ISBN 978-92-3-103654-5 Introduction 5 PHILOSOPHY, LOGIC AND COSMOLOGY M. Dinorshoev Contents Introduction ....................................... 166 Classification of the sciences .............................. 167 Schools of philosophy from the eighth to the fifteenth century ............. 171 Introduction In the course of the seventh and eighth centuries, the spiritual life of the countries of Cen- tral Asia that had been conquered by or exposed to the influence of the Arab caliphate underwent changes; ethics began to give way to ontological and epistemological consid- erations in the eighth and ninth centuries, and to paraphilosophical doctrines, including kalam¯ (dialectical theology) and Sufism. Philosophical thinking acquired a mystical, eso- teric quality. In syncretic teachings such as the philosophy of Illuminationism (Ishraq¯ ), which endeavoured to combine apodeictic and esoteric philosophy, there was an attempt to develop a universal style of thinking constructed upon both apodeictic and esoteric types of reasoning. Philosophical thought in the region essentially went through two stages of development. The first stage spanned the eighth to the eleventh century, when the currents of philosoph- ical and religious/philosophical thinking referred to above first took shape, flourished and spread. Thus kalam¯ , which emerged in the second half of the seventh century as an off- shoot of the scholastic disputes of the Jabrites and Qadarites, passed through Muctazilite and Ashcarite phases to the work of al-Ghazal¯ ¯ı. Similarly, Sufism, which began as a move- ment of zahids¯ (ascetics), had developed into a fully fledged mystic philosophy by the 166 ISBN 978-92-3-103654-5 Classification of the sciences tenth and eleventh centuries with its own ontological, epistemological, ethical, aesthetic and social aspects. One of the distinguishing features of the second stage in the development of philosoph- ical thinking, which extended from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, was the fact that one of the schools of philosophy, that of the Materialists (Dahriyya), went into decline. Another feature of the period was the tendency of different philosophical schools to become recon- ciled and combine with each other. This trend had started in the previous period but became more marked in the second stage. The Aristotelian philosophy of the eastern Peripatetics (Masha’iyya¯ ) thus acquired some features of kalam¯ and Sufism, kalam¯ was influenced by the Peripatetics, and the Sufis and Sufism absorbed elements both of kalam¯ and of the teachings of the Peripatetics. philosophy was becoming even more strongly influenced by the Islamic religion: the constant references to the Qur’an, to had¯ıth and to religious authorities were an outward sign of this process, which also involved attempts to bring philosophical concepts into line with religious dogmas and basic tenets. Another particularity of philosophical thought from the twelfth to the fifteenth century was the appearance and development of commentaries. Many scholars see this as denoting a lack of creativity, but this is not entirely correct. One need only compare the Lubab¯ al- Isha¯rat¯ [The Quintessence of (the Work Called) the Indications] of Fakhr al-D¯ın al-Raz¯ ¯ı (1148–1209) and the Sharh al-Ishar¯ at¯ [Commentary on (the Book Called) the Indications] of Nas¯ır al-D¯ın al-Tus¯ ¯ı with Ibn Sina¯ ’s own Kitab¯ al-Ishar¯ at¯ wa ’l-tanb¯ıhat¯ [Book of Indications and Admonitions] to see that works described as commentaries were often entirely original. Striking proof of the creativity of philosophical thinking at the time was the philos- ophy of Illuminationism, founded by Shihab¯ al-D¯ın Yahya¯ al-Suhraward¯ı in the twelfth century; the subsequent development of philosophical thought was greatly influenced by the ideas and concepts of this outstanding thinker.1 The natural sciences and mathematics also flourished from the eighth to the fifteenth century in the regions of Central Asia and scholars there contributed much to the establishment and advancement of these branches of knowledge (see further in Chapter 6). Classification of the sciences The problem of the classification and subdivision of the sciences was posed by various scholars. One of the first models was proposed by Abu¯ Nasr al-Far¯ ab¯ ¯ı (d. 950), who viewed philosophy as the sum of all knowledge, dividing it primarily into theoretical and practical 1 See Ziai, 1990; EI2, ‘Ishrakiyyun’¯ (R. Arnaldez). 167 ISBN 978-92-3-103654-5 Classification of the sciences or civic philosophy. For him, theoretical philosophy was concerned with the knowledge of things that were independent of human action and embraced mathematics, physics and metaphysics. Practical or civic philosophy, divided into ethics and political philosophy, dealt with the knowledge of subjects that were a consequence of human action. He pro- posed the following classification of the sciences in his Majalla f¯ı ihsa¯ ’ al-culum¯ [Col- lected Work on the Enumeration of the Sciences]: 1. The science of language (cilm al-lugha): the science of simple words and of word combinations, of the laws governing simple words and word combinations; the sci- ence of the laws of writing (orthography); and the science of the rules of correct pronunciation and of the rules of prosody. 2. logic (mantiq): the science of all laws conducive to the improvement of the intel- lect, setting human beings on the path towards the truth, protecting them from error, enabling them to check the accuracy of knowledge and consisting of the study of the processes of conceptualization and judgement, syllogism, the rules of proof and dialectical, sophistical, rhetorical and poetic expressions of judgement. 3. mathematics (cilm al-riyada¯ ): arithmetic, geometry, optics, astral sciences (astronomy and astrology), music and musical instruments, the science of weights, the science of mechanics. 4. physics (cilm al-tab¯ıca): the study of the general principles underlying simple and complex natural bodies; of the heavens and the earth; of origination and annihilation; of actions and experiences; of compounds; of minerals; of plants and of animals. 5. Divine science (al-cilm al-ilah¯ ¯ı) or metaphysics (ma¯ bacd al-tab¯ıca): the science of the general principles of being; of existing entities; of the foundations and principles of specific theoretical sciences; of non-material, supernatural beings (particularly, the First Being, i.e. God). 6. civic science (al-cilm al-madan¯ı) or civic philosophy (al-hikma al-madaniyya): the science of happiness; of virtues, and virtuous and non-virtuous societies. 7. jurisprudence (fiqh): the science assessing any action or deed lacking clear definition in the canon law of any religion. 8. kalam¯ : the branch of knowledge concerned with defending the views and actions of the Prophet of the Muslim religion and rejecting all that ran counter to his teachings.2 2 Netton, 1992. 168 ISBN 978-92-3-103654-5 Classification of the sciences This type of classification of the sciences, which was based on the principle of the segmentation, co-ordination and subordination of the sciences according to the particular object and subject of study, was adopted and extended by Ibn Sina¯ and Nas¯ır al-D¯ın al- Tus¯ ¯ı, who did not, however, include kala¯m in their category of the sciences and omitted the section on the science of language. Ibn Sina¯ in his al-Hikma al-sharqiyya [Eastern Philosophy] or Hikmat al-mashriqiyy¯ın [Philosophy of the Easterners] divided metaphysics into theology and universal science (philosophy proper), which was a significant step in achieving independent status for philosophy. In this work, he decided to make law a fourth subdivision of practical philosophy, but his proposals here did not find favour.3 Another type of classification of the sciences was developed by Abu¯ cAbd Allah¯ al- Khwarazm¯ ¯ı (d. 997). It was based on the view of science not just as a knowledge of things but also as knowledge of God and divine prescriptions, and also as the property of a par- ticular people. The general outlines of his classification are as follows: I. The Arabic or religious sciences: 1. Fiqh, 2. Kalam¯ , 3. Grammar. 4. The secretarial art. 5. Poetry and prosody. 6. History. II. The non- Arabic sciences: 1. Theoretical philosophy: (a) physics – medicine, meteorology, mineralogy, alchemy, mechanics; (b) mathematics – arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, musi- cal theory; (c) metaphysics or theology; (d) logic. 2. Practical philosophy: (a) ethics; (b) stewardship; (c) politics. This suggests that for al-Khwarazm¯ ¯ı, the Muslim peoples had no knowledge of the nat- ural sciences or of philosophy, which was therefore taken from other peoples, such as the Greeks, reflecting the origin of the Arabs in their Arabian environment, but this was not entirely true.4 A third type of classification of the sciences was established by Muhammad al-Ghazal¯ ¯ı (1058–1111), Fakhr al-D¯ın al-Raz¯ ¯ı and Qutb al-D¯ın Shiraz¯ ¯ı (1236–1311). It is found in its 3 EIr, ‘Avicenna. vii. Practical Science’ (M. Mahdi et al.). 4 Bosworth, 1963. 169 ISBN 978-92-3-103654-5 Classification of the sciences most highly developed form in al-Sh¯ıraz¯ ¯ı’s Durrat al-taj¯ [The Pearl of the Crown], which divided the sciences into two main categories, the philosophical and the non-philosophical. The philosophical sciences were the eternal verities which were unaffected by the pas- sage of time and changes of place or from one people or country to another. The non- philosophical sciences were types of knowledge liable to change with the passage of time and from one place, people or country to another. Al-Sh¯ıraz¯ ¯ı divided the latter group into religious and non-religious sciences. The non-philosophical sciences were religious if they were based on the shar¯ıca (religious law), and non-religious if that was not the case. Although giving no clear definition of the concept of the non-religious sciences, al-Sh¯ıraz¯ ¯ı provided a detailed classification of the philosophical and religious sciences.