53 Facts About Islamic philosophy

1.

Islamic philosophy is a development in philosophy that is characterised by coming from an Islamic tradition.

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2.

Two terms traditionally used in the Islamic world are sometimes translated as philosophy—falsafa, which refers to philosophy as well as logic, mathematics, and physics; and Kalam (literally "speech"), which refers to a rationalist form of Scholastic Islamic theology which includes the schools of Maturidiyah, Ashaira and Mu'tazila.

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3.

Early Islamic philosophy began with Al-Kindi in the 2nd century of the Islamic calendar and ended with Averroes (Ibn Rushd) in the 6th century AH (late 12th century CE), broadly coinciding with the period known as the Golden Age of Islam.

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4.

The death of Averroes effectively marked the end of a particular discipline of Islamic philosophy usually called the Peripatetic Islamic school, and philosophical activity declined significantly in Western Islamic countries such as Islamic Iberia and North Africa.

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5.

Islamic philosophy persisted for much longer in Muslim Eastern countries, in particular Safavid Persia, Ottoman, and Mughal Empires, where several schools of philosophy continued to flourish: Avicennism, Averroism, Illuminationist philosophy, Mystical philosophy, Transcendent theosophy, and Isfahan philosophy.

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6.

Interest in Islamic philosophy revived during the Nahda movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and continues to the present day.

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7.

Islamic philosophy had a major impact in Christian Europe, where translation of Arabic philosophical texts into Latin "led to the transformation of almost all philosophical disciplines in the medieval Latin world", with a particularly strong influence of Muslim philosophers being felt in natural philosophy, psychology and metaphysics.

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8.

Islamic philosophy refers to philosophy produced in an Islamic society.

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9.

Islamic philosophy is a generic term that can be defined and used in different ways.

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10.

Some of the key issues involve the comparative importance of eastern intellectuals such as Ibn Sina and of western thinkers such as Ibn Rushd, and whether Islamic philosophy can be read at face value or should be interpreted in an esoteric fashion.

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11.

Supporters of the latter thesis, like Leo Strauss, maintain that Islamic philosophy philosophers wrote so as to conceal their true meaning in order to avoid religious persecution, but scholars such as Oliver Leaman disagree.

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12.

Main sources of classical or early Islamic philosophy are the religion of Islam itself and Greek philosophy which the early Muslims inherited as a result of conquests, along with pre-Islamic Indian philosophy and Persian philosophy.

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13.

Islamic philosophy systematized the radical opinions of preceding sects, particularly those of the Qadarites and Jabarites.

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14.

The works of Hellenistic-influenced Islamic philosophy philosophers were crucial in the reception of Aristotelian logic in medieval Europe, along with the commentaries on the Organon by Averroes.

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15.

Some Islamic philosophy scholars argued that Qiyas refers to inductive reasoning.

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16.

Islamic philosophy is credited for categorizing logic into two separate groups, the first being "idea" and the second being "proof".

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17.

Islamic philosophy criticized the logical school of Baghdad for their devotion to Aristotle at the time.

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18.

Islamic philosophy investigated the theory of definition and classification and the quantification of the predicates of categorical propositions, and developed an original theory on "temporal modal" syllogism.

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19.

Islamic philosophy, imbued as it is with Islamic theology, distinguishes more clearly than Aristotelianism the difference between essence and existence.

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20.

Later Islamic philosophy scholars viewed this work as a response to Avicenna's metaphysical argument on spiritual resurrection, which was earlier criticized by al-Ghazali.

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21.

Islamic philosophy referred to the living human intelligence, particularly the active intellect, which he believed to be the hypostasis by which God communicates truth to the human mind and imparts order and intelligibility to nature.

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22.

Islamic philosophy's "Floating Man" thought experiment tells its readers to imagine themselves suspended in the air, isolated from all sensations, which includes no sensory contact with even their own bodies.

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23.

Islamic philosophy argues that, in this scenario, one would still have self-consciousness.

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24.

Islamic philosophy thus concludes that the idea of the self is not logically dependent on any physical thing, and that the soul should not be seen in relative terms, but as a primary given, a substance.

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25.

Atomistic philosophies are found very early in Islamic philosophy, and represent a synthesis of the Greek and Indian ideas.

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26.

Islamic philosophy's reasoning was adopted by many, most notably; Muslim philosopher, Al-Kindi; the Jewish philosopher, Saadia Gaon (Saadia ben Joseph); and the Muslim theologian, Al-Ghazali (Algazel).

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27.

Islamic philosophy speculated on the influence of the environment on animals, considered the effects of the environment on the likelihood of an animal to survive, and first described the struggle for existence, a precursor to natural selection.

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28.

Islamic philosophy articulated a relationship between the physical and observable world and that of intuition, psychology and mental functions.

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29.

Islamic philosophy's theories regarding knowledge and perception, linking the domains of science and religion, led to a philosophy of existence based on the direct observation of reality from the observer's point of view.

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30.

Philosophy of mind was studied in medieval Islamic psychological thought, which refers to the study of the nafs in the Islamic world, particularly during the Islamic Golden Age (8th–15th centuries) as well as modern times (20th–21st centuries), and is related to psychology, psychiatry and the neurosciences.

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31.

Islamic philosophy showed that place was akin to space, foreshadowing Descartes's notion of place as space qua Extensio or even Leibniz's analysis situs.

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32.

Islamic philosophy wrote that children can learn better if taught in classes instead of individual tuition from private tutors, and he gave a number of reasons for why this is the case, citing the value of competition and emulation among pupils as well as the usefulness of group discussions and debates.

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33.

Islamic philosophy writes that children after the age of 14 should be given a choice to choose and specialize in subjects they have an interest in, whether it was reading, manual skills, literature, preaching, medicine, geometry, trade and commerce, craftsmanship, or any other subject or profession they would be interested in pursuing for a future career.

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34.

Islamic philosophy wrote that this was a transitional stage and that there needs to be flexibility regarding the age in which pupils graduate, as the student's emotional development and chosen subjects need to be taken into account.

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35.

Islamic philosophy held that the criticism of existing theories—which dominated this book—holds a special place in the growth of scientific knowledge:.

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36.

Islamic philosophy believed that human beings are inherently flawed and that only God is perfect.

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37.

Islamic philosophy reasoned that to discover the truth about nature, it is necessary to eliminate human opinion and error, and allow the universe to speak for itself.

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38.

Islamic philosophy was responsible for introducing the experimental method into mechanics, the first to conduct elaborate experiments related to astronomical phenomena, and a pioneer of experimental psychology.

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39.

Islamic philosophy argued that the "human intellect at birth is rather like a tabula rasa, a pure potentiality that is actualized through education and comes to know" and that knowledge is attained through "empirical familiarity with objects in this world from which one abstracts universal concepts" which is developed through a "syllogistic method of reasoning; observations lead to prepositional statements, which when compounded lead to further abstract concepts.

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40.

Islamic philosophy eschatology is concerned with the Qiyamah and the final judgement of humanity.

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41.

Later Islamic philosophy scholars viewed this work as a response to the metaphysical claim of Avicenna and Ibn Tufail that bodily resurrection cannot be proven through reason, a view that was earlier criticized by al-Ghazali.

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42.

Islamic philosophy's Muqaddimah laid the groundwork for the observation of the role of state, communication, propaganda and systematic bias in history, and he discussed the rise and fall of civilizations.

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43.

Islamic philosophy's Muqaddimah was the introduction to a seven volume analysis of universal history.

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44.

Islamic philosophy found an audience with the Jews, to whom belongs the honor of having transmitted it to the Christian world.

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45.

Islamic philosophy passes severe censure upon the Mutakallimun for seeking to support religion by philosophy.

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46.

Islamic philosophy says, "I consider him to have attained the highest degree of perfection who is convinced of religious truths without having scrutinized them and reasoned over them".

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47.

Death of Ibn Rushd 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 Iran and India.

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48.

Contrary to the traditional view, Dimitri Gutas and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy consider the period between the 11th and 14th centuries to be the true "Golden Age" of Arabic and Islamic philosophy, initiated by Al-Ghazali's successful integration of logic into the Madrasah curriculum and the subsequent rise of Avicennism.

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49.

Muslims in the 'east' continued to do Islamic philosophy, as is evident from the works of Ottoman scholars and especially those living in Muslim kingdoms within the territories of present-day Iran and India, such as Shah Waliullah and Ahmad Sirhindi.

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50.

Illuminationist philosophy was a school of Islamic philosophy founded by Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi in the 12th century.

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51.

Tradition of Islamic philosophy is still very much alive today, particularly among followers of Suhrawardi's Hikmat al-Ishraq and Mulla Sadra's Hikmat-e-Mota'aliye (Transcendent Theosophy).

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52.

Islamic philosophy's criticism was that they arrived at theologically erroneous conclusions.

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53.

Islamic philosophy maintains that its renewal requires a radical reform in ontology and epistemology within Islamic thought.

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