Avicenna's Allegory on the Soul

The twenty-second and latest instalment from the Institute of Ismaili Studies’ Series on Ismaili Texts and Translations presents us with a relatively short text complemented with an extensive introduction in English on the Tayyibi Ismaili reception of Avicenna’s psychology and his approach to the salvific nature of philosophy. The text and translation are together shorter than the introduction –perhaps not surprising since the poem of Avicenna on which the commentary is based is a mere 20 lines. Much of the Fatimid heritage has survived and been nurtured by the Tayyibi traditions first in Yemen and then in India and their continuing adherence in their philosophical works to the modes of Arabic Neoplatonism first articulated in the classical pre-Fatimid and Fatimid periods is remarkable. The Arabic edition – as ever separately placed at the end of the volume – is based on three quite late manuscripts of Bohra provenance; the annoying thing is that instead of giving us the codicological details of these, the editor merely gives us the references to where we can find these details in the catalogues of the collections of the Institute of Ismaili Studies. However, one striking improvement is in the font and typeface. The shift to Decotype away from Arabic typesetting is to be welcomed. The Arabic typeface is much better – one only wishes that they had used a slightly larger font....