Early Islamic philosophy or classical Islamic philosophy is a period of intense philosophical development beginning in the 2nd century AH of the Islamic calendar (early 9th century CE) and lasting until the 6th century AH (late 12th century CE). The period is known as the Islamic Golden Age, and the achievements of this period had a crucial influence in the development of modern philosophy and science. For Renaissance Europe, "Muslim maritime, agricultural, and technological innovations, as well as much East Asian technology via the Muslim world, made their way to western Europe in one of the largest technology transfers in world history."History of Europe - Middle Ages - Reform and renewal - Christianity, Judaism, and Islam , use TOC This period starts with al-Kindi in the 9th century and ends with Averroes (Ibn Rushd) at the end of 12th century. The death of Averroes effectively marks the end of a particular discipline of Islamic philosophy usually called the Peripatetic Arabic School, and philosophical activity declined significantly in Western Islamic countries, namely in Islamic Spain and North Africa, though it persisted for much longer in the Eastern countries, in particular Persia and India where several schools of philosophy continued to flourish: Avicennism, Illuminationist philosophy, Mystical philosophy, and Transcendent theosophy.
Intellectual innovations, achievements, and advancements of this period included, within jurisprudence, the development of ijtihad, a method or methodological approach to legal reasoning, interpretation, and argument based on independent inquiry and analogical deduction; within science and the philosophy of science, the development of empirical research methods emphasizing controlled experimentation, observational evidence, and reproducibility, as well as early formulations of empiricist epistemologies;Sabra, A.I. (1989). The Optics of Ibn al-Haytham. Books I–II–III: On Direct Vision. London: The Warburg Institute, University of London. pp. 25–29. . commentaries and developments in Aristotelian logic, as well as innovations in non-Aristotelian temporal modal logic and inductive logic; and developments in research practice and methodology, including, within medicine, the first documented peer review process and within jurisprudence and theology, a strict science of citation, the isnad or "backing".Al-Shafi'i, al-Risala, Bulaq, 1321; ed. Sheikh Ahmad Muhammad Shakir, Cairo, 1940 (ed. Shakir), 55
The translation of Arabic works from this period into Hebrew and Latin in the Middle Ages had a significant impact upon Jewish philosophy as well as almost all philosophical disciplines in the medieval Latin Western world. The works of al-Fārābī, Avicenna, and Averroes were particularly influential in the fields of natural philosophy, psychology, metaphysics, logic, and ethics, directly and indirectly influencing the work of thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Maimonedes, William of Ockham, and Duns Scotus.
Early Islamic philosophy can be divided into clear sets of influences, branches, schools, and fields, as described below.
Origins According to the Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān (2006), "The Qurʾān displays a wide range of theological topics related to the religious thought of late antiquity and through its prophet Muḥammad presents a coherent vision of the creator, the cosmos and man. The main issues of Muslim theological dispute prove to be hidden under the wording of the qurʾānic message, which is closely tied to Muḥammad's biography". However, modern historians and scholars of Islamic studies recognize that some instances of theological thought were already developed among polytheistic Pagans in pre-Islamic Arabia, such as the belief in fatalism (ḳadar), which reoccurs in Islamic theology regarding the metaphysical debates on the attributes of God in Islam, predestination, and human free-will.
Muhammad
The life of Muhammad or sira generated both the Qur'an (revelation) and hadith (his daily utterances and discourses), during which philosophy was defined by Muslims as consisting in acceptance or rejection of his message. Together the sira and hadith constitute the sunnah and are validated by isnad ("backing") to determine the likely truth of the report of any given saying of Muhammad. Key figures are Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Imam Bukhari, Imam Muslim, Al-Tirmidhi, Ibn Majah, Abu Dawud, and Al-Nasa'i. This work, which was not completed until the 10th century, began shortly after The Farewell Sermon in 631.
Branches
Kalam
Ilm al-Kalām (, literally the study of "speech" or "words") is the Islamic philosophical discipline of seeking theological principles through dialectic. Kalām in Islamic practice relates to the discipline of seeking theological knowledge through debate and argument. A scholar of kalām is referred to as a mutakallim (plural mutakallimiin).
With Kalam, questions about the sira and hadith, as well as science (Islamic science) and law (fiqh and sharia), began to be investigated beyond the scope of Muhammad's beliefs. This period is characterized by emergence of ijtihad and the first fiqh. As the Sunnah became published and accepted, philosophy separate from Muslim theology was discouraged due to a lack of participants. During this period, traditions similar to Socratic method began to evolve, but philosophy remained subordinate to religion.
Independent minds exploiting the methods of ijtihad sought to investigate the doctrines of the Qur'an, which until then had been accepted in faith on the authority of divine revelation. One of the first debates was that between the Qadarites, who affirmed free will, and the Jabarites, who maintained the belief in fatalism.
At the 2nd century of the Hijra, a new movement arose in the theological school of Basra, Iraq. A pupil, Wasil ibn Ata (AD 700–748), who was expelled from the school of Hasan of Basra because his answers were contrary to then-orthodox Islamic tradition and became leader of a new school, and systematized the radical opinions of preceding sects, particularly those of the Qadarites. This new school was called Muʿtazila (from i'tazala, which means "to separate oneself" or "to dissent") that lasted from the 8th to 10th centuries. Its principal dogmas were three:
God is an absolute unity, and no attribute can be ascribed to Him. Man is a free agent. It is on account of these two principles that the Mu'tazilities designate themselves the "Partisans of Justice and Unity". All knowledge necessary for the salvation of man emanates from his reason; humans could acquire knowledge before, as well as after, Revelation, by the sole light of reason. This fact makes knowledge obligatory upon all men, at all times, and in all places.
In the history of Islam, one of the earliest systematic schools of Islamic theology to develop were the Muʿtazila in the mid-8th century CE. Muʿtazilite theologians emphasized the use of reason and rational thought, positing that the injunctions of God are accessible through rational thought and inquiry, and affirmed that the Quran was created (makhlūq) rather than co-eternal with God, which would develop into one of the most contentious questions in the history of Islamic theology.
In the 9th–10th century CE, the Ashʿarī school developed as a response to the Muʿtazila, founded by the 10th-century Muslim scholar and theologian Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī. Ashʿarītes still taught the use of reason in understanding the Quran, but denied the possibility to deduce moral truths by reasoning. This position was opposed by the Māturīdī school; according to its founder, the 10th-century Muslim scholar and theologian Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī, human reason is supposed to acknowledge the existence of a creator deity (bāriʾ) solely based on rational thought and independently from divine revelation. He shared this conviction with his teacher and predecessor Abū Ḥanīfa al-Nuʿmān (8th century CE), whereas al-Ashʿarī never held such a view.
According to the Afghan-American philosopher Sayed Hassan Hussaini, the early schools of Islamic theology and theological beliefs among classical Muslim philosophers are characterized by "a rich color of Deism with a slight disposition toward theism".
Falsafa
From the 9th century onward, owing to Caliph al-Ma'mun and his successor, Greek philosophy was introduced among the Arabs, and the Peripatetic school began to find able representatives among them; such were Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), and Ibn Rushd (Averroës), all of whose fundamental principles were considered as criticized by the Mutakallamin. Another trend, represented by the Brethren of Purity, used Aristotelian language to expound a fundamentally Neoplatonic and Neopythagorean world view.
During the Abbasid caliphate a number of thinkers and scientists, some of them heterodox Muslims or non-Muslims, played a role in transmitting Greek, Hindu, and other pre-Islamic knowledge to the Christian West. They contributed to making Aristotle known in Christian Europe. Three speculative thinkers, al-Farabi, Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and al-Kindi, combined Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism with other ideas introduced through Islam. They were considered by many as highly unorthodox and a few even described them as non-Islamic philosophers.
From Spain Arabic philosophic literature was translated into Hebrew and Latin, contributing to the development of modern European philosophy. The philosophers Moses Maimonides (a Jew born in Muslim Spain) and Ibn Khaldun (born in modern-day Tunisia), the father of sociology and historiography, were also important philosophers, though the latter did not identify himself as a falsafa, but rather a kalam author.
Some differences between Kalam and Falsafa Aristotle attempted to demonstrate the unity of God; but from the view which he maintained, that matter was eternal, it followed that God could not be the Creator of the world. To assert that God's knowledge extends only to the general laws of the universe, and not to individual and accidental things, is tantamount to denying prophecy. One other part of Aristotle's theory shocked the faith of the Mutakallamin — the Aristotelian theory of the soul. According to Aristotelianism, the human soul is simply man's substantial form, the set of properties that make matter into a living human body.Anthony Kenny, Aquinas on Mind (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 24, 26, 28 This seems to imply that the human soul cannot exist apart from the body. Indeed, Aristotle writes, "It is clear that the soul, or at least some parts of it (if it is divisible), cannot be separated from the body. [...] And thus, those have the right idea who think that the soul does not exist without the body."De Anima 413a4-5; 414a19-20 In Aristotelianism, at least one psychological force, the active intellect, can exist apart from the body."This intellect is separate, unaffected, and unmixed [...] In separation, it is just what it is, and this alone is immortal and eternal" (De Anima 430a18, 23-24). However, according to many interpretations, the active intellect is a superhuman entity emanating from God and enlightening the human mind, not a part of any individual human soul.Medieval Philosophy, ed. John Marenbon (London: Routledge, 2003), p. 54Timothy Robinson, Aristotle in Outline (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1995) p. 51 Thus, Aristotle's theories seem to deny the immortality of the individual human soul.