Islamic Philosophy from Its Origin to the Present: Philosophy in the ...

120 Part 3: Islamic Philosophy in History
been very different in the two worlds despite their close affinity in the
European Middle Ages. As for theology, it has continued to harbor
over the centuries the profoundest religious and spiritual impulses of
Christianity, whereas in Islam it has always been less central than in
Christianity. As was mentioned earlier, much that is considered to be
theology in the West is to be found in Islamic philosophy, especially
during later centuries.
In Christianity not only has theology attempted to provide a
rational defense for the faith, but it has also sought to provide access
to the highest realms of the life of the spirit, as one finds in the mystical
theology of Dionysius the Areopagite or, in the Protestant context,
in the Theologica Germanica of Martin Luther. Such has never been
the case in Islam, where kalåm, literally “word,” continued to be “the
science that bears responsibility of solidly establishing religious beliefs
by giving proofs and dispelling doubts.” 1 The deepest spiritual and
intellectual expressions of Islam are not to be found in works of kalåm.
Yet, this science is important for the understanding of certain aspects
of Islamic thought and must be dealt with in this overall treatment of
the Islamic intellectual tradition, especially since kalåm has interacted
in so many ways with philosophy, the main subject of this book.
EARLY KALĀM
Traditionally, ‘Al¥ ibn Ab¥ appleålib, the cousin and son-in-law of the
Prophet, is credited with having established the science of kalåm, and
his Nahj al-balåghah (Path of Eloquence) contains the first rational proofs
among Muslims of the unity of God, following upon the wake of the
Quran and the ¡ad¥th. Already in the first Islamic century, the early
community was confronted with such problems and questions as the
relation between faith and works, who is saved, the nature of the
Quran, and the legitimacy of political authority, all of which became
crystallized later into the structure and concerns of kalåm. Moreover, the
debates held in Syria and Iraq between Muslims and followers of other
religions—especially Christians, Mazdaeans, and Manichaeans, all of
whom had developed philosophical and theological arguments for the
defense of the tenets of their faith—caused the Muslims to seek to develop
a rational edifice of their own for the protection and defense of
Islam. This response to the theology of other religions is particularly true
for the case of Christianity, whose theology directly challenged the young
faith of Islam to construct its own theological edifice. Greco-Alexandrian
philosophy, which early Christian thinkers had already encountered and