The Polished Mirror: Storytelling and the Pursuit of Virtue in Islamic Philosophy and Sufism (By Cyrus Ali Zargar)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Polished Mirror: Storytelling and the Pursuit of Virtue in Islamic Philosophy and Sufism by Cyrus Ali Zargar Joel Richmond (bio) The Polished Mirror: Storytelling and the Pursuit of Virtue in Islamic Philosophy and Sufism Cyrus Ali Zargar London: Oneworld Academic, 2017. 341 Pages. The contemporary revival of virtue ethics initiated by such moral philosophers as Elizabeth Anscombe (d. 2001) and Alasdair MacIntyre has provided new areas of cross-cultural investigation for researchers. One such contribution to this burgeoning field is by Cyrus Ali Zargar, whose recent monograph, The Polished Mirror: Storytelling and the Pursuit of Virtue in Islamic Philosophy and Sufism, consists of two sections, each dedicated to both Islamic philosophy and Sufism. In ten chapters, Zargar is able to provide a panoramic view of Islamic thinkers who have dedicated treatises to the varied notions of Islamic ethics. Considering thinkers from the period roughly between 900 to 1300 CE, the book challenges modern and classical Western virtue ethics by including explorations into premodern narrative, poetry, allegorical tales, and hagiography. The first ongoing problem is how to locate and then define the varieties of ethical thought in Islam. It is this question which the book's introduction sets out to specify. Beginning with a summary of ethics as it features in Islamic theology, law, the Qur'an, and ahadith, the initial chapters set out to explain where virtue ethics can be situated among these various perplexing classifications. Challenging ethical categories is the theme consistently found in The Polished Mirror, while previous attempts at classification are also noted by Zargar throughout. For example, according to the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwān al-Ṣafā'), one of the early psychological concepts used to introduce human character is that of the four bodily humors which were incorporated from Greek into Islamic medicine. In addition to these humors are the adaptations of Aristotelian faculties of the soul: the vegetative, the animal, and the rational. With the facilitation of the liver, heart, and brain, these three aspects of the soul give rise to the desire of the appetitive faculty, the anger of the irascible faculty, and the reflection of the rational faculty. In the Islamic context of the writings of the Brethren, the rational faculty is then responsible to the higher intellect. This psychological context of the character traits is only one of the features given in Zargar's monograph. In the section on Islamic philosophy, the writings of Avicenna (d. 1037), Ibn Ṭufayl (d. 1185–6), Suhrawardī (d. 1191), Miskawayh (d. 1030), and al-Ghazālī (d. 1111) capture the pedagogical role of allegories and symbols as ways to bring about virtue. Each thinker is given a separate chapter showing how the [End Page 109] use of stories convey the journey to God and the fulfillment of knowledge. For Avicenna, the lines between epistemology, psychology, metaphysics, and ethics, are sometimes blurred, but this is necessary. Practical philosophy is that which puts theoretical philosophy to work, so to speak. Likewise, ethical behaviour often reciprocally leads to the contemplation of metaphysics. These specific categories all combine to fill out the unique manner in which virtues can be newly considered. In Zargar's own treatment of Avicenna, he is able to perfectly walk the fine line between the often debated roles of Avicenna's relation to mysticism and Aristotelian philosophy. Before turning to the symbolic story of Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, we are given a full analytic treatment and summary of Avicenna's psychology and ethics that would satisfy scholars inclining towards the more Aristotelian interpretation. In the allegories, the interpretation of Corbin and others are given their full due, while supplemented with Zargar's own unique insights. Also considered here is Avicenna's ninth division of Allusions and Admonitions, named, "Stations of the Knowers." This story is very difficult to interpret as anyone who has read the text would immediately recognize. To bring the story to life, we are also given the interpretation of Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī alongside its many twists and turns. As no surprize, Ṭūsī interprets the story as the journey of the human intellect, flowering into its own perfection as an acquired intellect ('aql mustafād). Since there is...