Brigham Young University - Islamic Translation Series – serie

Although Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali lived a relatively short life (1058-1111), he established himself as one of the most important thinkers in the history of Islam. The Incoherence of the Philosophers, written after more than a decade of travel and ascetic contemplation, contends that while such Muslim philosophers as Avicenna boasted of unassailable arguments on matters of theology and metaphysics, they could not deliver on their claims; moreover, many of their assertions represented disguised heresy and unbelief. Despite its attempted refutation by the twelfth-century philosopher Ibn Rushd, al-Ghazali's work remains widely read and influential.

Sadr al-Din Muhammad Shirazi (1572-1640), more commonly called Mulla Sadra was one of the grand scholars of later-period Islamic philosophy and has grown to become one of the best-known Muslim philosophers. "Iksir al-Arifin" or "Elixir of the Gnostics", is unique among Sadra's writings in that it reworks and amplifies an earlier Persian work, the "Jawidan-nama" ("Book of the Everlasting") by Afdal al-Din Kashani, or Baba Afdal. The underlying theme of Sadra's amplification is emblematic of Muslim philosophy: the importance of self-knowledge is an individual's journey of "Origin and Return", the soul's origins with God and its eventual return to Him. Everything, Sadra says, is on such a path, gradually disengaging from the material world and returning to a transdencent essence - all leading to a final fruition in which everything in the universe returns to God and finds permanent happiness. Philosophy, Sadra argues, is the most direct means to self-knowledge - and thus the best tool for navigating this journey.

Averroës (Ibn Rushd, 1126-1198) emerged from an eminent family in Muslim Spain to become the first and last great Aristotelian of the classical Islamic world; his meticulous commentaries influenced Christian thinkers and earned him favorable mention (and a relatively pleasant fate) in Dante's Divina Commedia. The Book of the Decisive Treatise was and remains one his most important works and one of history's best defenses of the legitimate role of reason in a community of faith. The text presents itself as a plea before a tribunal in which the divinely revealed Law of Islam is the sole authority; Averroës, critical of the anti-philosophical tone of the Islamic establishment, argues that the Law not only permits but also mandates the study of philosophy and syllogistic or logical reasoning, defending earlier Muslim philosophers and dismissing criticisms of them as more harmful to the Islamic community than the philosophers' own views had been. As he details the three fundamental methods the Law uses to aid people of varied capacities and temperaments, Averroës reveals a carefully formed and remarkably argued conception of the boundaries and uses of faith and reason.