In this short work, the first of its kind in the English language, an attempt has been made to give reliable definitions and clear explanations of the major terms used by the medieval Muslim philosophers in logic, metaphysics, psychology and other allied disciplines.
Among the many works consulted in the compilation of this dictionary are the Ta'rīfāt by 'Alī ibn Muḥammad al-Jurjānī, Mafātīḥ al-'Ulūm by Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Khwārizmī, Lexique de la Langue philosophique d' Ibn Sīnā by A.-M. Goichon and Imām al-Ghazālī's Maqāṣid al-Falāsifah. For fuller explanation of certain terms the monumental Kashf 'Iṣṭilāḥāt al-Funūn has been resorted to, while quite a few terms have been culled from Sayyid Ja'far Sajjādī's Muṣṭaliḥāt Falsafī Ṣadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī. Nicholas Rescher's Studies in the History of Arabic Logic has been helpful in the selection and elucidation of a number of logical terms.
To the important terms selected have been added some variants of Arabicised Greek names and titles which though commonly found in such source books as Ibn al-Nadīm's al-Fihrist, al-Qifṭī's Tārīkh al-Ḥukamā', Ibn abī 'Uṣaibi'ah's 'Uyūn al-'Anbā' fī Ṭabaqāt al-'Aṭibbā', are yet likely to be unfamiliar to the modern reader.
All terms given in Arabic script with transliteraion in English have been arranged alphabetically except for the definite article "al" which has been disregarded in the listing of both the single words and the compounds. Where the technical meaning of a term differs widely from its literal meaning, the latter has also been given.
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