History of Islamic Philosophy, [1] first published in 1996 with, is a collection of essays by various authorities on Islam in the Routledge series History of World Philosophies and is edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr of George Washington University and Oliver Leaman of Liverpool John Moores University. [2] [3] The book has been well reviewed (the book jacket carries positive praise from the London University School of Oriental and African Studies).
In over 1200 pages the book explores many varieties of Islamic thought as follows:
Islamic philosophy is philosophy that emerges from the Islamic tradition. Two terms traditionally used in the Islamic world are sometimes translated as philosophy—falsafa, which refers to philosophy as well as logic, mathematics, and physics; and Kalam, which refers to a rationalist form of Scholastic Islamic theology which includes the schools of Maturidiyah, Ashaira and Mu'tazila.
Abu Nasr Muhammad al-Farabi, known in the Latin West as Alpharabius, was an early Islamic philosopher and music theorist. He has been designated as "Father of Islamic Neoplatonism", and the "Founder of Islamic Political Philosophy".
Seyyed Hossein Nasr is an Iranian-American philosopher, theologian and Islamic scholar. He is University Professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University.
Shihāb ad-Dīn" Yahya ibn Habash Suhrawardī (1154–1191) was a Persian philosopher and founder of the Iranian school of Illuminationism, an important school in Islamic philosophy. The "light" in his "Philosophy of Illumination" is the source of knowledge. He is referred to by the honorific title Shaikh al-ʿIshraq "Master of Illumination" and Shaikh al-Maqtul "the Murdered Master", in reference to his execution for heresy. Mulla Sadra, the Persian sage of the Safavid era described Suhrawardi as the "Reviver of the Traces of the Pahlavi (Iranian) Sages", and Suhrawardi, in his magnum opus "The Philosophy of Illumination", thought of himself as a reviver or resuscitator of the ancient tradition of Persian wisdom. Suhrawardi provided a new Platonic critique of the peripatetic school of Avicenna that was dominant at his times, and that critique involved the fields of Logic, Physics, Epistemology, Psychology, and Metaphysics.
Ibn Hazm was an Andalusian Muslim polymath, historian, traditionist, jurist, philosopher, and theologian, born in the Córdoban Caliphate, present-day Spain. Described as one of the strictest hadith interpreters, Ibn Hazm was a leading proponent and codifier of the Zahiri school of Islamic jurisprudence, and produced a reported 400 works, of which only 40 still survive.
Shams al-Din Muhammad Mahmud Shahrazuri knowns as Shahrazuri was a 13th-century Muslim physician, historian and philosopher. He was of Kurdish origin. It appears that he was alive in AD 1288. However, it is also said that he died in the same year.
Contemporary Islamic philosophy revives some of the trends of medieval Islamic philosophy, notably the tension between Mutazilite and Asharite views of ethics in science and law, and the duty of Muslims and role of Islam in the sociology of knowledge and in forming ethical codes and legal codes, especially the fiqh and rules of jihad.
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. It is distinguished from other ways of addressing fundamental questions by being critical and generally systematic and by its reliance on rational argument. It involves logical analysis of language and clarification of the meaning of words and concepts.
William Clark Chittick is an American philosopher, writer, translator, and interpreter of classical Islamic philosophical and mystical texts. He is best known for his work on Rumi and Ibn 'Arabi, and has written extensively on the school of Ibn 'Arabi, Islamic philosophy, and Islamic cosmology. He is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies at Stony Brook University.
Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad ibn 'Abd Allah ibn Masarra ibn Najih al-Jabali (883–931) was an Andalusian Muslim ascetic and scholar. He is considered one of the first Sufis as well as one of the first philosophers of al-Andalus.
Avicennism is a school of Islamic philosophy which was established by Avicenna. He developed his philosophy throughout the course of his life after being deeply moved and concerned by the Metaphysics of Aristotle and studying it for over a year. According to Henry Corbin and Seyyed Hossein Nasr, there are two kinds of Avicennism: Islamic Avicennism, and Latin Avicennism.
Joseph E.B. Lumbard is an American Muslim scholar of Islamic studies and associate professor of Quranic studies at the College of Islamic Studies at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar. He is the author, editor, and translator of several scholarly books and many articles on Islamic philosophy, Sufism, and Quranic studies.
Mullā Muḥammad b. Murtaḍā b. Maḥmūd al-Kāshānī knows as Mullā Muḥsin & al-Fayḍ al-Kāshānī was an Iranian Akhbari Twelver Shi'i Muslim, mystic, poet, philosopher, and muhaddith.
Hossein Ziai was a professor of Islamic philosophy and Iranian Studies at UCLA where he held the inaugural Jahangir and Eleanor Amuzegar Chair in Iranian Studies until his passing. He received his B.S. in Intensive Physics and Mathematics from Yale University in 1967 and a Ph.D. in Islamic Philosophy from Harvard University in 1976. Prior to UCLA, Ziai taught at Tehran University, Sharif University, Harvard University, Brown University, and Oberlin College. As Director of Iranian Studies at UCLA, where he taught since 1988, Ziai established an undergraduate major in Iranian in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures—the first such degree in North America—and developed the strongest and most rigorous Iranian Studies program in the U.S.
Illuminationism, also known as Ishrāqiyyun or simply Ishrāqi is a philosophical and mystical school of thought introduced by Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi in the twelfth century, established with his Kitab Hikmat al-Ishraq, a fundamental text finished in 1186. Written with influence from Avicennism, Peripateticism, and Neoplatonism, the philosophy is nevertheless distinct as a novel and holistic addition to the history of Islamic philosophy.
Najm al-Dīn 'Alī ibn 'Umar al-Qazwīnī al-Kātibī was a Persian Islamic philosopher and logician of the Shafi`i school. He was a student of Athīr al-Dīn al-Abharī. His most important works are a treatise on logic, Al-Risala al-Shamsiyya, and one on metaphysics and the natural sciences, Hikmat al-'Ain. Further, he helped to establish the Maragha observatory along with Nasir al-Din al-Tusi and several other astronomers.
Maria Massi Dakake is an American scholar of Islamic studies and associate professor of Religious Studies at George Mason University. Her research mainly focuses on Islamic intellectual history, Quranic studies, Shi`ite and Sufi traditions, and women's spirituality and religious experience. She was a contributor to The Study Quran - a modern verse-by-verse commentary of the Quran.
Zailan Moris is a Malaysian scholar of Islamic philosophy and former professor of the School of Humanities at the University Sains Malaysia. Her main interests are Islamic philosophy, comparative religion and Sufism.
Caner K. Dagli is a Turkish Circassian-American Islamic scholar and associate professor of Religious Studies at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.