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

From the School of Isfahan to the School of Tehran 255
of a number of prominent figures among the ‘ulamå˘, such as Mu†ahhar¥,
Ma±m¨d Shihåb¥, ¡å˘ir¥, and ≈shtiyån¥ in Tehran and Mashhad.
One of the living symbols and results of this growth of interest
was the establishment of the Iranian Academy of Philosophy, which
we founded by me in 1973 and in which ¡å˘ir¥, Mu†ahhar¥, and
≈shtiyån¥, not to speak of Corbin and Izutsu, were active. All of those
activities may be said to have been based on the heritage of the School
of Tehran, while in the field of traditional Islamic philosophy in the
madrasah style, the center of activity was shifting to Qom. Even after
this shift, however, Tehran remained important, and although there is
no longer a figure of the stature of Sayyid Mu±ammad Kåπim ‘A∑∑år to
represent the School of Tehran, something of the School of Tehran survives
even now. In any case Tehran remains still the most important
locus for the encounter between Islamic and Western philosophy and
along with Qom the main arena for an intense philosophical activity in
Persia not to be found to the same extent in other Islamic countries.
While the School of Tehran was flourishing in the thirteenth/
nineteenth century, other Islamic countries were also facing the onslaught
of Western thought. In Egypt and North Africa the Islamic
response came primarily from the fuqahå˘ and Sufis as it did in the
Ottoman Empire. In India however, from Shåh Wal¥ Allåh of Dehli to
Mawlånå ‘Al¥ Ashraf Thanw¥, there was also a strong response that
contained philosophical as well as fiqh¥ and ‘irfån¥ elements. In fact, in
comparison with other Islamic lands, the situation in India most resembles
that of Persia. Nevertheless, it was primarily in the School of
Tehran, and to some extent its extension in Iraq in Najaf, 53 that the
integral Islamic intellectual tradition has been preserved and that the
first philosophical contact was made with Western philosophy. The
historical significance of the School of Tehran lies in that it both preserved
the Islamic philosophical tradition into modern times and produced
the first Islamic philosophical responses to the challenges of
Western philosophical thought. The process of providing Islamic answers
to questions and to problems posed by Western thought and in
opening a new chapter in the history of Islamic philosophy that is
both authentically Islamic and therefore still “prophetic philosophy”
and responsive to problems presented by various currents of modern
thought is still going on. This chapter in the history of Islamic thought
has not as yet been fully written. But there is no doubt that the School
of Tehran is of great importance in this process and knowledge of it
necessary not only for a better understanding of the later history of
Islamic philosophy or the intellectual history of Persia during the past
two centuries but also in order to be able to continue the process of