The problem of truth was
raised in medieval Islamic philosophy within the framework of discussions
starting from the question of whether our knowledge corresponds to the
"actuality of affairs." The notion of validity thus elaborated was
comprehended as a quality of knowledge established through a comparison with
"matters of fact." What was intended is not coincidence with what is
and has existence. Existence (wujud) was generally
understood in Islamic thought as one of the attributes (sifa) that a thing
might or might not possess while still being "a thing" (shay'), and
since our knowledge embraces things independently of their accidental
attributes, the question about truth was placed on a wider footing. Validity,
from that point of view, testifies that our knowledge conforms with reality in
the immediate meaning of the term — thing-ness. This notion of
reality(shayiyya) does not necessarily exclude Divinity, for God in
Islamic sciences is often comprehended as The Thing, although different in
every respect (except that of thing-ness) from all other
things. The concept of "thing" serves to introduce some thing into
the current of intellectual discourse rather than to state anything definite
about it; to be a thing — that is, fixed and established — means to enter the
field of discussion.
Validity as affirmation
of conformity with reality was referred to as sidq (veracity,
truth) or tasdiq (certification of truth). The "actuality
of affairs" to which our knowledge conforms was comprehended also as a
sort of "authenticity," and the corresponding term haqiqa may
be rendered into English as "truth" as well. Thus verification is
carried out by comparing our knowledge to the "truth of things," and
if the result is positive, knowledge is "true (sadiq); if not, it
is "false" (kadhib). Knowledge is valid by virtue of its
coincidence with the truth of things, while the truth of the latter needs no
verification. It follows from the fact of their "being affirmed":
they just "are there" as "fixed" and "true." The
ideas of truth, fixity and thing are closely linked in Arabic. The term
"thing" (shay') is usually explained as "something that
is established" (thabit), and the root h-q-q, from
which "truth" (haqiqa) is derived, renders the same
meaning. (For example, haqq means both "true" and
"unshakable.")
The problem of truth was
raised rather early in Islamic thought, and already the al-Rawafid discussed
it. As al-Ash'ari informs us, most of them maintained that all human knowledge
is "necessitated" (idtirar). From their point of view, a
person is not free to acquire true knowledge or to reject the false; moreover,
knowledge about the falsity or validity of our knowledge also cannot be
obtained at our will. This [438] argument proceeded from the general assumption
that all human deeds are "forced" (idtirar). At the same time, some of the al-Rawafid considered the human
mind able to receive true knowledge independently, for example, to learn of
God's unity (tawhid) before the prophets inform people of it. Knowledge
gained independently, they argued, is obtained with the help of qiyas (literally
"co-measuring"). The term designates rational epistemological
procedures that produce new knowledge "by measure" of the old one and
was used not only in Kalam, but in other sciences as well, denoting analogous
judgment in fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and the syllogism in
logic. However, al-Rawafid who affirmed the independent ability of reason to
gain new knowledge were in the minority (al-Ash`ari, 1980, pp. 51-3).
The discussion of truth
was deepened by the Mu'tazila. First, they were concerned with determining the
types of propositions that can be true or false. These are statements
containing "denial and affirmation" (al-nafy wa al-ithbat), "praise
and reprobation" (al-madh wa al-dhamm) as well as
"wonder" (ta`ajjub), while "question" (istifham), "order
and interdiction" (al-'amr wa al-nahy),"regret" ('asaf),
"hope" (tamanni) and "request" (mas'ala) are
neither true nor false (al-Ash'ari, 1980, p. 444). The Mu`tazila seem to have
been little occupied with how true knowledge is reached, and
this is perhaps due to the fact that they discussed truth in connection with
the reliability of prophetic sayings — which is not an art to be taught. The
Mu"tazila had different opinions as to whether a proposition can be called
true or false if its author was ignorant of the "actuality of
affairs." (The question here is whether unintended deception can be called
a lie, or whether a statement that incidentally happened to be exact can be called
truth). When the relevant "actuality of affairs" does not exist (for
example, if the event has not yet occurred) or is unknown to a person, the
verification procedure that compares a proposition to the "truth of
things" cannot be executed — for objective and subjective reasons
respectively — and such a proposition is to be regarded as neither true nor
false. This argument, however, was not generally accepted by the
Mu"tazila.
As for Aristotelian
logic, it took root in medieval Islamic thought above all due to peripatetism.
This school gave much more sophistication to what the Mutakallimun said about
truth and the possible ways of acquiring it. Many elements of Aristotelian
logic introduced by the Islamic peripatetics became indisputable patterns of
reasoning for Islamic thinkers, and no school of medieval philosophy seriously
challenged the syllogism as a paradigm for the preservation of truth in
argumentation. What wasdisputed was the sphere in
which the syllogistic method is relevant. This method appears to have gained
less favor among Islamic thinkers than it did among ancient or medieval Western
thinkers, and in philosophy per se we find even among the
peripatetics great reservations in this respect.
Elements of Aristotelian
logic were rather well known to Islamic scholars from translations of
Aristotle's works as well as from writings of his great commentators, among
which must be mentioned in particular Porphyry's Eisagoge. There
also existed quite a number of logical treatises of educational and
propadeutical character composed in Arabic, many of which belong, or are
ascribed to, al-Farabi.
According to the
peripatetics, the purpose of logic is to gain true knowledge. Such knowledge is
twofold, consisting of "notions" (tasawwur) and
"certifications of truth" (tasdiq), which are both
accessible only on the basis of some a priori know ledge. As
for "notions" (that is, understanding what the thing
is), this knowledge in the final analysis is based on the units of meaning that
definitions, later used in arguments, are composed of. In "certifications
of truth" this primary knowledge is represented by "principles of
intellect" (awa'il al-`aql), that very intellect with the help
of which, as al-Farabi interprets Aristotle, we perceive the "certainty (yaqin) of
necessary and true general presuppositions" (al-Farabi, 1890, p. 40) with
no prior investigation or argument.
This is how Ibn Sina
expresses the point in his concise Book of Remarks and Admonitions:
The purpose of logic is to provide a canonical tool (ala
qanuniyya) that prevents aberration of thought. By "thought" (fikr)I
mean here what takes place when a person, having pulled himself up, passes from
what is present in his mind, what he has a notion of or what he is certain
of... to what is not [present] there. This transition has a certain order and
figure that might be correct and might happen to be incorrect. The incorrect
often looks correct or makes you believe that it is correct. So logic is a
science that studies ways of transition from what is present in the human mind
to what it acquires, ... the correct modes of ordering this transition and its
figures, as well as the kinds of incorrect ones. (Ibn Sina, 1960. Pt I, pp.
167-78)
Atomic "individual
meanings" (ma'ani mufrada), from which complex logical
structures are produced by "ordering" (tartib) and
"composing" (ta'lif), constitute the basis for all
logical operations (Ibn Sina, 1960. Pt 1. pp. 179-80). These meanings entirely
correspond to the things in question. The correspondence is based on what is
established by the language-giver who assigns certain "meanings" (ma'ani) to
certain "sounds" (alfaz): this correspondence is
therefore called "established" (bi al-wad`). For example,
the sound "human" corresponds to the meaning "animal endowed
with speech." The sound and its meaning are the two elements that make up
a "word" (kalima); the relation of "denotation"
(dalala) exists between the first and the second. What is denoted
by the "sound" is that very "meaning" that constitutes the
"truth" (haqiqa) of things. Thus logic, dealing with
sounds and their meanings, deals in fact with things — as long as the
denotation originally established in language is preserved.
In order to acquire the
correct notion of a thing, one must arrive at a "clarifying saying" (qawl
sharih) about it. This can be achieved, first, in a
"definition" (hadd) of the thing. The construction of
definitions is described in every detail as a procedure of answering the
question what is it? by providing its genus (jins) and
specific difference (fasl) to produce a definition of the
species(naw') that informs us of the quiddity (mahiya) of
the thing in question. Besides a definition, a "description" (rasm) can
also be given to clarify the notion of a thing, although this does not deal
with thing's quiddity. A description has to be given to those tools that serve
us in setting out definitions — that is, notions of genus, species and specific
difference — as well as to the highest genera that have no genus above them
(and, consequently, [440] for which no definition can be given). Second, a
description may be given to the things that have quiddity; for example,
"animal endowed with laughter" serves as a description for
"human."
As for arguments, they
are composed in the form of syllogisms. Aristotelian syllogistic doctrine was
exposed in Islamic peripatetism in every detail, accompanied by the examination
of possible errors, mistakes and sophisms. The validity of conclusions reached
through syllogisms is based on the accuracy with which we establish true
meanings in definitions.
A great project of the
unification and hierarchization of sciences was advanced in Islamic
peripatetism. The hierarchization was to be based on differences in the degrees
of generality of the various sciences' subjects. What is proved in the more
general sciences may serve as non-provable principles for the more particular
ones. From that point of view, sciences form a pyramid of axiomatically
subordinated branches of knowledge. AI-Farabi, in Kitab al-milla, al-Kindi,
in Kitab al-falsafa al-'ula, Ibn Sina, inal-Burhan (part
of Kitab al-shifa') (to give only examples, and not an
exhaustive list) speak about such subordination of the more particular to the
more general sciences. This structure of knowledge is conceived as
corresponding to the universe, which is ordered along the same lines of
generality-particularity.
Logic is an important
instrument of cognition. This does not mean, however, that the peripatetics
tend to exaggerate its significance. Besides knowledge acquired by means of
logic, direct, intuitive (hadsiyy) knowledge is possible. This
is granted as immediate manifestation, in which the thing unconditionally and
completely expresses itself as such.
Knowledge of our ego
serves as a paradigm of intuitive cognition, Ibn Sina introduces this thesis in
his famous fragment about the "flying person" in his Book of
Remarks and Admonitions:
Look at your soul and answer: when you are in sound health, or
even not, but correctly perceive things, did it ever happen that you were
ignorant of your self(dhat) or didn't ascertain your soul? ...
Imagine that your self has just been created: assume that it is in its right
mind and figure, sees none of its parts and its members don't feel each other,
but it is spread and suspended at some moment in pure air. Then you will find
that it notices nothing: however it observes fixity of its egoness
(ana'iyya). (Ibn Sina. 1957, Pt 2, pp. 319-20)
The ego is always
manifest to itself, and this manifestation is the primary fact of our
consciousness. It depends on nothing and, furthermore, no sophisticated proof
is needed to understand it: it suffices to imagine the situation described
above for the fact of the ego's manifestation to itself to become clear.
Immediate manifestation
can be considered a sort of completion for the logical form of cognition. This
concluding step, however, already transcends the path that it completes and
opens fundamentally new horizons. According to Ibn Sina, Ibn Tufayl and other
authors, a person acquires complete and true knowledge through union with
Active Intellect — the last of the Cosmic Intellects, repository of all forms
and governor of the sublunar world. This full contact with the source of forms
that [441] are the subject of logical inquiry no longer presupposes any
necessity of transition from the already-present to the
yet-unknown, and thus places one outside the framework of logical reasoning.
Certainly, not everyone is able to achieve this union; only if the soul is
pure, Ibn Sina argues, can it be inflamed by Active Intellect and directly
imprinted with the forms of all possible knowledge. It is the same intention of
achieving immediately manifest self-evidence that speaks for itself in these
cases, as also when these authors abandon philosophical jargon and talk about
directly witnessing the Divine world. It is also obvious that the patency of our
ego for itself guarantees its ability to reach absolutely complete and true
knowledge by witnessing the Divinity, for the two kinds of evidential
witnessing differ with respect to their subject, rather than in their essence.
The exposition of the
peripatetic doctrine of truth is in no way complete before Ibn Rushd's work Kitab
fasl al-maqal wa taqrir ma bayna al-shari`a wa al-hikma min al-ittisal (or
"Decisive Saying Establishing the Connection between Law and Wisdom")
is mentioned. Despite its title, the chief idea of this little treatise is that
the spheres of "wisdom" (that is, philosophy) and "Law"
(the theoretical postulates followed in religious life as well as its practical
prescriptions) may be separated. The work attempts to fix independent rights of
reason for obtaining the truth that -within the limits defined for it — no one
can violate. It is noteworthy that Ibn Rushd had predecessors among the
Mutakallimun in the differentiation of what falls under the Law, which is
established and can be revised under no circumstances, and what reason is
permitted to discuss and decide. "What is known by reason and what is
known only through Law," a chapter in Usul al-din ( Principles
of Religion), a book by an Ash'arite author, Abu Mansur al-Baghdadi,
bears a resemblance to Averroes's treatise not only by its title. Al-Baghdadi
definitely states that only Divine prescriptions, either direct or transmitted
through prophets, constitute the domain of Law, whereas problems of the world's
origin and similar questions involve theories that human reason elaborates.
Isma`ilism may to a
certain degree be regarded as a successor of peripatetism with respect to the
theory of knowledge and truth. Isma`ili theoreticians, on the one hand, have no
doubt concerning reason's capability of knowing the truth; more over, cognition
of the truth is, in their view, indispensable for the person who wants to reach
salvation. On the other hand, they give up the syllogistic method as the
principal means of cognition. The Universe, in their estimation, is not a
unified structure arranged in the hierarchical (generality-particularity) order
that the peripatetics described. It is rather a system of
structures that stand with respect to each other in relations of similarity,
isomorphism and correspondence. This ontology presupposes a special method of
cognition.
This is how Hamid al-Din
al-Kirmani. the most prominent Isma`ili theoretician, expresses these theses.
Any science, he argues, has its own "laws" (qawanin) — that
is to say, criteria by which knowledge is tested in order to determine whether
it really corresponds to the "true order" (nizam al-haqq) of
the subject of study. And if the peripatetics strive to achieve their aim, that
is, "knowledge of the meanings of existence" (ma`ani
al-wujud), by means of logic. Isma`ili philosophers employ a different
method.
Its basic premise
can be expressed as follows: anything in the world belongs to some structure
and may correctly be comprehended only within that structure, through its place
in the overall framework and its structural role. Thus the preliminary step for
cognition is to single out the universal structures that, being completely
"balanced" (mutawazina) and "isomorphic"(mutashakila), form
the created world. In their mutual conformity universal harmony is embodied,
expressing the highest wisdom of their creation and giving evidence to the
perfection of our world, which is the best of all possible worlds.
The principle of
hierarchical harmony, penetrating the Universe, can be traced on different
levels. As Isma`ili works show, this can be done with great accuracy and
amazing sophistication. There are four basic structures to be identified; the
metaphysical world, the religious community, the natural world, and the human
being. It is of fundamental importance that knowledge of any of these
structures allows us to know all of the others with the help of special rules
of interstructural translation of meaning, since corresponding elements of
different structures have a similar structural place, function and essence.
Had all the structures of
the Universe been manifest to us, no special cognitive procedures would be
necessary. However, universal structures fall into two classes. Some of them
are "obvious" (zahir), while others are
"latent" (batin). Isma`ili theory of knowledge proceeds
from the premise that "latent" structure (as a whole, as well as any
of its separate elements) can be known only through the "obvious."
Since it is the structure of Isma`ili community (or as al-Kirmani prefers to
say, the "world of religion") that is known to us in every detail,
all new knowledge is acquired on this basis. This method is referred to as
finding "balance"(muwazana) and
"correspondence" (mutabaqa). Isma`ili community structure
is harmoniously balanced with all other structures in the world (this is a
postulate of Isma`ili philosophy, not a conclusion to be proved), and knowing
it we can arrive at knowledge of anything. Besides, numeric structures are
widely used in search of mutual structural correspondences. Using this method,
al-Kirmani consistently and in every detail describes the metaphysical world
(the hierarchy of Cosmic Intellects) as well as the natural world and the
microcosm.
Structural correspondence
is for al-Kirmani not only a method of finding new knowledge, but also a
criterion for the verification of existing knowledge. Only that is valid which
has a correct structure. "This criterion is such that what agrees with it.
is true, and what disagrees, is false; it is this criterion that is so
attractive for the intellect that seeks to know with its help what is given to
it as well as what escapes it" (al-Kirmani, 1983, p. 236). In cognitive
procedures the structure of the "religious world" (which means the
Isma`ili community) is taken as a paradigm, but that structure too is verified
by correspondence to "God's creation." The perfection of the manifest
structure and its undoubted validity is proved for al-Kirmani by the fact that
it disagrees with the Universe in no detail (al-Kirmani, 1983, p. 237).
Certainly, the person who
would endeavor to apply this method of cognition in his own research will
hardly succeed. This method serves well in the exposition and structuring of
already acquired knowledge, but in spite of what al-Kirmani maintains, not in
the search for new knowledge. The author of Rahat al-'aql leaves
us [443] ignorant of the most interesting and important detail of his method —
those inter structural semantic translation procedures that fill the unknown
structure with new meanings so that it balances the structure
manifest to us. In this respect what al-Farabi said on another occasion seems
to be relevant. In this critique of astrologers, the "Second Teacher"
argues that in the world one can single out diverse "sets" (kathra) of
things, like animals' movements, the voices of birds, written signs, and so on,
in order to put them in correspondence with the multitude of events that we
experience; such a procedure, however, produces "only occasional, instead
of necessary [truth] that reason should have accepted" (al-Farabi, 1890,
p. III).
Illuminative philosophy
is another successor to peripatetism with respect to the theory of truth. It is
no exaggeration to say that Ibn Sina is the greatest authority for the most
prominent representative of this school, Shihab al-Din Yahya al-Suhrawardi. The
affinity of these two thinkers is surprising, in view of the disagreements
between their teachings caused by al-Suhrawardi's adherence to a metaphysics of
light and darkness; on the subject of the theory of truth, however, the
disagreements between them are minimal.
Like Ibn Sina,
al-Suhrawardi speaks about two kinds of true knowledge: immediate intuitive
knowledge and logical knowledge. The first he also calls "truthful witnessing" (mushahada
haqqiya), and the second "research" (bahth). Knowledge
of the ego. or, as al-Suhrawardi himself calls it, ego-ness (ana'iyya), serves
for him. as it did for Ibn Sina, as an archetype of the direct cognition of
truth. But since the majority of people are unable to experience the
completeness of truth immediately, they have to resort to indirect logical
cognition, which starts with basic unquestionably valid premises and proceeds
from them to the unknown (al-Suhrawardi, 1952, p. 18).
Al-Suhrawardi considers
the elementary sensual perceptions "simple meanings." logical atoms
from which the construction of concepts begins. These perceptions are simple,
absolutely evident and self-identical; they are the principal elements known by
anyone who has healthy organs of perception. Sensual perception is absolutely
adequate, al-Suhrawardi argues: we perceive exactly what is there in
the things perceived. Finally, basic sensual perceptions, being elements of
knowledge, have no logical definition (al-Suhrawardi, 1952, p. 104). This
sensualism of the celebrated mystic agrees well with his radical nominalism:
according to al-Suhrawardi, no general concepts exist independently of our
minds. On this basis he argues that quiddity is constituted not only by
substantial features, as the peripatetics maintained, but also by accidental
features. For the shape of a house, for example, is accidental with respect to
the clay from which it is constructed, and nevertheless we say, in response to
the question "what is it?" that it is a "house," rather
than "clay" (al-Suhrawardi, 1952, pp. 85-6). Given Suhrawardi's metaphysics
of light and darkness, he denies that the first matter is universal substance,
and consequently is compelled to look for a different basis of individuation.
For him it is not matter that is "responsible" for the multiplicity
of individuals which all have the same quiddity and which therefore are,
logically speaking, one and the same, but rather the degree of perfection (kamal) or
degree of completeness by which this or that "universal meaning" is
represented in the individual (al-Suhrawardi, 1952, [444] p. 87). This concept
of individuality as a degree of perfection will later be elaborated in Sufism
by Ibn 'Arabi.
As for the syllogistic
method, the importance that al-Suhrawardi attaches to it is testified to by the
fact that the first half of his chef-d'oeuvre, Hikmat al-ishraq (Wisdom
of illumination), is solely devoted to its exposition. Al-Suhrawardi
points out that it is a necessary propaedeutic for the second, metaphysical and
mystical, part of his book. In his analysis of syllogisms accompanied by a
detailed study of possible errors and sophisms, al-Suhrawardi strives to prove
that all modes of syllogism can be reduced to a single positive categorical
mode, which, in his estimation, makes knowledge of all the subtleties of the
other modes superfluous.
As for the complete and perfect
witnessing of truth, it is reached, according to al-Suhrawardi, in the state of
"illumination"(ishraq). "Illumination" is the
central concept of al-Suhrawardi's philosophy. It signifies direct irradiation
of the soul by superior, metaphysical lights. The soul itself is a light that
has descended from the world of light" into the "world of
darkness" and is yet impotent to return to its original abode. This
congeneity of human soul and the highest principles of being constitutes the ontological
foundation for the possibility of such irradiation. Illumination discloses the
truth (haqq) immediately and needs no verification (tasdiq). Logical
instruments that verify the correctness of "transition" procedures
are of no use when no such transition takes place.
The Sufi doctrine of the
truth and the ways of acquiring it differs in its central point from any of the
doctrines that we have hitherto discussed. No matter how truth is understood in
Kalam, peripatetism, Isma`ilism, or the philosophy of illumination, all of
these schools have in common an explicit or implicit understanding of true
knowledge as something unhesitatingly established: the term
"certainty" (yaqin) generally serves to express this
fixity. Such certainty is understood as "quiescence" (itmi'nan), the
same idea of quietude reached through complete and true knowledge is expressed
by the title of al-Kirmani's magnum opus Rahat al-'aql — Peace
of mind) on the basis of the generally accepted notion of the
"perfect" (kamil) and "complete" (tamm) as
immobile. The true. by virtue of its completeness, needs nothing external to be
accomplished and, consequently, no movement is necessary for it. Against this
understanding of truth as a state of clear certainty, Sufism opposes the
doctrine of the truth being witnessed in its completeness in a state of
"abashment" and "confusion" (hayra) that
presupposes constant restlessness.
Although in this respect
Sufism stands in opposition to other trends of medieval Islamic philosophy,
there is doubtless continuity in the way Sufi theoreticians arrive at the above
conclusion. Peripatetism, Isma`ilism and the philosophy of illumination
understand the achievement of truth, at least in its logical form, as
"transition" (intiqal) from what a person possesses
as established truth to what he or she currently does not possess: as for
mystical revelation, it also provides a sort of finally established and
unequivocally valid knowledge. "The unknown — against the known," Ibn
Sina writes (Ibn Sina, 1960. Pt 1. p. 181): all things are divided into two
classes that stand to each other in a relation of exact mutual correspondence;
everything is truly known after it has been unknown. Dividing things [445] into
the "unseen" (batin) and the manifest" (zahir) was
commonplace in medieval Islamic thought, and these concepts remain fundamental
in Sufi epistemology as well, where cognition is often referred to as
"making [the unseen] manifest" (izhar).
This substantial
departure from traditional Islamic thinking in the final conclusion of Sufi
epistemology (that is, the cognition of truth as "confusion" instead
of as "fixed certainty") in spite of common intention of finding the
solution (truth as unseen made manifest) is explained by a basic feature of
this philosophy that may be defined as interiorization. Both Sufi ontology (seeCausality and
Islamic thought) and epistemology are deeply marked by it. Just as
the cause and effect relation is an inner division of the same essence rather
than an external relation between two different essences, so the inner and the
outside (the "hidden" and the "manifest") are not two
different and definite aspects of things, but rather one and
the same. What other schools of philosophy consider as occurring between,
Sufi philosophy regards as taking place inside.
However, Sufi philosophy
does not deny other points of view. As the doctrines of Ibn Sina and
al-Suhrawardi demonstrated, logic may be regarded as an incomplete version of
immediate and perfect truth-witnessing, rather than as its alternative. Ibn
'Arabi, the greatest of Sufi philosophers, adopts the same position. In this
sense his theory of truth is inclusive rather than exclusive, for he regards
non-Sufi ways of cognition as also true — within their limits, however, and not
absolutely.
For example, the
knowledge obtained through correct syllogisms is certainly true, and there is
no doubt about its scientific results, like our knowledge of the sun's size or
the rules of mathematics (Ibn 'Arabi, 1980. pp. 102-4). The intuitive
"witnessing"(mushahada) gives true knowledge as well: the
"inner sight" (basira) discovers immediately behind
things their causes and thus discloses the inner essence of things hidden under
their manifest outwardness. The cause of things and of their inner essence thus
discovered is God, or The Truth (al-Haqq) — each time seen in
one of His infinite aspects. However, the "witnessing" first brings
into sight the thing, and then behind it, or inside it, discovers God. The two
are still divided and differentiated, and the all-encompassing Truth that
constitutes the core of everything is not found as the thing's outwardness. The
highest stage of truth is to see things in God. to notice the
sameness and equality of the different, to be unable to differentiate. This is
the ability of the "heart" (qalb). Intellect, inner
sight, and heart form an ascending hierarchy of organs with their corresponding
methods of cognition.
Rational knowledge is
acquired by moving "from" premises "to" a conclusion, by
going along "the stretched path," as Ibn `Arabi puts it (Ibn 'Arabi,
1980, p. 73). The intuitive witnessing of God as the inner essence of things
spheres this line. But only when the sphered line becomes equal to its center
does "confusion" come, and the person sees the hidden as manifest and
the manifest as hidden, sees God as His creation and the creation as God
Himself. Total oneness and sameness, the transcendence of any differentiation
and the non-fixity of any definiteness and any limit (the results of logical
cognition included) — this is what such a way of seeing the truth boils down
to. The Sufi [446] understanding of truth undermines well established
stereotypes of dichotomizing divisions. The fundamental ontological sameness of
God and His creation entails the sameness of any pair of opposed categories.
The law of excluded middle is irrelevant for this point of view: what it points
to is but a step that should inevitably be overcome. Truth turns out to be a
transcendence of dichotomic divisions — a transcendence which, however,
presupposes that each of them is fixed — but only as a step in an unceasing
movement, equal to any other of its infinite steps.
Bibliography
Writings
AI-Ash'ari, Abu al-Hasan 1980: Maqalat al-islamiyyin wa
ikhtilaf al-musallin [Sayings of Muslims and Differences between Those
Who Pray] 3rd edn (Wiesbaden; Franz Steiner).
Ibn 'Arabi 1980: Fusus al-hikam [Bezels of
Wisdom] 2nd edn (Beirut: Dar al-kitab al-'arabiyy).
Ibn Sina, Abu 'Ali 1957-60: Al-lsharat wa al-tanbihat,
ma`a sharh Nasir al-Din al-Tusi [Book of Remarks and Admonitions, with
the commentary of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi] ed. Suleyman Dunya, 4 parts (Cairo; Dar
al-ma'arif).
AI-Kirmani, Hamid al-Din 1983: Rahat al-'aql [Peace
of Mind] 2nd edn (Beirut: Dar al-andalus).
Al-Suhrawardi, Shihab al-Din Yahya 1952: "Hikmat
al-ishraq," in Oeuvres philosophiques et mystiques de Shihabeddin
Yahya Sohrawardi (1), ed. H. Corbin. Bibliotheque Iranienne, Vol. 2
(Teheran and Paris: Institut Franco-Iranien — Librairie d'Amerique et
d'Orient), pp. 2-260.
References and further
reading
Badawi, A. 1972: Histoire de la philosophie en Islam, 2 Vols
(Paris: J. Vrin).
Al-Baghdadi, Abu Mansur 1981: 'Usul al-din, 3rd
edn (Beirut: Dar al-kutub al-'ilmiyya).
Chittick, W. C. 1989: The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn
al-'Arabi's Metaphysics of Imagination (Albany: State University of New York
Press).
Corbin. H. 1964: Histoire de la philosophie islamique (Paris:
Gallimard).
Daftary, F. 1990: The Isma`ilis: Their History and
Doctrines (Cambridge; Cambridge University Press).
Dunlop, D. M. 1956a: "Al-Farabi's Eisagoge." The
Islamic Quarterly. A Review of Islamic Culture, 3, pp. 115-27.
—— 1956b: "Al-Farabi's Introductory Risalah on Logic," The
Islamic Quarterly. A Review of Islamic Culture. 3. pp. 224-30.
—— 1956, 1959; "Al-Farabi's Paraphrase of the Categories of
Aristotle," The Islamic Quarterly. A Review of Islamic Culture, 4
(1957), pp. 168-83: 5 (1959), pp. 21-37.
Fakhry, M. 1983: A History of Islamic
Philosophy, 2nd edn (New York: Columbia University Press).
AI-Farabi, Abu Nasr 1890a: "Fi-ma yasihh wa ma la yasihh
min ahkam al-nujum" [What Is Right and What Is Wrong in Astrology], in Al-thamra
al-mardiyya fi ba`d al-risalat al-farabiyya [Longed-for Fruit of Some
Treatises by al-Farabi] (Leiden: E.J. Brill), pp. 104-14.
—— 1890b: "Maqala fi ma'ani al-'aql" [On Meanings of
"Intellect"], in Al-thamra al-mardiyya fi ba`d al-risalat
al-farabiyya [Longed-for Fruit of Some Treatises by al-Farabi]
(Leiden: E. J. Brill), pp. 39-48.
——1968: Kitab al-milla wa nusus ukhra [Book of
Beliefs and Other Treatises], ed. M. Mahdi (Beyrouth: Dar al-mashriq).
Georr, Khalil 1948: Les categories d'Aristote dans leurs
versions syro-arabes (Beyrouth).
Ibn 'Arabi 1859 and reprints: AI-Futuhat al-Makkiya [Revelations
of Mecca]. 4 Vols (Cairo: Dar al-kutub al-'arabiyya al-kubra).
Ibn Sina, Abu 'Ali 1954: AI-Burhan min Kitab
al-Shifa' [On Demonstration, from the Book of Healing] ed. Al-Badawi (Cairo:
Maktabat al-nahda al-misriyya).
Ibn Rushd (Averroes) 1959: Kitab Fasl al-Maqal with its Appendix
and an extract from Kitab al-kashf `an manahij al-adilla (Leiden: E. J. Brill).
Ibn Tufayl 1954: Qissat Hayy Ibn Yaqzan [Story
of the Living, Son of the Wakeful] (Beirut: Dar al-Farabi).
Al-Kindi 1948: Kitab al-Kindi ila al-Mu`tasim bi-llah fi
al-falsafa al-ula [Epistle of al-Kindi to al-Mu'tasim bi-llah in First
Philosophy], ed. Ahmad al-Ahwani (Cairo).
Nasr. S. H. 1964: Three Muslim Sages: Avicenna,
Suhrawardi, Ibn 'Arabi (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press).
Wolfson, H. A. 1976: The Philosophy of the Kalam (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press).
. At first sight we might be
tempted to believe that 
0 = 0.