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’
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