Essence and Existence in The Islamic Eas

The Arabic, Hebrew and Latin Reception of Avicennas Metaphysics
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The Arabic, Hebrew and

Latin Reception of
Avicennas Metaphysics
edited by
Dag Nikolaus Hasse and Amos Bertolacci
De Gruyter
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ISBN 978-3-11-021575-5
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Arabic, Hebrew and Latin reception of Avicennas Metaphysics /
edited by Dag Nikolaus Hasse and Amos Bertolacci.
p. cm. ! (Scientia graeco-arabica)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-3-11-021575-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Avicenna, 980!1037. Ilahiyat. 2. Metaphysics 3. Islamic philosophy. 4. Jewish philosophy. 5. Philosophy, Medieval. I. Hasse,
Dag Nikolaus. II. Bertolacci, Amos.
B751.I483A73 2011
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Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Jules Janssens
Al-Lawkars Reception of Ibn Snas Ilahiyyat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Robert Wisnovsky
Essence and Existence in the Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Islamic
East (Masriq): A Sketch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
27
Stephen Menn
Farab in the Reception of Avicennas Metaphysics: Averroes against
Avicenna on Being and Unity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
51
Peter Adamson
Avicenna and his Commentators on Human and Divine Self-Intellection
97
Heidrun Eichner
Essence and Existence. Thirteenth-Century Perspectives in
Arabic-Islamic Philosophy and Theology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
123
Mauro Zonta
Avicennas Metaphysics in the Medieval Hebrew Philosophical Tradition
153
Resianne Fontaine
Happy is he whose children are boys: Abraham Ibn Daud and
Avicenna on Evil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
159
Mauro Zonta
Possible Hebrew Quotations of the Metaphysical Section of Avicennas
Oriental Philosophy and Their Historical Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
177
Amos Bertolacci
On the Latin Reception of Avicennas Metaphysics before Albertus
Magnus: An Attempt at Periodization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
197
Dag Nikolaus Hasse

Avicennas Giver of Forms in Latin Philosophy, Especially in the Works
of Albertus Magnus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
225
Kara Richardson
Avicenna and Aquinas on Form and Generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
251
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VIII
Contents
Pasquale Porro
Immateriality and Separation in Avicenna and Thomas Aquinas . . . . .
275
Gabriele Galluzzo
Two Senses of Common. Avicennas Doctrine of Essence and Aquinass
View on Individuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
309
Martin Pickav!
On the Latin Reception of Avicennas Theory of Individuation . . . . .
339
Giorgio Pini
Scotus and Avicenna on What it is to Be a Thing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
365
Index of Avicennas Works with Passages Cited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
389
Index of Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
395
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Essence and Existence in the Eleventh- and

Twelfth-Century Islamic East (Masriq): A Sketch*
Robert Wisnovsky
Introduction
In a well known section of his Hikmat al-israq (Philosophy of Illumination),
Sihabaddn as-Suhraward (i. e., as-Sayh al-Maqtul, d. 587 H./1191) attacked
the doctrine that existence (wugud) is something

superadded to (ma nan za idun
ala) the substance or quiddity of things in the concrete, extramental world (f la yan)a doctrine he associates with those he refers to as the followers of the
Peripatetics (atba al-Massa n).1 Suhraward maintains, by contrast, that
existence is among those aspects (i tibarat) of a thing that belong purely to
the intellect.2 Partly because of Suhrawards insistence on the subjective nature
1
2
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the American Philosophical Association,
Eastern Division Meeting, New York (December 2005); at the conference entitled The
Arabic, Hebrew and Latin reception of Avicennas metaphysics, Centro Italo-Tedesco
Villa Vigoni, Menaggio, Italy (July 2008); and as part of McGills Philosophy Department Colloquium series (November 2009). I am grateful for the feedback I received
on those three occasions, as well as to the students and colleagues who participated in
two graduate seminars: the first, at Harvard in 1998, was devoted to issues of ontology in
Islamic philosophy; the second, at McGill in 2009, was devoted specifically to Suhraward. More particularly, Heidrun Eichner first helped me work through Razs position
and graciously shared photocopies of relevant manuscripts that she had acquired; and
Reza Pourjavady and Stephen Menn each made crucial suggestions that largely shaped
the final form of my argument. Needless to say, all mistakes are my own.
Suhraward, Hikmat al-israq, I.3, 59, p. 46,8-ult.
ikmat al-israq I.3, 56, p. 45,1-ult., and 60, p. 47, 1 13. The term
Suhraward, H
i tibar is difficult
to translate into English. In his extended discussion of this issue, T.
Izutsu cites the famous passage in the Madhal (Isagoge) section of the Mantiq (Logic) of
(mahiyya)
Avicenna claims that quiddity
Avicennas Kitab as-Sifa (The Healing) where
has three i tibarat: as a universal existing in the mind; as an essence existing in a concrete
individual; and taken in and of itself, i. e., as neutral with respect to either mental or
concrete existence. In light of this passage, and in light of Suhrawards uses of the term
in the Hikmat al-israq, Izutsu takes i tibar to mean a subjective manner of looking at
a thing, something produced or posited through the analytic work of the reason. It is an
aspect of a thing which primarily appears in the subject and which, then, is projected
onto the thing itself as if it were an objective aspect of the thing. See T. Izutsu, The
Distinction between essentia and existentia, pp. 49 70 at 65. The Avicenna passage is
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of existence, his view was later used as an essentialist foil by Mulla Sadra and
other members of that school of Islamic metaphysics which saw itself as
upholding the fundamentality of existence (asalat al-wugud).3
Suhrawards use of the phrase the followers of the Peripatetics in this

context is usually taken by medieval as well as modern commentators to refer to
Farab and especially Avicenna. In a broad sense this is perfectly plausible. After
all, Suhraward attacks the idea that existence is an attribute that itself has real
existence in the concrete world, in the context of pointing to the fact that some
followers of the Peripatetics construct their entire metaphysical project on [the
basis of ] existence (anna ba da atba i l-massa na banaw kulla amrihim f lilahiyyati ala l-wugudi). This must at least partially refer to Avicenna, who
explicitly claimed, in the final chapter of Section 4 (On existence and its
causes) of his al-Isarat wa-t-tanbhat (Pointers and Reminders), to have created a
new proof of Gods existence (viz., burhan as-siddqn) that was superior, by
virtue of its basis in existence alone, to proofs of Gods existence from motion,
such as Aristotles proof of the need for an Unmoved Mover based on the
impossibility of an infinite regress of movers and moved things. Since existence
provides us with such a shaky foundation, Suhraward argues, we need to turn
elsewhere, and create an alternative metaphysical basis in the form of light
(nur).
Nevertheless, a question arises, because to my knowledge Avicenna never
explicitly committed himself to the thesis that existence is something superadded to (za id ala) a things quiddity.4 True, there is one passage in the Ta lqat
(Marginal Notes) where Avicenna states that The existence of each category is
extrinsic to its quiddity and superadded to it (fa-inna kulla maqulatin fawuguduha harigun an mahiyyatiha wa-za idun alayha); whereas the quiddity of
of Existence is its thatness; hand its thatness is noti superadded to
the Necessary
[its] quiddity.5 But given our current uncertainty about the circumstances in
which the Ta lqat were composed, it would be rash to extrapolate a full-fledged
theory from this isolated instance. In Book IV, Chapter 3, of the Ilahiyyat of his
Kitab as-Sifa (The Healing), Avicenna does use the phrase al-wugud az-za id. But
Kitab as-Sifa /Mantiq (1): al-Madhal I.2, p. 15,1 7. J. Walbridge translates i tibarat
the basis of an analogy with legal fictions: The

aqliyya as intellectual
fictions, on
Science of Mystic Lights, pp. 45 6, n. 43.
This label would probably have surprised Suhraward, given that in the passages just cited
he maintains the subjective nature not only of existence but also of the various ways of
conceptualizing essence, including quiddity (mahiyya), thingness (say iyya) and innerreality (haqqa). On Suhrawards role in Mulla Sadras historiography of Islamic
see S. Rizvi, An Islamic Subversion of the
Existence-Essence Distinction?,
philosophy,
pp. 219 27.
Walbridge raises this question but does not offer an answer: Science of Mystic Lights,
pp. 47 8.
Ibn Sna, at-Ta lqat, IV.32, p. 164,18ult.
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Robert Wisnovsky
29
Essence and Existence in the Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century
what he is clearly referring to in this passage is the extra existence that God, who
is above perfection (fawqa tamam), does not need for Himself and which He
therefore passes on to other, lower beings.6
In a broader sense, Avicennas ontology could doubtless be interpreted as
implying the thesis that existence is superadded to (za id ala) a things quiddity.
As I have discussed extensively in other publications, Avicennas general position
on essence (or quiddity) and existence is that essence and existence are
extensionally identical but intensionally distinct. In other words, every essence
must either be an individual existing in the concrete, extramental world (f
l-a yan), or a universal existing in the mind (f d-dihn). Even so, essence and

existent have different meanings: essence refers to what a thing is, whereas
existence refers to the fact that a thing is. More important for my discussion here
is the series of hints, given by Avicenna, that despite the fact that essence and
existence are co-implied (the term he uses in Kitab as-Sifa /Ilahiyyat I.5 is
mutalazimani), essence nevertheless enjoys some kind of logical priority over
existence. The sense that essence is logically prior to existence is conveyed by
among other clues Avicennas frequent uses of the terms lazim (is logically
entailed [by]), arid (attaches accidentally [to]), lahiq (is a concomitant [of ])
[to]) to describe how existence
connects to essence.7 An
and mudaf (is related
interpreter could reasonably infer that describing existence as za id (is

superadded [to]) would be perfectly in line with these other descriptions of
how existence connects to essence despite the fact that, apart from its lonely
appearance in the Ta lqat, za id is never used by Avicenna in this way.
Given the prominence of Suhrawards critique of the thesis that existence is
something superadded to quiddity, and given the uncertainty about its
Avicennian genealogy, we should still try to find out more precisely who
Suhraward was referring to when he targeted the followers of the Peripatetics
in this context. Avicenna may well have been in Suhrawards sights, as has been
commonly assumed. But the fact remains that the most prominent exponent of
the thesis that existence is superadded to quiddity was Fahraddn ar-Raz (d.
606/1210), a contemporary of Suhrawards and a fellow

alumnus of
ls (n.d.) circle in Maraga. My hypothesis is that the balance
Magdaddn al-G
of evidence compels us to think that Suhraward was not so much targeting
Avicennas own ontology as he was targeting an emerging Avicennian ontology
that is, the systematic reconstruction of Avicennas ontology that Raz was just
beginning to undertake. Because Raz appears to have left Azerbaijan in 580/
Ibn Sna, Kitab as-Sifa /Ilahiyyat (1), IV.3, p. 188,11 13.

I discuss Avicennas developing ideas about the relationship between essence and
existence in my Notes on Avicennas concept of thingness (say iyya), pp. 181 221;
Avicennas Metaphysics in Context, pp. 143 80; and Avicenna and the Avicennian
tradition, pp. 105 13.
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1184 for Transoxania, where he wrote most of the works in which he claims
that existence is superadded to essence; and because Suhraward finished his
Hikmat al-israq in 582/1186, it is unlikely that Raz himself was in Suhrawards
sights. But regardless of the identity of the particular person whom Suhraward
l as well as Razs father and his As arite circle in
saw himself as opposing (G
Rayy present themselves as possibilities, but further research will be needed in
order to determine this), Suhrawards arguments in favor of the conceptual
nature of existence clearly recapitulate an earlier attack, by the mathematicianpoet Umar Hayyam (d. 517/1123), against the tendency of certain As arite
uwayn (d. 478/1085), to appeal
mutakallimun, such as Imam al-Haramayn al-G
to the theory of modes (ahwal) a theory associated with the Basran Mu tazilite
ubba (d. 321/933) and his followers, the
mutakallim Abu Hasim al-G
Bahsamites as the best way to construe and promote Avicennas concept of
existence.
Avicennas Two Distinctions
To begin this story, I must turn first to Avicenna himself. Avicennas two key
metaphysical distinctions were between essence (or more properly, quiddity,
mahiyya) and existence (wugud); and between the necessary of existence in itself
(wagib al-wugud bi-datihi) and the necessary of existence through another
(wagib al-wugud bi-gayrihi), which Avicenna appears to have taken as

convertible with the possible (or contingent) of existence in itself (mumkin
al-wugud bi-datihi). Avicennas distinction between essence and existence, in its
mature formulation in al-Ilahiyyat (Metaphysics) I.5 of his Sifa and in Isarat 4,

can be seen from one angle as a compromise position, stated in ArabicAristotelian terminology, between the view of the early Mu tazilite mutakallimun
and that of al-As ar.8 Like As ar, Avicenna maintains in Sifa , Ilahiyyat I.5
that thing (say ) and existent (mawgud), and by implication quiddity and
existence, are extensionally identical: every existent will also be a thing, and vice
versa. This is in contrast to the position of the early Mu tazilites, who believed
that thing was a broader category than existent, in that thing subsumes both the
non-existent (ma dum) and the existent. To the Mu tazilites, entities that had not
yet come to be, and concepts in the mind, are examples of non-existent things:
therefore, non-existents as well as existents possess thingness (say iyya). By
contrast, Avicenna argues that things such as concepts in the mind do enjoy a
kind of existence they simply possess mental existence (al-wugud ad-dihn or

al-wugud f d-dihn) as opposed to the concrete existence found in individuals

(al-wugud al- ayn or al-wugud f l-a yan; also referred to as extra[mental]
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Robert Wisnovsky
Ibid.
31
existence, al-wugud al-harig). But unlike As ar, who maintained that thing and
existent were also intensionally

identical, in the sense that thing means no more
or less than existent, and vice versa, Avicenna claimed that quiddity or thingness
(abstracted from thing) on the one hand, and existence (abstracted from
existent) on the other hand, were intensionally distinct. As I mentioned above,
for Avicenna, thingness and quiddity refer to what X is (i. e., as opposed to what
Y is); existence, by contrast, refers to the fact that X is (i. e., as opposed to Xs
not existing).
Unlike his distinction between essence and existence, which appears to have
evolved over the course of his career but only in a subtle way, Avicennas
distinction between intrinsically and extrinsically necessary existence underwent
some dramatic developments from its first appearance in al-Hikma al- Arudiyya
(Philosophy for Arud) to its final appearance in the Isarat. More directly relevant
to this chapter is the fact that in addition to articulating each of these two
distinctions in slightly different ways in books that he wrote at various points in
his life, Avicenna appears to have bound the two distinctions more closely
together as his ideas developed over time.9 Thus in the very early al-Hikma al
Arudiyya, the distinction between essence and existence had hardly crystallized,
and the distinction between intrinsically and extrinsically necessary existence

was not thought through; and the two distinctions do not touch upon one
another at all.10 In the slightly later al-Mabda wa-al-ma ad (Origin and
Destination), the distinction between quiddity and existence is still only latent,
while the distinction between necessary and possible existence is quite fully
articulated; still, neither is linked directly to the other.11 In chapters I.5 and I.6
of the Ilahiyyat of his Sifa , from Avicennas middle period, the two distinctions
receive their fullest expression.12 And while in those chapters neither distinction
is brought directly to bear on the other, they are later, in Book VIII of the
Ilahiyyat. 13 There Avicenna buttresses the distinction between God, the
Necessary of Existence in itself, and all other beings in the universe, which
are necessary of existence through another, by appealing to the notion that in
God quiddity and existence are identical, while in all other beings, quiddity and
existence are distinct. In his final major work, the Pointers and Reminders (alIsarat wa-t-tanbhat), the two distinctions operate entirely in tandem, and the
distinction between quiddity and existence lays the basis for, and leads directly
to, the distinction between intrinsically and extrinsically necessary existence.14
Wisnovsky, Avicennas Metaphysics in Context, pp. 245 63.

Ibn Sna, al-Hikma al- Arudiyya (MS Uppsala Or. 364), fol. 2v8 10 and fols 3v16 4r12.
ad, pp. 2,4 3,15.

Ibn Sna, al-Mabda
wa-l-ma
Ibn Sna, Kitab as-Sifa /Ilahiyyat (1), I.5, pp. 31,5 33,18 and I.6, pp. 37,7 38,5.
Ibn Sna, Kitab as-Sifa /Ilahiyyat (2), VIII.4, pp. 343,10 347,16.
Ibn Sna, Kitab al-Isarat wa-t-tanbhat, pp. 138,2 139,13 and pp. 140,12 141,2.

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Why did Avicenna decide to bind the two distinctions together in his
middle and later works? I maintain that it is because he realized, during the
process of writing the Ilahiyyat of the Sifa , that he could use the intensional
distinctiveness between quiddity and existence to show how beings other than
God were composites, that is, composed of quiddity and existence. God, by
contrast, could be held to be simple by virtue of the identity of quiddity and
existence in Him. Because every composite needs a composer to bring its
components together, and because of the impossibility of an infinite regress, the
chain of composites and composers must originate in a non-composite
composer, namely, God. Partly because Avicennas use of the quiddity-existence
distinction to support the intrinsically necessary-extrinsically necessary distinction was most obvious in the Isarat, and partly because of that works
abbreviated and allusive style, which invites decompression and commentary,
the Isarat received more attention from subsequent Muslim philosophers
(including the mutakallimun) than any other of Avicennas writings at least
until the sixteenth century CE, when the attention of commentators shifted to
the Sifa .
Avicennas pressing of the essence-existence distinction into the service of his
intrinsically necessary-extrinsically necessary distinction was a crucial event
in the history of metaphysics. This is because it provided a method of
distinguishing God from both eternal and non-eternal beings that was based on
Gods simplicity and all other beings compositeness; and because, when
understood as the Necessary of Existence in itself, whose essence is not even
conceptually distinct from its existence, Avicennas God enjoyed a more
watertight simplicity than that of the Neoplatonists, whose God as One could be
held to be conceptually distinguishable from their God as Good. 15 As will
become apparent, Fahraddn ar-Razs ontology can be seen as a continuation of
this trend in Avicennas

own thought, that is, the trend towards using the
essence/existence distinction to explain the compositeness of all extrinsically
necessary beings.
Theological Ramifications
To be sure, it was not Avicennas proof of Gods existence from the
distinctiveness (and hence compositeness) of essence and existence in all beings
other than the Necessary of Existence in itself, which first made Avicennas
metaphysics attractive to Sunni mutakallimun (specifically, those of the As arite
and Maturdite schools) from the two or three generations immediately
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Robert Wisnovsky
15 On this see my Final and Efficient Causality in Avicennas Cosmology and Theology,
pp. 97 123, and Avicennas Metaphysics in Context, pp. 181 95.
33
following his death. Instead, it was the use that they could make of Avicennas
distinction between intrinsically and extrinsically necessary existence in order to
solve some serious problems with their theology, and particularly with their
conception of how Gods attributes (sifat) were related to the divine self (dat).
Sunni mutakallimun from the generations immediately following Avicennas

death in 1037 CE, appropriated his distinction between intrinsically and
extrinsically necessary existence with a view to repairing a two-century-old
weakness of Sunni theology. More specifically, Sunni mutakallimun such as the
uwayn and to a lesser extent the Maturdite al-Bazdaw (d. 493/
As arite G
1099) sought to use new conceptual tools from Avicennas metaphysics in
order to modify and thereby strengthen the theory of divine attributes that they
had inherited from Ibn Kullab (d. ca. 241/855) and which, among other
doctrines, served to distinguish their theology from that of their Mu tazilite
competitors.16
uwayn and other Sunni mutakallimun
The theological problem facing G
was an unfortunate legacy of their inferring from Ibn Kullabs formula that God
is knowing ( alimun) by virtue of a knowledge (bi- ilmin) that is neither identical
to nor other than Him (la huwa wa-la gayruhu), and powerful (qadirun) by
virtue of a power (bi-qudratin) and speaking (mutakallim) by virtue of a speech
(kalam) that are neither identical to nor other than Him so therefore God is
also eternal (qadm) by virtue of an eternality (bi-qidamin) that is neither
identical to nor other than Him. The first part of the Sunnis theological
problem arose because Gods attribute of eternality could not be treated in the
same way as His other attributes. This is because the Sunnis held that not only is
God Himself eternal, but Gods attributes, such as His knowledge and His
power and His speech, are eternal too.17 The Sunni mutakallimun viewed
eternality as both an attribute (or first-order predicate) and as a meta-attribute
(or second-order predicate). In other words, eternality is a divine quality that is
predicable not only of Gods self but of other divine qualities too.
Early Mu tazilites, by contrast, tended to collapse all the divine attributes
into Gods self. According to the formula associated with Abu l-Hudayl (d.
ca. 226/841), for example, God is knowing through a knowledge that is
identical to Him ( alimun bi- ilmin huwa huwa).18 The Mu tazilites were
motivated by the fear of violating their cardinal tenet of tawhd, or divine
16 A broader discussion of this development is contained in my One Aspect of the

Avicennian Turn in Sunni Theology, pp. 65 100.
17 This was not a two-way street, however: just because Gods speech was eternal, it did not
mean that conversely, Gods eternality was speaking. Nor was every attribute eternal: the
attributes of the act (sifat al-fi l) such as Gods providing (rizq, i. e., food and water for
humans and animals), which appeared to require a creaturely object on which to act,
were held (by the As arites, though not by their Maturdite colleagues) to be originated.
18 al-As ar, Maqalat al-islamiyyn, p. 165,5.
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uniqueness. For if Gods attributes were meaningfully distinct from Gods self
in this case, distinct enough that each of the attributes could itself be seen as a
subject of which the predicate eternal holds then the attributes would share
the quality of eternality with Gods self, and a picture would emerge of a
pleroma of eternal, and hence quasi-independent, divine beings, rather than of a
single God, isolated in His sole possession of eternality. In a vain attempt to preempt this Mu tazilite critique, early Sunnis tended to stick to Ibn Kullabs
formula neither identical to God nor other than Him (la hiya llahu wa-la hiya
gayruhu).19
The first problem facing Sunni mutakallimun, therefore, was that Gods
eternality did double-service, both as a first-order predicate of Gods self and as
a second-order predicate of Gods other attributes. As soon as the other
attributes themselves became subjects of which eternal was predicated, God no
longer enjoyed the complete isolation He had before, since each of His eternal
attributes had become sufficiently real and distinct that Sunni theology had
opened itself up to the criticism of polytheism. Just as serious was the danger of
positing an infinite regress of eternalities. For if each attribute is eternal, is it
eternal in itself, or through a further eternality? If the Sunni mutakallim answers
that each attribute is eternal in itself, then he will have made an explicit claim
that the attributes really are independent entities in their own right, and this in
turn will provide his Mu tazilite competitor with clear evidence of polytheism.
But if an eternal attribute is eternal through yet another eternality, then each of
the second-order meta-eternalities will itself be eternal through a third-order
eternality, and an infinite regress will ensue.20
uwayn and other
As if this first challenge was not enough of a headache, G
Sunni mutakallimun had to address another weakness. The traditional kalam
proof of Gods existence relied on the contradictory nature of the opposition
between eternal (qadm) and originated (muhdat). Since everything that is

originated needs an originator (muhdit) to bring it into existence, and since an

infinite series of originators and originated things is impossible, the chain of
originators and originated things will originate in an originator that is not itself
originated; and since everything in the world is either eternal or originated, this
non-originated originator will be eternal. That eternal originator is God. This
proof worked fine for the Mu tazilites, who, as mentioned above, collapsed
Gods attributes into the divine self.21 But the Sunnis commitment to the
19 al-As ar, Maqalat al-islamiyyn, pp. 169,2 170,3.

20 This worry is expressed by, e. g., al-Qusayr (d. 466/1072), Sarh asma Allah al-husna,
p. 55,8 and pp. 392,5 7.
21 See, for example, the Basran Mu tazilite Abd al-Gabbars (d. 415/1025) description of
ubba s (d. 303/915) position, in al-Mugn f abwab athis predecessor Abu Al al-G
tawhd wa-l- adl, V, p. 233,5.
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eternality of the divine attributes entailed that God, for them, was not the only
eternal thing in the universe: the divine attributes were eternal too. This meant
that the Sunnis found themselves with a category of beings the divine
attributes that were in one sense eternal but which were not themselves
originators. With the sudden appearance of this shadowy middle ground, the
traditional proof no longer works, since the opposition between eternal and
originated is now one between contraries, not between contradictories.22 If the
proof is to work, there must be an identity between eternal and non-originated
originator; but now there seem to be eternal, non-originated things the divine
attributes that are not originators.
Faced with philosophical challenges such as these, it is not surprising that
uwayn desperately sought tools to
Sunni mutakallimun such as Baqillan and G
help them confront or at least side-step the problematic implications of their
doctrinal commitments. One of those tools was Avicennas distinction between
intrinsically and extrinsically necessary existence. Since necessity can be
construed as modifying the predication itself, as opposed to serving as a
second-order attribute in the way eternality had, Sunni mutakallimun could
come up with a new formula that did not predicate second-order attributes of
the first-order attributes, and hence was in less danger of inadvertently positing
the attributes as subjects or selves. Thus a Sunni mutakallim could assert the
modal propositions God is necessarily an existent and God is necessarily a
knower, and thereby avoid stating that God is necessary and Gods knowledge
is necessary a pair of attributions that would create the same infinite-regress
problem with necessity that God is eternal and Gods knowledge is eternal had
created earlier with eternality.23 Nevertheless, the new formulas raised further
challenges, one of which was explaining how the divine attribute of existence
(wugud) connected to the divine self or essence (dat) in such a way that it
sounded like Sunni attribute-theory and not Mu tazilite attribute-theory.
The Status of Modes
uwayn turned for help not only to

Partly because of these dilemmas, G
Avicennas metaphysics. He, and (apparently) Baqillan before him, also seized
ubba , the
upon the theory of ahwal, or modes, proposed by Abu Hasim al-G
22 As the As arite mutakallim al-Baqillan (d. 403/1013) appears to admit; see his Kitab atTamhd, pp. 29,17 30,2.
uwayn, as-Samil f usul ad-dn, p. 292,19 20, p. 308,9 10,
23 See, for example, al-G
uwayn credits Baqillan for this move);
p. 358,11 13 and p. 365,7 11 (where G
al- Aqda an-nizamiyya, p. 23,4 5; and Luma f qawa id ahl as-sunna wa-l-gama a,
p. 137,9 10.
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uwayns and Baqillans theological school.

arch-rival of As ar, who founded G
The theory of modes has commonly been viewed as a theological compromise
designed to blunt the horns of the dilemma produced by construing the
assertion God is powerful (Allahu qadirun) as implying either that God is
power (Allahu qudratun) or that God has power (Allahu lahu qudratun). As
mentioned above, early Mu tazilites such as Abu al-Hudayl took the former tack
and collapsed the attributes into Gods self, while early Sunnis following Ibn
Kullab took the latter tack and viewed the attributes as entities that were real
enough to be meaningfully distinct from Gods self and from each other.
Abu Hasim appears to have been at least partly motivated by the worry that
the early Mu tazilites position entailed that the semantic content of all
attributive assertions, such as God is power, is reducible to the assertion God
is God, and that all such assertions are therefore meaningless. So he appealed to
an element of classical Arabic grammar the hal for a solution. A hal, which
or phrase, refers to a state or
often takes the form of an adverbial accusative
condition that modifies the subject or object of a verb at the moment (hal)
when the event described by the verb is taking place. Thinking of a divine
attribute as a hal, as a mode which describes God in His act of being, allowed
Abu Hasim to hold (unlike the early Mu tazilites) that Gods being powerful
(kawnuhu qadiran) is semantically distinct from, say, His being alive (kawnuhu
hayyan), just as the hal riding in Smith came riding (ga a Zaydun rakiban) is
semantically distinct from the hal walking in Smith came walking (ga a
Zaydun masiyan); but without implying (as the Sunnis had) the separate
existence of real entities such as power and life or riding and walking.
In recent decades, scholars focus has extended from the theological
motivations and implications of mode theory to its ontological motivations and
uwaynis prime concern in appropriating
implications.24 Similarly, although G
aspects of Bahsamite (i. e., Abu Hasims) mode-theory was theological rather
than ontological, his appropriation had implications beyond an analysis of the
uwaynis most extensive
relationship between Gods self and His attributes. G
discussion of modes comes in his Kitab al-Irsad, where he states baldly that The
mode is an attribute which belongs to an existent and which is [itself ] qualified
uwayn held that
by neither existence or non-existence.25 To be precise, G
knowledge, power and speech are real objects (ma an) that are possessed by a
being God and in which the modes (ahwal) being-a-knower, being
24 See A. Alami, Lontologie modale; the classic treatments are by R. Frank, Abu Hashims
Theory of States, and more generally, Beings and Their Attributes; and most
comprehensively as well as most comprehensibly, H. Wolfson, The Philosophy of the
Kalam, pp. 167 234.
25 Cf. al-Irsad f usul al-i tiqad, transl. and ed. J. Luciani, Paris, 1938, p. 80,6 13 and
p. 47,11 13; cited

by M. Allard, Le probl!me des attributes divins dans la doctrines
dal-Ash ar et de ses premiers grands disciples, p. 389.
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powerful and being-a-speaker are grounded (mu allala). While the attributes
understood as ma an really exist in the being that possesses them, the attributes
understood as ahwal are neither existent nor non-existent.
The intermediate ontological status enjoyed by modes, which are neither

existent nor non-existent, lies at the bottom of a series of objections that
eventually led to Suhrawards attack on the conception of existence held by the
followers of the Peripatetics. The ahwal clearly violate the law of the excluded
middle, which holds that a thing S is either P or not-P, with no third option
available. Forcing those who uphold a hal-type theory of attribution to commit
themselves to the existence or non-existence

of the attribute in question was a
theme running through eleventh-and twelfth-century discussions of ontology;
and skepticism about the real existence of attributes such as existence motivated
the mathematician and poet Umar Hayyam (d. 517/1123), who wrote a brief
but acute Essay on Existence (Risala f l-wugud). 26 In the first chapter of that
work, Hayyam distinguishes between different types of attribute (sifa): that
which is essential (dat) to the characterized thing (mawsuf ), and that which is
(lazim) of the
accidental ( arad) to it; that which is a necessary concomitant
characterized thing, and that which is not; and last but not least, that which is
separable from the characterized thing only in the faculty of estimation (mufariq
bi-l-wahm) that is, conceptually and that which is separable in the faculty of
estimation as well as in (concrete) existence (mufariq bi-l-wahm wa-bi-lwugud).27
This last division of attributes is most relevant to my argument, because it
lays the ground for Hayyams distinction between attributes that are conceptual
are existential (wugud). Existential attributes are real in
(i tibar) and those that
the sense that they exist concretely in the characterized thing, whereas
conceptual attributes are not real, because they do not exist concretely in the
characterized thing, but instead attach to it only in our minds. Hayyams
with
example of an existential-accidental ( arad wugud) attribute is black
respect to black body. Here the attribute blackness (sawad) is something

superadded to the black thing itself [and] existing in concrete reality (ma nan
za idun ala dati l-aswadi mawgudun f l-a yani). To be precise, Hayyam holds
attribution
uwayns hal) is an existential
that black (i. e., corresponding to G
uwayns ma na) is
(wasf wugud), whereas blackness (i. e., corresponding to G
an existential attribute (sifa wugudiyya). Hayyam takes the real existence of this
type of attribute to be evident

at the intellectual,
estimative and sensory levels,
26 Umar Hayyam, Risala f l-wugud, ed. R. Ridazada-yi Malik, pp. 398,9 403,10. This
edition contains quite a few mistranscriptions,

and should be compared with that
contained in S.G. Trtha, transl. and ed., The Nectar of Grace. Hayyams discussion in the
Risala is reiterated in his Daruriyyat at-tadadd f l- alam wa-l-gabr wa-l-baqa .
Risala f l-wugud, pp. 398,13 399,16.

27 This and what follows summarize
Hayyam,
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uwayn on the reality of ma an (such as ilm

and in this sense he agrees with G
knowledge) in which the ahwal (such as kawnuhu aliman being-a-knower) are
grounded.
However, when he treats the type of attribute he calls essential-conceptual
uwayn. Hayyams example is being-a(dat i tibar), Hayyam departs from G
color,
for blackness.
Hayyam reasons that colorness
(lawniyya) is not an
attribute existing in concrete reality and superadded to blackness (sawadiyya),

because the fact of being superadded to something else in concrete reality entails
that the superadded thing be an accident; yet blackness is itself accidental, and
how can one accident serve as a subject for another accident that is predicated of
it?
According to Hayyams schema, then, an existential-accidental attribute such
as blackness is indeed
something superadded, in concrete reality, to the black
thing itself (fa-amma l-qismu l-wugudiyyu l- aradiyyu fa-huwa ka-wasfi l-gismi bi wugudiyyatun ay huwa
l-aswadi ida kana aswada fa-inna s-sawada sifatun

ma nan
za idun ala dati l-aswadi mawgudun f l-a yani). But in the case of a conceptual
essential attribute
such as the fact that blackness is a color, the attribute colorness
is not an attribute superadded in concrete reality to the blackness itself (waamma l-qismu l-i tibariyyu d-datiyyu fa-huwa ka-wasfi s-sawadi bi-annahu
bi-sifatin za idatin ala
dati s-sawadiyyati f
lawnunwal-lawniyyatu laysat
l-a yani). Hayyam proceeds directly to criticizing those who neglect this crucial
distinction between conceptual and existential attributions:
Those investigating this topic who do not take these conceptual attributions [awsaf
i tibariyya] into account have erred very far indeed, as is the case with some reckless
moderns [al-muta assifna l-muta ahhirna], who posit colorness and accidentality
and existence [my italics] and similar states as modes (ahwal) that obtain in what can
be characterized by neither existence or non-existence. The doubt that makes them
fall into this grave mistake pertains to the greatest of First Premises: that there is no
middle ground between negation and affirmation, the self-evident nature of which
needs no discussion by us, nor is there any way for idiots to contradict it or explain
it away.28
Given the Sunni appropriation of hal-theory discussed above; given Hayyams
of the
insistence in another treatise that Avicenna
is to be regarded as the best
29
Modern [philosophers] (afdal al-muta ahhirn); given that Hayyam is
(admittedly,
one who is known forembellishdescribed by a bio-bibliographer
ing his notices with apocrycphal anecdotes) as having gotten himself into
trouble by defending Avicenna against Abu l-Barakat al-Bagdads (d. 560/1165)
attacks;30 and given that Avicenna himself attacked the Mu tazilite conception of
Danisnama-yi hayyam, p. 399,18 24.

al-kawn wa-t-taklf, p. lxxxvii,8 13.
Hayyam, Risalat
See al-Bayhaqs notice on Ala ad-Dawla Faramarz, King of Yazd, in Tatimmat siwan al
hikma, pp. 110,7 111,11.
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29
30
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ahwal for violating the law of the excluded middle;31 Hayyams use of ahwal
by implication ma an) in the passage above makes it likely that his target
(and
in this long attack is not Avicenna himself, but Bahsamizing Sunni

uwayni.32
mutakallimun such as Baqillan and G
The appropriation of ahwal in late-tenth and eleventh-century As arite
kalam is well attested by twelfth-and

thirteenth-century authors, who level
much the same accusation against mode-theory that Hayyam does, namely, that
the ahwal violate the law of the excluded middle by falling

in between existence
and non-existence. For example, Ibn Hazm (d. 456/1064), a Magrib near uwayn (and thus almost certainly referring here to alcontemporary of G
Baqillan), stated in his Fisal that One piece of As arite nonsense is their claim
that people can believe in modes and objects (al-ma an) which are neither
existent nor non-existent.33 One generation after Umar Hayyam, as-Sahrastan,
in his Milal, describes Abu Hasim as having postulated modes

as attributes that
are neither existent [nor non-existent] and neither knowable nor unknowable.
In a passage that may have served as a bridge between Hayyams attack and
Hasims modes are
Suhrawards in the Hikmat al-israq, Sahrastan says that Abu
intellectual aspects (wuguh) and [subjective] considerations (i tibarat), that is,

they are the conceptual (mafhuma) [products of when] when we judge things as
being alike by commonality (al-istirak) or as being unlike by disjunction (al-iftiraq).
But these aspects are like relationships (al-nasab), correlationships (al-idafat),
proximity (al-qurb), remoteness (al-bu d) and the like, which, according to the
consensus of opinion, are not to counted among the real attributes.34
Sahrastans criticism is echoed in his Nihayat al-iqdam, where he describes Abu

Hasims ahwal as intellectual aspects (al-wuguh al- aqliyya) and mental and
estimative considerations (i tibarat dihniyya wa-taqdriyya).35 In his Musara a,
Sahrastan, like Hayyam, uses colorness as an example of a mental consideration
31 Ibn Sna, al-Mubahatat, 181 182, p. 94,1 7.

32 It is tempting to speculate
that another factor at play here may have been the fact that
Guwayns pupils were among Hayyams rivals for Selguq infrastructure-funding, with
some money from the Selguq court going to the new Nizamiyya madrasas (where
uwayn was employed), and other Selguq money going to Malik-Sahs new observatory
G
in Isfahan (where Hayyam was employed).
wa-l-ahwa wa-n-nihal, no ed., (Cairo: 1317 1327 H.), vol. IV,
33 Kitab al-Fisal f l-milal
Philosophy of the Kalam, p. 170.

pp. 208,5 6; cited by Wolfson,
34 Sahrastan, Kitab al-milal wa-n-nihal (Book of Religious and Philosophical Sects, W.

Leipzig, 1923), p. 56,3 4 and pp. 56,16 57,1;
Cureton, ed., London, 1846; reprinted
cited by Wolfson, Philosophy of the Kalam, pp. 171 172 and pp. 198 199.
35 Sahrastan, Nihayat al-iqdam f ilm al-kalam (The Summa Philosophiae of al-Sahrastan,
A. Guillaume, ed., London, 1934), p. 135,2 5; cited by Wolfson, Philosophy of the
Kalam, p. 199. In his correspondence with Ilaq, Sahrastan also alludes to the fact that
existence is something conceptual (ma nan i tibariyyun): Guftgu-yi Sahrastan va-Ilaq,
p. 101,21.
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(i tibar dihn).36 In the Nihaya Sahrastan also reports that Baqillan and
uwayn appropriated Abu Hasims mode-theory; and in the Milal he
G
complains that mode-theory is vulnerable to al-As ars own criticism that
ahwal violate the law of the excluded middle.37
In the thirteenth century, as-Sahrazur (d. 7th/13th century), in his Divine

ubba of the Mu tazilites,
Tree (Sagara Ilahiyya), explicitly names Abu Hasim al-G
and Guwayn and Qad Abd al-Gabbar from among the As arites (sic; Abd al
abbar is almost certainly
G
a mistaken scribal insertion after Qad, which in
contexts such as this normally refers to Baqillan), as those mutakallimu

n who
adopted the idea of ahwal, which appear to fall between existence and non
existence.38 This is echoed by the As arite mutakallim Sayfaddn al-Amid (d. 631/
1233), who claims that Qad Abu Bakr (i. e., Baqillan) and Imam Abu l-Ma al
uwayn) agreed with Abu Hasim regarding ahwal.39
(i. e., G
Raz and Suhraward

l we cannot be sure
As mentioned above, Raz (and perhaps his teacher G
because only one of Gls writings, a treatise on the fourth figure of the syllogism,
appears to have survived) followed the late trend in Avicennas metaphysics
towards pressing the essence/existence distinction into the service of the
intrinsically necessary/extrinsically necessary distinction. Motivated by his desire
to reinforce the compositeness of contingent beings by hardening the distinction
between essence and existence in them, by his Sunni theological commitment to
the distinctiveness between self (or quiddity) and attribute, and by his
commitment to the univocity of existence (on which more below), Raz recast
36 wa-anta ta rafu anna l-lawniyyata wa-l-bayadiyyata tibarani aqliyyani f d-dihni la f

n, Kitab
di gayra bayadiyyatihi. Sahrasta
l-harigi wa-alla f l-wugudi lawniyyata l-baya
al-Musara a, p. 36,3 4 (Arabic) and p. 39 40 (English).

n, Nihaya, p. 131,5 9; Milal, p. 57,5 6 and p. 67,2 8; cited by Wolfson,
37 Sahrasta
Philosophy of the Kalam, pp. 175 6 and 199 200.
38 Rasa il as-sagara al-ilahiyya, pp. 31,6 35,18.
ayat al-maram f ilm al-kalam, p. 29,11 13; Abkar al-afkar f usul ad-dn,
39 al-Amid, G
vol. II, pp. 458,19 459,1; at Abkar al-afkar, vol. II, p. 604,6 9, Amid claims
that
Baqillan flip-flopped on the issue of the ahwal, sometimes affirming them and other
to Hayyams discussion, al-Amid groups
times denying them. In an apparent reference
are superadded to quiddity: G
ayat
wugud with lawniyya on the basis of the fact that both
al-maram p. 32,4 6, and Abkar al-afkar, vol. II, p. 607,5 8. Razs and Suhrawards
Magrib contemporary Ibn Rusd (d. 595/1198) says in his Tahafut at-Tahafut that those
who reject modes (al-ahwal) reject the belief in existence in general and color in general,
modes say that existence in general and color in general are
whereas those who affirm
neither existent nor non-existent: Tahafut at-Tahafut, vol. III, ed. M. Bouyges, Beirut,
1930, p. 258,10 11; cited by Wolfson, Philosophy of the Kalam, pp. 170 171.
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Avicennas ontology by holding that existence is something superadded to a things

quiddity. This in turn raised the question of whether, on Razs account, existence
is a real attribute or merely a conceptual attribute, to use Hayyams terms.
Holding that the existence that is superadded to quiddities is itself neither existent
or non-existent would invite accusations that Raz had violated the law of the
excluded middle. But explicitly affirming that existence is a real attribute
superadded to quiddities, i. e., that the existence that is superadded to quiddities is
itself existent, would open Raz up to the criticism that he had inadvertently
posited an infinite regress of existences the criticism that Suhraward was to
level, and which the Sunni theory of the attributes eternality had been vulnerable
to.
Without wading into the uncertainty and controversy over the chronology of
Razs writings, I have selected a significant sample of treatises that are generally
assumed to be from his middle period: Sarh al-Isarat wa-t-tanbhat (Commentary
on [Avicennas] Pointers and Reminders), al-Mabahit al-masriqiyyah (Eastern
al-Mulahhas f l-hikma
Investigations), Lubab al-isarat (The Gist of the Pointers),
n (Forty
wa-l-mantiq (Epitome of Philosophy and Logic), al-Arba n f usul ad-d
[Chapters] on the Fundamentals of Religion), and ar-Risalat al-kamaliyya f l-haqa iq

al-ilahiyya (Complete Epistle on Metaphysical Realities).40 These treatises arelargely
consistent in their ontology.41
In these works, Raz normally begins his discussions of ontology by stating
that existence is univocal, that is, that existence applies with a commonality of
meaning (istirak ma naw) to God and to the rest of the universe.42 Raz maintains
40 For a discussion of Razs writings and his intellectual development, see A. Shihadeh,
From al-Ghazal to al-Raz, pp. 141 79; Shihadeh offers a chronology in his The
Teleological Ethics of Fakhr al-Dn al-Raz, pp. 4 11. As Shihadeh admits, his chronology
is tentative because it is based mainly on internal cross-references in Razs writings,
references that may have been inserted not during the actual composition of a given
work, but at a later date, when Raz was revising that work. Developments in Razs ethics
are treated in Shihadehs book passim.
41 To my knowledge the only extended discussion of the development of Razs ontology is
M. A. Zarrukan, Fahraddn ar-Raz wa-ara uhu al-kalamiyyah wa-l-falsafiyyah, Cairo,
1963, pp. 170 74; cited by the editors of two of Razs works: Sarh al-Isarat wa-ttanbhat, ed. Nagafzadeh, pp. 47 51 and al-Mabahit al-masriqiyyah, ed. M.M. al are Sarh al-Isarat wa-t-tanbhat,
Bagdad, p. 114, n. 1. The passages I am summarizing
and pp. 199,4 204,7;
no ed. [ad Namat 4: F al-wugud wa- ilalihi], pp. 190,7 192,13
Lubab al-isarat, p. 79,7-ult.; al-Mabahit al-masriqiyyah I.1.2 5, pp. 106,ult.130,10;

Staatsbibliothek Ms. or. oct. 629, I.2 3 (see
al-Mulahhas f l-hikma wa-l-mantiq, Berlin
H. Eichners chapter, Essence and existence. 13th-century perspectives in Arabic-Islamic

philosophy, in this volume, for a translation of these two chapters); al-Arba n f usul
ad-dn, pp. 53,22 58,20; and ar-Risalat al-kamaliyya f l-haqa iq al-ilahiyya, pp. 33,5
34,19.
42 Although see Asas at-taqds (The Basis for Glorifying [God]), p. 89,8 17, for an attack on
the Karramiyyas claim of strong univocity between the visible (as-sahid) and the invisible
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the Kullabite line by arguing, against Avicenna and the Mu tazilites, that Gods
existence, like the other divine attributes, cannot simply be subsumed in the
divine self. But Raz also argues, in open opposition this time to As ar, that the
existence of each being is distinct from its quiddity. Raz outlines three possible
positions on the relation between existence and quiddity, positions that he takes to
be exhaustive. The first possible position is that (a) existence is identical to
quiddity (al-wugud nafs al-mahiyya or al-wugud dat al-mahiyya); the second is
that (b) existence is extrinsic to quiddity (al-wugud harig an al-mahiyya); and the
third is that (c) existence is intrinsic to quiddity (al-wug

ud dahil f l-mahiyya).
Razi assigns position (a) to As ar (as well as in Razs Arban to the later
Mu tazilite Abu l-Husayn al-Basr); position (b) to Avicenna and the falasifa in
general;43 and position (c) to no one, it being just a logical possibility.44 Raz then
argues as follows in favor of position (b):
i. quiddity (mahiyya) is the principle of difference;
ii. existence (wugud) is the principle of identity, on the basis of the Avicennian
doctrine which Raz accepts and promotes that all beings share
existence, or have existence in common (musarakat al-wugud);
iii. given i and ii, existence will not be identical to quiddity, and hence position
(a) is incorrect;
iv. given i and ii, existence will not be part of quiddity, and hence position (c)
is incorrect;
v. given that positions (a), (b) and (c) are the only possible positions, and
given that positions (a) and (c) are incorrect, it follows that position (b) is
correct, and that existence is therefore extrinsic to quiddity.
(al-ga ib). For a brief but helpful sketch of how the distinction between istirak ma naw
and istirak lafz maps onto the distinction between univocal and equivocal, see T. Mayer,
Fakhr ad-Dn ar-Razs Critique, n. 48.
43 It is possible that in articulating position (b) as al-wugud harig an al-mahiyya, Raz may
have thought he was reverting to a classical Avicennian formula, since in addition to
appearing in the Ta lqat passage mentioned earlier, the same phrase is used by Avicennas
favorite student, Bahmanyar, in his Tahsl (viz., fa-inna kawna l-wugudi ma nan harigan
ani l-mahiyyati arafnahu bi-bayanin wa-burha

nin), at least according to one of the
manuscript copies: Kitab at-Tahsl, p. 285, n. 3, ult.
azals Tahafut al-falasifa,
44 Raz might have been thinkinghere of Discussion V.16 of G
azal rehearses the argument that existence cannot be a
pp. 151,7 152,10, where G
constituent of (muqawwim bi-) quiddity. The genus and differentia are in a way parts of
the quiddity, given that the quiddity is the species of a thing. Raz could be taking as
absurd the idea that the quiddity or species caused [thing] contains the parts wugud
(existence, i. e., as genus) and mumkin (possible, i. e., as differentia). This is implied in
his Sarh Uyun al-hikma, pp. 80,1 82,12; immediately before that passage
(p. 77,2122),
Raz quotes
Avicenna as denying that existence is intrinsic to (dahil f)
essence. In his Epitome of the Metaphysics (I, pp. 34 43 and III, pp. 34 48), Averroes
cites Aristotle, Metaph. 3, as denying that being and unity are parts of the being of a
thing.
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Robert Wisnovsky
43
Razi further asserts that the correct way to articulate position (b) the position
that existence is extrinsic to quiddity is that existence is superadded to
quiddity (za id ala l-mahiyya). Raz clearly sees himself as extrapolating from,
and in some sense systematizing, Avicennas ontology. In his Commentary on the
Pointers I.11, Raz interprets the term mudaf (related [to]), which Avicenna
had used in the passage being commented upon to describe how existence is
connected to quiddity, in a stronger and less neutral sense, as superadded:
His [viz., Avicennas] statement Like humanity; for in itself it is a quiddity , up

to the end of the chapter: Know that in defining the essential, he needs to
distinguish between the constituents of quiddity and the constituents of existence,
so that neither will be confused with the other. This is attained only by explaining
that existence is distinct from quiddity and that it is superadded to it [my italics]
(anna l-wuguda mugayirun li-l-mahiyyati wa-annahu za idun alayha). He argues for
this by [citing the fact] that quiddity may be known at a time when its existence is in
doubt; given that the known is other than what is in doubt, existence is superadded
to quiddity.45
Given Razs hard line on the univocity of existence, and given his apparent
desire to oppose Mu tazilite theology by placing himself in the Kullabite
tradition of holding that the divine attributes are somehow meaningfully
distinct from the divine self, we should not be surprised by his argument that in
the case of God, as with other beings, existence is also distinct from and
superadded to quiddity. But in contrast to a contingent being, which needs a
cause to bring its quiddity and existence together, Gods quiddity is sufficient to
cause its own existence.46
It is worth noting that Razs position is in direct opposition to the doctrine
of his school founder, As ar. As ar held that in created beings, quiddity and
existence were intensionally as well as extensionally identical; and by some
accounts As ar also treated the attribute of existence as an exception to Kullabite
attribute-theory, by maintaining that in the case of God, too, quiddity and
existence were intensionally as well as extensionally identical. Razs departure
from As ar is perhaps less surprising than it might first appear, since in the 12th
century, when Raz was active, the strong identification of essence and existence
was associated with a newly formed branch of the Mu tazilites as well as with
As ar. These Mu tazilites were the followers of Abu l-Husayn al-Basr (d. 436/
Ibn al1044), most prominent of whom was the Hwarazmian mutakallim
45 Raz, Sarh al-Isarat, ed. Nagafzadeh, I.11, p. 53,7 11.

46 Here Raz may be appropriating the distinction Avicenna made in Kitab as-Sifa /Ilahiyyat,
I.6, pp. 38,1739,4, between a quiddity that is sufficient for a thing to exist and a
quiddity that is not sufficient for a thing to exist (the former will be uncaused, the latter
caused). In any case Raz is not entirely consistent; he says in his Sarh Uyun al-hikma
(p. 76,1415) that we have discussed in our other books decisive proofs
that Gods
essence (haqqa) is identical to His existence (wugud).
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Malahim (d. 532/1144). These Mu tazilites were openly opposed to Abu
Hasims hal-theory, at least as it was construed by its most famous proponent,
Qad Abdalgabbar (d. 415/1025), and they subjected it to many of the same
critiques that Hayyam and Sahrastan and others had directed at the
such as Baqillan and G
uwayn.47
Bahsamizing Sunnis
What might Razs motivations have been for embracing Avicennas
ontology in the case of contingent beings, while rejecting it in the case of
God? Raz may have been unconvinced by Avicennas radical understanding of
divine simplicity, which Avicenna safeguards by completely identifying essence
and existence in God. For Avicenna, Gods simplicity, and thus His noncompositeness, ensures that He is the only uncaused being, in contrast to all
other beings, whose composition of essence and existence requires a composer
and hence a cause. For Avicenna, in other words, Gods simplicity explained His
causal self-sufficiency, His immunity from causedness. But Gods causal
productivity, His causation of other beings, was another matter. At most, it
could be said that on Avicennas account, Gods being wagib al-wugud (necessary
of existence) conveyed a weak form of transitivity that was perhaps implicit in
the active participle wagib (necessary). But even if we were to construe wagib as
synonymous with the more clearly transitive fourth-form active participle mugib
(necessitating), the kind of transitivity conveyed by w-g-b remained one of
syllogistic necessitation rather than one of causal production let alone one of
voluntary agency. And Gods necessitating the world just as a true premise
necessitates the conclusion that follows from it, was not a robust enough notion
of divine causation for Raz. Avicennas theology immunized God from
causedness very convincingly. But it made Gods causation of the world too
automatic, too mechanistic. By contrast, holding as Raz does that Gods
quiddity is sufficient to cause His existence, allowed God to retain His attribute
of will (irada) and thereby be plausibly seen as a voluntary agent (fa il) rather
than as a necessitator. In sum, while Raz adopts Avicennas ontology, he rejects
Avicennas theology by maintaining that Gods quiddity is not identical to His
existence.
With this Razan background in our minds, we can now turn back to
Suhraward, from whence we started, and examine, with fresh eyes, his critique
of the notion of existence put forward by the followers of the Peripatetics. To
recapitulate: given that Avicenna was not explicitly committed to the thesis that
47 See Ibn al-Malahim, Kitab al-Fa iq f usul ad-dn, pp. 46,3 48,ult. (F anna wuguda
s-say i hal huwa datuhu aw halatun zaidatun ala datihi) and pp. 68,10 76,15 (F
anin wa-la ahwalin); and Tuhfat

annahu ta ala qadirun
alimunhayyun li-datihi la li-ma
by Samarqand
as
al-mutakallimn f r-radd ala l-falasifa, pp. 61,19 62,19. As ar is cited
holding the view that in God essence and existence are identical: as-Saha if al-Ilahiyya,

p. 298,56.
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Robert Wisnovsky
45
existence is something superadded to (za id ala) a things quiddity (even though

Avicenna could plausibly be construed as implying it), whose doctrine might
Suhraward have been pointing to here?
In both his Talwhat (at least as interpreted by his commentator Ibn
and Hikmat al-israq (at least as understood by the
Kammuna [d. 676/1277])
baddn al-Sraz [d. 710/1310]), Suhraward
commentators Sahrazur and Qut
s old position, namely, that existence is

accepts the incorrectness of As ar
indistinguishable from essence or quiddity either in concrete reality (i. e.,
extensionally) or in the mind (i. e., intensionally). However, Suhraward insists
on the incorrectness of the position of the followers of the Peripatetics, namely,
that existence is distinguishable from essence or quiddity both in concrete reality
and in the mind. By Suhrawards reckoning, essence and existence are
distinguishable in the mind but not in concrete reality. This sounds a lot like
Avicennas position that essence and existence are intensionally distinct but
extensionally identical, that essence and existence can be separated conceptually
while remaining locked together in actual beings. Where Suhraward goes
beyond Avicenna is in inferring from this that existence as well as quiddity are
merely i tibarat aqliyya, mental constructs or expressions of the intellect.
According to Suhraward, the position of the followers of the Peripatetics
suffers from an infinite-regress problem: If existence really existed concretely, it
would itself have to be a concrete existent; otherwise the existence would be
non-existent, and a contradiction would ensue. But if existence were itself a
concrete existent, it would exist through yet another existence; and this would
lead to an infinite regress of existences. Suhraward and his commentators
reason that, given this and other weaknesses, existence cannot be a real attribute
of concrete things, but must instead be understood as a mental construct.
Existence is therefore not something really superadded to quiddity in order to
make a concretely existing being.
It seems clear that Suhraward and Hayyam were part of the same line of
put forward by Sunni mutakallimun
critics of the Avicennian theory of existence
such as Guwayn and Raz. Not only does Suhraward, like Hayyam, deny that
reality; he later
existence is an attribute superadded to quiddity in concrete
reproduces Hayyams distinction between attributes that are merely conceptual
that are real as well as conceptual.48 In a brief passage in his
and attributes
Talwhat, Suhraward also attacks the theory of modes, on the basis of its
of the law of the excluded middle; and the example he gives of a
violation
mental construct (i tibar dihn) that falls into this trap is colorness (lawniyya)
the same example that Hayyam had given before him. Finally, Suhraward
48 fa-idani s-sifatu kulluha tanqasimu ila qismayni sifatin ayniyyatin wa laha suratun f l- aqli
ifatin
wuguduha f l- ayni laysa illa nafsuwugudiha f d-dihni wa-laysa
laha f gayri
wa-s
d-dihni wugudun, Hikmat al-israq I.3.68, pp. 50,5 51,5.

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famously places his main attack on the conception of existence put forward by
the followers of the Peripatetics, in the section of his Hikmat al-israq that is
too may have been
devoted to exposing sophistries and logical fallacies. This
anticipated by Hayyam, given the prominent appearance of hadayan (bab 49 Avicenna
art in Arabic sophistics, in Hayyams discussion.
bling), a term of
also uses h-d-y (specifically, ma hadaw bihi min aqawlihim) in a well known
Ilahiyyat I.5 of his Sifa , when referring to the Mu tazilites
passage from
inconsistency on the issue of whether a non-existent (ma dum) is a thing (say ).50
These Avicennian uses of h-d-y, and particularly that contained in the
Ilahiyyat I.5 passage, are possible antecedents

to Hayyams use of hadayan in his
to have a common
Risalat al-Wugud. For Hayyam and Avicenna appear
target:
those who commit some sophism by, in this case, violating the law of the
excluded middle. In Avicennas case, it is the early Mu tazilites whose nonexistent thing neither is nor is not. In Hayyams case, it is the Bahsamizing
As arites, whose position that existence is superadded to quiddity entails that
existence be construed as a mode (hal) (or more precisely, the grounds [ma na]
of a mode) that falls between existence

and non-existence. The targets are
different, but the sophism they commit is ultimately the same. This apparent
link between Avicenna and Hayyam; the apparent link between Hayyam and
Suhraward discussed earlier; and the basic similarity between Avicennas

and
Suhrawards distinctions between essence and existence; all increase the
likelihood that, as I hypothesized at the beginning of this chapter, Suhraward
was targeting the Avicennian ontology of mutakallimun such as Raz, rather than
Avicennas own ontology; and that Suhraward therefore intended to make an
implicit distinction when he criticized the followers of the Peripatetics (atba alMassa n), and not the Peripatetics themselves, for holding that existence is
something superadded to quiddity (ma nan za idun ala l-mahiyya). Interestingly,
in a late work of his, the Nihayat al- uqul, Raz himself appears to have struck
back, targeting Hayyam and Suhraward by recapitulating Suhrawards infinite
regress argument against existences being something superadded to quiddity,
classifying it as a type of sophism used by radical skeptics who deny existence,
49 Risala f l-wugud 401,11. H-d-y is one of a cluster of roots (the others are h-d-r, h-t-r, h-g
r, h-m-z and h-m-r) used to render
Aristotles term !dokeswe?m, for example in Yahya ibn
Ads translation of Aristotle, Sophistical Refutations (SE 3:165b15): see, ad loc., Mant
iq
Aristu, vol. III, ed. A. Badaw. In the corresponding section of the Safsata (Sophistics)of
his Sifa (I.1, 7,5), Avicenna paraphrases Aristotle but uses the terms al-had
ayan wa-t
takrr; Kitab as-Sifa /Mantiq (6): as-Safsata, ed. A.F. al-Ahwan; see also SE 13:173a31
a II.2: pp. 67,12
173b16, and Ibn Sna, Safsat

69,5, where hadayan and hada appear at
I.1, p. 9,1.
b as-Sifa /Tab iyyat (6): an-Nafs,
68,1.2 tris.3.7.9 bis.10; cf. Kita
50 Ibn Sna, Kitab as-Sifa /Ilahiyyat (1), p. 33,16 18.
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Robert Wisnovsky
47
and criticizing those skeptics for recklessness (ta assuf ) the same flaw that
Hayyam had seen in the Bahsamizing Sunni mutakallimun. 51
Conclusion
The two opposing positions on this issue largely determined the metaphysical
doctrines of the following century. Razs Avicennian understanding of existence
as something superadded to quiddity is embraced in toto by as-Samarqand (fl.
ca. 690/1291) and al-Baydaw (d. ca. 716/1312), who follow Raz in ontology
as well as in theology; and Razs ontology (though not his theology) is accepted
by al-Qazwn al-Katib (d. 675/1276) as well as by al-Abhar (663/1264), at
least during one phase of his career.52 As was seen above, Suhrawards
commentators Ibn Kammuna, Sahrazur and Qutbaddn Sraz all endorse
Suhrawards view. But it would be a mistake to label this simply as the Israq
view, given what appear to be Hayyams and Sahrastans roles in propelling it
along, as well as the fact that prominent

non-Israqs also rejected the position
that existence is superadded to quiddity. These include the Mu tazilite followers
of Abu l-Husayn al-Basr, such as Ibn al-Malahim, as mentioned above. They
also include Razs and Suhrawards Magrib contemporary, Averroes.53 The
51 Raz, Nihayat al- uqul wa-dirayat al-usul, Istanbul Ayasofya ms 2376, fols 22r9v24.
52 See as-Samarqand, as-Saha if al-Ilahiyya,

I.1.1.2 (F anna l-wugud za idun ala l awa
li al-anwar min matali al-anzar I.1.2.2 (F kawnihi [viz.,
mahiyyat); al-Baydaw, T
I.1.2.3 (F kawnihi [viz.,
al-wugud] za idan hilafan li-s-Sayh
and
al-wugud] mustarak)
[viz., al-As ar] mutlaqan wa-l-Hukama f l-wagib); but note I.1.4.1 (F annaha
[viz., alwugub, al-imkan, al-qidam and al-hudut] umur aqliyya la wuguda laha f l-harig). Al (F anna l-wugud mustarak); I.1.1.3 (F anna lQazwn al-Katib, Hikmat al- ayn I.1.1.2
wugud za id ala mahiyyat al-mumkinat) and I.1.1.2 (F anna l-wugud nafs haqqat al tarakun
wagib al-wugud). Al-Abhar, Kasf al-haqa iq 1 (F kawnihi [viz., al-wugud] mus
bayna l-mawgudat) and 2 (F anna wugud al-mumkinat za id ala mahiyyatiha); but note
his opposite view in Muntaha l-afkar f ibanat al-afkar I.1.1.1 (al-mashur anna l-wugud
amr mustarik min gam al-mawgudat wa-l-kull da f ) and I.1.1.2 (al-mashur anna
wugud al-mumkinat f l-a yan za id ala mahiyyatiha wa-huwa da f ). For a brief
discussion of the major 13th-century developments in Avicennian ontology,

along with
translations of key passages, see Eichner, Essence and existence. 13th-century perspectives
in Arabic-Islamic philosophy.
53 fa-inna-ma buniya l-qawlu fha ala madhabi bni Sna wa-huwa madhabun hata un wa
say un
dalika annahu ya taqidu anna l-anniyyata
wa-huwa kawnu s-say i mawgu dan
za idun ala l-mahiyyati harigu n-nafsi amma qawlu l-qa ili inna l-wuguda amrun
za idun ala l-mahiyyati fa-qawlun mugallatun giddan wa-huwa madhabu bni Sna,
see Averroes,
Averroes, Tahafut at-Tahafut, pp. 302,13 304,14;

cf. p. 197,15 16. Also
Tafsr ma ba da t- tab a, pp. 1279,12 1280,11. Averroes critique of Avicennas ontology
by S. Menn in his Farab in the Reception of Avicennas Metaphysics:
is discussed fully
Averroes against Avicenna on Being and Unity, in this volume.
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only difference between Suhraward and Averroes is that Averroes assigns this
position to Avicenna himself, while Suhraward associates it to unspecified
followers of the Peripatetics. The Magrib philosophical mystic Ibn Arab (d.
638/1240) similarly condemns construing existence as something superadded;
although to be precise, what Ibn Arab denies is that existence is superadded to
the existent, not that existence is superadded to the essence.54
It remains an open question whether any of the critics of what I have labeled
Avicennian ontology felt that Avicennas own theory of existence could be
salvaged if it had been interpreted in a different way. However fertile they
doubtless were to subsequent Muslim thinkers, Avicennas various articulations
of the essence-existence distinction, and his attempts to press that distinction
into the service of his distinction between the necessary of existence in itself and
the necessary of existence through another, were perhaps so tentative and
inconsistent that they resisted systematization. Suhrawards creation of a new
metaphysics of light might have partly resulted from his frustration with the
flaws that emerged from recent and ongoing attempts to systematize Avicennian
ontology.
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Robert Wisnovsky

Essence and Existence in The Islamic Eas

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The Arabic, Hebrew and Latin Reception of Avicennas Metaphysics

The Arabic, Hebrew and

Dag Nikolaus Hasse and Amos Bertolacci

Gedruckt mit freundlicher Untersttzung der VolkswagenStiftung.

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

Dag Nikolaus Hasse

Index of Avicennas Works with Passages Cited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Essence and Existence in the Eleventh- and

In a well known section of his Hikmat al-israq (Philosophy of Illumination),

Sihabaddn as-Suhraward (i. e., as-Sayh al-Maqtul, d. 587 H./1191) attacked

the doctrine that existence (wugud) is something

Suhrawards use of the phrase the followers of the Peripatetics in this

the basis of an analogy with legal fictions: The

Essence and Existence in the Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century

interpreter could reasonably infer that describing existence as za id (is

606/1210), a contemporary of Suhrawards and a fellow

Ibn Sna, Kitab as-Sifa /Ilahiyyat (1), IV.3, p. 188,11 13.

Avicennas Two Distinctions

(wagib al-wugud bi-gayrihi), which Avicenna appears to have taken as

mature formulation in al-Ilahiyyat (Metaphysics) I.5 of his Sifa and in Isarat 4,

Essence and Existence in the Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century

existent were also intensionally

and the distinction between intrinsically and extrinsically necessary existence

Wisnovsky, Avicennas Metaphysics in Context, pp. 245 63.

ad, pp. 2,4 3,15.

this trend in Avicennas

Essence and Existence in the Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century

Sunni mutakallimun from the generations immediately following Avicennas

16 A broader discussion of this development is contained in my One Aspect of the

19 al-As ar, Maqalat al-islamiyyn, pp. 169,2 170,3.

p. 55,8 and pp. 392,5 7.

Essence and Existence in the Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century

sounded like Sunni attribute-theory and not Mu tazilite attribute-theory.

The Status of Modes

uwayn turned for help not only to

uwayns and Baqillans theological school.

p. 47,11 13; cited

Essence and Existence in the Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century

The intermediate ontological status enjoyed by modes, which are neither

themselves to the existence or non-existence

respect to black body. Here the attribute blackness (sawad) is something

type of attribute to be evident

edition contains quite a few mistranscriptions,

Risala f l-wugud, pp. 398,13 399,16.

uwayn on the reality of ma an (such as ilm

attribute existing in concrete reality and superadded to blackness (sawadiyya),

l-aswadi ida kana aswada fa-inna s-sawada sifatun

Given the Sunni appropriation of hal-theory discussed above; given Hayyams

Danisnama-yi hayyam, p. 399,18 24.

Essence and Existence in the Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century

in this long attack is not Avicenna himself, but Bahsamizing Sunni

kalam is well attested by twelfth-and

the ahwal violate the law of the excluded middle by falling

in his Milal, describes Abu Hasim as having postulated modes

intellectual aspects (wuguh) and [subjective] considerations (i tibarat), that is,

Sahrastans criticism is echoed in his Nihayat al-iqdam, where he describes Abu

Sahrastan, like Hayyam, uses colorness as an example of a mental consideration

31 Ibn Sna, al-Mubahatat, 181 182, p. 94,1 7.

Philosophy of the Kalam, p. 170.

34 Sahrastan, Kitab al-milal wa-n-nihal (Book of Religious and Philosophical Sects, W.

In the thirteenth century, as-Sahrazur (d. 7th/13th century), in his Divine

contexts such as this normally refers to Baqillan), as those mutakallimu

Raz and Suhraward