Mu’tazilism, Ash’arism and Tahawism:
Mu’tazilites, known as ‘People Of Unity And Justice’, were the pure rationalists in early Islam. By Justice they imply that it is incumbent on God to requite the obedient for their good deeds and punish the sinners for their misdeeds. By Unity they imply that attributes of God are not separate from the divine essence. Wasil bin Ata (699-748) was the founder of this school of thought. Abul-al-Hudhail Allif, Al-Jahiz , al-Mu’tamir and al-Jubai are the prominent names of Mu’tazilism.
Ash’arites maintain an intermediary position between Mu’tazilites who made reason in preference to revelation the only criterion of truth and reality, and the Zahirites who were totally against the reason or ‘Kalam’ in explaining religious dogmas. Ash’arism was an attepmt to not only to purge Islam of all non-Islamic elements but also to harmonize the religious consciousness with the religious thought of Islam. Ash’arites laid down the foundations of Orthodox Kalam. Ali Bin Ismail al-Ashari (death 945) founded this school at the age of 40. Other prominent names include al-Juwaini ,al-Ghazali and Ibn Tumarat .
Abu Ja’far Ahmed Bin Muahammad al-Tahawi (Born in 834 AD) laid down the foundation of this traditionalist school of thought. He gave the definition of Muslims as: “who follow Qiblah so as long as they acknowledge what prophet Muhammad (PBUH) brought with him and believe in what he said and what he narrated.
Shihab al-Din Suharwardi Maqtul and Ibn Arabi:
Born in 1153 A.D, Shihab al-Din Suharwardi‘s Ishraqi wisdom has played a great role in intellectual and spiritual life of Islam. His school identifies philosophy with wisdom rather than with rational systemization. According to him Islam unified the wisdom of all previous religions (Hikmat al-Ishraq). He classified the various faculties of soul as vegetative soul (attraction, retention etc) and animal soul (power of lust and anger). His famous works are Hikmat al-Ishraq, Muqawamat and Talwihat.
Sheikh Muhayi al-Din ibn al-Arabi (born in 1165) is the most influential thinker and mystic in the Sufi world both in the east and the west. He tried to reconcile the pantheistic theory of nature and monotheistic doctrine od Islam. He explained Quranic text and prophetic traditions mystically in his Futuhat and Fusus. His mystical philosophy represents the union of thought and emotion in a highest degree, a curious blend of reasoned truths and intuitive knowledge.
Al-Kindi , Al-Razi and Al-Farabi : Abu Yousaf Ya’qub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi or Alkindus (born in 805) is the first Muslim philosopher by the very definition of philosopher in the modern world; he is called ‘the philosopher of the Arabs’. He conciliated the Hellenistic heritage with Islam. He specialized in almost all the sciences of his times. He insisted that theology is part of philosophy and prophet’s revelations and philosophical truths are in accord with each other so pursuit of theology is logically ordained. His clarified the meanings of ‘Intellect’ and ‘Soul’ and his treatises on such philosophical problems played an important role in medieval philosophy, both eastern and western.
Al-Razi (Rhazes) is a pure rationalist. He believed in reason and reason alone. In clinical studies he revealed a very solid method of investigation based on observation and experimentation. He believed in eternity of soul and matter both. He maintained that life flows from God as light flows from the sun. He also believed in the eternity of time. He believed in God the Wise, in man, in progress, but in no religion whatever.
Al-Farabi or Alpharabius (C.870-950) maintains that it is imperative for great philosophers to be in accord, he believes only in one school of philosophy, the school of truth. He made attempts to revise the Peripatetic philosophy and Platonic tradition. He philosophizes the religion. He gave Theory of the Ten Intelligences (an explanation of Heavens and the earth) and Theory of the Intellect (dealing with psychology). His ideas are amazingly similar to those of Freud, Horney and Murray.
Ibn Sina (Avicenna):
Ibn Sina, known as Aristotle of Islamic world, is the foremost philosopher in the Medieval Hellenistic Islamic tradition. His philosophical theory is a comprehensive, detailed and rationalistic account of the nature of God and Being, in which he finds a systematic place for the corporeal world, spirit, insight, and the varieties of logical thought including dialectic, rhetoric and poetry.
He insisted that reason can allow progress through various levels of understanding and can finally lead to God, the ultimate truth. He stresses the importance of gaining knowledge, and develops a theory of knowledge based on four faculties: sense perception, retention, imagination and estimation. In metaphysics, Ibn Sina makes a distinction between essence and existence; essence considers only the nature of things, and should be considered apart from their mental and physical realization. This distinction applies to all things except God, whom Ibn Sina identifies as the first cause and therefore both essence and existence. He also argued that the soul is incorporeal and cannot be destroyed.
Al-Ghazali (Algazel) :
Al-Ghazâlî (c.1055–1111) is one of the most prominent and influential philosophers, theologians, jurists, and mystics of Islam. Al-Ghazâlî understood the importance of falsafa (Aristotelian philosophy) and developed a complex response that rejected and condemned some of its teachings, while it also allowed him to accept and apply others. Al-Ghazâlî's critique of twenty positions of falsafa in his Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahâfut al-falâsifa) is a significant landmark in the history of philosophy as it advances the nominalist critique of Aristotelian science developed later in 14th century Europe. On the Arabic and Muslim side al-Ghazâlî's acceptance of demonstration led to a much more refined and precise discourse on epistemology and a flowering of Aristotelian logics and metaphysics. With al-Ghazâlî begins the successful introduction of Aristotelianism or rather Avicennism into Muslim theology. Al-Ghazâlî's approach to resolving apparent contradictions between reason and revelation was accepted by almost all later Muslim theologians and had, via the works of Averroes (Ibn Rushd, 1126–98) and Jewish authors a significant influence on Latin medieval thinking.
Ibn Rushd (Averroes):
Abul Walid Muhammad Ibn Ahmed Ibn Muhammad Ibn Rushd(C.1126 to 1198) insisited that Quran exhorts man to study philosophy since he must speculate on the universe to better understand it. The proof of creation (Cosmological) and the proof of Providence (teleological) are mentioned in Quran which lead to the way of God. He rejected the Idealism of Plato and believed that the universe exists in realty. He severly criticized al-Ghazali for his Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahâfut al-falâsifa). He is commentator of Aristotle and his interpretations ruled Europe for centuries.
Ibn Rushd was the last of early great Muslim philosophers.
Note: This introduction is based on the following source:
Sharif, M.M.(Ed.). (Reprinted 2007). A History Of Muslim Philosophy. Vol. 1. Karachi: Royal Book Company.
