PHILOSOPHY A–Z SERIES Eter G Islamic Philosophy A–Z

xivUSING THIS BOOKless comprehensive – is The Cambridge Companion to ArabicPhilosophy, ed. P. Adamson and R. Taylor (Cambridge, 2005).There are a number of very good encyclopedias worth consulting as well. The most immediately useful will be the comprehensive two-volume Biographical Encyclopaedia of IslamicPhilosophy, recently compiled by O. Leaman (ThoemmesContinuum, 2006). After that, I would recommend Brill’s newedition of the Encyclopedia of Islam, ed. P. J. Bearman et al.(Brill, 1960–2005), which also contains many articles onIslamic philosophy and theology, all of the highest quality.The first edition (1913–38, reprinted 1993) still containsmany classic, definitive articles. The Encyclopedia Iranica, ed.E. Yarshater (Routledge Kegan and Paul, 1985ff.) can be a veryuseful source too, as well as the Routledge Encyclopedia ofPhilosophy, ed. E. Craig (Routledge, 1998), which includesnumerous entries on the Islamic philosophical tradition bymajor scholars in the field. Finally, two good book-length historical overviews can be found in H. Corbin’s History ofIslamic Philosophy (Kegan Paul International, 2001) andM. Fakhry’s A History of Islamic Philosophy (ColumbiaUniversity Press, 1970/2004). O. Leaman’s An Introduction toClassical Islamic Philosophy (Cambridge University Press,2001) offers a somewhat more selective account, but is a fineentry into key debates in the tradition.We have included transliterated Arabic terms for many of thekey concepts, in order to give the reader some sense of theactual technical vocabulary of Islamic philosophy. We have alsoincluded Arabic (and in some cases, Persian) titles of books,along with their English translations, since the latter can vary abit. There are a number of ways in which Arabic can be transliterated into English. We have employed the modifiedEncyclopedia of Islam system, with a few qualifications. First,because of the non-specialist nature of this book, we have optedfor minimal transliteration: all diacritics (macrons and dots)have thus been omitted, while the left apostrophe (‘) represents

USING THIS BOOKxv‘ayn and the right apostrophe (’) represents hamza. Second, inthe interests of comprehension we have occasionally opted foran alternative transliteration of a term or name, if it is morecommonly encountered and more easily recognizable. Third,for the sake of clarity, we have as a rule retained Orientalistword endings (e.g. Mu‘tazilite, Shi‘ite, Hanbalite), but again,where the Arabic word ending has become more commonplace,we have opted for that (e.g. Sunni, Isma‘ili, Sufi). Capitalizationhas been kept to a minimum and is generally used only forformal names of persons, schools of thought or places.Traditional names, titles or standard descriptions of God suchas the Creator, the Originator, the Necessary Existent, the FirstCause and the One are capitalized; ‘divine’ entities such as theforms, active intellect or universal soul are not. Use of the masculine pronoun when referring to God is used simply out of deference to traditional usage. With regard to dating, most figuresare listed first according to the Islamic calendar (AH, i.e. annoHegirae), then according to the Gregorian calendar (CE, i.e.Common Era). For example, 1266–1323/1849–1905 means1266–1323 AH/1849–1905 CE; references to whole centuriesfollow the same general formula. The few exceptions to this arethe dates of (1) the Prophet Muhammad, whose birth date (570CE) precedes the beginning of the Islamic calendar (622 CE), (2)ancient Greek philosophers (listed as BCE, i.e. Before theCommon Era) and (3) Jewish philosophers who worked in theIslamicate milieu (only listed as CE, because precise AH dateswere not always available). Within each entry, words in boldsignal a cross-reference, so that readers may chase downfigures or concepts that strike their interest.

AcknowledgementsI would like to thank Oliver Leaman for his patience, encouragement, practical wisdom and generous assistance in thewriting of this book. He helped out in the final stages by writingentries on the following topics: aesthetics, afterlife, creation vs.eternity of the world, epistemology, essence and existence,ethics, God’s knowledge, God (unity of), Illuminationism, language, law, logic, modern Islamic philosophy, mysticism, Nasr(Seyyed Hossein), political philosophy, prophecy, science andSufism. The entry on Islamism is a collaborative effort. I amresponsible for all other entries, and of course, any errors orlacunae that might be found there. I’d like to express my appreciation to a few other folks, too: my colleagues in the BucknellPhilosophy department, as well as philosophical interlocutorsfrom other departments and institutions, my former teachers,and my students, all of whom have helped me keep thinkingand growing. Special thanks go out to Abdur-Rahman Syed andKaley Keene, who generously read through the manuscript andmade many thoughtful suggestions regarding translation andtransliteration, and to Laury Silvers, who offered so muchhelpful advice along the way. Finally I would like to thank myfamily and friends for their good-humored patience andsupport, and especially my love Valerie, who is in my heart,whether she’s in Pennsylvania, Switzerland or Belgium.

Islamic Philosophy A–Z

A‘Abduh, Muhammad (1266–1323/1849–1905): An Egyptianjurist, philosopher, religious scholar and liberal reformer,‘Abduh played a pivotal role in the nineteenth-centuryRenaissance (nahda) of Islam. Along with his teacher alAfghani, he is responsible for founding the Salafi reformmovement, which strove to recover Islam from its decadentstate by returning it to the spirit of its pious forefathers(salaf ). However, like al-Afghani and unlike the latersalafiyya, his sympathies were ultimately more rationalistthan traditionalist. ‘Abduh saw Islam as an essentiallyreasonable and pragmatic religion, one that was notnecessarily at odds with the modern scientific worldview. Indeed, despite his reservations about the West, heembraced science and technology as crucial to the revivification and autonomy of Islam. In his attempt to recover thetrue spirit of Islam, ‘Abduh inveighed against the uncritical acceptance of dogma based purely on religious authority (taqlid, lit. ‘imitation’ or obedience) and defended theirreducible importance of independent judgement in religious and legal matters. He recuperated elements ofMu‘tazilite rationalism as well (e.g. figurative interpretation of ambiguous Qur’anic passages, emphasis on God’stranscendence, affirmation of human free will) andattempted to purge Islam of Ash‘arite predestinarianism

4ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY A–Zand occasionalism, which he saw as hostile to the principleof causality, and thus to modern science in general.‘Abduh’s main philosophical work, the Theology of Unity(Risalat al-tawhid), proceeds in this vein, but is primarilyknown for its rationalist ethics. According to ‘Abduh,revealed law does not make things good or evil, but ratherreveals to us what is naturally good or evil. Siding with theMu‘tazilites and the falasifa, he argued that human reasonis in principle capable of perceiving good and evil withoutthe aid of revelation. However, revelation is still necessarybecause (1) not all people have the same intellectual capacity to differentiate between good and evil (or to grasp theexistence and nature of God, the afterlife, etc.) and (2) formost people, reason alone will not provide the specificpractical knowledge necessary to realize a happy life. Atthe heart of ‘Abduh’s life and thought was the desire forreform, whether religious, legal, moral or educational. Forthis reason, he eventually parted ways with the moreradical al-Afghani and distanced himself from his erstwhileteacher’s pan-Islamist project. He had a great impact onsubsequent religious, social and philosophical reformers(e.g. Rashid Rida, Qasim Amin and Mustafa ‘Abd alRaziq), as well as influential twentieth-century nationalistand revivalist movements that did not always share hiscommitment to reason and gradual reform.See al-Afghani; Ash‘arites; Islamism; modern Islamicphilosophy; Mu‘tazilites; rationalism; traditionalismFurther reading: ‘Abduh 1966/2004; Adams 1933;Amin 1953; Hourani 1983active intellect (al-‘aql al-fa‘‘al): The concept of the ‘active’or ‘agent’ intellect plays a pivotal role in Islamic metaphysics and psychology, particularly in the Peripatetic tradition. Its origins can be traced back to the Aristoteliannotion of nous poietikos in De anima III.4–5. Expanding

ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY A–Z5upon the doctrine that ‘that which thinks and that whichis thought are the same’, Aristotle draws a distinctionbetween a passive, potential intellect which becomes allthings and an active, productive (ostensibly eternal anddivine) intellect which makes all things. Aristotle positsthis ‘active intellect’ in order to account for the possibility of thought, which stands in need of an explanationbecause it is a kind of process or movement, and as such,is characterized by change. All change requires an efficientcause to bring it about, so there must be some efficientcause by which the transition of intellect from potentiality to actuality is effected. It is also described by Aristotleand his commentators as a kind of illuminative principlewhich sheds light upon universal forms, making themintelligible to the human intellect. In Islamic philosophy,this notion of the active intellect is taken up and typicallysituated within a Neoplatonic cosmology (the tenth andfinal intellect to arise through the process of emanation,often associated with the moon and the angel Jibril), as akind of link between the human and the divine. It plays apivotal role in several respects. First, it functions as a principle of both intelligibility and intellection by providingform to the sublunary realm and actualizing potentialhuman intellect, enabling us to extract and disjoin intelligible forms from objects of sense perception and ultimately grasp them independently of it. Second, it makespossible the perfection of human nature, the attainmentof highest happiness, and the immortality of the soul. Asthe human intellect is transformed from its initial state ofpure potentiality to one of pure actuality, it becomes morelike the immaterial, eternal active intellect, and is ultimately assimilated to it. Finally, the active intellectexplains the possibility of prophetic revelation – as thereception of intelligibles by the imagination – within thecontext of an Aristotelian/ Neoplatonic worldview.

6ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY A–ZSee Aristotle; causality; al-Farabi; Ibn Bajja; IbnRushd; Ibn Sina; metaphysics; prophecy; psychology.Further reading: Davidson 1992; al-Farabi 1973; IbnRushd 2007; Ibn Sina 1952/1981; Netton 1989/95;Rahman 1958actuality and potentiality (fi‘l, quwwa): see metaphysics; psychologyadab (etiquette, refinement, culture): Initially, the Arabic termadab seems to be a virtual synonym for sunna (custom,tradition), insofar as it has to do with a norm of habitualconduct founded by ancestors or other exemplarypersons. This notion was gradually magnified and embellished, particularly during the ‘Abbasid empire, and by theheyday of Islamic humanism in the second half of thefourth/tenth century under the Buyids, the term had takenon a panoply of social, ethical and intellectual connotations. Due to the increasing refinement of bedouincustoms by the introduction of Islam, as well as by exposure to Persian, Greek and Indian civilization, adab hadcome to signify a kind of ethical perfectionism thatencompassed good manners, etiquette, elegance, education, urbanity, belles-lettres and culture in general. Morespecifically, it referred to the sort of knowledge necessaryto produce refined, well-cultivated people. In this senseadab can generally be seen as the secular complement to‘ilm (science, knowledge), which has more to do with religious sciences such as tradition (hadith), jurisprudence(fiqh), Qur’anic exegesis (tafsir), etc. It comprises knowledge of poetry, rhetoric, oratory, grammar and history, aswell as familiarity with the literary and philosophicalachievements, the practical-ethical wisdom and the exemplary individuals of the pre-Islamic Arabs, Indians,Persians and Greeks. It can be said to encompass the

ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY A–Z7natural sciences as well, although its primary focus isalways on the human. The semiotic field of adab wouldeventually shrink and reify, referring merely to the specificknowledge required for the performance of a particularoffice, or signifying literature in a narrow sense. But at itsapex, the adab tradition – at least as interpreted by Islamichumanists such as Abu Sulayman Muhammad alSijistani, al-Tawhidi and Miskawayh – gave rise to thecosmopolitan ideal that wisdom and moral exemplarscould be drawn from many cultures, and that theirinsights were the collective birthright of humankind.See ethics; humanism; Miskawayh; al-Sijistani (AbuSulayman Muhammad); al-TawhidiFurther reading: Goodman 2003; Kraemer 1986a/93aesthetics (‘ilm al-jamal, lit. ‘science of beauty’):Neoplatonism had a lasting influence on Islamic aestheticsduring the classical period. Al-Kindi argued that beautymust be linked with perfection, and since God is the mostperfect being, He must also be the most beautiful. Otherthings are beautiful in proportion to their perfection.Perfection was seen very much as being in line with thingslike the motion of the heavenly spheres, and so acts as anobjective guide to beauty. This idea was taken up by theSufis and their followers, and they argued that there is anatural beauty in certain shapes, sounds and movementssince these replicate very basic and perfect aspects ofreality. In later philosophy the concept of imaginationcomes to be used more often, and beauty becomes something that we observe when we mix our ideas up in waysthat delight us. Imagination is very much a function of ourrole as material creatures, and this is emphasized in aesthetics, where different individuals with different experiences and backgrounds often have different ideas of theaesthetic value of a particular thing.

8ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY A–ZOne of the themes in Islamic aesthetics is the analysisof poetry (shi‘r), a particularly important art form inArabic culture. It is generally taken to follow a syllogistic form, i.e. it is like an argument, albeit with the conclusion that the audience should be moved to action oremotion, not some statement of fact. Imagination is significant in reflecting our experiences and feelings while atthe same time also linking our thinking with moreabstract ideas and so extending or broadening thoseexperiences from the purely subjective into somethingmore abstract that can be communicated to others. Art isa function of our nature as emotional creatures, as beingsthat are not just rational, and we need to find ways of persuading people to see the world, and have the same experiences as we do. The idea of art as following the patternof reasoning or argument is designed to explain how it ispossible to do this, since it is certainly a fact that we cansometimes get others to think as we do after coming intocontact with an artistic product that we have created orexperienced.See logic; political philosophy; prophecy; SufismFurther reading: Black 1990; Kemal 1991; Leaman2004Afdal al-Din Kashani (d. 610/1213–14): Baba (or ‘Papa’)Afdal, as he was affectionately known to his students andintellectual progeny, was one of the few Islamic philosophers to write almost entirely in Persian. While otherIranian authors (e.g. Ibn Sina, Nasir-i Khusraw, alSuhrawardi and Mulla Sadra) wrote works in Persian aswell, most expressed their definitive statements in Arabic,which had long been considered the scholarly linguafranca of the Islamic world. Not so with Baba Afdal,whose clear, straightforward and elegant Persian prosemade a synthesis of Neoplatonic-Aristotelian and Sufi

ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY A–Z9ideas intelligible to a wider audience, many of whomwould have found the uncompromising and sometimesunwieldy technical precision of Arabic philosophicaltexts forbidding. Among his major philosophical worksare The Book of Displays (‘Ard-nama), The Book of theEverlasting (Jawidan-nama) and The Rungs of Perfection(Madarij al-kamal). The overriding concern of thesebooks is how to achieve salvific knowledge of the self(dhat, huwiyya) by means of rational inquiry and ethicalcultivation. When one realizes one’s own everlasting selfas intellect (khirad, ‘aql) – according to Baba Afdal, akind of radiance of God – one perfects or actualizes one’sown nature. Although Baba Afdal does not concernhimself with many of the topics that obsessed otherIslamic philosophers – the divine attributes, God as theNecessary Existent, etc. – he develops an elaborate ontology and cosmology, which while Neoplatonic in itsgeneral contours, has no obvious, specific precedent. Itmight be said that Baba Afdal’s metaphysics are rootedin, and unfold from, his epistemology of the self. For thehuman being as a microcosm of the universe containswithin itself all the lower levels of existence, i.e., all theactualized potentialities presupposed by its own livingsoul. The actualization of human existence (wujud) inparticular – which Baba Afdal characterizes as ‘finding’(yaftan) rather than just ‘being’ (budan) – consists in thefull self-awareness of the intellect. It is through this perfection of self-knowledge that the soul awakens from itsforgetfulness and separates itself from the body in preparation for death. But on a macrocosmic level, it is throughthe flowering of the human being (as microcosm) that thepotentialities of the universe as a whole can ultimately beactualized and the return or ascent of creation to God canbe effected. What makes Baba Afdal’s thought particularly interesting and compelling is its eminently practical

10ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY A–Zconception of philosophy as a way of life, aimed atsalvific self-realization and the perfection of our nature,and the stylistic verve and clarity with which he presentsthis project. Apart from Baba Afdal’s many philosophicalworks, he is highly regarded for his poetry, also inPersian.See Neoplatonism; psychology; SufismFurther reading: Chittick 2001; Nasr 1996al-Afghani, Jamal al-Din (1254–1314/1838–97): An enormously influential nineteenth-century philosopher, journalist, orator and political activist-leader, al-Afghani wasthe chief architect of both Islamic modernism and the panIslamist movement. His modernism consisted in anattempt to reform and revitalize Islam by retrieving itsoriginal moral force and essential rationality, while at thesame time appropriating modern western science and technology. His aim was to negotiate a middle way betweenthe more fatalistic, authoritarian and anti-intellectual elements of the Islamic tradition and the seemingly atheisticand nihilistic worldview of the modern West. The panIslamist movement that he kick-started aimed at mobilizing and empowering Muslim nations with modern scienceand technology in order to resist European imperialismand colonialism. Ultimately he hoped to unite Muslimnations into a single autonomous caliphate, thus reattaining the glory of Islam. Philosophically, al-Afghani’smost important contribution is The Refutation of theMaterialists (al-Radd ‘ala al-dahriyyin). The work beginswith a philosophical-scientific critique of materialism fromDemocritus to Darwin, then offers a social-ethical criticism of materialism (which, he argues, has a corrosive,degenerative effect on civilization), and concludes with adefense of the value of religion (in particular, Islam) for thehealth of individuals and societies and th

Islamic Philosophy(Kegan Paul International, 2001) and M. Fakhry’s A History of Islamic Philosophy(Columbia University Press, 1970/2004). O. Leaman’s An Introduction to Classical Islamic Philosophy(Cambridge University Press, 2001) offers a somewhat more selective accou