scholarly journals Ibn Kammūna’s Understanding of the Body

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-98
Author(s):  
Fatma Zehra Pattabanoğlu
Keyword(s):  
Academic Community ◽  
The Body ◽  
Islamic Philosophy ◽  
Infinitely Divisible ◽  
Ibn Sina ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
Original Works ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Constituent Elements

Ibn Kammūna (d. 1284) is one of the prominent names to have presented the new structuring that emerged after the classical period studies of Islamic philosophy following the 12th century. This article deals with his theory of the body, previously undiscussed in the academic community. The subject has been handled in connection with the philosophy of nature and metaphysics concerning questions such as how the body exists as a possible essence and how the principles guiding this process are reflected in the field of nature, as well as what the body is and what its constituent elements, types, qualities, and additions are. Thus, Ibn Kammūna has been determined to consider the first body to be the first sphere, the later bodies to occur in the process of emanation, and the cause of the body to be the intellect. In addition, he established the body consisting of matter and form to be continuous, to point to itself, and to be an infinitely divisible substance. However, he is observed to have not evaluated matter and form, which are constituent elements of the body, under the category of substance. Moreover, this article also reviews Ibn Kammūna’s approach to the main claims of the Peripatetic and Illuminationist traditions about the body contained in his original works and commentaries. Through the proofs and reasoning made in the details of these claims, Ibn Kammūna is understood to have thought mostly in line with Ibn Sīnā about the definition and essence of the body. He occasionally agreed with Suhrawardī about the properties and additions of the body. This study investigates how Ibn Kammūna shaped Ibn Sīnā’s theory of the body, upon which Suhrawardī had expanded, and whether its content is original in this context. Thus, I aim to contribute to the field by following the processes of change, expansion, and transfer of philosophical accumulation in Islamic thought after these two philosophers who had founded of the Peripatetic and Illuminationist schools.

scholarly journals Papers of Islamic Thought Figures of Al-Farabi

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
M Makbul
Keyword(s):  
Western World ◽  
Islamic Philosophy ◽  
The West ◽  
Ibn Sina ◽  
Ibn Rushd ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
The World ◽  
Differences Of Opinion ◽  
History Of

Islam with its culture has been running for approximately 15 centuries. In such a long journey there are 5 amazing journey centuries in philosophical thought, namely between the 7th century to the 12th century. During that time, the Islamic philosophers thought about how the position of humans with others, humans with nature and humans with God, using their minds. They think systematically, analytically and critically, thus giving birth to Islamic philosophers who have high abilities because of their wisdom. Islamic philosophy grows and develops in two different areas, namely philosophy in the Masyriqi region (east) and philosophy in the Maghreb region (West). After Islam came, the Arabs controlled the areas of Persia, Syria and Egypt. So that the center of government moved from Medina to Damascus. At that time, two major cities emerged that played an important role in the history of Islamic thought, namely Basra and Kufa.Islamic philosophy in the eastern part of the world is different from the philosophy of Islam in the western world. Among the Islamic philosophers in the two regions there were differences of opinion on various points of thought. In the East there are several prominent philosophers, such as al-Kindi, al-Farabi and Ibn Sina. While in the West there are also some well-known philosophers, namely, Ibn Bajah, Ibn Thufail, and Ibn Rushd.

Soul in Islamic philosophy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shams C. Inati
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
Islamic Philosophy ◽  
Ibn Sina ◽  
Ibn Rushd ◽  
Rational Part ◽  
Important Position ◽  
Ultimate Objective ◽  
The Universe

The discussion of the human soul, its existence, nature, ultimate objective and eternity, occupies a highly important position in Islamic philosophy and forms its main focus. For the most part Muslim philosophers agreed, as did their Greek predecessors, that the soul consists of non-rational and rational parts. The non-rational part they divided into the plant and animal souls, the rational part into the practical and the theoretical intellects. All believed that the non-rational part is linked essentially to the body, but some considered the rational part as separate from the body by nature and others that all the parts of the soul are by nature material. The philosophers agreed that, while the soul is in the body, its non-rational part is to manage the body, its practical intellect is to manage worldly affairs, including those of the body, and its theoretical intellect is to know the eternal aspects of the universe. They thought that the ultimate end or happiness of the soul depends on its ability to separate itself from the demands of the body and to focus on grasping the eternal aspects of the universe. All believed that the non-rational soul comes into being and unavoidably perishes. Some, like al-Farabi, believed that the rational soul may or may not survive eternally; others, like Ibn Sina, believed that it has no beginning and no end; still others, such as Ibn Rushd, believed that the soul with all its individual parts comes into existence and is eventually destroyed.

FROM AL-GHAZĀLĪ TO AL-RĀZĪ: 6TH/12TH CENTURY DEVELOPMENTS IN MUSLIM PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGY

2005 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
AYMAN SHIHADEH
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Theology ◽  
Ibn Sina ◽  
Historical Significance ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
History Of

According to Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī (d. 771 / 1370), al-Ghazālī (d. 505 / 1111) was the renewer (mujaddid) of the Muslim faith at the end of the 5th / 11th century, whereas al-Rāzī (d. 606 /1210) was the renewer of faith at the end of the 6th / 12th century. That al-Ghazālī deserves such an honour can hardly be disputed, and his importance in the history of Islamic thought is generally recognised. However, the same cannot, as easily, be said of al-Rāzī, whose historical significance is far from being truly appreciated, and some of the most important books of whom still await publication. Much is known about his views on particular philosophical and theological problems, and about the historical backgrounds to, and the relations amongst, some of these views. Some rather general observations on his thought are also common; for instance, that he is a heavily philosophising Ash‘arī mutakallim, a master dialectician, and an influential critic of Ibn Sīnā.

The Methodology of Religious Studies in Islamic Thought

2000 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-174
Author(s):  
Muhammad Abdallah al-Sharqawi
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
Islamic Culture ◽  
The West ◽  
Religious Texts ◽  
Scientific Methods ◽  
Critical Studies ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
The Subject

The reader of the Qur'an is aware of many Qur'anic forms of inter-religious comparison. One of these is reflected in the context of the controversy of the unbelievers, or the deniers of Islamic doctrine, and one in a descriptive historical context. The Qur'an initiated the comparison of religions and revelations, and Islamic culture witnessed broad-scope activity in comparative religious studies. Islamic thought was opened up to the world's religions and made them an established subject of study and research. The intellectuals of Islam introduced numerous scientific methods which were relevant and pertinent to the nature of this subject (religions), deriving their material concerning every religion from reliable original sources. Religious Studies as a discipline has taken religions collectively to be the subject of scientific study through objective methods, having principles, characteristics and rules to which members of this academic community have aspired, and in this, Islamic thought has taken a share both early and distinctive. This article will argue that critical studies of religious texts by Jewish and Christian scholars in the West have reached the same conclusions previously reached by Muslim scholars.

scholarly journals The Islamic University

1990 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-276
Author(s):  
Fadlullah Wilmot
Keyword(s):  
Academic Staff ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
The Body ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Sources Of Knowledge ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
Development Plans ◽  
The University

In order to promote a better and more comprehensive understanding of an International Islamic University within the dynamic socio-cultural setting of the contemporary world, the International Islamic University held a four­day seminar during Muharram 8-10, 1410/August 10-14, 1989. The seminar was also designed to look at the inunediate and long-term development plans and strategies of the University to ensure that high international standards are maintained as well as practical relevance to the local socio-politico­economic environment. The Islamization of knowledge has multifaceted dimensions and implications for scholars in developing the integrated university curriculum with the appropriate teaching materials and the achievement of moral-intellectual excellence.Originally planned as an internal affair, the seminar generated interest among the academic community in Malaysia and neighboring countries so that it finally involved over 600 participants, including the academic staff of the University. There were 26 speakers from various countries and disciplines. Professor Abdul Hamid AbuSulayman in his introduction mentioned the need for Muslims to regain the intellectual dimension. He emphasized that Islamization of knowledge is not confined to the Shari'ah disciplines Islamic thought integrates two sources of knowledge-revealed knowledge and human knowledge. He mentioned the plan of the University to introduce a system whereby graduates could, in five years, obtain two degrees-one in revealed and one in worldly knowledge. In his usual erudite and scholarly manner Professor al-Attas discussed the purpose of the university and the Islamic concept of knowledge. He emphasized that the division into fardhu 'ain and fardhu kifayyah did not imply that there was no connection between the two but the division was a moral one in order to prevent compulsory knowledge being absorbed into worldly knowledge. Professor al-Attas clarified that in order to understand what we want from a university we must first understand the nature of mankind and in order for us to understand the nature of mankind we must understand the Qur'anic teaching regarding human beings, which deals not only with the body but also with the soul ...

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Frank Griffel
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Strong Influence ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Islamic Philosophy ◽  
Colonial Expansion ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Military

Starting with the observation that the beginning of the European Enlightenment coincided with the military defeat of Ottoman armies that threatened Central Europe and with the Western colonial expansion into Muslim territories, the introduction reviews how earlier generations of Western scholars have thought about philosophy in Islam. The earliest academic studies of philosophy in Islam were dominated by the Hegelian assumption of a Weltgeist that moved from Greece to Western Europe. It assumed that the philosophical tradition ended in Islam the moment it was passed unto Western Europe during the 12th century. Yielding a strong influence on the study of Islamic philosophy during the 19th and 20th centuries, this idea also determined the widespread conviction that books like al-Ghazali’s (d. 1111) Precipitance of the Philosophers (Tahafut al-falasifa) are not works of philosophy, rather they are directed against it. The introduction suggests to accept these works as books of philosophy and to draw the full consequences of that insight. It means that many books of philosophy were written in Islam after the 12th century, of which a certain kind is the subject of this study.

scholarly journals Filsafat Sufistis Suhrawardi Al-Maqtul

ESOTERIK ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 364
Author(s):  
Fathul Mufid
Keyword(s):  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Analysis Method ◽  
Philosophical Thinking ◽  
Islamic Philosophy ◽  
Philosophical Approach ◽  
Ibn Sina ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
Ancient Persia ◽  
Mystical Vision

<p class="07KatakunciKeywords">Suhrawardi built his philosophical thinking with the spirit of combining “intuition-mystical vision” with “rational-philosophical vision”. The combination of “intuition-mystic and rational-philosophical vision” is known as "hikmah al-Isyraq". The concept of Wisdom al-Isyraq is the second school of thought in Islamic Philosophy. This paper is a study of Suhrawardi's Sufistic philosophy with a historical and philosophical approach. The historical approach is used to review the thought settings that influence Suhrawardi's thoughts from the historical point of view of previous Islamic thought. In addition, a philosophical approach is also used to analyze documentary data in a fundamental, integral, and systematic manner with the descriptive-analysis method. The purpose of this paper is to trace the basic thinking of the concept of "Hikmatul Isyraq" Suhrawardi from the point of view of Sufistic philosophy. The findings of this study indicate that there are five sources of Isyraq Suhrawardi's thoughts: first, Sufism thoughts, especially al-Hallaj and al-Ghazali. Second, the thinking of Paripatetik Islamic Philosophy, especially Ibn Sina, which is considered important to understand Isyraqi's teachings. Third, philosophical thinking before Islam, namely the flow of Pytagoras, Platonism, and Hermenism. Fourth, the thought (wisdom) of ancient Persia which he considered to be the direct heir of the wisdom of the Prophet Idris As. (Hermes). Fifth, the teachings of Zoroaster, especially in using the symbol "light" and "darkness".</p>

Diaghilev and British Writing

2009 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-92
Author(s):  
Susan Jones
Keyword(s):  
Visual Arts ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Literary Responses ◽  
Literary Aesthetics ◽  
Ballets Russes ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Subject ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Opening Up

This article explores the diversity of British literary responses to Diaghilev's project, emphasising the way in which the subject matter and methodologies of Diaghilev's modernism were sometimes unexpectedly echoed in expressions of contemporary British writing. These discussions emerge both in writing about Diaghilev's work, and, more discretely, when references to the Russian Ballet find their way into the creative writing of the period, serving to anchor the texts in a particular cultural milieu or to suggest contemporary aesthetic problems in the domain of literary aesthetics developing in the period. Figures from disparate fields, including literature, music and the visual arts, brought to their criticism of the Ballets Russes their individual perspectives on its aesthetics, helping to consolidate the sense of its importance in contributing to the inter-disciplinary flavour of modernism across the arts. In the field of literature, not only did British writers evaluate the Ballets Russes in terms of their own poetics, their relationship to experimentation in the novel and in drama, they developed an increasing sense of the company's place in dance history, its choreographic innovations offering material for wider discussions, opening up the potential for literary modernism's interest in impersonality and in the ‘unsayable’, discussions of the body, primitivism and gender.

Compulsive Bodies, Creative Bodies: Beckett'sQuadand Agency in the 21stCentury

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-21
Author(s):  
Amanda Dennis
Keyword(s):  
Human Action ◽  
The Body ◽  
New Materialism ◽  
Illustrative Case ◽  
Repetitive Movement ◽  
Repetitive Tasks ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Object Oriented Ontology ◽  
Geological Space ◽  
Alternative Reading

Lying in ditches, tromping through mud, wedged in urns, trash bins, buried in earth, bodies in Beckett appear anything but capable of acting meaningfully on their environments. Bodies in Beckett seem, rather, synonymous with abjection, brokenness, and passivity—as if the human were overcome by its materiality: odours, pain, foot sores, decreased mobility. To the extent that Beckett's personae act, they act vaguely (wandering) or engage in quasi-obsessive, repetitive tasks: maniacal rocking, rotating sucking stones and biscuits, uttering words evacuated of sense, ceaseless pacing. Perhaps the most vivid dramatization of bodies compelled to meaningless, repetitive movement is Quad (1981), Beckett's ‘ballet’ for television, in which four bodies in hooded robes repeat their series ad infinitum. By 1981, has all possibility for intentional action in Beckett been foreclosed? Are we doomed, as Hamm puts it, to an eternal repetition of the same? (‘Moments for nothing, now as always, time was never and time is over, reckoning closed and story ended.’)This article proposes an alternative reading of bodily abjection, passivity and compulsivity in Beckett, a reading that implies a version of agency more capacious than voluntarism. Focusing on Quad as an illustrative case, I show how, if we shift our focus from the body's diminished possibilities for movement to the imbrication of Beckett's personae in environments (a mound of earth), things, and objects, a different story emerges: rather than dramatizing the impossibility of action, Beckett's work may sketch plans for a more ecological, post-human version of agency, a more collaborative mode of ‘acting’ that eases the divide between the human, the world of inanimate objects, and the earth.Movements such as new materialism and object-oriented ontology challenge hierarchies among subjects, objects and environments, questioning the rigid distinction between animate and inanimate, and the notion of the Anthropocene emphasizes the influence of human activity on social and geological space. A major theoretical challenge that arises from such discourses (including 20th-century challenges to the idea of an autonomous, willing, subject) is to arrive at an account of agency robust enough to survive if not the ‘death of the subject’ then its imbrication in the material and social environment it acts upon. Beckett's treatment of the human body suggests a version of agency that draws strength from a body's interaction with its environment, such that meaning is formed in the nexus between body and world. Using the example of Quad, I show how representations of the body in Beckett disturb the opposition between compulsivity (when a body is driven to move or speak in the absence of intention) and creative invention. In Quad, serial repetition works to create an interface between body and world that is receptive to meanings outside the control of a human will. Paradoxically, compulsive repetition in Beckett, despite its uncomfortable closeness to addiction, harnesses a loss of individual control that proposes a more versatile and ecologically mindful understanding of human action.

Cloud, Precinct of the Theological-Historical

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan Copjec
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
German Idealism ◽  
Islamic Philosophy ◽  
Switch Point ◽  
Late Work ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Imaginal World ◽  
Unity Of God

Regarded by many as the pre-eminent Islamicist of the twentieth century, Henry Corbin is also the subject of much criticism, aimed primarily at his supposed overemphasis on the mythological aspects of Islamic philosophy and his idiosyncratic privileging of the concept of the imaginal world. Taking seriously an unusual claim made by Steven Wasserstrom in Religion after Religion that the redeployment of Schelling's concept of tautegory by Corbin reveals all that is wrong with his work, this essay seeks to defend both the concept and Corbin's use of it. Developed by Schelling in his late work on mythology, the concept of tautegory turns out to be, for historical and theoretical reasons, a revelatory switch point. Not only does it make clear why the imaginal ‘locus’ is key to understanding the unity of God – the oneness of his apophatic and revealed dimensions – it also gives us profound insights into the links connecting Islamic philosophy, German Idealism, and psychoanalysis, which all take their bearings from the esoteric or mystical idea of an unconscious abyss.

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