After the ancient Greek philosopher, philosophy had continued to develop in the Islamic land. In the 7th century, Islam emerged in Mecca and spread very quickly. After 4 caliph’s period, Abbasid led the state. Philosophy began this period thanks to some supporters like Harun al-Rashid. Some scholars and some important books were brought from Constantinople. There were some reasons for this, the most important one of them was that Muslims wanted to superior to Christianity. Despite this, in Europe, Pope was the main character who prevented the development of the science and philosophy. Scholastic thoughts remained in Europe.
Abbasid’s center was moved to Baghdad. Baghdad was the one of the most developed city at these days. Under the Abbasid’s reign, there was multiplicity in public. And the government had toleration to them. This can be seen in salons. There were salons which were called majalis, people from the different religions can be discussed about their religion and philosophy approaches. In addition, the government gave the importance to science and philosophy. During to Harun al-Rashid, House of Wisdom was opened. It was composed of a library and an observatory, it was the translation center. Harun al- Rashid was not the only person who supported this kind of development. Also, some of the richest people supported the translation movement like Banu Musa brothers. Richness was a necessity to support translator because translations required lots of money.
There were three types of schools which interested intellectual developments: Jurists, theologians, and philosophers. Jurists believed that none of the holy books can include everything, so their mission was solving problems in a logical way. The second group was theologians ( mutakallimun), they interested metaphysic and dialect. Their works were not systematic. By using questions and answer, they just tried to explain the problems, did not prove them. The last group was philosophers who interested in logic and physics. Their main issues were God’s power over the world, creation and eternity of the world and immortality of the soul.
The first Muslim philosopher was Al-Kindi. He indicated the distinction between philosophy and theology. Theology is based on revelation; however, philosophy must be based on reason. Their way can be different but their conclusions were the same. Al-Kindi’s some thoughts were different from Aristotle. According to Al-Kindi, the world was created, and he believed body resurrection, miracles and Judgment day. Contrary to this, Aristotle believed the world does not have an end and a beginning. He also believed after the death only rational soul can be survived.
Unlike Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi was a follower of Neo-Platonist, he though the reason is superior to revelation. He was misunderstood but he actually meant that revelation is meaningful just for some certain people; however, the reason is true for all and philosophy is universally true. He believed revelation and reason have the same conclusion, if there is a conflict between them, scripture must be read allegorically. He also defended some Neo-Platonist idea, especially about soul and creation of the world. He though the beginning of the world is also the beginning of the time. And after death, the only rational soul exists.
At the same time period, some people thought that religion also needs rational thinking, so Kalam emerged and developed. In 9th c, it emerged with Mutazila in Baghdad and later, it was developed by Abu al-Hasan al-Ashari. According to Kalam, human does not have enough capacity to understand nature and God. Kalam’s Physical Theory is that God destroys and recreates the world every moment, so motion is possible. Everything is composed of atoms and atom’s existence is perpetual. Everything else is accidental. God causes all changes, and also everything has a secondary causation.
Kalam’s atomism was refused by Avicenna. By using the isosceles triangle’s hypotenuse, he told that if the atom is 1, then the hypotenuse must be, but 1 cannot transform to by division; therefore atomism is wrong. In addition, like Al-Farabi, he was also Neo-Platonist. He supported the Prime Mover from Aristotle, he indicated that if God creates the world, it means God changes but this is impossible. Hence, the world did not directly create by God. But its creation is a conclusion of the existing of God. The second issue which he had an explanation about it, is resurrection and Judgment Day. He believed there will be no bodily resurrection on the Day of Judgment. Because true happiness or misery cannot be felt bodily but can be felt spiritually. Heaven is the understanding of the God which is the highest level of the pleasure. In that sense, he also claimed that the concrete descriptions about the Heaven in the Quran must read allegorically. His soul and the way of understanding scripture were similar to Al-Farabi. But some philosophers like Al-Ghazali disagreed with him. His thought about the eternity of the world and resurrection were different. He did not believe the eternity of the world and supported to bodily resurrection, unlike Al-Farabi and Avicenna. Moreover, he suggested occasionalism which means the existence of everything is independent, instead of secondary causation.
Averroes was another important character in the Islamic philosophy’s history. He was against Al-Ghazali’s occasionalism. He believed the denial of cause is equal to the denial of knowledge. If there is no knowledge, then everything is an opinion which cannot be proved. If everything is opinion, this explanation is also one of the opinions. He has known as Commentator because of his works which include a very clear explanation about Aristotle, especially in Europe.
In the 7th – 12th centuries, philosophy had developed in the Islamic world. In Europe, the same opportunities and same tolerance did not exist. And philosophers mainly tried to understand the soul after death and the existence of the world and God power over the world.
(From lecture notes, 02.04.2013)
Sinem Atılgan Uşaklı 