THE EASTERN PHILOSOPHERS
The Aristotelian philosophy was first made known to the Muslim world
through the medium of Syriac translations and commentaries, and the
particular commentaries used amongst the Syrians never ceased to
control the direction of Arabic thought. From the time of al-Ma´mun
the text of Aristotle began to be better known, as translations were
made directly from the Greek, and this resulted in a more accurate
appreciation of his teaching, although still largely controlled by
the suggestions of the commentaries circulated amongst the Syrians.
The Arabic writers give the name of _failasuf_ (plur. _falasifa_), a
transliteration of the Greek [Greek: philosophos φιλόσοφος], to those
who based their study directly on the Greek text, either as translators
or as students of philosophy, or as the pupils of those who used the
Greek text. The word is used to denote a particular series of Arabic
scholars who arose in the third century A.H. and came to an end in the
seventh century, and who had their origin in the more accurate study
of Aristotle based on an examination of the Greek text and the Greek
commentators whose work was circulated in Syria, and is employed as
though these _falasifa_ formed a particular sect or school of thought.
Other philosophical students were termed _hakim_ or _nazir_.
The line of these _falasifa_ forms the most important group in the
history of Islamic culture. It was they who were largely responsible
for awakening Aristotelian studies in Latin Christendom, and it was
they who developed the Aristotelian tradition which Islam had received
from the Syriac community, correcting and revising its contents by a
direct study of the Greek text and working out their conclusions on
lines indicated by the neo-Platonic commentators.
The first of the series is _Yaqub b. Ishaq al-Kindi_ (d. circ. 260
A.H. = 873 A.D.), who began very much as a Mu`tazilite interested in
the theological problems discussed by the members of that school of
thought, but desirous of testing and examining these more accurately,
made use of the translations taken directly from the Greek and then
only recently published. By this means he brought a much stricter
method to bear, and thus opened the way to an Aristotelian scholarship
much in advance of anything which had been contemplated so far.
As a result his pupils and those who came after them raised new
questions and ceased to confine themselves to Mu`tazilite problems,
and al-Kindi was their intellectual ancestor in those new enquiries
which his methods and his use of the Greek text alone made possible.
It is a strange fact that al-Kindi, the parent of Arabic philosophy,
was himself one of the very few leaders of Arabic thought who was a
true Arab by race. For the most part the scientists and philosophers
of the Muslim world were of Persian, Turkish, or Berber blood, but
al-Kindi was descended from the Yemenite kings of Kinda (cf. genealogy
quoted from the _Tarikh al-Hakama_ cited in note (22) of De Slane’s
trans. of Ibn Khallikan, vol. i. p. 355). Very little is known about
his life, save that his father was governor of Kufa, that he himself
studied at Baghdad, under what teachers is not known, and stood high
in favour with the Khalif Mu`tasim (A.H. 218-227). His real training
and equipment lay in a knowledge of Greek, which he used in preparing
translations of Aristotle’s _Metaphysics_, Ptolemy’s _Geography_, and a
revised edition of the Arabic version of Euclid. Besides this he made
Arabic abridgments of Aristotle’s _Poetica_ and _Hermeneutica_, and
Porphyry’s _Isagoge_, and wrote commentaries on Aristotle’s _Analytica
Posteriora_, _Sophistica Elenchi_, the _Categories_, the apocryphal
_Apology_; on Ptolemy’s _Almagesta_ and Euclid’s _Elements_, and
original treatises, of which the essay “On the Intellect” and another
“On the five essences” are the most noteworthy (Latin tr. by A. Nagy in
Baeumker and Hertling’s _Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des
MA._ II. 5. Münster, 1897).
He accepted as genuine the _Theology of Aristotle_ which had been put
into circulation by Naymah of Emessa, and, we are told, revised the
Arabic translation. The _Theology_ was an abridgment of the last three
books of Plotinus’ _Enneads_, and presumably al-Kindi compared this
with the text of the _Enneads_, corrected the terminology and general
sense in accordance with the original, and evidently did so without any
suspicion that it was not a genuine work of Aristotle. The _Theology_
had not been long introduced to the Muslim world, and it is certain
that the use of it made by al-Kindi was a main cause of its subsequent
importance. Endorsed by him it not only took an assured place in
the Aristotelian canon, but became the very kernel of the teaching
developed by the whole series of _falasifa_, emphasizing the tendencies
already marked in the commentary of Alexander of Aphrodisias. The
influence of the _Theology_ and of Alexander appear most clearly in
the treatise “On the Intellect” which is based on the doctrine of the
faculties of the soul as described in Aristotle’s _de anima_ II. ii.
Al-Kindi, developing the doctrine as presented by the neo-Platonic
commentators, describes the faculties or degrees of intelligence in the
soul as four, of which three are actually and necessarily in the human
soul, but one enters from outside and is independent of the soul. Of
the three former one is latent or potential, as the knowledge of the
art of writing is latent in the mind of one who has learned to write;
the second is active, as when the scribe evokes from the latent state
this knowledge of writing which he desires to put into practice; the
third is the degree of intelligence actually involved in the operation
of writing, where the knowledge now quickened into activity guides and
directs the act. The external faculty is the “Agent Intellect” (_`aql
fa``al_) which proceeds from God by way of emanation and which, though
acting on the faculties in the body, is independent of the body, as its
knowledge is not based upon perceptions obtained through the senses.
It is futile to maintain that the history of Arabic philosophy shows a
lack of originality in the Semitic mind; for one thing not one of the
philosophers of first rank after al-Kindi was of Arab birth, very few
could be described as Semitic. It would be more correct to say that the
Greek philosophers stood alone, until quite modern times, in attempting
anything which could be described as a scientific psychology. Until
the methods and material of modern natural science came to be applied
to psychological research there was little, if any, advance on the
psychological theories of the ancient Greek investigators, and the only
point of difference in later schools was as to which particular aspect
of ancient research would be selected as the starting-place. Here
lies the great importance of al-Kindi, for it was he who selected and
indicated the starting-point which all the later Arabic philosophers
began from, and selected the material which they developed. The
particular basis thus selected by al-Kindi was the psychology of
Aristotle’s _de Anima_ as expounded by Alexander of Aphrodisias. This
was suggested but not in all respects clearly indicated by the Syriac
philosophers, and it seems certain that al-Kindi’s development was
very largely influenced by the _Theology of Aristotle_, a work which
he evidently esteemed very greatly. The relation between Alexander
Aphr. and Plotinus, whose teaching appeared in the _Theology_, may be
described as being that Alexander’s teaching contained all the germs
of neo-Platonism, whilst Plotinus shows the neo-Platonic system fully
worked out. As first presented this system must have seemed fully
consistent with the teaching of the Qur´an, indeed it would appear as
complementary to it. In man was an animal soul which he shared with
the lower creation, but added to it was a rational soul or spirit
which proceeded directly from God and was immortal because it was not
dependent on the body. The possible conclusions which proved to be
inconsistent with the teachings of revelation were not as yet fully
worked out.
We need not linger over al-Kindi’s logical teaching which carried on
and corrected Arabic study of the Aristotelian logic. This was not a
mere side issue, it is true, although logic did not play so important
a part in Arabic education as it did in Syriac. In Syriac it was the
basis of all that we should regard as the humanities, but in Arabic
this position was taken by the study of grammar, which was developed
on rather fresh and independent lines, though slightly modified by the
study of logic in later times. Still, so long as the Muslim world had
any claim to be regarded as fostering philosophical studies, and to a
less degree even in later times, the Aristotelian logic has been only
second to grammar as the basis of a humane education. Al-Kindi’s real
influence is shown in the introduction of the problems of psychology
and of metaphysics, and the work of the _falasifa_ centres in these two
studies on the lines indicated by al-Kindi.
In psychology, as we have seen, al-Kindi introduced a system already
fully developed by Alexander and the neo-Platonic commentators on
Aristotle, kept alive amongst the Syriac students of philosophy,
and then further developed from this point by his successors. In
metaphysics the circumstances were different. Al-Kindi apparently
was the one who introduced the problems of metaphysics to the Muslim
world, but it is obvious that he did not clearly understand Aristotle’s
treatment of these problems. The problems involved in the ideas of
movement, time, and place are treated by Aristotle in books iv., v.
and vii. of the _Physics_, which had been translated by al-Kindi’s
contemporary, Hunayn. b. Ishaq, and in the _Metaphysics_, of which at
the time no Arabic translation existed, so that, so far as it was used,
al-Kindi must have consulted the Greek text.
The essay “On the Five Essences” treats the ideas of the five
conditions of matter, form, movement, time, and place. Of these he
defines (a) matter as that which receives the other essences but cannot
itself be received as an attribute, and so if the matter is taken away
the other four essences are necessarily removed also. (b) Form is of
two kinds, that which is the essential of the genius, being inseparable
from the matter, and that which serves to describe the thing itself,
i.e., the ten Aristotelian categories--substance, quantity, quality,
relation, place, time, situation, condition, action, and passion;
and this form is the faculty whereby a thing (_shay´_) is produced
from formless matter, as fire is produced from the coincidence of
dryness and heat, the matter being the dryness and heat, the form
being the fire; without form the matter is abstract but real, becoming
a thing when it takes form. As De Vaux points out (_Avicenne_, p.
85) this illustration shows that al-Kindi does not grasp Aristotle’s
meaning correctly. (c) Movement is of six kinds: two are variations
in substance, as either generation or corruption, i.e., production or
destruction; two are variations in quantity by increase or decrease;
one is variation in quality, and one is change of position. (d) Time is
itself akin to movement, but proceeds always and only in one direction;
it is not movement, though akin, for movement shows diversities of
direction. Time is known only in relation to a “before” or “after,”
like movement in a straight line and at a uniform rate, and so can only
be expressed as a series of continuous numbers. (e) Place is by some
supposed to be a body, but this is refuted by Aristotle: it is rather
the surface which surrounds the body. When the body is taken away the
place does not cease to exist, for the vacant space is instantly filled
by some other body, air, water, etc., which has the same surrounding
surface. Admittedly al-Kindi shows a crude treatment of these ideas,
but he was the first to direct Arabic thought in this direction, and
from these arose a new attitude towards the revealed doctrine of
creation on the part of those who came after him.
Al-Kindi, the “Philosopher of the Arabs,” as he was called (circ.
365), contains our best account of the various sects existing in Islam
towards the end of the 3rd century A.H. as he met them in the course of
his travels. It has been published as the second volume of De Goeje’s
_Bibliotheca Geographorum Arab_. (Leiden., 1873).
The next great philosopher was _Muhammad b. Muhammad b. Tarkhan Abu
Nasr al-Farabi_ (d. 339), of Turkish descent. He was “a celebrated
philosopher, the greatest indeed that the Muslims ever had; he composed
a number of works on logic, music, and other sciences. No Musulman
ever reached in the philosophical sciences the same rank as he, and
it was by the study of his writings and the imitation of his style
that Avicenna attained proficiency and rendered his own works so
useful.” (Ibn Khallikan, iii. 307). He was born at Farab or Otrar near
Balasaghum, but travelled widely. In the course of his wanderings he
came to Baghdad but, as at the time he knew no Arabic, he was unable
to enter into the intellectual life of the city. He set himself first
to acquire a knowledge of the Arabic language, and then became a pupil
of the Christian physician Matta b. Yunus, who was at that time a
very old man, and under him he studied logic. To increase his studies
he removed to Harran, where he met the Christian philosopher Yuhanna
b. Khailan, and continued to work at logic under his direction. He
then returned to Baghdad, where he set to work at the Aristotelian
philosophy, in the course of his studies reading the _de anima_ 200
times, the _Physics_ 40 times. His chief interest, however, was in
logic, and it is on his logical work that his fame chiefly rests. From
Baghdad he went to Damascus, and thence to Egypt, but returned to
Damascus, where he settled for the rest of his life. At that time the
empire of the Khalifa of Baghdad was beginning to split up into many
states, just like the Roman Empire under the later Karlings, and the
officials of the Khalifate were forming semi-independent principalities
under the nominal suzerainty of the Khalif and establishing hereditary
dynasties. The Hamdanids Shi`ites, who began to rule in Mosul in 293,
established themselves at Aleppo in 333 and achieved great fame and
power as successful leaders against the Byzantine emperors. In 334
(= 946 A.D.) the Hamdanid Prince Sayf ad-Dawla took Damascus, and
al-Farabi lived under his protection. At that period the orthodox were
distinctly reactionary, and it was the various Shi`ite rulers who
showed themselves the patrons of science and philosophy.
At Damascus al-Farabi led a secluded life. Most of his time he spent
by the borders of one of the many streams which are so characteristic
a feature of Damascus, or in a shady garden, and here he met and
talked with his friends and pupils. He was accustomed to write his
compositions on loose leaves, “for which reason nearly all his
productions assume the form of detached chapters and notes; some
of them exist only in fragments and unfinished. He was the most
indifferent of men for the things of this world; he never gave himself
the least trouble to acquire a livelihood or possess a habitation. Sayf
al-Dawla settled on him a daily pension of four dirhams out of the
public treasury, this moderate sum being the amount to which al-Farabi
had limited his demand.” (Ibn Khallikan, iii. 309-310.)
Al-Farabi was the author of a series of commentaries on the logical
Organon, which contained nine books according to the Arabic reckoning,
namely:
(i.) The Isagoge of Porphyry.
(ii.) The Categories or al-Maqulat.
(iii.) The Hermeneutica or al-´Ibara or al-Tafsir.
(iv.) The Analytica Priora or al-Qiyas I.
(v.) The Analytica Posteriora or al-Burhan.
(vi.) The Topica or al-Jadl.
(vii.) The Sophistica Elenchi or al-Maghalit.
(viii.) The Rhetoric or al-Khataba.
(ix.) The Poetics or ash-Shi`r.
He also wrote an “Introduction to Logic” and an “Abridgment of Logic”;
indeed, as we have already noted, his main work lay in the exposition
of logic. He took some interest in political science and edited a
summary of the laws of Plato, which very often replaces the Politics
in the Arabic Aristotelian canon. In Ethics he wrote a commentary on
the Nicomachæan Ethics of Aristotle, but ethical theory did not, as
a rule, appeal greatly to Arabic students. In natural science he was
the author of commentaries on the _Physics_, _Meteorology_, _de coelo_
et _de mundo_ of Aristotle, as well as of an essay “On the movement
of the heavenly spheres.” His work in psychology is represented by a
commentary on Alexander of Aphrodisias’ commentary on the _De Anima_,
and by treatises “On the soul,” “On the power of the soul,” “On the
unity and the one,” and “On the intelligence and the intelligible,”
some of which afterwards circulated in mediæval Latin translations,
which continued to be reprinted well into the 17th century (e.g., De
intelligentia et de intelligibili. Paris, 1638). In metaphysics he
wrote essays on “Substance,” “Time,” “Space and Measure,” and “Vacuum.”
In mathematics he wrote a commentary on the _Almagesta_ of Ptolemy, and
a treatise on various problems in Euclid. He was a staunch upholder
of the neo-Platonic theory that the teaching of Aristotle and that of
Plato are essentially in accord and differ only in superficial details
and modes of expression; he wrote treatises “On the agreement between
Plato and Aristotle” and on “The object before Plato and Aristotle.” In
essays “Against Galen” and “Against John Philoponus” he criticised the
views of those commentators, and endeavoured to defend the orthodoxy
of Aristotle by making them responsible for apparent discrepancies
with the teaching of revelation. He was interested also in the occult
sciences, as appears from his treatises “On geomancy,” “On the Jinn,”
and “On dreams.” His chemical treatise called _kimiya t-Tabish_, “the
chemistry of things heated,” has been classed as a work on natural
science and also as a treatise on magic; this was the unfortunate
direction which Arabic chemistry was taking. He also wrote several
works on music. (Cf. Schmölders: _Documenta Philos. Arab._ Bonn., 1836,
for Latin versions of select treatises).
As we have already noted, his primary importance was as a teacher of
logic. A great deal of what he has written is simply a reproduction
of the outlines of the Aristotelian logic and an exposition of its
principles, but De Vaux (_Avicenne_, pp. 94-97) has drawn attention
to evidences of original thought in his “Letter in reply to certain
questions.”
Like al-Kindi he accepted the _Theology_ as a genuine work of
Aristotle, and shows very clear traces of its influences. In his
treatise “On the intelligence” he makes a careful analysis of the way
in which the term _`aql_ (reason, intelligence, spirit) is employed
in general speech and in philosophical enquiry. In common language
“a man of intelligence” denotes a man of reliable judgment, who uses
his judgment in an upright way to discern between good and evil,
and thus is distinguished from a crafty man who employs his mind in
devising evil expedients. Theologians use the term _`aql_ to denote
the faculty which tests the validity of statements, either approving
them as true or rejecting them as false. In the _Analytica_ Aristotle
uses “intelligence” for the faculty by which man attains directly to
the certain knowledge of axioms and general abstract truths without
the need of proof; this faculty al-Farabi explains as being the part
of the soul in which intuition exists, and which is thereby able to
lay hold of the premises of speculative science, i.e., the reason of
intelligence proper as the term is employed in the _de anima_, the
rational soul which Alexander of Aphrodisias takes as an emanation from
God. Following al-Kindi, al-Farabi speaks of four faculties or parts
of the soul: the potential or latent intelligence, intelligence in
action, acquired intelligence, and the agent intelligence. The first
is the _`aql hayyulani_, the passive intelligence, the capacity which
man has for understanding the essence of material things by abstracting
mentally that essence from the various accidents with which it is
associated in perception, more or less equivalent to the “common sense”
of Aristotle. The intelligence in action or _`aql bi-l-fi`l_ is the
potential faculty aroused to activity and making this abstraction.
The agent intelligence or _`aql fa``al_ is the external power, the
emanation from God which is able to awaken the latent power in man
and arouse it to activity, and the acquired intelligence or _`aql
mustafad_ is the intelligence aroused to activity and developed under
the inspiration of the agent intelligence. Thus the intelligence in
action is related to the potential intellect as form is to matter,
but the agent intelligence enters from outside, and by its operation
the intelligence receives new powers, so that its highest activity is
“acquired.”
Al-Farabi appears throughout as a devout Muslim, and evidently
does not appreciate the bearing of the Aristotelian psychology on
the doctrine of the Qur´an. The earlier belief of Islam, as of most
religions, was a heritage from primitive animism, which regarded life
as due to the presence of a perfectly substantial, though invisible,
thing called the soul: a thing is alive so long as the soul is present,
it dies when the soul goes away. In the earlier forms of animism this
is the explanation of all movement: the flying arrow has a “soul” in
it so long as it moves, it ceases to move when this soul goes away or
desires to rest. This involves no belief in the immortality of the
soul, nor is the soul invested with any distinct personality, all that
comes later; it is simply that life is regarded as a kind of substance,
very light and impalpable but perfectly self-existent. What may be
described as the “ghost” theory marks a later stage of evolution,
when the departed soul is believed to retain a distinct personality
and still to possess the form and some at least of the sensations
associated with the being in which it formerly dwelt. Such was the
stage reached by Arab psychology at the time of the preaching of Islam.
The Aristotelian doctrine represented the soul as containing different
energies or parts, such as it had in common with the vegetable world
and such others as it possessed in common with the lower kinds of
animals: that is to say the faculties of nutrition, reproduction, and
all the perceptions obtained from the use of the organs of sense, as
well as the intellectual generalisations derived from the use of those
senses, are simply laid on one side as forms of energy derived from the
potentialities latent in the material body, very nearly the position
indeed of modern materialism, as the term is used in psychology. This
does not oppose a belief in God, who is the prime source of the powers
which exist, although that is brought out more by the commentators than
by Aristotle himself; nor does it infringe the doctrine of an immortal
and separable soul or spirit which exists in man in addition to what we
may describe as the vegetative and animal soul. It is this spirit, the
rational soul which has entered from outside and exists in man alone,
which is immortal. Such a doctrine sets an impassible gulf between man
and the rest of creation, and explains why it is impossible for those
whose thought is formed on Aristotelian lines, whether in orthodox
Islam or in the Catholic Church, to admit the “rights” of animals,
although ready to regard benevolent action towards them as a duty. But
more, the highly abstract rational soul or spirit of the Aristotelian
doctrine, void of all that could be shared with the lower creatures,
and even of all that could be developed from anything that an animal
is capable of possessing, is the only part of man which is capable
of immortality, and such a spirit separated from its body and the
lower functions of the animal soul can hardly fit in with the picture
of the future life as portrayed in the Qur´an. Further, the Qur´an
regards that future life as incomplete until the spirit is re-united
with the body, a possibility which the Aristotelians could hardly
contemplate. The Aristotelian doctrine showed the animal soul not as
an invisible being but merely as a form of energy in the body: so far
as it was concerned, death did not mean the going away of this soul,
but the cessation of the functions of the bodily faculties, just as
combustion ceases when a candle is blown out, the flame not going away
and continuing to exist apart; or as the impression of a seal on wax
which disappears when the wax is melted and does not continue a ghostly
existence on its own account. The only immortal part of man, therefore,
was the part which came to him as an emanation from the Agent
Intellect, and when this emanation was set free from its association
with the human body and lower soul it became inevitable to suggest its
reabsorption in the omnipresent source from which it had been derived.
The logical conclusion was thus a denial, not of a future life, nor
of its eternity, but of the separate existence of an individual soul,
and this, as we shall see, was actually worked out as a result of
Arabic Aristotelianism. Thus the scholastic theologians, both of Islam
and of Latin Christianity, attack the philosophers as undermining
belief in individual personality and in opposing the doctrine of
the resurrection, and in this latter, it must be remembered, Muslim
doctrine is committed to cruder details than prevail in Christianity.
But al-Farabi did not see where the Aristotelian teaching would lead
him: to him Aristotle seemed orthodox because his doctrines seemed to
prove the immortality of the soul.
Al-Farabi expresses his theory of causality in the treatise called
“the gems of wisdom.” Everything which exists after having not existed,
he says, must be brought into being by a cause which itself may be
the result of some preceding cause, and so on, until we reach a First
Cause, which is and always has been, its eternity being necessary
because there is no other cause to precede it, and Aristotle has shown
that the chain of causes cannot be infinite. The First Cause is one
and eternal, and is God (cf. Aristot. _Metaph._ 12. 7, and similarly
Plato, _Timæus_ 28). Being unchanged this First Cause is perfect, and
to know it is the aim of all philosophy, for obviously everything would
be intelligible if the cause of all were known. This First Cause is
the “necessary being” whose existence is necessary to account for all
other existence; it has neither genus, species, nor differentia; it is
both external and internal, at once apparent and concealed; it cannot
be perceived by any faculty but is knowable by its attributes, and
the best approach to knowledge is to know that it is inaccessible. In
this treatment al-Farabi is mingling the teaching of philosophy proper
with mysticism, in his days rapidly developing in Asiatic Islam, and
especially in the Shi`ite community with which he was in contact. From
the philosophical point of view God is unknowable but necessary, just
as eternity and infinity are unknowable but necessary, because God is
above all knowledge: but in another sense God is beneath all knowledge,
as the ultimate reality must underline all existing things, and every
result is a manifesting of the cause.
The proof of the existence of God is founded upon the argument in
Plato, _Timæus_ 28, and Aristotle, _Metaphysics_ 12. 7, and was later
on used by Albertus Magnus and others. In the first place a distinction
is made between the possible, which may be only potential, and the
real. For the possible to become real it is necessary that there should
be an effective cause. The world is evidently composite, and so cannot
itself be the first cause, for the first cause must be single and not
multiple: therefore the world evidently proceeds from a cause other
than itself. The immediate cause may itself be the result of another
preceding cause, but the series of causes cannot be infinite, nor can
they return as a circle upon themselves, therefore if we trace back we
must ultimately reach an _ens primum_, itself uncaused, which is the
cause of all, and this first cause exists of necessity, but not by a
necessity caused by anything other than itself. It must be single and
unchangeable, free from all accidents, absolute, perfect, and good,
and the absolute _intelligentia_, _intelligibile_, and _intelligens_.
In itself it possesses wisdom, life, insight, will, power, beauty and
goodness, not as acquired or external qualities, but as aspects of
its own essence. It is the first will and the first willing, and also
the first object of will. It is the end of all philosophy to know
this first Cause, which is God, because as He is the cause of all,
all can be understood and explained by understanding and knowing Him.
That the first Cause is single and one and the cause of all agrees
with the teaching of the Qur´an, and al-Farabi freely uses Qur´anic
phraseology in perfect good faith, supposing that the Aristotelian
doctrine corroborates the doctrine of the Qur´an. The most curious part
of al-Farabi’s work is the way in which he employs the terminology of
the Qur´an as corresponding to that of the neo-Platonists, so that the
Qur´anic pen, tablet, etc., represent the neo-Platonic, etc. It may be
questioned whether, even in al-Farabi, philosophy really does fit in
with Qur´anic doctrine, but the divergence was not yet sufficiently
marked to compel attention.
Assured of the conformity of the teaching of Aristotle with the
teaching of revelation al-Farabi denies that Aristotle teaches the
eternity of matter, and so is inconsistent with the dogma of creation.
The whole question depends on what is meant by “creation.” God, he
supposes, created all things in an instant in unmeasured eternity, not
directly, but by the intermediary operation of the _`aql_ or Agent
Intelligence. In this sense Aristotle held that the universe existed
in eternity, but it so existed as a created thing. Creation was
therefore complete before God, acting through the _`aql_, introduced
movement, at which time commenced; as movement and time came into
existence simultaneously, forthwith creation already existing in the
timeless came out of its concealment and entered into reality. The
term “creation” is sometimes used as applying to this emergence from
timeless quiesence, but more properly may be taken as denoting the
causation, which, as it preceded time, came into unmeasured eternity,
which is what Aristotle means when he speaks of the world as eternal.
Thus both Qur´an and Aristotle are right, but each uses “creation” to
denote a different thing.
It is difficult to over-estimate the importance of al-Farabi.
Practically all we afterwards meet in Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd is already
to be found in substance in his teaching, only that these later
philosophers have realized that the Aristotelian system cannot be
reconciled with the traditional theology, and so, having given up all
attempt at formal reconciliation, are able to express themselves more
clearly and to press home their tenets to their logical conclusions.
When considering the reconciliation between philosophy and Qur´an
attempted by al-Farabi it is important to compare and contrast the
reconciliation attempted on quite other lines by al-Ash`ari and other
founders of orthodox scholasticism. It must be noted that the beginning
of scholasticism was contemporary with al-Farabi.
As has been noted, al-Farabi was mixed up with the Shi`ite group; the
supporters of `Alid claims who held aloof from the official Khalifate
at Baghdad. About the time of al-Kindi’s death (circ. 260), the twelfth
Imam of the _Ithna `ashariya_ or orthodox Shi`ite sect, Muhammad
al-Muntazar, “disappeared.” In the year 320, within the period of
al-Farabi’s activity, the Buwayhid princes became the leading power
in `Iraq, and in 334, five years before his death, they obtained
possession of Baghdad, so that for the next 133 years the Khalifs
were in very much the same position as the Frankish kings when they,
surrounded with great ceremony and treated with the utmost reverence,
were no more than puppets in the hands of the Mayors of the Palace. In
exactly the same way the Khalifs, half popes and half emperors, whose
sign manual was sought as giving a show of legitimacy to sovereigns
even in far-off India, possessed in Baghdad only ceremonial functions,
and were treated as honoured prisoners by the Buwayhid Emirs, who
themselves were Shi`ites of the _Ithna `ashariya_ sect, and who,
consequently, regarded the Khalifs as mere usurpers. At this period
the Shi`ites were the patrons of philosophy, and the orthodox Sunnis
generally took a reactionary attitude.
Besides the _Ithna `ashariya_, the comparatively orthodox Shi`ites,
there was another branch of extremer type known as the _Sab`iya_ or
“seveners.” The sixth Imam Ja`far as-Sadiq had nominated his son
Isma`il as his successor, but as Isma`il was one day found drunk,
Ja`far disinherited him and appointed his second son Musa al-Qazam
(d. 183). But some did not admit that the Imamate, whose divine right
passed by hereditary descent, could be transferred at will, but
remained loyal to Isma`il, and these preferred, when Isma`il died in
Ja`far’s lifetime, to transfer their allegiance to his son Muhammed,
reckoning him as the seventh Imam. These “seveners” continued to exist
as an obscure sect until, it would appear, somewhere about the year
220, when `Abdullah, the son of a Persian oculist named Maymun, either
was made their head or led a secession from them, and organised his
followers with a kind of freemasonry in seven (afterwards nine) grades
of initiation and a very admirably organised system of propaganda on
the lines already laid down by the Hashimites (cf. supra). In the
earlier grades the doctrine of _batn_ or allegorical interpretation
of the Qur´an was laid down as essential to a right understanding of
its meaning, for the literal sense is often obscure, and sometimes
refers to things incomprehensible, a doctrine commonly attributed
to Ja`far as-Sadiq. The initiate was then taught that the true
meaning could not be discovered by private interpretation but needed
an authoritative teacher, the Imam, or, as he had disappeared, his
accredited representative, the Mahdi `Abdullah, son of Maymun. In
the higher grades the disciple had this inner meaning of the Qur´an
disclosed to him, and this proved to be substantially the Aristotelian
and neo-Platonic doctrine in general outline, together with certain
oriental elements derived from Zoroastrianism and Masdekism. These
oriental elements figured chiefly in the doctrines taught to the
intermediate grades, the higher ones attaining a pure agnosticism with
an Aristotelian background. The sect thus formed spread, developed,
and finally divided. It had a successful career in the Bahrayn or
district near the junction of the two rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates,
and there its followers were known as Qarmatians, after the name of
a leading missionary. It met with success also in and around Aden,
but we have no account of its subsequent history there. From Aden
missionaries passed over to North Africa, where it had its chief
success, and when Ubayd Allah, a descendant of `Abdullah, passed over
there an independent state was founded, with its capital at Kairawan
(297 A.H.). From Kairawan a missionary propaganda was conducted in
Egypt, then suffering from almost perennial misgovernment, and in
the days of the deputy Kafur a definite invitation was sent by the
Egyptian officials asking for the Khalif of Kairawan to enter Egypt. At
length Ubayd Allah’s great-grandson al-Mo´izz did invade Egypt in 356,
and established there the Fatimite Khalifate, which lasted until the
country was conquered by Saladin in 567.
The Sab`iya sect was thus geographically divided into two branches,
one in Asia represented by the Qarmatians, the other in Africa under
the Fatimite Khalifs. In the Asiatic branch the members were chiefly
drawn from the Nabatæan peasantry, and the sect took the form of a
revolutionary group with communist teaching, and violently opposed
to the Muslim religion. In their contemptuous hostility they finally
attacked Mecca, slew many of the dignitaries of the city and a number
of pilgrims who were there, and carried off the sacred black stone,
which they retained for several years. In the hands of the Qarmatians
the sect ceased to be a propaganda of philosophical doctrine, it became
simply anti-religious and revolutionary. The history of the African
branch took a different turn. Possession of an important state brought
with it a position of respectability, and political ambition replaced
religious enthusiasm. As the majority of the subject population was
strictly orthodox, the peculiar tenets of the sect were, to a large
extent, allowed to drop into the background; candidates were still
admitted to initiation and instructed, but, although the Fatimite
rulers in Egypt were liberal patrons of scholarship, and generally
showed a more tolerant attitude than other contemporary Muslim rulers,
they certainly did not carry out a wholesale Aristotelian propaganda;
indeed, the line of “philosophers” proper simply misses over Fatimite
Egypt, although there were several distinguished medical workers there.
From the Isma`ilians or Sab`iya of Egypt there came two interesting
off-shoots. Towards the end of the reign of the sixth Fatimite Khalif,
al-Hakim, who may have been a religious fanatic, perhaps insane, or
possibly an enlightened religious reformer of views far ahead of his
age--his real character is one of the problems of history--there
arrived in Egypt certain Persian teachers holding doctrines of
transmigration and of theophanies, which seem to be endemic in Persia,
and these persuaded al-Hakim that he was an incarnation of the Deity.
A riot followed the open preaching of this claim, and the preachers
fled to Syria, then a part of the Fatimite dominions, and there
founded a sect which still exists in the Lebanon under the name of
the Druzes. Soon after this al-Hakim himself disappeared; some said
he was murdered, others said he had retired to a Christian monastery,
and was recognised there afterwards as a monk; others believed he had
gone up to heaven, and more than one claimant appeared asserting that
he was al-Hakim returned from concealment. The other off-shoot shows
a more definitely philosophical bearing. In the days of al-Mustansir,
al-Hakim’s grandson, one of the Isma`ilian missionaries, a Persian
named Nasir-i-Khusraw, came from Khurasan to Egypt, and after a stay
of seven years returned home. This seems to have coincided with a kind
of revival in the Isma`ilian sect, which now regarded Cairo as its
headquarters. The Qarmatians had quite passed away; al-Hakim, whatever
his later eccentricities, had been a patron of scholarship, the founder
of an academy, the _Daru l-Hikma_, or “House of Wisdom,” at Cairo, and
had enriched it with a large library, and was himself distinguished as
a student of astronomy. The reign of his grandson was the golden age of
Fatimid science, and apparently Shi`ites from all parts of Asia found
their way to Egypt. In 471 another da`i or missionary, Hasan-i-Sabbah,
a pupil of Nasir-i-Khusraw, visited Cairo and was received by the
Chief Da`i, but not allowed to see the Khalif, and eighteen months
later was compelled to leave the country and return to Asia. There
were two factions in Cairo, the adherents respectively of the Khalif’s
two sons, Nizar and Musta`li; Nasir-i-Khusraw and Hasan-i-Sabbah had
already made themselves known as supporters of the elder son Nizar,
but the court officials in Egypt adhered to the younger son Musta`li.
When the Khalif al-Mustansir died in 487 the Isma`ilian sect divided
into two new branches, the Egyptians and Africans generally recognising
Musta`li, the Asiatics adhering to Nizar. This latter group had already
been well organised by Nasir-i-Khusraw and Hasan-i-Sabbah, who for
several years previously had been preaching the rights of Nizar. On
his return home, about 473, Hasan-i-Sabbah had secured possession of
a stronghold known as Alamut, “the eagle’s teaching” (cf. Browne:
_Lit. History of Persia_, ii. 203, espec. note 13), and this became
the headquarters of the sect of Nizaris or Assassins, who figure so
prominently in the history of the Crusades. They had many mountain
strongholds, but all were under the control of the Sheikh or “Old
Man of the Mountain,” as the Crusaders and Marco Polo called him, at
Alamut. These Sheikhs or Grand Masters of the order continued for eight
generations, until Alamut was captured by the Mongols in 618 A.H. (=
1221 A.D.), and the last was put to death. As the order grew it spread
into Syria, and it was the Syrian branch with which the Crusaders from
Europe came most into contact. In this order we find the old system
of successive grades of initiation. The _Lasiqs_, or “adherents,” had
but little knowledge of the real doctrines of the sect, and attached
to them were the _Fida`is_ or “self-devoted,” bound to blind obedience
and ready to execute vengeance at the bidding of their superiors;
these were the men to whom the Crusaders especially applied the term
_Assassins_, that is _Hashishin_ or “users of hashish,” referring to
the hashish or Indian hemp which they commonly used as a means of
exaltation. Above these were the _Rafiqs_ or “companions,” and above
these was an ordered hierarchy of _da`is_ or missionaries, Chief
Missionaries (_da`i i-Kabir_), and Supreme Missionary (_da`i d-Du`at_).
In the eyes of outsiders the whole sect had a sinister appearance; the
crimes of the Fida`is, usually committed under striking and dramatic
circumstances, and the reputed heresies of the superior grades were
sufficient to secure this, and the general dread with which they were
regarded was increased by incidents which showed that they had spies
and sympathizers in all directions. The superior grades, however, were
true heirs of the old Isma`ilian principles and ardent students of
philosophy and science. When the Mongols under Hulagu seized Alamut in
654 (= A.D. 1256) they found an extensive library and an observatory
with a collection of valuable astronomical instruments. The Mongol
capture meant the downfall of the Assassins, although the Syrian branch
still continued in humbler fashion, and the sect has adherents even
at the present day. Scattered relics survive also in central Asia, in
Persia, and in India; the Agha Khan is a lineal descendant of Ruknu
d-Din Khurshah, the last Sheikh at Alamut.
Thus the movement started by Abdullah, the son of Maymun, whose
original purpose seems to have been to maintain a highly philosophical
religion as revealed by Aristotle and the neo-Platonists, but to
safeguard this as an esoteric faith disclosed only to initiates, the
rank and file being apparently Shi`ite sectaries, produced a group
of very curious sects. In the Qarmatians the esoteric tenets were
compelled to take a debased form because those who professed them,
and into whose hands this branch fell altogether, were illiterate
peasants. In the Fatimid state of Egypt they were minimised because
political considerations rendered it expedient to conciliate orthodox
Muslim opinion. And in the Assassins, confined, it seems, to the higher
grades of the initiates, they produced a rich intellectual development,
though allied to a system which shows fanaticism unscrupulously used
by the leaders that they might live out their lives in a philosophical
seclusion, protected from the dangers which surrounded them.
Before leaving this particular subject, which shows the promulgation
of philosophy as an esoteric creed, we must refer to a society known
as the _Ikhwanu s-Safa_ or “the brotherhood of purity.” We do not
know what its connection with `Abdullah b. Maymun’s sect may have
been beyond the fact that they were contemporary and of kindred aims,
but it certainly seems that there was some connection: it has been
suggested that this brotherhood represents the original teaching of
Abdullah’s sect. It was divided into four grades, but its doctrines
were promulgated freely at an early date, though we do not know whether
this general divulging of its teaching was part of the original plan
or forced upon it by circumstances. It appears openly about 360, some
hundred years after Abdullah founded his sect, shortly after the
Fatimites had conquered Egypt and some time after the Qarmatians had
returned the sacred black stone which they had stolen from the “House
of God” at Mecca. It seems tempting to suggest that it may have been
a reformation of the Isma`ilians on the part of those who wished to
return to the original aims of the movement.
The published work of the brotherhood appears in a series of 51
epistles, the _Rasa´il ikhwani s-Safa_, which form an encyclopædia
of philosophy and science as known to the Arabic-speaking world in
the 4th cent. A.H. They do not propose any new theories but simply
furnish a manual of current material. The whole text of these epistles
has been printed at Calcutta, whilst portions of the voluminous whole
have been edited by Prof. Dieterici between 1858 and 1872, and these
were followed in 1876 and 1879 by two volumes called _Makrokosmos_ and
_Mikrokosmos_, in which an epitome is presented of the whole work. It
appears that the leading spirit in the preparation of this encyclopædia
was Zayd b. Rifa´a, and with him were associated Abu Sulayman Muhammad
al-Busti, Abu l-Hasan `Ali az-Zanjani, Abu Ahmad al-Mahrajani, and
al-Awfi, but it does not follow that these were the founders of the
brotherhood, as some have supposed.
A great part of the _Epistles of the Brotherhood_ deals with logic
and the natural sciences, but when the writers turn to metaphysics,
psychology, or theology, we find very clear traces of the neo-Platonic
doctrines as contained in Alexander of Aphrodisias and matured
by Plotinus. God, we read, is above all knowledge and above all
the categories of human thought. From God proceeds the _`aql_ or
intelligence, a complete spiritual emanation which contains in itself
the forms of all things, and from the _`aql_ proceeds the Universal
Soul, and from that Soul comes primal matter: when this primal matter
becomes capable of receiving dimensions it becomes secondary matter,
and from that the universe proceeds. The Universal Soul permeates all
matter and is itself sustained by the perpetual emanation of itself
from the _`aql_. This Universal Soul permeating all things yet remains
one; but each individual thing has a part-soul, which is the source
of its force and energy, this part-soul having a varying degree of
intellectual capacity. The union of soul and matter is temporary;
by wisdom and faith the soul tends to be set free from its material
fetters, and so to approach nearer to the present spirit or _`aql_.
The right aim of life is the emancipation of the soul from matter,
so that it may be absorbed in the parent spirit and thus approach
nearer to the Deity. All this is but a repetition of the teaching
of al-Farabi and the neo-Platonists, slightly coloured, perhaps, by
Sufism, and expressed less logically and lucidly than in the teaching
of the philosophers. In general character it shows a tendency towards
pantheism, akin to the tendency we have already observed in certain of
the Mu`tazilites. God, properly so called, is outside, or rather on
such a plane that man does not know, and never can know, anything about
Him. Even the _`aql_ is on a plane other than that on which the human
soul lives. But the Universal Soul which permeates all things is an
emanation from this Spirit, and the Spirit emanates from the unknowable
God. Comparing this with the teaching of al-Kindi and al-Farabi it is
clear that it is based upon the same material, but it is in the hands
of those who have made it a religion, and this religion has entirely
broken away from the orthodox doctrine of the Qur´an. In al-Farabi
this breach is not conscious, although really quite complete; in his
successors we see a full realization of the cleavage. Comparing it
with Sufism the superficial resemblances are very close, the more so
as Sufism borrows a great deal of philosophical, i.e., neo-Platonic
terminology, but in fact there is an essential divergence: the Epistles
of the brethren represent the emancipation of the soul from matter as
the aim of life, and the final result is reabsorption in the Universal
Soul, but they represent this emancipation as due to an intellectual
force, so that the soul’s salvation lies in wisdom and knowledge; it is
a cult of intellect. But Sufism is spiritual in another sense: it has
the same aim in view, but it regards the means as wisdom in the sense
of religious truth as found by the devout soul in piety, not as the
wisdom obtained by intellectual learning.
We seem, however, justified in saying that Sufism is the heir of
the philosophical teaching of al-Farabi and the Brethren of Purity,
at least in Asia. After the first quarter of the fifth century
philosophical teaching seems to have disappeared altogether in Asia,
but this is only apparent. In substance it remains in Sufism, and we
may say that the essential change lies in the new meaning given to
“wisdom,” which ceases to signify scientific facts and speculations
acquired intellectually, and is taken to mean a supra-intellectual
knowledge of God. This, perhaps, represents the Indian contribution
working upon elements of Hellenistic origin.
The doctrines of the _Brethren of Purity_ were introduced to the
West by a Spanish doctor, Muslim b. Muhammad Abu l-Qasim al-Majriti
al-Andalusi (d. 395-6), and were largely influential in producing the
_falasifa_ of Spain, who ultimately exercised so great an influence on
mediæval Latin scholasticism.
Before leaving this particular section of our subject it will be
well to note that all these sects and groups we have mentioned after
al-Farabi, from the sect founded by Abdullah b. Maymun to the Brethren
of Purity, agreed in treating philosophy, at least in so far as it had
any bearing on theological topics, as esoteric, and not to be disclosed
to any save the elect. This general attitude will appear again, in a
slightly different form, in the works of the Spanish philosophers, and
to some extent recurs in all Islamic thought.
The greatest product in Asia of the ferment of thought produced by
the general study of the Aristotelian and neo-Platonic philosophies
appears in _Abu `Ali al-Husayn b. `Abdullah b. Sina_ (d. 428 = A.D.
1027), commonly known as Ibn Sina, which is Latinized as Avicenna.
His life is known to us from an autobiography completed by his pupil,
Abu `Ubayd al-Juzjani, from his master’s recollections. We learn that
his father was governor of Kharmayta, but, after his son’s birth, he
returned to Bukhara, which had been the original home of his family,
and it was there that Ibn Sina received his education. During his youth
some Isma`ilian missionaries arrived from Egypt, and his father became
one of their converts. From them the son learned Greek, philosophy,
geometry, and arithmetic. This helps to remind us how the whole
Isma`ilian propaganda was associated with Hellenistic learning. It
is sometimes stated that the Egypt of the Fatimite age was isolated
from the intellectual life of Islam at large: but this is hardly
accurate; from first to last the whole of the Isma`ilian movement
was connected with the intellectual revival due to the reproduction
of Greek philosophy in Arabic form, less so, of course, when the
Isma`ilian converts were drawn from the illiterate classes, as was the
case with the Qarmatians, and when the attention of the members was
engrossed with political ambitions, as was the case with the Fatimids
whilst they were building up their power in Africa before the invasion
of Egypt. But even under the most unfavourable conditions it seems
that the _da`is_ or missionaries regarded the spread of science and
philosophy as a leading part of their duties, quite as much so as the
preaching of the `Alid claims of the Fatimite Khalif. Learning Greek
and Greek philosophy from these missionaries Ibn Sina made rapid
progress, and then turned to the study of jurisprudence and mystic
theology. Jurisprudence, that is to say, the canon law based on one of
the orthodox systems laid down by Abu Hanifa and the other recognised
jurists, or by their Shi`ite rivals, has always been the backbone of
Islamic scholarship, and was thus parallel with the study of canon
law in mediæval Europe: in each case it turned men’s attention to the
development of the social structure towards an ideal, and this had an
educative influence of the highest value. We, holding very different
principles, may be tempted to under-estimate this influence, but it is
worth noting that, whilst our aims are opportunist in character, the
canonist of Islam or of Christendom had a more definitely constructed
ideal, with a more complete and scientific finality, which, in so
far as it was an ideal, was an uplifting power. In Muslim lands the
canonists were the one power which had the courage and ability to
resist the caprices of an autocratic government, and to compel even the
most arbitrary princes to submit to principles which, however narrow
and defective they may seem to us, yet made the ruler admit that he was
subordinate to a system, and defined the limits allowed by that system
in conformity with ideals of equity and justice. It is interesting to
note that in Ibn Sina’s time mystic theology had already taken its
place as a subject of serious study.
A short time afterwards a philosopher named an-Natali arrived at
Bukhara and became a guest of Ibn Sina’s father. Bearing in mind
the technical meaning of _failasuf_, we recognise this guest as a
professed Aristotelian, and presumably one able to obtain his living
as a teacher of the Aristotelian doctrine. From him Ibn Sina learned
logic and had his mind directed towards the Aristotelian teaching,
which was then preached like a religion. After this he studied Euclid,
the _Almagesta_, and the “Aphorisms of the Philosophers.” His next
study was medicine, in which he made so great progress that he adopted
the practice of medicine as his profession. He attempted to study
Aristotle’s _Metaphysics_, but found himself entirely incapable of
understanding its meaning, until one day he casually purchased one of
al-Farabi’s books, and by its help he was able to grasp the meaning
and purport of what had so far eluded him. It is on this ground that
we are entitled to describe Ibn Sina as a pupil of al-Farabi: it was
al-Farabi’s work which really formed his mind and guided him to the
interpretation of Aristotle; al-Farabi was, in the truest sense, the
parent of all subsequent Arabic philosophers; great as was Ibn Sina
he does not enter into the tradition in the same way as al-Farabi,
and does not exercise the same influence on his successors, although
al-Ghazali classes him with al-Farabi, and calls them the leading
interpreters of Aristotle. Emphasis is sometimes laid upon the fact
that Ibn Sina treats philosophy as quite apart from revelation as given
in the Qur´an; but in this he was not original: it was the general
tendency of all who came after al-Farabi; we can only say that Ibn Sina
was the first important writer who illustrates this tendency.
Called to exercise his medical skill at the court of Nuh b. Mansur,
the Samanid governor of Khurasan, he enjoyed that prince’s favour, and
in his library studied many works of Aristotle hitherto unknown to
his contemporaries, and when that library was burned he was regarded
as the sole transmitter of the doctrines contained in those books.
This represents contemporary Arabic opinion about him: there is no
evidence in his existing writings that he had access to Aristotelian
material other than that generally known to the Syriac and Arabic
writers. When the affairs of the Samanid dynasty fell into disorder
Ibn Sina removed to Khwarazan, where he, with several other scholars,
enjoyed the enlightened patronage of the Ma´muni Emir. But this Emir
was living a somewhat precarious existence in the neighbourhood of the
Turkish Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna, the stern champion of orthodoxy and
the conqueror of India. It was obvious that the Sultan coveted the
Emir’s dominions, and that when he chose to seize them it would be
impossible to resist; he actually did take them in 408. Meanwhile the
Sultan was treated with the utmost deference by the Emir and such of
his neighbours as were allowed to live on sufferance. Mahmud wished to
be distinguished as a patron of learning, and “invited” scholars to
his court--in plain words, he kidnapped scholars and took care that
they never afterwards transgressed the strictest limits of orthodoxy.
Amongst others the Emir received a letter inviting such men of learning
as were to be found in Khwarazan to his court. The Emir read out the
letter to the five most distinguished scholars who were his guests,
leaving them to act as they thought fit. Three of the guests were
attracted by the Sultan’s reputation for generosity and accepted the
invitation, but two, Ibn Sina and Masihi, were afraid to venture, so
they escaped privately and fled; overtaken by a sandstorm in the desert
Masihi perished, but Ibn Sina, after long wanderings, finally found a
refuge in Isfahan, where the Buwayhid `Ala´u d-Dawla Muhammad held his
court. His experiences show plainly that it was the Shi`ites who were
the supporters of philosophy, and that the growing Turkish power of
Mahmud of Ghazna and of the Seljuks who succeeded him was reactionary
and unfavourably disposed towards philosophical research. It was the
Turkish power which finally checked the progress of Arabic philosophy
in the East.
Ibn Sina wrote many works in Arabic and Persian, and a number of
these are still extant. Amongst his productions were _as-Shafa_, an
encyclopædia of physics, metaphysics, and mathematics in eighteen
volumes (ed. Forget, Leiden, 1892), a treatise on logic and philosophy,
and the medical works on which his fame so largely rests. The best
known of these are the _Najat_ abridged from the _as-Shafa_, and the
medical _Canon_, in which he reproduced the teaching of Galen and
Hippocrates with illustrative material from the later medical writers.
The _Canon_ is more methodical in its arrangement than the _al-Hawi_ of
Razes, hitherto the popular manual of medicine in Arabic; indeed, its
chief defect is an excessively elaborate classification. It became the
leading medical authority, and, after translation into Latin by Gerard
of Cremona, served for many centuries as the chief representative of
the Arabic school of medicine in western Europe, holding its place in
the universities of Montpelier and Louvain down to A.D. 1650.
Ibn Sina treats logic as of use rather in a negative than in a
positive way: “the end of logic is to give a man a standard rule, by
observing which he is preserved from error in reasoning” (_Isharat_ ed.
Forget, p. 2). His treatise on this subject in _Tis´ Rasa´il fi-l-Hikma
wa-l-Tabi´yat_ (p. 79, pub. Stamboul, 1298), is divided into nine
parts corresponding to the Arabic canon of Aristotle, which includes
the _Isagoge_ as well as the Rhetoric and Poetics. He makes special
note to the logical bearing of particular grammatical constructions
which in Arabic differ from the forms used in Greek, as, for example,
where the Greek expresses the universal negative by “all A is not B,”
but Arabic renders this “nothing of A (is) B.” He lays great emphasis
upon accurate definition, which he describes as the essential basis of
all sound reasoning, and to this he devotes much attention. Definition
proper must state the _quiddity_ of a thing, its genus, differentia,
and all its essential characteristics, and is thus distinct from mere
description, which need only give the propria and accidents in such a
way that the thing may be recognised correctly.
In dealing with the universal and the particular he considers that the
universal exists only in the human mind: the abstract idea of the genus
is formed in the mind of the observer when he compares individuals
and makes note of their points of similarity, but this abstract idea
exists only as a mental concept and has no objective reality. The
universal precedes the individual (genus ante res) only in the way
that the general idea existed in the mind of the Creator before the
individual was formed, just as the idea of an object to be made exists
in the mind of the artificer before the work is executed. The general
idea is realised in matter (genus in rebus), but only when accompanied
by accidents: apart from these accidents it exists only as a mental
abstraction. After the general idea is realised in matter (genus post
res) it is possible for the intellect to make a mental abstraction and
to use this as a standard of comparison with other individuals. The
generic belongs only to the realm of thought, and such abstract ideas
have no objective existence, although they may be used as real in logic.
The soul is treated as a collection of faculties (_kowa_) or forces
acting on the body: all activity of any sort, in bodies animal or
vegetable, as well as human, proceeds either from such forces added
to the body or from the mixture of elements from which the body is
formed. The simplest soul condition is that of the vegetable whose
activity is limited to nutrition and generation and accretion by growth
(_Najat_, p. 43). The animal soul possesses the vegetable faculties
but adds to them others, and the human soul adds yet others to these,
and the addition made to the human soul enables it to be described as
a rational soul. The faculties present in the soul may be divided into
two classes, the faculties of perception and the faculties of action.
The faculties of perception are partly external and partly internal: of
these the external faculties exist in the body wherein the soul dwells
and are the eight senses, sight, hearing, taste, smell, perception of
heat and cold, perception of dry and moist, perception of resistance
as by hard and soft, and perception of rough and smooth. By means of
these senses the form of the external object is reproduced in the soul
of the percipient. There are four internal faculties of perception:
(i.) _al-musawira_, “the formative,” whereby the soul perceives the
object without the aid of the senses as by an act of imagination; (ii.)
_al-mufakkira_, “the cogitative,” by which the soul perceiving a number
of qualities associated together abstracts one or more of them from the
others with which they are associated, or groups together those which
are not seen as connected; this is the faculty of abstraction which is
employed in forming general ideas; (iii.) _al wahm_, or “opinion,” by
means of which a general conclusion is drawn from a number of ideas
grouped together; and (iv.) _al-hafiza_ or _az-zakira_, “memory,” which
preserves and records the judgments formed. Men and animals perceive
particulars by means of sense; man attains the knowledge of universals
by means of reason. The _`aql_ or rational soul of man is conscious of
its own faculties, not by means of an external, i.e., bodily sense, but
immediately by the exercise of its own reasoning power. This proves to
be an independent entity, even though accidentally connected with a
body and dependent on that body for sense perception: the possibility
of direct knowledge without sense perception shows that it is not
essentially dependent on the body, and the possibility of its existence
without the body, which follows logically from its independence, is the
proof of its immortality. Every living creature perceives that it has
only one _ego_ or soul in itself, and this soul, says Ibn Sina, did
not exist prior to the body but was created, that is to say, proceeded
by emanation from the Agent Intellect at the time when the body was
generated. (_Najat_, p. 51).
Under the head of Physics Ibn Sina considers the forces observed in
nature, including all that are in the soul, save only that which is
peculiar to the rational soul of man. These forces are of three kinds:
some, such as weight, are an essential part of the body in which they
occur; others are external to the body on which they act, and are such
as cause movement or rest; and others, again, are such as the faculties
possessed by the non-rational souls of the spheres, which produce
movement directly without external impulse. No force is infinite; it
may be increased or diminished, and always produces a finite result.
Time is regarded as essentially dependent on movement; although it is
not itself a form of movement, so far as the idea of time is concerned,
it is measured and made known by the movements of the heavenly bodies.
Following al-Kindi place is defined as “the limit of the container
which touches the contained.” Vacuum is “only a name”, in fact it is
impossible, for all space can be increased, diminished, or divided into
parts, and so must contain something capable of increase, etc.
God alone is “necessary being,” and so the supreme reality. Space,
time, etc., belong to “actual being,” and whatever necessity they
possess is derived from God. The objects studied in physical science
are only “possible being,” which may or may not become “actual being.”
God alone is necessarily existent through all eternity: He is the truth
in the sense that He alone is true absolutely, all other reality is so
only in so far as it is derived from God. From God by emanation comes
the _`aql_ or “Agent Intellect,” and from this proceeds the intellect
or reason which differentiates the rational soul in man from the soul
in other creatures. To every man this intellect is given, and in due
course it returns to the “Agent Intellect” which was its source. The
soul’s possible activity, independent of the body with which it is
associated, proves its immortality, but this immortality does not imply
separate existence, but rather reabsorption in the source. From the
_`aql_ also proceeds the universe, but not like the reason of man by
direct emanation, but by the medium of successive emanations.
Ibn Sina was the last of the great philosophers of the East. Two
causes combined to terminate philosophy proper in Asiatic Islam. In
the first place it had become closely identified with the Shi`ite
heresies, and was thus in bad repute in the eyes of the orthodox;
whilst the Shi`ite sects themselves, all of the extremer kind
(_ghulat_), which had devoted themselves most to philosophical studies,
had also taken up a number of pre-Islamic religious theories, such as
transmigration of souls, etc., which were detrimental to scientific
research. Neo-Platonism had shown itself at an earlier period prone
to similar tendencies. As a result the Shi`ites tended towards mystic
and often fantastic theories, which were discouraging to the study of
Aristotelian doctrines. The second cause lay in the rise of dominant
Turkish elements, Mahmud of Ghazna, then the Saljuk Turks, which
were of uncompromising orthodoxy, and abhorred everything which was
associated with the Shi`ites or tended to rationalism. For all that it
left permanent marks in Asiatic Islam in two directions: in orthodox
scholasticism and in mysticism.
We have already noted that Muslim b. Muhammad Abu l-Qasim al-Majriti
al-Andalusi (d. 395-6), as his name denotes, a native of Madrid,
brought the teachings of the _Brethren of Purity_ to Spain, and so
incidentally aroused an interest there in the philosophy which had been
studied in the East. For some time no important results appeared, then
followed a series of brilliant philosophical writers and teachers,
deriving their inspiration partly from the _Brethren_, and partly from
the Jewish students.