Suʼāl ʻan al-shaykh al-raʼīs qaddasa sirrah سؤال عن الشيخ الرئيس قدس سره and Jawābuhu ʻan al-shaykh al-raʼīs qaddasa sirrah جوابه عن الشيخ الرئيس قدس سره Avicenna ابن سينا

Content

Short essay on space by Abū ʻAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʻAbd Allāh (أبو علي الحسين بن عبد الله), known as Ibn Sīnā (ابن سينا, latinised as Avicenna, d. 1037). The text is a response to a question posed to him in his youth by an unnamed person.

In the present manuscript, this text does not have a title as such, but rather begins with the question labelled 'question to the Chief Shaykh [i.e., Avicenna], may his secret be sanctified' (سؤال عن الشيخ الرئيس قدس سره), before moving to the main portion of the text labelled 'its answer from the Chief Shaykh, may his secret be sanctified' (جوابه عن الشيخ الرئيس قدس سره). In other manuscripts, this text appears under the following titles: the Epistle on Expanse (رسالة في الوسعة), Space (الفضاء), the Epistle on Place (رسالة في المكان) and the Book for a Theologian (كتاب إلى بعض المتكلمين).

Extent and format

Ff. 421v-422v

It is part of

Compendium of philosophical and scientific texts by and about Avicenna (ابن سينا)

1208 images

Ref: Add MS 16659

Written in

Arabic in Arabic script

Type

Manuscript item

Access & Reference

Original held at

British Library: Oriental Manuscripts

Access conditions

Unrestricted

Archive reference

Add MS 16659, ff 421v-422v

History of this record

Date(s)

1182 (AH, Hijri qamari)

Related material

Finding aids

• Cureton, William and Charles Rieu, Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum orientalium qui in Museo Britannico asservantur. Pars secunda, codices arabicos amplectens (London: The British Museum, 1846-71), Item 978, pp. 447-51
• Rieu, Charles, Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum , 3 vols. (London: The British Museum, 1879-83), vol. 2, pp. 438-39

Select Bibliography

Study:

• Gutas, Dimitri, Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition. Introduction to Reading Avicenna’s Philosophical Works , 2nd ed., including an Inventory of Avicenna’s Authentic Works (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2014), p. 446

Subjects

Philosophy -- Early works to 1800

People & organisations

Avicenna

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Suʼāl ʻan al-shaykh al-raʼīs qaddasa sirrah سؤال عن الشيخ الرئيس قدس سره and Jawābuhu ʻan al-shaykh al-raʼīs qaddasa sirrah جوابه عن الشيخ الرئيس قدس سره Avicenna ابن سينا, British Library: Oriental Manuscripts, Add MS 16659, ff 421v-422v, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100148048612.0x000029> [accessed 17 August 2026]

Link to this record

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