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SUNY Series in Islam

Islamic Philosophy from its Origin to the Present: Philosophy in the Land of Prophecy

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Islamic Philosophy from Its Origin to the Present offers a comprehensive overview of Islamic philosophy from the ninth century to the present day. As Seyyed Hossein Nasr attests, within this tradition, philosophizing is done in a world in which prophecy is the central reality of life--a reality related not only to the realms of action and ethics but also to the realm of knowledge. Comparisons with Jewish and Christian philosophies highlight the relation between reason and revelation, that is, philosophy and religion.

Nasr presents Islamic philosophy in relation to the Islamic tradition as a whole, but always treats this philosophy as philosophy, not simply as intellectual history. In addition to chapters dealing with the general historical development of Islamic philosophy, several chapters are devoted to later and mostly unknown philosophers. The work also pays particular attention to the Persian tradition.

Nasr stresses that the Islamic tradition is a living tradition with significance for the contemporary Islamic world and its relationship with the West. In providing this seminal introduction to a tradition little-understood in the West, Nasr also shows readers that Islamic philosophy has much to offer the contemporary world as a whole.

390 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

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About the author

Seyyed Hossein Nasr

245 books722 followers
Seyyed Hossein Nasr was born on April 7, 1933 (19 Farvadin 1312 A.H. solar) in Tehran into a family of distinguished scholars and physicians. His father, Seyyed Valiallah, a man of great learning and piety, was a physician to the Iranian royal family, as was his father before him. The name "Nasr" which means "victory" was conferred on Professor Nasr's grandfather by the King of Persia. Nasr also comes from a family of Sufis. One of his ancestors was Mulla Seyyed Muhammad Taqi Poshtmashhad, who was a famous saint of Kashan, and his mausoleum which is located next to the tomb of the Safavid king Shah Abbas, is still visited by pilgrims to this day.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr, currently University Professor of Islamic Studies at the George Washington University, Washington D.C. is one of the most important and foremost scholars of Islamic, Religious and Comparative Studies in the world today. Author of over fifty books and five hundred articles which have been translated into several major Islamic, European and Asian languages, Professor Nasr is a well known and highly respected intellectual figure both in the West and the Islamic world. An eloquent speaker with a charismatic presence, Nasr is a much sought after speaker at academic conferences and seminars, university and public lectures and also radio and television programs in his area of expertise. Possessor of an impressive academic and intellectual record, his career as a teacher and scholar spans over four decades.

Professor Nasr began his illustrious teaching career in 1955 when he was still a young and promising, doctoral student at Harvard University. Over the years, he has taught and trained an innumerable number of students who have come from the different parts of the world, and many of whom have become important and prominent scholars in their fields of study.

He has trained different generations of students over the years since 1958 when he was a professor at Tehran University and then, in America since the Iranian revolution in 1979, specifically at Temple University in Philadelphia from 1979 to 1984 and at the George Washington University since 1984 to the present day. The range of subjects and areas of study which Professor Nasr has involved and engaged himself with in his academic career and intellectual life are immense. As demonstrated by his numerous writings, lectures and speeches, Professor Nasr speaks and writes with great authority on a wide variety of subjects, ranging from philosophy to religion to spirituality, to music and art and architecture, to science and literature, to civilizational dialogues and the natural environment.

For Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr, the quest for knowledge, specifically knowledge which enables man to understand the true nature of things and which furthermore, "liberates and delivers him from the fetters and limitations of earthly existence," has been and continues to be the central concern and determinant of his intellectual life.

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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
Profile Image for Nazmi Yaakub.
Author 10 books277 followers
July 24, 2015
Memang sukar untuk menyusuri sejarah falsafah Islam sejak ia menyeberang dari peradaban Yunani kepada tradisi keilmuan tamadun Islam; baik dalam bentuk pertembungan antara konsep metafizik yang dibayangi Plato dan Aristotle di bawah ilmuwan seperti Ibnu Sina (sebelum dan sesudahnya) dengan aqidah dan worldview Islam hingga membawa proses Islamisasi ilmu di bawah ketajaman pena dan ketelitian tapisan Imam al-Ghazali dan juga Imam Fakhruddin al-Razi sebelum perbincangan tauhid dan metafizik dibayangi oleh tradisi kalam. SHN turut menyorot ahli falsafah yang tumbuh daripada peradaban Andalusia, sebelum memberikan tumpuan besar kepada kesuburan falsafah Islam yang mula mendapat nama yang sebenarnya, al-hikmah al-muta'aliyah di wilayah Parsi dan sekiranya termasuk India.

Buku ini bagi saya, tidak menjanjikan perjalanan yang selesa untuk melumati bukan saja konsep-konsep metafizik, bahkan tokoh-tokohnya sendiri juga barangkali menjadi nama-nama yang sukar untuk diingati, tetapi buku ini menjadi sebahagian proses yang membuka ruang pemikiran peribadi yang mungkin selama ini terbentuk dalam satu kerangka yang agak rigid atas nama fiqh.

Saya boleh bersetuju dengan pengarangnya, SHN, tentang kepentingan bidang falsafah Islam dan al-hikmah al-muta'aliyah ini diambil kira dalam pertembungan pemikiran antara Islam dengan pandangan hidup Barat khususnya modenisme (juga pascamodenisme kerana pengarang ini tidak terlalu memisahkan antara dua jalur pemikiran besar Barat itu) meskipun akur perlu berhati-hati terhadap konsep falsafah tracendentalnya yang berasaskan apa yang dinamakannya sebagai tradisi Abrahamic yang juga membawa kepada jalur pemikiran yang tidak kurang hebat cabarannya, iaitu pluralisme agama dan agama tracedental (kebenaran rentas agama, perkongsian kebenaran pada peringkat metafizik meski berbeza jalan mencapainya).

Pandangan beliau sangat kuat terpancar pada Bab Reflections on Islam and Modern Thought dalam buku ini yang barangkali boleh dianggap sebagai buah yang dapat kita capai selepas 'mengukah' pohon sejarah falsafah Islam dan al-hikmah al-mutaa'liyah dalam buku ini, sekali gus mengukuhkan pandangannya terhadap keperluan untuk menggunakan landasan yang dibina ilmuwan dan ahli falsafah silam dalam berdepan dengan idea modenisme dan pascamodenisme.

Antara kenyataan yang saya kira berguna untuk direnungkan ialah bagaimana konsep modenisme tidak boleh diambil mudah sehingga atas nama kemajuan/progress, ia cuba diharmonikan dengan Islam kerana pemikiran modenisme tidak datang secara hampa atau kosong, sebaliknya bersama-sama konsep-konsep yang membangunkannya seperti berpusat pada kemanusiaan semata-mata dan memutuskan hubungan dengan aspek sakral atau kesucian.

Begitu juga bagaimana SHN ketika menyorot al-hikmah al-muta'aliyah dan faham ishraqi ketika Sekolah Tehran pada separuh kedua abad yang lalu, beliau ada menyentuh bagaimana perbincangan mengenai pemikiran mula beralih daripada kelompok ahli falsafah kepada ahli hukum/fuqaha' yang kurang menguasai perbincangan pada tahap metafizik yang pada segi tertentu juga berlaku di wilayah kita sehingga kebanyakan isu dan cabaran pemikiran dijawab dengan menggunakan landasan serta kerangka yang bersifat fiqh.
Profile Image for عبد الحكيم .
87 reviews28 followers
February 12, 2025
كتاب هام جدا يؤرخ للفلسفة في العالم الإسلامي منذ بداياتها وحتى الوقت الراهن "لحظة صدور الكتاب" وهو يعطي خارطة معرفية للمدارس والأفكار التي نشأت في أرض النبوة.
قد يعيب الكتاب ذكره لبعض الفلاسفة وتأثيرهم باقتضاب مثل ابن رشد، ابن العربي، الغزالي وغيرهم.... وتركيزه بشكل أكبر على الفلاسفة الفرس -وإن كان له حق في ذلك- فحوالي 70% من الفلاسفة هم من الفرس وهو إيراني وتلميذ لأحد فلاسفة مدرسة طهران.
كما تم التركيز بشكل كبير على ابن سينا -وهذا متفهم- فبرأيي غالب من أتى بعده هو تحشية وشرح وتوسيع على المتن السينوي، والشخصية الاخرى التي كان لها نصيب الأسد أيضا وذكرت كثير هو ملا صدرا الشيرازي وافكاره..

بشكل عام الكتاب مدخل هام وممتاز لمدارس الفلسفة الإسلامية وقضاياها وجلّ رجالها.

========

ملاحظة: هذا تقييم أولي للكتاب وقد تكون لي عودة....
Profile Image for Hassan Zayour.
Author 4 books39 followers
January 24, 2022
This book does not serve as an introductory read to the vast world of Islamic Philosophy, which is to be studied within the framework of prophecy. Readers who have already established a reasonable basis in this field are advised to read this book with the intention of discovering new perspectives that might not have been brought to one's attention earlier on. Although it would be understandable when a reader claims a certain bias by the author towards Persian philosophy, almost regarding almost half of the book as a discussion on Iranian studies, it is worth noting that he did mention it as a disclaimer at the commencement of his book. After all, this is not a typical introductory manuscript intended to be written with complete academic objectivity; no, the author has a thesis here, in which he is trying to convey a point which I have come to partially agree on. It so happens that the more eastern part of the Islamic world supports such claims the most, and it would thus not be a surprise if he dedicated more of his work for Mulla Sadra, rather than extensively discussing Ibn Rushd, for example.
The integration of prophecy within Philosophy in the Islamic realm is undeniable; metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, and other fields have been of great interest to Islamic philosophers, for they adhere to questions born out of the womb of prophecy. We cannot close one eye and then attempt to see the whole picture. It so happens now that we live through an infinitesimal point in human history where things have taken a turn elsewhere, and it won't be long for modern man to search for a soul once more. We have played with the seen for long enough, and our hearts now ache for the unseen. However, at the same time, one has to acknowledge some benefits bestowed upon us from this same modernity the reminiscing scholar of philosophy might attack. It has been a vessel that has served us well on the long run, an inevitable turn of events that would allow future flowers to blossom. Without its unpleasantness, the future would not be the same. After his polemic near the end of the book, I would have preferred to see even any minor acknowledgment to this entire corpus of human thought; it might not have been that bad after all.
On a more critical note, there are some disappointing drawbacks of this book. First of all, I felt that it was a bit all over the place. I couldn't really understand the chronology followed by the author. At one chapter we were discussing ontology, suddenly we started talking about the school of Isfahan, then that of Shiraz, then back to Isfahan; i.e.: I would have preferred a more discursive chronological ordering of discussions, one that would serve the eventual aim of the book.
Additionally, the punctuation was terrible. I understand that English is not the author's native tongue, but a work of this caliber should have been edited to avoid this inconvenience. There were so many run-on sentences that occasionally dissipated the message of the sentence. "What is he trying to say here?" I found myself asking more than once as I deciphered many phrases. I counted more than one paragraph that also happened to be a sentence at the same time, one that took up almost half a page. Even if the content were to be amazing, bad punctuation would eclipse it.
All in all, it was a pleasant read.
21 reviews9 followers
March 17, 2021
It is quite a thorough and heavy book. A book that I most likely will read again at a later point as there was a lot of new philosophical information for me that simply passed through my brain and did not stick. This was mainly in Part 1 and 2, where it talked of the Philosophical ideas from Muslim thinkers. The last two parts were a significantly easier read as they talked of the history of thought and therefore, was easier to follow as less and less philosophical thoughts were mentioned and explained.

Nevertheless, it was an eye-opening book that clarified some misconceptions I had on Islamic Philosophy and provided me with several other ideas that I want to do further reading on. Firstly the main misunderstanding it cleared of mine was the difference between Western Philosophy and Islamic Philosophy. Amongst many others, the root difference is what each group considers as valid sources of knowledge. Western(secular) thinkers simply use human intellect and rationale as a source of wisdom and knowledge on which they base their thinking on. In contrast, Islamic philosophers regard revelation as the primary and ultimate source. While in the Islamic case the revelation is the Quran and Hadith scriptures, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist thinkers have this same distinction with the West – but with their scripture. This is logical as if one believes that a piece of scripture is the untouched ‘word’ of God/gods, then surely they would consider it to be the most reliable and significant source of truth. Muslim thinkers do use rationale and intellect, but it is the second stations – following revelation - and is used to interpret scripture, explains/justify knowledge from scripture and for issues that scripture does not touch on.

I was recommended this book as an introduction to this subject area( but not the first) and I do recommend it as a book to help understand the overall landscape of this vast and complex subject. Not only does it make what I said above, but it also gives little hints to other areas that one might find fascination to go into.

Personally, what fascinated me were the links to western philosophy. The book hinted at the influence it had on Islamic thought and vice versa and therefore some of the topics that I might read upon are: Spanish/Andalusian Islamic philosophy and its effects on western philosophy; how the west vs the Muslims have viewed Ibn Rushd, links of Islamic Philosophy to modern Western thought
Through reading this book here are some other areas that I want to read up on( either because I was not able to recall what was said in this book or cause there’s more to the topic):

- The issue of wujud( Being and Existence) and its relation to mahiyyah( quiddity or essence): Metaphysics
- Ali Tabrizi and his similarities to Plato
- Mulla Sadra
- Epistemology within Islam: how one knows?
- Aristotelian logic
- Islamic political philosophy
- The philosophy of …(a certain subject) in the Muslim world
- Tutsi: he wrote on logic but was not a rationalist
- Al Kindi
- Philosophy of Being
- Eschatology and Sacred Psychology
- The Imaginal World
Profile Image for Casey.
150 reviews
April 1, 2022
I learned some things and there were runs of pages that were interesting to read but overall it read like an academic paper. That is to say, it reads like its intent is to demonstrate the accumulated knowledge of the author rather than to illuminate the reader. Further, the style and tone of the chapters was uneven and made it difficult to stay consistently engaged.
Profile Image for Mohamadreza imani.
258 reviews2 followers
June 28, 2021
برای شروع کتاب خیلی خوبیه
ترجمه هم خیلی روان و مناسبه
5 reviews
April 21, 2023
A very informational book 🙏🏻 A great resource for those wanting to have more insight into the tedious and lesser known aspects of Islamic philosophy.
Profile Image for Ahmad Husain.
16 reviews2 followers
May 7, 2022
كتاب شيق يأخذك في تاريخ الفلسفة الإسلامية من وجهة نظر غير عربية ولكنها منصفة ومن قامة آكاديمية تجمع بين الشرق والغرب.

ستتعرف من خلال هذا الكتاب على أسماء علماء جدد وسيفتح باب التعلم. يمتاز الكتاب بنديته للثقافة الغربية ونقده المستمر وأيضا اطلاعه على الفلسفات الهندية والصينية.

تفاجأت بموقف المؤلف الرافض لنظرية التطور والتي اعتبرها رأس الحربة في هدم الفلسفات الروحية.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Yasin Ramazan.
Author 4 books51 followers
June 18, 2016
The book is not very well-structured. They are like series of unrelated material which happen to be about later Islamic philosophy. Still, I have to mention, its chapter about Ibn Sina's distinction between essence and existence is a brief account of central problems of Islamic metaphysics.
Profile Image for Lei.
51 reviews5 followers
June 11, 2007
I read this when I was doing RELI 108 at Vic. Pretty interesting. Then going off to attend one of their prayer evenings kinda put everything to perspective .
2 reviews
September 1, 2020
Great book but with a strong bias towards the Shia/Iranian/Persian philosophy. Mostly focussed on ontology and metaphysics with almost total disregard of political philosophy.
Profile Image for Willy Akhdes.
Author 1 book15 followers
April 21, 2017
Penjelasan yang runut tentang sejarah filsafat Islam.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews

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