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

Dimensions of the Islamic Intellectual Tradition 157
illustrious predecessors. As the last great representative of the Maghribi-
Andalusian school of Islamic philosophy, Ibn Sab‘¥n embodies that
synthesis between the practical spiritual life and intellectual doctrine
that one finds in Ibn Masarrah, who stands at the origin of this school. 64
The West may have seen in the Islamic philosophy of Spain a pure
Aristotelian rationalism with which it was fascinated but which it
feared. In light of the integral tradition of Islamic philosophy, however,
it is this synthesis between practical Sufism and philosophy as
metaphysics and gnosis that represents the central message of this school.
The journey of Ibn Sab‘¥n to the East and his death in the holy city of
Mecca, the heartland of Islam, are symbolic of the wedding of that knowledge
that transforms and illuminates and the spiritual practice that opens
the heart to the reception of such a knowledge. If with the journey of Ibn
Sab‘¥n, the light of this type of philosophy became dimmed in Andalusia,
it shone already brightly in the eastern lands of Islam thanks to the teachings
of the master of the school of Illumination, Suhraward¥, whose commentators
and students were Ibn Sab‘¥n’s contemporaries.
The other major philosophical figure in the Maghrib after Ibn
Sab‘¥n was the Tunisian Ibn Khald¨n. Born in Tunis in 732/1332 he
spent his life in Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt and died in Cairo in 808/
1406. Although primarily a historian and diplomat and the author of
the well-known historical work, Kitåb al-‘ibar (The Book about Events
which Constitute a Lesson), Ibn Khald¨n was also a major philosopher
of history and in fact is considered by many to be the founder of
this discipline in both East and West. His philosophy of human society
and its history, which draws from both religious teachings and the
study of history to which was added the rich experience of a full life,
is to be found primarily in the introduction to the Kitåb al-‘ibar, which
is known as the Muqaddimah (Prolegomena). 65 A careful study of his
work reveals how even this philosophy of history can be affected by
the Islamic understanding of the rhythms of sacred history and the
providence of God, or what Ibn Khald¨n calls “mashiyyat Allåh” (literally
“what God has willed for the world”), which is an ever present
reality in the transformations and upheavals of society. 66 Outside the
domain of the philosophy of history, Ibn Khald¨n’s philosophical ideas
were of little consequence. He criticized as practically a jurisprudent
and a theologian à la Ghazzål¥ the other Islamic philosophers and
their political philosophy, for example the works of al-Fåråb¥. 66 Yet he
was saddened by the decline of the intellectual sciences in the Maghrib.
His interest in these sciences can be seen in the Muqaddimah itself, and
he devised an important classification of the Islamic sciences. 67 In any
case, he marks the swan song of classical Islamic philosophy in the