The Treatise of Love:Evaluating the Editions and the Relevant Studies on the Basis of the New Manuscripts

This paper evaluates editions and studies Ibn Sina's Risālah fī al-'ishq. The significance of the treatise resulted in the explanation of love from a philosophical approach on the basis of Aristotelian thought. Before Ibn Sina, there were treatises on love in a philosophical way by Plato, Plotinus, and the Ikhwân al-Safâ’ (the Brethren of Purity) which are conceptually different from what Ibn Sina discussed in his work. In this paper, the editions have been evaluated and then the quantity and quality of the manuscripts in each edition have been analyzed. The charchtristics of each study have been analyzed as follows: A) The analysis of the beginning sentences of the five editions permit us an comprehensive reading of the treatise: the words "Al-Hayyah"(Live), "Al-Muqziyyah" (Feeder), "Al-Mudabberah" (Aforethought) and "Al-Munba'eth" (Emitted), instead of the words "Al-Hessiah" (Sensual), "Al-Ma'dniyah", (Inorganic) "Al-Mudabberah" (designer) and "Al-Monilah" (Destiner), B) Analysis of the eighty copies of the manuscripts preserved in the various libraries in the world which is essential in any critical edition is an entirely new and different task that the editors of the treatise in our time relied on very few copies of the manuscripts that were locally accessible to them. C) How to select the exemplar as well as stemma codicum which is important in critical edition of the treatise. Moreover, the editorial aspects based on form and content of each edition have been evaluated – the aspects which have been regarded as a decisive role in philosophical analysis of the treatise.