 Al-‛Alawi based his chronology on the before mentioned letter which Avempace sent to his friend Abu Ja‛far Yusuf ibn Hasday in which he explained that he first learned about mathematical sciences, music and astronomy. He went on to study logic using the books of Alfarabi and later devoted himself to physics, the philosophy of nature. We understand that Avempace had not worked with metaphysics yet. J. Al-‛Alawi distinguished three stages in Avempace’s development and classified his writings according to these stages. His writings on music, astronomy and logic belong to the first stage; those on natural philosophy to the second; and those most representative of his thinking—the Rule of the Solitary, the Epistle of Conjunction and the Farewell Message—to the third and last stage.