Arabo-Islamic Philosophy: Its Meaning and Significance in History

Abstract

The subject under the discussion in this paper is not approached from any particular philosophical school or theory, but, rather, as a historical problem with regard to the origins, meaning .and the role of that philosophy, above all, in the Middle Ages. It is called Islamic because it was developed and cultivated in the area under the impact of Islam, or within the clearly defined Islamic civilization, in spite of a permanent conflict between faith and reason, auctoritas and ratio, as was the case also with Judaism and Christianity. It may also be called Arabic, but merely because its main works are written in the Arabic language. Of particular importance for the inception of that philosophy is the fact that Islam, both as religion and a culture, arose as a result of special Hellenistic or Hellenizing forces, notwithstanding its being based initially on the revelation. It was a meeting ground of several streams: from different sources and languages but ultimately expressed, in one language, Arabic, and formed in agreement with ideas and aspirations inspired by Islam as religion and vision of the world. Thus the sources of Islamic philosophy may be said to be twofold from within the Islamic tradition, strictly speaking, with its intrinsic problems, touching individual faith and public responsibility, human action and divine omnipotence, qualities and quantities of faith, the question of perfection both of the individual and the society, as posed by the Qur'ān as a revealed word and inevitably dictated by the all-pervading reality. This genuine Islamic philosophy found its fact in the scholastic or dialectical theology, kalām, cultivated by various schools, such as mu'tazila, ğabriyya, murği'a, ash'ariyya, and many other schools, with a wide range of conflicting views. But even these, Islamic schools were influenced by ideas from various sources, mainly from Greek philosophy. The second source was the Greek heritage readily taken aver and cultivated by the Muslims, resulting in numerous translations and commentaries of Greek philosophical works, mainly of Plato and Aristotle but also of others of neoplationic school. This was falsafa, philosophy, and those who cultivated that branch of knowledge were called falāsifa, philosophers, in contradistinction to kalāim and mutakallimūn. Both of these philosophies, as represented by al-Kindī, al-Fārābī, Ibn Sina, Averroes, al-Ghazālī, to name only a few, had a large share in transmitting the Greek heritage to the Christian West and in influencing the scholastic philosophy, and even the theology, of Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Roger Bacon and the entire philosophy of the Middle Ages.