العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
EspañolEARLY ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY
'Early Islamic philosophy' is considered influential in the rise of modern philosophy.[1] Thomas Aquinas knew of at least some of the Mutazilite work, and the Renaissance and the use of empirical methods were inspired at least in part by Arabic works translated into Latin during the Renaissance of the 12th century, and taken during the Reconquista in 1492.[2]
Some of the significant achievements of early Muslim philosophers included the development of a strict science of citation, the isnad or "backing"; the development of a method of open inquiry to disprove claims, the ijtihad, which could be generally applied to many types of questions (although which to apply it to is an ethical question); the willingness to both accept and challenge authority within the same process; recognition that science and philosophy are both subordinate to morality, and that moral choices are prior to any investigation or concern with either; the separation of theology (kalam) and law (shariah) during the early Abbasid period, a precursor to secularism;[3] the distinction between religion and philosophy, marking the beginning of secular thought; the beginnings of the scientific method, an important contribution to the philosophy of science; early ideas on evolution and natural selection; the beginning of social philosophy, in formulating theories of social cohesion and social conflict; and the beginning of the philosophy of history.
Early Islamic philosophy can be divided into clear sets of influences, branches, schools, and fields, as described below.
The life of Muhammad or sira which generated both the Qur'an (revelation) and hadith (his daily utterances and discourses on social and legal matters), during which philosophy was defined by Muslims as consisting in acceptance or rejection of his message. Together the sira and hadith constitute the sunnah and are validated by isnad ("backing") to determine the likely truth of the report of any given saying of Muhammad. Key figures are Imam Bukhari, Imam Muslim, Al-Tirmidhi, Ibn Majah, Abu Dawud and Al-Nasa'i. Each sifted through literally millions of hadith to accept a list of under 10,000. This work, which was not completed until the 10th century, began shortly after The Farewell Sermon in 631, after which Muhammad could not mediate disputes. After his death Abu Bakr began to collect all fragments of his sayings.
Main articles: Kalam
With Kalam, in which questions about the sira and hadith, as well as science and law, began to be investigated beyond the scope of Muhammad's beliefs. This period is characterized by emergence of ijtihad and the first fiqh. As the Sunnah became published and accepted, philosophy separate from Muslim theology was discouraged due to a lack of participants. During this period, traditions similar to Socratic method began to evolve, but philosophy remained subordinate to religion.
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. One of first debates was that between partisan of the ''Qadar'' (Arabic: ''qadara'', to have power), who affirmed free will, and the ''Jabarites'' (jabar, force, constraint), who maintained the belief in fatalism.
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. This new school was called ''Mutazilite'' (from i'tazala, to separate oneself, to dissent). Its principal dogmas were three:
#God is an absolute unity, and no attribute can be ascribed to Him.
#Man is a free agent. It is on account of these two principles that the Mu'tazilites designate themselves the "Partisans of Justice and Unity".
#All knowledge necessary for the salvation of man emanates from his reason; humans could acquire knowledge before, as well as after, Revelation, by the sole light of reason. This fact makes knowledge obligatory upon all men, at all times, and in all places.
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); those professing it were called ''Mutakallamin''. This appellation became the common name for all seeking philosophical demonstration in confirmation of religious principles. The first Mutakallamin had to debate both the orthodox and the non-Muslims, and they may be described as occupying the middle ground between those two parties. But subsequent generations were to large extent critical towards the Mutazilite school, especially after formation of the Asharite concepts.
From the 9th century onwards, owing to Caliph al-Ma'mun and his successor, Greek philosophy and Hellenistic philosophy were introduced among the Persians and Arabs, and the Peripatetic and Neoplatonic schools began to find able representatives among them; such were al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Avicenna (Ibn Sina), and Averroes (Ibn Rushd), all of whose fundamental principles were considered as criticized by the Mutakallamin.
During the Abbasid caliphate a number of thinkers and scientists, many of them non-Muslims or heretical Muslims, played a role in transmitting Greek, Hellenistic, Indian and other pre-Islamic knowledge to the Christian West. They contributed to making Aristotle known in Christian Europe. Three speculative thinkers, the two Persians al-Farabi and Avicenna and the Arab al-Kindi, combined Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism with other ideas introduced through Islam. They were considered by many as highly unorthodox and a few even described them as non-Islamic philosophers.
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.
Aristotle attempted to demonstrate the unity of God; but from the view which he maintained, that matter was eternal, it followed that God could not be the Creator of the world. To assert that God's knowledge extends only to the general laws of the universe, and not to individual and accidental things, is tantamount to denying prophecy. One other point shocked the faith of the Mutakallamin — the theory of intellect. The Peripatetics taught that the human soul was only an aptitude — a faculty capable of attaining every variety of passive perfection — and that through information and virtue it became qualified for union with the active intellect, which latter emanates from God. To admit this theory would be to deny the immortality of the soul.
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. They taught that atoms possess neither quantity nor extension. Originally atoms were created by God, and are created now as occasion seems to require. Bodies come into existence or die, through the aggregation or the sunderance of these atoms. 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. In order to obviate this difficulty, the Motekallamin extended their theory of the atoms to Time, and claimed that just as Space is constituted of atoms and vacuum, Time, likewise, is constituted of small indivisible moments. The creation of the world once established, it was an easy matter for them to demonstrate the existence of a Creator, and that God is unique, omnipotent, and omniscient.
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 made 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. He says, "I consider him to have attained the highest degree of perfection who is convinced of religious truths without having scrutinized them and reasoned over them" ("Kuzari," v.). Then he reduced the chief propositions of the Mutakallamin, to prove the unity of God, to ten in number, describing them at length, and concluding in these terms: "Does the Kalam give us more information concerning God and His attributes than the prophet did?" (Ib. iii. and iv.) Aristotelianism finds no favor in Judah ha-Levi's eyes, for it is no less given to details and criticism; Neoplatonism alone suited him somewhat, owing to its appeal to his poetic temperament.
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. His ideas on the separation of philosophy and religion, further developed by the Averroist school of philosophy, were later influential in the development of modern secularism.[4][5] Ibn Rushd is thus regarded as the founding father of secular thought in Western Europe.[6]
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. Thus he says, "Not only is matter eternal, but form is potentially inherent in matter; otherwise, it were a creation ''ex nihilo''" (Munk, "Mélanges," p. 444). According to this theory, therefore, the existence of this world is not only a possibility, as Ibn Sina declared—in order to make concessions to the orthodox— but also a necessity.
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. In contrast, there are some historians and philosophers who do not agree with this account and describe this era in a completely different way. 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.[7]
Main articles: Mu'tazili
The rise of the Mutazilites, which was partly influenced by Greek philosophy and Hellenistic philosophy, integrating Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus in particular, and expand the use of ijtihad ("independent thought") to open questions of science and society, and what we today call modern philosophy. During this period the procedural traditions of Islam were highly developed. Ijtihad had strong influences on the development of the modern scientific method, while isnad is indistinguishable in form from modern scientific citation. With these tools, the Mutazilites were able to revive Greek and Hellenistic views, and correct them. Early Muslim medicine and Early Muslim sociology in particular benefited from the Mutazilite approach, but it led to very strong reaction.
Main articles: Ash'ari
The rise of the Asharites largely put an end to philosophy as such in the Muslim world, but permitted these methods to continue to be applied to science and technology. This marked the 12th-14th century peak of innovation in Muslim civilization, after which lack of improvements in the basic processes and confusion with theology and law had degraded methods. During this period many remarkable achievements of engineering and social organization were made, and the ulama began to generate a fiqh based on taqlid ("emulation") rather than on the old ijtihad.
Main articles: Illuminationist philosophy
Illuminationist philosophy was a school of Islamic philosophy founded by Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi in the 12th century. This school is a combination of Avicenna’s philosophy and ancient Iranian philosophy, along with many new innovative ideas of Suhrawardi. It is often described as having been influenced by Neoplatonism.
Main articles: Logic in Islamic philosophy
In early Islamic philosophy, logic played an important role. Islamic law placed importance on formulating standards of argument, which gave rise to a novel approach to logic in Kalam, but this approach was partly displaced by ideas from Greek philosophy with the rise of the Mutazilite philosophers, who valued highly Aristotle's Organon. The work of Greek influenced Islamic philosophers were crucial in the reception of Greek logic in medieval Europe, and the commentaries on the Organon by Averroes, as well as the works of Avicenna who often corrected Aristotle, played a central role in the subsequent medieval European logic.
According to the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
Important developments in Islamic philosophy include the development of a strict science of citation, the isnad or "backing", and the development of a scientific method of open inquiry to disprove claims, the ijtihad, which could be generally applied to many types of questions.
Despite the logical sophistication of Al-Ghazali, the rise of the Asharite school in the late Middle Ages slowly suffocated original work on logic in the Islamic world.
Early Muslim scientists and philosophers developed theories on evolution, natural selection, and the transmutation of species, which were widely taught in medieval Islamic schools. John William Draper, a contemporary of Charles Darwin, wrote the following on what he called the "Mohammedan theory of evolution" in 1878:[8]
In the 12th century, al-Khazini wrote the following on how evolution in alchemy and biology were perceived by natural philosophers and common people in the Islamic world at the time:
The Mu'tazili scientist and philosopher al-Jahiz (c. 776-869) was the first of the Muslim biologists and philosophers to develop an early theory of evolution. He speculated on the influence of the environment on animals, considered the effects of the environment on the likelihood of an animal to survive, and first described the struggle for existence and an early theory on natural selection.[9][10] Al-Jahiz wrote the following on the struggle for existence:
The Ash'ari polymath Ibn al-Haytham later wrote a book in which he argued for evolutionism (although not natural selection), and numerous other Islamic scholars and scientists, such as Ibn Miskawayh, the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwan al-Safa), and the polymaths Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī, al-Khazini, Nasir al-Din Tusi, and Ibn Khaldun, discussed and developed these ideas. Translated into Latin, these works began to appear in the West after the Renaissance and may have had an impact on Western philosophy and science.
Ibn Miskawayh's ''al-Fawz al-Asghar'' and the Brethren of Purity's ''Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity'' (''The Epistles of Ikhwan al-Safa'') developed theories on evolution that later had an influence on Charles Darwin and his inception of Darwinism. Muhammad Hamidullah describes their evolutionary ideas as follows:
Eloise Hart also describes the evolutionary thought in the ''Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity'' as follows:
English translations of the ''Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity'' were available from 1812,[11] while Arabic manuscripts of the ''al-Fawz al-Asghar'' and ''The Epistles of Ikhwan al-Safa'' were also available at the University of Cambridge by the 19th century. These works likely had an influence on 19th century evolutionists, and possibly Charles Darwin, who may have been a student of Arabic.
The Ash'ari polymath Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen) is considered a pioneer of phenomenology. He articulated a relationship between the physical and observable world and that of intuition, psychology and mental functions. His theories regarding knowledge and perception, linking the domains of science and religion, led to a philosophy of existence based on the direct observation of reality from the observer's point of view. Much of his thought on phenomenology was not further developed until the 20th century.[12]
Main articles: Historiography of early Islam
The first detailed studies on the subject of historiography itself and the first critiques on historical methods appeared in the works of the Arab Ash'ari historian and historiographer Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), who is regarded as the father of historiography, cultural history,[13] and the philosophy of history, especially for his historiographical writings in the ''Muqaddimah'' (Latinized as ''Prolegomena'') and ''Kitab al-Ibar'' (''Book of Advice'').[14] His ''Muqaddimah'' also laid the groundwork for the observation of the role of state, communication, propaganda and systematic bias in history,[15] and he discussed the rise and fall of civilizations.
Franz Rosenthal wrote in the ''History of Muslim Historiography'':
The pioneering development of the scientific method by the Ash'ari polymath Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen) was an important contribution to the philosophy of science. In the ''Book of Optics'', his scientific method was very similar to the modern scientific method and consisted of the following procedures:[16]
#Observation
#Statement of problem
#Formulation of hypothesis
#Testing of hypothesis using experimentation
#Analysis of experimental results
#Interpretation of data and formulation of conclusion
#Publication of findings
In ''The Model of the Motions'', Ibn al-Haytham also describes an early version of Occam's razor, where he employs only minimal hypotheses regarding the properties that characterize astronomical motions, as he attempts to eliminate from his planetary model the cosmological hypotheses that cannot be observed from Earth.[17]
The Ash'ari polymath Ibn al-Haytham's ''Risala fi’l-makan'' (''Treatise on Place'') presents a critique of Aristotle's concept of place (topos). Aristotle's ''Physics'' stated that the place of something is the two-dimensional boundary of the containing body that is at rest and is in contact with what it contains. Ibn al-Haytham disagreed and demonstrated that place (al-makan) is the imagined three-dimensional void between the inner surfaces of the containing body. He showed that place was akin to space, foreshadowing René Descartes's concept of place in the ''Extensio'' in the 17th century.
Following on from his ''Treatise on Place'', Ibn al-Haytham's ''Qawl fi al-Makan'' (''Discourse on Place'') was an important treatise which presents geometrical demonstrations for his geometrization of place, in opposition to Aristotle's philosophical concept of place, which Ibn al-Haytham rejected on mathematical grounds. Abd-el-latif, a supporter of Aristotle's philosophical view of place, later criticized the work in ''Fi al-Radd ‘ala Ibn al-Haytham fi al-makan'' (''A refutation of Ibn al-Haytham’s place'') for its geometrization of place.[18]
Main articles: Early Muslim sociology
Despite the negative consequences of Ash'ari thought on Islamic philosophy, it did later give rise to the beginnings of social philosophy. The most famous social philosopher was the Ash'ari polymath Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), who in his ''Muqaddimah'', developed the earliest theories on social philosophy, in formulating theories of social cohesion and social conflict.
His ''Muqaddimah'' was also the introduction to a seven volume analysis of universal history. He is considered the "father of sociology", "father of historiography", and "father of the philosophy of history", for being the first to discuss the topics of sociology, historiography and the philosophy of history in detail.
Main articles: Judeo-Islamic philosophies (800 - 1400)
The oldest Jewish religio-philosophical work preserved is that of Saadia Gaon (892-942), ''Emunot ve-Deot'', "The Book of Beliefs and Opinions". In this work Saadia treats the questions that interested the Mutakallamin, such as the creation of matter, the unity of God, the divine attributes, the soul, etc. Saadia criticizes other philosophers severely. For Saadia there was no problem as to creation: God created the world ''ex nihilo'', just as the Bible attests; 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. Only the attributes of essence (''sifat al-dhatia'') can be ascribed to God, but not the attributes of action (''sifat-al-fi'aliya''). The soul is a substance more delicate even than that of the celestial spheres. Here Saadia controverts the Mutakallamin, who considered the soul an "accident" 'arad'' (compare Guide for the Perplexed i. 74), and employs the following one of their premises to justify his position: "Only a substance can be the substratum of an accident" (that is, of a non-essential property of things). Saadia argues: "If the soul be an accident only, it can itself have no such accidents as wisdom, joy, love," etc. Saadia was thus in every way a supporter of the Kalam; and if at times he deviated from its doctrines, it was owing to his religious views; just as the Jewish and Muslim Peripatetics stopped short in their respective Aristotelianism whenever there was danger of wounding orthodox religion.
★ Islamic philosophy
★
★ Modern Islamic philosophy
★ Islamic science
★ Islamic Golden Age
1. See History of Islamic Philosophy edited by Oliver Leaman).Also see A History of islamic Societies by Ira.M. Lapidus. Faith and Reason in Islam by Averroes translated by Ibrahim Najjar, Averroes by Majid Fakhry, Averroes and his philosophy by Oliver Leaman. Thomas Aquinas was very familiar with the works of Ibn Rushd on "Reason and Revelation", and actually wrote several books on Ibn Rushd and his concepts. According to the Catholic Encylopedia "St. Thomas Aquinas used the "Grand Commentary" of Averroes as his model, being, apparently, the first Scholastic to adopt that style of exposition".(ref.http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02150c.htm)
2. María Rosa Menocal writes about this in "The Ornament of the World", and Karen Armstrong describes it in "The History of God". Dr. Robert Crane has also written about this.
This is what Jacob Bender says about Muslim Andulusia;"I believe there are three reasons that learning about Al-Andalus is crucial to the world today:
First, the level of civilization that Al-Andalus achieved. At a time when the rest of Europe was shrouded in the Dark Ages, the Muslim city of Cordoba in Al-Andalus was the most advanced city on the entire European Continent. In philosophy, architecture, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, poetry, theology, and numerous other fields of human endeavor, medieval Islam was the world's most advanced civilization.
Second, Al-Andalus in particular, and Islamic civilization in general, served as both the repository of ancient Greek knowledge and science, and the transmission point in its journey to the Christian-dominated West.
And third, the culture of Al-Andalus is now justly celebrated for the extent that religious pluralism and tolerance were hallmarks of this most glorious age, as manifested in Islam's respect for ahl al-kit_b, the "People of the Book."
"(http://www.twf.org/News/Y2003/1220-WiseMen.html)
3. Kevin Staley (1989). "Al-Kindi on Creation: Aristotle's Challenge to Islam", ''Journal of the History of Ideas'' '50' (3), p. 355-370.
4. Abdel Wahab El Messeri. Episode 21: Ibn Rushd, ''Everything you wanted to know about Islam but were afraid to ask'', ''Philosophia Islamica''.
5. Fauzi M. Najjar (Spring, 1996). The debate on Islam and secularism in Egypt, ''Arab Studies Quarterly (ASQ)''.
6. Majid Fakhry (2001). ''Averroes: His Life, Works and Influence''. Oneworld Publications. ISBN 1851682694.
7. Henry Corbin, ''History of Islamic Philosophy''.
8. John William Draper (1878). ''History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science'', p. 237. ISBN 1603030964.
9. Conway Zirkle (1941). Natural Selection before the "Origin of Species", ''Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society'' '84' (1), p. 71-123.
10. Mehmet Bayrakdar (Third Quarter, 1983). "Al-Jahiz And the Rise of Biological Evolutionism", ''The Islamic Quarterly''. London.
11. "Ikhwan as-Safa and their Rasa'il: A Critical Review of a Century and a Half of Research", by A. L. Tibawi, as published in volume 2 of ''The Islamic Quarterly'' in 1955; pgs. 28-46
12. Dr Valérie Gonzalez, "Universality and Modernity", ''The Ismaili United Kingdom'', December 2002, p. 50-53.
13. Mohamad Abdalla (Summer 2007). "Ibn Khaldun on the Fate of Islamic Science after the 11th Century", ''Islam & Science'' '5' (1), p. 61-70.
14. S. Ahmed (1999). ''A Dictionary of Muslim Names''. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. ISBN 1850653569.
15. H. Mowlana (2001). "Information in the Arab World", ''Cooperation South Journal'' '1'.
16. Bradley Steffens (2006). ''Ibn al-Haytham: First Scientist'', Morgan Reynolds Publishing, ISBN 1599350246. (cf. Bradley Steffens, "Who Was the First Scientist?", ''Ezine Articles''.)
17. Roshdi Rashed (2007). "The Celestial Kinematics of Ibn al-Haytham", ''Arabic Sciences and Philosophy'' '17', p. 7-55 [35-36]. Cambridge University Press.
18. El-Bizri (2007).
Some of the significant achievements of early Muslim philosophers included the development of a strict science of citation, the isnad or "backing"; the development of a method of open inquiry to disprove claims, the ijtihad, which could be generally applied to many types of questions (although which to apply it to is an ethical question); the willingness to both accept and challenge authority within the same process; recognition that science and philosophy are both subordinate to morality, and that moral choices are prior to any investigation or concern with either; the separation of theology (kalam) and law (shariah) during the early Abbasid period, a precursor to secularism;[3] the distinction between religion and philosophy, marking the beginning of secular thought; the beginnings of the scientific method, an important contribution to the philosophy of science; early ideas on evolution and natural selection; the beginning of social philosophy, in formulating theories of social cohesion and social conflict; and the beginning of the philosophy of history.
Early Islamic philosophy can be divided into clear sets of influences, branches, schools, and fields, as described below.
Origin
Muhammad
The life of Muhammad or sira which generated both the Qur'an (revelation) and hadith (his daily utterances and discourses on social and legal matters), during which philosophy was defined by Muslims as consisting in acceptance or rejection of his message. Together the sira and hadith constitute the sunnah and are validated by isnad ("backing") to determine the likely truth of the report of any given saying of Muhammad. Key figures are Imam Bukhari, Imam Muslim, Al-Tirmidhi, Ibn Majah, Abu Dawud and Al-Nasa'i. Each sifted through literally millions of hadith to accept a list of under 10,000. This work, which was not completed until the 10th century, began shortly after The Farewell Sermon in 631, after which Muhammad could not mediate disputes. After his death Abu Bakr began to collect all fragments of his sayings.
Branches of Islamic philosophy
Kalam
Main articles: Kalam
With Kalam, in which questions about the sira and hadith, as well as science and law, began to be investigated beyond the scope of Muhammad's beliefs. This period is characterized by emergence of ijtihad and the first fiqh. As the Sunnah became published and accepted, philosophy separate from Muslim theology was discouraged due to a lack of participants. During this period, traditions similar to Socratic method began to evolve, but philosophy remained subordinate to religion.
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. One of first debates was that between partisan of the ''Qadar'' (Arabic: ''qadara'', to have power), who affirmed free will, and the ''Jabarites'' (jabar, force, constraint), who maintained the belief in fatalism.
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. This new school was called ''Mutazilite'' (from i'tazala, to separate oneself, to dissent). Its principal dogmas were three:
#God is an absolute unity, and no attribute can be ascribed to Him.
#Man is a free agent. It is on account of these two principles that the Mu'tazilites designate themselves the "Partisans of Justice and Unity".
#All knowledge necessary for the salvation of man emanates from his reason; humans could acquire knowledge before, as well as after, Revelation, by the sole light of reason. This fact makes knowledge obligatory upon all men, at all times, and in all places.
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); those professing it were called ''Mutakallamin''. This appellation became the common name for all seeking philosophical demonstration in confirmation of religious principles. The first Mutakallamin had to debate both the orthodox and the non-Muslims, and they may be described as occupying the middle ground between those two parties. But subsequent generations were to large extent critical towards the Mutazilite school, especially after formation of the Asharite concepts.
Falsafa
From the 9th century onwards, owing to Caliph al-Ma'mun and his successor, Greek philosophy and Hellenistic philosophy were introduced among the Persians and Arabs, and the Peripatetic and Neoplatonic schools began to find able representatives among them; such were al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Avicenna (Ibn Sina), and Averroes (Ibn Rushd), all of whose fundamental principles were considered as criticized by the Mutakallamin.
During the Abbasid caliphate a number of thinkers and scientists, many of them non-Muslims or heretical Muslims, played a role in transmitting Greek, Hellenistic, Indian and other pre-Islamic knowledge to the Christian West. They contributed to making Aristotle known in Christian Europe. Three speculative thinkers, the two Persians al-Farabi and Avicenna and the Arab al-Kindi, combined Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism with other ideas introduced through Islam. They were considered by many as highly unorthodox and a few even described them as non-Islamic philosophers.
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; but from the view which he maintained, that matter was eternal, it followed that God could not be the Creator of the world. To assert that God's knowledge extends only to the general laws of the universe, and not to individual and accidental things, is tantamount to denying prophecy. One other point shocked the faith of the Mutakallamin — the theory of intellect. The Peripatetics taught that the human soul was only an aptitude — a faculty capable of attaining every variety of passive perfection — and that through information and virtue it became qualified for union with the active intellect, which latter emanates from God. To admit this theory would be to deny the immortality of the soul.
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. They taught that atoms possess neither quantity nor extension. Originally atoms were created by God, and are created now as occasion seems to require. Bodies come into existence or die, through the aggregation or the sunderance of these atoms. 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. In order to obviate this difficulty, the Motekallamin extended their theory of the atoms to Time, and claimed that just as Space is constituted of atoms and vacuum, Time, likewise, is constituted of small indivisible moments. The creation of the world once established, it was an easy matter for them to demonstrate the existence of a Creator, and that God is unique, omnipotent, and omniscient.
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 made 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. He says, "I consider him to have attained the highest degree of perfection who is convinced of religious truths without having scrutinized them and reasoned over them" ("Kuzari," v.). Then he reduced the chief propositions of the Mutakallamin, to prove the unity of God, to ten in number, describing them at length, and concluding in these terms: "Does the Kalam give us more information concerning God and His attributes than the prophet did?" (Ib. iii. and iv.) Aristotelianism finds no favor in Judah ha-Levi's eyes, for it is no less given to details and criticism; Neoplatonism alone suited him somewhat, owing to its appeal to his poetic temperament.
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. His ideas on the separation of philosophy and religion, further developed by the Averroist school of philosophy, were later influential in the development of modern secularism.[4][5] Ibn Rushd is thus regarded as the founding father of secular thought in Western Europe.[6]
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. Thus he says, "Not only is matter eternal, but form is potentially inherent in matter; otherwise, it were a creation ''ex nihilo''" (Munk, "Mélanges," p. 444). According to this theory, therefore, the existence of this world is not only a possibility, as Ibn Sina declared—in order to make concessions to the orthodox— but also a necessity.
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. In contrast, there are some historians and philosophers who do not agree with this account and describe this era in a completely different way. 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.[7]
Schools of Islamic thought
Mu'tazili school
Main articles: Mu'tazili
The rise of the Mutazilites, which was partly influenced by Greek philosophy and Hellenistic philosophy, integrating Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus in particular, and expand the use of ijtihad ("independent thought") to open questions of science and society, and what we today call modern philosophy. During this period the procedural traditions of Islam were highly developed. Ijtihad had strong influences on the development of the modern scientific method, while isnad is indistinguishable in form from modern scientific citation. With these tools, the Mutazilites were able to revive Greek and Hellenistic views, and correct them. Early Muslim medicine and Early Muslim sociology in particular benefited from the Mutazilite approach, but it led to very strong reaction.
Ash'ari school
Main articles: Ash'ari
The rise of the Asharites largely put an end to philosophy as such in the Muslim world, but permitted these methods to continue to be applied to science and technology. This marked the 12th-14th century peak of innovation in Muslim civilization, after which lack of improvements in the basic processes and confusion with theology and law had degraded methods. During this period many remarkable achievements of engineering and social organization were made, and the ulama began to generate a fiqh based on taqlid ("emulation") rather than on the old ijtihad.
Illuminationist school
Main articles: Illuminationist philosophy
Illuminationist philosophy was a school of Islamic philosophy founded by Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi in the 12th century. This school is a combination of Avicenna’s philosophy and ancient Iranian philosophy, along with many new innovative ideas of Suhrawardi. It is often described as having been influenced by Neoplatonism.
Fields of Islamic philosophy
Logic
Main articles: Logic in Islamic philosophy
In early Islamic philosophy, logic played an important role. Islamic law placed importance on formulating standards of argument, which gave rise to a novel approach to logic in Kalam, but this approach was partly displaced by ideas from Greek philosophy with the rise of the Mutazilite philosophers, who valued highly Aristotle's Organon. The work of Greek influenced Islamic philosophers were crucial in the reception of Greek logic in medieval Europe, and the commentaries on the Organon by Averroes, as well as the works of Avicenna who often corrected Aristotle, played a central role in the subsequent medieval European logic.
According to the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
Important developments in Islamic philosophy include the development of a strict science of citation, the isnad or "backing", and the development of a scientific method of open inquiry to disprove claims, the ijtihad, which could be generally applied to many types of questions.
Despite the logical sophistication of Al-Ghazali, the rise of the Asharite school in the late Middle Ages slowly suffocated original work on logic in the Islamic world.
Evolution
Early Muslim scientists and philosophers developed theories on evolution, natural selection, and the transmutation of species, which were widely taught in medieval Islamic schools. John William Draper, a contemporary of Charles Darwin, wrote the following on what he called the "Mohammedan theory of evolution" in 1878:[8]
In the 12th century, al-Khazini wrote the following on how evolution in alchemy and biology were perceived by natural philosophers and common people in the Islamic world at the time:
The Mu'tazili scientist and philosopher al-Jahiz (c. 776-869) was the first of the Muslim biologists and philosophers to develop an early theory of evolution. He speculated on the influence of the environment on animals, considered the effects of the environment on the likelihood of an animal to survive, and first described the struggle for existence and an early theory on natural selection.[9][10] Al-Jahiz wrote the following on the struggle for existence:
The Ash'ari polymath Ibn al-Haytham later wrote a book in which he argued for evolutionism (although not natural selection), and numerous other Islamic scholars and scientists, such as Ibn Miskawayh, the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwan al-Safa), and the polymaths Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī, al-Khazini, Nasir al-Din Tusi, and Ibn Khaldun, discussed and developed these ideas. Translated into Latin, these works began to appear in the West after the Renaissance and may have had an impact on Western philosophy and science.
Ibn Miskawayh's ''al-Fawz al-Asghar'' and the Brethren of Purity's ''Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity'' (''The Epistles of Ikhwan al-Safa'') developed theories on evolution that later had an influence on Charles Darwin and his inception of Darwinism. Muhammad Hamidullah describes their evolutionary ideas as follows:
Eloise Hart also describes the evolutionary thought in the ''Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity'' as follows:
English translations of the ''Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity'' were available from 1812,[11] while Arabic manuscripts of the ''al-Fawz al-Asghar'' and ''The Epistles of Ikhwan al-Safa'' were also available at the University of Cambridge by the 19th century. These works likely had an influence on 19th century evolutionists, and possibly Charles Darwin, who may have been a student of Arabic.
Phenomenology
The Ash'ari polymath Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen) is considered a pioneer of phenomenology. He articulated a relationship between the physical and observable world and that of intuition, psychology and mental functions. His theories regarding knowledge and perception, linking the domains of science and religion, led to a philosophy of existence based on the direct observation of reality from the observer's point of view. Much of his thought on phenomenology was not further developed until the 20th century.[12]
Philosophy of history
Main articles: Historiography of early Islam
The first detailed studies on the subject of historiography itself and the first critiques on historical methods appeared in the works of the Arab Ash'ari historian and historiographer Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), who is regarded as the father of historiography, cultural history,[13] and the philosophy of history, especially for his historiographical writings in the ''Muqaddimah'' (Latinized as ''Prolegomena'') and ''Kitab al-Ibar'' (''Book of Advice'').[14] His ''Muqaddimah'' also laid the groundwork for the observation of the role of state, communication, propaganda and systematic bias in history,[15] and he discussed the rise and fall of civilizations.
Franz Rosenthal wrote in the ''History of Muslim Historiography'':
Philosophy of science
The pioneering development of the scientific method by the Ash'ari polymath Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen) was an important contribution to the philosophy of science. In the ''Book of Optics'', his scientific method was very similar to the modern scientific method and consisted of the following procedures:[16]
#Observation
#Statement of problem
#Formulation of hypothesis
#Testing of hypothesis using experimentation
#Analysis of experimental results
#Interpretation of data and formulation of conclusion
#Publication of findings
In ''The Model of the Motions'', Ibn al-Haytham also describes an early version of Occam's razor, where he employs only minimal hypotheses regarding the properties that characterize astronomical motions, as he attempts to eliminate from his planetary model the cosmological hypotheses that cannot be observed from Earth.[17]
Place
The Ash'ari polymath Ibn al-Haytham's ''Risala fi’l-makan'' (''Treatise on Place'') presents a critique of Aristotle's concept of place (topos). Aristotle's ''Physics'' stated that the place of something is the two-dimensional boundary of the containing body that is at rest and is in contact with what it contains. Ibn al-Haytham disagreed and demonstrated that place (al-makan) is the imagined three-dimensional void between the inner surfaces of the containing body. He showed that place was akin to space, foreshadowing René Descartes's concept of place in the ''Extensio'' in the 17th century.
Following on from his ''Treatise on Place'', Ibn al-Haytham's ''Qawl fi al-Makan'' (''Discourse on Place'') was an important treatise which presents geometrical demonstrations for his geometrization of place, in opposition to Aristotle's philosophical concept of place, which Ibn al-Haytham rejected on mathematical grounds. Abd-el-latif, a supporter of Aristotle's philosophical view of place, later criticized the work in ''Fi al-Radd ‘ala Ibn al-Haytham fi al-makan'' (''A refutation of Ibn al-Haytham’s place'') for its geometrization of place.[18]
Social philosophy
Main articles: Early Muslim sociology
Despite the negative consequences of Ash'ari thought on Islamic philosophy, it did later give rise to the beginnings of social philosophy. The most famous social philosopher was the Ash'ari polymath Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), who in his ''Muqaddimah'', developed the earliest theories on social philosophy, in formulating theories of social cohesion and social conflict.
His ''Muqaddimah'' was also the introduction to a seven volume analysis of universal history. He is considered the "father of sociology", "father of historiography", and "father of the philosophy of history", for being the first to discuss the topics of sociology, historiography and the philosophy of history in detail.
Jewish philosophy in the classical Islamic world
Main articles: Judeo-Islamic philosophies (800 - 1400)
The oldest Jewish religio-philosophical work preserved is that of Saadia Gaon (892-942), ''Emunot ve-Deot'', "The Book of Beliefs and Opinions". In this work Saadia treats the questions that interested the Mutakallamin, such as the creation of matter, the unity of God, the divine attributes, the soul, etc. Saadia criticizes other philosophers severely. For Saadia there was no problem as to creation: God created the world ''ex nihilo'', just as the Bible attests; 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. Only the attributes of essence (''sifat al-dhatia'') can be ascribed to God, but not the attributes of action (''sifat-al-fi'aliya''). The soul is a substance more delicate even than that of the celestial spheres. Here Saadia controverts the Mutakallamin, who considered the soul an "accident" 'arad'' (compare Guide for the Perplexed i. 74), and employs the following one of their premises to justify his position: "Only a substance can be the substratum of an accident" (that is, of a non-essential property of things). Saadia argues: "If the soul be an accident only, it can itself have no such accidents as wisdom, joy, love," etc. Saadia was thus in every way a supporter of the Kalam; and if at times he deviated from its doctrines, it was owing to his religious views; just as the Jewish and Muslim Peripatetics stopped short in their respective Aristotelianism whenever there was danger of wounding orthodox religion.
See also
★ Islamic philosophy
★
★ Modern Islamic philosophy
★ Islamic science
★ Islamic Golden Age
References
1. See History of Islamic Philosophy edited by Oliver Leaman).Also see A History of islamic Societies by Ira.M. Lapidus. Faith and Reason in Islam by Averroes translated by Ibrahim Najjar, Averroes by Majid Fakhry, Averroes and his philosophy by Oliver Leaman. Thomas Aquinas was very familiar with the works of Ibn Rushd on "Reason and Revelation", and actually wrote several books on Ibn Rushd and his concepts. According to the Catholic Encylopedia "St. Thomas Aquinas used the "Grand Commentary" of Averroes as his model, being, apparently, the first Scholastic to adopt that style of exposition".(ref.http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02150c.htm)
2. María Rosa Menocal writes about this in "The Ornament of the World", and Karen Armstrong describes it in "The History of God". Dr. Robert Crane has also written about this.
This is what Jacob Bender says about Muslim Andulusia;"I believe there are three reasons that learning about Al-Andalus is crucial to the world today:
First, the level of civilization that Al-Andalus achieved. At a time when the rest of Europe was shrouded in the Dark Ages, the Muslim city of Cordoba in Al-Andalus was the most advanced city on the entire European Continent. In philosophy, architecture, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, poetry, theology, and numerous other fields of human endeavor, medieval Islam was the world's most advanced civilization.
Second, Al-Andalus in particular, and Islamic civilization in general, served as both the repository of ancient Greek knowledge and science, and the transmission point in its journey to the Christian-dominated West.
And third, the culture of Al-Andalus is now justly celebrated for the extent that religious pluralism and tolerance were hallmarks of this most glorious age, as manifested in Islam's respect for ahl al-kit_b, the "People of the Book."
"(http://www.twf.org/News/Y2003/1220-WiseMen.html)
3. Kevin Staley (1989). "Al-Kindi on Creation: Aristotle's Challenge to Islam", ''Journal of the History of Ideas'' '50' (3), p. 355-370.
4. Abdel Wahab El Messeri. Episode 21: Ibn Rushd, ''Everything you wanted to know about Islam but were afraid to ask'', ''Philosophia Islamica''.
5. Fauzi M. Najjar (Spring, 1996). The debate on Islam and secularism in Egypt, ''Arab Studies Quarterly (ASQ)''.
6. Majid Fakhry (2001). ''Averroes: His Life, Works and Influence''. Oneworld Publications. ISBN 1851682694.
7. Henry Corbin, ''History of Islamic Philosophy''.
8. John William Draper (1878). ''History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science'', p. 237. ISBN 1603030964.
9. Conway Zirkle (1941). Natural Selection before the "Origin of Species", ''Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society'' '84' (1), p. 71-123.
10. Mehmet Bayrakdar (Third Quarter, 1983). "Al-Jahiz And the Rise of Biological Evolutionism", ''The Islamic Quarterly''. London.
11. "Ikhwan as-Safa and their Rasa'il: A Critical Review of a Century and a Half of Research", by A. L. Tibawi, as published in volume 2 of ''The Islamic Quarterly'' in 1955; pgs. 28-46
12. Dr Valérie Gonzalez, "Universality and Modernity", ''The Ismaili United Kingdom'', December 2002, p. 50-53.
13. Mohamad Abdalla (Summer 2007). "Ibn Khaldun on the Fate of Islamic Science after the 11th Century", ''Islam & Science'' '5' (1), p. 61-70.
14. S. Ahmed (1999). ''A Dictionary of Muslim Names''. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. ISBN 1850653569.
15. H. Mowlana (2001). "Information in the Arab World", ''Cooperation South Journal'' '1'.
16. Bradley Steffens (2006). ''Ibn al-Haytham: First Scientist'', Morgan Reynolds Publishing, ISBN 1599350246. (cf. Bradley Steffens, "Who Was the First Scientist?", ''Ezine Articles''.)
17. Roshdi Rashed (2007). "The Celestial Kinematics of Ibn al-Haytham", ''Arabic Sciences and Philosophy'' '17', p. 7-55 [35-36]. Cambridge University Press.
18. El-Bizri (2007).
This article provided by Wikipedia. To edit the contents of this article, click here for original source.
psst.. try this: add to faves
Featured Companies
| Green Parrot Beach Houses Resort |
Newest Companies
Early Islamic philosophy Travel Deals
