CIVILIZATION STUDIES PROGRAM (AUB)

CVSP 202: The Monotheistic Traditions from

Late Antiquity to the 13th Century

 INTRODUCTION TO ‘CLASSICAL

ISLAMIC THOUGHT’: CHANGE AND CONTINUITY

DAHLIA GUBARA

October 6, 2015

I. INTRODUCTION:

‘CLASSICAL’ ‘ISLAMIC’ ‘THOUGHT’

What does the past mean to us today?

II. LATE ANTIQUITY AND ISLAM AS A TRADITION

Two conventional theories on the formation of Islam: ‘Out of Arabia’ and/or the Late Antique Near East

More than an epoch: Late Antiquity as a ‘shared epistemic space’ (a space of knowledge-making)

Balancing the old and the new: Revelation and Prophecy as the linchpin of tradition

Expansion of the Islamic State

II. LATE ANTIQUITY AND ISLAM AS A TRADITION

Two conventional theories on the formation of Islam: ‘Out of Arabia’ and/or the Late Antique Near East

More than an epoch: Late Antiquity as a ‘shared epistemic space’ (a space of knowledge-making)

Balancing the old and the new: Revelation and Prophecy as the linchpin of tradition

Expansion of the Islamic State

Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ wa Khullān al-Wafāʾ wa Ahl al-Hamd wa Abnāʾ al-Majd (the Brethren of Purity, the Loyal Friends, People of Praise, and Sons of Glory)

Al-Ghazālī’s Wanderings

The Harūniyya, (Seljuk-Ilkhanid mausoleum in Tus, near Mashhad, Iran) where al-Ghazālī is said to be buried

(http://archnet.org/sites/3885/media_contents/62839)

III. CONTEXTUAL MATTERS: Our authors, their times, their works, and

their reception

Ikhwān al-ṢafāʾAbū Ḥāmid Muḥammad

ibn Muḥammad al-Ghazālī

Anonymous collective – esoteric fraternity

Renowned figure of ‘mainstream Islam’

Possibly active in the last quarter of the 10th century A.D. in Basra and Baghdad

Born 1058 near Tus, northeastern IranDied in 1111 A.D.

Political, sectarian and creedal affiliation unknown

Sunni, Ash’ari, Shafi’i, and close to Seljuk vizir Nizam al-Mulk and the Abbasid court

Other works unknownProlific corpus spanning many disciplines (jurisprudence, theology, philosophy and Sufism)

Rasāʾil – encyclopedic, classification of knowledge

Munqidh - Intellectual, autobiographical

Philosophically neo-Platonist and ecumenical in spirit

Critical of falsafa, reconciles legal orthodoxy with Sufi mysticism

Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Epistle 22: The Case of the Animals vs. Man before the King of the Jinn (online source)

IV. LEVELS OF INTERPRETATION:

• Epistemic certainty: Integrated Methods of Reasoning

 • The Ends of Knowledge: Social: pedagogy, instruction, initiation,

political orderIndividual: happiness, salvation (soteriology -

the final return to God, yawm al-ḥisāb)

The Harūniyya, (Seljuk-Ilkhanid mausoleum in Tus, near Mashhad, Iran) where al-Ghazālī is said to be buried

(http://archnet.org/sites/3885/media_contents/62839)

Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ: Epistle 22: The Case of the Animals vs. Man before the King of the Jinn:

Al-Ghazālī, Al-munqidh min al-ḍalāl:

The Trial: disputation, debate, proof and the methods of reasoning

Diving into the Profound Sea of Knowledge

Cosmological doctrines (Creation and Creator)

Severing the Fetters of Servile Conformism

Mediation on power and justice (mastery/bondage; tyranny/mercy; truth/falsehood-ignorance)

Deducing the True Meaning of Things

Ethical-spiritual ecology (ayāt Allah, earth as a Trust)

The Primordial Covenant, Prophecy and the Question of tawātur

The fable as a form (universal truth, the speech of the powerful vs. the powerless)

The Ḥakīm’s antidote (sickness of the heart)

Knowledge as Ḥikmah

V. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS:

Reason vs. Revelation? (al-manqūl and al-ma’qūl)

Syncretism and Reconciliation Philosophy vs. Religion?

Postscript – ‘Polymathesis,’ Education, Edification

the ‘CVSP Man’