This article deals with the divine knowledge of particulars in Averroes’ Tahāfut al-tahāfut and Ḍamīma. It examines how the concept of relation, generally neglected, is at the heart of the dispute between Avicenna, al-Ġazālī, and the Commentator. In al-Ġazālī’s eyes, Avicenna's misconception of divine knowledge “in a universal way” is based on a misuse of relation in the case of God's knowledge. If particulars change and God does not, his knowledge of particulars, insofar as it undergoes change, can be considered a pure relation without ontological consequences. Averroes contests both al-Ġazālī’s criticism and his proposal, despite the fact that, for different reasons involving the coming-to-be of human knowledge, he too employs the notion of pure relation in his Long Commentary on the Physics.

In the Almagest, Ptolemy proposed the concept of winding motion, especially to explain planetary latitudes. Ibn al-Haytham (beginning 11th c.) wrote a treatise entitled Fī ḥarakat al-iltifāf, “Concerning the winding motion”. An anonymous scholar wrote a refutation of this treatise. Both texts have been lost; but the answer of Ibn al-Haytham has survived: Fī ḥall šukūk ḥarakat al-iltifāf, “The resolution of doubts concerning the winding motion”. There he reminds us of his model and gives us a more detailed explanation. We give here a critical edition, translation and commentary of this answer, as well as an edition and translation of some related excerpts from Ptolemy's Planetary Hypotheses and Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī’s Nihāyat al-idrāk (13th c.).

A comparison of the manuscripts has shown that De li aspecti, the Italian version of Alhacen's De aspectibus, Vat. lat. 4595 (I), was copied from London, British Library, Royal 12.G.vii (L). The discovery of long omissions in L, not reproduced in I, disproves this conclusion. The error has two reasons: a sampling too small, the confusion between phenetic and cladistic approaches.