Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

Lesson 04: Islamic Methods of Thought

There have been other methods of thought in the Islamic world, at variance with the illuminationist and peripatetic methods, that have played genuine and basic roles in the development of Islamic culture. Two such methods are 'irfan (gnosis) and kalam (scholastic theology).

Neither the 'urafa' nor the mutakallimin have regarded themselves as followers of the philosophers, whether illuminationists or peripatetics. They have taken stands against the philosophers and clashed with them. These clashes have had an appreciable effect on the fate of Islamic philosophy. Irfan and kalam have both motivated Islamic philosophy through conflict and clashes and opened up new horizons for philosophy.

Four Islamic Approaches

Many of the questions Islamic philosophy addresses were first addressed by the mutakallimin or the 'urafa; although they express themselves in a way different from that of the philosophers. Islam comprehends four methods of thought, and Islamic thinkers are of any of four sorts. I am discussing methods of thought having a philosophical character in the most general sense, that is, constituting an ontology and a cosmology.

I am treating the universals of philosophy, and not the methods of thought of jurisprudence, exegesis, tradition, letters, politics, or ethics, which are another matter entirely. Each of these methods has taken on a special character under the influence of Islamic teachings and differs from its counterparts outside the Islamic sphere. The particular spirit of Islamic culture governs each.

One method is the deductive method of peripatetic philosophy. It has numerous adherents in history. Most Islamic philosophers, including Al-Kindi, Farabi, Avicenna, Khwaja Nasir ad-Din Tusi, Mir Damad, Ibn Rushd of Andalusia, Ibn Baja of Andalusia, and Ibn as-Sa'igh of Andalusia, have followed this method. The perfect exemplar of this school is Avicenna. Such philosophical works of his as the Kitab ash-Shifa' (The book of healing [the so called Sufficientia]), Isharat va Tanbihat (Allusions and admonitions), Najat (Deliverance), Danishnama-yi Ala'i (The book of knowledge, dedicated to 'Ala ad-Dawla), Mabda' va Ma 'ad (The source and the destination), Ta'liqat-i Mubahathat (Annotations to the discussions), and 'Uyun al-Hikma (Wellsprings of wisdom) are all works of peripateticism. This method relies exclusively on rational deduction and demonstration.

A second method is the illuminationist method. This has fewer adherents than the first method. It was revived by Shihab ad-Din Suhravardi and followed by Qutb ad-Din Shirazi, Shahrazuri, and a number of others. Suhravardi is considered the perfect exemplar of this school. He wrote numerous books) including the Hikmat al-lshraq (Wisdom of illumination), Talvihar (Intimations), Mutarahat (Conversations), Muqavamat (Oppositions), and Hayakil an-Nur (Temples of light). The best known of them is the Hikmat al-Ishraq; only this work is wholly devoted to the illuminationist method. Suhravardi has written some treatises in Persian, among them Avaz-i Par-i Jabra'il (The song of Gabriel's wing) and Aql-i Surkh (The red intelligence).

The illuminationist method rests on rational deduction and demonstration and on endeavour and purification of the soul. According to this method, one cannot discover the underlying realities of the universe through rational deduction and demonstration alone.

The wayfaring method of 'irfan, or Sufism, is the third method. It relies exclusively on a purification of the soul based on a concept of making one's way to God and drawing near to the Truth. This way is said to culminate in the attainment of Reality. The method of 'irfan places no confidence at all in rational deduction. The 'urafa' say that the deductionists stand on wooden legs. According to the method of ‘irfan, the goal is not just to uncover reality, but to reach it.

The method of 'irfan has numerous adherents, some of whom have grown famous in the Islamic world, including Bayazid Bistami, Hallaj, Shibli, Junayd of Baghdad, Dhu'n-Nun Misri, Abu Sa'id-i Abi'l-Khayr, Khwaja 'Abdullah Ansari, Abu Talib Makki, Abu Nasr Sarraj, Abu'l-Qasim Qushayri, Muhyi 'd-Din Ibn 'Arabi of Andalusia, Ibn Faridh of Egypt, and Mawlana Rumi. The perfect exemplar of Islamic ‘irfan, who codified it as a science and had a compelling influence on all who followed him, is Muhyi 'd-Din Ibn 'Arabi.

The wayfaring method of 'irfan has one feature in common with the illuminationist method and two features at variance with it. Their shared feature is reliance on reform, refinement, and purification of the soul. The distinguishing features of each are as follows:

The 'arif wholly rejects deduction; the illuminationist upholds it and uses thought and purification to aid each other. The illuminationist, like any other philosopher, seeks to discover reality; the ‘arif seeks to attain it.

Fourth is the deductive method of kalam. Like the peripatetic, the mutakallimin rely on rational deduction, but with two differences. First, the principles on which the mutakallimin base their reasoning are different from those on which the philosophers base theirs. The most important convention used by the mutakallimin, especially by the Mu'tazilites, is that of beauty and ugliness.

However, they differ among themselves as to the meaning of this convention: the Mu'tazilites regard the concept of beauty and ugliness as rational, but the Ash'arites regard it as canonical. The Mu'tazilites have derived a series of principles and formulae from this principle, such as the formula of grace (qa’ida-iy lutf) and the incumbency of the optimal (wujub-i aslah) upon God Most High.

The philosophers, however, regard the principle of beauty and ugliness as a nominal and human principle, like the pragmatic premises and intelligibles propounded in logic, which are useful only in polemics, not in demonstration. Accordingly, the philosophers call kalam “polemical wisdom,” as opposed to “demonstrational wisdom.”

Second, the mutakallimin, as opposed to the philosophers, regard themselves as committed, committed to the defence of the bounds of Islam. Philosophical discussion is free; that is, the philosopher has not the predetermined object of defending a particular belief, The mutakallim does have such an object. The method of kalam is subdivided into three methods: the Mu'tazilite, the Ash'arite, and the Shi'ite.

Mu'tazilites are numerous in history. There are Abu'l Hudhayl 'Allaf, Nazzam, Jahiz, Abu 'Ubayda, and Mu'ammar ibn Muthanna, all of whom lived in the second or third centuries of the Hijra. Qazi 'Abd al-Jabbar in the fourth century and Zamakhshari around the turn of the fifth-sixth centuries also exemplify this school.

Shaykh Abu'l-Hasan Ash'ari (d. 330) perfectly exemplifies the Ash'arite school. Qazi Abu Bakr Baqillani, Imam al-Haramayn Juvayni, Ghazali, and Fakhr ad-Din Razi all followed the Ash'ari method.

Shi'i mutakallimin are also numerous. Hisham ibn al-Hikam, a companion of Imam Ja'far Sadiq (upon whom be peace) was a Shi'i mutakallim. The Nawbakhti family, an Iranian Shi'i family, produced some outstanding mutakallims. Shaykh Mufid and Sayyid Murtadha 'Alam al-Huda are also ranked among Shi'i mutakallimin. The perfect exemplar of Shi'i kalam is Khwaja Nasir ad-Din Tusi. His Tajrid al-'Aqa 'id (Refinement of beliefs) is one of the most famous works of kalam. He was also a philosopher and mathematician. After him, kalam took a wholly different course and assumed a more philosophical character.

Among the Sunnis' works of kalam, the most famous is the Sharh-i Mavaqif (Elucidation of the stations), with text by Qazi 'Azud ad-Din Iji (a contemporary of Hafiz, who praised him in his poetry) and annotations by Sharif Jurjani. This work was deeply influenced by the Tajrid al- Aqa'id.

Lesson 05: Sublime Wisdom

The four streams of thought continued in the Islamic world until they reached a point of confluence called “sublime wisdom” (hikmat-i muta‘aliya). The science of sublime wisdom was founded by Sadr al-Muta'allihin Shirazi (or Mulla Sadra) (d. l050/l640).13 The term “sublime wisdom” occurs in Avicenna's Isharat, but Avicenna's philosophy never became known by this name.

Mulla Sadra formally designated his philosophy sublime wisdom, and it became so known. His school resembles Suhravardi's in method in seeking to combine demonstration with mystic vision and direct witness, but it differs in its principles and conclusions.

In Mulla Sadra's school, many of the points of disagreement between peripateticism and illuminationism, between philosophy and 'irfan, or between philosophy and kalam have been definitively resolved. Mulla Sadra's philosophy is not a syncretism, however, but a unique philosophical system, that, although the various Islamic methods of thought had an impact on its formation, one must regard as autonomous.

Mulla Sadra has written numerous works, among them the Asfar-i Arba’a (The four journeys, or books), Ash-Shavahid ar-Rububiya (Witnesses to lordship), Mabda’ va Ma’ad (The source and the destination), ‘Arshiya (On the Empyrean), Masha'ir (The perceptual faculties), and Sharh-i Hidaya-yi Athir ad-Din Abhari (An elucidation of Athir ad-Din Abhari's guidance).

Among Mulla Sadra's followers is Hajj Mulla Hadi Sabzavari (1212/1798-1289/1878), author of the Kitab-i Manzuma (The rhymed book) and the Sharh-i Manzuma (The elucidation of the rhymed book). A typical basic library for study of the ancient sciences might consist of Sabzavari's Sharh-i Manzuma, Mulla Sadra's Asfar, Avicenna's Isharat and Shifa', and Suhravardi's Hikmat al-Ishraq.

Mulla Sadra organised the philosophical topics concerning the intellectual and rational way in a manner paralleling the manner in which the 'urafa' had propounded the way of the heart and spirit. The 'urafa’ hold that the wayfarer accomplishes four journeys in carrying through the method of the ‘arif:

1. The journey from creation to God. At this stage, the wayfarer attempts to transcend nature as well as certain supernatural worlds in order to reach the Divine Essence, leaving no veil between himself and God.

2. The journey by God in God. After the wayfarer attains proximate knowledge of God, with His help the wayfarer journeys through His phases, perfections, names, and attributes.

3. The journey from God to creation by God. In this journey, the wayfarer returns to creation and rejoins people, but this return does not mean separation and remoteness from the Divine Essence. Rather, the wayfarer sees the Divine Essence with all things and in all things.

4. The journey in Creation by God. In this journey, the wayfarer undertakes to guide the people and lead them to the Truth.

Mulla Sadra, considering that philosophical questions constitute a “way,” if a mental one, sorted them into four sets:

1. Topics that constitute a foundation or preliminary to the study of Tawhid. These (the ordinary matter of philosophy) constitute our mental journey from creation to God.

2. Topics of Tawhid, theology, and divine attributes-The journey by God in God.

3. Topics of the divine acts, the universal worlds of being-the journey from God to creation by God.

4. Topics of the soul and the Destination (ma 'ad)-the journey in creation by God.

The Asfar Arba 'a, which means the Four Journeys, is organised on this basis. Mulla Sadra, who called his special philosophical system sublime wisdom, referred to conventional philosophy, whether illuminationist or peripatetic, as common or conventional philosophy.

Overview of Philosophies and Wisdoms

Philosophy and wisdom, in the widest sense, are variously classified from different perspectives; but if we consider them from the standpoint of method, they fall under four headings: deductive wisdom3 experiential wisdom, experimental wisdom, and polemical wisdom.

Deductive wisdom rests on syllogism and demonstration. It has to do only with greater and lesser, result and concomitant, contradictory and contrary, and the like. Experiential wisdom pertains not only to deduction but to experience, inspiration, and illumination. It takes its inspiration more from the heart than from the reason.

Experimental wisdom pertains neither to a priori reasoning and deduction nor to the heart and its inspirations. It pertains to sense, trial, and experiment. It takes the products of the sciences, the fruits of trial and experiment, and, by interrelating them, welds them into wisdom and philosophy.

Polemical wisdom is deductive, but the premises for its deductions are what logicians call common knowledge (mashhurar) and accepted facts (maqbulat). There are several kinds of premises to deduction, including first axioms (badihiyat) and common knowledge. For instance, the idea that two things each equal to a third are equal to each other, which is expressed in the phrase “the equal to the equal are equal,” and the idea that it is absurd for a proposition and its contradictory to hold true at once are considered axiomatic. The idea that it is ugly to yawn in the presence of others is considered common knowledge.

Deduction on the basis of axioms is called demonstration, and deduction on the basis of common knowledge is considered an element of polemics. Therefore, polemical wisdom means a wisdom that deduces global and universal ideas from common knowledge.

The mutakallimin generally base their deductions on the beauty or the ugliness of a thing, on rational beauty and ugliness, so to speak. The hukama' hold that all beauty and ugliness relate to the sphere of human life; one cannot evaluate God, the universe, and being by these criteria. Thus, the hukama' call kalam polemical wisdom.

The hukama’ believe that the central principles of religion may be better deduced from the premises of demonstration and in reliance on first axioms than from the premises of common knowledge and polemics. In Islamic times, especially among the Shi'a, philosophy, without departing from its mission of free inquiry and committing itself in advance, gradually proved the best source of support for Islamic principles. Accordingly, polemical wisdom, in the hands of such persons as Khwaja Nasir ad-Din Tusi, gradually took on a demonstrational and illuminationistic character. Thus, kalam came to be overshadowed by philosophy.

Although experimental wisdom is extraordinarily valuable, it has two shortcomings. One is that its compass is confined to the experimental sciences, and the experimental sciences are confined to what is sensible and palpable. Man's philosophical needs extend beyond what is in the domain of sense experience. For instance, when we discuss the possibility of a beginning of time, an end to space, or an origin for causes, how are we to find what we seek in the laboratory or under the microscope? Thus, experimental wisdom cannot satiate man's philosophical instinct and must elect silence on basic philosophical questions.

The other shortcoming lies in the fact that the value of experimental questions is rendered precarious by their confinement to and dependence upon nature. Questions of experimental science have a time-bound value and may grow obsolescent at any moment. A wisdom based on experiment is naturally precarious and so does not meet a basic human need, the need for certainty. Certainty arises in questions having mathematical abstraction or philosophical abstraction, and the meanings of mathematical and philosophical abstractions can be clarified only by philosophy.

There remain deductive wisdom and experiential wisdom. The questions discussed in the following sections should elucidate these two wisdoms and spell out their value.

Lesson 06: Problems in Philosophy

Being

Philosophical questions pivot on being. That which is to philosophy what the body is to medicine, number is to mathematics, or quantify is to geometry is being qua being. It is the subject of philosophy and all philosophical topics turn on it. In other words, philosophy has for its subject existence.

Several kinds of questions turn on being. One is questions pertaining to being, or existence, and its opposites in the two respective senses: nonbeing and essence (mahiya).14 There is nothing but being in the objective world. Being has no opposite outside the mind. But the conceptualising mind of man has formed two concepts vis-a-vis being or existence: nonbeing and essence (of course, essences). A range of philosophical questions, especially in sublime wisdom, pertains to existence and essence, and another range pertains to being and nonbeing.

A second group of questions pertains to divisions of being. Being in its turn has divisions that are regarded as amounting to species of being; in other words, being is divisible (for instance, into the objective and the subjective, the necessary and the possible, the eternal and the created in time, the stable and the changing, the singular and the plural, the potential and the act, and the substance and the accident). Of course, these are the primary divisions of being, that is, the divisions that enter into being by virtue of the fact that it is being.

To illustrate, divisions into black and white, large and small, equal and unequal, odd and even, or long and short are divisions not in being qua being but in being qua body or in being qua quantifiable. Corporeality in being corporeality, or quantity in being quantity, admits of such division. However, division into singular and plural, or division into necessary and possible, is division of being qua being.

Close research has been done in philosophy as to the criteria for these divisions, what distinguishes the divisions of being qua being from other divisions. Some philosophers have regarded certain divisions as applying to body qua body and thus falling outside the scope of first philosophy, but other philosophers for various reasons have regarded these divisions as applying to being qua being and thus falling under this same domain.

A third group of questions pertains to the universal laws governing being, such as causality, the correspondence of cause and effect, the necessity governing the system of cause and effect, and priority versus synchronism among the levels of being.

A fourth group of questions pertains to demonstration of the planes of being or worlds of being. Being has particular planes or worlds. The hukama' of Islam believe that there are four general worlds or four emergences (nash'a):

1. The world of nature, or the nasut

2. The world of ideas, or the malakut

3. The world of [separate] intelligences, or the jabarut

4. The world of divinity, or the lahut

The world of nasut is the world of matter, motion, and space-time. It is the world of nature and sense objects, this world. The world of [Platonic] ideas [similitudes], or the malakut, is a world superior to nature, having forms and dimensions, but lacking motion, time, and change.

The world of jabarut is the world of the [separate] intelligences or the world of the [abstract] idea (ma'na), free of forms and images and thus superior to the world of malakut. The world of lahut is the world of divinity and unity.

A fifth group of questions pertains to the relations between the world of nature and the worlds above it, the descent of being from lahut to nature, and to the ascent from nature to the higher worlds. With special reference to man, these are called questions of the destination (ma 'ad) and figure very prominently in sublime wisdom.

Existence and Essence

Is existence substantive, or is essence? We always distinguish two valid senses in which things may be spoken of: the isness of a thing and the whatness of a thing. For instance, we know that man is, the tree is, number is, and quantity is, but number has one whatness, one essence, and man has another.15 If we ask, “What is number?” we receive one answer. If we ask, “What is man?” we receive another.

Many things have a patent isness; that is, we know that they are. But we may not know what they are. For instance, we know that life is or that electricity is, but we may not know what life is or what electricity is. We know what many things are-for instance, we have a clear definition of a circle and so know what a circle is-but we do not know whether the circle exists in objective nature. Thus, isness is something other than whatness.

This plurality, this dichotomy of essence and existence, is purely subjective. In extensional reality, no thing is twofold. Therefore, one of these two is objectively so and substantive, and the other is nominal and not substantive.

The whole question of existentialism versus essentialism has no ancient historical antecedents. This topic originated in the Islamic world. None of the early philosophers, Farabi, Avicenna, Khwaja Nasir ad-Din Tusi, or even Suhravardi, discussed anything under this heading. The topic made its debut in philosophy in the time of Mir Damad (the beginning of the eleventh century of the Hijra.

Mir Damad was an essentialist. However, his famous pupil, Mulla Sadra, made a compelling case for existentialism, and from then onward, every philosopher of note has been an existentialist.16 In the third volume of UsuI-i Falsafa va Ravish-i Ri'alism, I have discussed the respective ideas of the 'urafa', the mutakallimin, and the philosophers as precursors to this philosophical conception of Mulla Sadra's.

Another philosophy sometimes known as existentialism has flourished in our own time. This form of existentialism pertains to man and has reference to the idea that man, by contrast with all other beings, has no definite, preassigned essence and no form determined by nature. Man designs and builds his own whatness.

This idea is largely correct and supported by Islamic philosophy, except that, what in Islamic philosophy is called existentialism does not apply to man alone, but to the whole universe, and, second, when we speak of existentialism or isalat-i vujud in an Islamic context, we are using the term isalat (-ism) in its sense of substantive reality or objective being, as opposed to nominal or mental existence. When we use it in the Western context of modern existentialism, we are using it in its sense of primacy or priority. One should by no means conflate the two senses.

Lesson 07: The Objective and the Subjective

A thing is either objective or subjective. Objective being means being external to and independent of man's mind. We know, for instance, that mountain, sea, and plain have being external to our minds and independent of them. Whether our minds conceive of them or not, indeed, whether ourselves and our minds exist or not, mountain, sea, and plain exist.

But that mountain, sea, and plain have an existence in our minds as well. When we imagine them, we give them being in our minds. The being things find in our minds is called subjective being or mental being.

Two questions arise here. One is why the images of things appearing in our minds should be conceived of as a kind of being for those things in our minds. If they are, one might say that the image of a thing painted on a wall or printed on a sheet of paper deserves to be called another kind of being, a parietal being or a papyraceous being. If we term mental images a form of being for the thing imagined, to be just, we have employed a metaphor and not spoken the literal truth, but philosophy ought to deal with the literal truth.

The relation of a mental form to an external object (for instance, the relation of a mental mountain or sea to an external mountain or sea) is far more profound than the relation of the picture of a mountain or a sea on a sheet of paper or a wall to that external mountain or sea. If what appears in the mind were only a simple image, it would never give rise to consciousness, just as the image on the wall does not give rise to consciousness in the wall. Rather, the mental image is consciousness itself.

The other question is whether mental being, as a concept actually relating to man and the human psyche, belongs to the realm of psychology. Philosophy deals with general questions, and such particular questions pertain to the sciences.

Philosophers have demonstrated that we are conscious of external objects because our mental images, far from being simple, are a kind of realisation of existence in our minds for the essences (mahiya) of the objects. Although from one standpoint, the question of mental images is a question of the human psyche and so belongs to the field of psychology, from another standpoint, that man's mind is in fact another emergence (nash'a) of being, resulting in being in its essence taking two forms, subjective and objective, it is a question for philosophy.

Avicenna and Mulla Sadra have said (the former allusively, near the beginning of the “Ilahiyat” of his Shifa’ and the latter explicitly and at length in his commentary to the same work) that at times a question may pertain to two different disciplines from two standpoints; for instance, a question may pertain to philosophy from one standpoint and to the natural sciences from another.

Truth and Error

The question of mental being bas another angle that has been studied: It has to do with the validity of perceptions, the extent to which our perceptions, sensations, and conceptions of the external world are valid. From ancient times, philosophers have asked whether what we perceive of an object by means of our senses or our reason corresponds to actuality, the thing in itself.

Some postulate that some of our sense perceptions or rational perceptions do correspond to actuality, the thing in itself, and some do not. Those that correspond to actuality are termed “truth,” and those that do not are termed “error.” Sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell are all subject to error. But most of our sense perceptions correspond fully to reality. Through these same senses, we accurately distinguish night from day, far from near, large from small in volume, tough from smooth, and cold from hot.

Our reason is likewise subject to error. Logic was compiled to avert errors of the reason in its deductions. But most of our rational deductions are valid. When we add up all the debits and all the credits in a ledger and subtract the former from the latter, we are performing a mental and rational procedure that we are perfectly assured will hold true if we are sufficiently careful and exact.

However, the Sophists of Greece denied the distinction between truth and error. They said that whatever some person feels and thinks is for that person the truth. They said that man is the measure of all things. They radically denied reality and, having denied it, left nothing in corresponding to which man's perceptions and sensations could be true and in failing to correspond to which they could be erroneous.

The Sophists were contemporaries of Socrates (Socrates came along near the close of the Sophist period). Protagoras and Gorgias are two famous Sophists. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle rebelled against them.

After Aristotle's time, another group appeared in Alexandria, called the Skeptics, the most famous of whom is Pyrrho. The Skeptics did not deny actuality in principle but denied that human perceptions correspond to it. They said that one perceives an object in a certain way under the influence of internal states and certain external conditions. Sometimes two people experiencing different states or viewing from different angles will see the same event in two different ways. A thing may appear ugly in one's eyes and beautiful in another's, or single in one's eyes and double in another's. The air may feel warm to one and cold to another. A flavor may taste sweet to one and bitter to another. The Skeptics, like the Sophists, denied the validity of knowledge.

Bishop Berkeley wholly rejects external reality. No one has been able to refute his reasons for his position, although everyone knows they are fallacious.

Those who have sought a reply to the ancient Sophists exemplified by Berkeley have not taken the approach that could resolve the sophism. The philosophers of Islam have held that the basic approach to resolving this sophism consists in our perceiving the reality of mental being. Only thus is the puzzle solved.

In approaching mental being, the hukama’ of Islam first define knowledge, or perception, as consisting in a kind of being for the oblect perceived within the being of the perceiver. They go on to cite certain demonstrations in support of this position, and then they recount and reply to certain objections to mental being or allegations of problems in it.

This topic did not exist in this form early in the Islamic period and a fortiori did not exist in Hellenic times. Nasir ad-Din Tusi was the first to speak of the objective and the subjective in his works of philosophy and kalam. Thereafter, it came to occupy a major place in the works of such comparatively recent philosophers as Mulla Sadra and Mulla Hadi Sabzavari. Farabi, Avicenna, and even Suhravardi, as well as their followers, never broached the subject of mental being or even used the term in their works. The term first appeared after Avicenna's time.

However, what Farabi and Avicenna said on other subjects shows that they believed perception to consist of a simulacrum of the reality of the object perceived within the being of the perceiver. But they neither sought to demonstrate this point nor conceived of it as an independent question of being, an independent division of being.