  While this may not look like an accurate description of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, it is a wholly accurate description of al-Kindi’s own conception of the science of metaphysics. That he conflates metaphysics with theology is clear from the opening of On First Philosophy, which says that since philosophy in general is the study of truth, “first philosophy” is “the knowledge of the first truth who is the cause of all truth.” And indeed Aristotle’s Metaphysics is a major influence on this work. However, as is typical of al-Kindi’s philosophical writings, On First Philosophy also makes extensive use of ideas from translations of Neoplatonic writings. The proof for the existence of a “true One” is based in part on Proclus (as shown in Jolivet 1979), and one can detect influences from the Arabic version of Plotinus produced in al-Kindi’s circle, the so-called Theology of Aristotle. Perhaps the most important single influence, however, is an attack on Aristotle by the Neoplatonist Christian thinker John Philoponus, over the issue of the world’s eternity.