On the Emergence of Maragha Avicennism

This article examines the earliest surviving commentary on Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Shifāʾ: ʿAllāmah al-Ḥillī’s (d. 726/1325) Kitāb Kashf al-khifāʾ min Kitāb al-Shifāʾ, composed when Ḥillī was working with the Īlkhānid vizier Rashīd al-Dīn al-Hamadānī (d. 718/1318). Only part of this work—covering the initial chapters from the Maqūlāt (Categories) of the Manṭiq (Logic) section of the Shifāʾ—is extant. After describing the manuscript (Chester Beatty Ar. 5151), the article situates the Kashf al-khifāʾ within the history of kalām appropriations of Avicenna’s metaphysics. Ḥillī’s commentary contains evidence of a tug-of-war between Sunni and Shiite mutakallimūn over proprietorship of the Avicennian legacy.