Islamic philosophy
is intimately connected with Greek philosophy, although this is a relationship
which can be exaggerated. Theoretical questions were raised right from the
beginning of Islam, questions which could to a certain extent be answered by
reference to Islamic texts such as the Qur’an, the practices of the community
and the traditional sayings of the Prophet and his Companions. On this initial
basis a whole range of what came to be known as the Islamic sciences came to be
produced, and these consisted largely of religious law, the Arabic language and
forms of theology which represented differing understandings of Islam.
The early
conquests of the Muslims brought them into close contact with centres of
civilization heavily influenced by Christianity and Judaism, and also by Greek
culture. Many rulers wished to understand and use the Greek forms of knowledge,
some practical and some theoretical, and a large translation project started
which saw official support for the assimilation of Greek culture. This had a powerful impact upon all areas of Islamic
philosophy. Neoplatonism definitely became the prevalent school of thought , following closely the curriculum of Greek (Peripatetic)
philosophy which was initially transmitted to the Islamic world. This stressed
agreement between Plato and Aristotle on a range of issues, and incorporated
the work of some Neoplatonic authors. A leading group of Neoplatonic thinkers
were the Ikhwan al-Safa’ (Brethren of Purity), who presented an eclectic
philosophy designed to facilitate spiritual liberation through philosophical
perfection . However, there was also a development of Aristotelianism in
Islamic philosophy, especially by those thinkers who were impressed by the
logical and metaphysical thought of Aristotle, and Platonism was inspired by
the personality of Socrates and the apparently more spiritual nature of Plato
as compared with Aristotle . There were even thinkers who seem to have been
influenced by Greek scepticism, which they turned largely against religion, and
Ibn ar-Rawandi and
Muhammad ibn Zakariyya’ al-Razi
presented a thoroughgoing critique of many of the leading supernatural ideas of
Islam.
Al-Kindi is often called
the first philosopher of the Arabs, and he followed a broadly Neoplatonic
approach. One of the earliest of the philosophers in Baghdad was in fact a
Christian, Yahya Ibn ‘Adi,
and his pupil al-Farabi
created much of the agenda for the next four centuries of work. Al-Farabi
argued that the works of Aristotle raise important issues for the understanding
of the nature of the universe, in particular its origination. Aristotle
suggested that the world is eternal, which seems to be in contradiction with
the implication in the Qur’an that God created the world out of nothing.
Al-Farabi used as his principle of creation the process of emanation, the idea
that reality continually flows out of the source of perfection, so that the
world was not created at a particular time. He also did an enormous amount of
work on Greek logic, arguing that behind natural language lies logic, so that
an understanding of the latter is a deeper and more significant achievement
than a grasp of the former. This also seemed to threaten the significance of
language, in particular the language – Arabic – in which God transmitted the
Qur’an to the Prophet Muhammad. A large school of thinkers was strongly
influenced by al-Farabi, including al-‘Amiri, al-Sijistani and al-Tawhidi, and this
surely played an important part in making his ideas and methodology so crucial
for the following centuries of Islamic philosophy.
Ibn Sina went on to
develop this form of thought in a much more creative way, and he presented a
view of the universe as consisting of entirely necessitated events, with the
exception of God . This led to a powerful reaction from al-Ghazali, who in his
critique of Peripatetic philosophy argued that it was both incompatible with
religion, and also invalid on its own principles. He managed to point to some
of the major difficulties with the developments of Neoplatonism which had taken
place in Islamic philosophy, and he argued that while philosophy should be
rejected, logic as a conceptual tool should be retained. This view became very
influential in much of the Islamic world, and philosophy came under a cloud
until the nineteenth century.
