School of thought
Medieval Islamic Philosophy
Tradition
Classification
- Period
- c. 800-1400 CE
- Regions
- middle east
- Domains
- Logic , Metaphysics , Philosophy of Religion
Overview
Medieval Islamic philosophy spanned several distinct currents; falsafa — the tradition this entity centers on — is not the whole of it. Falsafa was the creative engagement of Muslim thinkers with the Greek philosophical inheritance, especially Aristotle and Neoplatonism. It developed alongside, and often in tension with, kalām — the tradition of rational Islamic theology — as well as later Illuminationist and Sufi currents. Avicenna built influential theories of essence and existence, Al-Ghazali challenged the philosophers from within kalām, and Averroes defended philosophy's autonomy — debates that profoundly shaped both the Islamic world and the Latin West.
Key ideas
- Essence and Existence: Avicenna's groundbreaking distinction: in all beings except God, essence (what a thing is) is distinct from existence (that it is). Only in God are essence and existence identical.
- Philosophy and Revelation: Islamic philosophers debated whether philosophical reason and Quranic revelation are compatible. Averroes argued they are two paths to the same truth; Al-Ghazali defended revelation's supremacy.
- Emanation: Following Neoplatonism, Al-Farabi and Avicenna described creation as an eternal emanation from God through successive intellects — reconciling Greek cosmology with Islamic theology.
Key figures
Al-Kindi · Al-Farabi · Ibn Sina (Avicenna) · Al-Ghazali · Ibn Rushd (Averroes)
Methods used
Influenced by
Later connections
- Averroism Influenced by this tradition
- Medieval Jewish Philosophy Influenced by this tradition
- Scholasticism Influenced by this tradition
- Sufism Influenced by this tradition
References
- Peter Adamson, Philosophy in the Islamic World (Oxford University Press, 2016)
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Greek Sources in Arabic and Islamic Philosophy
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Arabic and Islamic Philosophy of Language and Logic
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Ibn Rushd [Averroes] (the short, middle and long commentaries on Aristotle as his principal philosophical form)
- The Book of Healing — Ibn Sina (Avicenna)
- The Incoherence of the Philosophers — Al-Ghazali
- The Decisive Treatise — Ibn Rushd (Averroes)