HELLENIC PHILOSOPHY AND ISLAM

When Arab Muslims initially spread out across the vast territories that had formerly been ruled by the declining Byzantine and Sassanian empires, they found themselves inheritors of an ancient civilized region with a variety of long-standing intellectual traditions. These lands had long been in decline, subject to the misrule of those empires, and the initial task of the Muslims was to restore order, and construct a new state and society. Their success in these efforts led to a revitalization throughout the region, and set the stage for the golden age of Islamic civilization.

As the initial stage of reorganization gave way to a new stage of growth, a two-way interchange developed. On the one hand, Islam spread from its original Arab adherents to the people among whom they settled (as did the Arabic language and Arab identity). At the same time, Muslims -- both descendents of the original tribesmen and more recent converts -- found themselves learning and thus confronting the ideas of these older civilizations.

Among these ideas was the body of thought we know of as Hellenic philosophy. The power and scope of this tradition could not help but appeal to the creative Muslim intellect. At the same time, it posed a fundamental challenge. Was it to be treated as a religion, with a defined place in a predominantly Muslim society, but set apart from Muslim thought?

. . .
being," was evidently based on "a substantification of the Arabic anna, which means 'that' (as in 'it is true that al-Kindi is a philosopher')" (Adamson, 2002, p. 299). Annayya, then, carried the sense of "that-ness." It is perhaps notable that al-Kindi chose to adapt an Arabic word to his requirement, rather than simply transliterating a Greek word (as with falsafah). With an appropriate technical vocabulary in case, al-Kindi sought to analyze the concept of God down to its most basic elements. One such approach would be to conceive of God as "simple being" -- an entity entirely free of what might be called internal structure, because it could be fully described in terms of its being-ness (Adamson, 2002, pp 300-301). "For al-Kindi, unity is convertible with being in the case of God" (Adamson, 2002, p. 303). However, this seems to leave God as a pure being-ness, devoid of characteristics. For a pure philosophist, this might be enough. For a Muslim, however, it could not be satisfactory. Islam teaches that God has certain recognizable characteristics, such as mercifulness. No attempt to reconcile a philosophical understanding of God with the Islamic understanding of God could be successful without coming to grips with
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Plato Aristotle, Byzantine Sassanian, Ibn Rushd, Nevertheless Muslim, Subsequent Development, Intentions Philosophers, God Moreover, Almagest Turner, Muslim Muslims, Falsafah English, islamic philosophy, adamson 2001, found themselves, ibn rushd, hellenic philosophy, adamson 2002, medieval western, philosophical tradition, islamic philosophers, classical age, body adamson 2001, journal history ideas, adamson 2001 213, al-ghazali ibn rushd, classical age islam,
Approximate Word count = 5682
Approximate Pages = 23 (250 words per page)

More Essays on HELLENIC PHILOSOPHY AND ISLAM