Avicenna’s Shifāʾ (Sufficientia): in Defense of Medieval Latin Translators

This article explores the reasons why medieval Latin translators used the term Sufficientia to translate the title of Avicenna’s philosophical work, known in Arabic as al-shifāʾ and did not use instead terms like “healing” or “cure”, which are now frequently used. The article demonstrates that those...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Der Islam
Main Author: Saliba, George 1939- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: De Gruyter 2017
In: Der Islam
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
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Summary:This article explores the reasons why medieval Latin translators used the term Sufficientia to translate the title of Avicenna’s philosophical work, known in Arabic as al-shifāʾ and did not use instead terms like “healing” or “cure”, which are now frequently used. The article demonstrates that those medieval Latin translators may after all have had a better understanding of classical Arabic linguistic sources than they are usually credited for, and were thus fully justified to opt for the translation they used.
ISSN:1613-0928
Contains:In: Der Islam
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1515/islam-2017-0026