THE PYTHAGOREAN PHILOSOPHY – THE FAITHFUL BRETHREN OF BASRA.

1. In the East, where every religion formed a State within the State, a political party invariably made its appearance in the additional character of a religious sect, just to gain adherents in some way or other. As a matter of principle indeed, Islam knew no distinction between men,–no caste or social standing. But property and education have the same influence everywhere; and in their train degrees of piety and stages of knowledge began to be set up, according as a community or party permitted of adjustment. Thus there arose secret societies having different grades, of which the highest and perhaps the next highest possessed an esoteric doctrine, which borrowed a good deal from the Natural Philosophy of the Neo-Pythagoreans. In furtherance of their object, which was to conquer political power, every expedient was regarded as lawful. For the initiated the Koran was explained allegorically. They traced their mystic lore, it is true, back to prophets with Biblical and Koranic names, but heathen philosophers were at the bottom of it all. Philosophy was completely transformed into a mythology of politics. The high intelligences and souls, which theoretic thinkers had recognized in the stars and planets, embodied themselves in human beings for the work of actual Politics; and it was declared to be a religious duty to assist these embodied intelligences in the establishment of an earthly kingdom of righteousness. The associations which acted in this way may best be compared to societies, which up to the days of Saint-Simonism and kindred phenomena in last century were wont to appear in countries where freedom of thought was restricted.

In the second half of the ninth century Abdallah ibn Maimun, head of the Karmatite party, was the originator of a movement of this kind. He was a Persian oculist, trained in the school of the Natural Philosophers. He proved able to associate both believers and freethinkers in a confederacy to endeavour to compass the overthrow of the Abbasid government. To the one set he was a conjurer, to the other a pious ascetic or learned philosopher. His colours were white, because his religion was that of the pure light, to which the soul was to ascend after its earthly wanderings. The duties inculcated were contempt for the body, disregard of the Material, community of goods for all the confederate brethren, as well as self-surrender to the confederacy, acid fidelity and obedience to their chiefs, even to death,–for the society had its grades. In accordance with the sequence of existence, viz., God, Reason, Soul, Space and Time, they conceived the revelation of God to be made in history and in the constitution of their own brotherhood.

2. The chief homes of Karmatite activity were Basra and Kufa. Now we find in Basra in the second half of the tenth century a small association of men, whose confederacy aims at having four grades. We do not know, to be sure, how far the brethren succeeded in realizing the ideal organization of their confederacy. To the first grade belong young men of from 15 to 30 years of age, whose souls are being formed in th; natural way: these must be completely submissive to then teachers. The second grade,–from 30 to 40 years of age–are introduced to secular wisdom, and receive an analogical knowledge of things. In the third grade,–from 40 to 50 years of age–the Divine law of the world becomes known in more adequate form: that constitutes the stage of the prophets. Finally, in the highest grade, when one is over 50 years old, he comes to see the true reality of things, just like the blessed angels: he is exalted then above Nature, Doctrine and Law.

From this brotherhood there has come down to us a progressively-advancing Encyclopaedia of the Sciences of that day. It consists of 51 (originally perhaps 50) treatises, the contents of which are of such varied nature and origin that the redactors or compilers have not succeeded in establishing a complete harmony among them. In general, however, there is found in this Encyclopaedia an eclectic Gnosticism built on a foundation of Natural Science, and provided with a political background. The scheme sets out with mathematical considerations, continually playing with numbers and letters, and proceeds through Logic and Physics,–referring everything, however, to the Soul and its powers,–in order to approach at last, in a mystical and magical fashion, the knowledge of the Godhead. The whole representation is that of the doctrine of a persecuted sect, with the political features peeping out here and there. We see also something of suffering and struggle,–something of the oppressions to which the men of this Encyclopaedia or their . predecessors were exposed, and something of the hope they cherished and the patience they preached. They seek in this spiritualistic philosophy, consolation or redemption: It is their religion. ‘Faithful to death,’–so runs the expression–shall the brethren be, for to meet death for a friend’s welfare, is the true Holy war. In life’s pilgrimage through this world, thus the obligatory journey to Mecca is allegorized–, one must aid the other by all the means in his power. The rich must communicate to others a share of their material goods, and the wise a share of their intellectual possessions. But yet knowledge, as we have it in the Encyclopaedia, was probably reserved for initiated members of the highest grade:

It must be allowed, however, that this confraternity of the Faithful Brethren of Basra seems to have led a quiet existence, as perhaps was the case also with a branch-settlement of theirs in Bagdad. The relation of the Brethren to the Karmatites may have resembled that of the more peaceful Baptists to the revolutionary Anabaptists of the ‘King of Sion’.

The names of the following have been given to us by later writers, as having been members of the Brotherhood and collaborators of the Encyclopaedia, viz.: Abu Sulaiman Mohammed ibn Mushir al-Busti, called al-Muqaddasi; Abu-l-Hasan Ali ibn Harun al-Zandjani; Mohammed ibn Akhmed al-Nahradjuri; Al-Aufi and Zaid ibn Rifaa. In the time of their activity the Caliphate had already been forced to make an entire surrender of its secular power into the hands of the Shi‘ite dynasty of the Buyids. Probably this circumstance was favourable to the appearance of an Encyclopaedia, in which Shi‘ite and Mutazilite doctrines together with the results of Philosophy were comprehended in one popular system.

3. The Brethren themselves avow their eclecticism. They wish to collect the wisdom of all nations and religions. Noah and Abraham, Socrates and Plato, Zoroaster and Jesus, Mohammed and Ali are all prophets of theirs. Socrates, and Jesus and his apostles, no less than the children of Ali, are honoured as holy martyrs of their rational faith. The religious law in its literal sense is pronounced good for the ordinary man,–a medicine for weak and ailing souls: the deeper philosophic insight is for strong intelligences. Though the body is devoted to death, dying means rising again to the pure life of the Spirit, for those who during their earthly existence have been awakened by means of philosophic considerations out of careless slumber and foolish sleep. This is impressed with endless repetition, by means of legends and myths of later-Greek, Judaeo Christian, Persian or Indian origin. Every transitory thing is here turned into an emblem. On the ruins of positive religion and unsophisticated opinion a spiritualistic philosophy is built up, embracing all the knowledge and endeavour of human kind, so far as these came within the Brethren’s field of view. The aim of their philosophizing is given as ‘the assimilation of the soul to God, in the degree possible for man’.

In this scheme, the negative tendencies of the Brethren, are kept somewhat in the background, for reasons which are quite intelligible. But their criticism of human society and of positive religions is exhibited with least reserve in the ‘Book of the Animal and the Man’, in which the figurative dress makes it possible for them to represent animals as saying what might be questionable if heard from a human mouth.

4. The eclectic character of the scheme, and the far from systematic method adopted in its subdivisions render it difficult to give a coherent exposition of the philosophy of the Brethren. But still the most important tenets, though sometimes loosely connected, must here be set forth with a measure of order.

The mental activity of Man falls to be divided, according to the Encyclopaedia, into Art and Science. Now Science or Knowledge is the form assumed within the knowing soul by that which is known, or a higher, finer, more intellectual mode of existence of whatever is realized in outward substance. Art on the other hand consists in projecting the form from the artist-soul into matter. Knowledge is potentially present in the soul of the disciple, but it becomes actual only through the teaching activity of a master, who carries knowledge as a reality within his own mind. But whence did it come to the first master? The Brethren answer, that according to the philosophers he gained it by his own reflection, while, according to the theologians, he received it through prophetic illumination; “but in our view there are various ways or instrumentalities by which knowledge may be attained. From the intermediate position of the soul, between the worlds of body and of mind it results that there are open to it three ways or sources of knowledge. Thus by means of the senses the soul is made acquainted with what is beneath it, and through logical inference with what is above it, and finally with itself by rational consideration or direct intuition. Of these kinds of knowledge the surest and the most deserving of preference is knowledge of one’s self. When human knowledge attempts to go farther than this, it proves itself to be limited in many ways. Therefore one must not philosophize straight away about questions like the origin or the eternity of the world, but make his first essays with what is simpler. And only through renunciation of the world, and righteous conduct, does the soul lift itself gradually up to the pure knowledge of the Highest.”

5. After secular instruction in Grammar, Poetry and History, and after religious education and doctrine, philosophic study should begin with the mathematical branches. Here everything is set forth in Neo-Pythagorean and Indian fashion. Not only numbers but even the letters of the alphabet are employed in childish trifling. It was particularly convenient for the Brethren that the number of letters in the Arabic alphabet is 28, or 4 multiplied by 7. Instead of proceeding according to practical and real points of view, they give the rein to fancy in all the sciences, in accordance with grammatical analogies and relations of numbers. Their Arithmetic does not investigate Number as such, but rather its significance. No search is made for any more suitable mode of expressing number in the case of phenomena; but things are themselves explained in accordance with the system of numbers. The Theory of number is Divine wisdom, and is above Things, for things are only formed after the pattern of numbers. The absolute principle of all existence and thought is the number One. The science of number, therefore, is found at the beginning, middle, and end of all philosophy. Geometry, with its figures addressing the eye, serves merely to make it more easily understood by beginners, but Arithmetic alone is true and pure science. And yet Geometry too is divided into a sensible form of it which deals with lines, surfaces and solids, and a pure or spiritual form which treats of the dimensions or properties of things, such as length, breadth and depth. The object both of Arithmetic and Geometry is to conduct the soul from the sensible to the spiritual.

First of all then they lead us to consider the stars. Now the Encylopaedia offers us, in its Astrology,–and nothing else could be expected–teaching which is exceedingly fantastic and sometimes self-contradictory. The whole of it is pervaded by the conviction that the stars not merely foretell the future, but directly influence or bring about every thing that happens beneath the moon. Fortune and misfortune come equally from them. Jupiter, Venus anal the Sun bring fortune; misfortune is brought, on the other hand, by Saturn, Mars and the Moon; while the effects produced by the planet Mercury have in them both bad and good. Mercury is the lord of education and science: we owe to him our knowledge, which comprises bad and good. In the same way too the other planets have all their several spheres of influence; and man in the course of life, if he is not prematurely snatched away, experiences successively the influences of the whole of the heavenly bodies. The Moon causes his body to grow and Mercury forms his mind. Then he comes under the sway of Venus. The Sun gives him family, riches or dominion; Mars, bravery and noble-mindedness. Thereupon, under the guidance of Jupiter, he prepares, by means of religious exercises, for the journey to the world beyond, and he attains rest under the influence of Saturn. Many men, however, do not live long enough, or are not enabled by circumstances, to develope their natural capacities in unbroken sequence. God therefore graciously sends them his prophets, by whose teaching they may, even in a short time and under unfavourable circumstances, form their natures completely.

6. According to the Encyclopaedia, Logic is related to Mathematics. In fact just as Mathematics conducts from the sensible to the intellectual, so Logic takes an intermediate position between Physics and Metaphysics. In Physics we have to do with bodies; in Metaphysics, with pure Spirits; but Logic treats of the ideas of the latter as well as of the representations of the former in our soul. Yet in range and importance Logic is inferior to Mathematics. For the subject of Mathematics is regarded not merely as an intermediary, but also as the essence of the All, while on the other hand Logic remains completely restricted to psychic forms as an intermediary between body and mind. Things are regulated by numbers, but our presentations and ideas by things.

The logical observations of the Brethren start from Porphyry’s Introduction, and the Categories, the Hermeneutics and the Analytics of Aristotle. They present nothing original, or very little.

To the five terms of Porphyry, a sixth,–the ‘Individual’–is added, no doubt for the sake of symmetry. Three of these,–Genus, Species, Individual,–are then called Objective Qualifications and three,–Difference, Property, Accident–Abstract or Conceptional Qualifications. The Categories are Genus-conceptions, of which the first is Substance, the other nine denoting its Accidents. The whole system of Concepts is farther developed by a division into species. But besides Division, there are three additional logical methods in use: Analysis, Definition and Deduction. Analysis is the method for beginners, because it permits a knowledge of what is individual. More subtle, however, as disclosing to us what is spiritual,–are Definition and Deduction, the former investigating the essential nature of Species, and the latter that of Genera. The Senses apprise us of the existence of things; but acquaintance with the essence of things is gained by reflection. The information which is conveyed to us by the senses is small, as it were the letters of the alphabet. Of greater importance considerably are the principles of rational knowledge, just as words have more significance than letters; but the most important knowledge of all, lies in the propositions which have been derived from those principles, and which the human mind gains for itself or appropriates, in contradistinction to that knowledge which Nature or the Divine revelation has imparted to it.

7. From God, the highest Being, who is exalted above all distinctions and oppositions both of the Material and the Spiritual, the whole world is derived by the path of Emanation. If now and again a Creation is spoken of, that is only to be understood as a form of adaptation to theological language. The gradation then of the Emanations is exhibited as follows: 1. The Creative Spirit. (νοῦς, ‘aql); 2. The Passive Spirit, or the All-Soul or World-Soul; 3. The First Material; 4. The Operative Nature, a power of the World-Soul; 5. The Absolute Body, called also, the Second Material; 6. The World of the Spheres; 7. The Elements of the Sublunary World; 8. The Minerals, Plants and Animals composed of these elements. These then are the eight Essences which,–together with God, the Absolute One, who is in everything and with everything–complete the series of Original Essences corresponding to the nine Cardinal Numbers.

Spirit, Soul, Original Matter, and Nature are simple; but with Body we enter the realm of the Composite. Here all is composed of Matter and Form, or,–to adopt another principle of division,–of Substance and Accident. The first Substances are Matter and Form; the first Accidents or Properties, Space, Motion and Time, to which in the opinion of the Brethren may perhaps be added Tone and Light. Matter is one; all plurality and diversity come from the Forms. Substance is designated also as the constitutive, material Form, while Accident is the completing, spiritual Form. The Encyclopaedia does not express itself clearly on these points. But in any case Substantiality is looked for rather in the Universal than in the Particular, and Form is put before Matter. The Substantial Form, like a spectre, frightens off every attempt of the philosopher to investigate thoroughly the domain of the Material. The Forms wander at their own sweet will like lords through the lower world of Matter. No trace is discoverable of any inner relation between Matter and Form. Not only in thought, but also in reality they keep themselves separate.

From the account which has been given an idea may now be formed of the story of Nature as the Brethren viewed it. They have been represented as the Darwinists of the tenth century, but nothing could be more inappropriate. The various realms of Nature, it is true, yield according to the Encyclopaedia an ascending and connected series; but the relation is determined not by bodily structure, but by the inner Form or Soul-Substance. The Form wanders in mystic fashion from the lower to the higher and vice versa, not in accordance with inner laws of formation, or modified to suit external conditions, but in accordance with the influences of the stars, and, in the case of Man at least, in accordance with practical and theoretical behaviour. To give a history of Evolution in the modern sense of the term was very far from the thought of the Brethren. For example they expressly insist that the horse and the elephant resemble Man more than the ape does, although the bodily likeness is greater in the last-named. In fact in their system the body is a matter of quite secondary consideration: the death of the body is called the birth of the soul. The soul alone is an efficient existence, which. procures the body for itself.

8. The teaching of the Brethren concerning Nature is therefore merged almost completely in Psychology. Let us confine ourselves here to the human soul. It stands in the centre of the All; and just as the World is a huge man, Man is a little world.

The human soul has emanated from the World-soul; and the souls of all individuals taken together constitute a substance which might he denominated the Absolute Man or the Spirit of Humanity. Every individual soul, however, is involved in Matter, and must gradually be formed into spirit. To that end it possesses many faculties or powers, and of these the speculative faculties are the choicest, for knowledge is the very life of the soul.

The soul of the child is at first like a white sheet of paper. What the five senses convey to it is first presented, then judged, and lastly stored up, in the front, middle, and hinder parts of the brain respectively. Through the faculty of speech and the art of writing, which make up the number of the internal senses to five, corresponding to the number of the External, the contents of Presentation are then realized.

Among the external senses, Hearing takes precedence of Sight; for Sight, a mere slave of the moment, is occupied with what is actually present to the sense, whereas Hearing apprehends also what is past, and is conscious of the harmony of the tuneful spheres. Hearing and Sight constitute the group of the intellectual senses, whose effect must continue time without end.

While Man then possesses the external senses in common with the lower animals, the specific nature of human reason is notified in Judgment, Speech and Action. Reason judges of good and bad, and in conformity with that judgment the will is determined. But in particular the significance which Language has for the soul’s life of cognition is to be emphasised. A concept which cannot be denoted by some expression in some language is not thinkable at all. The word is the body of the thought, which cannot exist absolutely per se.

But it is difficult to see how this understanding of the relation between concept and expression is to square with other opinions of the Brethren.

9. At its highest stage the teaching of the Brethren becomes a Philosophy of Religion. Its purpose is a reconciliation between Science and Life, Philosophy and Faith. Now in these matters men differ greatly. The ordinary man requires a sensuous worship of God; but just as the souls of animals and plants are beneath the soul of the ordinary man, so above it are the souls of the philosopher and the prophet with whom the pure angel is associated. In the higher stages the soul is raised also above the lower popular religion with its sensuous conceptions and usages.

No doubt Christianity and the Zoroastrian faith appeared to the Brethren to, be more perfect religious revelations. ‘Our Prophet, Mohammed’, they said, ‘was sent to an uncivilized people, composed of dwellers in the desert, who neither possessed a proper conception of the beauty of this world, nor of the spiritual character of the world beyond. The crude expressions of the Koran, which are adapted to the understanding of that people, must be understood in a spiritual sense by those who are more cultured’.

But the truth is not presented in its purity even in the other national religions. There is a rational faith above them all for which the Brethren moreover tried to find a metaphysical derivation. Between God and his first creature, the Creative Spirit, there is interposed by way of hypostasis the Divine World-Law (nâmûs). That World-Law extends over everything, and is the wise arrangement of a merciful Creator, who intends evil Ito no one. Belief in a God of Anger, in the punishment of Hell and the like, the Brethren declare to be irrational. Such a faith does harm to the soul. The ignorant, sinful soul finds its hell even in this life and in its own body. On the other hand, Resurrection is the separation of the soul from its body, and the great Resurrection at the last day is the separation of the Universal soul from the world, and its return to God. This turning to God indeed is the aim in all religions.

10. The ethical system of the Brethren has an ascetic, spiritualistic character, although here too their eclecticism is shewn. According to it man is acting rightly, when he follows his proper nature; ‘praiseworthy is the free act of the soul; admirable are the actions which have proceeded from rational consideration; and lastly, obedience to the Divine World-Law is worthy of the reward of being raised to the celestial world of spheres. But this requires longing for what is above; and therefore the highest virtue is Love, which strives after union with God, the first loved one, and which is evinced even in this life in the form of religious patience and forbearance with all created beings. Such love gains in this life serenity of soul, freedom of heart and peace with the whole world, and in the life to come ascension to Eternal Light.’

After all this we need not wonder that the body was depreciated a good deal. ‘Our true essence is the soul, and the highest aim of our existence should be to live, with Socrates, devoted to the Intellect, and with Christ, to the Law of Love. Nevertheless the body must be properly treated and looked after in order that the soul may have time to attain its full development.’ In this view the Brethren set up an ideal type of human culture, whereof the features were borrowed from the characteristics of various nations. ‘The ideal, and morally perfect man, should be of East-Persian derivation, Arabic in faith, of Irak, i.e. Babylonian, education, a Hebrew in astuteness, a disciple of Christ in conduct, as pious as a Syrian Monk, a Greek in the individual sciences, an Indian in the interpretation of all mysteries, but lastly and especially, a Sufi in his whole spiritual life.’

11. The attempt to establish in this way a reconciliation between knowledge and faith satisfied neither side. Theological dialecticians looked down upon the interpretation of the Koran given by the Brethren, just as the divines of our day look down upon the N. T. exegesis of Count Tolstoi. And the more rigid Aristotelians regarded the Pythagorean-Platonic tendency of the Encyclopaedia much as a modern professor of philosophy is wont to look upon Spiritism, Occultism, and phenomena of that nature. But the writings, or at any rate the opinions, of the Faithful Brethren of Basra have exercised an important influence on the great body of the educated or half-educated world,–an influence to which eloquent attestation is borne by the very fact that so many manuscripts, mostly of recent date, are to be met with, of this extensive Encyclopaedia. Among many sects within the world of Islam, such as the Batinites, the Ismaelites, the Assasins, the Druses, or whatever may be their names, we find again the same doctrines in the main. In this form Greek wisdom has best succeeded in making itself at home in the East, while the Aristotelian School-Philosophy would only thrive, with few exceptions, in the hothouse-cultivation bestowed upon it at the courts of princely patrons. The great religious father, Gazali, is ready enough to toss aside the wisdom of the Brethren as mere popular philosophy, but he does not hesitate to take over what was good in them. He owes more to their body of ideas than he would perhaps have cared to avow. And their treatises have been turned to profit by others besides, particularly in Encyclopaediac works. The influence of the Encyclopaedia continues even yet in the Muslim East. In vain was it burned in Bagdad in the year 1150, along with the writings of Ibn Sina.

from History of Philosophy in Islam, by T.J. de Boer [1904], at sacred-texts.com

THE PYTHAGOREAN PHILOSOPHY - THE FAITHFUL BRETHREN OF BASRA

THE PYTHAGOREAN PHILOSOPHY. – NATURAL PHILOSOPHY

1. Euclid and Ptolemy, Hippocrates and Galen, some portion of Aristotle, and, in addition, an abundant Neo-Platonic Literature,–indicate the elements of Arabic Natural Philosophy. It is a popular philosophy, which, chiefly through the instrumentality of the Sabaeans of Harran, found acceptance with the Shi‘ites and other sects, and which in due course impressed not only court circles, but also a large body of educated and half-educated people. Stray portions of it were taken from the writings of the “Logician”,–Aristotle,–e.g. from the “Meteorology”, from the work “On the Universe”, which has been attributed to him, from the “Book of Animals”, from the “Psychology”, and so on; but its general character was determined by Pythagorean-Platonic teaching, by the Stoics, and by subsequent astrologers and alchemists. Human curiosity and piety were fain to read the secrets of the Deity in the book of his Creation, and they proceeded in this search far beyond practical requirements, which merely called for a little arithmetic to serve in the division of inheritances and in trade, and a little astronomy besides, to determine the proper times for celebrating the functions of religion. Men hastened to gather wisdom from every quarter, and in so doing they manifested a conviction, which Masudi accurately expressed, when he said “Whatever is good should be recognized, whether it is found in friend or foe”. Indeed Ali, the prince of believers, is reported to have said: “The wisdom of the world is the believer’s strayed sheep: take it back, even though it come from the unbelieving”.

Pythagoras is the presiding genius of Mathematical study in Islam. Greek and Indian elements are mingled in it, it is true, but everything is regarded from a Neo-Pythagorean point of view. Without studying such branches of Mathematics, as Arithmetic and Geometry, Astronomy and Music, no one, they said, becomes a philosopher or an educated physician. The Theory of Numbers,–prized more highly than Mensuration, because it appeals less to the outward vision, and should bring the mind nearer the essence of things,–gave occasion to the most extravagant puerilities. God is, of course, the great Unity, from whom everything proceeds, who himself is no number, but who is the First Cause of Number. But above all, the number Four,–the number of the elements and so on,–was held in high favour by the philosophers; and by-and-by nothing in heaven or earth was spoken of or written about, except in sentences of four clauses and in discourses under four heads.

The transition from Mathematics to Astronomy and Astrology was rapid and easy. The old Eastern methods, which came into their hands, continued to be applied even by the court-astrologers of the Omayyads, but with still greater thoroughness at the Abbasid court. In this way they arrived at speculations which ran counter to the revealed Faith, and which therefore could never be approved of by the guardians of religion. The only antithesis which existed for the Believer was–God and the World, or this life and the next; but for the Astrologer there were two worlds, one of the Heavens and another of the Earth, while God and the life beyond were in the far distance. According to the different conceptions entertained of the relation which subsisted between the heavenly bodies and sublunary things, either a rational Astronomy was developed, or a fantastic Astrology. Only a few kept entirely free from Astrological delusions. As long, in fact, as the science was dominated by the Ptolemaic system, it was easier for the completely uneducated man to jeer at what was absurd in it than it was for the learned investigator to disprove the same. For the latter indeed this earth with its forms of life was a product of the forces of the heavens, a reflection of celestial light, an echo of the eternal harmony of the Spheres. Those then who ascribed conception and will to the Spirits of the stars and spheres, held them as the representatives of Divine providence, and thus traced to their agency both what is good and what is evil, seeking also to foretell future events from the situation of their orbs, by means of which they bring their influence to bear upon earthly things in accordance with steadfast laws. Others, it is true, had their doubts about this secondary providence, on grounds of experience and reason, or from the Peripatetic belief that the blessed existences of the heavens are Spirits of pure intellect, exalted above conception and will, and in consequence above all particularity that appeals to the senses, so that their providential influence is directed only to the good of the whole, but never can have reference to any individual occurrence.

3. In the domain of Natural Science Muslim learned men collected a rich body of material; but hardly in any case did they succeed in really treating it scientifically. In the separate Natural sciences, the development of which we cannot follow up in this place, they clung to traditional systems. To establish the wisdom of God and the operations of Nature,–which was regarded as a power or emanation of the World-Soul,–alchemistic experiments were instituted, the magical virtues of talismans tested, the effects of Music upon the emotions of men and animals investigated, and observations made on physiognomy, while attempts were also set on foot to explain the wonders of the life of sleep and of dreams, as well as those of soothsaying and prophecy, &c. As might be expected, the centre of interest was Man, as the Microcosm which must combine in itself all the elements and powers of the world together. The essential part of Man’s being was held to be the Soul; and its relation to the World-Soul, and its future lot were made subjects of enquiry. There was also a good deal of speculation about the faculties of the soul and their localization in the heart and the brain. One or two adhered to Galen, but others went farther than he did, and made out five inner senses corresponding to the five outer ones,–a theory which, along with similar natural mysteries, was traced to Apollonius of Tyana.

Obviously the most diverse attitudes towards religious doctrine were possible in the study of Mathematical and Physical Science. But the propaedeutic sciences, as soon as they came forward on their own account, were always dangerous to the Faith. The assumption of the eternity of the world, and of an untreated matter in motion from all eternity,–was readily combined with Astronomy. And if the movement of the Heavens is eternal, so too are, no doubt, the changes which take place on earth. All the kingdoms of Nature then, according to many teachers, being eternal, the race of man is eternal also, wheeling round and round in an orbit of its own. There is therefore nothing new in the world: the views and ideas of men repeat themselves like everything else. All that can possibly be done, maintained or known, has already been and will again be.

Admirable discourse and lamentation were expended upon this theme, without much advancing thereby the interests of Science.

4. The science of Medicine, which on obvious grounds was favoured by the ruling powers, appears to have proved somewhat more useful. Its interests furnished one of the reasons, and not the least considerable, which induced the Caliphs to commission so many men to translate Greek authors. It is therefore not to be wondered at that the teachings of Mathematics and Natural Science, together with Logic, also affected Medicine intimately. The old-fashioned doctor was disposed to be satisfied with time-honoured magical formulae, and other empirical expedients; but modern society in the ninth century required philosophical knowledge in the physician. He had to know the “natures” of foods, stimulants or luxuries, and medicaments, the humours of the body, and in every case the influence of the stars. The physician was brother to the astrologer, whose knowledge commanded his respect, because it had a more exalted object than medical practice. He had to attend the lectures of the alchemist, and to practise his art in accordance .with the methods of Mathematics and Logic. It was not enough for the fanatics of education in the ninth century that a man had to speak, believe and behave in accordance with Qiyas,–that is to say, with logical correctness: he must, over and above, submit to be treated medically in accordance with Qiyas. The principles of Medicine were discussed in learned assemblies at the court of Wathik (842-847) like the foundations of Doctrine and Morals. The question, in fact, was asked, prompted by a work of Galen’s, whether Medicine relies upon tradition, experience or rational knowledge, or whether on the other hand it derives its support from the principles of Mathematics and Natural Science by means of logical deduction (Qiyas).

5. The Natural Philosophy, which has just been rapidly sketched, actually stood for Philosophy with the most of the scholars of the ninth century, as contrasted with theological dialectic, and was styled Pythagorean. It lasted even into the tenth century, when its most important representative was the famous physician Razi († 923 or 932). Born in Rai he received a mathematical education and studied Medicine and Natural Philosophy with great diligence. He was averse to dialectic and was only acquainted with Logic as far as the categorical figures of the First Analytics. After having practised as director of the hospital in his native city and in Bagdad, he entered upon his travels and resided at various princely courts, amongst others at the court of the Samanid Mansur ibn Ishaq, to whom he dedicated a work on Medicine.

Razi has a high opinion of the medical profession and of the study which it demands. The wisdom of a thousand years, contained in books, he prizes more than the experiences of the individual man gained in one short life, but he prefers even these to deductions of the “Logicians” which have not been tested by experience.

He thinks that the relation between the body and the soul is determined by the soul. And seeing that in this way the circumstances and sufferings of the soul admit of being discerned by means of the physiognomy, the medical man has to be at the same time a physician of the soul. Therefore he drew up a system of spiritual medicine,–a kind of Dietetic of the Soul. The precepts of Muslim law, like the prohibition of wine, and so on, gave him no concern, but his freethinking seems to have led him into pessimism. In fact he found more evil than good in the world, and described inclination as the absence of disinclination.

High though the value was which Razi put upon Aristotle and Galen, he did not give himself any special trouble to gain a more profound comprehension of their works. He was a devoted student of Alchemy, which in his view was a true art, based on the existence of a primeval matter,–an art indispensable to philosophers, and which, he believed, had been practised by Pythagoras, Democritus, Plato, Aristotle and Galen. In opposition to Peripatetic teaching he assumed that the body contained in itself the principle of movement, a thought which might certainly have proved a fruitful one in Natural Science, if it had been recognized and farther developed.

Razi’s Metaphysic starts from old doctrines, which his contemporaries ascribed to Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Mani and others. At the apex of his system stand five co-eternal principles,–the Creator, the Universal Soul, the First or Primeval matter, Absolute Space, and Absolute Time or Eternal Duration. In these the necessary conditions of the actually existing world are given. The individual sense-perceptions, generally, presuppose an existing Matter, just as the grouping of different perceived objects postulates Space. Perceptions of change farther constrain us to assume the condition of Time. The existence of living beings leads us to recognize a Soul; and the fact that some of these living beings are endowed with Reason, i.e.–have the faculty of bringing the Arts to the highest perfection,–necessitates our belief in a wise Creator, whose Reason has ordered everything for the best.

Notwithstanding the eternity of his five principles, Razi thus speaks of a Creator and even gives a story of Creation. First then a simple, pure, spiritual Light was created, the material of Souls, which are simple, spiritual substances, of the nature of Light. That Light-material or Upper-world, from which souls descended, is also called Reason, or Light of the Light of God. The Light is followed by the Shadow, from which the Animal Soul is created, for the service of the Rational Soul. But simultaneously with the simple, spiritual light, there existed from the first a composite form, which is Body, from the shadow of which now issue the four “natures”, Warmth and Cold, Dryness and Moistness. From these four natures at last are formed all heavenly and earthly bodies. The whole process, however, is in operation from all eternity, without beginning in time, for God was never inactive.

That Razi was an astrologer is plain from his own utterances. The heavenly bodies consist indeed, according to him, of the same elements as earthly things, and the latter are continually exposed to the influences of the former.

6. Razi had to maintain a polemical attitude in two directions. On the one side he impugned the Muslim Unity of God, which could not bear to be associated with any eternal soul, matter, space or time; and on the other side he attacked the Dahrite system, which does not acknowledge any Creator of the world. This system, which is frequently mentioned by Muslim authors, with due aversion of course, appears to have found numerous representatives, though none of any importance. The adherents of the ‘Dahr’ (v. I, 2, § 2) are represented to us as Materialists, Sensualists, Atheists, Believers in the transmigration of souls, and so on; but we learn nothing more definite about their doctrines. In any case the Dahrites had no need to trace all that exists to a principle which was of spiritual essence and creative efficiency. Muslim Philosophy, on the other hand, did stand in need of such a principle, if it should only conform in some degree to the teaching of the faith. Natural Philosophy was not suited for the furtherance of this object, as it showed more interest in the manifold and often contrary operations of Nature than in the One Cause of all. Such aim was better attained by Neo-Platonic Aristotelianism, whose logico-metaphysical speculations endeavoured to trace all existence to one highest existence, or to derive all things from one supreme operative principle. But before we attend to this direction of thought, which commenced to appear even in the ninth century, we have still to give some account of an attempt to blend Natural Philosophy and the teachings of the Faith into a Philosophy of Religion.

from History of Philosophy in Islam, by T.J. de Boer [1904], at sacred-texts.com

THE PYTHAGOREAN PHILOSOPHY. - NATURAL PHILOSOPHY

History of Philosophy in Islam – Literature and History

History of Philosophy in Islam, by T.J. de Boer [1904], at sacred-texts.com

I. Arabic Poetry and Annalistic were developed independently of the learning of the schools. But as time went on, Literature and Historical Composition could not remain untouched by foreign influences. A few notices, confirmatory of this statement, must suffice us here.

The introduction of Islam involved no break with the poetical tradition of the Arab race, such as had been occasioned by Christianity in the Teutonic world. The secular literature of the times even of the Omayyads handed down many wise sayings, partly taken from ancient Arabic poetry, which rivalled the preachings of the Koran. Abbasid Caliphs, like Mansur, Harun and Mamun, had more literary culture than Charlemagne. The education of their sons was not confined to the reading of the Koran: it embraced acquaintance also with the ancient poets and with the history of the nation. Poets and literary men were drawn to the courts and rewarded in princely fashion. In these circumstances, Literature underwent the influence of scholarly culture and philosophical speculation, although, in most cases, in a very superficial manner. The result is specially exhibited in sceptical utterances, frivolous mockery of what is most sacred, and glorification of sensual pleasure. At the same time, however, wise sayings, serious reflections and mystic speculations made their way into the originally sober and realistic poetry of the Arabs. The place of the first natural freshness of representation was now taken by a wearisome play on thoughts and sentiments, and even on mere words, metres and rhymes.

2. The unpleasant Abu-l-Atahia (748-828), in his effeminate poetry, is nearly always talking about unhappy love and a longing for death. He gives expression to his wisdom in the following couplet:

“The mind guide thou with cautious hesitation:
‘Gainst sin use the best shield, Renunciation”.

Whoever possesses any faculty for appreciating life and the poetry of Nature will find little to enjoy in his world-renouncing songs; and just as little satisfaction will be afforded him in the verses of Mutanabbi (905-965), frightfully tedious in their contents, although epigrammatic in their form. And yet Mutanabbi has been praised as the greatest Arabic poet.

In like manner people have unduly extolled Abu-l-Ala al-Maarri (973–1058) as a philosophic poet. His occasionally quite respectable sentiments and sensible views are not philosophy, nor does the affected though often hackneyed expression of these amount to poetry. Under more favourable conditions,–for he was blind and not surpassingly rich,–this man might perhaps have rendered some service in the subordinate walks of criticism as a philologist or a historical writer. But, in place of an enthusiastic acceptance of life’s duties, he is led to preach the joyless abandonment of them, and to grumble generally at political conditions, the opinions of the orthodox multitude, and the scientific assertions of the learned, without being able himself to advance anything positive. He is almost entirely wanting in the gift of combination. He can analyse, but he does not hit upon any synthesis, and his learning bears no fruit. The, tree of his knowledge has its roots in the air, as he himself confesses in one of his letters, though in a different sense. He leads a life of strict celibacy and vegetarianism, as becomes a pessimist. As he puts it in his poems “all is but an idle toy: Fate is blind; and Time spares neither the king who partakes of the joys of life, nor the devout man who spends his nights in watching and prayer. Nor does irrational belief solve for us the enigma of existence. Whatever is behind those moving heavens remains hidden from us for ever: Religions, which open up a prospect there, have been fabricated from motives of self-interest. Sects and factions of all kinds are utilized by the powerful to make their dominion secures though the truth about these matters can only be whispered. The wisest thing then is to keep aloof from the world, and to do good disinterestedly, and because it is virtuous and noble to do so, without any outlook for reward”.

Other literary men had a more practical philosophy, and could make their weight more felt in the world. They subscribed to the wise doctrine of the Theatre-Manager in Goethe’s Faust: “He who brings much, will something bring to many”. The most perfect type of this species is Hariri (1054-1122), whose hero, the beggar and stroller, Abu Zaid of Serug, teaches as the highest wisdom:

“Hunt, instead of being hunted;
All the world’s a wood for hunting.
If the falcon should escape you,
Take, content, the humble bunting:
If you finger not the dinars,
Coppers still are worth the counting”

3. The Annalistic of the ancient Arabs, like their Poetry, was distinguished by a clear perception of particulars, but was incapable of taking a general grasp of events. With the vast extension of the empire their view was necessarily widened. First a great mass of material was gathered together. Their historical and geographical knowledge was advanced by means of journeys undertaken to collect traditions, or for purposes of administration and trade, or simply to satisfy curiosity, more than it could have been by mere religious pilgrimages. Characteristic methods of research, brought to bear upon the value of tradition as a source of our knowledge, were elaborated. With the same subtlety which they displayed in Grammar, they portioned out, in endless division and subdivision, the extended field of their observation, in a fashion more truly ‘arabesque’ than lucid; and in this way they formed a logic of history which must have appeared to an oriental eye much finer than the Aristotelian Organon with its austere structure. Their tradition,–in authenticating which they were, as a rule, less particular in practice than in theory,–was by many made equal in value to the evidence of the senses, and preferred to the judgment of the reason, which so easily admitted fallacious inferences.

There were always people, however, who impartially handed down contradictory reports, alongside of one another. Others, although exhibiting consideration for the feelings and requirements of the present, did not withhold their more or less well-founded judgment on the past, for it is often easier to be discerning in matters of history than in the affairs of the living world.

New subjects of enquiry came up, together with new modes of treatment. Geography included somewhat of Natural Philosophy, for example in the geography of climate; while historical composition brought within the range of its description intellectual life, belief, morals, literature and science. Acquaintance also with other lands and nations invited comparison on many points; and thus an international, humanistic or cosmopolitan element was introduced.

4. A representative of the humanistic attitude of mind is met with in Masudi, who died about the year 956. He appreciates, and is interested in, everything that concerns humanity. Everywhere he is learning something from the men he meets with: and in consequence the reading of books, which occupies his privacy, is not without fruit. But it is neither the narrow, everyday practices of life and religion, nor the airy speculations of Philosophy, that specially appeal to him. He knows where his strength lies; and up to the last, when he is spending his old age in Egypt, far from his native home, he finds his consolation,–the medicine of his soul,–in the study of History. History for him is the all-embracing science: it is his philosophy; and its task is to set forth the truth of that which was and is. Even the wisdom of the world, together with its development, becomes the subject of History; and without it all knowledge would long since have disappeared. For learned men come and go; but History records their intellectual achievements, and thereby restores the connection between the past and the present. It gives us unprejudiced information about events and about the views of men. Of course Masudi leaves it often to the intelligent reader to find out for himself the due synthesis of the facts and the individual opinion of the author.

A successor of his, the geographer Maqdasi, or Muqaddasi, who wrote in the year 985, deserves to be mentioned with high commendation. He journeyed through many countries, and exercised the most varied callings, in order to acquaint himself with the life of his time. He is a true Abu Zaid of Serug (cf. II, 4 § 2), but one with an object before him.

He sets to work in critical fashion, and holds to the knowledge which is gained by research and enquiry, not by faith in tradition or by mere deductions of the reason. The geographical statements in the Koran be explains by the limited intellectual horizon of the ancient Arabs, to which Allah must have seen fit to adapt himself.

He describes then, sine ira et studio, the countries and races he has seen with own eyes. His plan is to set down, in the first place, results gathered from his own experience and observation; next, what he has heard from trustworthy people; and last of all what he has met with in books. The following sentences are extracted from his characterization of himself.

“I have given instruction in the common subjects of education and morals: I have come forward as a preacher, and I have made the minaret of the mosque resound with the call to prayer. 1 have been present at the meetings of the learned and the devotions of the pious. I have partaken of broth with Sufis, gruel with monks, and ship’s-fare with sailors. Many Man a time I have been seclusion itself, and then again I have eaten forbidden fruit against my better judgment. I associated with the hermits of Lebanon, and in turn I lived at the court of the Prince. In wars I have participated: I have been detained as a captive and thrown into prison as a spy. Powerful princes and ministers have lent me their ear, and anon I have joined a band of robbers, or sat as a retail-dealer in the bazaar. I have enjoyed much honour and consideration, but I have likewise been fated to listen to many curses and to be reduced to the ordeal of the oath, when I was suspected of heresy or evil deeds”.

We are accustomed at the present day to picture to ourselves the Oriental as a being who, in contemplative repose, is completely bound to his ancestral faith and usages. This representation is not quite correct, but still it agrees better with the situation which now exists than it does with the disposition of Islam in the first four centuries, for during that period it was inclined to take into its possession not only the outward advantages of the world, but also the intellectual acquisitions of Mankind.

History of Philosophy in Islam - Literature and History

History of Philosophy in Islam – Doctrinal Systems

History of Philosophy in Islam, by T.J. de Boer [1904], at sacred-texts.com

1. In the Koran there had been given to Muslims a religion, but no system,–precepts hut no doctrines. What is contrary to logic therein,–what we account for by the shifting circumstances of the Prophet’s life, and his varying moods,–was simply accepted by the first believers, without asking questions about the How and Why. But in the conquered countries they were faced by a fully-formed Christian Dogmatic as well as by Zoroastrian and Brahmanic theories. We have laid frequent stress already upon the great debt which the Muslims owe to the Christians; and the doctrinal system has certainly been determined the most by Christian influences. In Damascus the formation of Muslim Dogmas was affected by Orthodox and Monophysite teaching, and in Basra and Bagdad rather perhaps by Nestorian and Gnostic theories. Little of the literature belonging to the earliest period of this movement has come down to us, but we cannot be wrong in assigning a considerable influence to personal intercourse and regular school-instruction. Not much was learned in the East at that time out of books, any more than it is to-day: more was learned from the lips of the teacher. The similarity between the oldest doctrinal teachings in Islam and the dogmas of Christianity is too great to permit any one to deny that they are directly connected. In particular, the first question about which there was much dispute, among Muslim Scholars, was that of the Freedom of the Will. Now the freedom of the will was almost universally accepted by Oriental Christians. At no time and in no place perhaps was the Will-problem–first in the Christology, but afterward in the Anthropology–so much discussed from every point as in the Christian circles of the East at the time of the Muslim conquest.

Besides these considerations which are partly of an a priori character, there are also detached notices which indicate that some of the earliest Muslims, who taught the Freedom of the Will, had Christian teachers.

A number of purely philosophic elements from the Gnostic systems, and afterwards from the translation-literature, associated themselves with the Hellenistic-Christian influences.

2. An assertion, expressed in logical or dialectic fashion, whether verbal or written, was called by the Arabs,–generally, but more particularly in religious teaching–a Kalam (λόγος), and those who advanced such assertions were called Mutakallimun. The name was transferred from the individual assertion to the entire system, and it covered also the introductory, elementary observations on Method, and so on. Our best designation for the science of the Kalam is ‘Theological Dialectics’. or simply ‘Dialectics’; and in what follows we may translate Mutakallimun by ‘Dialecticians’.

The name Mutakallimun, which was at first common to all the Dialecticians, was in later times . applied specially to the Antimutazilite and Orthodox theologians. In the latter case it might be well, following the sense, to render the term by Dogmatists or Schoolmen. In fact while the first dialecticians had the Dogma still to form, those who came later had only to expound and establish it.

The introduction of Dialectics into Islam was a violent innovation, and it was vehemently denounced by the party of the Tradition. Whatever went beyond the regular ethical teaching was heresy to them, for faith should be obedience, and not,–as was maintained by the Murdjites and Mutazilites–, knowledge. By the latter it was laid down without reserve that speculation was one of the duties of believers. Even to this demand the times became reconciled, for according to tradition the Prophet had said already: ‘The first thing which God created was Knowledge or Reason’.

3. Very numerous are the various opinions which found utterance in the days even of the Omayyads, but especially in those of the early Abbasids. The farther they diverged from one another, the more difficult it was for the men of the Tradition to come to an understanding with them; but gradually certain compact doctrinal collections stood out distinctly, of which the rationalist system of the Mutazilites, the successors of the Qadarites, was most widely extended, particularly among Shi‘ites. From Caliph Mamun’s time down to Mutawakkil’s, it even received State recognition; and the Mutazilites, who had been in earlier days oppressed and persecuted by the temporal power, now became Inquisitors of the Faith themselves, with whom the sword supplied the place of argument. About the same time, however, their opponents the Traditionalists commenced to build up a system of belief. Upon the whole there was no lack of intermediary forms between the naive Faith of the multitude and the Gnosis of the dialecticians. In contrast to the spiritualistic stamp of Mutazilitism these intermediary forms took an anthropomorphic character with regard to the doctrine of the Deity, and a materialistic character with regard to the theory of man and the universe (Anthropology and Cosmology). The soul, for example, was conceived of by them as corporeal, or as an accident of the body, and the Divine Essence was imagined as a human body. The religious teaching and art of the Muslims were greatly averse to the symbolical God-Father of the Christians, but there was an abundance of absurd speculations about the form of Allah. Some went so far as to ascribe to him all the bodily members together, with the exception of the beard and other privileges of oriental manhood.

It is impossible to discuss in detail all the Dialectic sects, which often made their first appearance in the form of political parties. From the standpoint of the history of Philosophy it is, enough to give here the chief doctrines of the Mutazilites, in so far as they can lay claim to general interest.

4. The first question, then, concerned man’s conduct and destiny. The forerunners of the Mutazilites, who were called Qadarites, taught the Freedom of the human Will; and the Mutazilites, even in later times, when their speculations were directed more to theologico-metaphysical problems, were first and foremost pointed to as the supporters of the doctrine of Divine Righteousness,–which gives rise to no evil, and rewards or punishes man according to his deserts–, and, in the second place, as the confessors, or avowed supporters of the Unity of God, i.e. the absence of properties from his Essence considered per se [or the predicateless character of the essential nature of God]. The systematic statement of their doctrines must have been influenced by the Logicians (v. IV, 2 § 1); for even in the first half of the 10th century, the Mutazilite system began with the confession of the Unity of God, while the doctrine of God’s Righteousness, announced as it is in all his works, is relegated to the second place.

The responsibility of man, as well as the holiness of God, who is incapable of directly causing man’s sinful actions, had to be saved by asserting the freedom of the Will. Man must therefore be lord of his actions; but he is lord of these only, for few entertained any doubt that the energy which confers ability to act at all, and the power of doing either a good or a bad action come to man from God. Hence the numerous subtle discussions,–amalgamated with a criticism of the philosophic conception of Time–on the question whether the power, which God creates in man, is bestowed previous to the action, or coincidently and simultaneously therewith: For, did the power precede the act, then it would either have to last up to the time of the act, which would belie its accidental character (cf. II, 3 § 12), or have ceased to exist before the act,–in which case it might have been dispensed with altogether.

From human conduct speculation passed on to consider the operations of nature. Instead of God and man, the antithesis in this case is God and nature. The productive and generative powers of nature were recognized as means or proximate causes; and some endeavoured to investigate them. In their opinion, however, nature herself, like all the world, was a work of God, a creature of his wisdom: And just as the omnipotence of God was limited in the moral kingdom by his holiness or righteousness,–so in the natural world it was limited by his wisdom. Even the presence of evil and mischief in the world was accounted for by the wisdom of God, who sends everything for the best. A production or object of Divine activity, evil is not. “God may be able, indeed,”–so an earlier generation had maintained–”to act wickedly and unreasonably, but he would not do it.” The later Mutazilites taught, on the other hand, that God has no power at all to do anything which is in this way repugnant to his nature. Their opponents, who regarded God’s unlimited might and unfathomable will as directly operative in all doing and effecting were indignant at this teaching, and compared its propounders to the dualistic Magians. Consistent Monism. was on the side of these opponents, who did not care to turn man and nature into creators–next to and under God–of their acts or operations.

5. The Mutazilites, it is clear from the foregoing, had a different idea of God from that which was entertained by the multitude and by the Traditionalists. This became specially evident, as speculation advanced, in the doctrine of the Divine attributes. From the very beginning the Unity of God was strongly emphasized in Islam; but that did not prevent men from bestowing upon him many beautiful names following human analogy, and ascribing to him several attributes. Of these the following came gradually into greatest prominence, under the influence assuredly of Christian dogmatics:–viz.: Wisdom, Power, Life, Will, Speech or Word, Sight and Hearing. The last two of these–Sight and Hearing–were the first to be explained in a spiritual sense, or entirely set aside. But the absolute Unity of the Godhead did not appear to be compatible with any plurality of co-eternal attributes. Would not that be the Trinity of the Christians, who before now had explained the three Persons of the One Divine Being as attributes? In order to avoid this inconvenience they sought sometimes to derive several attributes out of others by a process of abstraction., and to refer them to a single one–for instance to Knowledge or Power–and sometimes to apprehend them each and all as being states of the Divine essence, or to identify them with the essence itself, in which case of course their significance nearly disappeared. Occasionally an attempt was made through refinements of phraseology to save something of that significance. While, for example, a philosopher, denying the attributes, maintained that God is by his essence a Being who knows, a Mutazilite dialectian expressed it thus: God is a Being who knows, but by means of a knowledge, which He himself is.

In the opinion of the Traditionalists the conception of God was in this way being robbed of all its contents. The Mutazilites hardly got beyond negative determinations, that God is not like the things of this world,–that he is exalted above Space, Time, Movement, and so on; but they held fast to the doctrine that he is the Creator of the world. Although little could be asserted regarding the Being of God, it was thought he could be known from his works.

For the Mutazilites as well as for their opponents, the Creation was an absolute act of God, and the existence of the world an existence in time. They energetically combated the doctrine of the eternity of the world,–a doctrine supported by the Aristotelian philosophy, and which had been widely spread throughout the East.

6. We have already found ‘Speech’ or ‘the Word’, given as one of the eternal attributes of God; and, probably by way of conformity with the Christian doctrine of the Logos, there was taught in particular the eternity of the Koran which had been revealed to the Prophet. This belief in an eternal Koran by the side of Allah, was downright idolatry, according to the Mutazilites; and in opposition thereto the Mutazilite Caliphs proclaimed it as a doctrine accepted by the State,–that the Koran had been created: Whoever denied this doctrine was publicly punished. Now although the Mutazilites in maintaining this dogma were more in harmony with the original Islam than their opponents, yet history has justified the latter, for pious needs proved stronger than logical conclusions. Many of the Mutazilites, in the opinion of their brethren in the faith, were far too ready to make light of the Koran, the Word of God. If it did not agree with their theories, it received ever new interpretations. In actual fact reason had more weight with many than the revealed Book. By comparing not only the three revealed religions together, but these also with Persian and Indian religious teaching and with philosophic speculation, they reached a natural religion, which reconciled opposites. This was built up on the basis of an inborn knowledge, universally necessary,–that there is one God, who, as a wise Creator, has produced the world, and also endowed Man with reason that he may know his Creator and distinguish between Good and Evil. Contrasted with this Natural or Rational religion, acquaintance with the teaching of revelation is then something adventitious,–an acquired knowledge.

By this contention the most consistent of the Mutazilites had broken away from the consensus of the Muslim religious community, and had thus actually put themselves outside the general faith. At first they still appealed to that consensus,–which they were able to do as long as the secular power was favourably disposed to them. That condition, however, did not last long, and they soon learned by experience what has often been taught since,–that the communities of men are more ready to accept a religion sent down to them from on high, than an enlightened explanation of it.

7. Following up this survey let us take a closer view of one or two of the most considerable of the Mutazilites, that the general picture may not be wanting in individual features.

Let us first glance at Abu-l-Hudhail al-Allaf, who died about the middle of the 9th century. He was a famous dialectician, and one of the first who allowed philosophy to exercise an influence on their theological doctrines.

That an attribute should be capable of inhering in a Being in any way is not conceivable, in the opinion of Abu-l-Hudhail: It must either be identical with the Being or different from it. But yet he looks about for some way of adjustment. God is, according to him, knowing, mighty, living, through knowledge, might and life, which are his very essence; and just as men had done even before this, on the Christian side, he terms these three predicates the Modi (wudjuh) of the Divine Being. He agrees also that hearing, seeing and other attributes are eternal in God, but only with regard to the world which was afterwards to be created. Besides, it would be easy enough for him and for others, who were affected by the philosophy of the day, to interpret these and similar expressions–such as God’s ‘beholding’ on the last day, 1–in a spiritual sense, since generally they regarded seeing and hearing as spiritual acts. For example, Abu-l-Hudhail maintained that motion was visible, but not palpable, because it was not a body.

The Will of God, however, is not to be regarded as eternal. On the contrary, Abu-l-Hudhail assumes absolute declarations of Will as being different both from the Being who wills and the object which is willed. Thus the absolute Word of Creation takes an intermediate position between the eternal Creator and the transient created world. These declarations of God’s Will form a kind of intermediate essence, to be compared with the Platonic Ideas or the Sphere-spirits, but perhaps regarded rather as immaterial powers than as personal spirits. Abu-l-Hudhail distinguishes between the absolute Word of Creation and the accidental Word of Revelation, which is announced to men in the form of command and prohibition, appearing as matter and in space, and which is thus significant only for this transient world. The possibility of living in accordance with the Divine word of revelation, or of resisting it, exists therefore in this life alone. Binding injunction and prohibition presuppose Freedom of Will and capability of acting in accordance therewith. On the other hand in the future life there are no obligations in the form of laws, and, accordingly, no longer any freedom: everything there depends on the absolute determination of God. Nor will there be any motion in the world beyond, for as motion has once had a beginning, it must, at the end of the world, come to a close in everlasting rest. Abu-l-Hudhail, therefore, could not have believed in a resurrection of the body.

Human actions he divides into Natural and Moral, or Actions of the members, and Actions of the heart. An action is moral, only when we perform it without constraint. The moral act is Man’s own property, acquired by his own exertions, but his knowledge comes to him from God, partly through Revelation, and partly through the light of Nature.

Anterior even to any revelation man is instructed in duty by Nature, and thus is fully enabled to know God, to discern Good from Evil, and to live a virtuous, honest and upright life.

8. Noteworthy as a man and a thinker is a younger contemporary of Abu-l-Hudhail’s, and apparently a disciple of his, commonly called Al-Nazzam, who died in the year 845. A fanciful, restless, ambitious man, not a consistent thinker, but yet a bold and honest one,–such is the representation of him given us by Djahiz, one of his pupils. The people considered him a madman or a heretic. A good deal in his teaching is in touch with what passed among the Orientals as the Philosophy of Empedocles and Anaxagoras (Cf. also Abu-l-Hudhail).

In the opinion of Nazzam God can do absolutely no evil thing; in fact he can only do that which he knows to be the best thing for his servants. His omnipotence reaches no farther than what he actually does. Who could hinder him from giving effect to the splendid exuberance of his Being? A Will, in the proper sense of the term,–which invariably implies a need,—is by no means to be attributed to God. The Will of God, on the contrary, is only a designation of the Divine agency itself, or of the commands which have been conveyed to men. Creation is an act performed once for all, in which all things were made at one and the same time, so that one thing is contained in another, and so that in process of time the various specimens of minerals, plants and animals, as well as the numerous children of Adam, gradually emerge from their latent condition and come to the light.

Nazzam, like the philosophers, rejects the theory of atoms (v. II, 3 § 12), but then he can only account for the traversing of a definite distance, by reason of the infinite divisibility of space, by postulating leaps. He holds bodily substances to be composed of ‘accidents’ instead of atoms. And just as Abu-l-Hudhail could not conceive of the inherence of attributes in an essence, so Nazzam can only imagine the accident as the substance itself or as a part of the substance; Thus ‘Fire’ or ‘the Warm’, for instance, exists in a latent condition in wood, but it becomes free when, by means of friction, its antagonist ‘the Cold’ disappears. In the process there occurs a motion or transposition, but no qualitative change. Sensible qualities, such as colours, savours and odours, are, in Nazzam’s view, bodies.

Even the soul or the intellect of Man he conceives to be a finer kind of body. The soul, of course, is the most excellent part of man: it completely pervades the body, which is its organ, and it must be termed the real and true Man. Thoughts and aspirations are defined as Movements of the Soul.

In matters of Faith and in questions of Law Nazzam rejects both the consensus of the congregation and the analogical interpretation of the Law, and appeals in Shiite fashion to the infallible Imam. He thinks it possible for the whole body of Muslims to concur in admitting an erroneous doctrine, as, for instance, the doctrine that Mohammed has a mission for all mankind in contradistinction to other prophets. Whereas God sends every prophet to all mankind.

Nazzam, besides, shares the view of Abu-l-Hudhail as to the knowledge of God and of moral duties by means of the reason. He is not particularly convinced of the inimitable excellence of the Koran. The abiding marvel of the Koran is made to consist only in the fact that Mohammed’s contemporaries were kept. from producing something like to the Koran.

He has certainly not retained much of the Muslim Eschatology. At least the torments of hell are in his view resolved into a process of consuming by fire.

9. Many syncretistic doctrines, but all devoid of originality, have come down to us from the school of Nazzam. The most famous man, whom it produced was the elegant writer and Natural-Philosopher Djahiz († 869), who demanded of the genuine scholar that he should combine the study of Theology with that of Natural Science. He traces in all things the operations of Nature, but also a reference in these operations to the Creator of the world. Man’s reason is capable of knowing the Creator, and in like manner of comprehending the need of a prophetic revelation. Man’s only merit is in his will, for on the one hand all his actions are interwoven with the events of Nature, and on the other his entire knowledge is necessarily determined from above. And yet no great significance appears to accrue to the Will, which is derived from ‘knowing’. At least Will in the Divine Being is quite negatively conceived of, that is, God never operates unconsciously, or with dislike to his work.

In all this there is little that is original. His ethical ideal is ‘the mean’, and the style of his genius is also mediocre. It is only in compiling his numerous writings that Djahiz has shown any excess.

10. With the earlier Mutazilites reflections on Ethics and Natural Philosophy predominate; with those who come later Logico-metaphysical meditations prevail. In particular Neo-Platonic influences are to be traced here.

Muammar, whose date cannot be accurately determined, although it may be set down as about the year 900, has much in common with those who have just been named. But he is far more emphatic in his denial of the existence of Divine attributes, which he regards as being contradictory of the absolute unity of the Divine essence. God is high above every form of plurality. He knows neither himself nor any other being, for ‘knowing’ would presuppose a plurality in him. He is even to be called Hyper-eternal. Nevertheless he is to be recognized as Creator of the world. He has only created bodies, it is true; and these of themselves create their Accidents, whether through operation of Nature or by Will. The number of these accidents is infinite, for in their essence they are nothing more than the intellectual relations of thought. Muammar is a Conceptualist. Motion and Rest, Likeness and Unlikeness, and so on, are nothing in themselves, and have merely an intellectual or ideal existence. The soul, which is held to be the true essence of Man, is conceived of as an Idea or an immaterial substance, though it is not clearly stated how it is related to the body or to the Divine essence. The account handed down is confused.

Man’s will is free, and,–properly speaking,–Willing is his only act, for the outward action belongs to the body (Cf. Djahiz).

The school of Bagdad, to which Muammar seems to belong, was conceptualist. With the exception of the most general predicates,–those of Being and Becoming, it made Universals subsist only as notions or concepts. Abu Hashim of Basra († 933) stood nearer to Realism. The attributes of God, as well as Accidents and Genus-notions in general, were regarded by him as something in a middle position between Being and Not-Being: he called them Conditions or Modes. He designated Doubt as a requisite in all knowing. A simple Realist he was not.

Mutazilite thinkers indulged in dialectic quibbling even about ‘Not-Being’. They argued that Not-Being, as well as Being, must come to possess a kind of reality, seeing that it may become the subject of thought: at least man tries to think of ‘Nothing’ rather than not think at all.

11. In the 9th century several dialectic systems had been formed in the contest against the Mutazilites, one of which, viz. the Karramite system, held its ground till long after the 10th century. There arose, however, from the ranks of the Mutazilites a man whose mission it was to reconcile antagonistic views, and who set up that doctrinal system which was acknowledged as orthodox first in the East, and, later, throughout the whole of Islam. This was Al-Ashari (873-935), who understood how to render to God the things that are God’s, and to man the things that are man’s. He rejected the rude anthropomorphism of the Antimutazilite dialecticians, and set God high above all that is bodily and human, while he left to the Deity his omnipotence, and his universal agency. With him Nature lost all her efficaciousness; but for man a certain distinction was reserved, consisting in his being able to give assent to the works which were accomplished in him by God, and to claim these as his own. Nor was Man’s sensuous-spiritual being interfered with: He was permitted to hope for the resurrection of the body and the beholding of God. As regards the Koranic revelation, Ashari distinguished between an eternal Word in God, and the Book as we possess it, which latter was revealed in Time.

In the detailed statement of his doctrines Ashari showed no originality in any way, but merely arranged and condensed the material given him,–a proceeding which could not be carried out without discrepancies. The main thing, however, was that his Cosmology, Anthropology and Eschatology did not depart too far from the text of the Tradition for the edification of pious souls, and that his theology, in consequence of a somewhat spiritualized conception of God was not altogether unsatisfactory even to men of higher culture. Ashari relies upon the revelation contained in the Koran. He does not recognize any rational knowledge with regard to Divine things that is independent of the Koran. The senses are not in general likely to deceive us, but on the other hand our judgment may easily do so. We know God, it is true, by our reason, but only from Revelation, which is the one source of such knowledge.

According to Ashari, then, God is first of all the omnipotent Creator. Farther he is omniscient: he knows what men do and what they wish to do: he knows also what happens, and how that which does not happen would have happened, if it had happened. Moreover all predicates which express any perfection are applicable to God, with the proviso that they apply to him in another and higher sense than to his creatures. In creating and sustaining the world God is the sole cause: all worldly events proceed continually and directly from him. Man, however, is quite conscious of the difference between his involuntary movements, such as shivering and shaking, and those which are carried out in the exercise of his will and choice.

12. The most characteristic theory which the dialectic of the Muslims has fashioned, is their doctrine of Atoms. The development of this doctrine is still wrapped in great obscurity. It was advocated by the Mutazilites but particularly by their opponents before the time of Ashari. Our sketch shows how it was held in the Asharite school, where partly perhaps it was first developed.

The Atomic doctrine of the Muslim dialecticians had its source, of course, in Greek Natural Philosophy; but its reception and farther development were determined by the requirements of theological Polemic and Apologetic. The like phenomenon may be observed in the case of individual Jews and among believing Catholics. It is impossible to suppose that Atomism was taken up in Islam, merely because Aristotle had fought against it. Here we have to register a desperate struggle for a religious advantage, and one in which weapons are not chosen at will: It is the end that decides. Nature has to be explained, not from herself but from some divine creative act; and this world must be regarded not as an eternal and divine order of things, but as a creature of transient existence. God must be thought of and spoken of as a freely-working and almighty Creator, not as an impersonal cause or inactive primeval source. Accordingly, from the earliest times the doctrine of the creation is placed at the apex of Muslim dogmatics, as a testimony against the pagan-philosophical view of the eternity of the world and the efficient operations of Nature. What we perceive of the sensible world,–say these Atomists,–is made up of passing ‘accidents’ which every moment come and go. The substratum of this ‘change’ is constituted by the (bodily) substances; and because of changes occurring in or on these substances, they cannot be thought of as themselves unchangeable. If then they are changeable, they cannot be permanent, for that which is eternal does not change. Consequently everything in the world, since everything changes, has come into being, or has been created by God.

That is the starting-point. The changeableness of all that exists argues an eternal, unchangeable Creator. But later writers, under the influence of Muslim philosophers, infer from the possible or contingent character of everything finite, the necessary existence of God, But let us come back to the world. It consists of Accidents and their substrata,–Substances. Substance and Accident or Quality are the two categories by means of which reality is conceived. The remaining categories either come under the category of Quality, or else are resolved into relations, and modifications of thought, to which, objectively, nothing corresponds. Matter, as possibility, exists only in thought: Time is nothing other than the coexistence of different objects, or simultaneity in presentation; and Space and Size may be attributed to bodies indeed, but not to the individual parts (Atoms), of which bodies are composed.

But, generally speaking, it is Accidents which form the proper predicates of substances. Their number in every individual substance is very great, or even infinite as some maintain, since of any pair whatever of opposite determinations,–and these include negatives also,–the one or the other is attributable to every substance. The negative ‘accident’ is just as real as the positive. God creates also Privation and Annihilation, though certainly it is not easy to discover a substratum for these. And seeing that no Accident can ever have its place elsewhere than in some substance, and cannot have it in another Accident, there is really nothing general or common in any number of substances. Universals in no wise exist in individual things: They are Concepts.

Thus there is no connection between substances: they stand apart, in their capacity of atoms equal to one another. In fact they have a greater resemblance to the Homoeomeries of Anaxagoras than to the extremely small particles of matter of the Atomists. In themselves they are non-spatial (without makan), but they have their position (hayyiz), and by means of this position of theirs they fill space. It is thus unities not possessing extension, but conceived of as points,–out of which the spatial world of body is constructed. Between these unities there must be a void, for were it otherwise any motion would be impossible, since the atoms do not press upon one another. All change, however, is referred to Union and Separation, Movement and Rest. Farther operative relations between the Atom-substances, there are none. The Atoms exist then, and enjoy their existence. but have nothing at all to do with one another. The world is a discontinuous mass, without any living reciprocal action between its parts.

The ancients had prepared the way for this conception by their theory, amongst other things, of the discontinuous character of Number. Was not Time defined as the tale or numbering of Motion? Why should we not apply that doctrine to Space, Time and Motion? The Dialecticians did this; and the ‘skepsis’ of the older philosophy may have contributed its influence in the process. Like the substantial, corporeal world,–Space, Time and Motion were decomposed into atoms devoid of extension, and into moments without duration. Time becomes a succession of many individual ‘Nows’, and between every two moments of time there is a void. The same is the case with Motion: between every two movements there is a Rest. A quick motion and a slow motion possess the same speed, but the latter has more points of Rest. Then, in order to get over the difficulty of the empty space, the unoccupied moment of time, and the pause for rest between two movements, the theory of a Leap is made use of. Motion is to be regarded as a leaping onward from one point in space to another, and Time as an advance effected in the same manner from one moment to another.

In reality they had no use at all for this fantastic theory of a Leap: it was a mere reply to unsophisticated questioning. With perfect consistency they had cut up the entire material world, as it moves in space and time, into Atoms with their Accidents. Some no doubt maintained, that although accidents every moment disappear, yet substances endure, but others made no difference in this respect. They taught that substances, which are in fact points in space, exist only for a point of time, just like Accidents. Every moment God creates the world anew, so that its condition at the present moment has no essential connection with that which has immediately preceded it or that which follows next. In this way there is a series of worlds following one another, which merely present the appearance of one world. That for us there is anything like connection or Causality in phenomena proceeds from the fact that Allah in his inscrutable will does not choose either to-day or to-morrow to interrupt the usual course of events by a miracle,–which however he is able at any moment to do. The disappearance of all causal ‘connection according to the Atomistic Kalam is vividly illustrated by the classical instance of ‘the writing man.’ God creates in him,–and that too by an act of creation which is every moment renewed–first the will, then the faculty of writing, next the movement of the, hand, and lastly the motion of the pen. Here one thing is completely independent of the other.

Now if against this view the objection is urged, that along with Causality or the regular succession of worldly events, the possibility of any knowledge is taken away, the believing thinker replies, that Allah verily foreknows everything, and creates not only the things of the world and what they appear to effect, but also the knowledge about them in the human soul, and we do not need to be wiser than He. He knows best.

Allah and the World, God and Man,–beyond these antitheses Muslim dialectic could not reach. Besides God, there is room only for corporeal substances and their accidents. The existence of human souls as incorporeal substances, as well as generally the existence of pure Spirits,–both of which doctrines were maintained by philosophers, and, though less definitely, by several Mutazilites,–would not harmonize properly with the Muslim doctrine of the transcendent nature of God, who has no associate. The soul belongs to the world of body. Life, Sensation, Rational endowment, are accidents, just as much as Colour, Taste, Smell, Motion and Rest. Some assume only one soul-atom: According to others several finer soul-atoms are mingled with the bodily atoms. At all events thinking is attached to one single Atom.

13. It was not every good Muslim that could find mental repose in dialectic. The pious servant of God might yet, in another way, draw somewhat nearer to his Lord. This need,–existing in Islam at the very outset, strengthened too by Christian and Indo-Persian influences, and intensified under more highly developed conditions of civilization,–evoked in Islam a series of phenomena, which are usually designated as Mysticism or Sufism. In this development of a Muslim order of Holy men, or of a Muslim Monkish system, the history of Christian monks and cloisters in Syria and Egypt, as well as that of Indian devotees, is repeated. In this matter then we have at bottom to deal with religious or spiritual practice; but practice always mirrors itself in thought, and receives its theory. In order to bring about a more intimate relationship with the Godhead, many symbolical acts and mediating persons were required. Such persons then endeavoured to discover the mysteries of the symbols for themselves and to disclose them to the initiated, and to establish, besides, their own mediatory position in the scale of universal being. .In particular, Neo-Platonic doctrines,–partly drawn from the turbid source of the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and the holy Hierotheos (Stephen bar Sudaili?)–had to lend their aid in this work. The Indian Yoga too, at least in Persia, seems to have exercised considerable influence. For the most part Mysticism kept within the pale of Orthodoxy, which was always sensible enough to allow a certain latitude to poets and enthusiasts. As regards the doctrine that God works all in all, Dialecticians and Mystics were agreed; but extreme Mysticism propounded the farther doctrine that God is all in all. From this a heterodox Pantheism was developed, which made the world an empty show, and deified the human Ego. Thus the Unity of God becomes Universal Unity; his universal activity Universal Existence. Besides God, there exist at the most only the attributes and conditions of the Sufi souls that are tending towards him. A psychology of feeling is developed by the Sufi teachers. In their view, while our conceptions come to the soul from without, and our exertions amount to the externalizing of what is within, the true essence of our soul consists in certain states or feelings of inclination and disinclination. The most essential of all these is Love. It is neither fear nor hope, but Love that lifts us up to God. Blessedness is not a matter of ‘knowing’ or of ‘willing’: it is Union with the loved one. These Mystics did away with the world (as ultimately they did with the human soul) in a far more thorough-going fashion than the Dialecticians had done. By the latter the world was sacrificed to the arbitrary character of God in Creation; by the former to the illuminating, loving nature of the Divine Being. The confusing multiplicity of things, as that appears to sense and conception, is removed in a yearning after the One and Beloved being. Everything, both in Being and Thinking, is brought to one central point. Contrast with this the genuine Greek spirit. In it a wish was cherished for a still greater number of senses, to enable men . to get a somewhat better acquaintance with this fair world. But these Mystics blame the senses for being too many, because their number brings disorder into their felicity.

Human nature, however, always asserts herself. Those men who renounce the world and the senses, frequently run riot in the most sensual fantasies, till far advanced in life. We need not wonder after all, that many troubled themselves very little indeed about religious doctrine, or that the ascetic morality of the Sufis often went to the other extreme.

The task of following out in detail the development of Sufism, however, belongs to the history of Religion rather than to the history of Philosophy. Besides, we find the philosophical elements which it took up, in the Muslim philosophers whom we shall meet with farther on.

History of Philosophy in Islam - Doctrinal Systems

History of Philosophy in Islam – Ethical Teaching

History of Philosophy in Islam, by T.J. de Boer [1904], at sacred-texts.com

1. The believing Muslim, in so far as custom did not maintain its dominion over him, had at first the Word of God and the example of His Prophet as his rule of conduct and opinion. After the Prophet’s death, the Sunna of Mohammed was followed, in cases where the Koran gave no information,–that is to say, men acted and decided, as Mohammed had decided or acted, according to the Tradition of his Companions. But from the time of the conquest of countries in possession of an old civilization, demands which were altogether new were made of ‘ Islam. Instead of the simple conditions of Arab life, usages and institutions were met with there, in regard to which the Sacred Law gave no precise direction, and to meet which no tradition or interpretation of tradition presented itself. Every day added thus to the number of individual cases which had not been provided for, and yet about which one had to come to a decision, whether according to custom, or his own sense of right. In the old-Roman provinces, Syria and Mesopotamia, Roman law must have long continued to exercise an important influence.

Those jurists who attributed to their own opinion (Ra’y, opinio) alongside of the Koran and Sunna, a subsidiary authority to determine the law, were called ‘Adherents of the Ra’y’. One of them, Abu Hanifa of Kufa († 767), the founder of the Hanifite School, became specially famous. But even in Medina, before the appearance of the school of Malik (715-795), as well as in that school, a harmless though restricted deference was at first paid to the Ra’y. By slow degrees, however, and in the course of opposing a Ra’y which was becoming a pretext for much arbitrariness, the view gained ground, that in everything the Tradition (hadith) respecting the Sunna of the Prophet was to be followed. Thereupon traditions were collected from all quarters, and explained–and in large numbers even forged–; and a system of criteria to determine their genuineness was formed, which, however, laid more stress upon the external evidence and the appropriateness of the traditionary material than upon consistency and historic truth. As a consequence of this development, the ‘people of the Ra’y’, who were chiefly located in Iraq (Babylonia), were now confronted by the ‘Adherents of the Tradition’, or the Medina school. Even Shafii (767-820), the founder of the third school of Law, who in general held to the Sunna, was numbered with the partisans of Tradition, in contradistinction no doubt to Abu Hanifa.

2. Logic introduced a new element into this controversy,–viz Qiyas or Analogy. There had been, of course, stray applications of Qiyas, even in earlier times; but, to lay down Qiyas as a principle, a foundation or a source of law,–presupposed the influence of scientific reflection. Although the terms Ra’y and Qiyas may be used as synonyms, yet there is in the latter term, less suggestion of the presence and operation of individual predilection than there is in Ra’y. The more one grew accustomed to employ Qiyas in grammatical and logical researches, the more readily could he include this principle in the institutes of jurisprudence, whether by way of reasoning from one instance to another, or from the majority of instances to the remainder (i.e. analogically), or by way of seeking rather for some common ground governing various cases, from which the conduct proper in a particular case might be deduced (i.e. syllogistically) 1.

The application of Qiyas appears to have come into use, first and most extensively, in the Hanifite school, but afterwards also in the school of Shafii,–though with a more limited range. In connection therewith, the question–whether language was capable of expressing the Universal, or could merely denote the Particular–became important for ethical doctrine.

The logical principle of Qiyas never attained to great repute. Much more emphasis was laid,–next to the Koran and the Sunna, the historic foundations of the Law–, upon the Idjma, that is, the Consensus of the Congregation of the faithful. The Consensus of the Congregation or, practically, of the most influential learned men in it,–who may be compared to the fathers and teachers of the Catholic Church,–is the Dogmatical principle, which, contested only by a few, has proved the most important instrument in establishing the Muslim Ethical System. Theory, however, continues to assign a certain subordinate place to Qiyas, as a fourth source of moral guidance, after Koran, Sunna and Idjma.

3. The Muslim Ethical System (al-fiqh) = ‘the knowledge’) takes into account the entire life of the believer, for whom the Faith itself is the first of all duties. Like every innovation the system at first encountered violent opposition:–commandment was now turned into doctrinal theory, and believing obedience into abstruse pursuit of knowledge: that called for protestation alike from plain pious people and from wise statesmen. But gradually the ‘knowing’ men or men learned in the Law (ulamā, or in the West, faqihs) were recognized as the true heirs of the prophets. The Ethical system was developed before the Doctrinal, and it has been able to hold the leading position up to the present day. Nearly every Muslim knows something of it, seeing it is part of a good religious upbringing. According to the great Church-father Gazali, ‘the Fiqh’ is the daily bread of believing souls, while the Doctrine is only valuable as a Medicine for the sick.

We are not called upon here to enter into the minutiae of the fine-spun casuistic of the Fiqh. The main subject handled in it is an ideal righteousness, which can never be illustrated in all its purity in our imperfect world. We are acquainted now with its principles, and with the position which it holds in Islam. Let us merely add a brief notice of the division of moral acts which was formulated by ethical teachers. According to this classification there are:

a. Acts, the practice of which is an absolute duty and is therefore rewarded, and the omission of which is punished:

b. Acts which are recommended by the Law, and are the subject of reward, but the neglect of which does not call for punishment:

c. Acts which are permitted, but which in the eyes of the Law are a matter of indifference:

d. Acts which the Law disapproves of, but does not hold as punishable:

e. Acts which are forbidden by the Law and which demand unconditional punishment

4. Greek philosophic enquiries have had a two-fold influence upon the Ethics of Islam. With many of the sectaries and mystics, both orthodox and heretic, an ascetic system of Ethics is found, coloured by Pythagorean-Platonic views. The same thing appears with philosophers, whom we shall afterwards meet again. But in orthodox circles the Aristotelian deliverance,–that virtue consists in the just mean–, found much acceptance, because something similar stood in the Koran, and because, generally, the tendency of Islam was a catholic one,–one conciliatory of opposites.

More attention indeed was given to Politics than to Ethics, in the Muslim empire, and the struggles of political parties were the first thing to occasion difference of opinion. Disputes about the Imâmat, i.e. the headship in the Muslim Church, pervade the entire history of Islam; but the questions discussed have commonly more of a personal and practical than a theoretical importance, and therefore a history of philosophy does not need to consider them very fully. Hardly anything of philosophic value emerges in them. Even in the course of the first centuries there was developed a firm body of constitutional law canonically expressed; but this, like the ideal system of duty, was not particularly heeded by strong rulers,–who viewed it as mere theological brooding,–while, on the other hand, by weak princes it could not be applied at all.

Just as little is it worth our while to examine minutely the numerous ‘mirrors of Princes’, which were such favourites, in Persia especially, and in whose wise moral saws, and maxims of political sagacity, the courtly circles found edification.

The weight of philosophic endeavour in Islam lies on the theoretical and intellectual side. With the actual proceedings of social and political life they are able to make but a scanty compromise. Even the Art of the Muslims, although it exhibits more originality than their Science, does not know how to animate the crude material, but merely sports with ornamental forms. Their Poetry creates no Drama, and their Philosophy is unpractical.

History of Philosophy in Islam - Ethical Teaching