Al-Ğūzğānī‘s Insertion of On Cardiac Remedies in Avicenna’s Book of the Soul: The Latin Translation as a Clue to his Editorial Activity on the Book of the Cure?

The aim of this article is to outline the textual and editorial vicissitudes of chapters 2-9 of Avicenna’s medical treatise On Cardiac Remedies (Maqāla fx l-adwiya al-qalbiyya) that Abū Ubayd ‘Abd al-Wahid ibn Muhammad al-Ğūzğānī (fl. XI c.), Avicenna’s disciple and secretary, inserted between the end of the fourth treatise and the beginning of the fifth treatise of Avicenna’s Book of the Soul (Kitab al-Nafs). In particular, this article firstly aims at detecting the reason why al-Ğūzğānī inserted a selection from Avicenna’s On Cardiac Remedies in this precise place of Avicenna’s Nafs, and the related question of why al-Ğūzğānī inserted in this place only an excerpt of this treatise and not all of it. The reason seems to be that of providing the brief outline of Avicenna’s theory of emotions in Nafs, IV, 4 with its medical background. Secondly, it provides a close scrutiny of the Arabic textual tradition of this insertion, which is by no means reflected in the current editions of the Arabic text of Avicenna’s Book of the Soul. Lastly, this article offers an evaluation of the relevance of this insertion and, consequently, of the importance of studying it in relation to the textual tradition of both On Cardiac Remedies and the Book of the Soul.