Islamic Philosophy

Preface to the Second Edition viii

Author’s Note and Abbreviations xi

Glossary xii

1 A SHORT HISTORY OF ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY 1

The growth of Islam 2

Neoplatonism 3

Major thinkers 5

2 MAIN CONTROVERSIES 13

What is Islamic philosophy? 13

Early reactions to Greek philosophy in Islamic culture: the Great Debate 22

Al-Ghazali and philosophy: the question of creation 24

The nature of time 26

Mulla Sadra on change 28

Iqbal on time 29

Ibn Rushd on time 31

What can God do? 33

Miracles and meaning 34

The afterlife 36

What can God know? 37

Philosophical accounts of religious concepts 39

How free is God? 40

Essence, existence and miracles 41

The meaning of words 45

Meaning and unity 46

bi-la kayfa 48

Ibn Taymiyya on talking about God 49

3 KNOWLEDGE 51

The notion of Islamic science 52

Science and rationality 55

The nature of knowledge 56

What is knowledge for? 58

Imagination 60

Ibn Sina on knowledge and the ‘oriental’ philosophy 63

Sufi sm, knowledge and imagination 65

Knowledge by presence 67

4 MYSTICISM 71

Mysticism as a system 71

Being 74

Mysticism as a science 76

The perfect man 80

The deepening of prayer 82

Criticisms of Sufism 84

5 ONTOLOGY 86

Being and existence in Islamic philosophy 87

Ibn Rushd vs Ibn Sina on existence 87

Mulla Sadra vs al-Suhrawardi on existence 88

The equivocality of being 90

Mulla Sadra and mysticism 94

The imaginal realm 95

Different routes to one truth and the role of imagination 98

Allegory and meaning: the imaginal realm again 99

Prophecy and its psychological basis 101

Is being really the fi rst question in metaphysics? 104

6 ETHICS 106

Theological background: Mu_tazilites vs Ash_arites 106

Ethics and divine power 107

Al-Ghazali’s attack on objectivism in ethics 108

Trusting authority 112

The need for guidance 116

7 POLITICS 118

Plato vs Aristotle 118

The diversity of human beings 122

Islamic accounts of history 123

The notion of the ‘medieval’ 125

Liberalism vs Islam 129

The case of jihad 133

Modern political consequences 137

8 THE QUESTION OF TRANSMISSION 142

Philosophy and religion 142

The notion of cultural contact 146

The Andalusi connection 148

Getting back to basics 151

Falsafa and hikma: philosophy and wisdom 155

The concept of religious reason 156

The concept of inclusive reason 158

Robinson Crusoe and Hayy ibn Yaqzan 160

9 LANGUAGE 162

The case of Ibn Rushd 164

Ibn Rushd on meaning 165

Ibn Rushd and elitism 169

The Enlightenment Project 173

Ibn Rushd as a critic of mysticism 175

The implications for language 176

10 ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY TODAY 179

The West as decadent 182

Confronting tradition 183

Islamic exceptionalism 186

Did al-Ghazali destroy Islamic philosophy? 188

11 DOES ISLAM NEED AN ENLIGHTENMENT? 191

Jewish and Muslim reactions to modernity 195

Moses Mendelssohn and Muhammad _Abduh 196

Islamic exceptionalism again 197

The Enlightenment and theology 200

Christianity as the symbol of modernity 202

The need for an Enlightenment 204

The lack of radicalism in Islamic Qur’an commentary 207

References and Bibliography 211

Guide to Further Reading 223

Index 225