Talk:Islamic philosophy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is excellent as far as it goes, but:

• the vocabulary is intense
• it's impossible for an historian or student to read without understanding all the philosophy
• it lacks links to specific figures or concepts that are now in the wikipedia, e.g. Ibn Sina
• It's using variant spellings, e.g. for Mutazilite
• there seems to be no clue it exists in the article on general philosophy.
• the term "Islamic" is hard to justify as not all this thought was strictly within the frame of Islam. It was carried out by Muslims, however, thus it can neutrally be called "Muslim philosophy" or more strictly "early Muslim philosophy. There is already an article there that's easy for beginners and takes an historical perspective rather than looking at the exact influences on Islam, undersatnding of Aristotle.

• there are modern Islamic philosophers, like Ismail al-Faruqi and Nasr, who have specific modern programs, e.g. the Islamization of knowledge. If this article is to retain it's title, it would have to deal with those modern movements, and everything in between.
• the title implies Islamic philosophy is some kind of dead end given what's in the article. Would we have an article on Christian philosophy and include everything said by Christians, whether it was about Christ or not?

We definitely need a convention for beginners' versus advanced articles.

I agree with every one of your comments and suggestions. What is here is only intended to be a "seed"; I hope that over time it can develop into a better article. It definately needs to be rewritten so that it is accessible to newcomers and beginners. It would be too much to do all of this at once, so perhaps it would be best to start by (A) standardizing the spelling to match other Wikipedia articles; (b) making the proper links to related Wikipedia articles, (C) writing a very general introduction. Then anyone can work on improving the rest of the article one paragraph at a time. RK

Where did this article originally come from? Is it original work or is it from a book? It might be nice to see a reference or two unless it is completely original work (i.e. you wrote it without referring to any other text). Is it the same situation as in Talk:Islam and Judaism? Silver Maple

The author is likely gone, or else it might be copied from somewhere, as there is little evidence of this style of writing anywhere else in any article on Islam. As a general reference it would be better for us to adopt more like the historical style of articles like Asharite, early Muslim philosophy or the reference style of list of Islamic terms in Arabic, or the newsy style of modern Islamic philosophy or Islamic world. Vocabulary reall should not be allowed to become a barrier to understanding, particularly on this much-misunderstood subject of Islam. We need many more biographies of key figures in scientific history who HAPPEN TO BE Muslims, as these people really did create the scientific method and what we now call "history" as a social science. It's shameful to treat Islamic philosophy as a dead subject, also, see modern Islamic philosophy. I'd say that alone makes this one here not NPOV.

The current structure of articles about Islamic philosophy leaves a gap between 12th and 20th century. I refuse to beleieve nobody wrote anything philosophical in a large part of the world for seven centuries - but unfortunately I'm unable to fill the gap. Also, there seems to be nothing on local and language-based traditions like Arabian, Persian etc philosophy. :( --Oop 13:32, Oct 15, 2004 (UTC)

---

Put the bulk of the article in the classical period. Added the sections, "Formative Influences" and "Later Islamic Philosophy. It is difficuly to demark "Later Islamic Philosophy since some people include Ibn Khaldun in it also hence a rough demarcation can be eitehr 1200 or 1400 depedning upon the author. The modern period can ssafely be said to have started roughly from mid 1800 or so.--Vonaurum 00:19, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 Err 2 Move 3 Merge 4 Wikify 5 Shortcomings

[edit] Err

The article says "Driven from the Islamic schools, Islamic philosophy found a refuge with the Jews, to whom belongs the honor of having transmitted it to the Christian world", which is a gross oversimplification, and largely inaccurate. It doesnt even mention Scot, who was not "the jews", nor was he Jewish (A catholic priest is what he was), yet Scot is unquestionably the most important figure in bringing the developing Islamic philosophy to the christian west (Granted.. he travelled would have been travelling east, but you know what I mean). I'm going to try and split it into sub-sections on the varying philosophies, and varying philosophers and their teachings and writings, Feel free to correct any omissions or inacuracies, but please if you do not like it, do not revert it without letting me know firstly! Cheers. --Irishpunktom\^talk 19:47, May 29, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Move

Would this be better under the heading "Philosophy in Islam", or "Muslim Philosophy", because of a lot of the works of the Muslim Philosophers was considered non-islamic, even blasphemous. Just a thought that struck me. --Irishpunktom\^talk 23:06, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

"Muslim Philosophy" would suggest that it is the philosophy of Islam. "Islamic" is preferred for denoting precisely the ambiguity you desire. --RJC 1 July 2005 21:42 (UTC)

Both terms (Muslim Philosophy and Islamic Philosoph) can be encountered in literature (as we see fe in Further reading section) User:abdullah_mk

If they were attempting philosophy from an Islamic perspective then it is Islamic even if it has been considered blaspemous by others. In their times the Mu'tazila were respected but in time they became called blaspemous by the main groups... they are still Islamic. gren グレン 01:47, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

ALso, Ghazali's birth is listed here as 1005, but under his biograpgy it is 1058. Could someone clarify/rectify please?

[edit] Merge

There were and are non-Muslim Arabs and Muslim non-Arabs (Iqbal) .... I think a merge would be a horrible idea, we just need to keep the articles clean gren グレン 01:47, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikify

I did a brief wikify/cleanup, but the links are not specific to the Islamic sections. Furthering wikification is required. freestylefrappe 23:42, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Shortcomings

• This article has considerable gaps even in clasical period. It almost completly lacks any reference to mysthical thought and post-Mutazalit Kalam thought (notably Ashari). Also description of Ghazali is rather scetchy and Ibn Taymyah is somehow missing. It likes any reference to clasical muslim political thought (like Nizam al-Mulk or Al-Mawardi) and Fiqh. The impact of Muslim philosophy on Western one could be more extensievly described too.
• I don't understend sentence "Aristotle attempted to demonstrate the unity of God; but from the view which he maintained, that matter was eternal, it followed that God could not be the Creator of the world". Shouldn't it be rather "Aristotelian muslim thinkers ...."?
• Section "Later Islamic philosophy" deals almost exclusivly with Iranian/Shia thought (Also in other paraghraphs some Iranian/Shia bias may be noticed, but at this point it is not serious problem)
• Article lack any reference to Afghani, Abduh or Rashi Riza (and whole Hahda) or Seyd Ahmad Khan.
• Shouldn't the terminology of this article be harmonized with that of the article Early Islamic philosophyor mayby both articles can be merged? I think in the latter one "Early" means "not-contemopary" ie. Classical and pre-classical

User:abdullah_mk