What is the difference between Islamic philosophy and Muslim philosophy?
By Angga Arifka
27/05/2022
What is meant by Islamic philosophy? Is there an Islamic philosophy? Religion, namely Islam on the one hand, and philosophy, on the other, are they compatible with each other?
Generally, when reading books on the history of philosophy, we can hardly find the history of Islamic philosophy in them. The question is why? I think it happened because there was a big narrative built by the previous orientalists, that Islamic philosophy was just a duplication of Greek philosophy, so they ignored the contribution of Islamic philosophy itself.
Islamic philosophy is considered a kind of footnote to Greek philosophy. In addition, there are actually many terms used by Western scholars to refer to Islamic philosophy, namely Arabic philosophy ( Arabic philosophy), Muslim philosophy (Muslim philosophy ) , and philosophy in the Islamic world ( philosophy in the Islamic world) . ).
Definition of Philosophy
Before going any further, we need to see for a moment what philosophy means according to Muslim philosophers. Al-Kindi, the first Arab Muslim philosopher, defines that philosophy is the science that studies the essence of everything.
Furthermore, al-Farabi, who is called the second teacher of philosophy after Aristotle, explained that philosophy in its meaning and essence is a science that studies everything that exists as it is (Syamsuddin Arif, 2014: 6).
The term philosophy ( philosophia ) is absorbed into "philosophy" in Arabic. Unfortunately, in the Qur'an there is no word that mentions "philosophy". Even so, all Muslim philosophers understand that philosophy or philosophy is synonymous with "wisdom".
According to Ibn Sina , wisdom is the perfection of the human soul that succeeds in grasping the meaning of everything and is able to express the truth with reason and action in accordance with its abilities as a human being (Ibid, 5).
I think it's pretty clear what Ibn Sina meant. He intends to show that philosophical activity is not far from religious activity. That is, with reason, humans can reach the perfection of the soul. This is one of the opinions of Ibn Sina in answer to one of the questions above.
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By looking at the fact that history of philosophy books are common in which we can hardly find the history of Islamic philosophy, we can draw a tentative conclusion that the existence of Islamic philosophy is downplayed, and maybe “ignored completely”. Why?
Terminology Disputes
Let's begin to reconsider whether Islamic philosophy is worthy of the record. In the twentieth century, Islamic scholars from the West still did not have the same opinion to call what we are talking about now: Islamic philosophy, Arabic philosophy, Muslim philosophy, or philosophy in the Islamic world.
First , some scholars, such as Ernest Renan, Peter Adamson, and Dimitri Gutas, call it "Arabic philosophy". Their reason was that philosophy at that time used the same language, Arabic as the lingua franca of philosophical activity.
Indeed, not only Muslim philosophers who built the philosophical system at that time, but also Christian philosophers such as Yahya bin Adi and Jewish philosophers such as Maimonides participated in it.
Furthermore, the use of the term Arabic philosophy actually confirmed that the philosophical system at that time was not much different from previous Greek philosophy, and the only difference was the language, Arabic. In my opinion, such claims are half true, but the rest are not.
Actually, many themes were raised by Muslim philosophers without referring to Greek philosophy, such as prophetic philosophy, philosophy of sainthood, philosophy of eschatology, and especially ushul fiqh (philosophy of Islamic law). In addition, Islamic philosophy in its first appearance brought a new field in which there was a goal to harmonize philosophy with religion.
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If so, shouldn't we call it "theology"? I don't think so, because that is the scope of "kalam" or Islamic theology which includes theological issues based on Islamic doctrine in the texts of both the Qur'an and hadith, while Islamic philosophy is anchored on the basis of reasoning.
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Second , some scholars decided to use the term "Muslim philosophy". The reason is that the system of philosophy is based on its philosophers. The argument is quite weak.
In my opinion, there is no Muslim philosophy if there is no Islam itself. Therefore, the most basic is the influencer, while Muslim philosophers are influenced. If there were no Islam, there would be no Muslim philosophers.
Third , philosophy in the Islamic world. This term wants to underline the area of the Islamic world at that time, the eighth, ninth, and so on, when philosophy developed in the Islamic world from Andalusia to Khurasan.
However, we may hesitate to agree with this term, because philosophical activity is not only carried out by Muslim philosophers, but also by non-Muslim thinkers living in the Islamic world.
Fourth , the majority of scholars use the term Islamic philosophy such as Montgomery Watt, Oliver Leaman, and others. This point wants to emphasize that it is completely unfair to conclude that Islamic philosophy is just a duplication of Greek philosophy.
Indeed, we cannot deny that Islamic philosophy was heavily influenced by Greek philosophy. But actually, the source of Islamic philosophy is the Hellenized philosophy of Alexandria (Alexandria). Therefore, the philosophical system is not strictly Greek. We know that Alexandria was then the center of scientific civilization. Which, combines several cultures and mystical traditions. Like Persia, Egypt itself, and Greece.
Islamic Philosophy as a System
The main point is that Islamic philosophy is directly framed in Islamic language (not Arabic). And, in the cultural context of Islamic society which is covered by Islamic doctrine as well. The first three terms, we can conclude, only consider philosophy as a product, while the last views philosophy as a system.
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We can defend against the last term, because philosophical action in Islam is guided by Islamic doctrine itself. In the Al-Qur'an, many verses that we can find recommend not only Muslims in particular but also humans in general to think, meditate, observe, contemplate, consider, and understand everything deeply in the world.
In short, Islamic philosophy really existed not because of the external influence of Greek philosophy, but mainly because of the guidance of Islamic doctrine in the Qur'an itself.
Islamic philosophy
