What is your view on some of the great Muslim philosophers and theologians?

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theidler

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Just curious - what is your view, as a Christian or otherwise, of the great Muslim philosophers? I know for myself that Avicenna (Ibn Sina) has been a huge influence on my own thought. Many of the Muslim theologians’ arguments for the existence of God are fantastic, and influenced such greats as St Thomas Aquinas and St Bonaventure.
What is your take?
Some persons of note:
Averroes
Avicenna
Al-Farabi
Al-Kindi
Al-Ghazali
Ibn-Tufayl
 
Christians don’t have a monopoly of the truth! Even atheists often have a refining influence on the beliefs of those who convey the impression that they have God under their thumb…🙂 And mysticism of every variety (even though sometimes misleading) is a welcome antidote to materialism…
 
tonyrey said:
Christians don’t have a monopoly of the truth! Even atheists often have a refining influence on the beliefs of those who convey the impression that they have God under their thumb…🙂 And mysticism of every variety (even though sometimes misleading) is a welcome antidote to materialism…
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I definitely agree with that to a degree, in that seeds of truth are found in all sorts of places, though as a Christian I feel that the Truth is with us in its entirety. Some of the biggest influences on Aquinas were Averroes and Avicenna - even though he disagreed very much with Averroes, he apparently had a massive respect for his skill in philosophy (hence why he named him simply as “the Commentator”).
 
What’s my view?

They were all a long time ago:shrug:: where are the modern Moslem scholars and Philosophers who seek truth and beauty in the World?
 
I have not read the philosophers listed.

I readily understand that many intelligent men and women seek God. But I believe that none of us can find God unless God REVEALS Himself to us first. We can then try to understand that Revelation and try to live accordingly.

To keep my comment short, I believe that Christ was FORETOLD in the Old Testament and Christ fulfilled every prediction of how we would know who is THE Son of God, made Man. No other Holy Man in history was FORETOLD. Christ taught LOVE and did not punish non-believers as ordinary men are want to do.

Most religions are well meaning but they lack the FULLNESS OF CHRIST. Their thinkers can rightly emphasize certain aspects but they miss the Fullness. They can challenge thinking and thus allow thinkers like St Thomas Aquinas and others to sharpen and clarify the reasoning to leads to accepting the Fullness of Christ.

Because we are imperfect, we cannot follow Christ as well as He taught. But an honest and thorough study of the Foretelling of the Redeemer and an honest study of the Gospels and New Testament should convince one that Christ is indeed the Living Son of God. To ignore God’s Revelation in the Bible, to try and prove otherwise, or to compete does not bring one closer to God even though one may very well be well meaning.

This is a very short statement of my Faith.
 
theidler
Many of the Muslim theologians’ arguments for the existence of God are fantastic, and influenced such greats as St Thomas Aquinas and St Bonaventure.
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It is wise to have a realistic perspective on the teaching of Islam and it’s scholars.

While the Arab translations of ancient Greek classics led to their dissemination in the Western world in the twelfth century, a profound development for Western intellectual history, any contributions of Muslim scientists “typically occurred in spite of Islam rather than because of it. Orthodox Islamic scholars absolutely rejected any conception of the universe that involved consistent physical laws, because the absolute autonomy of Allah could not be restricted by natural laws. Apparent natural laws were nothing more than mere habits, so to speak, of Allah, and might be discontinued at any time.” (How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, Dr Thomas E Woods, Regnery, 2005, p 79).

“The celebrated Muslim philosopher Averroes and his students in the twelfth century, despite their efforts to exclude all Muslim doctrines from their work….became intransigent and doctrinaire Aristotelians – proclaiming that his physics was complete and infallible and that if an observation was inconsistent with one of Aristotle’s views, the observation was certainly incorrect or an illusion.” The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark, Random House, 2005, p 21].
 
Al-Ghazali
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I’ve read some of al-Ghazali’s works in English translation and I have huge respect for him.

Also, Mulla Sadra should be included.
 
Abu said:
It is wise to have a realistic perspective on the teaching of Islam and it’s scholars.

While the Arab translations of ancient Greek classics led to their dissemination in the Western world in the twelfth century, a profound development for Western intellectual history, any contributions of Muslim scientists “typically occurred in spite of Islam rather than because of it.”
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I think that’s a hard call to make and we should be slow to make it. But certainly Avicenna and Averroes do not represent mainstream, historic, orthodox Islam.

Al-Gazali is a much better example.
“The celebrated Muslim philosopher Averroes and his students in the twelfth century, despite their efforts to exclude all Muslim doctrines from their work….became intransigent and doctrinaire Aristotelians – proclaiming that his physics was complete and infallible and that if an observation was inconsistent with one of Aristotle’s views, the observation was certainly incorrect or an illusion.” The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark, Random House, 2005, p 21].
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I’m not sure what the word “despite” is doing there, nor am I sure that it’s fair to say that Averroes et al were explicitly trying to exclude Muslim doctrines–I think they would have said rather that they were trying to explore the philosophical truth which lay behind Muslim doctrines, with the doctrines expressing that truth in a more “popular” form accessible to the masses.

But then, I found the Victory of Reason to be a rather appalling book, showing a lack of understanding of Western intellectual history at those points where I’m most qualified to evaluate it.

Edwin
 
An abridged version of the eminent priest, physicist and theologian, Fr Stanley L Jaki’s Science and Creation (1974), by C.Jeynes, refers to the accomplishments of the Muslim theologians and philosophers and exposes their errors. For Fr Jaki, see the N.Y. Times at: nytimes.com/2009/04/13/nyregion/13jaki.html

www.surrey.ac.uk/ati/ibc/files/Science&Creation.pdf
'By the time of the Jewish Moses ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides (1135-1204) the heyday of the Islamic empire had passed: its science had come to a standstill, and even its days were numbered as its western and eastern flanks were soon to be lost.
‘The most, Maimonides noted, that the theologians2 were willing to admit about lawfulness in the universe was that it resembled human habits, such as the customary riding of the king of a city through its streets. Still, a king could readily break his habits, and so could any or all parts of the universe shift to a different “habit”. Maimonides pointedly remarked: “the thing which exists … only follows the direction of habit …On this foundation their whole fabric is constructed.”
Note:
2 Thus, the influential mystic al-Ghazzali (1058-1111), known as Hujjatu-l-Islam (“Islam’s convincing proof”) wrote a book attacking the scientists which became a milestone of Muslim thought not only by its contents but also by its evocative title: Tahafut-al-falisifah (“Incoherence of the Philosophers”, translated into English by Sabih Ahmad Kamali, Lahore: The Pakistan Philosophical Congress, 1958). He asserted that human reason had to stop at the observation of simultaneity, and forgo the obvious inference to causality: “… all these things are observed to exist with some other conditions. But we cannot say they exist by them … On the contrary, they derive their existence from God … So it is clear that existence with a thing does not prove being by it.” (p 49)’

“For Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), the ultimate raison d’être of the cosmos consisted in its subordination to man’s unique and supernatural destiny. Motivated by the sad predicament of Muslim theologians and philosophers, and by their highly unsettling impact on a Christian Europe going through its birthpangs, he made a gigantic effort to bring reason and faith into a stable synthesis.5 His polemical *Summa contra gentiles *(1257), aimed at countering the occasionalism and fatalism contending with one another within Muslim theology and philosophy and centred on questions about the Creator and the nature of human intellect.”
 
I admire Al Ghazzali, especially given his biography, as well as al-Hariri.
 
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