The purpose of this essay is to examine two important treatises of the Islamic classical age in the light of utopian discourse. The works considered are the “philosophical novels” Risālat Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān f ī asrār al-ḥikmat al-mašriqiyya (Treatise of the Alive, son of the Awake, on the secrets of oriental wisdom) by Ibn Ṭufayl (d. 1185) and Risālat Kāmiliyya f ī al-Sīra al-Nabawiyya (Treatise of Kāmil on the Life of the Prophet) by Ibn al-Naf īs (d. 1288). Together with (...) the political writings of al-Fārābī, these works are among the first to be named when considering the possibility of an autonomous utopian tradition in Islam.1 Their relevance to the utopian category has already been shown by other scholars; .. (shrink)

The Arabic philosophical fable _Hayy Ibn Yaqzan _is a classic of medieval Islamic philosophy. Ibn Tufayl, the Andalusian philosopher, tells of a child raised by a doe on an equatorial island who grows up to discover the truth about the world and his own place in it, unaided—but also unimpeded—by society, language, or tradition. Hayy’s discoveries about God, nature, and man challenge the values of the culture in which the tale was written as well as those of every contemporary society. (...) Goodman’s commentary places _Hayy Ibn Yaqzan _in its historical and philosophical context. The volume features a new preface and index, and an updated bibliography. “One of the most remarkable books of the Middle Ages.”—_Times Literary Supplement_ “An enchanting and puzzling story.... The book transcends all historical and cultural environments to settle upon the questions of human life that perpetually intrigue men.”—_Middle East__ Journal_ “Goodman has done a service to the modern English reader by providing a readable translation of a philosophically significant allegory.”—_Philosophy East and West_ “Add[s] bright new pieces to an Islamic mosaic whose general shape is already known.”—_American Historical Review_. (shrink)

The Arabic philosophical fable _Hayy Ibn Yaqzan _is a classic of medieval Islamic philosophy. Ibn Tufayl, the Andalusian philosopher, tells of a child raised by a doe on an equatorial island who grows up to discover the truth about the world and his own place in it, unaided—but also unimpeded—by society, language, or tradition. Hayy’s discoveries about God, nature, and man challenge the values of the culture in which the tale was written as well as those of every contemporary society. (...) Goodman’s commentary places _Hayy Ibn Yaqzan _in its historical and philosophical context. The volume features a new preface and index, and an updated bibliography. “One of the most remarkable books of the Middle Ages.”—_Times Literary Supplement_ “An enchanting and puzzling story.... The book transcends all historical and cultural environments to settle upon the questions of human life that perpetually intrigue men.”—_Middle East__ Journal_ “Goodman has done a service to the modern English reader by providing a readable translation of a philosophically significant allegory.”—_Philosophy East and West_ “Add[s] bright new pieces to an Islamic mosaic whose general shape is already known.”—_American Historical Review_. (shrink)

The introduction of Greek philosophy into the Muslim world left an indelible mark on Islamic intellectual history. Philosophical discourse became a constant element in even traditionalist Islamic sciences. However, Aristotelian metaphysics gave rise to doctrines about God and the universe that were found highly objectionable by a number of Muslim theologians, among whom the fourteenth-century scholar Ibn Taymiyya stood foremost. Ibn Taymiyya, one of the greatest and most prolific thinkers in medieval Islam, held Greek logic responsible for the `heretical' metaphysical (...) conclusions reached by Islamic philosophers, theologians, mystics, and others. He therefore set out to refute philosophical logic, a task which culminated in one of the most devastating attacks ever levelled against the logical system upheld by the early Greeks, the later commentators, and their Muslim followers. His argument is grounded in an empirical approach that in many respects prefigures the philosophies of the British empiricists. Professor Hallaq's translation, with a substantial introduction and extensive notes, makes this important work available to a wider audience for the first time. (shrink)

The Buyide wezir Abū I-Faḍl Ibn al-‘Amīd became famous as a poet and expert in epistolary literature, but also as a scholar and scientist. His letters, published here together with translation, commentary and complete glossary, inform us on questions of meteorology, physics, mechanics and psychology.

This article aims to draw on the ‘Qur'anic Rationalism’ of Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymiyya (1263–1328) in elucidating an Islamic epistemology of theistic natural signs, in the lens of contemporary philosophy of religion. In articulating what Ibn Taymiyya coins ‘God's method of proof through signs (istidlāluhu taʿālā bi'l-āyāt)’, it seeks aid in particular from the work of C. Stephen Evans and other contemporary philosophers of religion, in an attempt to understand the relevance and force of this alternative to natural theology within (...) the Islamic tradition. In doing so, it aims to respond to existing criticisms of Ibn Taymiyya's perspective in the literature, and to consider the implications of a Taymiyyan reading of theistic natural signs, on the epistemic function of Qur'anic āyāt as theistic evidence. (shrink)

The writings of the medieval Islamic scholar Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyya are used today by radical groups, such as al-Qaeda, to justify acts of terrorism. In order to explain this modern influence, this volume offers a fresh perspective on Ibn Taymiyya's life, thought and legacy. Contrary to his current image as an anti-rationalist puritan, it argues that Ibn Taymiyya is one of the most intellectually complex, rigorous and interesting figures in Islamic intellectual history.

CHAPTER ONE Al-Kindl and Kind! Studies: A Resume THE NAME OF Abu Yusuf Yacqub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi, "the philosopher of the Arabs", is well known to students ...

The Muqaddimah , often translated as "Introduction" or "Prolegomenon," is the most important Islamic history of the premodern world. Written by the great fourteenth-century Arab scholar Ibn Khaldûn (d. 1406), this monumental work laid down the foundations of several fields of knowledge, including philosophy of history, sociology, ethnography, and economics. The first complete English translation, by the eminent Islamicist and interpreter of Arabic literature Franz Rosenthal, was published in three volumes in 1958 as part of the Bollingen Series and received (...) immediate acclaim in America and abroad. A one-volume abridged version of Rosenthal's masterful translation was first published in 1969. This new edition of the abridged version, with the addition of a key section of Rosenthal's own introduction to the three-volume edition, and with a new introduction by Bruce B. Lawrence, will reintroduce this seminal work to twenty-first-century students and scholars of Islam and of medieval and ancient history. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: 1. Introduction; 2. Text in context; 3. From human being to discourse on matter?: the three-fold quest for wisdom, goodness, and God - and the root of life in desire; 4. Root desire and the Empedoclean grounding element as love; 5. From Divine Will to Divine Irada : on the mistaken scholarly rejection of Ibn Gabirol's emanation; 6. Iradic Unfoldings: Ibn Gabirol's Hylomorphic Emanationism and the Neoplatonic Tripart Analysis; 7. Matter revisited; 8. Neoplatonic cosmo-ontology as apophatic (...) response and as prescription for human living (methodological reappraisal, 1); 9. Transcendental grounding, mytho-poetic and symbolic transformation, and the creation of new worlds with words (methodological reappraisal, 2); 10. Embroidering the hidden. (shrink)

El murciano Ibn ‘Arabí es, sin duda, uno de los autores, pensadores, visionarios y contemplativos de mayor altura —y, probablemente, de más proyección universal— que ha alumbrado este país, por más que su ingente e importante obra haya sido prácticamente ignorada. Este trabajo es una invitación a navegar por el «océano sin orillas» que constituye la vida y obra del más grande de los maestros, procurando que sea su propia voz la que vaya relatando algunos de los hitos externos e (...) internos de su vida y describiendo los rasgos más importantes de su pensamiento. (shrink)

This comprehensive study of Muslim jurist Ibn Taymiyya’s theodicy of perpetual optimism exposits and analyses his writings on God’s justice and wise purpose, divine determination and human agency, the problem of evil, and juristic method in theological doctrine.

the history and philosophy of thought experiments has attracted considerable attention in recent years. Of particular interest to philosophers as well as historians of science has been the emergence of thought experiments as a common procedure in early modern science, along with the methodological presuppositions that underwrite this practice.1 From a philosophical perspective, the notion of thought experiments is intimately tied in with the much-debated connection between conceivability and possibility, as exemplified by the radical affirmation of the Conceivability Criterion of (...) Possibility by David Hume.2 Consequent upon this, historians of ancient and medieval philosophy have also expressed interest in .. (shrink)

Ibrāhīm Ibn Sinān was one of the most famous scientists of the tenth century. His specialities were geometry, logic and philosophy of mathematics. In this volume, the works of this scientist are thoroughly researched, and three new hypotheses presented.

This book provides the first annotated English translation of Physics and Metaphysics and edits the original Arabic text on which the translation is based where it is corrupt or incomprehensible.

This book offers an annotated English translation of one of the oldest pharmacological works preserved in the Arabic language, viz. The small dispensatory of Sābūr ibn Sahl . The translation is framed by an introductory study and various glossaries.

This book offers an Arabic edition and English translation of a recension of Sābūr ibn Sahl's famous dispensatory as prepared by the physicians of a Baghdad hospital around the middle of the 11th century CE.

This piece offers an edition, translation, and analysis of a newly discovered text by Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī, a leading Aristotelian of the Baghdad school in the tenth century. It briefly discusses what Aristotle meant, at the end of the Physics, by saying that the Prime Mover is “in” the outermost heaven. Ibn ʿAdī argues, in part through an exhaustive discussion of the senses of the word “in,” that God is in the sphere only in the sense that an object of (...) intellection is in an intellect. This solution is discussed against the background of ancient commentaries on the same passage. (shrink)

Understanding cooperative human behaviour depends on insights into the biological basis of human altruism, as well as into socio-cultural development. In terms of evolutionary theory, kinship and reciprocity are well established as underlying cooperativeness. Reasons will be given suggesting an additional source, the capability of a cognition-based empathy that may have evolved as a by-product of strategic thought. An assessment of the range, the intrinsic limitations, and the conditions for activation of human cooperativeness would profit from a systems approach combining (...) biological and socio-cultural aspects. However, this is not yet the prevailing attitude among contemporary social and biological scientists who often hold prejudiced views of each other's notions. It is therefore worth noticing that the desirable integration of aspects has already been attempted, in remarkable and encouraging ways, in the history of thought on human nature. I will exemplify this with the ideas of the fourteenth century Arab-Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun. He set out to explicate human cooperativeness - "asabiyah" - as having a biological basis in common descent, but being extendable far beyond within social systems, though in a relatively unstable and attenuated fashion. He combined psychological and material factors in a dynamical theory of the rise and decline of political rulership, and related general social phenomena to basic features of human behaviour influenced by kinship, expectation of reciprocity, and empathic emotions. -/- . (shrink)

Bu çalışma İbn Sînâ’nın eş-Şifâ: Metafizik kitabının birinci makalesinin sekizinci faslını odağına alma amacındadır. Söz konusu fasıldaki sofistlere dair yapılan incelemenin metafizik ilmi açısından gerekliliği, zihni arka planı, burada kullanılan yöntem ve tercih edilen bu yöntemin gerekçelerini belirlemeye çalıştım. Filozofun buradaki ibarelerinin gönderme yaptığı teori, tartışma ve ilkeleri yakalamaya ve bunların felsefe tarihindeki izlerini bulmaya gayret ettim. Bu fasıldaki sorunlarla benzer meselelerin ele alındığı Aristoteles’in Metafizik kitabındaki görüşler arasındaki irtibata da yer vermeye çalıştım. Makalede, amaçlanan tahlili yapabilmek için İbn Sînâ’nın (...) zihin dışı ile zihin arasında kurduğu irtibatı öne çıkarmaya çalıştım. Burada zihnin, sofistlerin iddiasının tam tersi bir konumda bulunduğunu ve varlık hakkındaki önermelerde asıl belirleyici olanın zihin değil de dış olduğunu gerekçeleriyle ortaya koymaya gayret ettim. Zihin dışının zihni bilfiilleştirerek kendini yeni bir varlık alanı olarak onda ifşa ettiğini, bundan dolayı da zihnin/mantığın temel önermeleri olarak bilinen kuralların aslında ve öncelikli olarak varolanın ilkeleri olduğunu açıklamaya çalıştım. (shrink)