Editing Early Islamic philosophy (section)

==Branches==

=== Kalam ===
{{Main|Kalam}}
{{More citations needed section|date=June 2023}}

''Ilm al-Kalām'' ({{langx|ar|علم الكلام}}, literally the study of "speech" or "words") is the [[Islamic philosophy|Islamic philosophical]] discipline of seeking [[Islamic theology|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 [[Sirah Rasul Allah|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 [[Hijri year|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 ''[[Mu'tazilism|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 [[Schools of Islamic theology|systematic schools of Islamic theology]] to develop were the [[Mu'tazilism|Muʿtazila]] in the mid-8th century CE.<ref name="Schmidtke 2016"/><ref name="Peters 1980">{{cite journal |author-last=Peters |author-first=J. R. T. M. |date=1980 |title=La théologie musulmane et l'étude du langage |url=https://www.persee.fr/doc/hel_0750-8069_1980_num_2_1_1049 |journal=Histoire. Épistémologie. Langage |location=[[Paris]] |publisher=Société d'histoire et d'Épistémologie des Sciences du Langage |volume=2 |issue=1: ''Éléments d'Histoire de la tradition linguistique arabe'' |language=fr |doi=10.3406/hel.1980.1049 |doi-access=free |pages=9–19 |issn=1638-1580 |access-date=2021-11-30 |archive-date=2021-11-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211130233309/https://www.persee.fr/doc/hel_0750-8069_1980_num_2_1_1049 |url-status=live }}</ref> Muʿtazilite theologians emphasized the use of [[reason]] and [[Rationalism|rational thought]], positing that the injunctions of [[God in Islam|God]] are accessible through rational thought and inquiry, and affirmed that [[Quranic createdness|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.<ref name="Schmidtke 2016"/><ref name="Peters 1980"/>

In the 9th–10th century CE, the [[Ash'arism|Ashʿarī school]] developed as a response to the Muʿtazila, founded by the 10th-century Muslim scholar and theologian [[Abu Hasan al-Ash'ari|Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī]].<ref name="Thiele 2016">{{cite book |author-last=Thiele |author-first=Jan |year=2016 |origyear=2014 |chapter=Part I: Islamic Theologies during the Formative and the Early Middle period – Between Cordoba and Nīsābūr: The Emergence and Consolidation of Ashʿarism (Fourth–Fifth/Tenth–Eleventh Century) |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=70wnDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA225 |editor-last=Schmidtke |editor-first=Sabine |editor-link=Sabine Schmidtke |title=The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology |location=Oxford and New York |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |pages=225–241 |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199696703.013.45 |isbn=978-0-19-969670-3 |lccn=2016935488}}</ref> Ashʿarītes still taught the use of reason in understanding the Quran, but denied the possibility to deduce moral truths by reasoning.<ref name="Thiele 2016"/> This position was opposed by the [[Maturidism|Māturīdī school]];<ref name="Ulrich 2016">{{cite book |author-last=Rudolph |author-first=Ulrich |year=2016 |origyear=2014 |chapter=Part I: Islamic Theologies during the Formative and the Early Middle period – Ḥanafī Theological Tradition and Māturīdism |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=70wnDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA285 |editor-last=Schmidtke |editor-first=Sabine |editor-link=Sabine Schmidtke |title=The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology |location=[[Oxford]] and [[New York City|New York]] |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |pages=285–290 |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199696703.013.023 |isbn=9780199696703 |lccn=2016935488}}</ref> according to its founder, the 10th-century Muslim scholar and theologian [[Abu Mansur al-Maturidi|Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī]], human reason is supposed to acknowledge the existence of a [[creator deity]] (''bāriʾ'') solely [[Rationalism|based on rational thought]] and independently from divine revelation.<ref name="Ulrich 2016"/> He shared this conviction with his teacher and predecessor [[Abu Hanifa an-Nu'man|Abū Ḥanīfa al-Nuʿmān]] (8th century CE), whereas al-Ashʿarī never held such a view.<ref name="Ulrich 2016"/>

According to the Afghan-American philosopher [[Sayed Hassan Akhlaq|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]]".<ref name="Hussaini 2016">{{cite journal |last=Hussaini |first=Sayed Hassan |author-link=Sayed Hassan Akhlaq |date=2016 |title=Islamic Philosophy between Theism and Deism |journal=Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia |location=[[Braga]] |publisher=Aletheia - Associação Científica e Cultural |volume=72 |issue=1: ''Teísmos: Aportações Filosóficas do Leste e Oeste / Theisms: Philosophical Contributions from the East to the West'' |pages=65–83 |doi=10.17990/RPF/2016_72_1_0065 |issn=0870-5283 |jstor=43816275}}</ref>

===Falsafa===
{{unreferenced section|date=February 2023}}
From the 9th century onward, owing to [[Caliph]] [[al-Ma'mun]] and his successor, Greek philosophy was introduced among the [[Arab]]s, and the [[Peripatetic school]] began to find able representatives among them; such were [[Al-Kindi]], [[Al-Farabi]], [[Avicenna|Ibn Sina (Avicenna)]], and [[Averroes|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 [[Neoplatonism|Neoplatonic]] and [[Neopythagoreanism|Neopythagorean]] world view.

During the [[Abbasid caliphate]] a number of thinkers and scientists, some of them [[Heterodoxy|heterodox]] Muslims or non-Muslims, played a role in transmitting Greek, [[Hindu]], and other pre-Islamic knowledge to the [[Christians|Christian]] [[Western world|West]]. They contributed to making [[Aristotle]] known in Christian [[Europe]]. Three speculative thinkers, [[al-Farabi]], [[Avicenna|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 language|Hebrew]] and [[Latin]], contributing to the development of modern European philosophy. The philosophers [[Maimonides|Moses Maimonides]] (a [[Jew]] born in [[Al Andalus|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 God|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 &mdash; the [[Aristotelianism|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.<ref>Anthony Kenny, ''Aquinas on Mind'' (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 24, 26, 28</ref> 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."<ref>''De Anima'' 413a4-5; 414a19-20</ref> In Aristotelianism, at least one psychological force, the [[active intellect]], can exist apart from the body.<ref>"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).</ref> 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.<ref>''Medieval Philosophy'', ed. John Marenbon (London: Routledge, 2003), p. 54</ref><ref>Timothy Robinson, ''Aristotle in Outline'' (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1995) p. 51</ref> Thus, Aristotle's theories seem to deny the immortality of the individual human soul.

Wherefore the Mutakallamin had, before anything else, to establish a system of philosophy to demonstrate the creation of matter, and they adopted to that end the theory of atoms as enunciated by Democritus. They taught that atoms possess neither quantity nor extension. Originally atoms were created by God, and are created now as occasion seems to require. Bodies come into existence or die, through the aggregation or the sunderance of these atoms. But this theory did not remove the objections of philosophy to a creation of matter.

For, indeed, if it be supposed that [[God]] commenced His work at a certain definite time by His "will", and for a certain definite object, it must be admitted that He was imperfect before accomplishing His will, or before attaining His object. In order to obviate this difficulty, the Motekallamin extended their theory of the atoms to [[Time]], and claimed that just as [[Space]] is constituted of atoms and vacuum, Time, likewise, is constituted of small indivisible moments. The creation of the world once established, it was an easy matter for them to demonstrate the existence of a Creator, and that God is unique, [[Omnipotence|omnipotent]], and [[Omniscience|omniscient]].

===Main protagonists of Falsafa and their critics===
The 12th century saw the [[apotheosis]] of pure philosophy and the decline of the Kalam, which later, being attacked by both the philosophers and the orthodox, perished for lack of champions.<ref>{{Citation |last=Wilczyński |first=Karol |title=Why Is Philosophy Bad for the Soul? Commentary on Al-Ġazālī's Critique of the Philosophers |date=2020 |url=https://wuw.pl/data/include/cms//Truth_and_Falsehood_Bokus_Barbara_Kosowska_Ewa_red_2020.pdf?v=1586512884220#page=45 |work=Truth and Falsehood in Science and the Arts |editor-last=Bokus |editor-first=Barbara |access-date=2023-05-24 |publisher=Warsaw University Press |doi=10.31338/uw.9788323542209.pp.46-61 |isbn=978-83-235-4220-9 |s2cid=216319017 |editor2-last=Kosowska |editor2-first=Ewa}}</ref> This supreme exaltation of philosophy may be attributed, in great measure, to Al-[[Abu Hamed Mohammad ibn Mohammad Ghazali|Ghazali]] (1005–1111) among the Persians, and to [[Judah ha-Levi]] (1140) among the Jews. It can be argued that the attacks directed against the philosophers by Al-Ghazali in his work, ''[[The Incoherence of the Philosophers|Tahafut al-Falasifa]]'' (The Incoherence of the Philosophers), not only produced, by reaction, a current favorable to philosophy, but induced the philosophers themselves to profit by his criticism.<ref>{{Citation |last=Holzman |first=Gitit |title=Persecution and the Art of Commentary: Rabbi Moses Narboni's Analysis of al-Ġazālī's Maqāṣid al Falāsifah (Aims of the Philosophers) |date=2022-06-10 |url=https://brill.com/view/book/9789004506626/BP000010.xml |work=Maimonides Review of Philosophy and Religion Volume 1, 2022 |pages=49–78 |editor-last=Strauss |editor-first=Ze'ev |access-date=2023-05-24 |publisher=BRILL |doi=10.1163/9789004506626_003 |isbn=978-90-04-50661-9|doi-access=free }}</ref> They thereafter made their theories clearer and their logic closer.{{citation needed|date=April 2016}}  The influence of this reaction brought forth the two greatest philosophers that the Islamic Peripatetic school ever produced,{{citation needed|date=April 2016}} namely, [[Ibn Bajjah]] (Avempace) and [[Ibn Rushd]] ([[Averroes]]), both of whom undertook the defense of philosophy.

Since no idea and no literary or philosophical movement ever germinated on Persian or Arabian soil without leaving its impress on the Jews, the Persian [[Abu Hamed Mohammad ibn Mohammad Ghazali|Ghazali]] found an imitator in the person of Judah ha-Levi. This poet also took upon himself to free his religion from what he saw as the shackles of speculative philosophy, and to this end wrote the "Kuzari", in which he sought to discredit all schools of philosophy alike. He passes severe censure upon the Mutakallamin for seeking to support religion by philosophy. He 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" ("Kuzari", v.). Then he reduced the chief propositions of the Mutakallamin, to prove the unity of God, to ten in number, describing them at length, and concluding in these terms: "Does the [[Kalam (islamic term)|Kalam]] give us more information concerning God and His attributes than the prophet did?" (Ib. iii. and iv.) Aristotelianism finds no favor in [[Judah ha-Levi]]'s eyes, for it is no less given to details and criticism; Neoplatonism alone suited him somewhat, owing to its appeal to his poetic temperament.

[[Averroes|Ibn Rushd]] (Averroës), the contemporary of [[Maimonides]], closed the first great philosophical era of the Muslims. He was a defender of Aristotelian philosophy against [[Ash'ari]] theologians led by [[Al-Ghazali]]. Averroes' philosophy was considered controversial in Muslim circles. The theories of Ibn Rushd do not differ fundamentally from those of [[Ibn Bajjah]] and [[Ibn Tufail]], who only follow the teachings of Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and Al-Farabi. Like all Islamic Peripatetics, Ibn Rushd admits the hypothesis of the intelligence of the spheres and the hypothesis of universal emanation, through which motion is communicated from place to place to all parts of the universe as far as the supreme world&mdash;hypotheses which, in the mind of the Arabic philosophers, did away with the dualism involved in Aristotle's doctrine of pure energy and eternal matter. His ideas on the separation of philosophy and religion, further developed by the [[Averroism|Averroist]] school of philosophy, were later influential in the development of modern [[secularism]].<ref name=Messeri/><ref name=Najjar/>

But while [[Al-Farabi]], [[Ibn Sina]] (Avicenna), and other Persian and Muslim philosophers hurried, so to speak, over subjects that trenched on religious dogmas, Ibn Rushd delighted in dwelling upon them with full particularity and stress. Thus he says, "Not only is matter eternal, but form is potentially inherent in matter; otherwise, it were a creation ''ex [[nihilo]]''" (Munk, "Mélanges", p.&nbsp;444). According to this theory, therefore, the existence of this world is not only a possibility, as Ibn Sina declared&mdash;in order to make concessions to the orthodox&mdash; but also a necessity.

Driven from the Islamic schools, Islamic philosophy found a refuge with the Jews, to whom belongs the honor of having transmitted it to the Christian world. A series of eminent men&mdash;such as the [[Ibn Tibbon]]s, [[Narboni]], [[Gersonides]]&mdash;joined in translating the Arabic philosophical works into Hebrew and commenting upon them. The works of Ibn Rushd especially became the subject of their study, due in great measure to Maimonides, who, in a letter addressed to his pupil [[Joseph ben Judah]], spoke in the highest terms of Ibn Rushd's commentary.

It should be mentioned that this depiction of intellectual tradition in Islamic Lands is mainly dependent upon what West could understand (or was willing to understand) from this long era. In contrast, there are some historians and philosophers who do not agree with this account and describe this era in a completely different way. Their main point of dispute is on the influence of different philosophers on Islamic Philosophy, especially the comparative importance of eastern intellectuals such as Ibn Sina and of western thinkers such as Ibn Rushd.<ref>[[Henry Corbin]], ''History of Islamic Philosophy''.</ref>

===Judeo-Islamic philosophy===
{{Main|Judeo-Islamic philosophies (800–1400)}}
{{unreferenced section|date=February 2023}}
The oldest Jewish religio-philosophical work preserved is that of [[Saadia Gaon]] (892–942), ''[[Emunoth ve-Deoth|Emunot ve-Deot]]'', "The Book of Beliefs and Opinions". In this work Saadia treats the questions that interested the Mutakallamin, such as the creation of matter, the unity of God, the divine attributes, the soul, etc. Saadia criticizes other philosophers severely. For Saadia there was no problem as to creation: God created the world ''[[ex nihilo]]'', just as the [[Bible]] attests; and he contests the theory of the Mutakallamin in reference to atoms, which theory, he declares, is just as contrary to reason and religion as the theory of the philosophers professing the eternity of matter.

To prove the unity of God, Saadia uses the demonstrations of the Mutakallamin. Only the attributes of essence (''sifat al-dhatia'') can be ascribed to God, but not the attributes of action (''sifat-al-fi'aliya''). The soul is a substance more delicate even than that of the [[celestial spheres]]. Here Saadia controverts the Mutakallamin, who considered the soul an "accident" '''arad'' (compare [[Guide for the Perplexed]] i. 74), and employs the following one of their premises to justify his position: "Only a substance can be the substratum of an accident" (that is, of a non-essential property of things). Saadia argues: "If the soul be an accident only, it can itself have no such accidents as wisdom, joy, love", etc. Saadia was thus in every way a supporter of the Kalam; and if at times he deviated from its doctrines, it was owing to his religious views; just as the Jewish and Muslim Peripatetics stopped short in their respective Aristotelianism whenever there was danger of wounding orthodox religion.