About this text: The Book of Circles

إنشاء الدوائر

Ibn ʿArabī (560–638/1165–1240)

His treatise on existence drawn in circles, complete, with all 857 of Nyberg's apparatus notes.

On the Platonic Current: Ibn ʿArabī

In the reader

90 passages · ~65 min · audio · 18 Quran quotations

6,072 words

Audio: Arabic and English
Published translation: none (the English is AI, marked as such)
Quran quotations: 18

Not yet: commentaries.

Read it →Grammar practice Study sheet (print)

Difficulty

much rare vocabulary

Lexical difficulty, from the words themselves: how many roots fall outside the 1,000 most frequent in the Quran, how long the words are, and how much of the vowelling had to be supplied by AI. It says how unfamiliar the vocabulary is, not how deep the ideas are.

Rare roots 14% · mean word length 4.3 letters · AI vowelling on 98% of words

Themes & resonances AI

What the text is about, and what it connects to across the history of thought. Every connection says what kind of claim it is: a documented lineage, a shared source, a resonance with no influence claimed, or a contrast. Mapped by AI; references are shown only once checked. Across the library

Themes

The third thing: the Reality of realities, neither existent nor non-existentحقيقة الحقائقḥaqīqat al-ḥaqāʾiqroot حقق
Levels of existence and the kinds of the non-existentعدمʿadamroot عدم
Knowledge attaches only to what in some way existsتعلّقtaʿalluqroot علق
The human being as two copies, and as correspondence to Creator and creationمضاهاةmuḍāhātroot ضهي
Existence drawn as encompassing circles and tablesدائرةdāʾiraroot دور
The Imams of the Names and the council before creationأسماءasmāʾroot سمو
Transcendence and similarity drawn as concentric circlesتنزيهtanzīhroot نزه
Three kinds of unveiling: intellectual, psychic, lordlyكشفkashfroot كشف

What each theme is here

The third thing: the Reality of realities, neither existent nor non-existent. A third thing, qualified neither by existence nor by non-existence, is eternal in the eternal and originated in the originated, and is present whole in every thing as woodness is present in every chair (passages 34 to 46, 58 to 61).
Levels of existence and the kinds of the non-existent. Existence and non-existence are treated as relations. A thing has four levels of existence (in its entity, in knowledge, in speech, in writing), and the non-existent is sorted into kinds (passages 8 to 25).
Knowledge attaches only to what in some way exists. Knowledge is a reality in the soul that attaches to things. It reaches the non-existent only through an existent likeness or opposite, and has no hold on sheer negation (passages 18 to 31).
The human being as two copies, and as correspondence to Creator and creation. The human being has an outward copy that corresponds to the world and an inward copy that corresponds to the Divine Presence. He is an isthmus (barzakh) between them, like the line that divides shade from sun (passages 0, 51 to 54).
Existence drawn as encompassing circles and tables. The book sets out its doctrine as figures: circles of the Divine Presence, the human being and the world, joined by subtle links (raqāʾiq), so that the teaching becomes fixed in the imagination (passages 5 to 8, 55 to 59, 79 to 80).
The Imams of the Names and the council before creation. Seven Imam-Names, headed by Allāh, govern custodian Names and the worlds. The Names confer in a story of how the world came to be, and the Munificent and the Equitable divide the Names of mercy and of wrath (passages 63 to 89).
Transcendence and similarity drawn as concentric circles. The white encompassing circle images the Divine Presence under transcendence, and the inner lines show where the human being corresponds to God and where to the world. God is known as existing, and His quiddity is not known (passages 55 to 57, 64 to 66).
Three kinds of unveiling: intellectual, psychic, lordly. Unveiling may belong to the intellect freed from reflection, to the imaginal soul freed by discipline, or come as lordly self-disclosure (tajallī) from the Presences of the Names (passages 81 to 82).

Connections

Lineage 6

Documented transmission: a chain of reading, teaching, translation or citation, grounded in a verified reference or in the later text itself.

H. S. Nyberg, critical edition of Inshāʾ al-dawāʾir in Kleinere Schriften des Ibn al-ʿArabīModern scholarship · firm
Our text and its apparatus notes derive from Nyberg's Leiden edition. Nyberg's German introduction also offered one of the first modern studies of Ibn ʿArabī's doctrine of the third thing and the perfect human.
Carried by“edition”
- H. S. Nyberg, Kleinere Schriften des Ibn al-ʿArabī (1919): the critical edition of the Arabic text of Inshāʾ al-dawāʾir, with apparatus and introduction
al-Ghazālī: 'There is nothing in possibility more wondrous than what is' (laysa fī al-imkān abdaʿ mimmā kān)Kalam · firm
Ibn ʿArabī quotes al-Ghazālī's dictum twice (passages 42 and 62) and grounds it in the name the Generous. He argues that a more wondrous world withheld would make the Giver miserly (passage 88).
Carried byأبدعabdaʿroot بدع“most wondrous”
- Eric L. Ormsby, Theodicy in Islamic Thought: The Dispute over al-Ghazālī's "Best of All Possible Worlds" (1984): the dictum, its source in al-Ghazālī, and the long debate among later authors over it
Aristotle, Categories, in its Arabic translation: the ten categoriesAristotelianism · probable
Ibn ʿArabī counts the existents as ten, substance and accident with eight others (where, how, time, quantity and the rest), which is the Aristotelian list as it reached Arabic logic through the translations. He then says that all ten are gathered in the human being alone (passages 50 to 51).
Carried byمقولاتmaqūlātroot قولκατηγορίαιkatēgoriai“categories”
- Dimitri Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early ʿAbbāsid Society (1998): the translation of Aristotle's logical works, including the Categories, into Arabic
Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, Ringstone of Adam: the perfect human and vicegerencySufism · probable
The human being who gathers every divine name and every level of the world, and is therefore vicegerent, is the early doctrine of this book (passages 51 to 54). Ibn ʿArabī restates it decades later in the Fuṣūṣ.
Carried byخليفةkhalīfaroot خلف“vicegerent; perfect human”
In the library:Faṣṣ Ādam ¶6 Faṣṣ Ādam ¶17 Path: The mirror
- William C. Chittick, The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-ʿArabi's Metaphysics of Imagination (1989): Ibn ʿArabī's doctrine of the perfect human as the locus of all the divine names, across his works
Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, Ringstone of Noah: joining tanzīh and tashbīhSufism · probable
The circles of transcendence and similarity drawn here (passages 55 to 57) set out the doctrine that the Ringstone of Noah later states in argument: declaring God incomparable alone delimits Him, and the knower joins both declarations.
Carried byتنزيه / تشبيهtanzīh / tashbīhroot نزه“incomparability and similarity”
In the library:Faṣṣ Nūḥ ¶4 Faṣṣ Nūḥ ¶7 Path: Contemplation: the signs
- William C. Chittick, The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-ʿArabi's Metaphysics of Imagination (1989): Ibn ʿArabī's teaching on combining tanzīh and tashbīh
Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya: the realities brought into being according to the namesSufism · probable
The council of the Imam-Names that ask for the world to exist (passages 84 to 89) is told again in the Futūḥāt, where creation proceeds according to the number and order of the divine names.
Carried byأئمة الأسماءaʾimmat al-asmāʾroot سمو“Imams of the Names”
In the library:al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya ¶25 al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya ¶18
- William C. Chittick, The Self-Disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn al-ʿArabī's Cosmology (1998): Ibn ʿArabī's cosmology of the divine names and their governance of the worlds in the Futūḥāt

Resonance, not influence 8

Resonance, not influence: a structural or thematic likeness. No influence is claimed.

G. W. Leibniz, Essais de Théodicée (1710): the best of all possible worldsEarly modern philosophy · probable
Both reason from God's goodness and power to the claim that the actual world could not be bettered. Leibniz argues from a choice among possible worlds, and Ibn ʿArabī denies choice in God and speaks of a will whose contrary is impossible (passages 19 to 20). This is a resonance and no influence is claimed.
Carried by“best possible world”
Ibn Sīnā, Ilāhiyyāt of al-Shifāʾ: quiddity in itself ('horseness is only horseness')Falsafa (Arabic philosophy) · probable
Ibn Sīnā's quiddity considered in itself, neither universal nor particular, and Ibn ʿArabī's 'woodness', whole in every chair without division (passage 45), share a structure. Ibn ʿArabī goes further and makes his third thing neither existent nor non-existent. We do not claim this passage as a borrowing.
Carried byماهيةmāhiyya“quiddity; woodness”
Plato, Timaeus 48e–52d: the receptacle (khōra) as a 'third kind'Platonism · suggestive
Plato adds a third kind, besides being and becoming, that receives all forms and is grasped only by a kind of bastard reasoning. Ibn ʿArabī's third thing is also known only by allusion and comparison, and he lets it be called prime matter (hayūlā) (passages 43, 46). Plato's receptacle is no aspect of God, while Ibn ʿArabī's third thing is conjoined with the Real.
Carried byهيولىhayūlāχώραkhōra“the third kind”
al-Ghazālī, Mishkāt al-anwār: Adam given an abridged form that gathers all the worldSufism · probable
Both texts read the report that God created Adam upon His form as meaning that the human being is a compendium of the world and a symbol of the divine. Al-Ghazālī speaks of an abridged copy, and Ibn ʿArabī of two copies, one outward and one inward.
Carried byصورةṣūraroot صور“form; copy”
In the library:Mishkāt al-anwār ¶91 Mishkāt al-anwār ¶93
Plotinus, Ennead VI.9: the soul's motion around its centreNeoplatonism · probable
Plotinus pictures the soul as a circle whose centre is the One. Ibn ʿArabī draws the human being as a circle placed between the encompassing circle of the Divine Presence and the circle of the world (passage 56). Both use concentric figures to show a relation of centre to periphery, and no influence is claimed.
Carried byدائرةdāʾiraroot دورκέντρονkentron“centre and circle”
In the library:Ennead VI.9, ch. 8 Path: Contemplation: the signs
Plato, Symposium 202e: Love as a daimōn between god and mortalPlatonism · probable
Diotima's daimōn stands between gods and mortals and binds the whole together. Ibn ʿArabī's human being is an isthmus (barzakh) that gathers creation and the Real, like the line that divides shade from sun (passage 54). The two share the figure of the go-between, and no influence is claimed.
Carried byبرزخbarzakhδαίμωνdaimōn“intermediary”
In the library:Symposium 202e
Ramon Llull, Ars: the divine dignities set on revolving circlesMedieval Latin philosophy · suggestive
Llull arranged God's attributes on circles and figures so that their combinations could be seen and learned. Ibn ʿArabī also draws the Names on tables and circles joined by links, so that the doctrine becomes fixed in the imagination (passage 79). Contact between the two has been suggested but is not documented, so this is resonance only.
Carried by“names drawn as circles”
Alexius Meinong, Über Gegenstandstheorie (1904): objects that have no beingModern philosophy of language · suggestive
Meinong held that thought can have objects that do not exist, and Russell answered him by analysing such objects away. Ibn ʿArabī sorts the non-existents and asks how knowledge can attach to them. His answer is that it attaches only through an existent likeness or opposite, and sheer negation is neither known nor unknown (passages 22 to 31), which comes closer to Russell's side of the debate.
Carried byمعدومmaʿdūmroot عدم“the non-existent object”

Contrast 1

An instructive opposite: the difference teaches something about both.

Plotinus, Ennead VI.9: the One beyond beingNeoplatonism · probable
For Plotinus the One is beyond being and cannot be called existent. Ibn ʿArabī here calls God absolute Existence, known in that He exists and unknown in quiddity (passages 47, 64 to 65). The unknowable element falls in different places in the two accounts.
Carried byوجودwujūdroot وجدἐπέκεινα τῆς οὐσίαςepekeina tēs ousias“existence; beyond being”
In the library:Ennead VI.9, ch. 3

Claude (opus) via Claude Code, headless, no web access, 2026-09-28. A reference with a check was found and checked with a web search.

Versions

12 layers, each with its licence

The original

Nyberg's critical edition (Leiden 1919)H. S. Nyberg · 1919Public domain

By: H. S. Nyberg (editor) · 1919
Source:: H. S. Nyberg (ed.), Kleinere Schriften des Ibn al-ʿArabī (Leiden: Brill, 1919), Arabic text pp. 3–38 (pp. 1–2 = title leaves); German notes pp. ~160–175. Robarts/Toronto scan; printed page p = 466 − leaf index n · link ↗
In the reader:: In full, with all 857 of Nyberg's apparatus notes, anchored to their words; each passage links to its page
Licence:: Public domain (1919); nothing held back
Notes: The only critical edition. Its consonants, hamza, alif maqṣūra / yāʾ and partial vowelling are kept exactly (e.g. فى, الّذى, اللّٰه). Footnote numbers and lettered range marks removed from the text, every note kept. Nyberg's square brackets (pp. 35–36, a piece found only in W¹) are dropped; the passage is kept (passages 81–84). The archive.org OCR was used only as a typing aid.

Nyberg's manuscripts (U, W¹, W², M, L, P, S), through his apparatusH. S. Nyberg · UNVERIFIEDPublic domain

By: H. S. Nyberg (collator) · UNVERIFIED
Source:: U = Uppsala, W¹ W² = Vienna, M, L, P, S, as recorded in Nyberg's apparatus (mentions: W² 291, W¹ 289, U 274, L 148, P 81, M 71, S 6). M breaks off at p. 16, L at p. 24; W² lacks p. 17 n. 10 – p. 20 l. 8; P resumes at p. 26
In the reader:: 857 apparatus notes (242 omissions), each anchored to a word or span; no reading of Nyberg's text replaced by a manuscript reading
Licence:: Known only through Nyberg's public-domain apparatus
UNVERIFIED:: The libraries, shelfmarks and dates of Nyberg's manuscripts are in his German introduction, which has not been transcribed.

Our edition

Our transcription of Nyberg's text and apparatusClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (read from the 2000-px page images in three batches, each page in 3–4 cropped bands; proofread twice) · 2026-09-28
Source:: data/sources/inshaa-base.json (comparison, uncertain, figureLabels); text record docs/texts/inshaa.md
In the reader:: In full, 90 passages (our own division: Nyberg has no paragraphing), with the four figures (pp. 23, 25, 28, 35)
Licence:: Ours
Made by:: UNVERIFIED (the text record says "Claude" without naming the model), 2026-09-28 (AI transcription of the page images, with a second pass word by word and a third on fresh crops)
Notes: Nyberg's text reproduced: no substantive decisions. 88 doubtful readings listed (almost all in the small type of the apparatus). The figure labels are our transcription (by page); on p. 25 the order of الوضع / الإضافة is marked probable. Human review pending.
UNVERIFIED:: The model that transcribed Nyberg's pages is not named in the text record.

AI layers

Vowels supplied by AIClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (vowelling) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: Underlined in amber in the reader (5,965 of 6,072 words carry at least one AI mark)
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (scripts/recitals/prepare.py inshaa (headless, model opus); date = first commit of app/src/data/inshaa.json)
Notes: Nyberg's print vowels (mask t) are the source; the AI completed the rest, 90/90 passages, and kept its list of ambiguous readings (342 items). 8 Quran quotations the model had re-encoded were restored to the verbatim Tanzil string. Every letter checked unchanged; the AI's marks are kept apart from the source's (vowelMask a / t).

English translationClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (translator) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: Under each passage
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (scripts/recitals/translate.py inshaa opus; date = first commit of app/src/content/ai/inshaa.json (the file has no generatedOn))
Notes: Translated from the Arabic with the glossary in data/sources/inshaa-meta.json; 90/90 passages. Not a published translation; not scholar-reviewed. No published translation used.

Word glossesClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (glosses) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: Every word glossed, in the word card
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (made with the translation, same file and call (app/src/content/ai/inshaa.json); date = its first commit)

Term notesClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (term notes) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: In the word card (540 notes)
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (made with the translation (app/src/content/ai/inshaa.json); date = its first commit)

Themes and resonancesClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (map of themes and connections) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: On the About page (whole-text level)
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (generatedOn of app/src/content/resonances/inshaa.json (scripts/resonances.py))
Notes: Made by the method in docs/RESONANCES-METHOD.md, without web access. Every connection states its kind; parallels are resonances, not claims of influence. External references are shown only after an agent verified them with a web search.

Automatic analysis

Word analysis: CAMeL ToolsCAMeL Tools 1.6 (CAMeL Lab, NYU Abu Dhabi), scripts/fusus/analyze.py · 2026-09-28Open licence

By: CAMeL Tools 1.6 (CAMeL Lab, NYU Abu Dhabi) (morphological analyser (calima-msa-r13 + MLE)); scripts/fusus/analyze.py (our pipeline) · 2026-09-28
Source:: CAMeL Tools 1.6, calima-msa-r13 database with the MLE disambiguator, constrained by the text's vowelling (scripts/fusus/analyze.py inshaa.json inshaa-analysis.json n1) · link ↗
In the reader:: Lemma, root, part of speech and clitics in the word card, with a grey "Automatic" badge
Licence:: Code MIT; calima-msa-r13 database GPL v2 (used offline to produce our analysis layer, not redistributed)
Notes: Automatic, not generative AI. 6,072 words analysed, 3,681 with a root, 478 distinct roots, 194 vowel conflicts. Date: first commit of data/sources/inshaa-analysis.json.

Quran quotations (Tanzil)Tanzil Project, scripts/quran_refs.py · 2026-09-28Open licence

By: Tanzil Project (Uthmani Quran text); scripts/quran_refs.py (automatic skeleton match) · 2026-09-28
Source:: Tanzil Uthmani text; quotations verified when the text was established, plus an automatic skeleton match against the Tanzil Quran (runs with at least two distinctive words); no AI · link ↗
In the reader:: Quran quotations marked in the text, with their verse
Licence:: Tanzil: free to use with attribution and a link to tanzil.net; the text may not be modified
Notes: 14 exact quotations replaced by the verbatim Uthmani text; 5 allusions or formulas left as printed (7:40 adapted; «والله بكل شيء محيط» is introduced as Quran but matches no verse). Automatic, not generative AI. Date: first commit of app/src/data/quran-refs/inshaa.json.

Audio

Machine voice: Arabicar-SA-HamedNeural (Azure AI Speech) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: ar-SA-HamedNeural (Azure AI Speech) (text-to-speech) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: Each passage can be heard, each word highlighted as it is read
Licence:: Ours; generated on Azure's paid tier, whose terms allow the audio output to be published
Made by:: ar-SA-HamedNeural (Azure AI Speech), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/data/inshaa-audio.json)
Notes: Machine voice reading the vowelled Arabic; a reading aid, not a recitation.

Machine voice: Englishen-GB-RyanNeural (Azure AI Speech) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: en-GB-RyanNeural (Azure AI Speech) (text-to-speech) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: Each passage can be heard, each word highlighted as it is read
Licence:: Ours; generated on Azure's paid tier, whose terms allow the audio output to be published
Made by:: en-GB-RyanNeural (Azure AI Speech), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/data/inshaa-audio-en.json)
Notes: Machine voice reading the AI English translation; a reading aid, not a recitation.

✦ marks AI that no person has reviewed yet; ✧ marks AI reviewed by a named person. Copyrighted works are cited, never shown. All sources · How texts are established

The text record

Our working notes on this edition: status, witnesses, the decisions taken and why, and what AI supplied. This is a working edition, not an authority.Show the notes

Work / author / dates	Kitāb Inshāʾ al-dawāʾir (إنشاء الدوائر, "The Book of Circles"; Nyberg's MSS also title it Inshāʾ al-jadāwil wa-l-dawāʾir and Inshāʾ al-dawāʾir al-iḥāṭiyya ʿalā muḍāhāt al-insān li-l-khāliq wa-l-khalāʾiq) · Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn al-ʿArabī (560–638 AH / 1165–1240 CE). Addressed to his companion ʿAbd Allāh Badr al-Ḥabashī.
Part added	Whole text (Nyberg's Arabic pp. 3–38; about 6,070 words)
Id / files	`inshaa` · `data/sources/inshaa-base.json`, `inshaa-meta.json`, `inshaa.json` (vowelled), `inshaa-analysis.json` (ids `n1:…`), AI layer `app/src/content/ai/inshaa.json`
Status	working edition, established 28 Sept 2026 (transcription + two proofreadings by Claude from the page images) · reviewed by a person: —

Structure: doxology and dedication; why the realities are put into figures (the sensible mould helps the understanding); faṣl on existence and non-existence as relations, the four ranks of existence (in the entity, in knowledge, in speech, in writing); the divisions of the non-existent; the "third thing" (neither existent nor non-existent, the Reality of realities); faṣl on the divisions of the existent (the ten categories); the human being's correspondence (muḍāhāt) to God and world; the figure of the three Presences (p. 23); the hylic table and the circle of substance and accidents (p. 25); the table of the Divine Presence by the Most Beautiful Names (names of Essence / Attributes / Acts, p. 28) and how to take on their character; bāb on the cause of the beginning of the world: the seven Imam-Names, the custodians (sadana), the figure of the Imams (announced p. 35, not printed); an appended passage on kinds of unveiling and the angels (bracketed by Nyberg: only in W¹); the "primordial council" of the Names before creation; colophon.

1. Witnesses

Siglum	Witness	Kind	Vowelled?	Licence	Location
N	H. S. Nyberg (ed.), Kleinere Schriften des Ibn al-ʿArabī (Leiden: Brill, 1919): Arabic text pp. 3–38 (pp. 1–2 are the title leaves), German notes pp. ~160–175. Critical edition with a full apparatus.	critical ed.	partly (key words, Quran in full)	public domain (1919)	archive.org `kitabinshaaldawa00ibna` (Robarts/Toronto scan); page images n424–n466 kept locally. Printed page p = 466 − archive leaf index n (p. 3 = n463, p. 23 = n443, p. 38 = n428).
U, W¹, W², M, L, P, S	Nyberg's manuscripts, known only through his apparatus. Mentions in our transcription of the apparatus: W² 291, W¹ 289, U 274, L 148, P 81, M 71, S 6. Gaps noted by Nyberg: M breaks off at p. 16, L at p. 24; W² lacks p. 17 n. 10 – p. 20 l. 8; P resumes at p. 26. Identification of the MSS (libraries, shelfmarks) is in Nyberg's German introduction and has not been transcribed yet.	MSS (via apparatus)	—	—	—
—	Digital: archive.org OCR (`djvu.txt`) of N is unusable for the Arabic except as a typing aid. No OpenITI text of the Inshāʾ was used.	digital

2. Base and why

N is the only critical edition and is public domain. Base = N's text as printed: consonants, hamza, alif maqṣūra / yāʾ and Nyberg's partial vowelling kept exactly (e.g. فى, الّذى, اللّٰه). Transcribed from the 2000-px page images in three parallel batches, each page read in 3–4 cropped bands, then proofread twice (a second pass word by word, a third pass on fresh crops at different band boundaries); corrections of each pass are logged in the working files (scratchpad/nyb/part{1,2,3}.json, not kept in the repo).

Nyberg's footnote numbers and lettered range marks are removed from the text; every note is kept (see §3).
Nyberg's square brackets (pp. 35–36, «[اعلم أنّ من الكشف … أصله]», a piece found only in W¹ according to his note 5 on p. 36) are dropped from the text; the passage is kept (passages 81–84; the bracket closes early in 84). To review: whether it should be marked as an appendix.

3. Collation (Nyberg's apparatus)

inshaa-base.json → comparison.variants: 857 apparatus notes, each anchored to passage + word (numbered notes) or to a span (lettered notes a–a, b–b …), with page, line, lemma and the note as printed (German abbreviations kept: fehlt = omits, + = adds). 242 of them record omissions. No reading of N has been replaced by a manuscript reading.

4. Decisions (substantive)

None: N's text is reproduced. 88 doubtful readings are listed in uncertain (almost all in the small type of the apparatus; in the main text only p. 37 l. 1 «ما», a broken first word).

5. Quotations verified

Against the Tanzil Uthmani text: 14 exact quotations replaced by the verbatim Uthmani text (42:11 ×6 in four passages, 45:13, 28:68, 20:110, 37:180, 65:12, 68:4, 9:128, 39:63), each recorded in quotes and, where N's form differed, in changes. Notes: 65:12 N prints وَإِنَّ (Q وَأَنَّ), replaced from ٱللَّهَ on; 68:4 N vowels خَلْقٍ, Q خُلُقٍ (the context, takhalluq, requires "character"); 37:180 N's وسُبْحَانَ left, replaced from رَبِّكَ on. 5 allusions/formulas left as printed: 7:40 (adapted), يُدَبِّرُ الْأَمْرَ (10:3 etc.), وَلَوْ شِئْنَا / وَلَوْ شَاءَ (formulae cited as a class), «والله بكل شيء محيط» (introduced as Quran but no verse has these words; cf. 41:54, 4:126), the shahāda (47:19). scripts/quran_refs.py has not been run for this text: its text list is hard-coded (see §12).

6. Vowelling

Source: N's print vowels (mask t) + AI (Claude Opus via scripts/recitals/prepare.py, mask a), letters verified unchanged; 90/90 passages vowelled. The AI's list of ambiguous readings is kept per passage (ambiguous, 342 items).
Post-processing (not in the shared script): the vowelling model had re-encoded 8 Quran quotations (mark order; آ precomposed in يَشَآءُ); they were restored to the verbatim Tanzil string and a spurious "mechanical" change removed.
Comparison with an authoritative vowelled edition: none exists beyond N itself.

7. Segmentation and word IDs

90 passages of 40–90 words (our own: N has no paragraphing), cut at N's headings (فصل / باب), at figures and at discourse openers. Each passage carries printedPage, pages, first line and a scan link to the archive.org page. Word ids n1:<passage>:<token> (analyze.py numbering).

Figures (field figure on the passage after which the figure stands, with figurePage, figureScan, figureNote):

Passage	Nyberg	Component
55	p. 23 (ends «وهذه دوائر ما قرّرناه على التنزيه والتشبيه»)	`ThreePresences`
59	p. 25 (ends «وهى هذه الدائرة المذكورة»)	`TenCategories`
63	pp. 27–28 (ends «وهذه صورته»; table on p. 28)	`NamesTable`
80	p. 35 l. 7 (ends «هذه صورة الدائرة المتقدّمة الذكر»; not printed)	`InshaImams`

Passages 56–58 explain the p. 23 figure, 60–62 the p. 25 circle, 64–75 the table, 76–80 the Imams. Our transcription of the figure labels is in figureLabels (by page). Check against the components: on p. 25 the transcriber read the sectors (clockwise from the top) as ان ينفعل, ان يفعل, الوضع, الاضافة, العدد, المكان, الزمان, الحال(?), العرض: the component TenCategories has الإضافة and الوضع the other way round, both marked "probable".

8. Analysis layer

scripts/fusus/analyze.py inshaa.json inshaa-analysis.json n1 (CAMeL Tools): 6,072 words analysed, 3,681 with a root, 478 distinct roots, 194 vowel conflicts.

9. Commentaries aligned

None. (No classical commentary on the Inshāʾ is known to us.)

10. Translation

AI (Claude Opus, scripts/recitals/translate.py inshaa opus), marked as AI, with the glossary in inshaa-meta.json: 90/90 passages translated, 6,072/6,072 words glossed. No published translation used.

11. Rights and private layers

All material public domain (N 1919, Tanzil). Nothing in the private layer.

12. Open questions / to review

A person should review the transcription, above all the figure labels and the 88 uncertain items.
Transcribe Nyberg's introduction on the MSS (sigla → libraries) and his German notes on the text (pp. ~160–175).
Decide how to present the W¹-only bracketed passage (passages 81–84).
prepare.py drops extra passage fields (figure, pages, scan); they were copied back into inshaa.json from the base by a one-off step. translate.py also writes an empty commentary file (app/public/data/commentaries/inshaa.json, no commentators). quran_refs.py needs inshaa in its TEXTS.

13. Change log

2026-09-28: text transcribed from N (pp. 3–38), proofread twice, Quran verified, apparatus recorded (857 notes), segmented (90 passages, 4 figures), AI-vowelled, analysed (n1), AI-translated.