Abstract
This article examines the claim that Ibn Rushd of Cordoba (“Averroës,” 12th century B.C.) is a precursor of the Enlightenment and a source of inspiration for the emancipation of contemporary Islamic societies. The paper critically discusses the fascination that Ibn Rushd has exercised on several thinkers, from Ernest Renan to Salman Rushdie, and highlights the problem of literalism in Qur’anic interpretation. Based on Ibn Rushd’s Decisive Treatise (Fasl al-maqāl), the paper investigates Ibn Rushd’s proposed division of (Muslim) society into three distinct classes. The main question here is whether there is a substantial link between the people of the Muslim community, given the three distinct kinds of assent (tasdīq) introduced by Ibn Rushd. I argue that if such a link cannot be supplied, then it is hard to see in Ibn Rushd an enlightened social model for today’s Muslim societies. Furthermore, that the great majority of people are prevented from having any contact with non-literal interpretation of the Scripture and non-revealed ways of thinking. The latter position, though, does not seem to bring Ibn Rushd close to the Enlightenment. My analysis of religious language is inspired by Wittgenstein’s position that the meaning of a term cannot be detached from its use. I suggest that given the different lives of people belonging to Ibn Rushd’s different classes, the terms they use can mean quite different things. This argument in fact weakens Ibn Rushd’s association with the Enlightenment.
Highlights
Ibn Rushd’s important position in the history of medieval philosophy, with particular emphasis on his role as commentator of Aristotle, had been well established. He had been an important source of inspiration for many Arab intellectuals involved in the Nahda movement With the organization of a large conference on Ibn Rushd and the Enlightenment in Cairo in December 1994 the question regarding whether he is a medieval precursor of the Enlightenment, and whether he can be seen as a positive role model for the Islamic world today, was posed explicitly ([1], pp. 11–14)
Ibn Rushd adds in the Kitāb al-kashf: “For this reason we find the people of Islam divided into three sects with regard to the understanding of the symbolization which is used in [the texts of] our religion referring to the states of the future life” ([5], p. 76)
Since the time of Ernest Renan’s Averroès et l’Averroisme: Essai Historique (1852) many scholars have seen Ibn Rushd as a thinker whose philosophy is conversant with central tenets of the Enlightenment
Summary
Ibn Rushd and the EnlightenmentRushd of Cordoba (“Averroes,” 12th century A.D.), as well as an effort to explore his position as a likely forerunner of the Enlightenment. Such clear distinction between natural (philosophical, demonstrative in its Aristotelian conception) reason and revelation of the Scripture, together with the prioritizing of the former, is in the heart of the connection between Ibn Rushd and the Enlightenment.
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