Medieval Islamic Philosophy - Essay Example

Running Head: Impact ical Greek Philosophy on Medieval Islamic Philosophy Impact ical Greek Philosophy on Medieval Islamic Philosophy Author's Name Institution's Name Greek Philosophy vis--vis Medieval Islamic Philosophy: An Introduction The Arabs did not have philosophy, mathematics, or any rational sciences as part of their culture and tradition before the arrival of Islam. Despite the fact that they were conscious of Jewish and Christian religions since Jews and Christians lived among them, they themselves were idolaters. They were unrefined in their beliefs and attitude. When they had accepted Islam and they conquered territories outside Arabia in the seventh and eighth centuries, they came in contact with other civilizations and cultures, philosophy, and other rational sciences such as mathematics, astronomy, physics etc. that had been transmitted from Greece into these countries. In, 323-43 BC Greek classical philosophies experienced a drastic change. From being a fundamentally Greek product, it developed into an international and eclectic cultural movement in which Greek, Egyptian, Phoenician and other Near Eastern religious and ethical elements came together. This change is best represented by the role Alexandria played as the centre of varied streams of notions making up the new philosophy. At the same time as the Abbasid Caliphate was set up in Baghdad in 750 AD, the centre of learning progressively moved to the Abbasid capital, which became later the heir of Athens and Alexandria as the new cultural city of the medieval world. Nearly two centuries later Cordoba, capital of Muslim Spain, began to contend with Baghdad as the centre of 'ancient learning'. From Cordoba, Greek-Arabic philosophy and science were spread across the Pyrenees to Paris, Bologna and Oxford in the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries. During the time of the Abbasi'd Khalifah (Caliph) Mamun-al-Rashid who had established a Bait-el-Hikmah (House of Wisdom) in Baghdad, the influence of the foreign thought seeped into Islamic culture. Works of Greek philosophy and natural sciences were available in Alexandria, Egypt, and some other Syrian cities. Mamun-al-Rashid employed scholars of all religions, Jewish, Christianity, Islam, etc. for the purpose of translating these works into Arabic. Regardless of the strong hold of Islamic theological doctrine on the minds of the Arabs, skepticism and rational thinking increasingly developed and flourished under the encouragement and protection provided by the Khalifah. The first reception of Greek-Hellenistic philosophy in the Islamic world was mixed. It was rejected in the beginning as being distrustfully foreign or pagan, and was thus scorned by conservative theologians, legal scholars and grammarians as harmful or unessential. By the middle of the eighth century AD the image had changed to some extent, with the appearance of the rationalist theologians of Islam known as the Mu'tazilites, who were utterly inclined by the methods of discussion or dialectic supported by the Muslim philosophers. Of those philosophers, the two exceptional persons of the ninth and tenth centuries were al-Kindi and al-Razi, who welcomed Greek philosophy as a form of freedom from the fetters of doctrine or blind imitation (taqlid). For al-Kindi, the objectives of philosophy are rightly well matched with those of religion, and, for al-Razi, philosophy was the highest expression of man's intellectual goals and the noblest achievement of that noble people, who were incomparable in their quest for wisdom (hikma). Later scholars used this device with mixed results. For instance, Ibn Rushd stated (11), "Since the religion (Islam) is true and summons to the study which leads to knowledge of the Truth, we the Muslims know definitely that demonstrative study does not lead to (conclusions) conflicting with what Scripture has given us; for truth does not oppose truth but accords with it and bears witness to it." Thus it was a given that the Scripture was perfect and true, every thing else needed to be brought in harmony with the book by symbolic interpretation, by twisted argument or simply by stratagem. Neoplatonism as depicted by Diadochus Proclus also marks the final phase in the struggle of Greek paganism against Christianity at Athens. It also marked that version of Greek philosophy, which exerted a particular attraction upon Muslim minds. Other representatives of Neoplatonism during the Byzantine period include Syrianus, Damascius, Simplicius and Philoponus. The Arabs knew all those philosophers or commentators and some of their writings, sometimes lost in Greek, were translated into Arabic. In 529 AD the Byzantine Emperor Justinian ordered the school of Athens, the last stronghold of Greek paganism, to be closed. Seven of its teachers, including Syrianus and Damascius, emigrated to Persia and were well received by the Emperor Chosroes I, who was an admirer of Greek learning and the founder, in 555 AD, of the School of Jundishapur which was destined to become a major centre of Greek medical and scientific studies. Then, as a result of its closeness to Baghdad and the close political links between the Abbasids and the Persians, Jundishapur served as a staging station in the process of transmitting Greek medical and scientific learning into the Islamic world. Yet, the first phase in the process of spreading Greek learning into the Near East was the translation of theological treatises, such as Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History and Clement's Recognitiones, into Syriac. As an introduction, a series of logical texts were also translated into Syriac, including the Isagog of Porphyry, Aristotle's Categories, De interpretatione and Prior Analytics. Beyond these, for theological reasons, the Syriac translators were not allowed to proceed. Arabic Translations of Greek Texts The Arab conquest of Syria and Iraq in the seventh century did not, overall, impeded with the academic quest of Syriac scholars at Edessa, Nisibis, Qinnesrin and other centres of Syriac-Greek learning. To these Christian centres should also be added Harran in Northern Syria, home of a sect of star-worshippers known in the Arabic sources as the Sabaeans and alleged to have been set up by Alexander. During the eighth and ninth centuries, a new thrust was given to the translation movement as a result of the liberal patronage of three of the early Abbasid caliphs at Baghdad, al-Mansur, Harun and his son al-Ma'mun, who set up the House of Wisdom in Baghdad to serve as a library and institute of translation. It was during the reign of al-Ma'mun that the translation of medical, scientific and philosophical texts, chiefly from Greek or Syriac, was placed on an official patronage. The major translators who thrived during al-Ma'mun's reign include Yahya ibn al-Bitriq, credited with translating into Arabic Plato's Timaeus, Aristotle's On the Soul, On the Heavens and Prior Analytics in addition to the Secret of Secrets, a mythical political dissertation of unidentified authorship credited to Aristotle. Still, the shining star of al-Ma'mun's reign was the Nestorian Hunayn ibn Ishaq (d. AH 264/ad 873), who originated from al-Hirah in Iraq and, jointly with his son Ishaq (d. AH 299/ad 911), his nephew Hubaysh and other associates, placed the translation of Greek medieval and philosophical texts on a sound scientific basis. The chief interests of Hunayn himself were medical, and people owe to him the translation of the complete medical corpus of Hippocrates and Galen, however Hunayn and his associates were also responsible for translating Galen's treatises on logic, his Ethics and his embodiments of Plato's Sophist, Parmenides, Cratylus, Euthydemus, Timaeus, Statesman, Republic and Laws. The interest of Hunayn and his school in Galen, the excellent Alexandrian physician and Platonist, is worth mentioning and this philosopher-physician is a major person in the history of the transmission of Greek learning into Arabic. Not only his sixteen books on medicine but also a series of his rational and principled writings were translated and played an important role in the development of Arabic thought. Aside from the epitomes of Plato's Dialogues already mentioned, his Pinax, That the Virtuous can Profit from Knowing Their Enemies, That One Should Know His Own Faults and especially his Ethics have influenced moral philosophers from Abu Bakr al-Razi to Ibn Miskawayh and beyond. Of the works of Aristotle, Hunayn's son Ishaq is responsible for translating the Categories, De interpretatione, On Generation and Corruption, the Physics, On the Soul, the Nicomachean Ethics and the spurious De Plantis, written by the Peripatetic philosopher Nicolaus of Damascus (first century BC). Definitely the most important Aristotelian treatise to be translated into Arabic during this period is the Metaphysics, known in the Arabic sources as the Book of Letters or the Theologica (al-Ilahiyat). In accordance with reliable authorities, a little-known translator named Astat (Eustathius) translated the twelve books for al-Kindi, as did Yahya ibn 'Adi a century later. Nevertheless, Ishaq, Abu Bishr Matta and others are also attributed with translating some parts of the Metaphysics. Equally important is the translation by Ibn Na'imah al-Himsi (d. AH 220/AD 835) of a discourse supposedly written by Aristotle and referred to in the Arabic sources at Uthulugia or Theologia Aristotelis. This treatise, which consists of a translation of Plotinus' Enneads IV-VI, made by an anonymous Greek author, together with Proclus' Elements of Theology (known as the Pure Good or Liber de causis), comprehensively shaped up the whole development of Arab-Islamic Neoplatonism. Al-Kindi is said to have commented on the Theologia Aristotelis as did Ibn Sina and others, and al-Farabi refers to it as an definite work of Aristotle. A series of other pseudo-Aristotelian works also found their way into Arabic, including the already mentioned Secret of Secrets, De Plantis, Economica and the Book of Minerals. Among other translators of Greek philosophical texts, one should mention Qusta ibn Luqa (d. AH 300/ad 912), Abu 'Uthman al-Dimashqi (d. AH 298/ad 910), Ibn Zur'ah (d. AH 398/ad 1008) and Ibn al-Khammar (d. ah 408/AD 1017), as well as the already-mentioned Abu Bishr Matta (d. AH 328/AD 940) and his disciple Yahya Ibn 'Adi. None of those translators made any significant or original contribution to Arabic philosophical literature, although they laid the groundwork for subsequent developments and served as the chief purveyors of Greek philosophy and science into the Islamic world. However, there were noteworthy exceptions: Abu Bishr Matta was a skilled logician, and the Jacobite Yahya ibn 'Adi stands out as the best-known writer on Christian theological questions and on ethics in Arabic. The Harranean Thabit ibn Qurra (d. AH 289/ad 901) was an outstanding mathematician and astronomer in addition to a translator. The Legacy of Aristotle As already mentioned, all the works of Aristotle were translated into Arabic except for the Politics, which for some incomprehensible reason remained unknown to the Arabs. Besides many apocryphal writings, including the Secret of Secrets, the Economica, De plantis, De mundo, the Theologia and the Liber de causis were also attributed to Aristotle. Of these works, the Organon, On the Soul, the Nicomachean Ethics, the Physics, the Metaphysics, On Generation and Corruption and On the Heavens played a decisive role in the development of logical and metaphysical ideas in Islam. Nevertheless, mainly as a result of the influence of the apocryphal Theologia Aristotalis, the inclination of early Muslim philosophers was to construe Aristotle in Neoplatonic terms; a basic assertion of this interpretation was the total agreement of Plato and Aristotle on all major issues alleged to separate them. The picture thoroughly changed with the appearance on the philosophical scene of the greatest Arab Aristotelian, Ibn Rushd of Cordoba, known in Latin as Averroes. Ibn Rushd continued the practice of commenting on Aristotle's works initiated in Arab Spain by Ibn Bajja (Avempace) and in the East by al-Farabi. Ibn Rushd, on the other hand, produced the most wide-ranging commentaries on all the works of Aristotle with the exception of the Politics, for which he use instead of the Republic of Plato. These commentaries, which have survived in Arabic, Hebrew or Latin, earned him in the Middle Ages the title of the Commentator, or as Dante put it in Inferno V. 144, 'che'l gran commento feo'. Ibn Rushd in fact wrote three types of interpretations, known as the large, middle and short commentaries, on the major Aristotelian discourses, particularly the Physics, the Metaphysics, the Posterior Analytics, On the Soul and On the Heavens. Besides, he supported Aristotle against the attacks of al-Ghazali, the famous Ash'arite theologian, in a great work of philosophical debate entitled the Tahafut al-tahafut (Incoherence of the Incoherence), a disproof of al-Ghazali's Tahafut al-falasifa (Incoherence of the Philosophers). Impact of Greek Philosophy on Islamic Philosophy: An Analysis There were hundreds of noteworthy Muslim philosophers, scientists, mathematicians, astronomers, and contributors to other sciences, who had developed original knowledge in the medieval times from which the rest of the world benefited. The Muslims were most attracted to the Greek philosophical, logical, mathematical, scientific, and ethical principles and studied them very thoroughly and critically indeed. By the time of the Caliph al-Ma'mun (ca. mid-10th century) an intellectual movement for translating these Greek works into Arabic was in full swing with the active patronage of the state and rich individuals. While rejecting some of those Greek principles, Muslim scholars readily recognized many others that were found to be clearly in general accord with the Qur'anic injunction to ground belief and practice in rational thinking and empirical experience. Clearly the appropriation of these ancient sciences (al-'ulum al-awa'il) was motivated and framed both by the cognitive and pragmatic needs of the new empire and the intrinsic intellectual allure of the new knowledge (Gutas, 1998). However long before the attractions of Greek rational thought had taken root, the primarily inactive challenging shrewdness of Muslims had already been galvanized and sharpened by external theological discussions with the Jews and Christians, in addition to by intra-Muslim political, theological, and juristic debates resulted in the rise and consolidation of distinct, schools of thought in philosophical, scientific, and legal matters (Sahas, 1972; Ess, 1971-72; Watt, 1973). Certainly, 'there were heated controversies amongst these opposing schools of thought as to the extent to which Greek philosophico-scientific thought was or was not compatible with the Islamic worldview' (Al-Attas, 2002) predicted by the Holy Qur'an. On the one hand there were the Muslim philosophers like al-Kindi, Avicenna who can be said to be more open than disapproving of the Greek exploratory sciences, at the same time as, in contrast, there were the Ash'arite rationalist theologians like al-Ash'ari himself and F. al-Razi, all of whom, on the contrary, can be said to be more critical of than receptive to Greek rationality; both camps were at the same time in heated engagement with the Mu'tazilites (Pines, 1996). Al-Kindi was the first such Muslim Arab philosopher who created a doctrine for conciliation between Aristotelian and Platonic philosophies. This approach became quite popular in later Arabian philosophical thought. 'Like his predecessor al-Kindi and his successor Ibn Sina, he (al-Razi) was also a philosopher but unlike him, he made no attempt to reconcile Greek philosophy and Islamic religion. To him the two were irreconcilable' (Hitti, p. 435). Subsequent scholars used this device with mixed results. For example, Ibn Rushd proclaimed, "Since the religion (Islam) is true and summons to the study which leads to knowledge of the Truth, we the Muslims know definitely that demonstrative study does not lead to (conclusions) conflicting with what Scripture has given us; for truth does not oppose truth but accords with it and bears witness to it" (Hourani, 1991). Thus it was a given that the Scripture was infallible and true, every thing else needed to be brought in harmony with the book by allegorical interpretation, by twisted argument or simply by subterfuge. Others later criticized Ibn Rushd for having double standards. According to Karen Armstrong, "Ibn Rushd was a revered but secondary figure in Islam, but he became very important indeed in the West, which discovered Aristotle through him." 'By the time al-Razi died logic was well on its way to becoming an independent Islamic discipline in its own right' (Rescher, 1968). As Elder puts it, "New proofs were forthcoming which made use of the physics, metaphysics and mathematics of the philosophers" (Elder, 1950). Yet it is debated that why end with Ibn Rushd to perpetuate the false belief that Islamic philosophy died with him. Khalidi's answer is that: "Despite the survival of philosophical activity of some kind in the Islamic world, I would argue that a 'style of reasoning' did indeed decline after Ibn Rushd" (Khalidi, 2005). Conclusions The paper explains the idea about the steps in the formation of Islamic philosophy under the influence of the Greek one, in its Aristotelian forms. There is also seen why the Muslim scholars and theologians as opposed to the profound tenets of Islamic Monotheism and Absolute Divine Power have not accepted this Islamic philosophy. References Al-Attas, Syed Muhammad Naquib. (2002), Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam: An Exposition of the Basic Elements of the Worldview of Islam. Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC. Armstrong, K., "A History of God", Ballantine Books, New York, 1993, p.194. Elder, Earl Edgar trans. (1950), A Commentary on the Creed of Islam: Sa'd al-Din al-Taftazani on the Creed of Najm al-Din al-Nasaf. New York: Columbia University Press. xvi. Ess, Josef van. (1971-72), "'Umar II and His Epistle against the Qadariyya" in Abr-Nahrain, XII, 19-26. Gutas, Dimitri. (1998), Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early "Abbasid. London: Routledge. Hitti, P.K., "History of the Arabs", St. Martin's Press, New York, p. 435. Hourani, A. (1991), "A History of the Arab People", Warner books, A Time- Warner Company, pp. 174-75. Khalidi, M.A. (ed) (2005), Medieval Islamic Philosophical Writings, Cambridge university press. Pines, Shlomo. (1996), "Islamic Philosophy" in The Collected Works of Shlomo Pines, vol. III: Studies in the History of Arabic Philosophy, ed., Sarah Stroumsa. Jerusalem: Magnes Press. Rescher, Nicholas. The Development of Arabic Logic (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1968), 51-5, 57ff. Sahas, J. Daniel. (1972), John of Damascus on Islam: The "Heresy of the Ishmaelites" Leiden: Brill. Watt, W. Montgomery. (1973), The Formative Period of Islamic Thought. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Read More