ABSTRACT

It is futile to try to date precisely the start of philosophy in the Islamic world. Philosophy in its technical sense certainly did not arise for a long time, but the sorts of issues which philosophy raises were themselves often part of the new religion itself. Theoretical questions were raised in the initial phases of Islam, questions which were generally addressed to specifically Islamic texts such as the Qur a¯n, the practices of the community (sunna) and the traditional sayings of the Prophet and his companions (h. adı¯th). For the Shı¯ ı¯ community one has to add the teachings of the Ima¯ms. Added to this canonical foundation a whole range of what came to be known as the Islamic sciences were produced, and these consisted largely of religious law, the study of the language in which God transmitted the Qur a¯n (Arabic), and the various schools of theology which represented differing understandings of Islam. Some of the early issues were dealt with by the theological schools but are clearly philosophical, such as the problem of free will, the nature of human and divine knowledge, issues about what counts as evidence, the relationship between our actions and divine will. These and many other debates came to be seen as the main controversies that served to distinguish the basic intellectual groups in the Islamic world.