: In his autobiographical account, the Munqidh min al-Dalāl, al-Ghazālī reflects on his conversion from skepticism to faith. Previous scholarship has interpreted this text as an anticipation of Cartesian positions regarding epistemic certainty. Although the existing similarities between al-Ghazālī and Descartes are striking, the focus of the present essay lies on the different philosophical aims pursued by the two thinkers. It is thus argued that al-Ghazālī operates with a broader notion of the Self than Descartes, because it is inclusive of (...) the body. And it is shown that the two philosophers use completely diverging paradigms. While Descartes models his notion of evidence after mathematical certainty, al-Ghazālī draws his famous 'ilm al-yaqīnī (certain knowledge) from a religious context. (shrink)

: This essay highlights how contemporary Muslim fundamentalists reduce Islam's rich and complex intellectual legacy to a set of authoritarian rules. The three branches of classical Islamic education-theology, jurisprudence, and ethics-are particularly targeted. The reductionist pattern applied to these areas is designed to eliminate both the scholarly space of inquiry and the room for individual reflection traditionally granted to its followers by Islamic religion. The essay ends with an analysis of the language used by Osama bin Laden in various documents (...) over the last ten years that show how he has abused Islam's jurisprudential tradition to confer on him a convenient likeness of legality. (shrink)

Introduction to Marsilio Ficino's Philosophy (English translation): Intellectual Development: The Discovery of a Philosophical Gift. The Organic Worldview: Man as "Intellectual Hero." Psychology: The Soul as "the Midpoint of Everything." Epistemology: The Mind as "Infinite Power." Metaphysics: The Mind-Soul as "Intellect and Will." Aesthetics: The Soul as "Artist." Reception and Updated Bibliography (selection).

English translation of paper title: Action and Passion in the Renaissance. The Womanly and the Manly in Agrippa, Postel, and Bovelles. This paper uses the philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa and the Querelle des Femmes as historic backgrounds for how Agrippa of Nettesheim, Guillaum Postel, and Charles de Bovelles reconcile the notions of "male" and "female" in their respective philosophies.

Rābi‘a was a Muslim saint and Sufi mystic. Her contemporaries also considered her a teacher of character. There are strong elements of a Philosophy of Religion in her collection of poems which is one of the earliest to set forth a doctrine of Divine Love. The concepts that she propounds include a daring taxonomy of love and the notion that self-effacement does not erase one’s gender. She thus emphasized that women’s piety is superior to men’s (which suggests a feminist consciousness). (...) Her poems reveal a refined mastery of Arab meters and an intricate reflection on Arabic letters and language. Her writing is part of early Sufi philosophy and has inspired Muslim mystics for centuries, among them luminaries al-Ghazzālī (d. 1111) and Farīd al-Dīn al-‘Aṭṭār (d. 1221). Some of her verses are present in all genres of Arab songs to this day. (shrink)

In this paper, I cover some ideas first developed during a research year that took me, among other countries, to Bulgaria, where I enjoyed a Fulbright scholarship in 2018–2019. At a conference in Plovdiv (ancient Philippopolis), I gave a talk entitled ‘Neither Clash Nor Dialogue: We Are Each Other's Guardians’.2 A journalist in the audience became irritated and asked me, ‘What do you mean by “neither/nor”? What else is there?’ I answered that the explanation was in the subtitle ‘We Are (...) Each Other's Guardians’. It proposes a third course, one resting on the notion of ‘guardianship’ – as a moral obligation. In what follows, I elaborate further on this concept by relating it to the notion of hospitality, not the Derridian variant, but one that is conceptualized as a transformative event for both the host and the guest, which is why I call it ‘deep hospitality’. (shrink)

I am most grateful to Philosophy East and West for publishing a special issue on philosopher Ibn Khaldūn. The time is particularly propitious since his ideas are currently permeating the political and cultural climate of his native North Africa. The team contributing to the present issue comprises six authors from four different continents. Ridha Chennoufi and Mehdi Saiden are philosophers from the University of Tunis, the city in which Ibn Khaldūn was born. M. Akif Kayapınar is a political scientist teaching (...) at Istanbul Sehir University, while Jeremy Kleidosty does research at the Centre of Excellence on Reason and Religious Recognition, University of Helsinki... (shrink)

Islamic philosophy developed within a highly diversified doctrinal and religious tradition, and consequently represents a very complex phenomenon encompassing many different political, intellectual, dogmatic, and spiritual movements. Insight into the historical circumstances that shaped Islamic thought is necessary for an understanding of Arabic philosophical concerns in the early period of Islam and for subsequent Muslim intellectual interests. It also helps, of course, in approaching topics, themes and genres of Islamic philosophy that cannot be appreciated by applying only the standards set (...) by occidental thought. Questions of philosophical significance relating to the Quran, the humanistic disciplines (particularly language and history), juridical theology or Shī‘ite spirituality will therefore be treated in this paper with the same measure of consideration as the Western‐originated concepts of the rationalist schools in Islam. Only in this way can we avoid the temptation to restrict our discussion to those few Muslim thinkers who, in constructing their philosophical systems, have stood on the shoulders of the ancient Greek philosophers, and whose books have therefore become known to the Latin West. (shrink)

World Philosophy mourns the loss of Professor Yegane Shayegan. Half Iranian and half Georgian, Professor Shayegan was destined to a cosmopolitan life from a young age. She studied Islamic philosophy in Geneva (Switzerland) and at Harvard University where she received her PhD degree with a dissertation entitled Avicenna on Time (1986). She was a research scholar at the University College in London, taught at the Sorbonne, Paris, and finally at the Iranian Institute of Philosophy, Tehran (2003-2007). She was a fine (...) translator of Aristotle, Alexandre of Aphrodisias, and Ibn Sina (Avicenna). Her scholarly work adorned some of the most important publications within the research on Islamic philosophy. She thus contributed to An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia (ed. by Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Mehdi Aminrazawi, 1999) and History of Islamic Philosophy (ed. by Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman, 1996. Her perhaps greatest gift was her ability to convey her passion for Greek philosophy and the history of its reception in Islamic sources to a great number of students. Not surprisingly, when Professor Shayegan left her comfortable position at the Sorbonne to teach in Tehran, she took her private philosophical library with her. Students could thus consult books not available in Iranian libraries in the privacy of her home. The author of these lines was privileged to be a guest in Professor Shayegans home in Tehran in May of 2004. Her home was a salon in the classical sense of the word. It welcomed Tehrans finest intellectuals and artists. Professor Shayegan died in Paris on June 5, 2007 at the age of seventy. (shrink)

Im Bemühen darum, das philosophische und wissenschaftliche Werk des Jubilars zu würdigen, entstand ein thematisch und methodisch geschlossener Sammelband mit 34 Beiträgen zur Philosophie und Geistesgeschichte der Renaissance. Epochenübergreifend wird darin aufgezeigt, wie philosophische Probleme transformiert werden: sei es, daß sie neuen systematischen Zusammenhängen angepaßt werden oder daß sie sich in diesen neu stellen. Darüber hinaus bietet der Festschriftband eine Reihe von Aufsätzen zur Renaissancephilosophie. Insbesondere jene Beiträge, die neues Licht auf den Zusammenhang von Mathematik und Methodenproblem in der Philosophie (...) dieser Epoche werfen, dürften für die Forschung von höchstem Interesse sein. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Demonizing the Queen of Sheba: Boundaries of Gender and Culture in Postbiblical Judaism and Medieval IslamTamara AlbertiniDemonizing the Queen of Sheba: Boundaries of Gender and Culture in Postbiblical Judaism and Medieval Islam. By Jacob Lassner. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Pp. xv + 281.Jacob Lassner gives a fascinating account of the fate of the Queen of Sheba in both Judaism and Islam. After a careful review of (...) postbiblical Jewish and medieval Islamic sources, the author examines the ways in which Islam appropriated the biblical story of the legendary meeting between the Queen of Sheba (the koranic Bilqis) and King Solomon, and also how Islamized narratives of that same meeting found their way back into Judaism. Following the transformation of the original biblical theme, the reader is led to discover a consensus rarely reached in the history of the two religious communities. It appears that both traditions ended up agreeing that the self-confident biblical Queen of Sheba posed a challenge to the natural, that is, male-dominated, order. Instead of focusing on the Queen's political astuteness, Judaism and Islam eventually viewed her as a subtle seductress and, hence, as (morally) inferior to Solomon. Sometimes the sexual cleverness of the female biblical figure is explained by inventing her a jinn (demon) for mother. Whatever outstanding qualities are left, these can then be imputed to the Queen's superhuman origin. Lassner concludes his book with a rich appendix including valuable Jewish and Islamic source materials in English translation.One wishes Lassner had been aware of the virulent debate kindled by Sheikh Ghazali's book on The Traditions of the Prophet (Beirut, 1990) when Lassner was gathering the materials for Demonizing the Queen of Sheba. Sheikh Ghazali, one of today's leading Muslim scholars, justified female political rule on the basis of a koranic verse referring to the Queen of Sheba: "Lo! I found a woman ruling over them, and she hath been given (abundance) of all things, and hers is a mighty throne" (XXVII.23). Today, Bilqis may go through yet a new metamorphosis and help shape modern Islamic feminism. [End Page 322]Copyright © 2001 University of Hawai'i Press... (shrink)