ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY F.A.Q.

• Which is it? Islamic philosophy, Muslim philosophy, or Arabic philosophy?  

Islamic Philosophy is the study of philosophy that gets its origin after the advent of Islam in 760 A.D. The majority of the philosophical corpus is written in the Linga Franca of the Islam, namely Arabic. It is wrong to consider Islamic philosophy just mere translation of Greek philosophy in Arabic. This ignorant notion is widely held among western scholars. It gets its roots from the work of Maimonides, which mentions this fallacy in his famous work "Guide to the Perplexed." This notion is refuted elsewhere on this website and in the work of M. Fakhry's classic work "History of Islamic Philosophy". The rest of the corpus is written in Persian, Turkish, Malay and the other native languages of Muslims. The connection throughout all these philosophies is Islam. This however should indicate that "Islamic" is the religion of the writer and the tradition that the writer wrote the works and in no way to indicate that these philosophies are sanctioned and or accepted by mainstream or orthodox Islam.

Muslim Philosophy is the philosophy that was written by Muslims regardless of language used. This term is used in lieu of the above to clarify the fact that Muslim Philosophy is not necessarily sanctioned by mainstream Islam. Some of the ideas presented in Muslim Philosophy do not necessarily represent “orthodox/mainstream” Islam.

Arabic Philosophy is a name given to the philosophical tradition that was written in Arabic. It includes all philosophy that was written by Arab, Muslim, Christian, Sabaen or any other national or religious or sectarian affiliation.

 

• Isn’t it just theology in a new garb?  

No, No, and No. This site just proves this point.

• What is Isul al-Fiqh and its relationship to Islamic philosophy?  

Isul al-Fiqh is a branch of Science of the fundamentals of Legislation. How does one come up with rules bused on the Islamic codex. Its relationship to philosophy is one of logic. Some of the 'Isuli' works are very much philosophical and gets into technical details that are times hard to distinguish from philosophy. Al-Imadi's IhKam fi Isul ahkam (The decisive in foundations of Rulings) is one such example. 

• What is Aqeeda (Creed) and its relationship to philosophy?  

There is a definite relationship more closer than one would normally think. More on this.

• Isn’t philosophy heresy, Kufr?  

See below...

• What did ibn Taymiyah say about philosophy and Greek thought?  

Basically, Ibn Taymiyah simply sees that Islam has no need for these sciences in matters of theology, law, ethics, and metaphysics. -See his works (Against the Greek Logicians, Majmoo al-Fatway (His Massive Compendium of Rulings) the volume on philosophy and his Dara taraud al-Aql wa Naql (Preventing Reason from going against Revelation). However as with all encyclopedic scholars things are not always black and white. Do not be tricked into thinking that he just dismisses philosophy just off the cuff. There is a lot of thought behind what he says and sometimes it is in the way that he says it that makes all the difference. See Entry on him in Routledge's Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 

• What did Al-Ghazali say about philosophy and Greek thought?  

Al-Ghazali disagrees with almost all the doctrines of Greek philosophers and their Muslim representatives. He argues that many of their doctrines were false and baseless. He shows that if in some of their conclusions, they were correct; their arguments were confused and faulty. He insists that all philosophical assumptions, speculations and hypotheses should be judged and verified with reference to facts. He seems to look askance at all attempts for the reconciliation between religion and philosophy. He does not totally refute the reconciliation but insists that opposition between the two should be recognized, faced and met. He says: Do not reject a religion truth till it is proved that it is logically impossible and do not accept a philosophical truth till it is proved that the rejection of it is logically impossible. Al-Ghazali felt that philosophy was undermining religion through questioning dogma, ignoring it, interpreting it and substituting arguments for devotion.  It should be noted, however, that the thrust of Ghazali criticisms in refuting Neo-Platonic philosophers point to the faults in their arguments and their misuse of philosophy to make claims they had no logical basis to make. Ghazali was the first person to use systematic doubt effectively, a concept later introduced to western philosophy by Descartes. In the process Ghazali himself is now recognized as one of the greatest philosophers of the medieval era.

• What did ibn Rushd say about philosophy and Greek thought?  

Ibn Rushd concentrated his activity upon Aristotle. He made diligent study and careful comparison of Aristotle's works. He was most influenced by Aristotle, he was of the opinion that Aristotle when rightly understood corresponded to the knowledge, which could be attained by the man to the highest.   He called Aristotle the Divine teacher.  Ibn Rushd defends the systematic study of philosophy by pointing out that the Quran itself commands humans to “reflect and have vision”.  He is, perhaps, most well known for his systematic refutation of Ghazali in his book Incoherence of the Incoherence. He thinks that revelation as given in Quran does not aim at making men learned but at making them better. Obedience and moral practice is the aim of the lawgiver who knows that human welfare can only be realized in society. 

• Is Philosophy Halal (lawful) or Haram (prohibited) in Islam law?  

It really depends on who you ask. Al-Ghazali and Ibn Rushd differed on this issue. Ibn Taymiyah also has quite a different thought on this as well. For this site we will include all opinions and let you the intelligent reader decide. It is the same as the question of Music in Islam; there are those who see nothing wrong with it whereas others see it as something forbidden. Ibn Rushd wrote a defense called the "decisive treatise" (Fasl al-Maqal). Imam Ghazali wrote Iljam al-awam an ilm al-Kalam (Keeping the masses away from Kalam (Rational theology)). Al-Ghazali in his refutation of philosophers (on this site) concludes that there are acceptable aspects and there are unacceptable aspects. Whereas Ibn Taymiyah simply sees that Islam has no need for all these sciences -See entry above and his works (Against the Greek Logicians, Majmooa al-Fatway (His Massive Compendium of Rulings) the volume on philosophy and his Dara taraud al-Aql wa Naql (Preventing Reason from going against Revelation). On the other end of the spectrum we have Ibn Rushd who welcomes all thought and says nothing in revelation goes against reason.  We trust you our esteemed reader can sort out of this tangle. Have no fear and dive into the Oceans of human thought.

• Aren’t you trying to misguide people by giving the impression that there is something religiously (“Officially”) sanctioned by Islam?  

What! No that is not our intention nor our purpose. This site makes no claims on officiality, Orthodoxy or Halalness. It is a site about a branch of philosophy that Muslims wrote on, thought about and lived it. Whether it is lawfully sanctioned or not is not our concern or more importantly our place to judge. We have very strong opinions about many of the philosophies but that is not going to deter us from studying them or mentioning them. Muslim authors have written about Firaq (Sects, -Herisographies) their beliefs and practices as well as on philosophy whether they believed in it or not is a totally different matter. We want you our esteemed reader to be informed of it all the good, the bad and the truly awful. We trust that you can make decisions for your self. This not a dawah site. It is an academic site.

• Who is the first philosopher in Islam /Arabic?

The first philosopher in Islam is Al-Kindi. He made Philosophy as a part of Islamic culture. He was the first to synthesize Neo-Platonic and Aristotelian with Islamic theology and laid the foundations of Muslim Philosophy. He went beyond mere translations of Greek philosophical ideas and formed a new philosophy that had a distinct Islamic flavor. If it is correct to say that as Descartes was the father of modern Philosophy, Al-Kindi was the father of Muslim Philosophy. 

• Who is Ibn Sina and why is he important?  

Abu Ali Al-Husain Ibn Abdallah Ibn Sina, also know by his Latin name of "Avicenna". Most famous and first known as a physician, "the doctor of doctors". With his works on medicine, he afterwards added religious tracts, poems, and works on philosophy, on logic, as physics, on mathematics and on astronomy. He also was a statesman and a soldier; he was sort of a universal genius in other words. Today, Ibn Sina's portrait adorns the great hall of the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Paris.

Ibn Sina's two most important works are The Book of Healing and The Canon of Medicine. The first is a scientific encyclopedia covering logic, natural sciences, psychology, geometry, astronomy, arithmetic and music. The second is the most famous single book in the history of medicine. Ibn Sina's wrote about 450 works. Of the surviving works, 150 are on philosophy while 40 are devoted to medicine, the two fields in which he contributed most. He also wrote on psychology, geology, mathematics, astronomy, and logic. His most important work as far as mathematics is concerned, however, is his vast encyclopedic work, the "Kitab al-Shifa" (The Book of Healing). One of the four parts of this work is devoted to mathematics and Ibn Sina includes astronomy and music as branches of mathematics within the encyclopedia.

In his voluminous writings, Ibn Sina laid out the following rules for testing the efficiency of a new drug or medication. These principles still form the basis of modern clinical drug trials.

1. The drug must be free from any extraneous accidental quality.
2. It must be used on a simple, not a composite, disease.
3. 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. 

4. 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.
5. The time of action must be observed, so that essence and action are not confused.
6. 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.
7. 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.

• Who is al-Farabi and why is he important?  

Abu Nasr Al-Farabi, was a philosopher of Turkish origin. He is usually referred to as the "second teacher" -after Aristotle- because of the amount of commentary on many of Aristotle's works. His doctrine comprises some modern and even contemporary notions. He favors science advocates experimentation and denies augury and astrology. He refers to the causes even for those effects, which have no apparent causes. He elevates the intellect to a plane so sacred that he is driven to its conciliation with tradition so that philosophy and religion may accord.  Al-Farabi’s writings also played a crucial role in shaping the thought of Ibn Sina.  Ibn Sina stated his indebtness to al-Farabi that made him more famous than he ever was during his lifetime. 

Answers to the above questions are provided by staff members  of MUSLIMPHILOSOPHY.COM and guests.  These are meant to be used as a guide and not as a definitive source.

P.S. There are some answers to the above questions. Yet! If you want to answer some of them let me know by e-mail. If you have questions that need answers please do not hold them back. Try us!

Last updated on April 19 2007