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

42 Part 1: Islamic Philosophy and Its Study
process of the absorption and synthesis of the pre-Islamic sciences and
the formulation of the Islamic sciences. The science of logic, the problem
of the classification of the sciences, the methodology of the sciences,
and their interaction with the rest of Islamic culture were all
deeply concerned with and of concern to falsafah and its particular
elaboration in Islam. Moreover, during this early period most of the
great scientists were also philosophers so that we can speak during
the early centuries, and even later, of a single type of Muslim savant
who was both philosopher and scientist and whom we have already
called “philosopher-scientist. ”44 The development of Islamic science in
the early period is related to that of Peripatetic philosophy as well as
the philosophical trends of an anti-Peripatetic nature. Not only al-
Fåråb¥ and Ibn S¥nå, but also Mu±ammad ibn Zakariyyå˘ al-Råz¥ and
al-B¥r¨n¥ were all prominent figures of Islamic science. In fact the anti-
Peripatetic view, which is nevertheless falsafah, is particularly significant
in the development of many new ideas in the sciences. 45 In any case
during early Islamic history the cultivation and the development of
the sciences would have been inconceivable without falsafah. The
meaning of ‘÷ak¥m,’ which denotes at once a physician, scientist, and
philosopher, is the best proof of this close connection. 46
Not only did falsafah play a central role in the development of the
intellectual sciences, of which it was like the head compared to the
rest of the body, but also it was the major discipline in which tools and
instruments of analysis, logic, and rational inquiry were developed for
the transmitted sciences and other aspects of Islamic culture. The tools
of logic developed mostly by the falåsifah and in conformity with the
particular genius of Islam, in which logic plays a positive role from a
soteriological point of view and prepares the mind for illumination
and contemplation, were applied to fields ranging far and wide, from
grammar and rhetoric to even the classification and categorization of
¡ad¥th, from organizing economic activity in the bazaar to developing
the geometry and arithmetic required to construct the great monuments
of Islamic architecture. To be sure the function of the falsafah
with which we are concerned here does not involve only the rationalizing
tendencies of the Graeco-Alexandrian doctrines adopted by the
Muslim Peripatetics or specific Aristotelian teachings. It concerns more
generally the development of a climate of rational thought and of the
instrument of logic and logical reasoning, which, once developed, were
adopted by the various Islamic arts and sciences for their own ends
and in accordance with the nature of Islam and its teachings.
Also during this early period when Islam made its first contacts
with the arts and sciences of other civilizations, falsafah played an
important role in enabling the Muslims to integrate the pre-Islamic