Danishnama
book by Avicenna
The Daneshnameh-ye Alai (Persian: دانشنامه علایی, romanized: Dānishnāma-yi ʻAlāʼī is an 11th-century Early New Persian work by Avicenna.
Title
Ibn Sina dedicated the Danishnama or "Book of Science" to the Kakuyid ruler Ala al-Dawla Muhammad, who supported his work. The book is also known as the Ḥikmat-i ʿAlā'ī
Topic
Daneshnameh-ye Alai is a comprehensive treatise on seven sciences grouped in four sections: logic, metaphysics, natural science and mathematics.
The original section on mathematics was lost in Avicenna's lifetime.
Translation
The Danishnama was translated into Arabic under the title Maqāṣad al-falāsafa by al-Ghazali in 1111, into French by M. Achena and H. Massé, under the title "Le livre de science", 2 vols., 1955–58 and into English by P. Morewedge, entitled The Metaphysica of Avicenna: A Critical Translation-Commentary and Analysis of the Fundamental Arguments in Avicenna’s Metaphysica in the Dānish Nāma-i ʿAlāʾī in 1973.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Danishnama” as book by Avicenna. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as book by Avicenna. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5864003. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1111, 1955 and 1973.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Danishnama”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Danishnama primary sources, Danishnama archive and Danishnama research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Danishnama”?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Danishnama” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.