Ibn Sina's Remarks and Admonitions

With this volume, Shams Inati has completed the translation of Ibn Sina’s late summa al-Isharat wa’l-tanbihat, having earlier published the logic (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1984), and the so-called ‘mysticism’ (the last three sections – on joy and happiness [fi’l-bahjah wa’l-sa[adah], on the stations of the mystics [f i maqamat al-[arifin] and on the secrets of the signs [f i asrar al-ayat] – London: Routledge, Kegan and Paul, 1996). Shams Inati has also previously published her doctoral dissertation on the problem of evil in Ibn Sina. Since the author is using the Sulayman Dunya edition, and she does not really give an adequate explanation for why (most specialists would avoid it either insisting on using the old Forget edition or perhaps now the Zari[i one), she follows his classification of the parts. Certainly it is highly questionable to call the last three sections ‘mysticism’ because the whole issue of Ibn Sina’s approach to non-discursive and non-propositional knowledge and practice remains unresolved. This volume comprises the first three sections on the physics and sections four to seven of the metaphysics in which one sees the summation of his positions on the nature of bodies, the insistence that ontology cannot be reduced to what is sensible and that metaphysics and not physics provides the best place to demonstrate the existence of God (showing his ongoing polemic with the kalam tradition).