The philosophical epistolary exchange between Avicenna and al-Bīrūnī

• Applicant: Paul Hullmeine
• Subject Area: History of Philosophy
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 500787098

This project has as its focus an epistolary exchange between two of the most important figures in the history of philosophy and science in the Islamic world, Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) and al-Bīrūnī. Written around 1000 CE, the correspondence began when al-Bīrūnī posed a series of questions to a young, but already well-known, Avicenna. These deal especially with topics in Aristotelian natural philosophy. Avicenna composed replies, which elicited a further round of critical responses from al-Bīrūnī. Finally, a student of Avicenna’s answered these rejoinders. Happily, all four stages of the correspondence are preserved today, in a text that has not yet been adequately translated or studied. This is the task of the proposed research, which would issue in a monograph giving an improved Arabic text, the first reliable translation of the entire correspondence into any European language, along with a detailed commentary explaining the historical and philosophical issues raised by the exchange. The project will bring this important text to a wider audience and help historians of science and philosophy understand its discussion of such topics as the eternity of the world, void, optics, elemental theory, and cosmology. The resulting book will also situate the correspondence within the writings of both Avicenna and al-Bīrūnī and it will cast light on the way in which they receive Aristotelian and late ancient philosophy.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants