Avicenna’s_Letter to the Scholars of Baghdād_: A Critical Edition, Translation, and Discussion

Avicenna’s Letter to the Scholars of Baghdād records a philosophical exchange between Avicenna and Abū al-Qāsim al-Kirmānī, conducted shortly after Avicenna’s arrival in Hamadhān in 405/1015. The Letter addresses some central metaphysical and epistemological questions in Avicenna’s philosophy, namely the existence and unity of shared essences (al-māhīyyāt al-mushtaraka) and the acquisition of intelligible forms (al-ṣuwar al-maʿqūla). Despite its importance, the work has remained relatively understudied. This paper offers a new critical edition of the Arabic text, based on all known manuscript witnesses, together with the first complete English translation of the Letter and a detailed synopsis. Beyond its editorial contributions, the paper examines a key interpretive issue raised by the Letter: the nature of al-Kirmānī’s realism about universals. Against the prevailing view in modern scholarship that characterizes al-Kirmānī as a Platonic realist, I argue that the Letter shows him to be an immanent realist. Finally, the paper explores the impact of the Avicenna–al-Kirmānī debate on Avicenna’s later writings, showing that the Argument from Contrary Properties, which Avicenna consistently raised against immanent realism in his subsequent discussions of universals, was first introduced in the Letter.