Mulla Solayman Gilani’s Explanation of Ibn Sina’s Kinematics: An Analytic Introduction to the Treatise of Motion, Rest, and Time (al-Harakat wal-Sukun wal-Zaman)

Ibn Sina’s kinematics, particularly based on his book of al-Shifa, has greatly influenced the thinkers of the Islamic period. Al-Shifa (The Book of Healing) is a philosophical encyclopedia, which, in Ibn Sina’s words, consists of four sections on logic, physics, mathematics, and metaphysics. The comprehensive and detailed nature of this work persuaded later scholars to write glosses, rather than comments and interpretations, on it. However, there are some short treatises whose writers have tried to explain some of the complexities regarding Ibn Sina’s kinematics in al-Shifa without making a direct reference to the title of this book in their own works. Hakim Mulla Solayman Gilani, a philosopher of the 11th century (AH), has explored some of the difficulties regarding the definitions of motion, types of motion, continuous motion, and cutting motion in a short treatise entitled Motion, Rest, and Time. In this treatise, in addition to paying particular attention to the views of Ibn Sina and Mulla Sadra, Hakim Gilani has also considered the views of some other thinkers such as Fakhr al-Din Razi, Athir al-Din Abhari, Khwajah Nasir al-Din Tusi, and Mir Seyyed Jurjani concerning the problem of motion. Hakim Gilani’s treatise consists of three parts: 1) An introduction to the definitions of motion, rest, and time; 2) Types of motion; 3) Responses to raised criticisms and objections. This treatise is published for the first time as an appendix to this paper.