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

Dimensions of the Islamic Intellectual Tradition 141
phers of the sixth/twefth century, such as Ab¨˘l-Barakåt al-Baghdåd¥
(d. ca. 560/1164), whose Kitåb al-mu‘tabar (The Book of What Is Established
by Personal Reflection) contains important ideas in the domain
of physics as well as epistemology, and ˜Umar Khayyåm (d. ca. 526/
1132), at once poet, metaphysician, and mathematician, were deeply
influenced by and indebted to Ibn S¥nå . 32
AVICENNAN ONTOLOGY AND COSMOLOGY
The philosophy of Ibn S¥nå, which marks the peak of Islamic Peripatetic
philosophy, is based on ontology, as mentioned in chapter 5, and
Ibn S¥nå has been called the “philosopher of being” and the founder
of what is characteristically medieval philosophy whether it be Jewish,
Christian, or Islamic. 33 Here we wish to elucidate further his basic
ontological ideas which were treated from another perspective in chapter
4. For Aristotle, existence is a “block without fissure,” whereas for
the Islamic philosophers, God is Pure Being and transcends the chain
of being and the order of cosmic existence, while the existence of the
world is contingent. To distinguish Pure Being from the existence of
the world, Ibn S¥nå made the fundamental distinctions among necessity
(wuj¶b), contingency (imkån), and impossibility (imtinå‘). The Necessary
Being is that reality that must be and cannot not be, the reality
whose nonexistence would imply logical contradiction. There is only
one such reality, and that is the Necessary Being (wåjib al-wuj¶d), which
is the God revealed in monotheistic religions. Impossible being
(mumtani‘ al-wuj¶d) is that quiddity which cannot exist objectively, for
that would imply contradiction. All beings apart from the Necessary
Being are contingent beings (mumkin al-wuj¶d); considered as quiddities
that could exist or not exist. This key distinction is one of the most
fundamental in the whole history of philosophy. It influenced deeply
all later Islamic philosophy and even theology. It also traveled to the
West to become one of the key concepts of philosophy. This key distinction
was itself related to the basic distinction between existence
(wuj¶d) and quiddity (måhiyyah), discussed extensively in chapter 4. 34
The contemplation by the Necessary Being of Itself generates the
First Intellect; and the First Intellect’s contemplation of the Necessary
Being as well as of itself as contingent being and as necessitated by the
Necessary Being (al-wåjib bi˘l-ghayr) leads to the generation of the
Second Intellect, the Soul of the First Sphere, and the First Sphere. The
process continues in this manner until the Tenth Intellect and the Ninth
Sphere and its Soul are generated. This Ninth Sphere is the sphere of