Islamic philosophy - Definition, Introduction, Formative influences, Early and Classical Islamic philosophy, Later Islamic philosophy, Modern Islamic philosophy

The Arabic term, falsafah, indicates the Greek origins of this science in Islamic culture. A major translation movement centred in Baghdad during the 9th-c, and introduced to Muslims an eclectic body of Greek knowledge, embracing not only the ideas of Plato, Aristotle, and Pythagoras but also of Galen, Plotinus, and Proclus, as well as doctrines of hermetic origin. The complexity of this inheritance is found in the earliest thinkers, Kindi (d.c.870), al-Farabi (d.950), and Ibn Sina (Avicenna) (d.1037), whose works are a synthesis of Neoplatonic metaphysics, natural science, and mysticism. They assumed, moreover, an essential harmony between Plato and Aristotle. The philosophers' labours met a cool reception, as Sunni Muslim legal and theological thought was becoming consolidated during this same period. Questions were debated pertaining to God's knowledge of particulars as against universals, the spiritual rather than material nature of punishment and reward in the afterlife, and whether creation was an emanation from the First Principle instead of ex nihilo - philosophers holding to the first of these positions, theologians to the latter. The famous jurist-theologian-philosopher, al-Ghazali (d.1111) condemned these particular philosophical views as unbelief, though his position was in turn refuted by Ibn Rushd (Averroës). Muslim philosophers also made contributions to the fields of logic, psychology, and ethics. While philosophy retreated in formal Sunni thought after Ibn Rushd, it nevertheless has continued to be important in Shia Muslim circles and in the mystical traditions influenced by Ibn Arabi (d.1240) and Suhrawardi (d.1234).

Islamic philosophy (الفلسفة الإسلامية) is a branch of Islamic studies, and is a longstanding attempt to create harmony between philosophy (reason) and the religious teachings of Islam (faith).

Definition

The attempt to fuse religion and philosophy is difficult because there are no clear preconditions.

However, others believe that a synthesis between Islam and philosophy is possible. This is a common technique found in the writings of many religious traditions, including Judaism, Christianity and Islam, but this is not generally accepted as true philosophy by philosophers. Another way to find a synthesis is to abstain from holding as true any religious principles of one's faith at all, unless one independently comes to those conclusions from a philosophical analysis. A third, rarer and more difficult path is to apply analytical philosophy to one's own religion. How can one reconcile the findings of philosophy with religion?

Introduction

Islamic philosophy may be defined in a number of different ways, but the perspective taken here is that it represents the style of philosophy produced within the framework of Islamic culture. [Oliver Leaman, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy]

Formative influences

Islamic philosophy as the name implies refers to philosophical activity within the Islamic milieu. The main sources of classical or early Islamic philosophy are the religion of Islam itself (especially ideas derived and interpreted from Quran), Greek philosophy which the early Muslims inherited as a result of conquests when Alexandria, Syria and Jundishapur came under Muslim rule, along with pre-Islamic Iranian and Indian philosophy. Many of the early philosophical debates centered around reconciling religion and reason, the latter exemplified by Greek philosophy.

Early and Classical Islamic philosophy

In early Islamic thought two main currents may be distinguished.

Kalam

Independent minds exploiting the methods of ijtihad sought to investigate the doctrines of the Qur'an, which until then had been accepted in faith on the authority of divine revelation.

At the second century of the Hegira, a new movement arose in the theological school of Basra, Iraq. A pupil, Wasil ibn Ata, who was expelled from the school because his answers were contrary to then orthodox Islamic tradition and became leader of a new school, and systematized the radical opinions of preceding sects, particularly those of the Qadarites.

The Mutazilites, compelled to defend their principles against the orthodox Islam of their day, looked for support in philosophy, and are one of the first to pursue a rational theology called Ilm-al-Kalam (Scholastic theology);

Falsafa

From the ninth century onward, owing to Caliph al-Ma'mun and his successor, Greek philosophy was introduced among the Persians and Arabs, and the Peripatetic school began to find able representatives among them;

During the Abbasid caliphate a number of thinkers and scientists, many of them non-Muslims or heretical Muslims, played a role in transmitting Greek, Hindu, and other pre-Islamic knowledge to the Christian West.

From Spain Arabic philosophic literature was translated into Hebrew and Latin, contributing to the development of modern European philosophy. The philosophers Moses Maimonides (a Jew born in Muslim Spain) and precursor of sociology and historiography Ibn Khaldun (born in modern-day Tunisia) were also important.

Some differences between Kalam and Falsafa

Aristotle attempted to demonstrate the unity of God;

Wherefore the Mutakallamin had, before anything else, to establish a system of philosophy to demonstrate the creation of matter, and they adopted to that end the theory of atoms as enunciated by Democritus. But this theory did not remove the objections of philosophy to a creation of matter.

For, indeed, if it be supposed that God commenced His work at a certain definite time by His "will," and for a certain definite object, it must be admitted that He was imperfect before accomplishing His will, or before attaining His object.

Jewish philosophy in the Arab world in the classical period

The oldest Jewish religio-philosophical work preserved is that of Saadia Gaon (892-942), Emunot ve-Deot, "The Book of Beliefs and Opinions". and he contests the theory of the Mutakallamin in reference to atoms, which theory, he declares, is just as contrary to reason and religion as the theory of the philosophers professing the eternity of matter.

To prove the unity of God, Saadia uses the demonstrations of the Mutakallamin.

Main protagonists of falsafa and their critics

The twelfth century saw the apotheosis of pure philosophy and the decline of the Kalam, which latter, being attacked by both the philosophers and the orthodox, perished for lack of champions. This supreme exaltation of philosophy may be attributed, in great measure, to Al-Ghazali (1005-1111) among the Persians, and to Judah ha-Levi (1140) among the Jews. It can be argued that the attacks directed against the philosophers by Ghazali in his work, "Tahafut al-Falasifa" (The Destruction of the Philosophers), not only produced, by reaction, a current favorable to philosophy, but induced the philosophers themselves to profit by his criticism, they thereafter making their theories clearer and their logic closer. The influence of this reaction brought forth the two greatest philosophers that the Islamic Peripatetic school ever produced, namely, Ibn Bajjah (Avempace) and Ibn Rushd (Averroes), both of whom undertook the defense of philosophy.

Since no idea and no literary or philosophical movement ever germinated on Persian or Arabian soil without leaving its impress on the Jews, the Persian Ghazali found an imitator in the person of Judah ha-Levi. This poet also took upon himself to free his religion from what he saw as the shackles of speculative philosophy, and to this end wrote the "Kuzari," in which he sought to discredit all schools of philosophy alike. He passes severe censure upon the Mutakallamin for seeking to support religion by philosophy.

Ibn Rushd (or Ibn Roshd or Averroës), the contemporary of Maimonides, closed the first great philosophical era of the Muslims. The boldness of this great commentator of Aristotle aroused the full fury of the orthodox, who, in their zeal, attacked all philosophers indiscriminately, and had all philosophical writings committed to the flames. The theories of Ibn Rushd do not differ fundamentally from those of Ibn Bajjah and Ibn Tufail, who only follow the teachings of Ibn Sina and Al-Farabi. Like all Islamic Peripatetics, Ibn Rushd admits the hypothesis of the intelligence of the spheres and the hypothesis of universal emanation, through which motion is communicated from place to place to all parts of the universe as far as the supreme world—hypotheses which, in the mind of the Arabic philosophers, did away with the dualism involved in Aristotle's doctrine of pure energy and eternal matter.

But while Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, and other Persian and Muslim philosophers hurried, so to speak, over subjects that trenched on religious dogmas, Ibn Rushd delighted in dwelling upon them with full particularity and stress.

Driven from the Islamic schools, Islamic philosophy found a refuge with the Jews, to whom belongs the honor of having transmitted it to the Christian world. A series of eminent men—such as the Ibn Tibbons, Narboni, Gersonides—joined in translating the Arabic philosophical works into Hebrew and commenting upon them. The works of Ibn Rushd especially became the subject of their study, due in great measure to Maimonides, who, in a letter addressed to his pupil Joseph ibn Aknin, spoke in the highest terms of Ibn Rushd's commentary.

It should be mentioned that this depiction of intellectual tradition in Islamic Lands is mainly dependent upon what West could understand (or was willing to understand) from this long era. Their main point of dispute is on the influence of different philosophers on Islamic Philosophy, especially the comparative importance of eastern intellectuals such as Ibn Sina and of western thinkers such as Ibn Rushd. (For more discussion, refer to the History of Islamic Philosophy by Henry Corbin.)

Later Islamic philosophy

The death of Ibn Rushd effectively marks the end of a particular discipline of Islamic philosophy usually called the Peripatetic Arabic School, and philosophical activity declined significantly in western Islamic countries, namely in Spain and North Africa, though it persisted for much longer in the Eastern countries, in particular Iran and India.

Since the political power shift in Western Europe (Spain and Portugal) from Muslim to Christian control, the Muslims naturally did not practice philosophy in Western Europe. Muslims in the 'east' continued to do philosophy, as is evident from the works of Ottoman scholars and especially those living in Muslim kingdoms within the territories of present day Iran and India, such as Shah Waliullah and Ahmad Sirhindi. This fact has escaped most pre-modern historians of Islamic (or Arabic) philosophy.

After Ibn Rushd, there arose many later schools of Islamic Philosophy. These new schools are of particular importance, as they are still active in the Islamic world.

Post-classical Iranian Muslim philosophy

Post-classical Islamic philosophers are usually divided into two main categories according to their affiliation with the Sunni and Shia denominations.

Thinkers not primarily concerned with Shi’a beliefs:

Philosophers: Abhari ابحرى Ibn Sab’in (d. 1209 ) فخرالدين رازى Iji ايجى Taftazani تفتازانى Jorjani جرجانى Opponents of Philosophy Ibn Taymiya (d. 1328) and his students ابن تيميه History of Philosophy Zakariya Qazwini زكرياى قزوينى Shams al-Din Mohamamd Amuli شمس الدين محمد آملى Ibn Khaldun (d. Baktashi حروفى و بكتاشى Jami جامى Hossein Kashefi حسين كاشفى abd al-Qani Nablosi عبدالغنى نابلسى Noor ali Shah نورعلى شاه Zahbiyye ذهبيه

Thinkers primarily concerned with Shi’a beliefs:

Nasir al-Din Tusi (d.1274) خواجه نصيرالدين توسي Isa’ili اسماعيليان Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi (d. 1640) and the Transcendent Philosophy ملاصدرا و حكمت متعاليه Rajab Ali Tabrizi and his students رجب على تبريزى Qazi Sa’id Qumi قاضى سعيد قمى Tehran and Qom School مكتب تهران و قم Khorasan School مكتب خراسان Mulla Hadi Sabzevari and the Neyshabor School ملاهادى سبزوارى و مكتب نيشابور

Modern Islamic philosophy

The tradition of Islamic Philosophy is still very much alive today despite the belief in many Western circles that this tradition ceased after the golden ages of Suhrawardi’s Hikmat al-Ishraq (Illumination Philosophy) or, at the latest, Mulla Sadra’s Hikmat-e-Mota’aliye or Transcendent (Exalted) Philosophy. Another unavoidable name is Allama Muhammad Iqbal who reshaped and revitalized Islamic philosophy amongst the Muslims of the Indian sub-continent in the early 20th century. Beside his Urdu and Persian poetical work, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam is a milestone in the modern political philosophy of Islam.

In contemporary Islamic Lands, the teaching of hikmat or hikmah has continued and flourished.

Among the traditional masters of Islamic philosophy most active during the past two decades may be mentioned

the Iranian علامه طباطبائى or Allameh Tabatabaei, the author of numerous works including the twenty seven-volume Quranic commentary al-Mizan (الميزان), Sayyid Abul-Hasan Rafi’i Qazwini (سيد ابوالحسن رفيعى قزوينى) the great master of Mulla Sadra's school who has written a few treasured works but has trained many outstanding students such as Sayyid Jalal-al-Din Ashtiyani (جلال الدين آشتيانى), who has studied with both him and Allamah Tabatabai, and Allamah Muhammad Salih Ha’iri Simnanin, the most loyal follower of Peripatetic philosophy and opposed to Mulla Sadra's school.

The younger traditional scholars who have been most active recently in Islamic Philosophy include

Mirza Mahdi Ha‘iri, the only one of the traditional class of hakims with an extensive experience of the West and author of Ilm-I Kulli and Kavoshha-ye Aqli-Nazari;

Sub articles

Muslim philosophers Islamic theology Islamic eschatology Joint Jewish and Islamic philosophies