Parapemikir

Ibnu Sina

Certain Qur’anic themes have dominated Islamic philosophy throughout its long history and especially during the later period when this philosophy becomes a veritable theosophy in the original and not deviant meaning of the term, theosophia corresponding exactly to the Arabic term al-hikmat al-ildhiyyah.

The first and foremost is of course the unity of the Divine Principle and ultimately Reality as such or al-tawhid which lies at the heart of the Islamic message. The Islamic philosophers were all muwahhid or followers of tawhid and saw authentic philosophy in this light.

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Mulla Sadra

There are certain Hadith which point to God having offered prophecy and philosophy or hikmab, and Luqman chose hikmah which must not be confused simply with medicine or other branches of traditional hikmah but refers to pure philosophy itself dealing with God and the ultimate causes of things.

These traditional authorities also point to such Qur’anic verses as “And He will teach him the Book [al-kitab] and Wisdom [al-hikmah]” (3 : 48) and “Behold that which I have given you of the Book and Wisdom” (3 : 81) : there are several where kitab and hikmah are mentioned together.

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Mulla Sadra

The very term al-hagigah is of the greatest significance for the understanding of the relation between Islamic philosophy and the sources of the Islamic revelation. Al-baqiqah means both truth and reality. It is related to God Himself, one of whose names is al-Hagq or the Truth, and is that whose discovery is the goal of all Islamic philosophy.

At the same time al-baqiqah constitutes the inner reality of the Qur’an and can be reached through a hermeneutic penetration of the meaning of the Sacred Text.

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Avicenna

One might say that the reality of the Islamic revelation and participation in this reality transformed the very instrument of philosophizing in the Islamic world. The theoretical intellect (al-aql a1-no ari) of the Islamic philosophers is no longer that of Aristotle although his very terminology is translated into Arabic.

The theoretical intellect, which is the epistemological instrument of all philosophical activity, is Islamicized in a subtle way that is not always detectable through only the analysis of the technical vocabulary involved. [ Read More... ]

Islamic Philosophy

Viewed from the point of view of the Western intellectual tradition, Islamic philosophy appears as simply Graeco-Alexandrian philosophy in Arabic dress, a philosophy whose sole role was to transmit certain important elements of the heritage of antiquity to the medieval West.

However, if seen, from its own perspective and in the light of the whole of the Islamic philosophical tradition which has had a twelve-century-long continuous history and is still alive today, it becomes abundantly clear that Islamic philosophy, like everything else Islamic, is deeply rooted in the Qur’an and Hadith.

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Life after Death

There are some who think revival after death is far from their understanding and ask how they shall be raised up after they have been reduced to bones and dust.

Let them recall to mind that they were created out of nothing; first as dust, then a sperm, then a leech-like clot, then a piece of flesh, partly formed and partly unformed, kept in a womb for an appointed term, then brought out as babes and then fostered so that they reached an age of full strength; and further, let them ponder over the fact that the earth is first barren and lifeless but when God pours down rain, it is stirred to life, it swells, and puts forth every kind of beautiful growth in pairs.

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