In the religion of Islam, two words are sometimes
translated as philosophy—falsafa (literally:
"philosophy"), which refers to philosophy
as well as logic, mathematics, and physics;
and Kalam (literally "speech"), which refers
to a rationalist form of Islamic philosophy
and theology based on the interpretations
as developed by medieval Muslim philosophers.
Islamic philosophy has also been described
as the systematic investigation of problems
connected with life, the universe, ethics,
medicine, science, society, and so on as conducted
in the medieval Muslim world from Persian
(Avicenna, al-Biruni, al-Farabi, al-Ghazali,
Khayyam, Khwarizmi, al-Razi, Suhrawardi),
Arab (al-Kindi, al-Ashari, Alhazen), and Andalusian
(Averroes, at-Turtushi, Ibn Hazm) Islamic
philosophers, scholars and polymaths during
the Islamic Golden Age.
Early Islamic philosophy began in the 2nd
century AH of the Islamic calendar (early
9th century CE) and lasted until the 6th century
AH (late 12th century CE). The period is known
as the Golden Age of Islam, and the achievements
of this period had a crucial influence on
the development of modern philosophy and science
in the Western world; for Renaissance Europe,
the influence represented from the Islamic
Golden Age was “one of the largest technology
transfers in world history”. This period
began with al-Kindi in the 9th century and
ended with Averroes (Ibn Rushd) at the end
of 12th century. The death of Averroes effectively
marked the end of a particular discipline
of Islamic philosophy usually called the Peripatetic
Arabic 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.
== Introduction ==
By way of introduction Islamic philosophy
refers to philosophy produced in an Islamic
society.
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.
It is not necessarily concerned with religious
issues, nor exclusively produced by Muslims.
Nor do all schools of thought within Islam
admit 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, this may have 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,
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.
== 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 the Quran) 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.
== Opposition to philosophy ==
Some Muslims oppose the idea of philosophy
as un-Islamic. The popular Salafist website
IslamQA.info (supervised by Shaykh Muhammad
Saalih al-Munajjid of Saudi Arabia) declares
philosophy to be an "alien entity":
The terminology of Islamic philosophy did
not emerge as a branch of knowledge that is
taught in the curriculum of Islamic studies
until it was introduced by Shaykh Mustafa
Abd al-Raziq – the Shaykh of al-Azhar – as
a reaction to western attacks on Islam based
on the idea that Islam has no philosophy.
But the fact of the matter is that philosophy
is an alien entity in the body of Islam.
The fatwa claims that "the majority of fuqaha’
[experts in fiqh] have stated that it is haraam
to study philosophy, and lists some of these:
Ibn Nujaym (Hanafi) writing in al-Ashbaah
wa’l-Nazaa’im;
al-Dardeer (Maaliki) said in al-Sharh al-Kabeer;
Al-Dasooqi in his Haashiyah (2/174);
Zakariya al-Ansaari (Shaafa’i) in Asna al-Mataalib
(4/182);
al-Bahooti (Hanbali) said in Kashshaaf al-Qinaa’
(3/34);IslamQA quotes Al-Ghazali who declares
that of the "four branches" of philosophy
(geometry and mathematics, logic, theology,
and natural sciences), some of the natural
sciences "go against shari’ah, Islam and
truth", and that except for medicine, "there
is no need for the study of nature".Maani’
Hammad al-Juhani, (a member of the Consultative
Council and General Director, World Assembly
of Muslim Youth)
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".Ibn Abi al-Izz, a commentator
on al-Tahhaawiyyah, condemns philosophers
as the ones who "most deny the Last Day and
its events. In their view Paradise and Hell
are no more than parables for the masses to
understand, but they have no reality beyond
people’s minds."
== Early Islamic philosophy ==
In early Islamic thought, which refers to
philosophy during the "Islamic Golden Age",
traditionally dated between the 8th and 12th
centuries, two main currents may be distinguished.
The first is Kalam, which mainly dealt with
Islamic theological questions, and the other
is Falsafa, which was founded on interpretations
of Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism. There
were attempts by later philosopher-theologians
at harmonizing both trends, notably by Ibn
Sina (Avicenna) who founded the school of
Avicennism, Ibn Rushd (Averroës) who founded
the school of Averroism, and others such as
Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen) and Abū Rayhān
al-Bīrūnī.
=== Kalam ===
ʿIlm al-Kalām (Arabic: علم الكلام‎)
is the philosophy that seeks Islamic theological
principles through dialectic. In Arabic, the
word literally means "speech".One of first
debates was that between partisans of the
Qadar (قدر meaning "Fate"), who affirmed
free will; and the Jabarites (جبر meaning
"force", "constraint"), who believed in fatalism.
At the 2nd century of the Hijra, a new movement
arose in the theological school of Basra,
Iraq. A pupil of Hasan of Basra, Wasil ibn
Ata, left the group when he disagreed with
his teacher on whether a Muslim who has committed
a major sin invalidates his faith. He systematized
the radical opinions of preceding sects, particularly
those of the Qadarites and Jabarites. This
new school was called Mu'tazilite (from i'tazala,
to separate oneself).
The Mu'tazilites looked in towards a strict
rationalism with which to interpret Islamic
doctrine. Their attempt was one of the first
to pursue a rational theology in Islam. They
were however severely criticized by other
Islamic philosophers, both Maturidis and Asharites.
The great Asharite scholar Fakhr ad-Din ar-Razi
wrote the work Al-Mutakallimin fi 'Ilm al-Kalam
against the Mutazalites.
In later times, Kalam was used to mean simply
"theology", i.e. the duties of the heart as
opposed to (or in conjunction with) fiqh (jurisprudence),
the duties of the body.
=== Falsafa ===
Falsafa is a Greek loanword meaning "philosophy"
(the Greek pronunciation philosophia became
falsafa). From the 9th century onward, due
to Caliph al-Ma'mun and his successor, ancient
Greek philosophy was introduced among the
arabs and the Peripatetic School began to
find able representatives. Among them were
Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi, Avicenna and Averroes.
Another trend, represented by the Brethren
of Purity, used Aristotelian language to expound
a fundamentally Neoplatonic and Neopythagorean
world view.
During the Abbasid caliphate, a number of
thinkers and scientists, some of them heterodox
Muslims or non-Muslims, played a role in transmitting
Greek, Hindu and other pre-Islamic knowledge
to the Christian West. They contributed to
making Aristotle known in Christian Europe.
Three speculative thinkers, Al-Farabi, Avicenna
and Al-Kindi, combined Aristotelianism and
Neoplatonism with other ideas introduced through
Islam.
=== End of the classical period ===
By the 12th century, Kalam, attacked by both
the philosophers and the orthodox, perished
for lack of champions. At the same time, however,
Falsafa came under serious critical scrutiny.
The most devastating attack came from Al-Ghazali,
whose work Tahafut al-Falasifa (The Incoherence
of the Philosophers) attacked the main arguments
of the Peripatetic School.Averroes, Maimonides'
contemporary, was one of the last of the Islamic
Peripatetics and set out to defend the views
of the Falsafa against al-Ghazali's criticism.
The theories of Ibn Rushd do not differ fundamentally
from those of Ibn Bajjah and Ibn Tufail, who
only follow the teachings of Avicenna and
Al-Farabi. Like all Islamic Peripatetics,
Averroes 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, Avicenna, and other Persian
and Muslim philosophers hurried, so to speak,
over subjects that trenched on traditional
beliefs, 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 Avicenna declared, but also
a necessity.
== Logic ==
In early Islamic philosophy, logic played
an important role. Sharia (Islamic law) placed
importance on formulating standards of argument,
which gave rise to a novel approach to logic
in Kalam, but this approach was later displaced
by ideas from Greek philosophy and Hellenistic
philosophy with the rise of the Mu'tazili
philosophers, who highly valued Aristotle's
Organon. The works of Hellenistic-influenced
Islamic philosophers were crucial in the reception
of Aristotelian logic in medieval Europe,
along with the commentaries on the Organon
by Averroes. The works of al-Farabi, Avicenna,
al-Ghazali and other Muslim logicians who
often criticized and corrected Aristotelian
logic and introduced their own forms of logic,
also played a central role in the subsequent
development of European logic during the Renaissance.
According to the Routledge Encyclopedia of
Philosophy:
"For the Islamic philosophers, logic included
not only the study of formal patterns of inference
and their validity but also elements of the
philosophy of language and even of epistemology
and metaphysics. Because of territorial disputes
with the Arabic grammarians, Islamic philosophers
were very interested in working out the relationship
between logic and language, and they devoted
much discussion to the question of the subject
matter and aims of logic in relation to reasoning
and speech. In the area of formal logical
analysis, they elaborated upon the theory
of terms, propositions and syllogisms as formulated
in Aristotle's Categories, De interpretatione
and Prior Analytics. In the spirit of Aristotle,
they considered the syllogism to be the form
to which all rational argumentation could
be reduced, and they regarded syllogistic
theory as the focal point of logic. Even poetics
was considered as a syllogistic art in some
fashion by most of the major Islamic Aristotelians."
Important developments made by Muslim logicians
included the development of "Avicennian logic"
as a replacement of Aristotelian logic. Avicenna's
system of logic was responsible for the introduction
of hypothetical syllogism, temporal modal
logic and inductive logic. Other important
developments in early Islamic philosophy include
the development of a strict science of citation,
the isnad or "backing", and the development
of a method to disprove claims, the ijtihad,
which was generally applied to many types
of questions.
=== Logic in Islamic law and theology ===
Early forms of analogical reasoning, inductive
reasoning and categorical syllogism were introduced
in Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), Sharia and
Kalam (Islamic theology) from the 7th century
with the process of Qiyas, before the Arabic
translations of Aristotle's works. Later,
during the Islamic Golden Age, there was debate
among Islamic philosophers, logicians and
theologians over whether the term Qiyas refers
to analogical reasoning, inductive reasoning
or categorical syllogism. Some Islamic scholars
argued that Qiyas refers to inductive reasoning.
Ibn Hazm (994–1064) disagreed, arguing that
Qiyas does not refer to inductive reasoning
but to categorical syllogistic reasoning in
a real sense and analogical reasoning in a
metaphorical sense. On the other hand, al-Ghazali
(1058–1111; and, in modern times, Abu Muhammad
Asem al-Maqdisi) argued that Qiyas refers
to analogical reasoning in a real sense and
categorical syllogism in a metaphorical sense.
Other Islamic scholars at the time, however,
argued that the term Qiyas refers to both
analogical reasoning and categorical syllogism
in a real sense.
=== Aristotelian logic ===
The first original Arabic writings on logic
were produced by al-Kindi (Alkindus) (805–873),
who produced a summary on earlier logic up
to his time. The first writings on logic with
non-Aristotelian elements was produced by
al-Farabi (Alfarabi) (873–950), who discussed
the topics of future contingents, the number
and relation of the categories, the relation
between logic and grammar, and non-Aristotelian
forms of inference. He is also credited for
categorizing logic into two separate groups,
the first being "idea" and the second being
"proof".
Averroes (1126–1198), author of the most
elaborate commentaries on Aristotelian logic,
was the last major logician from al-Andalus.
=== Avicennian logic ===
Avicenna (980–1037) developed his own system
of logic known as "Avicennian logic" as an
alternative to Aristotelian logic. By the
12th century, Avicennian logic had replaced
Aristotelian logic as the dominant system
of logic in the Islamic world.The first criticisms
of Aristotelian logic were written by Avicenna
(980–1037), who produced independent treatises
on logic rather than commentaries. He criticized
the logical school of Baghdad for their devotion
to Aristotle at the time. He investigated
the theory of definition and classification
and the quantification of the predicates of
categorical propositions, and developed an
original theory on "temporal modal" syllogism.
Its premises included modifiers such as "at
all times", "at most times", and "at some
time".
While Avicenna (980–1037) often relied on
deductive reasoning in philosophy, he used
a different approach in medicine. Ibn Sina
contributed inventively to the development
of inductive logic, which he used to pioneer
the idea of a syndrome. In his medical writings,
Avicenna was the first to describe the methods
of agreement, difference and concomitant variation
which are critical to inductive logic and
the scientific method.Ibn Hazm (994–1064)
wrote the Scope of Logic, in which he stressed
on the importance of sense perception as a
source of knowledge. Al-Ghazali (Algazel)
(1058–1111) had an important influence on
the use of logic in theology, making use of
Avicennian logic in Kalam. Despite the logical
sophistication of al-Ghazali, the rise of
the Ash'ari school in the 12th century slowly
suffocated original work on logic in much
of the Islamic world, though logic continued
to be studied in some Islamic regions such
as Persia and the Levant.
Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (b. 1149) criticised
Aristotle's "first figure" and developed a
form of inductive logic, foreshadowing the
system of inductive logic developed by John
Stuart Mill (1806–1873). Systematic refutations
of Greek logic were written by the Illuminationist
school, founded by Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi
(1155–1191), who developed the idea of "decisive
necessity", an important innovation in the
history of logical philosophical speculation.
and in favour of inductive reasoning.
== Metaphysics ==
=== Cosmological and ontological arguments
===
Avicenna's proof for the existence of God
was the first ontological argument, which
he proposed in the Metaphysics section of
The Book of Healing. This was the first attempt
at using the method of a priori proof, which
utilizes intuition and reason alone. Avicenna's
proof of God's existence is unique in that
it can be classified as both a cosmological
argument and an ontological argument. "It
is ontological insofar as ‘necessary existence’
in intellect is the first basis for arguing
for a Necessary Existent". The proof is also
"cosmological insofar as most of it is taken
up with arguing that contingent existents
cannot stand alone and must end up in a Necessary
Existent."
=== 
Distinction between essence and existence
===
Islamic philosophy, imbued as it is with Islamic
theology, distinguishes more clearly than
Aristotelianism the difference between essence
and existence. Whereas existence is the domain
of the contingent and the accidental, essence
endures within a being beyond the accidental.
This was first described by Avicenna's works
on metaphysics, who was himself influenced
by al-Farabi.
Some orientalists (or those particularly influenced
by Thomist scholarship) argued that Avicenna
was the first to view existence (wujud) as
an accident that happens to the essence (mahiyya).
However, this aspect of ontology is not the
most central to the distinction that Avicenna
established between essence and existence.
One cannot therefore make the claim that Avicenna
was the proponent of the concept of essentialism
per se, given that existence (al-wujud) when
thought of in terms of necessity would ontologically
translate into a notion of the "Necessary-Existent-due-to-Itself"
(wajib al-wujud bi-dhatihi), which is without
description or definition and, in particular,
without quiddity or essence (la mahiyya lahu).
Consequently, Avicenna's ontology is 'existentialist'
when accounting for being–qua–existence
in terms of necessity (wujub), while it is
essentialist in terms of thinking about being–qua–existence
in terms of "contingency–qua–possibility"
(imkan or mumkin al-wujud, meaning "contingent
being").Some argue that Avicenna anticipated
Frege and Bertrand Russell in "holding that
existence is an accident of accidents" and
also anticipated Alexius Meinong's "view about
nonexistent objects." He also provided early
arguments for "a "necessary being" as cause
of all other existents."The idea of "essence
preced[ing] existence" is a concept which
dates back to Avicenna and his school as well
as Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi and his Illuminationist
philosophy. "Existence preced[ing] essence",
the opposite (existentialist) notion, was
developed in the works of Averroes and Mulla
Sadra's transcendent theosophy.
=== Resurrection ===
Ibn al-Nafis wrote the Theologus Autodidactus
as a defense of "the system of Islam and the
Muslims' doctrines on the missions of Prophets,
the religious laws, the resurrection of the
body, and the transitoriness of the world."
The book presents rational arguments for bodily
resurrection and the immortality of the human
soul, using both demonstrative reasoning and
material from the hadith corpus as forms of
evidence. Later Islamic scholars viewed this
work as a response to Avicenna's metaphysical
argument on spiritual resurrection (as opposed
to bodily resurrection), which was earlier
criticized by al-Ghazali.
=== Soul and spirit ===
The Muslim physician-philosophers, Avicenna
and Ibn al-Nafis, developed their own theories
on the soul. They both made a distinction
between the soul and the spirit, and in particular,
the Avicennian doctrine on the nature of the
soul was influential among the Scholastics.
Some of Avicenna's views on the soul included
the idea that the immortality of the soul
is a consequence of its nature, and not a
purpose for it to fulfill. In his theory of
"The Ten Intellects", he viewed the human
soul as the tenth and final intellect.
Avicenna generally supported Aristotle's idea
of the soul originating from the heart, whereas
Ibn al-Nafis on the other hand rejected this
idea and instead argued that the soul "is
related to the entirety and not to one or
a few organs." He further criticized Aristotle's
idea that every unique soul requires the existence
of a unique source, in this case the heart.
Ibn al-Nafis concluded that "the soul is related
primarily neither to the spirit nor to any
organ, but rather to the entire matter whose
temperament is prepared to receive that soul"
and he defined the soul as nothing other than
"what a human indicates by saying ‘I’."
=== Thought experiments ===
While he was imprisoned in the castle of Fardajan
near Hamadhan, Avicenna wrote his "Floating
Man" thought experiment to demonstrate human
self-awareness and the substantiality of the
soul. He referred to the living human intelligence,
particularly the active intellect, which he
believed to be the hypostasis by which God
communicates truth to the human mind and imparts
order and intelligibility to nature. His "Floating
Man" thought experiment tells its readers
to imagine themselves suspended in the air,
isolated from all sensations, which includes
no sensory contact with even their own bodies.
He argues that, in this scenario, one would
still have self-consciousness. He thus concludes
that the idea of the self is not logically
dependent on any physical thing, and that
the soul should not be seen in relative terms,
but as a primary given, a substance.This argument
was later refined and simplified by René
Descartes in epistemic terms when he stated:
"I can abstract from the supposition of all
external things, but not from the supposition
of my own consciousness."
=== 
Time ===
While ancient Greek philosophers believed
that the universe had an infinite past with
no beginning, early medieval philosophers
and theologians developed the concept of the
universe having a finite past with a beginning.
This view was inspired by the creationism
shared by Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
The Christian philosopher John Philoponus
presented a detailed argument against the
ancient Greek notion of an infinite past.
Muslim and Arab Jewish philosophers like Al-Kindi,
Saadia Gaon, and Al-Ghazali developed further
arguments, with most falling into two broad
categories: assertions of the "impossibility
of the existence of an actual infinite" and
of the "impossibility of completing an actual
infinite by successive addition".
=== Truth ===
In metaphysics, Avicenna (Ibn Sina) defined
truth as:
"What corresponds in the mind to what is outside
it."
Avicenna elaborated on his definition of truth
in his Metaphysics:
"The truth of a thing is the property of the
being of each thing which has been established
in it."
In his Quodlibeta, Thomas Aquinas wrote a
commentary on Avicenna's definition of truth
in his Metaphysics and explained it as follows:
"The truth of each thing, as Avicenna says
in his Metaphysica, is nothing else than the
property of its being which has been established
in it. So that is called true gold which has
properly the being of gold and attains to
the established determinations of the nature
of gold. Now, each thing has properly being
in some nature because it stands under the
complete form proper to that nature, whereby
being and species in that nature is."
Early Islamic political philosophy emphasized
an inexorable link between science and religion
and emphsized the process of ijtihad to find
truth.
Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen) reasoned that to
discover the truth about nature, it is necessary
to eliminate human opinion and error, and
allow the universe to speak for itself. In
his Aporias against Ptolemy, Ibn al-Haytham
further wrote the following comments on truth:
"Truth is sought for itself [but] the truths,
[he warns] are immersed in uncertainties [and
the scientific authorities (such as Ptolemy,
whom he greatly respected) are] not immune
from error..."
"Therefore, the seeker after the truth is
not one who studies the writings of the ancients
and, following his natural disposition, puts
his trust in them, but rather the one who
suspects his faith in them and questions what
he gathers from them, the one who submits
to argument and demonstration, and not to
the sayings of a human being whose nature
is fraught with all kinds of imperfection
and deficiency. Thus the duty of the man who
investigates the writings of scientists, if
learning the truth is his goal, is to make
himself an enemy of all that he reads, and,
applying his mind to the core and margins
of its content, attack it from every side.
He should also suspect himself as he performs
his critical examination of it, so that he
may avoid falling into either prejudice or
leniency."
"I constantly sought knowledge and truth,
and it became my belief that for gaining access
to the effulgence and closeness to God, there
is no better way than that of searching for
truth and knowledge."
=== Freewill and Predestination ===
The Freewill versus predestination issue is
one of the "most contentious topics in classical
Islamic thought." In accordance with the Islamic
belief in predestination, or divine preordainment
(al-qadā wa'l-qadar), God has full knowledge
and control over all that occurs. This is
explained in Qur'anic verses such as "Say:
'Nothing will happen to us except what Allah
has decreed for us: He is our protector'..."
For Muslims, everything in the world that
occurs, good or bad, has been preordained
and nothing can happen unless permitted by
God. According to Muslim theologians, although
events are pre-ordained, man possesses free
will in that he or she has the faculty to
choose between right and wrong, and is thus
responsible for his actions. According to
Islamic tradition, all that has been decreed
by God is written in al-Lawh al-Mahfūz, the
"Preserved Tablet".
== Natural philosophy ==
=== Atomism ===
Atomistic philosophies are found very early
in Islamic philosophy, and represent a synthesis
of the Greek and Indian ideas. Like both the
Greek and Indian versions, Islamic atomism
was a charged topic that had the potential
for conflict with the prevalent religious
orthodoxy. Yet it was such a fertile and flexible
idea that, as in Greece and India, it flourished
in some schools of Islamic thought.
The most successful form of Islamic atomism
was in the Asharite school of philosophy,
most notably in the work of the philosopher
al-Ghazali (1058–1111). In Asharite atomism,
atoms are the only perpetual, material things
in existence, and all else in the world is
"accidental" meaning something that lasts
for only an instant. Nothing accidental can
be the cause of anything else, except perception,
as it exists for a moment. Contingent events
are not subject to natural physical causes,
but are the direct result of God's constant
intervention, without which nothing could
happen. Thus nature is completely dependent
on God, which meshes with other Asharite Islamic
ideas on causation, or the lack thereof.Other
traditions in Islam rejected the atomism of
the Asharites and expounded on many Greek
texts, especially those of Aristotle. An active
school of philosophers in Spain, including
the noted commentator Averroes (1126-1198
AD) explicitly rejected the thought of al-Ghazali
and turned to an extensive evaluation of the
thought of Aristotle. Averroes commented in
detail on most of the works of Aristotle and
his commentaries did much to guide the interpretation
of Aristotle in later Jewish and Christian
scholastic thought.
=== Cosmology ===
There are several cosmological verses in the
Qur'an (610–632) which some modern writers
have interpreted as foreshadowing the expansion
of the universe and possibly even the Big
Bang theory:
Don't those who reject faith see that the
heavens and the earth were a single entity
then We ripped them apart?
And the heavens We did create with Our Hands,
and We do cause it to expand.Quran 51:47
In contrast to ancient Greek philosophers
who believed that the universe had an infinite
past with no beginning, medieval philosophers
and theologians developed the concept of the
universe having a finite past with a beginning.
This view was inspired by the creation myth
shared by the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism,
Christianity and Islam. The Christian philosopher,
John Philoponus, presented the first such
argument against the ancient Greek notion
of an infinite past. His reasoning was adopted
by many, most notably; Muslim philosopher,
Al-Kindi (Alkindus); the Jewish philosopher,
Saadia Gaon (Saadia ben Joseph); and the Muslim
theologian, Al-Ghazali (Algazel). They used
two logical arguments against an infinite
past, the first being the "argument from the
impossibility of the existence of an actual
infinite", which states:
"An actual infinite cannot exist."
"An infinite temporal regress of events is
an actual infinite."
".•. An infinite temporal regress of events
cannot exist."The second argument, the "argument
from the impossibility of completing an actual
infinite by successive addition", states:
"An actual infinite cannot be completed by
successive addition."
"The temporal series of past events has been
completed by successive addition."
".•. The temporal series of past events
cannot be an actual infinite."Both arguments
were adopted by later Christian philosophers
and theologians, and the second argument in
particular became famous after it was adopted
by Immanuel Kant in his thesis of the first
antimony concerning time.In the 10th century,
the Brethren of Purity published the Encyclopedia
of the Brethren of Purity, in which a heliocentric
view of the universe is expressed in a section
on cosmology:
"God has placed the Sun at the center of the
Universe just as the capital of a country
is placed in its middle and the ruler's palace
at the center of the city."
=== 
Evolution ===
==== Struggle for existence ====
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,
a precursor to natural selection. Al-Jahiz's
ideas on the struggle for existence in the
Book of Animals have been summarized as follows:
"Animals engage in a struggle for existence;
for resources, to avoid being eaten and to
breed. Environmental factors influence organisms
to develop new characteristics to ensure survival,
thus transforming into new species. Animals
that survive to breed can pass on their successful
characteristics to offspring."
In Chapter 47 of India, entitled "On Vasudeva
and the Wars of the Bharata," Abu Rayhan Biruni
attempted to give a naturalistic explanation
as to why the struggles described in the Mahabharata
"had to take place." He explains it using
natural processes that include biological
ideas related to evolution, which has led
several scholars to compare his ideas to Darwinism
and natural selection. This is due to Biruni
describing the idea of artificial selection
and then applying it to nature:
"The agriculturist selects his corn, letting
grow as much as he requires, and tearing out
the remainder. The forester leaves those branches
which he perceives to be excellent, whilst
he cuts away all others. The bees kill those
of their kind who only eat, but do not work
in their beehive. Nature proceeds in a similar
way; however, it does not distinguish for
its action is under all circumstances one
and the same. It allows the leaves and fruit
of the trees to perish, thus preventing them
from realising that result which they are
intended to produce in the economy of nature.
It removes them so as to make room for others."
In the 13th century, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi
explains how the elements evolved into minerals,
then plants, then animals, and then humans.
Tusi then goes on to explain how hereditary
variability was an important factor for biological
evolution of living things:
"The organisms that can gain the new features
faster are more variable. As a result, they
gain advantages over other creatures. [...] The
bodies are changing as a result of the internal
and external interactions."
Tusi discusses how organisms are able to adapt
to their environments:
"Look at the world of animals and birds. They
have all that is necessary for defense, protection
and daily life, including strengths, courage
and appropriate tools [organs] [...] Some
of these organs are real weapons, [...] For
example, horns-spear, teeth and claws-knife
and needle, feet and hoofs-cudgel. The thorns
and needles of some animals are similar to
arrows. [...] Animals that have no other means
of defense (as the gazelle and fox) protect
themselves with the help of flight and cunning.
[...] Some of them, for example, bees, ants
and some bird species, have united in communities
in order to protect themselves and help each
other."
Tusi then explains how humans evolved from
advanced animals:
"Such humans [probably anthropoid apes] live
in the Western Sudan and other distant corners
of the world. They are close to animals by
their habits, deeds and behavior. [...] The
human has features that distinguish him from
other creatures, but he has other features
that unite him with the animal world, vegetable
kingdom or even with the inanimate bodies."
==== Transmutation of species ====
Al-Dinawari (828–896), considered the founder
of Arabic botany for his Book of Plants, discussed
plant evolution from its birth to its death,
describing the phases of plant growth and
the production of flowers and fruit.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 possibly had an influence
on Charles Darwin and his inception of Darwinism,
but has at one time been criticized as overenthusiastic.
"[These books] state that God first created
matter and invested it with energy for development.
Matter, therefore, adopted the form of vapour
which assumed the shape of water in due time.
The next stage of development was mineral
life. Different kinds of stones developed
in course of time. Their highest form being
mirjan (coral). It is a stone which has in
it branches like those of a tree. After mineral
life evolves vegetation. The evolution of
vegetation culminates with a tree which bears
the qualities of an animal. This is the date-palm.
It has male and female genders. It does not
wither if all its branches are chopped but
it dies when the head is cut off. The date-palm
is therefore considered the highest among
the trees and resembles the lowest among animals.
Then is born the lowest of animals. It evolves
into an ape. This is not the statement of
Darwin. This is what Ibn Maskawayh states
and this is precisely what is written in the
Epistles of Ikhwan al-Safa. The Muslim thinkers
state that ape then evolved into a lower kind
of a barbarian man. He then became a superior
human being. Man becomes a saint, a prophet.
He evolves into a higher stage and becomes
an angel. The one higher to angels is indeed
none but God. Everything begins from Him and
everything returns to Him."
English translations of the Encyclopedia of
the Brethren of Purity were available from
1812, 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.In the 14th century,
Ibn Khaldun further developed the evolutionary
ideas found in the Encyclopedia of the Brethren
of Purity. The following statements from his
1377 work, the Muqaddimah, express evolutionary
ideas:
We explained there that the whole of existence
in (all) its simple and composite worlds is
arranged in a natural order of ascent and
descent, so that everything constitutes an
uninterrupted continuum. The essences at the
end of each particular stage of the worlds
are by nature prepared to be transformed into
the essence adjacent to them, either above
or below them. This is the case with the simple
material elements; it is the case with palms
and vines, (which constitute) the last stage
of plants, in their relation to snails and
shellfish, (which constitute) the (lowest)
stage of animals. It is also the case with
monkeys, creatures combining in themselves
cleverness and perception, in their relation
to man, the being who has the ability to think
and to reflect. The preparedness (for transformation)
that exists on either side, at each stage
of the worlds, is meant when (we speak about)
their connection.
Plants do not have the same fineness and power
that animals have. Therefore, the sages rarely
turned to them. Animals are the last and final
stage of the three permutations. Minerals
turn into plants, and plants into animals,
but animals cannot turn into anything finer
than themselves.
Numerous other Islamic scholars and scientists,
including the polymaths Ibn al-Haytham and
Al-Khazini, discussed and developed these
ideas. Translated into Latin, these works
began to appear in the West after the Renaissance
and may have influenced Western philosophy
and science.
=== Phenomenology of Vision ===
The 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.
=== Philosophy of mind ===
The philosophy of mind was studied in medieval
Islamic psychological thought, which refers
to the study of the nafs (literally "self"
or "psyche" in Arabic) in the Islamic world,
particularly during the Islamic Golden Age
(8th–15th centuries) as well as modern times
(20th–21st centuries), and is related to
psychology, psychiatry and the neurosciences.
=== Place and space ===
The Arab polymath al-Hasan Ibn al-Haytham
(Alhazen; died c. 1041) presented a thorough
mathematical critique and refutation of Aristotle's
conception of place (topos) in his Risala/Qawl
fi’l-makan (Treatise/Discourse on Place).
Aristotle's Physics (Book IV – Delta) 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 with this definition
and demonstrated that place (al-makan) is
the imagined (three-dimensional) void (al-khala'
al-mutakhayyal) between the inner surfaces
of the containing body. He showed that place
was akin to space, foreshadowing Descartes's
notion of place as space qua Extensio or even
Leibniz's analysis situs. Ibn al-Haytham's
mathematization of place rested on several
geometric demonstrations, including his study
on the sphere and other solids, which showed
that the sphere (al-kura) is the largest in
magnitude (volumetric) with respect to other
geometric solids that have equal surface areas.
For instance, a sphere that has an equal surface
area to that of a cylinder, would be larger
in (volumetric) magnitude than the cylinder;
hence, the sphere occupies a larger place
than that occupied by the cylinder; unlike
what is entailed by Aristotle's definition
of place: that this sphere and that cylinder
occupy places that are equal in magnitude.
Ibn al-Haytham rejected Aristotle's philosophical
concept of place on mathematical grounds.
Later, the philosopher 'Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi
(13th century) tried to defend the Aristotelian
conception of place in a treatise titled:
Fi al-Radd ‘ala Ibn al-Haytham fi al-makan
(A refutation of Ibn al-Haytham's place),
although his effort was admirable from a philosophical
standpoint, it was unconvincing from the scientific
and mathematical viewpoints.Ibn al-Haytham
also discussed space perception and its epistemological
implications in his Book of Optics (1021).
His experimental proof of the intromission
model of vision led to changes in the way
the visual perception of space was understood,
contrary to the previous emission theory of
vision supported by Euclid and Ptolemy. In
"tying the visual perception of space to prior
bodily experience, Alhacen unequivocally rejected
the
intuitiveness of spatial perception and, therefore,
the autonomy of vision. Without tangible notions
of distance and size for
correlation, sight can tell us next to nothing
about such things."
== 
Philosophy of education ==
In the medieval Islamic world, an elementary
school was known as a maktab, which dates
back to at least the 10th century. Like madrasahs
(which referred to higher education), a maktab
was often attached to a mosque. In the 11th
century, Ibn Sina (known as Avicenna in the
West), in one of his books, wrote a chapter
dealing with the maktab entitled "The Role
of the Teacher in the Training and Upbringing
of Children", as a guide to teachers working
at maktab schools. He wrote that children
can learn better if taught in classes instead
of individual tuition from private tutors,
and he gave a number of reasons for why this
is the case, citing the value of competition
and emulation among pupils as well as the
usefulness of group discussions and debates.
Ibn Sina described the curriculum of a maktab
school in some detail, describing the curricula
for two stages of education in a maktab school.
=== Primary education ===
Ibn Sina wrote that children should be sent
to a maktab school from the age of 6 and be
taught primary education until they reach
the age of 14. During which time, he wrote
that they should be taught the Qur'an, Islamic
metaphysics, language, literature, Islamic
ethics, and manual skills (which could refer
to a variety of practical skills).
=== Secondary education ===
Ibn Sina refers to the secondary education
stage of maktab schooling as the period of
specialization, when pupils should begin to
acquire manual skills, regardless of their
social status. He writes that children after
the age of 14 should be given a choice to
choose and specialize in subjects they have
an interest in, whether it was reading, manual
skills, literature, preaching, medicine, geometry,
trade and commerce, craftsmanship, or any
other subject or profession they would be
interested in pursuing for a future career.
He wrote that this was a transitional stage
and that there needs to be flexibility regarding
the age in which pupils graduate, as the student's
emotional development and chosen subjects
need to be taken into account.
== Philosophy of science ==
=== Scientific method ===
The pioneering development of the scientific
method by the Arab Ash'ari polymath Ibn al-Haytham
(Alhacen) was an important contribution to
the philosophy of science. In the Book of
Optics (c. 1025 CE), his scientific method
was very similar to the modern scientific
method and consisted of the following procedures:
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 findingsIn 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.In Aporias against
Ptolemy, Ibn al-Haytham commented on the difficulty
of attaining scientific knowledge:
"Truth is sought for itself [but] the truths,
[he warns] are immersed in uncertainties [and
the scientific authorities (such as Ptolemy,
whom he greatly respected) are] not immune
from error..."
He held that the criticism of existing theories—which
dominated this book—holds a special place
in the growth of scientific knowledge:
"Therefore, the seeker after the truth is
not one who studies the writings of the ancients
and, following his natural disposition, puts
his trust in them, but rather the one who
suspects his faith in them and questions what
he gathers from them, the one who submits
to argument and demonstration, and not to
the sayings of a human being whose nature
is fraught with all kinds of imperfection
and deficiency. Thus the duty of the man who
investigates the writings of scientists, if
learning the truth is his goal, is to make
himself an enemy of all that he reads, and,
applying his mind to the core and margins
of its content, attack it from every side.
He should also suspect himself as he performs
his critical examination of it, so that he
may avoid falling into either prejudice or
leniency."
Ibn al-Haytham attributed his experimental
scientific method and scientific skepticism
to his Islamic faith. He believed that human
beings are inherently flawed and that only
God is perfect. He reasoned that to discover
the truth about nature, it is necessary to
eliminate human opinion and error, and allow
the universe to speak for itself. In The Winding
Motion, Ibn al-Haytham further wrote that
faith should only apply to prophets of Islam
and not to any other authorities, in the following
comparison between the Islamic prophetic tradition
and the demonstrative sciences:
"From the statements made by the noble Shaykh,
it is clear that he believes in Ptolemy's
words in everything he says, without relying
on a demonstration or calling on a proof,
but by pure imitation (taqlid); that is how
experts in the prophetic tradition have faith
in Prophets, may the blessing of God be upon
them. But it is not the way that mathematicians
have faith in specialists in the demonstrative
sciences."
Ibn al-Haytham described his search for truth
and knowledge as a way of leading him closer
to God:
"I constantly sought knowledge and truth,
and it became my belief that for gaining access
to the effulgence and closeness to God, there
is no better way than that of searching for
truth and knowledge."
His contemporary Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī
also introduced an early scientific method
in nearly every field of inquiry he studied.
For example, in his treatise on mineralogy,
Kitab al-Jamahir (Book of Precious Stones),
he is "the most exact of experimental scientists",
while in the introduction to his study of
India, he declares that "to execute our project,
it has not been possible to follow the geometric
method" and develops comparative sociology
as a scientific method in the field. He was
also responsible for introducing the experimental
method into mechanics, the first to conduct
elaborate experiments related to astronomical
phenomena, and a pioneer of experimental psychology.Unlike
his contemporary Avicenna's scientific method
where "general and universal questions came
first and led to experimental work", al-Biruni
developed scientific methods where "universals
came out of practical, experimental work"
and "theories are formulated after discoveries."
During his debate with Avicenna on natural
philosophy, al-Biruni made the first real
distinction between a scientist and a philosopher,
referring to Avicenna as a philosopher and
considering himself to be a mathematical scientist.Al-Biruni's
scientific method was similar to the modern
scientific method in many ways, particularly
his emphasis on repeated experimentation.
Biruni was concerned with how to conceptualize
and prevent both systematic errors and random
errors, such as "errors caused by the use
of small instruments and errors made by human
observers." He argued that if instruments
produce random errors because of their imperfections
or idiosyncratic qualities, then multiple
observations must be taken, analyzed qualitatively,
and on this basis, arrive at a "common-sense
single value for the constant sought", whether
an arithmetic mean or a "reliable estimate."
=== Experimental medicine ===
Avicenna (Ibn Sina) is considered the father
of modern medicine, for his introduction of
experimental medicine and clinical trials,
the experimental use and testing of drugs,
and a precise guide for practical experimentation
in the process of discovering and proving
the effectiveness of medical substances, in
his medical encyclopedia, The Canon of Medicine
(11th century), which was the first book dealing
with experimental medicine. It laid out the
following rules and principles for testing
the effectiveness of new drugs or medications,
which still form the basis of modern clinical
trials:
"The drug must be free from any extraneous
accidental quality."
"It must be used on a simple, not a composite,
disease."
"The drug must be tested with two contrary
types of diseases, because sometimes a drug
cures one disease by Its essential qualities
and another by its accidental ones."
"The quality of the drug must correspond to
the strength of the disease. For example,
there are some drugs whose heat is less than
the coldness of certain diseases, so that
they would have no effect on them."
"The time of action must be observed, so that
essence and accident are not confused."
"The effect of the drug must be seen to occur
constantly or in many cases, for if this did
not happen, it was an accidental effect."
"The experimentation must be done with the
human body, for testing a drug on a lion or
a horse might not prove anything about its
effect on man."
=== Peer review ===
The first documented description of a peer
review process is found in the Ethics of the
Physician written by Ishaq bin Ali al-Rahwi
(854–931) of al-Raha, Syria, who describes
the first medical peer review process. His
work, as well as later Arabic medical manuals,
state that a visiting physician must always
make duplicate notes of a patient's condition
on every visit. When the patient was cured
or had died, the notes of the physician were
examined by a local medical council of other
physicians, who would review the practising
physician's notes to decide whether his/her
performance have met the required standards
of medical care. If their reviews were negative,
the practicing physician could face a lawsuit
from a maltreated patient.
== Other fields ==
=== Epistemology ===
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."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.
=== Eschatology ===
Islamic eschatology is concerned with the
Qiyamah (end of the world; Last Judgement)
and the final judgement of humanity. Eschatology
relates to one of the six articles of faith
(aqidah) of Islam. Like the other Abrahamic
religions, Islam teaches the bodily resurrection
of the dead, the fulfillment of a divine plan
for creation, and the immortality of the human
soul (though Jews do not necessarily view
the soul as eternal); the righteous are rewarded
with the pleasures of Jannah (Heaven), while
the unrighteous are punished in Jahannam (Hell).
A significant fraction (one third, in fact)
of the Quran deals with these beliefs, with
many hadith elaborating on the themes and
details. Islamic apocalyptic literature describing
the Armageddon is often known as fitna (a
test) and malahim (or ghayba in the Shi'a
tradition).
Ibn al-Nafis dealt with Islamic eschatology
in some depth in his Theologus Autodidactus,
where he rationalized the Islamic view of
eschatology using reason and science to explain
the events that would occur according to Islamic
eschatology. He presented his rational and
scientific arguments in the form of Arabic
fiction, hence his Theologus Autodidactus
may be considered the earliest science fiction
work.
=== Legal philosophy ===
Sharia (شَرِيعَةٌ) refers to the
body of Islamic law. The term means "way"
or "path"; it is the legal framework within
which public and some private aspects of life
are regulated for those living in a legal
system based on Islamic principles of jurisprudence.
Fiqh is the term for Islamic jurisprudence,
made up of the rulings of Islamic jurists.
A component of Islamic studies, Fiqh expounds
the methodology by which Islamic law is derived
from primary and secondary sources.
Mainstream Islam distinguish fiqh, which means
understanding details and inferences drawn
by scholars, from sharia that refers to principles
that lie behind the fiqh. Scholars hope that
fiqh and sharia are in harmony in any given
case, but they cannot be sure.
=== Philosophical novels ===
The Islamic philosophers, Ibn Tufail (Abubacer)
and Ibn al-Nafis, were pioneers of the philosophical
novel. Ibn Tufail wrote the first fictional
Arabic novel Hayy ibn Yaqdhan (Philosophus
Autodidactus) as a response to al-Ghazali's
The Incoherence of the Philosophers, and then
Ibn al-Nafis also wrote a fictional novel
Theologus Autodidactus as a response to Ibn
Tufail's Philosophus Autodidactus. Both of
these novels had protagonists (Hayy in Philosophus
Autodidactus and Kamil in Theologus Autodidactus)
who were autodidactic individuals spontaneously
generated in a cave and living in seclusion
on a desert island, both being the earliest
examples of a desert island story. However,
while Hayy lives alone on the desert island
for most of the story in Philosophus Autodidactus,
the story of Kamil extends beyond the desert
island setting in Theologus Autodidactus,
developing into the first example of a science
fiction novel.Ibn al-Nafis described his book
Theologus Autodidactus as a defense of "the
system of Islam and the Muslims' doctrines
on the missions of Prophets, the religious
laws, the resurrection of the body, and the
transitoriness of the world." He presents
rational arguments for bodily resurrection
and the immortality of the human soul, using
both demonstrative reasoning and material
from the hadith corpus to prove his case.
Later Islamic scholars viewed this work as
a response to the metaphysical claim of Avicenna
and Ibn Tufail that bodily resurrection cannot
be proven through reason, a view that was
earlier criticized by al-Ghazali.A Latin translation
of Philosophus Autodidactus was published
in 1671, prepared by Edward Pococke the Younger.
The first English translation by Simon Ockley
was published in 1708, and German and Dutch
translations were also published at the time.
Philosophus Autodidactus went on to have a
significant influence on European literature,
and became an influential best-seller throughout
Western Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries.
These translations later inspired Daniel Defoe
to write Robinson Crusoe, which also featured
a desert island narrative and was regarded
as the first novel in English.Philosophus
Autodidactus also had a "profound influence"
on modern Western philosophy. It became "one
of the most important books that heralded
the Scientific Revolution" and European Enlightenment,
and the thoughts expressed in the novel can
be found in "different variations and to different
degrees in the books of Thomas Hobbes, John
Locke, Isaac Newton, and Immanuel Kant." The
novel inspired the concept of "tabula rasa"
developed in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
(1690) by Locke, who was a student of Pococke.
Philosophus Autodidactus also developed the
themes of empiricism, tabula rasa, nature
versus nurture, condition of possibility,
materialism, and Molyneux's Problem. The novel
also inspired Robert Boyle, another acquaintance
of Pococke, to write his own philosophical
novel set on an island, The Aspiring Naturalist.
Other European scholars influenced by Philosophus
Autodidactus include Gottfried Leibniz, Melchisédech
Thévenot, John Wallis, Christiaan Huygens,
George Keith, Robert Barclay, the Quakers,
and Samuel Hartlib.
=== Political philosophy ===
Early Islamic political philosophy emphasized
an inexorable link between science and religion,
and the process of ijtihad to find truth—in
effect all philosophy was "political" as it
had real implications for governance. This
view was challenged by the Mutazilite philosophers,
who held a more secular view and were supported
by secular aristocracy who sought freedom
of action independent of the Caliphate. The
only Greek political treatise known to medieval
Muslims at the time was Plato's Republic.
By the end of the Islamic Golden Age, however,
the Asharite view of Islam had in general
triumphed.
Islamic political philosophy, was, indeed,
rooted in the very sources of Islam, i.e.
the Qur'an and the Sunnah, the words and practices
of Muhammad. However, in the Western thought,
it is generally known that it was a specific
area peculiar merely to the great philosophers
of Islam: al-Kindi (Alkindus), al-Farabi (Alfarabi),
İbn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn Bajjah (Avempace),
Ibn Rushd (Averroes), and Ibn Khaldun. The
political conceptions of Islam such as kudrah,
sultan, ummah, cemaa -and even the "core"
terms of the Qur'an, i.e. ibada, din, rab
and ilah- is taken as the basis of an analysis.
Hence, not only the ideas of the Muslim political
philosophers but also many other jurists and
ulama posed political ideas and theories.
For example, the ideas of the Khawarij in
the very early years of Islamic history on
Khilafa and Ummah, or that of Shia Islam on
the concept of Imamah are considered proofs
of political thought. The clashes between
the Ehl-i Sunna and Shia in the 7th and 8th
centuries had a genuine political character.
The 14th-century Arab scholar Ibn Khaldun
is considered one of the greatest political
theorists. The British philosopher-anthropologist
Ernest Gellner considered Ibn Khaldun's definition
of government, "an institution which prevents
injustice other than such as it commits itself",
the best in the history of political theory.
=== Philosophy of history ===
The first detailed studies on the subject
of historiography and the first critiques
on historical methods appeared in the works
of the Arab Ash'ari polymath Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406),
who is regarded as the father of historiography,
cultural history, and the philosophy of history,
especially for his historiographical writings
in the Muqaddimah (Latinized as Prolegomena)
and Kitab al-Ibar (Book of Advice). His Muqaddimah
also laid the groundwork for the observation
of the role of state, communication, propaganda
and systematic bias in history, and he discussed
the rise and fall of civilizations.
Franz Rosenthal wrote in the History of Muslim
Historiography:
"Muslim historiography has at all times been
united by the closest ties with the general
development of scholarship in Islam, and the
position of historical knowledge in MusIim
education has exercised a decisive influence
upon the intellectual level of historicai
writing... The Muslims achieved a definite
advance beyond previous historical writing
in the sociological understanding of history
and the systematisation of historiography.
The development of modern historical writing
seems to have gained considerably in speed
and substance through the utilization of a
Muslim Literature which enabled western historians,
from the 17th century on, to see a large section
of the world through foreign eyes. The Muslim
historiography helped indirectly and modestly
to shape present day historical thinking."
=== 
Philosophy of religion ===
There is an important question on the relation
of religion and philosophy, reason and faith
and so on. In one hand there is extraordinary
importance attached to religion in Islamic
civilization and in other hand they created
certain doctrines in respect to reason and
religion.
=== Social philosophy ===
The social philosopher and Ash'ari polymath
Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) was the last major
Islamic philosopher from Tunis, North Africa.
In his Muqaddimah, he 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.
Ibn Khaldun is considered the "father of sociology",
"father of historiography", and "father of
the philosophy of history" by some, for allegedly
being the first to discuss the topics of sociology,
historiography and the philosophy of history
in detail.
=== Judeo-Islamic philosophies ===
Islamic philosophy found an audience 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
ben Judah, spoke in the highest terms of Ibn
Rushd's commentary.
The oldest Jewish religio-philosophical work
preserved in Arabic 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.
Since no idea and no literary or philosophical
movement ever germinated on Persian or Arabian
soil without leaving its impress on the Jews,
Al 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 Mutakallimun
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.
Similarly the reaction in favour of stricter
Aristotelianism, as found in Averroes, had
its Jewish counterpart in the work of Maimonides.
Later Jewish philosophers, such as Gersonides
and Elijah Delmedigo, followed the school
of Averroes and played a part in transmitting
Averroist thought to medieval Europe.
In Spain and Italy, Jewish translators such
as Abraham de Balmes and Jacob Mantino translated
Arabic philosophic literature into Hebrew
and Latin, contributing to the development
of modern European philosophy.
== Later Islamic philosophy ==
The death of Ibn Rushd (Averroës) 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 Islamic Spain and North
Africa, though it persisted for much longer
in the Eastern countries, in particular Iran
and India. Contrary to the traditional view,
Dimitri Gutas and the Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy consider the period between
the 11th and 14th centuries to be the true
"Golden Age" of Arabic and Islamic philosophy,
initiated by Al-Ghazali's successful integration
of logic into the Madrasah curriculum and
the subsequent rise of Avicennism.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. This also led to some loss
of contact between the 'west' and the 'east'
of the Islamic world. 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. In addition,
logic has continued to be taught in religious
seminaries up to modern times.
After Ibn Rushd, there arose many later schools
of Islamic Philosophy. We can mention just
a few, such as those founded by Ibn Arabi
and ShiiteMulla Sadra. These new schools are
of particular importance, as they are still
active in the Islamic world. The most important
among them are:
School of Illumination (Hikmat al-Ishraq)
Transcendent Theosophy (Hikmat Muta'aliah)
Sufi philosophy
Traditionalist School
Avicennism(Hikmat Sinavi)
=== Illuminationist school ===
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, with many
new innovative ideas of Suhrawardi. It is
often described as having been influenced
by Neoplatonism.
In logic in Islamic philosophy, systematic
refutations of Greek logic were written by
the Illuminationist school, founded by Shahab
al-Din Suhrawardi (1155–1191), who developed
the idea of "decisive necessity", an important
innovation in the history of logical philosophical
speculation.
=== Transcendent school ===
Transcendent theosophy is the school of Islamic
philosophy founded by Mulla Sadra in the 17th
century. His philosophy and ontology is considered
to be just as important to Islamic philosophy
as Martin Heidegger's philosophy later was
to Western philosophy in the 20th century.
Mulla Sadra bought "a new philosophical insight
in dealing with the nature of reality" and
created "a major transition from essentialism
to existentialism" in Islamic philosophy,
several centuries before this occurred in
Western philosophy.The idea of "essence precedes
existence" is a concept which dates back to
Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and his school of Avicennism
as well as Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi and his
Illuminationist philosophy. The opposite idea
of "Existence precedes essence" was thus developed
in the works of Averroes and Mulla Sadra as
a reaction to this idea and is a key foundational
concept of existentialism.
For Mulla Sadra, "existence precedes the essence
and is thus principle since something has
to exist first and then have an essence."
This is primarily the argument that lies at
the heart of Mulla Sadra's Transcendent Theosophy.
Sayyid Jalal Ashtiyani later summarized Mulla
Sadra's concept as follows:
"The existent being that has an essence must
then be caused and existence that is pure
existence ... is therefore a Necessary Being."
More careful approaches are needed in terms
of thinking about philosophers (and theologians)
in Islam in terms of phenomenological methods
of investigation in ontology (or onto-theology),
or by way of comparisons that are made with
Heidegger's thought and his critique of the
history of metaphysics.
=== Contemporary 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 Mulla Sadra's Hikmat-e-Mota'aliye (Transcendent
[or Exalted] Philosophy). Another figure is
Allama Muhammad Iqbal, who reshaped and revitalized
Islamic philosophy among the Muslims of the
Indian sub-continent in the early 20th century.
His The Reconstruction of Religious Thought
in Islam is a milestone in the modern political
philosophy of Islam.In contemporary Islamic
regions, the teaching of hikmat or hikmah
has continued to flourish.
Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic
Republic of Iran, was a teacher of the philosophical
school of Hikmat-ul-Mutaliya. Before the Islamic
Revolution, he was one of the few who formally
taught philosophy at the Religious Seminary
at Qum.
Abdollah Javadi-Amoli, Grand Ayatollah is
an Iranian Twelver Shi'a Marja. He is a conservative
Iranian politician and one of the prominent
Islamic scholars of the Hawza (seminary) in
Qom.
Ahmad Milad Karimi, is a famouos Afghan philosopher
of religion and professor of Islamic Philosophy
at the University of Münster in Germany.
Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, Grand Ayatollah
is an Iranian Twelver Shi'a cleric. he advocates
of Islamic philosophy, particularly Hikmat
Mutaliyyah.
Geydar Dzhemal, famouos Russian islamic philosopher,
author of Orientation - North. fnd ideologist
of islamic marxism.
Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i, Grand Ayatollah
is an Iranian Twelver Shi'a cleric (Allameh
Tabatabaei), author of numerous works including
the 27-volume Quranic commentary al-Mizan
(الميزان).
Muhammad Akram Awan Sheikh Silsila Naqshbandia
Owaisiah. He acquired basics of Islamic Knowledge
directly from his Sheikh. Blessed with (Ilm-
al-ladunni) (Knowledge form the Divine presence).
He has special insight in Tafsir (interpretation
of the Quran).He used to deliver regular lectures
on Quranic teachings during the life of his
Sheikh and embarked upon writing a Tafsir
of the Quran, entitled Asrar at-Tanzeel, soon
after his Sheikh’s death. This was in fulfillment
of Sheikh Allah Yar Khan’s desire, for he
could not undertake this work himself due
to the enormous demands of his mission. He
is Dean of the Siqarah Education System, a
unique System which (integrates the Islamic
education with Traditional education) at both
secondary and college levels and strives to
transform its young students into enlightened,
practical Muslims. He is the Patron-in Chief
of Al-Murshid, a monthly magazine of the Order
in Urdu. He regularly writes for the Magazine
to provide guidance for seekers on the spiritual
heritage of Muslim Ummah. He is also the Patron-in
Chief of Al Falah Foundation an organization
established in 1989 for the welfare of the
people, especially the poor, in Pakistan’s
rural areas. His sole mission in life is to
create in Muslims awareness about their spiritual
heritage and to carry the prophetic lights
and blessings to every comer of the globe
for the guidance of mankind as a whole. He
is an ardent advocate and supporter of Muslim
causes and is committed to Islamic renewal
along the lines of Khair ul-Quroon (the best
period in human history form 13 B.H. to 325
A.H.)
Hamka or Haji Abdul Malik Karim Amirullah
was a prominent Indonesian author, Ulema politician,
philosophical thinker, and author of Tafir
Al Azhar. He was head of Indonesia's mufti
council(MUI). He resigned when his fatwa against
the celebration of Christmas by Muslims was
condemned by the Suharto regime. Highly respected
in his country, he was also appreciated in
Malaysia and Singapore.
Murtaza Motahhari, the best student of Allamah
Tabatabai, a martyr of the Iranian Revolution
in 1979, and author of numerous books (an
incomplete compilation of his works comprises
25 volumes). He, like his teachers Allama
Tabatabai and Ayatollah Khomeini, belong to
the philosophical schools of Hikmat-ul-Mutaliya
Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, who is credited with
creating modern Islamist political thought
in the 20th century, was the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami
and spent his life attempting to revive the
Islamic intellectual tradition.
Israr Ahmed, (1932–2010) was a Pakistani
Islamic theologian followed particularly in
South Asia and also among the South Asian
diaspora in the Middle East, Western Europe,
and North America. Founder of the Tanzeem-e-islami,
an offshoot of the Jamaat-e-Islami, he was
significant scholar of Islam and the Quran.
Muhammad Hamidullah (1908–2002) belonged
to a family of scholars, jurists, writers
and sufis. He was a world-renowned scholar
of Islam and International Law from India,
who was known for contributions to the research
of the history of Hadith, translations of
the Koran, the advancement of golden age Islamic
learning, and to the dissemination of Islamic
teachings in the Western world.
Fazlur Rahman was professor of Islamic thought
at the University of Chicago.
Wahid Hasyim first Indonesian minister of
religious affairs. Former head of Indonesian
Nahdwatul Ulema, and founder of Islamic state
universities in Indonesia. He is best known
for reformation of the Madrasah curriculum.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Iranian University Professor
of Islamic studies at George Washington University.
Javed Ahmad Ghamidi is a well-known Pakistani
Islamic scholar, exegete, and educator. A
former member of the Jamaat-e-Islami, who
extended the work of his tutor, Amin Ahsan
Islahi.
In Malaysia, Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas
is a prominent metaphysical thinker.
Ali Shariati Iranian revolutionary thinker
and sociologist who focused on Marxism and
Islam.
Abu Abd al-Rahman Ibn Aqil al-Zahiri (born
1942) is a Saudi Arabian polymath primarily
focused on the reconciliation of reason and
revelation.
Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr (died 1980) is a Shi'ite
Grand Ayatollah and one of the most influential
Islamic philosophers of the 20th century.
His two most important contributions to philosophy
are his books "Our Philosophy" and "The Logical
Foundations of Induction." He is also widely
known for his work on economics, including
"Our Economics" and "The Non-Usury Banking
System" which are two of the most influential
works in contemporary Islamic economics.
== Criticism ==
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)." 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 its potential, but
it would be incorrect to assume that they
opposed philosophy 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 it should be noted that not
all philosophers subscribed to these same
views.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.
== See also ==
Early Islamic philosophy
Contemporary Islamic philosophy
Islamic ethics
Islamic metaphysics
Islamic Golden Age
Islamic science
Islam and modernity
List of Islamic studies scholars
Al-‘aql al-fa‘‘al
== Notes and references ==
Citations
== Bibliography ==
Corbin, Henry (April 1993). History of Islamic
Philosophy. Liadain Sherrard (trans). London
and New York: Kegan Paul International. ISBN
0-7103-0416-1.
Russell, G. A. (1994). The 'Arabick' Interest
of the Natural Philosophers in Seventeenth-Century
England. Brill. ISBN 90-04-09459-8.
Toomer, G. J. (1996). Eastern Wisedome and
Learning: the Study of Arabic in Seventeenth-Century
England. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-820291-1.
History of Islamic Philosophy (Routledge History
of World Philosophies) by Seyyed Hossein Nasr
and Oliver Leaman [eds.]
History of Islamic Philosophy by Majid Fakhry.
Islamic Philosophy by Oliver Leaman.
The Study of Islamic Philosophy by Ibrahim
Bayyumi Madkour.
Falsafatuna (Our Philosophy) by Muhammad Baqir
al-Sadr.
McGinnis, Jon & Reisman, David C. (eds.),
Classical Arabic Philosophy. An Anthology
of Sources, Indianapolis: Hackett, 2007.
Schuon, Frithjof. Islam and the Perennial
Philosophy. Trans. by J. Peter Hobson; ed.
by Daphne Buckmaster. World of Islam Festival
Publishing Co., 1976, cop. 1975. xii, 217
p. ISBN 0-905035-22-4 pbk
== External links ==
Online Dictionary of Arabic Philosophical
Terms by Andreas Lammer.
Philosophy in Oxford Islamic Studies Online
Islamic Ethics and Philosophy Dictionary
Islamic Philosophy Online
History of Philosophy in Islam by T. J. De
Boer (1903).
The Study of Islamic Philosophy
Islamic Philosophy from the Routledge Encyclopedia
of Philosophy.
History of Islamic philosophy (part I) by
Henry Corbin.
International Journal of Islamic Thoughts
(IIITs)
