Chapter Two
SECOND STAGE – FAITH AND REASON
Avicenna, Averroes and Ibn Khaldun
Th e next stage in our journey will take us into the world of Islam, which Emmanuel Lévinas has called “un des facteurs principaux de cette constitution de l’humanité”178, and, more particularly, the period of its greatest intellectual fl owering. Th at period, which we call the Middle Ages, was the golden age of Islam, when its world was the fi rst, not the third – and far ahead of “Christian” Europe in science, medicine and philosophy179. Th e fi rst major point we need to make in this chapter is that Islam has never been monolithic, but has a long history of doctri- nal and cultural pluralism180, and acceptance of diversity181. Th e Muslim world played a decisive role in transmitting the philosophical heritage of ancient Greece to Europe. Plato and Aristotle were fi rst “rediscovered” and transmitted to Europe by such Muslim thinkers as Al-Farabi, Avicenna and, especially, Averroes. Indeed, ancient Greek philosophy had a profound impact on the development of Islamic philosophy. In the previous chapter, I made no attempt to discuss Confucianism or Neo-Confucianism in general terms – and I shall not consider Islam as such in this one. Instead, I shall be focusing on three outstanding thinkers from the golden age of Islam – Avicenna (Ibn Sina), Averroes (Ibn Rushd) and Ibn
178 Emmanuel Lévinas, Monothéisme et langage, in: Diffi cile liberté, Essais sur le judaïsme, 3ème édition, Albin Michel 1976, at 250. 179 Cf. Hans Küng, Der Islam. Geschichte, Gegenwart, Zukunft . Piper, Munich – Zurich 2006, at 462. 180 Cf. Mohammed Arkoun, Humanisme et Islam. Combats et propositions. Vrin, Paris 2006, at 23 ss. 181 Cf. Richard W. Bulliet, Th e Individual in Islamic Society, in: Irene Bloom, J. Paul Martin, and Wayne L. Proudfoot (eds.), Religious Diversity and Human Rights, Columbia University Press, New York 1996, at 180 ss. 32 Peter Leuprecht Khaldun. Here, it seems signifi cant that Avicenna and Averroes were primarily physicians and scientists, not theologians182. A central issue in the work of Avicenna and Averroes is one which has occupied the minds of Muslim, Jewish and Christian thinkers for centuries, and still does today: the relationship between faith and reason183. Does faith prevent or restrict the exercise of reason?
1 AVICENNA – THE RATIONAL SOUL
Avicenna, or Ibn Sina, was born before 980 near Bukhara, lived through turbulent times and died in 1037. Iranian by birth and a Shiite, he lived and worked in a Shiite environment conducive to free discussion. Outstandingly creative and erudite, he con- formed to the type of the universal genius. A great physician, he produced two celebrated works, the Kitab al-Quanûn fi t-tibb, or Canon of Medicine, which was used in European universities until the 17th century, and the Kitab al-Shifa, or Healing of the Soul (Sanatio in Latin), a vast encyclopaedia of philosophy and science. Küng describes him as the fi rst Islamic philosopher to create a coherent system of scientifi c knowledge184. He had a powerful impact on the Islamic world, where he was known as shayk ra’is (the great master), and also “Christian” Europe, where he infl uenced scholastic thinkers185 like Albertus Magnus and Th omas Aquinas, and medieval Jewish philosophers186 like
182 Cf. Ernst Bloch, Avicenna und die Aristotelische Linke, Suhrkamp Verlag 1963, at 15. 183 Cf. the Encyclical Fides et ratio of Pope John-Paul II (September 14, 1998), accessible at www.vatican.va 184 Küng, loc. cit., at 453. 185 Cf. Robert Wisnovsky, Avicenna and the Avicennian Tradition, in: Th e Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy, edited by Peter Adamson and Richard C. Taylor, Cambridge University Press 2005, at 92 ss. 186 Cf. Steven Harvey, Avicenna’s Infl uence on Jewish Th ought: Some Refl ections, in: Y. Tzi Langermann (ed.), Avicenna and His Legacy, Brepolis, Turnhout 2009, at 327 ss.; and Mauro Zonta, Avicenna in Medieval Jewish Philosophy, in: Jules Janssens and Daniel De Smet (eds.), Avicenna and His Heritage, Leuven University Press 2002, at 267 ss.