Islamic Philosophy E-Book

Oliver Leaman

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 538

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Although Islamic philosophy represents one of the leading philosophical traditions in the world, it has only recently begun to receive the attention it deserves in the non-Islamic world. This important text provides a concise and accessible introduction to the major movements, thinkers and concepts within that tradition, from the foundation of Islam to the present day.

Ever since the growth of Islam as a religious and political movement, Muslim thinkers have sought to understand the theoretical aspects of their faith by using philosophical concepts. Leaman outlines this history and demonstrates that, although the development of Islamic philosophy is closely linked with Islam itself, its form is not essentially connected to any particular religion, and its leading ideas and arguments are of general philosophical significance. The author illustrates the importance of Islamic thought within philosophy through the use of many modern examples. He describes and contrasts the three main movements in Islamic philosophy ? Peripatetic, Sufi and Illuminationist ? and examines the Persian as well as the Arabic traditions. Wide coverage is given to key aspects of Islamic philosophy, including epistemology, ontology, politics, ethics and philosophy of language, providing readers with a balanced view of the discipline. The second edition has been thoroughly revised and updated throughout, including the addition of two new chapters on recent debates surrounding Islam's need for an enlightenment, and on the future of Islamic philosophy.

The new edition of Islamic Philosophy will continue to be essential reading for students and scholars of the subject, as well as anyone wanting to learn more about one of the most significant and influential philosophical traditions in the world today.

Leseprobe

Islamic Philosophy

Islamic Philosophy An Introduction

Oliver Leaman

Polity

Copyright © Oliver Leaman 2009

The right of Oliver Leaman to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2009 by Polity Press

Polity Press

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Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

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Malden, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-5907-7

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Contents

Preface to the Second Edition

Author’s Note and Abbreviations

Glossary

1

A SHORT HISTORY OF ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY

The growth of Islam

Neoplatonism

Major thinkers

2

MAIN CONTROVERSIES

What is Islamic philosophy?

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

Al-Ghazali and philosophy: the question of creation

The nature of time

Mulla Sadra on change

Iqbal on time

Ibn Rushd on time

What can God do?

Miracles and meaning

The afterlife

What can God know?

Philosophical accounts of religious concepts

How free is God?

Essence, existence and miracles

The meaning of words

Meaning and unity

bi-la kayfa

Ibn Taymiyya on talking about God

3

KNOWLEDGE

The notion of Islamic science

Science and rationality

The nature of knowledge

What is knowledge for?

Imagination

Ibn Sina on knowledge and the ‘oriental’ philosophy

Sufism, knowledge and imagination

Knowledge by presence

4

MYSTICISM

Mysticism as a system

Being

Mysticism as a science

The perfect man

The deepening of prayer

Criticisms of Sufism

5

ONTOLOGY

Being and existence in Islamic philosophy

Ibn Rushd vs Ibn Sina on existence

Mulla Sadra vs al-Suhrawardi on existence

The equivocality of being

Mulla Sadra and mysticism

The imaginal realm

Different routes to one truth and the role of imagination

Allegory and meaning: the imaginal realm again

Prophecy and its psychological basis

Is being really the first question in metaphysics?

6

ETHICS

Theological background: Mu‘tazilites vs Ash‘arites

Ethics and divine power

Al-Ghazali’s attack on objectivism in ethics

Trusting authority

The need for guidance

7

POLITICS

Plato vs Aristotle

The diversity of human beings

Islamic accounts of history

The notion of the ‘medieval’

Liberalism vs Islam

The case of

jihad

Modern political consequences

8

THE QUESTION OF TRANSMISSION

Philosophy and religion

The notion of cultural contact

The Andalusi connection

Getting back to basics

Falsafa

and

hikma

: philosophy and wisdom

The concept of religious reason

The concept of inclusive reason

Robinson Crusoe

and

Hayy ibn Yaqzan

9

LANGUAGE

The case of Ibn Rushd

Ibn Rushd on meaning

Ibn Rushd and elitism

The Enlightenment Project

Ibn Rushd as a critic of mysticism

The implications for language

10  

ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY TODAY

The West as decadent

Confronting tradition

Islamic exceptionalism

Did al-Ghazali destroy Islamic philosophy?

11  

DOES ISLAM NEED AN ENLIGHTENMENT?

Jewish and Muslim reactions to modernity

Moses Mendelssohn and ‘Muhammad Abduh

Islamic exceptionalism again

The Enlightenment and theology

Christianity as the symbol of modernity

The need for an Enlightenment

The lack of radicalism in Islamic Qur’an commentary 207

References and Bibliography

Guide to Further Reading

Index

Preface to the Second Edition

This is not the first introductory text which I have written on Islamic philosophy, which raises the obvious question of why there should be a need for another one, and by the same author. Whether, ultimately, this book has been worth the effort of writing and reading is of course something that the reader will have to decide; but from my point of view it has been worthwhile, because I have changed my ideas about some of the ways in which I formerly saw the main issues. In the past I had what seems to me now to be a rather narrow view of the discipline. I prioritized Islamic philosophy in the Peripatetic or Greek tradition, Islamic philosophy based on logic and the sort of analysis with which most philosophers in the Anglo-American world feel at home. I still think that this is the most important strain of Islamic philosophy; but I now think that the other two main schools – the mystical, or Sufi, school and the illuminationist, or ishraqi, school – produce interesting and important arguments that have to be assessed as parts of the whole enterprise. Ignoring these traditions does an injustice to the breadth of the enterprise of Islamic philosophy. In any case, very few of those writing within the Peripatetic tradition of falsafa restricted themselves to this type of writing; they merely saw it as playing a role in the rational understanding of our place in a world created by God – not the only role, but just one role among many others. Moreover, these other roles, especially those of mysticism or illuminationist thought, are also important ways in which we can know who we are and how far we can understand what is above us. I think it is true of any general philosophical movement that we go awry if we concentrate merely on one aspect of it. In this book I present a more rounded and comprehensive guide to the topic than I could have in the past.

Another difference from some of my earlier work is that I now think that it is not so obvious who the heroes and the villains are or were. It is not uncommon to point to ‘conservatives’ and ‘progressives’ in the Islamic world, just as today we can divide Muslims into ‘traditionalists’ and ‘modernists’. Although in the past I always thought that the quality of the arguments of the opponents of philosophy was high, I thought that the arguments of the defenders of philosophy were higher. Now I am not so sure. It seems to me that often those Muslim thinkers who seek to emphasize their faith at the expense of what they see as philosophy produce better philosophical arguments than do the defenders of philosophy. I think this brings out nicely the ways in which Islamic philosophy is really part and parcel of the general working-out of the implications of Islam itself, as a consequence of which any attempt at artificially segregating philosophy from faith is too one-dimensional to do justice to Islamic philosophy. On the other hand, I have written this book on the assumption that one does not need to be committed to any particular religion, or indeed any religion at all, to understand Islamic philosophy. Nor does one have to know much about Islam itself. I have kept the technical vocabulary to a minimum, and have tried to explain whatever cultural and religious details are important for an understanding of Islamic philosophy. I have also on occasion used Islamic philosophy to pursue controversies in the modern Islamic world, to bring to the attention of the reader the contemporary relevance and interest of the ideas and arguments discussed within Islamic philosophy. Because I presuppose no knowledge of either Islam or philosophy, I start with a brief history of Islamic philosophy that also introduces the reader to some of the basic concepts of Islam, and throughout the text ideas in Islam and philosophy are discussed together. There are omissions from the book that should be found in a more comprehensive account of the topic, of course; logic in particular is a notable absentee, but I did not feel that this was a particularly appropriate topic for the general reader. Logic aside, I hope I have included most of the main categories of Islamic philosophy, and have given sufficient bibliographical details for those interested in pursuing the subject further.

Despite what I hope is a more inclusive account of Islamic philosophy than hitherto, there is no doubt about whom I regard as the major thinker in the subject, and that is Ibn Rushd (Averroes). I make no excuse for my choice, and hope that in this eight-hundredth anniversary of his death the exceptional interest of his arguments will impress the reader. The difficult life of Ibn Rushd, who brought forth great theoretical works while suffering intermittent political disruption, reminds those of us who work in more comfortable conditions of the essentially radical nature of the philosophical enterprise when it confronts, or even tries to coexist with, tradition.

I have added a couple of new chapters and generally updated what remains, but the structure of the book is similar to the first edition, in that this is not primarily a historical introduction to the topic but is rather based on topics and issues, very much how I see Islamic philosophy as needing to be done. Not of course that there is anything wrong with history, but it can be very limiting in its attitude to its subject matter, when that subject matter consists of arguments and debates. One of the new chapters looks at some modern Islamic philosophers, and here I have only been able to discuss a few of the relevant thinkers. The other considers the frequent assertion that Islam needs an enlightenment, and missed out on it, since this is primarily a philosophical claim, although it is often given a political and theological direction.

Many of the arguments in this book were originally presented to various audiences in different countries, and I must thank all those who made comments on such occasions, who are too many to enumerate, and especially the students with whom I have been privileged to work. No one is to be held responsible for my views here, of course, except their author.

Oliver Leaman

Lexington, 2009

Author’s Note and Abbreviations

Dates are generally given in this form: AH / CE. AH refers to the hijra, when in 622 CE the Prophet Muhammad moved to Medina and established a political community. This marks the first Muslim year in the lunar calendar.

Transliteration from Arabic and Persian is partial, omitting diacritics and macrons, but otherwise using ordinary conventions.

Quotations from the Qur’an are generally from the Arberry version, with occasional alterations, and carry the normal form of references to the original text.

Readers should note that the dates provided for books relate to the date of publication, and not of course to when they were written.

The following abbreviation has been used:

Glossary

For more detail on theological terms, see Leaman, O. (ed.), The Qur’an: An Encyclopedia, London: Routledge, and on philosophical terms, see Groff, P., in Islamic Philosophy A–Z, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

ahadith

Traditions, plural of hadith

‘alam al-ghayb

hidden world

‘alam al-khayal

world of imagination

‘alam al-mithal

world of images

‘alam al-shahada

visible world

anniya

being

‘aql al-awwal

first intellect

‘aql al-fa‘‘al

active intellect

asalat al-wujud

priority of being

asbab al-nuzul

occasions of revelation

ayat

signs, verses of the Qur’an

barzakh

isthmus, passage between this world and the next

bi-la kayfa

without asking how

dar al-ahd

land of truce

dar al-aman

land of safety

dar al-harb

land of war

dar al-islam

land of Islam, i.e., peace

dar al-sulh

land of peace

dhat

essence

dhawq

taste

dhikr

remembrance

dhimmi

protected subject, i.e., non-Muslim

falasifa, falsafa, faylasuf

philosophers, philosophy, philosopher

fana’

annihilation

faqih

lawyer

fasad

corruption

fayd

emanation

fiqh

jurisprudence

fitra

innate nature; destiny

hadith

Tradition, report of something said by the Prophet or his Companions truth

al-haraka al-jawhariya

substantial motion

harakat al-tanwir

enlightenment movement

haskala

enlightenment

hikma

wisdom, philosophy

hikma mashraqiya

Eastern wisdom

huwiyya

being

ihya’

revival

i‘jaz al-qur’an

miracle of the Qur’an

ijma‘

consensus

‘ilm

knowledge

‘ilm al-tasawwuf

mystical knowledge, science of mysticism

inhitat

decadence

insan al-kamil

perfect man, i.e., Muhammad

ishraqi

Illuminative (philosophy)

isnad

chain (of transmitters of ahadith)

isti’ghrab

occidentalism

jahada

struggle

jihad

a struggle, war

jihad al-nafs

struggle with the soul

jism al-khayali

imaginal bodies

kalam

theology

kana

being

kashf

unveiling, i.e., to open the heart to mystical illumination

khilafa

caliphate

malaki

knowledge/esoteric knowledge

ma‘arifa

angelic

mashsha’i

Peripatetic (philosophy)

maskilim

enlightened, i.e., modern scholars

mawjud

existence

mutakallimun

theologians

nahda

(Arab) renaissance

nawabit

weeds

qalb

heart

qudsi

sacred

salaf, salafi

ancestors, original, i.e., orthodox

shari‘a

religious law

shaykh

leader

shaykh al-ra’is

the first master

shi‘at ‘Ali

the party of Ali

shirk

idolatry

shura

consultation

al-sirat al-mustaqim

the straight path

sunna

tradition

surah

chapter of the Qur’an

tajdid

renewal

ta‘lim

education

taqlid

imitation

tasawwur

conception

tasdiq

assent, judgement

tashkik

equivocation

tashkik al-wujud

equivocality of being

tawhid

unity

ta’wil

interpretation

umma

community

‘ulama

scholars

usul

principles

velayet-i faqih

rule by the clergy

wahdat al-shuhud

unity of consciousness

wahdat al-wujud

unity of being

wali

friend

1

A Short History of Islamic Philosophy

Adherents of religion often start off by thinking that the religion provides everything they need in order to understand reality. Not practical or scientific knowledge, perhaps, but certainly knowledge of how to live and what the real nature of the world is (Islam does also provide scientific information in the view of some believers, see Shamsher Ali 2006). It is interesting to speculate about why a religious movement should feel the need to take on systems of theoretical thought which come from outside that movement. After all, many such movements possess a considerable theoretical machinery of their own. Believers might well feel that there is enough within the system of thought of Islam itself to encompass any conceptual problems or issues which could arise. Within the system of Islam itself there exists, first and foremost, the Qur’an, with its detailed analysis of the nature of reality and its advice to readers. The Qur’an stresses that it is written in a simple Arabic and the implication is that it is then not difficult to understand (19: 97; 54: 17). Then there exist for many Muslims the practices (sunna) of the Prophet and his Companions, and his community (), while for others there is the continuing guidance of a spiritual leader (imam). The former acquire their name of Sunni Muslims from the fact that they are committed to using the reports of the practices of the Prophet and his close Companions as a source of information about how to behave. The latter are the Shi‘ites, or Shi‘i, who derive their name from the term (the party of‘Ali), because they pay particular attention to the Prophet’s son-in-law,‘Ali, and his successors as sources of spiritual knowledge (Muhajirani 1996; Lalani 2006). As sources of authority there are also the traditions (, sing. ) that reproduce important sayings of the Prophet and his Companions, and a methodology for distinguishing between reliable and suspect traditions. On this basis, a superstructure of theology () was constructed, which investigates the theoretical problems in understanding the combination of all the former techniques, and jurisprudence (), which specifies what actions are acceptable or otherwise. Finally, there is the grammar of the Arabic language, the language in which the Qur’an itself was transmitted, the speech of God himself, so crucially important for understanding the meaning of the message in the text. It is hardly surprising that many Muslims felt, and continue to feel, that there is more than enough within Islam and its systems of knowledge, often called the Islamic sciences, to deal with any problem which might arise, and hence that there is no need for any additional source of theoretical information to be employed. This is a common reaction of adherents to many religions which have a sophisticated system of explanation, who, as a result, resent the idea of going outside the religion in order to resolve theoretical and even practical problems (Leaman 1988b, 2000c).