Islamic philosophy
Islamic philosophy is philosophy that emerges from the Islamic tradition. Two terms traditionally used in the Islamic world are sometimes translated as philosophy—falsafa (lit. 'philosophy'), which refers to philosophy as well as logic, mathematics, and physics;[1] and Kalam (lit. 'speech'), which refers to a rationalist form of Scholastic Islamic theology which includes the schools of Maturidiyah, Ashaira and Mu'tazila.
"Arabic philosophy" redirects here. For Jewish philosophy in Arabic, see Judeo-Islamic philosophies (800–1400).
Early Islamic philosophy began with Al-Kindi in the 2nd century of the Islamic calendar (early 9th century CE) and ended with Ibn-Rushd (Averroes) in the 6th century AH (late 12th century CE), broadly coinciding with the period known as the Golden Age of Islam. The death of Averroes effectively marked the end of a particular discipline of Islamic philosophy usually called the Peripatetic Islamic school, and philosophical activity declined significantly in Western Islamic countries such as Islamic Iberia and North Africa.
Islamic philosophy persisted for much longer in Muslim Eastern countries, in particular Safavid Persia, Ottoman, and Mughal Empires, where several schools of philosophy continued to flourish: Avicennism, Averroism, Illuminationist philosophy, Mystical philosophy, Transcendent theosophy, and Isfahan philosophy. Ibn Khaldun, in his Muqaddimah, made important contributions to the philosophy of history. Interest in Islamic philosophy revived during the Nahda ("Awakening") movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and continues to the present day.
Islamic philosophy had a major impact in Christian Europe, where translation of Arabic philosophical texts into Latin "led to the transformation of almost all philosophical disciplines in the medieval Latin world", with a particularly strong influence of Muslim philosophers being felt in natural philosophy, psychology and metaphysics.[2]
Introduction[edit]
Islamic philosophy refers to philosophy produced in an Islamic society. As it is not necessarily concerned with religious issues, nor exclusively produced by Muslims,[3] many scholars prefer the term "Arabic philosophy."[4]
Islamic philosophy is a generic term that can be defined and used in different ways. In its broadest sense it means the world view of Islam, as derived from the Islamic texts concerning the creation of the universe and the will of the Creator. In another sense it refers to any of the schools of thought that flourished under the Islamic empire or in the shadow of the Arab-Islamic culture and Islamic civilization. In its narrowest sense it is a translation of Falsafa, meaning those particular schools of thought that most reflect the influence of Greek systems of philosophy such as Neoplatonism and Aristotelianism.
Some schools of thought within Islam deny the usefulness or legitimacy of philosophical inquiry. Some argue that there is no indication that the limited knowledge and experience of humans can lead to truth. It is also important to observe that, while "reason" ('aql) is sometimes recognised as a source of Islamic law, it has been claimed that this has a totally different meaning from "reason" in philosophy.
The historiography of Islamic philosophy is marked by disputes as to how the subject should be properly interpreted. Some of the key issues involve the comparative importance of eastern intellectuals such as Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and of western thinkers such as Ibn Rushd,[5] and also whether Islamic philosophy can be read at face value or should be interpreted in an esoteric fashion. Supporters of the latter thesis, like Leo Strauss, maintain that Islamic philosophers wrote so as to conceal their true meaning in order to avoid religious persecution, but scholars such as Oliver Leaman disagree.[6]
Formative influences[edit]
The main sources of classical or early Islamic philosophy are the religion of Islam itself (especially ideas derived and interpreted from the Quran)[7] and Greek philosophy which the early Muslims inherited as a result of conquests, along with pre-Islamic Indian philosophy and Persian philosophy. Many of the early philosophical debates centered around reconciling religion and reason, the latter exemplified by Greek philosophy.
Other fields[edit]
Epistemology[edit]
Avicenna's most influential theory in epistemology is his theory of knowledge, in which he developed the concept of tabula rasa. He argued that the "human intellect at birth is rather like a tabula rasa, a pure potentiality that is actualized through education and comes to know" and that knowledge is attained through "empirical familiarity with objects in this world from which one abstracts universal concepts" which is developed through a "syllogistic method of reasoning; observations lead to prepositional statements, which when compounded lead to further abstract concepts."[81]
In the 12th century, Ibn Tufail further developed the concept of tabula rasa in his Arabic novel, Hayy ibn Yaqzan, in which he depicted the development of the mind of a feral child "from a tabula rasa to that of an adult, in complete isolation from society" on a desert island. The Latin translation of his work, entitled Philosophus Autodidactus, published by Edward Pococke the Younger in 1671, had an influence on John Locke's formulation of tabula rasa in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.[82]
Criticism[edit]
Philosophy has not been without criticism amongst Muslims, both contemporary and past. The imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, for whom the Hanbali school of thought is named, rebuked philosophical discussion, once telling proponents of it that he was secure in his religion, but that they were "in doubt, so go to a doubter and argue with him (instead)."[126] Today, Islamic philosophical thought has also been criticized by scholars of the modern Salafi movement.
There would be many Islamic thinkers who were not enthusiastic about the potential of philosophy, but it would be incorrect to assume that they opposed it simply because it was a "foreign science". Oliver Leaman, an expert on Islamic philosophy, points out that the objections of notable theologians are rarely directed at philosophy itself, but rather at the conclusions the philosophers arrived at. Even the 11th century al-Ghazali, known for his Incoherence of the Philosophers critique of philosophers, was himself an expert in philosophy and logic. His criticism was that they arrived at theologically erroneous conclusions. In his view the three most serious of these were believing in the co-eternity of the universe with God, denying the bodily resurrection, and asserting that God only has knowledge of abstract universals, not of particular things, though not all philosophers subscribed to these same views.[127]
In recent studies by Muslim contemporary thinkers that aim at "renewing the impetus of philosophical thinking in Islam," the philosopher and theorist Nader El-Bizri offers a critical analysis of the conventions that dominate mainstream academic and epistemic approaches in studying Islamic philosophy. These approaches, of methodology and historiography are looked at from archival standpoints within Oriental and Mediaevalist Studies, fail to recognize the fact that philosophy in Islam can still be a living intellectual tradition. He maintains that its renewal requires a radical reform in ontology and epistemology within Islamic thought. El-Bizri's interpretations of Avicenna (Ibn Sina) from the standpoint of Heidegger's critique of the history of metaphysics, and specifically against the background of the unfolding of the essence of technology, aim at finding new pathways in ontology that are not simply Avicennian nor Heideggerian, even though El-Bizri's approach in rethinking falsafa amounts to a "Neo-Avicennism" that carries resonances with novel modern philosophical ways of reading Aristotelianism and Thomism. El-Bizri engages contemporary issues in philosophy through a fundamental critical analytic of the evolution of key concepts in the history of ontology and epistemology. Nader El-Bizri is a modernist in outlook since he aims at bringing newness to the tradition rather than simply reproduce it or being in rupture with it.[128]
Maani’ Hammad al-Juhani, (a member of the Consultative Council and General Director, World Assembly of Muslim Youth)[129]
is quoted as declaring that because philosophy does not follow the moral guidelines of the Sunnah,
"philosophy, as defined by the philosophers, is one of the most dangerous falsehoods and most vicious in fighting faith and religion on the basis of logic, which it is very easy to use to confuse people in the name of reason, interpretation and metaphor that distort the religious texts".[130]