Read complete books and articles on: Islamic Philosophy

Islam - ĭslämˈ, ĭsˈläm, [Arab.,=submission to God], world religion founded by the Prophet Muhammad. Founded in the 7th cent., Islam is the youngest of the three monotheistic world religions (with Judaism and Christianity). An adherent to Islam is a Muslim [Arab.,=one who submits].

Believers Worldwide

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Believers Worldwide

There are more than 1 billion Muslims worldwide, fewer than one fifth of whom are Arab. Islam is the principal religion of much of Asia, including Indonesia (which has the world's largest Muslim population), Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, the Arabian Peninsula states, and Turkey. India also has one of the world's largest Muslim populations, although Islam is not the principal religion there. In Africa, Islam is the principal religion in Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Djibouti, Gambia, Guinea, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, Somalia, and Sudan, with sizable populations also in Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Tanzania (where the island of Zanzibar is predominantly Muslim), and Nigeria.

In Europe, Albania is predominantly Muslim, and, historically, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Macedonia, and Georgia have had Muslim populations. Elsewhere in Europe, immigrant communities of Muslims from N Africa, Turkey, and Asia exist in France, Germany, and Great Britain. In the Americas the Islamic population has substantially increased in recent years, both from conversions and the immigration of adherents from other parts of the world. In the United States, the number of Muslims has been variably estimated at 2–6 million; 20% of the population of Suriname is Muslim.

Islamic Beliefs

At the core of Islam is the Qur'an, believed to be the final revelation by a transcendent Allah [Arab.,=the God] to Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam; since the Divine Word was revealed in Arabic, this language is used in Islamic religious practice worldwide. Muslims believe in final reward and punishment, and the unity of the umma, the "nation" of Islam. Muslims submit to Allah through arkan ad-din, the five basic requirements or "pillars": shahadah, the affirmation that "there is no god but God, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God"; salah, the five daily ritual prayers (see liturgy, Islamic); zakat, the giving of alms, also known as a religious tax; Sawm, the dawn-to-sunset fast during the lunar month of Ramadan; and hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. The importance of the hajj can hardly be overestimated: this great annual pilgrimage unites Islam and its believers from around the world.

The ethos of Islam is in its attitude toward Allah: to His will Muslims submit; Him they praise and glorify; and in Him alone they hope. However, in popular or folk forms of Islam, Muslims ask intercession of the saints, prophets, and angels, while preserving the distinction between Creator and creature. Islam views the Message of Muhammad as the continuation and the fulfillment of a lineage of Prophecy that includes figures from the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, notably Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus. Islamic law reserves a communal entity status for the ahl al-kitab, People of the Book, i.e., those with revealed religions, including Jews and Christians. Islam also recognizes a number of extra-biblical prophets, such as Hud, Salih, Shuayb, and others of more obscure origin. The chief angels are Gabriel and Michael; devils are the evil jinn.

Other Islamic obligations include the duty to "commend good and reprimand evil," injunctions against usury and gambling, and prohibitions of alcohol and pork. Meat is permitted if the animal was ritually slaughtered; it is then called halal.Jihad, the exertion of efforts for the cause of God, is a duty satisfied at the communal and the individual level. At the individual level, it denotes the personal struggle to be righteous and follow the path ordained by God.

In Islam, religion and social membership are inseparable: the ruler of the community (caliph; see caliphate) has both a religious and a political status. The unitary nature of Islam, as a system governing relations between a person and God, and a person and society, helped the spread of Islam so that, within a century of the Prophet's death, Islam extended from Spain to India.

The evolution of Islamic mysticism into organizational structures in the form of Sufi orders was also, from the 13th cent. onwards, one of the driving forces in the spread of Islam (see Sufism; fakir). Sufi orders were instrumental in expanding the realm of Islam to trans-Saharan Africa, stabilizing its commercial and cultural links with the Mediterranean and the Middle East, and to SE Asia.

Holidays and Honorifics

The original feasts of Islam are id al-fitr, corresponding to the breaking of the fast of Ramadan, and id al-adha, coinciding with the pilgrimage to Mecca. Shiite Islam also celebrates id al-ghadir, the anniversary of Muhammad's declaration of Ali as his successor. Other Islamic holidays include al-mawlid al-nabawwi, Muhammad's birthday, and al-isra wa-l-miraj, the anniversary of his miraculous journey to Jerusalem and ascension to Heaven. Among the Islamic religious honorifics are shaykh, a generic term refering to a religious scholar or a mystic master; qadi, a religious judge (handling particular cases); mufti, a religious authority who issues general legal opinions; and mullah, a synonym of shaykh used in the Persian-speaking world.

Interpretation of the Qur'an

The revealed word of Islam, the Qur'an, in a formal Arabic which became more archaic with time, required explication. A complement to the Qur'an is the Sunna, the spoken and acted example of the Prophet, collected as hadith. The Sunna is almost as important to Islam as the Qur'an, for in it lie the elaborations of Qur'anic teaching essential to the firm establishment of a world religion. There are serious disagreements in the hadith, and interpretations of the Qur'an and the Sunna have varied so much as to be contradictory. These situations are resolved by reference to one of the most important of the sayings attributed to the Prophet, "My community will never agree in an error." This leeway also allowed Islam to expand by incorporating social, tribal, and ethnic traditions. For example, with the exception of inheritance and witness laws, Islamic rights and obligations apply equally to men and women. The actual situation of women is more a function of particular social traditions predating Islam than of theoretical positions. For a complete description of Islamic law, see sharia; for discussions of the major branches of Islamic theology, see Shiite, Sunni.

Bibliography

See F. Rahman, Islam (1966); M. Jameelah, Islam and Modernism (1968); P. K. Hitti, History of the Arabs (10th ed. 1970); P. M. Holt, ed., Cambridge History of Islam (2 vol., 1970); M. G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam (3 vol., 1974); C. Glassé, Concise Encyclopedia of Islam (1991); J. L. Esposito, Islam (rev. ed. 1992) and The Oxford Dictionary of Islam (2003); A. Schimmel, Islam (1992); D. Waines, An Introduction to Islam (1995); J. I. Smith, Islam in America (1999).

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11 of the Best Books and Articles on: Islamic Philosophy

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

An Introduction to Classical Islamic Philosophy » Read Now
by Oliver Leaman. 253 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Philosophy, History, Entire Library

Although Islamic philosophy represents one of the most important philosophical traditions in the world, it has only relatively recently begun to receive attention in the non-Islamic world. This is a new edition of a successful introductory book, expanded and updated to take account of recent...
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Although Islamic philosophy represents one of the most important philosophical traditions in the world, it has only relatively recently begun to receive attention in the non-Islamic world. This is a new edition of a successful introductory book, expanded and updated to take account of recent scholarship. It focuses on what is regarded as Islamic philosophy's golden age, and will appeal to students and to any general reader interested in this philosophical tradition.
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2.

Islamic Philosophy and Theology: An Extended Survey » Read Now
by W. Montgomery Watt. 184 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Philosophy, Entire Library
3.

Political Thought in Medieval Islam: An Introductory Outline » Read Now
by Erwin I. J. Rosenthal. 336 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, History, Entire Library
4.

History of Philosophy: Eastern and Western, Vol. 2 (Chap. 32 "Islamic Philosophy") » Read Now
by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Ardeshir Ruttonji Wadia, Dhirendra Mohan Datta. 464 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Philosophy, Entire Library
5.

Al-Ghazali and the Asharite School » Read Now
by R. M. Frank. 151 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library
6.

The Heart of Islamic Philosophy: The Quest for Self-Knowledge in the Teachings of Afodal Al-Din Kashani » Read Now
by William C. Chittick. 360 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Philosophy, Entire Library

This book introduces the work of an important medieval Islamic philosopher who is little known outside the Persian world. Afdal al-Din Kashani was a contemporary of a number of important Muslim thinkers, including Averroes and Ibn al-Arabi. Kashani did not write for advanced students of philosophy...
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This book introduces the work of an important medieval Islamic philosopher who is little known outside the Persian world. Afdal al-Din Kashani was a contemporary of a number of important Muslim thinkers, including Averroes and Ibn al-Arabi. Kashani did not write for advanced students of philosophy but rather for beginners. In the main body of his work, he offers especially clear and insightful expositions of various philosophical positions, making him an invaluable resource for those who would like to learn the basic principles and arguments of this philosophical tradition but do not have a strong background in philosophy. Here, Chittick uses Kashani and his work to introduce the basic issues and arguments of Islamic philosophy to modern readers.
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7.

Avicenna » Read Now
by Lenn E. Goodman. 240 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Philosophy, Entire Library
8.

Allegory and Philosophy in Avicenna (Ibn Sina): With a Translation of the Book of the Prophet Muhammad's Ascent to Heaven » Read Now
by Peter Heath. 272 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Philosophy, Entire Library
9.

The Achievements of Ibn Sina in the Field of Science and His Contributions to Its Philosophy, in Islam & Science » Read Now
by Seyyed Hossein Nasr. 10 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Philosophy, Entire Library
10.

Al-Kindi's Ethics, in The Review of Metaphysics » Read Now
by Therese-Anne Druart. 29 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Philosophy, Entire Library
11.

Fifty Eastern Thinkers (Part 2 "Islamic Philosophy") » Read Now
by Diane Collinson, Kathryn Plant, Robert Wilkinson. 426 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Philosophy, Entire Library

Close analysis of the work of fifty major thinkers in the field of Eastern philosophy make this an excellent introduction to a fascinating area of study. The authors have drawn together thinkers from all the major Eastern philosophical traditions from the earliest times to the present day. The...
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Close analysis of the work of fifty major thinkers in the field of Eastern philosophy make this an excellent introduction to a fascinating area of study. The authors have drawn together thinkers from all the major Eastern philosophical traditions from the earliest times to the present day. The philosophers covered range from founder figures such as Zoroaster and Confucius to modern thinkers such as Fung Youlan and the present Dalai Lama. Introductions to major traditions and a glossary of key philosophical terms make this a comprehensive and accessible reference resource.
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