In this introduction
In the eighth and ninth centuries, in Abbasid Baghdad, an extraordinary translation movement — centred, according to tradition, on the “House of Wisdom” (Bayt al-Ḥikma) — rendered Aristotle, Plato, Plotinus, Galen, Euclid and Ptolemy from Greek and Syriac into Arabic. Out of it grew falsafa (from Greek philosophia): a tradition that for four centuries was the most advanced philosophy in the world, and without which much of Greek thought might never have reached medieval Europe.
The great figures
- Al-Kindī (c. 801–873), “the philosopher of the Arabs”, argued that truth should be accepted from wherever it comes, “even from races distant and nations different from us”.
- Al-Fārābī (c. 870–950), “the Second Teacher” (after Aristotle), wrote on logic, music, and the “virtuous city” ruled by a philosopher-prophet.
- Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā) (980–1037) — the essence–existence distinction, the Necessary Existent, the Flying Man, the Canon of Medicine.
- Al-Ghazālī (1058–1111) — the Incoherence of the Philosophers, causation as God’s habit, the mystic’s certainty.
- Ibn Ṭufayl (c. 1105–1185) — Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, a philosophical novel about a child raised alone on an island by a gazelle who discovers philosophy and God by reason alone — a forerunner of Robinson Crusoe.
- Averroes (Ibn Rushd) (1126–1198) — “the Commentator”, defender of reason, Incoherence of the Incoherence.
- Ibn ʿArabī (1165–1240) — the “Greatest Master” of Sufi metaphysics, the “unity of being” (waḥdat al-wujūd).
- Suhrawardī (1154–1191) — philosophy of illumination; executed in Aleppo.
- Ibn Khaldūn (1332–1406) — the Muqaddimah, founding work of sociology and philosophy of history, with its cycle of group solidarity (ʿaṣabiyya).
- Mullā Ṣadrā (c. 1572–1640) — the primacy of existence and “substantial motion”, in Safavid Isfahan.
The great debates
Reason and revelation. The Muʿtazila theologians held that reason can know good and evil independently of revelation; the Ashʿarites held that good is what God commands. Averroes argued that philosophy and scripture cannot conflict, since “truth does not contradict truth”. (Compare the Euthyphro dilemma and Faith vs. Reason.)
Is the world eternal? Following Aristotle, Avicenna held that the world emanates eternally from God; al-Ghazālī called this unbelief. The same debate convulsed thirteenth-century Paris.
Causation. Al-Ghazālī argued we never see a cause produce an effect — fire touches cotton and cotton burns, but God creates the burning. Seven hundred years later, Hume reached a similar observation on very different grounds.
The soul. Is the human intellect personal and immortal? Averroes’ doctrine of a single intellect for all humanity scandalized Christian Europe.
The passage to Europe
From the twelfth century, scholars in Toledo, Sicily and elsewhere translated Avicenna, Averroes and al-Ghazālī into Latin. “Avicenna” and “Averroes” became household names in Paris and Oxford; Thomas Aquinas built on their work; Dante placed both in Limbo with the noble pagans. The idea that Islamic philosophy “ended” with al-Ghazālī is a myth: it flourished for centuries more, especially in Persia.
Where to begin
- Al-Ghazālī’s Deliverance from Error — a spiritual autobiography.
- Ibn Ṭufayl’s Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān — a philosophical novel.
- Averroes’ Decisive Treatise — on reason and faith.
Map of Influence
who answered whom, inside this roomThinkers & Authors
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Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā)
Persian polymath — physician, metaphysician, logician — whose Canon of Medicine was taught in Europe for 500 years and whose distinction between essence and existence reshaped philosophy in Islam and the Latin West.
Al-Ghazālī
Theologian, jurist and mystic whose Incoherence of the Philosophers attacked Avicenna’s Aristotelianism, anticipated Hume on causation, and whose spiritual autobiography records a crisis of doubt.
Averroes (Ibn Rushd)
Andalusian judge and philosopher — “the Commentator” on Aristotle — who defended philosophy against al-Ghazālī and argued that reason and revelation cannot contradict each other.