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

The Meaning and Role of Philosophy in Islam 41
defend R¨m¥ from the attack of M¥r Dåmåd in yet another poem,
some of whose lines are as follows:
O thou who reproacheth Mawlaw¥ [R¨m¥],
O thou who art deprived of an understanding [of the Mathnaw¥],
The Mathnaw¥ is the ocean of the light of the soul,
Its poetry is replete with pearl and coral.
If thou hadst an understanding of the Mathnaw¥,
Thou wouldst never raise thy tongue in its reproach.
Although the weaknesses of the faculty of reason,
Have been accounted by Mawlaw¥ in the Mathnaw¥
He did not intend by reason (‘aql) the Universal Intellect (‘aql-i kull),
For the latter is the guide upon all paths.
Rather, he meant the philosophical and particular reason,
For this is without the light of the face of Joseph. 42
Since the particular intellect [reason] is mingled with fantasy,
Therefore it is considered blameworthy by the saints. 43
The criticism made by certain Sufis of falsafah and their influence
upon its development was like the transformation brought about by
the alchemist through the presence of the philosopher’s stone. The
very substance of falsafah was changed during later Islamic history
from a rational and systematic system of thought with an Islamic form
and concerned as well with certain specifically Islamic issues to a
wisdom related to esoterism and closely wedded to illumination and
gnosis while retaining its distinct character as philosophy and making
use of rational thought. Likewise, Islamic philosophy was saved by
Islamic esoteric teachings and gnosis from the deadlock it had reached
with the type of excessive Aristotelianism of an Ibn Rushd and was
enabled to channel itself into a new direction, a direction that bestowed
upon it renewed vigor and made it a major aspect of Islamic
intellectual life in the eastern lands of Islam during the eight centuries
following the death of the Andalusian master of Aristotelianism with
whom the earlier chapter of Islamic philosophy had drawn to a close.
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In discussing the role and function of falsafah in Islam and Islamic
civilization we must note the change that took place to some degree
after the period leading to Ibn S¥nå in the East and Ibn Rushd in the
West. During the early period, which is also the formative period of
the Islamic intellectual sciences, falsafah performed a central role in the