Article #71
Subject: 2011 I-House Berkeley alumni reunion and forum on Iran,Islamic philosophy and Sufism
Author: Andrew W. Harrell
Posted: 6/20/2011 11:39:19 AM

Notes from June 2011 I-house alumni reunion and forum on Iran

Dr. M. Behrooz - Iran and the 20th Century

Dr. Behrooz’s main reference is his book “Rebels Without a Cause, the Failure
of the Left in Iran” I.B. Taurus Publishers London, New York.

Monday morning

Saudi Arabia larger in area but smaller in population Egypt larger in
population but smaller in area.
The US is involved in countries surrounding Iran..Iraq,Afghanistan, Bahrain.
The Qajar(Kajar) dynasty ruled Iran feudally in the 19th century.
1813-1828 Iran fought two wars with Russia and lost both.
The British empire branched from India into the Persian Gulf and Iran.
It's policy in the 19th century was set up to protect India.
Modern railroads and ports were not built until 1928.
British Petroleum discovered oil in the 1920s.
in 1905 there was Iran's constitutional revolution (which means a revolution
according to law) .
In 1904 Japan defeats Russia in the Japanese /Russo war.
1911 Morgan Schulster moves to Iran to help set up the new government.
He is expelled a year later (wrote the book, "The Strangulation of Iran")
1907 Colonial powers divide Iran in areas of influence.
1909 Revolutionary government defeated and a constitution put in place.
During World war 1 and world war 2, Iran declares it's neutrality.
This is not respected by the western powers

1878-1979 Iran’s 2nd revolution
During World War I and II Iran declares its neutrality (this is not disputed
by the colonial powers).
1921 Shah Pahlavi (a military man took over in a military coup).
Communism becomes a big issue in the period after WW1. Iran is ruled
by “strong men”. In order to accomplish his goals the Shah said, “you need to
change your clothing..become more European”. Reza Shah went in with tanks to
destroy and conquer the tribes. The Shia are a majority in Iran. In Iraq,
Bahrain, Lebanon they are a minority. In Turkey there was a Sunni majority.
Historically, Shia have been in the opposition to the government. The Clergy
resisted military control of the youth. The regime did not abolish polygamy,
but tried to impose more rights for women from “top-down”. Women had to veil
in 1992. They were not asked what they wanted to do. In 1939 the Shah
made “good friends” with the fascists, partly because he was so opposed to
communism. In 1941, after declaring neutrality the Shah was toppled because
of a railroad he had built (the Allies used it to support the Reds in the
north). He abdicated and fled South. The British arrested him and sent him to
South Africa where he died in 1944. His son took over when the CIA toppled
the country later (in 1953-54). Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill came to Iran
from the Tehran conference. In 1945 the war ends and the Tudeh (communist)
party is bigger than the U.S. communist party. 80% of the population lived in
rural areas in 1945.There was a hodgepodge of political parties with the
charismatic and honest Mohammed Mosseddeq in control. He advocated
a “negative equilibrium” This means if someone gives a oil concession to the
British they have to give another one to someone else. B.P. spent a lot of
money on Iranian candidates who opposed him and were friendly to the British.
Iran was in the International Court with the British suing them over the
concessions. The Truman administration opposed BP’s move. Allen Dulles
bypassed the Truman administration and worked directly with the BP (in
operation AJAX) to overthrow Mosseddeq. This was the 1st successful attempt
by the newly created CIA to overthrow a government. Eisenhower had a foreign
policy of “Whoever is not with us is against us.”

Question: Do clergy play as important a role in all other Muslim countries as
in Iran? Ans. Lebanon was under the Grand Mufti (Hilter’s lieutenant).
Jerusalem was Sunni The “Seven Sisters” (the seven major oil companies in the
U.S.) helped the CIA overthrow Mossedeq.

Monday afternoon talk:

Mystical thought in Iranian Culture Dr. Mohammed Azadpur Professor of
Philosophy, San Francisco State
http://muslimphilosophy.com/ip/nasr-ipl.htm
the paragraphs included below were downloaded from this site.

Avicenna 980-1037 (Abu Ali Hussain Ibn Sina) criticizes the
Greek traditions of philosophy. For him “west” is what we call “east”.
Baghdad is west and is the center of philosophy. Eastern Afghanistan was
Horan a “land of light” in the east. Here is one of his quotations:
“Although we admit the wisdom of Aristotle and in discovering what they did
not know in discovery the truth of many subjects he was superior to those who
came before. And, those who came after him could not transcend him. So, with
those who were more fanatical than the Greek sects, we took there side and we
overlooked their faults. We were forced to associate with people who
considered the opposition to common opinion as sin. Under these conditions we
longed to write a book considering the real aspects of knowledge. Only the
person who has taken intellectual thought with much meditation deeply and not
devoid of intuition can make deductions from it.”

He opposed Plato’s emphasis on the dialectic as a method of studying
concepts, saying:

“Mysticism is associated with experience which is silent, obscured and not
amenable to truths with are self-evident or dialectically demonstrabably.”

This passage distinguishes Gnostic thought from dialectic thought.
Next, we consider a 2nd passage dealing with the question of what
Human perfection is? (initiation 2) discourse, 3 intuition. This process
requires a teacher.

“Since motivating powers are three---the appetitive, the irascible
(characterized by anger), and the practical—the virtues correspondingly
consist of three 1)moderation in appetitive passions, 2)moderation in the
irascible passions, 3) moderation in practical matters. At the head stand
temperance, courage, and practical wisdom. Their sum is justice, which,
however, is extraneous to theoretical virtue. But, whoever combines the
(theoretical wisdom) with justice is indeed happy.”

Now, in relation to Mohammed the prophet. One of the principles of Islam is
that Mohammed is the seal of the prophets. In addition whoever whoever had
prophetic qualities became almost a human God. “He is indeed the World’s King
and God’s deputy (Khalifat Allah).”

What is prophecy?

Prophecy

Active Intellect Theoretical Wisdom

(has an acquitted intellect, actual intellect, potential intellect parts)


(rational, spiritual, appetitive parts)

“His words should be symbols and his expressions hints.” Says Plato, he who
does not attain this does not attain the Divine Kingdom.


Justice=Temperance+Courage+Practical Wisdom

Question: For a discourse to proceed, mustthere must be a set of agreed
premises, the ground of the discourse? Ans. This presumes a pre-moral
dialectic training. Presumably this would all be the same for everyone and
self-expermentation not encouraged. Gnosis is “insight” or theoretical wisdom.

Question: “Is prophecy Truth or symbolism?” My comment: All metaphysics can
be reduced to whether you deconstruct 1st and then construct or vice-versia”

The meaning and concept of philosophy in Islam
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
In the light of the Qur'an and Hadith in both of which the term hikmah has
been used,1 Muslim authorities belonging to different schools of thought have
sought over the ages to define the meaning of hikmah as well as falsafah, a
term which entered Arabic through the Greek translations of the second/eighth
and third/ninth centuries. On the one hand what is called philosophy in
English must be sought in the context of Islamic civilization not only in the
various schools of Islamic philosophy but also in schools bearing other
names, especially kalam, ma`rifah, usul al-fiqh as well as the awa'il
sciences, not to speak of such subjects as grammar and history which
developed particular branches of philosophy. On the other hand each school of
thought sought to define what is meant by hikmah or falsafah according to its
own perspective and this question has remained an important concern of
various schools of Islamic thought especially as far as the schools of
Islamic philosophy are concerned.
During Islamic history, the terms used for Islamic philosophy as well as the
debates between the philosophers, the theologians and sometimes the Sufis as
to the meaning of these terms varied to some extent from one period to
another but not completely. Hikmah and falsafah continued to be used while
such terms as al-hikmat al-ilahiyyah and alhikmat al-muta`aliyah gained new
meaning and usage in later centuries of Islamic history, especially in the
school of Mulla Sadra. The term over which there was the greatest debate was
hikmah, which was claimed by the Sufis and mutakallimun as well as the
philosophers, all appealing to such Hadith as "The acquisition of hikmah is
incumbent upon you and the good resides in hikmah."2 Some Sufis such as
Tirmidhi were called hakim and Ibn Arabi refers to the wisdom which has been
unveiled through each manifestation of the logos as hikmah as seen in the
very title of his masterpiece Fusus al-hikam,3 while many mutakallimun such
as Fakhr al-Din al-Razi claimed that kalam and not falsafah was hikmah,4 Ibn
Khaldun confirming this view in calling the later kalam (kalam al-
muta'akhkhirin) philosophy or hikmah.5
Our discussion in this chapter is concerned, however, primarily with the
Islamic philosophers’ understanding of the definition and meaning of the
concept of philosophy and the terms hikmah and falsafah.6 This understanding
includes of course what the Greeks had comprehended by the term philosophia
and many of the definitions from Greek sources which were to find their way
into Arabic sometimes with only slight modifications. Some of the definitions
of Greek origin most common among Islamic philosophers are as follows:7
1 Philosophy (al falsafah) is the knowledge of all existing
things qua existents (ashya' al-maujudah bi ma hiya maujudah).8
2 Philosophy is knowledge of divine and human matters.
3 Philosophy is taking refuge in death, that is, love of death.
4 Philosophy is becoming God-like to the extent of human
ability.
5 It [philosophy] is the art (sind'ah) of arts and the science
(ilm) of sciences.
6 Philosophy is predilection for hikmah.
The Islamic philosophers meditated upon these definitions of falsafah which
they inherited from ancient sources and which they identified with the
Qur'anic term hikmah believing the origin of hikmah to be divine. The first
of the Islamic philosophers, Abu Ya`qub al-Kindi wrote in his On First
Philosophy, “Philosophy is the knowledge of the reality of things within
people's possibility, because the philosopher's end in theoretical knowledge
is to gain truth and in practical knowledge to behave in accordance with
truth.”9 Al-Farabi, while accepting this definition, added the distinction
between philosophy based on certainty (al-yaqiniyyah) hence demonstration and
philosophy based on opinion (al-maznunah),10 hence dialectic and sophistry,
and insisted that philosophy was the mother of the sciences and dealt with
everything that exists.11
Ibn Sina again accepted these earlier definitions while making certain
precisions of his own. In his `Uyun al-hikmah he says “Al-hikmah [which he
uses as being the same as philosophy] is the perfection of the human soul
through conceptualization [tasawwur] of things and judgment [tasdiq] of
theoretical and practical realities to the measure of human ability."12 But,
he went further in later life to distinguish between Peripatetic philosophy
and what he called "Oriental philosophy" (al-hikmat almashriqi’yah) which was
not based on ratiocination alone but included realized knowledge and which
set the stage for the hikmat al-ishraq of Suhrawardi.13 Ibn Sina’s foremost
student Bahmanyar meanwhile identified falsafah closely with the study of
existents as Ibn Sina had done in his Peripatetic works such as the Shifa’
repeating the Aristotelian dictum that philosophy is the study of existents
qua existents. Bahmanyar wrote in the introduction to his Tahlil, "The aim of
the philosophical sciences is knowledge of existents." 14
Isma'ili and Hermetico-Pythagorean thought, which paralleled in development
the better-known Peripatetic philosophy but with a different philosophical
perspective, nevertheless gave definitions of philosophy not far removed from
those of the Peripatetics, emphasizing perhaps even more the relation between
the theoretical aspect of philosophy and its practical dimension, between
thinking philosophically and leading a virtuous life. This nexus, which is to
be seen in all schools of earlier Islamic philosophy, became even more
evident from Suhrawardi onward and the hakim came to be seen throughout
Islamic society not as someone who could only discuss mental concepts in a
clever manner but as one who also lived according to the wisdom which he knew
theoretically. The modern Western idea of the philosopher never developed in
the Islamic world and the ideal stated by the Ikhwan al-Safa' who lived in
the fourth/ tenth century and who were contemporary with Ibn Sina was to echo
ever more loudly over the ages wherever Islamic philosophy was cultivated.
The Ikhwan wrote, "The beginning of philosophy (falsafah) is the love of the
sciences, its middle knowledge of the realities of existents to the measure
of human ability and its end words and deeds in accordance with knowledge."15
With Suhrawardi we enter not only a new period but also another realm of
Islamic philosophy. The founder of a new intellectual perspective in Islam,
Suhrawardi used the term hikmat al-ishraq rather than falsafat al-ishraq for
both the title of his philosophical masterpiece and the school which he
inaugurated. The ardent student of Suhrawardi and the translator of Hikmat al-
ishraq into French, Henry Corbin, employed the term theosophie rather than
philosophy to translate into French the term hikmah as understood by
Suhrawardi and later sages such as Mulla Sadra, and we have also rendered al-
hikmat al-muta aliyah of Mulla Sadra into English as "transcendent
theosophy"t6 and have sympathy for Corbin's translation of the term. There is
of course the partly justified argument that in recent times the
term "theosophy" has gained pejorative connotations in European languages,
especially English, and has become associated with occultism and pseudo-
esoterism. And yet the term
philosophy also suffers from limitations imposed upon it by those who have
practised it during the past few centuries. If Hobbes, Hume and Ayer are
philosophers, then those whom Suhrawardi calls hukama' are not philosophers
and vice versa. The narrowing of the meaning of philosophy, the divorce
between philosophy and spiritual practice in the West and especially the
reduction of philosophy to either rationalism or .empiricism necessitate
making a distinction between the meaning given to hikmah by a Suhrawardi or
Mulla Sadra and the purely mental activity called philosophy in certain
circles in* the West today. The use of the term theosophy to render this
later understanding of the term hikmah is based on the older and time-
honoured meaning of this term in European intellectual history as associated
with such figures as Jakob Bohme and not as the term became used in the late
thirteenth/nineteenth century by some British occultists. Be that as it may,
it is important to emphasize the understanding that Suhrawardi and all later
Islamic philosophers have of hikmah as primarily al-hikmat al-ildhiyyah
(literally divine wisdom or theosophia) which must be realized within one's
whole being and not only mentally. Suhrawardi saw this hikmah as being
present also in ancient Greece before the advent of Aristotelian rationalism
and identifies hikmah with coming out of one's body and ascending to the
world of lights, as did Plato.17 Similar ideas are to be found throughout his
works, and he insisted that the highest level of hikmah requires both the
perfection of the theoretical faculty and the purification of the soul.'8
With Mulla Sadra, one finds not only a synthesis of various earlier schools
of Islamic thought but also a synthesis of the earlier views concerning the
meaning of the term and concept philosophy. At the beginning of the Asfar he
writes, repeating verbatim and summarizing some of the earlier
definitions, "falsafah is the perfecting of the human soul to the extent of
human ability through the knowledge of the essential reality of things as
they are in themselves and through judgment concerning their existence
established upon demonstration and not derived from opinion or through
imitation". 19 And in al-Shawdhid al-rububiyyah he adds, "[through bikmah]
man becomes an intelligible world resembling the objective world and similar
to the order of universal existence" 2°
In the first book of the Air dealing with being, Mulla Sadra discusses
extensively the various definitions of hikmah, emphasizing not only
theoretical knowledge and "becoming an intelligible world reflecting the
objective intelligible world" but also detachment from passions and
purification of the soul from its material defilements or what the Islamic
philosophers call tajarrud or catharsis.21 Mull! Sadra accepts the meaning of
hikmah as understood by Suhrawardi and then expands the meaning of falsafah
to include the dimension of illumination and realization implied by the
ishrdgi and also Sufi understanding of the term. For him as for his
contemporaries, as well as most of his successors, falsafah or philosophy was
seen as the supreme science of ultimately divine origin, derived from "the
niche of prophecy" and the hukama' as the most perfect of human beings
standing in rank only below the prophets and Imams.22
This conception of philosophy as dealing with the discovering of the truth
concerning the nature of things and combining mental knowledge with the
purification and perfection of one's being has lasted to this day wherever
the tradition of Islamic philosophy has continued and is in fact embodied in
the very being of the most eminent representatives of the Islamic
philosophical tradition to this day. Such fourteenth/twentiethcentury masters
as Mirth Ahmad Ashtiyani, the author of Ndmayi rahbardn-i dmuzish-i kitdb-i
takwin ("Treatise of the Guides to the Teaching of the Book of Creation");
Sayyid Muhammad Kazim `Ansar, author of many treatises including Wahdat al-
wujud ("The Transcendent Unity of Being"); Mahdi Ilahi Qumsha'i, author of
Hikmat-i ildhi khwdss wa amm ("Philosophy/Theosophy - General and
Particular") and Allamah Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i, author of
numerous treatises especially Usul--i falsafa -yi ri dlixm ("Principles of
the Philosophy of Realism") all wrote of the definition of philosophy along
lines mentioned above and lived accordingly. Both their works and their lives
were testimony not only to over a millennium of concern by Islamic
philosophers as to the meaning of the concept and the term philosophy but
also to the significance of the Islamic definition of philosophy as that
reality which transforms both the mind and the soul and which is ultimately
never separated from spiritual purity and ultimately sanctity that the .very
term hikmah implies in the Islamic context.
NOTES

1 For the use of hikmah in the Qur'an and Hadith see S. H. Nasr, "The Qur'an
and ,Hadith as Source and Inspiration of Islamic Philosophy", Chapter 2 below.
2 Alayka bilhikmah fa inna'l--khayr f 1-hikmah.
3 See Muhyi al-Din Ibn Arabi, The Wisdom of the Prophets, trans. T.
Burckhardt, trans. from French A. Culme-Seymour (Salisbury, 1975), pp. 1-3 of
Burckhardt's introduction; and M. Chodkiewicz, Seal of the Saints -
Prophethood and Sainthood in the Doctrine of Ibn Arabi, trans. S. L. Sherrard
(Cambridge, 1993): 47-8.
4 See S. H. Nasr, "Fakhr al-Din Razi", in M. M. Sharif (ed.), A History of
Muslim Philosophy, 1 (Wiesbaden, 1963): 645-8.
5 'Abd al-Razzaq Lahiji, the eleventh/seventeenth-century student of Mulla
Sadra who was however more of a theologian than a philosopher, writes in his
kalami text Gawhar-murdd, "Since it has become known that in acquiring the
divine sciences and other intellectual matters the intellect has complete
independence, and does not need to rely in these matters upon the Shari `ah
and the proof of certain principles concerning the essence of beings in such
a way as to be in accord with the objective world through intellectual
demonstrations and reasoning ... the path of the hukamd, the science acquired
through this means is called in the vocabulary of scholars hikmah. And of
necessity it will be in accord with the true Shari `ah for the truth of the
Shari`ah is realized objectively through intellectual demonstration" (Gawhar-
murad (Tehran, 1377): 17-18). Although speaking as a theologian, Lahiji is
admitting in this text that hikmab should be used for the intellectual
activity of the philosophers and not the mutakallimun, demonstrating the
shift in position in the understanding of this term since the time of Fakhr
al-Din al-Razi. There is considerable secondary material on this subject in
Arabic as well as in European languages. See Abd al-Halim Maimed, al- Tafkir
al fahaft f:l islAm (Cairo, 1964): 163-71; Mustafa Abd al-Raziq, Tamhid li-
ta'rikh al falsafat alislamiyyah (Cairo, 1959), chapter 3: 48ff.; G. C.
Anawati, "Philosophie medievale en terre d'Islam", Melanges de l'Institut
Dominicain d'Etudes Orientales du Caire, 5 (1958): 175-236; and S. H.
Nasr, "The Meaning and Role of 'Philosophy' in Islam", Studia Islamica, 37
(1973): 57-80.
7. See Christel Hein, Definition and Einleitung der Philosophie - Von der
spdtantiken Einleitungsliteratur zur arabischen Enzyklopddie (Bern and New
York, 1985): 86.
8 This is repeated with only a small alteration by al-Farabi in his al Jam'
bayn ra ay al-hakimayn. According to Ibn Abi Usaybi'ah, al-Farabi even wrote
a treatise entitled Concerning the Word Philosophy' (Kalam fr ism al
falsafah) although some have doubted that this was an independent work.
9. See S. Strouma, AlFarabi and Maimonides on the Christian Philosophical
Tradition", Der Islam, 68(2) (1991): 264; and Aristoteles - Werk and Wirkung,
2, ed. J. Weisner (Berlin, 1987). Quoted in Ahmed Fouad El-Ehwany, "Al-
Kindi", in M. M. Sharif (ed.), A History of Muslim Philosophy, 1 (1963): 424.
10 Kitab al-Huruf, ed. M. Mahdi (Beirut, 1969): 153-7.
11 KitAb jam' bayn ra ay al-hakimayn (Hyderabad, 1968): 36-7.
12 Fontes sapientiae (Uyun al-bikmah), ed. Abdurrahman Badawi (Cairo,
1954):16.
13 On Ibn Sina's "Oriental philosophy" see Chapter 17 below.
14 Kitab al-Ta{xil ed. M. Mutahhari (Tehran, 1970): 3.
15 Rasail 1 (Cairo, 1928): 23.
16 See S. H. Nasr, The Transcendent Theosophy of Sadr al-Din Shirdzi (Tehran,
1977).
17 See his Tawihdi, in H. Corbin (ed.) Oeuvres philosophiques et mystiques, 1
(Tehran, 1976): 112-13.
18 See S. H. Nasr, Three Muslim Sages (Delmar, 1975): 63-4.
19 Al Asfar al-arba ah, ed. Allamah Tabataba i (Tehran, 1967): 20.
20 Mulla Sadra, al-ShawAhid al-rububiyyah, ed. S. J. Ashtiyani (Mashhad,
1967).
21 See the Introduction of the Asfar.
22 Muhammad Khwajawi, Lawami' al-arifrn (Tehran, 1987): 18ff., where many
quotations from the different works of Mulla Sadra on the relation between
authentic hikmah and revelation and the spiritual power and sanctity of the
Imams (waldyah) are cited.



The Qur'an and Hadith
as source and inspiration
of Islamic philosophy
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Viewed from the point of view of the Western intellectual tradition, Islamic
philosophy appears as simply Graeco-Alexandrian philosophy in Arabic dress, a
philosophy whose sole role was to transmit certain important elements of the
heritage of antiquity to the medieval West. If seen, however, from its own
perspective and in the light of the whole of the Islamic philosophical
tradition which has had a twelve-century-long continuous history and is still
alive today, it becomes abundantly clear that Islamic philosophy, like
everything else Islamic, is deeply rooted in the Qur'an and Hadith. Islamic
philosophy is Islamic not only by virtue of the fact that it was cultivated
in the Islamic world and by Muslims but because it derives its principles,
inspiration and many of the questions with which it has been concerned from
the sources of Islamic revelation despite the claims of its opponents to the
contrary.'
All Islamic philosophers from al-Kindi to those of our own day such
as 'Allamah Tabatabai have lived and breathed in a universe dominated by the
reality of the Qur'an and the Sunnah of the Prophet of Islam. Nearly all of
them have lived according to Islamic Law or the Shari ah and have prayed in
the direction of Makkah every day of their adult life. The most famous among
them, such as Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and Ibn Rushd (Averroes), were conscious in
asserting their active attachment to Islam and reacted strongly to any
attacks against their faith without their being simply fideists. Ibn Sina
would go to a mosque and pray when confronted with a difficult Problem,' and
Ibn Rushd was the chief qadi or judge of Cordova (Spanish Cordoba) which
means that he was himself the embodiment of the authority of Islamic Law even
if he were to be seen later by many in Europe as the arch-rationalist and the
very symbol of the rebellion of reason against faith. The very presence of
the Qur'an and the advent of its revelation was to transform radically the
universe in which and about which Islamic philosophers were to philosophize,
leading to a specific kind of philosophy which can be justly
called "prophetic philosophy".3
The very reality of the Qur'an, and the revelation which made it accessible
to a human community, had to be central to the concerns of anyone who sought
to philosophize in the Islamic world and led to a type of philosophy in which
a revealed book is accepted as the supreme source of knowledge not only of
religious law but of the very nature of existence and beyond existence of the
very source of existence. The prophetic consciousness which is the recipient
of revelation (al-wahy) had to remain of the utmost significance for those
who sought to know the nature of things. How were the ordinary human means of
knowing related to such an extraordinary manner of knowing? How was human
reason related to that intellect which is illuminated by the light of
revelation? To understand the pertinence of such issues, it is enough to cast
even a cursory glance at the works of the Islamic philosophers who almost
unanimously accepted revelation as a source of ultimate knowledge.' Such
questions as the hermeneutics of the Sacred Text and theories of the
intellect which usually include the reality of prophetic consciousness
remain, therefore, central to over a millennium of Islamic philosophical
thought.
One might say that the reality of the Islamic revelation and participation in
this reality transformed the very instrument of philosophizing in the Islamic
world. The theoretical intellect (al-aql a1-no ari) of the Islamic
philosophers is no longer that of Aristotle although his very terminology is
translated into Arabic. The theoretical intellect, which is the
epistemological instrument of all philosophical activity, is Islamicized in a
subtle way that is not always detectable through only the analysis of the
technical vocabulary involved. The Islamicized understanding of the
intellect, however, becomes evident when one reads the discussion of the
meaning of aql or intellect in a major philosopher such as Mulla Sadra when
he is commenting upon certain verses of the Qur'an containing this term or
upon the section on aql from the collection of Shiite Hadith of al-Kulayni
entitled Usul al-kafi. The subtle change that took place from the Greek idea
of the "intellect" (noun) to the Islamic view of the intellect (al-aql) can
also be seen much earlier in the works of even the Islamic Peripatetics such
as Ibn Sina where the Active Intellect (al-aql al fa dl) is equated with the
Holy Spirit (al-ruh al-qudus).
As is well known to students of the Islamic tradition, according to certain
hadith and also the oral tradition which has been transmitted over the
centuries, the Qur'an and all aspects of the Islamic tradition which
are 'rooted in it have both an outward (*dhir) and an inward (batin)
dimension. Moreover, certain verses of the Qur'an themselves allude to the
inner and symbolic significance of the revealed Book and its message. As for
the Hadith, a body of this collection relates directly to the inner or
esoteric dimension of the Islamic revelation and certain sayings of the
Prophet refer directly to the esoteric levels of meaning of the Qur'an.
Islamic philosophy is related to both the external dimension of the Qur'anic
revelation or the Shari `ah and the inner truth or Vagigah which is the heart
of all that is Islamic. Many of the doctors of the Divine Law or Shariah have
stood opposed to Islamic philosophy while others have accepted it. In fact
some of the outstanding Islamic philosophers such as Ibn Rushd, Mir Damad and
Shah Waliullah of Delhi have also been authorities in the domain of the
Sacred Law. The Shari ah has, however, provided mostly the social and human
conditions for the philosophical activity of the Islamic philosophers. It is
to the Hagigah that one has to turn for the inspiration and source of
knowledge for Islamic philosophy.
The very term al-hagigah is of the greatest significance for the
understanding of the relation between Islamic philosophy and the sources of
the Islamic revelation.5 Al-baqiqah means both truth and reality. It is
related to God Himself, one of whose names is al-Hagq or the Truth, and is
that whose discovery is the goal of all Islamic philosophy. At the same time
al-baqiqah constitutes the inner reality of the Qur'an and can be reached
through a hermeneutic penetration of the meaning of the Sacred Text.
Throughout history, many an Islamic philosopher has identified faisafah or
hikmah, the two main terms used with somewhat different meaning for Islamic
philosophy, with the Haqiqah lying at the heart of the Qur'an. Much of
Islamic philosophy is in fact a hermeneutic unveiling of the two grand books
of revelation, the Qur'an and the cosmos, and in the Islamic intellectual
universe Islamic philosophy belongs, despite some differences, to the same
family as that of ma`rifah or gnosis which issues directly from the inner
teachings of Islam and which became crystallized in both Sufism and certain
dimensions of Shi'ism. Without this affinity there would not have been a
Suhrawardi or Mulla Sadra in Persia or an Ibn Sab'in in Andalusia.
Philosophers living as far apart as Nasir-i Khusraw (fifth/eleventh century)
and Mulla Sadra (tenth/sixteenth century) have identified falsafah or hikmah
explicitly with the Uagigah lying at the heart of the Qur'an whose
comprehension implies the spiritual hermeneutics (ta wil) of the Sacred Text.
The thirteenth/nineteenth-century Persian philosopher Jafar Kashifi goes even
further and identifies the various methods for the interpretation of the
Qur'an with the different schools of philosophy, correlating tafsir (the
literal interpretation of the Qur'an) with the Peripatetic (mashshd',)
school, to wit (its symbolic interpretation) with the stoic (riwagi),6 and
tajhim (in-depth comprehension of the Sacred Text) with the Illuminationist
(ishraqs) For the main tradition of Islamic philosophy, especially as it
developed in later centuries, philosophical activity was inseparable from
interiorization of oneself and penetration into the inner meaning of the
Qur'an and Hadith which those philosophers who were of a Shiite bent
considered to be made possible through the power issuing from the cycle of
initiation (dairat al-walayah) that follows the closing of the cycle of
prophecy (dd'irat al-nubuwwah) with the death of the Prophet of Islam.
The close nexus between the Qur'an and Hadith, on the one hand, and Islamic
philosophy, on the other, is to be seen in the understanding of the history
of philosophy. The Muslims identified Hermes, whose personality they
elaborated into the "three Hermes", also well known to the West from Islamic
sources, with Idris or Enoch, the ancient prophet who belongs to the chain of
prophecy confirmed by the Qur'an and Hadith.' And they considered Idris as
the origin of philosophy, bestowing upon him the title of Abu'I-I;Iukama'
(the father of philosophers). Like. Philo and certain later Greek
philosophers before them and also many Renaissance philosophers in Europe,
Muslims considered prophecy to be the origin of philosophy, confirming in an
Islamic form the dictum of Oriental Neoplatonism that "Plato was Moses in
Attic Greek". The famous Arabic saying "philosophy issues from the niche of
prophecy" (yanba`u'l-hikmah min mishkdt al-nubuwwah) has echoed through the
annals of Islamic history and indicates clearly how Islamic philosophers
themselves envisaged the relation between philosophy and revelation.
It must be remembered that al-Hakim (the Wise, from the same root as hikmah)
is a Name of God and also one of the names of the Qur'an. More specifically
many Islamic philosophers consider Chapter 31 of the Qur'an, entitled Lugman,
after the Prophet known proverbially as a hakim, to have been revealed to
exalt the value of hikmah, which Islamic philosophers identify with true
philosophy.
This chapter begins with the symbolic letters alif, lam, mim followed
immediately by the verse, "These are revelations of the wise scripture [al-
kitab al-hakim]" (Pickthall translation), mentioning directly the term hakim.
Then in verse 12 of the same chapter it is revealed, "And verily We gave
Lugman wisdom [al-hikmah], saying: Give thanks unto Allah; and whosoever
giveth thanks, he giveth thanks for [the good of] his soul. And whosoever
refuseth --Lo! Allah is Absolute, Owner of Praise." Clearly in this verse the
gift of hikmah is considered a blessing for which one should be grateful, and
this truth is further confirmed by the famous verse, "He giveth wisdom
[hikmah] unto whom He will, and he unto whom wisdom is given, he truly hath
received abundant good" (2: 269).
There are certain Hadith which point to God having offered prophecy and
philosophy or hikmab, and Luqman chose hikmah which must not be confused
simply with medicine or other branches of traditional hikmah but refers to
pure philosophy itself dealing with God and the ultimate causes of things.
These traditional authorities also point to such Qur'anic verses as "And He
will teach him the Book [al-kitab] and Wisdom [al-hikmah]" (3: 48)
and "Behold that which I have given you of the Book and Wisdom" (3: 81):
there are several where kitab and hikmah are mentioned together. They believe
that this conjunction confirms the fact that what God has revealed through
revelation He had also made available through hikmah, which is reached
through aql, itself a microcosmic reflection of the macrocosmic reality which
is the instrument of revelation.9 On the basis of this doctrine later Islamic
philosophers such as Mulla Sadra developed an elaborate doctrine of the
intellect in its relation to the prophetic intellect and the descent of the
Divine Word, or the Qur'an, basing themselves to some extent on earlier
theories going back to Ibn Sina and other Muslim Peripatetics. All of this
indicates how closely traditional Islamic philosophy identified itself with
revelation in general and the Qur'an in particular.

Islamic philosophers meditated upon the content of the Qur'an as a whole as
well as on particular verses. It was the verses of a polysemic nature or
those with "unclear outward meaning" (mutashabihdt) to which they paid
special attention. Also certain well-known verses were cited or commented
upon more often than others, such as the "Light Verse" (ayat al-nur) (24: 35)
commented upon already by Ibn Sina in his Ishardt and also by many later
figures. Mulla Sadra was in fact to devote one of the most important
philosophical commentaries ever written upon the Qur'an, entitled
Tafrir ayat al-nur, to this verse.10
Western studies of Islamic philosophy, which have usually regarded it as
simply an extension of Greek philosophy," have for this very reason neglected
for the most part the commentaries cc Islamic philosophers upon the Quran,
whereas philosophical commentaries occupy an important category along with
the juridical, philological, theological (kalam) and Sufi commentaries. The
first major Islamic philosopher to have written Qur'anic commentaries is Ibn
S-ma, many of whose commentaries have survived." Later Suhrawardi was to
comment upon diverse passages of the Sacred Text, as were a number of later
philosophers such as Ibn Turkah al-Isfahani.
The most important philosophical commentaries upon the Qur'an were, however,
written by Mulla Sadra, whose Asrdr al-ayat and Mafatib alghayb13 are among
the most imposing edifices of the Islamic intellectual tradition, although
hardly studied in the West until now. Mulla Sadra also devoted one of his
major works to commenting upon the Usu1 al-kafi of Kulayni, one of the major
Shiite texts of Hadith containing the sayings of the Prophet as well as the
Imams. These works taken together constitute the most imposing philosophical
commentaries upon the Qur'an and Hadith in Islamic history, but such works
are far from having terminated with him. The most extensive Qur'anic
commentary written during the past decades, al Mizdn, was from the pen of
Allamah Tabatabai, who was the reviver of the teaching of Islamic philosophy
in Qom in Persia after the Second World War and a leading Islamic philosopher
of this century whose philosophical works are now gradually becoming known to
the outside world.

Certain Qur'anic themes have dominated Islamic philosophy throughout its long
history and especially during the later period when this philosophy becomes a
veritable theosophy in the original and not deviant meaning of the term,
theosophia corresponding exactly to the Arabic term al-hikmat al-ildhiyyah
(or hikmat-i ilahi in Persian). The first and foremost is of course the unity
of the Divine Principle and ultimately Reality as such or al-tawhid which
lies at the heart of the Islamic message. The Islamic philosophers were all
muwahhid or followers of tawhid and saw authentic philosophy in this light.
They called Pythagoras and Plato, who had confirmed the unity of the Ultimate
Principle, muwahhid while showing singular lack of interest in later forms of
Greek and Roman philosophy which were sceptical or agnostic.
How Islamic philosophers interpreted the doctrine of Unity lies at the heart
of Islamic philosophy. There continued to exist a tension between the
Qur'anic description of Unity and what the Muslims had learned from Greek
sources, a tension which was turned into a synthesis of the highest
intellectual order by such later philosophers as Suhrawardi and Mulla
Sadra.'4 But in all treatments of this subject from al-Kindi to Mulla Ali
Zunuzi and Haul Mulla Had! Sabziwari during the thirteenth/nineteenth century
and even later, the Qur'anic doctrine of Unity, so central to Islam, has
remained dominant and in a sense has determined the agenda of the Islamic
philosophers.
Complementing the Qur'anic doctrine of Unity is the explicit assertion in the
Qur'an that Allah bestows being and it is this act which instantiates all
that exists, as one finds for example in the verse, "But His command, when He
intendeth a thing, is only that he saith unto it: Be! and it is [kun fa-
yakunl " (36:81). The concern of Islamic philosophers with ontology is
directly related to the Qur'anic doctrine, as is the very terminology of
Islamic philosophy in this domain where it understands by wujud more the verb
or act of existence (esto) than the noun or state of existence (esse). If Ibn
Sina has been called first and foremost a "philosopher of being ",15 and he
developed the ontology which came to dominate much of medieval philosophy,
this is not because he was simply thinking of Aristotelian theses in Arabic
and Persian, but because of the Qur'anic doctrine of the One in relation to
the act of existence. It was as a result of meditation upon the Qur'an in
conjunction with Greek thought that
Islamic philosophers developed the doctrine of Pure Being which stands above
the chain of being and is discontinuous with it, while certain other
philosophers such as a number of Isma`ilis considered God to be beyond Being
and identified His act or the Qur'anic kun with Being, which is then
considered as the principle of the universe.
It is also the Qur'anic doctrine of the creating God and creatio ex nihilo,
with all the different levels of meaning which nihilo possesses,"' that led
Islamic philosophers to distinguish sharply between God as Pure Being
and the existence of the universe, destroying that "block without fissure"
which constituted Aristotelian ontology. In Islam the universe is always
contingent (mumkin al-wujid) while God is necessary (wajib al-wujud), to use
the well-known distinction of Ibn Sina.'? No Islamic philosopher has ever
posited an existential continuity between the existence of creatures and the
Being of God, and this radical revolution in the understanding of
Aristotelian ontology has its source in the Islamic doctrine of God and
creation as asserted in the Qur'an and Hadith.'s Moreover, this influence is
paramount not only in the case of those who asserted the doctrine of creatio
ex nihilo in its ordinary theological sense, but also for those such as al-
Faribi and Ibn Sina who were in favour of the theory of emanation but who
none the less never negated the fundamental distinction between the wujud
(existence) of the world and that of God.
As for the whole question of "newness" or "eternity" of the world, or huduth
and gidam, which has occupied Islamic thinkers for the past twelve centuries
and which is related to the question of the contingency of the world vis-k-
vis the Divine Principle, it is inconceivable without the teachings of the
Qur'an and Hadith. It is of course a fact that before the rise of Islam
Christian theologians and philosophers such as John Philoponus had written on
this issue and that Muslims had known some of these writings, especially the
treatise of Philoponus against the thesis of the eternity of the world. But
had it not been for the Qur'anic teachings concerning creation, such
Christian writings would have played an altogether different role in Islamic
thought. Muslims were interested in the arguments of a Philoponus precisely
because of their own concern with the question of huduth and qidam, created
by the tension between the teachings of the Qur'an and the Hadith, on the one
hand, and the Greek notion of the non-temporal relation between the world and
its Divine Origin, on the other.
Another issue of great concern to Islamic philosophers from al-Kindi to Mulla
Sadra, and those who followed him, is God's knowledge of the world. The major
Islamic philosophers, such as al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, Suhrawardi, Ibn Rushd and
Mulla Sadra, have presented different views on the subject while, as with the
question of huduth and qidam, they have been constantly criticized and
attacked by the mutakallimun, especially over the question of God's knowledge
of particulars.' Now, such an issue entered Islamic philosophy directly from
the Qur'anic emphasis upon God's knowledge of all things as asserted in
numerous verses such as, "And not an atom's weight in the earth or the sky
escapeth your Lord, nor what is less than that or greater than that, but it
is written in a clear Book" (10: 62). It was precisely this Islamic
insistence upon Divine Omniscience that placed the issue of God's knowledge
of the world at the centre of the concern of Islamic philosophers and caused
Islamic philosophy, like its Jewish and Christian counterparts, to develop
extensive philosophical theories totally absent from the philosophical
perspective of Graeco-Alexandrian antiquity. In this context the Islamic
doctrine of "divine science" (al-ilm al-laduni) is of central significance
for both falsafah and theoretical Sufism or alma`rzfah.
This issue is also closely allied to the philosophical significance of
revelation (al-wahy) itself. Earlier Islamic philosophers such as Ibn Sina
sought to develop a theory by drawing to some extent, but not exclusively, on
Greek theories of the intellect and the faculties of the soul.20 Later
Islamic philosophers continued their concern for this issue and sought to
explain in a philosophical manner the possibility of the descent of the truth
and access to the truth by knowledge based on certitude but derived from
sources other than the senses, reason and even the inner intellect. They,
however, pointed to the correspondence between the inner intellect and that
objective manifestation of the Universal Intellect or Logos which is
revelation. While still using certain concepts of Greek origin, the later
Islamic philosophers such as Mulla Sadra drew heavily from the Qur'an and
Hadith on this issue.
Turning to the field of cosmology, again one can detect the constant presence
of Qur'anic themes and certain Hadith. It is enough to meditate upon the
commentaries made upon the "Light Verse" and "Throne Verse" and the use of
such explicitly Qur'anic symbols and images as the Throne (al arch), the
Pedestal (al-kursi-), the light of the heavens and earth (nur al-samdwat wa'l-
ard), the niche (mishkat) and so many other Qur'anic terms to realize the
significance of the Qur'an and Hadith in the formulation of cosmology as
dealt with in the Islamic philosophical tradition .21 Nor must one forget the
cosmological significance of the nocturnal ascent of the Prophet (al-mi raj)
which so many Islamic philosophers have treated directly, starting with Ibn
Sm!. This central episode in the life of the Prophet, with its numerous
levels of meaning, was not only of great interest to the Sufis but also drew
the attention of numerous philosophers to its description as contained in
certain verses of the Qur'an and Hadith. Some philosophers also turned their
attention to other episodes with a cosmological significance in the life of
the Prophet such as the "cleaving of the moon" (shagq al-qamar) about which
the ninth/fifteenth-century Persian philosopher Ibn Turkah Isfahani wrote a
separate treatise.22
In no branch of Islamic philosophy, however, is the influence of the Qur'an
and Hadith more evident than in eschatology, the very understanding of which
in the Abrahamic universe was alien to the philosophical world of antiquity.
Such concepts as divine intervention to mark the end of history, bodily
resurrection, the various eschatological events, the Final Judgment, and the
posthumous states as understood by Islam or for that matter Christianity were
alien to ancient philosophy whereas they are described explicitly in the
Qur'an and Hadith as well as of course in the Bible and other Jewish and
Christian religious sources.
The Islamic philosophers were fully aware of these crucial ideas in their
philosophizing, but the earlier ones were unable to provide philosophical
proofs for Islamic doctrines which many confessed to accept on the basis of
faith but could not demonstrate within the context of Peripatetic philosophy.
We see such a situation in the case of Ibn Sina who in several works,
including the Shifa, confesses that he cannot prove bodily resurrection but
accepts it on faith. This question was in fact one of the three main points,
along with the acceptance of qidam and the inability of the philosophers to
demonstrate God's knowledge of particulars, for which al-Ghazzali took Ibn
Sina to task and accused him of kuft or infidelity. It remained for Mulla
Sadra several centuries later to demonstrate the reality of bodily
resurrection through the principles of the "transcendent theosophy" (al-
hikmat al-muta dliyah) and to take both Ibn Sina and al-Ghazzali to task for
the inadequacy of their treatment of the subject 23 The most extensive
philosophical treatment of eschatology (al-ma ad) in all its dimensions is in
fact to be found in the Asfdr of Mulla Sadra.
It is sufficient to examine this work or his other treatises on the subject
such as his al-Mabda' wa l ma ad or al-Hikmat al arshiyyah to realize the
complete reliance of the author upon the Qur'an and Hadith. His development
of the philosophical meaning of ma dd is in reality basically a hermeneutics
of Islamic religious sources, primary among them the Qur'an and Hadith. Nor
is this fact true only of Mulla Sadra. One can see the same relation between
philosophy and the Islamic revelation in the writings of Mulla Muhsin Fayd
Kashini, Shah Waliullah of Delhi, Mulla Abd Allah Zunuzi, Hajji Mulla Hath
Sabziwari and many later Islamic philosophers writing on various aspects of
al-ma ad. Again, although as far as the question of eschatology is concerned,
the reliance on the Qur'an and Hadith is greater during the later period, as
is to be seen already in Ibn Sina who dealt with it in both his encyclopedic
works and in individual treatises dealing directly with the subject, such as
his own al-Mabda' wa'l-maid. It is noteworthy in this context that he
entitled one of his most famous treatises on eschatology al-Risalat al-
adhawiyyah, drawing from the Islamic religious term for the Day of Judgment.
In meditating upon the history of Islamic philosophy in its relation to the
Islamic revelation, one detects a movement toward ever closer association of
philosophy with the Qur'an and Hadith as falsafah became transformed into al-
hikmatal-ilahiyyah. Al-Farabi and Ibn Sina, although drawing so many themes
from Qur'anic sources, hardly ever quoted the Qur'an directly in their
philosophical works. By the time we come to Suhrawardi in the sixth/twelfth
century, there are present within his purely philosophical works citations of
the Qur'an and Hadith. Four centuries later the Safavid philosophers wrote
philosophical works in the form of commentaries on the text of the Qur'an or
on certain of the Hadith. This trend continued in later centuries not only in
Persia but also in India and the Ottoman world including Iraq.
As far as Persia is concerned, as philosophy became integrated into the
Shiite intellectual world from the seventh/thirteenth century onwards, the
sayings of the Shiite Imams began to play an ever greater role, complementing
the Prophetic Hadith. This is especially true of the sayings of Imams
Muhammad al-Bagir, Jafar al-Sadiq and Musa al-Kizim, the fifth, sixth and
seventh Imams of Twelve-Imam Shi'ism, whose sayings are at the origin of many
of the issues discussed by later Islamic philosophers.24 It is sufficient to
study the monumental but uncompleted Sharh Usfd alkafi of Mulla Sadra to
realize the philosophical fecundity of many of the sayings of the Imams and
their role in later philosophical meditation and deliberation.
The Qur'an and Hadith, along with the sayings of the Imams, which are in a
sense the extension of Hadith in the Shiite world, have provided over the
centuries the framework and matrix for Islamic philosophy and created the
intellectual and social climate within which Islamic philosophers have
philosophized. Moreoever, they have presented a knowledge of the origin, the
nature of things, humanity and its final ends and history upon which the
Islamic philosophers have meditated and from which they have drawn over the
ages. They have also provided a language of discourse which Islamic
philosophers have shared with the rest of the Islamic community.25 Without
the Qur'anic revelation, there would of course have been no Islamic
civilization, but it is important to realize that there would also have been
no Islamic philosophy. Philosophical activity in the Islamic world is not
simply a regurgitation of GraecoAlexandrian philosophy in Arabic, as claimed
by many Western scholars along with some of their Islamic followers, a
philosophy which grew despite the presence of the Qur'an and ,Hadith. On the
contrary, Islamic philosophy is what it is precisely because' it flowered in
a universe whose contours are determined by the Qur'anic revelation.
As asserted at the beginning of this chapter, Islamic philosophy is
essentially "prophetic philosophy" based on the hermeneutics of a Sacred Text
which is the result of a revelation that is inalienably linked to the
microcosmic intellect and which alone is able to actualize the dormant
possibilities of the intellect within us. Islamic philosophy, as understood
from within that tradition, is also an unveiling of the inner meaning of the
Sacred Text, a means of access to that Hagigah which lies hidden within the
inner dimension of the Qur'an. Islamic philosophy deals with the One or Pure
Being, and universal existence and all the grades of the universal hierarchy.
It deals with man and his entelechy, with the cosmos and the final return of
all things to God. This interpretation of existence is none other than
penetration into the inner meaning of the Qur'an which "is" existence itself,
the Book whose meditation provides the key for the understanding of those
objective and subjective orders of existence with which the Islamic
philosopher has been concerned over the ages.
A deeper study of Islamic philosophy over its twelve-hundred-year history
will reveal the role of the Qur'an and Hadith in the formulation, exposition
and problematics of this major philosophical tradition. In the same way that
all of the Islamic philosophers from al-Kindi onwards knew the Qur'an and
Hadith and lived with them, Islamic philosophy has manifested over the
centuries its inner link with the revealed sources of Islam, a link which has
become even more manifest as the centuries have unfolded, for Islamic
philosophy is essentially a philosophical hermeneutics of the Sacred Text
while making use of the rich philosophical heritage of antiquity. That is
why, far from being a transitory and foreign phase in the history of Islamic
thought, Islamic philosophy has remained over the centuries and to this day
one of the major intellectual perspectives in Islamic civilization with its
roots sunk deeply, like everything else Islamic, in the Qur'an and Hadith.
NOTES

1 Within the Islamic world itself scholars of kalam and certain others who
have opposed Islamic philosophy over the ages have claimed that it was merely
Greek philosophy to which they opposed philosophy or wisdom derived from
faith (al-bikmat alyunaniyyah versus al-hikmat al-imdniyyah). Some
contemporary Muslim scholars, writing in English, oppose Muslim to Islamic,
considering Muslim to mean whatever is practised or created by Muslims and
Islamic that which is derived directly from the Islamic revelation. Many such
scholars, who hail mostly from Pakistan and India, insist on calling Islamic
philosophy Muslim philosophy, as can be seen in the title of the well-known
work edited by M. M. Sharif, A History of Muslim Philosophy. If one looks
more deeply into the nature of Islamic philosophy from the traditional
Islamic point of view and takes into consideration its whole history,
however, one will see that this philosophy is at once Muslim and Islamic
according to the above-given definitions of these terms.
2 When accused on a certain occasion of infidelity, Ibn Sina responded in a
famous Persian quatrain: "It is not so easy and trifling to call me a
heretic; 1 No faith in religion is firmer than mine. / I am a unique person
in the whole world and if I am a heretic; I Then there is not a single Muslim
anywhere in the world." Trans. by S. H. Barani in his "Ibn Sina and
Alberuni", in Avicenna Commemoration Volume (Calcutta, 1956): 8 (with certain
modifications by S. H. Nasr).
3. This term was first used by H. Corbin and myself and appears in Corbin,
with the collaboration of S. H. Nasr and 0. Yahya, Histoire de la philosophie
islamique (Paris, 1964).
4 We say "almost" because there are one or two figures such as Muhammad ibn
Zakariyya' al-Razi who rejected the necessity of prophecy. Even in his case,
however, there is a rejection of the necessity of revelation in order to gain
ultimate knowledge and not the negation of the existence of revelation. See
Corbin, op. cit.: 26ff.
5. The term riwagi used by later Islamic philosophers must not, however, be
confused with the Roman Stoics, although it means literally stoic (riwaq in
Arabic coming from Pahlavi and meaning stoa). Corbin, op. cit.: 24.
6. On the Islamic figure of Hermes and Hermetic writings in the Islamic world
see L. Massignon, "Inventaire de la litterature hermetique arabe", appendix 3
in A. J. Festugiere and A. D. Nock, La Revelation d'Herm2s Trismegiste, 4
vols (Paris, 1954-60); S. H. Nasr, Islamic Life and Thought (Albany, 1981):
102-19; F. Sezgin, Geschichte der arabischen Schrifttums, 4 (Leiden, 1971).
9 See for example the introduction by one of the leading contemporary
traditional philosophers of Persia, Abul-Hasan Sha'rani, to Sabziwari, Asrdr
al-hikam (Tehran, 1960): 3.
10 Edited with introduction and Persian translation by M. Khwajawi (Tehran,
1983).
11 The writings of H. Corbin are a notable exception.
12 See M. Abdul Haq, "Ibn Sima's Interpretation of the Qur'an", The Islamic
Quarterly, 32(1) (1988): 46-56.
13 This monumental work has been edited in Arabic and also translated into
Persian by M. Khwajawi who has printed all of Mulla Sadra's Qur'anic
commentaries in recent years. It is interesting to note that the Persian
translation entitled Tarjuma yi mafanh al-ghayb (Tehran, 1979) includes a
long study on the rise of philosophy and its various schools by Ayatullah
Abidi Shahrridi, who discusses the rapport between Islamic philosophy and the
Qur'an in the context of traditional Islamic thought.
14 See I. Netton, Allah Transcendent (London, 1989), which deals with this
tension but mixes his account with certain categories of modern European
philosophy not suitable for the subject.
15 See E. Gilson, Avicenne et le point de depart de Duns Scot, Extrait des
archives d'histoire doctrinale et litteraire du Moyen Age (Paris, 1927); and
A. M. Goichon, "L'Unite de la pensEe avicennienne", Archives Internationale
dHsstoire des Sciences, 20-1 (1952): 290ff.
16 See D. Burrell and B. McGinn (eds), God and Creation (Notre Dame, 1990):
246ff. For the more esoteric meaning of ex nihilo in Islam see L. Schaya, La
Creation en Dieu (Paris, 1983), especially chapter 6: 90ff.
17 This has been treated more amply in Chapter 16 below on Ibn Sina See also
Nasr, An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines (Albany, 1993),
chapter 12.
18 See T. Izutsu, The Concept and Reality of Existence (Tokyo, 1971).
19 The criticisms by al-Ghazzali and Imam Fakhr al-Din al-Razi of this issue,
as that of huduth and qidam, are well known and are treated below. Less is
known, however, of the criticism of other theologians who kept criticizing
the philosophers for their denial of the possibility of God knowing
particulars rather than just universals.
20 See F. Rahman, Prophecy in Islam, Philosophy and Orthodoxy (London, 1958),
where some of these theories are described and analysed clearly, but with an
over-emphasis on the Greek factor and downplaying of the role of the Islamic
view of revelation itself.
21 On this issue see Nasr, An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological
Doctrines,, and Nasr, "Islamic Cosmology", in Islamic Civilization, 4, ed. A.
Y al-Hassan et al (Paris, forthcoming).
22 See H. Corbin, En Islam iranien, 3 (Paris, 1971): 233ff.
23 Mulla Sadra dealt with this debate in several of his works especially in
his Glosses upon the Theosophy of the Orient of Light (of Suhrawardi)
(Hashiyah 'ala hikmat al-ishrdq). See H. Corbin, "Le theme de la resurrection
chez Mulla Sadra Shirazi (1050/1640) commentateur de Sohrawardi (587/1191)",
in Studies in Mysticism and Religion - Presented to Gershom G. Scholem
(Jerusalem, 1967): 71-118.
24 The late Allamah Tabataba'i, one of the leading traditional philosophers
of contemporary Persia, once made a study of the number of philosophical
problems dealt with by early and later Islamic philosophers. He once told us
that, according to his study, there were over two hundred philosophical
issues treated by the early Islamic philosophers and over six hundred by
Mulla Sadra and his followers. Although he admitted that this approach was
somewhat excessively quantitative, it was an indication of the extent of
expansion of the fields of interest of Islamic philosophy, an expansion which
he attributed almost completely to the influence of the metaphysical and
philosophical utterances of the Shi'ite Imams which became of ever greater
concern to many Islamic philosophers, both Shi'ite and Sunni, from the time
of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi onwards.
25 The Qur'an and Hadith have also influenced directly and deeply the
formation of the Islamic philosophical vocabulary in Arabic, an issue with
which we have not been able to deal in this chapter.

Comments on the discussions in the above passages about the Quranic concept
of “Divine Unity” and the assertion of a possible lack of an “existential
continuity” between God, his creatures, and the world he has created.

Christianity and Judaism as I understand it believes in a somewhat different
metaphysics. This follows from the statement, “God created the World out of
nothing, but He created us out of something (Himself)” the metaphysics of
which and how nothingness is intertwined in all of this is discussed
elsewhere on this discussion forum.
On the other side of this separation we have the 2nd commandment, “Do not
make any [graven] images of Me.” And the 3rd commandment, “Do not take the
name of the Lord thy God in vain.” If God Himself has made the World out of
Himself, and we are made in His image, It doesn’t seem to make sense that we
should be prohibited from helping Him make the World out of an image of Him.
However, this is the case. And, the alternative is to assume the World is
made out of two conflicting powers and presences by us and Him and to have
our realities live in a much more conflicted existence and with a much less
individually responsible “intelligent design”. God has left hints of Himself
and intimations of the eternal parts of ourselves He created in us during His
creation. These are meant to be a source of inspiration for us. But, swearing
by them (or by miracles [manifestations of His spiritual power realizing
itself in us] that seem to happen as a result of our own helping Him or by
participating with Him in various transcendent parts of His creation) can be
a spiritual trap. In the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola section
32-39 (general examination of conscience the purpose of which is to purify
our souls and to aid us to improve our confessions)we find the following
explanation of some of the subtleties involved in trying to understand how
God wants us to obey these 2 commandments. “It must be noted that in idle
oaths we sin more greviously when we swear by the Creator than we swear by a
creature.” “When we wish to take an oath by some creature, the intention to
call upon his name does not make us so attentive and cautious to speak the
truth or to confirm it by oath only if necessary, as we would be with the
intention to use the name of the Creator and Lord of all… When we swear by
the name of some creature, it is not so easy to observe reverence and respect
for the Creator and when we swear we use the name of the Creator and Lord
Himself…Hence those who are perfect should be allowed to swear by the name of
a creature rather than those who are imperfect.”

Tuesday morning
Dr. H. Modirzadeh
Cross cultural musical dialogu

Article #72
Subject: talk on Sufism
Author: Andrew W. Harrell
Posted: 6/21/2011 10:52:49 AM

Monday Afternoon

Dr. Jilla Behnan
“Introduction to Sufism*”
• The journey of self-knowledge and the journey to cognize the Truth of
existence (and hence of God).

“Whoever has cognized the True Self, has cognized God” Prophet Mohammed

Emphasis in this is on each person being the architect of his/her environment.
Tranquility and Survival are the goal of Sufism.
The One who teaches this method of cognition is known as the “Arif” (Master).
He is who has attained the most exalted state of existence through annilation
and permanence in God.

Sufism is a way of love, of devotion, a way of knowledge. It is called the
way of the prophets.
Irfan means cognition (self-knowledge)
Sufism is the reality of relition…experiencing God in one’s inner self,
cognizing the ultimate knowledge, submitting to Him. “This is the reality of
religion as I know it.”
Jesus slips into a house. The center of I resides in the heart. It is a
gateway to the infinite. The realization and cognition of I is the beginning
of self-knowledge.
M (Mahtab).T(Tarishat).O(Oveyssi). Shahmagnsoudi school of Islamic Sufism:
“Emflame my heart with the diagram of love”
Islamic art consists of 1)calligraphy, 2)arabesque patterns of flowers, 3)
geometric designs with interlacement. You start from the center of the circle
to trace an infinite tiling.
The reed pipe is hollow inside. One should submit absolutely to the love of a
beloved thinking of oneself this way.
Tilings offer the possibility of infinite expansion. First introduced in
1200, they were not understand mathematically until fairly recently. The
mirror is symbolic of the heart of the teacher. The Roayl Mosque in Iran has
7 colors that present the 7 mystical phases of the soul’s journey. There are
also memorial buildings with these patterns in Novata, CA, Great Falls, VA,
and Dallas TX.

Major Sufi practices include:
Tamarkaz(concentration and meditation)

Chanting and Remembrance of melodies of Love and the Beloved.
“Those who believe with their hearts full find comfort in the remembrance of
God. Remember me and I will remember you.” Holy Quran 13:28
“Let there be no compulsion in religion. Truth stands out clear from error.”

Zikr (prayers)
1)Clearing the mind
2)“May God grant you the resolve to enter the path of knowledge (the alphabet
of the real). Sit you in Peace so your soul may be guided by the Light of
Wisdom.”

Fasting

There are 3 major electro-magnetic centers of energy in our spiritual bodies.
“Gather all your energies and concentrate them on the source of life in the
heart for you to become imperishable. This will leave you in balance and
tranquility. The “I” is at the top of the heart”. There there are hidden
angles of light” Hazrat Shah Maghsoud Sadegh Angln.

One moves spiritually from left to right making the symbol of infinity while
singing the particular verse a the center of the infinity symbol. The center
of the heart is a magnet that capturs all energies.
“Is it the soul that moves the body? Or, is it the body that moves the soul?”

Article #73
Subject: talks on cross-cultural musical dialogue and also on Iran's 1979 revolution
Author: Andrew W. Harrell
Posted: 6/22/2011 09:19:58 AM

Tuesday morning
Dr. Hafez Modirzadeh (S.F. Saxophonist who has Fulbright grant to study this
research area)
Cross cultural musical dialogue Iran, North Africa, Spain Pythagerous
established intervalic relationship His tetrachord is one example of a shared
musical heritage.
There was an exchange of musical stypes between the Arabas, Jews, Jurds,
Armenians, and Iranians.
Zarye sitar(3 string mandolin) Musician who went from Baghdad to Cordova in
late 8th and 9th century. Also, brought Andulasian culture to Morocco. Some
of his lutes contributed to the development of the guitar.
The 1st Azan(call to prayer) selected by Mohammed is associated with the
ancient Phrygian mode.

The Phrygian musical scales goes:

C D Eb F G

x x (interval)

C x x F G x x C

4th 5th

octave

In music, the altered Phrygian scale or Freygish scale (also spelled Fraigish
[1]), featuring an unusual key signature and a distinctive augmented second
interval, is the fifth mode of the harmonic minor scale, the fifth being the
dominant.[2] Also called the Phrygian dominant scale, harmonic minor perfect
fifth below, dominant flat 2 flat 6 (in jazz), or simply the fifth mode of
the harmonic minor scale, it's constructed by raising the third of the
Phrygian mode and occurs commonly in Jewish, Greek, Turkish, Arab, and
Flamenco music. Examples include some versions of "Hava Nagila"[2]
and "Misirlou", with other versions of those melodies using the closely
related double harmonic scale.[1] "The main chords used with this scale are,"
I, iv, and vi.[1]
The scale is extremely common in Middle Eastern music, particularly Arabic
and Egyptian music. It is also known as Ahava Rabbah or Freygish when used in
Hebrew prayers and Klezmer music (earning it the additional title of the
Jewish scale), or as the Hijaz-Nahawand maqam when used in Turkish or Arabic
music. It is often known as a Spanish Phrygian scale, Spanish gypsy scale
(see: gypsy scale) or Phrygian major scale (see: phrygian mode and major
scale) as it is also commonly used in Flamenco music.[3] The flattend second
together with the augmented step between the second and third degrees of the
scale create its distinctive mystical, exotic sound. For instance the E
Phrygian dominant scale would be the notes E, F, G#, A, B, C and D.
The sequence of steps comprising the Phrygian dominant scale is
• half – augmented – half – whole – half – whole – whole
When related to the scale degrees of the major scale, it reads like so:
1 - b2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - b6 - b7 - 1
Beginning on C, the scale is as follows: C - D♭ - E - F - G - A♭ - B♭ - C



Dr. Mahziar Behrooz

Iran’s 1979 revolution and its role in the Middle East

The Shah subverted the 1906 constitution. This lessened his legitimacy in the
country. Also, He decided to wide with the west against the East. The U.S.
gradually replaced the British as the aspiring western power in the Middle
East after WWII. The Kennedy and Johnson administrations promoted reform as a
way of countering Socialism and in order to prevent a Cuba type experience…
e.g. Alliance for Progress, Peace Corps. In Iran it was the “land reform”
from the “White Revolution” program. You divide the land of the old families
and give them to the peasants. The excess labor force would then be
immigrating toward the cities for an industrial revolution. Teach the people
how to take care of their health. Nassoor in Egypt and the leader in Iraq
were doing basically the same thing. Also, “women in power” is a big part of
this using a “top down” approach people are told what is good for them. You
must understand the concept of a “renter state”. U.S. government relies on
citizens and taxes. In the renter state the income is not from taxes but from
American loands and grants and aid concessions. The Shah was a military man.
In any system where there are no checks and balances, in a dictatorial
regime, where you do not pay a price for mismanagement, it explodes in
different ways. The Shah personally is blamed for the problems. The secret
service (SAVAK) was a pretty brutal organization. Iran produced more
communists in the 1960s than in the US. For the anti-establishment generation
in iran, guerilla warfare is the way to go. Iranians have a martyr complex
anyway. If the state confiscates all your property, what is left? You cannot
close down the Church (Mosque). The Shah was not able to confiscate the
Mosque system The Shah gave women the right to vote as part of his “White
Revolution’ but he did not believe it.He was chastised for ignoring the
clergy and being close to Israel. He was arrested and sent into exile. The
clergy was able to bypass the state control of information. This is still
scary today until we have the power of the internet. The Shah had alienated
everyone except the top social classes. A lot of his supporters came to L.A.
(it is big towering and looks like Tehran). Khomeni had been living in exile
since 1964. He was a Gandhi like character. He envisioned a Plato like
republic under the guardianship of the clergy,overseeing things. Iran is the
first example of an Islamic Republic. They said, ‘It can’t be worse”. But, of
course, it could. It could be Lebanon, it could be Afghanistan, worst of all
it could be the Balkans.
What has happened in the last 32 year?

1978-79 attack on the US Embassy, the reformers take over, they come in with
a lot of grand ideas.
1980 Invasion of Iran by Iraq. This helped them to consolidate their power.
The city of Khoranshahir was liberated in 1982 by the Iranis. Unfortunately
Iran made a fateful decision to try and turn a defensive war into an
offensive was against Iraq. After the peace with Eqypt in 1979 Iraq become
the most important oil rich country for U.S. foreign power to try and
capture.. Under the Reagen administration the U.S. normalized relations with
Iraq. The U.S. did not provide weapons per se, but provided them as part of
loans which allowed Iran to purchase chemical weapons from Europeans and
provided them with diplomatic cover to use chemical weapons. Kuwaiti ships
were provided with American flags. When the Kuwaitis attacked Iranian ships,
the Iranians attacked U.S. ships. After Khomenis death a relatively
lightweight person was chosen to replace him (just like in the Soviet Union
everyone was afraid of Trotsky so unfortunately they picked Stalin… ). They
thought, “Let the philosophers rule until the coming of the “hidden Imam””
When the “hidden Imam” returns, on his side will be Jesus Christ …!
2005 to present Adbinajad tightens power

Human rights is universal. If we agree that secularism is a relative concept,
the Muslim countries would have to accept a degree of separation of Church
and State. Maybe it would be a good thing to let the clergy have a turn
ruling things so that everyone would see that they don’t know what they are
doing. Right now Turkey and Iran are the two most dynamic Islamic states in
Middle East. I really do not see any future in a return of the monarchy. In
the population now 35 million of the 75 million do not have any memory of the
monarchy.

Article #75
Subject: Thursday talks
Author: Andrew W. Harrell
Posted: 7/1/2011 04:19:54 PM

1st talk on Thursday morning by Dr. Maziar Behrouz..

Iran and the U.S.

Presbyterian missionaries settled in Esfahan and Tehran where there were a
large number of non-Muslims. They were not allowed to convert Muslims. They
provided education to help the country. Howard Baskerville got invited in
1909 . He died a martyr at age 24. see the story in pdf on internet at
http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2009/2009_30-39/2009_30-39/2009-
32/pdf/42-65_3632.pdf. Today he is remembered as a young man who got
involved. After WWII the US did join the occupation forces and ran the
Iranian railroad. They also played an important role in evacuating the
Russians. Mossedeq believed that the Americans were anti-colonists and could
help in the battle against Britian. That changed with project AJAX in Aug.
1953.
During the Cold War the Shah was not anti-Israel. Iran signed the CENTO
defensive pact in 1955. As the British pulled out in 1971the Shah’s military
forces replace the British forces. When the US backed Israel in 1973
triggering the Arab oil embargo, the Shah did not join other Arab countries.
When the US needed airplanes during the Vietnam war the Shah provided them.
Also, he started developing nuclear reactors. The US was not against it then
and let the Germans provide the help for it. The US was also interested in in
training SAVAK. It was very brutal and very efficient. SAVAK was so
successful in the 1970s, Americans feeling Iran was in sake hands began to
pull back. So in 1978 the US did not have a clear idea of who the
revolutionists were. It was caught off guard. The Shah was always comfortable
with the Republicans, but not the Democrats. By the fall of 1978, the
ambassador William Sullivan wrote a paper, the NSC (Dr. Brezinski and State
Dept. head Cyrus Vance) realized it was out of control. But, they thought the
Ayalltolah would retire in a seminary and moderates would take control. Today
we are still waiting for the revolution to get better. Reagen was picked to
manage relations with Iran. All equipment for Iraq came from the USSR. Iran-
Contra---sell Israeli weapons to Iran, give money to the Contras in
Nicaragua, Israel takes its share. It might have worked but the US congress
had problems giving funds to the Contras. Later in order to respond to the
Iraqi threat to Iranian oil they used mines. In reply the Iraqis used French
Mirages with mines to block Iranian ships. America began to reflag Kuwaiti
tankers. The result was the shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane
(probably not on purpose). 290 Iranians dies on the Airbus. American never
apologized (we should have even if it was just a mistake). Finally Khomeni
did stop the war. He said it was like taking poison.

2nd talk on Thursday morning by Dr. Maziar Behrouz

Iran and the US

Constructivism argues the realities we have today are not given, they
are ‘constructed’.

“If you cannot eliminate injustice, at least talk about it.”

Human rights in global political economy. “Although human rights talk has
attained a certain position nowadasys, it has not succeeded in making the
transition from a global issue to a local issue.” From Tony Evans Humans
Rights in the Global Political Economy

In contradiction to these statements are the recent events in the Arab
countries of the Middle East.

Review of the First Islamic Republic of Iran (1979-1989)
Salmon Rushie likened the prophet to a person who has married nine
prostitutes. After this there was a climate of fear of repression. 6500
executions took place. The only opposition is the Freedom movement in Iran.
In an Amnesty International 1986 report there was a serious condemnation of
Iran.

Second Republic 1989-1997

In this post Khomeni era there was a change away from populism to pragmatism.
In 1992 4 Kurdish opposition leaders were assassinated in Berlin at the
MyKonos Café. A German court issued an arrest warrant against the Iranian
Intelligence chief. According to a UN report the regime continued to
assassinate
Émigrés even after this.

3rd Republic 1997-2005

There was tremendous support for Khutami and Islamic reform as he pitted
theocracy against democracy. There was an expansion of civil society and a
rise of women’s rights and civil rights. A new struggle over civil policy
resulted. In 1999 Iran joined the International Convention on Civil and
Political Rights. For the 1st time since 1979 charges were filed for
violations of civil rights. But, later, after this secular and outspoken
writers were murdered and people from an opposition party were stabbed to
death. A 3rd generation of feminists arose: 1st generation: “Who am I?”, 2nd
generation: “What are my religious views?”, 3rd generation “What are my civil
rights?”. There were student protests and even the closing of a newspaper. In
2003, an Iranian women, Shirin won the Nobel Prize. First ever. She talked
about gender inequality: “If you cannot eliminate inequality, at least have
the courage to talk about it. “The legal puberty age of women was raised from
9 to 15. But, there are still other problems with women’s rights with respect
to marriage, divorce, and inheritance.

4th Republic

This was the return of Islamic popularism. “Islam without justice is not
Islam” Economic difficulties resulted in 29% of population living below the
poverty level (definition of poverty is earning 2 dollars or less a day). 80%
of the economy is state controlled. Today 23 million Iranians have access to
the Internet.
There is a decline of civil society. There is rural development with
infrastructure building and a growing influence of the revolutionary guards.
In 2009 presidental elections there was a rising opposition group, the “Green
movement”. It is a homegrown movement arisen as a result of the slow moral
erosion of the Islamic Republic. Can the Green Movement succeed? Yes, because
it is a movement of ideas. But, who will guard the guardians? In 2002 the
government finally banned death by stoning. We must change from within.
Otherwise there is globalization and external support along with military
intervention to prevent genocide. I strongly believe in the homegrown model
for democracy. Smart targeted sanctions can help but not broadbased
sanctions. Due to international pressures the UN Human Rights Courts on March
24, 2011 established a special mechanism to monitor human rights in Iran. It
is easier to prevent human wrongs than to promote human rights. As of now
there is little chance that there will be a referendum in Iran. What about an
Egyptian type revolution? Also, there is little chance of this, because the
instruments of power are still in place. In the Egyptian case it was the US
influence on the military that made the difference. This is not the case in
Iran.
.