Al-Kindi's Philosophy and Mutazilite Theology

Islamic Philosophy from the 12th to the 14th Century, 2018

The Jahangirnagar Review, 1997

Islamic philosophers, such as Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina and Ibn Rush'd attached great importance to the Greek and Hellenistic views of the soul, God, immortality, etc. Ibn Sina, following Platonic and neo-Platonic eschatological theses, holds a spiritualist view of man and the human soul as opposed to the Aristotelian tradition. Both Plotinus and Avicenna suggest that man is the highest being, a view which is reflected in the Qur´ãn and the Bible, and that man has an inclination to return to the Supreme Being, since God is the ultimate Source and the final Goal of all being. The One, which is God in Plotinus's thought, is that on which all depends and towards which all existences aspire as to their source (I.8.2). 1 So as there is a process of descent, so is there a process of ascent. This view is reflected in monotheistic religious traditions and Ibn Sina does not find any problem to endorse it. In this paper, we endeavour to show that although both Plotinus and Ibn Sina wear the mystic cloak and show sympathy towards the mystic way of life and view of the soul as being capable of returning to its origin, they differ on fundamental points. In offering his mystical experience Plotinus speaks of enjoying communion with the One, God, though through an intermediary stage of the nous or the Intellect while Ibn Sina confines himself within the conjunction (ittisaal) with, not communion (ittihaad) with, the Active Intellect, an intermediary heavenly body between God and man, involved in contemplative activity. We shall explore that Avicenna carefully rejects the Plotinian mystical 'union', which identifies the soul with God-an expression of radical or unitary mysticism-in order to safeguard the individual identity and personal immortality in his monistic system, and in so doing, Avicenna finds himself as neither a true Aristotelian, nor a true Plotinian.

2023

The discourse surrounding the nature of the soul, a central theme in the field of psychology, has endured through centuries of scholarly inquiry. Within the rich tapestry of Islamic intellectual heritage, the systematic examination of this topic found its early champion in al-Kindi, a prominent Muslim philosopher. His contributions, as explored in this article, have left an indelible mark on the Islamic and Western traditions of soul study. Employing a library research methodology, this work draws from an array of data sources, including books, articles, pamphlets, and various other printed and non-printed materials. A documentary approach is employed to methodically gather data from these diverse sources, which is subsequently subjected to descriptive analytical scrutiny. This examination yields several key findings. Al-Kindi's exploration of the soul is wide-ranging, encompassing its definition, its intricate relationship with the human body, its state when separated from the corporeal vessel, and its manifold powers. Of particular significance is the unique role played by the rational faculty, a power intrinsic to humanity that facilitates the generation of knowledge. Furthermore, al-Kindi's classification of knowledge is both notable and comprehensive, contributing significantly to the development of the nascent field of Islamic psychology. In summation, al-Kindi's profound insights have laid a robust foundation for the epistemological framework of early Islamic psychology, shaping its trajectory in enduring ways.

One of the most learned and talented Ismaili theologians of the entire Fatimid period, Ḥamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī (d. after 411/1020) rose to prominence during the reign of the Imam-caliph al-Ḥākim bi-Amr Allāh (r. 386/996-411/1021). It is well-known Ḥamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī attempted to create a complex system of thought blending together Ismaili traditions - including gnostic cosmological elements - and philosophical strands mainly drawn from Fārābian Neoplatonism. Through logical and philosophically charged sophisticated proofs, al-Kirmānī’s writings seem often to reflect a distinctive Kalamic – mainly Muʿtazilite approach - towards composite doctrinal issues. Indeed, some of the arguments adopted in treatises such as his al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāma and his magnum opus, the Rāḥat al-ʿaql might induce to regard him as an enthusiast supporter of that theological school, as were numerous Shiʿi theologians of his time. Upon reflection however, a much more stratified outlook surfaces: Asw we shall see in this paper, in his work titled Tanbīh al-hādī wa’l-mustahdī, focusing on the religious rites and the blessings derived from their practice, al-Kirmānī is often openly critical of the Muʿtazilites, whom in his view, included the Zaydīs, whilst comparing Muʿtazilite doctrines to the positions of the Magians in his Risālat Mabāsim al-bishārāt bi’l-imam al-Ḥākim bi-Amr Allāh. Moreover, in his al-Aqwāl al-dhahabiyyah, designed to criticise the philosophical views of Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakariyyāʾ al-Rāzī (d. 925) on the salvific role of reason, al-Kirmānī binds intellectual reasoning and the necessity of imamate/prophecy as a tools on the path to salvation thus implicitly denouncing some Muʿtazilite stances. In addition, al-Kirmāni’s original taʾwīl (esoteric hermeneutical interpretation) of the story of the prophets Moses and Shuʿayb (Qurʾān 7:143) presented in his Kitāb al-riyāḍ, reveals the philosopher’s attempts to justify – by proposing a reconciliation between the Mutakallimūns views on human free agency and divine sovereignty - the legitimacy of the Fatimid imam-caliphs’ role.

In his early works on the soul, the philosopher Ibn Kammūna (d. 683/1284) addresses what he considers insufficiencies in Avicenna's proofs for the eternity (and immateriality) of the rational soul. He argues that these propositions can be established through a demonstrative proof only if such a proof includes the premise that the human soul is eternal a parte ante (pre-eternal). To explain this relatively original position, the paper shows why Ibn Kammūna thought he must reject the consensus of his predecessors and contemporaries, interprets Ibn Kammūna's critique of Avicenna as a continuation of earlier critical approaches, and outlines Ibn Kammūna's proofs for the eternity a parte ante of the soul.

Journal of Islamic Studies, 2017

In: The Muslim World 107.3, 2017

This article provides a first exploration of the debate on the eternity of the world in the works of Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī (d. 631/1233) and Athīr al-Dīn al-Abharī (d. 663/1264). The focus on these two intellectuals is not random. Both al-Āmidī and al-Abharī have been renowned, influential thinkers and each is described in the secondary literature in seemingly unambiguous terms, either as an Ashʿarī theologian (in the case of al-Āmidī) or as an Avicennian philosopher (in the case of al-Abharī). Yet, neither of these descriptions is unproblematic, and so it is on the whole difficult to see whether al-Āmidī is an Avicennian at heart or an Ashʿarī partisan who resentfully defies Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī's innovations in theology or, in turn, whether al-Abharī is an actual defender of the theological dogma or parroting Avicenna’s philosophy. Against this background, then, it may also be unclear what their position was towards the most pressing of questions, viz., whether the world existed for all eternity or is the result of an origination.

Synthesis Philosophica, 2016

Despite the significance of later Islamic philosophical tradition, it has remained a neglected area of study. In this article, the evolution of the concept of the soul from its Avicennian context to post-Avicennian philosophical tradition is discussed. While the author knows of no Islamic philosopher who rejected the Peripatetic notion of the soul, post-Avicennian philosophers have added much to the discourse on the soul. Beginning with Al-Ghazzālī, we see a gradual gnosticization of the concept of the soul that reaches its zenith in the writings of Shihāb al-Dīn Suhrawardī. Having traced Suhrawardī's illuminationist (ishrāqī) doctrine of the soul, we proceeded to discuss the views of some of the ishrāqī figures on the subject matter and then explored how the concept of the soul changed in Mullā Sadrā's School of Transcendent Philosophy (al-Ḥikmat al-Mutiʻalliyah). The article ends with a general overview of the modern commentators of later philosophical tradition in Islam and those that have been influential in shaping the evolution of the concept of the soul in modern Islamic philosophical discourse.

Proceedings of the 4th International Colloquium on Interdisciplinary Islamic Studies in conjunction with the 1st International Conference on Education, Science, Technology, Indonesian and Islamic Studies, ICIIS and ICESTIIS 2021, 20-21 October 2021, Jambi, Indonesia, 2022

The interpretation of the soul in the Qur'an has different meanings, according to the context of the verses. The definition of the word soul is defined by the commentators almost the same as one another, but in Tafsir al-Jilani, the word soul is defined in a different sense with a sufistic nuance and has its own message and impression. Then, how the word soul is explained with the sufistic characteristics attached to the interpreter's side, this paper wants to explain the interpretation of the soul in the Qur'an from the side of s,ufistic interpretation so that the message and impression of the meaning soul in Qur'an can be understood.

Synthesis Philosophica, 2017

Despite the significance of later Islamic philosophical tradition, it has remained a neglected area of study. In this article, the evolution of the concept of the soul from its Avicennian context to post-Avicennian philosophical tradition is discussed. While the author knows of no Islamic philosopher who rejected the Peripatetic notion of the soul, post-Avicennian philosophers have added much to the discourse on the soul. Beginning with Al-Ghazzālī, we see a gradual gnosticization of the concept of the soul that reaches its zenith in the writings of Shihāb al-Dīn Suhrawardī. Having traced Suhrawardī's illuminationist (ishrāqī) doctrine of the soul, we proceeded to discuss the views of some of the ishrāqī figures on the subject matter and then explored how the concept of the soul changed in Mullā Sadrā's School of Transcendent Philosophy (al-Ḥikmat al-Mutiʻalliyah). The article ends with a general overview of the modern commentators of later philosophical tradition in Islam and those that have been influential in shaping the evolution of the concept of the soul in modern Islamic philosophical discourse.

2024

In contemporary literature, the apparent lack of coherence in Ibn Sīnā's (d. 1037/427) metaphysical insights, specifically on human soul, has rendered it arduous to delineate his proper intellectual originality in a systematic form. This study excavates a foundational tenet of Ibn Sīnā's theory regarding individual human souls. In The Book of Healing (Kitāb al-shifāʾ), particularly within its Metaphysics (Kitāb al-ilāhiyyāt), I contend that he ascribes metaphysical precedence to existing humans in their individualitywhat I referred to as whonessover essences and intellectual notions, the realm of whatness (māhiyyah). Contrary to the late Platonist framework, on the one hand, the Baghdadi philosopher assigns the individual human soul a higher status than essences and universals in terms of oneness, existence, and truth. On the other hand, he astutely refrained from endorsing the Aristotelian hylomorphic theory and its portrayal of instantiated universals. Moreover, this whoness realm, enshrouded by ontological mystery, incorporates some metaphysical notions initially developed for the divine paradigm.

Polemical and Exegetical Polarities in Medieval Jewish Cultures Studies in Honour of Daniel J. Lasker, eds. Ehud Krinis, Nabih Bashir, Sara Offenberg, and Shalom Sadik, 2021

The examination of Abraham bar Ḥiyya’s elaboration of the term ‘the pure soul’ (ha-neshamah ha-ṭehorah) in his treatise Megillat ha-Megalleh (Scroll of the Revealer) serves as a test-case for a basic argument: when studying the appropriation of Neoplatonic notions by Muslim and Jewish innovative authors and circles (in al-Andalus in particular), great interest lie in the encounter of the Hellenistic worldview with the Apocalyptic and Messianic tendencies prevailing in the Muslim (especially Shīʿī) and Jewish traditions, yet foreign to the Hellenistic-Neoplatonic one. As a result of this historical encounter, Neoplatonism was put to work at the service of the strong Apocalyptic tendencies of some Andalusi writers, among which Abraham bar Ḥiyya stands as a good example.

Journal of Philosophy, 2021

Numerous works have been written in different languages about the nature of the soul and soul-body relations in the viewpoint of Aristotle. In the meantime, due to the high influence that Ibn Sina has received from Aristotle in his philosophy, a considerable number of these works have also been done as comparative studies on the psychology of Aristotle and Ibn Sina. These works have explained the commonalities of the two philosophers as well as the differences that exist in Ibn Sina's psychology in definition of the soul, its essence, soul-body relations and so on. But no study has independently examined the difference between the soul and life in the viewpoint of Ibn Sina and nor compared these differences with what Aristotle expresses in his works. Our aim in this article is to compare the opinion of Aristotle and Ibn Sina about the nature of the soul and life, and to show how they think differently.

W hile the ontology of the soul is something to be dealt within philosophy, the issue of the possibility of the post-mortem existence of the soul in the case of human beings seems to require venturing beyond the strictly philosophical works of Averroes (Ibn Rushd) and into his religious writings. This is because claims made by Averroes in religious or dialectical writings regarding the human soul and its continuing existence after death have a role in the consideration of his ontology of soul. This is particularly the case since he explicitly refused to allow for a theory of double truth, one in religious matters and another in philosophy, thereby insisting implicitly that on issues such as that of the existence of the afterlife there is a single truth in a doctrine that can suitably be labeled the unity of truth. 1 And in his self-professed religious treatise Kita ¯b fas · l al-maqa ¯l wa-taqrı ¯r ma ¯ bayna al-sharı ¯'a wa-l-h · ikma min al-ittis · a ¯l (The Book of the Distinction of Discourse and the Establishment of the Connection between the Religious Law and Philosophy 2) as well as in his dialectical Taha ¯fut al-taha ¯fut (The Incoherence of the Incoherence) 3 both perhaps written ca. 1179–81, Averroes expressly states that the afterlife of the individual soul is a religious doctrine that must be affirmed, although he also holds that its precise nature is a matter of considerable variation of opinion. 4 But there is much more to this issue.