Self-translations of Avicenna into Persian

Abstract

Avicenna is very well known for his innovative compositions throughout the world. But he had some innovative self-translations into Persian worthy to be analyzed as facts of target language and culture. The present paper is a detailed look at the Persian self-translations of Avicenna. He lived in the late 4^th and early 5^th centuries AH (10^th and 11^th AD) in which Arabic was the well-established language of science and the Lingua Franca in the Islamic world. Modern Persian, however, was on the verge of prominent evolutions. Persian prose or Dari was on the brink of establishment as the language of writing. As a result, composition of scientific books in Persian was against the cultural norm of the age and a form of resistance. In such an environment, Avicenna self-translated two of his own Arabic books at the request of a patron. In the present study, it has been depicted that his self-translations have had a significant but neglected role in scientific writings in Modern Persian especially in the field of philosophy. Analysis of self-translations of Avicenna into Persian from a synchronic and diachronic point of view shows that his self-translations have had not only impacts at his own age but also his terminology and self-translations have had long-term effects on Persian language prose. His Persian self-translation was the corner stone of Philosophical texts and terminology in Modern Persian.