¹ For a general description of the centrality of Avicenna's philosophy in Islamic intellectual tradition, see Gutas, Dimitri, “The heritage of Avicenna: The golden age of Arabic philosophy, 1000–c. 1350,” in Janssens, J. and Smet, D. De (eds.), Avicenna and his Heritage. Acts of the International Colloquium, Leuven, September 8–11 1999 (Leuven, 2002), pp. 81–97Google Scholar. Robert Wisnovsky has shown Avicenna's impact on later tradition by focusing on some crucial metaphysical concepts, such as the distinctions between essence and existence, necessary existent and possible existent. See “Avicenna and the Avicennan tradition,” in Adamson, Peter and Taylor, Richard C. (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy (Cambridge, UK, 2005), pp. 92–136Google Scholar and “One aspect of the Avicennian turn in Sunnī theology,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 14.1 (2004): 65–100Google Scholar.

² Although it is true that al-Fārābī's works provide much more material on the subject of practical philosophy than those of Avicenna's, as Reisman states, “al-Fārābī is not outlining an independent discipline of ʿpolitical philosophy' in these discussions. Rather, he is attempting to account for the multiple realities produced by ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ thinking, that is, the variant worlds as perceived and thus formed by demonstrative, dialectical, rhetorical, sophistic, or poetic modes of thought.” See David C. Reisman, “Al-Fārābī and the philosophical curriculum,” in The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy, p. 68.

³ Ibn Sīnā, Al-Šifāʾ, al-Manṭiq 1: al-Madḫal, ed. Al-Ab Qanawātī, Maḥmūd al-Ḫudayrī, Aḥmad Fuʾād al-Ahwānī (Cairo, 1371/1952), 11.12.

⁴ According to Mahdawī's bibliography of Avicenna's works, he has five treatises whose subject-matters are related to the different parts of practical philosophy, including al-Aḫlāq (no. 13), al-Birr wa-al-iṯm (no. 40), Taḥsīl al-saʿāda wa- [al-]taʿarruf bi-al-ḥuğağ al-ʿašara (no. 43), Tadbīr manzil al-ʿaskar (no. 46), and al-Siyāsa (no. 82). See Mahdawī, Yaḥyā, Fihrist-i nusḫa-hā-yi muṣannafāt-i Ibn Sīnā (Tehran, 1333/1954)Google Scholar. Although some of these works have been edited, they are still awaiting a critical study with respect to their relationship with Avicenna's other works. What we certainly know about these works is that Avicenna himself refers to al-Birr wa-al-iṯm in the Metaphysics of al-Šifāʾ as a book about the divine providence and divine punishments that fall upon corrupt cities and unjust individuals. See Avicenna, The Metaphysics of “The Healing”, translated, introduced, and annotated by Marmura, Michael E. (Provo, Utah, 2005), 326.19–24Google Scholar. On the other hand, Bekir Karlığa argues that there is another work of Avicenna titled Fī al-aḫlāq, in addition to the one published in the famous Tisʿ rasāʾil fī al-ḥikma wa-al-ṭabīʿiyyāt ([Constantinople, 1298/1880–1], pp. 107–10), which was edited by ʿĀṣī, Ḥasan ([Beirut, 1986], pp. 115–23)Google Scholar. He also suggests that al-Birr wa-al-iṯm is the last part of this new treatise on ethics. See Karlığa, Bekir and Kazancıgil, Aykut, “Hekimbaşı Mustafa Behçet Efendi ve İbn Sinâʾnın Yen Bir Ahlâk Risâlesi,” Tıp Tarihi Araştırmaları (History of Medicine Studies), 6 (1996): 121–42Google Scholar. This treatise (or two treatises) on ethics can be described as a dictionary of ethical terms, namely, virtues and vices. The third treatise, Taḥsīl al-saʿāda, which has recently been edited and translated into Turkish by Fatih Toktaş (Mutluluk ve İnsan Nefsinin Cevher Olduğuna İlişkin On Delil [Ankara, 2011]Google Scholar, focuses on the substantiality of the human soul, and at the end of the treatise, it deals with the moral virtues and vices from the point of the happiness and misery of the human being. Tadbīr manzil al-ʿaskar is the shortest treatise among those (only one folio), and it has only four manuscripts, according to Mahdawī. As the title suggests, it is related with military strategy. Finally, though its title gives the impression that it is about politics, al-Siyāsa is about household management and was edited by Cheikho, Louis in his Maqālāt falsafiyya qadīma li-baʿḍ mašāhīr falāsifat al-ʿArab, Muslimīn wa-Naṣārā (Cairo, 1985), pp. 1–17Google Scholar (originally published in Beirut, 1911). As Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274) himself says, this treatise was also abridged and translated into Persian by al-Ṭūsī as the chapter on household management in his Aḫlāq-i Nāṣirī. See Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, Aḫlāq-i Nāṣirī, ed. Mīnūwī, Muğtabā and Ḥaydarī, ʿAlī Riḍā, 4^th edn (Tehran, 1373), p. 258.9–14Google Scholar. Even if one accepts that these treatises might originally be attributed to Avicenna, it can still be argued that Avicenna's interest in practical philosophy excludes politics completely and concerns ethics in terms of the rational soul's aftermath in the hereafter.

⁵ For a detailed critique of the basic tenets of the Straussian approach and the misunderstandings it has caused, see Gutas, Dimitri, “The study of Arabic philosophy in the twentieth century: An essay on the historiography of Arabic philosophy,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 29.1 (2002): 19–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Leaman, Oliver, “Does the interpretation of Islamic philosophy rest on a mistake?,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 12 (1980): 525–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the most recent example of this approach, see Charles E. Butterworth, “Ethical and political philosophy,” in The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy, pp. 266–86. The titles of the sections on al-Fārābī and Avicenna in Erwin Rosenthal, I.J.'s influential Political Thought in Medieval Islam (repr. Cambridge, UK; New York, 1962)Google Scholar also show traces of the same attitude. For while Rosenthal titles the section on al-Fārābī “The Foundation,” he titles the section on Avicenna “Ibn Sīnā: Synthesis.”

⁶ For a general survey on the ethical works in Islam, see Gutas, Dimitri, “Ethische Schriften im Islam,” in Heinrichs, Wolfhart (ed.), Neues Handbuch der Literaturwissenschaft, Band 5: Orientalisches Mittelalter (Wiesbaden, 1990), pp. 346–65Google Scholar.

⁷ See Gutas, Dimitri, Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition: Introduction to Reading Avicenna's Philosophical Works (Leiden, 1988), p. 253Google Scholar.

⁸ Although the term “politics” has different connotations than siyāsa in medieval Arabic, I will render, following the common usage, the siyāsa and its derivatives on the basis of “politics” throughout this article. However, to signify the conceptual differences, I will refer to the term tadbīr as “management”, and al-siyāsa al-madaniyya as “government of the city”. For a discussion on how these “political” terms should be translated into English see Gutas, Dimitri, “Review of Alfarabi and the Foundation of Islamic Political Philosophy by Muhsin Mahdi,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 35.1 (2003): 145–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and id., “The meaning of madanī in al-Fārābī's ‘political’ philosophy,” Mélanges de l'Université Saint-Joseph, LVII (2004): 259–82Google Scholar.

⁹ Ibn Sīnā, Risāla fī aqsām al-ʿulūm al-ʿaqliyya, in Tisʿu rasāʾil, p. 73.10–19. For a translation of the section of Aqsām concerning the practical philosophy, see Mahdi, Muhsin, “Avicenna: On the Divisions of the Rational Sciences,” in Lerner, Ralph and Mahdi, Muhsin (eds.), Medieval Political Philosophy: A Sourcebook (New York, 1963), pp. 95–7Google Scholar; Morris, James W., “The philosopher-prophet in Avicenna's political philosophy,” in Butterworth, Charles E. (ed.), The Political Aspects of Islamic Philosophy (Cambridge, Mass., 1992), pp. 152–98, pp. 167–71Google Scholar. For a paraphrasing of the same section, see Mahdi, Muhsin, “Avicenna: practical science,” in Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.), Encyclopedia Iranica, vol. III (London and New York, 1989): 84–8, pp. 85–6Google Scholar; Butterworth, Charles E., “The political teaching of Avicenna,” Topoi, 19 (2000): 35–44, pp. 37–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰ Ibn Sīnā, Aqsām, p. 73.19–22.

¹¹ The term šarīʿa (plural: šarāʾiʿ) is usually translated into English as “Islamic law,” “Islamic divine law,” “divine law,” “religious divine law” and “revealed law.” I prefer not to translate šarīʿa using these terms throughout this study, owing to their strong connotations in the discipline of Islamic law (fiqh). However, where Avicenna uses šarīʿa, he does not only mean the legal aspect of Islam but all aspects of it, including the principles of faith, morality, and daily life; that is, the totality of the message of the Prophet Muḥammad. For discussions on the meanings of šarīʿa, see Calder, Norman, “Sharīʿa,” EI², vol. IX (Leiden, 1997), pp. 321–6Google Scholar; Türcan, Talip, “Şeriat,” Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslam Ansiklopedisi (Turkish Religious Foundation Encyclopaedia of Islam), vol. XXXVIII (Istanbul, 2010), pp. 571–4Google Scholar. Al-Fārābī also notices the similarity, even the synonymity, between the concepts of šarīʿa, milla, and dīn. See his Kitāb al-Milla, ed. Mahdi, Muhsin, 2^nd edn (Beirut, 1968), p. 46.11–14Google Scholar.

¹² Ibn Sīnā, Aqsām, p. 73.22–24. As Mahdi noted, while in the case of Plato, the reference is to the Laws, in the case of Aristotle, the reference is not certain. Avicenna probably means the work that the bio-bibliographies mention and has the same title as that of Plato. See Mahdi, “On the Divisions,” p. 97, n. 2.

¹³ In the translations of this passage, the term ḥadd (plural: ḥudūd) is generally translated as “penalty.” However, as in the case of šarīʿa, Avicenna means with ḥadd more than “penalty.” Although as a technical term it refers to the punishments of certain acts, it primarily denotes God's restrictive ordinances and statutes, and it is always mentioned in the plural form in the Qurʾān. See de Vaux-[Joseph Schacht], Bernard Carra, “Ḥadd,” EI², vol. III (Leiden and London, 1971), pp. 20–1Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Ibn Sīnā, Aqsām, p. 74.2–6. Georges Tamer translates the passage of Aqsām about the politics into German and discusses its relationship with the Plato's Laws and the Pseudo-Platonic Nawāmīs texts circulated in Arabic. See “Politisches Denken in pseudoplatonischen arabischen Schriften,” Mélanges de l'Université Saint-Joseph, 57 (2004): 303–35, pp. 303–5, 320–21Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Gutas argues that ʿUyūn may antedate the Hidāya. See Gutas, Avicenna, p. 258.

¹⁶ Gutas, Avicenna, pp. 101–6.

¹⁷ Ibn Sīnā, Ilāhiyyāt-i Dānešnāme-i ʿAlāʾī, ed. Muʿīn, Muḥammad (Tehran, 1383), p. 2.8–11Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Gutas, Dimitri, “Avicenna's eastern (“oriental”) philosophy: nature, contents, transmission,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 10 (2000): 159–80, p. 167CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁹ For a detailed discussion on the classification of the sciences in al-Ḥikma al-mašriqiyya and the possible contents of this work, see Gutas, “Avicenna's eastern (“oriental”) philosophy,” pp. 167–9.

²⁰ Ibn Sīnā, Manṭiq al-mašriqiyyīn wa-al-qaṣīda al-muzdawiğa fī al-manṭiq (Cairo, 1328/1910), pp. 6.23–7.7Google Scholar.

²¹ Ibid., p. 7.8–16.

²² Ibid., pp. 7.17–8.1.

²³ Ibid., p. 8.1.

²⁴ Ibid., p. 8.8–11.

²⁵ Ibid., p. 8.12–13.

²⁶ The list that Gutas has prepared to show the contents of al-Ḥikma al-mašriqiyya also supports this argument. See Gutas, “Avicenna's eastern (“oriental”) philosophy,” p. 169.

²⁷ Gutas, Avicenna, p. 260.

²⁸ The close relationship between Dānešnāme and Maqāṣid has been shown by Janssens, Jules, “Le Dânesh-nâmeh d'Ibn Sînâ: un texte à revoir?,” Bulletin de philosophie médiévale, 28 (1986): 163–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁹ Al-Ġazālī, Maqāṣid al-falāsifa, ed. Muḥyī al-Dīn al-Kurdī, 2^nd part (Cairo, 1936), p. 4.3–4Google Scholar.

³⁰ Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Šarḥ ʿUyūn al-ḥikma, ed. Aḥmad Ḥijāzī al-Saqqā, vol. II (Tehran, 1415), pp. 6.14–13.7Google Scholar.

³¹ Al-Šahrazūrī, Rasāʾil al-Šağara al-ilāhiyya fī ʿulūm al-ḥaqāʾiq al-rabbāniyya, ed. Kūrkūn, Muḥammad Nağīb [Necip Görgün], vol. I (Istanbul, 2004), pp. 27.19–28.13Google Scholar.

³² Ibn Sīnā, Aqsām, p. 108.2–6. For Mahdi's translation, see “On the Divisions,” p. 97.

³³ Al-Šahrazūrī devotes the third treatise (risāla) of his al-Šağara al-ilāhiyya to practical philosophy and entitles it as “ethics, governances, and policies” (al-aḫlāq wa-al-tadābīr wa-al-siyāsāt). He says that “the practical philosophy is divided into three and according to another aspect into four, and we will mention in this treatise the tripartite division.” See al-Šağara al-ilāhiyya, vol. II, p. 8.12–13.

³⁴ Al-Ğurğānī repeats what Avicenna says about the meanings of the nāmūs, including the law, the norm that is established and made permanent through the coming down of the revelation, and the angel that brings down the revelation. He then expresses the fallacy of the meaning that the vulgar assign to it (p. 10 in the margin).

³⁵ Cf. Emre Önal's translation of Ḫwāğazāda's glosses into Turkish: “Hocazade ve Haşiya Ala Hidayet Al-Hikma Adlı Eseri,” Unpublished MA Dissertation (Istanbul, 2006), p. 65.

³⁶ The influence of this view of the division of practical philosophy can be easily seen on relatively later works on the classification of sciences. For example, see Muḥammad Aʿlā ibn ʿAlī Tahānawī (fl. 1745), Mawsūʿa Kaššāf iṣṭilāḥāt al-funūn wa-al-ʿulūm, ed. Daḥrūğ, ʿAlī, vol. I (Beirut, 1996), pp. 50.27–51.17Google Scholar, and ʿAbd al-Nabī ibn ʿAbd al-Rasūl al-Aḥmad Nagarī (fl. 18th century), Mawsūʿat muṣṭalaḥāt Ğāmiʿ al-ʿulūm al-mulaqqab bi-Dustūr al-ʿulamāʾ, ed. ʿAlī Daḥrūğ etc. (Beirut, 1997), 394aGoogle Scholar, and Muḥammad Ṣiddīq ibn Ḥasan al-Qannawğī (d. 1890), Abğad al-ʿulūm: al-Wašy al-marqūm fī bayān aḥwāl al-ʿulūm, vol. II (Beirut, 1978), p. 246.7–23Google Scholar.

³⁷ Al-Qāḍī al-Bayḍāwī, Risāla Taʿrīfāt al-ʿulūm, MS Istanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Esad Efendi 3668, fol. 116r.

³⁸ Admittedly, Ibn al-Akfānī does not refer to ʿilm al-nawāmīs as an independent science in his introduction to the general outline of the divisions of the sciences. Jan Just Witkam, who edited the Iršād and translated it into Dutch (Die Egyptische Arts Ibn al-Akfānī (gest. 749/1348) En Zijn Indeling van de Wetenschappen [Leiden, 1989]Google Scholar), presumably based his work on the introduction arguing that ʿilm al-nawāmīs is a subdivision of metaphysics. See Witkam, Jan Just, “Ibn al-Akfānī,” EI² Supplement (Leiden, 1982), p. 381bGoogle Scholar. Later, in another article on Ibn al-Akfānī and his Iršād, Witkam suggested that al-ilāhī and ʿilm al-nawāmīs are the same and called them “theology.” See Witkam, Jan Just, “Ibn al-Akfānī (d. 749/1348) and his bibliography of the sciences,” Manuscripts of the Middle East, 2 (1987): 37–41, p. 38bGoogle Scholar. However, Ibn al-Akfānī's account of al-ilāhī proves that, for him, al-ilāhī not only includes what philosophers refer to as metaphysics; moreover, it covers theology (kalām), sufism, and heresiology. On the other hand, as will be discussed herein, Ibn al-Akfānī sees the ʿilm al-nawāmīs with its subdivisions as a different science from al-ilāhī. Further, when he mentions the prophecy and the miracles of the prophets under the title of al-ilāhī, he explicitly says that “the science that strives to explain this situation is called ʿilm al-nawāmīs, and we will talk about it after concluding the discussion on al-ilāhī.” See Die Egyptische Arts Ibn al-Akfānī, p. 32.400–401.

³⁹ Witkam, Die Egyptische Arts Ibn al-Akfānī, pp. 40.527–41.533.

⁴⁰ Ibid., pp. 41.533–45.590.

⁴¹ For a short survey of the impact of Ibn al-Akfānī's work on later generations, see Witkam, “Ibn al-Akfānī (d. 749/1348) and his bibliography of the sciences,” 40a-b.

⁴² Al-Qalqašandī, Ṣubḥ al-aʿšā fī ṣināʿat al-inšā, ed. Muḥammad Ḥusayn Šams al-Dīn, vol. I (Beirut, 1987), p. 543.11–15Google Scholar.

⁴³ Ṭāšköprīzāda, Miftāḥ al-saʿāda wa-miṣbāḥ al-siyāda fī mawḍūʿāt al-ʿulūm, ed. Bakrī, Kāmil Kāmil and ʿAbd al-Wahhāb Abū al-Nūr, vol. II (Cairo, 1968), p. 5.1–8Google Scholar. For the Ottoman Turkish translation of Miftāḥ by Ṭāšköprīzāda's son Kamāl al-Dīn Aḥmad Efendi by the title of Mawḍūʿāt al-ʿulūm, see ed. Aḥmad Ğawdat, vol. I (Darsaʿādat, 1313/1895), p. 443.4–8.

⁴⁴ This observation can be generalized to all philosophical or theo-philosophical summas, which consist of logic, natural sciences and metaphysics, written after Avicenna, such as Lawkarī's (d. 517/1123) Bayān al-ḥaqq bi-ḍamān al-ṣidq, Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī's al-Mulaḫḫas fī al-ḥikma and al-Mabāḥiṯ al-mašriqiyya, Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī's (d. 631/1233) al-Nūr al-bāḥir fī ḥikam al-ẓawāhir, al-Abharī's Kašf al-ḥaqāʾiq fī taḥrīr al-daqāʾiq, Zubdat al-ḥaqāʾiq, Kitāb al-Maṭāliʿ, Bayān al-asrār, Talḫīṣ al-ḥaqāʾiq, Sirāğ al-Dīn al-Urmawī's (d. 682/1283) Maṭāliʿ al-anwār, al-Bayḍāwī's Ṭawāliʿ al-anwār min maṭāliʿ al-anẓār, and ʿAḍud al-Dīn al-Īğī's (d. 756/1355) Kitāb al-Mawāqif. For an overview of the contents of some of these summas, see Eichner, Heidrun, “Dissolving the unity of metaphysics: From Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī to Mullā Sadrā al-Shīrāzī,” Medioevo, 32 (2007): 166–79Google Scholar, and Arıcı, Mustakim, “İbn Sînâcı Felsefe Geleneğinin Oluşumu ve Behmenyârʾın Felsefe Tasavvuru,” Dîvân: Disiplinlerarası Çalışmalar Dergisi (Dîvân: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies), 28 (2010): 152–74Google Scholar.

⁴⁵ Abdullah Yormaz, who edited Mawlānāzāda Aḥmad b. Maḥmūd al-Harawī's commentary on Hidāya, states that there is no information on his life in the bio-bibliographical sources, and it can only be argued that he lived in the fourteenth century due to the earliest manuscript of his commentary, which is dated 787/1385–86. Moreover, as Yormaz indicates, we also know from the iğāza at the end of the manuscript of the commentary, which is dated 864/1459–60, that Qāḍīzāda al-Rūmī (d. after 844/1441), famous mathematician and astronomer, had studied on this commentary under his teacher Mawlānāzāda. See Abdullah Yormaz, “Mevlânâzâde'nin Hidâyetü'l-Hikme Şerhi –Tahkik ve Tahlil,” Unpublished PhD Dissertation (Istanbul, 2010), pp. 21–2.

⁴⁶ Yormaz, “Mevlânâzâde'nin Hidâyetü'l-Hikme Şerhi –Tahkik ve Tahlil,” pp. 81.12–82.2.

⁴⁷ As İzgi shows by comparing the different curricula of Ottoman madrasas, Qāḍī Mīr's commentary on Hidāyat al-ḥikma was the standard philosophy textbook until the beginning of the twentieth century. See İzgi, Cevat, Osmanlı Medreselerinde İlim, vol. I (Istanbul, 1997), pp. 163–76Google Scholar. This is also true for Mullā Ṣadrā's Šarḥ al-Hidāya al-aṯīriyya in the madrasas of India to this day. See Hossein Ziai, “Mullā Ṣadrā: his life and works,” in Nasr, Seyyed Hossein, and Leaman, Oliver (eds.), History of Islamic Philosophy, vol. I (London and New York, 1996), pp. 635–42, p. 640Google Scholar, and Nasr, Seyyed Hossein, “Ṣadr al-Dīn Shīrazī (Mulla Ṣadra),” in Sharif, M. M. (ed.), A History of Muslim Philosophy, vol. II (Karachi, 1966), pp. 932–61Google Scholar, p. 935, n. 10.

⁴⁸ Al-Širwānī's work is among the major sources of Ḥağğī Ḫalīfa (d. 1067/1657), and he repeats the passage quoted above verbatim in the beginning of the entry of “ethics” by referring to al-Širwānī. Cf. Kašf al-ẓunūn ʿan asāmī al-kutub wa-al-funūn, ed. Yaltkaya, Şerafettin, and Bilge, Kilisli Rifat, vol. I (Ankara, 1360/1941), p. 36.5–10Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ Al-Qannawğī also quotes al-Širwānī's words about the ethics verbatim; see p. 33.16–19.

⁵⁰ Ibn Sīnā, ʿUyūn al-ḥikma, ed. Badawī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, 2^nd edn (Kuwait and Beirut, 1980), pp. 16.9–12, 17.7–8Google ScholarPubMed.

⁵¹ Ibn Sīnā, Al-Šifāʾ, al-Madḫal, p. 14.15–16. For the translation of this passage, see Marmura, Michael E., “Avicenna on the divisions of the sciences in the Isagoge of his Shifāʾ,” in Probing in Islamic Philosophy: Studies in the Philosophies of Ibn Sīnā, al-Ġazālī, and Other Major Muslim Thinkers (Binghamton, NY, 2005), pp. 1–15Google Scholar, p. 9 (translation is slightly revised).

⁵² Al-Rāzī, Šarḥ, p. 14.12–19.

⁵³ Ibid., p. 14.20–22.

⁵⁴ Ibid., pp. 19.21–21.1. For the translation of al-Rāzī's commentary on Avicenna's view of theoretical philosophy in ʿUyūn, see Michot, Yahya J., “A Mamlūk Theologian's Commentary on Avicenna's Risāla al-Aḍḥawiyya,” Oxford Journal of Islamic Studies, 14.2 (2003): 149–203, pp. 154–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁵ Al-Rāzī, Šarḥ, p. 21.7–13.

⁵⁶ I have compared the contents of Avicenna's major works on the basis of the place of practical philosophy in “Prophetic legislation: Avicenna's view of practical philosophy revisited,” in Kirby, Torrance, Acar, Rahim, Baş, Bilal (eds.), Philosophy and the Abrahamic Religions: Scriptural Hermeneutics and Epistemology (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2012), pp. 206–15Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ Avicenna's theory of prophecy has been discussed by many scholars. But, for our context, Morris' account of the three characteristics of prophecy in Avicenna should be pointed out. See Morris, “The philosopher-prophet,” pp. 177–96.

⁵⁸ In his al-Aḍḥawiyya, Avicenna explains the prophecy of Muḥammad and his being the last prophet on the basis of the perfection of his šarīʿa, and by referring to Prophet Muḥammad's famous ḥadīṯ: “I was sent to complete the best of morals.” See al-Aḍḥawiyya fī al-maʿād, ed. Ḥasan al-ʿĀṣī (Beirut, 1987), pp. 109.15–110.4Google Scholar.

⁵⁹ Cf. al-Qalqašandī, Ṣubḥ al-aʿšā, vol. I, p. 564.2–4.

⁶⁰ Mubārak Šāh al-Buḫārī, Šarḥ Ḥikma al-ʿayn, p. 9.9.

⁶¹ Ibid., p. 9 (in the margin).

⁶² Ibid., p. 9.24–32. For other examples of the direct impact of Avicenna's ʿUyūn, see Šams al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf al-Kirmānī (d. 786/1384), Šarḥ Aḫlāq al-ʿaḍudiyya, MS Istanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Hasan Hüsnü Paşa 744, fol. 2v; Tahānawī, Kaššāf iṣṭilāḥāt al-funūn, p. 51.8–11; al-Qannawğī, Abğad al-ʿulūm, p. 246.19–23.

⁶³ For Kawākib-i sabʿa's significance and content, see İzgi, Osmanlı Medreselerinde İlim, vol. I, pp. 69–77, 163–65.

⁶⁴ Anonymous, Kawākib-i sabʿa, Bibliothèque Nationale, Supplément Turcs, no. 196, fol. 59r-v (I am indebted to Prof. İhsan Fazlıoğlu for providing the manuscript of Kawākib-i sabʿa for me). Even though the Avicennan conception of the relationship between the šarīʿa and practical philosophy and its history of reception can be considered as the major source of Kawākib-i sabʿa's justification regarding the place of practical philosophy in the curricula of Ottoman madrasas, there are some previous examples that identify the Islamic law (fiqh) with the practical philosophy in general, and with politics in particular. Al-Šahrazūrī's introduction to al-Suhrawardī's Ḥikmat al-išrāq is a good example of this conception. He says, “As for the science of fiqh – actually it is the science of governing the cities (ʿilm siyāsat al-mudun) – its universal principles (fa-kulliyatuhū) do not become obliterated, rather some derivative issues have become obliterated, [its] rulings (al-aḥkām) have been changed, altered, and transferred from one umma to another. The same is true for the [science of] jurisprudence (uṣūl al-fiqh).” See al-Suhrawardī, Mağmūʿa-i Muṣannafāt-ı Šayḫ al-Išrāq, ed. Corbin, Henry, vol. II (Tehran, 1373), p. 5.1–2Google Scholar. Cf. al-Ṭūsī, Aḫlāq-i Nāṣirī, p. 41.1–16.

* An earlier version of this article was presented at the 31^st Deutschen Orientalistentag, September 20–24, 2010, Marburg, Germany. I am indebted to Dimitri Gutas of Yale University who kindly read and commented on an earlier draft of this article. His suggestions have saved me from numerous mistakes and omissions. I am, of course, solely responsible for the remaining defects.