Risālah lil-shaykh al-raʼīs Abī ʻAlī ibn ʻAbd Allāh ilá Abī Rayḥān Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Bīrūnī fī jawāb masāʼil anfadhahā ilayhī رسالة للشيخ الرئيس أبي علي ابن عبد الله إلى أبي ريحان محمد بن أحمد البيروني في جواب مسائل أنفذها إليه Avicenna ابن سينا

Content

Answers 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) to questions on natural philosophy posed by by Abū al-Rayḥān Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Bīrūnī (أبو الريحان محمد بن أحمد البيروني, d. 1048).

Extent and format

Ff. 575v-582v

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 575v-582v

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

Editions:

• Nasr, Seyyed Hossein and Mehdi Mohaghegh, Abū Rayḥān Bīrūnī va Ibn-i Sīnā, Al-Asʼilah wa-al-ajwibah (Tehran: Dānishgāh-i Tihrān, 1352/1974)
• Ḥiwār al-Bīrūnī wa-Ibn Sīnā , edited by ʻAbd al-Karīm al-Yāfī (Damascus: Dār al-Fikr, 2002)

Translation:

• Berjak, Rafiq and Muzaffar Iqbal, ‘Ibn Sīnā—al-Bīrūnī Correspondence’, Islam & Science 1 (2003) 91–98 and 253–60; 2 (2004) 57–62 and 181–87; and 3 (2005) 57–62 and 166–70

Partial German translation:

• Strohmaier, Gotthard, Al-Bīrūnī. In den Gärten der Wissenschaft (Leipzig: Reclam-Verlag, 1991), pp. 49–65

Studies:

• 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), pp. 449-50
• Strohmaier, Gotthard, ‘Avicenna und al-Bīrūnī im Dialog über aristotelische Naturphilosophie’, in Antike Naturwissenschaft und ihre Rezeption , edited by K. Döring and G. Wöhrle (Bamberg: Colibri Verlag, 1992), pp. 115–30; repr. in Gotthard Strohmaier, Von Demokrit bis Dante (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1996), pp. 342–57

Subjects

Physics--Early works to 1800Philosophy -- Early works to 1800

People & organisations

AvicennaMuḥammad ibn Aḥmad Bīrūnī

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Risālah lil-shaykh al-raʼīs Abī ʻAlī ibn ʻAbd Allāh ilá Abī Rayḥān Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Bīrūnī fī jawāb masāʼil anfadhahā ilayhī رسالة للشيخ الرئيس أبي علي ابن عبد الله إلى أبي ريحان محمد بن أحمد البيروني في جواب مسائل أنفذها إليه Avicenna ابن سينا, British Library: Oriental Manuscripts, Add MS 16659, ff 575v-582v, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100148048612.0x000032> [accessed 4 July 2026]

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