

science, or even that of late medieval Western science that led to the Scientific

24
Marie-Thérèse d’Alverny, “Translations and Translators,” in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth
Century, ed. Giles Constable and R. Benson (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982), pp. 421–462, p.
422.

25
David Lindberg, “The Transmission of Greek and Arabic Learning to the West,” in Science in the
Middle Ages, ed. David Lindberg (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), pp. 52–90, p. 59, my
emphasis.

13
Revolution. Naturally, since Islamic science never gave birth to the Scientific

Revolution, it must have declined and arrested entirely after its promising start. The

result has been a historiography that accepts, either explicitly or implicitly, older

essentialist claims about the inevitable decline of Islamic science with the rise of

religious orthodoxy around the twelfth century.

As mentioned above, nineteenth and twentieth century Orientalists tended to

essentialize the nature of Islam or Islamic society. With regards to science, for example,

they tended to adhere strongly to the “Marginality Thesis.”26 This thesis states that “strict

orthodoxy always looked with some mistrust” on those engaged in Greek science and

philosophy.27 “Orthodox Muslims harbored a strong suspicion against the secular

sciences taken from the heathen Greeks,” and, as a result, these sciences could only be

cultivated at the margins of Islamic society.28 Or, as Gustav von Grunebaum states:

No matter how important the contribution Muslim scholars were able to make to
the natural sciences . . . [these] sciences . . . had no root in the fundamental needs
and aspirations of their civilization. Those accomplishments of Islamic
mathematical and medical science which continue to compel our admiration were
developed in areas and in periods where the elites were willing to go beyond and
possibly against the basic strains of orthodox thought and feeling. For the
sciences never did shed the suspicion of bordering on the impious which, to the
strict, would be near-identical with the religiously uncalled-for. This is why the
pursuit of the natural sciences as that of philosophy tended to become located in
relatively small and esoteric circles and why but few of their representatives
would escape an occasional uneasiness with regard to the moral implications of
their endeavors . . ..29
26
For a thorough statement of this thesis and the detrimental effect that it has had on the scholarship on
Islamic science see Sabra, “The Appropriation and Subsequent Naturalization.”

27
Goldziher, “The Attitude of Orthodox Islam,” p. 185; and von Grunebaum, “Relations of Philosophy
and Science,” pp. 1–4.

28
J. C. Bürgel, “Secular and Religious Features of Medieval Arabic Medicine,” in Asian Medical
Systems: A Comparative Study, ed. C. Leslie (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), pp. 44–62, p.
46.

29
von Grunebaum, Islam, p. 114.

14
 The major problem with the received historiography on the decline of Islamic

science is that it buys into the details of the Orientalist arguments, if not their actual

assumptions. It accepts uncritically the Orientalist assertion that the theologians who

denied necessary causation, attacked Aristotelian logic, and were generally suspicious of

Greek science and philosophy were the “true,” “orthodox” theologians.30 However, as

Islamicists have shown over the last few decades, this particular group of scholars

comprised only one group amongst the many, diverse theological and scholarly groups,

all of whom were vying for the badge of “orthodoxy.”31 Nonetheless, even in the

aftermath of the critiques of the problematic usages of “orthodoxy,” Orientalist

arguments continue to inform the works of H. Floris Cohen and Edward Grant, amongst

others. For example, even though Cohen acknowledges that von Grunebaum belongs to

an “old-fashioned, school of German thought,” and rejects von Grunebaum’s treatment of

“Western civilization” as a “homogeneous entity,” he is still unwilling to criticize and

reject von Grunebaum’s treatment of Islamic civilization and orthodoxy as comprising a

homogenous, unchanging entity.32 Similarly, although Grant’s life-long research has

convincingly shown the positive effects of the Paris Condemnations of Aristotelianism in

1277 for the development of medieval science, he not only considers the anti-

philosophical attitudes of individuals like al-Ghazālī and Ibn Khaldūn to be

30
Grant, for example, states: “By contrast, most Muslim theologians believed, on the basis of the Koran,
that God caused everything directly and immediately and that natural things were incapable of acting
directly on other natural things. Although secondary causation is usually assumed in scientific research,
most Muslim theologians opposed it, fearing that the study of Greek philosophy and science would make
their students hostile to religion” (The Foundations of Modern Science, p. 178).

31
For a recent critique of the Orientalist use of the unchanging “orthodoxy” and its antagonism to science,
see Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture, pp. 166–175

32
Cohen, The Scientific Revolution, p. 393, pp 389–394,

15
representative of Islam in general, but also believes that they dealt a death-blow to

Islamic philosophy and science.33

The unfortunate consequence of this historiography has been the failure of

historians to situate Islamic science within its own context. The fascination with the

Scientific Revolution has led historians to focus primarily on the Arabic “texts and

translations.”34 As such, they have been pre-occupied with “the reception, transformation

and transmission of earlier scientific ideas.”35 Moreover, the assumption that a religious

orthodoxy was antagonistic to science has forced historians to conceptualize the medieval

Islamic context of Islamic science in purely negative terms. Consequently, the study of

this context and its broader impact on the philosophical and scientific ideas of the time

have been traditionally marginalized. Thus, we can appreciate how difficult it has been

33
Grant, The Foundations of Modern Science, pp. 81–83: “By emphasizing God’s absolute power to do
anything short of a logical contradiction, the articles condemned in 1277 had a curious, and probably
unintended, effect: they encouraged speculation about natural impossibilities in the Aristotelian world
system, which were often treated as hypothetical possibilities. . . . Although these speculative responses did
not lead to the overthrow of the Aristotelian world view, they did, as we shall see, challenge some of its
fundamental principles and assumptions. They made many aware that things might be quite otherwise than
were dreamt of in Aristotle’s philosophy.” In the case of Islamic civilization, after summarizing al-Ghazālī
and Ibn Khaldūn’s criticism of philosophy, Grant states: “I do not wish to suggest that the attitudes of al-
Ghazali and Ibn Khaldun were universal among religious leaders and the educated. Islamic civilization
was hardly monolithic. . . . Nevertheless, a general uneasiness about natural philosophy seems to have
been widespread” (p. 181). Further on, Grant adds: “Because of a fear that natural philosophy was
potentially dangerous to the Muslim faith . . . Islam never institutionalized natural philosophy, never made
it a regular part of the educational process. . . . The open hostility . . . of Islamic theologians and religious
authorities provides at least one major reason why an institutional base comparable to the universities in
the West failed to develop” (pp. 184–185). By the end of the discussion, Grant has rhetorically arrived (for
he hardly cites any evidence) at the oft-repeated conclusion: “Thus in Islamic society, where religion was
so fundamental, the absence of support for natural philosophy from theologians, and, more often, their open
hostility toward the discipline, might have proved fatal to it and, eventually, to the exact sciences as well”
(p. 186).

34
Emilie Savage-Smith, “Gleanings from an Arabist’s Workshop: Current Trends in the Study of
Medieval Islamic Science and Medicine,” Isis 79 (1988): 246–272, p. 246.

35
Ibid., p. 247.

16
for revisionist historians to live up to Emilie Savage-Smith’s optimistic vision for the

study of Islamic science:

The next decade [i.e. the nineties] should see a growing awareness and application
of other historical methodologies and the somewhat belated joining with
contemporary historians of other areas, who have for some time displayed more
interest in the broader background of scientific development. In addition, the
effects should soon be felt of those calls, by Sabra among others, to understand
Islamic science in its own terms rather than as a subsidiary of ancient Western
science.36

1.2 Revisionist Historiography: Its Successes and Limitations

Over the last few decades, the drive to understand Islamic science in its own

terms has borne considerable fruit. Revisionist historians, like Roshdi Rashed, George

Saliba and A. I. Sabra, among others, have pioneered studies that have revealed how and

where Islamic science broke away from its Greek predecessor. They have had

considerable success in demolishing the myth that Islamic science was merely Greek

science in Arabic, by highlighting developments in mathematics, astronomy and optics.37

The immediate consequence of these studies has been that the traditional periodization of

Islamic science and the standard claims about the “decline of Islamic science” are now

being critically assessed by Islamicists.38

36
Ibid., p. 266.

37
For a quick survey of the achievements in a wide variety of fields, see Rashed, ed., Encyclopedia.

38
For a shift in the traditional chronology of decline, see Rashed, ed., Encyclopedia; and Saliba, A History
of Arabic Astronomy. For the current trend in shifting away from this discourse of “decline” altogether, see
Saliba, “Seeking the Origins of Modern Science?” However, this literature has had little impact on the
broader field of history of science.

17
 The Marginality Thesis has also come under severe attack and has been shown to

be an inaccurate characterization of Islamic science, from its inception to its fruition.39

Historians of science have generally appealed to the “absence of an institutional base for

science and natural philosophy,” as the reason for the marginalization of Islamic

science.40 Nevertheless, this much relied upon “fact” has also been thoroughly critiqued

by comparing the medieval Islamic biographical accounts about education in the rational

sciences with those about education in the religious sciences.41 Moreover, revisionist

historians have made important strides in situating the sciences within the Islamic

context. They have even traced some of these developments diachronically within

Islamic societies. For example, we no longer speak of isolated astronomers and their

achievements but rather of an entire group of astronomers—including the famous

“Maragha school” and its successors—who shared certain basic agendas and continually

39
Traditional claims about the Graeco-Arabic translation movement being cursory and marginal to
Islamic societies has been most thoroughly attacked by Gutas, Greek Thought Arabic Culture. For
connections between mathematics and broader philological movements see Roshdi Rashed, “Combinatorial
Analysis, Diophantine Analysis and Number Theory,” in Rashed, ed., Encyclopedia, vol. 2, pp. 376–417.
For interactions between the religious sphere and the astronomical sphere, see Saliba, A History of Arabic
Astronomy; and David King, Astronomy in the Service of Islam (Aldershot: Variorum, 1993). For the
interaction between philosophy and religion, and the centrality of Avicenna’s discussions of the soul in
religious discussions, see Robert E. Hall, “A Decisive Example of the Influence of Psychological Doctrines
in Islamic Science and Culture,” Journal for the History of Arabic Science 3 (1979): 46—84; and Robert
Wisnovsky, “One Aspect of the Avicennian Turn in Sunnī Theology,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 14
(2004): 65–100.

40
Grant, The Foundations of Modern Science, p. 185. The alleged lack of institutional support for the
rational sciences is also assumed by Huff; see his, The Rise of Early Modern Science.

41
Sonja Brentjes, “On the Location of the Ancient Or ‘Rational’ Sciences in Muslim Educational
Landscapes (AH 500–1100),” Bulletin of the Royal Institute of Inter-Faith Studies 4 (2002): 47–71.
Brentjes’s argument relies on the shifts in seventh century in the use of the terms culūm al-awā’il (the
sciences of the ancients) and culūm al-caqliyya (the rational sciences). She shows how the secular sciences,
including logic and other philosophic disciplines, were allied with the religious disciplines by the end of the
seventh century Hijri/thirteenth century Common Era (p. 55). The rhetorical dominance of the latter
positive term in later biographical dictionaries, along with the similarity with which educational networks
in religious and rational sciences are described, shows that these sciences were not excluded from the
Islamic education landscape.

18
worked off of each other.42 Similarly, Roshdi Rashed has shown that such research

schools also developed in the fields of algebraic arithmetic and algebraic geometry from

the tenth century onwards.43 Revisionist historians are also more concerned with how

certain ideas or aspects of a work connect with the larger corpus of writings of a

particular author and/or the immediate intellectual milieu, rather than tracing them back

piecemeal to the works of different Ancient authors. For example, after a careful study of

the entire extant corpus of Ibn al-Haytham’s works on optics, A. I. Sabra has concluded

that Ibn al-Haytham’s program in optics was novel and unique when compared to the

works of his predecessors and contemporaries.44

There has also been a healthy shift towards local studies in recent scholarship on

Islamic science. Using anti-essentialist methods employed in the larger discipline of

Islamic history, historians of Islamic science have started to study concrete cases of the

interaction between religious and scientific knowledge. Thus, against the Orientalist

claim that the Greek sciences were considered religiously-suspect and so persecuted

throughout Islamic history, revisionists have tried to study the nature and consequences

of those attacks in particular situations. As a result, the “relationship between religious

42
For an overview of the achievements of the Maragha school, see George Saliba, “Arabic Planetary
Theory after Eleventh Century, A.D.” in Rashed, ed., Encyclopedia, vol. 1, pp. 58–127. Also see, Saliba, A
History of Arabic Astronomy; Jamil Ragep, Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī’s Memoir on Astronomy=al-tadhkira fī
c
ilm al-hay’a (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1993); and Ahmad Dallal, An Islamic Response to Greek
Astronomy (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995).

43
See Roshdi Rashed, The Development of Arabic Mathematics: Between Arithmetic and Algebra, tr. A.
F. W. Armstrong (Boston: Kluwer Academic, 1994). Also see, Roshdi Rashed and B. Vahabzadeh, Al-
Khayyām mathématicien (Paris: A. Blanchard, 1999); and Rashed, ed., Encyclopedia, vol. 2.

44
Ibn al-Haytham, The Optics of Ibn al-Haytham, Bks I–III: On Direct Vision, tr. and commentary by A.
I. Sabra, 2 vols. (London: Warburg Institute, University of London, 1989). Also see, A. I. Sabra, “Ibn al-
Haytham’s Revolutionary Project in Optics: The Achievement and the Obstacle,” in The Enterprise of
Science in Islam: New Perspectives, ed. Jan P. Hogendijk and A. I. Sabra (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003),
pp. 85–118.

19
and scientific knowledge in Islamic culture” is now perceived as being multi-faceted and

complex.45 For example, George Saliba has traced the development of a new branch of

Arabic mathematical astronomy (cilm al-hay’a) through a multi-faceted—religious,

philosophical and medical—attack on astrology. He argues that because astrology was

associated with Greek astronomy this new branch of astronomy was consciously created

by astronomers to free themselves from such attacks. Consequently, over time, they were

able to accommodate themselves comfortably into religious spheres.46 On a contrasting

note, Ahmad Dallal has investigated the influence of astronomy on the discipline of

kalām during the fourteenth century. He has shown that, as a direct result of

developments in planetary astronomy, kalām was theoretically adjusted and consciously

disengaged itself from other sciences by limiting its own scope of investigation.47

However, as is evident in my survey of the revisionist literature, this revisionist

historiography is almost entirely absent from works on the history of medicine in Islamic

societies.48 Instead, in this subfield, historians are still primarily interested in

45
Ahmad Dallal, “Religious and Scientific Knowledge in Classical Islamic Thought,” Bulletin of the
Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies 4 (2002): 1–5, p. 5.

46
George Saliba, “Islamic Astronomy in Context: Attacks on Astrology and the Rise of the Hay’a
Tradition,” Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies 4 (2002): 25–46. Also see Saliba, A
History of Arabic Astronomy.

47
Ahmad Dallal, “The Adjustment of Science,” Bulletin of the Royal Institute of Inter-Faith Studies 4
(2002): 97–107. For a proper definition and understanding of the discipline of kalām, see chapters two and
three.

48
The lack of revisionist history in the sub-field of medicine can be gleaned from the under-representation
of the field in Rashed, ed., Encyclopedia. In the three edited volumes, meant to bring non-experts up to
speed with revisionist historiography, only one article is devoted to medicine within the Islamic world.
Similarly, in Hogendijk and Sabra, ed., The Enterprise of Science in Islam—a collection of articles on the
state-of-the-art in the field, once again only one article is devoted to medicine, and that too is on
pharmacology.

20
determining how a certain Islamic medical tract relates to its Greek predecessor.49 Over

the past few decades, some historians have tried to shift away from this obsession with

reducing Islamic medicine to Greek medicine. Nonetheless, studies that try to place

Islamic medicine within the context of the Islamic societies have been few and far

between.50 The literature is even more barren in its analysis of the relationship between

medicine and other disciplines, especially philosophy. The failure to consider such

relationships is all the more puzzling, given that many physicians of the Islamic world—

e.g. Ibn Sīnā, Ibn Rushd and Maimonides—were first-rate philosophers as well as great

physicians. As Vivian Nutton states,

It is no coincidence that Ibn Sina, like Ibn Rushd . . . and the Jewish physician
Moses ben Maimon (Maimonides), . . . was famous as a philosopher as well as a
physician, for Galen had encouraged the study of philosophy and logic, and his
method of argumentation invited philosophical enquiry . . ..51

Perhaps the reason for the absence of revisionist studies in medicine should also

be sought in the assumptions of the earlier generation of historians. The Orientalists, as

49
See, for example, Gerrit Bos, ed. and tr., Ibn al-Jazzār on Fevers: A Critical Edition of Zād al-Musāfir
wa-qūt al-hādir (Provisions for the Traveller and Nourishment for the Sedentary), Book 7, Chapters 1–6
(London: Kegan Paul, 2000); Lena Ambjörn, ed. and tr., Qustā Ibn Lūqā’s Book on Numbness: A Book on
Numbness, its Kinds, Causes and Treatment According to the Opinion of Galen and Hippocrates
(Stockholm: Almqvest & Wiksell, 2000); and Yacqūb b. Ishāq al-Isrā’īlī, Treatise on the Errors of the
Physicians in Damascus: A Critical Edition of the Arabic Text Together with an Annotated English
Translation, tr. and ed. Oliver Kahl (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). All three translators make no
attempt whatsoever to ground these texts within the Islamic socio-religio-intellectual context. It is merely
assumed that these texts are the direct, natural descendents of the Greek medical corpus.

50
These works include the exceptional works of Michael Dols, especially his, The Black Death in the
Middle East (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977); and Majnūn: The Madmen in the Medieval
Islamic World (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992). There has also been some excellent recent scholarship on
the social history of Islamic medicine; see, for example, Cristina Álvarez-Millán, “Practice versus Theory:
Tenth-Century Case-Histories from the Islamic Middle East,” Social History of Medicine 13 (2000): 293–
306; and Emilie Savage-Smith, “The Practice of Surgery in Islamic Lands: Myth and Reality,” Social
History of Medicine 13 (2000): 307–321.

51
Vivian Nutton, “The Rise of Medicine,” p. 68. Here too we see that the only reason one should expect
these physicians to be philosophers is because their Greek master Galen was also a philosopher, and not for
any other reason indigenous to their cultures or religious situations.

21
well as the pioneers of the discipline of history of science, shared a common assumption:

they both maintained a sharp distinction between science and non-science. For the

Orientalists, this divide is most prominent in their positivist attacks on religion.52 For

historians of science like Alexander Koyré and Edwin A. Burtt, this distinction is most

prominent in their focus on the “mathematization of nature” as the “central distinguishing

feature of the new science” of the Scientific Revolution. For that reason, they also tended

to focus almost exclusively on the history of the exact sciences.53 The dominance of the

exact sciences in the revisionist studies on Islamic science can then be considered a

product of this mentality. For example, even the revisionist historians, Sonja Brentjes,

seems to be committed to this hard dichotomy since she feels very uneasy with the

medieval classification of usūl al-dīn (the foundations of religion) and usūl al-fiqh (the

foundations of law) as rational sciences.54

It is important to recognize that this divide is not necessarily postulated on the

basis of the medieval writings themselves. Rather, the uneasiness with medieval

classifications of sciences is due to distinctions and definitions that are alien to the

categories of the historical actors themselves, as is evident in the following statement of

Dimitri Gutas:

52
See Ignaz Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, tr. Andras and Ruth Hamori
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981); and von Grunebaum, Islam.

53
Cohen, The Scientific Revolution, p. 99. Also see Gary Hatfield, “Was the Scientific Revolution Really
a Revolution in Science?” in Tradition, Transmission, Transformation: Proceedings of Two Conferences
on Pre-Modern Science Held at the University of Oklahoma, ed. Jamil Ragep and Sally Ragep (Leiden: E.
J. Brill, 1996), pp. 489–525. This view of the history and philosophy of science is no longer considered
tenable in the profession. However, the fact that these views continue to influence historians of Islamic
science (see below), shows that the latter have found it hard to break free from the constraints of the older
narratives.

54
Brentjes admits to being “surprised” and continues to use the term rational in quotes throughout her
article; Brentjes, “On the Location of the Ancient or ‘Rational’ Sciences.”

22
 [W]e see that [the Islamic scientists’] epistemological foundation was not very
different from that of scientists everywhere: applied science resting on experience
and observation . . . informed by a theory that was argued for in strict terms of
mathematical and logical procedures and by a healthy attitude of skepticism and
questioning of authority.55

The legacy of Koyré and Burtt is truly alive in Gutas’s definition of science. So too is the

Orientalist legacy of a positivist antagonism to religion. For while proposing a program

for future research in Islamic science, Gutas states:

Through [David King’s] efforts, the fundamental research on the . . . chapter on

the sciences addressing directly issues of concern to the Islamic community . . .
has been accomplished. This is very felicitous because it enables us to remove
from consideration “Islam” as a meaningful category in future research on the
social history of Arabic science and philosophy.56

Consequently, in order to guide future historians of Islamic science, Gutas

proposes a model that not only creates a sharp distinction between science and non-

science, but also between “scholars whose purposes and methods were scientific . . . and

those who had other aims—personal, theological, etc.”57 Thus, for example, Gutas

distinguishes between the “scientific merits” of Ibn al-Haytham’s criticisms of Ptolemy

and the theological, “non-scientific” criticisms of Maimonides against Aristotle’s theory

of the eternity of the world. He considers Maimonides’s aim to be “not scientific”

because “his aim in the Guide in criticizing Aristotle is to discredit the theory of the

eternity of the world because it is unacceptable to Judaism.”58 Nonetheless, on what

55
Gutas, “Certainty, Doubt and Error,” p. 285, my emphasis. This positivist understanding of science has
come under considerable attack over the past few decades; see, for example, Kuhn, The Structure of
Scientific Revolution.

56
Gutas, “Certainty, Doubt and Error,” p. 277.

57
Ibid., p. 283.

58
Ibid., pp. 284–285.

23
grounds can one consider Aristotle’s theory “scientific,” such that Maimonides’s critique

would not be considered to be so on those same grounds? Or, what makes Ibn al-

Haytham’s critique of Ptolemy more “scientific” than Maimonides’s critique of Aristotle?

Is it because Maimonides relies on authority (Biblical authority) while Ibn Haytham only

argues using mathematics and observations? But that is not entirely true, for even Ibn al-

Haytham relies on Aristotle as an authority to criticize Ptolemy’s models, and

unquestioningly adheres to the Aristotelian cosmos. Similarly, on what grounds can we

call Galen’s original, yet false, assertion about the pores in the septum wall, “scientific,”

and Ibn al-Nafīs’s correct denial of such pores “unscientific,” even if we assume that he

never actually performed dissection? What we need instead is a richer understanding of

science—one that is not constrained by a hard dichotomy between science and non-

science.

As the recent history of the philosophy of science shows, universal criteria for

demarcating science from non-science are highly elusive. Thus, as historians of Islamic

science, we would be better off focusing on what the historical actors themselves

considered scientific and non-scientific, bearing in mind that their own heralding of

something as scientific or non-scientific could also be for polemical purposes. In this

regard, we Islamicists have much to learn from our Europeanist colleagues in the history

of science. The latter have slowly moved away from employing universal criteria and

towards basing their studies on the terminology of the historical actors themselves. As a

result, we now have a far richer understanding of the historical development of Western

science than ever before.59

59
There have of course been many works that have challenged a universal science/non-science divide and
have instead relied on the terms and definitions of the historical actors themselves to provide us with a

24
1.3 Extending the Scope of Revisionist Studies

First and foremost, through this study, I intend to bring the critical revisionist

scholarship to bear on the study of Islamic medicine. Thus, rather than de-

contextualizing Ibn al-Nafīs’s discussion of the pulmonary transit of blood, by comparing

it with the views of Galen or Harvey—the only way his discovery has been studied so far,

I will attempt to place his scientific theories within the context of his thirteenth century

religious and intellectual milieu. In particular, I shall analyze his works from the

perspective of the vexing physiological and philosophical questions of his time. Using

his works and those of his contemporaries, I will try to map out Ibn al-Nafīs’s

“intellectual terrain” by tracing out his “linguistic context” and the landscape of the inter-

relations between words and their meanings at that time.60 The analytical tool of a

“linguistic context”, known to historians of science as “actor’s categories,”61 has already

been successfully employed by revisionist historians. For example, Ahmad Dallal uses it

in his study on the influence of astronomy on kalām, and Sonja Brentjes uses it in her

study on the integration of the rational sciences into the religious curriculum.62 Once the

intellectual landscapes have been mapped out, we will be in a better position to ascertain

where and in what way Ibn al-Nafīs differs from his predecessors in dealing with the

fuller picture of the richness of scientific discourse during the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution.
As an example, see Charles Webster, From Paracelsus to Newton: Magic and the Making of Modern
Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).

60
Hatfield, “Was the Scientific Revolution Really a Revolution,” p. 491; and Skinner, “Meaning and
Understanding,” p. 49.

61
See Cunningham, “Getting the Game Right.”

62
Dallal, “The Adjustment of Science”; and Brentjes, “On the Location of the Ancient or ‘Rational’
Sciences.”

25
physiological, philosophical and theological questions that continually vexed the greatest

minds in Islamic civilization.

However, this study also seeks to extend the scope of revisionist historiography

by taking its cue from studies that have sought to dissolve the hard dichotomy between

science and non-science.63 More importantly, it relies on recent attempts by historians of

Western science to understand the complexities in the interaction of science and religion,

rather than presenting them in “essentialist terms of conflict or harmony.”64 As noted

above, historians of Islamic science have been slow in embracing recent developments in

the history of science and the historiography of science and religion.65 By relying on the

semantically cogent, but historically inaccurate, reifications of “science” and “religion,”66

historians of Islamic science and philosophy have been largely unsuccessful in suggesting

fruitful ways to analyze the relationship between reason and revelation. Thus, for

example, medieval attempts at reconciling the two are either seen as dishonest verbal

concessions by philosophers under the threat of persecution,67 or as the subsuming of

63
See, for example, Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions; and Helen Longino, The Fate of
Knowledge (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002).

64
John Hedley Brooke, “Religious Belief and the Content of the Sciences,” Osiris 16 (2001): 3–28, 5.

65
In a special issue of Osiris entitled, “Science in Theistic Contexts: Cognitive Dimensions,” Jamil Ragep
laments the continued presence of essentialist explanations of Islam and science in the works of historians
of Islamic science; see F. Jamil Ragep, “Freeing Astronomy from Philosophy: An Aspect of Islamic
Influence on Science,” Osiris 16 (2001): 49–71, 49.

66
Geoffrey Cantor has suggested that even separating the two categories for a historical analysis makes
one guilty of essentializing a separation between science and religion that may not even exist in the actual
works themselves; see his, “Quaker Responses to Darwin,” Osiris 16 (2001): 321–342.

67
See, for example, George Hourani, “The Principal Subject of Ibn Tufayl’s Hayy ibn Yaqzan,” Journal of
Near Eastern Studies 15 (1956): 40–46; and Richard Taylor, “‘Truth Does Not Contradict Truth’: Averroes
and the Unity of Truth,” TOPOI 19 (2000): 3–16. Both Hourani and Taylor rely on Leo Strauss to a large
extent; see Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing (Glencoe: Free Press, 1952).

26
reason under the authority of revelation to save the appearances of religious dogma.68

However, neither of these essentialist appraisals completely captures the complex

maneuvers used by the historical actors to defend their beliefs in a harmony between

reason and revelation. Nor can these appraisals illuminate the nature of the polemics in

which competing intellectual groups engaged; polemics that generally led one group to

assert their rationality or religious orthodoxy over the other(s). In order to gain a better

insight into the role of reason and its relationship with revelation in medieval Islamic

societies, we need to move beyond the polemics of the historical actors themselves.

Consequently, not only do we need to start with a more integrationist perspective that

allows the historical texts to “rearrange our [own] categories” of “science” and

“religion,”69 but we also need a more robust understanding of “rationality” itself—one

that does not prejudice us towards any particular group or actor.

1.3.1 Rationality and the Authoritative Resources Model

We noticed earlier that Gutas’s model calls for distinguishing between non-

scientific and scientific motives in the works of medieval Islamic authors. His model

assumes that rationality is merely a positivist heuristic of logic and pure empirical

observation. However, contemporary philosophers and historians of science have a far

more robust view of rationality. Thus, against earlier positivist views on the debate

between Galileo and the Aristotelians, Helen Longino asserts:

68
See, for example, Gerhard Endress, “The Defense of Reason: The Plea for Philosophy in the Religious
Community,” Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften 6 (1990): 1–49.

69
Stephen Wykstra, “Religious Belief, Metaphysical Beliefs, and Historiography of Science,” Osiris 16
(2001): 29–46, 46.

27
 If rationality is, at least in part, the acceptance or rejection of beliefs on the basis
of evidence, then theory and hypothesis choice is, when based on evidence,
rational. Rationality, however, is not the infallible road to truth or away from
error that it is often claimed to be. Both the Aristotelian and the Galilean are
being rational when they defend their respective accounts of the swinging stone.
What explains why it serves as evidence for different hypotheses is not that the
two see it differently and in ways determined by those hypotheses in question but
that they hold different background assumptions in light of which its evidential
relevance is differently assessed. . . . It is . . . easy to see that both parties are
being perfectly rational. It is rational to take some state of affairs as evidence for
a hypothesis in light of background assumptions one accepts.70

Based on this understanding of rationality, the different ways that the various

historical actors understand the exact relationship between reason and revelation in

Islamic science and philosophy can be seen as solutions stemming from different

background assumptions and ideological commitments. The rationality of their positions

depends merely on whether or not their specific integration of reason and revelation

coheres well with their original assumptions and ideological commitments.71 It is also

important to note that what I have termed “reason” here is not reason as logical argument

and neutral observation, but rather the coming together of secular, philosophical

authority, logic and observations that are not necessarily paradigm-neutral. As a result,

reason, in this broad definition, faces internal contradictions that are themselves a result

of the different varieties of emphases placed on authority, logic and observation, e.g. the

debate between the Aristotelians and the Ptolemaic astronomers. As for revelation, in

this dissertation I am primarily interested in the importance of two Islamic sources of

70
Helen Longino, Science as Social Knowledge: Values and Objectivity in Scientific Inquiry (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 59–60, my emphasis.

71
Alasdair MacIntyre, “Epistemological Crises, Dramatic Narrative, and the Philosophy of Science,” The
Monist 60 (1977): 54–74. MacIntyre is specifically concerned with the perceived irrationality of a
Scientific Revolution within Kuhn’s critique, and his paper provides a fruitful way to conceive of it as a
rational process. I find his analogy between a narrative and a rational argument very persuasive and useful.

28
revealed authority: the Qur’an and the hadīth (traditions of the Prophet). Hence, within

the sphere of revelation, internal conflicts also arise based on variegated emphases on

these two scriptural sources, even without taking into account other sources of religious

authority (e.g. biographies of the Prophet, consensus of the community and, for Shīcite

Muslims, the reports of the infallible Imams).

Furthermore, as Brooke and Cantor have argued elsewhere,72 even this analytical

separation of reason and revelation overly simplifies the dialectical relationship between

the two in religious contexts. As we shall see, Islamic philosophers and physicians took

their religious views seriously and competed with religious scholars for the authority to

interpret revelation itself. On the other hand, the Islamic sources of revelation

themselves appeal to teleological arguments for the existence of God and, in general,

emphasize the role of reason and incorporate its sources—a fact that Ibn Rushd (lat.

Averroes, d. 1198) makes prominent use of in his treatise On the Harmony between

Philosophy and Religion.73 Thus, a fruitful way to engage with the texts from this period

is to assume that regardless of whether or not scholars within this period identified

themselves as traditionalists (those who considered themselves as being foremost

committed to the sources of revelation) or rationalists (those who considered themselves

as being foremost committed to the sources of reason), they still had to confront both

sources—those of reason and those of revelation. Consequently, in this particular case, it

72
Brooke, “Religious Belief”; and Cantor, “Quaker Responses to Darwin.”

73
Ibn Rushd, The Book of the Decisive Treatise Determining the Connection Between Law and Wisdom
and the Epistle Dedicatory, tr. Charles Butterworth (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2001). For
the dialectic between the secular and the sacred with regards to Islamic societies, see Lenn E. Goodman,
Islamic Humanism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

29
may be more fruitful to speak of the “intra-action” between “reason” and “revelation”

rather than the “inter-action.”74

Since all scholars from this time period had to confront the sources of reason and

revelation, and since it was, and probably always is, impossible to place equal confidence

on all these sources (i.e. individual philosophical authorities, logical arguments,

observation, Qur’an, hadīth, consensus of the community, individual religious scholars,

etc.), they had to place different emphases on each of them. Additionally, we may also

assume that the resources available to be allocated to these different factors are somewhat

limited. The difference between the traditionalists and the rationalists can then be

explained, for example, by illuminating the latter’s diminishment of the authority of

hadīth. As a result, the rationalists have more resources available to assign to other

sources of revelation and the sources of reason. Thus, the conflict is then not necessarily

between reason and revelation in general, but rather, it lies in a competition for these

“authoritative resources” amongst all the various factors. Naturally, how these resources

are assigned is itself a result of the historical development of particular groups and

schools, all the while leaving open the possibility for differences amongst individuals

belonging to the same group.

In order to apply this model, one needs to dig deep into the texts of an author(s)

and situate them within the historical context(s) in order to ascertain the background

assumptions and ideological commitments that inform these texts and influence how the

author(s) allocates these resources amongst the sources of reason and revelation. The

goal is to construct a reasonably coherent narrative that can illuminate how, if possible,

74
Brooke, “Religious Belief,” p. 24.

30
all these commitments come together in the works of an author(s). Of course, it is

implausible to expect that the result will be an entirely coherent and closed system. Also,

one must not overlook certain aspects of a text or author merely to construct a fully

coherent narrative.75 Rather, the aim should be to understand how particular authors

reduce the dissonance resulting from bringing together these factors in their work(s).76

1.4 Chapter Summaries

In what follows we shall see how Ibn al-Nafīs allocates his resources to individual

sources of reason and revelation in establishing the harmony between the two. However,

the subtleties of his particular position cannot be understood without taking into account

the larger social and intellectual context of the time. A fruitful way of engaging this

context is to compare Ibn al-Nafīs to groups of scholars that sit at the opposite ends of the

reason/revelation debate within medieval Islamic societies. Thus, in chapter two, I

compare Ibn al-Nafīs to the most stringent traditionalists who adhere closely to the literal

meaning of the Qur’ān and the hadīth (traditions of the Prophet). By doing so, we shall

see that even though he accepts the authority of hadīth like other traditionalists, Ibn al-

Nafīs does not cling to every word of the hadīth corpus and requires that each hadīth be

rationally acceptable. As such, he allocates his resources to reason and revelation more

even-handedly than at least some of the stricter traditionalists.

75
For the pitfalls of engaging in such intellectual history, see Skinner, “Meaning and Understanding in the
History of Ideas.”

76
I have borrowed the notion of “dissonance reduction” from J. R. Moore; see his, The Post Darwinian
Controversies: A Study of the Protestant Struggle to Come to Terms with Darwin in Great Britain and
America, 1870–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). However, not all the details of
Moore’s analysis apply here since he is looking at a period where the historical actors themselves employ
the terminology of a conflict between science and religion.

31
 Chapter three compares Ibn al-Nafīs primarily to the rationalists. It reveals the

differences between Ibn al-Nafīs and other rationalists in their allocation of the sources of

reason and revelation. For example, by comparing him to Ibn Sīnā we come to realize

that the different allocation of these resources permits Ibn al-Nafīs to introduce concepts

and arguments from revelation into what Ibn Sīnā classifies as demonstrative,

philosophical arguments. In the case of the immortality of the human soul, for example,

Ibn al-Nafīs in fact believes that revelation is necessary for a rational solution to that

vexing problem. The fact that Ibn Sīnā would have considered that to be a non-sensical,

irrational claim illustrates how the different background assumptions and commitments

structure the rationality of each discourse. Ibn al-Nafīs is able to rationalize bodily

resurrection using the hadīth corpus, because, unlike Ibn Sīnā, he is neither committed to

a division between dialectical and demonstrative discourses, nor to certain aspects of

Aristotle and Galen that underlie Ibn Sīnā’s physiology. Thus, we not only see how Ibn

al-Nafīs can rationally defend a particular position, but also how his even-handed

allocation of the sources of reason and revelation forces him to reject earlier

philosophical and physiological understandings of the soul and spirit.

Chapter four examines closely Ibn al-Nafīs’s new physiological system. The

discussion reveals that Ibn al-Nafīs’s physiology differs significantly from the

physiologies of Aristotle, Galen and Ibn Sīnā. More importantly, it shows that his

physiology is a direct result of his new understanding of the soul and spirit, which in turn

is derived from his distinct approach to the problem of bodily resurrection and the

thirteenth century debates over reason and revelation. The pulmonary transit of blood is

merely an anatomical corollary to this new physiological scheme, which also leads him to

32
posit a new theory of pulsation. Other historians have missed these connections between

the pulmonary transit, the new theory of pulsation, the new physiology and his new

philosophical understanding of soul. Consequently, they have claimed, incorrectly, that

Ibn al-Nafīs’s discovery of the pulmonary transit was a “happy guess” that is not to be

found in any of his other works.

Chapter five draws together the individual discussions from the previous three

chapters in order to reemphasize the importance of studying the works of Islamic

physicians and philosophers using the historical “actors’ categories.” It claims that it is

improper and unfair to judge the subsequent fate of Islamic science using the metric of

the Scientific Revolution. Thus, the mere fact that Ibn al-Nafīs’s Islamic successors did

not latch on to his theory of the pulmonary transit, in and of itself, does not imply any

decline in Islamic medicine. A more fruitful way of engaging in the analysis of the fate

of Islamic science and medicine is to closely examine why Ibn al-Nafīs’s new theories of

physiology, pulsation and the pulmonary transit were not taken up by subsequent Islamic

scholars. The chapter makes an initial foray into this deeper examination. It analyzes the

relationship of the pseudo-Ibn al-Nafīs work, Mūjaz al-Qānūn (The Epitome of the

Canon) and the emerging genre of T ibb al-Nabī (Medicine of the Prophet). The chapter

makes some initial suggestions regarding how these two texts turned attention away from

Ibn al-Nafīs’s new theories and concludes by emphasizing the importance of contextual

studies of Islamic science in order to understand the true extent and causes of “the decline

of Islamic science.”

33
 CHAPTER 2

IBN AL-NAFĪS: A RATIONAL TRADITIONALIST

OR A TRADITIONAL RATIONALIST?

As we saw in the last chapter, the study of Islamic science has been hampered by

certain assumptions regarding the irrationality of “Islam” and “Islamic society.” At the

root of these assumptions lies a post-Enlightenment belief in an eternal conflict between

reason and revelation. Rather than understanding the emergence of this model within the

context of the history of Western science and Western societies, and so questioning its

universal validity, historians of Islamic science and philosophy have generally taken this

conflict for granted. As a result, their understanding of the interaction between religion

and science in Islamic societies has tended to ignore the complex, contextual subtleties

and variations. Thus, for example, the emergence of the tradition of T ibb al-Nabī

(Medicine of the Prophet) has been regarded incorrectly as a rival tradition to Galenic

medicine and as an example of the conflict between reason and revelation.1 Similarly,

historians of Islamic philosophy have generally believed that the attempts by the

falāsifa—a specific group of philosophers who were committed to a Neoplatonic

1
See Manfred Ullmann, Die Medizin im Islam (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1970), pp. 185–190; and J. Christoph
Bürgel, “Secular and Religious Features of Medieval Arabic Medicine,” in Asian Medical Systems: A
Comparative Study, ed. C. Leslie (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), pp. 44–62. For a
critique of this standard view, see Fazlur Rahman, Health and Medicine in the Islamic Tradition: Chance
and Identity (New York: Crossroad, 1987), pp. 41–58; and Irmeli Perho, The Prophet’s Medicine: A
Creation of the Muslim Traditionist Scholars (Helsinki: Kokemäki, 1995).

34
Aristotelian cosmological and metaphysical system—to illustrate the harmony between

reason and revelation were superficial. Since these historians believe in a perennial

conflict between the two, they cannot fathom how any philosopher in the Islamic world

could honestly profess a harmony between reason and revelation. As a result, they

assume, a priori, that the falāsifa were probably driven to do so publicly under threat of

persecution.2

Moreover, even those historians who take these philosophical attempts seriously

do so while maintaining a post-Enlightenment attitude that progress in science is only

possible when there is a conflict between reason and revelation. Thus, they believe that

harmony is only possible if reason submits to religious dogma and is only used “to ‘save

the phenomena’ of . . . theocracy.”3 As such, though the attempts by the falāsifa and

other groups to reconcile reason and revelation are deemed honest, these historians

believe that, by submitting to dogma, conservation came to supersede innovation and,

thus, over time, suffocated scientific progress within Islamic societies.4

However, if we shelve this assumption and carefully examine these texts within

their intellectual and socio-cultural environment, a significantly different and murkier

2
See, for example, George Hourani, “The Principal Subject of Ibn Tufayl’s Hayy ibn Yaqzan,” Journal of
Near Eastern Studies 15 (1956): 40–46; and Richard Taylor, “‘Truth Does Not Contradict Truth’: Averroes
and the Unity of Truth,” TOPOI 19 (2000): 3–16. Both, Hourani and Taylor, rely on Leo Strauss to a large
extent; see Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing (Glencoe: Free Press, 1952). For a critique of
this Straussian mode of engaging with historical texts and how it has hampered the field of intellectual
history, see Quentin Skinner, “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas,” History and Theory 8
(1969): 3–53, especially pp. 16–22.

3
Gerhard Endress, “The Defense of Reason: The Plea for Philosophy in the Religious Community,”
Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften 6 (1990): 1–49, p. 49.

4
See Endress, “The Defense of Reason”; and Sonja Brentjes, “On the Location of the Ancient or
‘Rational’ Sciences in Muslim Educational Landscapes (AH 500–1100),” Bulletin of the Royal Institute of
Inter-Faith Studies 4 (2002): 47–71.

35
picture emerges. This is not to claim that no one in the Islamic world ever rejected

revelation and prophecy—Abū Bakr al-Rāzī (lat. Rhazes, d. 925) clearly did,5 nor does

this imply that there were never any religious scholars who saw all forms of reason and

rational inquiry as anti-Islamic. Rather, we shall see that there were more options

available to medieval Islamic scholars than simply choosing reason over revelation, or

vice-versa. Ibn al-Nafīs is an example of a medieval scholar who tries to remain faithful

to the sources of reason and revelation in his own unique way. Yet, the subtleties of his

arguments for the harmony between these two groups of sources cannot be understood

except within the social, political and intellectual context of his time.

2.1 The Socio-Political Context of Thirteenth Century Cairo and Damascus

Ibn al-Nafīs (1210–1287) lived during a time of great socio-political change in the

Islamic world. During the previous century, the Islamic world had witnessed its first

major political setbacks in the form of the Crusades and the Reconquista. The small

Muslim states in Syria and Spain were independent principalities and, as a result, were

unable to stop European advances. In Syria, at least, the Muslims had managed to

reclaim Jerusalem by the end of the twelfth century and united most of Syria and Egypt

under the leadership of Saladin (d. 1193). However, by the turn of the century a new and

graver threat to the Islamic world had emerged in the East: the Mongols. Over the course

of the next few decades, the Mongols wreaked havoc over the Eastern lands of the

Islamic world, culminating in the destruction of Baghdad, the capital of the central
c
Abbāsid caliphate, in 1258—midway through Ibn al-Nafīs’s career. Their westward

5
Majid Fakhry, A History of Islamic Philosophy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), p. 124.

36
advance was finally stopped in Syria by the new Mamluk Sultanate of Cairo, under the

leadership of Sultan al-Zāhir Baybars al-Bunduqdārī (d. 1277). As a result, the urban

centers of Syria and Egypt survived the Mongol onslaught, whereas the eastern centers

were not as fortunate.6

The two primary urban, cultural centers of Syria and Egypt were Damascus and

Cairo, respectively. Although both were old, established centers of high culture, they

were revitalized by a sudden surge of refugees from the Eastern and Western Islamic

lands. These refugees included a substantial number of civilian elites, ranging from

physicians and philosophers to the culamā’ (religious scholars) and Sūfī mystics. As a

result, Cairo and Damascus became the intellectual centers of the Islamic world, bringing

a number of rival intellectual and religious groups into close proximity with each other.7

This intellectual efflorescence of Cairo and Damascus was only further aided by

the peculiarities of the Mamluk sultanate. Since the sultanate was not hereditary, the

state was always in the midst of a power struggle amongst the ruling military elite. The

unfortunate consequence of ending up on the losing side of such a struggle was that the

elite household usually lost its wealth and sources of income. In order to secure their

own future, ruling families made use of religious endowments (waqf) that could not be
6
For a survey of these events and their effects on the Islamic world, see Marshall Hodgson, The Venture
of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization, 3 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1974), vol. 2, pp. 255–419; Robert Irwin, The Middle East in the Middle Ages: The Early Mamluk
Sultanate 1250–1382 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986); and Peter Thorau, The Lion of
Egypt: Sultan Baybars I and the Near East in the Thirteenth Century (New York: Longman, 1995).
Hodgson refers to the Mongol takeover of the Eastern lands as “The Mongol Irruption.”

7
For the localization of the master hadīth scholars in Syria and Damascus following the Mongol invasion,
see Scott Lucas, Constructive Critics, Hadīth Literature, and the Articulation of Sunnī Islam: The Legacy of
Ibn Sacd, Ibn Macīn and Ibn H anbal (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2004), pp. 109–112. Also see, Carl Petry, The
Civilian Elite of Cairo in the Later Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981). Though
Petry’s book deals with fifteenth century Cairo, many of its descriptions and conclusions about the close
proximity of the various religious groups in the city during that period hold true for the thirteenth century
too.

37
usurped under Islamic law. As a result, a number of institutions were established in order

to secure the monetary future of the ruling family by assigning supervisory posts to

members of that family. The most common type of institution that was built was the

madrasa (school of law). Although the madrasas also benefited the population at large,

the ones who benefited the most from them were the culamā’ who were appointed to the

teaching posts of these institutions and, thus, gained considerable power, prestige and

wealth. Other groups of intellectual elites also benefited tremendously. The physicians,

for example, were appointed to posts in the endowed hospitals (bīmāristān). Sūfī mystics

similarly benefited from Sūfī khāniqāhs (establishments) and ribāts (inns for travelers).

As a result, the military elites were able to secure strong support amongst the civilian

elites and, thus, amongst the masses over whom the civilian elites exerted power.

Furthermore, given that these endowments were additional to the vast amounts of

intellectual patronage that already existed at the courts of the ruling elite, we see that

intellectual activity was heavily funded and esteemed during this period.8

One of the major consequences of these endowments was a surge in Sunnī

religious scholarship, what has been termed “the victory of the new Sunnī

internationalism” by Marshall Hodgson.9 During this time, the four legal schools of

Sunnī Islam—the Hanafī, Mālikī, Shāficī and Hanbalī schools—crystallized and

triumphed over all other existing schools.10 There was also a substantial increase in

8
See Muhammad Amin, Awqāf wa’l-hayā al-ijtimāciyya fī Misr, 648–923 A.H./1250–1517 A.D. (Cairo:
Dar al-Nahda al-cArabiyya, 1980); Michael Chamberlain, Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval
Damascus, 1190–1350 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); and Tarif Khalidi, Arabic
Historical Thought in the Classical Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

9
See Hodgson, Venture of Islam, vol. 2.

10
See Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law, Paperback ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998),
p. 65.

38
scholarship on hadīth (traditions of the Prophet), and calls for returning to the sunna

(custom of the Prophet). The emphasis on the sunna was also driven by a conservative

group of Sunnī scholars who understood the socio-political turmoil of the period as

divine punishment for the general society’s deviations from the sunna. Ibn al-Nafīs,

himself, proposes society’s deviations from the sunna as a reason for the Mongol

invasion.11 Naturally, given this over-arching paradigm and the close proximity of

various religious and intellectual groups, this period witnessed a significant increase in

polemical attacks amongst rival groups striving for authority. The group of scholars that

bore the brunt of these attacks were the proponents of the “ancient sciences” (culūm al-

awā’il), who seemed easy targets because of their transgressions of the sunna as well as

their rejection of certain traditional religious dogmas. The main attackers were the hadīth

scholars, who saw themselves as the inheritors of the Prophet’s literal words and

intentions, and their primary targets were the falāsifa and, at times, those who practiced

kalām (see below).12

11
See Joseph Schacht and Max Meyerhof, The Theologus Autodidactus of Ibn al-Nafīs, edited with an
introduction, translation and notes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), pp. 96–99. Henceforth, Theologus.

12
See Ignaz Goldziher, “The Attitude of Orthodox Islam Toward the ‘Ancient Sciences,’” in Studies on
Islam, tr. and ed. M. Swartz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), pp. 185–215. The original German
article was published as, “Stellung der alten islamischen Orthodoxie zu den antiken Wissenschaften,” in
Abhandlungen der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaft, Jahrgang 1915, no. 8 (Berlin,
1916), pp. 3–46. Also see, J. Fueck, “Die Rolle des Traditionalismus in Islam,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen
Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 93 (1939): 1–32, tr. M. Swartz in Studies on Islam. Dimitri Gutas has
recently critiqued Goldziher’s use of the incorrect term “Orthodoxy.” Gutas clarifies that the attackers
were a group of conservative Damascene scholars from the Shāficī and Hanbalī schools who were reacting
to the Crusades and Mongol invasions; see Dimitri Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-
Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early cAbbāsid Society (2nd–4th/8th–10th centuries) (London:
Routledge, 1998), pp. 166–175. Also see Carole Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999), pp. 119–132, 237–238, 241–243. A. I. Sabra relates the
increase in attacks on falsafa to the emergence of an alternative “homegrown religious philosophy” of the
madrasas; see A. I. Sabra, “Situating Arabic Science: Locality versus Essence,” Isis 87 (1996): 654–670, p.
664.

39
 Simultaneous with, and abetted by, this increase in hadīth scholarship in the

twelfth and thirteenth centuries is an explosion in biographical dictionaries—texts whose

primary purpose is to provide biographies of individuals.13 Since much of hadīth

scholarship relies primarily on establishing the trustworthiness of individuals found in the

chains of transmissions of hadīth, biographical dictionaries played a significant role in

hadīth scholarship and vice-versa. Of course, during the Mamluk period the biographical

dictionaries also proliferated because of their importance in establishing and maintaining

the status of civilian elite households across generations.14 Moreover, biographical

dictionaries were not merely restricted to the culamā’. Rather, they increasingly

specialized in sub-groups of the culamā’, e.g. hadīth scholars or Shāficī jurists, as well as

non religious sub-groups, such as poets and physicians. This increased specialization of

biographical dictionaries not only reflects the “progressive intellectual and cultural

development of the Islamic community . . .,” but it also illustrates the rise in status and

prestige of all these intellectual pursuits.15

A stand-out feature of Cairene and Damascene societies was the prevalence of

non-Muslim elites. Though by virtue of being non-Muslims they did not have access to

elite society via the religious networks of madrasas, they were still able to achieve high

13
Tarif Khalidi, “Islamic Biographical Dictionaries: A Preliminary Assessment,” Muslim World 63
(1973): 53–65; Wadad Qadi, “Biographical Dictionaries: Inner Structure and Cultural Significance” in The
Book in the Islamic World: The Written Word and Communication in the Middle East, ed. G. N. Atiyeh
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), pp. 93–122. For an older list of edited biographical
dictionaries, see Paul Auchterlonie, Arabic Biographical Dictionaries: A Summary Guide and Bibliography
(Durham: Middle East Libraries Committee, 1987).

14
See Chamberlain, Knowledge and Social Practice; and Petry, The Civilian Elite of Cairo.

15
Qadi, “Biographical Dictionaries,” p. 112. For the elite nature of biographical dictionaries and their role
in projecting elite status upon a group, see Michael Cooperson, Classical Arabic Biography: The Heirs of
the Prophets in the Age of al-Ma’mūn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

40
status through their participation in the secular arts and sciences, especially medicine.16

In fact, the disproportionate dominance of non-Muslim physicians led hadīth scholars to

create the genre of T ibb al-Nabī (Medicine of the Prophet) in order to encourage more

Muslims to take up medicine. The problem, as hadīth scholars saw it, was that non-

Muslim physicians were prone to prescribing alcohol and other illegal substances as

medications. Moreover, they also subscribed to a philosophical world-view that was in

direct conflict with a traditional religious paradigm. The hadīth scholars were also wary

of the increasing number of quacks, some of whom were at times affiliated with Sūfī

saint shrines. As a result, they sought to appropriate Galenic medicine by combining it

with traditions of the Prophet, in order to bring medical practice in line with Islamic law

and conservative dogma.17 Nonetheless, the hadīth scholars’ accommodation of a branch

of the ancient rational sciences, medicine, does not imply that they warmly welcomed all

rational sciences. In fact, they were quite averse to some, especially falsafa and, at times,

kalām.

Traditionally, the discipline of kalām (cilm al-kalām) has been rendered into

English as “theology” or “speculative theology,” whereas falsafa has been translated as

“philosophy.” Though the primary aim of kalām is theological,18 it “does, strictly

speaking, differ from theology . . . [in that] its subject matter . . . includes several topics,

for example logic, epistemology, cosmology, and anthropology which properly belong to

16
See S. D. Goitein, “The Medical Profession in the Light of the Cairo Geniza Documents,” Hebrew
Union College Annual 34 (1963): 177–194; and Emilie Savage-Smith, “Medicine,” in Encyclopedia of the
History of Arabic Science, ed. Roshdi Rashed, 3 vols. (London: Routledge, 1996), vol. 3, pp. 903–962.

17
See Perho, The Prophet’s Medicine.

18
Richard Frank, “The Science of Kalām,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 2 (1992): 7–37.

41
philosophy.”19 Falsafa, on the other hand, does not refer to “philosophy” broadly

speaking, but rather to “a body of doctrine and a style of thought that was dominated by a

Neoplatonized Aristotelianism carried over from Aristotle’s late Greek commentators.”20

Moreover, theological topics (ilāhiyyāt) were explicitly discussed by the falāsifa in their

texts and formed a significant part of their system. Hence, the falāsifa and the

mutakallimūn (practitioners of kalām) are best seen as “intellectual rivals”21 competing

for the right to claim the space for rational discourse on religion within Islamic

societies.22 The other kind of religious discourse that prevailed in Islamic societies is

best described as traditional—one that upheld the unequivocal authority of traditional

sources, in particular, the Qur’ān and the hadīth.

According to Binyamin Abrahamov, the “principal theological struggle” in

Islamic societies was between the rationally-oriented kalām, and to a lesser extent falsafa,

discourses on religion and the scriptural based traditional religious discourses of the

hadīth and legal scholars.23 He illustrates the variegated nature of this struggle using the

analogy of a spectrum: at one end lie the most conservative hadīth scholars who reject all

19
Alnoor Dhanani, The Physical Theory of Kalām: Atoms, Space and Void in Basrian Muctazilī
Cosmology (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994), p. 2.

20
A. I. Sabra, “Science and Philosophy in Medieval Islamic Theology,” Zeitschrift für Geschichte der
Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften 9 (1994): 1–42, p. 3.

21
Dhanani, The Physical Theory of Kalam, p. 3.

22
In fact, Sabra has even gone as far as suggesting that the falāsifa and the mutakallimūn are best seen as
rivals in developing a comprehensive philosophical world-view; see his, “Science and Philosophy in
Medieval Islamic Theology,” pp. 11–12. Ahmad Dallal has recently rebutted Sabra’s claims that kalām
represented a complete philosophical system to rival that of the falāsifa; see his, “The Adjustment of
Science,” Bulletin of the Royal Institute of Inter-Faith Studies 4 (2002): 97–107, p. 101. Earlier, Richard
Frank had made a similar point to that of Dallal regarding the universality of kalam versus that of
traditional philosophy; see his, “The Science of Kalām,” p. 16.

23
Binyamin Abrahamov, Islamic Theology: Traditionalism and Rationalism (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 1998), p. viii.

42
forms of rational arguments in religion; at the other end, we may place the falāsifa since

they were a group of thinkers who, in religious arguments, were first and foremost

committed to upholding a Neoplatonic Aristotelian metaphysical and cosmological

system. This does not mean that the falāsifa entirely rejected revelation, for, as we shall

see in the next chapter, they were committed to defending the general authority of

revelation, as well as certain specific religious dogmas. However, the falāsifa were not

that interested in defending literal readings of scripture and, for the most part, rejected

hadīth outright. The various groups of kalām scholars fall towards the rational end of the

spectrum, with the Muctazilīs being closer to the falāsifa than the Ashcarīs, based on the

latter group’s privileging of the literal readings of scripture and the hadīth.24 Jurists and

legal theorists fall closer to the end of the hadīth scholars as they recognize the authority

of hadīth and downplay the role of rational speculation. Throughout this dissertation, the

term traditionalist will refer to those religious scholars who accept the validity of hadīth

in theological discourse. The hadīth scholars or traditionists are the most conservative

sub-group within this larger group of traditionalists as they were historically most averse

to the use of rational arguments in all forms of religious discourse.25

As a physician and a Shāficī jurist, Ibn al-Nafīs was clearly a member of the

civilian elite class. Thus, he was at the center of polemical arguments within, and

between, elite intellectual circles that were charting new paths for religious and cultural

24
See Abrahamov, Islamic Theology. The most famous example of the Ashcarī reliance on literal readings
is their famous doctrine of bilā kayf (without asking how) with regards to anthropomorphism. Though they
reject anthropomorphism, they also refuse to indulge in ta’wīl (figurative interpretation) of those verses and
advocate adhering to the literal text bilā kayf; see The Encyclopaedia of Islam, New edition (Leiden: E. J.
Brill, 1954–2003), s.vv., “cilm al-kalām” (by L. Gardet) and “Ashcariyya” (by W. Montgomery Watt).
Henceforth, EI2.

25
See Goldziher, “The Attitude of Orthodox Islam”; Abrahamov, Islamic Theology; and Fakhry, History
of Islamic Philosophy, pp. 347–359.

43
life in the aftermath of the great socio-political turmoil of the twelfth and thirteenth

centuries. While Ibn al-Nafīs’s training as a physician would have brought him into

touch with falsafa and the other Greek sciences, his training as a jurist would have firmly

grounded in him traditionalist values and concerns. As such, Ibn al-Nafīs’s intellectual

life brings together the religious sciences and the “ancient sciences” into one mind. An

analysis of his life and works thus opens up new avenues of research into the relationship

between reason and revelation during this fertile period.

2.2 Problems in Reconstructing the Life of Ibn al-Nafīs

Unfortunately, we know very little about the life of Ibn al-Nafīs since, apart from

his own works, no extant contemporary source mentions him. This silence is most

conspicuous in Ibn Abī Usaybica’s (d. 1270) biographical dictionary of physicians, and in

the biographies of the Mamluk Sultan, al-Zāhir Baybars al-Bunduqdārī (d. 1277), since

Ibn al-Nafīs has been claimed to be a personal physician to the Sultan (see below).26 Ibn

Abī Usaybica’s omission is striking because later biographical dictionaries unanimously

maintain that Ibn al-Nafīs studied medicine under Muhadhdhib al-Dīn al-Dakhwār (d.

1230), who was also the teacher of Ibn Abī Usaybica.27 Moreover, while Ibn al-Nafīs was

still at Damascus, one of his students was Abu ’l-Faraj Amīn al-Dawla al-Karakī (d.

26
Neither Ibn Abī Usaybica’s biographical dictionary of physicians, nor any of the biographies of Sultan
Baybars mention Ibn al-Nafīs; see, Ibn Abī Usaybica, cUyūn al-anbā’ fī tabaqāt al-atibbā’, ed. E. Müller
(Farnborough: Gregg International Publishers, 1972), first published 1882; and Theologus, pp. 10, 19.

27
Theologus, pp. 10–12; Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya wa’l-nihāya, ed. cAli Muhammad Mucawwad (Beirut: Dar
al-Kutub al-cIlmiyya, 1994), vol. 13, p. 260; and Yusuf Zaydan, cAlā’ al-Dīn (Ibn al-Nafīs) al-Qurashī
icādat iktishāf (Abu Dhabi: al-Majmac al-Thaqafi 1999), p. 40. Also see, Dictionary of Scientific
Biography, ed. C. Gillispie (New York, Scribner, 1970–1990), s.v. “Ibn al-Nafis” (by A. Z. Iskandar),
henceforth, DSB; and EI2, s.v. “Ibn al-Nafīs” (by Max Meyerhof- Joseph Schacht). Zaydān has recently
challenged the assertion that Ibn al-Nafīs studied under al-Dakhwār; see his, cAla’ al-Din, pp. 65–66.

44
1286) who had earlier studied under Ibn Abī Usaybica as well.28 Thus, there is no doubt

that Ibn Abī Usaybica would have been aware of Ibn al-Nafīs and his skills as a physician

and medical writer, and given that Ibn Abī Usaybica devotes the last part of his work to

contemporary renowned physicians, Ibn al-Nafīs’s omission is clearly noteworthy.29

Whatever the reason may be for this omission, judging from Ibn Abī Usaybica’s other

entries, e.g. his long entry on al-Dakhwār, we are certainly worse off for having no

recourse to a similar entry on Ibn al-Nafīs.

Similarly, later biographical entries claim that Ibn al-Nafīs was appointed the

Chief Physician of Egypt.30 Given that this office was usually assigned on the basis of an

official governmental decree, Schacht and Meyerhof argue that Ibn al-Nafīs was quite

possibly appointed by Sultan Baybars himself—especially since, based on the vivid and

accurate description of Baybars in one of Ibn al-Nafīs’s texts, they conclude that he was

the “personal physician of Baybars.”31 However, no surviving biographies of Baybars

link Ibn al-Nafīs to him and, as a result, they cannot provide us with any information on

28
DSB, s.v. “Ibn al-Nafis.”

29
Schacht and Meyerhof claim that this “strange silence must be the result of personal enmity or
professional jealousy or both.” They also show that the one surviving manuscript of Ibn Abī Usaybica’s
work that has an additional section on Ibn al-Nafīs is a much later addition (Theologus, p. 10). Moreover,
they claim that the fact that Ibn Abī Usaybica is incorrectly cited as a source of information about Ibn al-
Nafīs in two manuscripts of al-cUmarī’s biography illustrates that medieval biographers of Ibn al-Nafīs also
found Ibn Abī Usaybica’s omission puzzling (p. 12). A recent dissertation on Ibn Abī Usaybica concurs
with Schacht and Meyerhof’s judgment that professional envy was the reason for Ibn al-Nafīs’s exclusion;
see Franak Hilloowala, “An Analysis of Ibn Abī Usaybica’s cUyūn al-anbā’ fi tabaqāt al-atibbā’” (PhD
Diss., University of Arizona, 2000), p. 90.

30
See, for example, Shams al-Dīn Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Dhahabī, Ta’rīkh al-Islām wa wafāyāt al-
mashāhir wa’l-aclām, ed. cUmar Tadmuri (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-cArabi, 1989), vol. 51, p. 312; and Ibn
Kathir, al-Bidaya, vol. 13, p. 260. Al-Dhahabī states that Ibn al-Nafīs landed the post of the chief
physician of Egypt (intahat ilayhi riyāsat al-tibb bi’l-diyār al-misriyya), while Ibn Kathīr calls him the
chief physician (al-hakīm al-ra’īs) in his obituary.

31
Theologus, pp. 18–19.

45
the life of Ibn al-Nafīs himself. Thus, for the earliest sources on the life of Ibn al-Nafīs

we have to turn to later biographical dictionaries written during the fourteenth century.32

One of the glaring problems with these entries is that they give us almost no

insight into the course of his life. Thus, the two long, approximately identical, entries of

Ibn Fadl al-cUmarī (d. 1349) and Khalīl al-Safadī (d. 1363) refer to much anecdotal

information about his manners and customs, but barely provide any details regarding his

schooling in the various sciences, his patrons, and other relevant biographical material.33

For example, we are informed that he grew up in Damascus and that he “built himself a

house in Cairo” and died there, but they provide us with no information regarding when

or why he moved from Damascus to Cairo. On the other hand, there are a number of

anecdotes that inform us about his outstanding productivity and mastery over various

sciences.34 Similarly, we are informed that he was attached to the Mansūrī Hospital in

Cairo and that he also taught religious law at the Masrūriyya madrasa (school of law) in

Cairo, but once again we do not know when he was appointed to the madrasa or for how

long he held this position. Moreover, we do not even know why he came to be known by

the sobriquet, Ibn al-Nafīs. This question is pertinent in light of the fact that all

manuscripts of his works from the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries refer to him as

32
For a list of texts that contain notices on Ibn al-Nafīs, see Theologus, pp. 10–22.

33
The entries of al-cUmarī and al-Safadī are almost identical. Schacht and Meyerhof provide the Arabic
text and translation of al-Safadī’s entry in Theologus, pp. 12–17, 143–146. Zaydān provides the Arabic
text of al-cUmarī’s entry in full in his cAla’ al-Din, pp. 39–45.

34
Theologus, pp. 12–16.

46
merely, cAlā’ al-Dīn Abu ’l-cAlā’ cAlī ibn Abī ’l-Haram al-Qarashī. Yet, all the

biographical entries state that he was known as Ibn al-Nafīs.35

Nonetheless, there is still much that we can extract from these entries. One way is

to collate the anecdotal information in these entries with Ibn al-Nafīs’s own writings. For

example, by consulting the works of Ibn al-Nafīs, Schacht and Meyerhof concur with the

biographies that claim that Ibn al-Nafīs was indeed a profuse writer and that he did

indeed write from memory.36 Similarly, we know that he was well trained in the

religious, philosophical and medical sciences because the anecdotes refer to his mastery

over these subjects and his surviving works attest to that as well. In fact, we can go a

step further. That is, by paying close attention to how and by whom he is remembered,

and by checking that against Ibn al-Nafīs’s own works, we can firmly ground Ibn al-

Nafīs’s own philosophical and religious commitments. This, in turn, should provide us

with some insights into the reasons behind Ibn al-Nafīs’s departures from religious (this

chapter and chapter 3), philosophical (chapter 3) and medical traditions (chapter 4).

Moreover, such an analysis will also provide us with an opportunity to perceive the

changes that were taking place in the intellectual scenery of thirteenth and fourteenth

century Egypt.

35
The biographical entries also list him as Abī ’l-Hazm and not Abī ’l-Haram; see, Theologus, pp. 75; and
Zaydan, cAla’ al-Din, pp. 30–32, 62. Zaydan argues that the name, “Ibn al-Nafīs,” was incorrectly assigned
to Ibn al-Nafīs after his death. However, the manuscript of a commentary on the Canon of Medicine of Ibn
Sīnā by a contemporary called, Qutb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī (1236–1311), refers to Ibn al-Nafīs as “Ibn al-Nafīs,”
as well as “Abī ’l-Hazm”; see A. Z. Iskandar, A Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts of Medicine and Science
In the Wellcome Historical Medical Library (London: Wellcome Historical Medical Library, 1967), p. 45.
Iskandar, however, does not provide the date for this manuscript of al-Shīrāzī.

36
Theologus, p. 17, 22; and EI2, s.v. “Ibn al-Nafīs.”

47
2.3 Ibn al-Nafīs: A Traditionalist-Philosopher-Physician?

Ibn al-Nafis’s participation in religious circles stands out in all the biographical

discussions. He is claimed by the Shāficī legal scholars, who include him in their

biographical dictionaries.37 For example, Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī (d. 1370) not only includes

Ibn al-Nafīs among the Shāficī scholars but he even claims that he composed a

commentary on the Tanbīh of Abū Ishāq al-Shīrāzī (d. 1083)—a “well-known treatise of

religious law, according to the Shāficī school.”38 Similarly, even the more secular

biographical dictionaries of al-Safadī and al-cUmarī maintain that he explained the

Tanbīh to students.39 His mastery over law is also highlighted by Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūtī

(d. 1505), even though al-Suyūtī includes Ibn al-Nafīs in a section on the representatives

of “the ancient sciences” (culūm al-awā’il) and not in his section on Shāficī scholars.40

Moreover, al-cUmarī and al-Safadī maintain that Ibn al-Nafīs held a teaching position at

37
See, for example, Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī, T abaqāt al-shāficiyya al-kubrā, ed. cAbd al-Fattah Muhammad
al-Hilw (Cairo: Hajar li’l-Tibaca wa’l-Nashr, 1992), vol. 8, pp. 305–306; cAbd al-Rahīm ibn al-Hasan al-
Isnawī, T abaqāt al-shāficiyya, ed. cAbd Allah al-Juburi (Baghdad: Ri’asat Diwan al-Awqaf, 1970–1971),
vol. 2, p. 506–507; and Ibn Qādī Shuhba, T abaqāt al-shāficiyya, ed. cAbd al-cAlim Khan (Hyderabad:
Matbacat Majlis Da’irat al-Macarif al-cUthmaniyya, 1978–80), vol. 2, p. 241–242. Also see Theologus, pp.
19–22.

38
al-Subki, Tabaqat, vol. 8, p. 305; and Theologus, p. 14, fn. 1.

39
Theologus, pp. 13–14. I am using the term “secular biographical dictionary” to refer to the works of
those scholars who were not part of the traditionalist movement, i.e. they did not have an overt and strong
traditionalist agenda in writing their dictionaries. However, as we shall see below, this does not mean that
al-cUmarī and al-Safadī were not interested in religious issues or concerned with medieval discussions on
the harmony between reason and revelation. I would like to thank Prof. Wadad Qadi for bringing this to
my attention.

40
Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūtī, H usn al-Muhādara fī ta’rīkh misr wa’l-qāhira, ed. Muhammad Ibrahim (N.P.:
Matbacat Idarat al-Watan, 1967–68), vol. 1, p. 542.

48
the Masrūriyya madrasa, though curiously this is not mentioned in the biographical

dictionaries of Shāficī scholars.41

In addition to his being described as a jurist, he is also commended for his

adherence to religious strictures and overall piety in two concrete ways. First, al-cUmarī

and al-Safadī both preserve an anecdote related to his last illness that portrays him as a

strict observer of religious laws. Thus, according to the anecdote, when Ibn al-Nafīs is

advised to drink some wine in the likelihood that it may cure him, he refuses by saying,

“I will not meet God, the Most High, with any wine in me.”42 His portrayal as a

physician who refused wine, even for curative purposes, would have been extremely

important for the religious scholars, for it allowed them to claim him as they attempted to

reconcile revealed knowledge with medicine in the emerging genre of T ibb al-Nabī

(Medicine of the Prophet).43 Moreover, this anecdote would have also shielded Ibn al-

Nafīs from the rebuke of religious scholars who believed that those who participated in

philosophical discussions and the ancient sciences turned away from prescribed religious

duties, specifically “religious rites pertaining to the . . . avoidance of prohibited things.”44

Of course, Ibn al-Nafīs’s own characterization of the Mongol invasion as a God-sent

recompense for the increase in sinful activities in the Muslim community (especially

drinking), reinforces his image as a God-fearing, sunna-abiding Muslim.45

41
Theologus, p. 13; al-Subki, Tabaqat, vol. 8, pp. 305–306; and Ibn Qadi Shuhba, Tabaqat, vol. 2, p.
241–242.

42
Theologus, p. 145; and Zaydan, cAla’ al-Din, p. 41.

43
See Perho, The Prophet’s Medicine.

44
al-Ghazālī, The Incoherence of the Philosophers: A Parallel English-Arabic Text, ed. and tr. Michael
Marmura (Provo: Brigham University Press, 1997), p. 1.

45
Theologus, pp. 98–100.

49
 Second, al-cUmarī and al-Safadī both preserve a description of Ibn al-Nafīs’s

Risālat Fādil ibn Nātiq (The Book of Fādil ibn Nātiq), in which the book is correctly

described as defending “the system of Islam and the Muslims’ doctrines on the missions

of Prophets, the religious laws, the resurrection of the body, and the transitoriness of the

world.”46 Although Ibn al-Nafīs’s book is mistakenly taken to be a response to the work

of Ibn Sīnā (lat. Avicenna, d. 1037), the connection would have been significant for

medieval readers. For, Ibn Sīnā was known to have postulated a spiritual resurrection on

the basis of rational arguments and was attacked for doing so by al-Ghazālī (lat. Algazel,

d. 1111) in his Incoherence of the Philosophers. Yet, al-Ghazālī never offered a rational

defense for bodily resurrection himself.47 Thus, Ibn al-Nafīs’s rational arguments for

bodily resurrection would have been seen as exemplifying the proper use of reason and

the harmony between reason and revelation.48 That is why the biographical dictionaries

assign “excessive intelligence” and “a skillful intellect” to Ibn al-Nafīs and document his

participation in the religious sciences, e.g. hadīth (traditions) and fiqh (jurisprudence),

and the ancient sciences, e.g. mantiq (logic), in the same breath.49 As a result, Ibn al-

Nafīs emerges as an Ibn Sīnā that even hadīth scholars could accept, though not Ibn Sīnā

the metaphysician, but Ibn Sīnā the physician.

46
Ibid., p. 14, my emphasis; and Zaydan, cAla’ al-Din, p. 42.

47
In al-Ghazālī’s epistemological and cosmological scheme such a rational defense is not in fact possible.
See Timothy Gianotti, al-Ghazālī’s Unspeakable Doctrine of the Soul: Unveiling the Esoteric Psychology
and Eschatology of the Ihyā’ (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2001).

48
For more on this see chapter 3.

49
al-Suyuti, Husn, vol. 1, p. 542; Theologus, p. 13; Zaydan, cAla’ al-Din, pp. 41, 43; al-Dhahabi, Ta’rikh,
vol. 51, p. 313; and al-Subki, Tabaqat, vol. 8, p. 305.

50
 Ibn al-Nafīs’s mastery over medicine is repeatedly emphasized by all of his

biographers. A number of his medical works are listed by al-cUmarī and al-Safadī along

with the fact that they are multi-volume works, in order to stress his proficiency in

medicine. In fact, they also refer to the long commentaries he wrote on Ibn Sīnā’s

medical works.50 The biographies of traditionalist scholars emphasize the fact that one of

his texts, al-Shāmil fī ’l-Tibb (The Comprehensive Book on Medicine), was scheduled to

be completed in 300 volumes but fair copies were made of only 80 of them.51 Given that

they also maintain that he wrote from memory, Ibn al-Nafīs’s mastery over medicine

evokes considerable admiration, especially since Ibn Sīnā proclaimed that he knew all

there was to know about medicine and yet his Canon is much smaller in size than this

massive work of Ibn al-Nafīs.52

The attempts to compare Ibn al-Nafīs and Ibn Sīnā as physicians, even to the

point of elevating the former over the latter, are quite explicit. For example, al-cUmarī

and al-Safadī record that he was known as “the second Ibn Sīnā.”53 Similarly, just after

referring to Ibn al-Nafīs’s al-Shāmil fī ’l-T ibb, al-Subkī states:

As for medicine, there has never been anyone on this earth like [Ibn al-Nafīs].
Some say that after Ibn Sīnā there has never been one like [Ibn al-Nafīs], while
some say that he was better than Ibn Sīnā in practical treatment.54

50
Theologus, pp. 12, 15; and Zaydan, cAla’ al-Din, pp. 40, 44.

51
al-Subki, Tabaqat, vol. 8, p. 305; Ibn Qadi Shuhba, Tabaqat, vol. 2, p. 241; and al-Dhahabi, Ta’rikh,
vol. 51, p. 312

52
William E. Gohlman, The Life of Ibn Sina: A Critical Edition and Annotated Translation (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1974), pp. 27–39; and Ibn Sīnā, al-Qānūn fī ’l-Tibb, notes by Muhammad
Amin al-Dinnawi, 3 vols (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-cIlmiyya, 1999).

53
Zaydan, cAla’ al-Din, p. 44; and Theologus, p. 15.

54
al-Subki, Tabaqat, vol. 8, p. 305, my emphasis. The identical passage is also cited in Ibn Qadi Shuhba,
Tabaqat, vol. 2, p. 242.

51
In a similar vein, Ibn Taghrībirdī (d. 1469) claims that “during [Ibn al-Nafīs’s] time there

was no one that could compare to him in medicine—practical [cilāj] or theoretical

[cilm].”55 Al-Dhahabī (d. 1348) and al-Isnawī (d. 1370), likewise, maintain that he was

unsurpassed in medicine during his lifetime and unparalleled in his preparation of

medicinal treatments (istihdāran) and medical inferences (istinbātan).56 His ability to

infer logically and the claims of his superiority over Ibn Sīnā are also combined in an

unknown biography of Ibn al-Nafīs that is preserved by al-cUmarī and al-Safadī:

He wrote a commentary on the Qānūn in twenty volumes, in which he elucidated

the scientific problems, pointed out the logical conclusions, and explained the
medical difficulties.57

The authority of Ibn al-Nafīs, in comparison to that of Ibn Sīnā, is further stressed

in two important ways. First, while referring to his commentary on the entire Canon of

Ibn Sīnā, al-cUmari and al-Safadī add that it was through Ibn al-Nafīs’s referral to the

Canon that the people (al-nās) were led to reading that book.58 Thus, Ibn al-Nafīs is

presented as bestowing respect upon Ibn Sīnā the physician, and so being in an elevated

and authoritative position. Second, the conservative traditionalists, e.g. al-Dhahabī, Ibn

Kathīr and al-Suyūtī, present him as the Chief Physician of Egypt.59 This title is not to be

55
Ibn Taghrībirdī, al-Nujūm al-zāhira fī mulūk misr wa’l-qāhira (Cairo: al-Mu’assasa al-Misriyya al-
c
Amma, 1963–1971), vol. 7, p. 377.

56
al-Dhahabi, Ta’rikh, vol. 51, p. 312; and al-Isnawi, Tabaqat, vol. 2, p. 506.

57
Theologus, p. 15; and Zaydan, cAla’ al-Din, p. 44.

58
Theologus, p. 16; and Zaydan, cAla’ al-Din, p. 44.

59
al-Dhahabi, Ta’rikh, vol. 51, p. 312; Ibn Kathir, Bidaya, vol. 13, p. 260; and al-Suyuti, Husn, vol. 1, p.
542. As cited earlier, al-Dhahabī states that Ibn al-Nafīs “landed the post of the chief physician of Egypt”
(intahat ilayhi riyāsat al-tibb bi’l-diyār al-misriyya), while Ibn Kathīr calls him “the chief physician” (al-
hakīm al-ra’īs) in his obituary. Al-Suyūtī uses the phrase “the leader of medicine in the lands of Egypt”
(shaykh al-tibb bi’l-diyār al-misriyya).

52
found in the early biographies of al-cUmarī or al-Safadī, even though within their entries

on Ibn al-Nafīs they use the exact same title to refer to another physician who used to be

present in the gatherings (majālis) at Ibn al-Nafīs’s house.60 As mentioned above, since

this was an official post and because we do not have any other records that refer to Ibn al-

Nafīs by this title, including his own texts, or those of his students or contemporaries, one

may conjecture that al-Dhahabī first assigned this title to Ibn al-Nafīs to ground his

authority firmly and to complete his comparison between Ibn al-Nafīs and the shaykh al-

ra’īs, Ibn Sīnā. All in all, there is no doubt that the biographies, specifically those of the

traditionalist scholars, portray Ibn al-Nafīs as a physician of equal, if not greater merit

than Ibn Sīnā. Additionally, they also present Ibn al-Nafīs as a devout, orthodox Muslim:

first, by emphasizing his religiosity (see above) and, second, by passing over his

commitment to falsafa.

Not a single biographical entry on Ibn al-Nafīs uses the term falsafa while

documenting his intellectual pursuits.61 This absence is noteworthy because, as we shall

see in the next chapter, Ibn al-Nafīs was well-read in falsafa. In fact, both, al-cUmarī and

al-Safadī, record his familiarity with Ibn Sīnā’s Shifā’—the great compendium of

falsafa.62 Yet, when describing Ibn al-Nafīs’s participation in the various sciences, the

conservative traditionalists prefer the milder term mantiq (logic) to falsafa.63 This choice

60
Theologus, p. 16; and Zaydan, cAla’ al-Din, p. 44.

61
In a similar vein, his knowledge of kalām (speculative theology) is also never stated in the biographies.
This is striking because Ibn al-Nafīs was well-versed in kalām and makes a number of references to kalām
scholars and their views in his works (see below).

62
Theologus, p. 15; and Zaydan, cAla’ al-Din, p. 43.

63
al-Dhahabi, Ta’rikh, vol. 51, p. 313; al-Subki, Tabaqat, vol. 8, p. 305; Ibn Qadi Shuhba, Tabaqat, vol.
2, p. 242; and al-Suyuti, Husn, vol. 1, p. 542.

53
is understandable given that during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there was a

growing concern over falsafa’s “potential to . . . threaten the afterlife of the believer.” As

a result, it was considered suspicious.64 Yet, al-Dhahabī—a conservative hadīth scholar

upon whom subsequent traditionalist biographers rely—makes the effort to use the milder

term “logic” only in the case of Ibn al-Nafīs. Indeed, by contrast, he documents clearly

and explicitly the participation of Ibn Sīnā, al-Ghazālī and Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī in

falsafa, kalām and related sciences.65 Moreover, in each case he correlates falsafa with a

turning away from the sunna and hadīth. Thus, in the case of al-Rāzī, al-Dhahabī links

his “deviation from the sunna” (inhirāfāt can sunna) to his following the path of the

falāsifa.66 In his entry on al-Ghazālī, after summarizing his autobiography, al-Dhahabī

proceeds to caution the reader against meddling in falsafa and excess Sūfism and refers to

the propensity of al-Ghazālī to include false hadīth in his texts.67 Above all, towards the

end of his entry on Ibn Sīnā, al-Dhahabī states:

I have buttressed in my Ta’rīkh al-Islām that which I have summarized [here],

e.g. that he was the leader of the Islamic falāsifa. After al-Fārābī, there has never
been anyone like him and, for [the sake of] Islam and the sunna, thank God for
that!68

Thus, it is clear that al-Dhahabī downplays Ibn al-Nafīs’s training in, and commitment to,

falsafa intentionally.

64
Sonja Brentjes, “On the Location of the Ancient Or ‘Rational’ Sciences,” pp. 62–63.

65
Shams al-Din Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Dhahabī, Siyar aclām al-nubalā’, ed. Shucayb al-Arna’ut
(Beirut: Mu’assasat al-Risala, 1996), vol. 18, pp. 531–536, vol. 19, pp. 322–346, vol. 21, pp. 500–501.

66
Ibid., vol. 21, p. 501.

67
Ibid., vol. 19, pp. 339–346.

68
Ibid., vol. 18, p. 535. Al-Dhahabī also goes on to mention that al-Ghazālī declared Ibn Sīnā a kāfir
(heretic).

54
 Along with other biographers, al-Dhahabī presents Ibn al-Nafīs as an intelligent,

rational, yet strict observant Muslim physician who sticks closely to the hadīth and the

sunna of the Prophet. To be fair, such a characterization may not be too far off the mark,

for we have already noted that Ibn al-Nafīs wrote an entire treatise defending orthodox

religious practices and beliefs (see above and also chapter 3). Furthermore, he also wrote

an entire treatise on the sciences of hadīth (culūm al-hadīth), Mukhtasar fī cilm usūl al-

hadīth (A Short Summary on the Science of Principles of H adīth).69 Therefore, Ibn al-

Nafīs certainly lends himself to being claimed as a traditionalist. Moreover, since the

more rationally oriented theologians, whether they be the falāsifa or the Muctazilī

mutakallimūn, were prone to rejecting hadīth and/or dealing with them poorly, as

Binyamin Abrahomov has argued elsewhere, Ibn al-Nafīs’s simultaneous adherence to

hadīth and philosophical precepts would sit uncomfortably with traditionalists and hadīth

scholars.70 Hence, al-Dhahabī soothes the dissonance by sliding over Ibn al-Nafīs’s

commitment to falsafa while emphasizing his traditionalist leanings. Thus, as noted

above, he emphasizes Ibn al-Nafīs’s gift to write from memory—a gift highly valued by

hadīth scholars and other traditionalists. He also reports on Ibn al-Nafīs on the authority

of “the Imam Abū Hayyān al-Andalūsī,”71 who is listed by later scholars as a hāfiz72 (pl.

huffāz) himself, and one on whose authority the most important religious scholars and

69
Ibn al-Nafīs, Mukhtasar fī cilm usul al-hadīth, ed. Yusuf Zaydan (Cairo: al-Dar al-Misriyya al-
Lubnaniyya, 1991).

70
See Abrahamov, Islamic Theology.

71
al-Dhahabi, Ta’rikh, vol. 51, p. 312.

72
Hāfiz is the term used “to distinguish the truly exceptional and indispensable men of learning from the
thousands of trustworthy transmitters” of hadīth. It is seen by hadīth scholars as “an unambiguous stamp
of religious authority . . .”; Lucas, Constructive Critics, p. 376.

55
huffāz related traditions.73 And since a great traditionalist like Abū Hayyān studied under

Ibn al-Nafīs and spoke highly of him, in the eyes of al-Dhahabī, Ibn al-Nafīs must be a

strict follower of the sunna.

Nevertheless, al-Dhahabī does not entirely claim Ibn al-Nafīs as one of the ahl al-

hadīth, i.e. a person who is an authority in the science of hadīth and on whose authority

hadīth may be reliably transmitted. For example, neither al-Dhahabī nor any other

biographer ever lists the hadīth scholars under whom Ibn al-Nafīs studied. Moreover,

they do not even mention when or under whom Ibn al-Nafīs studied the canonical

collections of hadīth. Similarly, the specifically Shāficī scholars never mention the names

of Ibn al-Nafīs’s Shāficī teachers. Additionally, though al-Dhahabī and others mention

that Ibn al-Nafīs wrote a text on the sciences of hadīth, they never cite the name of the

book nor do they mention the fact that it is a brief summary. In fact, the only additional

information about this text comes from the entries in al-cUmarī and al-Safadī where they

cite the hāfiz Abū Hayyān as having said that, “[Ibn al-Nafīs] also wrote on the principles

of jurisprudence [usūl al-fiqh] and on applied law [fiqh], on Arabic languages, traditions

[hadīth], rhetoric and other subjects; but in these sciences he did not stand in the front

rank, he only took part in them.”74 This off-hand judgment in fact provides an interesting

insight into the delicate relationship between Ibn al-Nafīs and his traditionalist

biographers. For, regardless of the validity of Abū Hayyān’s judgment, there is clearly

something about Ibn al-Nafīs’s text on hadīth that did not sit well with the hadīth

73
See, for example, Ibn Qadi Shuhba, Tabaqat, vol. 3, pp. 88–89, 91–92.

74
Theologus, p. 13; and Zaydan, cAla’ al-Din, p. 41, my emphasis.

56
scholars and other traditionalists, forcing them to distance themselves from Ibn al-Nafīs’s

views on hadīth.

In what follows, I shall carefully compare Ibn al-Nafīs’s text on hadīth with the

treatise that was, and still is, considered the unsurpassed classic in this field, in order to

illustrate why Ibn al-Nafīs could not be unreservedly accepted by traditionalists as a

hadīth scholar. Nonetheless, in the process we shall also see that Ibn al-Nafīs was deeply

committed to certain core principles of the sciences of hadīth. Consequently, in light of

these commitments, we will be able to improve our understanding of Ibn al-Nafīs’s larger

project in his philosophical/theological fable, Risālat Fādil ibn Nātiq (chapter 3).

2.4 The Place of Reason in the Study of h
adīth

The discipline known as culūm al-hadīth (sciences of hadīth), which deals with

the classification of the disciplines of hadīth, goes back to the time of the first canonical

collections. The Sahīh (Sound hadīth) of Muslim b. al-Hajjāj (d. 874) contains an

introduction that is seen as the first treatise on this topic.75 Though there were a few

significant works on this topic between the time of Muslim and the thirteenth century, the

treatise on usūl al-hadīth by the Shāficī scholar Ibn al-Salāh al-Shahrazūrī (d. 1245),

known as the Muqaddima of Ibn al-Salāh, “eclipsed all previous efforts toward the

classification of the hadīth disciplines, [and] has remained unsurpassed, and enormously

75
Lucas, Constructive Critics, p. 26. This introduction has been translated by G. H. A. Juynboll,
“Muslim’s Introduction to his Sahīh, Translated and Annotated with an Excursus on the Chronology of
Fitna and Bidca,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 5 (1984): 263–311, reprinted in G. H. A. Juynboll,
Studies on the Origins and Uses of Islamic Hadīth (Brookfield: Variorum, 1996). For a partial list of the
classic works written on this topic from the ninth century to the fourteenth century, see Habeeb Rahman
Ibramsa, “The Development of the Science of H adīth: an Analytical Study of Ibn Hajar’s Contribution to
the Science of H adīth with Special Reference to his Nukhbat al-Fikr,” (PhD Diss., Temple University,
1998), pp. 4–11.

57
influential, in the field to this day.”76 Its emergence as “the ‘canonical’ work of Sunnī

hadīth disciplines” can be gleaned from the fact that there were “seventeen abridgements

of, commentaries on and supplements to” this work in the following two centuries

alone.77 On the other hand, Ibn al-Nafīs’s text, though written within a few decades of

the Muqaddima, did not have any influence on later scholars and, as we noted above, is

not even named by subsequent traditionalists. Although explaining why Ibn al-Salāh

exercised such influence over subsequent traditionalists is beyond the scope of this

dissertation, nevertheless, if we take that as a fact then we can illustrate why embracing

Ibn al-Nafīs’s treatise would have proven to be problematic for those same scholars.

Ibn al-Salāh begins his treatise by praising the science of hadīth as the best of all

sciences and the most beneficial of all the arts.78 He proceeds to elevate it above fiqh

(applied law), claiming that those involved with fiqh have to engage with the hadīth

sciences in order to pick out mistakes within fiqh writings.79 He then states that he has

collected in this book “the knowledge of the disciplines of the science of hadīth” and

revealed its secrets, established its rules and explained its principles, among other

issues.80 The introduction ends with a list of all the chapters, referred to as anwāc

(disciplines). These chapters have been neatly grouped into the following disciplinary

categories by Scott Lucas: a. grades of hadīth; b. types of hadīth according to isnād

76
Lucas, Constructive Critics, p. 27.

77
Ibid., p. 28; and Ibn al-Salāh, Muqaddimat Ibn al-Salāh, ed. cA’isha bint al-Shati’ (Cairo: Dar al-
Ma arif, 1990), pp. 52–62.
c

78
Ibn al-Salah, Muqaddima, p. 145.

79
Ibid., p. 145.

80
Ibid., p. 146.

58
(chains of transmission); c. types of hadīth according to matn (content) and/or isnād; d.

arts and techniques of hadīth transmission; e. isnād criticism, known as cilm al-rijāl.81

The introduction of Ibn al-Nafīs’s text, on the other hand, has an entirely different

feel. Rather than merely praising the science of hadīth as an important science and one

that stands before and above fiqh, Ibn al-Nafīs actually proceeds to provide a

classification scheme of the sciences that rationally places hadīth over fiqh.82 First, he

begins by classifying all the sciences into two categories: samciyya (transmitted sciences)

and caqliyya (rational sciences), stating that the former differ from the latter in that they

use in their arguments (hujjaj) premises transmitted authoritatively along with rational

premises, whereas the rational sciences only use rational premises.83 He then divides the

transmitted sciences into those that take their premises from authorities whose veracity is

established, i.e. God, His messenger and the consensus of the community, and those

whose transmitted premises are not necessarily true. The former sciences are called the

religious sciences (culūm al-sharciyya) while the rest are known as the literary sciences

(culūm al-adabiyya).84

Next, he proceeds to classify the various literary and religious sciences in a

coherent, logical order. Thus, for the literary sciences he begins with a distinction

between individual words and compound words, and the ways in which the different

81
Ibid., pp. 147–150; and Lucas, Constructive Critics, pp. 29–33.

82
Ibn al-Nafis, Mukhtasar, pp. 95–98.

83
Ibid., p. 95.

84
Ibid., p. 95.

59
sciences analyze them to classify the sciences of rhetoric, grammar, prosody, etc.85 For

the religious sciences, he begins by distinguishing between those sciences that deal with

practical applications (fiqh) and those that do not. In the latter case, he further subdivides

them into whether they deal with the meaning of the texts or not, and also according to

whether the text is of God or His messenger. Within this context, he refers to the science

of the meaning of hadīth as the science that deals with the meanings of the words of the

Prophet, and the rest of the sciences of hadīth as those that deal with verifying that the

transmissions are indeed reliably related on the authority of the Prophet.86 The purpose

of Ibn al-Nafīs’s book, as that of Ibn al-Salāh’s to an extent, is to introduce the reader to

these last categories of sciences/disciplines and their principles.

Ibn al-Nafīs concludes this introductory section by establishing a hierarchical

system within these religious sciences:

The science of kalām is concerned with the essence of God and the attributes
[sifāt] attributed to him and the like. For that reason it is the most honorable of
these sciences. After it come those that are concerned with the words of God,
such as the science of recitation and exegesis [tafsīr]. After these come those that
are concerned with the words of the Prophet, his actions and his decisions, and
these are the sciences of hadīth, which share with the science of the principles of
jurisprudence [cilm usūl al-fiqh], and similarly with the science of legal
disputation [cilm al-jadal al-fiqhī], their examination of these things.

However, the hadīth scholar [muhaddith] examines these things in order to

establish the soundness of the hadīth transmission or to understand the meaning of
the [transmitted] sayings. In the meantime, the legal theorist [al-usūlī] examines
them to elucidate how to extract legal issues from them, while the disputant [al-
jadalī] examines them to elucidate how to use them to maintain the opinion of a
[particular] legist [mujtahid]. For that reason, these sciences are close in dignity,
but the science of hadīth is nobler because it strives to get to the essence of these
things [i.e. the words, actions and deeds of the Prophet] and the reports [about

85
Ibid., pp. 95–96.

86
Ibid., p. 96.

60
 them], as opposed to the legal theorist and the disputant who only examine these
things in order to elucidate how to use them for other things. . . .

[Moreover,] the [science] of the principles of jurisprudence, the [science] of

disputation, and fiqh only use the words, actions and decisions of the Prophet after
the science of hadīth has established their soundness. Thus, all these sciences are
in need of this science. Hence, the science of hadīth is nobler than them on this
account as well.87

Although the conclusions of Ibn al-Nafīs and Ibn al-Salāh are identical, there is a

considerable difference in the manner in which they arrive at their conclusions that

illuminates their latent commitments. Ibn al-Nafīs’s text resembles a philosophical

treatise on the classification of sciences, with its reasoned arguments and logical ordering

scheme,88 whereas Ibn al-Salāh’s text is merely a pious defense of the virtues of the

hadīth sciences. Hence, whereas Ibn al-Salāh merely asserts the superiority of hadīth to

fiqh, Ibn al-Nafīs seeks to demonstrate it rationally.

It is also important to note the central role that reason plays for Ibn al-Nafīs even

in the religious sciences. Religious sciences are based on rational and authoritative

premises together, and not the latter alone. It is indeed worthwhile to compare this

definition of the transmitted sciences (samciyya) from Ibn al-Nafīs, to one offered by the

famous historian, Ibn Khaldūn (d. 1382) in his Muqaddima:

It should be known that the sciences . . . are of two kinds: one that is natural to
man and to which he is guided by his own ability to think, and a traditional kind
that he learns from those who invented it. . . . The second kind comprises the
traditional, conventional sciences. All of them depend upon information based on
the authority of the given religious law. There is no place for the intellect in them,

87
Ibid., pp. 96–98.

88
See, for example, Jean Jolivet, “Classification of the Sciences,” in Rashed, ed., Encyclopedia, vol. 3, pp.
1008–1025.

61
 save that the intellect may be used in connection with them to relate problems of
detail with basic principles.89

Thus, we see that Ibn al-Nafīs is certainly placing a heavier emphasis on the role of

reason in religious sciences than was commonly accepted by his contemporaries and

successors.

This persistent appeal to reason and rational argumentation is characteristic of Ibn

al-Nafīs’s entire tract and has no counterpart in Ibn al-Salāh’s treatise. For example,

immediately after the short introduction, Ibn al-Salāh proceeds to explain the three broad

categories of hadīth: sahīh (sound), hasan (good) and dacīf (weak). Ibn al-Nafīs, on the

other hand, follows up the introduction with another section on classifying the various

kinds of reports (akhbār, sing. khabar) into four logical categories: a. decidedly true

(maclūm al-sidq); b. decidedly false (maclūm al-kadhb); c. probably true (yuzannu bihi ’l-

sidq); d. probably false (yuzannu bihi ’l-kadhb).90 Moreover, within this classification

scheme, reason plays a major role in judging the veracity or falsity of a report:

As for the report whose truthfulness is certain but not on account of the veracity
of the reporter, [it is of the following types]: it may be congruous to a report
known to be true. For example, if one reports something that is in agreement with
a report of God, or the Prophet, or is something that [all] Muslims agree upon. . . .
Likewise, what is reported may be known to be true on account of its agreement
with fact. The knowledge of that may be self-evident, for example if it is said that
two is half of four, or that the whole is greater than the parts. Or it may not be
self-evident, for example when one says that since we have a creator, the world
must be created. As for the report that is known to be false, it may be due to
knowing the truth about another report that contradicts it, either by being its
opposite or by being incompatible with it. For example, if one reported
something that contradicted the saying of God, or his Prophet or the saying of the
consensus of Muslims. It may also be false if it is known to contradict facts.

89
Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, tr. Franz Rosenthal, 3 vols. (New York:
Pantheon Books, 1958), vol. 2, p. 436, my emphasis.

90
Ibn al-Nafis, Mukhtasar, p. 99. This categorization is found regularly in the works of fiqh scholars and
jurists.

62
 Knowledge of that kind could be theoretical speculation such as the reports that
the innovators disseminate in texts on anthropomorphism . . . or it could be self-
evidently false, for example if one were to say, ‘The part is greater than the
whole!’91

The vast majority of hadīth for Ibn al-Nafīs fall under the last two categories—

probably true and probably false, including those that Ibn al-Salāh classifies as sahīh.

That is, Ibn al-Nafīs classifies a report on the authority of an upright person (al-cadl)

about a highly likely event as merely “probably true,” and so not definitively

authoritative.92 In contrast, Ibn al-Salāh identifies a select group of transmitters as

huffāz, on whose authority hadīth, as well as hadīth transmitters, are instantly classified

as sound, authoritative and definitively true/reliable.93 In this regard, Ibn al-Salāh starts

with the assumption that the two canonical hadīth collections, those of Bukhārī and

Muslim, are sound and authoritative, and the goal of the entire treatise is to determine

how to classify the rest of the material.94 In fact, the authoritative nature of the Sahīhayn

(Bukhārī and Muslim’s collections of hadīth) came to be the standard trope of the most

influential traditionalists in the thirteenth and fourteenth century, including Ibn al-Salāh

and al-Dhahabī.95 For these scholars, the institutionalization of the canon of the Sahihayn

91
Ibid., pp. 100–101, my emphasis.

92
Ibid., p. 102.

93
See Ibn al-Salah, Muqaddima, pp. 151–173, 288–311; and Lucas, Constructive Critics, especially pp.
63–112, 375–376. The supreme authority of a select group of transmitters in classifying hadīth as sahīh is
also maintained by later hadīth scholars, e.g. Ibn Hajar al-cAsqalānī (d. 1449); see Ibramsa, The
Development of the Science of Hadith.

94
Ibn al-Salāh adheres explicitly to the absolute validity and authority of these collections and argues that
every Muslim should necessarily adhere to them as well; Muqaddima, pp. 169–171.

95
See Jonathan A. C. Brown, “The Canonization of al-Bukhārī and Muslim: The Formation and Function
of the Sunni Hadīth Canon,” (PhD Diss., University of Chicago, 2006), especially pp. 341–391.

63
served too many important functions, pushing them to the extremes of defending these

texts as sacrosanct and above reproach. Ibn al-Nafīs, on the other hand, denies the

absolute, unconditional validity and soundness of the Sahīhayn that was becoming the

norm during his time.96 Thus, even though he maintains that a report emanating from the

Prophet is definitively true on account of his veracity, he claims that since most hadīth do

not actually reach us directly from the Prophet, they can merely be classified as

“probably true” or “probably false,” based on their isnāds (chains of transmissions).97

The only exceptions are those that are multiply transmitted at each stage of their

transmission, known as mutawātir.98 And since the hadīth in the Sahīhayn do not meet

the criteria of multiple transmission, in stark contrast to Ibn al-Salāh and the majority of

thirteenth and fourteenth century traditionalists, Ibn al-Nafīs rejects the absolute

soundness of Bukhārī and Muslim:

As for the reports that are at our disposal now, most of what we adhere to are only
highly probable [ghālib al-zann] and not indubitable knowledge [al-cilm al-
muhaqqaq], contrary to [the majority of] people [qawm] who say: “Everything
that Muslim and Bukhārī agree upon is decidedly certain because the scholars
agree on the soundness of these two books.” But the truth is that that is not the
case! For the agreement is only over the permissible actions that are found in
these two [texts], but that does not preclude what is in these two from being
suspect in its soundness [idh al-ittifāq innamā waqac cala jawāzi ’l-caml bi-mā
fīhumā wa dhālika lā yunāfī an yakūn mā fīhumā maznūnan bi-sihhatihi].99

Ibn al-Nafīs’s reservations against the canonical collections, due, in particular, to

his heavy emphasis on mutawātir reports, places him within the legal scholars’ camp in

96
See Brown, “The Canonization of al-Bukhari and Muslim.”

97
Ibn al-Nafis, Mukhtasar, p. 99.

98
Ibid., p. 100.

99
Ibid., p. 115.

64
the disciplinary rivalry between fiqh and hadīth.100 For example, Ibn al-Salāh explicitly

postulates such a difference when he claims that the hadīth scholars do not use the special

term mutawātir, and so do not distinguish between them and hadīth that are known

through multiple chains (mashhūr).101 As a result, mutawātir hadīth do not have a special

epistemological status for the hadīth scholars. On the other hand, as Wael Hallaq has

shown, legal scholars only accepted mutawātir hadīth as being definitively authoritative,

and considered all remaining hadīth to be merely “probably true.”102 Thus, the fact that

hadīth scholars like al-Dhahabī do not accept Ibn al-Nafīs as a hadīth scholar may partly

be due to this disciplinary rivalry between them and the legal scholars.

Nevertheless, Ibn al-Nafīs’s heavy emphasis on reason, in particular in his attacks

against anthropomorphism, would not have endeared him to his fellow legal theorists

either. This is because all traditionalists—be they legal theorists or hadīth scholars—

tended to stay away from and criticized the use of rational arguments with regards to

anthropomorphism. They tended to define themselves against their rationalist opponents,

the mutakallimūn and the falāsifa, both of whom adhered to a “figurative interpretation of

the Qur’ān and the Sunna” with regards to anthropomorphic texts.103 Thus, traditionalist

theologians generally rebuked figurative interpretation of anthropomorphic religious texts

and instead called for them to be accepted “without interpretation.”104 More importantly,

100
Ibn al-Nafīs himself seems to be aware of this rivalry; see, for example, Mukhtasar, pp. 122, 124.

101
Ibn al-Salah, Muqaddima, pp. 453–455.

102
Wael Hallaq, “The Authenticity of Prophetic Hadith: A Pseudo-Problem,” Studia Islamica 89 (1999):
75–90. Also see Lucas, Constructive Critics, p. 31, fn. 36.

103
Abrahamov, Islamic Theology, p. 18, 23.

104
Ibid., p. 24.

65
even if they did engage in discussing these issues, they would not have considered an

usūl al-hadīth text as an appropriate place for such discussions.

Ibn al-Nafīs, on the other hand, not only posits figurative interpretation as a

necessary principle with respect to anthropomorphic texts, he also incorporates that

discussion into his usūl al-hadīth text and uses it to set up a metric by which to judge the

authenticity of a report. Thus, he places reports on anthropomorphism under the category

of “decidedly false.”105 Furthermore, he begins the last section of the treatise entitled,

“On What Diminishes the Validity of a hadīth,” by stating that a hadīth may be rejected

if there is a known liar among its transmitters. He then explicitly states that a person

responsible for widespread reports on anthropomorphism (tashbīh) has to be a liar

(kādhib) because “we know for sure that the Prophet” could not have uttered such

things.106 Finally, he concludes this section by stating:

As for lies in the meaning of a hadīth, that is as if one said: “The messenger of
God said such-and-such,” when the messenger of God actually said, “I do not say
that.” Likewise, when something transmitted on the authority of the messenger of
God seems absurd rationally [caqlan] or through law [sharcan], then it is
permissible to interpret it and reduce it to a likely meaning.107

Thus, there can be no doubt that, unlike other traditionalists, Ibn al-Nafīs categorically

denies anthropomorphism for its rational absurdity, and advocates figuratively

interpreting such texts to bring them in line with reason. As such, he adheres to his

105
Ibn al-Nafis, Mukhtasar, p. 101. Of course, he means here anthropomorphic reports ascribed to the
Prophet in hadīth collections and not verses from the Qur’ān, which he would not classify as false but in
need for interpretation (see chapter 3).

106
Ibid., p. 175.

107
Ibid., p. 175, my emphasis.

66
definition of the religious sciences as being based on revealed as well as rational premises

(see above).

This emphasis on reason throughout the treatise also forces him to highlight the

importance of examining the content and meaning of hadīth along with the isnād.

Although content analysis (cilm al-dirāya) was elevated as a principle in hadīth texts,

hadīth scholars rarely engaged in it. In most classical usūl al-hadīth texts, discussions on

the content and meaning of hadīth are noticeable only insofar as they are almost entirely

absent.108 For example, in Ibn al-Salāh’s lengthy elucidation of sahīh hadīth, he only

considers the isnād of the hadīth and never their meaning or content.109 Ibn al-Nafīs, on

the other hand, takes content analysis more seriously. Firstly, he defines al-khabar al-

sahīh (sound report) as a report that “is free from being challenged on account of its

transmitters [rijālihi], its content [matnihi] and its meaning [macnāhi], while having a

continuous chain of transmitters.”110 Secondly, as we have already seen, he questions the

unconditional soundness of all hadīth in the canonical collections. Finally, he rejects

anthropomorphic traditions outright. Furthermore, in chapter three we will see a clear

example of hadīth content analysis that will confirm that Ibn al-Nafīs truly believes in

this principle.

108
See Ibn al-Salah, Muqaddima; Robson, Introduction to the Science of Traditions; and G. H. A.
Juynboll, Muslim Tradition: Studies in Chronology, Provenance and Authorship of Early hadīth
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 161–162. Also see the classical Orientalist works on
hadīth where the lack of emphasis on content and meaning in hadīth works is heavily emphasized and, in
the case of Guillaume, ridiculed; Ignaz Goldziher, Muslim Studies, tr. S. M. Stern (London: Allen &
Unwin, 1968); Ignaz Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, tr. Andras and Ruth Hamori
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981); and A. Guillaume, The Traditions of Islam: An Introduction
to the Study of Hadith Literature (Beirut: Khayats, 1966), especially pp. 77, 86, 89.

109
Ibn al-Salah, Muqaddima, pp. 151–173.

110
Ibn al-Nafis, Mukhtasar, p. 122.

67
 Another important example of Ibn al-Nafīs’s emphasis on reason and the content

of hadīth is found in his discussion on singular reports (khabar al-wāhid). We have

already seen that Ibn al-Nafīs classifies reports as being either definitively true or false or

probably true or false. Moreover, he places mutawātir reports under the category of

reports that yield certain knowledge. All other reports are referred to as singular reports

and can only lead, at best, to probabilistic knowledge.111 Thus, all the various types of

hadīth listed by Ibn al-Salāh and Ibn al-Nafīs, including sahīh, hasan, mashhūr, etc., are

referred to by Ibn al-Nafīs as kinds (anwāc) of singular reports that can only lead to

probabilistic knowledge. However, there is one important caveat. If the singular report

presents a rational argument, then it leads to definitive knowledge and, at that point,

ceases to be classified as a singular report.112 In fact, the entire section on the importance

and need for singular reports is worth quoting at length as it emphasizes the role reason

plays in religion for Ibn al-Nafīs:

Suppose someone said, “Since the singular report only conveys probabilistic
knowledge, and since probabilistic knowledge is not at all sufficient for truth, then
how can the action of this report be permissible in law?” We say: The reason for
requiring people to perform these deeds is obvious in the case where the singular
report is related to . . . worldly affairs, e.g. the permission to enter the house and
the like. That is because in such cases it would be very cumbersome for people to
resort to mutawātir reports . . .. All scholars agree on that.

As for the case of legal rulings, the Prophet was sent to teach them to the people.
Since, in his case, he was sent for all mankind, he was required to convey these
rulings to all of them. But it is impossible for him to verbally convey these rulings
to every single person. Thus, it was necessary for him to dispatch messengers to
the people conveying the message. Moreover, it is impossible to send to every

111
Ibid., p. 119. Ibn al-Nafīs defines the singular report in the following way: “What is meant here by the
singular report is not that only one person relates it, but rather that its transmitters at every stage (tabaqa)
have neither attained a multitude to the extent that the report would be classified as mutawātir, nor has its
truth or falsehood been ascertained” (p. 120).

112
Ibid., pp. 120, 121.

68
 region messengers such that what is obtained from their words would classify as
mutawātir, for that would require a considerable number [of them to be sent to
every region]. Therefore, there is a need for the message to be conveyed to the
people through singular reports and so there is a need to make the performing of
the deeds contained within these reports obligatory. Otherwise, the deed delegated
to the people through these messengers would not be obligatory and they would
be disadvantaged [by that] and the Prophetic mission would not be completed in
that manner. For that reason, there is a need for deeds contained within singular
reports to be a part of the law.

[However], this is for those reports for which probabilistic knowledge is

sufficient. As for those that require certain knowledge [yaqīn], like the knowledge
of God and His attributes, in that case it is not permissible to act on what is in
these reports because it does not convey [certain] knowledge, and probable
knowledge in that case is not permissible. [One may ask], “How is it possible to
convey these things to all the people?” We say: That is also possible through
singular reports, but only through those reports in which the speech is oriented
towards rational proof [yasīru fī kalāmihi ila ’l-burhāni ’l-caqlī]. . . . And if one
were to ask, “Why isn’t the job of the Prophet to do that for all, i.e. to make all the
legal rulings rational?” Its response is: This is not possible . . . since it is difficult
for people to arrive demonstratively at all the secondary rulings [al-ahkām al-
farcī], for these deeds are considered to be too great . . .. Therefore, the law-giver
deems probabilistic knowledge, and hence singular reports, to be sufficient for
these. As for those precepts [ahkām] where certainty is required, i.e. precepts
upon which the faith rests [wa hiya allatī yatawaqqaf calayhā ’l-īmān], the law-
giver points to rational proofs.113

Thus, as we can see, Ibn al-Nafīs holds that rational proofs alone can elevate the

status of a singular report to that of a definitively true report. On the other hand, all other

singular reports, including those that classify as sahīh, and hence the most authoritative

for traditionalists like Ibn al-Salāh and al-Dhahabī, cannot obtain that high rank by virtue

of their transmission alone. Hence, Ibn al-Nafīs is clearly at odds with these

traditionalists in placing such a high emphasis on reason while classifying hadīth and in

dealing with the hadīth sciences. As a result, it is easy to see why al-Dhahabī, al-Suyūtī

and others were wary about appropriating Ibn al-Nafīs for their traditionalist cause.

113
Ibid., pp. 119–120, my emphasis.

69
 The above passage is also interesting in that it closely resembles the discussion of

singular reports by the Muctazilī theologian, Qādī cAbd al-Jabbār’s (d. 1025).114 As a

matter of fact, a number of things in Ibn al-Nafīs’s treatise suggest that he was well

acquainted with Muctazilī thought, and kalām more generally, even to the point of

suggesting that he might have been a Muctazilī himself.115 For example, he places kalām

at the head of all the religious sciences. That this is not merely verbal homage is evident

from his rejection of anthropomorphism and his conviction that anthropomorphic reports

need to be reinterpreted and reduced to likely meanings. Moreover, he places a heavy

emphasis on rationally evaluating hadīth—something for which the traditionalists were

incessantly attacked by Muctazilī critics.116 Finally, he often refers to Muctazilī scholars

and their views or, like in the passage above, argues in ways that closely resemble

Muctazilī arguments.117

Ibn al-Nafīs’s genial treatment of kalām, coupled with his acceptance of ta’wīl

(figurative interpretation) for anthropomorphic texts, would certainly not have endeared

him to traditionalists like al-Dhahabī. In fact, it should have led these traditionalist

biographers to rebuke him severely.118 However, we have already seen that they do not

114
See Qādī cAbd al-Jabbār, Fadl al-Ictizāl wa tabaqāt al-muctazila, quoted in Abrahamov, Islamic
Theology, pp. 45–46.

115
Schacht and Meyerhof suggest that Ibn al-Nafīs’s theological fable is in the Muctazilī mold of writings
based on the doctrine of aslah (that which is most proper); Theologus, p. 32. For a brief introduction to the
main theses of Muctazilī thought see EI2, s.v. “Muctazila” (by D. Gimaret).

116
See Abrahamov, Islamic Theology. For how the earlier Muctazilī criticisms themselves played a part in
the subsequent canonization of the Sahīhayn, see Brown, “The Canonization of al-Bukhari and Muslim.”

117
See, for example, Mukhtasar, pp. 105, 107–108, 165, where Ibn al-Nafis explicitly refers to Muctazilī
scholars.

118
We have already seen that al-Dhahabi criticizes Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and al-Ghazālī for their
participation in kalām and falsafa, even though al-Rāzī and al-Ghazālī were both Ashcarī mutakallimūn and,

70
do that. The reason for that is that Ibn al-Nafīs is really not a Muctazilī mutakallim.

Moreover, he has so much in common with traditionalists that they cannot entirely

exclude him from their circle.

There are many reasons that lead me to proclaim confidently that Ibn al-Nafīs was

not a Muctazilī mutakallim. First, for the most part, the Muctazilīs were committed to an

atomistic framework while Ibn al-Nafīs sides with the falāsifa’s Aristotelian cosmology

(see chapter 3).119 Second, he explicitly claims that the secondary legal rulings cannot be

arrived at purely rationally, which is why revelation and, in particular, singularly

transmitted reports are necessary.120 The Muctazilīs, on the other hand, argued that legal

rulings could be rationally determined based on the notion that God always does that

which can be rationally shown to be better—a doctrine known as aslah.121 Thus, Ibn al-

Nafīs clearly sides with the traditionalists against the Muctazilīs on this point. Finally,

Ibn al-Nafīs denies the Muctazilī attitudes towards the companions of the Prophet that

form the basis of one of their five basic principles.

The fourth central principle of Muctazilī kalām is the theory of the “intermediate

state” between believers and disbelievers.122 This thesis was central to the historical

development of Muctazili kalām and its perception by contemporaries. Historically,

Muslims vociferously debated over the relative probity of those companions of the

hence, closer to traditionalists; al-Dhahabi, Siyar, vol. 20, pp. 339–346, vol. 21, p. 501. Also see
Abrahamov, Islamic Theology, 52–53; and Ayman Shihadeh, “From al-Ghazālī to al-Rāzī: 6th/12th Century
Developments in Muslim Philosophical Theology,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 15 (2005): 141–179.

119
See Dhanani, The Physical Theory of Kalam.

120
Ibn al-Nafis, Mukhtasar, p. 120. Also see chapter three.

121
Robert Brunschvig, “Muctazilism et Optimum (al-aslah),” Studia Islamica 39 (1974): 5–23.

122
See EI2, s.v. “Muctazila.”

71
Prophet who participated and fought each other during the first civil war.123 The

Muctazilī scholars rejected the collective probity of all the companions and formulated

their theory of the “intermediate state,” in contradistinction to the traditionalists who

accepted the probity of the companions, tout court.124 Ibn al-Nafīs explicitly rejects the

Muctazilī position in favor of the traditionalist tenet:

The reason for the moral probity [cadāla] of the companions is due to [the fact
that] God praises the companions in his glorious book, and due to the saying of
the Prophet : “My companions are like the stars, emulate every one of them and
take them as models.” And it is only permissible to emulate those who have moral
probity. . . . Some say, “Originally they possessed moral probity, but after that
they came into conflict with one another and spilled each other’s blood [during
the 1st civil war], and so their condition became like the condition of others [i.e.
their moral probity no longer remained above suspicion].” Many of the Muctazila
say, “Indeed, cĀ’isha, may God be pleased with her, Talha, Zubayr and all of the
people of Syria and Iraq [who participated in the 1st civil war] should be declared
sinners (fāsiq) [and hence their testimonies should be rejected in matters of
hadīth].” . . . The truth is that all that occurred among the companions—may God
be pleased with them all, with regards to their differences, fighting, cursing, etc.,
was only in order to rigidify amongst themselves the religion and to strive for the
welfare of Muslims. He who corrects their errors need not reject their religion
nor their moral probity. This is our belief concerning them.125

Clearly then, Ibn al-Nafīs upholds the most fundamental tenet of the traditionalists: the

collective probity of the companions. That, in itself, is enough to explain why al-

Dhahabī, al-Suyūtī, and other conservative scholars are so keen on counting him as one

of their own.

123
For the various theological positions that were articulated to understand and explain these incidents in
the historical memory of Muslims, including the positions of the Muctazila, see W. Montgomery Watt, The
Formative Period of Islamic Thought (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1973).

124
For the history and evolution of this central traditionalist tenet of the “collective probity of the
companions,” see Lucas, Constructive Critics. For the Muctazilī rejection of hadīth and how it was related
to their rejection of the collective probity of the companions, see Abrahamov, Islamic Theology, pp. 43–48.

125
Ibn al-Nafis, Mukhtasar, pp. 164–166, my emphasis. The traditionalist, Ibn Tāhir al-Baghdādī (d.
1037) explicitly attacks the Muctazila for rejecting the moral probity of cĀ’isha and others; see his, Moslem
Schisms and Sects (Farq bayn al-firāq): Being the History of the Various Philosophical Systems Developed
in Islam, tr. K. C. Seelye (New York: AMS Press, 1966), pp. 121–124.

72
 Although I have chosen to highlight the important differences between Ibn al-

Nafīs’s hadīth text and that of Ibn al-Salāh so far, in fact, the majority of Ibn al-Nafīs’s

text is quite similar to Ibn al-Salāh’s treatise. For example, both works deal with the

following basic topics of hadīth sciences in almost exactly the same way: the kinds of

hadīth based on isnād; the different ways of referring to reports on the authority of the

companions; the different ways in which a report may be passed on from one to another

and the phrases appropriate for each, and so on. Hence, there is no doubt that Ibn al-

Nafīs had much in common with the traditionalists. Yet, we have also seen that he shared

a number of commitments with the rationalists. As such, the strict, destructive dichotomy

between reason and revelation upon which historians of Islamic science and philosophy

have traditionally relied, is incapable of truly deciphering Ibn al-Nafīs’s seemingly equal

commitment to both. We need, instead, a more robust way of navigating the complex

terrain of reason and revelation debates during the medieval Islamic period, as suggested

in the previous chapter.

2.5 Conclusion

One thing that stands out in the analysis of this chapter is that Ibn al-Nafīs

accepted the validity and authority of hadīth. Nonetheless, he was also unwilling to grant

absolute authority to the literal texts of the now-established canonical collections of

hadīth. Instead, he specifically called for the use of rational premises and argumentation

in the study of hadīth and all other religious sciences. To that end, he even transferred

the authority of the huffāz to declare a hadīth sound, to the rational evaluation of the

content of a hadīth. Thus, whereas for other hadīth scholars the presence of huffāz in a

73
narrative chain is enough to establish the hadīth as sound and, thus, authoritative, for Ibn

al-Nafīs only rational proofs can elevate the status of a hadīth to that level. This aspect of

Ibn al-Nafīs’s views would certainly have troubled his traditionalist biographers, since

the whole enterprise of hadīth that they subscribed to had specifically evolved the way it

had to diminish the role of rational speculation that had caused such divisions in the faith

community over the years.126 In their view, by pushing for a rational evaluation of the

content of hadīth, Ibn al-Nafīs was reopening the door to increased solitary

interpretations and sectarian divisions—a door that traditionalists had worked so hard to

close. Thus, due to his advocacy of rationalism within the religious sciences, the

traditionalist biographers were hesitant and uneasy about presenting Ibn al-Nafīs as a

traditionalist.

On the other hand, Ibn al-Nafīs upheld one of the basic dogmas of Sunnī

traditionalism—the collective probity of the companions. That alone ensured that Ibn al-

Nafīs could never be maligned by traditionalist scholars. But, as it turns out, Ibn al-Nafīs

also upheld another central tenet of traditionalism that was denied by the falāsifa and, to a

large extent, by the Muctazilī mutakallimūn: the impossibility of arriving at the central

beliefs and ethical rulings of revealed religion through reason alone. Unfortunately, Ibn

al-Nafīs’s prose in his theological fable has misled some scholars into thinking that Ibn

al-Nafīs actually believed in the possibility of such autodidactic learning. Nothing could

be further from the truth; he rejects autodidactic learning unequivocally. Once we

understand the delicate interplay between reason and revelation in Ibn al-Nafīs’s works,

we can truly decipher and appreciate his subtle departures from traditional religious,

126
See Brown, “The Canonization of al-Bukhari and Muslim.”

74
philosophical and physiological understandings of the soul and spirit. We shall see that

in balancing the authority he allocates to the various sources of reason and revelation, he

is forced to sever the connection between the soul, spirit and the heart, which has some

important repercussions for physiological theory and his theory of the pulmonary transit

of blood.

75
 CHAPTER 3

RATIONALIZING REVELATION, REJECTING AUTODIDACTISM:

IBN AL-NAFĪS’S RESPONSE TO THE FALĀSIFA

We have already seen in the last chapter that traditionalist scholars were hesitant

about claiming Ibn al-Nafīs as one of their own. One of the reasons I suggested to

explain this hesitancy was the central role Ibn al-Nafīs assigns to the sources of reason in

religious discussions. On numerous occasions within his usūl al-hadīth text, Ibn al-Nafīs

calls for critically evaluating the content of ahadīth in order to ensure that their contents

are rational. For that reason, he categorically rejects the validity of anthropomorphic

ahadīth. As such, he shares certain basic ideological commitments with the

mutakallimūn as well as the falāsifa, both of whom called for rationally evaluating the

content of religious texts.

The falāsifa, in fact, went a step further in demanding that all religious texts be

interpreted so as to cohere with the “established truths” of their Neoplatonic Aristotelian

system.1 In the event of a conflict between the literal meaning of scripture and this

system, the falāsifa rejected the literal meaning. That is to say, they were highly

committed to the authority of the Neoplatonic Aristotelian system and so placed little

1
See Michael Marmura, “The Islamic Philosophers’ Conception of Islam,” in Islam’s Understanding of
Itself, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian and Speros Vyronis, Jr. (Malibu, Calif.: Undena Publications, 1983), pp.
87–102.

76
value in the literal meanings of scriptural texts. They justified privileging the truths of

their system over scripture by claiming that since revelation must appeal to the masses,

and since it is impossible to communicate “deeper truths . . . to the multitude” fearing that

they may lose their religion, revelation can at best only be an “imitation of philosophy.”2

For that reason, Ibn Sīnā (d. 1037, lat. Avicenna) denied the use of scriptural sources in

philosophical arguments concerning the most central religious doctrines, e.g. bodily

resurrection.3 Instead, he argued that the falāsifa alone had access to the truth about these

doctrines, thus undermining the authority of all other religious scholars. More

importantly, the falāsifa’s self-avowed access to these truths was not through revelation

but independent of it. That is, they argued that reason is self-sufficient and capable of

arriving at religious truth independently. As such, they rejected the very foundation of

traditionalist thought: that revelation must ground all religious discussions, ranging from

law to complex theological discussions on the nature of God, the creation of the universe

and resurrection.4

However much Ibn al-Nafīs was committed to falsafa, and we shall see that he

was indeed very committed to it, he was also an avowed traditionalist and, so, indisposed

to accepting such an undermining of the authority of revelation. Thus, he took up the

gauntlet on behalf of the traditionalists to attack the falāsifa’s belief in the superiority and

2
Fazlur Rahman, Prophecy in Islam: Philosophy and Orthodoxy (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1958),
p. 42; and Marmura, “The Islamic Philosophers’ Conception of Islam,” p. 97. Al-Fārābī is the first faylasūf
who lays down this principle, which not only forms the cornerstone of al-Fārābī’s own political philosophy,
but it is also central to the philosophical system of his successors, including Ibn Sīnā, Ibn Tufayl and Ibn
Rushd.

3
Rahman, Prophecy in Islam, pp. 42–45.

4
See Binyamin Abrahamov, Islamic Theology: Traditionalism and Rationalism (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 1998).

77
self-sufficiency of reason with respect to revelation. His critique was necessitated by the

appearance of Ibn Tufayl’s (d. 1186) H ayy ibn Yaqzān, in which Ibn Tufayl defends the

possibility of autodidactic learning5 through rational inquiry and a Sūfī-style mystical

union with God.6 The particular kind of Sūfism that Ibn Tufayl advocates as rational is

very similar to the Neoplatonic Sūfism of Ibn al-cArabī (d. 1240)7—a Sūfism that was

constantly under fire during the course of the thirteenth century as it was seen as arguing

for a monistic conception of God and the universe.8 This dangerous mix of falsafa and

monistic Sūfism in Ibn Tufayl’s work is what specifically elicits Ibn al-Nafīs’s forceful

attack on autodidactic learning.

In the process of denying the possibility of autodidactic learning in religious

matters, Ibn al-Nafīs also proceeds to argue that exoteric revelation can be rational and,

as such, should not be ruled out of philosophical arguments a priori. In fact, he goes so

far as to suggest that Ibn Sīnā’s difficulty in establishing the individuality of a human

5
This self-sufficiency of reason or of a rational mysticism, which entails an individual’s ability to arrive
at religious truth independent of revelation, will be referred to as “autodidactic learning” or
“autodidactism” in the rest of this dissertation. This usage is consistent with the Latin translation of Ibn
Tufayl’s text and the English translation of Ibn al-Nafīs’s text (see below).

6
Josef Puig Montada, “Philosophy in Andalusia: Ibn Bajja and Ibn Tufayl,” in The Cambridge
Companion to Arabic Philosophy, ed. Peter Adamson and Richard Taylor (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2005), pp. 155–179. Ibn Tufayl’s treatise was first translated and published in the West
under the title, Philosophus autodidactus; see Edward Pococke, Philosophus autotdidactus, sive epistola
Abi Jafar, Ebn Thofail de Hai Ebn Yokdhan (Oxford: H. Hall, 1671).

7
Bernd Radtke, “How Can Man Reach the Mystical Union? Ibn Tufayl and the Divine Spark,” in The
World of Ibn Tufayl: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Hayy ibn Yaqzān, ed. Lawrence Conrad (Leiden: E.
J. Brill, 1996), pp. 165–194, 194.

8
Frederick De Jong and Bernd Radtke, “Introduction,” in Islamic Mysticism Contested: Thirteen
Centuries of Controversies and Polemics, ed. Frederick De Jong and Bernd Radtke (Leiden: E. J. Brill,
1999), pp. 1–21, 7. Ibn al-cArabī’s philosophical theology has been notoriously difficult to grasp, and has
led many commentators to label him as a “monist” or “pantheist.” Certainly the thirteenth and fourteenth
century traditionalists understood him as advocating an ontological monism. For a recent attempt at
elucidating Ibn al-cArabī’s understanding of the relationship between the Creator and the creation in non-
monistic terms, see Salman H. Bashier, Ibn al-cArabī’s Barzakh: The Concept of the Limit and the
Relationship between God and the World (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004).

78
soul after death can only be solved using scripture, implying that bodily resurrection can

be rationally defended. Thus, in stark opposition to the falāsifa, Ibn al-Nafīs proffers a

model whereby reason itself points to the necessity of revelation and revelation appeals to

reason to establish its own authority. That is, unlike the falāsifa, Ibn al-Nafīs distributes

his authoritative sources more evenly between reason and revelation, which is why, for

example, he is not firmly attached to an eternal, Aristotelian universe nor to aspects of

Galenic physiology. As such, his texts assume a complex interplay between reason and

revelation.

3.1 Falsafa in the Thirteenth Century and the “Heritage of Ibn Sīnā”

As indicated in chapter two, the thirteenth century was an intellectually vibrant

period that witnessed many interesting developments in a wide variety of fields: from

fiqh and hadīth scholarship, to Sūfism, and extending even to the secular, foreign

sciences.9 Although the long-standing myth that al-Ghazālī’s (d. 1111, lat. Algazel)

attack on Ibn Sīnā resulted in the decline of philosophy in this period is still frequently

invoked,10 it is an unwarranted conclusion. Philosophical thinking continued to flourish

in the aftermath of al-Ghazālī’s attack and religious scholars engaged with falsafa even

more, now that al-Ghazālī had made the ideas of the falāsifa more accessible to them.11

9
In the case of astronomy, for example, see George Saliba, A History of Arabic Astronomy: Planetary
Theories During the Golden Age of Islam (New York: New York University Press, 1994).

10
See, for example, Edward Grant, The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages: Their
Religious, Institutional and Intellectual Contexts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 181–
186.

11
al-Ghazālī, The Incoherence of the Philosophers: A Parallel English-Arabic Text, ed. and tr. Michael
Marmura (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1997), pp. xv–xvi. See also, Ayman Shihadeh, “From
al-Ghazālī to al-Rāzī: 6th/12th Century Developments in Muslim Philosophical Theology,” Arabic Sciences
and Philosophy 15 (2005): 141–179.

79
In fact, due to the remarkable “originality and depth of philosophical thinking” and the

“diffusion of philosophical work and [its] influence on society in general . . .,” Dimitri

Gutas has gone so far as to declare the “period from 1000 to about the middle of the

fourteenth century” as the “golden age of Arabic philosophy.”12

The most important figure of this period by far is Ibn Sīnā, whose importance

throughout this period cannot be underestimated. All religious, theological or

philosophical scholars of any merit had to contend with his rich philosophico-theological

system,13 be they Sūfīs, mutakallimūn, falāsifa, or even fiqh scholars interested in

discussions on caqīda (creed). There are two main reasons for Ibn Sīnā’s central position

in twelfth and thirteenth century philosophical and theological discussions. Firstly, Ibn

Sīnā had succeeded in reconciling the two existing schools in falsafa, “the Neoplatonism

of the Kindī circle . . . and the Aristotelianism of the Fārābī school,” into a “theoretically

cogent system.”14 As a result, subsequent falāsifa had to contend with and respond to Ibn

Sīnā, including the great Peripatetic commentator, Ibn Rushd (d. 1198, lat. Averroes). In

fact, falsafa came to be identified with Ibn Sīnā himself, making all other philosophers

before him, including Plato and Aristotle, superfluous.15 So great was his appeal that

some twelfth century traditionalist scholars even lamented that “people nowadays

12
Dimitri Gutas, “The Heritage of Avicenna: The Golden Age of Arabic Philosophy, 1000–ca. 1350,” in
Avicenna and His Heritage: Acts of the International Colloquium, Leuven-Louvain-La-Neuve, September
8–September 11, 1999, ed. Jules Janssens and Daniel De Smet (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2002),
pp. 81–97, 84.

13
al-Ghazali, Incoherence of the Philosophers, pp. xv–xvi.

14
Gutas, “The Heritage of Avicenna,” pp. 84–85.

15
Ibid., p. 84. cAbd al-Latīf al-Baghdādī (d. 1231), himself a philosopher of considerable merit, noted in
his earlier years that “he initially did not think much of more ancient philosophers, such as al-Fārābī and
Themistius, because he ‘believed that Ibn Sīnā [had] digested the entirety of wisdom and stuffed it in his
books’”; Shihadeh, “From al-Ghazali to al-Razi,” p. 142.

80
[believe] that truth is whatever [Ibn Sīnā] says, that it is inconceivable for him to err, and

that whoever contradicts him in anything he says cannot be rational.”16

Secondly, Ibn Sīnā made falsafa relevant to the “intellectual concerns of Islamic

society.”17 Unlike his predecessors, he was deeply engaged in contemporary discussions

on the most pressing theological problems. For example, he immersed himself in the

kalām arguments for the existence of God and formulated his own novel argument based

on a distinction between “the necessarily existent in itself” (wājib al-wujūd bi-dhātihi),

“the necessarily existent through another” (wājib al-wujūd bi-ghayrihi) and “the

contingent being in itself” (mumkin al-wujūd bi-dhātihi). This Avicennian proof

subsequently became the central proof for the existence of God in kalām and other

religious texts.18 Similarly, his arguments for the immortality of the individual human

soul were also shaped by his engagement with kalām discussions, and these too had a

lasting impact on subsequent eschatological discussions.19 That is why even Ibn

Taymiyya (d. 1328), an outspoken critic of Ibn Sīnā and falsafa, acknowledges that Ibn

16
Yahya Michot, “La Pandémie Avicennienne au VIe/XIIe siècle,” Arabica 40 (1993): 288–344, 342.

17
Gutas, “The Heritage of Avicenna,” p. 85.

18
See Robert Wisnovsky, “Avicenna and the Avicennian Tradition,” in Adamson and Taylor, ed.,
Cambridge Companion, pp. 92–136, pp. 113–127; and Robert Wisnovsky, “One Aspect of the Avicennian
Turn in Sunnī Theology,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 14 (2004): 65–100. Of course, there is an entire
literature on the kalām roots of the crucial “essence-existence” distinction in Ibn Sīnā’s philosophical
system. For a recent discussion on the topic, see Robert Wisnovsky, Avicenna’s Metaphysics in Context
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003).

19
See Michael Marmura, “Avicenna and the Kalām,” Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen
Wissenschaften 7 (1992): 172–206. See below for the impact of Ibn Sīnā’s argument on subsequent
discussions. For the influence of Ibn Sīnā’s eschatological discussions on subsequent mutakallimūn, see
Edwin Calverley and James Pollock, ed. and tr., Nature, Man and God in Medieval Islam: ‘Abd Allāh
Baydawi’s Text: Tawālic al-Anwār min Matālic al-Anzār, along with Mahmūd Isfahānī’s Commentary
Matālic al-Anzār, Sharh Tawālic al-Anwār, 2 vols. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2002), especially vol. 1, pp. 666–67,
672, 673–74, 677, 679, 681–82, 716–717

81
Sīnā’s attempt to reconcile reason and revelation was indeed sincere. The problem,

according to Ibn Taymiyya, was that Ibn Sīnā’s religious training came from heretics:

. . . Ibn Sīnā . . . discussed about issues in metaphysics, prophethood, resurrection,

and laws—issues which his predecessors did not discuss and neither their minds
nor knowledge could attain. He acquired these views from Muslims, or rather
from heretics who affiliated themselves with Muslims, such as the Ismācīlīs. . . .
As Ibn Sīnā was somewhat familiar with the religion of Muslims, . . . he wished to
combine what he learned through reason . . . with what he had acquired from his
predecessors. Among the doctrines he himself fashioned are those concerning
prophethood, the secrets of miracles and dreams, as well as some aspects of
physics, the Necessary Existent, etc. . . . Ibn Sīnā partially reformed this faulty
philosophy [of Aristotle and his followers] so that it found acceptance among
thinkers who were versed in the religion of Islam. He demonstrated to them some
of its contradictions, and they went on to write about it, each in his own way.20

Below, we shall see the extent of Ibn Sīnā’s influence on the thought and

systematic philosophy of Ibn Tufayl and Ibn al-Nafīs. For the time being it is important

to note that Ibn Sīnā’s defense of prophecy, religious law, arguments for the existence of

God, etc., had a lasting and positive influence on subsequent religious discussions on

these topics. Post-Avicennian kalām especially benefited from, and appropriated, many

aspects of Ibn Sīnā’s system, ultimately giving the impression that kalām and falsafa had

merged into one philosophical system by the middle of the fourteenth century.21

20
Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn Taymiyya Against the Greek Logicians, tr. Wael Hallaq (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1993), pp. 63–65.

21
See, for example, Gutas, “The Heritage of Avicenna,” p. 89; and A. I. Sabra, “Science and Philosophy
in Medieval Islamic Theology,” Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften 9
(1994): 1–42. The starting point for most of these discussions is Ibn Khaldūn’s (d. 1382) observation that,
during his time, kalām and falsafa had become so intertwined that they were “no longer distinguishable”;
Ibn Khaldūn, The Muqaddima: An Introduction to History, tr. Franz Rosenthal, 3 vols. (New York:
Pantheon Books, 1958), vol. 3, p. 53.

82
Similarly, post-Avicennian Sūfism engaged with, rejected, appropriated, and further

developed strands within Ibn Sīnā’s philosophical system.22

In the case of Sūfism, it is also important to note that Ibn Sīnā’s own system,

especially in its epistemological aspects, is “quasi-mystical,” to borrow Robert Hall’s

phrase.23 As Hall shows, his theory of intellection is especially conducive to mysticism,

as is his defense of Prophetic revelations and dreams.24 Commentators have naturally

latched on to these aspects of Ibn Sīnā’s thought, especially as it unfolds in the later

Persian tradition, to argue that Ibn Sīnā was a genuine Sūfī or a mystic of some sorts.25

Regardless of whether or not Ibn Sīnā was a true mystic, the fact is that medieval

commentators identified a strong mystical current in his thought. A good example is Ibn

Tufayl himself.26 When we add to that the fact that some Sūfīs proceeded to appropriate

22
See John Walbridge, “Suhrawardī and Illuminationism,” in Adamson and Taylor, ed., Cambridge
Companion, pp. 201–223; and Sajjad Rizvi, “Mysticism and Philosophy: Ibn cArabī and Mullā Sadrā,” in
Adamson and Taylor, ed., Cambridge Companion, pp. 224–246.

23
Robert E. Hall, “A Decisive Example of the Influence of Psychological Doctrines in Islamic Science
and Culture,” Journal for the History of Arabic Science, 1979 3: 46—84, p. 76. Some commentators have
in fact made a much stronger claim and argued that “mystical union with the Necessary Existent is a
cornerstone of ibn Sīnā’s thesis”; Parviz Morewedge, “The Analysis of ‘Substance’ in Tūsī’s Logic and in
the Ibn Sīnian Tradition,” in Essays of Islamic Philosophy and Science, ed. George Hourani (Albany:
SUNY Press, 1975), pp. 158–188, p. 178

24
See Ibn Sīnā, “On the Proof of Prophecies and the Interpretation of the Prophet’s Symbols and
Metaphors,” tr. Michael Marmura in Medieval Political Philosophy: A Sourcebook, ed. Ralph Lerner and
Muhsin Mahdi (Toronto: Collier-Macmillan, 1963), pp. 112–121; and Hall, “A Decisive Example.”

25
See Henry Corbin, Avicenne et la récit vissionaire, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1954); Parviz Morewedge, “The
Logic of Emanationism and Sūfism in ibn Sīnā,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 91 (1971): 467–
476 and 92 (1972): 1–18; and Parviz Morewedge, The Mystical Philosophy of Avicenna (Binghamton:
Global Publications, 2001). Dimitri Gutas has been a vocal opponent of this interpretation; see his,
“Avicenna’s Eastern (“Oriental”) Philosophy: Nature, Contents and Transmissions,” Arabic Sciences and
Philosophy 10 (2000): 159–180.

26
Ibn Tufayl, Ibn Tufayl’s Hayy ibn Yaqzān: a Philosophical Tale, tr. Lenn Goodman (Los Angeles: Gee
Tee Bee, 1983), pp. 95–103. Henceforth, Hayy (English).

83
central aspects of Ibn Sīnā’s philosophical system, we can understand how attacks against

one group could have come to be identified as attacks against the other.

Even though aspects of Ibn Sīnā’s system were appropriated and developed by

subsequent religious scholars, much of Ibn Sīnā’s philosophical system posed a

significant challenge to twelfth and thirteenth century traditionalism. For example, Ibn

Sīnā rejects some of the central traditional religious tenets, e.g. bodily resurrection and

the temporal creation of the universe. The gravity of these rejections can be gleaned from

the fact that al-Ghazālī pronounces Ibn Sīnā and the falāsifa heretics on account of their

rejection of these tenets.27 The fact that Ibn Sīnā then actually proceeds to rationalize his

rejection of these tenets further compounds the problem. Relying on the Fārābian notion

that “revelation is the imitation of philosophy,”28 Ibn Sīnā makes a strong case for

rejecting the use of revelation in philosophical arguments. He argues that since

revelation speaks to the masses, and since the masses are unable to grasp higher truths,

revelation must contain incomplete and inaccurate descriptions about, for example, the

true nature of God and the afterlife, so as not to confuse the masses.29 He then proceeds

to claim that these verses can only be truly interpreted and understood by the falāsifa,

who, after all, already have access to the truths of revelation through reason.30 As a

result, twelfth and thirteenth century scholars were faced with a substantial paradox. On

the one hand, Ibn Sīnā was seen as the epitome of rationality; he was seen as one who

27
al-Ghazali, Incoherence of the Philosophers, p. 230.

28
Marmura, “The Islamic Philosophers’ Conception of Islam,” p. 94.

29
Ibn Sina, “On the Proof of Prophecies.”

30
Ibid., pp. 116–121; Rahman, Prophecy in Islam, pp. 42–45; and Marmura, “The Islamic Philosophers’
Conception of Islam,” pp. 97–99.

84
had “digested the entirety of wisdom and stuffed it in his books.”31 His reputation in

medicine and the other foreign sciences only furthered his aura of philosophical

infallibility, given the close connections between falsafa and the other sciences in this

period.32 As such, his philosophical defense of the existence of God, prophets,

revelation, etc., was particularly attractive to religious scholars, and, as Ibn Taymiyya

notes, was quickly taken up by them.33

On the other hand, Ibn Sīnā categorically rejected some of the fundamental tenets

of orthodox religion and was labeled a heretic by many for doing so. Yet, since Ibn Sīnā

also epitomized rationality, were thirteenth century scholars to assume that revelation

cannot be rational? Much of the twelfth and thirteenth century “intellectual confusion”

stems from this basic conflict.34 Although there was an entire range of negative attacks

against Ibn Sīnā’s philosophico-theological system, the thirteenth century intellectual

climate was desperate for some positive reconciliations between falsafa and traditional

beliefs. Otherwise, religious scholars would either have to concede that revelation is

irrational, or that the sole authority to interpret scripture lies with the falāsifa. In this

climate, Ibn al-Nafīs suggests a possible way to reconcile falsafa with revelation by

31
Shihadeh, “From al-Ghazali to al-Razi,” p. 142.

32
The close association of falsafa and the rest of the foreign sciences, like mathematics, astronomy,
medicine, etc., can be traced back to the Hellenistic period. In the Islamic context, the tie was strong
enough that accepting truths in physics and medicine, for example, meant lending credence to falsafa; see
Sabra, “Science and Philosophy in Medieval Islamic Theology,” p. 1–5. At times, however, this
association also had a negative effect in that those who rejected falsafa had the tendency also to reject the
physical and mathematical sciences, including logic. Thus, al-Ghazālī devotes some space to defending the
rest of the foreign sciences and cautions religious scholars against rejecting all of them (Incoherence of the
Philosophers, pp. 2–9).

33
Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn Taymiyya Against the Greek Logicians, p. 65; and Shihadeh, “From al-Ghazali to al-
Razi,” pp. 142, 148–150.

34
Shihadeh, “From al-Ghazali to al-Razi,” p. 178.

85
rejecting the falāsifa’s belief in the self-sufficiency of reason. In so doing, he creates the

possibility of a more dialectical relationship between reason and revelation, whereby

reason itself needs revelation to arrive at the fundamental theological truths, and

revelation itself appeals to reason to validate its own authority.

3.2 Autodidactic Learning and Falsafa’s Challenge to Traditionalism

Ibn al-Nafīs’s treatise is entitled, The Treatise Relating to Kāmil on the Life-

history of the Prophet.35 However, in biographical entries on Ibn al-Nafīs, this work is

referred to only by the name of the narrator in the story—Risālat Fādil ibn Nātiq (The

Book of Fādil ibn Nātiq).36 The alternate title is significant as it illustrates that Ibn al-

Nafīs’s account was received by his audience as a reaction to H ayy ibn Yaqzān—Ibn

Sīnā’s recital about a hermit and Ibn Tufayl’s narrative about a philosophical mystic.37 In

fact, Ibn al-Nafīs’s biographers say so explicitly:

[Najm al-Dīn al-Safadī has] seen a small book of [Ibn al-Nafīs] which [Ibn al-
Nafīs] opposed to the Treatise of H
ayy ibn Yaqzān of Ibn Sīnā and which he
called the Book of Fādil ibn Nātiq. In it he defends the system of Islam and the
Muslims’ doctrines on the missions of the Prophets, the religious laws, the
resurrection of the body, and the transitoriness of the world (kharāb al-cālam).38

35
This is the title stated at the end of the manuscript; Joseph Schacht and Max Meyerhof, The Theologus
Autodidactus of Ibn al-Nafīs, Edited with an Introduction, Translation and Notes (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1968), p. 86. Henceforth, Theologus.

36
Ibid., p. 14.

37
Parveen Hasanali, “Texts, Translators, Transmissions: ‘Hayy ibn Yaqzān’ and its Reception in Muslim,
Judaic and Christian Millieux” (PhD Diss., McGill University, 1996), p. 108. See also, Corbin, Avicenna et
la récit vissionaire.

38
Theologus, pp. 14, 144; and Yusuf Zaydan, cAlā’ al-Dīn (Ibn al-Nafīs) al-Qurashī ’icādat iktishāf (Abu
Dhabi: al-Majmac al-Thaqafi, 1999), p. 42.

86
 The changes in the names of the central characters from the tales of Ibn Sīnā and

Ibn Tufayl to that of Ibn al-Nafīs are important, a point to which I shall return shortly.

For now, it is important to emphasize that the biographers not only pick out religious

theses that are defended by Ibn al-Nafīs; they also single out precisely those theses that

the falāsifa rejected as being irrational.39 Bear in mind, that the falāsifa’s denials of

bodily resurrection (al-bacth al-jismānī) and of the temporality of the world (kharāb al-
c
ālam), were what led al-Ghazālī to declare Ibn Sīnā and the falāsifa to be heretics.40

It is also important to note here that the biographers confused Ibn Sīnā’s and Ibn

Tufayl’s narratives with each other, and assumed incorrectly that Ibn al-Nafīs’s tale was a

response to Ibn Sīnā’s narrative (both Ibn Sīnā and Ibn Tufayl entitled their works, H ayy

ibn Yaqzān). Yet, the biographers’ error in confusing these two works reflects the

complicated manner in which these texts are intertwined, and does not merely represent a

factual error. Firstly, Ibn al-Nafīs’s own contemporaries were in the habit of confusing

Ibn Tufayl and Ibn Sīnā’s treatises. Ibn Khallikān (d. 1282), for example, assumed that

perhaps Ibn Sīnā “wrote it [i.e., H

ayy ibn Yaqzān] in Persian, and so we may have an

Arabic translation of it, made by Ibn Tufayl.”41 The matter is further complicated by the

fact that the theory of emanation found in Ibn Tufayl’s text “is, transparently, another

39
Ibn al-Nafīs also defends some other religious theses that are not brought up by these biographers, e.g.
the Sunnī understanding of the caliphate and the events leading up to resurrection.

40
See al-Ghazali, Incoherence of the Philosophers.

41
The Encyclopaedia of Islam, New edition (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1954–2003), s.v. “Hayy b. Yakzan” (by
A. M. Goichon). Henceforth, EI2. The confusion is quite understandable given that the same characters
are involved in the tales of Ibn Sīnā and Ibn Tufayl: Hayy ibn Yaqzān, Absāl and Salāmān. Ibn Khaldūn
later also propagated this error by attributing the spontaneous generation story of the birth of Hayy to Ibn
Sīnā instead of Ibn Tufayl; see his, The Muqaddimah. For an excellent, detailed examination of the
connections between the Tufaylian and Avicennian narratives and the rich symbolisms and transferences,
see Hasanali, “Texts, Translators, Transmissions,” chapter 3.

87
outline of Avicenna’s system.”42 Additionally, Ibn Tufayl’s mysticism could also have

been confused with the quasi-mystical elements in Ibn Sīnā’s writings, especially since

Ibn Tufayl himself suggests that Ibn Sīnā was a true mystic.43 In fact, Ibn Tufayl’s main

claim—that a person may autodidactically arrive at the truths of religion—also builds off

of Ibn Sīnā’s Fārābian argument for the self-sufficiency of reason.44 Hence, as we take a

closer look at Ibn al-Nafīs’s Risāla and compare it to Ibn Tufayl’s H

ayy, we should

continuously bear in mind that Ibn al-Nafīs is also attacking the central core of the

Avicennian system.

At the beginning of the treatise, Ibn al-Nafīs states that his “intention in this

treatise is to relate what Fādil ibn Nātiq transmitted from the man called Kāmil

concerning the life-story of the Prophet and the ordinances of religious Law [al-sunan al-

sharciyya] . . ..”45 What is significant even in this short opening statement is the close

association of reason and exoteric revelation. The word fādil is used to describe a person

who is virtuous. Nātiq is the term used to signify rationality in the philosophical

discourse, as in nafs nātiqa (rational soul) or the Aristotelian logos of man as a rational

42
Herbert Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes on Intellect: Their Cosmologies, Theories of the
Active Intellect, and Theories of Human Intellect (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 148. Ibn
Tufayl’s reliance on Avicenna’s system is, of course, not at all surprising since he himself acknowledges
his debt to Ibn Sīnā and al-Ghazālī in the prologue of his text; see Dominique Urvoy, “The Rationality of
Everyday Life: An Andalusian Tradition (Apropos of Hayy’s First Experience),” in Conrad, ed., The World
of Ibn Tufayl, pp. 38–51, p. 45; and Hayy (English), pp. 95–97, 100–103.

43
Hayy (English), pp. 95–97, 100–103.

44
Michael Marmura, “The Philosopher and Society: Some Medieval Arabic Discussions,” Arab Studies
Quarterly 1 (1979): 309–323, pp. 315–323; and Montada, “Philosophy in Andalusia,” p. 175.

45
Theologus, p. 38.

88
animal (hayawān nātiq).46 Kāmil means “the perfect one” and its various forms had

much currency in the thirteenth century, especially in the much-maligned, Neoplatonic

philosophical mysticism of Ibn al-cArabī.47 Finally, the religious virtues, on the one

hand, and rationality and perfect intellection, on the other, are being associated with

aspects of religion known to every lay Muslim: the biography of the Prophet and the

religious ordinances. There is no reference in Ibn al-Nafīs to some hidden or esoteric

truths.

On the other hand, Ibn Tufayl’s treatise is filled with references to esoteric and

hidden truths from the outset. For example, he begins his treatise by stating that he has

been “asked . . . to unfold . . the secrets of the oriental philosophy” to the best of his

ability.48 Further on in the introduction, he claims that those who acquire this truth [al-

haqq] can “speak of it publicly only in riddles [ramz], because our true, orthodox and

established faith [al-milla al-hanīfa wa’l-sharīca al-muhammadiyya] guards against a

hasty plunge into such things.”49 By the end of the introduction, Ibn Tufayl has pretty

much laid out his program to be, as Hasanali phrases it, “to assist [his] readers in their

‘unveiling the secrets’” through the method of “rational philosophy.”50 Thus, unlike Ibn

al-Nafīs’s introduction, the entire emphasis of Ibn Tufayl’s introduction is on a hidden,

46
See also Muhsin Mahdi, “Remarks on the Theologus Autodidactus of Ibn al-Nafīs,” Studia Islamica 31
(1970): 197–209. Mahdi translates the narrator’s name as “The Virtuous Son of the Rational.”

47
See EI2, s.v. “Insān al-Kāmil” (by R. Arnaldez).

48
Hayy (English), p. 95.

49
Ibid., p. 99. Arabic emendations are from Ibn Tufayl, H ayy ibn Yaqzān, ed. Dr. A. N. Nadir (Beirut:
Dar al-Mashriq, 1993), p. 20. Henceforth, Hayy (Arabic).

50
Hasanali, “Texts, Translators, Transmissions,” p. 75.

89
mystical, esoteric wisdom (hikma) that needs to be discovered by the reader through the

riddles (ramz) provided within the tale.

Nonetheless, even in the introduction he suggests that there might be a disparity

between the “orthodox and established faith” and this esoteric wisdom, as emphasized in

the quote above. This concern is even more prominent during his discussion of al-

Ghazālī’s belief in a “tripartite division of ideas into those held in common with the

masses, those exhorting all who seek the truth, and those a man keeps to himself and

divulges only to the people who share his beliefs.”51 For even though Ibn Tufayl

maintains that al-Ghazālī’s texts are confusing because “he preached to the masses,” he

condones this practice and appreciates al-Ghazālī’s use of “hints and intimations” for

those who “have found the truth by their own insight . . ..”52 Thus, already in the

introduction, Ibn Tufayl suggests that the exoteric religion of the masses and the

mystical, yet rational, wisdom of the initiated appear to be in conflict. The last part of the

book is then devoted entirely to illustrating that the esoteric truths that Hayy arrives at

independently are, in fact, in harmony with revealed religion, even though they may not

appear to be so at first. As Ibn Tufayl states:

[Absāl53] related all the religious traditions describing the divine world, Heaven
and Hell, rebirth and resurrection, the gathering and the reckoning, the scales of
justice and the strait way. Hayy understood all this and found none of it in
contradiction with what he had seen for himself from his supernal vantage point
[maqāmihi ’l-karīm].54
51
Hayy (English), p. 101.

52
Ibid., p. 101.

53
Absāl is an additional character in the tale who seeks solitude on Hayy’s deserted island, without
knowing beforehand that Hayy lives there. Absāl proceeds to communicate to Hayy all knowledge of the
outside world, including its rules, customs and religious traditions.

54
Hayy (English), p. 161, my emphasis; and Hayy (Arabic), 93.

90
 Notice the falāsifa’s (and the Sūfīs’) elitism in the quote above. Ibn Tufayl

clearly suggests that Hayy’s independent path to the truth is better than revelation

(“supernal vantage point”). Subsequently, Ibn Tufayl claims that even though Hayy

recognizes the inherent harmony between his autodidactic, rational mysticism and

exoteric revelation, Hayy could not fathom why a prophet of God would

rely for the most part on symbols to portray the divine world, allowing mankind
to fall into the grave error of conceiving the Truth corporeally and ascribing to
Him things which He transcends and is totally free of . . . instead of simply
revealing the truth [wa adraba can mukāshafa]?”55

Hayy is even more baffled by the religious accommodation of material “inanities”:

Property meant nothing to [Hayy], and when he saw all the provisions of the Law
to do with money . . . or those regulating sales and interest . . ., he was
dumbfounded. All this seemed superfluous. If people understood things as they
really are, Hayy said, they would forget these inanities and seek the Truth. They
would not need all these laws.56

Thus, according to Ibn Tufayl, Hayy’s method is not only superior to revelation for

arriving at the ultimate truths; he also implies that revelation leads people astray by

allowing them to indulge in material “inanities” and by providing them with

anthropomorphic descriptions of God that are grossly incorrect.

At this juncture, we see the underlying conflict between the falāsifa and the Sūfīs,

on the one hand, and the traditionalists on the other, rearing its head: revelation is

superfluous for the elite because it speaks of a reality that has already been grasped at a

higher level. Moreover, only these elites who have access to the underlying truth through

55
Hayy (English), p. 161; and Hayy (Arabic), 93–94.

56
Hayy (English), p. 161–162.

91
a more powerful means than revelation have the right to interpret religious texts.57 Thus,

Ibn Tufayl’s proposed harmony between Hayy’s knowledge and that of the masses would

frustrate and annoy the traditionalists, not only because it considers revelation an inferior

way of arriving at the truth, but also because far from conceding some interpretive

authority to traditionalists themselves, Ibn Tufayl actually calls them “irrational animals.”

Ibn Tufayl adds that, when Hayy recognized that people were focusing too much

on the literal text and losing the underlying reality towards which the metaphors were

beckoning people, he started to teach a group of men that “approached nearest to

intelligence and understanding” from amongst the masses.58 However, “the moment he

rose the slightest bit above the literal . . . they recoiled in horror from his ideas and closed

their minds.”59

[T]he more [Hayy] taught, the more repugnance [the group] felt, despite the fact
that these were men who loved the good and sincerely yearned for the Truth.
Their inborn [deficiency] simply would not allow them to seek Him as Hayy did,
to grasp the true essence of His being and see Him in His own terms. They
wanted to know Him in some human way.60

Finally, Hayy is said to have concluded “that most men are no better than unreasoning

animals [aktharuhum bi-manzilati ’l-hayawān ghayr al-nātiq], and realized that all

57
Ibn Rushd even tries to argue that revelation condemns revealing the elite understanding of theological
issues to the masses; see his, The Book of the Decisive Treatise: Determining the Connection Between the
Law and Wisdom & Epistle Dedicatory, tr. Charles Butterworth (Provo: Brigham Young University Press,
2001).

58
Hayy (English), p. 162.

59
Ibid., p. 163.

60
Ibid., p. 163.

92
wisdom and guidance, all that could possibly help them was contained already in the

words of the prophets and the religious traditions.”61

Notice that Ibn Tufayl not only equates the masses with irrational animals, but

even the elite traditionalists. The group that Hayy communicates his wisdom to initially,

and the people who recoil in horror, are not the masses per se, but rather those that

approach “nearest to intelligence and understanding” from amongst the masses. Ibn

Tufayl thus is emphasizing that the traditionalists are like “unreasoning animals” since

they are incapable of rising “above the literal [al-zāhir].”62 Consequently, he suggests, in

effect, that the literal text of revelation must also be irrational, for it is precisely the literal

text to which the traditionalists adhere strongly. This is indeed the legacy of Ibn Sīnā’s

sophisticated philosophico-theological system with which the thirteenth century scholars

were struggling.

To be fair to Ibn Tufayl, he recognizes ultimately that even though revelation

speaks of the truth in irrational and metaphorical terms, it still serves an important

purpose: it helps the intellectually inferior attain some measure of happiness in the

afterlife. After all, Hayy’s parting comment to the people of the island is to hold fast to

the law and the literal texts of revelation. Thus, like Ibn Sīnā before him, Ibn Tufayl

accepts the necessity of revelation, and of revelation to speak in metaphorical and,

ultimately, inaccurate terms of the underlying reality, for the masses. However, he

cannot concede to the traditionalists that revelation is necessary for the elite because,

quite literally, it is irrational. Therefore, far from being a Straussian move to avoid

61
Ibid., p. 164; and Hayy (Arabic), p. 96.

62
Hayy (English), p. 163; and Hayy (Arabic), p. 95.

93
persecution,63 Ibn Tufayl’s treatise reaffirms Ibn Sīnā’s Fārābian tenet that since

“revelation is the imitation of philosophy,” it cannot be adduced as evidence in

philosophical discussions on religious doctrines. Such an explicit rejection of the

authority of scripture was bound to furstrate the traditionalists.

Thus, it is not surprising that a traditionalist would take up the challenge

presented by Ibn Tufayl, in order to show that those who cling to the literal word of

revelation are also being rational. That, in a nutshell, is the entire purpose of Ibn al-

Nafīs’s treatise. Schacht and Meyerhof are thus wrong in entitling the book Theologus

Autodidactus, since the title is a misnomer.64 Ibn al-Nafīs’s goal is not to show how a

person can independently arrive at all the exoteric truths of revelation—that would run

counter to his traditionalist belief in the necessity of revelation for arriving at the Truth.

Rather, the goal is to show that exoteric revelation is itself rational and, consequently,

should be accepted within the confines of a demonstrative, philosophical argument.

We now return to the change in the title of the work from H

ayy ibn Yaqzān to

Fādil ibn Nātiq. The word Fādil in the title is derived from the word fadl (virtue)—the

word Ibn Tufayl uses to describe the masses (ahl al-fadl) of the island who are no better

than unreasoning animals (bi-manzilati ’l-hayawān ghayr al-nātiq).65 By calling his

character Fādil ibn Nātiq, Ibn al-Nafīs is directly responding to the last part of Ibn

63
See George Hourani, “The Principal Subject of Ibn Tufayl’s Hayy ibn Yaqzan,” Journal of Near
Eastern Studies 15 (1956): 40–46. Hourani bases his argument on Strauss, Persecution and the Art of
Writing.

64
Hasanali, “Texts, Translators, Transmissions,” p. 106.

65
Hayy (Arabic), pp. 89, 96, my emphasis. Of course, Ibn Tufayl’s purpose in using the term “fadl”
would have been to connect with al-Fārābī’s notion of a virtuous city (al-madīna al-fādila) and the
Fārābian belief to not disclose philosophical truth to the non-philosophers; see Marmura, “The Philosopher
and Society.”

94
Tufayl’s text.66 He means to show that the virtuous, religious masses (ahl al-fadl) of Ibn

Tufayl’s island are not irrational but rational for believing in exoteric scripture. His

entire allegory is one long argument against what he and his contemporary traditionalists

took to be the main purpose of Ibn Tufayl’s text: that traditionalism is irrational.

3.3 Rejecting Autodidactic Learning, Accommodating Falsafa

We have already seen that Ibn al-Nafīs states that his aim in the text is to convey,

on the authority of the narrator, Fādil ibn Nātiq, what Kāmil came to learn about the

Prophet and his life-history. The story itself begins in a manner comparable to that of Ibn

Tufayl’s fable: with a description of a deserted island and the spontaneous birth of a

human—Kāmil in the case of Ibn al-Nafīs and Hayy in the case of Ibn Tufayl. Both,

Kāmil and Hayy, then proceed to observe the natural world and, in the process, arrive at a

belief in God as the creator of the universe. However, there are important differences in

both accounts that bear directly on Ibn al-Nafīs’s rejection of, and Ibn Tufayl’s advocacy

of, autodidactic learning.67

Ibn Tufayl’s Hayy observes the natural world in order to progress systematically

to the knowledge of the spiritual world.68 Hayy’s dissections lead him to speculate on the

nature of spirits, souls and the Platonic notion of forms, ultimately causing him to turn

66
Hasanali seems to think that the parallels in Ibn Tufayl and Ibn al-Nafīs’s texts are limited to the first
part, and so misses out on the reason why Ibn al-Nafīs names his character Fādil ibn Nātiq; see Hasanali,
“Texts, Translators, Transmissions,” pp. 107–108.

67
There are also significant differences in the accounts of spontaneous generation, as well as of the early
lives of Hayy and Kāmil that are not important for our current purposes. I will touch on them briefly later
in this chapter, and more thoroughly in chapter four.

68
Hasanali, “Texts, Translators, Transmissions,” p. 115.

95
away from the natural towards the spiritual world.69 He “learns to dissociate the soul,

which he honors as master, from the body, . . .” whose parts he sees as simply the soul’s

“servants or agents.”70 This Platonic disgust for matter and the sub-lunar world rears its

head fully later in the tale when Hayy dissociates himself from bodily functions and

requirements as much as possible, in order to focus on the celestial and spiritual side of

things.71

Ibn al-Nafīs’s Kāmil, on the other hand, does not dwell upon anything spiritual

during his dissections and observations of the plant and animal kingdom.72 The

philosophical and metaphysical systems that are so prominent in Ibn Tufayl’s account are

entirely missing from that of Ibn al-Nafīs. Instead, Kāmil stays away from larger

metaphysical questions as much as possible. The most that he indulges in such larger

questions is to affirm, on the basis of his observations, “that all parts of . . . animals and

plants exist for certain purposes and uses, and that nothing of them is superfluous and

useless.”73 By making Kāmil stay away from metaphysical and theological speculations,

Ibn al-Nafīs is making a subtle point about how little the natural world can reveal about

the divine, spiritual world—a point that comes to the fore in his dramatic shift in the

narrative a few paragraphs later.

69
Hayy (English), pp. 115–127.

70
Ibid., p. 9, 117.

71
Ibid., p. 143.

72
Theologus, pp. 40–43; and Hasanali, “Texts, Translators, Transmissions,” p. 115. Moreover, as
Hasanali points out, instead of focusing on “spiritual notions,” Ibn al-Nafīs chooses to highlight Kāmil’s
observations of “aggressive predators and timid victims” in the animal world. “These observations are not
incidental. The lessons that Kāmil learns is that the human animal is helpless and needs to live within the
norms of society” (pp. 115–116). See below.

73
Theologus, p. 43.

96
 Of course, the discussions about the natural and celestial world in both texts are

meant to lead up to arguments for the existence of God. Yet, the similarity between the

two texts at this point is merely superficial. Hayy and Kāmil’s “knowledge of the Creator

and His attributes” is not identical. Moreover, Hayy and Kāmil are not led to their

respective knowledges through the same process of reasoning either.74 Rather, Ibn

Tufayl and Ibn al-Nafīs part ways sooner than has hitherto been suggested by the

commentators on Ibn Tufayl and Ibn al-Nafīs. These scholars have failed to notice these

subtle, yet important, differences because they have tended to ignore the larger context.

Once we take that into account, we can uncover the real purpose behind Ibn Tufayl and

Ibn al-Nafīs’s discussions of the natural and celestial worlds. Ibn Tufayl’s entire

argument for the possibility of autodidactic learning hinges on his belief on the eternality

of the universe, while, as a staunch traditionalist, Ibn al-Nafīs categorically denies both.

The respective discussions on the natural worlds of both authors reflect these unique

purposes and perspectives.

We have already seen evidence to support the claim that Ibn Tufayl’s purpose

behind his detailed description of Hayy’s observations of the natural and celestial world

is to illustrate just how much Hayy came to learn about the spiritual world from them.

Moreover, we also know from the latter parts of the text that Ibn Tufayl is committed to:

1. a theory of emanation, and;75 2. the possibility of being guided by the unchanging

celestial beings and intelligences towards the unchanging Divine in order to accomplish a

mystical union during which Hayy can envisage “the whole structure of spiritual

74
Schacht and Meyerhof claim otherwise; ibid., p. 30.

75
Hayy (English), pp. 152–155.

97
intelligences, bodies and matter that emanates from the Divine.”76 Thus, for Ibn Tufayl,

Hayy not only needs to infer the existence of God from his observations, but he also

needs to find in these observations a path to the unchanging, eternal One. For that

reason, Ibn Tufayl is committed to the eternality of the universe because, in his mind,

only an unchanging, eternal universe that is most like the Platonic eternal forms can lead

Hayy to meditate on the Divine. As a result, his proofs for the existence of God are more

proofs for the possibility of an eternal universe than for the existence of God,77 for he is

forced to confront al-Ghazālī’s charges of heresy against Ibn Sīnā for believing in an

eternal universe.78

As Sami Hawi shows, Ibn Tufayl presents a number of arguments for the

existence of God in his treatise, of which three are rational and one mystical.79 Of the

three rational arguments, only two of them are presented in an uninterrupted manner, and

these are the ones that are predicated on Hayy’s observations of the universe.80 The first

of these is short and argues for the necessity of a Being that is the cause of all being and

who is the one that brings about all acts that emerge from forms.81 However, as

76
Remke Kruk, “Neoplatonists and After: From Ibn Tufayl to Ibn al-Nafīs,” in The Neoplatonic
Tradition: Jewish, Christian and Islamic Themes, ed. Arjo Vanderjagt & Detlev Pätzold (Köln: Dinter,
1991), pp. 75–85, p. 80; and Hayy (English), pp. 128–130, 138–153.

77
Hawi has nicely abstracted from Ibn Tufayl’s treatise all his proofs for the existence of God and
presented them in a succinct, logical fashion; see Sami Hawi, “Ibn Tufayl: On the Existence of God and
His Attributes,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 95 (1975): 58–67.

78
Al-Ghazāli’s “Fourth Discussion” specifically targets the falāsifa’s contention that the world is
simultaneously eternal and created; see his, The Incoherence of the Philosophers. He explicitly accuses
them of heresy on this count at the conclusion of the treatise as well (p. 230).

79
Hawi, “Ibn Tufayl,” pp. 59–62.

80
Ibid., pp. 59–61; Hayy (English), p. 127, 130–133; and Hayy (Arabic), pp. 55–56, 61–62.

81
Hayy (English), p. 127; and Hayy (Arabic), pp. 55–56.

98
Goodman points out, this is not really a very powerful proof on its own. To a certain

extent, Ibn Tufayl does not intend it to be so, because it is related to his next, more

elaborate, argument.82

The second argument is less of a proof for the existence of God and more a

demonstration to show that regardless of whether the universe is created or eternal, one

would still arrive at the same concept of God.83 However, these “alternative choices,” as

Hasanali puts it, are not provided for the reader as real, viable “options,” nor do they

somehow illuminate Ibn Tufayl’s undogmatic approach.84 Ibn Tufayl believes in an

eternal universe through and through.85 He wants, in fact, to show that regardless of

whether the universe is created in time or is eternal, it still requires a “non-corporeal

Author . . ., a Being neither in contact with matter nor cut off from it, neither within nor

outside it.”86 Or, more explicitly, “The whole Universe . . . is His work and creation,

ontologically, if not temporally, posterior to Him.”87 Thus, since an eternal universe and

a temporal universe both imply a God that is ontologically prior to creation, Ibn Tufayl

contends, albeit implicitly, that al-Ghazālī’s charge of heresy against the falāsifa for

believing in the eternity of the universe is unwarranted.88 Once an eternal universe is

deemed religiously acceptable, Ibn Tufayl can proceed to describe Hayy’s ascent to the
82
Hayy (English), p. 203, n. 131; and Hawi, “Ibn Tufayl,” p. 61.

83
Hayy (English), pp. 130–133; and Hawi, “Ibn Tufayl,” p. 61.

84
Hasanali, “Texts, Translators, Transmissions,” pp. 113–114.

85
Hawi, “Ibn Tufayl,” p. 61.

86
Hayy (English), p. 133.

87
Ibid., p. 133, my emphasis.

88
al-Ghazali, Incoherence of the Philosophers, pp. 12–46, 230; and Hayy (English), p. 206, n. 145.

99
Divine as a result of his meditation on, and imitation of, the eternal rotation of the

unchanging heavens.89 Thus, the whole point of these two arguments is not really to

establish the existence of God as much as it is to support Ibn Tufayl’s contention that it is

possible to understand the will of the unchanging, eternal God by examining the

unchanging, eternal celestial rotations.

The third argument is by far the most philosophically cogent one, yet it is the one

that is never presented “in an uninterrupted chain of reasoning in the treatise.”90 This is

the classic Avicennian argument from contingent beings to that Being which is

necessarily existent (wājib al-wujūd).91 Nevertheless, Ibn Tufayl never really focuses on

this proof, and basically assumes at the conclusion of the previous two proofs that the

God who is “the non-corporeal Author” necessarily exists.92 This further strengthens the

claim that Ibn Tufayl is far more interested in making a point about the eternality of the

universe than he is in deploying a proof for the existence of God that would actually be

received well within the larger, Sunnī community in the thirteenth century.93 For it is the

eternality of the universe, not the mere existence of God, that grounds Hayy’s quest for,

and self-discovery of, the Divine. His understanding of the will of God, the proper means

89
Hayy (English), pp. 145–147.

90
Hawi, “Ibn Tufayl,” p. 59. Hawi goes on to reconstruct the argument using Ibn Tufayl’s scattered
statements throughout the treatise.

91
For the history and evolution of this classic Avicennian argument see Wisnovsky, Avicenna’s
Metaphysics in Context; and Wisnovsky, “Avicenna and the Avicennian Tradition.”

92
Hayy (English), p. 135; and Hayy (Arabic), p. 65.

93
See Wisnovsky, “One Aspect of the Avivennian Turn in Sunnī Theology.”

100
of worshipping Him, and, finally, the means of perceiving Him, are all dependent on

Hayy’s imitation of the eternal motion of the unchanging heavens.94

Ibn al-Nafīs, on the other hand, wants to shut down all avenues to autodidactic

learning. Thus, in the first part of the treatise, he intentionally blocks off Ibn Tufayl’s

proposed path towards autodidactic learning at three places. First, as has already been

mentioned, Ibn al-Nafīs sticks to an empirical description of the natural world and stays

away from all metaphysical language. This is so even though Ibn al-Nafīs subscribes to

Aristotelian physics and metaphysics generally, i.e. the distinction between matter and

form, and body and soul.95 Second, he passes over any description of the celestial

world.96 He does not want to open up the possibility for Kāmil to postulate an

unchanging, eternal heaven, based on the seemingly incessant, identical daily rotation of

the stars and planets. Since Kāmil never posits an eternal, unchanging world, he cannot

use that as a means to understand and relate to the eternal, unchanging God. Hence,

Kāmil has no need to contemplate the possibility of an eternal universe and the problems

that such a universe would create for a traditionalist understanding of a willing, creator-

God.97 Thus, he concludes this section using the classic Avicennian proof for the

existence of God, based on the distinctions between the necessarily existent and

94
Hayy (English), pp. 145–148.

95
See, for example, Theologus, pp. 109–111. These Aristotelian distinctions are also found in all his
medical works.

96
Theologus, p. 43: “Then [Kāmil] passed on to the celestial bodies and observed their movements and
their respective positions, and their revolutions and the like, as we have explained in another book.”
Though it would be nice to locate such a book, if indeed Ibn al-Nafīs ever wrote it, the real point is that Ibn
al-Nafīs wants to undercut Ibn Tufayl’s main argument at its source.

97
As it is, Ibn al-Nafīs firmly denies the eternality of the universe; see his, Mukhtasar fī cilm usūl al-
hadīth, ed. Yusuf Zaydan (Cairo: al-Dar al-Misriyya al-Lubnaniyya, 1991), p. 121. He also rejects the
stability and unchanging nature of celestial motions later on in his discussion of events leading up to the
last day in Theologus (pp. 89–91).

101
contingent beings, that was becoming part and parcel of theological discussions during

the thirteenth century.98

Finally, the sharpest break with autodidactic learning takes place with a complete

shift in the narrative that occurs immediately after Kāmil becomes aware of the existence

of God:

When . . . Kāmil had reached in his knowledge the degree described . . ., he

desired to know what are the claims of the Creator on His servants, and he
reflected whether it was convenient that the Creator should be worshipped and
obeyed, and which was the method of knowing the worship concordant with His
Majesty, and he continued to think about this for some time. Then it happened
that the winds threw upon the island a ship in which [there were] a great number
of merchants and other people.99

This shift is important because it shows that Kāmil actually never resolves these issues on

his own. Instead, Kāmil becomes enamored with the visitors, their food, clothes, and

other details of their lives, and proceeds to learn about their communities, their cities, and

their language.100 Only after he has mingled with these visitors and learnt their ways

does Kāmil return to reflect upon God. However, by that point, the problematic has

completely changed. Kāmil is no longer interested in deriving the “claims of the

Creator,” or “the method of knowing the worship concordant with His Majesty.” Rather,

98
The argument states that the necessarily existent in itself (wājib al-wujūd bi-dhātihi) brings into being
all beings that are contingent in themselves (mumkin al-wujūd bi-dhātihi), and that there can only be one
such being; Theologus, pp. 43–44. Also see Wisnovsky, “One Aspect of the Avicennian Turn in Sunni
Theology.”

99
Theologus, p. 44, my emphasis.

100
Ibid., p. 45: “Then [Kāmil] became friendly with them; they covered him with clothes, he ate their food
and was pleased with them. They endeavoured to teach him their language and he learned much of it.
They informed him of the condition of their cities and what was eaten in them. . . . So they took him to a
city near to that island. He ate of the food of the inhabitants, and put on their clothes and it gave him
enormous pleasure. He remembered how miserable his life had been because he was always naked in cold
and heat, and had to confine himself to natural foodstuffs, and the animals always attacked and bit him.”

102
Kāmil sets aside his earlier questions, and immediately proceeds to rationalize the

necessity of prophethood, Divine revelation and the progressive nature of prophecy:

[M]an can live well only if he is with a community who keep between them a law
by which all disputes are settled. This is possible only if that law is met with
obedience and acceptance, and this is the case only if it is believed to come forth
from Allah, and this is the case only if it emanates from a person whom they
regard as truthful when he informs them that it comes from Allah. . . . Then he
reflected on the beneficial role of this prophet, and found it threefold. Firstly, he
transmits to mankind Allah’s law . . .; secondly, he makes known to mankind the
majesty and other attributes of Allah; thirdly, he makes known the resurrection
and the happiness and unhappiness which are prepared for them in the world to
come. . . . These things are accepted only with difficulty by the natures of many
people . . .. Had not men in our time become acquainted with the precepts of the
law, and accustomed to its doctrines, they would at once disapprove of it and
disbelieve the prophets. As the acceptance of these things is difficult, men would,
if the prophet revealed them at once, without having been preceded by other
prophets . . ., be very much deterred from him and would strongly declare him to
be a liar. Therefore it is fitting that at first some prophets should reveal that part
of these things which is most easily accepted and most urgently needed for the
preservation and the good life of mankind, namely the transmission of Allah’s law
to men. . . .

Kāmil for this reason believed that the purpose of prophecy cannot be realized by
one prophet, but that there must be several prophets of whom the first bring the
(doctrines) which prepare men for the understanding of those (doctrines) which
the later prophets bring. Every one of the later prophets must repeat what his
predecessor brought and add to it until the beneficial function of prophecy is
completed with the last prophet. Therefore the last one must know all that his
predecessors brought, and must be able to reveal all that his predecessors had
revealed. Therefore the prophet who is the Seal of the Prophets must be the most
excellent of them . . ..101

Ibn al-Nafīs’s argument for prophecy is very similar to that of the falāsifa. Both,

al-Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā, had earlier established the validity of prophecy based on an

Aristotelian understanding of humans as inherently social beings.102 Ibn al-Nafīs’s use of

101
Ibid., pp. 45–48, parenthetical emendations are in the original translation.

102
See Ibn Sīnā, The Metaphysics of The Healing: a Parallel English-Arabic Text, ed. and tr. Michael
Marmura (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2005), pp. 364–366; Rahman, Prophecy in Islam; and

103
their arguments, whether for prophecy or the existence of God, emphasizes the point that

Ibn al-Nafīs was somewhat committed to falsafa. His only real concern was the

falāsifa’s belief in the self-sufficiency of reason as far as religious truths are concerned.

Although Ibn al-Nafīs accepts their claim that one can prove the existence of prophets

and their missions through reason alone, that is as far as he is willing to go. For Ibn al-

Nafīs, all subsequent religious inquiry, whether into the nature of the laws, the attributes

of God or the nature of the afterlife, must proceed by taking into account both reason and

revelation. That is, either the inquiry proceeds with scripture stating these truths

explicitly that are then post facto shown to be rational, for example the biography of the

prophet, the religious laws, etc; or, it proceeds with scripture providing enough hints so

that the rational elite can extract from its symbols and metaphors the underlying truths.

Therein lies Ibn al-Nafīs’s disagreement with the falāsifa. For Ibn al-Nafīs, unlike the

falāsifa, reason has no independent path to discovering religious realities. Ibn al-Nafīs’s

commentators have generally failed to understand this important distinction.

The prose of Ibn al-Nafīs’s text has posed significant problems for modern

interpreters of his text.103 The majority have converged on the opinion that Ibn al-Nafīs’s

prose is to be taken literally. For example, when he claims that Kāmil reflected upon

particular topics on his own, scholars have interpreted Ibn al-Nafīs as having literally

argued for an autodidactic or self-sufficient element in Kāmil’s reasoning. That is

precisely why Schacht and Meyerhof entitle their edition and translation of this work,

Theologus Autodidactus. They also claim in their introduction that Kāmil “discovers for

Marmura, “The Philosopher and Society.” There are some significant, subtle differences between the
falāsifa’s proof and that of Ibn al-Nafīs that I shall emphasize later.

103
The notable exception is Hasanali, “Texts, Translators, Transmissions.”

104
himself not only the duties of man in worship and social relations, but also the periodical

development of prophecy, the life-history of the last Prophet, the subsequent fate of the

community of this Prophet, and the end of this world with the signs preceding it.”104

Similarly, Remke Kruk also believes that Kāmil “arrives at knowledge of the religious

truths” by “independent reasoning.”105 However, if we place Ibn al-Nafīs’s work in the

context of his time and other works, and pay close attention to the subtleties in his text,

we can see that Ibn al-Nafīs is staunchly opposed to any possibility of autodidactic

learning with regards to all religious truths.

The fact that Ibn al-Nafīs rejects the possibility of the self-sufficiency of reason

with regards to every religious truth is supported by a number of passages in the text. We

have already seen that he breaks the narrative at precisely the point where, if Kāmil were

to follow in the footsteps of Hayy, Kāmil would have independently arrived at the means

to worship the Creator. Kāmil, instead, is forced to come into contact with humans and

to become a part of human society, which he ultimately ends up extolling: “[Kāmil]

remembered how miserable his life had been because he was always naked in cold and

heat, and had to confine himself to natural foodstuffs, and the animals always attacked

and bit him.”106 Once acquainted with human culture and history, Kāmil then returns to

his rational contemplations. However, it is quite evident at this point that Kāmil is not

independently “discovering” past historical events. Rather, he is merely rationalizing the

occurrence of events that have been narrated to him. That explains why Ibn al-Nafīs so

104
Theologus, p. 31.

105
Kruk, “Neoplatonists and After,” p. 82.

106
Theologus, p. 45.

105
carelessly refers to actual names of places, religions and figures over the course of the

narrative. For, if Ibn al-Nafīs was serious about presenting Kāmil as a theologus

autodidactus, he would certainly have not made such elementary mistakes. Schacht and

Meyerhof record these slips but fail to see their significance.107

Ibn al-Nafīs’s goal to rationalize religious history and truths, as opposed to

rationally discovering them, is also evident in his discussion of the biography of the

Prophet. At every step of the biography, Ibn al-Nafīs provides arguments to illustrate that

the details, events and the character of the Prophet are in absolute conformity and

harmony with reason. Take, for example, the manner in which he rationalizes the

genealogy of the Prophet. Ibn al-Nafīs’s readers would agree with the statement that the

“noblest possible genealogy” is that which goes back to Abraham since he “is held in

equally high esteem by all religions.”108 Thus, in order for the Seal of the Prophets to be

the “most excellent of the prophets,” under Arab notions of character and lineage,109 he

too must be a descendant of Abraham. Furthermore, since this prophet brings new

revelation and completes the mission of prophecy, he cannot be part of another religion

prior to preaching this new revelation. That is because if he were a part of another

religious tradition, then he would be considered an apostate by the followers of that

107
Ibid., p. 35: “As regards the general plan of the work, Ibn al-Nafīs . . . refrains from pointing out
himself the concordance between the results of the reasoning of his hero and the actual facts, but leaves that
to the reader; nevertheless the word Islām escapes him . . .; it is also inconsistent, given his premisses, that
he should mention Abraham, Ishmael, Jacob, and Jesus, the Jews, the Christians, and the Zoroastrians, as
well as the Banū Hāshim, in connexion with the genealogy of the Last Prophet . . ., Mecca and the Ka‘ba . .
., and Yemen in connexion with the Last Things . . ., apart from other minor facts of this kind.”

108
Ibid., pp. 49, 124–125.

109
For the importance of genealogy and lineage in judging the nobility of people in Islamic societies, see
EI2, s.v. “nasab” (by F. Rosenthal).

106
religion after he brings forth the new scripture, thus inviting “people to shun him.”110 For

this reason he cannot be a Jew or a Christian and so he cannot be from the descendants of

Jacob or Esau.111 Thus, he must be from amongst the descendants of Ishmael, and since

the noblest of them are the Hāshimites, he must also be a Hāshimite. As it turns out, this

entire genealogy of the Prophet that Kāmil provides is in fact the agreed upon genealogy

of the Prophet amongst Muslims.

It should be evident from these texts that Ibn al-Nafīs is not even trying to suggest

that Kāmil constructed this genealogy independently or autodidactically. The numerous

errors committed by Ibn al-Nafīs in actually referring to the historical figures, along with

the form of the argument itself, suggest that he is only interested in showing that these

events are in perfect harmony with reason. The liberal use of the phrase “necessarily (lā

budda wa-an)” throughout the text is meant to bring into sharp focus the inner logic and

rationality of the sequence of events. It is not meant to suggest some absolute notion of

necessity. Even less should it be seen as an example of Ibn al-Nafīs’s adherence to the

doctrine of “aslah, ‘that which is most right and proper.’”112 This specific notion was

developed by Muctazilī mutakallimūn to express how certain things were necessarily

incumbent upon God, such as to create His creatures in the best possible way.113

110
Theologus, p. 124.

111
I disagree with Schacht and Meyerhof’s understanding that Ibn al-Nafīs meant Jesus (cĪsā) here and not
Esau (cĪs) (Theologus, p. 49, fn. 2). Medieval Muslims considered Jews to be the descendants of Jacob
(Israel) and Christians to be the descendants of Esau; see Ibn Manzūr, Lisān al-cArab, New ed. version
(Beirut, 2000), vol. 9, pp. 308, 499. Besides, Muslims accept the traditional Christian belief that Jesus led a
celibate life, so it would be impossible for Ibn al-Nafīs to claim that Christians are the physical descendants
of Jesus.

112
Theologus, p. 32.

113
See Ibid., pp. 78–79; and R. Bruschwig, “Muctazilism et Optimum (al-aslah),” Studia Islamica 39
(1974): 5–23.

107
Although Ibn al-Nafīs subscribes to this doctrine for a few specific things,114 it certainly

does not shape Ibn al-Nafīs’s entire treatise. The concept of aslah was invoked by the

mutakallimūn to argue that God has no other choice but to act in certain ways. That is, it

was used to remove multiplicity from God’s actions by suggesting that God has recourse

to only the most proper course of action that can be known a priori. One consequence of

this understanding of God’s actions was that the mutakallimūn believed that one could

arrive at the furūc (secondary rulings of Islamic law) purely rationally—a position that

Ibn al-Nafīs rejects explicitly in his text on hadīth (see chapter two). However, Ibn al-

Nafīs’s entire discussion of the life of the Prophet is filled with contingent details whose

ordering and succession can only be rationalized and deemed “most proper” a posteriori.

The difference is subtle, yet important, for the proper kalām sense of aslah leaves the

door ajar for autodidactic learning, whereas the other one bolts that door shut. All Ibn al-

Nafīs wants to allow is that there is an inherent rational order to the major events that

occurred during the Prophet’s life—from his birth into a particular family, to his

migration to Medina, to his takeover of Mecca and then to his death in Medina.115

Therefore, a person who believes in the literal details of the biography of the Prophet

cannot be considered anything but rational.116

114
For example, he certainly believes that it is necessary for God to send Prophets to reveal His law, and
he also believes that God must “necessarily take the greatest care of everything” (Theologus, p. 44).

115
Ibid., pp. 120–125.

116
The rationality of the exoteric details of the life of the Prophet is most clearly illustrated by Ibn al-
Nafīs in his discussion of the Prophet’s physical and moral characteristics. Herein, Ibn al-Nafīs takes great
care to emphasize the harmony between the Prophet’s known temperament and health-related problems and
the science of medicine and physiognomy; ibid., pp. 116–121. For the status of physiognomy as a science
in the medieval Islamic period, see Youssef Mourad, La physiognomonie Arabe et le Kitāb al-Firāsa de
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzi (Paris: Geuthner, 1939); and Robert Hoyland, “Physiognomy in the Muslim World,”
Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 30 (2005): 361–402.

108
 Thus, by going over the basic outline and certain intimate details of the Prophet’s

life, Ibn al-Nafīs has hoped to have shown that the figure of the Prophet, his mission, his

character, and his life-history are all in harmony with reason. Moreover, Ibn al-Nafīs is

not, strictly speaking, relying on aslah. That would require him to believe in the

possibility of arriving at all this information from first principles, i.e. for Kāmil to be a

true autodidact—a possibility he clearly rejects. What he has shown, however, is that the

literal and exoteric aspects of religion that the masses adhere to are not contrary to

reason. In fact, if anything, they can be shown to be in perfect harmony with reason.

Thus, Ibn Tufayl is unjustified in calling the masses “irrational animals.” They are,

rather, the virtuous followers of a rational plan—symbolized by the name, Fādil ibn Nātiq

(Virtuous son of the Rational).117

3.4 Anthropomorphism and the Authority of Revelation

Thus far, Ibn al-Nafīs has tried to argue that Ibn Tufayl assumes incorrectly that

one can discover religious truths without recourse to revelation. Unlike Ibn Tufayl’s

Hayy, Ibn al-Nafīs’s Kāmil is unable to discover rationally anything apart from the

existence of God. Instead, Kāmil rationalizes the various religious rituals and practices,

only after he has learnt of them through the shipwrecked crew (here symbolizing a

civilization in possession of a Divine revelation, or perhaps even Divine revelation itself).

Consequently, he has also been able to argue successfully against Ibn Tufayl’s claim that

the exoteric aspects of revelation, to which the masses adhere, are irrational.

117
The translation of the narrator’s name as “Virtuous son of the Rational” is found in Mahdi, “Remarks
on the Theologus.” However, Mahdi does not attach the same meaning and significance to the name
change.

109
 However, Ibn al-Nafīs has still not addressed Ibn Tufayl and the falāsifa’s

primary concern that an exoteric scriptural understanding of the nature of God and the

afterlife is fundamentally irreconcilable with a philosophical understanding of these

issues. Of course, the falāsifa assume that they have arrived at a demonstrative

understanding of these issues—an assumption that al-Ghazālī and other thirteenth century

scholars denied vehemently.118 Nonetheless, almost all of these scholars merely engaged

in a “negativist” enterprise of criticizing the falāsifa’s rejection of bodily resurrection and

God’s will and other attributes, in “defence of the common orthodox creed.”119 On the

other hand, Ibn al-Nafīs not only wants to criticize the falāsifa, but he also wants to

engage in a more positive theological enterprise in order to establish his basic claim that

revelation is necessary for any rational inquiry into religious doctrines. Hence, he

confronts the contemporaneous scriptural and rational understandings of these two

problematic religious doctrines to illustrate the mutual dependence of revelation and

reason on one another, starting with the nature of God.

As mentioned earlier, the falāsifa inherited their system of thought and

methodology from the Hellenistic philosophers. Throughout Late Antiquity, there was a

move to try and reconcile the ideas of Plato and Aristotle, specifically to crown

“Aristotle’s metaphysics with a rational theology based on the Platonic tradition . . ..”120

Once the corpus of Greek writings was appropriated into Arabic, the falāsifa inherited

and built upon this Neoplatonic system. The first of these, al-Kindī, known as the

118
See al-Ghazali, Incoherence of the Philosophers.

119
Shihadeh, “From al-Ghazali to al-Razi,” p. 143.

120
Cristina D’Ancona, “Greek into Arabic,” in Adamson and Taylor, ed., Cambridge Companion, pp. 10–
31, 26.

110
“philosopher of the Arabs,” was quick to appropriate some of these developments,

particularly the Plotinian notion of the absolute oneness of God.121 However, the main

problem with this Plotinian conception is that God can then only be described in

primarily negative terms, since any positive attribution seems to take away from His

unity. As Adamson notes, “This seems to be something of a counsel of despair for

would-be-theologians: the conclusion is apparently that nothing at all can be known or

said about God.”122 Nonetheless, later falāsifa continued to develop this negative

definition of God and continued to work within a Plotinian emanation scheme to

articulate God’s relationship to the world, the manner in which He causes events in it and

His knowledge of those events.

At the same time, the mutakallimūn were also engaged in rationally debating

questions over the unity of God. How much they were influenced by the falāsifa and the

translated Greek texts, or how much of it was the other way around, is really a moot point

since, as Wisnovsky states, “the two strands of thought were so intertwined at the

conceptual level that it is impossible to disentangle them without ripping apart the

intricate tapestry of Islamic intellectual history.”123 Suffice it to say, the earliest school of

kalām, the Muctazila, known as “the partisans of unity,” were also inclined towards

defining God through the use of negative descriptions.124 However, since they were also

121
Peter Adamson, “al-Kindī,” in Adamson and Taylor, ed., Cambridge Companion, pp. 32–51, 35–39.
Unlike the later falāsifa, al-Kindī defended the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo and so denied the eternality of
the world.

122
Adamson, “al-Kindi,” p. 36.

123
Robert Wisnovsky, “The Avicennian Turn in Sunni Theology,” p. 100.

124
Harry A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Kalam (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976), p. 133.

111
vested heavily in the authority of scripture, they were “more explicitly exegetical” and,

hence, had to tackle the various positive attributes of God that appear in the Qur’ānic

text.125 As a result, they were forced to develop a complex philosophical system that

could allow them to adhere to a strict monotheism while permitting them to attribute to

God certain positive characteristics. These discussions were then further developed by

later mutakallimūn, ultimately arriving at a fragile impasse whereby they maintained,

with much difficulty, a belief in the eternal, yet causally dependent, nature of the Divine

attributes.126

Ibn Sīnā sits atop both these philosophical traditions. He inherited, on the one

hand, the Plotinian notions of the One and the emanation schemes from al-Kindī and al-

Fārābī. On the other hand, he inherited the various philosophical discussions of the

mutakallimūn concerning the creation of the world and the way in which the Divine

attributes are related to the Divine Self.127 Working from these sources, Ibn Sīnā

proceeded to develop the two hallmarks of his particular system of metaphysics: 1. the

essence/existence distinction, and; 2. the three categories of existents—that which, in

itself, necessarily exists (wājib al-wujūd bi-dhātihi), that which necessarily exists through

another (wājib al-wujūd bi-ghayrihi), and that which, in itself, possibly exists (mumkin

125
Richard Frank, Beings and Their Attributes: The Teaching of the Basrian School of the Muctazila in the
Classical Period (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1978), p. 11.

126
For details see Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Kalam, pp. 132–234; Albert Nader, Le système
philosophique des Muctazila (premiers penseurs de L’Islam), 2nd ed. (Beirut: Dar al-Mashriq, 1984), pp.
49–125; and J. R. T. M. Peters, God’s Created Speech: A Study in the Speculative Theology of the Muctazilī
Qādī l-Qudāt Abū l-Hasan cAbd al-Jabbār bin Ahmad al-Hamadhānī (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1976), pp. 231–
275. For an excellent analysis of the complex, early Muctazilī discussions on the nature of attributes and
their relationship to things in general, see Richard Frank, Beings and Their Attributes; and Wisnovsky,
“One Aspect of the Avicennian Turn,” pp. 68–79.

127
See Wisnovsky, Avicenna’s Metaphysics in Context.

112
al-wujūd bi-dhātihi). Using these metaphysical distinctions, Ibn Sīnā developed his

famous cosmological proof for the existence of God (see above), which alleviated some

of the problems associated with the earlier kalām proofs.128 At the same time, he used

these distinctions to argue for the eternality of the universe, the Plotinian emanation

scheme of creation and the concept of the One.129

The basics of the Avicennian emanation scheme are as follows. The One, being

necessarily existent and an absolute unity, in apprehending itself, necessarily emanates

the first intellect. This intellect, by apprehending the One, necessarily emanates a second

intellect; by apprehending itself, it necessarily emanates the body of the outermost

sphere; and by virtue of apprehending the One as a cause of its existence, necessarily

emanates the soul of the outermost sphere. This second intellect then also emanates three

similar things, including the sphere of the fixed stars, and the process continues to

produce intellects, souls and celestial spheres—one for each of the five planets, the sun

and the moon, until we arrive at the tenth intellect, which governs the sphere of the

sublunary world.130 The entire scheme rejects the possibility of “any change, whether it

be an act of willing, intention, or capacity . . ., even [including] a new relationship to an

entity previously nonexistent, such as the creation of the world at a given moment,” since

128
Wisnovsky, “The Avicennian Turn in Sunni Theology.”

129
On how Ibn Sīnā uses these distinctions to establish the creation of an eternal universe through a
cosmic scheme of eternal celestial intelligences that emanate from the One, see Davidson, Alfarabi,
Avicenna and Averroes, pp. 74–83; and Lenn Goodman, Avicenna (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 61–83.
Also see, Majid Fakhry, History of Islamic Philosophy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), pp.
173–177.

130
Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes, pp. 74–83; Fakhry, History of Islamic Philosophy, pp.
176–177. al-Fārābī was perhaps the first person to combine Aristotelian metaphysics and the Plotinian
emanation scheme with Ptolemaic astronomy, thus restricting the number of celestial intellects to ten; see
David C. Reisman, “al-Fārābī and the Philosophical Curriculum,” in Adamson and Taylor, ed., Cambridge
Companion, pp. 52–71, 56–57.

113
that would involve a change in the essence of the One.131 The entire system is devised to

philosophically establish the ontological priority of God, while maintaining the eternality

of the universe and its necessary existence.

We have already seen that Ibn Tufayl strongly believes in the eternality of the

universe since it is what makes it possible for Hayy to be an autodidact. Additionally,

since Ibn Tufayl was very much committed to Ibn Sīnā’s falsafa, it is not surprising to

see that Ibn Tufayl’s description of Hayy’s vision of the celestial world during his

mystical experience is almost identical to Ibn Sīnā’s emanation scheme:

Passing through a deep trance to the complete death-of-self and real contact with
the divine, he saw a being corresponding to the highest sphere, beyond which
there is no body, a subject free of matter, and neither identical with the Truth and
the One nor with the sphere itself, nor distinct from either . . .. Just below this, at
the sphere of the fixed stars, Hayy saw another non-material being. This again
was neither identical with the Truth and the One, nor with the highest sphere, nor
even with [its soul132], yet distinct from none of these. . . . Lying just below he
saw the identity of the sphere of Saturn, again divorced from matter and neither
the same as nor different from the beings he had seen . . .. Thus for each sphere
he witnessed a transcendent immaterial subject, neither identical with nor distinct
from those above, . . . until finally he reached the world of generation and decay,
the bowels of the sphere of the moon. . . .

To these beings, whether bodies endure or perish, whether they exist or not, is all
the same. Their sole bond is to the One, the Truth, the Necessarily Existent [al-
mawjūd al-wājib al-wujūd], Who is the first of them, their origin and cause, the
ground for their existence, Who gives them being, allows them to endure and
even to be eternal.133

131
Fakhry, History of Islamic Philosophy, p. 176.

132
In this case, Goodman mistakenly translates nafs as “self” when Ibn Tufayl is actually referring to soul.
This level is identical to Ibn Sīnā’s second set of emanations, where the first intellect emanates the second
intellect, the sphere of the fixed stars, and the soul of this sphere.

133
Hayy (English), pp. 152–153, 154–155, my emphasis; and Hayy (Arabic), pp. 83–84, 86–87.

114
 Ibn Sīnā’s and, consequently, Ibn Tufayl’s emanation schemes create a number of

problems for a traditionalist, scriptural understanding of the nature of God. Most

significantly, the scheme robs God of any attribute save His causative power, while the

Qur’ān is filled with references to the positive attributes of God. Worse still, it removes

the notion of “God’s will” from Divine action, thereby implying that God is forced to

create the world of necessity.134 The seriousness of this issue can be gauged by the fact

that al-Ghazālī devotes a significant portion of his treatise to the falāsifa’s emanation

schemes. His attack on the theory of emanation is so severe that even Ibn Rushd

concedes that Ibn Sīnā has it wrong and backs away from the scheme entirely.135

Scholars who took their problematic from scripture, be they Sunnīs or Shīcas,

mutakallimūn or fuqahā’, required God to have real agency in the world and not to just be

a necessary existent who necessarily brings the world into existence.136

Nonetheless, kalām and other Post-Avicennian theological discussions on God

and His attributes owe a great deal to their clash with Ibn Sīnā. We have already seen

that Ibn Sīnā himself owed a great debt to kalām for developing his own unique

distinctions between essence and existence. Post-Avicennian mutakallimūn were

themselves able to appropriate these distinctions in order to flesh out their own ideas

about the relationship of God to the world and His attributes. The proof for the existence

of God, through the use of Ibn Sīnā’s distinctions between necessary and contingent
134
Wisnovsky, “Avicenna and the Avicennian Tradition,” pp. 130–131.

135
al-Ghazali, Incoherence of the Philosophers, especially discussions three and six; and Ibn Rushd,
Tahafut al-Tahafut (The Incoherence of the Incoherence), tr. Simon van den Bergh (London: Luzac, 1954),
discussion three, especially pp. 105–109, 117–120, 141. I do not want to suggest that Ibn Rushd had no
other reason for abandoning the scheme, but he certainly saw merit in al-Ghazālī’s arguments against the
Avicennian emanation scheme.

136
Wisnovsky, “Avicenna and the Avicennian Tradition,” pp. 130–131.

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beings, replaced earlier cosmological arguments that relied on the concept of eternity and,

as we saw earlier, was even used by Ibn al-Nafīs himself. However, the relationship

between God and the Divine attributes, such as mercy, justice, etc., continued to create

problems for the mutakallimūn. Like earlier kalām discussions that struggled to

determine how the Divine attributes could themselves be eternal in God without making

them out to be, in effect, mini-Gods, post-Avicennian discussions struggled to understand

the Divine attributes using Ibn Sīnā’s notion of the necessary existent. For if the

attributes were taken as being necessarily existent in themselves, they gained a causal

autonomy that again made them out to be mini-Gods. On the other hand, if the attributes

were taken as possibly existent, similar to earlier speculations about the attributes being

non-eternal, then they had to be originated and, thus, could not be part of God’s self.137

Suffice it to say, these kalām discussions over the nature of God’s positive attributes were

very much unresolved and were being hotly disputed during Ibn al-Nafīs’s own time.

Ibn al-Nafīs’s defense of revelation against Ibn Tufayl’s condemnation of the

anthropomorphic language in the Qur’ān reveals that Ibn al-Nafīs was well aware of the

complex nature of the debates surrounding God’s attributes.138 On the one hand, in

keeping with scripture, and in sheer opposition to Ibn Tufayl and the falāsifa, he makes it

abundantly clear that God must, nevertheless, possess certain positive attributes:

[Kāmil] reflected on the attributes of the Creator which this prophet ought to
teach. He concluded that he ought to teach men that they had a Creator, and that

137
See Wisnovsky, “The Avicennian Turn in Sunni Theology”; and Wisnovsky, “Avicenna and the
Avicennian Tradition.”

138
According to Ibn Tufayl, Hayy is initially bemused by the fact that a Prophet would describe God in
anthropomorphic terms, thus allowing the masses to fall into “grave error”; Hayy (English), p. 161. Later,
Hayy comes to terms with this aspect of revelation once he realizes how ignorant the masses really are (see
above).

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 this Creator is possessed of splendour and majesty in an infinite degree, that He
must be obeyed and worshipped, and that there is no God but Him, and that there
is nothing like Him; that He is the hearing and knowing one; and other qualities
which are in keeping with Allah’s majesty, such as complete power and perfect
might.139

Even in this short passage, however, we see that Ibn al-Nafīs is carefully trying to

balance the presence of both positive and negative aspects of God’s nature as presented in

the Qur’ān. This fine balance is severely tested as he begins to address the presence of

anthropomorphic texts in scripture:

At the same time this prophet would not make it clear that there is behind all that
something which he had concealed, and he would not oblige men [to believe]
something of which they could not easily become aware and which they could
imagine only with difficulty: for instance if he told them that Allah is neither
inside nor outside the world, that He is not a body and cannot be perceived by the
senses, that He is not in any direction and that one cannot point at Him with a sign
perceptible by the senses. Should the prophet explain these and similar things
they would be as it were meaningless for those who did not make a [special] study
to understand them; and if they [i.e., the masses] made a [special] study to
understand them they would become confused and bewildered, and their study
would prevent them from seeking their livelihood and following their
occupations, and the harmony of them all would be destroyed. This would be
contrary to the primary aim of the prophetic mission.140

We have already seen in chapter two that Ibn al-Nafīs refuses to accept any

anthropomorphic hadīth as sahīh (sound), and even goes so far as to suggest that any

transmitter who narrates an anthropomorphic hadīth is to be declared a liar. However,

since the Qur’ān’s authenticity is taken as given, he is forced to confront the presence of

anthropomorphic language in the Qur’ān itself. As seen above, he justifies the presence

of such language in revelation by appealing to the innate ignorance of the masses and

139
Theologus, p. 56, my emphasis.

140
Ibid., p. 56.

117
their inherent incapability of understanding incorporeal, transcendental realities.

Interestingly, that is exactly how the falāsifa also explained the presence of such

anthropomorphisms. As Ibn Sīnā argues at length in his al-Shifā’:

[But] he ought not to involve them with anything [doctrinal] pertaining to the
knowledge of God, exalted be He, beyond the knowledge that He is One, the
Truth, and has nothing similar to Him. To go beyond this and obligate them to
believe in His existence as being not referred to in place, as being not subject to
verbal classifications, as being neither inside nor outside the world, nor anything
of this kind [is to ask too much]. He will [simply] render their task too great,
confuse the religion they have . . .. For it is only with great strain that they can
conceive the true states of such matters in their true aspects; it is only the very few
among them that can understand the truth of divine “unity” and divine
“transcendence.” [The rest] would inevitably come to deny the truth of such
existence, fall into dissensions . . .. For it is not for everyone that [the acquisition]
of divine wisdom is facilitated.141

By admitting that the masses are incapable of understanding the truth about an

incorporeal, transcendent God, and that for that reason revelation must resort to

anthropomorphisms, Ibn al-Nafīs seems to be conceding to the falāsifa that revelation, in

its literal sense, is indeed irreconcilable with reason. After all, the fact that revelation

needs to address the masses and, in doing so, must resort to inaccurate depictions, is what

had led the falāsifa to subvert the authority of revelation in the first place. And if

revelation cannot present the truth for fear of confusing the masses, then the falāsifa must

be right in maintaining that the elite have access to those truths independent of revelation.

But that is precisely the kind of autodidactism that Ibn al-Nafīs denies vehemently. In

order to move past this dilemma, Ibn al-Nafīs distances himself from the falāsifa’s views

141
Ibn Sina, The Metaphysics, pp. 365–366, emendations are in the original translation itself. Ibn Tufayl
ends his treatise on a similar note. Hayy realizes that by trying to teach them the truth about the nature of
the incorporeal and utterly transcendent God he has confused the masses of the city to no end. Thus, he
apologizes for his mistake and asks them to stick closely to and “accept all the most problematical elements
of the tradition”; Hayy (English), p. 164.

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on these matters ever so slightly, so as to emphasize the dialectical nature of the

relationship between revelation and reason.

Ibn Sīnā had stringently maintained that the prophet of revelation should not

reveal the truth for fear of misleading the masses. Instead, he, along with the revelation,

should only speak in symbols that, at most, stimulate philosophical inquiry without

actually providing the substance for it:

Nor is it proper for any human to reveal that he possesses knowledge he is hiding
from the commonality. Indeed, he must never permit any reference to this.
Rather, he should let them know of God’s majesty and greatness through symbols
(rumūz) and similitudes (amthila) derived from things that, for them, are majestic
and great, adding this much: that He has neither an equal, nor a partner, nor
anyone like Him. Similarly, he must instill in them the belief in the resurrection
in a manner that they can conceive and in which their souls find rest. . . . Of the
true nature of [the afterlife] he should indicate only something in general . . ..
Know that God, exalted be He, knows that the good lies in [such a state of
affairs]. It follows, then, that that which God knows to be the good must exist . .
.. But there is no harm if the legislator’s words contain symbols and signs that
might call forth those naturally disposed toward theoretical reflection to pursue
philosophic investigations (wa-lā ba’s an yashtamil khitābuhu cala rumūz wa
ishārāt tastadcī al-mustacidd bi’l-jiblati li’l-nazar ilā ’l-bahth al-hikmī].142

Ibn al-Nafīs, on the other hand, demands that, even while speaking in symbols,

revelation must not leave anything essential out. Moreover, revelation must not only

stimulate the adept towards philosophical inquiry, but it must actually provide the means

for the rational elite to ascertain the true nature of the Divine:

Therefore, the prophet ought to mention these things [i.e. about the nature of God
and His attributes] only in a general, and not in an explicit, detailed manner; and,
moreover, he ought not to make it clear that there is a detailed explanation. Still,
he ought not to omit any essential part of the details, but ought to introduce in his
speech allegories and allusions sufficient to make the select ones understand all
[of those] details [bal yajcal fī kalāmihi min al-rumūz wa’l-ishārāt mā yafham al-

142
Ibn Sina, The Metaphysics, p. 366, bracketed emendations are in the original translation; parenthetical
emendations are from the facing, edited Arabic text.

119
 khawāssu minhu tafsīla dhālika kullahu], whereas the general public remains
confined to as much of their outward meaning as they are able to understand.143

Therefore, the difference between Ibn al-Nafīs and the falāsifa lies again in their

fundamental disagreement over the self-sufficiency of reason. Unlike the falāsifa, Ibn al-

Nafīs is unwilling to grant that one can arrive at deep religious truths, in this case the

nature of the Divine, without resorting to revelation. Thus, even though he agrees with

the falāsifa that revelation speaks to the masses and, hence, is required to use

anthropomorphic descriptions that are technically incorrect, he wants to ensure that

revelation still contains the essential truths and alludes to the real nature of the Divine

sufficiently enough for the rational elite to be properly guided. Just as in the case of the

biography of the Prophet, revelation provides the material that then needs to be rationally

understood.

Ibn al-Nafīs has some grounds for believing that the essential truths about the

Divine are provided in revelation. After all, even the falāsifa would have admitted that,

alongside its anthropomorphic verses, the Qur’ān also contains strong denials of

anthropomorphism. Since Ibn al-Nafīs rejected the theologically vacuous Plotinian

concept of God, he would have maintained that the Qur’ān’s attribution of will and other

attributes to God contains a kernel of truth about the nature of the Divine. As for why

Ibn al-Nafīs does not provide a philosophically rigorous way to understand the nature of

God and the Divine attributes as found in the Qur’ān, there are two possibilities. First, as

seen in the above discussion, Ibn al-Nafīs distinguishes between the intellectual

capacities of the masses and those of the elite. Such a view was quite prevalent amongst

143
Theologus, p. 56, 112.

120
the falāsifa and other scholarly elites during this time.144 In fact, Ibn al-Nafīs makes a

similar distinction in his hadīth text, which suggests that this principle was also favorably

accepted in traditionalist circles.145 Thus, Ibn al-Nafīs’s refusal to engage in

metaphysical discussions concerning God’s attributes in Fādil ibn Nātiq can be explained

by the fact that this text was meant for a broad audience and not for a narrow,

philosophical one.

Second, in order to provide a more substantial answer, Ibn al-Nafīs would have to

incorporate discussions from contemporaneous kalām texts into his own treatise. As he

himself maintains in his classification scheme of the religious sciences, “The science of

kalām is concerned with the essence of God and the characters attributed to him . . .. For

that reason it is the most honorable of [the religious] sciences.”146 Yet, the problem is

that thirteenth century kalām had not entirely resolved the debates over the nature of the

Divine attributes. These discussions were still trying to determine how best to

incorporate Ibn Sīnā’s neat distinction between necessary and contingent existents in

order to solve the problem of the attributes. Ibn al-Nafīs merely alludes to the fact that

one would have to work with the positive ascriptions to God in revelation in order to

arrive at the elusive answer. This suggests that Ibn al-Nafīs himself had not quite arrived

at a complete rational understanding of the nature of the Divine attributes, even though he

144
For an excellent study on the prevalence of hierarchical structures throughout Islamic society, see
Louise Marlow, Hierarchy and Egalitarianism in Islamic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1997). Marlow also discusses the role of the falāsifa in rationalizing inequalities (pp. 49–57, 143–
155). Also see, W. Montgomery Watt, Muslim Intellectual: A Study of al-Ghazālī (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 1963), pp. 163–169; Ibn Rushd, The Book of the Decisive Treatise, especially pp. 26–29;
and Timothy Gianotti, Al-Ghazālī’s Unspeakable Doctrine of the Soul: Unveiling the Esoteric Psychology
and Eschatology of the Ihyā’ (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2001), especially pp. 19–67.

145
Ibn al-Nafīs, Mukhtasar, p. 115.

146
Ibid., pp. 96–97.

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believed the answer lay in working from revelation. Perhaps what convinced him that he

was on the right track was not only the fact that he had earlier rationalized the exoteric

aspects of revelation, but also the fact that he had succeeded in rationalizing the scriptural

understanding of bodily resurrection—a dogma that the falāsifa believed to be just as

problematic as anthropomorphism.

3.5 Bodily Resurrection and the Problem of Individuation

There is no doubt that the belief in the promise of a life after death is one of the

main tenets of Islam. Traditional Islamic sources contain an overwhelming amount of

material on the events of the Last Day and the promised future life. The Qur’ān and

hadīth describe vividly the conditions of the pious worshippers and sinners, along with

describing the rewards and punishments that await them in their future life. In fact, the

emphasis on resurrection and the day of judgment is so strong in the Qur’ān itself, “that

the ethical teachings contained in the Book must be understood in the light of this

reality.”147 Thus, it comes as no surprise that most major Muslim thinkers have defended

a doctrine of the afterlife. Nonetheless, the problem has been to ascertain the nature of

that afterlife. Given their strong commitment to Neoplatonic Aristotelianism, the falāsifa

categorically denied the possibility of a corporeal afterlife. Other groups that were more

committed to scriptural sources found it much harder to reject the possibility of a

147
Jane I. Smith and Yvonne Y. Haddad, The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection,
Paperback ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 2.

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corporeal afterlife, given the sheer bulk of religious references to such a state of

existence.148

Since traditionalists are most committed to the authority of scriptural texts, they

hold firm to a belief in a physical afterlife and bodily resurrection. The support for their

belief appears to come from the Qur’ān itself, which speaks of the afterlife in terms of

physical rewards and punishments, and even scoffs at the suggestion that God is

incapable of reviving decayed bones (36:78–79). Moreover, given the overwhelming

number of hadīth and the consensus of the early companions of the Prophet and

subsequent traditionalist scholars on this issue, traditionalists uphold a belief in the

punishment of the grave (cadhāb al-qabr).149 Although there was some disagreement

amongst scholars on whether this punishment is purely for the soul or the body, Ibn

Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 1350) claims that the majority of traditionalists and the

mutakallimūn agreed that it is for both.150 However, he is certainly tolerant of differing

opinions given by other mutakallimūn and hadīth scholars (ahl al-hadīth) who, while

148
The hadīth, in particular, provide considerable material on the condition of a person after death and in
the interim period leading up to the Day of Resurrection. This material seeks to address concerns such as
those over the nature of death, the parting of the soul, the physical location of the soul/spirit before it is
reunited with a body on that day, the consciousness or awareness of the dead, whether there is a
punishment in the grave that foreshadows that of the final judgment, and so forth. Much of this scattered
material was carefully organized into book form by a Hanbalī religious scholar, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya
(d. 1350), in a treatise entitled Kitāb al-Rūh (The Book of the Spirit). This treatise lies at the center of
many historical studies on the understanding of soul, death and resurrection amongst Muslim traditionalists.
See Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Kitāb al-rūh: fī ’l-kalām cala arwāh al-amwāt wa’l-ahyā’ bi’l-dalā’il min al-
kitāb wa’l-sunna wa’l-āthār wa aqwāl al-culamā’ (Cairo: Dar Nahr al-Nil, 19uu); Ragnar Eklund, Life
Between Death and Resurrection According to Islam (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells, 1941); J. Macdonald,
“The Preliminaries to the Resurrection and Judgment,” Islamic Studies 4 (1965): 137–179; J. Macdonald,
“The Day of Resurrection,” Islamic Studies 5 (1966): 129–197; Smith and Haddad, Islamic Understanding
of Death and Resurrection; and Michael Marmura, “Soul: Islamic Concepts,” in The Encyclopedia of
Religion, ed. Lindsay Jones (Detroit: Macmillan, 2005), vol. 13, pp. 461–465.

149
See EI2, s.v. “cadhāb al-kabr” (by A. J. Wesnick-A. S. Tritton).

150
Ibn Qayyim, Kitab al-ruh, pp. 69–70; and Smith and Haddad, Islamic Understanding of Death and
Resurrection, p. 57.

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accepting bodily resurrection and this interim punishment of the grave, deny that this

punishment is also inflicted upon bodies. The falāsifa are the only group that is severely

criticized by Ibn Qayyim and whose views are referred to as being the “farthest from the

people of Islam [lākin qawl al-falāsifa abcad can aqwāl ahli ’l-islām],” because they not

only deny the physical punishment of the grave, but they also deny bodily resurrection.151

As such, we see that traditionalists considered the belief in a physical afterlife to be more

important than a belief in the punishment of the grave.

Interestingly, traditionalists use the terms nafs (soul) and rūh (spirit)

interchangeably, even though the Qur’ān itself maintains a sharp distinction between the

two terms. Throughout the Qur’ān, rūh is used in connection with the divine breath in

Adam or the revelation that descends into the hearts of Prophets, but never to refer to

individual human souls. On the other hand, nafs, and its plural anfus, is explicitly used to

refer to human souls, or in situations describing individual moral and religious

dispositions.152 However, the hadīth collections and subsequent traditionalist and kalām

discourse used the terms interchangeably and, in most cases, they even privileged the use

of rūh over nafs while referring to individual human souls.153

151
Ibn Qayyim, Kitab al-ruh, p. 70.

152
D. B. Macdonald, “The Development of the Idea of Spirit in Islam,” The Moslem World: A Quarterly
Review of History, Culture, Religions and the Christian Mission in Islamdom 22 (1932): 25–42; E. E.
Calverly, “Doctrines of the Soul (nafs and rūh) in Islam,” The Moslem World: A Quarterly Review of
History, Culture, Religions and the Christian Mission in Islamdom 33 (1943): 254–264; and Marmura,
“Soul: Islamic Concepts.”

153
See, for example, Ibn Qayyim, Kitab al-ruh; Macdonald, “The Development of the Idea of Spirit in
Islam”; and Calverly, “Doctrines of the Soul.” Under pressure to explain certain Qur’ānic verses and
hadīth, traditionalists, at times, formulated a subtle distinction between the two terms but, in general, the
two terms were used interchangeably; see Smith and Haddad, Islamic Understanding of Death and
Resurrection.

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 As for the corporeality or immateriality of the soul, the Qur’ān and hadīth have

little to offer. Neither set of texts explicitly approves any particular position, and the

Qur’ān even seems to discourage speculations on the nature of the soul/spirit by stating

that it is “God’s affair,” and that humans have hardly been provided with any knowledge

in this regard (17:85).154 However, there are a vast number of references in traditional

sources to the movement of the soul from the earth to the heavens and back, of the soul

observing its place in the grave from the heavens and returning to it for questioning, and

so on.155 Moreover, traditionalists also explained dreams by citing the movement of

souls without their bodies during sleep, as described in the Qur’ān.156 For that reason,

Ibn Qayyim, and many other traditionalists, believed in a corporeal soul that permeates

the entire body, like “oil in olives” or “fire in charcoal,” albeit differing in essence from

physical matter.157 This notion of the soul is not too different from that of some of the

mutakallimūn.

Given the mutakallimūn’s self-identification as the “rational defenders of faith,” it

is not surprising that they had struggled with these Qur’ānic notions of soul, spirit and

resurrection. However, the mutakallimūn were also restricted in their quest for a solution

154
The Qur’ān uses the term rūh here and if we accept that the Qur’ān never equates rūh and nafs then the
verse may not apply to speculating over the nature of the human soul. Nevertheless, that is how the verse
was interpreted over time by traditionalists; see Smith and Haddad, Islamic Understanding of Death and
Resurrection, p. 18; and Marmura, “Soul: Islamic Concepts,” p. 460.

155
See Ibn Qayyim, Kitab al-ruh; and Smith and Haddad, Islamic Understanding of Death and
Resurrection.

156
The Qur’ān states: “God takes the souls at death, and, for those who have not died, in their sleep. (As
for the souls He takes up in the sleep,) He holds back those for whom death has been decreed, and sends the
rest back for their appointed time” (38:43). Ibn Qayyim uses this verse, in conjunction with other traditions
and verses, in order to explain dreams; Kitab al-ruh, pp. 27–44.

157
Ibid., p. 243; Calverly, “Doctrines of the Soul,” p. 261; Smith and Haddad, Islamic Understanding of
Death and Resurrection, p. 20; and Marmura, “Soul: Islamic Concepts,” pp. 461–2.

125
to these problems by their strong commitment to atomism. Along with rationally

debating theological topics, the early mutakallimūn had developed an atomistic

cosmological system to which they adhered quite strictly, at least up to the twelfth

century.158 Thus, any discussion of the nature of man or the soul and spirit automatically

took place within the confines of this system, which broke every physical thing down into

atoms and accidents. Moreover, apart from their specific cosmological and theological

concerns, the issue was further complicated by debates surrounding the principle of life

and over the identity of life, soul and spirit.159 As a result, there was no real consensus

amongst the early mutakallimūn on the nature of life, soul and spirit, except that they too

tended to equate the terms rūh and nafs and, like the traditionalists, preferred to use the

term rūh for soul. The few that denied atomism, but were committed to other parts of the

kalām cosmological and theological system, such as al-Nazzām (d. 845) and perhaps al-

Juwaynī (d. 1085), upheld a view of the corporeal soul much like that of Ibn Qayyim.160

The majority, committed to atomism, suggested either that the soul was a single atom, or

that it was an accident that resided in the body.161 They did, however, agree that the soul

could not be an incorporeal substance that survives after death. Furthermore, since there

are no non-corporeal entities in the cosmological universe of kalām, the mutakallimūn

158
A notable exception is al-Nazzām (d. 845); see Alnoor Dhanani, The Physical Theory of Kalām:
Atoms, Space and Void in Basrian Muctazilī Cosmology (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994).

159
See Majid Fakhry, “The Muctazilite View of Man,” in Recherches D’Islamologie: Recueil d’articles
offert à Georges C. Anawati et Louis Gardet par leurs collègues et amis, ed. R. Arnaldez and S. van Riet
(Louvain: Peeters, 1977), pp. 107–121; and Marmura, “Soul: Islamic Concepts.”

160
al-Shahrastānī, Livre des religions et des sectes, tr. D. Gimaret and G. Monnot (Louvain: Peeters,
1986), pp. 203–204; and Marmura, “Soul: Islamic Concepts,” pp. 462–3

161
Fakhry, “The Muctazilite View of Man,” pp. 108–112; and Marmura, “Soul: Islamic Concepts,” pp.
462–3.

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unanimously upheld a belief in bodily resurrection, even though many of them,

particularly from amongst the Muctazila, denied any life to the body in the interim, and so

rejected the possibility of the punishment of the grave.162

On the other end of the spectrum stand the falāsifa, who tended to reject the

corporeality of the soul and bodily resurrection, and even the possibility of a punishment

of the grave.163 Ibn Sīnā, whose philosophical views triumphed over those of his

predecessors and who came to be seen as the embodiment of falsafa (as we have already

seen), categorically denied the possibility of bodily resurrection.164 However, just as his

views on prophecy and proofs for the existence of God provided a spring-board for

subsequent discussions on these topics, so too did his views on the soul for subsequent

discussions on personal immortality and resurrection. In fact, Ibn Tufayl and Ibn al-

Nafīs’s solutions to the problem of resurrection are directly based upon, and respond to,

Ibn Sīnā’s central concern: the problem of the individuation of souls after death.

162
Smith and Haddad, Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection, p. 47. The Ashcarī school of
kalām certainly believed in the punishment of the grave as it is explicitly stated in al-Ashcarī’s creeds
themselves; see al-Ashcarī, The Theology of al-Ashcarī: The Arabic texts of Kitāb al-Lumc and Risālat
Istihsān al-khawd fī cilm al-kalām, ed. and tr. Richard J. McCarthy (Beirut: Impr. Catholique, 1953), pp.
244, 250. Also see A. J. Wesnick, The Muslim Creed: Its Genesis and Historical Development
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932).

163
The falāsifa were certainly divided on the issue of personal immortality. Al-Fārābī accepted the
possibility of individual immortality through the survival of the rational soul and al-Kindī even subscribed
to the doctrine of bodily resurrection; see Fakhry, A History of Islamic Philosophy, pp. 145–147; Reisman,
“al-Fārābī and the Philosophical Curriculum”; and Marmura, “Soul: Islamic Concepts,” pp. 463–4. On the
other hand, Abū Bakr al-Rāzī denied personal immortality and argued for a transmigration of souls; see
Fakhry, A History of Islamic Philosophy, pp. 119–124. Ibn Rushd’s views on the issue are unclear and
have confused scholars over the ages. The most recent assessment is that of Richard Taylor, who suggests
that Ibn Rushd denied personal immortality in his mature philosophical works; see his, “Personal
Immortality in Averroes’ Mature Philosophical Psychology,” Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica
medievale IX (1998): 87–110

164
Ibn Sīnā does profess a belief in bodily resurrection at the beginning of his section on resurrection in
his Shifā’ (Book 9, section 7); see his, Metaphysics. However, as Marmura shows, “elsewhere in his
writings he explicitly denies bodily resurrection. Moreover, in the Shifā’, with the [above-stated] exception
. . ., there is no affirmation of bodily resurrection. His cosmology and theory of the soul, in fact, cannot
accommodate such a doctrine”; Marmura, “Avicenna and the Kalām,” p. 195.

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3.5.1 Ibn Sīnā, the Ammonian synthesis and the Problem of Individuation

Individual immortality and resurrection, divested of any form of materialism,

form the cornerstone of Ibn Sīnā’s ethics and his philosophical system in general.165 We

have already seen Ibn Sīnā’s strong commitment to rationally explicating and defending

religion in examples drawn from his theory of prophecy. His commitment to individual

immortality and resurrection was similiarly firm and, in certain respects, somewhat more

personal.166 It is no wonder that Ibn Rushd, whose own commitment to personal

immortality is best described as elusive and equivocal, resolutely defends Ibn Sīnā on this

point from al-Ghazālī’s charge of heresy even though he disagrees with the details of Ibn

Sīnā’s argument:

But the [falāsifa] in particular, as is only natural, regard this doctrine [of
resurrection] as most important and believe in it most . . ., for it is a necessity for
the existence of the moral and speculative virtues and of the practical sciences in
men.167

Ibn Sīnā’s specific doctrine of the soul and its survival after death, along with the

problems this doctrine generates, is a direct consequent of his engagement with kalām

and the Hellenistic, Neoplatonic commentaries on Aristotle that molded the Arabic

translations of Aristotle. On the one hand, he strenuously rejects the atomistic universe

of kalām and its “materialist doctrines of the soul.”168 His proofs for the immateriality of

the soul are specifically presented to attack the kalām doctrines. On the other hand,

165
See Hall, “A Decisive Example of the Influence of Psychological”; and Goodman, Avicenna, pp. 149–
174.

166
See Marmura, “Avicenna and the Kalam,” p. 206.

167
Ibn Rushd, Tahafut al-Tahafut, vol. 1, p. 359.

168
Marmura, “Avicenna and the Kalam,” p. 206.

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because he is firmly committed to Aristotelian understandings of matter and form, he is

confronted with two inter-related problems: 1) if the soul is indeed the form of the body,

how can it survive death? 2) If the soul indeed survives the death of the body, as it must

in order to support individual immortality in Avicenna’s system, what individuates it in

an Aristotelian universe where the only individuating principle is matter? Although Ibn

Sīnā never succeeded in resolving the second problem, his solution to the first problem

develops out of a Neoplatonic Hellenistic understanding of the elusive Aristotelian

definition of soul.169

In De Anima, Aristotle describes the soul (psuche) as a “substance in the sense of

being the form of a natural body, which potentially has life.”170 This initial positive

description follows upon a long refutation throughout Book One of the views of his

predecessors on the soul, most of whom considered the soul to be some sort of a

corporeal substance. More importantly, it also follows upon a discussion of Plato’s belief

in a tripartite soul and the soul’s existence independent of the body. The discussions

surrounding the tripartite soul will be taken up in the next chapter as they are important

for understanding the physiological debates in which Ibn al-Nafīs participated and which

led him to his discovery of the pulmonary transit of blood. As for Aristotle’s rejection of

Plato’s soul-body dualism, it is not only implicit in his above equation of the soul as

form, given the Aristotelian understanding of form as inseparable from matter,171 but he

169
Wisnovsky, Avicenna’s Metaphysics in Context.

170
Aristotle, De Anima, II.1 412a20–21. All references to De Anima are to the following edition, unless
otherwise noted: Aristotle, On the Soul, Parva Naturalia, On Breath, tr. W. S. Hett, Loeb ed. (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1957).

171
For a quick overview of Aristotle’s rejection of Platonic Forms and his own matter/form theory and its
relation to substance, see G. E. R. Lloyd, Aristotle: The Growth and Structure of His Thought (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. 1968), pp. 42–67.

129
also states explicitly at the end of the chapter that “neither the soul nor certain parts of it,

if it has parts, can be separated from the body.”172

In the subsequent discussion, Aristotle offers a definition of the soul that has

taxed almost every commentator of Aristotle thence.173 He first describes substance as

“entelechy,” and then goes on to define the soul “as the first [entelechy] of a natural body

potentially possessing life.”174 The entire weight of the definition, naturally, revolves

around Aristotle’s invented term, “entelechy.”175 Modern commentators in particular

have found this definition problematic, primarily because this usage of “entelechy” does

not reconcile well with its usage in Physics, III.1, where it is used to define change. As

Ackrill notes, “it is not clear how the notions of form and matter or of actuality

[“entelechy”] and potentiality are in this case to be understood.”176 For example, as

Wisnovsky shows, the De Anima definition commits Aristotle to a view of entelechy as

“a state of being,” whereas the passage from Physics leaves open the possibility of

entelechy as “a process of becoming,” depending on whether one understands “change”

in Aristotle as a process or state.177 Moreover, there is also the additional problem of

172
Aristotle, De Anima, II.1 413a3–4.

173
See, for example, J. L. Ackrill, “Aristotle’s Definitions of psuche,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society 73 (1972–3): 119–133; Richard Sorabji, “Body and Soul in Aristotle,” Philosophy 49 (1974): 63–
89; Robert Bolton, “Aristotle’s Definitions of the Soul: De Anima II, 1–3,” Phronesis 23 (1978): 258–278;
and William Charlton, “Aristotle’s Definition of Soul,” Phronesis 25 (1980): 170–186. Ackrill and
Sorabji’s articles have been reprinted in Articles on Aristotle: Volume Four, Psychology and Aesthetics, ed.
J. Barnes, M. Schofield and R. Sorabji (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1978). For the problems this
definition created for subsequent Hellenistic and Islamic commentators, see Wisnovsky, Avicenna’s
Metaphysics in Context.

174
Aristotle, De Anima, II.1 412a27–28.

175
Wisnovsky, Avicenna’s Metaphysics in Context, p. 21.

176
Ackrill, “Aristotle’s Definitions of psuche,” p. 68.

177
Wisnovsky, Avicenna’s Metaphysics in Context, p. 25.

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determining what Aristotle means by first and second entelechy. The problem arises

precisely because Aristotle wants to be able to differentiate between the dormant and

waking lives of an individual. However,

[i]f being alive, whether for an organ or for a whole body, is having certain
powers (not necessarily exercising them) and to be an organ or a human body is to
possess such powers, no distinction can be drawn for organs and bodies between
their being potentially alive and their being actually alive.178

To put it another way, if ‘entelechy’ is understood as ‘actuality’ in relation to potentiality,

then how is it possible for the soul to be a first entelechy “which seems much closer to

potentiality than it does to actuality?”179

Many modern commentators shy away from reconciling the two uses of

entelechy, and instead concentrate primarily on Aristotle’s actual concepts of soul and

change.180 Sorabji and Bolton, for example, even argue that Aristotle never really meant

the above definition to be taken as a definition, but only as an “outline.”181 Sorabji, in

fact, picks out the subsequent discussion on the capacities/faculties of living things as the

real Aristotelian account of soul, claiming that, for Aristotle, soul “just is these

capacities.”182 This functional definition of ensoulment is certainly important in Aristotle

and was picked up by his later commentators, including Ibn Sīnā who notes that

nourishment, growth and reproduction,

178
Ackrill, “Aristotle’s Definitions of psuche,” p. 70. For a critique of Ackrill’s views, see Charlton,
“Aristotle’s Definition of Soul.”

179
Wisnovsky, Avicenna’s Metaphysics in Context, p. 23.

180
Ibid., p. 4.

181
Bolton, “Aristotle’s Definitions of the Soul”; and Sorabji, “Body and Soul in Aristotle,” p. 43.

182
Sorabji, “Body and Soul in Aristotle,” p. 43.

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 do not arise in these bodies by virtue of their physicality. Rather, they have in
their essences principles other than physicality that are responsible for these
actions. And whatever gives rise to such actions . . . cannot be devoid of will and
is therefore called “soul.”183

I shall return to this discussion of the faculties of the soul in chapter four as it is

important for understanding not only Aristotelian physiology, but even Galenic

physiology as it came to be understood by Islamic physicians. For the time being, it is

important to note that even though this functional definition of soul is entailed in the

earlier definition of soul as entelechy, as Sorabji and Lloyd rightly claim,184 it does not

exhaust the meanings of that definition. “Entelechy” is highly underdetermined in the

Aristotelian corpus and, in the hands of his Neoplatonic Hellenistic commentators, the

concept gave rise to a specific way of reconciling the different usages of “entelechy” that

eventually led them to reconcile the Aristotelian view of the immanent soul with a

Platonic notion of a separable soul.185

As Robert Wisnovsky shows, Aristotle’s Hellenistic commentators, unlike his

modern commentators, were committed to reconciling the two different usages of

“entelechy.” To summarize Wisnovsky’s arguments, the early Hellenistic commentators,

Alexander of Aphrodisias (fl. 205 C.E.) and Themistius (fl. 365 C.E.) came to understand

entelechy in the framework of completeness and “endedness.” In the hands of the

Neoplatonic commentators, especially Ammonius (d. ca. 521 C. E.), this understanding
183
Ibn Sīnā, Shifā’ quoted in Goodman, Avicenna, p. 149.

184
Sorabji, “Body and Soul in Aristotle,” p. 43; and Lloyd, Aristotle, pp. 184–186.

185
Wisnovsky, Avicenna’s Metaphysics in Context. Of course, in one passage of De Anima (II.2 413b24)
Aristotle seems to suggest that since reason is not the perfection of a bodily organ, it can survive without a
body. This passage has troubled commentators, some of whom have seen it as a remnant of Platonic
dualistic notions, while others have argued that this passage in no way justifies personal immortality; see
Lloyd, Aristotle, pp. 19–41, 186–187, 195–201; and Bolton, “Aristotle’s Definitions of the Soul.”

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of entelechy as completeness and endedness was used to support a specifically

Neoplatonic metaphysics of reversion and procession. Within this metaphysics, the

Neoplatonic commentators divided the four Aristotelian causes into those that transcend

their effects (final and efficient), and those that are immanent in their effects (formal and

material). From there it is easy to see that they could argue for the separability of the

soul qua final cause, but final cause as understood in the Neoplatonic sense of

transcending its effect. And it is this understanding of soul as entelechy, understood as

completeness and perfection, and the final causes as transcending their effects, that found

its way into the Arabic translations of Aristotle and his commentators upon which Ibn

Sīnā relies.186

We have already seen above that Ibn Sīnā accepts the functional definition of soul

as the principle of the faculties of a living organism.187 We should also note that he

immediately refers to the soul as being beyond physical or incorporeal. That is in fact the

core essence of his understanding of the soul, and a consequence of his rejection of the

kalām arguments for the corporeality of the soul.188 Over the course of his works, he

provides a number of arguments for the incorporeality of the soul, ranging from the

necessity for the receptacle of universal notions to be indivisible and hence immaterial,189

186
Wisnovsky, Avicenna’s Metaphysics in Context, chapters 2–5.

187
Also see Fazlur Rahman, Avicenna’s Psychology: An English Translation of Kitāb al-Najāt, Book II,
Chapter VI with Historico-Philosophical Notes and Textual Improvements on the Cairo Edition (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1952), pp. 25–40.

188
Marmura, “Avicenna and the Kalam.”

189
Rahman, Avicenna’s Psychology, pp. 41–54. According to Aristotle, or at least according to the non-
dualistic interpretation of his passages in De Anima II.2, III.4 and III.5, each individual’s active intellect
must be immaterial since it is concerned with universals. Hence, it is considered separable from the body
and survives its death. However, since Aristotle is not vested in personal immortality, he need not worry
about the numerical identity of the different active intellects after death; see, for example, Lloyd, Aristotle,

133
to the idea that the material body continuously undergoes change and dissolution and so

cannot be the basis for individual unity over time, to his famous “flying man” experiment

which establishes the immaterial soul as the true referent of “I” in humans.190 Naturally,

the incorporeal nature of the soul can be easily reconciled with, and has traditionally been

considered, the Aristotelian position.

Furthermore, Ibn Sīnā agrees with Aristotle that the soul does not in fact exist

prior to the body and only comes into existence with the body.191 Thus, he completely

rejects the Platonic soul-body dualism. Yet, unlike Aristotle, Ibn Sīnā refrains from

defining the soul as the form of the body. As a committed Aristotelian, he recognizes

that forms are immanent in matter. As such, forms cannot exist outside and apart from

matter, and so cannot be preserved after the matter is corrupted, or in this case, after a

person dies. For that reason, he restricts himself to defining the soul as “a first perfection

of a natural instrumental body to perform the activities of living.”192 This is precisely the

Aristotelian definition of soul as the “first entelechy,” except that Ibn Sīnā has come to

understand “entelechy” as “perfection” in light of the Ammonian tradition.

pp. 195–201. Ibn Sīnā, on the other hand, believes that there is only one active intellect for the entire
species, and thus needs another immaterial substance that is capable of receiving universals for each
individual, i.e. the rational soul. For an initial foray into the falāsifa’s understanding of the active intellect,
see Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes.

190
Michael Marmura, “Avicenna’s ‘Flying Man’ in Context,” The Monist 69 (1986): 383–395.

191
Ibn Sīnā’s rejection of this Platonic notion of an independent prior existence of the soul is most
prominent in his attack on metempsychosis; see Michael Marmura, “Avicenna and the Problem of the
Infinite Number of Souls,” Mediaeval Studies 22 (1960): 232–9; and Tariq Jaffer, “Bodies, Souls and
Resurrection in Avicenna’s ar-Risāla al-Adhawīya fī amr al-macād” in Before and After Avicenna:
Proceedings of the First Conference of the Avicenna Study Group, ed. David Reisman with the assistance
of Ahmed H. al-Rahim (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2003), pp. 163–174.

192
Wisnovsky, Metaphysics in Context, p. 114.

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 The Ammonian background is even more apparent in his discussion of perfection

in his Marginal Notes on Aristotle’s De Anima, wherein he explains that perfection is a

much broader term that encompasses not only the forms immanent in matter, but also

perfections that are separable from matter.193 Consequently, Ibn Sīnā can claim that since

the human soul qua final cause of the body transcends its effect, and since the human

soul is a perfection of the body that is not immanent in its matter, it is separable from the

body and can survive its death.194

Although earlier commentators had taken this Avicennian move to be reminiscent

of Neoplatonic soul-body dualism,195 Wisnovsky has conclusively shown how Ibn Sīnā

could argue for the separability of the soul as an Aristotelian:

[G]iven Avicenna’s rejection of the Platonic/Plotinian doctrine of the soul’s pre-

existence and descent into the body; given the fact that Aristotle’s position on the
soul’s, or at least the intellect’s, separability or separatedness is more
underdetermined than most modern scholars have allowed; given the radical
conceptual transformation which the concept of perfection underwent as a result
of the activities of Greek commentators and Greco-Arabic translators; and finally,
given Avicenna’s inheritance of an increasingly hardened distinction between the
formal and material causes, which are intrinsic to or immanent in their effect, and
the final and efficient causes, which are extrinsic to or transcend their effect,
Avicenna’s position on the soul’s separability or separatedness should, I believe,
be seen as a sophisticated and justifiable reading of Aristotle by a philosopher
who stands as the culmination of the Ammonian synthesis, rather than as a
symptom of his being in thrall to some caricature of Platonism or
Neoplatonism.196

193
Ibid., p. 117. Ibn al-Nafīs reveals in his discussion of perfection in the Sharh al-Qānūn that he too is
aware of this distinction between form and perfection in Ibn Sīnā’s falsafa (see below).

194
For a detailed study, see Wisnovsky, Avicenna’s Metaphysics in Context, chapter 6.

195
For example, Rahman, Avicenna’s Psychology, pp. 108–109; and Marmura, “Avicenna’s Flying Man
in Context,” p. 383.

196
Wisnovsky, Avicenna’s Metaphysics in Context, p. 140.

135
 What Wisnovsky’s phenomenal work shows is that Ibn Sīnā was absolutely

convinced about the separability and survival of the individual rational soul after death,

and that he could philosophically justify such a position, given his understanding of

certain key Aristotelian passages and concepts. In other words, he could philosophically

justify a belief in personal immortality. However, an important problem continued to

trouble him: the problem of individuating incorporeal souls after their separation from

bodies. Since Ibn Sīnā firmly believed in the incorporeality of souls, and since matter is

the only individuating principle in the universe for him, Ibn Sīnā still needed to show

how the separable human souls maintain their individuality after death. He continued to

struggle with this important puzzle and was never able to “provide a complete treatment”

for it. He acknowledged that individuation is “essential for the existence of the human

soul and [that it] is caused by its connection to a particular body” even after death. Yet,

he was never able to provide a satisfactory account of this connection and admitted that it

was “obscure.”197 Subsequently, the soul’s principle of individuation became the central

problem that post-Avicennian falsafa and its critics had to tackle with regard to the

problem of resurrection. Not surprisingly, the problem of individuation also forms the

cornerstone of Ibn Tufayl and Ibn al-Nafīs’s discussions of soul and resurrection.

197
Thérèse-Anne Druart, “The Human Soul’s Individuation and its Survival After the Body’s Death:
Avicenna on the Causal Relation Between Body and Soul,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 10 (2000):
259–273, p. 272.

136
3.5.2 Soul, Spirit and Monistic Sūfism: The Case of Ibn Tufayl

Like Ibn Sīnā, Ibn Tufayl posits the existence of a “principle over and above”

corporeality that enables a body to accomplish its tasks as a plant, animal or human.198

Thus, he maintains that the true identity of a human being is the incorporeal soul, which

is imperishable by virtue of being incorporeal.199 As a result, Ibn Tufayl subscribes to a

purely spiritual resurrection and afterlife, and strongly opposes the possibility of a

corporeal afterlife.200

However, unlike Ibn Sīnā, Ibn Tufayl does not subscribe to the Neoplatonic

notions of final causes as perfections that transcend their effects. For that reason, the

Avicennian definition of soul as the first perfection of a natural body does not figure into

Ibn Tufayl’s account. Instead, as a stricter Aristotelian, Ibn Tufayl equates soul (nafs)

with “form” (sūra).201 One would imagine that this identity would create even more

problems for Ibn Tufayl since, according to both Aristotelian and Neoplatonic

understandings of formal cause, forms are always immanent in matter. As a result, he

appears to have taken a step backwards, in that not only does he need to solve the

problem of individuation, but he now also needs to show how the soul qua form can be

separated from the body at death. His seemingly unusual step and his final resolution of

the problem of individuation make sense once we understand Ibn Tufayl’s commitment

to the mystical vision (mushāhada) of the Sūfīs.

198
Hayy (English), p. 123.

199
Ibid., pp. 135–6.

200
Ibid., pp. 137–8, 153.

201
Ibid., p. 123; and Hayy (Arabic), pp. 50–51.

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 Ibn Tufayl’s commitment to the soul’s potential to experience hidden realities

directly is hardly surprising. After all, he himself maintains in the preface that he has

“garnered what truth” he has by comparing the arguments of “Ghazālī and Avicenna,”202

and he considers al-Ghazālī to be a Sūfī who experienced the “mystical vision”

(mushāhada).203 In fact, this vision is what grounds Ibn Tufayl’s own argument for

autodidactic learning, since it is precisely what enables Hayy to penetrate the depths of

true reality.204 Consequently, Ibn Tufayl is primarily concerned with rationally

explicating this “mystical vision” (mushāhada). As it turns out, however, his solution to

personal immortality and individuation is closely tied to this explication.

A good place to begin the analysis of his views is with the passage immediately

preceding Ibn Tufayl’s description of Hayy’s experiences during his mystical vision.

Before proceeding to describe this vision, Ibn Tufayl cautions the reader thus:

Now do not set your heart on a description of what has never been represented in
a human heart. For many things that are articulate in the heart cannot be
described. . . . Nor by ‘heart’ do I mean only the physical heart or the spirit it
encloses. I mean also the form [sūra] of that spirit which spreads its powers
throughout the human body. All three of these [i.e. heart, spirit and soul] might
be termed ‘heart’. . ..205

This equivocation of the three terms—heart, spirit and soul—is identical to that found in

the Sūfī works of al-Ghazālī.206 According to this Sūfī understanding, the heart,

202
Hayy (English), p. 102.

203
Ibid., p. 95; and Hayy (Arabic), pp. 16–17.

204
Hayy (English), p. 95; and Hayy (Arabic), pp. 16–17.

205
Hayy (English), p. 149; and Hayy (Arabic), p. 81.

206
For al-Ghazālīs’s equivocation, see Gianotti, Al-Ghazali’s Unspeakable Doctrine of the Soul, pp. 132–
147.

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understood here in its spiritual aspects, belongs to and so has direct access to the world of

the unseen (cālam al-malakūt), of which this world is but a symbol (mithāl).207 The

mystical vision is nothing more than a glimpse into that world through this spiritual

aspect of the heart. Ibn Tufayl combines al-Ghazālī’s understanding of the heart, spirit

and soul with an Aristotelian understanding of these terms, and also with the Avicennian

emanation scheme, in order to rationalize his particular understanding of the mystical

vision as well as that of personal immortality.208

Looking back at the previous passage, we see that Ibn Tufayl not only equivocates

heart, spirit and soul, but he also suggests that these three entities form a tight

physiological relationship: the heart is the seat of the spirit whose form is the soul. The

207
Ibid., pp. 149–150.

208
Al-Ghazālī’s views on the nature of the soul and the afterlife have been subject to much controversy
ever since the time of Ibn Tufayl and Ibn Rushd. Ibn Tufayl tries to resolve the glaring inconsistencies in
al-Ghazālī’s views on the afterlife by suggesting that he intentionally obscured his views in his exoteric
works, in order to not excite and mislead the masses; Hayy (English), pp. 101–2. On the other hand, Ibn
Rushd accuses al-Ghazālī of confusing and misleading the masses by being everything to everyone and by
revealing to them things that should not be revealed; Ibn Rushd, The Book of the Decisive Treatise, pp. 22,
26–27.

The confusion originates in al-Ghazālī’s harsh attack on the falāsifa for denying bodily
resurrection in his Tahāfut al-Falāsifa. In it, al-Ghazālī explicitly states that his aim in this treatise is
merely to highlight the inconsistencies within the system of the falāsifa, i.e. to illustrate that their
arguments are not demonstrations in the Aristotelian sense of the term (Incoherence of the Philosophers, p.
7). Thus, in his criticism of the falāsifa’s denial of bodily resurrection, he shows that bodily resurrection is
possible even if one accepts the falāsifa’s doctrine of the incorporeal, separable soul (Incoherence of the
Philosophers, pp. 217–218). However, in another work (al-Iqtisād fi ’l-Ictiqād), al-Ghazālī “repudiates the
theory of an immaterial soul” and declares that he merely affirmed this doctrine in the Tahāfut in order to
refute the falāsifa’s denial of bodily resurrection; Michael Marmura, “Al-Ghazālī on Bodily Resurrection
and Causality in Tahāfut and the Iqtisād,” Aligarh Journal of Islamic Thought 2 (1989): 46–75, p. 47.

To complicate things further, in yet another work (Mīzān al-camal) al-Ghazālī not only declares
that the Sūfīs believe in the separability of an immaterial soul, but also in a spiritual afterlife, just like the
falāsifa. This is problematic, to say the least, because in his autobiography (Munqidh min al-dalāl) and his
magnum opus (Ihyā’ culūm al-dīn), al-Ghazālī identifies himself with Sūfīs and their doctrines.
Nonetheless, throughout every single one of these works, he continues to uphold a belief in bodily
resurrection; see Richard J. McCarthy, Freedom and Fulfillment: An Annotated Translation of al-Ghazālī’s
al-Munqidh min al-dalāl and Other Relevant Works of al-Ghazālī (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1980), pp.
90–110; and Gianotti, Al-Ghazali’s Unspeakable Doctrine of the Soul, pp. 22–24.

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soul, thus, is not the form of the entire body, but specifically of the spirit that resides in

the heart. This is a clear difference between Ibn Tufayl, on the one hand, and Ibn Sīnā

and Ibn al-Nafīs, on the other. As a result, Ibn Tufayl’s entire solution to personal

immortality revolves around the imperishability of the spirit—the subtle, corporeal body

that physically resides in the heart;209 for if the spirit (rūh) is indestructible, then the soul

(nafs) must also be imperishable since it is merely the form (sūra) of the spirit.

Ibn Tufayl tries to argue for the imperishability of the spirit in a number of ways.

First, since he strongly identifies with Sūfī notions of describing the physical world as a

simulacrum of the Divine, and since he also believes in the eternality of the world and the

theory of emanation, he maintains that the spirit and soul are united in a strong

imperishable bond. Thus, while describing Hayy’s spontaneous generation from a mass

of fermented clay, Ibn Tufayl states:

In the very middle [of this mass] formed a tiny bubble divided in half by a
delicate membrane and filled by a fine gaseous body, optimally proportioned for
what it was to be. With it at that moment joined “the spirit which is God’s,” in a
bond virtually indissoluble, not only in purview of the senses, but also in that of
the mind. For it should be clear that this spirit emanates continuously from God .
. ..210

The “fine gaseous body,” as we shall see in chapter four, is the spirit and “the spirit

which is God’s” is a reference to the incorporeal soul. It is interesting to note that

although Ibn Tufayl equivocates the terms heart, spirit and soul, his preferred term for

209
We shall discuss this medical notion of spirit in chapter four. During the course of the subsequent
discussion, “spirit/rūh” refers to the spirit that physically resides in the heart. Ibn Tufayl believes in the
existence of three spirits, each assigned to a particular organ: heart, liver and brain. However, he explicitly
states that the soul is the form of the spirit that resides in the heart alone (the vital spirit, al-rūh al-
hayāwāniyya). There is, in fact, a distinct possibility that Ibn Tufayl believes that the spirit of the brain and
liver are not materially derived from the vital spirit, contrary to what Ibn Sīnā and his contemporary
physicians believed (see chapter four).

210
Hayy (English), pp. 106–107, my emphasis.

140
this incorporeal substance also happens to be spirit, similar to the practice of the

traditionalists, the mutakallimūn, and other Sūfīs.

Second, Ibn Tufayl suggests that the spirit actually remains intact after death.211

The first place he states this claim is in his discussion of Hayy’s dissection of the doe that

nurses the infant Hayy. As Hayy cuts the doe open, he realizes that the doe had died

because the physical spirit that had “lived in that chamber [i.e. the left ventricle of the

heart] had left while its house was intact,” implying that the spirit had not actually been

destroyed.212 Later, Hayy confirms the indestructibility of the spirit by vivisecting

another unspecified animal. Here, Hayy notices that the left ventricle of the heart is

“filled with a steamy gas.” However, as soon as he cuts it open, burning his hand in the

process because of the animating heat of the spirit, the spirit departs and the animal

dies.213 Here too, the emphasis is on the departure of the spirit and not on its dissipation

or disintegration in the surrounding air.

Finally, Ibn Tufayl even suggests that the spirit is actually akin to the fifth

element of the heavenly bodies rather than the four terrestrial elements:

The implication Hayy drew from [his speculations on the soul and spirit]. . . was
that the vital spirit with the stablest equilibrium would be fit for the highest form
of life to be found in the world of generation and decay. The form of such a spirit
could virtually be said to have no opposite. In this it would resemble the heavenly
bodies, the forms of which have none at all. The spirit of such an animal [i.e. the
human spirit], being truly at a mean among the elements, would have absolutely

211
Since Ibn Sīnā firmly accepts the material generation of rūh and upholds the Aristotelian physical
tenet that all terrestrial things are corruptible, he cannot entertain the possibility of an incorruptible rūh; see
Fakhry, A History of Islamic Philosophy, pp. 155–158. Besides, in the Najāt, Ibn Sīnā specifically states
that any composite body is corruptible and according to his definition of rūh in the Qānūn, the rūh is a
composite body; Rahman, Avicenna’s Psychology, p. 62 and Ibn Sīnā, al-Qānūn fī ’l-Tibb, 3 vols. (Beirut:
Dar al-Kutub al-cilmiyya, 1999), vol.1, p. 98. We shall discuss this further in the next chapter.

212
Hayy (English), p. 114.

213
Ibid., p. 117.

141
 no tendency up or down. In fact, if it could be set in space, between the center
and the outermost limit of fire, without being destroyed, it would stabilize there,
neither rising nor falling. If it moved in place, it would orbit like the stars, and if
it moved in position it would spin on its axis. . . . Thus it would bear a strong
resemblance to the heavenly bodies.214

This understanding of the spirit as equivalent to the fifth element relates to a theme found

in Aristotle that we shall examine more closely in the next chapter.

The above passages illustrate that Ibn Tufayl was firmly committed to the

indestructibility of the spirit (rūh). Thus, since the soul is the form of the spirit according

to Ibn Tufayl, and since the spirit is imperishable, as it is akin to the imperishable fifth

element, the spirit individuates the soul after death. The link between the spirit’s

individuation of the soul, and Ibn Tufayl’s underlying commitment to the mystical vision

and to ontological monism, is made apparent in a highly illuminating passage describing

the end of Hayy’s mystical vision where he encounters the souls of celestial as well as

deceased earthly bodies:

Here [i.e. in the bowels of the sphere of the moon] too was an essence free of
matter, not one with those he had seen [i.e. the other emanated celestial
intelligences]—but none other. Only this being had seventy thousand faces. . . .
In this being, which he took to be many although it is not, Hayy saw joy and
perfection as before. It was as though the form of the sun were shining in rippling
water from the last mirror in the sequence, reflected down the series from the first,
which faced directly into the sun. Suddenly he caught sight of himself as an
unembodied [sic.] subject [dhātan mufāriqatan]. If it were permissible to single
out individuals from the identity of the seventy thousand faces, I would say that he
was one of them. Were it not that his being was created originally, I would say
that they were he. And had this self of his not been individuated by a body on its
creation I would have said that it had not come to be.

From this height he saw other selves like his own, that had belonged to bodies
which had come to be and perished, or to bodies with which they still coexisted.
There were so many (if one may speak of them as many) that they reached infinity.
Or, if one may call them one, then all were one. In himself and in the other
beings of his rank, Hayy saw goodness, beauty, joy without end . . ..
214
Ibid., p. 141.

142
 He saw also many disembodied identities . . . covered with rust. They were ugly,
defective, and deformed beyond his imagining. In unending throes of torture and
ineradicable agony, imprisoned in a pavilion of torment, scorched by the flaming
partition . . ..215

Thus, for Ibn Tufayl, the spirit (rūh) escapes the body at death and continues to

live eternally, because it is the shadow in the material world of the eternal, celestial soul

of the sublunar sphere. Each individual soul comes into being only when it is associated

with a spirit upon the creation of a human. Otherwise, it exists as a unity in the celestial

soul. The celestial soul, being immaterial, is one and so unifies all beings that emanate

from it.216 There is in fact a greater ontological monism that underlies Ibn Tufayl’s

system, since the real divine world cannot be individuated. Thus, everything in the

spiritual world comes to form a unity in the One. Consequently, the soul of the sublunar

sphere is really one in itself, yet it is also indistinct as such from the rest of the celestial

beings and the One. The Divine element pervades through the universe via an eternal

emanation. Since this element is present in the celestial soul that brings forth individual

souls, which, at the incorporeal level, are themselves one and Divine, the mystic is able to

achieve ontological union with the Divine. It is important to realize that Ibn Tufayl’s

emphasis on ontological monism is not really the Sūfism of al-Ghazālī, nor of his

predecessors. Rather, it is akin to the Sūfism of his great Sūfī “compatriot, Ibn al-

215
Ibid., p. 153, my emphasis, parenthetical emendations are in the original translation; and Hayy
(Arabic), p. 85.

216
This also explains Hayy’s species preserving behavior with respect to all plants and animals; see
Remke Kruk, “Ibn Tufayl: A Medieval Scholar’s Views on Nature,” in Conrad, ed., The World of Ibn
Tufayl, pp. 69–89.

143
c
Arabī.”217 Once we understand this point, we can gain a greater insight into Ibn al-

Nafīs’s specific response to Ibn Tufayl on the problem of bodily resurrection and the

individuation of the soul.

3.5.3 Ibn al-Nafīs: A Traditionalist, a Faylasūf, but no Sūfi

As I have already shown, Ibn al-Nafīs’s main point throughout this text is to deny

the possibility of autodidactic learning and to emphasize the rationality of revelation. As

far as revelation is concerned, the Qur’ān consistently describes the Hereafter in physical

terms and attacks explicitly those who deny bodily resurrection (36:78–79). Hence, Ibn

al-Nafīs has no choice but to defend the rationality of this doctrine. Moreover, the hadīth

literature is filled with references to the punishment of the grave (cadhāb al-qabr).218

Since Ibn al-Nafīs accepts the necessity and validity of hadīth in establishing religious

law and doctrines (see chapter 2), he is forced to address this issue as well. On the other

side, Ibn Tufayl’s entire argument for autodidactic learning hinges upon his defense of

the role of the heart as an instrument of mystical visions, which in turn relies on Ibn

Tufayl’s specific definitions and equivocations of soul and spirit. Thus, if Ibn al-Nafīs

can provide a way of rationalizing bodily resurrection while closing the door on Ibn

Tufayl’s ontological monism, that would only bolster Ibn al-Nafīs’s larger argument

against autodidactic learning. With that in mind, let us proceed directly to Ibn al-Nafīs’s

discussion on the soul and resurrection.

217
Radtke, “How Can Man Reach the Mystical Union?” p. 194.

218
See EI2, s.v. “cadhāb al-kabr.”

144
 Immediately after rejecting the possibility of a purely incorporeal afterlife,219 in

which he argues for the afterlife as being for an individual “composed of body and soul,”

Ibn al-Nafīs proceeds to explicate what he means by soul: “There is no doubt that man is

composed of body and soul; the body is the thing which can be perceived, but the soul is

that to which one refers when one says ‘I’.”220 He then proceeds to provide classic

Avicennian arguments to establish the incorporeality and imperishability of the soul.

Like Ibn Sīnā, Ibn al-Nafīs claims that “the body and its parts are continuously in

dissolution and reconstruction,” while “that to which man refers [when saying ‘I’]. . .

remains constantly the same.” This implies that something immaterial must be the true

referent of ‘I’.221 Similarly, he denies that the soul can be an accident (carad) that inheres

in a body, which clearly shows that he also sides with Ibn Sīnā’s criticisms of the kalām

doctrines on this point.222 Finally, he argues for the immateriality of the soul by relying

on Avicennian notions of cognition. Since cognitive notions and forms are universal and

cannot be divided, they cannot be acquired by material substances. As a result, Ibn al-

Nafīs argues that the soul must be immaterial.223

219
Theologus, p. 57. Ibn al-Nafīs seems to suggest that the Prophet cannot represent the afterlife in purely
incorporeal terms because most people’s intellects cannot grasp such a concept. As such, it leaves open the
possibility that, like Ibn Sīnā, Ibn Tufayl and al-Ghazālī, he too may believe that descriptions of a physical
afterlife are merely metaphorical. However, given some of his arguments later in the text, there is scarcely
any doubt that Ibn al-Nafīs firmly believed in the doctrine of bodily resurrection and a physical afterlife
(see below).

220
Ibid., p. 57.

221
Ibid., p. 57; Michael Marmura, “Ghazali and the Avicennian Proof from Personal Identity for an
Immaterial Self,” in A Straight Path: Studies in Medieval Philosophy and Culture. Essays in Honor of
Arthur Hyman, ed. R. Link-Salinger (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1988), pp.
195–205, pp. 201–202; and Marmura, “Avicenna and the Kalām,” p. 204.

222
See Marmura, “Avicenna and the kalam,” pp. 197–203; and Theologus, pp. 58, 110.

223
Theologus, p. 58; and Rahman, Avicenna’s Psychology, pp. 47–48.

145
 As we can see, Ibn al-Nafīs’s understanding of the immateriality of the human

soul is almost identical to that of Ibn Sīnā and illustrates that he was certainly not

persuaded by al-Ghazālī’s critique of Ibn Sīnā on this issue.224 His defense of the

immateriality of the soul also suggests that he was not a supporter of kalām atomism or,

in general, kalām understandings of the soul. Furthermore, he even rejects the

Aristotelian understanding of soul as form, since he never uses the term “form” (sūra) to

define or describe the soul. In fact, as his earlier medical commentary on Ibn Sīnā’s al-

Qānūn fī ’l-T ibb (The Canon of Medicine) reveals, Ibn al-Nafīs agreed with the falāsifa

that forms are immanent and so inseparable from matter, and that the human soul needs

to be separable.225 As for the soul being the form of an imperishable spirit, we shall see

in the next chapter that Ibn al-Nafīs had already rejected such notions in his commentary

on the Canon. Consequently, he does not even entertain such a possibility in this work

(Fādil ibn Nātiq). However, I should point out that since Ibn al-Nafīs does not associate

the spirit with the soul, he implicitly rejects Ibn Tufayl’s argument for ontological

monism and, thus, for autodidactic learning.

Since Ibn al-Nafīs agrees with Ibn Sīnā in the incorporeality, imperishability and

separability of the human soul, he is forced to confront the problem of individuation. He

224
For al-Ghazālī’s critique of Ibn Sīnā’s arguments for the immateriality of the soul, see Marmura,
“Ghazali and the Avicennian Proof”; and al-Ghazali, The Incoherence of the Philosophers, 18th discussion.

225
Ibn al-Nafīs, Sharh al-Qānūn, MS Wellcome Library, Oriental MSS, Or. 51, fol. 63a1–2. It is difficult
to ascertain whether or not Ibn al-Nafīs accepts Ibn Sīnā’s definition of the soul as the first perfection of the
body. In this same passage, Ibn al-Nafīs shows that he clearly understands Ibn Sīnā’s definition and how
this definition allows for a possibility of the separable human soul (fol. 63a1–6). But it is hard to tell
whether he actually endorses it. Ibn al-Nafīs certainly does not subscribe to a Neoplatonic emanation
scheme, nor to a metaphysics of procession and reversion. Thus, even if Ibn al-Nafīs accepts this
definition, it is only for the purpose of establishing the existence of an incorporeal, separable human soul.
However, as we have already seen, Ibn al-Nafīs already relies on other Avicennian proofs to establish the
incorporeality and separability of the human soul.

146
recognizes the gravity of the problem as soon as he postulates the immateriality of the

soul, “If this is so, it [i.e., the soul] cannot exist before the existence of the mixed matter

from which the body of man comes forth, because if it existed before that matter, it could

be neither one nor manifold, and could not possibly subsist at all.”226 In true Avicennian

fashion, Ibn al-Nafīs rejects the soul’s existence prior to that of the body and proceeds to

provide proofs for this claim. He finally concludes that “the soul of man can exist only

after the existence of matter mixed in a manner corresponding to (the nature of) man, and

the existence of this matter is a prerequisite for the existence of the soul of man.”227 The

problem then is to determine exactly the connection between the soul and “this matter”

and to determine whether “this matter” continues to exist after the rest of the body

disintegrates.

We shall deal with Ibn al-Nafīs’s understanding of the connection between the

soul and the body more thoroughly in the next chapter. Suffice it to say, in his earlier

Commentary on the Canon, he introduces certain revisions in Avicennian physiology that

allow him to offer an entirely new theory of generation, along with a new theory of

pulsation and the pulmonary transit of blood. According to this theory of generation,

once the male and female semen mix and create a mixed matter that has a temperament

appropriate to receive an animal or human soul, God issues the soul to this matter to

which it is then associated. As the embryo grows and generates organs, the soul,

naturally, is also associated with the entire organism. However, at least in its first

instance, the soul is directly connected to the original, mixed matter of balanced

226
Theologus, p. 58, parenthetical emendations are in the original translation itself.

227
Ibid., p. 58.

147
temperament. Thus, if there is some matter that should not degenerate as long as the soul

is alive, it should be this matter:

This matter is generated from sperm and similar things, and when the soul
becomes attached to it . . ., the body is generated from it. This matter is called the
[cajb al-dhanab]. It is absurd that this should become lost as long as the soul
subsists . . .. The soul of man is imperishable . . .. [So,] [t]his matter which is the
[cajb al-dhanab] is imperishable (too). Therefore it remains after the death and
decomposition of the body, and the soul with which it remains continues to be
perceiving and noticing, and that time it experiences pleasures or pain; these are
the pleasures and pain in the tomb.

Then when the time for resurrection . . . comes, the soul stirs again and feeds this
(nucleus of) matter by attracting matter to it and transforming it into something
similar to it; and therefrom grows a body a second time. This body is the same as
the first body inasmuch as this (nucleus of) matter in it is the same, and the souls
in the same. In this way resurrection takes place.228

The reference to cajb al-dhanab is clearly taken from one of the most well-

regarded hadīth collections in Sunnī Islam, the Muwattā’ of Imām Mālik ibn Anas (d. ca.

795): “The earth eats all of the son of Adam except the [cajb al-dhanab]. He was created

from it, and on it he is built.”229 The philosophical problem of individuation is thus

solved by turning to revelation, for there is no way of rationally determining whether the

original mixed matter actually survives throughout one’s life.

228
Ibid., pp. 58–59, parenthetical emendations are in the original translation itself. Schacht and Meyerhof
translate cajb al-dhanab as “coccyx.” I have avoided this practice for reasons that shall become clear in the
next chapter.

229
Imām Mālik ibn Anas, Al-Muwattā’ of Imām Mālik ibn Anas: The First Formulation of Islamic Law, tr.
Aisha Abdurrahman Bewley (London: Kegan Paul International, 1989), p. 91; and A. J. Wensinck,
Concordance et indices de la tradition Musulmane: les six livres, le Musnad d’al-Dārimī, le Muwattā’ de
Mālik, le Musnad de Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Deuxième ed., vols. 1–8 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992), vol. 2, p. 189.
Interestingly, the same section contains another hadīth that talks of the rūh surviving in the “trees of the
Garden until Allah returns it to” the believer’s body (Malik, Muwattā’, p. 91). Since this understanding of
rūh does not jibe with Ibn al-Nafīs’s falsafa-derived understanding of rūh and nafs, Ibn al-Nafīs disregards
this hadīth. According to Wensinck, the hadīth on the cajb al-dhanab also appears in the Musnad of Imām
Ahmad ibn Hanbal, regarded by many as the champion of traditionalism because of his defiance of the
Caliph al-Ma’mūn’s mihna; see Michael Cooperson, Classical Arabic Biography: The Heirs of the Prophet
in the Age of al-Ma’mūn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

148
 However, I should emphasize that this hadīth is only one in a multitude of hadīth

that are concerned with the status of body and soul after death. The majority of hadīth,

and even Qur’ānic verses, refer to the possibility of a free soul/spirit that leaves the body

at death and even views it from afar.230 Some traditionalists, in fact, even rejected the

authenticity of this tradition on the cajb al-dhanab.231 Thus, Ibn al-Nafīs’s defense of

bodily resurrection using this tradition reveals that he was trying to reconcile reason and

revelation in his own unique way. Since he was committed to aspects of the Avicennian

system, such as the immateriality and substantiality of the soul, he picked out only that

element of the religious corpus that could fit with these notions. Moreover, as we shall

soon see, his solution to this problem is also consistent with the changes he introduces

into Galenic physiology, or, more accurately, Avicennian physiology. Thus, far from

adhering to religious dogma slavishly, or from making reason subservient to revelation,

Ibn al-Nafīs tries to allocate authority to both while trying to maintain a reasonably

coherent position.

Finally, by attaching the soul to the cajb al-dhanab, Ibn al-Nafīs severs the

connection between the heart, spirit and soul that underlies Ibn Tufayl’s entire argument

for autodidactic learning. Unlike Ibn Tufayl, Ibn al-Nafīs makes a sharp distinction

between soul (nafs) and spirit (rūh). Hence, although Ibn al-Nafīs agrees that the spirit is

a refined body that resides in the heart and animates the rest of the human body, he denies

that it emanates from the divine or has any divine element or immateriality associated

with it. Instead, he claims that the spirit is entirely derived from air and is continuously

230
See Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Kitab al-ruh.

231
Ibid., p. 154.

149
created within the heart.232 Therefore, the soul, spirit and heart do not have the tight

nexus required for Ibn Tufayl’s rational defense of mystical visions. Consequently, Ibn

al-Nafīs is able to rationalize the possibility of bodily resurrection and proffer a solution

to the problem of individuation, without providing Ibn Tufayl with a basis to support

mystical visions and, hence, autodidactic learning.

3.6 Conclusion

Throughout the course of this chapter, we have seen that Ibn al-Nafīs’s entire

treatise is one long argument against autodidactic learning: from the break in the

narrative where he introduces the shipwrecked crew, to the modifications he introduces to

Ibn Sīnā’s arguments on prophecy and resurrection, to the name he selects for his

narrator, Fādil ibn Nātiq. All of these changes signify his fundamental disagreement with

the contention of Ibn Sīnā and Ibn Tufayl that reason can independently arrive at the

underlying, fundamental truths of revelation. The Latin title, Theologus Autodidactus,

given to this work by the translators, Schacht and Meyerhof is, therefore, extremely

misleading. As a traditionalist, Ibn al-Nafīs denies the self-sufficiency of reason. He is,

instead, committed to the belief that revelation is necessary in order to arrive at the

fundamental truths of religion.

Furthermore, Ibn al-Nafīs’s aversion to autodidactic learning is also a product of

his traditionalist aversion to the Sūfism of Ibn al-cArabī that was becoming increasingly

popular in Mamluk Egypt.233 As we saw above, by severing the connection between rūh

232
Theologus, p. 40. Also see chapter four.

233
Th. Emil Homerin, “Sufis and Their Detractors in Mamluk Egypt: A Survey of Protagonists and
Institutional Settings,” in De Jong and Radtke, ed., Mysticism Contested, pp. 225–247.

150
and nafs, Ibn al-Nafīs does not only suggest a possible solution to the problem of

individuation; he also completely destroys the foundations for Hayy’s mystical union

with God—a union necessary for Hayy to arrive at the hidden truths of reality. This

particular Sūfism, which was perceived as blurring the distinction between the Creator

and His creation, and is common to both Ibn Tufayl and Ibn al-cArabī, attracted the ire of

many traditionalists during the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The

most famous example is perhaps that of Ibn Taymiyya, who even suggests that these

particular Sūfīs were to blame “for the Mongol conquest and the obliteration of the law of

Islam . . .!”234 Interestingly, writing in the immediate aftermath of the invasion, Ibn al-

Nafīs seems to concur.

The last part of Ibn al-Nafīs’s treatise deals with the historical events after the

death of the Prophet. After defending the standard Sunnī view of the caliphate, Ibn al-

Nafīs proceeds to rationalize the Mongol invasion and the subsequent defeat of the

Mongols at the hands of Sultan Baybars. Based on these sections, Remke Kruk has

suggested that the treatise should be seen as an apocalyptic text in the genre of “Christian

apocalypses.”235 In fact, Kruk goes so far as to suggest that Ibn al-Nafīs’s “indebtedness

to Ibn Tufayl does not give us any clue as to the general idea that lies behind the

composition . . ..”236 In Kruk’s opinion, only by treating the treatise as an apocalyptic

text can we gain some insight into it. However, as I have already shown, we can make

perfect sense of Ibn al-Nafīs’s intentions in writing this treatise by analyzing closely the

234
Ibn Taymiyya quoted in Homerin, “Sufism and Their Detractors,” p. 233.

235
Remke Kruk, “History and Apocalypse: Ibn al-Nafīs’s Justification of Mamluk Rule,” Der Islam 72
(1995): 324–337, p. 331.

236
Ibid., p. 326.

151
similarities and differences between his text and that of Ibn Tufayl. Moreover, we also

know that one of the surviving manuscripts that dates from Ibn al-Nafīs’s time period

leaves out this entire fourth part concerning the apocalypse.237 At the very least, this

suggests that Ibn al-Nafīs’s own contemporaries were not reading his text as an

apocalyptic treatise. More importantly though, Kruk does not take issue with Schacht

and Meyerhof’s title Theologus Autodidactus, and even accepts their contention that Ibn

al-Nafīs relies on aslah. Thus, Kruk is unable to see how the discussion of the Mongol

invasion and a description of the coming of the Last Day are related to his attack on Ibn

Sīnā, Ibn Tufayl and the monistic Sūfism of his time.

Ibn al-Nafīs rationalizes the Mongol invasion as divine punishment for the

prevalence of sins in the community of the Prophet. However, rather than speaking of

sins generally, Ibn al-Nafīs highlights two sins in particular: drunkenness and

homosexuality.238 Though these activities were quite prevalent amongst Muslims in the

medieval period in general, the traditionalists were quite prone to seeing them as closely

associated with the falāsifa and the Sūfīs. In the case of the falāsifa, the connection is

easy to make as Ibn Sīnā himself admits to drinking wine in his autobiography.239

Similarly, the falāsifa were seen as the expositors of the foreign sciences, and Greek

medicine prescribed alcohol for certain conditions, as Ibn al-Nafīs himself recognizes.240

237
Theologus, p. 36.

238
Ibid., pp. 99–100.

239
William E. Gohlman, The Life of Ibn Sina: A Critical Edition and Annotated Translation (Albany:
SUNY Press, 1974), pp. 31, 55, 79.

240
Theologus, p. 100; and Sabra, “Science and Philosophy,” p. 4.

152
 On the other hand, the Sūfīs, especially those who upheld a belief in a mystical

union with God, were often maligned by traditionalists for partaking in immoral

activities.241 The two activities that received the most attention within traditionalist

polemical tracts, as well as within Sūfī poetry itself, were homosexuality and

drunkenness.242 Monistic Sūfism, in particular, analogized the nature of the mystical

union to a state of drunkenness. Moreover, during this state, the Sūfī was also excused

from any transgressions of Islamic law. However, traditionalists were always suspicious

about whether the Sūfī shaykh was truly in a mystical state, or in a state of drunkenness

that was the result of imbibing alcohol.243 Also, one of the Sūfī practices for attaining

mystical union was to gaze at a beardless youth, a ritual known as shāhid-bāzi

(witnessing).244 The monistic Sūfīs, in particular, were accused by traditionalists of

partaking in homosexual acts during such sessions.245

Of course, Ibn al-Nafīs does not actually mention the Sūfīs by name, but neither

does he mention the Shīcites when he is clearly criticizing their point of view on the

debates over the Prophet’s successor.246 His silence is also to be expected since the

241
Homerin, “Sufis and Their Detractors,” p. 233.

242
Jim Wafer, “Vision and Passion: The Symbolism of Male Love in Islamic Mystical Literature,” in
Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History and Literature, ed. Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe (New
York: New York University Press, 1997), pp. 107–131.

243
Even Ibn Taymiyya defends the true Sūfī’s transgressions of Islamic law during his/her state of
mystical intoxication. However, he also suggests that some may arrive at the state unlawfully by imbibing
alcohol and that is unjustified; see Th. Emil Homerin, “Ibn Taimīya’s al-Sūfīyah wa-al-fuqarā’,” Arabica
32 (1985): 219–244, p. 227. For a traditionalist attack on certain Sūfī practices as being contrary to Islamic
law, see Ibn al-Jawzī, Talbīs Iblīs (Beirut: Dar wa Maktabat al-Hilal, 1991), especially pp. 220–289.

244
Wafer, “Vision and Passion,” p. 108; and Erik Stefan Ohlander, “Abū Hafs cUmar al-Suhrawardī (D.
632/1234) and the Institutionalization of Sufism” (PhD Dissertation, University of Michigan, 2004), p. 318

245
Wafer, “Vision and Passion,” pp. 110–112.

246
Theologus, pp. 101–103.

153
Mamluk rulers heavily patronized Sūfīs and their institutions.247 Yet, his aversion to

Sūfism is not only noticeable in his attack on Ibn Tufayl, on Sūfī ideas of rūh and nafs,

and on homosexuality and drunkenness, but also in the fact that when he refers to

religious endowments (awqāf), he never once mentions Sūfī establishments. Instead, he

restricts himself to naming just the legal schools (madāris).248 At a time when Sūfī

institutions—ribāts, zāwiyas and khāniqahs—were becoming extremely popular, and

were heavily funded by the Mamluk aristocracy, that is a noteworthy omission indeed.

Although his rejection of Sūfism may have been quite thorough, his attack on

falsafa is far more temperate. In fact, apart from rejecting the falāsifa’s belief in the self-

sufficiency of reason with regards to religious truths, Ibn al-Nafīs is very much inclined

to their views. We have already seen that his defense of prophecy is almost identical to

that of Ibn Sīnā. His defense of anthropomorphisms in scripture is also very Avicennian,

even though he rejects Ibn Sīnā’s claim that one can arrive at the true nature of God

independent of revelation. In this regard, Ibn al-Nafīs is closer to the Avicennian

mutakallimūn of his time. Finally, in his defense of bodily resurrection, he chooses the

falsafa definition of soul over that of the mutakallimūn and the traditionalists, while at the

same time creating space for the possibility of bodily resurrection.249 Thus, in the way in

247
See Muhammad Amin, Awqāf wa’l-hayā al-ijtimāciyya fī Misr, 648–923 A.H./1250–1517 A.D. (Cairo:
Dar al-Nahda al-cArabiyya, 1980), pp. 204–222

248
Theologus, p. 100.

249
Of course, as a true Avicennian Ibn al-Nafīs would have to maintain that the cajb al-dhanab would
have to be corruptible as it is a terrestrial, composite substance. However, Ibn al-Nafīs is clearly not an
Avicennian through and through. Moreover, his final two sections in the last part of his treatise try to
rationalize apocalyptic literature and descriptions based on his knowledge of astronomy. These sections
suggest that Ibn al-Nafīs denied the incorruptibility of the heavens too and, as such, he did not have to deal
with the classic Aristotelian hard dichotomy between the celestial and terrestrial realms. Consequently, he
does not have to be committed to the Aristotelian physical principle that every composite terrestrial
substance must ultimately degenerate. Finally, it is worth noting that Ibn al-Nafīs’s argument for the

154
which he actively appropriates certain aspects of both the Avicennian tradition and the

religious tradition, while rejecting others, Ibn al-Nafīs reveals some of the originality that

Gutas highlights as the distinguishing feature of this time period.250 Moreover, there is

nothing inevitable about Ibn al-Nafīs’s particular selections from both traditions, as can

be seen in the different ways in which his predecessors and contemporaries appropriated

from these traditions while dealing with the same issues and the same texts.251

In conclusion, let us reflect again on the noticeable absence of the term, falsafa,

from biographical entries on Ibn al-Nafīs, especially from al-Dhahabī’s text.252 In

chapter two, we saw that al-Dhahabī was certainly not shy in criticizing renowned

scholars for dabbling in falsafa and kalām. However, even though Ibn Sīnā’s

compendium of falsafa, Shifā’, pervades Ibn al-Nafīs’s work, al-Dhahabī still refused to

criticize him and held him up as a model Sunnī. In the previous chapter, I suggested that

al-Dhahabī was blunted from attacking him because Ibn al-Nafīs adhered to the central

Sunnī belief in the moral probity of the companions. In this chapter, we have seen that he

also shared with the traditionalists his rejection of the self-sufficiency of reason and

monistic Sūfism. Thus, the dilemmas of al-Dhahabī, and of Ibn al-Nafīs’s other

imperishability of the cajb al-dhanab is not based on the intrinsic qualities of the cajb al-dhanab but rather
on the intrinsic indestructibility of the soul. That is, the cajb al-dhanab is imperishable because the soul is
imperishable and so needs a principle of individuation, and not vice-versa.

250
Gutas, “The Heritage of Avicenna.”

251
Baydawi (d. 1316), for example, reconciles Ibn Sīnā’s immaterial soul with aspects of the tradition that
speak of souls as free substances that float freely after death; see Calverley and Pollock, Nature, Man and
God in Medieval Islam, vol. 1, pp. 666–667, 672, 673–674, 677, 679, 681–682, 716–717. Fakhr al-Dīn al-
Rāzī (d. 1209) offers a different solution that relies on the soul leaving the body and uniting with a new,
spiritual body at resurrection; see Yasin Ceylan, Theology and Tafsīr in the Major Works of Fakhr al-Dīn
al-Rāzī (Kuala Lampur: International Institute for Islamic Thought and Civilization, 1996), pp. 183–187.

252
Shams al-Dīn Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Dhahabī, Ta’rīkh al-Islām wa wafāyāt al-mashāhir wa’l-aclām,
ed. cUmar Tadmuri (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-cArabiyya, 1989), vol. 51, p. 313.

155
biographers, are understandable. In order to reduce the dissonance that they faced in light

of Ibn al-Nafīs’s simultaneous commitment to falsafa and traditionalism, they chose to

overlook falsafa.

Ibn al-Nafīs’s commitment to falsafa is not only evident in this theo-philosophical

work, but also in his earliest medical works. The basic Avicennian understanding of the

soul as the real, incorporeal referent of “I” not only grounds Ibn al-Nafīs’s account of

resurrection as seen above, but it also provides the basis for the changes he introduces

into Galenic physiology. Based on this understanding of the soul, Ibn al-Nafīs proceeds

to elaborate a relationship between the soul and the body that overturns important

elements in Galenic and Aristotelian physiologies. The resulting new physiology not

only grounds his rejection of Ibn Tufayl’s belief in the imperishability of the spirit, but it

also leads him to: a) posit a new theory of generation that supports his theory of

resurrection; b) provide a new theory of pulsation, and; c) reject Galenic cardiovascular

anatomy and propose the pulmonary transit of blood instead. Thus, the complex

interplay of reason and revelation is not only evident in Ibn al-Nafīs’s theological works

but also in his earliest medical works.

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 CHAPTER 4

PULMONARY TRANSIT AND BODILY RESURRECTION:

FRUITS OF A NEW PHYSIOLOGY, FRUITS OF A NEW PSYCHOLOGY

Throughout the last two chapters, I have emphasized the need to examine the

dialectic between reason and revelation in the works of medieval Islamic scholars in

terms of the authoritative resources model. I have shown that by analyzing the texts in

this manner, we can gain a better appreciation of the complex and multi-faceted nature of

this relationship. In Ibn al-Nafīs’s case, we saw that the differential emphases that he

placed on certain sources of reason and revelation, when compared to the falāsifa and the

traditionalists, allowed him to adhere simultaneously to bodily resurrection and to an

Avicennian definition of soul. In this chapter, we shall see that Ibn al-Nafīs’s overriding

commitment to a specific understanding of the soul-body relationship, in itself a

consequence of the complex way in which he harmonizes reason and revelation, forces

him to depart significantly from Avicennian physiology. These departures from

Avicennian physiology are also made possible by Ibn al-Nafīs’s disregard for the

authority of Ibn Sīnā and his Greek predecessors, Aristotle and Galen.

Ibn al-Nafīs’s new physiology, in turn, forms the basis of his novel ideas on the

pulmonary transit of blood as well as his new theory of pulsation. Historians of medicine

have focused almost exclusively on the relationship between Ibn al-Nafīs and Harvey.

157
Consequently, they have failed to discern connections between his new physiology and

his discovery of the pulmonary transit of blood. An examination of Ibn al-Nafīs’s own

works within his own context, however, allows us to see how his physiological theories

support his new theories of the pulmonary transit of blood and pulsation, along with his

belief in bodily resurrection.

The fundamental basis for Ibn al-Nafīs’s new physiology is his strict adherence to

the principle that the soul is related to the entire body. As he maintains in his Sharh al-

Qānūn (Commentary on the Canon):

Know that according to our teaching, . . . the efficient source [al-mabdā’ al-fācilī]
of all the faculties [qiwa] is the soul [nafs], and the soul is primarily connected
[tacalluq al-nafs awwalan] neither to the spirit [rūh] nor to an organ, but to the
entire matter whose temperament is prepared to receive this soul [bal bi-jumlati
’l-mādda al-mumtazija bi’l-mizāj al-mucadd li-qubūl tilka ’l-nafs].1

The revolutionary consequences of this principle can only be ascertained once we

understand how the relationship between soul, spirit and faculties had come to be

articulated and understood by Ibn Sīnā and other Islamic physicians. Since the Islamic

physicians themselves relied on a particular understanding of Galen and Aristotle, an

analysis of the Aristotelian and Galenic understandings of these relationships is

necessary.

1
Ibn al-Nafīs, Sharh al-Qānūn, MS Wellcome Library, Oriental MSS, Or. 51, fol. 59b27–29. Although
some may see this as the true Aristotelian hylomorphic position, Aristotle’s own texts also support the non-
hylomorphic psychology, i.e. that the soul is primarily connected to the spirit and the heart. This point will
be analyzed below. The analysis reveals how the Islamic physicians had come to interpret and understand
the Aristotelian position in a manner that does not agree with the modern philosophical understanding of
Aristotle’s psychology.

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4.1 Spirits, Faculties and Souls: The Intertwined Legacy of Aristotle and Galen

My limited goal in this section is to illuminate aspects of the writings of Aristotle

and Galen that had a deep impact on Islamic medicine. My chief concern is with the

terms, “faculty” (Gr. dunamis, Ar. quwwa), “spirit” (Gr. pneuma, Ar. rūh) and “soul”

(Gr. psuche, Ar. nafs), and with a particular Aristotelian and Galenic understanding of the

relationship between these terms that shaped the discourse of Islamic physicians. There

is, of course, a large corpus of writings that continues to debate the role of these concepts

in Aristotelian and Galenic physiologies and philosophies.2 My use of this literature is

only to illustrate that the Islamic physicians’ interpretation(s) of Aristotle and Galen

was/were not unwarranted.

There is also an issue of terminology. Aristotle and Galen used the exact same

Greek technical terms in their physiological discussions of relevance to this dissertation.

Nonetheless, it is true that they did not necessarily employ them in the exact same

manner. However, there is a conceptual continuity between Aristotle’s and Galen’s uses

of these terms, as we shall see shortly. This conceptual and linguistic continuity was

carried over in the Arabic translations of Aristotle and Galen, wherein the translators used

the same Arabic word to represent the same Greek word, regardless of whether it was

found in Aristotle or Galen. As we shall see below, this decision on the part of the

translators was bound to create some confusion in the Islamic medical and philosophical

discussions; yet, this decision, in and of itself, also paved the way for reconciling the

physiological views of Aristotle and Galen. In order to emphasize these continuities and

ambiguities across the Graeco-Arabic tradition, I have chosen to render the technical

2
We have already seen evidence of the debate surrounding Aristotle’s definition of soul in chapter three.

159
Greek/Arabic terms by the same English terms. For example, throughout this chapter, the

term “faculty” has been used interchangeably with the Greek term, dunamis, and the

Arabic term, quwwa, regardless of who the author may be, or what differences may exist

in the understanding of these terms from author to author. The same also holds true for

all other technical, physiological terms, i.e. spirit (Gr. pneuma, Ar. rūh), soul (Gr. psuche,

Ar. nafs) and activity/action (Gr. energeia, Ar. ficl).

4.1.1 Aristotle’s One Soul-One Chief Organ Physiology

We have already seen some of the interpretive problems associated with

Aristotle’s general definition of the soul (psuche) in De Anima, II.1. However, as I

mentioned in the previous chapter, Aristotle follows up his general definition

immediately with a discussion on the specific forms of living beings, for he maintains

that “that which has soul is distinguished from that which has not by living.”3 He further

states that “a thing lives if any one of the following is present in it—mind, sensation,

movement or rest in space, besides the movement [kinesis] implied in nutrition and decay

or growth.”4 As a result, “all plants are considered to live, for they evidently have in

themselves a [dunamis=faculty] and first principle by means of which they exhibit both

3
Aristotle, De Anima, II.2 413a19–20. All references to Aristotle’s De Anima have been taken from the
Loeb edition and translation: Aristotle, On the Soul, Parva Naturalia and On Breath, tr. W. S. Hett
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957). Many modern commentators have even argued that the
specific, functional definitions of soul are the true Aristotelian accounts of soul, whereas the more general
definition of soul-as-entelechy is merely a “sketch” or “outline”; see, for example, Richard Sorabji, “Body
and Soul in Aristotle,” Philosophy 49 (1974): 63–89; and Robert Bolton, “Aristotle’s Definitions of the
Soul: De Anima, II, 1–3,” Phronesis 23 (1978): 258–278.

4
Aristotle, De Anima, II.2 413a23–25.

160
growth and decay in opposite directions.”5 Plants occupy the lowest position in the

hierarchy of beings that can be classified as living, and hence ensouled, since “the

principle through which all living beings have life” is the faculty (dunamis) of nutrition,

and plants have only two prominent functions: nutrition and reproduction. Animals

possess these faculties as well as those of sensation, locomotion, desire and imagination,

although not all animals possess all of these faculties. Humans, finally, possess all these

aforementioned faculties along with the faculty of reason.6 Thus, we arrive at the well-

known Aristotelian hierarchy of souls—vegetative, animal and rational, corresponding to

his understanding of the hierarchy of living things based on their respective actions:

plants possess a vegetative soul which allows them carry out the actions of nutrition and

reproduction; animals possess an animal soul which enables them to execute the actions

of locomotion, sensation and imagination in addition to those of nutrition and

reproduction; humans possess a rational soul which enables them to reason in addition to

carrying out all the aforementioned actions.

As we can see, this notion of ensoulment is closely tied to the different actions

that Aristotle associates with living things. However, Aristotle is well-aware that, for

example, an animal does not perform the actions of nutrition and locomotion all the time.

Thus, the definition of “ensoulment” should not be so restrictive as to pick out only those

things as living that are executing these actions. Rather, it should be general enough to

5
Ibid., II.2 413a25–27. In this passage, Hett, like many other interpreters, translates dunamis as
“capacity.” However, as mentioned above, to emphasize the conceptual and linguistic continuities and
confusions, I have chosen to render dunamis almost exclusively as “faculty” (see below). R. D. Hicks,
however, does use the term “faculty”; see Aristotle, De Anima, tr. R. D. Hicks (Amsterdam: Adolf M.
Hakkert, 1965), p. 55.

6
Aristotle, De Anima, II.2 413a31–413b10. Also see, G. E. R. Lloyd, Aristotle: The Growth and
Structure of His Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), pp. 187–201; and Sorabji,
“Body and Soul in Aristotle,” pp. 65–67.

161
accept those things as living that have the capacity to perform these actions even if they

are not executing them at a given moment. That is, in a nutshell, his notion of dunamis

(faculty) in the physiological context, which is why some people prefer to translate it as

“capacity” or even “possibility.”7 Since I want to emphasize the continuity of the

tradition, and since the Galenic usage of dunamis is almost exclusively rendered

“faculty” by all English translators, I have chosen to translate this physiological sense of

dunamis in Aristotle as “faculty” too. Thus, for an animal soul to possess the faculty of

locomotion means that it is capable of partaking in locomotion though it may not exercise

that capacity all the time, whereas a vegetative soul, which does not have such a faculty,

is incapable of that action at all times.

Dunamis also has another, more thoroughly Aristotelian meaning associated with

his theory of change. Here, dunamis is typically translated into English as “potentiality,”

and its contrasting state, energeia, is usually translated as “in actuality”; however, the

Arabic terms stay the same, quwwa and ficl. The famous example is that of the acorn

being an oak tree dunamei (potentially), whereas the oak tree is an oak tree energeia (in

actuality).8 However, as A. L. Peck shows, these two senses of dunamis—faculty in the

physiological sense and potentiality in the metaphysical sense—are intimately connected.

The link between these two seemingly different notions of dunamis is provided by the

Aristotelian understanding of kinesis (movement or change).9

7
Sorabji, “Body and Soul in Aristotle,” p. 64; and William Charlton, “Aristotle’s Definition of Soul,”
Phronesis 25 (1980): 170–186, p. 177.

8
For a brief overview of Aristotle’s notion of potentiality and actuality, see Lloyd, Aristotle, pp. 63–65.

9
See Peck’s “Preface” in the Loeb edition of Aristotle, Generation of Animals, tr. A. L. Peck (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1943), pp. lii–liv. What follows is a summary of Peck’s argument.

162
 As we saw in an earlier quote on the definition of living things, when Aristotle

speaks of the specific actions of living things, he states that nutrition is a kinesis like

sensation and locomotion. Kinesis is a term that not only incorporates locomotion, but

any change in existing things.10 In Metaphysics ∆, for example, Aristotle states very

clearly that, in its most general sense, dunamis is the “source [arche] of motion [kinesis]

or change which is in something other than the thing changed, or in it qua another.”11 As

Peck explains,

To say that A is B δύναµει (potentially) means that A is the Material Cause

capable of being set moving with a certain κίνησις by a Motive Cause, which
κίνησις will result in A acquiring the Form of B, thus attaining the Final Cause
(becoming a B itself).12

Thus, an animal ear is capable of being set into motion/being changed such that it

acquires the form of hearing, and thus become an actually hearing ear. The motive,

formal and final cause is, naturally, the animal soul which possesses the dunamis

(faculty) of hearing. However, since the matter of the ear actually requires a physical

change, and since for Aristotle the motive cause must carry with it the form which can

then become the principle of change itself, there needs to be another physical body that

can act as the principle of movement/change. This physical body is not an ordinary body,

composed of earth, fire, air or water, but rather it is a “more divine” substance that is

10
Ibid., pp. lix–lx.

11
Aristotle, Metaphysics, V.12 1019a15. All references to Aristotle’s Metaphysics are taken from the
Loeb edition, Aristotle, Metaphysics, tr. Hugh Tredennick (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956).

12
Aristotle, Generation of Animals, “Preface,” p. liv, parenthetical emendations and emphases in the
original.

163
“‘analogous to the fifth element, aither, the element of the Upper Cosmos.”13 This divine

body is discussed mainly in the Generation of Animals, where Aristotle also gives it a

new name calling it symphyton pneuma (connate pneuma).14

For Aristotle, this connate pneuma is the “immediate instrument of Soul, and it is

through pneuma first of all that Soul expresses itself.”15 Thus, it is the “vehicle of the

innate heat,” “the channel by which sensations” are conveyed and transmitted, and “the

instrument by which the soul” physically pushes or pulls limbs during movement. It is

also “responsible for the differentiation of the parts” during fetal development.16 Every

faculty of the soul is thus communicated and actualized in the body through the activity

of the pneuma, including nutrition, for nutrition relies on innate heat and pneuma is the

vehicle of that heat. In fact, there is a strong link between innate heat, pneuma and soul

that is most succinctly brought out in the following passage from Generation of Animals:

Now so far as we can see, the faculty [dunamis=quwwa] of Soul of every kind has
to do with some physical substance which is different from the so-called
“elements” and more divine than they are; and as the varieties of Soul differ from
one another in the scale of value, so do the various substances concerned with
them differ in their nature. In all cases the semen contains within itself that which
causes it to be fertile—what is known as “hot” substance, which is not fire nor
any similar substance, but the pneuma [rūh] which is enclosed within the semen
or foam-like stuff, and the natural substance which is in the pneuma; and this
substance is analogous to the element which belongs to the stars.17

13
Ibid., p. lix.

14
Ibid., pp. lviii–lx. Also see “Appendix B.”

15
Ibid., p. lix. Also see, Abraham Bos, “Pneuma and Ether in Aristotle’s Philosophy of Living Nature,”
The Modern Schoolman 79 (2002): 255–276.

16
C. R. S. Harris, The Heart and the Vascular System in Ancient Greek Medicine: From Alcmaeon to
Galen (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), p. 165. Also see Peck’s Appendix B in Aristotle, Generation of
Animals.

17
Aristotle, Generation of Animals, II.3 736b30–737a1, my emphasis. Arabic interpolations are
according to Aristotle, Generation of Animals: The Arabic Translation Commonly Ascribed to Yahyā ibn
al-Bitrīq, ed. J. Brugman and H. J. D. Lulofs (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1971), p. 64. Some commentators

164
 In the passage above, we first see an affirmation of the view that the pneuma is

the material substrate of all the faculties, including the faculties of every kind of soul, i.e.

vegetative, animal or rational. This implies that whatever pneuma is, plants must also

possess it or something like it.18 Next, Aristotle considers the matter that is associated

with the soul as one that is more divine than the four sublunar elements, and concludes

the passage by stating that it is indeed analogous to the element of the stars, i.e. aither.

This analogy is plausible because, like aither, the innate heat of the pneuma is very

unlike fire for, as Peck explains, “the heat of the Sun . . . and the heat of animals . . . is

able to generate, whereas Fire cannot,” and the sun is composed of aither.19 The

presence of innate heat is what essentially defines living things. It is responsible for all

physiological activities, from nutrition to cognition.20 Thus, plants and animals are

equally in need of innate heat and equally share in this divine element. The difference is

that plants partake in nutrition and reproduction alone, while animals partake in sensation

and movement in addition to nutrition and reproduction, and so are in need of more

innate heat. The “higher up an animal is in the scale of nature, the more heat it possesses,

translate dunamis in this passage as “matter”; see Bos, “Pneuma and Ether,” p. 256. This interpretation
conforms to the earlier use of this term in the Hippocratic corpus and Plato’s Timaeus; see Aristotle,
Generation of Animals, “Preface,” p. xlix–xlx. Most commentators, including the Islamic philosophers
and physicians, understood the term to imply “faculty” in this context and, as such, I have maintained that
translation. Interestingly, in either case, we can arrive at a similar understanding of the passage.

18
Bos, “Pneuma and Ether,” p. 257.

19
Aristotle, Generation of Animals, “Appendix B,” p. 582.

20
Harris, The Heart and the Vascular System, pp. 137, 167; and Abraham Bos, “‘Fire Above’: The
Relation of Soul to its Instrumental Body in Aristotle’s, De Longitudine et Brevitate Vitae 2–3,” Ancient
Philosophy 22 (2002): 303–317.

165
and the more honorable its soul.”21 The adult human is, therefore, at the top of this

hierarchy, possessing all the faculties, including reason, since he is the creature that

possesses the most innate heat, and the purest and most subtle pneuma.22

At the very least then, pneuma is analogous to the celestial aither: either it is the

divine element itself, or it is a separate element or substance that resembles the aither in

being extremely balanced. The former interpretation, i.e. that the pneuma is the divine,

imperishable aither itself has recently been defended by Abraham Bos and, as we shall

see, may have also been the way Ibn Tufayl had come to understand Aristotle. Most

importantly, both Bos and Ibn Tufayl will argue that the pneuma is not only the first

instrument of the soul, but it is the actual matter itself, which by virtue of being

imperishable assures the immortality of the soul.23 However, the majority of Islamic

philosophers and physicians understood Aristotle as claiming that the pneuma is an

extremely balanced substance, without necessarily being the divine, imperishable element

itself. Nonetheless, they were only able to maintain that because they had also come to

understand pneuma as a mixed substance generated from the terrestrial elements—a

notion of pneuma not found in the Aristotelian corpus, but rather appropriated from the

Galenic and Hellenistic corpus (see below).

Returning to Aristotle, since he considers the pneuma to be the principle of

movement, he argues that “there must of necessity exist some part in which” it resides,
21
Harris, The Heart and the Vascular System, p. 168; and Bos, “Pneuma and Ether,” pp. 261–264.

22
Bos, “Pneuma and Ether,” p. 264. My use of “he” is intentional since Aristotle considered the male to
be hotter and intellectually superior to the female.

23
See Abraham Bos, “Aristotle’s Psychology: Diagnosis of the Need for a Fundamental Reinterpretation,”
American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 73 (1999): 309–331; Bos, “Pneuma and Ether”; and Ibn
Tufayl, Ibn Tufayl’s Hayy ibn Yaqzān: a Philosophical Tale, tr. Lenn Goodman (Los Angeles: Gee Tee
Bee, 1983). Henceforth, Hayy (English).

166
for “the source whence the movement comes must be reckoned as one.”24 Such an organ

is the heart, which Aristotle demonstrates to be the first organ formed in blooded

animals.25 The heart is not only the seat of the pneuma, but it is the principal organ of

nutrition, sensation, and, in fact, of all the faculties.26 Thus, it has a special relationship

to the soul as all the faculties of the soul are executed and actualized by the activity of the

heart through the pneuma in it. Moreover, since the heart is ultimately responsible for all

the actions of the soul, all channels of communication must originate in the heart. Hence,

Aristotle maintains that the veins, arteries, and nerves all originate in the heart.27

Thus, Aristotle can be interpreted as positing a tight relationship between the one

soul responsible for all the faculties of the animal, the one pneuma responsible for

executing these faculties, and the one heart which is the seat of the pneuma and the

principal distributor of these faculties through the various vessels that originate in it. Ibn

al-Nafīs summarizes this interpretation of Aristotle succinctly when he states:

As for the followers of the first teacher [i.e., Aristotle], what encourages them to
[the notion that the nerves, veins and arteries originate in the heart] is their belief
that the soul is one and its primary connection is with the heart. Thus, the heart is
the source of all the faculties and so the source of origin of these instruments.28

24
Aristotle, Generation of Animals, II.6 742a32–33, 742b36–37.

25
Ibid., II.6 741b25–742b37.

26
Harris, The Heart and the Vascular System, pp. 152–173.

27
See Aristotle, Generation of Animals, “Appendix B,” pp. 592–593; and Harris, The Heart and the
Vascular System, pp. 121–122, 152–162. Aristotle refers to these vessels, including the nerves, as poroi or
phlebes, since nerves (neura) were only first differentiated from arteries and veins by the Alexandrian
physicians (Harris, pp. 160, 178).

28
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 20b1–2.

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4.1.2 Galen’s Three Chief Organ Physiology

Although the Greek physician Galen commented extensively on Aristotle and

adopted a number of Aristotelian positions, especially with regards to physical theory,29

he fundamentally disagreed with Aristotle’s claim that sensation and other cognitive

processes originate in the heart. In a famous discussion from On the Doctrines of

Hippocrates and Plato, Galen provides anatomical proofs for the claim that the nerves

do, in fact, originate in the brain. Consequently, the brain must be the source of these

actions, not the heart.30 In fact, the entire purpose of the text, On the Doctrines of

Hippocrates and Plato, is to deny the existence of a unitary soul (psuche, Ar. nafs) and to

posit the existence of a tripartite soul instead, with each part residing in a distinct organ,

governing a distinct set of actions through the medium of a distinct set of vessels.31

Unlike Aristotle, Galen does not really devote any time to discussing the nature of

the soul’s substance. He considers it a speculative issue, and thus refrains from indulging

in discussions over it. He does take the soul’s existence for granted, based on the

evidence of functioning living things themselves.32 However, his aim in the book is to

“inquire about the [dunameis=faculties] that govern us, whether they all have the heart as

their only source, as Aristotle . . . supposed, or whether it is better to posit three sources

29
See Owsei Temkin, Galenism: Rise and Decline of a Medical Philosophy (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1973), pp. 10–50.

30
Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato, ed. and tr. Phillip De Lacy, 3 vols. (Berlin:
Akademie-Verlag, 1978–1984), I.6–10, pp. 79–101.

31
Teun Tieleman, Galen and Chrysippus on the Soul: Argument and Refutation in the De Placitis Books
II–III (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996), pp. xxii–xxviii

32
Ibid., p. 9.

168
for them, as Hippocrates and Plato believed.”33 He then proceeds to show that the

various faculties that govern us actually originate in three different souls, or parts of the

soul, as Plato had indeed believed. These parts are called the desiderative, the spirited

and the rational.34 Each part resides in a specific organ: the desiderative part resides in

the liver; the spirited part resides in the heart; and the rational part resides in the brain.35

Galen emphasizes the notion that the soul is “indeed composed of parts that differ

in kind and substance.”36 Thus, in a strict sense, he rejects using the term dunamis

(faculty, Ar. quwwa) when referring to these three parts, for dunamis presupposes a

single substrate.37 He does so because Aristotle had also accepted these activities of the

soul, but since he had called them dunameis (faculties), he was able to argue for the

existence of a unique, undivided soul that was associated with a single organ. Galen, on

the other hand, wants to emphasize the distinctness of each part, and its association with a

distinct physical organ. For that reason, he calls them parts, or forms of soul, but not,

strictly speaking, dunameis.38 Instead, that term is reserved as a correlative for the

actions that proceed from these souls.

33
Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato, VI.1, p. 361. Since the initial part of book one of
the treatise is no longer extant, the purpose of the text is derived from the testimonies of Galen and other
authors. These testimonies are provided by the editor, Phillip De Lacy, in place of the actual text of book I
(pp. 65–77).

34
Plato, Timaeus, tr. Donald J. Zeyl (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 2000), pp. 63–66 (69c–72d),
85–86 (89e–90d).

35
Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates, VII.3, pp. 439–441.

36
Ibid., V.4, p. 313.

37
Tieleman, Galen and Chrysippus, p. xxv.

38
Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates, VI.2, pp. 367–369.

169
 Like Aristotle, Galen also couples the term dunameis with actions or activities

(energeia, Ar. afcāl, sing. ficl). As he maintains in his, On the Natural Faculties,

“[A]ctivity [energeia] is the name I give to the active change or motion [kinesis], and the

cause of this I call a faculty [dunamis].”39 The difference between Aristotle and Galen,

however, is that Galen takes as his examples of activities not those specific to the

different genera of living things, but rather those activities specific to the different parts

of the soul that govern a single body through the three chief organ-systems. As such,

each part of the soul has its own set of faculties responsible for its own actions: the

desiderative soul in the liver has a set of faculties for the actions of nutrition and the

enjoyment of pleasures; the spirited soul in the heart has a set of faculties for the emotive

actions and the pulsating actions of the heart and arteries; and the rational soul in the

brain has a set of faculties for cognition, memory, ratiocination, sensation and voluntary

motion.40 The individual faculties of each part of the soul are usually referred to as a

collection. Thus, the desiderative soul in the liver has natural faculties, the spirited soul

in the heart has vital faculties, and the rational soul in the brain has psychic faculties.41

Hence, the three souls, or parts of soul, and their respective organs, are associated with

three different physiological functions, and so are equipped with their own set of vessels:

the veins are the instruments of the natural faculties and originate in the liver; the arteries

39
Galen, On the Natural Faculties, tr. John Brock, Loeb edition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1952), I.2, p. 13.

40
Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates, VII.3, pp. 439–441.

41
Galen, On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body, tr. Margaret T. May, 2 vols. (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1968), vol. 1, p. 49.

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are instruments of the vital faculties and originate in the heart; and the nerves are

instruments of the psychic faculties and originate in the brain.42

Even though Galen maintains the Aristotelian connection between energeia,

kinesis and dunamis,43 he also tends to use the term dunamis in a more loose manner. In

fact, he claims that “so long as we are ignorant of the true essence of the cause which is

operating, we call it a faculty [dunamis].” This usage leads to an increase in the number

of faculties:

Thus we say that there exists in the veins a blood-making faculty, as also a
digestive faculty in the stomach, a pulsatile faculty in the heart, and in each of the
other parts a special faculty corresponding to the function or activity of that part.44

Nonetheless, the strong tie between activities and faculties is maintained throughout, as

he even says at the end of this chapter: “If, therefore, we are to investigate methodically

the number and kinds of faculties [dunameis], we must begin with the effects; for each of

these effects comes from a certain activity [energeia] . . ..”45 Hence, Aristotle and Galen

seem to adhere to a similar physiological understanding of the terms dunamis and

energeia. They differ, however, on the nature of the activities associated with the

faculties. Thus, whereas Aristotle uses the term “faculty” in conjunction with activities

helpful in classifying the different gradations of living things, Galen uses it more

indiscriminately, associating it with any physiological activity of the organism. Galen is

42
Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates, VI.3, pp. 381–383.

43
The three terms are intimately connected in the Aristotelian understanding of dunamis as “faculty” or as
“potentiality.” However, for the remainder of this discussion I will be focusing primarily on the
physiological understanding of dunamis as “faculty.”

44
Galen, On the Natural Faculties, I.4, p. 17.

45
Ibid., I.4, p. 17.

171
also not overly concerned with tracing these physiological activities back to one of the

three parts of the soul.

A good example to illustrate this difference is Galen’s understanding of the vital

faculty (Gr. dunamis zotike, Ar. al-rūh al-hayawāniyya). The vital faculty is associated

with the spirited part of the soul, which resides in the heart. As such, it is responsible for,

among other things, emotive acts.46 However, Galen has already located the acts of

sensation and cognition in the brain, without which emotive acts are impossible. He

reconciles the two by suggesting that the heart’s job is to “be constant and unyielding in

the things that reason.” When the body is in “states of passion,” the heart provides “the

boiling . . . of the innate heat” that is needed.47 As such, the heart is not the real source of

anger or the passions, but rather provides the necessary heat needed by the body, and

especially the brain, to act irascibly. This notion of “faculty” is irreconcilable with

Aristotle’s physiological use of the term. Under Aristotelian usage, the heart either issues

the emotive acts and so has a faculty/capacity to do so, or it does not. Thus, Aristotle has

no reason to posit the existence of a vital faculty as separate and distinct from the other

psychic faculties (i.e. cognition, sensation, imagination and locomotion) which, for him,

are themselves located in the heart and are responsible for the emotive acts.

Although Galen’s and Aristotle’s uses of the term dunamis (faculty) are

somewhat reconcilable, their uses of the term pneuma (spirit) are significantly different.

However ambiguous Galen’s own use of the term pneuma may be, Galen at least never

claims that the pneuma (spirit) either is, or is composed of, or is even akin to the divine

46
Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates, VII.3, pp. 439–441.

47
Ibid., VII.3, pp. 439–441.

172
element of the stars.48 Instead, Galen argues that the spirit is nothing more than

concocted inspired air (aer). The inspired air first enters the lung and is concocted into a

pneuma-like substance. From there it is transported to the heart where it is elaborated

into pneuma. The elaboration takes place in the left ventricle of the heart, where blood,

the pneuma-like substance from the lung and the innate heat of the heart combine to

generate the pneuma. This theory of the various concoctions of the spirit clearly

undercuts the entire foundation for a belief in the spirit as composed of something other

than the four terrestrial elements.49 Nonetheless, the spirit plays an important

physiological role in Galen’s works as well.

Galen agrees with Aristotle that spirits are the material substrates of the faculties

and reside in all parts of the body, and as such need to be maintained for proper health.50

The psychic faculties of the brain, in particular, are conveyed in nerves by the psychic

spirit of the brain, which, due to its role in sensation, movement and cognition is seen by

Galen as the “first instrument of the soul.”51 Thus, at least the psychic spirit is tightly

associated with the psychic faculties, the nerves, brain and the rational soul. The

connection between the two remaining chief organs and their spirits is much more

obscure and deserves some attention.

48
Owsei Temkin, “On Galen’s Pneumatology,” Gesnerus 8 (1951): 180–189.

49
For a summary of the elaboration of the spirits in Galenic physiology, as well as Galen’s reliance on and
departures from Stoic notions of the alterations of spirit and spirit as inspired air, see Julius Rocca, Galen
on the Brain: Anatomical Knowledge and Physiological Speculation in the Second Century AD (Leiden: E.
J. Brill, 2003), especially pp. 59–66.

50
Temkin, “On Galen’s Pneumatology,” pp. 186–187; and Jerome Bylebyl, “Cardiovascular Physiology
in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries,” (PhD diss., Yale University, 1969), p. 43.

51
Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates, VII.3, p. 445; and Rocca, Galen on the Brain, especially pp.
201–237.

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 Oftentimes, Galen speaks of the existence of a “vital spirit” in the heart and

arteries. In fact, he even refers to the heart as a pneumatic organ, even though he argues

at length that arteries contain blood in their natural state.52 However, the vital spirit in

itself has no real distinctive function since, for Galen, it is not only the vital spirit that is

essential for life, but spirits in general.53 Moreover, whereas the psychic spirit is the

conveyor of the psychic faculties originating in the brain, the vital spirit has no similar

role. The emotive actions that proceed from the heart clearly have no use for this spirit,

as the heart merely provides the boiling necessary for the brain to act irascibly. The pulse

of the arteries originates in their tunics and Galen explicitly rejects the claim that the

arteries pulse because the vital spirit fills them.54 In fact, if anything, the only role that

Galen seems to assign to the vital spirit is that it nourishes the psychic spirit.55 Once the

inspired air has been elaborated by the lung and heart into the vital spirit, it is transported

in arteries to the base of the brain, where it is further elaborated in the retiform plexus and

the choroid plexuses to become the psychic spirit.56

52
Galen, On the Usefulness of the Parts, pp. 278–334; Harris, The Heart and the Vascular System, pp.
339–351; and Galen, “Whether Blood is Naturally Contained in the Arteries,” in Galen on Respiration and
the Arteries: An Edition with English Translation and Commentary of De usu respirationis, An in arteriis
natura sanguis contineatur, De usu pulsum and De causis respirationis, tr. and ed. David J. Furley and J. S.
Wilkie (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 145–183.

53
Temkin, “On Galen’s Pneumatology,” pp. 187–188.

54
Galen, “On the Use of the Pulse,” in Furley and Wilkie, tr. and ed., Galen on Respiration, pp. 195–227,
215; and Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates, VI.7, p. 407.

55
Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates, VII.3, p. 447; and Temkin, “On Galen’s Pneumatology,” p.
182.

56
Rocca, Galen on the Brain, pp. 64–65, 208–219. Galen also claims that the psychic spirit can be
nourished directly from the inspired air through the nostrils; see Galen, “On the Use of Breathing,” in
Furley and Wilkie, tr. and ed., Galen on Respiration, pp. 121–133. However, Rocca explains that the
“mainstay of Galen’s pneumatic physiology lies in a progressive elaboration of pneuma by several parts of
the body” (p. 64).

174
 The existence of a distinct “natural spirit” is even more meaningless, since the

natural faculties are located in each individual body part.57 That is probably why Galen

never really dwells on it.58 Galen does, however, admit that venous blood contains

spirits, but they are not really prescribed a distinct physiological role.59 Consequently, all

we can surmise from Galen’s texts is that the psychic spirit has a distinct physiological

function, whereas the other spirits in the body, be they mere vaporous exhalations of

blood, or the specifically elaborated spirit of the heart and arteries, are generally

necessary for life and the proper functioning of an organism. Thus, Galen’s

pneumatology certainly does not map on to his neat tripartite division of the soul and the

chief organs.

4.1.3 Summary

To summarize, Galen and Aristotle disagreed on a number of important

physiological points. First, Galen corrected Aristotle’s anatomically incorrect belief that

the heart is the source of nerves and the psychic actions. In doing so, he reverted to the

Platonic division of the soul into three distinct parts, with each part of the soul residing in

a distinct organ. As such, he advanced a theory of three distinct physiological systems,

each associated with its own specific actions and vessels. Alternatively, each part of the

soul was believed to possess a genus of faculties responsible for the actions of that

system. Nonetheless, even though Galen used the term “faculty” loosely at times, at the

57
Galen, On the Natural Faculties.

58
In fact, Galen only once speculates on the possibility of a “natural spirit” and even then he is extremely
reserved in asserting its existence; Temkin, “On Galen’s Pneumatology,” p. 182.

59
Ibid., pp. 184–185.

175
very least, he maintained the strong connection between “faculty”, “motion/change” and

“action” that is found in the Aristotelian understanding of “faculty.”

On the other hand, Galen’s use of the term pneuma is significantly different than

that of Aristotle. Whereas Aristotle only posited the existence of a single connate

pneuma, which itself was its own element akin to aither, Galen speaks of, at the very

least, two kinds of spirits. Moreover, he never likens the substance of the spirits to that of

the celestial elements. Instead, Galen argues that the pneuma is derived from air and that

it is a concoction of air and blood. Consequently, Galen and Aristotle disagree on the

generation of the pneuma in the heart. For Aristotle, pneuma is present in water and

fluids, and soul-heat is contained in pneuma, such that “all things are in some sense full

of soul.”60 The connate pneuma is extracted from the blood once it reaches the heart,

where the blood is vaporized by the inspired air and the heart’s innate heat.61 For Galen,

the vital spirit is generated by a double concoction of regular, inspired air: first in the

lungs, and second, by combining with arterial blood and the innate heat of the heart.62

Yet, even though the two notions of pneuma are considerably different—one is its own

unchangeable matter and is extracted, while the other is generated from terrestrial

elements via a double concoction—we should not be surprised to find Islamic physicians

60
Aristotle, Generation of Animals, “Appendix B,” p. 583; and Bos, “Pneuma and Ether,” p. 259.

61
Aristotle, Generation of Animals, “Appendix B,” pp. 592–593; and Harris, The Heart and the Vascular
System, p. 165.

62
Galen, On the Usefulness of the Parts, pp. 46–47, 280; Temkin, “On Galen’s Pneumatology”; Bylebyl,
“Cardiovascular Physiology,” p. 45; and Rocca, Galen on the Brain, pp. 59–66

176
conflating the two.63 This conflation is only encouraged further by an identity of the

terms themselves.

Thus, from the perspective of the Islamic physicians and philosophers, the major

difference between Aristotelian and Galenic physiology lies ultimately in the role each

assigns to the heart. For Aristotle, the heart is the chief organ—the source of all vessels

and innate heat, the principal sensory and cognitive organ, the seat of the pneuma and, as

such, of the soul itself. Galen takes over from Aristotle the central role of innate heat in

biological processes and its association with the heart,64 and even accepts its central role

in the creation of the vital spirit. However, the heart is no longer the central organ, but

one of three. Moreover, since the brain is considered the central organ for sensation and

cognition, the brain is the true regent part (hegemonikon) and so has a special relationship

to the rational soul.65 Consequently, the uniqueness of the heart and its actions are

considerably diminished. Thus, as we have already seen, the heart is responsible for the

irascible virtues, but only in conjunction with the brain. Similarly, the arterial blood from

the heart plays an important role in nourishing thin, porous organs.66 Hence, the heart

also shares in the activities of the liver. Finally, even though the heart is primarily

responsible for generating the vital spirit, which in turn nourishes the psychic spirit,

Galen also leaves open the possibility that the psychic spirit can be nourished directly by

63
In fact, modern interpreters have also been guilty of conflating the two concepts to some extent; for
example, see Harris, The Heart and the Vascular System, p. 165.

64
Galen, On the Usefulness of the Parts, pp. 50–53.

65
Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates, VII.3, p. 445; and Rocca, Galen on the Brain.

66
Galen, On the Usefulness of the Parts, p. 233.

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the inspired air.67 Therefore, the heart’s unique role in the body is restricted to its source

as the all-important seat of the life-giving innate heat, and to its role in pulsation, which

ventilates that heat.68

Nevertheless, the hegemonic status of the heart in the body remained contentious

during the Hellenistic and Islamic periods.69 Islamic physicians, especially Ibn Sīnā and

Ibn Tufayl, both of whom were firmly committed to Aristotle, rejected Galen’s Platonic

notions of the soul and found ways to support the claim that the heart was indeed the

hegemonikon.70 They were successful in doing so, because they were able to combine the

Aristotelian notions of soul, spirit and faculties with the Galenic notions of those same

concepts. Their path was made easier by the subsequent translation and interpretation of

these terms by Islamic physicians during the Graeco-Arabic translation movement, to

which we shall now turn our attention.

4.2 Sowing the Seeds for an Aristotelian Galenism: Physiology during the

Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement

Although Greek medicine initially competed in the Islamic world with its Persian

and Indian counterparts, by the end of the ninth century, the “humoral system of

pathology as outlined by . . . Galen . . . had been completely accepted and integrated into

67
Bylebyl, “Cardiovascular Physiology,” p. 46; and Galen, “On the Use of Breathing.”

68
Galen, “On the Use of the Pulse,” p. 207.

69
For Galen’s own contemporaries rejecting Galen’s arguments for the brain as the hegemonikon, see
Rocca, Galen on the Brain, pp. 46–47.

70
Galen was regularly criticized for his philosophical positions, especially with regards to the soul, during
the Hellenistic and Islamic periods; see Temkin, Galenism, pp. 51–94.

178
the learned medical thinking of the day.”71 Much of the credit for the success of Galen’s

writings in the Islamic world must go to Hunayn Ibn Ishāq (d. 873), a Nestorian Christian

physician who hailed from Southern Iraq. Not only did he render almost the entire

Galenic corpus into Syriac or Arabic, thus making it accessible to his contemporaries, but

the translations themselves were also acclaimed as literary feats.72 Moreover, he, and his

school of translators, are also credited with establishing the Arabic medical and scientific

vocabulary.73 More importantly, Hunayn and other Graeco-Arabic translators maintained

the continuity of the Greek discourse between Aristotle and Galen by rendering the same

Greek terms in Aristotle and Galen with the same Arabic terms. As such, the translators,

as well as subsequent Islamic physicians, were inextricably involved in clarifying and, to

an extent, reconciling the often over-lapping yet distinct, Aristotelian and Galenic

understandings of the terms “soul” (Gr. psuche, Ar. nafs), “spirit” (Gr. pneuma, Ar. rūh),

“faculty” (Gr. dunamis, Ar. quwwa) and “activity” (Gr. energia, Ar. ficl).

4.2.1 Hunayn and the “Galenic” System of Physiology

Apart from his translations, Hunayn also composed many monographs, of which a

few exercised considerable influence on subsequent Islamic and Western medicine. His

treatise entitled al-Masā’il fī ’l-Tibb li’l-Mutacllimīn (Questions on Medicine for

71
Emilie Savage-Smith, “Medicine,” in Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science, ed. Roshdi
Rashed, 3 vols. (London: Routledge, 1996), vol. 3, pp. 903–962, 912. For the competition between Persian
and Greek medicine, see Michael Dols, “The Origins of the Islamic Hospital: Myth and Reality,” Bulletin
of History of Medicine 61 (1987): 367–390.

72
Max Meyerhof, “New Light on Hunayn Ibn Ishāq and his Period,” Isis 8 (1926): 685–724.

73
Manfred Ullmann, Islamic Medicine (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1978), p. 9; and Savage-
Smith, “Medicine,” p. 911. Also see, Myriam Salama-Carr, La traduction à l’époque Abbasside: l’école de
Hunayn Ibn Ishāq et son importance pour la traduction (Paris: Didier érudition, 1990).

179
Students) was especially popular amongst Islamic and Western physicians. The text was

clearly meant as an introduction to Galenic medicine and was used as such by later

scholars. In fact, a number of commentaries on this work by subsequent Islamic and

Western physicians are still extant, including one by Ibn al-Nafīs.74

The Questions on Medicine provides a didactic introduction to Galenic medicine

and succeeds in presenting it as a comprehensive system.75 Naturally, it is very possible

that Hunayn’s own systematization and schematization of Galen had much to do with late

Hellenistic synopses of Galen.76 However, regardless of whether or not Hunayn’s

systematization of Galen was original, it provided the lens with which to understand and

interpret Galenic physiology for subsequent Islamic physicians. For example, the famous

triadic formula of the spirits of Galenic pneumatology does not trace back to Galen

himself, as we have already seen, but rather to the following passage from Hunayn’s

treatise:

How many are the spirits? Three: the natural spirit [al-rūh al-tabīciyya], the vital
spirit [al-rūh al-hayawāniyya77], and the psychic spirit [al-rūh al-nafsāniyya].

74
See Fuat Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, 9 vols. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1967–), bd. 3, pp.
249–250; and Hunayn Ibn Ishāq, Questions on Medicine for Scholars, tr. Paul Ghalioungui (Cairo: Al-
Ahram Center for Scientific Translations, 1980), p. vi There is some debate over whether or not the Latin
Isagoge of Iohannicius is indeed a redaction of this work of Hunayn. There is also some debate on the
identity or distinctiveness of the two attested works of Hunayn, the Questions and his Introduction to
Medicine (al-Madkhal fī ’l-T ibb); see Manfred Ullmann, Die Medizin im Islam (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1970),
pp. 117–118; and Temkin, Galenism, pp. 105–106. I shall return to Ibn al-Nafīs’s commentary on the
Questions later in this chapter.

75
Temkin, Galenism, pp. 106–107; and Bylebyl, “Cardiovascular Physiology,” p. 87.

76
Ullmann, Islamic Medicine, p. 42. We have already seen in the last chapter that the early Arabic
translations and interpretations of Aristotle relied extensively on Hellenistic commentaries, especially the
Ammonian synthesis. Future research may shed more light on the continuity between Hellenistic medicine
and early Islamic medicine.

77
Even though hayawāniyya technically means “animal,” the translator probably used “vital” in order to:
1. emphasize the continuity with the Galenic tradition; 2. avoid the confusion that would naturally arise by
calling this spirit “animal,” since the subsequent Latin translations rendered the psychic spirits as spiritus
animale. Ullmann suggests that the (mis)translation was due to the fact that the Greek terms zootikos

180
 The natural spirit emanates from the liver, penetrates through the veins into the
whole body, and is servant to the natural [faculties78] [al-qiwa al-tabīciyya]. The
vital spirit emanates from the heart, penetrates through the arteries into the whole
body, and is servant to the vital [faculties] [al-qiwa al-hayawāniyya]. The
psychic spirit emanates from the brain, penetrates through the nerves into the
whole body and is servant to the psychic [faculties] [al-qiwa al-nafsāniyya].79

It is clear from this passage that, for Hunayn, Galen’s spirits conform to the

Galenic tripartite soul-three chief organ physiology perfectly. Thus, the natural faculties

are placed approximately on the same level as the psychic faculties, since, like the latter,

the natural faculties are also associated with a spirit that is disseminated from an organ.

Yet, in other passages, Hunayn agrees with Galen that the natural faculties are innate to

every organ.80 Hence, the exact role of the natural spirit in conveying these faculties is

not clear. For instance, in an earlier passage, Hunayn lists the liver as one of the three

chief/principal (ra’īs) organs. He then proceeds to distinguish between organs that

“possess innate” faculties only (qiwa gharīziyya), and other organs that possess these

innate faculties along with other faculties that “flow into them from the principal organs.”

However, when he lists the other faculties that may flow into the organs, he merely lists

the vital and psychic faculties, thus at least securing important roles for the vital and

psychic spirits. Moreover, the innate faculties that he lists are precisely those that he later

lists as belonging to the natural faculties (al-qiwa al-tabīciyya), i.e. the faculties of

(vital) and zoodes (like an animal) were confused (Islamic Medicine, p. 28). However, the choice of the
term hayawāniyya may have had something to do with Hellenistic attempts at reconciling the Aristotelian
understanding of soul and faculties with those of Galen.

78
The translator has used “forces” for the word qiwa (sing. quwwa). In order to stay consistent with the
terms I have used above in describing Galenic and Aristotelian physiology, I have changed it to “faculties.”

79
Hunayn Ibn Ishaq, Questions on Medicine, p. 5; and Temkin, “On Galen’s Pneumatology,” pp. 181,
188–189.

80
Hunayn Ibn Ishaq, Questions on Medicine, pp. 3, 42.

181
attraction and alteration.81 Nonetheless, he maintains that the liver is a chief organ, and

later even states that the natural faculties originate in the liver.82

Ibn al-Nafīs’s commentary on Hunayn’s treatise alleviates some of the confusion

by elaborating that, in the opinion of the physicians, “these [natural] faculties are

obtained by an organ through the mediation of the liver . . . in the first creation [fī awwal

al-takawwun], but after that the organs are independent of the liver.”83 Thus, if we

collate all these texts, we see that whereas Galen had only maintained that the liver is the

source of the natural faculties inasmuch as it generates the blood and the humors,84

Hunayn adds to that the generation of a natural spirit that is conveyed to the organs along

with the blood and humors. As such, he seems to understand the term “faculty” (quwwa)

in a very Aristotelian manner. He concurs with Aristotle that the faculties (dunameis) of

the soul (psuche) are forms (eidon) of the spirit (pneuma). The spirit, in turn, is

responsible for executing the actions (energeia, Ar. afcāl) corresponding to those

faculties. However, unlike Aristotle, Hunayn subscribes to the tripartite soul-three chief

organ physiology, and thus needs three distinct spirits to execute the faculties of the three

distinct souls.

Not all Islamic physicians, however, agreed with Hunayn’s three spirit scheme.

His near contemporary, Qustā ibn Lūqā (d. 912), rejected the existence of a natural spirit

entirely. Ironically, although Qustā ultimately sided with Galen on the issue of the

81
Ibid., pp. 3–4.

82
Ibid., p. 5.

83
Ibn al-Nafīs, Sharh Masā’il Hunayn Ibn Ishāq fī ’l-Tibb, MS University of Leiden, Middle East and
Islamic Collections, Or. 49/2, fol. 107a3–4.

84
Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates, VI.4, p. 385.

182
hegemonikon and the chief organs, his Aristotelian explications of the notions of soul,

spirit and faculties provided a basis for Ibn Sīnā’s cardiocentric physiology.

4.2.2 Qustā ibn Lūqā: Towards a more Aristotelian Galenism

Qustā Ibn Lūqā is reported to have originally come to Baghdad with a number of

Greek manuscripts “in search of fame and fortune as a translator.”85 Although he was

recognized as a great translator, his larger contribution to Islamic medicine lies in his

short treatises on physiological and psychological issues.86 Two treatises in particular,

On the Difference Between Soul and Spirit and On the Causes of the Differences Between

People’s Characters, shaped the future of Islamic medicine by bringing together the

divergent views of Plato, Aristotle and Galen on the nature of souls, spirits and faculties

into a unified system.87 Subsequent Islamic philosophical and medical discussions of

these topics clearly build off of Qustā’s initial synthesis.88

At the beginning of On the Difference Between Soul and Spirit, Qustā states that

his goal in the treatise is to extract the views of the ancients regarding soul and spirit

from Plato’s Timaeus and Phaedo, Aristotle’s On the Soul, and Galen’s On the Doctrines

85
Dimitri Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad
and Early cAbbāsid Society (2nd–4th/8th–10th centuries) (London: Routledge, 1998), p. 139.

86
Ullmann, Die Medizin im Islam, pp. 126–128; Ullmann, Islamic Medicine, p. 43; and Bayard Dodge
(ed., tr.), The Fihrist of al-Nadīm: A Tenth-Century Survey of Muslim Culture, 2 vols. (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1970), vol. 2, pp. 694–695.

87
Qustā Ibn Lūqā, “Fī ’l-Farq bayn al-rūh wa’l-nafs,” ed. Louis Cheikho, al-Mashriq (Beirut) 14 (1911):
94–109; Paul Sbath, “Le livre des caractères de Qostā Ibn Louqā: Grand Savant et célèbre médecin
Chrétien au IXe siècle,” Bulletin de L’Institut d’Egypte (Cairo) 23 (1940–41): 103–169; and D. Livingston,
“Qustā ibn Lūqā’s Psycho-Physiological Treatise On the Difference between the Soul and the Spirit,”
Scripta Mediterranea: Bulletin of the Society for Mediterranean Studies 2 (1981): 53–77.

88
Livingston, “Psycho-Physiological Treatise,” p. 61.

183
of Hippocrates and Plato and The Usefulness of the Parts.89 Since we have already seen

that Aristotle and Galen disagree on important matters related to soul and spirit, it is not

surprising to find that Qustā’s treatise seeks to provide a way to reconcile some of these

differences.

Qustā starts by claiming that in order to understand the difference between spirit

and soul, “one must first know the essence of each one of them.” As such, he begins with

the spirit first, defining it as “a subtle body [jism latīf].” He then immediately posits the

existence of two kinds of spirits based on function: one that “spreads to the body from the

heart in arteries, producing life, breath and the pulse;” and another that “spreads from the

brain in nerves, producing sensation and movement.”90 These spirits are later called the

vital spirit (al-rūh al-hayawāniyya) and the psychic spirit (al-rūh al-nafsāniyya),

respectively. Moreover, Qustā maintains that the matter from which the psychic spirit is

formed is the vital spirit itself, whereas the vital spirit is derived from the matter of the

surrounding air.91 He also states that death is caused by the departure of the vital spirit

from the heart, via the lungs and mouth, although he refuses to speculate on the reasons

for the spirit’s departure.92 Thus, for animals and humans, the vital spirit is the principle

of life itself—a notion that Ibn al-Nafīs will latch on to even as he rejects the existence of

vital faculties (see below). Finally, unlike Hunayn, Qustā never posits the existence of a

89
Qusta Ibn Luqa, “Fi ’l-farq bayn al-ruh,” p. 97; and Livingston, “Psycho-Physiological Treatise,” p. 63.

90
Qusta Ibn Luqa, “Fi ’l-farq bayn al-ruh,” p. 98; and Livingston, “Psycho-Physiological Treatise,” p. 63.

91
Qusta Ibn Luqa, “Fi ’l-farq bayn al-ruh,” pp. 99, 103; and Livingston, “Psycho-Physiological Treatise,”
pp. 65, 68.

92
Qusta Ibn Luqa, “Fi ’l-farq bayn al-ruh,” p. 99; and Livingston, “Psycho-Physiological Treatise,” p. 64.

184
natural spirit. In fact, he states unequivocally at the end of this section that there are only

two spirits: the vital and the psychic.93

In his section on the soul, Qustā begins by first outlining Plato’s understanding of

the soul and then follows it up with an exposition of the soul according to Aristotle.

Although there is no direct attempt to reconcile the two views, it becomes clear through

his exposition that he believes that both philosophers claim that the soul is an incorporeal

substance that is responsible for bringing about change in a compound living body.94 He

then takes Aristotle’s side in referring to the different kinds of souls with respect to the

different genera of living things: plants, animals and humans. Consequently, he rejects

the Galenic belief in the tripartite nature of the soul and the specific anatomical

localizations of those parts and, instead, posits the existence of a single, simple, unitary

soul for an individual body. The different types of souls are, as in Aristotle, arranged

hierarchically, such that the vegetative soul (al-nafs al-nabātiyya) is common to all living

beings, the animal soul (al-nafs al-bahīmiyya) only to animals and humans, and the

rational soul (al-nafs al-nātiqa) to humans alone.95 Hence, a single, simple soul is

responsible for all the faculties and actions of the body. That is to say, different organs

are not assigned specific souls or parts of the soul.

As for the relationship between soul and spirit, the spirit is the first recipient of

the faculties (qiwa) of the soul: “The soul moves the body and imparts sensation . . . and

93
Qusta Ibn Luqa, “Fi ’l-farq bayn al-ruh,” pp. 102–103; and Livingston, “Psycho-Physiological
Treatise,” p. 68

94
Qusta Ibn Luqa, “Fi ’l-farq bayn al-ruh,” pp. 103–107; and Livingston, “Psycho-Physiological
Treatise,” pp. 68–72.

95
Qusta Ibn Luqa, “Fi ’l-farq bayn al-ruh,” p. 107; and Livingston, “Psycho-Physiological Treatise,” p.
72.

185
life to it through the spirit.” The soul is, thus, the first cause, whereas the spirit is the

second, and so, proximate cause (cilla qarība) of the body for these actions (afcāl). “The

spirit is finer, more subtle, and more pure than other parts of the body and so is most

receptive to the actions of the soul [afcāl al-nafs].” Thus, even though the soul does not

die at death, its activity ceases when the spirit departs the body.96

Clearly, for Qustā, the soul acts through the agency of the spirit. At first, it

animates the body through the vital spirit, which is distributed by the heart through the

arteries, providing the body with innate heat, breathing, pulsation and other vital

faculties.97 Interestingly, Qustā refers to the vital faculties as quwwat al-hayāt (literally,

“faculty of life”), even though he calls the vital spirit, al-rūh al-hayawāniyya (literally,

“animal spirit”). The difference between his rendering and that of Hunayn suggests that

the two authors were relying on different traditions of Galenic physiology, with Qustā’s

rendering perhaps being closer to the original Greek.98 Next, the vital spirit is conveyed

by the arteries to the brain, where it goes through a process similar to digestion (al-hadm)

and is transformed (al-ihāla) into the psychic spirit. The psychic spirit is thus thinner,

finer (altaf) and purer (asfā) than the vital spirit and, hence, ready to receive the psychic

faculties (yatahayyā’ li-qubūl al-quwwa al-nafsāniyya).99

96
Qusta Ibn Luqa, “Fi ’l-farq bayn al-ruh,” p. 108; and Livingston, “Psycho-Physiological Treatise,” p.
73.

97
Sbath, “Le livre des caractères,” pp. 120, 150; Qusta Ibn Luqa, “Fi ’l-farq bayn al-ruh,” p. 108; and
Livingston, “Psycho-Physiological Treatise,” p. 73. Qustā refers to breathing as an action governed by the
vital faculty whereas even Galen had deemed it an intentional motion and, hence, placed it under the
governance of the psychic faculties; Galen, “On the Use of the Pulse,” p. 227.

98
The Greek term translated as “vital” is zotikon, which itself is derived from zoe meaning life; see
Rudolph E. Siegel, Galen’s System of Physiology and Medicine: An Analysis of His Doctrines and
Observations on Bloodflow, Respiration, Humors and Internal Diseases (Basel: S. Karger, 1968), p. 185.

99
Qusta Ibn Luqa, “Fi ’l-farq bayn al-ruh,” p. 100.

186
 This is clearly an interesting reconciliation of Aristotle and Galen. On the one

hand, Qustā accepts the Galenic view that the nerves and psychic actions proceed from

the brain, yet he rejects Galen’s belief in a tripartite soul. On the other hand, he agrees

with the Aristotelian understanding of the soul and Aristotle’s claim that the faculties of

the soul are conveyed by the spirit (Gr. pneuma, Ar. rūh), but he rejects the claim that all

the faculties are transmitted to the spirit in the first instance in the heart. Moreover, he

rejects the Aristotelian understanding of spirit as an element akin to that of the stars, and

even speaks of a cooking process that the spirit has to undergo in order to receive and

execute the actions of the psychic faculties.

As for the natural faculties, i.e. the faculties of nutrition and growth, Qustā places

them in the liver and accepts the liver as one of the chief organs and as the origin of the

veins.100 Yet, he does not assign it a spirit, because the liver is not associated with

animation (hayy):

The faculty [quwwa] of growth and nutrition, which resides in the liver, is
common to rational animated beings [al-hayy al-nātiq], such as humans, to
animated beings that are not rational [al-hayy alladhī laysa bi-nātiq], such as
animals, and living things101 that are neither animated nor rational, such as plants
[wa’l-nāmī alladhī laysa bi-hayy wa-lā nātiq wa huwa al-nabāt].102

What Qustā probably means by animation is something capable of sensation and

movement. Thus, since plants are incapable of such actions, they do not require spirits or

100
Sbath, “Le livre des caractères,” pp. 119–120.

101
I have translated nāmī as “living thing” because according to Qustā any compound thing that grows
and partakes in nutrition is a living thing and has a soul; Qusta Ibn Luqa, “Fi ’l-farq bayn al-ruh,” p. 106;
and Livingston, “Psycho-Physiological Treatise,” p. 72.

102
Sbath, “Le livre des caractères,” p. 119.

187
any of the organs associated with spirits.103 We shall revisit this understanding of spirits

and animation when we discuss Ibn al-Nafīs.

4.2.3 Summary

Thus, by the end of the translation movement, we can see that there were some

significant strides taken in reconciling Aristotle and Galen. Both Hunayn and Qustā

provided subsequent Islamic physicians with interesting ways to systematize and

harmonize the Aristotelian and Galenic understandings of the technical terms, “soul,”

“spirit” and “faculty.” In particular, Qustā’s attempts at understanding Galenic

physiology through the Aristotelian understanding of the soul provided a major impetus

to the development of Islamic medicine. By adhering to an Aristotelian understanding of

the soul and faculties, he provided a more secure, philosophical and theological

foundation for the relatively more accurate anatomy and physiology of Galen.

Nonetheless, Qustā sided with Galen on a number of important points. First, he

maintained that the vital and psychic faculties of the soul are acquired by the spirit in the

organs associated with those actions. Moreover, he emphasized the need for the vital

spirit to undergo a transformation and to acquire a new temperament in order to acquire

the psychic faculties to implement those actions. As such, he rejected the Aristotelian

understanding of the spirit as an element similar to that of the celestial bodies. He also

completely agreed with the three chief organ physiology of Galen, including Galen’s

typology of the faculties. Thus, unlike Aristotle, he affirmed the existence of the vital

faculties, assigning to them the active actions of pulse, innate heat and life as well as the

103
Ibid., p. 120.

188
passive actions associated with emotions, such as anger and fear.104 Finally, and most

importantly, Qustā agreed with Galen in that if there is a hegemonikon (regent part) in the

body, then it would have to be the brain.105 However, the manner in which he brought

together the Aristotelian understanding of soul and faculties, and the Galenic three chief

organ physiology, set the stage for the more Aristotelian physicians, such as Ibn Sīnā (d.

1037) and Ibn Tufayl (d. 1186), to restore the heart’s position as the hegemonikon of the

body.

4.3 Avicennian Physiology: Reconciling and Going Beyond Aristotle and Galen

Naturally, I do not want to imply that the entire project of Islamic medicine was to

reconcile Aristotelian and Galenic physiology, nor that only the authors covered in my

discussion were important for the specific reconciliation in which I am interested. Ibn

Sīnā’s systematization of medicine was certainly not the first of such attempts, and

neither was it universally praised.106 Nonetheless, it was the most philosophically

oriented of the systematizations and confronted, head on, the conflicts between Aristotle

and Galen. Moreover, the massive al-Qānūn fī ’l-Tibb (The Canon of Medicine) left an

indelible mark on medieval and early modern Islamic and Western medicine.107 Ibn

104
Ibid., p. 120. This is the classic definition of the vital faculties, found in a number of Islamic medical
texts; see Ullmann, Islamic Medicine, p. 61.

105
Sbath, “Le Livre des caractères,” p. 125.

106
Al-Rāzī (d. 930, lat. Rhazes) and al-Majūsī (d. circa 995) had both compiled highly successful
encyclopedias prior to Ibn Sīnā. Morever, a famous Andalusian physician, Ibn Zuhr (d. 1131, lat.
Avenzoar), was highly critical of Ibn Sīnā’s work; Savage-Smith, “Medicine,” p. 925. Also see Ullmann,
Islamic Medicine.

107
See Ullmann, Islamic Medicine; Temkin, Galenism; Bylebyl, “Cardiovascular Physiology”; Nancy G.
Siriasi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and Practice (Chicago:

189
Tufayl and Ibn al-Nafīs’s own views on the soul and medical physiology build directly

upon, and respond to, the challenges posed by Avicennian physiology.

4.3.1 Ibn Sīnā and the Philosophical Limits of Medicine

We have witnessed Ibn Sīnā’s strong commitment to Aristotelian philosophy in

the last chapter. That he carried through this commitment into his medical work is

immediately apparent in his introductory discussion on the theoretical and practical parts

of medicine, wherein he lashes out against al-Majūsī’s philosophical ineptitude.108 In

fact, he follows up that discussion with an even more thoroughly Aristotelian

categorization of the four types of causes of sickness and health: material, formal,

efficient and final. His brief statement on the category of final causes is especially

enlightening as it reveals his Aristotelian conception of “activities” (energeia) and

“faculties” (dunameis): “As for the final causes: they are the activities [afcāl]. Knowledge

of the activities requires, necessarily, knowledge of the faculties [qiwa] as well as

knowledge of the spirits that carry the faculties [al-arwāh al-hāmila li’l-qiwa].”109 The

categorization of activities as the final causes, of faculties as the formal and of spirits as

the material causes,110 as well as the close association between spirits, faculties and

University of Chicago Press, 1990); and Danielle Jacquart, “The Influence of Arabic Medicine in the
Medieval West,” in Rashed, ed., Encyclopedia, vol. 3, pp. 963–984.

108
Ibn Sīnā, al-Qānūn fī ’l-Tibb, with notes by Muhammad Amin al-Dinnawi (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-
ilmiyya, 1999), vol. 1, pp. 13–14; and Savage-Smith, “Medicine,” vol. 3, pp. 922–923. Ibn Sīnā does not
c

explicitly cite al-Majūsī but it is quite evident that al-Majūsī is the target of the criticism. Ibn Sīnā,
unfortunately, does not cite any of his sources (apart from Galen and Aristotle) in the Canon, unlike al-
Rāzī, al-Majūsī and, in fact, most other Islamic physicians (Savage-Smith, “Medicine,” p. 921).

109
Ibn Sina, al-Qanun, vol. 1, p. 15.

110
Ibid., vol. 1, p. 14.

190
activities, all reveal that Ibn Sīnā was firmly committed to the philosophically more

rigorous Aristotelian definitions of these terms, even more so than Qustā.

Nonetheless, his commitment to Aristotle does not lead him to reject Galenic

physiology entirely. He concurs with Galen that the veins, arteries and nerves do not all

originate in the heart, but rather in the liver, heart and brain, respectively.111 He also

accepts the claim that the brain and the liver, to an extent, are the sources of sensation

and nutrition, respectively. As such, along with the heart, these organs make up the three

chief organs (al-acdā’ al-ra’īsa) that are the sources of the primary faculties (mabādin

li’l-qiwa al-ūlā) necessary for preserving an individual.112 In fact, he even divides the

faculties according to Galen’s classification into: natural, vital (al-quwwat al-

hayawāniyya) and psychic.113 He defines the spirit as a subtle body (jism latīf) that is

first created in the heart and then nourishes the psychic spirit of the brain and, like Qustā,

agrees with Galen that the spirit is generated from terrestrial elements.114 However, he

disagrees with Qustā on one important point: that the vital spirit acquires a different

temperament in the brain, in preparation to receive the psychic faculties.

Although Ibn Sīnā accepts Qustā’s claim that the psychic spirit is nourished

purely by the vital spirit, he denies the claim that the vital spirit transforms and takes on

an entirely new temperament (mizāj ākhar) when it enters the brain.115 Rather, Ibn Sīnā

111
Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 36–37.

112
Ibid., vol. 1, p. 38.

113
Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 15, 94, 98–99.

114
Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 18, 39, 98.

115
Qusta Ibn Luqa, “Fi ’l-farq bayn al-ruh,” p. 100; and Ibn Sina, al-Qanun, vol. 1, p. 99. In fact, Qustā
claims that the spirits found in the different ventricles of the brain also differ in their substance from one

191
argues that the vital spirit possesses all the faculties within it. However, the spirit

becomes capable of issuing the psychic and nutritive actions only after it enters the brain

and the liver. The transformation of the spirit in the brain resembles the transformation

that physicians maintain that the psychic spirit undergoes upon entering the tongue or the

eye. Just like the psychic spirit can produce the sensation of taste only when it enters the

tongue, wherein it undergoes a slight alteration, so too the vital spirit undergoes a slight

alteration in the brain in order to be prepared to partake in and govern the psychic

actions. Since the physicians do not claim that the psychic spirit obtains a new

temperament in the tongue, so too Ibn Sīnā claims that the vital spirit does not obtain a

new temperament in the brain. In both cases, the capacity to govern those actions is

already present in the spirit and only switched on, so to speak, when it enters the specific

organ. According to Ibn Sīnā, the vital spirit is tempered in the brain, where it obtains a

temperament suitable to issue the psychic acts, but this temperament is not entirely

different from its original temperament in the heart.116 Thus, the spirit that is created in

the heart receives from the soul all the faculties, albeit it is only capable of partaking in

the actions of the vital faculty immediately.

Moreover, whereas for Qustā the vital spirit undergoes a transformation in order

to prepare itself to receive the psychic faculties, for Ibn Sīnā the vital faculty itself

prepares the organs to receive the psychic faculties. He even uses the example of

paralysis to show that an organ is capable of receiving the psychic faculties only after it

another; see Qusta Ibn Luqa, “Fi ’l-farq bayn al-ruh,” pp. 101–103; and Sbath, “Le livre des Caractères,” p.
121.

116
Ibn Sina, al-Qanun, vol. 1, p. 99.

192
has received the vital faculties.117 Thus, the spirit, in its first instance, animates the entire

body, providing it with the innate heat and preparing the organs to receive the psychic

faculties and, in its second instance, produces the nutritive and psychic actions in these

organs after the spirit is obtained and sent forth by the liver and the brain. Consequently,

since the spirit receives all the faculties upon its creation in the heart, the heart is

ultimately the hegemonikon.

Ibn Sīnā’s disagreement with Galenic physicians is closely tied to his efforts to

ensure that medicine does not overstep its boundaries and concern itself with purely

philosophical issues. Often during his discussions, Ibn Sīnā explicitly states that

medicine accepts certain principles from natural philosophy (al-cilm al-tabīcī) that the

physician qua physician cannot dispute.118 He includes amongst these principles the true

nature of the faculties, soul and spirit.119 He concedes that, for purely medical reasons, it

does not really matter whether the nutritive and psychic faculties originate in the liver and

brain or whether only the actions proceed from these organs, with the faculties

originating in the heart.120 In fact, he accepts the differential origins of all the vessels of

the body, and even concedes that the psychic and nutritive faculties are not actualized

117
Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 98–99; and Temkin, Galenism, p. 121. Ibn Sīnā implies that this understanding of the
vital faculty is found amongst physicians. The problem is that neither Galen, nor Hunayn, nor Qustā assign
to the vital faculties the action of preparing the organs to receive the psychic faculties. In fact, even al-
Majūsī does not assign such an action to the vital faculties; Ullmann, Islamic Medicine, p. 61.

118
Ibn Sina, al-Qanun, vol. 1, p. 16.

119
Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 38, 95, 99.

120
Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 38, 39, 94–95, 99.

193
until the spirit enters the brain and liver.121 Nonetheless, he cannot grant, according to his

philosophy, the existence of multiple souls, each with its particular domain and organ—

the fundamental principle behind Galen’s three organ physiology.122 Thus, the unitary

soul is the “principle of all these faculties,” and, as a result, must be attached to the “first

organ in which life takes birth.” Therefore, the heart must be the only real source of all

the faculties in the body.123

Ibn Sīnā’s understanding of the soul-heart relationship also relies on his particular

understanding of the spirit. Like Qustā, Ibn Sīnā maintains that the spirit is the agent of

the soul and so receives all its faculties from the soul.124 Additionally, we also know that

he believes in the perfect corporeality and, hence, destructibility of the spirit.125 Yet, in

his Treatise on the Remedies of the Heart, Ibn Sīnā follows Aristotle and likens the spirit

to the substance of the celestial bodies,

Whereas the celestial bodies are ready for the noblest varieties of corporeal life,
the elementary bodies are greatly distant from life. As for the compounds, their
commixture destroys the core of their contrariness and produces in them the form
of temperament. The temperament is the mean between the contraries . . . [and]
thus capable of accepting life. The more the temperament approaches the perfect
equipoise the more is the compound able to accept a greater degree of perfection

121
Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 36–37, 99. Also see, Ibn Sīnā, Risālat al-adawiyya al-qalbiyya: Avicenna’s Tract on
Cardiac Drugs and Essays on Arab Cardiotherapy, tr. H. M. Said, ed. H. A. Hameed (Karachi: Hamdard
Foundation Press, 1983), p. 12.

122
Fazlur Rahman, Avicenna’s Psychology: An English Translation of Kitāb al-Najāt, Book II, Chapter VI
with Historico-Philosophical Notes and Textual Improvements on the Cairo Edition (London: Oxford
University Press, 1952), pp. 64–68; and Ibn Sina, al-Qanun, vol. 1, p. 99.

123
Rahman, Avicenna’s Psychology, p. 66. Although Ibn Sīnā argued that the umbilical chord is the first
generated organ, he agreed with Aristotle that the heart is the first organ created as far as the embryo’s own
body and the actions of the embryo’s soul are concerned; Ibn al-Nafīs, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 59b23–25.

124
Ibn Sina, al-Qanun, vol. 1, pp. 18, 99.

125
Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 14, 18, 98. We may also infer the destructibility of the spirit from his discussion in
Kitāb al-Najāt; Rahman, Avicenna’s Psychology, pp. 50–63.

194
 of life . . . to the extent that the contraries are fully neutralised and disappear[.]
[T]hen the compound has the capacity for the perfection of rational life
resembling celestial life. This capacity belongs to the human spirit. Hence, the
spirit, on the whole, is an incorporated substance born of the commixture of
elements tending towards resemblance with celestial bodies.126

The above-passage, in fact, is almost identical to a discussion on the soul from

Kitāb al-Najāt:

[I]t must be understood that elemental bodies are prevented from receiving life by
their being in absolute contradiction. The more these bodies are able to break the
absoluteness of contradiction and bring it nearer to the mean, which has no
opposite, the nearer they approach a resemblance with the celestial bodies and to
that extent they deserve to receive an animating faculty from the controlling
separate principle. The nearer they approach the mean, the more capable of life
they become, till they reach the limit where it is impossible for them to come any
nearer to the mean and to break the contradictory extremes any further, and so
they receive a substance which somehow closely resembles the immaterial
substance itself, just as the heavenly bodies have received it and are connected
with the immaterial substance.127

The difference in the two passages is that one is referring to a material,

corruptible spirit whereas the other is talking about an incorruptible, immaterial soul.

However, the two passages can be understood in conjunction, using Ibn Sīnā’s analogy of

the sun affecting a ball. This analogy allows us to gain a better understanding of the

relationship between soul and spirit in Ibn Sīnā’s philosophy and physiology, and its

relation to the heart as the hegemonikon.

Plants, for example, only possess the natural faculties since their elements are not

as balanced as they could be and so do not give rise to a material spirit which is necessary

for all the higher faculties. As such, their case is analogous to a ball that is made up of

126
Ibn Sina, Risalat al-adawiyya, p. 13.

127
Rahman, Avicenna’s Psychology, p. 67.

195
matter capable of only conducting heat. Animals, however, possess the natural and

animal faculties since their elements are more balanced and give rise to a rudimentary

spirit that is necessary for conducting the faculties of sensation and motion. Thus, their

case is analogous to a ball that is made up of matter capable of reflecting sunlight. Since

the ball is also heated in the act of reflecting sunlight, one can speak of the animal soul

giving rise to the nutritive faculties from within itself and not because of an additional

plant soul. Finally, humans possess the natural, animal and rational faculties since their

elements are in supreme balance and give rise to a spirit that is capable of receiving the

rational faculties, just like the elements of the celestial beings. Their case is analogous to

a ball that is made up of matter capable of kindling a fire within itself when exposed to

the sun. Now, since the fire that is kindled in the ball would naturally heat the ball and

give off light from within itself, one can speak of the human soul giving rise to all the

faculties from within itself, without the need of any additional plant or animal souls.128

Thus, a human body is governed by a unique soul, which gives rise to all the

faculties, and not three separate parts or kinds of souls. And since there is only one soul,

it executes its actions through the agency of an extremely balanced spirit. In fact, the

spirit in this sense is almost divine, since it is intimately connected to the immaterial soul,

which is why Ibn Sīnā, at times, slips into religious language while speaking of the

spirit.129 Finally, since this spirit is housed and created in the heart, the soul is, in this

128
Ibid., pp. 67–68.

129
For example, “And the lighter two [elements] help in the creation of spirits and in their movement and
the movement of organs. However, the first mover is the soul with the permission of the Creator of the
spirits;” Ibn Sina, al-Qanun, vol. 1, p. 18. Also, “The arteries . . . distribute the spirit to the organs of the
body with God’s permission” (p. 37).

196
sense, connected to one organ of the body, i.e. the heart, which is thus considered the

hegemonikon.

Even though Ibn Sīnā’s physiology is based on his commitment to Aristotelian

notions of soul and aspects of Galenic anatomy and physiology, his own physiology

ultimately moves beyond that of both his esteemed predecessors. Thus, it seems more

appropriate to call his physiology “Avicennian” rather than “Galenic.” His understanding

that the psychic and natural faculties are received by the spirit in the heart, but that their

actions can only be issued once the spirit is obtained by the brain and liver, is neither

Aristotelian nor Galenic. After all, the brain and liver are not the sites of all nutritive and

psychic actions but, rather, are responsible themselves, in turn, for sending forth the spirit

with these faculties to the respective organs where the actions are finally completed.

Thus, there is a dual potentiality associated with the psychic and nutritive faculties in the

spirit of the heart. They initially lie dormant in the spirit of the heart. Next, they are

activated in the brain and liver. Finally, they are actualized in the target organs.

Moreover, he reinterprets the animating action of the vital faculties to mean specifically a

preparatory action required for the organs to be capable of receiving the psychic faculties.

This understanding of vital faculty is not to be found in Galen or Aristotle, nor in any of

his Islamic predecessors, as far as I can determine. Similarly, his understanding of the

spirit also goes beyond Aristotle and Galen. Although he agrees with Galen that the spirit

is generated from the terrestrial elements, he concurs with Aristotle that the spirit’s

temperament is extremely balanced so as to receive the faculties of the soul.

Consequently, the distinction between the soul and spirit is blurred. Nevertheless,

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Avicenna does not make the spirit itself a distinct element or the imperishable celestial

aither itself, unlike his Aristotelian Andalusian successor, Ibn Tufayl.

4.3.2 Ibn Tufayl: Aristotelian Par Excellence?

We have already seen in the last chapter that Ibn Tufayl defines the soul as the

form of the spirit, which allows him to solve the problem of individuation while

providing a philosophical basis for Hayy’s mystical visions.130 We noticed that although

he relies heavily on Ibn Sīnā, he also departs from the Avicennian system at key points in

order to advocate his own rational mysticism. Interestingly though, Ibn Tufayl’s

departures from Ibn Sīnā are themselves rooted in a particular interpretation of Aristotle.

Thus, even in the context of physiology, where again Ibn Tufayl relies heavily on Ibn

Sīnā, his departures from Ibn Sīnā bring him closer in line with Aristotle, while

safeguarding Ibn Tufayl’s own monistic cosmology.

That Ibn Tufayl relies heavily on Avicennian physiology is clear from the outset.

While describing the spontaneous generation of Hayy, Ibn Tufayl states that the first

organ of Hayy that comes into existence is “a tiny bubble divided in half by a delicate

membrane.” This bubble is immediately filled by a “fine gaseous body, optimally

proportioned for what it was to be [jism latīf hawā’ī fī ghāya min al-ictidāl al-lā’iq

bihi].”131 As this bubble develops, it takes “the conical shape of a flame” and is called

130
As we saw in the last chapter, Ibn Tufayl’s treatise, Hayy ibn Yaqzān, is really about the self-
sufficiency of reason presented in an allegory of a man, Hayy ibn Yaqzān. Hayy is spontaneously
generated on a deserted island and rationally discovers all truths, ultimately leading him to the mystical
vision of God and the underlying monism of the entire universe.

131
Hayy (English), p. 106; and Ibn Tufayl, H ayy ibn Yaqzān, ed. Dr. A. N. Nadir (Beirut: Dar al-Mashriq,
1993), p. 29. Henceforth, Hayy (Arabic).

198
the heart.132 Next, two more bubbles develop on either side opposite this chamber. The

first one is divided into three and is filled with a gaseous body, and put in charge of

“preservation and care and with relaying to the this first spirit, linked with the first

chamber [i.e., heart], all their experiences . . ..”133 This organ develops into the brain. On

the opposite side of the brain, another bubble forms, and it too is filled with a gaseous

matter, only “denser than either of the others.” This chamber is “devoted to the

protection and sustenance of the spirit [in the heart]” and is called the liver.134

Next, Ibn Tufayl makes it abundantly clear that the heart is the hegemonikon.

First, he asserts that the faculties all go back to the “spirit which is God’s,” which is

linked to the spirit of the heart. Thus, the faculties all originate in the heart, even though

the nutritive and psychic actions are delegated to liver and brain. That is because “the

dependence of the [heart] on the other two is its need for service, but their dependence on

the [heart] is the reliance of the led on their leader or the controlled on what controls

them.”135 Additionally, the liver and the brain depend “on the heart not only because its

132
Hayy (English), p. 108; and Hayy (Arabic), p. 31.

133
Hayy (English), pp. 107–108; and Hayy (Arabic), pp. 30–31. Goodman understands the Arabic
passage to be stating that the spirit in the heart is finer than that in the brain. The underlying physiology,
especially as stated explicitly by Qustā, claimed the opposite, i.e. that the psychic spirit is finer than the
vital spirit in the heart; Qustā ibn Lūqā, “Fi ’l-farq bayn al-ruh,” p. 100. The Arabic of Ibn Tufayl’s text
seems to go against Goodman’s translation and supports Qustā’s views: “wa imtala’at bi-mithli dhālika ’l-
hawā’ī alladhī imtala’at minhu ’l-qarāra al-ūlā, illa annahu altaf minhu.” Here, the annahu seems to be
referring to the spirit being talked about, i.e. the psychic spirit, and the minhu would refer to the vital spirit
of the heart. In fact, Ibn Tufayl uses an identical grammatical construction while referring to the spirit of
the liver, and in that case Goodman recognizes that the annahu is referring to the spirit of the liver and the
minhu to the vital spirit, only in this case the spirit is referred to as denser rather than finer. However, since
Ibn Tufayl believes that only the vital spirit is incorruptible and perfectly balanced, Goodman’s
understanding of the vital spirit being finer seems plausible. Ibn al-Nafīs also believes that the spirit of the
brain is thicker than that of the heart, albeit for different reasons (see below).

134
Hayy (English), p. 108; and Hayy (Arabic), pp. 31–32.

135
Hayy (English), pp. 106–108,; Hayy (Arabic), pp. 29–31.

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heat keeps them alive, but also because their specialized powers originate there.”136

Hence, Ibn Tufayl posits the heart as the hegemonikon far more explicitly than Ibn Sīnā.

Moreover, like Ibn Sīnā, Ibn Tufayl’s argument for the heart as the hegemonikon

is also premised on the need for there to be only one soul that is responsible for all the

faculties. In fact, as you can see, the following passage on the connection between the

soul and the spirit is identical to Ibn Sīnā’s discussion of the sun and the ball in the Kitab

al-Najāt, the only difference being that Ibn Tufayl relies on the analogy of transparent

bodies, opaque bodies and mirrors rather than a spherical ball:

[This spirit which is God’s] is analogous to the sunlight that constantly floods the
earth. Some objects, like transparent air, are not lit by it at all. Others, opaque
but not shiny, are lit partially. . .. Still others, polished bodies such as mirrors,
take up light maximally; and if these mirrors have a certain concave form, fires
start in them from the concentrated rays of light. The same holds for the spirit
which flows eternally from God’s word to all that is. Some beings, lacking any
aptitude to receive it, show no trace of it. These, corresponding to the air of the
analogy, are the lifeless, inanimate objects. Others, that is plant species, show its
influence to varying degrees in proportion to their capacities; they are analogous
to opaque objects. Still others show its impact greatly; these are the animal
species, and they correspond to the shiny objects of the analogy. The most
reflective body, far outshining all others, is the one that mirrors in itself the image
and pattern of the sun. . . . There is reference to this in the words of the Prophet . .
., “God created Adam in His own image.”137

However, we know from the previous chapter that Ibn Tufayl goes far beyond Ibn

Sīnā in his understanding of the relationship between soul and spirit. Whereas Ibn Sīnā

merely asserts that the spirit is the first recipient of the faculties of the soul, Ibn Tufayl

defines the soul as the form of the spirit that resides in the heart.138 Moreover, it is

136
Hayy (English), p. 108.

137
Ibid., p. 107; and Hayy (Arabic), pp. 29–30.

138
Hayy (English), p. 123; and Hayy (Arabic), p. 51.

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important to point out that unlike his predecessors, Ibn Tufayl posits a psychic and a

natural spirit that are entirely distinct from the vital spirit that resides in the heart. Thus,

the association of the soul is with the vital spirit which is responsible for the innate heat.

That is why he claims that the vegetative soul is the form of whatever it is that is

responsible for innate heat in plants.139 However, as Abraham Bos has shown recently,

this is a valid interpretation of Aristotle.140 Furthermore, Ibn Tufayl even agrees with

Aristotle that the spirit is an element akin to that of the celestial bodies:

The implication Hayy drew from . . . was that the vital spirit with the stablest
equilibrium would be fit for the highest form of life to be found in the world of
generation and decay. The form of such a spirit could virtually be said to have no
opposite. In this it would resemble the heavenly bodies, the forms of which have
none at all. The spirit of such an animal [i.e. the human spirit], being truly at a
mean among the elements, would have absolutely no tendency up or down. In
fact, if it could be set in space, between the center and the outermost limit of fire,
without being destroyed, it would stabilize there, neither rising nor falling. If it
moved in place, it would orbit like the stars, and if it moved in position it would
spin on its axis. . . . Thus it would bear a strong resemblance to the heavenly
bodies.141

In this sense, we can refer to Ibn Tufayl’s physiology and psychology as more purely

Aristotelian, at least according to one interpretation of Aristotle.142

139
Hayy (English), p. 123; Hayy (Arabic), p. 51.

140
Bos, “Pneuma and Ether.”

141
Hayy (English), p. 141.

142
Early Hellenistic doxography understood Aristotle as having maintained a belief in the immortality of
the human soul through its association with a special body, “quinta essentia.” As Bos has shown, the
immortality of the soul is irreconcilable with the traditional modern understanding of Aristotle, which
argues that Aristotle’s psychology is hylomorphic, i.e. that the soul is related to the entire body. However,
Bos argues that the Hellenistic non-hylomorphic interpretation of Aristotle is far more accurate, and
reconcilable with Aristotelian notions of the pneuma as the indestructible, celestial, divine element in all of
us; see Bos, “Aristotle’s Psychology,” 327–331. Moreover, we also know that the Stoics did indeed regard
the pneuma as an “indwelling divine spirit”; see Rocca, Galen on the Brain, p. 60. It would be interesting
to see if Ibn Tufayl or other Andalusian falāsifa had access to early Hellenistic or Stoic interpretations of
Aristotle. The Andalusian falāsifa, as it is, are well-known for their different and, what has been described
as, stricter and more literal Aristotelianism; see A. I. Sabra, “The Andalusian Revolt Against Ptolemaic

201
4.3.3. Summary

Ibn Sīnā’s physiological scheme is clearly built upon the earlier attempts of

Hunayn and Qustā to systematize Galenic physiology and reconcile it with Aristotelian

philosophy and physiology. Ibn Sīnā builds upon Qustā’s attempts to base the three chief

organ physiology on an Aristotelian understanding of a unitary, simple soul, and manages

to incorporate Hunayn’s three spirit scheme. However, he goes beyond all his Galenic

predecessors by assigning hegemonic control to the heart. As a result, he

reconceptualizes the understanding of faculties; in particular, the way in which the

psychic and natural faculties are somehow carried by the spirit from its inception in the

heart, but are not capable of issuing such actions until they are tempered by the brain and

the liver. Most importantly, he interprets the vital spirit’s vitalization/animation of the

organs to be a means for preparing them to receive the psychic faculties. In this way, he

moves beyond Aristotle by accepting the existence of vital faculties and by assigning

them a central and unique role.

This additional role that Ibn Sīnā assigns to the vital faculty is intimately tied to

his understanding of how the soul causes movements and actions in the body. He makes

it abundantly clear that the soul (nafs) is, first and foremost, associated with the spirit

(rūh). Only the spirit is capable of receiving the faculties from the soul because it is the

most balanced material compound in the body. Thus, the organs can only exercise the

faculties of the soul once they have received the spirit. That is why the vital spirit and,

consequently, the vital faculties, are assigned a preparatory role; they prepare the organs

to receive the other faculties of the soul. To that extent, the spirit has a very special

Astronomy: Averroes and al-Bitruji,” in Transformation and Tradition in the Sciences, ed. E. Mendelsohn
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 133—153.

202
relationship to the soul. It is merely a short step from there to conflate the two in some

sense.

As seen above, Ibn Tufayl clearly conflates the two, albeit for completely

different reasons. However, even Ibn Sīnā conflates the two to an extent, by using

religious language while referring to the spirit. Interestingly, even though traditionalists

preferred the term rūh (spirit) over nafs (soul) and, as a result, would have perhaps found

this physiological understanding of the spirit quite appealing, Ibn al-Nafīs rejects it

unequivocally. Instead, he tries to ensure that the physiological relationship between the

body, spirit and soul adheres strictly to a hylomorphic interpretation of Ibn Sīnā’s

original, Aristotelian definition of the soul as the true referent of “I.”

4.4 Ibn al-Nafīs’s Physiology: The Result of a Truly Hylomorphic Psychology

We have already uncovered the extent to which Ibn al-Nafīs’s hylomorphic

understanding of the soul-body relationship is directly related to his philosophical and

theological views. As explained in chapter three, his commitment to the hylomorphic

psychology enables him to reject Ibn Tufayl’s monistic mysticism and defense of

autodidactic learning. This overriding commitment also forces Ibn al-Nafīs to propose

new ways with which to reconcile a belief in bodily resurrection: he is forced to reject

much of the hadīth literature on the soul; he weakens the bond between the heart and the

soul by attaching the latter to the cajb al-dhanab instead; and, most importantly, he is

forced to draw a distinction between the soul (nafs) and spirit (rūh). This latter

distinction is of supreme importance in trying to understand the changes that Ibn al-Nafīs

203
introduced into Avicennian physiology, which, in turn, provide the basis to support his

understanding of bodily resurrection and of the pulmonary transit of blood.

At the end of his brief presentation of Ibn al-Nafīs’s theory on the pulmonary

transit of blood, Manfred Ullmann states:

With these words Ibn-an-Nafīs described for the first time the circulation of the
lungs. But he gained his knowledge not on the basis of systematic physiological
research but by plain logical deduction derived from the knowledge about the
impenetrability of the septum.143

Ullmann’s own assertion is derived from Max Meyerhof’s earlier study of Ibn al-Nafīs’s

discovery of the pulmonary transit, wherein Meyerhof claims, citing Alexander Bowie’s

judgment of Michael Servetus’s (d. 1553) work, that “the only credit due to him is that of

having made a very happy guess, but one which did not advance the explanation

further.”144 In fact, no author who has commented upon Ibn al-Nafīs’s medical works

and, in particular, upon his theory of the pulmonary transit, has ever noticed the fact that

Ibn al-Nafīs’s physiology is significantly different from that of Ibn Sīnā and Galen.145 As

143
Ullmann, Islamic Medicine, p. 69, my emphasis.

144
Max Meyerhof, “Ibn an-Nafīs (XIIIth cent.) and his Theory of the Lesser Circulation,” Isis 23 (1935):
100–120. In the larger German article, Meyerhof claims that we can call Ibn al-Nafīs’s description of the
pulmonary transit of blood “a premonition of the correct physiological knowledge”; Max Meyerhof, “Ibn
an-Nafīs und seine Theorie des Lungenkreislaufs,” Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte der
Naturwissenschaften und der Medizin 4 (1935): 37–88, 83.

145
See, for example, S. Haddad and A. Khairallah, “A Forgotten Chapter in the History of the Circulation
of the Blood,” Annals of Surgery 104 (1936): 1–8; A. Chéhadé, Ibn al-Nafīs et la découverte de la
circulation pulmonaire (Damascus: Institut Français de Damas, 1955); Joseph Schacht, “Ibn an-Nafīs,
Servetus and Colombo,” al-Andalus 22 (1957): 317–336; A. Z. Iskandar, A Catalogue of Arabic
Manuscripts on Medicine and Science in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library (London: The
Wellcome Historical Medical Library, 1967), pp. 40–42; E. Lagrange, “Réflexions sur l’historique de la
découverte de la circulation sanguine,” Episteme 3 (1969): 31–44; H. M. Said, “Knowledge of the
Circulation of the Blood From Antiquity to Ibn al-Nafīs,” Hundred Medians 37 (1994): 5–37; Mina Buchs,
“Histoire d’une découverte: Ibn al-Nafīs et la circulation pulmonaire,” Medicina nei secoli 7 (1995): 95–
108; Emilie Savage-Smith, “Attitudes Toward Dissection in Medieval Islam,” Journal of the History of
Medicine 50 (1995): 67–110; and Sharif Kaf al-Ghazal, M.D., “The Discovery of the Pulmonary
Circulation—Who Should Get the Credit: Ibn al-Nafīs or William Harvey,” Journal of the International
Society for the History of Islamic Medicine 1 (2002): 46–48.

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we shall see, Ibn al-Nafīs completely transforms Avicennian physiology. This

transformed physiology, in turn, provides the basis for the pulmonary transit of blood and

his defense of bodily resurrection. The pulmonary transit of blood is a specific,

anatomical corollary of the new physiology, which is why Ibn al-Nafīs never explicitly

brings it up outside his Commentary on the Anatomy—a fact that has puzzled many

commentators.146 The new physiology, on the other hand, is present in all of his major

philosophical and medical works that have received scholarly attention. The only

exception is his Mūjaz al-Qānūn (The Epitome of the Canon), with which we shall deal

separately in the next chapter.

4.4.1 The Order of Ibn al-Nafīs’s Medical and Philosophical Writings

As I noted in chapter two, Ibn al-Nafīs was a prolific writer. According to one

study, the total number of his known works is thirty-seven, of which some have been

printed, others survive in manuscripts and the rest are yet to be discovered or are no

longer extant.147 The vast majority of these works are on medicine, ranging from

commentaries on the works of Hippocrates, Galen and Ibn Sīnā, to special tracts on

ophthalmology and eye diseases. The work that has, naturally, received the most

146
See, for example, Joseph Schacht and Max Meyerhof, The Theologus Autodidactus of Ibn al-Nafīs,
edited with an introduction, translation and notes (Oxford, 1968), p. 42, henceforth, Theologus; and
Savage-Smith, “Attitudes Toward Dissection,” p. 103

147
Yusuf Zaydan provides a nice table at the end of his introduction to the edition of Ibn al-Nafīs’s text on
hadīth; Ibn al-Nafīs, Mukhtasar fī cilm usūl al-hadīth, ed. Yusuf Zaydan (Cairo: al-Dar al-Misriyya al-
Lubnaniyya, 1991), pp. 80–82. Since Zaydan’s earlier study was completed, Ibn al-Nafīs’s Shāmil fī ’l-
sanācti ’l-tibbiya (Comprehensive Book on the Art of Medicine) and his Mukhtār min al-aghdhiya
(Selection on Foodstuffs) have also been edited and published by Zaydan himself; see Ibn al-Nafīs, Shāmil
fī ’l-sanācti ’l-tibbiya, ed. Yusuf Zaydan (Abu Dhabi: al-Majmac al-Thaqafi, 2000–); and Mukhtār min al-
aghdhiya, ed. Yusuf Zaydan (Cairo: al-Dar al-Misriyya al-Lubnaniyya, 1992). For an earlier list of Ibn al-
Nafīs’s works, see Theologus, pp. 22–28.

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attention is the Sharh Tashrīh al-Qānūn (The Commentary on the Anatomy of the

Canon), wherein Ibn al-Nafīs posits the pulmonary transit of the blood in five different

places within the treatise. An extant manuscript copy of this treatise reveals that Ibn al-

Nafīs had completed it very early in his career, for the copy is dated “25 Jumādá I 640/20

November 1242, forty-seven lunar (forty-six solar) years before he died.”148

The Commentary on the Anatomy itself was written after he had completed, at the

very least, the commentary on the first book of the Canon of Ibn Sīnā, for in his preface

to Sharh al-Qānūn (The Commentary on the Canon), Ibn al-Nafīs states:

We have organized [our commentary on the Canon] according to the order of the
Canon, except in two sections: the section on Anatomy and the section on al-
Aqrābādhīn [Pharmacology]. We decided to collect the discourse on Anatomy
into one book, and have placed it after the discourse on the rest of the discussions
of book one of the Canon, which is known as the Kitāb al-Kulliyāt [The Book of
General Precepts]. Pharmacology has been placed after the discourse on Simple
Drugs. Apart from that, we have not changed its order.149

Moreover, in the first introductory discussion of the Commentary on the Anatomy, Ibn al-

Nafīs says: “You are indeed familiar with what we have said in our commentary on the

first book of the Canon, known as the Kulliyāt, with regards to the essences of the parts . .

. and their substances.”150 Thus, at the very least, we can be certain that the first book of

the Commentary on the Canon and the Commentary on the Anatomy of the Canon were

both completed by 1242, and that the remaining books that make up the larger

Commentary on the Canon were probably written soon thereafter. These books on the

148
Savage-Smith, “Attitudes Toward Dissection,” p. 99.

149
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 2a8–10; and Iskandar, Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts, p. 39.

150
Ibn al-Nafīs, Sharh Tashrīh al-Qānūn, ed. Salman Qataya and Paul Ghalioungui (Cairo: al-Haya al-
Misriyya al-cAmma li’l-Kitab, 1988), p. 18.

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Commentary on the Canon thus form a cluster of books that were written during the

1240s, if not earlier.

A second cluster of books with which I shall be dealing date from the 1270s:

Risālat Fādil ibn Nātiq and Risāla fī Manāfic al-Acdā’ al-Insāniyya (Treatise on the

Functions of Human Organs). The two texts survive in manuscript form in a collection of

three texts written in the same hand, the other being his text on hadīth that we

encountered in the second chapter.151 Of the collection, the Treatise on Organs is the last

of the three manuscripts and carries a date at the end of the treatise suggesting that it was

completed in 1274.152 The Treatise on Organs also refers back to the Commentary on the

Canon so we can be certain that it was written after the larger commentary. As for Fadil

ibn Nātiq, since Ibn al-Nafīs describes the Mamluk Sultan Baybars, and reports on

Baybars’s victories over the Mongols and his tax extortion schemes, we know that the

text had to have been written after 1268 and before 1277, the year of Baybars’s death.153

Finally, the last text which I shall use to uncover Ibn al-Nafīs’s physiology is his,

Sharh Masā’il H unayn ibn Ishāq fī ’l-Tibb (Commentary on the Questions of H unayn ibn

Ishāq on Medicine). Though the manuscript does not carry any date indicative of its

completion, we can gauge from internal evidence that the text was completed after the

Commentary on the Canon. That is because when Ibn al-Nafīs discusses the faculties

(qiwa) in his Commentary on the Canon, he states that he will provide a detailed

discussion of faculties and their relationship to the soul and spirit in his forthcoming

151
Theologus, p. 36.

152
Ibn al-Nafīs, Risālat al-Acdā’: maca dirāsa hawla Ibn al-Nafīs wa manhajihī wa ibdacatih, ed. Yusuf
Zaydan (Cairo: al-Dar al-Misriyya al-Lubnaniyya, 1991), p. 178.

153
Theologus, p. 68.

207
philosophical books (al-kutub al-hikmiyya).154 On the other hand, when he discusses the

spirits and faculties in the Commentary on the Questions, he states that he has already

discussed the relationship between the faculties as forms of spirits in his work, H ikma

(Philosophy/Wisdom).155 Unfortunately, this text is not known to be extant.156

From this short survey of the major physiological and philosophical works

relevant to this study, we see that the earliest work of Ibn al-Nafīs is the entire

Commentary on the Canon, with the commentary on book one preceding the specific

Commentary on the Anatomy of the Canon. The lost text on philosophy, H ikma, was

written some time after this. The Commentary on the Questions was written, at the very

least, after the H ikma. In fact, the surviving commentary on Hunayn’s Questions on

Medicine could well be a very late work, since, in the preface, Ibn al-Nafīs acknowledges

that this commentary is the shorter commentary and the reader should proceed to his

already completed, longer commentary on Hunayn’s Questions for further details.157

Unfortunately, the longer commentary is also no longer extant. Fādil ibn Nātiq and the

Treatise on the Organs were probably completed around the same time. The Treatise on

the Organs also refers to the H ikma, so we know for sure that it was at least composed

after the H ikma.158 Thus, the physiological works of relevance to this study span the

course of three decades, starting with the Commentary on the Canon in the 1240s and

154
Ibn al-Nafīs, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 22b26–28.

155
Ibn al-Nafīs, Sharh Masa’il, fol. 109b18–19.

156
The Hikma is also cited in his Treatise on Organs at precisely the same juncture, i.e. while discussing
the relationship between faculties and spirits; Risalat al-Acda’, p. 97.

157
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Masa’il, fol. 102a3–5.

158
Ibn al-Nafis, Risalat al-Acda’, p. 97.

208
proceeding till Fādil ibn Nātiq and Treatise on Organs in the 1270s. Remarkably, over

this long period of time, Ibn al-Nafīs remained consistent in rejecting Avicennian

physiology, basing this rejection on his hylomorphic understanding of the relationship

between the soul and the body.

4.4.2 Redefining Chief Organs and Their Relationships to Soul, Spirit and Faculties

As we saw earlier in the chapter, the original Galenic definition of chief organs

was based primarily on the existence of a compound, tripartite soul, with each part

residing in its corresponding chief organ. Ibn al-Nafīs, like his Islamic predecessors

Qustā and Ibn Sīnā, explicitly rejects the belief in a compound soul and instead advocates

the existence of a simple, unitary soul for the entire body:

Ibn Sīnā here returns . . . to show that the teaching of the physicians requires
either many souls or a compound soul made up of many things. But their teaching
falsifies the certain knowledge that everyone can arrive at, which is that the soul
is one and not many or composed of many.159

Nonetheless, just because he accepts the existence of a simple, unitary soul does

not imply that he associates the soul with any one organ or bodily part, unlike Aristotle

and Ibn Sīnā. He tirelessly repeats over the course of the Commentary on the Canon that

the soul is not associated with any specific part(s) or organ(s) of the body, but rather with

the entire body. Thus, in one place he states that the “soul, according to us, is related to

the entirety and not to one or a few organs [tacalluq al-nafs cindanā bi’l-jumla lā bi-cudū

wāhid aw acdā’ macdūda].”160 Similarly, while enumerating the differences between

Aristotelians and Galenists with respect to chief organs, he explicitly condemns what he

159
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 62b10–12.

160
Ibid., fol. 22b27.

209
regards as the Aristotelian understanding, namely, that a single, unique soul requires the

existence of a single, unique source for all the faculties, i.e. the heart.161 Instead, he again

concludes that “the soul is related primarily neither to the spirit nor to any organ, but

rather to the entire matter whose temperament is prepared to receive that soul [tacalluq al-

nafs awwalan laysa bi-rūh wa-lā bi-cudū bal bi-jumlati ’l-mādda al-mumtazija bi’l-mizāj

al-mucadd li-qubūl tilka ’l-nafs].”162 The soul is nothing other than “what a human

indicates by saying ‘I’.”163 Moreover, the soul can only be related to the entire body

which is balanced in temperament. It cannot be related to specific parts because “the

temperament of the spirit or the organs is far from balanced [mizāj al-rūh aw al-acdā’

alladhī huwa khārij can al-ictidāl].”164

Consequently, because of his strict hylomorphic psychology, Ibn al-Nafīs can no

longer define chief organs and regent parts of the body based on their relationship with

the soul. Furthermore, he even rejects any notion of chief organs based on their

relationship to the primary vessels or the faculties. That is so because he denies Galen’s

anatomical assertion that the veins, arteries and nerves originate in the principal organs—

the liver, heart and brain, respectively. In both, the first book of Commentary on the

Canon and the Commentary on the Anatomy, he asserts that these vessels do not actually

sprout forth from a source organ. These vessels, rather, generate and grow in every organ

161
Ibid., fol. 59b18–19. Earlier, he had also rejected the Aristotelian claim that all the vessels must
originate in the heart because it is the source of all the faculties (fol. 20b1–2).

162
Ibid., fol. 59b28–29.

163
Ibid., fol. 62b12; and Theologus, p. 58.

164
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 62b20–21.

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of the body and then connect together.165 For example, when the spleen is generated, its

arteries, veins and nerves are generated and grow with it. The vessels then separate from

it and connect with the arteries, veins and nerves growing out from the nearest organ(s).

The veins, arteries and nerves, ultimately, do connect to the liver, heart and brain, but

they cannot be said to originate in those organs. Thus, the liver, heart and brain cannot be

considered chief organs with respect to being the sources of the veins, arteries and nerves.

Furthermore, Ibn al-Nafīs recognizes that even the standard Galenic, as well as

the modified Avicennian, understanding of the chief organs as the sources of the primary

faculties necessary for preserving the life of an individual or species is fraught with

problems.166 Apart from his specific problem with calling organs the source of faculties

when, in actual fact, the soul is the real source of the faculties,167 he recognizes that the

liver and testes do not even meet the requirements set forth by Ibn Sīnā and other

physicians for chief organs.168 As such, he unequivocally states in the Commentary on

the Questions and the Commentary on the Canon that “in our opinion, the liver cannot be

a chief [organ].”169 That is because the natural faculties are innately present in all organs

through which they modify the incoming blood from the liver to suit their individual

temperaments—something that was widely recognized and accepted by all Galenists.170

165
Ibid., fol. 20b5–9; and Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Tashrih, pp. 294, 317.

166
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 22b6–26; and Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Masa’il, fol. 106b10–107a7. Ibn
al-Nafīs is certainly aware of the fact that Ibn Sīnā’s position is not exactly that of Galen, or for that matter
of Aristotle; see Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 20b2–5, 62b5–17.

167
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 59b27–29.

168
Ibid., fol. 22a15–17; and Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Masa’il, fol. 107a3–11

169
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 22b26; and Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Masa’il, fol. 107a7.

170
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Masa’il, fol. 107a7–9.

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The liver, in conjunction with the stomach and other digestive organs, merely purifies

and converts the incoming food, through its own innate, natural faculties, into blood. The

blood’s temperament not only resembles that of the liver, but it is also most suitable for

nourishing the other organs.171 The reason the liver is not needed in plants, even though

they possess the natural faculties, is because plants absorb pure food through the narrow

pores of their roots and so do not need a separate organ(s) to cook, refine and purify their

already pure nutritional uptake.172 Thus, the liver cannot be a chief organ, for it is not the

source of the natural faculties. The natural faculties, instead, emanate from the soul

directly to every body part, since the soul is, after all, associated with the entire body (see

below).

The hylomorphic relationship between the soul and the body also grounds Ibn al-

Nafīs’s rejection of the existence of the vital faculty. As we have already seen, Ibn Sīnā

had come to understand and philosophically justify the existence of a vital faculty by

assigning it a preparatory role in making the organs capable of receiving the psychic

faculties and even the natural faculties to an extent. The fact that Aristotle himself never

posits the existence of such a faculty is explicitly acknowledged by Ibn al-Nafīs.173 On

the basis of his hylomorphic psychology, Ibn al-Nafīs then argues that the soul is related

to the entire body, and so every body part is already capable of receiving the psychic

faculties: “The truth is that this faculty [i.e. the vital faculty] does not exist, for that which

171
Ibid., fol. 107a7–11; Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Tashrih, pp. 408–409; and Ibn al-Nafis, Risalat al-Acda’, p.
99.

172
Ibn al-Nafis, Risalat al-Acda’, pp. 170–171.

173
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 22a35–37, 22b1–2, 62a30–31, 62b16–20. As we saw above, Ibn
Sīnā accepted the existence of the vital faculty in order to make the heart the hegemonikon in a, otherwise,
three chief organ physiology.

212
prepares [the body] to receive the psychic faculties is the soul’s association with the body

[wa’l-haqq innahu lā wujūd li-hādhihi ’l-quwwa fa-inna ’l-mucadd li-qubūl al-qiwa al-

nafsāniyya huwa tacalluq al-nafs bi’l-badan].”174 As for the other actions of the vital

faculty, Ibn al-Nafīs claims that the source of the emotive acts are the psychic faculties

themselves, and pulsation is not associated with a faculty but rather is the result of a

forced and natural movement that itself depends on the movement of the heart (see

below).175 In short, “the vital faculty does not exist [wa’l-haqq innahu lā wujūd li’l-

hayawāniyya al-batta].”176 Consequently, we can see that Ibn al-Nafīs adheres to the

classic Aristotelian division of faculties based on the various activities of plants and

animals: nutrition, reproduction, sensation, locomotion, emotion and reason. The former

two are the natural faculties that are present in all living things, and the latter are the

psychic faculties that are present in varying degrees in different animals and humans

only.

Since Ibn al-Nafīs rejects the liver as the source of the natural faculties and denies

the existence of the vital faculty altogether, if he were to accept the standard definition of

chief organs, the brain would be considered the sole chief organ. The problem is that Ibn

al-Nafīs, like all his predecessors, considers the heart to be the source of innate heat,

without which no action of a living body is possible.177 That is to say, the heart must be a

174
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Masa’il, fol. 108b12–13; and Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 62a1–62b28.

175
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Masa’il, fol. 108b13–14; and Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 62a10, 62b22–28

176
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Masa’il, fol. 107b3.

177
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 9a26–27, 107a27–28; and Ibn al-Nafīs, Sharh Fusūl Abuqrāt, ed.
Yusuf Zaydan (Cairo: al-Dar al-Misriyya al-Lubnaniyya, 1991), pp. 128–129.

213
principal organ. Consequently, Ibn al-Nafīs provides a new definition for chief organs—

one that resorts to the heart’s central role in generating the spirit (rūh).

Throughout his Commentary on the Canon, and to a lesser extent in his

Commentary on the Questions and the Treatise on the Organs, Ibn al-Nafīs maintains that

the heart and brain are to be considered chief organs only because of their role in

generating and tempering the spirit (rūh), respectively. In his discussion on

“Enumerating the Chief Organs,” he immediately differentiates between Ibn Sīnā’s

definition of chief organs as the “places of origin in the body of the primary faculties [fī

’l-badan mabādi’ li’l-quwwa al-ūla],” and his definition of a chief organ as “the efficient

origin of the spirit that carries these faculties [mabdā’ fācilī li’l-rūh al-hāmila li-tilka ’l-

qiwa].”178 He makes it abundantly clear that what he means by “the heart being a chief

organ . . . is that it generates the spirit [wa macna ri’āsati ’l-qalb cindanā annahu

muwallid li’l-rūh].”179 The brain is a chief organ with respect to the spirit because it

cools and tempers the hot spirit of the heart, in order to issue the actions of sensation and

movement.180 The liver is not a chief organ because it is not associated with generating

or administering the spirit.181 In fact, the natural faculties do not depend on the spirit.182

That is why, in his Commentary on the Questions, he ends his long discussion on chief

178
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 22b7–8.

179
Ibid., fol. 22b27.

180
Ibn al-Nafis, Risalat al-Acda’, p. 98.

181
Ibn al-Nafīs never refers to a natural spirit, or to the liver modifying or tempering the spirit after the
liver receives the spirit from the heart.

182
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 22b13–14, 60a13–14. This also comes through in his brief
comparison of plants and animals in the Treatise on the Organs, where he shows that plants have no need
for the spirit, or any organs associated with the spirit, because they do not possess the psychic faculties,
even though they partake in nutritive and reproductive activities; Risalat al-Acda’, pp. 169–170.

214
organs by stating, “Therefore, the [liver and] testes are definitely not chief organs, and

neither are there, according to us, any chief organs except the heart and the brain.”183

Since the soul is not emanated and attached to the spirit, but instead to the entire

body whose temperament is balanced,184 contrary to Ibn Sīnā, Ibn al-Nafīs maintains that

the spirit is constantly generated anew in the heart. He agrees with his predecessors that

the spirit is “a subtle, vaporous body generated from the subtle and vaporous parts of the

humors.”185 However, he recognizes that the spirit is created very hot and fine, as a result

of which it must break down rapidly. Consequently, the spirit must be continuously

regenerated in the body.186 Moreover, since the heart generates the spirit, it must be

hotter than the spirit itself.187 As such, it cannot be the source of the psychic faculties for

then people’s emotions and perceptions would be skewed. Thus, the brain issues the

emotive, perceptive and motive acts by first cooling the spirit.188 As a result, unlike

Qustā, Ibn al-Nafīs maintains that the spirit that resides in the nerves is thicker than that

of the arteries, because the nerves and the brain are cooler than the arteries and the

heart.189 Nevertheless, Ibn al-Nafīs sides with Qustā and the physicians, against Ibn Sīnā

183
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Masa’il, fol. 107a11–12.

184
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 62b20–21.

185
Ibid., fol. 62a12–13.

186
Ibn al-Nafis, Risalat al-Acda’, pp. 97–98.

187
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 9a26–27, 11b8–12.

188
Ibn al-Nafis, Risalat al-Acda’, p. 98. Aristotle had also assigned a cooling role to the brain; Aristotle,
Parts of Animals, tr. A. L. Peck, Loeb ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1955), II.7 652b7ff; and
Harris, The Heart and the Vascular System, pp. 135–136, 148. However, unlike Ibn al-Nafīs, Aristotle
assigned the psychic faculties to the heart itself, whereas Ibn al-Nafīs assigns them to the brain, because of
its cooling function.

189
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 107a31–32.

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and the falāsifa, in claiming that the spirit receives a new temperament in the brain in

order to then receive the psychic faculties.190

Even though Ibn al-Nafīs no longer considers the soul to be primarily associated

with the spirit in any physical sense, he still acknowledges the central role of the spirit as

the material substrate and recipient of the faculties of the soul. His definition of faculties

is, in fact, identical to the Aristotelian definition of dunamis from Metaphysics ∆: “the

source of change from one thing into another, inasmuch as it is another [mabdā’ al-

taghayyur min ākhar fī ākhar min haithu huwa ākhar].”191 As a result, the faculties are

forms whose material substrate is the spirit.192 Or, to put it another way, “the spirit is the

material origin of the faculties, while the faculties are the formal origins of the spirit [al-

rūh mabdā’ li’l-qiwa māddiyyan wa’l-qiwa mabdā’ li’l-rūh suwariyyan].”193 Although

the soul is the “efficient source of all the faculties,” the spirit is what carries and

distributes these faculties throughout the body.194 The soul emanates the non-nutritive

faculties directly to the spirit, through which the body then administers those actions.

Thus, the spirit does not receive the psychic faculties until it enters the brain, after which

the brain can then execute and control the actions of sensation, movement and

cognition.195 As for the natural faculties, Ibn al-Nafīs makes it very clear that they do not

190
Ibid., fol. 23b17; and Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Tashrih, p. 301.

191
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 59a25; and Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Masa’il, fol. 107a21–107b1.

192
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Masa’il, fol. 109b18–19; and Ibn al-Nafis, Risalat al-Acda’, p. 97.

193
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 59a32, 62a12–13.

194
Ibid., fol. 59b27–29.

195
Ibid., fol. 23b17; and Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Tashrih, p. 301.

216
depend on the spirit.196 In fact, once the soul is emanated by God to the balanced mixture

resulting from the mixture of the two semens, the conglomerate immediately receives the

natural faculties.197 This understanding of nutrition and its relation to the soul is what

physiologically grounds Ibn al-Nafīs’s defense of bodily resurrection in Fādil ibn Nātiq,

as we shall see below.

Finally, far from downplaying the physiological importance of the heart, Ibn al-

Nafīs provides it with a new meaning. Given that the brain is incapable of exercising its

actions in the absence of the spirit, the heart’s unique role in generating the spirit is

indispensable for the brain and the psychic faculties. Additionally, the heart is the source

of innate heat which is distributed to the rest of the organs with the spirit, and which is

necessary for all the actions of life.198 Consequently, Ibn al-Nafīs speaks often of a

“faculty of life [quwwat al-hayāt]” that the spirit receives from the soul in the heart,

which it then brings to the rest of the organs to animate them.199 This notion of the spirit

receiving “life” from the soul in the heart and distributing it to the organs resembles

Qustā’s discussion of animation. In fact, it also resembles the general Aristotelian and

Galenic conception that the respired air and innate heat, both of which are distributed by

the heart to the organs through arteries, are important for life itself. For all these reasons,

Ibn al-Nafīs often speaks of the heart as the source of all faculties.200

196
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 22b13–14, 60a13–14.

197
Ibid., fol. 22b10–14.

198
Ibid., fol. 22a18–19; and Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Masa’il, fol. 107a17.

199
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 9a26–27, 22a18–19, 22b2–3, 107a14–19; Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh
Masa’il, fol. 107a17; and Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Tashrih, pp. 301, 316, 411.

200
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 59b20–21, 27–29, 62b28; and Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Masa’il, fol.
107a12–13.

217
 Therefore, the heart plays a central role in generating the spirit, without which

none of the actions of the animal would be possible. For that reason, the body needs to

ensure that the heart is safeguarded from all calamities, in particular, from anything that

would harm its innate heat and the purity of the spirit generated within it. That is why the

septum wall cannot be porous, according to Ibn al-Nafīs, for then the thick blood of the

right ventricle would corrupt the fine, hot spirit of the left ventricle, without which none

of the animal activities would be possible. Consequently, he proposes an alternate route

for the thin, vaporous blood to get into the left ventricle: via the lungs.

4.4.3 The Pulmonary Transit of the Blood and the New Physiology

Now that we have a richer understanding of Ibn al-Nafīs’s psychology and

physiology, we are in a position to understand fully his reasons for positing the

pulmonary transit of the blood. One of the major consequences of Ibn al-Nafīs’s

hylomorphic psychology is that the soul is not, in any sense of the word, attached to the

spirit. Thus, he has no qualms about stating that the spirit is continuously generated in

the heart, and that because it is generated in the heart it is, in fact, quite hot and not really

balanced in temperament.201 Since the spirit is a hot vapor, it is also liable to dissipating

quickly and dissolving into waste-products.202 Moreover, it also needs to be extremely

fine, especially since Ibn al-Nafīs believes that the cooler spirit of the brain must

necessarily be thicker than the spirit of the heart, and in order for the body to administer

the psychic faculties, the spirit would have to be fine and subtle enough to permit its

201
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 62b20–21; and Ibn al-Nafis, Risalat al-Acda’, pp. 97–98, 105.

202
Ibn al-Nafis, Risalat al-Acda’, pp. 97–98.

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rapid transmission from the brain to the extremities.203 Consequently, he posits a new

cardio-vascular anatomy, including a new theory of pulsation, in order to ensure the

generation and maintenance of a pure, hot, fine spirit.

The five instances in the Commentary on the Anatomy where Ibn al-Nafīs denies

the possibility of blood seeping through the septum wall and, instead, proposes the

pulmonary transit for the blood to move from the right side to the left side of the heart

have all been well-documented.204 What has not been sufficiently emphasized is his deep

concern with the purity and fineness of the spirit and, consequently, the purity and

fineness of the raw materials used to generate it. His entire theory of the pulmonary

transit of blood is premised on the assumption that the spirit must be extremely fine and

pure, as his discussion on the anatomy of the vein-like artery (pulmonary vein) reveals:

We say, however, and God knows best, that since one of the heart’s functions is to
generate the spirit, and that can only be using very fine blood [dam raqīq jiddan]
that is extensively mixed with air, it must contain very fine blood and air in order
to generate the spirit from their mixture. This must take place where the spirit is
generated, which is the left of the two ventricles of the heart. Thus, there must be
in the heart of humans, and similar organisms who possess lungs, another
ventricle that refines the blood in it and makes it suitable to mix with air. For if
air were to mix with blood that is thick, the resulting mixture would not produce a
homogeneous body. Such a ventricle is the right of the two ventricles of the heart.
When the blood is refined in this ventricle it must then be transported to the left
ventricle where the spirit is generated. However, there is no passage between the
two ventricles, for there the body of the heart is solid and there are no visible
passages, as believed by the majority, nor an invisible passage appropriate for
transporting the blood, as believed by Galen. . . . Hence, once the blood is refined,
it is transported by the artery-like vein [i.e. pulmonary artery] to the lungs in order
to disperse in the body of the lung and mix with the air, so that its finer parts are
purified. Then it is carried into the vein-like artery, and from there into the left of
the two ventricles of the heart. The blood that is mixed with air and purified is

203
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 107b2–8.

204
See, for example, Meyerhof, “Ibn an-Nafīs und seine Theorie des Lungenkreislaufs”; Meyerhof, “Ibn
an-Nafīs (XIIIth cent.) and his Theory of the Lesser Circulation”; Haddad and Khairallah, “A Forgotten
Chapter in the History of the Circulation of the Blood”; and Chéhadé, Ibn al-Nafīs et la découverte.

219
 used to generate the spirit, as for the blood205 which remains that is not too fine, it
is used to nourish the lung. For that reason, the artery-like vein is solid and
possesses two coats, so that what leaves through its pores is very fine. The vein-
like artery is thin and has one coat in order to facilitate taking up the blood that
leaves the [aforementioned] vein.206

In his discussion on the need for the artery-like vein (pulmonary artery) to have

two coats, Ibn al-Nafīs once again emphasizes the extremely fine nature of the blood

required to mix with air to generate the spirit in the left ventricle:

[The artery-like vein is created with two coats] so that its body is solid, and its
pores are very small in order to prevent anything from seeping through, except
very fine blood. This very fine blood that seeps through then disperses and mixes
with the great quantity of air spread throughout the lumen of the lungs, thus
becoming appropriate to turn into the spirit in the heart. The blood that does not
seep through from those pores, is transported in the lumen of the parts of this vein
and nourishes the lung. Thus, the lung is only nourished by the blood that
remains in the parts of this vein after the finer blood has been strained out into the
lumen of the lungs.207

The strong emphasis on the need for the blood to be very fine and thoroughly

mixed with air is also present in his discussion on the anatomy of the lungs and the heart.

Here again, he proceeds to argue that the blood is first heated in the right ventricle of the

heart, then strained by the thick artery-like vein into the lumen of the lungs where it

mixes with the air and proceeds to the left ventricle of the heart through the vein-like

artery in order to be transformed into the spirit.208 Towards the end of the discussion he

205
The word is missing in the manuscript and the editor has incorrectly replaced it with rūh (spirit) when
it clearly should be dam (blood).

206
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Tashrih, pp. 293–294, my emphasis. Alternative English translations can be found
in Meyerhof, “Ibn an-Nafīs (XIIIth cent.) and his Theory of the Lesser Circulation”; and Haddad and
Khairallah, “A Forgotten Chapter in the History of the Circulation of the Blood.”

207
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Tashrih, p. 320, my emphasis.

208
Ibid., pp. 383–387.

220
again emphasizes the real problem inherent in the theory that the septum wall is porous—

that the thick blood would ruin the spirit: “The heart has only two ventricles . . . and there

is no passage between these two ventricles. Otherwise, the blood would be transported to

the place of the spirit and ruin its substance.”209

The significance that Ibn al-Nafīs attaches to the purity and fineness of the spirit

can also be understood once we take into account the fact that Ibn al-Nafīs rejects the

existence of the vital faculty. Thus, the movement of the heart can no longer be due to

the vital faculty, but instead needs another motive cause. Moreover, since the soul is the

true cause of motion and change in the body, this movement must be due to some faculty

of the soul, namely, the faculty of locomotion. Thus, he posits that the heart’s movement

is an intentional movement, albeit one that is not perceived, much like the movement of

the muscles of the arm.210 In order to receive this faculty, however, the heart must

generate and possess the spirit, for the non-natural faculties are not issued by the soul to

the body, except through the spirit. Furthermore, Ibn al-Nafīs also believes that the soul

issues faculties based on the specific temperaments, which is why he believes the spirit

does not receive the majority of the psychic faculties until it is cooled in the brain. For

that reason, the spirit must be extremely pure and fine in order to receive this faculty,

which he calls the “faculty of life [quwwat al-hayāt].”211 This then allows the heart to

209
Ibid., p. 388.

210
Ibid., pp. 388, 390; and Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 62b27–28, 105a20–21, 105b10–12, 107a25–
30.

211
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 22a18–19, 22b2–3, 107a14–19; and Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Masa’il, fol.
107a17.

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beat and convey the spirit, along with its movement and innate heat, to the rest of the

organs in order to vivify them.212

Since the movement of the heart is intentional and is predicated on the existence

of the spirit, and given that the spirit is only generated in the left ventricle, Ibn al-Nafīs

rejects the consensus view that the right ventricle of the heart also beats.213 Moreover,

according to his interpretation of Aristotelian natural philosophy, if the right ventricle of

the heart were to expand and contract, it would not take up blood from the veins during

its expansion. Rather, it would take up the air from the lungs, for “a vacuum only attracts

what is fine, then what is thick in the absence of the fine.”214 Thus, the blood must be

absorbed into the right ventricle according to “the natural absorptive faculty in it, like all

other organs” and not because it beats.215 However, this blood is not responsible for

nourishing the heart since it is too watery. The heart is, rather, nourished directly by the

thick blood found in the parts of the vena cava that penetrate into the body of the heart

itself.216 The blood is present in the right ventricle so that it can be heated and refined, in

order to generate the spirit and nourish the lungs.

212
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 9a26–27, 107a14–19; and Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Tashrih, pp. 301, 316,
411.

213
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Tashrih, p. 389.

214
Ibid., p. 389.

215
Ibid., p. 389.

216
Ibid., p. 389. This is somewhat problematic as Ibn al-Nafīs himself states that organs only absorb
humours so as to be nourished by them (see below). Thus, there seems to be no reason why the right
ventricle should naturally absorb any blood, unless he means that each organ must always possess some
blood. In that case, since the right ventricle would constantly lose its blood to the lung, it would need to
continuously absorb more blood. The other possibility is that the lungs can only absorb blood through the
right ventricle, so it is not so much as the right ventricle naturally attracting blood, but rather the lungs
attracting it through the right ventricle.

222
 Similarly, according to Ibn al-Nafīs, the main purpose of the lungs is to prepare

the mixed matter of fine blood and air that is converted into the spirit in the left ventricle

of the heart.217 However, since he does not believe that the right ventricle beats, the

blood cannot be pumped into the lungs. Rather, the lungs need to attract and absorb the

heated, refined blood of the right ventricle naturally. Since organs do not attract humors

unless they want to use them for nutrition, the lungs must also be nourished by the blood

from the right ventricle of the heart.218 Consequently, Ibn al-Nafīs rejects Ibn Sīnā’s and

Galen’s assertion that the lungs derive their nutrition from the left ventricle through the

vein-like artery.219 According to Ibn al-Nafīs, the right ventricle of the heart absorbs a

small amount of blood, which is then heated and is attracted by the lungs for their

nutrition. As the blood is transported in the artery-like vein, the very fine parts of the

heated, watery blood from the right ventricle seep through into the lumen of the lungs.

There the fine parts of this warm, watery blood combine with the voluminous air in order

to form a mixture appropriate for the generation of the spirit. The thicker parts of the

watery blood that are held back in the artery-like vein then proceed to nourish the

lungs.220 This is the reason why only animals with lungs possess a heart with two

ventricles.221

217
Ibid., p. 320.

218
Ibid., p. 320.

219
Ibid., p. 294.

220
Ibid., pp. 320, 383.

221
Ibid., p. 293; and Galen, On the Usefulness of the Parts, vol. 1, p. 295.

223
 I should emphasize here that the amount of blood that Ibn al-Nafīs believes is

transmitted to the lungs via the right ventricle is very small. He maintains that the spirit

is largely air itself, mixed with a bit of the refined and filtered blood from the right

ventricle.222 That is why the right ventricle is also considerably smaller than the left, for

the latter needs to accommodate the large quantity of spirit to disperse to the rest of the

body.223 The left ventricle lets in the large quantity of air mixed with the refined blood

from the lungs during expansion, and then expels the waste-products to the lungs during

contraction.224 However, that is not the only purpose of the heart’s movement. The

movement of the left ventricle is also responsible for the arterial pulse, given that in the

absence of a vital faculty, there is no other possible motive cause for pulsation.225

4.4.4 Ibn al-Nafīs’s New Theory of Pulsation

There is apparently no scholarly awareness that Ibn al-Nafīs rejected the standard

Galenic understanding of pulse in its entirety and proposed a new one in its stead.

According to Galen, just as the lungs draw in cool air and expel vaporous wastes and

warm air during breathing to ventilate the heat of the heart, the arteries draw in cool air

from all sides and expel vaporous wastes and warm air during pulsation in order to

ventilate the innate heat of the arteries and the rest of the organs of the body.226 The

222
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Tashrih, p. 387.

223
Ibid., p. 387.

224
Ibid., pp. 389–390.

225
Ibid., pp. 388, 390; Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 62b27–28, 105a20–21, 105b10–12, 107a25–30;
and Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Masa’il, fol. 150b5–151a19.

226
Galen, “On the Use of the Pulse,” pp. 211–215, 227

224
difference between the two activities, however, is that breathing is governed by the

psychic faculties whereas the pulse is governed by the vital faculty.227 Galen proposed

his own theory over and against the view of Erasistratus, who had argued earlier that the

pulse is the result of air or pneuma being forced into the arteries from the heart. Based on

certain experiments, Galen argued that the arterial pulse is the result of the vital faculty

being communicated from the heart to the arteries through their tunics.228 More

importantly, he rejected Erasistratus’s contention because he believed that every part of

an artery pulsates simultaneously.229 Ibn al-Nafīs, however, proceeds to show that, in

fact, some parts of arteries contract before others.

Once again, the fundamental basis for Ibn al-Nafīs’s new theory of pulsation is his

new physiology, specifically his rejection of the existence of the vital faculty

altogether.230 He also agrees with all his predecessors that the pulse is not an intentional

movement.231 Consequently, the motion must then either be the result of natural motions,

i.e. that the arteries expand and contract naturally, or the result of forced motions, i.e. the

heart causes the arteries either to expand or to contract, or a combination of the two. He

is able to dismiss quickly the possibility that pulsation is entirely made up of natural

motions, since it cannot be in the nature of a body to both contract and expand, as the two

227
Ibid., pp. 217, 227.

228
Galen, “Whether Blood is Naturally Contained in the Arteries,” pp. 165–173; and Bylebyl,
“Cardiovascular Physiology,” pp. 56–57.

229
Galen, “Whether Blood is Naturally Contained in the Arteries,” p. 181.

230
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 62b21–28, 105b1–7.

231
Ibid., fol. 105b16–24.

225
motions are contrary to one another.232 Thus, through the remainder of this discussion,

he whittles the aforementioned choices down to the possibility that the pulse is composed

of a forced motion and a natural motion, and argues that the forced motion must be the

contraction of the arteries caused by the expansion of the heart, and the natural motion

must be the expansion of the arteries, wherein they return to their normal distended

state.233 It is important to note that he recognizes that the arteries and the heart do not

expand and contract at the same time, but rather the one contracts while the other

expands, and vice versa.234

Ibn al-Nafīs also analyzes the possible ways that the heart could force the motion

of the arteries. He identifies two substances that could potentially cause the contraction

and/or expansion of the arteries: air and the spirit.235 In the case of air being the cause of

the forced movement of the arteries, he recognizes that large quantities of air would

either have to come directly from the outside through the skin, or from the lungs via the

heart, in order to maintain the pulse. In the first case, the arterial pulse would have to

disappear when a person is under water, which is clearly false.236 As for the air coming

from the lungs through the heart, he again maintains that the sheer amount of air that

would then have to enter the heart and the arteries would corrupt the temperament of the

232
Ibid., fol. 105b1–2.

233
Ibid., fol. 105b28–37, 106a17–37, 106b1.

234
Ibid., fol. 105a 29–31.

235
Ibid., fol. 105b24–28.

236
Ibid., fol. 106a11–15.

226
spirit.237 Consequently, he rejects the possibility that the arterial motion is caused by the

heart forcing air into them. Furthermore, he even rejects the standard Galenic view that

the pulse is necessary for the aerial ventilation of the innate heat. Instead, Ibn al-Nafīs

asserts that the purpose of the pulse is to help disperse the spirit from the heart to the rest

of the body and to help ensure the proper temperament and texture of that spirit.238

Since Ibn al-Nafīs claims that the expansion of the arteries is natural and the

contraction is forced, he claims that the contraction of the arteries precedes their

expansion, contrary to Galen and Ibn Sīnā.239 The contraction of the arteries is caused by

the expansion of the heart, during which the spirit of the arteries returns to the heart,

thereby contracting the arteries to prevent a vacuum (wa harakat inqibādihā qasriyya wa-

inna ’l-qāsir lahā calā dhālika cawd al-rūh ilā tajwīf al-qalb fa-yalzimu dhālika inqibād

al-sharā’īn li-alla yalzimu al-khalā’).240 As the heart contracts, the arteries return to their

natural extended state, absorbing primarily the spirit from the heart, but also the

remaining spirituous blood in the left ventricle.241 The furthest extremities also absorb

small amounts of air to fill up their lumens since it takes some time for the spirit to get to

them, i.e. not all parts of the arteries contract and expand simultaneously.242 The force

with which the heart sends out the spirit during contraction, and the force of the

237
Ibid., fol. 106a15–17.

238
Ibid., fol. 106a17–20, 107a14–16, 107b27–28.

239
Ibid., fol. 105a14, 106b11.

240
Ibid., fol. 106b5–6.

241
Ibid., fol. 21b7, 105b30–31, 107a36, 107b19.

242
Ibid., fol. 107a36–37, 107b1–8, 107b17–27.

227
contraction of the arteries during the heart’s expansion, also ensure that the spirit and the

waste products in the arteries (resulting from broken down spirits dissolved in the

spirituous blood) seep out through the arterial pores. In fact, that is why the amount of

spirit that is sent back to the heart is very small, since much of the arterial spirit has

already been distributed to the organs, or it has dissipated into waste-products and has

been expunged.243

The primary reason Ibn al-Nafīs posits the return of the arterial spirit to the left

ventricle during the latter’s diastole is once again related to his understanding of the

relationship between the spirit and the soul. Just as he posited the pulmonary transit of

blood to ensure the purity and absolute fineness of the spirit, the spirit’s constant back

and forth movement from the heart to the arteries is also posited to ensure that the spirit

does not dry up or thicken. While responding to the possible objection that the heart’s

absorption of the arterial spirit during diastole would prevent the heart’s absorption of the

refined air from the lungs, Ibn al-Nafīs states:

We grant that the primary purpose of the expansion and contraction of the heart is
to absorb the cool air and expel the wastes of the spirit and the warm air;
however, the ventricle of the heart is wide. Moreover, when it expands it is not
possible for it to absorb air until it is full, for that would then ruin the
temperament of the spirit, its substance and texture, as well as the temperament of
the heart [fa-idhā inbasata lam yumkin an yajdhib min al-hawā’ al-miqdār baqiya
c
alayhi wa-illā fasuda mizāj al-rūh wa jawharuhā wa qiwāmuhā wa mizāj al-
qalb]. Thus, the heart is necessarily forced to complete its fill by absorbing the
spirit. This is advantageous . . . for many reasons.

Ibn al-Nafīs proceeds to provide four reasons for why the spirit’s return to the heart

during the heart’s diastole is advantageous. The most important ones for our purposes

are the second and third:

243
Ibid., fol. 107a5–25, 107a32–36, 107b27–28.

228
 Second, to benefit the spirit by moving towards the heart sometimes, and at other
times towards the arteries, and maintain its subtlety and substance, and not get
[adversely] affected by . . . a lengthy rest in the arteries. Third, the heart must be
extremely hot in order to generate properly the spirit from the blood and the cool
air, and the arteries must be cold in nature . . .. 244 Thus, if the spirit were to reside
always in the heart, it would burn out because of the excessive heat, and if it were
to reside always in the arteries, it would become cold and thick. For that reason,
it must continuously move back and forth between these two parts in order to
maintain its balance which is what prepares it to receive life [fa-law jacala
maskana ’l-rūh dā’iman fī ’l-qalb la-uhriqat bi-harāratihi ’l-mufrita wa-law
jacalat dā’iman fī ’l-sharā’īn la-barudat wa ghaluzat fa-wajaba an yakūn
mutaraddida dā’iman bayna hādhayn al-cudwayn li-yabqā calā ictidalihā alladhī
bihi yastacidd li-qubūl al-hayāt].245

Ibn al-Nafīs’s new theory of pulsation and the pulmonary transit of blood both

rely equally on his new physiological system. According to his physiological system, the

spirit needs to be hot, pure and extremely fine when it is present in the heart and arteries

in order to accomplish its tasks properly. The pulmonary transit of the blood ensures that

the blood used in creating the spirit is extremely fine and spirituous. The new

understanding of the pulse ensures that, while in the arteries, the spirit maintains the

temperament that it receives in the heart when it is first generated, so that it is capable of

bringing life to the rest of the organs. Moreover, since the arteries also receive blood

from the heart, Ibn al-Nafīs needs that blood to be fine and spirituous so as not to

interfere with the temperament of the spirit. Consequently, his theory of the pulmonary

transit of the blood bears directly on his new theory of pulsation.

244
Ibn al-Nafīs argues that the arteries must be cold because if they were fleshy, they would be unable to
penetrate into the smaller organs. They also must be thin so that the wastes can be dissolved out of them,
and for that reason they must be similar in temperament to ligaments and nerves, which are also cold by
nature; Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 107a12–14.

245
Ibid., fol. 107a5–15, my emphasis.

229
 Furthermore, both these theories rely equally on his denial of the vital faculty and

his assertion that the heart’s movement is intentional. In the case of the pulmonary

transit, the fact that the heart’s movement is intentional implies that only the left ventricle

beats since it contains the spirit and so can receive that faculty. Consequently, the right

ventricle does not beat. Thus, because the right ventricle does not beat, in order to

transport the blood from the veins to the lungs: 1. the right ventricle must absorb some

blood through its natural, absorptive faculties, and; 2. the lungs must derive their nutrition

from the right ventricle, in order to receive the warmer blood of the right ventricle. Once

this blood is filtered by the artery-like vein (pulmonary artery), it mixes with the air in the

lungs and is ready to be transformed into spirit in the left ventricle of the heart. In the

case of pulsation, since the vital faculty does not exist, the arterial pulse must be caused

by the movement of the heart, which itself must be intentional due to his rejection of the

vital faculty.

My argument here contextualizes Ibn al-Nafīs’s discovery of the pulmonary

transit. Previous scholars have tended to analyze these texts without paying attention to

his physiological or psychological views. Consequently, they have been at a loss to

explain the absence of any discussion of the pulmonary transit outside Ibn al-Nafīs’s

Commentary on the Anatomy.246 However, once we examine Ibn al-Nafīs’s work within

his context, we recognize that, for Ibn al-Nafīs himself, the pulmonary transit of the

blood was nothing more than an anatomical corollary to his new physiology and

psychology. As such, it is explicitly laid out only in the Commentary on the Anatomy. In

246
See, for example, Savage-Smith, “Attitudes Towards Dissection,” p. 103.

230
his non-anatomical works, he merely alludes to the discovery through his discussions of

the new physiology and, at times, of his new theory of pulsation.

For example, in his Commentary on the Questions of H unayn, he rejects

Avicennian physiology and replaces it with his own system. He denies explicitly the

existence of the vital faculty and states that he considers the heart and the brain to be the

only chief organs in the body.247 Later, while commenting on Hunayn’s didactic

introduction to the pulse, he rejects Hunayn’s standard Galenic theory and provides his

new theory of pulsation in its stead.248 Even though Ibn al-Nafīs does not present his

theory of the pulmonary transit in this treatise, primarily because the treatise has no

anatomical section, the theory is implicitly present in the discussions on physiology and

the theory of pulsation.

The references to his new physiology in the Treatise on the Organs are more

subtle, but present nonetheless. This treatise was written to provide a high-level

administrator, possibly a vizier, with enough information about the organs and their

functions for him to monitor and preserve his health.249 Thus, specific details regarding

cardiovascular anatomy and physiology are not really to be expected. Nonetheless, when

Ibn al-Nafīs presents the standard Avicennian three chief organ physiology in his opening

discussion, he makes it quite clear that his own views are different:

We also say there are some principle organs from among the organs, which with
respect to the individual are three: heart, brain and liver; and with respect to the
species are four: the aforementioned three and the testes. This is the famous

247
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Masa’il, fol. 107a12, 107b3, 108b12–14.

248
Ibid., fol. 150b3–151a19.

249
Ibn al-Nafis, Risalat al-Acda’, p. 88. Ibn al-Nafīs refers to this person, amongst other honorifics, as the
khalīl amīr al-mu’minīn (Friend of the Commander of the Faithful).

231
 teaching. As for our opinion on it, we have presented it in our book on the
Commentary of the Book of the Canon of Sheikh al-Ra’īs, Abī cAlī Ibn Sīnā, may
God sanctify his spirit.250

He then proceeds to emphasize the hot nature of the spirit, the fact that it is

constantly generated in the heart and the fact that it dissipates quickly thereafter in the

arteries.251 The fact that the heart and its contained spirit are quite hot is also the reason

why the psychic acts issue from the cooler brain and its cooler spirit.252 Thus, he

specifically denies the Avicennian contention that the spirit does not alter its

temperament in the brain. Moreover, he never refers to the spirit during his entire

discussion of the liver and the remaining organs of nutrition, and even claims at the end

of the treatise that plants do not possess a spirit because the latter is only responsible for

motive, emotive, sensory and cognitive acts.253 Clearly then, his modified physiology is

well-represented in this treatise. Finally, there is also a possible reference to the heart’s

movement as being intentional, which we have seen forms the cornerstone of his new

theory of pulmonary transit and pulsation.254 Interestingly enough, clearer references to

the pulmonary transit of blood and his new theory of pulsation are to be found in his

250
Ibid., p. 92.

251
Ibid., pp. 97–98.

252
Ibid., p. 98.

253
Ibid., pp. 98–100, 123–125, 169–170.

254
The reference is considerably obscure and vague. Earlier in his discussion of the generation of the
spirit, Ibn al-Nafīs refers to the diastole and systole of the heart and says that he shall discuss these
movements in more detail later (ibid., p. 98). When he discusses these movements again, he seems to be
speaking more generally about the expansion and contraction of the lungs than specifically about the heart.
However, he does refer to the air entering the heart, and not just the lungs, and makes it a point to
emphasize the movements as being intentional (p. 106).

232
theological treatise, Fādil ibn Nātiq, where the new physiology is also used to justify

bodily resurrection.

4.4.5 The New Anatomy and Physiology in Defense of Bodily Resurrection?

As we saw in the last chapter, Fādil ibn Nātiq is a narrative about a man called

Kāmil who is spontaneously generated on a deserted island and independently discovers

the rational sciences, including medicine, ultimately reasoning his way to the existence of

God. After that, the narrative breaks to emphasize that Kāmil is merely rationalizing

religious truths, rather than rationally deducing them a priori. During the first part of the

narrative, Ibn al-Nafīs provides a quick overview of the digestive and respiratory

systems. Since Ibn al-Nafīs does not explicitly describe the pulmonary transit of the

blood, Schacht and Meyerhof note that “he probably made [the discovery of the

pulmonary transit] after the completion of the present book.”255 However, as we have

already seen, Ibn al-Nafīs proposed the pulmonary transit of blood in the 1240s, whereas

this book was not completed until the 1270s at the earliest. Thus, he had certainly made

his discovery before writing this text. In actual fact, there are two direct references to his

Commentary on the Anatomy in this treatise, one of which is to the concept that grounds

his theory of the pulmonary transit: that only the left ventricle of the heart beats.

The first reference is a seemingly innocuous phrase where Ibn al-Nafīs describes

Kāmil as noticing that the heart’s “right ventricle is filled with blood and its left ventricle

is filled with spirit [wa-shāhada al-qalb fī ’l-sadr wa-batnuhu al-ayman mamlū’ min al-

255
Theologus, p. 42, fn. 1.

233
dam wa-batnuhu al-aysar mamlū’ min al-rūh].”256 This seemingly off-hand reference

uses almost exactly the same phrase as is found in his Commentary on the Anatomy.

There, while commenting on Ibn Sīnā’s claim that the heart has three ventricles, Ibn al-

Nafīs comments:

This claim is incorrect. The heart has only two ventricles. The first of which is
filled with blood, and this is the right, and the other is filled with spirit, and this is
the left [fa-inna ’l-qalb batnān faqat ahdahumā mamlū’ bi’l-dam, wa-huwa al-
ayman, wa’l-ākhar mamlū’ bi’l-rūh wa-huwa al-aysar]. And there is definitely
no passage between the two, otherwise the blood would be transported to the
location of the spirit and ruin its substance.257

Thus, the claims that the one ventricle is filled with blood and the other with spirit, or that

the air proceeds from the lungs to the left ventricle of the heart, do not preclude the

pulmonary transit of blood in Ibn al-Nafīs’s system. We have already seen that he

maintains that by-and-large the spirit is nourished by the incoming air, mixed with a tiny

bit of refined blood.

The second reference immediately follows the first, wherein he explicitly says

that only the left ventricle contracts. In fact, the entire passage not only alludes to the

pulmonary transit as he had come to understand it, but also to his new theory of

pulsation:

Its left ventricle is filled with spirit, and this ventricle contracts, thereby sending
this spirit in the arteries to the organs. Then it expands, and this spirit returns to it
[thumma yanbasitu fa-tarjicu tilka ’l-rūh ilayhi].258

Scholars have generally missed the significance of the phrase “then it expands and this

spirit returns to it,” because they were unaware of how intricately the pulmonary transit

256
Ibid., pp. 41–42, 132.

257
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Tashrih, p. 388, my emphasis.

258
Theologus, p. 132.

234
and the new theory of pulsation are related in Ibn al-Nafīs’s new physiological and

psychological scheme.

Ibn al-Nafīs’s new, hylomorphic psychology and, consequently, his new

physiological understanding of the spirit form the cornerstones of his argument against

Ibn Tufayl’s monistic Sūfism in H ayy ibn Yaqzān. As we have already seen, Ibn Tufayl’s

entire argument is premised on his belief that the spirit is an imperishable element, akin

to the matter of the celestial bodies, whose form is the immaterial soul. That is why

when Ibn Tufayl begins to describe the spontaneous generation of Hayy, he says that the

soul that emanates from God attaches directly to the “fine gaseous body,” which is

“optimally proportioned.”259 Ibn al-Nafīs, however, never refers to the soul attaching to

the spirit in his discussion of the spontaneous generation of Kāmil:

[W]hen summer came the contents of the cave became hot and fermented; they
had by then been saturated with the clay contained in them, and did not cease to
boil on account of the heat generated in them until they became mixed and
achieved a mixture (temperament, mizāj) very near to equilibrium. Their
consistency became viscous and capable of having organs formed from them;
their single parts were differentiated because the kinds of clay with which they
had been mixed were different. . . . [E]very part was similar in temperament to the
temperament of an organ, and its consistency was capable of having this organ
formed out of it. Therefore these parts were prepared to be transformed into the
organs of a man. [God] in His generosity does not withhold his right from anyone
who deserves it, and grants to everyone who is prepared for something that for
which he is prepared. Therefore He created out of those parts the organs of a
man, and out of their whole the body of a man. When this clay had become hot,
there had evaporated from it many vapours, some of which were refined and
airlike and similar in temperament to the that of the human spirit (rūh); so human
spirit became formed out of them, and in this manner the formation of a man was
completed.260

259
Hayy (English), p. 106.

260
Theologus, pp. 39–40, parenthetical emendations are in the original translation itself.

235
 There is clearly no reference to the soul attaching specifically to the spirit in the

above passage and, thus, no grounds for supporting Ibn Tufayl’s ontological monism. In

fact, there is no reference to the spirit possessing a balanced temperament either. The

entire contents of the cave, from which the human body is to be formed, are said to

possess a temperament “very near to equilibrium.” The other parts of the body, including

the spirit, have their own specific temperaments. This clearly echoes the passages from

the Commentary on the Canon where Ibn al-Nafīs repeatedly emphasizes that only the

entire human body is balanced, and not any individual organ(s).

We should also note that Ibn al-Nafīs does not claim that the clay turns into the

organs on its own, but rather it is ready to be transformed into the organs when God steps

in and actually brings about the transformation. That is because only living things have

the ability to feed, grow and generate organs through the actions of the faculties of

nutrition and, thus, a soul. The reference to God here is actually a reference to God

emanating the human soul to the contents of the cave, since they have a temperament that

is prepared to receive the soul. The passage on generation from the Commentary on the

Canon makes clear this connection between God, the soul and the balanced temperament

of the matter which begins to grow and generate organs by receiving the nutritive

faculties from the soul:

Galen believes that each of the two semen has in it the active faculty to fashion
[quwwa cāqida, lit. to thicken] and the passive faculty to be fashioned [quwwa
muncaqida, lit. to be thickened], however the active faculty is stronger in the male
semen while the passive in the female semen. The investigators amongst the
falāsifa believe that the male semen only has the active faculty, while the female
only has the passive faculty. . . . As for our opinion on this, and God knows best,
neither of the two semen has in it an active faculty to fashion[wa-ammā ra’yanā fī
hādhā wallāhū aclam fa-innahu laysa wa-lā wāhid min al-manīyyayn fīhi quwwa
c
āqida].261
261
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 23b8–11.

236
 Ibn al-Nafīs then proceeds to show that once the male semen and female semen

are brought together in the womb, the latter quenches the hot fire of the male semen

through its own cool, wet nature. Once the two semen are mixed, “they modify one

another’s temperament and [the mixture] obtains a temperament that is prepared for the

emanation of the soul from their Supreme Creator [wa yahsilu minhumā ’l-mizāj al-

mucadd li-fayadān al-nafs min khāliqihā tacālā].”262 At this juncture, the nutritive

faculties are emanated from the soul to this mixed, balanced matter, since “the natural

faculties, according to [Ibn al-Nafīs] do not depend on the spirit.”263 These faculties then

allow the matter to absorb nutrition, grow and form the rest of the organs through the

informing faculty (al-quwwa al-musawwara). The spirit that is present in the semen

helps generate more spirit and receives the rest of the faculties of the soul once the heart

and brain have been generated.264 The spirit is not the bearer of the soul for, as Ibn al-

Nafīs exclaims, “how can the soul of the father remain attached to the sperm once it is in

the womb?”265

Not only does Ibn al-Nafīs’s new understanding of the soul and spirit leave no

room for Ibn Tufayl’s ontological monism; his specific understanding of the role of God

in emanating the soul, and of the soul emanating the natural faculties, also provides

262
Ibid., fol. 23b13–14.

263
Ibid., fol. 23b14–15. The actual Arabic at this point is difficult to follow: “fa-idhā afādahā min jūdihi
wa karamihi sādaqat al-mādda bacda ghayri mustacidd li-quwwa ghayri ’l-qiwa al-tabīciyya wa hiya lā
yatawaqqaf cindanā calā ’l-rūh.” However, there is no doubt in my mind that Ibn al-Nafīs is implying what
I have stated since he repeats the same thing more clearly in his section on the natural faculties: “al-qiwa
al-tabīciyya . . . calā ra’yanā mutaqaddima bi’l-wujūd aydan li-annahā cindanā awwal al-qiwa allatī yufādu
c
alā ’l-manī wa-lā yatawaqqaf cindanā calā rūh” (fol. 60a13–14).

264
Ibid., fol. 23b15–18.

265
Ibid., fol. 61a6–7.

237
physiological support for his understanding of bodily resurrection. According to Ibn al-

Nafīs’s hylomorphic psychology, the soul is merely the true referent of “I” and is related

to the entire body that has a temperament suitable for that soul. Nonetheless, he

recognizes that in order for the body to be generated, the soul needs to first attach itself to

mixed matter that is itself balanced. In the Commentary on the Canon, this mixed matter

is referred to as the temperate mixture of the male and female semen, as seen above. In

Fādil ibn Nātiq, he again refers to the same mixed matter, which has the temperament

suitable for a human, and is “generated from sperm and similar things” to which the soul

attaches and allows this matter to begin feeding and to “produce the organs.”266

However, he then goes a step further in Fādil ibn Nātiq and calls this matter cajb

al-dhanab, based on the Prophetic hadīth, as we saw in the last chapter. Thus, the

Schacht and Meyerhof translation of cajb al-dhanab as the “coccyx” is incorrect. Ibn al-

Nafīs is well-aware that the coccyx is not even amongst the possible candidates for the

organs that are first generated in the womb.267 He is merely equating the initial mixed

matter of semen with the cajb al-dhanab. This move then allows him to claim, on

Prophetic authority, that the initial matter to which the soul attaches never degenerates,

thus providing a solution to Ibn Sīnā’s problem of the individuation of the soul after

death. Death is nothing more than the soul ceasing to emanate its faculties to the body,

thus resulting in the degeneration of the body.268 Resurrection, therefore, is nothing more

266
Theologus, p. 58.

267
Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qanun, fol. 59b19–27. The possible candidates that Ibn al-Nafīs lists are: the
heart, the brain and the umbilical chord.

268
Ibid., fol. 59b15.

238
than the soul emanating its faculties once again to the original mixed matter, the cajb al-

dhanab, just as it did so at the time of generation:

Then when the time for resurrection . . . comes, the soul stirs . . . and feeds this . .
. matter by attracting other matter to it and transforming it into something similar
to it; and therefrom grows a body a second time. . .. After that the soul never
ceases to feed, and therefore the body never becomes non-existent again . . ..269

4.5 Conclusion

Historians have tended to see any reference to spirits and faculties in Islamic

medicine as the Islamic physicians’ unquestioning adherence to Galenic physiology.

Consequently, they have missed the subtle, and at times not-so-subtle, changes that

individual Islamic physicians introduced into Galenic physiology. Thus, it is not

surprising that they have overlooked the specific ways in which Ibn al-Nafīs’s physiology

departs from Aristotelian, Galenic and Avicennian physiology. As a result, the larger

physiological basis for Ibn al-Nafīs’s discovery of the pulmonary transit of blood has not

been appreciated.

Ibn al-Nafīs’s new physiology is itself founded upon his strict adherence to a

hylomorphic psychology. Although modern commentators see this as the authentic

Aristotelian understanding of the soul, I hope I have provided enough evidence to suggest

that Islamic physicians and philosophers did not consider a naturalized hylomorphism to

be Aristotle’s position. Consequently, the reasons for Ibn al-Nafīs’s firm commitment to

a hylomorphic psychology need to be carefully examined and elucidated.

Ibn al-Nafīs’s commitment to hylomorphism is firmly rooted in his understanding

of the harmony between reason and revelation. To be fair, one can argue that his

269
Theologus, p. 59.

239
hylomorphism was merely the logical conclusion of the Avicennian definition of the soul

as the true, incorporeal referent of “I.” However, the fact that Ibn Sīnā did not take that

path as a thoroughgoing faylasūf, and that Ibn al-Nafīs takes it as a faylasūf cum

traditionalist, reveals much about the complex ways in which individual authors assign

authority to the various sources of reason and revelation. Ibn Sīnā’s strong commitment

to a Neoplatonic interpretation of Aristotle leads him to posit the existence of a separable

soul, but his strong attachment to aspects of Aristotle’s one soul-one chief organ

physiology also pushes him to associate the soul with the spirit and through it with the

heart. Ibn al-Nafīs, on the other hand, is far more flexible in selecting from the various

physiologies at his disposal. Thus, he is able to adhere strictly to a hylomorphic

psychology and, by defying the authority of Aristotle, Galen and Ibn Sīnā from time to

time, introduce changes in physiology, embryology, cardiac anatomy and the theory of

pulsation in order to stay consistent. The strictly theological basis for his new theories is

apparent in his appeal to a hadīth to solve the problem of individuation. However, even

in this case, the appeal is justified by his denial of the self-sufficiency of reason.

Moreover, he then proceeds to interpret the hadīth in light of his new physiology. This

delicate dialectic between reason and revelation is a true trademark of Ibn al-Nafīs’s

works.

Ibn al-Nafīs’s medical and traditionalist successors were, however, unable to tread

the same fine line. By the fourteenth century, certain aspects of falsafa, e.g. Avicenna’s

proof for the existence of God, were openly incorporated into traditionalist discourse.

Other aspects, on the other hand, were vociferously opposed, in particular, the falsafa

rejection of bodily resurrection along with the Aristotelian understanding of soul as an

240
incorporeal substance. Moreover, the traditionalists had also succeeded in creating a new

genre of religious medicine, “The Prophetic Medicine,” which had come to reinterpret

Prophetic traditions on healing in light of Avicennian physiology. Therefore, Ibn al-

Nafīs’s new physiology, with its reliance on an incorporeal soul and its rejection of key

aspects of Avicennian physiology, was destined to be ignored along with his discovery of

the pulmonary transit and his new theory of pulsation. However, Ibn al-Nafīs was too

valuable to the traditionalist’s cause to be entirely forgotten, since he was, after all, a

first-rate physician who was also committed to the fundamental tenets of traditionalism.

Consequently, they appropriated him in the only way they could: play down his falsafa

leanings, overlook his new physiology, and concentrate on the only medical text

attributed to him that is entirely Avicennian: Mūjaz al-Qānūn (The Epitome of the

Canon).

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 CHAPTER 5

THE LEGACY OF IBN AL-NAFĪS

We saw in chapter two that all biographical entries on Ibn al-Nafīs present him as

a very gifted and religiously orthodox physician. Staunch traditionalists, like al-Dhahabī

(d. 1348), wasted no time in appropriating Ibn al-Nafīs for the cause of the emerging

genre of Tibb al-Nabī (Medicine of the Prophet). As Irmeli Perho has shown, during the

thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, a small group of staunch hadīth scholars, including al-

Dhahabī, intentionally transformed a collection of pious medical hadīth into an entire

medical tradition for addressing the physical and spiritual health of believers. This

emerging genre of Tibb al-Nabī was characterized by the traditionalists’ intentional

appropriations of the existing Graeco-Islamic medical tradition. The Tibb al-Nabī texts

were intended to illustrate the harmony between the Graeco-Islamic medical tradition,

and the Qur’ān and the hadīth, in order to attract more “orthodox” Muslims to medicine.1

As such, Ibn al-Nafīs’s staunch adherence to the sunna of the Prophet and traditionalist

dogmas regarding the nature of God and the afterlife, made him the paradigmatic Muslim

physician in the eyes of these traditionalists.

As a physician who emphasized the authority of revelation, and who was known

to have refused to prescribe alcohol as medication, Ibn al-Nafīs had an upper hand over

1
See Irmeli Perho, The Prophet’s Medicine: A Creation of the Muslim Traditionist Scholars (Helsinki:
Kokemäki, 1995).

242
Ibn Sīnā, whose explicit rejection of traditionalist dogmas and of Qur’ānic injunctions

against alcohol did not gain him any friends in traditionalist circles. Al-Dhahabī, and

other traditionalists, could bolster their case for the harmony between reason and

revelation further by parading the “orthodox” Muslim physician, Ibn al-Nafīs, in addition

to harmonizing the medical theories with Prophetic ahadīth in the Tibb al-Nabī texts

themselves. This parading of Ibn al-Nafīs would have also helped traditionalists in

shifting the focus away from Ibn Sīnā in medicine, thus diminishing Ibn Sīnā’s aura of

infallibility. As such, it would have made it easier to attack his falsafa, without being

characterized as being irrational. The only obstacle to their cause was Ibn al-Nafīs’s own

commitment to the incorporeal soul and other falsafa doctrines, which they removed by

omitting any reference to falsafa in their biographical entries on Ibn al-Nafīs, as we noted

in chapter two.

In such a climate, one would expect that Ibn al-Nafīs’s new theories of

physiology, pulsation and the pulmonary transit would have been taken up immediately

by subsequent physicians. After all, Ibn al-Nafīs was widely esteemed by fourteenth and

fifteenth century physicians. Physicians started writing commentaries on his works

within a decade after his death. His reputation had grown so much within the course of a

century that by the fourteenth century one of his works was considered the dustūr al-

mutatabbibīn (the standard reference of medical practitioners).2 His strict adherence to

2
A. Z. Iskandar, A Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts on Medicine and Science in the Wellcome Historical
Medical Library (London: The Wellcome Historical Medical Library, 1967), pp. 53–54. This particular
work was, in fact, still being copied and commented upon towards the end of the nineteenth century; see
Iskandar, Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts, pp. 52–55, 143–149; and Joseph Schacht and Max Meyerhof,
The Theologus Autodidactus of Ibn al-Nafīs, edited with an introduction, translation and notes (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1968), p. 25. Henceforth, Theologus.

243
the sunna and traditionalist dogmas also brought him the full support of the rising class of

traditionalist scholars, as we have already seen.

However, the work that was commented upon, and which became the standard

reference, is Mūjaz al-Qānūn (The Epitome of the Canon)3—the only work associated

with Ibn al-Nafīs that does not refer at all to his new physiology, theory of pulsation or

the pulmonary transit. For good measure, it contains no references to falsafa either, or

even to his hylomorphic psychology. The question thus arises: is this even Ibn al-Nafīs’s

work? I do not think so.

5.1 The Anomaly of the Mūjaz

Before the discovery of passages in the Commentary on the Anatomy on the

pulmonary transit of blood in the twentieth century, Ibn al-Nafīs’s fame in Western and

Islamic societies was based entirely on this concise commentary on Ibn Sīnā’s Canon. In

fact, it is unfair to even call this work a commentary since it is nothing more than an

abridgement of the Canon, which is precisely what the title, Mūjaz, implies. Contrary to

what Iskandar may have seen in his comparison of the Mūjaz and the Commentary on the

Canon, the Mūjaz is definitely not an abridgement of Ibn al-Nafīs’s larger commentary.

It is purely and simply Ibn Sīnā’s Canon, with its anatomical and philosophical

discussions removed. Consequently, it presents Avicennian physiology even more

authoritatively, as it never suggests that physicians actually disagree on anything. Given

the extent to which Ibn al-Nafīs emphasizes disagreements in his works, whether

3
Some scholars, including the editor of the edition I have used, call it al-Mūjaz fī ’l-Tibb (The Abridged
Book of Medicine); Ibn al-Nafīs, Kitāb al-Mūjaz fī ’l-Tibb, ed. cAbd al-Karim cAzabawi (Cairo: Wizarat al-
Awqaf, 1986).

244
amongst physicians in his Commentary on the Canon or amongst hadīth scholars in his

Mukhtasar fī cilm usūl al-hadīth, the lack of such discussions in the Mūjaz makes it a very

odd work of Ibn al-Nafīs. In fact, the only Nafīsian aspect of the work seems to be the

Mūjaz’s rearrangement of the subject material of Ibn Sīnā’s Canon into four sections that

correspond exactly to the four sections of Ibn al-Nafīs’s Commentary on the Canon:

“Principles of Theory and Practice of Medicine,” “Simple and Compound Foods and

Drugs,” “Diseases Specific to Each Organ,” and “Diseases that are not Specific to

Individual Organs.”4

A detailed comparison of the two works is certainly beyond the scope of this

dissertation. However, we can compare the Mūjaz’s physiological discussions to Ibn al-

Nafīs’s physiology as found in all his other works. This comparison, in itself, will reveal

that Mūjaz is either not Ibn al-Nafīs’s work at all, or if it is, it must have been a collection

of his earliest notes on Ibn Sīnā’s Canon. In either case, Iskandar’s opinion that the

Mūjaz was written after the larger Commentary on the Canon is incorrect.5

We have already seen that Ibn al-Nafīs consistently rejects the standard

Avicennian definition of chief organs. In his Commentary on the Canon and

Commentary on the Questions of H unayn ibn Ishāq on Medicine, Ibn al-Nafīs not only

rejects the Avicennian definition, but he provides a new definition in its stead, thus

leading him to exclude the liver and testes from amongst the chief organs. In his Treatise

on Organs, as soon as he enumerates the chief organs as found in Avicenna, he says,

“This is the famous principle. As for our opinion on it, we have stated it in our book, The

4
Ibn al-Nafīs, Kitab al-Mujaz, p. 31; Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh al-Qānūn, MS Wellcome Library, Oriental MSS,
Or. 51; and Iskandar, Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts, pp. 39–40, 52.

5
Iskandar, Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts, pp. 51–52.

245
Commentary on the Book of the Canon of . . . Ibn Sīnā . . ..”6 However, in the Mūjaz, Ibn

al-Nafīs provides no indication that he even disagrees with the standard definition and

number of chief organs. Instead, he defines the chief organs as the “principal source of

the necessary faculties [aslun li-qiwa darūriyya],” and then proceeds to enumerate the

heart, liver and brain as the three chief organs with respect to the individual, and these

three and the testes as the four chief organs with respect to the species.7

Similarly, the Mūjaz also does not provide any indication that Ibn al-Nafīs denies

the existence of the vital faculty. Whereas the Commentary on the Canon and the

Commentary on the Questions reject the existence of the vital faculty explicitly, and the

Treatise on the Organs never mentions it, the Mūjaz posits the existence of the vital

faculty unequivocally. Moreover, it even defines the vital faculty as that “which prepares

the organs to receive the psychic faculties [allatī tuciddu ’l-acdā’ li-qubūl al-qiwa al-

nafsāniyya].”8 This definition of the vital faculty, in fact, contradicts entirely Ibn al-

Nafīs’s hylomorphic understanding of the relationship between the soul and the body as

found in his other works. Consequently, the Mūjaz is either not Ibn al-Nafīs’s work, or it

was written before he developed his alternate physiological understanding of the body as

presented in the Commentary on the Canon.

There are also some major differences between the Mūjaz and Ibn al-Nafīs’s other

works with regards to the pulmonary transit of blood. As we have already seen, the

pulmonary transit of blood is intimately tied to his new theory of pulsation. However, the

6
Ibn al-Nafīs, Ibn al-Nafīs, Risālat al-Acdā’: maca dirāsa hawla Ibn al-Nafīs wa manhajihī wa ibdacatih,
ed. Yusuf Zaydan (Cairo: al-Dar al-Misriyya al-Lubnaniyya, 1991), p. 92.

7
Ibn al-Nafis, Kitab al-Mujaz, pp. 34–35.

8
Ibid., p. 37.

246
Mūjaz provides no indication as to whether or not Ibn al-Nafīs has a new theory of

pulsation. There is no detailed description of the mechanics of pulsation or of how the

movement of the arteries relates to that of the heart. The pulse is deemed to be necessary

for “tempering the spirit,” “removing the wastes” and “ventilating the innate heat.”9

These descriptions are quite nebulous and do not indicate any disagreement with Galen or

Ibn Sīnā. Furthermore, the references to the strength and weakness of the “faculty”

causing differences in the strength and quality of pulsation would only reinforce the

Galenic notion that the pulse is governed by the vital faculty.10 Thus, whereas Ibn al-

Nafīs’s other works refer, at the very least, to his new physiology and pulsation, and

through them to his theory of the pulmonary transit of blood, the Mūjaz does not refer to

any of these new theories. Hence, medieval physicians reading the Mūjaz would have no

idea that Ibn al-Nafīs actually proposed a new cardiovascular anatomy and physiology.

The Mūjaz is also unique in not referring to any of Ibn al-Nafīs’s other works.

The Commentary on the Canon, Commentary on the Questions and the Treatise on

Organs all refer to his philosophical compendium, H ikma, during their respective

discussions of the faculties. However, the Mūjaz makes no reference to the H ikma during

the course of its discussion on the faculties.11 Similarly, the Commentary on the

Anatomy, the Treatise on Organs, as well as his Commentary on Hippocrates’

Aphorisms, all refer back to the larger Commentary on the Canon;12 but the Mūjaz never

9
Ibid., pp. 49, 50.

10
Ibid., pp. 50–51.

11
Ibid., pp. 35–37.

12
Ibn al-Nafīs, Sharh Fusūl Abuqrāt, ed. Yusuf Zaydan (Cairo: al-Dar al-Misriyya al-Lubnaniyya, 1991),
p. 128.

247
suggests that Ibn al-Nafīs ever wrote a larger commentary on Ibn Sīnā’s Canon.

Furthermore, the Mūjaz is never referred to in any of Ibn al-Nafīs’s other works. This

omission raises further doubts about Ibn al-Nafīs’s authorship, especially since the Mūjaz

can only possibly be a very early work of Ibn al-Nafīs, for the reasons mentioned above.

The Mūjaz does not seem to refer to Ibn Sīnā or any of his works either. This

omission is certainly strange since Ibn al-Nafīs is very careful about citing and quoting

Ibn Sīnā throughout his commentaries on the Canon and even in his Treatise on Organs.

Interestingly however, this lack of references to Ibn Sīnā is closely related to the more

noticeable absence of any recognized disagreements amongst physicians.

Unlike Ibn Sīnā’s Canon and Ibn al-Nafīs’s Commentary on the Canon, the Mūjaz

never refers to any disagreements amongst physicians with regards to the faculties, chief

organs, the position of the heart, the origin of arteries, veins and nerves, and so forth.

Philosophical discussions and references to Aristotle are also noticeably absent from the

Mūjaz. One may justify these omissions by referring to the preface, where the author

states, “In this book, I shall comply with the well-known cures . . . and principles of

purging, etc.”13 However, the genre to which the Mūjaz belongs is the same as that of his

Mukhtasar fī cilm usūl al-hadīth (A Short Summary on the Science of the Principles of

H adīth). The term awjaza, whose past participle is mūjaz, is a synonym of the term

ikhtasara, whose past participle is mukhtasar.14 Yet, in his Mukhtasar on hadīth, Ibn al-

Nafīs never shies away from reporting disagreements amongst scholars, and even

13
Ibn al-Nafis, Kitab al-Mujaz, p. 31.

14
Ibn Manzūr, Lisān al-cArab, New ed. version (Beirut: Dar Sadir, 2000), s.v. “j-w-z.”

248
presents his own opinion in matters where he disagrees with them.15 Moreover, Ibn al-

Nafīs consistently reports disagreements amongst physicians in every single one of his

medical works, including his commentary on Hippocrates’s Aphorisms.16 Thus, the

absence of any reported disagreements amongst physicians in the Mūjaz is very

suspicious and noteworthy.

In summary, there are many reasons for questioning Ibn al-Nafīs’s authorship of

the Mūjaz: the absence of the new physiology and theory of pulsation; the lack of

references to other works of Ibn al-Nafīs in the Mūjaz, and vice-versa; the omission of

any references to disagreements amongst physicians and between physicians and falāsifa;

and, above all, its stated intention to adhere and conform to the well-known opinions. In

no other work does Ibn al-Nafīs ever suggest that his aim is to conform to the well-known

or majority opinion. For example, in the Treatise on Organs, he says, “This epistle

contains within it true knowledge and the wisdom of knowing the benefits of the parts of

humans and their places . . ..”17 Similarly, in his treatise on hadīth, he says, “I intend to

relate in this book on the principles of the knowledge of hadith a manner of reaching the

utmost limits and a way to begin [this science].”18 Even though both these texts are

shorter works that are meant for non-specialists, Ibn al-Nafīs still does not adhere strictly

to the majority opinion, unless it happens to be an opinion with which he agrees.

15
For example, see Ibn al-Nafīs, Mukhtasar fī cilm usul al-hadīth, ed. Yusuf Zaydan (Cairo: al-Dar al-
Misriyya al-Lubnaniyya, 1991), pp. 105, 107–108, 109–110, 111–112, 114–115.

16
See, for example, Ibn al-Nafis, Sharh Fusul, pp. 127–129; and Amal Abou Aly, “A Few Notes on
Hunayn’s Translation and Ibn al-Nafīs’ Commentary on the First Book of the Aphorisms,” Arabic Sciences
and Philosophy 10 (2000): 139–150.

17
Ibn al-Nafis, Risalat al-Acda’, p. 88.

18
Ibn al-Nafis, Mukhtasar, p. 93.

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However, the preface of the Mūjaz states, “I shall take it upon myself to comply with the

well-known cures from amongst the drugs and foods, and from amongst the principles of

purging, and so forth.”19 The rest of the treatise then proceeds to dogmatically present

the well-known principles, etc., even though, from his other works, we know that Ibn al-

Nafīs does not agree with these principles. Therefore, there seem to be enough reasons to

doubt the medieval ascription of this work to Ibn al-Nafīs.

Interestingly, the Mūjaz is also the only work that refers to Ibn al-Nafīs as ra’īs

al-hukamā’ (chief of sages).20 This title is the closest reference to Ibn al-Nafīs as the

“chief of physicians” that appears in any work associated with him. As I had noted in

chapter two, there is no record of Ibn al-Nafīs ever receiving the post of chief physician

officially, nor do the non-traditionalist biographers, al-Safadī and al-cUmarī, refer to Ibn

al-Nafīs as the chief of physicians. Only the traditionalist biographers make such

claims.21 Another point worth noting is the striking omission of the Mūjaz from the non-

19
Ibn al-Nafis, Kitab al-Mujaz, p. 31. The author of the Mūjaz then proceeds to ask for not only the
protection of God, but also the forgiveness of friends and their help in “correcting the shortcomings” (p.
31). The specific appeal to friends to remedy his work is also unique to the Mūjaz and certainly goes
against Ibn al-Nafīs’s, often, arrogant rejection of the views of Galen, Ibn Sīnā and other accomplished
predecessors and contemporaries. It also goes against the sentiment found in an anecdote within the
biographical entries of al-Safadī and al-cUmarī, where Ibn al-Nafīs states, “If I did not know that my works
would last for ten thousand years after me, I [w]ould not have written them” (Theologus, p. 15).

20
Ibn al-Nafis, Kitab al-Mujaz, p. 31. This title may well be an honorific and not an official title. We do
know that traditionalists had started to welcome some of the originally conceived “foreign sciences” under
the new category of “rational science,” including aspects of falsafa under the terms mantiq (logic) and
hikma (wisdom); see Sonja Brentjes, “On the Location of the Ancient or ‘Rational’ Sciences in Muslim
Educational Landscapes (AH 500–1100),” Bulletin of the Royal Institute of Inter-Faith Studies 4 (2002):
47–71. It would be interesting to examine if the phrase ra’īs al-hukamā’ was ever misunderstood to mean
ra’īs al-atibbā’ by traditionalists.

21
A variant of the title, ra’īs al-hukamā’ is al-hakīm al-ra’īs, which is found in the entries of Ibn Kathīr,
amongst others. Al-Dhahabī, al-Suyūtī and others refer to him with the more unambiguous forms of the
title “chief physician”—shaykh al-atibbā’ or shaykh al-tibb bi’l-diyār al-misriyya; see Ibn Kathīr, al-
Bidāya wa’l-nihāya, ed. Ali Muhammad Mucawwad (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-cIlmiyya, 1994), vol. 13, p.
260; Shams al-Dīn Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Dhahabī, Ta’rīkh al-Islām wa wafāyāt al-mashāhir wa’l-
aclām, ed. cUmar Tadmurī (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-cArabiyya, 1989), vol. 51, p. 312; Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūtī,
H usn al-Muhādara fi ta’rīkh misr wa’l-qāhira, ed. Muhammad Ibrahim (N.P.: Matbacat Idarat al-Watan,

250
traditionalist biographies.22 Once again, only the traditionalist biographers refer to the

Mūjaz as one of Ibn al-Nafīs’s works.23 Thus, the ascription of the Mūjaz to Ibn al-Nafīs

seems to be as central to the traditionalists’ construction of Ibn al-Nafīs’s identity as the

continuous references to his medical prowess, his “orthodoxy,” and his official post of

chief of physicians. In fact, even the mythic claim that the Mūjaz is an abridgement of

Ibn al-Nafīs’s own larger Commentary originates in the traditionalist biographies

themselves, for the Mūjaz usually appears in these entries alongside references to the

larger Commentary. The Mūjaz, as such, appears to be central to the traditionalists’

created image of Ibn al-Nafīs as the “orthodox” Ibn Sīnā.

5.2 The Mūjaz and Tibb al-Nabī: A Preliminary Excursus

The Mūjaz’s usefulness for the traditionalist project of Tibb al-Nabī, as conceived

by al-Dhahabī and other fourteenth century traditionalists,24 can be gauged by a quick

comparison of the first section of the Mūjaz and al-Dhahabī’s text, al-T ibb al-Nabawī

1967–68), vol. 1, p. 542; cAbd al-Rahīm ibn al-Hasan al-Isnawī, T abaqāt al-shāficiyya, ed. cAbd Allah al-
Juburi (Baghdad: Ri’asat Diwan al-Awqaf, 1970–1971), vol. 2, p. 506; and Muhammad ibn Shākir al-
Kutubī, cUyūn al-tawārikh: sanawāt 688–699 H, ed. Faysal al-Samir and Nabilah cAbd al-Muncim Dawud
(Baghdad: Matbacat Ascad, 1991), vol. 21, p. 429.

22
See Theologus, pp. 12–17.

23
See, for example, al-Dhahabi, Ta’rikh al-Islam, vol. 51, p. 312; al-Kutubi, cUyun al-tawarikh, vol. 21, p.
429; Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya, vol. 13, p. 260; al-Suyuti, Husn al-Muhadara, vol. 2, p. 249; Tāj al-Dīn al-
Subkī, T abaqāt al-shāficiyya al-kubrā, ed. cAbd al-Fattah Muhammad al-Hilw (Cairo: Hajar li’l-Tibaca
wa’l-Nashr, 1992), vol. 8, p. 305; Ibn Qādī Shuhba, T abaqāt al-shāficiyya, ed. cAbd al-cAlim Khan
(Hyderabad: Matbacat Majlis Da’irat al-Macarif al-cUthmaniyya, 1978–80), vol. 2, p. 241. The exceptions
are traditionalist biographers who do not name any work of Ibn al-Nafīs in their entry, for example, al-
Isnawī. Naturally, by the fifteenth century, all biographer, regardless of their traditionalist or rationalist
leanings, were referring to Ibn al-Nafīs as the chief physician and the author of the Mūjaz, for by then the
image had already been created.

24
Irmeli Perho calls this the “new stage” in the development of the genre; see Perho, The Prophet’s
Medicine.

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(Prophetic Medicine). The similarity is indeed striking. The sections, subsections, and

sub-subsections into which both texts are divided are identical. The only real

organizational difference is the fact that the Mūjaz separates the discussion on the

treatment of organs into two parts, whereas al-Dhahabī’s text lumps them together.25

Furthermore, al-Dhahabī’s actual text seems to have been lifted verbatim from al-Mūjaz

in many places. For example, the short discussion on the elements is absolutely identical

in both texts:

The natural components are seven. First, the elements. These are four: fire,
which is hot and dry; air, which is hot and humid; water, which is cold and wet;
and earth, which is cold and dry.26

Much of the remaining discussion on “the natural components of theoretical medicine” is

also very similar.

Overall, the only substantial differences in the initial, theoretical physiological

discussion of the two texts are that: 1. al-Dhahabī often leaves out many physiological

details, and; 2. al-Dhahabī gives his text a deliberate religious focus by delving into

religious and spiritual issues, as well as by citing many hadīth and other religious texts.

For example, in the section on the temperaments, al-Dhahabī inserts a number of hadīth

to show that the Prophet had the most balanced temperament of all, and that the

temperaments of believers are more balanced than those of unbelievers, and so forth.

Nonetheless, the immediately preceding and succeeding discussions on the temperaments

still adhere closely to the content and presentation in the Mūjaz.27 On the other hand, al-

25
Ibn al-Nafis, Kitab al-Mujaz, p. 31; and Shams al-Dīn Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Dhahabī, al-Tibb al-
Nabawī (N.P.: Misr Mustafa al-Baki al-Halabi, 1961), p. 4.

26
Ibn al-Nafis, Kitab al-Mujaz, p. 32; al-Dhahabi, al-Tibb al-Nabawi, p. 4.

27
Ibn al-Nafis, Kitab al-Mujaz, p. 32; al-Dhahabi, al-Tibb al-Nabawi, pp. 4–5.

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Dhahabī does not describe in detail the various psychic and natural faculties, even though

he acknowledges the existence of the psychic, vital and natural faculties, whereas the

Mūjaz provides a quick overview of the various kinds of psychic and natural faculties.28

What this suggests is that, regardless of whether al-Dhahabī himself originally

learned Avicennian physiology from the Mūjaz, or whether or not he even used it to write

his own text, the similarities in the organization, style and content of the two texts would

not have been lost on him or his traditionalist successors. That would also explain why

he is the first person to refer to the Mūjaz in his entry on Ibn al-Nafīs. Thus, we can

begin to understand the reasons why the Mūjaz emerged as a far more important and

relevant text for subsequent traditionalists, especially those interested in T ibb al-Nabī.

Due to its concise, systematic, and non-falsafa presentation of Avicennian physiology,

the Mūjaz would have proven to be an easier and theologically safer text for

traditionalists than the Canon itself, with the added benefit that it drew attention away

from Ibn Sīnā while essentially presenting his ideas.

Naturally, a more careful examination of the Mūjaz and the texts of Dhahabī and

other traditionalists would be required before we can make any definitive claims about

the importance of the Mūjaz for the emerging genre of Tibb al-Nabī. Moreover, we

would also need to examine the various medical commentaries on the Mūjaz to

understand precisely the impact it had on Islamic medicine, what role it played in further

propagating and solidifying the hold of Avicennian physiology, and what role it played in

preventing subsequent Islamic physicians from struggling with Ibn al-Nafīs’s novel

physiology and anatomy as found in his other works. A close study of these texts would

28
Ibn al-Nafis, Kitab al-Mujaz, pp. 35–37; al-Dhahabi, al-Tibb al-Nabawi, p. 6.

253
reveal the precise nature of the path that Islamic medicine took in the fourteenth and

fifteenth centuries, without resorting to overly simplified explanations that argue for the

death of rational medicine under increased pressure from religious orthodoxy.

Using the model that I have developed to understand the debates over reason and

revelation in the works of Ibn al-Nafīs and his predecessors and contemporaries, a better

argument would be to claim that Ibn al-Nafīs’s physiological and anatomical claims were

not taken up for purely rational reasons. After all, the dominance of Avicennian

physiology and medicine in subsequent Islamic medical texts reveals they were too

heavily committed to the authorities of Aristotle, Galen and Ibn Sīnā and, thus, unable to

oppose the prevalent philosophical and physiological views of the spirit, soul and

faculties rationally. Al-Dhahabī and the other traditionalists, as a result, were behaving

perfectly rationally in allying themselves with Avicennian physiology in writing their

Tibb al-Nabī texts, for that is what the physicians considered to be rational and true. The

traditionalists’ co-opting of Avicennian medicine, shed of its problematic falsafa

baggage, would have only served to buttress their case for the harmony between reason

and revelation.

5.3 Concluding Remarks

As I have shown in chapter one, historians of science have generally operated

under the assumption that the terminus of Greek science can only be the Scientific

Revolution. As such, they have tended to neglect the actual context of Islamic science

and the alternative paths and trajectories that were being charted out by Islamic

philosophers, physicians, astronomers, etc. In the case of Ibn al-Nafīs and the pulmonary

254
transit, this neglect has resulted in ignoring the actual context of Ibn al-Nafīs’s discovery,

thus leading historians to dismiss it incorrectly as a chance discovery and a “happy

guess.”29 Once we situate Ibn al-Nafīs’s works within their context, we see that his

discovery is intimately related to the specific solution he provided to the problem of

bodily resurrection, which itself is a result of his specific understanding of the harmony

between reason and revelation.

The post-Avicennian, post-Ghazalī milieu of the late twelfth and thirteenth

centuries provided Ibn al-Nafīs with some freedom in reallocating authority across

various sources of reason and revelation, thus allowing him to reconstruct and reshape

traditional disciplinary boundaries. Hence, he defies the standard practice of

traditionalists and calls for rationally evaluating the content of hadīth. More importantly,

he accepts, in general, the falsafa world-view, including the problematic falsafa

definition of soul. Yet, he also defies the authority of falsafa by rejecting the self-

sufficiency of reason and by placing limits on the knowledge that one can arrive at purely

through reason. In doing so, he calls for a dialectical relationship between the sources of

reason and revelation.

A concrete application of this dialectical understanding of the relationship

between reason and revelation is his solution to the problem of bodily resurrection. Ibn

al-Nafīs begins by advocating a hylomorphic psychology based on the falsafa

understanding of an incorporeal soul. He then proceeds to show that the problem of

individuation goes hand-in-hand with a hylomorphic psychology. However, the problem

is not solved by purely rational means, but rather by appealing to a hadīth. Nonetheless,

29
Max Meyerhof, “Ibn an-Nafīs (XIIIth cent.) and His Theory of the Lesser Circulation,” Isis 23 (1935):
100–120, p. 118.

255
the specific hadīth on the cajb al-dhanab is not picked because of its intrinsic

traditionalist merits, but rather because it can be rationalized with a hylomorphic

psychology. Consequently, bodily resurrection is defended, but only by further

rationalizing it using his new physiology and theory of generation derived from the

hylomorphic psychology. The hylomorphic understanding of the soul-body relationship

also allows Ibn al-Nafīs to undermine Ibn Tufayl’s defense of monistic mysticism and of

the self-sufficiency of reason. The strict hylomorphism, on the other hand, can only be

advocated in the case when the physician is willing to appeal to God for the emanation of

a soul during generation. Otherwise, the physicians and philosophers have to struggle

with the difficulties associated with a soul, or parts of a soul, being communicated to the

new embryo through the male or female semen. Finally, the new psychology and

physiology also allow Ibn al-Nafīs to defy the authorities of Ibn Sīnā and Galen, in order

to posit his new theories of pulsation and the pulmonary transit of blood. In summary,

Ibn al-Nafīs’s discovery of the pulmonary transit is a direct result of his eclectic merging

of various disciplines and authorities, both religious and rational, permitted by the

volatile nature of the intellectual landscapes of thirteenth century Egypt and Syria.

However, by the fourteenth century, the allocations of authority had been

normalized and the disciplinary boundaries had been reconstituted and hardened in ways

that were not sympathetic to Ibn al-Nafīs’s arrangement. Consequently, the traditionalist

biographers reconstituted his image to champion their own understanding of the harmony

between reason and revelation, i.e. the conjunction of revelation and a non-philosophical

Avicennian medicine in the form of Tibb al-Nabī. For that reason, Ibn al-Nafīs’s

commitment to aspects of falsafa was withheld, his traditionalism was played up just

256
enough to portray him as an “orthodox” physician, without accepting him as a

traditionalist authority per se, and the readers of these biographical entries were directed

towards the Mūjaz instead of Ibn al-Nafīs’s actual works. As a result, Ibn al-Nafīs’s

novel physiological and anatomical views could not gain a foothold in Islamic societies.

This, in and of itself, does not imply that Islamic medicine went into decline after

Ibn al-Nafīs. A true understanding of the subsequent path of Islamic medicine can only

be derived from a careful examination of the numerous medical texts written during the

course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, many of which were indeed

commentaries on the Mūjaz and texts in the tradition of T ibb al-Nabī. A proper

contextualization of those works, and a comparison with earlier Islamic works and

contexts, will reveal the true extent and causes of any decline in Islamic science.

My study of Ibn al-Nafīs paves the way for such contextual studies of Islamic

medicine and science. It provides a model for examining the interactions of various

disciplines and scholars, in order to arrive at a robust understanding of the period.

Specifically, the model provides a new way of examining the relationship between reason

and revelation in primarily theistic contexts. Consequently, applying the methodology of

this study to other scientific texts and authors should provide us with a better

understanding of the relationship between science and religion in the medieval Islamic

world. More importantly, the proper contextualization of these works should lead us to

shed the Eurocentric bias that pervades the history of science and only allows historians

to appreciate or criticize Islamic science using the metric of the Scientific Revolution.

Instead, historians will finally be able to see Islamic science in its own terms and judge

257
its successes and failures according to the trajectory that the Islamic physicians,

scientists, philosophers and theologians were charting for themselves.

258
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