Everything about Early Islamic Philosophy totally explained
Early Islamic philosophy or
classical Islamic philosophy is considered influential in the rise of modern
philosophy. The classical period of Islamic philosophy refers to the
Islamic Golden Age, which is variously dated between the 8th and 16th centuries.
Some of the significant achievements of early
Muslim philosophers included the development of a strict
science of citation, the
isnad or "backing"; the development of a
method of open inquiry to disprove claims, the
ijtihad, which could be generally applied to many types of questions (although which to apply it to is an ethical question); the willingness to both accept and challenge authority within the same process; recognition that science and philosophy are both subordinate to morality, and that moral choices are prior to any investigation or concern with either; the separation of
theology (
kalam) and
law (
shariah) during the early
Abbasid period, a precursor to
secularism; the distinction between
religion and
philosophy, marking the beginning of
secular thought; the beginning of a
peer review process; early ideas on
evolution; the beginnings of the
scientific method, an important contribution to the
philosophy of science; the first forms of non-
Aristotelian logic and the introduction of
temporal modal logic and
inductive logic; the beginning of
social philosophy, including the formulation of theories on
social cohesion and
social conflict; the beginning of the
philosophy of history; the development of the
philosophical novel and concepts of
empiricism and
tabula rasa; the development of
essentialism and
existentialism, etc.
Thomas Aquinas knew of at least some of the
Mutazilite work, and the
Renaissance and the use of
empirical methods were inspired at least in part by Arabic works
translated into Latin during the
Renaissance of the 12th century, and taken during the
Reconquista in
1492.
Early Islamic philosophy can be divided into clear sets of influences, branches, schools, and fields, as described below.
Origin
Muhammad
The life of
Muhammad or
sira which generated both the
Qur'an (revelation) and
hadith (his daily utterances and discourses on social and legal matters), during which philosophy was defined by Muslims as consisting in acceptance or rejection of his message. Together the sira and hadith constitute the
sunnah and are validated by
isnad ("backing") to determine the likely truth of the report of any given saying of Muhammad. Key figures are
Imam Jaffar as-Sadegh (AS),
Imam Bukhari,
Imam Muslim,
Al-Tirmidhi,
Ibn Majah,
Abu Dawud and
Al-Nasa'i. Each sifted through literally millions of hadith to accept a list of under 10,000. This work, which wasn't completed until the
10th century, began shortly after
The Farewell Sermon in
631, after which Muhammad couldn't mediate disputes. After his death
Abu Bakr began to collect all fragments of his sayings.
Branches
Kalam
With
Kalam, questions about the
sira and
hadith, as well as science (
Islamic science) and law (
fiqh and
sharia), began to be investigated beyond the scope of Muhammad's beliefs. This period is characterized by emergence of
ijtihad and the first
fiqh. As the Sunnah became published and accepted, philosophy separate from
Muslim theology was discouraged due to a lack of participants. During this period, traditions similar to
Socratic method began to evolve, but philosophy remained subordinate to religion. "Kalam" generally referred to the Islamic tradition of seeking
theological principles through
dialectic.
Independent minds exploiting the methods of
ijtihad sought to investigate the doctrines of the
Qur'an, which until then had been accepted in faith on the authority of divine revelation. One of first debates was that between partisan of the
Qadar (
Arabic:
qadara, to have power), who affirmed
free will, and the
Jabarites (jabar, force, constraint), who maintained the belief in
fatalism.
At the second century of the
Hijra, a new movement arose in the theological school of
Basra,
Iraq. A pupil,
Wasil ibn Ata, who was expelled from the school because his answers were contrary to then orthodox Islamic tradition and became leader of a new school, and systematized the radical opinions of preceding sects, particularly those of the Qadarites. This new school was called
Mutazilite (from i'tazala, to separate oneself, to dissent). Its principal dogmas were three:
- God is an absolute unity, and no attribute can be ascribed to Him.
- Man is a free agent. It is on account of these two principles that the Mu'tazilities designate themselves the "Partisans of Justice and Unity".
- All knowledge necessary for the salvation of man emanates from his reason; humans could acquire knowledge before, as well as after, Revelation, by the sole light of reason. This fact makes knowledge obligatory upon all men, at all times, and in all places.
The Mutazilities, compelled to defend their principles against the orthodox Islam of their day, looked for support in
philosophy, and are one of the first to pursue a
rational theology called
Ilm-al-Kalam (
Scholastic theology); those professing it were called
Mutakallamin. This appellation became the common name for all seeking philosophical demonstration in confirmation of religious principles. The first Mutakallamin had to debate both the orthodox and the non-
Muslims, and they may be described as occupying the middle ground between those two parties. But subsequent generations were to large extent critical towards the Mutazilite school, especially after formation of the
Asharite concepts.
Falsafa
From the
9th century onwards, owing to
Caliph al-Ma'mun and his successor,
Greek philosophy and
Hellenistic philosophy were introduced among the
Persians and
Arabs, and the
Peripatetic and
Neoplatonic schools began to find able representatives among them; such were
al-Kindi,
al-Farabi,
Avicenna (Ibn Sina), and
Averroes (Ibn Rushd), all of whose fundamental principles were considered as criticized by the Mutakallamin.
During the
Abbasid caliphate a number of thinkers and scientists, some of them
heterodox Muslims or non-Muslims, played a role in transmitting Greek, Hellenistic,
Indian and other pre-Islamic knowledge to the
Christian West. They contributed to making
Aristotle known in Christian
Europe. Three speculative thinkers, the two
Persians al-Farabi and
Avicenna and the
Arab al-Kindi, combined
Aristotelianism and
Neoplatonism with other ideas introduced through Islam. They were considered by many as highly unorthodox and a few even described them as non-Islamic philosophers.
From
Spain Arabic philosophic literature was translated into
Hebrew and
Latin, contributing to the development of modern European philosophy. The philosophers
Moses Maimonides (a
Jew born in
Muslim Spain) and
Ibn Khaldun (born in modern-day
Tunisia), the father of
sociology and
historiography, were also important philosophers, though the latter didn't identify himself as a
falsafa, but rather a
kalam author.
Some differences between Kalam and Falsafa
Aristotle attempted to demonstrate the unity of God; but from the view which he maintained, that matter was eternal, it followed that God couldn't be the
Creator of the world. To assert that God's knowledge extends only to the general laws of the universe, and not to individual and accidental things, is tantamount to denying
prophecy. One other point shocked the faith of the Mutakallamin — the theory of intellect. The
Peripatetics taught that the human
soul was only an aptitude — a faculty capable of attaining every variety of passive perfection — and that through information and virtue it became qualified for union with the active intellect, which latter emanates from God. To admit this theory would be to deny the
immortality of the soul.
Wherefore the Mutakallamin had, before anything else, to establish a system of philosophy to demonstrate the creation of matter, and they adopted to that end the theory of atoms as enunciated by Democritus. They taught that atoms possess neither quantity nor extension. Originally atoms were created by God, and are created now as occasion seems to require. Bodies come into existence or die, through the aggregation or the sunderance of these atoms. But this theory didn't remove the objections of philosophy to a creation of matter.
For, indeed, if it be supposed that
God commenced His work at a certain definite time by His "will," and for a certain definite object, it must be admitted that He was imperfect before accomplishing His will, or before attaining His object. In order to obviate this difficulty, the Motekallamin extended their theory of the atoms to
Time, and claimed that just as
Space is constituted of atoms and vacuum, Time, likewise, is constituted of small indivisible moments. The creation of the world once established, it was an easy matter for them to demonstrate the existence of a Creator, and that God is unique,
omnipotent, and
omniscient.
Main protagonists of Falsafa and their critics
The twelfth century saw the apotheosis of pure philosophy and the decline of the Kalam, which latter, being attacked by both the philosophers and the orthodox, perished for lack of champions. This supreme exaltation of philosophy may be attributed, in great measure, to Al-
Ghazali (1005-1111) among the Persians, and to
Judah ha-Levi (1140) among the Jews. It can be argued that the attacks directed against the philosophers by
Ghazali in his work, "Tahafut al-Falasifa" (The Destruction of the Philosophers), not only produced, by reaction, a current favorable to philosophy, but induced the philosophers themselves to profit by his criticism. They thereafter made their theories clearer and their logic closer. The influence of this reaction brought forth the two greatest philosophers that the Islamic Peripatetic school ever produced, namely,
Ibn Bajjah (Avempace) and
Ibn Rushd (
Averroes), both of whom undertook the defense of philosophy.
Since no idea and no literary or philosophical movement ever germinated on Persian or Arabian soil without leaving its impress on the Jews, the
Persian Ghazali found an imitator in the person of Judah ha-Levi. This poet also took upon himself to free his religion from what he saw as the shackles of speculative philosophy, and to this end wrote the "Kuzari," in which he sought to discredit all schools of philosophy alike. He passes severe censure upon the Mutakallamin for seeking to support religion by philosophy. He says, "I consider him to have attained the highest degree of perfection who is convinced of religious truths without having scrutinized them and reasoned over them" ("Kuzari," v.). Then he reduced the chief propositions of the Mutakallamin, to prove the unity of God, to ten in number, describing them at length, and concluding in these terms: "Does the
Kalam give us more information concerning God and His attributes than the prophet did?" (Ib. iii. and iv.) Aristotelianism finds no favor in
Judah ha-Levi's eyes, for it's no less given to details and criticism; Neoplatonism alone suited him somewhat, owing to its appeal to his poetic temperament.
Ibn Rushd (or Ibn Roshd or Averroës), the contemporary of
Maimonides, closed the first great philosophical era of the Muslims. The theories of Ibn Rushd don't differ fundamentally from those of
Ibn Bajjah and
Ibn Tufail, who only follow the teachings of Ibn Sina and Al-Farabi. Like all Islamic Peripatetics, Ibn Rushd admits the hypothesis of the intelligence of the spheres and the hypothesis of universal emanation, through which motion is communicated from place to place to all parts of the universe as far as the supreme world—hypotheses which, in the mind of the Arabic philosophers, did away with the dualism involved in Aristotle's doctrine of pure energy and eternal matter. His ideas on the separation of philosophy and religion, further developed by the
Averroist school of philosophy, were later influential in the development of modern
secularism.
Judeo-Islamic philosophy
The oldest Jewish religio-philosophical work preserved is that of
Saadia Gaon (
892-
942),
Emunot ve-Deot, "The Book of Beliefs and Opinions". In this work Saadia treats the questions that interested the Mutakallamin, such as the creation of matter, the unity of God, the divine attributes, the soul, etc. Saadia criticizes other philosophers severely. For Saadia there was no problem as to creation: God created the world
ex nihilo, just as the
Bible attests; and he contests the theory of the Mutakallamin in reference to atoms, which theory, he declares, is just as contrary to reason and religion as the theory of the philosophers professing the eternity of matter.
To prove the unity of God, Saadia uses the demonstrations of the Mutakallamin. Only the attributes of essence (
sifat al-dhatia) can be ascribed to God, but not the attributes of action (sifat-al-fi'aliya). The soul is a substance more delicate even than that of the celestial spheres. Here Saadia controverts the Mutakallamin, who considered the soul an "accident" 'arad (compare
Guide for the Perplexed i. 74), and employs the following one of their premises to justify his position: "Only a substance can be the substratum of an accident" (that is, of a non-essential property of things). Saadia argues: "If the soul be an accident only, it can itself have no such accidents as wisdom, joy, love," etc. Saadia was thus in every way a supporter of the Kalam; and if at times he deviated from its doctrines, it was owing to his religious views; just as the Jewish and Muslim Peripatetics stopped short in their respective Aristotelianism whenever there was danger of wounding orthodox religion.
Schools
Mu'tazili school
The rise of the
Mutazilites, which was partly influenced by
Greek philosophy and
Hellenistic philosophy, integrating
Plato,
Aristotle and
Plotinus in particular, and expand the use of
ijtihad ("independent thought") to open questions of science and society, and what we today call modern
philosophy. During this period the procedural traditions of
Islam were highly developed. Ijtihad had strong influences on the development of the modern
scientific method, while
isnad is indistinguishable in form from modern
scientific citation. With these tools, the Mutazilities were able to revive Greek and Hellenistic views, and correct them.
Early Muslim medicine and
Early Muslim sociology in particular benefited from the Mutazilite approach, but it led to very strong reaction.
Ash'ari school
The rise of the
Asharites largely put an end to
philosophy as such in the Muslim world, but permitted these methods to continue to be applied to
science and
technology. This marked the
12th-
14th century peak of innovation in Muslim civilization, after which lack of improvements in the basic processes and confusion with theology and law had degraded methods. During this period many remarkable achievements of engineering and social organization were made, and the
ulama began to generate a
fiqh based on
taqlid ("emulation") rather than on the old ijtihad.
Avicennism
In the
Islamic Golden Age, due to
Avicenna's (Ibn Sina's) successful reconciliation between
Aristotelianism and
Neoplatonism along with
Kalam, Avicennism eventually became the leading school of
Islamic philosophy by the 12th century. Avicenna had become a central authority on philosophy by then, and several scholars in the 12th century commented on his strong influence at the time:
medieval Europe, particularly his doctrines on the nature of the
soul and his
existence-
essence distinction, along with the debates and censure that they raised in
scholastic Europe. This was particularly the case in
Paris, where Avicennism was later
proscribed in 1210. Nevertheless, his
psychology and theory of knowledge influenced
William of Auvergne and
Albertus Magnus, and his
metaphysics had an impact on the thought of
Thomas Aquinas.
Averroism
Averroes (Ibn Rushd) is most famous for his commentaries on
Aristotle's works and for writing
The Incoherence of the Incoherence in which he defended the
falasifa against
al-Ghazali's
The Incoherence of the Philosophers. While he'd very little influence in the Islamic world, which was then dominated by Avicennian philosophy and
Ash'ari theology, Averroism became very infuential in
medieval Europe, especially among the
Scholastics. Averroism eventually led to the development of modern
secularism, for which Ibn Rushd is considered as the founding father of secular thought in
Western Europe.
Avicenna elaborated on his definition of truth in his
Metaphysics:
Quodlibeta,
Thomas Aquinas wrote a commentary on Avicenna's definition of truth in his
Metaphysics and explained it as follows:
knowledge as a way of leading him closer to God:
Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī also introduced an early scientific method in nearly every field of
inquiry he studied. For example, in his treatise on
mineralogy,
Kitab al-Jamahir (
Book of Precious Stones), he's "the most
exact of
experimental scientists", while in the introduction to his
study of India, he declares that "to execute our project, it hasn't been possible to follow the geometric method" and develops
comparative sociology as a scientific method in the field. He was also responsible for introducing the experimental method into
mechanics, the first to conduct elaborate experiments related to
astronomical phenomena, and a pioneer of
experimental psychology.
Unlike his contemporary
Avicenna's scientific method where "general and universal questions came first and led to
experimental work", al-Biruni developed scientific methods where "universals came out of practical, experimental work" and "theories are formulated after discoveries."
Al-Biruni's scientific method was similar to the modern scientific method in many ways, particularly his emphasis on repeated experimentation. Biruni was concerned with how to conceptualize and prevent both
systematic errors and
random errors, such as "errors caused by the use of small instruments and errors made by human observers." He argued that if instruments produce random errors because of their imperfections or idiosyncratic qualities, then multiple observations must be taken,
analyzed qualitatively, and on this basis, arrive at a "common-sense single value for the
constant sought", whether an
arithmetic mean or a "reliable
estimate."
Experimental medicine
Avicenna (Ibn Sina) is considered the father of modern
medicine, for his introduction of systematic
experimentation and
quantification into the study of
physiology, the introduction of
experimental medicine and
clinical trials, the experimental use and
testing of drugs, and a precise guide for practical experimentation in the process of discovering and proving the effectiveness of medical
substances, in his medical encyclopedia,
The Canon of Medicine (11th century), which was the first book dealing with experimental medicine. It laid out the following rules and principles for testing the effectiveness of new
drugs or
medications, which still form the basis of modern clinical trials:
In the 12th century,
Ibn Tufail further developed the concept of tabula rasa in his
Arabic novel,
Hayy ibn Yaqzan, in which he depicted the development of the mind of a
feral child "from a tabula rasa to that of an adult, in complete isolation from society" on a
desert island. The
Latin translation of his work, entitled
Philosophus Autodidactus, published by
Edward Pococke the Younger in 1671, had an influence on
John Locke's formulation of tabula rasa in
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
Eschatology
Islamic
eschatology is concerned with the
Qiyamah (
end of the world;
Last Judgement) and the
final judgement of humanity.
Eschatology relates to one of the six articles of faith (
aqidah) of
Islam. Like the other
Abrahamic religions, Islam teaches the bodily
resurrection of the dead, the fulfillment of a divine plan for creation, and the immortality of the human soul (though Jews don't necessarily view the soul as eternal); the righteous are rewarded with the pleasures of
Jannah (
Heaven), while the unrighteous are punished in
Jahannam (
Hell). A significant fraction (one third, in fact) of the Quran deals with these beliefs, with many
hadith elaborating on the themes and details. Islamic apocalyptic literature describing the Armageddon is often known as
fitna (a test) and
malahim (or
ghayba in the
shi'ite tradition).
Ibn al-Nafis dealt with Islamic eschatology in some depth in his
Theologus Autodidactus, where he
rationalized the Islamic view of eschatology using
reason and
science to explain the events that would occur according to Islamic eschatology. He presented his rational and scientific arguments in the form of
Arabic fiction, hence his
Theologus Autodidactus may be considered the earliest
science fiction work.
Peer review
The first documented description of a
peer review process is found in the
Ethics of the Physician written by Ishaq bin Ali al-Rahwi (854–931) of al-Raha,
Syria, who describes the first
medical peer review process. His work, as well as later
Arabic medical manuals, state that a visiting physician must always make duplicate notes of a patient's condition on every visit. When the patient was cured or had died, the notes of the physician were examined by a local medical council of other physicians, who would
review the practising physician's notes to decide whether his/her performance have met the required standards of medical care. If their reviews were negative, the practicing physician could face a
lawsuit from a maltreated patient.
Phenomenology
The
Ash'ari polymath
Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen) is considered a pioneer of
phenomenology. He articulated a relationship between the physical and observable
world and that of
intuition,
psychology and
mental functions. His theories regarding
knowledge and
perception, linking the domains of science and religion, led to a philosophy of
existence based on the direct observation of
reality from the observer's point of view. Much of his thought on phenomenology wasn't further developed until the 20th century.
Philosophical novels
The Islamic philosophers,
Ibn Tufail (Abubacer) and
Ibn al-Nafis, were pioneers of the
philosophical novel. Ibn Tufail wrote the first fictional
Arabic novel Hayy ibn Yaqdhan (
Philosophus Autodidactus) as a response to
al-Ghazali's
The Incoherence of the Philosophers, and then Ibn al-Nafis also wrote a fictional
novel Theologus Autodidactus as a response to Ibn Tufail's
Philosophus Autodidactus. Both of these novels had
protagonists (Hayy in
Philosophus Autodidactus and Kamil in
Theologus Autodidactus) who were
autodidactic individuals
spontaneously generated in a
cave and living in seclusion on a
desert island, both being the earliest examples of a desert island story. However, while Hayy lives alone on the desert island for most of the story in
Philosophus Autodidactus, the story of Kamil extends beyond the desert island setting in
Theologus Autodidactus, developing into the first example of a
science fiction novel.
Ibn al-Nafis described his book
Theologus Autodidactus as a defense of "the system of Islam and the Muslims' doctrines on the missions of Prophets, the religious laws, the resurrection of the body, and the transitoriness of the world." He presents rational arguments for bodily
resurrection and the
immortality of the human
soul, using both demonstrative
reasoning and material from the hadith corpus to prove his case. Later Islamic scholars viewed this work as a response to the
metaphysical claim of Avicenna and Ibn Tufail that bodily resurrection can't be proven through reason, a view that was earlier criticized by al-Ghazali.
A Latin translation of
Philosophus Autodidactus was published in 1671, prepared by
Edward Pococke the Younger. The first English translation by
Simon Ockley was published in 1708, and
German and
Dutch translations were also published at the time.
Philosophus Autodidactus went on to have a significant influence on
European literature, and became an influential best-seller throughout
Western Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. These translations later inspired
Daniel Defoe to write
Robinson Crusoe, which also featured a desert island narrative and was regarded as the
first novel in English.
Philosophus Autodidactus also had a "profound influence" on
modern Western philosophy. It became "one of the most important books that heralded the
Scientific Revolution" and
European Enlightenment, and the thoughts expressed in the novel can be found in "different variations and to different degrees in the books of
Thomas Hobbes,
John Locke,
Isaac Newton, and
Immanuel Kant." The novel inspired the concept of "
tabula rasa" developed in
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) by Locke, who was a student of Pococke.
Philosophus Autodidactus also developed the themes of
empiricism,
tabula rasa,
nature versus nurture,
condition of possibility,
materialism, and
Molyneux's Problem. The novel also inspired
Robert Boyle, another acquaintance of Pococke, to write his own philosophical novel set on an island,
The Aspiring Naturalist. Other European scholars influenced by
Philosophus Autodidactus include
Gottfried Leibniz,
George Keith,
Robert Barclay, the
Quakers, and
Samuel Hartlib. and the
philosophy of history, especially for his historiographical writings in the
Muqaddimah (
Latinized as
Prolegomena) and
Kitab al-Ibar (
Book of Advice). His
Muqaddimah also laid the groundwork for the observation of the role of
state,
communication,
propaganda and
systematic bias in history, and he discussed the rise and fall of
civilizations.
Franz Rosenthal wrote in the
History of Muslim Historiography:
Philosophy of mind
The
philosophy of mind was studied in medieval
Islamic psychological thought, which refers to the study of the
nafs (literally "
self" or "
psyche" in
Arabic) in the
Islamic world, particularly during the
Islamic Golden Age (8th–15th centuries) as well as modern times (20th–21st centuries), and is related to
psychology,
psychiatry and the
neurosciences.
Place
The Arab polymath al-Hasan
Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen; d. ca. 1041) presented a thorough mathematical critique and refutation of
Aristotle's conception of
place (
topos) in his
Risala/Qawl fi’l-makan (
Treatise/Discourse on Place).
Aristotle's
Physics (Book IV -
Delta) stated that the place of something is the two-dimensional boundary of the containing body that's at rest and is in contact with what it contains. Ibn al-Haytham disagreed with this definition and demonstrated that place (
al-makan) is the imagined (three-dimensional) void (
al-khala' al-mutakhayyal) between the inner surfaces of the containing body. He showed that place was akin to
space, foreshadowing
Descartes's notion of place as space qua
Extensio or even
Leibniz's
analysis situs. Ibn al-Haytham's mathematization of
place rested on several geometric demonstrations, including his study on the sphere and other solids, which showed that the
sphere (
al-kura) is the largest in magnitude (volumetric) with respect to other geometric solids that have equal surface areas. For instance, a sphere that has an equal surface area to that of a
cylinder, would be larger in (volumetric) magnitude than the cylinder; hence, the sphere occupies a larger place than that occupied by the cylinder; unlike what is entailed by
Aristotle's definition of place: that this sphere and that cylinder occupy places that are equal in magnitude. Ibn al-Haytham rejected
Aristotle's philosophical concept of place on mathematical grounds. Later, the philosopher 'Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi (13th century) tried to defend the Aristotelian conception of place in a treatise titled:
Fi al-Radd ‘ala Ibn al-Haytham fi al-makan (
A refutation of Ibn al-Haytham’s place), although his effort was admirable from a philosophical standpoint, it was unconvincing from the scientific and mathematical viewpoints.
Political philosophy
Early Islamic
political philosophy emphasized an inexorable link between
science and
religion, and the process of
ijtihad to find
truth - in effect
all philosophy was "political" as it had real implications for governance. This view was challenged by the
Mutazilite philosophers, who held a more
secular view and were supported by secular aristocracy who sought freedom of action independent of the
mosque. The only
Greek political treatise known to medieval Muslims at the time was
Plato's
Republic. By the end of the
Islamic Golden Age, however, the
Asharite view of Islam had in general triumphed.
Islamic political philosophy, was, indeed, rooted in the very sources of
Islam, for example the
Qur'an and the
Sunnah, the words and practices of Muhammad. However, in the Western thought, it's generally known that it was a specific area peculiar merely to the great philosophers of Islam:
al-Kindi (Alkindus),
al-Farabi (Alfarabi),
İbn Sina (Avicenna),
Ibn Bajjah (Avempace),
Ibn Rushd (Averroes), and
Ibn Khaldun. The political conceptions of Islam such as kudrah, sultan, ummah, cemaa -and even the "core" terms of the Qur'an, for example ibada, din, rab and ilah- is taken as the basis of an analysis. Hence, not only the ideas of the Muslim political philosophers but also many other
jurists and
ulama posed political ideas and theories. For example, the ideas of the
Khawarij in the very early years of
Islamic history on
Khilafa and
Ummah, or that of
Shia Islam on the concept of
Imamah are considered proofs of political thought. The clashes between the
Ehl-i Sunna and Shia in the 7th and 8th centuries had a genuine political character.
The 13th century
Arab scholar
Ibn Khaldun is considered one of the greatest political theorists. The British philosopher-anthropologist
Ernest Gellner considered Ibn Khaldun's definition of
government, "an institution which prevents injustice other than such as it commits itself", the best in the history of political theory.
Social philosophy
Despite the negative consequences of
Ash'ari thought on Islamic philosophy, it did later give rise to the beginnings of
social philosophy. The most famous social philosopher was the
Ash'ari polymath
Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), who in his
Muqaddimah, developed the earliest theories on social philosophy, in formulating theories of
social cohesion and
social conflict.
His
Muqaddimah was also the introduction to a seven volume analysis of
universal history. He is considered the "father of
sociology", "father of
historiography", and "father of the
philosophy of history", for being the first to discuss the topics of sociology, historiography and the philosophy of history in detail.
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