Mashrabaمشربة

About this text: The Recital of the Bird

رسالة الطير

Ibn Sīnā (370–428/980–1037)

Birds caught in the net, their escape, and the journey over eight mountains to the King.

On the Platonic Current: Avicenna

In the reader

15 passages · ~15 min · audio · 1 Quran quotation

1,086 words

  • Audio: Arabic and English
  • Published translation: none (the English is AI, marked as such)
  • Quran quotations: 1

Not yet: commentaries.

Read it →Grammar practiceStudy 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 18% · mean word length 4.6 letters · AI vowelling on 100% of words

Themes & resonances

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 soul caught in the net and the cageقفصqafaṣroot قفص
  • Flight out of the cageطيرانṭayarānroot طير
  • The brothers of truth and sincere friendshipخليلkhalīlroot خلل
  • The eight mountainsجبلjabalroot جبل
  • Courtyards, curtains and the lifted veilحجابḥijābroot حجب
  • The King who is wholly faceملكmalikroot ملك
  • The ring left on the footحبالةḥibālaroot حبل
  • The intellect that 'flew off'عقلʿaqlroot عقل
What each theme is here
  • The soul caught in the net and the cage. The birds are lured by food and company into the hunters' nets, and in time they grow used to the snare and settle into their cages, forgetting what they were.
  • Flight out of the cage. Flight is the text's figure for the soul's release, and a lack of wings is no excuse: 'steal away by stealth', for the best birds are those strong enough to fly.
  • The brothers of truth and sincere friendship. The recital opens with a complaint against friendship made into trade and an appeal to the brothers joined by divine kinship, and in the tale it is fellow birds, bound by an old covenant (ʿahd), who free the narrator.
  • The eight mountains. The freed birds cross the Mountain of God and eight further peaks. They rest briefly in the gardens of the seventh, are warned that 'there is no snare like a sense of security', and are welcomed by kinder birds on the eighth.
  • Courtyards, curtains and the lifted veil. The King's palace is entered through courtyards, each so wide that the one before seems narrow, until the veil is lifted and the birds see the King.
  • The King who is wholly face. The King holds every beauty with no ugliness mixed in and every perfection with no lack; 'in his beauty he is wholly face, and in his generosity wholly hand.'
  • The ring left on the foot. Even the freed birds keep a remnant of the snare on their feet, and the King says only those who tied it can undo it, so some tie to the body remains until it is loosed from outside.
  • The intellect that 'flew off'. The listeners tell the narrator that his intellect has flown off and prescribe remedies for an excess of bile, and he answers that their words are wasted.

Connections

Lineage 3

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

  • Suhrawardī, The Occidental Exile (Qiṣṣat al-ghurba al-gharbiyya), and his Persian version of the Recital of the BirdIshraqi philosophy · firm

    Suhrawardī made a Persian version of Ibn Sīnā's Recital of the Bird. In the preface to his own exile tale he names Ibn Sīnā's recitals as the story he means to carry further, and that tale is again one of captives in chains who are freed by a messenger bird and climb a mountain.

    Carried by“captivity and the messenger bird”

    In the library:al-Ghurba al-gharbiyya ¶4al-Ghurba al-gharbiyya ¶9Path: The fall and the return of the soul

  • ʿAṭṭār, The Conference of the Birds (Manṭiq al-ṭayr), by way of the Epistle of the Birds attributed to al-GhazālīPersian poetry · probable

    The Epistle of the Birds that circulated under al-Ghazālī's name recasts Ibn Sīnā's flight of birds to a King as a Sufi allegory, and ʿAṭṭār's poem of the birds crossing seven valleys to the Sīmurgh stands in this line of bird-journeys to a sovereign.

    Carried byطيرṭayrroot طير“the birds' journey to the King”

  • Plotinus, Enneads, as read in Arabic through the Theology of AristotleNeoplatonism · probable

    Ibn Sīnā wrote glosses on the Arabic paraphrase of Plotinus known as the Theology of Aristotle, which reached him as part of the Neoplatonic account of the soul's descent and return. In Ennead VI.9 the soul sees its source but 'does not remain there' because it has not yet wholly come out, which is close in sense to the ring still left on the bird's foot.

    Carried by“the soul's return to its source”

    In the library:Ennead VI.9, ch. 9Ennead VI.9, ch. 10

Resonance, not influence 9

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

  • Ibn Sīnā (traditional attribution), The Ode on the Soul (al-ʿAyniyya)Falsafa (Arabic philosophy) · firm

    The ode tradition places under the same author's name has a dove held back by a dense snare and barred by a cage from the open height, weeping for dwellings it remembers. Here the bird is a single soul that fell from on high; in the Recital it is a flock that was lured.

    Carried byقفصqafaṣroot قفص“snare and cage”

    In the library:al-ʿAyniyya ¶10al-ʿAyniyya ¶8Path: The fall and the return of the soul

  • Ibn Sīnā, The Recital of Ḥayy ibn YaqẓānFalsafa (Arabic philosophy) · firm

    Ibn Sīnā's other recital has a sage who names the soul's bad companions and guides it on the journey through the climes. The Bird replaces the single sage with fellow birds who are themselves half-bound, since 'How can the sick heal you?'

    Carried by“the guide on the way out”

    In the library:Ḥayy (Ibn Sīnā) ¶4Ḥayy (Ibn Sīnā) ¶11

  • Suhrawardī, The Temples of Light, seventh templeIshraqi philosophy · probable

    Suhrawardī says the rational souls belong to the angelic world and are kept from it by bodily occupations, which states as doctrine what the Bird shows as a story about birds who have forgotten themselves in their cages.

    Carried by“what keeps the soul from its world”

    In the library:Hayākil al-nūr ¶28

  • Plato, Phaedrus 246a–249d: the winged soulPlatonism · probable

    In Plato's myth the soul sheds its wings and falls to earth, and the sight of beauty makes them grow again. Ibn Sīnā's birds keep their wings but are caught by the neck and feet, and they too are drawn upward toward a beauty.

    Carried byπτερόνpteron“wing”

  • Plato, Republic VII 514a–517a: the cavePlatonism · probable

    Prisoners grow content with their chains until one is freed and led up, and when he comes back his fellows mock him. At the end of the Recital the narrator's brothers likewise say his mind has flown off and prescribe cures for bile.

    Carried by“the returning one thought mad”

  • Plato, Symposium 211e: the beautiful itself, 'unmixed'Platonism · probable

    Diotima's beautiful itself is 'pure, clean, unmixed' with anything mortal. Ibn Sīnā's King is the beauty with which no ugliness mixes, and the one who sees him is freed from bewilderment only by his kindness.

    Carried byἀμιγήςamigēs“unmixed beauty”

    In the library:Symposium 211ePath: Love: the soul's longing back

  • al-Ghazālī, The Niche of Lights, and the hadith of the veils of light and darknessSufism · probable

    Both texts arrange the approach to God as a passage through successive veils. al-Ghazālī orders them as ranks of light and darkness; Ibn Sīnā builds them as palace courtyards, each wider than the one before.

    Carried byحجابḥijābroot حجب“veil”

    In the library:Path: Light and its veils

  • The Hymn of the Pearl (Acts of Thomas)Gnosticism · probable

    A prince sent to Egypt forgets his mission among its people until a letter from home reminds him who he is. Ibn Sīnā's bird forgets 'the form of its condition' in the cage and is reminded by the sight of other birds flying.

    Carried by“forgetting and being reminded”

  • Dhammapada 174: 'like a bird escaped from a net, few go to heaven'Buddhism · probable

    The Pali verse uses the bird freed from the net as an image for the few who get free of a blind world. The Recital uses the same image for the soul freed from the body's appetites, with no link between them.

    Carried by“bird freed from the net”

Contrast 2

An instructive opposite: the difference teaches something about both.

  • Ibn Ṭufayl, The Tale of Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān: the solitary knowerFalsafa (Arabic philosophy) · probable

    Ibn Ṭufayl's Ḥayy reasons his way alone from the body of the gazelle toward God. Ibn Sīnā's bird cannot get out alone: other birds have to open the cage, and the King has to send a messenger.

    Carried by“alone or with companions”

    In the library:Ḥayy (Ibn Ṭufayl) ¶80

  • Franz Kafka, Zürau aphorisms: 'A cage went in search of a bird'Modern literature · firm

    In Kafka's aphorism the cage is the agent that goes looking for its bird. In Ibn Sīnā the birds go willingly into the net for food and company and then come to rest content in their cages.

    Carried byقفصqafaṣroot قفص“cage”

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

14 layers, each with its licence

The original

Mehren's edition (Leiden 1891)A. F. Mehren · 1891Public domain
By
A. F. Mehren (editor) · 1891
Source:
A. F. Mehren (ed.), Traités mystiques d'Abou Alî al-Hosain b. Abdallah b. Sînâ ou d'Avicenne, fasc. II (… L'Oiseau, traité mystique d'Avicenne) (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1891), Arabic text of Risālat al-Ṭayr pp. 42–48 of the Arabic part (lithographed, with the manuscript variants as 29 lettered footnotes). Internet Archive scan of the University of Ottawa copy · link ↗
In the reader:
In full, through our transcription: 15 sections (our division by sense; the print is continuous), 1,086 words, with the 29 footnote variants
Licence:
Public domain (Leiden 1891)
Notes
The Arabic is bound in reverse order (pdf 45 = p. 42 … pdf 39 = p. 48). The DLI copy in.ernet.dli.2015.323235 has a usable Arabic OCR but was not used for the text.
The four manuscripts (via Mehren's footnotes)A. F. Mehren · UNVERIFIEDPublic domain
By
A. F. Mehren (reports their readings) · UNVERIFIED
Source:
B, B²: London, British Museum, Cat. codd. manuscr. or. Mus. Brit. II, p. 450, no. XXVI (with the Persian commentary of ʿUmar b. Sahlān al-Sāwajī) and no. XXVIII (text alone); A, A²: Leiden, Cat. codd. or. Bibl. Acad. Lugd. Bat. III, p. 329, no. 1464 (= Cod. 1020a (10) Warn.) and IV, p. 313, no. 2144 (= Cod. 177 (5) Gol.; collated for Mehren by M. J. de Goeje)
In the reader:
Their variants, as Mehren's footnotes give them
Licence:
Manuscripts: public domain; known only through Mehren's footnotes
Notes
Mehren's siglum L is ambiguous in his avant-propos (printed p. 26); it most likely means the agreement of the two Leiden copies.
UNVERIFIED:
The dates of the four manuscripts are not recorded.

Our edition

Our transcription of Mehren's ArabicClaude (AI), Claude (AI) · 2026-09-28Our work
By
Claude (AI) (first reading of the page images); Claude (AI) (second, independent reading) · 2026-09-28
Source:
data/sources/tayr-mehren.json (built by scripts/recitals/tayr_assemble.py), data/sources/tayr-mehren-proof.json; text record §§3–4
In the reader:
In full; Mehren's footnote keys are not reproduced in the text (each variant records its anchor word)
Licence:
Ours
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (AI reading of page images; first commit of data/sources/tayr-mehren.json)
Notes
Letter by letter from 220-dpi page images, difficult words re-checked at 500 dpi, keeping the print's spelling. Second, independent AI reading of all 7 pages, vowel marks ignored: 1,067 of 1,086 words agree (98.3%); of the 19 differences the first reading stands in 14, three were errors in the file and were corrected (ثبت, تف, صرمه), one is a print-versus-sense choice (وحلوا as printed, sense وجلوا), one cosmetic. Misprints kept as printed with a 'print X, read Y' note (ضبّع, بدّ, طبخ). Not yet checked by a person.

Published translations

Mehren's French translationA. F. Mehren · 1891Public domain
By
A. F. Mehren (translator) · 1891
Source:
Mehren, Traités mystiques II (Leiden 1891), 'L'Oiseau, traité mystique d'Avicenne rendu en français et expliqué selon le commentaire persan de Sâwedjî', printed pp. 27–32 · link ↗
In the reader:
Not shown
Licence:
Public domain (1891)
Notes
Its footnotes paraphrase al-Sāwajī's Persian commentary (from BM no. XXVI), which is not in the fascicle.
Corbin's translation (Trask's English)Henry Corbin, W. R. Trask · 1952–54; English 1960Copyrighted: cited only
By
Henry Corbin (translator); W. R. Trask (English translator) · 1952–54; English 1960
Source:
Henry Corbin, Avicenna and the Visionary Recital, tr. W. R. Trask (New York: Pantheon, 1960; Princeton 1990), the Recital of the Bird pp. 186–192 · link ↗
In the reader:
Not shown; none of its wording is reproduced
Licence:
In copyright; cited only
Notes
Our AI translation was checked against it privately and corrected from the Arabic in one place (§12).

AI layers

Vowelling (supplied vowels)Claude (AI) · 2026-09-28Our work
By
Claude (AI) (vowelling) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:
The vowel marks the AI supplied are shown in amber (per-character mask: 't' from the source, 'a' from AI)
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/data/tayr.json (scripts/recitals/prepare.py tayr: headless Claude Code, Opus; letters verified unchanged))
Notes
The print's own marks kept (326); everything else supplied by AI (3,809 marks). Mehren's sign over alif read as a connecting alif where the model rewrote it, each case logged. 73 words with two defensible vowellings listed. No vowelled edition available for comparison.
English translation, passage by passageClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28Our 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 (first commit of app/src/content/ai/tayr.json (scripts/recitals/translate.py tayr opus: headless Claude Code, minimal context))
Notes
Written for this reader from the Arabic (our vowelled text), with the glossary in data/sources/tayr-meta.json; the model was told not to reproduce or imitate published translations (Corbin/Trask, Goichon, Heath, Thackston, Azal, Hussain, Beneito & Hirtenstein, Austin, Nicholson, Chittick) and was given none. Corrected from the Arabic on 2026-09-28 in §12 (grammar of agreement, lexis) after a private comparison with a published translation (Corbin/Trask).
Word glossesClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28Our work
By
Claude (AI) (glosses) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:
One gloss per word, in the sense the passage gives it (word panel, and under the words on request)
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/content/ai/tayr.json (scripts/recitals/translate.py tayr opus: headless Claude Code, minimal context))
Notes
Contextual glosses (1–5 words) for every word id, from the same run as the translation.
Term notesClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28Our work
By
Claude (AI) (notes) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:
Up to six technical terms per passage, each with a one-sentence note, on the word
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/content/ai/tayr.json (scripts/recitals/translate.py tayr opus: headless Claude Code, minimal context))
Notes
From the same run as the translation, with the glossary in data/sources/tayr-meta.json (ikhwān al-ḥaqq, al-ṭayr, al-ḥibāla / al-sharak, al-jibāl, al-malik …).
Resonances: themes and connectionsClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28Our work
By
Claude (AI) (map of themes and connections, by docs/RESONANCES-METHOD.md) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:
For the whole text: themes and 14 connections, on the About page
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (generatedOn of content/resonances/tayr.json (Claude Code, headless, no web access))
Notes
Every connection states its kind; parallels are resonances, not claims of influence. External references were proposed by the model without web access and are shown only after an agent verified them with a web search.

Automatic analysis

Word analysis (CAMeL Tools)CAMeL Tools 1.6 (NYU Abu Dhabi) · 2026-09-28Our work
By
CAMeL Tools 1.6 (NYU Abu Dhabi) (analyser: calima-msa-r13 + MLE, constrained by the text's vowelling) · 2026-09-28
Source:
scripts/fusus/analyze.py → data/sources/tayr-analysis.json · link ↗
In the reader:
Lemma, root, part of speech, clitics and pattern, in the word panel
Licence:
Our analysis layer, made offline with CAMeL Tools (code MIT; calima-msa-r13 database GPL v2, not redistributed)
Notes
1,129 words, 719 with a root, 395 distinct roots, 65 vowel conflicts with the AI vowelling. Automatic and non-generative; date = first commit of the analysis file.
Quran quotations found automaticallyscripts/quran_refs.py · 2026-09-28Our work
By
scripts/quran_refs.py (skeleton matcher against the Tanzil Uthmani text) · 2026-09-28
Source:
app/src/data/quran-refs/tayr.json
In the reader:
1 matches, on the words they cover
Licence:
Ours
Notes
Quotations verified when the text was established, plus an automatic match on the consonantal skeleton (vowels, Quranic marks, alif spellings and hamza seats ignored): a run of four or more words, or three words of at least 12 letters. No AI. §15: «وسيعلم الذين ظلموا أي منقلب ينقلبون», the end of 26:227 (no quotation was marked when the text was established).

Audio

Arabic read aloud (machine voice)ar-SA-HamedNeural (Azure AI Speech) · 2026-09-28Our work
By
ar-SA-HamedNeural (Azure AI Speech) (machine voice) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:
Each passage, word by word highlighted
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/tayr-audio.json)
Notes
Machine voice reading the vowelled text (including the AI vowels); a reading aid, not a recitation.
English read aloud (machine voice)en-GB-RyanNeural (Azure AI Speech) · 2026-09-28Our work
By
en-GB-RyanNeural (Azure AI Speech) (machine voice) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:
Each passage, word by word highlighted
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/tayr-audio-en.json)
Notes
Machine voice reading the AI English translation; a reading aid.

✦ 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 / datesRisālat al-Ṭayr (رسالة الطير), "The Recital of the Bird" · Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd Allāh Ibn Sīnā (370–428 AH / 980–1037 CE). The third recital of the Avicennan cycle, after Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān (see ibn-sina-hayy.md).
Part addedWhole text: Mehren's Arabic pp. 42–48, divided into 15 sections
Reader route/read/tayr · about page /read/tayr/about
Statustext of M transcribed and read twice by independent AI readers against the page images (28 Sept 2026) · AI-vowelled where the print is bare · not yet checked by a person · reviewed by: —

Structure (our division by sense; Mehren prints the text continuously): a prologue asking the brethren for a hearing, on true friendship (§1); three exhortations: disclose and veil, drink poison and love death, the angel, the beast and the human (§2–4); the hunters and the snare, captivity and forgetting (§5–6); the escaped birds with cords on their feet and the partial release (§7–8); the flight over the mountains, the rest on the seventh mountain and the eighth mountain's birds (§9–11); the city and palace of the Great King, the audience and the promised messenger, the description of the King (§12–14); an epilogue with the brother's diagnosis and the author's reply (§15).

1. Witnesses

SiglumWitnessKind (critical ed. / standard ed. / MS / digital / working copy)Vowelled?LicenceLocation / hash
MA. F. Mehren (ed.), Traités mystiques d'Abou Alî al-Hosain b. Abdallah b. Sînâ ou d'Avicenne, fasc. II (… L'Oiseau, traité mystique d'Avicenne), Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1891. Arabic text pp. 42–48 of the Arabic part (the pagination runs on from the Ishārāt sections in the same fascicle); lithographed, with the manuscript variants as lettered footnotes on each page (29 notes). French translation pp. 27–32, "expliqué selon le commentaire persan de Sâwedjî".standard ed.sparselypublic domainarchive.org traitsmystique02avic (University of Ottawa copy, 94 pp.; the Arabic is bound in reverse order, pdf 45 = p. 42 … pdf 39 = p. 48); PDF SHA-256 003971cb420d51072d5ea33566fff48f12c272d023d61cb8dd42caa90673f097
B, B²London, British Museum: Cat. codd. manuscr. or. Mus. Brit. II, p. 450, no. XXVI (with the Persian commentary of ʿUmar b. Sahlān al-Sāwajī) and no. XXVIII (text alone)MS (as reported by M)known only through Mehren's footnotes
A, A²Leiden: Cat. codd. or. Bibl. Acad. Lugd. Bat. III, p. 329, no. 1464 (= Cod. 1020a (10) Warn.) and IV, p. 313, no. 2144 (= Cod. 177 (5) Gol.; collated for Mehren by M. J. de Goeje)MS (as reported by M)known only through Mehren's footnotes
—The DLI copy in.ernet.dli.2015.323235 (Mehren fasc. II–IV) has usable Arabic OCR for the Ṭayr (noted in the Ḥayy witness survey); not used for the text.digital (OCR)archive.org

Mehren's sigla: he names B and B² for the London copies and A and A² for the Leiden copies, and uses L where copies agree; the sentence in his avant-propos (printed p. 26) is ambiguous, and L most likely means the agreement of the two Leiden copies.

2. Base and why

M: the only edition on disk, public domain, printed from four manuscripts with their variants. No other Arabic edition was consulted.

3. Collation

  • Transcription: letter by letter from 220-dpi page images, difficult words re-checked at 500 dpi, keeping the print's spelling (dotless final ى, ة/ه and hamza as printed). Mehren's footnote keys are not reproduced in the text; each apparatus entry records its anchor word. scripts/recitals/tayr_assemble.py builds data/sources/tayr-mehren.json (15 sections, 1,086 words, 29 footnotes).
  • Second, independent AI reading of all 7 pages (data/sources/tayr-mehren-proof.json), vowel marks ignored: 1,067 of 1,086 words agree (98.3%), 19 differ. The first reading stands in 14 (mostly hamzas and dots). Three were errors in the file and were corrected (§4); one is a print-versus-sense choice; one is cosmetic.
  • No second edition was collated: the manuscript variants are Mehren's footnotes only.

4. Decisions (substantive)

WhereReading adoptedRejectedReasonBy (AI/person)
§4, p. 43ثبتتثبت600 dpi: three letter-forms only (ث, ب, final ت); the print reads ثبت, which fits the masculine بشرٌAI (second reading)
§4, p. 43تفتنف600 dpi: one tooth with two dots, then a kashīda into the fāʾ; no nūnAI (second reading)
§14, p. 47صرمهحرمه600 dpi: a closed ṣād loop; "whoever cuts himself off from him", the counterpart of خدمهAI (second reading)
§1, p. 42وحلوا (as printed)وجلواthe print has no dot under the second letter; the sense "polished away the dirt" wants وجلوا, recorded as a noteAI (second reading)

Misprints kept as printed, each with a "print X, read Y" note: §4 ضبّع (read ضيّع), §4 بدّ (read بذّ), §15 طبخ (read طبيخ). All six doubtful readings of the first transcription were resolved at 600–900 dpi (باتّوا, استئثارها, جهتك as printed; the three misprints above). The remaining doubt is editorial: باتّوا against باثّوا ("disclose to one another", which fits Mehren's "révèle"), and فتعصّبها, which Mehren himself calls "bien douteuse".

5. Quotations verified

No quotation was marked when the text was established (quotes is empty). scripts/quran_refs.py found one automatically: §15, «وسيعلم الذين ظلموا أي منقلب ينقلبون», the end of 26:227 (six words, matched on the consonantal skeleton against the Tanzil Quran).

6. Vowelling

  • Source of vowels: the print where it has them (326 marks); everything else supplied by AI (3,809 marks). scripts/recitals/prepare.py tayr: headless Claude (Opus) adds full tashkīl with the letters verified unchanged; the per-character vowelMask records 't' (print) or 'a' (AI).
  • Mehren's sign over an alif is read as a connecting alif (ٱ) where the model rewrote it; each case is logged in changes (e.g. §2 ٱنْسِلَاخَ).
  • 73 words with two defensible vowellings are listed per passage (ambiguous), with the reading adopted and why.
  • Comparison with authoritative vowelled editions: none available.

7. Segmentation and word IDs

15 passages = our 15 sense-sections (Mehren's print is continuous; page breaks are recorded in tayr-mehren.json). Word IDs t1:<passage>:<word>.

8. Analysis layer (tool, constraints, disagreement rate)

CAMeL Tools 1.6 (calima-msa-r13 + MLE), constrained by the text's vowelling (data/sources/tayr-analysis.json): 1,129 words, 719 with a root, 395 distinct roots, 65 words where the analyser's vowelling differs from the AI vowelling. Unresolved "roots" are the usual particles and weak radicals (ع.ل.# = على, ف.#, م.#, ل.#, #.ل.# = الله …).

9. Commentaries aligned (who, how many lemmata, coverage)

None. No Arabic commentary is printed with the Ṭayr in M. Mehren's French notes paraphrase the Persian commentary of al-Sāwajī (from B), which is not in the fascicle.

10. Translation (source or AI; glossary)

AI (Claude Opus) from the Arabic via scripts/recitals/translate.py tayr, told not to reproduce or imitate published translations, with the glossary in tayr-meta.json (ikhwān al-ḥaqq, al-ṭayr, al-ḥibāla / al-sharak, al-jibāl, al-malik, madīnat al-malik, al-ṣayyād, al-ḥuriyya, al-ʿaql). Contextual word glosses and term notes from the same run. All marked AI. Audio: a machine voice (Azure AI Speech) reads the vowelled Arabic and the AI English; a reading aid, not a recitation.

11. Rights and private layers

M: public domain (Leiden 1891); the text, apparatus and page references may be published. Corbin's English (Avicenna and the Visionary Recital) is ©: compared privately only, in the private layer; nothing of it is published.

12. Open questions / to review

  • A person should check the transcription and the AI vowelling against the page images.
  • باتّوا or باثّوا (§2); Mehren's own doubt on فتعصّبها.
  • The meaning of Mehren's siglum L (§1 above).
  • Locate the four manuscripts in modern catalogues and check for digitised images; al-Sāwajī's Persian commentary (BM no. XXVI; see §9).
  • Suhrawardī's Persian version of the Ṭayr (Thackston, Treatise I) as a comparison for sense.

13. Change log

  • 2026-09-28: transcribed from Mehren II (15 sections); second independent reading (98.3%), three corrections and the misprint notes applied; vowelled, analysed, translated, read aloud, Quran checked; in the reader at /read/tayr.
  • 2026-09-28: record written from the data files.