Islamic philosophy within the culture of Islam. Islamic philosophy has several main strands. Peripatetic philosophy broadly follows the Greek tradition of philosophy, while Sufism and prophetic philosophy are based on the notion of mystical knowledge as the leading principle of thought. Peripatetic philosophy lost its effectiveness in the Islamic world after c. AD 1200, and the argument that philosophy was a dangerous and heretical activity gained ground for many centuries.

In recent years there has been a revival of Peripatetic philosophy in the Islamic world, and strong influences have come from modern Western philosophy. In a sense, though, philosophy did not wane in the Islamic world, even when its Greek form came under suspicion, since there has always been a passionate interest in understanding the essence of the realities of the sacred book (the Koran) and of the created world.

Origins of Islamic Philosophy

When did Islamic philosophy start? One answer is that in the early years of Islam a variety of legal and theological problems arose that were philosophical in nature, and which often used philosophical arguments. For example, there were important debates on how far God can be described using human notions, and how far we can be said to be free given the power of God.

Greek philosophy reached the Islamic world when the centre of the Islamic empire moved from Damascus to Baghdad, and Caliph al-Mamun founded the bayt al-hikma, the House of Wisdom, in AD 832. This was an observatory, but also a library and centre for translating Greek texts into Arabic.

By this time Islam dominated Egypt, Syria, and Persia, all of which were certainly part of the world of Greek culture. Many of the earliest translators were Christians, who translated from Greek to Syriac, and then from the latter to Arabic. As well as the translation of Greek philosophical and scientific texts, there was also a good deal of translation of Indian literature and Persian literature into Arabic, which undoubtedly affected the scientific and mathematical character of future work in Arabic.

Why, then, was there such a determined translation movement at this time? In answer, the Islamic empire had come into contact with important cultural forces which it sought to understand, and there was a strong desire on the part of many to use the scientific and theoretical discoveries of the non-Islamic world.

Opposition to Philosophy

Many Muslims questioned the necessity for followers of Islam to study philosophy at all, since they held that Islam embodies a complete practical and theoretical account of the nature of reality, while Greek philosophy often seems to present an alternative and contrary account. There was already a well-developed theoretical system available to Muslims which embodied jurisprudence, theology, grammar, and the principles of interpretation of the Koran, and many were suspicious of the need for a “foreign” science that originated with unbelievers and was transmitted to the Islamic world largely by unbelievers.

Such religious doubts concerning philosophy were not unreasonable, since many of the main principles of Greek philosophy seemed to be antagonistic to Islam. For example, the Neoplatonic nature of Greek philosophy tended to agree with Aristotle that the world is eternal, that there is a hierarchy of being with intellect or reason at the summit, that asceticism is the appropriate approach to how we should live, and that reason is the correct tool for theoretical investigation. These are all rather problematic from a religious point of view. If the world is eternal, then God did not create it out of nothing. If intellect is the most important stage of reality, then only those capable of achieving high levels of intellectual thought can achieve salvation. Asceticism goes against the normal idea in Islam of a balanced lifestyle of pleasures and duties as comprising the good life. Finally, Muslims believe that their route to guidance is through Islam itself, while philosophers tended to replace religion with reason, implying that religion is the appropriate route for those incapable of using reason, and a rather inferior route at that.

Main Thinkers

Of course, Islamic philosophers tried to resolve these apparent inconsistencies. The first philosopher of the Arabs, al-Kindi, argued that there is no basic contradiction between Islam and philosophy, since the latter helps the Muslim to understand the truth using different methods from those primarily relevant to religion.

Once philosophy became better established in the Islamic world it managed to distance itself from religion. For thinkers from al-Farabi onwards, religion is taken to represent the route to truth appropriate for the simple believer—a version of the truth, but a rather weaker version. The most skilful protagonist of this view of philosophy was Averroës, or Ibn Rushd, with whom this form of philosophy largely came to an end in the 12th century. The other outstanding figures of this period of Peripatetic philosophy were Avicenna, or Ibn Sina, Avempace, or Ibn Bajja, and Ibn Tufayl, whose works were much translated into both Hebrew and Latin, and became a vital part of the university and medical curriculum of Jewish and Christian Europe in the Middle Ages.

Transmission to Christian Europe

 

The arrival of Greek philosophy in the Christian world was initially made possible by transmission from the Islamic world, and the interest of Christians in Greek philosophy was motivated for reasons similar to those of their Muslim predecessors. Intellectual curiosity led to the import of ideas from a very distinct and in many ways hostile culture. The 13th century in particular saw a great deal of interest from Europe in Islamic philosophy, which is hardly surprising given its level of sophistication and detail.

Commentators such as Averroës were especially prized for their careful explication of Aristotle, very much the most-valued philosopher at the time. This led to the development of what came to be known as “radical Averroism” or the “double truth theory”, according to which religious and philosophical propositions are incompatible but both true. This was not actually part of Averroës's argument, but it had an important influence on the eventual separation of philosophy from religion in European philosophy. Averroës actually argued that religion and philosophy were alternative routes to the same destination—salvation—and that the apparent contradiction between them was only apparent. The philosopher alone is capable of understanding how these different approaches may be reconciled rationally, and there is no point in troubling the simple faith of the ordinary believer with such issues. This would lead either to a suspicion of the orthodoxy of the philosopher, or to a diminution in faith on the part of the unsophisticated believer. Both these undesirable consequences should be avoided through the discretion of the philosopher in expressing his views.

Philosophy and Wisdom

There are two words in Arabic for philosophy, which neatly represent the distinction between the two main types of philosophical approach. “Falsafa” was a new word designed to represent the Greek word “philosophia”. The Arabic term “hikma”, on the other hand, means “wisdom” in its broadest sense, and can also apply to a range of philosophical work that is more aligned to mysticism and to a method of philosophy that involves the study of reality that transforms the soul and which is never entirely separated from spiritual purity. This latter form of philosophy has always had a place in the Islamic world, and especially in Persia and India, where it continued after the Peripatetic form of philosophy came to an end in the 12th century.

Hikma has developed in a wide range of directions, but it can be divided into Sufi and illuminationist trends, both of which seek not only to understand the world rationally but also to investigate the awe we feel when we consider the divine mystery of that universe. The main thinkers here are Ibn Arabi, Suhrawardi, and Mulla Sadra, and this form of philosophy has tended to be especially popular in the Shiite part of the Islamic world. It started once Muslims began to ask questions about the inner meaning of their religion, and it has continued through to present times, flourishing in particular in Iran.

Heresy and Philosophy

A highly influential attack on Peripatetic philosophy was carried out by al-Ghazali in his book The Incoherence of the Philosophers. He argued that philosophers present ideas that are either heretical or different with respect to Islam as true. He does not, though, use this as the basis of his criticism, but rather tries to show that the main philosophical ideas do not follow even using their own arguments, and so the principles of religion are not threatened rationally by their ideas. While he criticized philosophy, he distinguished between it and logic, and argued that logic has an important part to play in the understanding of religious arguments. Some opponents of philosophy, such as Ibn Taymiyya, went so far as to criticize logic itself. On the whole, however, as the Peripatetic tradition of philosophy declined in the Sunni Islamic world, it entered into other areas of intellectual life, such as jurisprudence, until it was revived in the 19th century as part of the Islamic Renaissance (Nahda) movement.

Reason and Revelation

If Islam tells the believer everything he or she needs to know, what need is there for philosophy? This is a point that has often threatened the role of Islamic philosophy, and a number of answers has been given. First, Islam presents itself as a rational faith, and the Koran constantly urges the reader to consider with reason the evidence it presents. If reason is held to be so important by Islam, then presumably philosophy is an important activity for Muslims. Secondly, if the Prophet Muhammad is the last prophet, as Islam claims, then God must expect human beings to use reason to understand the nature of reality. No new prophecy can help people comprehend the universe, so we are reliant on Islam and our own reason to accomplish this task, which again implies that there is no basic incompatibility between religion and reason.

Modern Islamic Philosophy: the Arab World

One of the main aims of philosophy in the Islamic world since the 19th century has been to understand the issue of its relative decline or decadence compared with the West. The Nahda renaissance movement sought to combine the main achievements of modern European civilization and classical Islamic culture, including philosophy, which pre-dated imperialism and the centuries of decadence. Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Muhammad Abduh both argued that Islam is inherently rational, and so can be retained along with Western forms of scientific and cultural thought. There has been a revival of Islamic Peripatetic philosophy, and also much interest in incorporating many of the leading trends in Western philosophy into the Islamic world, a process that continues today. Many Islamic philosophers have adapted Western philosophy to make sense of the theoretical problems with which they are concerned.

Modern Islamic Philosophy: Persia

One of the most influential thinkers in Iran in the 20th century was the Frenchman Henry Corbin, who did much to revive the Persian tradition in philosophy. He argued that there was a perennial school of philosophical wisdom incorporating ideas from pre-Islamic Persian religion as well as Sufi and illuminationist ideas. This wisdom (hikma) is connected to the symbol of light (hence the name “illuminationist” for this type of philosophy), which represents a way in which individuals can understand their spiritual needs and the basic principles of humanity and reality. All religions are based on certain general ideas, and Sufism provides a route for Muslims to relate to these ideas. The emphasis in Islam on the oneness of God has been used to stress the unity of reality, and so can be used to criticize the Western scientific approach to that reality, which tends to see nature as something to be used and exploited. Islamic philosophy sees humanity and the world as essentially a unity, and is concerned with understanding the spiritual wholeness of humanity.

 

Contributed By:

Oliver Leaman[1]

Quell: Microsoft Encarta