What is Islamic Philosophy?

Roy Jackson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317814030
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Teologia islamica

What is Islamic Philosophy? offers a broad introduction to Islamic thought, from its origins to the many challenging issues facing Muslims in the contemporary world. The chapters explore early Islamic philosophy and trace its development through key themes and figures up to the twenty-first century.

Topics covered include:

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• ethical issues such as just war, abortion, women's rights, homosexuality and cloning
• questions in political philosophy regarding what kind of Islamic state could exist and how democratic can (or should) Islam really be
• the contribution of Islam to 'big questions' such as the existence of God, the concept of the soul, and what constitutes truth.

This fresh and original book includes a helpful glossary and suggestions for further reading. It is ideal for students coming to the subject for the first time as well as anyone wanting to learn about the philosophical tradition and dilemmas that are part of the Islamic worldview.

1 What is Islamic philosophy?

Bismillah

One of the greatest philosophers is the German Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and, as this is a book on philosophy, his name and thought will inevitably crop up on occasions throughout this work. Kant is, of course, a ‘Western’ philosopher and not an Islamic philosopher, although I might add that it is quite possible to be ‘Western’ and ‘Islamic’ at the same time (more about that below), but I begin here with Kant and a curious fact, for there exists a copy of Kant’s doctoral thesis, dated 1755, which has inscribed at the top of the title page the Arabic words bismillah al-rahman al-rahim (most common translation: ‘in the name of God, most Gracious, most Compassionate’). This short and poetic phrase is regarded as containing the true essence of the Quran (the Islamic holy scripture) and it is frequently cited at daily prayers and other contexts by Muslims. Why this Arabic phrase should appear at the top of Kant’s doctoral thesis is puzzling, and we will likely never know the answer. It is unlikely Kant placed it there himself, for he makes little mention of Islam in his writings, but I remark upon the existence of this thesis here because, in many ways, it symbolizes the key theme of this book, and that is the relationship between the firmly established Western philosophical tradition – with such giants as Kant – and the perhaps more fragile existence of Islamic philosophy. Is it really possible to propose that there is congruence between such philosophical system-builders as Kant and what Islamic philosophers have to say in their great volumes or, for that matter, what can be found in the Quran? Or does this bismillah merely poke fun at the very idea that Islam could offer anything of value to philosophical discourse when compared with the earth-shattering contributors to modern thought that Kant, amongst others, represents? This is why I declare that Islamic philosophy seems more ‘fragile’ in this respect, for the ground upon which it rests seems more slippery. But why is this the case, and does it really make any sense at all to even speak of an ‘Islamic philosophy’?

What is Islam?

This writer does his very best to write an accessible introduction to Islamic philosophy, and no assumptions are made that the reader has any background knowledge or previous understanding of philosophy as such. However, when it comes to Islam, we are dealing with a very large subject here, and this work cannot provide an introduction to such a complex and diverse belief system. The reader is advised to familiarize him- or herself with some of the basic beliefs and practices in Islam, and some good introductions are recommended at the end of this chapter. Having said that, I like to think you can get by perfectly well without any supplementary reading: all Islamic terms are explained, however briefly, and there is a glossary at the end of the book. Something the reader will quickly become aware of is the diversity that exists within Islam, a feature it shares with all world religions. Therefore, one of the first problems we have when talking of Islamic philosophy is what constitutes ‘Islamic’.

From a historical perspective, Islam begins with the Prophet Muhammad (c. 570–632) who, it is traditionally regarded, was born in Mecca in Arabia. In the year 610, Muhammad received revelations from God that were then written down in what is called the Quran (‘recitation’). For all Muslims, belief in the one God and that Muhammad is the prophet (indeed, the final prophet) of God are essential articles of faith. As the Quran is seen as literally the word of God, Muslims look to this scripture for guidance on how to be a good Muslim, which is synonymous with how to be a good human being. God created Man with a purpose, and Man must, in turn, determine what this purpose is.

Today there are over one and a half billion people who call themselves Muslim, and they are spread across the world. Anyone who reads a newspaper will quickly appreciate just how many countries are ‘Islamic’ in one sense or another as a result of, for example, the events of the Arab Spring, civil war in Syria or unrest in Turkey. Alas, it is the nature of newspapers that bad news tends to sell better than good, and so an image of Islamic states tends to be associated with such things as ‘unrest’, ‘war’, ‘terrorism’, ‘protest’ and so on, but the fact is that the majority of Muslims live peaceful lives and, should you visit a Muslim country, you are likely to discover how welcoming, courteous and generous these pious people can be.

Islam, at its most essential level, is a belief in God. This, of course, is a very personal and inward matter, although it inevitably has consequences in terms of how the believer lives his or her life. Nonetheless, in terms of outward expression of this belief, this can vary quite a lot from one person to the next. Some may well be considered more ‘devout’ than others by praying five times a day (or more), fasting during the holy month of Ramadan, making one or more pilgrimages to Mecca and so on, but this raises the question of what constitutes a good Muslim, and this need not necessarily be because someone is diligent in engaging in the practices and rituals. For some, it is enough, and even more important, to simply believe with one’s heart in God.

Islam, as we shall see, also refers to a culture and a civilization although, again, due to the diversity that is Islam, it is difficult to pinpoint what constitutes an Islamic culture or civilization: there are Arabic Muslims, Persian Muslims, Chinese Muslims, African Muslims, Southeast Asian Muslims and ‘Western’ (European and American) Muslims, amongst others. There are also ‘nominal’ or ‘cultural’ Muslims whereby identity is determined by being born to a Muslim father, much like a Jew born to a Jewish mother. Other than that, it is not required to subscribe to beliefs and practices of the faith; rather it is a matter of ethnicity or group allegiance. A modern example of this is Bosnia, where a person is described (or describes him/herself) as a Bosnian Muslim to be distinguished from Bosnian Serbs (Orthodox) and Bosnian Croats (Catholic). Other than that, the Bosnian Muslims are

[d]rinkers of slivovitz, strong plum brandy, eaters of pork, for many Bosnian Muslims their only connections with Islam until the [Bosnian] war were that they had names like Amra and Emir and left their shoes outside their houses. Bosnian Muslims were largely secular and those that were religious emphasized that they were ‘European Muslims’, something quite different to the Ayatollahs of Iran and the Islamic clergy of Saudi Arabia.

(LeBor 1997: 20)

It is, perhaps, not surprising that the Muslims from Saudi Arabia and Algeria that went to Bosnia to fight during the conflicts there were shocked by the Bosnians’ lifestyle, and equally the Bosnians themselves were not enamoured of the orthodoxy of these Mujahidin.

However, the concern in this work is primarily with those who do wish to assert a belief in God and resist any accusations of atheism, but as we shall see there is considerable tension in being both ‘Islamic’ and a ‘philosopher’.

What is philosophy?

The word ‘philosophy’ derives from the ancient Greek ‘philosophia’ which means ‘love of wisdom’, and it makes great sense to state that philosophy as we understand it begins with the ancient Greeks. When the so-called pre-Socratics such as Thales, Anaxagoras, Parmenides and so on were investigating the nature of the world and, by doing so, were not relying upon mythic explanations, they were effectively ‘doing philosophy’, although what they were doing may remind us more of scientific enquiry today than what we regard as philosophy. The term ‘philosophy’ for most of them covered a broad and varied school of thought. What they generally all have in common is a concern with matters of ‘cosmology’ (from the Greek word kosmos, meaning something like ‘good order’). The ancient Greek philosophers were intent on finding a unifying principle of the cosmos, an order for the apparent chaos of the world they occupied.

It was really Plato (427–347 BC) and Aristotle (384–322 BC) who laid the foundations for what we understand by philosophy to this day. Although also concerned with matters relating to cosmology, Plato and his teacher Socrates (c. 470–399 BC) are very different from the so-called pre-Socratic philosophers before them because of their more rigorous and rational method of enquiry. What they did was to invent the method and terminology of philosophizing that is still used today. By introducing analysis, cogent argument and a rational approach to thought, Plato especially laid the foundations for all philosophers who came after him. This is why the British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) famously said that the history of philosophy is but a series of footnotes to Plato. Plato’s main concern, initially, was with moral philosophy, with how we ought to live our lives. However, although this was his main inspiration, as he matured his writings covered many of the branches of philosophy, including political philosophy, education, aesthetics (philosophy of art), metaphysics (the study of the features of reality) and epistemology (the study of knowledge and what can we know).

In a nutshell, philosophy concerns itself with all those kinds of knotty problems such as: What can we know for sure? What is the best form of political government? What does it mean to be good? Is there a mind and is it separate from the body? As a method, it attempts to address these ‘big questions’ systematically (usually!), critically and through rational argument. Now, it should be stressed that – like religion – philosophy is itself incredibly diverse; it is by no means always rational and systematic and, indeed, some philosophers would argue that reason gets in the way of‘proper philosophy’. Nonetheless, however rational or otherwise philosophy may be, the issue here is how philosophical methodology and enquiry relates to Islam. It is argued by many Muslims throughout history that God provides us with all the knowledge that we need. The Quran begins by retelling the story of an angel (who became Satan) who fell from grace by using his intellect to defy God. Such emphasis on using the mind to question what God decrees, then, is treated with suspicion, as well as being regarded as irrelevant so far as Islam is concerned.

The Islamic ‘sciences’

Within Islam there are a number of disciplines or schools, what are referred to as the Islamic ‘sciences’. The term ‘science’ in this respect needs to be understood in its broader context as the Latin derivation scientia, which simply means ‘knowledge’. The pursuit of knowledge can take many different paths and two in particular, the ‘science of theology’ and the ‘science of philosophy’, have often been uncomfortable travelling companions along the Islamic paths.

Theology, or kalam (literally meaning ‘spoken word’) as it is known in Arabic, has on the whole confined itself to questions that are raised by revelation. For example, regarding such issues as the nature of God and His relationship with His creations: Does God’s power mean that Man has no free will? Can God be described in human terms? (I.e. actually possess hands, eyes and so on.) In Arabic the word for philosophy is merely an Arabization of the Greek, hence falsafa. It is what in the Western world would be regarded as ‘natural philosophy’, and so encompasses the non-religious sciences such as logic, mathematics, physics, astronomy, psychology, ethics and politics to name just some.

Falsafa, then, is less restricted than kalam, the former being prepared to tackle any branch of philosophy. The distinction between kalam and falsafa is best summed up by the famous Islamic philosopher of history Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) who, in his Introduction to History, noted that whereas philosophy explored both the realms of the physical and the metaphysical in all their aspects, theology’s exploration of these realms was confined to how they could support arguments for the existence and nature of God. This confinement of the discipline of theology, for Khaldun, was not seen as a weakness. On the contrary, its strict boundaries were its strength and could be used as a powerful weapon, so that ‘innovations may be repulsed and doubts and misgivings concerning the articles of faith removed’. What is particularly revealing about this quote is the concern for ‘innovations’, that is ideas that are not considered to be part of the Islamic worldview, and hence Khaldun’s determination to have intellectual tools to defend the faith against such ideas. This gives some indication of the suspicious eye that many theologians cast over philosophy or any other ‘imported’ science.

On the one hand, then, we have what are regarded as the Islamic, or religious, sciences: kalam, fiqh (jurisprudence) and sharia (law). Whilst on the other hand, we have the foreign sciences such as philosophy, mathematics, medicine, physics, astrology and astronomy, although, as already intimated, these foreign sciences were often placed under the broad umbrella term of ‘falsafa’. For most Muslims, the former curriculum is considered superior to the latter for the very reason that it is specifically considered ‘Islamic’, it is a direct offspring of the prophetic-revelatory event that occurred during the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• 1 What is Islamic philosophy?
• 2 The Greek and Persian legacy
• 3 The first Muslim philosophers
• 4 God, the soul and the after-life
• 5 Faith versus reason
• 6 Islam and the state
• 7 Ethical dilemmas
• 8 Jihad and just war theory
• 9 Islam and shared moral values
• Appendix I: List of names
• Appendix II: Glossary of terms
• Bibliography