Editing Islamic philosophy (section)

== Criticism ==
Philosophy has not been without criticism amongst Muslims, both contemporary and past. The imam [[Ahmad ibn Hanbal]], for whom the [[Hanbali]] school of thought is named, rebuked philosophical discussion, once telling proponents of it that he was secure in his religion, but that they were "in doubt, so go to a doubter and argue with him (instead)."<ref>al-Hilyah (6/324)</ref> Today, Islamic philosophical thought has also been criticized by scholars of the modern [[Salafi]] movement.{{citation needed|date=March 2022}}

There would be many Islamic thinkers who were not enthusiastic about the potential of philosophy, but it would be incorrect to assume that they opposed it simply because it was a "foreign science". [[Oliver Leaman]], an expert on Islamic philosophy, points out that the objections of notable theologians are rarely directed at philosophy itself, but rather at the conclusions the philosophers arrived at. Even the 11th century [[al-Ghazali]], known for his ''[[Incoherence of the Philosophers]]'' critique of philosophers, was himself an expert in philosophy and [[logic]]. His criticism was that they arrived at theologically erroneous conclusions. In his view the three most serious of these were believing in the co-eternity of the universe with God, denying the bodily resurrection, and asserting that God only has knowledge of abstract universals, not of particular things, though not all philosophers subscribed to these same views.<ref>Leaman, O. (1999). ''A Brief Introduction to Islamic Philosophy'' Polity Press. p 21.</ref>

In recent studies by Muslim contemporary thinkers that aim at "renewing the impetus of philosophical thinking in Islam," the philosopher and theorist [[Nader El-Bizri]] offers a critical analysis of the conventions that dominate mainstream academic and epistemic approaches in studying Islamic philosophy. These approaches, of methodology and [[historiography]] are looked at from archival standpoints within Oriental and Mediaevalist Studies, fail to recognize the fact that philosophy in Islam can still be a living intellectual tradition. He maintains that its renewal requires a radical reform in [[ontology]] and [[epistemology]] within Islamic thought. El-Bizri's interpretations of [[Avicenna]] (Ibn Sina) from the standpoint of [[Heidegger]]'s critique of the history of metaphysics, and specifically against the background of the unfolding of the essence of technology, aim at finding new pathways in ontology that are not simply Avicennian nor Heideggerian, even though El-Bizri's approach in rethinking ''falsafa'' amounts to a "Neo-Avicennism" that carries resonances with novel modern philosophical ways of reading Aristotelianism and Thomism. El-Bizri engages contemporary issues in philosophy through a fundamental critical analytic of the evolution of key concepts in the history of ontology and epistemology. [[Nader El-Bizri]] is a modernist in outlook since he aims at bringing newness to the tradition rather than simply reproduce it or being in rupture with it.<ref>[[Nader El-Bizri]], "The Labyrinth of Philosophy in Islam", in ''Comparative Philosophy'' 1.2 (2010): 3–23. Refer also to his article: [[Nader El-Bizri]], 'Le renouvellement de la falsafa?', ''Les Cahiers de l’Islam'' I (2014): 17–38.  See also references above in this section of the footnotes to some of [[Nader El-Bizri]]'s other related earlier studies.</ref>

Maani’ Hammad al-Juhani, (a member of the Consultative Council and General Director, World Assembly of Muslim Youth)<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UigeR5tVEoMC&q=Maani%E2%80%99+Hammad+al-Juhani%2C&pg=PA79 | title=The Islam/West Debate: Documents from a Global Debate on Terrorism, U.S.|last1=Blankenhorn | first1=David |page=79 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield.| isbn=9780742550070| year=2005}}</ref> 
is quoted as declaring that because philosophy does not follow the moral guidelines of the [[Sunnah]], 
"philosophy, as defined by the philosophers, is one of the most dangerous falsehoods and most vicious in fighting faith and religion on the basis of logic, which it is very easy to use to confuse people in the name of reason, interpretation and metaphor that distort the religious texts".<ref>''Al-Mawsoo’ah al-Muyassarah fi’l-Adyaan al-Madhaahib wa’l-Ahzaab al-Mu’aasirah''  1/419–423</ref>