Egger Ch 8

Sciences and Philosophy:

o The period from the tenth through the 13th centuries was an ear of cultural
efflorescence in the muslim world
o 9th century project of translating greek and syriac texts into Arabic
o 12-13th muslim work trans to latin

Math and Natural Sciences:

o Ibn al-haytham was born in the Iraq city of Basra about 975. he resigned from his
religious position and he devoted life to science. He made advances in geometry,
astronomy, the theory of light, the number theory, but best known for making the
first scienctific contributions to optical theory since Ptolemy in the 2nd century
o Hey says that rays originate in the object of vision and not in the eyey

o Al-Biruni mastered Turkish, Persian, Sanskrit, Arabic, and he published many

owks in physics, astronomy, math, medicine, history, and what we might call
anthropology
o He est the radius of the earth to be 3930 miles
o Umar Khayyam is most famous in the English world for Edward Fitzgeralds trans
of Rubaiyat, but he was even better at math and astronomy than poetry
o He also realized that a cubic equation can have more than one solution

Philosophy:
o Ibn Sina: most influential of all muslim philosophers.
o He was a child prodigy, he served as a court physician and twice was wazir
o He wrote the book of healing and a canon of medicine and it was used in western
Europe
o He based his philosophical work of off al-Farabi. He infused the neoplatonic with
the aristotleian content
o He also tried to prove that it was possible that a personal soul would survive death
o He tried to combine philosophy and religion but many had a problem with it
o The derense of the traditional religious doctrine was doen by al-ghazali. His
theological commitements made him hostile to the legacies of neoplatonism and
aristotelianism. He wrote a critic of ibn sina called intentions of the philosophers
o He challenged their denial of the resurrection of the body and thir notions of
causality, which had diminished the concepts of Gods sovereignity and had
rendered him subject to necessity
o His attack on philosophy triggered a response from Ibn Rushd. He was
determined to set up a base from phil that would not violate the norms of true
religion.
o He argued for a restoration of the original aristotletian concept of the first cause or
ummoved mover, and upheld the concept of eternity of the world. He argued for
personal immortality. Wrote incoherence of incoherence to attack al-ghazali
 o He said that were three types of learners: those who can reason phil, those who
are convinced by dialectical arguments, and those who are convinced by
preaching, inspiration, and coercion
o He is often regarded as he last great phil in the Islamic world

The Sunni Resolution to the Tension btwn Reason and Revelation:

o Phil made a lasting effect on islam
o Al-ghazali was succeeded by two theologians, al-shahrastani who spent most of
his career in his homeland of Iran, and Fakhr al-Din al-Razi who spe his life
inafghanistan
o They used arguments that employeed new phil conceptions and logical methods
and the organization of alrazis work reveals his phil bent
o Most belived that theology could not lead to certainty in spiritual truths, but was a
useful tool for polemics and apologetics

Consolidating Institutions: Sufism:

o 10th century was a pivotal time for Sufism. Some began viewing their belifes as
religious science and created manuals
o by the 12th century the cultivation of the inward lifehad become an accepted part
of the sunni experience
o 1095 al-Ghazali resigned his teaching poast and his career as a phil to serve
completely as a sufi
o sufi life embraced observance of all these duties and on the other that the inner
meaning of the sharia was fulfilled in the sufi life
o he became a hero for the almoravid empire b/c of his defense of the msystical life
and his insistence on the importanc of the shafii consensus in life
o he said that all learned muslimes, not just the official ulama had a right to be
heard on theissues of ethics and law. And as a result his followers were persecuted
and his works were banned

The Emergence of Lodgesand Tariqas:

o the first step of making Sufism an actual organization with the appearance of
residential lodges
o many of the fortresses or ribats of north Africa assumed this role, and soon the
term ribat had both military and sufi connotations
o next was the emergence of tariqa, a term that has been trans as “order”
o it was a unique spiritual discipline and an accompanying set of rituals that
constituted the identity of a group assoc with a particular zawiya
o the exercises were designed to bring the sufi into direct communion with god and
became a focal point fo the students focus
o the exercises were dhikr, and other spiritual ans ascetic practices
o the abbasid calph al-Nasir appointed uman al-suhrawardi the shaykh or leader of
the ribat
o the sprityal genealogy or silsila became a distinguishing feature of sufi orders
 o the otder themselves got their names from the names of the master who
supposedly founded them, most of them were named after the master died
o the dev of the ofrers marked a new stage in sufi history
o disciples were to submit themselves unquestioningly to their master

Speculative Mysticism:
o many so called speculative mystics have tried to understand how the mystical
experience is possible at all and what it can reveal about the nature of god and the
human soul
o as a result many were attracted to new sciences and phil . alchemy was very
popular among them
o cettain features of neoplationism appealed to many mystics
o the doctrine of Mi raj or the ascent of the prophet to heaven became fully dev
around this time
o the concept of al-qutb, the pole introduced by the sufi theologian al-Tirmidhi. He
wrote that saints or walis govern the universe
o al-qut was also known as he seal of the saints, a concept that disturbed some
ulama b/c it could be construed to detract from the staus of the prophet as seal of
the prophets
o many of these spec mystic produce dworks that have been a source of inspiration
for Sufis today. Three are very important
o al-suhrawardi attempted to create a phol base for an Islamic mysticism that
combined elements of neopl and zorastiranism and gnosticism. His central themse
was the metaphor of god as loight
o he was critical of Aristotelian categories
o ibn al-arabi was a greater influence. He set out for the hajj and never returned. He
wanted to give phil expression to the important mystical doctrines that had been
dev to that point.
o He was fond of metaphors and many of his ideas seem to contradict each other
o At the center of his thought was the idea that a god who is inconceivable ans
unknowable, and whose only attribute is self-existent. And yet god wishes to be
known and so he created the world. He later was known as great master
o Another leader that b/cm known as our master or mawlana was al-Rumi. He bem
a sufi master. He met a mystic named shams who he fell in love with and his
family became jealous and killed him
o Al-rumi then b/cm a poet and music

Consolidating Institutions: Shiism

o Shiite formed 4 different branches

Twelver Shiites:
o From 870-940 the hidden imam was communicationg with his community
through certain spokesmen. The leader of the imamiya was the imam
o Then their was the greater concealment
 o During the buyid perid, the 12er Shiites scholars dev doctrines that answered
some of the vexing questions that accompanied the end of the period of a present
imam after 874
o They taught that the 12 imam contines to provide guidance to his pll despite
concealment. He comm. Through dreams and visions to highly educated spiritual
ulama
o after 874 with the removal of the 12 imam from the pol areana, sunni authorities
didn’t consider 12er Shiites to be a threat and wer able to coexist with it much
more easily than they could the 7eners for several centuries. By the 13tgh century
12er Shiites were cearly the strongest and largest of the Shiite groups

Isma’ilies:
o 11-12th century was a period of great influence
o b/c al-tayyid never appreared in public in yemen, his followers the tayyibs
claimed that he had gone into condealment. They asserted that the imamate was to
go to his son. His guidance during concealment was admin through the da’I
mutlaw or chief missionary
o the tayyibi ismailis outlated the Fatimids even they though they seemed smaller
o the widely scattered nazri ismaili state of the assassins lasted from 1094 until
1273 when they were destroyed by the Mongols

Impact of Foreign Sciences and Jurisprudence:

o ismalisis incorporated neoplatonism into their thought which enabled them t
conceptualize the distinction btwn exoteric and esoteric freatures of the scriptures
and of islaili doctrines
o the fatimid imam was often called speaking Koran where the book was known as
the silen Koran
o the imamis began as a hadith based movement, but they made a change to a
rationalist one
o they accepted only those hadith thathad been tranmitted through a descendent of
husayn b/c they didn’t like the first three caliphs and their supporters
o under the buyids the 12ers found a home in Baghdad
o few major differences btwn Shiite and sunni version of the sharia was a result of
the greater Shiite regard for reason and the doctrine of the imamate

Tranmission of Knowledge:
o modques were uslay the location where one could fine the local kuttab, or a
school for koranic instruction
o students from out of town usually lived in a hostel called khan
o madrasa: a boarding school that combined teaching halls with a prayer hall and
living quarters for the students and professors
o these schools never displaced the mosque
o foreign sciences: phil and science were not usually found in madrasas or masues .
if they wanted to know about this student would have to seek a scholar and learn
in the privacy of their home
o Islamic education was based on the relationship btwn the student and the teacher.
Students sought out a license from a scholar rather than the school
o Ijaza or imprimatur: a written statement certifying that he ahd placed his stamp of
approval on the student