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

150 Part 3: Islamic Philosophy in History
rites and practices on the exoteric level with the ultimate aim of leading
man to that knowledge that the Ismå‘¥l¥ philosophers and theosophers
considered to have been expounded in their works for the intellectual
elite among their community. 51 It is obvious how closely this philosophical
tradition is related to prophecy understood in both its outward
and inward aspects.
ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY IN THE WESTERN LANDS OF ISLAM
Islamic philosophy had a shorter life in the western lands of Islam
than in the eastern, but even in that faraway region of the Islamic
world—and especially in Andalusia—there appeared many illustrious
Islamic philosophers who left an indelible mark on Western philosophy
while creating an important chapter in the history of Islamic
philosophy itself. The founder of this chapter in the history of Islamic
thought was Ibn Masarrah (d. 319/931), the mysterious founder of the
school of Almeria, who was both mystic and philosopher and who led
a group of disciples in the Cordovan Sierra until his death. He combined
in his vision philosophy and Sufism and more generally Islamic
esoterism, and this fusion became characteristic of Andalusian philosophy
with the major exception of Ibn Rushd (Averroes). The works
of Ibn Masarrah are for the most part lost, and only two, Kitåb altab„irah
(The Book of Penetrating Explanations) containing the key to
his metaphysical teachings, and the Kitåb al-÷ur¶f (The Book of Letters),
dealing with “mystical algebra,” are known to have circulated
among his disciples. His influence was nevertheless immense, and his
teachings have been reconstituted by Miguel Asín Palacios, thanks to
many later references to him. 52
At the heart of Ibn Masarrah’s teachings stands a cosmology
named after Empedocles and often referred to as pseudo-Empedoclean
and insistant on the esoteric character of philosophy and even psychology.
53 His doctrines emphasized the absolute simplicity and ineffability
of the absolute Being, the emanation of the levels of existence,
the hierarchization of souls, and their emanation from the Universal
Soul. The so-called pseudo-Empedoclean cosmology is especially interesting
because of its vast influence on later Andalusian Sufism,
from Ibn al-‘Ar¥f and Ibn Barrajån to Ibn ‘Arab¥, as well as on later
Islamic philosophers such as Mullå |adrå and also Jewish philosophers
such as Solomon ben Gabirol. As already mentioned, Empedocles
was seen by Ibn Masarrah as the first of the great Greek philosophers,
followed by Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Empedocles