The Arabic-Islamic philosophy, its definiton and historical significance
The Arabic-Islamic philosophy, its definiton and historical significance

Summary/Abstract: The subject under the diseussion in this paper is not approached from any particular philosophical school or theory, but, rather, as a historical problem with regard to the origins, meaning and the role of that philosophy, above all, in the Middle Ages. It is called Islamic because it was developped and cultivated in the area under the impact of Islam, or within the clearly defined Islamic civilization, in spite of a permanent conflict between faith and reason, auctoritas and ratio, as was the case also with Judaism and Christianity. It may also be called Arabic, but meraly because its main works are written in the Arabic language. Of particular importance for the inception of that philosophy is the fact that Islam, both as religion and a culture, arose as a result of special hellenistic or hellenizing forces, notwithstanding its being based initially on the revelation. It was a meeting ground of several streams from different sources and languages but ultimatily expressed, in one language, Arabic, and formed in agreement with ideas and aspirations inspired by Islam as religion and vision of the world. Thus the sources of Islamic philosophy may be said to be twofold: from within the Islamic tradition, strictly speaking, with its intrinsic problems, touching individual faith and public responsibility, human action and divine omnipotence, qualities and quantities of faith, the question of perfection both of the individual and the society, as posed by the Qur’an as a revealed word and inevitably dictated by the all pervading reality. This genuine Islamic philosophy found its facit in the scholastic or dialectical theology, kalam, cultivated by various schools, such as mu’tazila, ğabriyya, murği’a, ash’ariyya, and many other sehools, with a wide range of conflicting wiews. But even these, Islamic schools were influenced by ideas from various sources, manly from Greek philosophy. The second source was the Greek heritage readly taken aver and cultivated by the Muslims, resulting in numerous translations and commentaries of Greek philosophical Works, mainly of Plato and Aristotle but also of others of neoplationic school. This was falsafa, philosophy, and those who cultivated that branch of knowledge were called falasifa, philosophers, in contradistinction to kalam and mutakallimun. Both of these philosophies, as represented by al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, Averroes, al-Ghazali, to name only a few, had a large share in transmitting the Greek heritage to the Christian West and in influencing the sholastic philosophy, and even the theology, of Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Roger Bacon and the entire philosophy of the Middle Ages.

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