Download PDF | (Mamluk Studies 20) Abdelkader Al Ghouz (editor) - Islamic Philosophy from the 12th to the 14th Century-V&R unipress (2018).
506 Pages
Acknowledgements
The present volume grew out of the international conference “Islamic Philosophy from the 12th to the 14th Century” which took place on 24–26 February 2016 in Bonn. The conference was sponsored by the Annemarie-Schimmel-Kolleg of the University of Bonn, Centre for Advanced Studies, “History and Society during the Mamluk Era (1250–1517)”. First, I would like to express my deep gratitude to the Annemarie-SchimmelKolleg, which in turn is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), for offering financial support and making this international event possible. I am deeply indebted to Professor Dr. Stephan Conermann (Bonn University, Germany) as well: The idea of publishing this edited volume is the outcome of a fortunate brainstorming between Professor Conermann and myself, who encouraged me while I was a junior fellow at the Annemarie-Schimmel-Kolleg to organize an international conference with a focus on my own research areas. I am also immensely grateful to Professor Dr. Frank Griffel (Yale University, New Haven, USA) for his valuable comments and remarks concerning the initial concept of the conference.
I am also indebted to the senior and junior fellows of the Annemarie-Schimmel-Kolleg at that time. Many thanks are due to the staff members of the Annemarie-Schimmel-Kolleg – previous and current – who lent me tremendous support with administrative and organizational aspects before, during and after the conference: Dr. Mohammad Gharaibeh, Sebastian Wißdorf, Sarah Spiegel, Fabian Falter, Dr. Claudia El Hawary, Wencke Uhl, Sherihan Inalo, Esther Schirrmacher, Ann-Kathrin Pfeiffer and Jan Hörber. My thanks to the Editorial Board of the Mamluk Studies Series for accepting the publication of this edited volume: Prof. Dr. Stephan Conermann (Bonn, Germany), Prof. Dr. Bethany J. Walker (Bonn, Germany), Prof. Dr. Thomas Bauer (Münster, Germany), Prof. Dr. Albrecht Fuess (Marburg, Germany), Dr. Thomas Herzog (Bern, Switzerland), Prof. Dr. Konrad Hirschler (London, Great Britain), Prof. Dr. Anna Paulina Lewicka (Warsaw, Poland), Prof. Dr. Linda Northrup (Toronto, Canada), Prof. Dr. Jo Van Steenbergen (Gent, Belgium). My gratitude also goes to the publisher Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (V&R unipress, Göttingen, Germany), es- pecially to Ms. Laura Haase, Ms. Anke Moseberg and Mr. Oliver Kätsch for their highly professional and friendly handling as well as for their great patience and constructive feedback. Abdelkader Al Ghouz, Bonn, August 2018
Introduction
Brief introductory remarks on the narratives of the supposed disappearance of falsafa after al-Ghaza¯l¯ı Through the end of the 20th century, some historians of philosophy, such as Salomon Munk (1805–1867) and Ernest Renan (1823–1892), considered alGhaza¯lı¯ and his condemnation of the fala¯sifa in his work The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Taha¯fut al-Fala¯sifa) a turning point in the history of “Islamic” philosophy. Munk, for instance, coined the idea that the philosophical tradition in Islam underwent a deep change as a consequence of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s critics of philosophy in his work the Taha¯fut. Munk’s interpretation of the Ghaza¯lian impact on the reception of the Avicennian philosophy by Muslim scholars found a sympathetic ear by some of his contemporaries (e. g., Ernest Renan), who further elaborated on and expanded Munk’s interpretation to a Ghaza¯lian turn in the study of philosophy in Islamic civilizations.
In his work Averroès et l’Averroïsme: Essai historique, Renan claimed that al-Ghaza¯lı¯was one of the “intolerant enemies” of the philosophers because he completely rejected rationalism and converted to Sufism.2 Furthermore, Renan introduced the Andalusian Muslim philosopher Ibn Rushd (Averroes, d. 595/1198) as the last philosopher whose death marked the end of philosophy in medieval Islam. In addition to Renan and Munk, other historians adopted the narratives of the disappearance of medieval philosophy in Islamic East after the death of al-Ghaza¯lı¯, and in the Islamic West after the death of Ibn Rushd, e. g., Tjitze J. de Boer (1866–1942) and Ignaz Goldziher (1850–1921).3 Over the last 20 years, the study of the post-Avicennian philosophy has attracted the attention of historians of Islamic intellectual history. Generally speaking, most historians of falsafa and kala¯m have now broken epistemologically with the narratives revolving around the assumption that al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s condemnation of the philosophers was a “death blow” to falsafa.4 For instance, Frank Griffel writes:
The same applies to philosophy. Certain intellectual circles in Islam have frowned upon, shunned, and stigmatized the study of philosophy. Other circles, however, favoured it, encouraged philosophers to write books, and rewarded them for it. There is clear evidence that even after al-Ghaza¯lı¯there were enough of the latter circles to safeguard that philosophy in Islam did not disappear after 1100. At the beginning of this chapter, I tried to show that after al-Ghaza¯lı¯there were still quite a number of philosophers, who were Muslims, who followed Avicenna, and who taught, for instance, the pre-eternity of the world. If my field of study, that is Islamic studies, has given a wrong impression about this in the past one-hundred and sixty years since the appearance of Ernest Renan’s ‘Averroès et l’Averroïsme’ it is now high time to rectify this mistake.
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