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

Notes to Chapter 2 287
appeler Fåråb¥, Avicenne, Ibn Tufayl et Averroès des ‘philosophes musulmans’.
Mais si l’on entend parler mutatis mutandis d’une ‘philosophie musulmane’ au
sens ou l’on parlera d’une ‘philosophie chrétienne’ des grands médiévaux, il
faut renoncer à leur donner ce titre. On ne peut guère les designer que comme
philosophes d’inspiration hellénistique, d’expression arabe ou persane, et
d’influences musulmanes.” In “Le problème de la philosophie musulmane,”
Mélanges offerts à Étienne Gilson (Paris: Vrin, 1959), p. 282.
It is difficult to sustain the view of Gardet if we take into consideration
such figures as Suhraward¥ and Mullå S • adrå or the Islamic philosophers of
Farangi Mahall and Khayrabad in India. Even the earlier Peripatetic (mashshå˘¥)
Islamic philosophy is much more Islamic than an appraisal such as that of
Gardet would indicate. Ibråh¥m Madkour answers the claim of Gardet and
others holding a similar view in these words: “Nous avons démontré il y a
longemps, qu’il existe une philosophie arabe, comme il existe une philosophie
grecque et une philosophe latine. Nous pouvons dire aujourd’hui qu’il existe
une métaphysique arabe ou musulmane. Elle est musulmane par ses problèmes
et par sa façon de les résoudre.” “La Métaphysique en terre d’Islam,” Mélanges
Inst. Dominicain d’Études Orientales du Caire, 7, 1962-63, p. 30. See also the
introduction to his Fi˘l-falsafat al-islåmiyyah (Cairo: Dår al-Ma‘årif, 1968).
7. See Fernand van Steenberghen, La Philosophie au XIII e siècle (Louvain:
Publications Universitaires, 1966), pp. 533–40.
8. We have dealt with the Islamicity of Islamic philosophy in many of
our writings. See for example, “The Qur’ån and ¡ad¥th as Source and Inspiration
of Islamic Philosophy,” in Nasr and Leaman (eds.), History of Islamic
Philosophy, pp. 27ff. Max Horten came close to expressing this close link between
Islamic philosophy and religion when he wrote, “Für den Philosophen
ist die Philosophie seine Religion; denn sein philosophisches System ist die
Forum, in der er sich Gott und des Weltall denkt und zugleich die Grundsätze,
nach denen er sein sittliches Leben einrichtet. Die Religion des Islam will aber
nichtes anderes sein als seine lehre über Gott und die Welt und eine Direktion
des sittlichen Handelns—Philosophia theoretica et practica,” “Religion und
Philosophie in Islam,” Der Islam, 1913, p. 1.
9. On the significance of Hermes for Islamic philosophy see Nasr, Islamic
Life and Thought, chapter 6. M¥r Findirisk¥, the eleventh/seventeenth
century Persian philosopher, calls Aristotle (or in reality Plotinus, for he was
thinking of the author of the Theology of Aristotle) “a prophet who was not a
messenger [of Divine Law] (ghayr mursal).” See ≈shtiyån¥, Anthologie des
philosophes iraniens, p. 73.
10. Already Ibn Khald¨n in his Muqaddimah, trans. Franz Rosenthal,
vol. 3 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958), pp. 52ff., considered the
later school of kalåm as philosophy, and many recent Muslim authors have
emphasized the importance of kalåm and also Sufism as forms of “Islamic
philosophy.” See for example Mu∑†afå ‘Abd al-Råziq, Tamh¥d li-ta˘r¥kh al-falsafat