Philosopher Ibn Research Articles

Metaphysical Univocity and the Immanent Frame: Defending Religious Liberty in a Secular Age?

As the first of three installments, this article examines and appropriates concepts such as metaphysical univocity (a scheme initiated by John Duns Scotus and enriched by insights proffered by Muslim philosopher Ibn Sīnā) and then considers the immanent frame as part of my defense of religious liberty. The second installment applies my defense to current controversies in the United States. The third utilizes ideas and concepts from the first two articles as part of a comparative study of religious liberty in Turkey wherein I considers the status of religious minorities within Turkey's borders. This tri-part study is sparked by the contention that: The freedom to practice one's chosen faith is of vital importance to the United States. It was a quest for religious freedom that motivated many of America's founders, and this remains fundamental to [the United States]. Recently President Obama said: "The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in [our] country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are." Today, throughout the world and indeed even here in the [Organization for Security & Cooperation in Europe] (OSCE), governments and societies are struggling with rising religious diversity even as they are called upon to protect the fundamental rights of individuals in all communities who seek to practice their own religious beliefs.As [former] Secretary Clinton put it, "religious freedom provides a cornerstone for every healthy society." The right to believe or not to believe, and to practice one's convictions without fear of government interference or restriction, is a basic human right. Today, religious freedom is restricted in ways both overt and subtle in too many countries, including participating States. [Ambassador Ian Kelly, United States Mission to the OSCE, Delivered at the OSCE (March 3, 2011).] The first installment of this project shows there are, indeed, grounds for pessimism regarding the fate of religious liberty in both the Latin West and the United States.

ThePoeticsfrom Athens to al-Andalus: Ibn Rushd’s Grounds for Comparison

The Middle Commentary on Aristotle's Poetics by the Andalusian philosopher Ibn Rushd (d. 1198) has been treated by commentators as wide-ranging as Borges, Renan, and Kilito as an exemplary case of the failure of translation. Critics who presume Ibn Rushd's failure often concentrate on his rendering of Aristotle's tragedy and comedy by praise (madīh) and blame (hijā’). Taking account of Ibn Rushd's stated intention of using Aristotle‘s Poetics to facilitate comparative literary analysis, I argue here that far from representing a failure of comprehension, the rendering of tragedy and comedy as praise and blame respectively offered the Arabic philosopher a useful means of conceiving literary form outside the confines of a single literary tradition. Contrary to recent arguments in contemporary translation theory, Ibn Rushd's methodical appropriation of Aristotle's treatise suggests that at certain cultural junctures pursuing the path of fluency and localization can accomplish more than literalist foreignization.

Warriors of the cloisters: the Central Asian origins of science in the medieval world

Warriors of the Cloisters tells how key cultural innovations from Central Asia revolutionized medieval Europe and gave rise to the culture of science in the West. Medieval scholars rarely performed scientific experiments, but instead contested issues in natural science, philosophy, and theology using the recursive argument method. This highly distinctive and unusual method of disputation was a core feature of medieval science, the predecessor of modern science. We know that the foundations of science were imported to Western Europe from the Islamic world, but until now the origins of such key elements of Islamic culture have been a mystery. In this provocative book, Christopher I. Beckwith traces how the recursive argument method was first developed by Buddhist scholars and was spread by them throughout ancient Central Asia. He shows how the method was adopted by Islamic Central Asian natural philosophers--most importantly by Avicenna, one of the most brilliant of all medieval thinkers--and transmitted to the West when Avicenna's works were translated into Latin in Spain in the twelfth century by the Jewish philosopher Ibn Da'ud and others. During the same period the institution of the college was also borrowed from the Islamic world. The college was where most of the disputations were held, and became the most important component of medieval Europe's newly formed universities. As Beckwith demonstrates, the Islamic college also originated in Buddhist Central Asia. Using in-depth analysis of ancient Buddhist, Classical Arabic, and Medieval Latin writings, Warriors of the Cloisters transforms our understanding of the origins of medieval scientific culture.

Allegorical Interpretation of the Role of Philosophy in the Discourse of Philo and Ibn Rushd

Instead of dismissing traditional mythology and poetry as heresies, Greek philosophy introduced a methodology of understanding known as allegory. Philo of Alexandria (20 BC–50 AD) was one of the first to employ allegory for understanding religious scriptures whose writings survived in the Christian traditions. In the Arab world, the philosopher Ibn Rushd (520–595/1126–1198) initiated the same method of commentary with his demonstration of the essential harmony between philosophy properly understood and scripture properly interpreted. This essay posits that Greek philosophy laid down a common tool for understanding the scriptures that exist in the Christian and Muslim traditions.

A Muslim Suicide by Bensalem Himmich

to him because he is unable to envision a future for himself. Luckily—and this redeems the book, and perhaps its fictive narrator —there is the earth mother Maria, who is as smart as she is sensual and who has whole handfuls of palpable plans. She may yet animate this otherwise hollow man. Ulf Zimmermann Kennesaw State University Bensalem Himmich. A Muslim Suicide . Roger Allen, tr. Syracuse, New York. Syracuse University Press. 2011. isbn 9780815609667 This is the third novel by the awardwinning Moroccan writer Bensalem Himmich that Roger Allen has translated . Like the previous two, it is a historical novel—and this time, it is about the Sufi philosopher Ibn Sab‘in (1217–69 ce) from Murcia in Al-Andalus (Islamic Spain). He lived in the turbulent days of the Christian Spanish reconquista when adverse conditions in his homeland forced him to flee to North Africa, then to Cairo, and then to Mecca, where he died. The novel is a first-person autobiographical narrative by Ibn Sab‘in himself. Himmich, a professor of philosophy at Muhammad V University in Rabat and Morocco’s minister of culture since 2009, has successfully re-created not only the social and political conditions of Ibn Sab‘in’s times in this novel but also the religious and intellectual debates that accompanied them. Muslims maintaining a literalist view of Islamic orthodoxy were against those who, like Ibn Sab‘in, taught Sufi mysticism and philosophy. Political authorities sided with the literalist theologians and jurists for expedient reasons and pursued their opponents. Hence, Ibn Sab‘in was often on the run and was severely critical of Muslim rulers; but wherever he went in his escape, which eventually led to Mecca, he had admirers and disciples. During his stay in Mecca, the Egyptian widow Umama visited Ibn Sabin, and he married her only after his wife had died on her way to join him. He thought he could finally settle down to a happy life and be surrounded by learners and admirers. But Baybars, the general of the Mamluk armies, who had defeated the Crusaders in Egypt and the Mongols in Palestine, occupied the Hejaz; and his forces in Mecca searched for Ibn Sab‘in but failed to find his hiding place. After they left Mecca, Ibn Sab‘in learned that spies were plotting against him, so he decided to send his wife away for safety and stayed behind to live a secluded life. He then fell badly sick and had fearful nightmares of Philip Hensher King of the Badgers Faber & Faber Lives are disrupted in the English town of Hanmouth when a young girl from the wrong side of town goes missing. Painting a striking portrait of these domestic inhabitants, Philip Hensher incorporates his dark humor and honesty throughout the novel. His sixth novel, The Northern Clemency, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2008. Aris Fioretos Nelly Sachs, Flight and Metamorphosis Tomas Tranæus, tr. Stanford University Press Nelly Sachs, a German poet who was exiled to Sweden in 1940, was the recipient of the 1966 Nobel Prize in Literature. Her tumultuous life is traced in lavish detail in this illustrated biography, which contains over three hundred images of Sachs’s manuscripts, photographs, and possessions. july– august 2012 59 Nota Bene 60 World Literature Today reviews Baybars threatening to kill him. He went to the Ka‘ba and, while having feverish visions, saw Baybars’s soldiers surrounding him, pounding and throttling him, and finally slitting his veins with his own dagger. The novel ends here with Ibn Sab‘in saying, “As I breathed my last, I kept repeating: ‘A Lord ruling, a servant dying, a vision looming, a truth proceeding , and you thus being; A Lord ruling, a servant dying, a vision looming a truth proceeding. . . .’” While a dying man cannot report his own death (let alone write his life story), there are historical records that Ibn Sab‘in committed suicide at the Ka‘ba. Issa J. Boullata Montréal Henri Lopes. Une enfant de PotoPoto . Paris. Gallimard. 2012. isbn 978-2070136087 Henri Lopes has written novels for over thirty-five years. In Une enfant de Poto-Poto, his eighth novel, he returns to the...

The Proximate Matter of Comedia Texts

The Proximate Matter of Comedia Texts David J. Hildner In recent decades, there has been an increasing drive to "materialize" or "concretize" the study of Spanish classical dramatic texts. Perhaps its most immediate manifestation can be seen in the full realization that these texts were written for performance and in the laudable move toward studies of performances (both seventeenth-century and later), especially in the new journal Comedia Performance. It remains the case, however, that scholars do not have access to performance records of every play nor can they always implement performance in their classrooms and conference presentations. Given the huge number of texts in the Spanish classical corpus, we will be obliged to study or, in some cases, may prefer to study these dramatic artifacts as texts. In studies of this last type there has also been a drive toward "materiality," principally from four sources: 1. from work on the history of text transmission and the history of the book, as exemplified by the January 2006 issue of PMLA, titled "The History of the Book and the Idea of Literature"; 2. from studies based on various forms of cultural materialism, which seek out the elements of the texts pointing to the material conditions under which they were produced or under which their original spectators lived and died; 3. from the growing field of "embodied cognition," either in its more psychological and philosophical forms or in the more "hard"-science-related fields of evolutionary biology and neurobiology. According to Robert Storey, literary scholars, weary (with some justification) of the indeterminacy and speculativeness of much post-structuralist theory, can find relief in the greater certainty of cognitive science, which links knowledge inextricably to the body and, more particularly, to the brain. In Storey's case, he is so confident that these disciplines within natural science can provide "keys" to the study of literature that he ends his book by proclaiming, "Close your Deleuze, open your Darwin" (207)! 4. from studies that point to the presence of the body, body parts and functions, material objects, and definable spaces in dramatic plots and speeches. Recent [End Page 396] critics have unearthed fascinating representations of the body or parts thereof in plays such as Lope de Vega's El guante de doña Blanca (female hands), Tirso de Molina's La celosa de sí misma (glimpsed eyes and hands), and in Calderón's El médico de su honra (especially in reference to the body of Doña Mencía, both in its living and dead [murdered] forms). One could even point to the highlighting of economic exchange and transferral of goods in plays such as in Calderón's auto sacramental, El gran mercado del mundo. Yet in the desire to "anchor" one's perception of these texts lies a danger of abstraction that could defeat the very urge toward "materialization." The major problem lies in the different senses of "matter" and "materiality" that Western thought has inherited. At bottom, the "matter" out of which comedia texts are most directly made consists of chains of discourse, both those found in the characters' speeches and in the didascalia. For this purpose, I propose to resurrect a term from the Hispano-Muslim philosopher Ibn Rushd (known to the Latin West as Averroes). In his Kitābu cilmi mā bacda-ţabīcah or "Compendium of Metaphysics," he distinguishes between al-hayūlā-l-qarīb ("near" or "proximate" matter) and al-hayūlā-l-bacīd ("far" or "remote" matter) (52). This last term refers to that which undergirds the proximate, even if it is not directly discernible in the object under study. For example, bricks and mortar can be said to be the proximate matter of a wall, but the clay, sand, and other compounds used to prepare bricks and mortar are non-proximate. Likewise, it is certainly not false to affirm that the human body is made up, in a non-proximate way, of molecules and atoms, but this information is of little use to biologists unless it is shown how those molecules are organized proximately into cells and organic tissues. By analogy, the workings of a dramatic...

Reason and Revelation for an Averroist Pursuit of Convivencia and Intercultural Dialogue

Throughout medieval thought, a major issue raised was that of the relationship between religion and philosophy. Alternative frameworks see the problem as a conflict between faith and reason, tradition and speculation, mysticism and rationalism. The medieval Muslim philosopher Ibn Rushd, or Averroes, (1126–98), who lived in medieval Spain, attempts in his philosophy to reconcile philosophy with religion. This article probes into an ‘Averroist dialogue’ through his rationalist philosophy. Meanwhile, al-Ghazali (1058–1111), from Persia, tends towards an Islamic philosophy based on cause and effect and determined by God. Ibn Rushd's retaliation to al-Ghazali was his defence of the primacy of philosophy and reason, and a call for diversity of knowledge. Ibn Rushd explicates the relation between religion and philosophy as two different ways of reaching the same truth, and clarifies the connection between Islamic law and Greek science, striving for a rapprochement between the Islamic ‘I’ and the European ‘Other’ through his epistemological principles of dialogue in a time of convivencia (coexistence) in medieval Andalusia.

Horticulture and Health in the Middle Ages: Images from the Tacuinum Sanitatis

Lavishly illustrated late 14th century manuscripts known as the Tacuinum Sanitatis, a guide for healthy living, were based on an 11th century Arabic manuscript known as the Taqwim al-Sihha bi al-Ashab al-Sitta (Rectifying Health by Six Causes) written by the physician and philosopher Ibn Butlan (d. 1063). The expensive, illustrated Tacuinum Sanitatis tomes portray a utopian feudal society in which nobles are engaged in play and romance while feudal laborers work the estate. Rich in horticultural imagery, they include vivid scenes of the harvest of vegetables, fruits, flowers, and culinary and medicinal herbs. Each scene is accompanied by a brief summary of the health aspects of the subject. Although medieval medicine was based on ancient philosophical concepts of Greek sciences, particularly Hippocrates and Galen, these documents connect vegetables and fruits with human health and well-being, similar to modern medicine. Hence, the present-day focus on the connection between horticulture and health can be seen as an extension of ancient and medieval regimens for a healthy lifestyle.

Al-Ghazali’s Philosophical Theology

This work of historical theology is essential reading for those wanting tounderstand with new depth and clarity the life and teachings of al-Ghazali(d. 505/1111). It is sometimes maintained that he contributed significantly toMuslim scholars’ ending of scientific inquiry and the use of reason. Thisview has recently been promoted afresh by Robert Reilly’s The Closing ofthe Muslim Mind (Wilmington, DE: 2010). Griffel extensively discusses twofactors contributing to this general perception: al-Ghazali’s opposition to thephilosophers in Tahafut al-Falasifah (see M. Marmura, ed and tr. The Incoherenceof the Philosophers [Provo, UT: 1997]) and his endorsement of occasionalism,the idea that events do not occur because of their inherent properties, such as fire’s ability to burn cotton, but instead God creates each individualevent with no reference to causes and effects in the physical world.Thus there is, at least in theory, no predictable causality in the world. Thiswould seem to render scientific inquiry, which relies on predictable processes,theoretically impossible. Scholars have differed over whether al-Ghazali is indeed an occasionalist (Marmura) or in fact endorses causality inline with the philosopher Ibn Sina (Richard Frank).In contrast, Griffel sets out to demonstrate that al-Ghazali “is the firstMuslim theologian who actively promotes the naturalization of the philosophicaltradition into Islamic theology” (p. 7) and that his writings are ‘aparticular kind of Avicennism’ (p. 14). His central argument is that al-Ghazali remained uncommitted throughout his career as to whether Godbrings about events in this world through occasionalism or via secondarycausality. Griffel contends that his consistent position was to regard eachposition as possible, developing “something like a synthetic positionbetween these two poles” (p. 12). In arguing for this, the author presents ahighly persuasive reading of al-Ghazali’s principal texts, which presents himas avoiding self-contradiction on this issue ...

Long Commentary on the De Anima of Aristotle (review)

Reviewed by: Long Commentary on theDe Anima of Aristotle Kara Richardson Averroes (Ibn Rushd) of Cordoba. Long Commentary on the De Animaof Aristotle. Translated with an introduction and notes by Richard C. Taylor, with Thérèse-Anne Druart, sub-editor. Yale Library of Medieval Philosophy. New Haven-London: Yale University Press, 2009. Pp. cix + 498. Cloth, $85.00. The Andalusian philosopher Ibn Rushd (d. 1198) had two names in the medieval Latin West: 'the Commentator', and 'Averroes'. The first of these underscores his importance as an interpreter of Aristotle ('the Philosopher'). The second was modified at least once by the adjective 'accursed' (in Duns Scotus's Ordinatio, bk. 4, d. 43, q. 2). 'That accursed Averroes' refers to the person who held that there exists only one human intellect. Averroes defends this view—typically called the unicity doctrine—in his Long Commentary on Aristotle'sDe Anima. Richard C. Taylor's translation of the Long Commentaryis based on Crawford's 1953 edition of the medieval Latin text (the original Arabic text is extant only in fragments). Brief portions of this commentary, which relate directly to the controversial and influential unicity doctrine, have previously been translated into English. Taylor's complete translation makes available in English for the first time the whole account of the soul and its powers, of which the unicity doctrine is a part. The translation will benefit graduate or advanced undergraduate students of the history of philosophy, as well as non-specialist scholars who want to understand what all the fuss was about. Taylor also provides extensive notes, which contain, among other things, Averroes' sources, extant Arabic fragments corresponding to the Latin, and explanations of technical terms and dense argumentation. For these reasons alone, Taylor's work must be considered a significant contribution to scholarship in the history of philosophy. There is also a lengthy introduction that presents the state of research on Averroes' psychology. Readers of Aristotle are familiar with his distinction, in De Anima3.5, between intellect in its passive role as a receiver of intelligibles and intellect in its active role as a maker of intelligibles. Averroes' unicity doctrine is remarkable as an interpretation of the passiveintellect, which is called the "material intellect" by analogy with prime matter (like prime matter, the material intellect can, in its own way, receive any form). To advocate the unicity of the activeintellect is not so remarkable. The latter view was standard in the Arabic tradition, which inherited it from Greek commentators on Aristotle. Those who affirm the unicity of the active intellect may hold the material intellect to be a power for receiving intelligibles [End Page 398]that is ultimately brain-based. Or they may hold the material intellect to be the supreme cognitive power of incorporeal human souls, which are multiplied in accordance with the number of human bodies. Averroes' defense of the unicity of the material intellect in the Long Commentaryinvolves a principled rejection of each of these alternative views, as well as a novel account of the role of intellect in human cognition. Taylor's introduction treats the development of Averroes' unicity doctrine and adjudicates a dispute about the dating of his Middleand Longcommentaries on the De Anima. Based in part on a comparison of portions of the Long Commentaryidentical to portions of the Middle Commentary, Taylor argues that the Long Commentaryis most likely the later work. These passages are identified in the notes to the translation. The introduction also provides a brief exegesis of the Long Commentary. This section explains the reasons behind the unicity doctrine, but misses the opportunity to highlight other points of interest in Averroes' psychology. Moreover, it leaves unaddressed certain questions likely to be pressing for newcomers to the text. For example, the unicity doctrine entails the denial that intellect is the seat of individual consciousness; so how would Averroes explain individual consciousness? What role, if any, does consciousness play in his account of cognition? Finally, Taylor's introduction includes a useful survey of Averroes' sources and a brief account of the influence of the Long Commentary, especially in the Latin West, which puts to rest the...

Maghrebi Migrants and Writers: Liminality, Transgression and the Transferal of Identity

Migration research has generally neglected the individual, sacrificing him/her to macrosociological analyses. Some anthropologists, however, offer more analytically productive frameworks within which to comprehend the migrants’ experiences by considering them in terms of hybridity and liminality. I argue for the insight recognition of a liminal imaginary may bring to an understanding of transnational North African’s experiences by exploring the novelistic space-time constructed and shared by Francophone Maghrebi authors, including Tahar Ben Jelloun and Mehdi Charef. Recognizing in the Moroccan context the pertinence of a hegemonic patriarchal master-disciple matrix, in addition to a certain idea of liberty in regard to international relations and borders, I perceive these Francophone Maghrebi authors as pursuing a distinctive kind of freedom, one linked to their liminal positions. I take Victor Turner’s conception of the liminal a step further by pointing to the relevance of barzakh, an Arabic word theorized by the 13th century Andalusian philosopher Ibn al-Arabi as an isthmus and womb. I further build on this concept by focusing on the inarticulatable aspects and transgressive possibilities outside transnational structures and traditions.

The Arabic Background to Ramon Lull's Liber Chaos (ca. 1285)

One of the earliest works of the Majorcan Ramon Lull (1230/35–1315/16) was a Compendium logicae Algazelis (1271/72), a work based on the first section of the Maqâsid al-falâsifa (that is, “Opinions of the Philosophers”) of the great Muslim theologian, Abû Ḥâmid al-Ghazâlî (d. 1111). Algazel was Persian and his Maqâṣid an Arabic form of a Persian work by the celebrated philosopher Ibn Sînâ (d. 1037), known to the Latins as Avicenna. Algazel summarized the philosophy of Avicenna with the intention of refuting it in his Tahâfut al-falâsifa (that is, “Destruction of the Philosophers”). As is generally known, the Cordovan philosopher and jurist, Averroes (Ibn Rushd, d. 1198), sought to refute this latter work in his Tahâfut al-tahâfut or “Destructio destructionis.”

Islamic Enlightenment and the Paradox of Averroes

In the debate on an Islamic tradition of enlightenment, the Arabic philosopher Ibn Rushd (died 1198) should claim a special place. The Christian secularist Farah Antfin (1874-1922) and the Muslim reformist Muhammad 'Abduh (1849-1905) discussed between 1901 and 1920 in the volumes of al-Jami'ah the importance and role of Ibn Rushd; since that time the debate has been going on, mainly among Arab intellectuals. It seems that among Iranian or Indian intellectuals much less attention is given to Ibn Rushd. The search for a connection between the historical Ibn Rushd and

XXIV.—An Account of the great Historical Work of the African Philosopher Ibn Khaldún

Few nations, either ancient or modern, have surpassed the Amazirgs, or lineal descendants of the primitive inhabitants of northern Africa, in power to produce a more ingenious and contemplative writer than the one now before us. And yet this writer, equally profound as an historian and as a statesman, has hitherto been so little known in Europe, that the majority of our Arabic scholars have but very confused notions of his scientific and literary merits, and to many, even his name is almost unknown. In the East, and in Africa, however, the great historical work he has composed, has given him a celebrity which no lapse of time, nor any vicissitude of events, will ever impair or lessen.