Khorasan, the Birthplace of Post-Classical Philosophy, a Land in Decline?

Post-classical philosophy in Islam developed during the sixth/twelfth century in the eastern Islamic lands, in Iraq, Iran, and what is today Central Asia. Tracing the conditions and circumstances of its development requires an understanding of the political context, the patterns of patronage, and institutions of higher education and of research during this era. This chapter offers an introduction to the political history of the sixth/twelfth century with a focus on the courts that offered patronage to philosophers, and it analyzes the proliferation of madrasas during this era and their role for higher education and research.

Books and Their Method

This chapter deals with the method of philosophical books during the sixth/twelfth century. It begins with an analysis of Abu l-Barakat al-Baghdadi’s method of i’tibar (careful consideration) and highlights its departure from al-Farabi’s and Avicenna’s (Ibn Sina’s) demonstrative method as the ideal of philosophical inquiry. The chapter looks at how Fakhr al-Din al-Razi describes his own method in his philosophical books and it analyzes the method of “probing and dividing” (sabr wa-taqsim) used therein. Finally, the chapter zooms in on the methodical differences between Fakhr al-Din’s philosophical books and his books of kalam and focuses on the principle of sufficient reason. This philosophical principle requires that every event must have a rational explanation of its cause(s). The principle is universally valid in al-Razi’s philosophical books, yet in his books on kalam only insofar as God’s will is excluded from this requirement. This difference has far-reaching effects on the teachings put forward in these two genres of books.

The Death of falsafa as a Self-Description of Philosophy

Al-Ghazali’s Precipitance of the Philosophers (Tahafut al-falasifa), published in 488/1095, changed the way the label falsafa was understood in Arabic scientific literature. Falsafa is a calque from the Greek word philosophía, and before al-Ghazali it was widely understood in a sense similar to the Greek word, namely as a reference to the scientific discipline and discourse that began with the works of Plato and Aristotle and continued in Arabic with al-Kindi or al-Farabi. Based on an earlier use of the term in kalam literature, however, al-Ghazali understood falsafa as a reference to a particular set of teachings put forward by one particular group of philosophers, namely the followers of Avicenna (Ibn Sina, d. 428/1037). Scholars of the sixth/twelfth century largely adopted this meaning of falsafa, so that in subsequent Arabic and Persian scientific literature the word was mostly used as a reference to Avicenna’s teaching and to Avicennism and not as a reference to the discipline and discourse of philosophy as such.

Philosophy and the Power of the Religious Law

Western scholars have long assumed that during the sixth/twelfth century “religious” forces hostile to the practice of philosophy in Islam became so powerful that they successfully suppressed and persecuted philosophers, so much so that this discipline waned and eventually disappeared in Islam. This chapter looks at the evidence for suppression and persecution of philosophy from the side of religious and political authorities. It particularly asks whether al-Ghazali’s fatwa on the unbelief and apostasy of philosophers who hold three clearly identified positions was ever applied. The chapter discusses several examples, most importantly the executions of ‘Ayn al-Qudat al-Hamadhani in 525/1131 and Shihab al-Din Yahya al-Suhrawardi around 588/1192. It concludes that al-Ghazali’s fatwa was likely instrumental in the death of ‘Ayn al-Qudat, yet it brought with it so many legal problems that it had next to no effect beyond the generation of al-Ghazali’s immediate students.

Conclusions

Fakhr al-Din al-Razi’s philosophical books argue for a God who acts out of pure necessity and whose creative activity goes on forever, creating a pre-eternal world. His books of kalam, however, argue for a freely choosing creator who creates a world that began at one point in time. The Conclusions explain this contradiction by suggesting that for al-Razi the rational evidence for both understandings of God was equally strong and one could not trump the other. While he never wrote a text where the arguments for both sides are compared, he wrote different kinds of books that argue forcefully for the one position or the other. Unlike al-Ghazali, al-Razi acknowledged that a pre-eternal world is possible and that Avicenna had strong arguments in favor of it. Triggered by 12th century developments on the method of philosophy and the genre of philosophical texts, al-Razi developed a new type of philosophical summa of which his Eastern Investigations (al-Mabahith al-mashriqiyya) and his Compendium on Philosophy and Logic (al-Mulakhkhas fi l-hikma wa-l-mantiq) are the prime examples.

Books and Their Genre

Beginning with an analysis of al-Ghazali’s Doctrines of the Philosophers (Maqasid al-falasifa), this chapter reconstructs the development of books in the genre of hikma during the sixth/twelfth century. The chapter suggests that works such as Fakhr al-Din al-Razi’s Eastern Investigations (al-Mabahith al-mashriqiyya) and his highly influential Compendium on Philosophy and Logic (al-Mulakhkhas fi l-hikma wa-l-mantiq) have their origins in the genre of reports of philosophical teachings written by Muslim theologians. The prime example of this genre is al-Ghazali’s Maqasid. The chapter analyzes how this latter book was viewed and used during the sixth/twelfth century and how it triggered forgeries. It shows how books that wish to report the teachings of falsafa became more and more engaged in developing these teachings, a development that ends in the two comprehensive summae of philosophy written by Fakhr al-Din al-Razi.

Books and Their Teachings

Starting with an analysis of the failure of an earlier Western engagement with post-classical philosophy in Islam during the twentieth century, the chapter highlights some startling features of this genre. It shows that different works of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi include, if compared to one another, gross contradictions. Works that he refers to as “philosophical books” are drastically different in their teachings from his books on kalam and other religious sciences. The chapter identifies these “philosophical books” and reconstructs their teachings on two particular subjects: epistemology and the understanding of God. Fakhr al-Din’s position that knowledge is a “relation” between the knower and the object of knowledge is part of a development that goes back to al-Ghazali and was pushed forward by Abu l-Barakat al-Baghdadi. Similarly his view that in God there is a distinction between existence and essence goes back to al-Ghazali’s critique of falsafa, but it also counters it and promotes an Avicennan understanding of God.

Epilogue

The short epilogue asks whether the observations this study makes about Fakhr al-Din al-Razi early career before he reached the age of 40, when he wrote philosophical books, are also true for his late œuvre? It suggests that during his late life, al-Razi was overwhelmed by an argument similar to Pascal’s wager: If the rational evidence in favor of a philosophical God is equal in strength to the rational evidence for the God of kalam, prudence dictates to choses the latter. This, because if kalam is right and God is a free-choosing and omniscient agent, then He will punish all those who deny these attributes. The God of philosophy, however, will not punish believers in those attributes. A decision in favor of the God of kalam will, in whatever circumstance, not trigger punishment in the afterlife. In his late work al-Razi decided in favor of the God of kalam, not because he thought such a decision is more convincing, but because it is more prudent.

Introduction

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.