The present article reviews the philosophical and religious teaching by Ibn al-Nafis – a prominent doctor and thinker of the 13th century. The study was carried out on the basis of his treatise ‘Kamil’s Message in Prophet’s Sirah’ which is the last classical work written in the genre of a ‘philosophical robinsonade’. The author analyzes the content of the aforementioned work and carries out a detailed research of the connection of ‘Kamil’s Message’ with earlier traditions within the Arabic Muslim thought as well as with the theory of the ‘father of sociology’ Ibn Khaldun, which appeared several decades later. It is shown that Ibn Nafis’s theology matches, on the whole, the traditional Maturidi theo­logical doctrine, while its natural, philosophical, and anthropologic views are a deve­lopment of the legacy of Mutazilite Mutakallimes and Arabic peripathetics (especially, Ibn Tufayl). Ibn Nafis’s conception of society and the sense of social processes forestalls the concepts by Ibn Khaldun. In particular, Ibn al-Nafis develops the dichotomy of ‘city inhabitants’ and ‘desert inhabitants’, the category of ‘livelihood’ and a theory of the influ­ence that geographical and climate factors have on peoples. Ibn Nafis also explores pat­terns in historical process and the impact that tyrannical governors and economic rela­tions have on it. The author also discusses Ibn al-Nafis’s eschatological ‘futurology’ ac­cording to which the end of the world is approaching in virtue of natural reasons that, in their turn, will come about as the result of the peculiarities of the course of human history.

The article deals with philosophic and religious study of the heritage of Mutazili Ibrāhīm ibn Sayyār al-Naẓẓām (d. about 845), a prominent scholar of Baṣran School of Kalām (Arab-Jewish Rational Theology). The study is based on two newly discovered treatises: A Study in Arguments by Mutazili thinker ʾAbū al-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī (d. 1085; published by S. Schmidtke and W. Madelung in 2006) and an outstanding encyclopedical work The Commentary on ‘Sources of Questions and Answers’ (pt. IV) by Zaydi philosopher and publicist al-Ḥākim al-Ǧiššamī (d. 1101; published by F. Nofal in 2021). The author specifies a number of provisions of the doctrine of the medieval Arab thinker, known to specialists for the late doxographic works of the classical era (10-17 A.) to complement his fundamental study published in 2015. The first part of the issue represents the bibliographical history of sources the study is based on. The second part is devoted to the most important elements of al-Naẓẓām’s physical and theological doctrines. In particular, there is theoretical substantiation of the thesis of absolute divine justice developed by him. Additionally, details of his reasoning about being are revealed, a new passage is published, explaining the al-Naẓẓām theory of the leap — the first Arab physical theory, opposed to autochthonous Muslim atomism. Furthermore, for the first time in the history of world oriental studies, the doctrine of al-Naẓẓām about cognition and sensory perception is being reconstructed. The nature of existence, according to al-Naẓẓām, is determined by a separate attribute created by God and merged with sustainable thing (ʻayn). On the other side, all phenomena of created being are available to the person due to the sense of the soul which examines existed things simultaneously and forcefully. Therefore, he believed that perceptive and discursive types of knowledge can be mutually convertible or created by the human or God. Particular attention in the article is paid to the physical and anthropological views of the philosopher. The author concludes: al-Naẓẓām rejected an abstract paradigm of his predecessors (al-ʿAllāf's, in particular) and tried to construct a totally physic-based anthropology, pronounced in material union between the slim substance of the soul and the rough substance of the body — two necessary elements of human being. The connection between early Muslim philosophical schools is also considered: the given material enables us to discuss real relations between al-Naẓẓām’s theories and Ghaylanite doctrine, as well as assume its influence on al-Fārābī and al-Naǧǧār ontological and gnoseological teachings.

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The present article reviews the theonyms mentioned in the corpus of Safaite epigraphic inscriptions. For the first time in the history of Russian Oriental Studies, the author conducts a comparative analysis of Safaite, Hismaite and Samudi texts and acquaints the Russian reader with the major deities of the North-Arabian pantheon. On the basis of this analysis, the work marks the two levels of Safaite Olympus: the cosmic one, represented by common Arab deities (al-Lat, Belshmin and Radw), and the tribal one, which includes the mythical characters of Salam, Yath, Dath and gadd-deities. In addition, the author observes the use of the reviewed theonyms by the denizens of pre-Islamic Arabia for the purposes of nomination.