In the course of his career, Professor Richard M. Frank of the Catholic University of America produced a hugely significant corpus of works on the intellectual activity in Classical Islam known as Kalam, which he argued should be rendered as 'speculative theology'. He also wrote on the Qur'an, on the Arabic and Syriac philosophical tradition, and argued vigorously for a new reading of the famous religious scholar and theologian al-Ghazali (d. 1111) as a devotee of the cosmology of Ibn Sina (d. 1037). In this volume, fourteen scholars, many of them contemporaries of Professor Frank, engage with his legacy with important and seminal works which take some of his ideas as their points of departure. The book is divided into six sections: the Qur'an, Paths to al-Ash'ari, Al-Ash'ari and the Kalam, Christian Falsafa, Avicenna and Beyond, and Al-Ghazali on Causality. There are major articles on Qur'anic emendations and Arabia and Late Antiquity, on the Arabic Plotinian Tradition, on Syriac Philosophical Vocabulary, and an important reading of the Greek-Arabic translation movement in terms of the practical and exact sciences. There are seminal studies of atomism, with valuable translations of complex theological passages previously untranslated, of the Christian philosophy of Yahya ibn 'Adi, of a late Mu'tazili argument for the existence of God and a hitherto unedited section on optics by Ibn Mattawayh. These are complemented by important, close readings of Avicenna's epistemology and his Metaphysics together with a major, new survey of the Avicennan tradition in the madrasas of the Islamic East. The volume ends with two discussions of the perennial question of al-Ghazali's theory of causality. In addition, the volume contains an autobiographical piece by Professor Frank and a complete bibliography of his published works.

Philosophy written in Arabic and in the Islamic world represents one of the great traditions of Western philosophy. Inspired by Greek philosophical works and the indigenous ideas of Islamic theology, Arabic philosophers from the ninth century onwards put forward ideas of great philosophical and historical importance. This collection of essays, by some of the leading scholars in Arabic philosophy, provides an introduction to the field by way of chapters devoted to individual thinkers (such as al-Farabi, Avicenna and Averroes) or groups, especially during the 'classical' period from the ninth to the twelfth centuries. It also includes chapters on areas of philosophical inquiry across the tradition, such as ethics and metaphysics. Finally, it includes chapters on later Islamic thought, and on the connections between Arabic philosophy and Greek, Jewish, and Latin philosophy. The volume also includes a useful bibliography and a chronology of the most important Arabic thinkers.

This volume introduces the major classical Arabic philosophers through substantial selections from the key works (many of which appear in translation for the first time here) in each of the fields--including logic, philosophy of science, natural philosophy, metaphysics, ethics, and politics--to which they made significant contributions. An extensive Introduction situating the works within their historical, cultural, and philosophical contexts offers support to students approaching the subject for the first time, as well as to instructors with little or no formal training in Arabic thought. A glossary, select bibliography, and index are also included.

A comprehensive reference work covering all figures of the earliest period of philosophy in the Islamic world. Both major and minor thinkers are covered, with details of biography and doctrine as well as detailed lists and summaries of each author’s works.

A comprehensive study of Muslim thinker al-Ghazali's life and his understanding of cosmology-how God creates things and events in the world, how human acts relate to God's power, and how the universe is structured.

Philosophy in the Islamic world from the 9th to 11th centuries was characterized by an engagement with Greek philosophical works in Arabic translation. This volume collects papers on both the Greek philosophers in their new Arabic guise, and on reactions to the translation movement in the period leading up to Avicenna. In a first section, Adamson provides general studies of the ’formative’ period of philosophy in the Islamic world, discussing the Arabic reception of Aristotle and of his commentators. He also argues that this formative period was characterized not just by the use of Hellenic materials, but also by a productive exchange of ideas between Greek-inspired ’philosophy (falsafa)’ and Islamic theology (kalÄm). A second section considers the underappreciated philosophical impact of Galen, using Arabic sources to understand Galen himself, and exploring the thought of the doctor and philosopher al-RÄzī, who drew on Galen as a chief inspiration. A third section looks at al-FÄrÄbī and the so-called ’Baghdad school’ of the 10th century, examining their reaction to Aristotle’s Metaphysics, his epistemology, and his famous deterministic ’sea battle’ argument. A final group of papers is devoted to Avicenna’s philosophy, which marks the beginning of a new era of philosophy in the Islamic world.

Examines Aristotle's vast influence upon the medieval Arabic philosophical tradition and includes contributions from every discipline within his corpus.