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

64 Part 2: Philosophical Issues
distinction between wuj¶d and måhiyyah to the Stagirite. The manner,
however, in which he and especially Ibn S¥nå, who has been called the
“philosopher of being” par excellence, 3 approached the subject and the
centrality that the study of wuj¶d gained in Islamic thought have very
much to do with the Islamic revelation itself. The Quran states explicitly,
“But His command, when He intendeth a thing, is only that he
saith unto it: Be! and it is (kun fa-yak¶n)” (36: 82); it also speaks over
and over of the creation and destruction of the world. This world as
experienced by the homo islamicus is, therefore, not synonymous with
wuj¶d. It is not “an ontological block without fissure in which essence,
existence and unity are but one.” 4
Moreover, the origin of the “chain of being” is not simply the
first link in the chain but is transcendent vis-à-vis the chain. The levels
of existence (maråtib al-wuj¶d) to which Aristotle and Theophrastus
and before them Plato refer are, therefore, from the Islamic point of
view, discontinuous with respect to their Source, which is above and
beyond them. The Quranic teachings about Allah as Creator of the
world played a most crucial role in the development of Islamic philosophy,
as far as the study of wuj¶d is concerned. On the one hand,
it made central the importance of the ontological hiatus between Being
and existents and, on the other hand, bestowed another significance
on the distinction between wuj¶d and måhiyyah by providing a meaning
to the act of existentiation or the bestowal of wuj¶d upon måhiyyah
other than what one finds in Aristotelian philosophy as it developed
among the Greeks.
A HISTORICAL SURVEY OF THE STUDY OF
WUJŪD AND MĀHIYYAH IN ISLAMIC THOUGHT
Already in his Fu„¶„ al-÷ikmah, 5 al-Fåråb¥ distinguishes clearly huwiyyah,
which in the terminology of early Islamic philosophy means that by
which something is actualized, hence wuj¶d, from måhiyyah. Ibn S¥nå,
deeply influenced by al-Fåråb¥, makes this distinction the cornerstone
of his ontology and treats it amply in many of his works, especially
the metaphysics of the Shifå˘ (Healing) and the Najåh (Salvation) as
well as in his final major philosophical opus, al-Ishåråt wa˘l-tanb¥håt
(Directives and Remarks). 6 Fakhr al-D¥n al-Råz¥, although a theologian,
continued his concern for this issue while his contemporary Shihåb
al-D¥n Suhraward¥, the founder of the school of Illumination or ishråq,
constructed a whole metaphysics of essence that would be inconceivable
without the basis established by Avicennan ontology. 7 A century
later in the seventh/thirteenth century, both Na∑¥r al-D¥n al-apple¨s¥ and