Essence and Existence in Arab and Islamic Philosophy
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March 16, 2026
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March 16, 2026
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الماهية والوجود, الفلسفة الإسلامية, القدرة الإلهية المطلقة, ماهيات الأشياء, الفلسفة العربية Essence and Existence, Islamic Philosophy, Absolute Divine Power, Essences of Things, Arabic Philosophy
Abstract
The translated text seeks to analyze one of the most significant and debated issues in Islamic philosophy overall, and in Ibn Sina's metaphysics specifically: the question of "the relationship between essence and existence," especially the problem of "whether the essences of things are separate from their existence." To do this, Benevich carefully traces the historical origins of this issue and its development across various philosophical schools and among different philosophers. This journey begins with Al-Kindi and Al-Farabi, continues through the classical schools of Kalam and those that followed, and culminates with Ibn Sina, whose approach marked a key turning point in the history of Islamic metaphysics. With him, the aforementioned problem gained a new perspective and became a significant element in the development of metaphysical thought within Islamic philosophy, remaining a focus of scholarly discussion into modern times. The core issue in Islamic metaphysics concerns whether the essences of things are separate from their existence. The philosophical intuition behind this distinction is that the essence of a thing (such as a human or a horse) is different from the fact that it exists.
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المراجع:
Acar, Rahim, 2005, Talking about God and Talking about Creation: Avicenna’s and Thomas Aquinas’ Positions (Islamic Philosophy, Theology, and Science 58), Leiden/Boston: Brill.
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Benevich, Fedor , 2016, “The Classical Ash‘arite Theory of Aḥwāl: Juwaynī and His Opponents”, Journal of Islamic Studies 27.2: 237–268.
Benevich, Fedor, 2017, “The Essence-Existence Distinction: Four Elements of the Post-Avicennian Metaphysical Dispute (11–13th Centuries)”, Oriens, 45(3–4): 203–258. doi:10.1163/18778372-04503004
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Benevich, Fedor, 2018b, “The Reality of the Non-Existent Object of Thought: The Possible, the Impossible, and Mental Existence in Islamic Philosophy (Eleventh–Thirteenth Centuries)”, in Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy Volume 6, Robert Pasnau (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 31–61.
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De Libera, Alain, 1999, L’art des généralités: théories de l’abstraction (Aubier Philosophie), Paris: Aubier.
Dhanani, Alnoor, 1994, The Physical Theory of Kalām: Atoms, Space, and Void in Basrian Muʻtazilī Cosmology (Islamic Philosophy, Theology, and Science 14), Leiden/New York: E.J. Brill. doi:10.1163/9789004444843
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Acar, Rahim, 2005, Talking about God and Talking about Creation: Avicenna’s and Thomas Aquinas’ Positions (Islamic Philosophy, Theology, and Science 58), Leiden/Boston: Brill.
Adamson, Peter, 2002, “Before Essence and Existence: Al-Kindi’s Conception of Being”, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 40(3): 297–312. doi:10.1353/hph.2002.0043
Adamson, Peter, 2003, “Al-Kindī and the Mu‘tazila: Divine Attributes, Creation and Freedom”, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 13(1): 45–77. doi:10.1017/S0957423903003035
Adamson, Peter, 2013a, “From the Necessary Existent to God”, in Adamson 2013b: 170–189. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139047890.010
Adamson, Peter, (ed.), 2013b, Interpreting Avicenna: Critical Essays, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139047890
Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā), The Metaphysics of The Healing: A Parallel English-Arabic Text = al-Ilahīyāt min al-Shifāʼ (Islamic Translation Series), Michael E. Marmura (ed./tran.), Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2005.
Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā), Ibn Sina’s Remarks and Admonitions: Physics and Metaphysics: An Analysis and Annotated Translation, Shams Constantine Inati (ed./tran.), New York: Columbia University Press, 2014.
Benevich, Fedor, 2015, “Die «göttliche Existenz»: Zum ontologischen Status der Essenz qua Essenz bei Avicenna”, Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale, 26: 103–128.
Benevich, Fedor , 2016, “The Classical Ash‘arite Theory of Aḥwāl: Juwaynī and His Opponents”, Journal of Islamic Studies 27.2: 237–268.
Benevich, Fedor, 2017, “The Essence-Existence Distinction: Four Elements of the Post-Avicennian Metaphysical Dispute (11–13th Centuries)”, Oriens, 45(3–4): 203–258. doi:10.1163/18778372-04503004
Benevich, Fedor, 2018a, Essentialität und Notwendigkeit: Avicenna und die Aristotelische Tradition (Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science: Text and Studies 107), Leiden/Boston: Brill. doi:10.1163/9789004380028
Benevich, Fedor, 2018b, “The Reality of the Non-Existent Object of Thought: The Possible, the Impossible, and Mental Existence in Islamic Philosophy (Eleventh–Thirteenth Centuries)”, in Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy Volume 6, Robert Pasnau (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 31–61.
Benevich, Fedor, 2018c, “The Metaphysics of Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Šahrastānī (d. 1153): Aḥwāl and Universals”, in Islamic Philosophy from the 12th to the 14th Century, Abdelkader Al Ghouz (ed.), Göttingen: Bonn University Press/V & R unipress, 327–356. doi:10.14220/9783737009003.327
Benevich, Fedor, 2019, “The Priority of Natures against The Identity of Indiscernibles: Alexander of Aphrodisias, Yaḥyā b. ’Adī, and Avicenna on Genus as Matter”, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 57(2): 205–234. doi:10.1353/hph.2019.0023
Benevich, Fedor, 2020a, “The Necessary Existent (wājib al-wujūd): From Avicenna to Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī”, in Philosophical Theology in Islam: Later Ashʿarism East and West (Islamicate Intellectual History 5), Ayman Shihadeh and Jan Thiele (eds), Leiden/Boston: Brill, 123–155.
Benevich, Fedor, 2020b, “Individuation and Identity in Islamic Philosophy after Avicenna: Bahmanyār and Suhrawardī”, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 28(1): 4–28. doi:10.1080/09608788.2019.1604316
Benevich, Fedor, 2022, “Avicennian Essentialism”, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 30(3): 410–433. doi:10.1080/09608788.2021.2007845
Bertolacci, Amos, 2012, “The Distinction of Essence and Existence in Avicenna’s Metaphysics: The Text and Its Context”, in Opwis and Reisman 2012: 257–288. doi:10.1163/9789004217768_014
Black, Deborah L., 1997, “Avicenna on the Ontological and Epistemic Status of Fictional Beings”, Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale, 8: 425–453.
Black, Deborah L., 1999, “Mental Existence in Thomas Aquinas and Avicenna”, Mediaeval Studies, 61: 45–79. doi:10.1484/J.MS.2.306458
Chittick, William C., 1981, “Sadr Al-Dīn Qūnawī on the Oneness of Being”:, International Philosophical Quarterly, 21(2): 171–184. doi:10.5840/ipq198121218
Chittick, William C. 1989, The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-ʿArabī’s Metaphysics of Imagination, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
De Haan, Daniel D., 2015, “The Doctrine of the Analogy of Being in Avicenna’s ‘Metaphysics of the Healing’”, The Review of Metaphysics, 69(2): 261–286.
De Libera, Alain, 1996, La querelle des universaux: de Platon à la fin du Moyen Age (Des travaux), Paris: Editions du Seuil.
De Libera, Alain, 1999, L’art des généralités: théories de l’abstraction (Aubier Philosophie), Paris: Aubier.
Dhanani, Alnoor, 1994, The Physical Theory of Kalām: Atoms, Space, and Void in Basrian Muʻtazilī Cosmology (Islamic Philosophy, Theology, and Science 14), Leiden/New York: E.J. Brill. doi:10.1163/9789004444843
Druart, Thérèse-Anne, 2001, “Shay’ or Res as Concomitant of ‘Being’ in Avicenna”, Documenti e Studi sulla Tradizione Filosofica Medievale, 12: 125–142.
Druart, Thérèse-Anne, 2014, “Ibn Sina and the Ambiguity of Being’s Univocity”, in Views on the Philosophy of Ibn Sina and Mulla Sadra Shirazi, Mokdad Arfa Mensia (ed.), Carthage: The Tunisian Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts (Beit al-Hikma), 15–24.
Eichner, Heidrun, 2011, “Essence and Existence. Thirteenth-Century Perspectives in Arabic-Islamic Philosophy and Theology”, in Hasse and Bertolacci 2011: 123–152. doi:10.1515/9783110215762.123.
Endress, Gerhard, 1973, Proclus Arabus: Zwanzig Abschnitte aus der Institutio Theologica in arabischer Übersetzung (Beiruter Texte und Studien 10), Beirut: Orient-Institut der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft.
Frank, Richard M., 1956, “The Origin of the Arabic Philosophical Term انية [Anniyya]”, Cahiers de Byrsa, 6: 181–201.
Frank, Richard M, 1971, “Abū Hāshim’s Theory of ‘States’: Its Structure and Its Function”, in Actas do Congressu de Estudos Arabes e Islamicos, Leiden, 85–100.
Frank, Richard M, 1978, Beings and Their Attributes: The Teaching of the Basrian School of the Muʻtazila in the Classical Period (Studies in Islamic Philosophy and Science), Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Frank, Richard M, 1980, “Al-Maʿdūm Wal-Mawjūd: The Non-Existent, the Existent, and the Possible in the Teaching of Abū Hāshim and His Followers”, MIDÉO, 14: 185–209.
Frank, Richard M, 1999, “The Aš‘arite Ontology: I Primary Entities”, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 9(2): 163–231. doi:10.1017/S0957423900001326
Frank, Richard M, 2000, “The Non-Existent and the Possible in Classical Ash‘arite Teaching”, MIDÉO, 24, 1–37.
Frank, Richard M, 2004, “Al-Aḥkām in Classical Ashʿarite Teaching””, in De Zénon d’Elée à Poincaré: recueil d’études en hommage à Roshdi Rashed (Les cahiers du Mideo 1), Régis Morelon and Ahmad Hasnawi (eds), Louvain: Peeters, 753–778.
Goichon, Anne Marie, 1937, La distinction de l’essence et de l’existence d’après Ibn Sīnā (Avicenne), Paris: Desclée, de Brouwer.
Hasse, Dag Nikolaus and Amos Bertolacci (eds), 2011, The Arabic, Hebrew and Latin Reception of Avicenna’s Metaphysics (Scientia Graeco-Arabica 7), Berlin: De Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110215762
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Mounadi Edreesi, A. (2026). Essence and Existence in Arab and Islamic Philosophy. Nama Journal of Islamic Sciences and Humanities, 10(1), 160–191. https://doi.org/10.59151/namajournal.v10i1.514
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