Publisher Description

In this innovative work, Salman H. Bashier challenges traditional views of Islamic philosophy. While Islamic thought from the crucial medieval period is often depicted as a rationalistic elaboration on Aristotelian philosophy and an attempt to reconcile it with the Muslim religion, Bashier puts equal emphasis on the influence of Plato's philosophical mysticism. This shift encourages a new reading of Islamic intellectual tradition, one in which boundaries between philosophy, religion, mysticism, and myth are relaxed. Bashier shows the manner in which medieval Islamic philosophers reflected on the relation between philosophy and religion as a problem that is intrinsic to philosophy and shows how their deliberations had the effect of redefining the very limits of their philosophical thought. The problems of the origin of human beings, human language, and the world in Islamic philosophy are discussed. Bashier highlights the importance of Ibn Ṭufayl's Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, a landmark work often overlooked by scholars, and the thought of the great Sufi mystic Ibn al-ʿArabī to the mainstream of Islamic philosophy.

Islamic Philosophy has unusual origins. Originally a hybrid of Greek philosophy and early Islamic theology, its technical language consisted of a number of words translated from the Greek. This book studies how Islamic philosophers of the ninth century AD, such as al-Kindi, al-Farabi and Ibn Sina, developed an indigenous set of terms and concepts. Their Books of Definition influenced the revision of the Arabic language to incorporate these new fields of knowledge. Books of Definition in Islamic Philosophy: The Limits of Words uses the work of these philosophers as a basis from which a comparison with their Greek precedents is enabled. The book presents a framework for incorporating an Islamic and historically contextualised philosophy into a continuum of world philosophers. At the core of this framework is Ibn Sina's Kitab al-hudud which the author has translated into English and situates it in its correct geopolitical framework. In establishing a historical and literary context for the writing and circulation of Ibn Sina's definitions, the book breaks new ground in the integration of Islamic philosophy within a general history of philosophies. This fascinating and comprehensive study will be of interest to scholars and postgraduate students of Islamic Philosophy.

Provides the first complete English translation of a central text in the Islamic philosophical tradition, with meticulously researched commentary and interpretation.

Al-Kindī, honoured as the 'philosopher of the Arabs', was the first philosopher of Islam. His pioneer philosophical writings engage with ideas that became available through the Graeco-Arabic translation movement. This volume makes his entire philosophical output-some two dozen works-available in English, most of them for the first time. An overall introduction, introductions to each work and extensive notes explain al-Kindī's ideas, sources, and influence.

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.

Provides a more balanced view of medieval philosophy, in contrast to the conventional neglect of Islamic and Jewish influences on medieval Latin-Christian thought Looks at the philosophy of the three great monotheistic traditions, unlike most standard works that discuss the history of single philosophical traditions Pays attention to the influence of Neoplatonism on the three traditions, an important topic in its own right