 Avicenna’s definition of metaphysics as a science is rooted in a premise he elaborates on the basis of Aristotle (Post. Analytics I.10, 76b11–22) and al-Fārābī (On the aims of the  Metaphysics[3]):  a science must have a subject-matter (upokeimenon: mawḍūʿ) and an object of research (zetoumenon: maṭlūb; mabḥūṯ ʿan-hu). The former is assumed to be existent (it is a starting-point); the existence of the latter has to be established, which is the purpose (ġaraḍ) of the science or the aim towards which the science is oriented (maqṣūd). From this distinction a fundamental duality emerges: by virtue of its subject-matter (the existent and its properties), metaphysics is concerned with being and is ontology, whereas from the point of view of the question which it must answer, metaphysics establishes (iṯbāt) the existence of the First Principle and is  theology.[4]  So Avicenna retains the theological conception that al-Kindī highlighted (and Aristotle himself  suggested);[5]  at the same time, he develops the line al-Fārābī initiated by positing being—and not God—as the focus of metaphysics as a universal science (Bertolacci 2006: Ch. 2–3; Menn 2013). He thus gives his own solution to a traditional question (how should Aristotle’s metaphysics be defined?): metaphysics fits the definition given in Gamma 1, 1003a20–26, as the science of being qua being or, literally, of the existent qua existent: al-mawǧūd bi-mā huwa mawǧūd (Ilāhiyyāt, I, 1, 9, 8; 2, 13, 12–13). It is only in terms of the question it must answer (Ilāhiyyāt, I, 1, 5, 13–7, 2; 9, 6–10; 3, 19, 5–8; 21, 1–8; 23, 1–9), that the science of metaphysics is “divine” (al-ʿilm al-ilāhī; cf. Aristotle’s Metaphysics A.2, 982b28–983a11; E.1, 1026a16–21) or “of the divine things” (ʿilm al-ilāhiyyāt; cf. Metaph., 1026a13–16), as the title of the metaphysical sections of Avicenna’s philosophical summae indicate.