Anniyya (thatness, existence)

Anniyya is an abstract term formed from the conjunction 'an or 'anna, 'that'. It is the literal translation of Aristotle's to hoti esti, 'the fact that a thing is', its 'thatness'. ¹

Aristotle uses the term in the Posterior Analytics II.1, where his distinction between the fact that a thing is and what it is is the source of the later debate on existentia and essentia. In Muslim philosophy the most important sense of anniyya is existentia, the real existence of an individual, set against essentia, its nature, which is called mahiyya (quidditas). Ghazali, in his Maqasid al-falasifa, uses both terms when he expounds the doctrine that in God existence and essence are one. Anniyya was also used for non-existential being: the Arabic translation of Metaphysics IX renders the being of truth and falsehood with it, and in the neoplatonic Theology of Aristotle and the Liber de causis the category of being is rendered by anniyya and identity by huwiyya. ²

The fanciful derivation of anniyya from ana, 'I', given by some Persian mystics and by modern scholars, cannot be sustained on grammatical grounds. Avicenna uses the term often, though it is not found in Ghazali's Tahafut or in Averroes' Tahafut al-tahafut. ³