Editing Early Islamic philosophy (section)

===Atomism===
{{See also|Alchemy and chemistry in medieval Islam}}

[[Atomism|Atomistic]] philosophies are found very early in Islamic philosophy, and represent a synthesis of the Greek and Indian ideas. Islamic speculative theology in general approached issues in physics from an atomistic framework.<ref>{{cite book|title=Arabic and Islamic Natural Philosophy and Natural Science|date=2022 |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arabic-islamic-natural/|publisher=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}</ref>

The most successful form of Islamic atomism was in the [[Asharite]] school of philosophy, most notably in the work of the philosopher [[al-Ghazali]] (1058–1111).  In [[Asharite]] atomism, atoms are the only perpetual, material things in existence, and all else in the world is "accidental" meaning something that lasts for only an instant.  Nothing accidental can be the cause of anything else, except perception, as it exists for a moment.  Contingent events are not subject to natural physical causes, but are the direct result of God's constant intervention, without which nothing could happen.  Thus nature is completely dependent on God, which meshes with other Asharite Islamic ideas on [[Causality|causation]], or the lack thereof.<ref name="Gardet">L. Gardet (2001), "djuz’", in ''Encyclopaedia of Islam'', CD-ROM Edition, v. 1.1, Leiden: Brill</ref>

Other traditions in Islam rejected the atomism of the Asharites and expounded on many Greek texts, especially those of Aristotle.  An active school of philosophers in Spain, including the noted commentator [[Averroes]] (1126-1198 AD) explicitly rejected the thought of al-Ghazali and turned to an extensive evaluation of the thought of Aristotle.  Averroes commented in detail on most of the works of Aristotle and his commentaries did much to guide the interpretation of Aristotle in later Jewish and Christian scholastic thought.