Ibn Sīnā—al-Bīrūnī Correspondence—II

Abstract

In this second installment of the correspondence between Ibn Sīnā and al-Bīrūnī, which is being serialized in Islam & Science, Ibn Sīnā responds to four questions raised by al-Bīrūnī. The first of these four is a criticism of Aristotle for his over-reliance on the views of the ancients concerning heaven. The second deals with Aristotle’s view that there are only six directions to space. The third pertains to the issue of continuity and discontinuity of physical bodies and the fourth is about the Peripatetics’ denial of the possibility of the existence of another world completely different from the one we know.