Muhammad al-GhazaliWhat was ‘Knowledge’ in the Medieval

Islamic Period?

Four Types of

Knowledge

I. Falsafa/ Philosophers

II. Theology/ Mutakallimun

III. Sufis- SufismIV. İsmailism/Batınis (talim)

Before the Islamic Empires

House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikma)

Established by Abbasid

Caliph al-Ma’mun (813-833)

Hunayn b. Ishaq,

Place of non-Arabs

Al-Mas’udi, Abbasid chronicler

During the time of the ancient Greeks, and for a little while during the

Roman empire, the philosophical sciences kept on growing and

developing, and scholars and philosophers were respected and honored.

They developed their theories on natural science- on the body, the

intellect, the soul- and on the quadrivium, i.e. on atithmetike- the science of

numbers, on geometrike- the science of surfaces, on astronomia, the

science of stars, and on musike- the science of the harmonious composition

of melodies. The sciences continued to be in great demand and intensely

cultivated until the religion of Christianity appeared among the Byzantines;

they then effaced the signs of philosophy, eliminated its traces, destroyed

its paths, and they changed and corrupted what the ancient Greeks had

set forth in clear expositions.

Ibn Ridwan

(d.1068,

court

physician)

Al-Ma’mun revived (the

teaching of medicine) by

favoring the most excellent of

men. If not for that revival, all

the sciences of the ancients,

including medicine, logic and

philosophy, would have been

forgotten, just as they are

forgotten today in the lands in

which they were most

specifically cultivated, I mean

Rome, Athens, the Byzantine

provinces, in many other lands.

‘Greek Learning’

Quadrivium (The Four Sciences)

Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy

Medicine: Universal Laws, Galen (2nd Century)

The Buyids, and the

Dissolution of the Abbasid

Empire

The Seljuk Empire

PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS- MADRASAS

Early Islam: Smaller Study Circles

Anyone with the financial means (who is free and of legal age) can

establish a madrasa

Madrasa is a complex of buildings that have a variety of functions:

Madrasa curriculum centers on legal studies and auxiliary sciences

Nizamülmülk

Vizier of Alp Arslan and Melik Shah

Founder of the Nizamiyya madrasas: Baghdad, Nishapur,

Herat, Belh, İsfahan

Ghazali taught at the Baghdad Nizamiyya in 1094-5

Four Types of

Knowledge

I. Falsafa/ Philosophers

II. Theology/ Mutakallimun

III. Sufis- SufismIV. İsmailism/Batınis (talim)

35. The sum of what we regard as the

authentic philosophy of Aristotle, as

transmitted by al-Farabi and Ibn Sina, can

be reduced to three parts: a part which

must be branded as unbelief; a part which

must be stigmatized as innovation; and a

part which not be repudiated at all.

If we believe that revelation is the only source, then how do we understand

the situation of ppl born in a far away island? Fitra- we should believe that

there is something inherent—

So it must be possible to ‘know’ the purpose of the universe- but how??

Philosophers-

A. Materialists

B. Naturalists

C. Theists-

Avicenna

(d.1037)

Averroes (d. 1198)

The Rise of Sufism as a Field of Knowledge

Purifying the heart for God’s

’revelations and visions’

‘The charisma of the saints

are in reality the first stages

passed through by the

prophets’.

‘Drunken Sufis’