Eighth to the Sixteenth Century - Rashid Islamic Center

236 • The Making of Islamic ScienceThis led to the confiscation of his large library and a beating—both inci dents are sometimes taken as indication of persecution,even as proofs for “Islam against science and philosophy” doctrine.Historical data, however, clearly indicates that competing social,ethnic, and political interests were behind the episode. When he diedaround 870, al-Kindi’s fame spread throughout the Muslim worldand he was honored with the title of “the philosopher of the Arabs.”Although influenced by Aristotle, al-Kindi is an independent thinkerwho maintains several important and significant deviations fromAristotelian philosophy. He rejects the idea of the eternal universe,for instance. His concept of causality is also different from Aris totle,because he points to a fifth kind of causality. The following selectionfrom his On the First Philosophy presents his views on “motion.”zMotion is the motion of a body only:If there is a body, there is motion, and otherwise there would notbe motion. Motion is some change: the change of place (either) of theparts of a body and its center, or of all the parts of the body only, islocal motion; the change of place, to which the body is brought byits limits, either in nearness to or farness from its center, is increaseand decrease; the change only of its predicate qualities is alteration;and the change of its substance is generation and corruption. Everychange is a counting of the number of the duration of the body, allchange belonging to that which is temporal.If, therefore, there is motion, there is of necessity a body, while ifthere is a body, then there must of necessity either be motion or notbe motion.If there is a body and there was no motion, then either therewould be no motion at all, or it would not be, though it would bepossible for it to be. If there were no motion at all, then motion wouldnot be an existent. However, since body exists, motion is an existent,and this is an impos sible contradiction and it is not possible for thereto be no motion at all, if a body exists. If furthermore, when thereis an existing body, it is pos sible that there is existing motion, then