Wisdom as the Sublime Measure: A New Epistemology of Hikma – By Mukhtar H Ali

This paper advances a new epistemology of ḥikma (wisdom) by reexamining its function as a foundational mode of knowing in the Islamic tradition. Drawing upon Qurʾānic usage, Prophetic sayings, classical philosophical definitions, and Sufi insights, the study argues that ḥikma is not merely eloquent or ethical speech, but a self-evident and sublime truth that transcends syllogistic reasoning and formal logic. As a self-authenticating criterion, ḥikma operates as a touchstone for discerning the truth of propositions across disciplines—ethics, law, theology, and metaphysics. It is shown to be the end of discursive knowledge, the beginning of inner realization, and the principle that reconciles reason and revelation. In proposing a metaphysical and existential framework of ḥikma, this study positions wisdom as both the spirit of the law and the luminous measure by which all knowledge is ultimately validated.

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The Extension of Reality: The Emergence of Mind-Independent Reality in Islamic Philosophy By Bilal Ibrahim

By Bilal Ibrahim

Avicenna’s distinction between external existence and mental existence is seminal to logic and philosophy in the Islamic tradition. This article examines philosophers who depart from Avicenna’s external-mental existence framework. They view the former as failing to support a general analysis of reality and truth, as mental existence is neither necessary nor sufficient for analyzing propositional truths, i. e., true propositions are true irrespective of “the very existence of minds” and “the perceptual acts of perceivers.” They propose that Avicenna’s semantics for categorical propositions needs revision, as there are true metathetic and hypothetical propositions, i. e., subject terms need not exist -in external reality or in a mind -for such propositions to be true. This counter-Avicennan current of thought articulates a third distinction in the analysis of reality, which focuses on the mind-independent nature of propositional contentparticularly propositions with empty, hypothetical, or impossible subject terms -as a way to think generally about reality, in contrast to the Avicennan emphasis on the existential status of terms and essences. Notably, the analysis of mind-independent reality is supported by a novel semantics of “real” (ḥaqīqī) categorical propositions, which avoids external and mental existence conditions. Résumé. La distinction d’Avicenne entre existence externe et existence mentale est fondamentale pour la logique et la philosophie de la tradition islamique. Cet article examine les philosophes qui s’écartent du cadre d’existence externe-mentale d’Avicenne. Ils considèrent que la première ne permet pas de soutenir une analyse générale de la réalité et de la vérité, car l’existence mentale n’est ni nécessaire ni suffisante pour analyser les vérités propositionnelles, c’est-à-dire que les propositions vraies sont vraies indépendamment de «l’existence même des esprits» et des «actes perceptifs des percepteurs». Ils soutiennent que les conditions de vérité d’Avicenne doivent être révisées, car il existe de vraies propositions métathétiques et hypothétiques, c’est-à-dire que les termes sujets n’ont pas besoin d’exister -dans la réalité externe ou dans un esprit -pour que de telles propositions soient vraies. Ce courant de pensée contraire à celui d’Avicenne articule une troisième distinction dans l’analyse de la réalité. Ils se concentrent sur la nature indépendante de l’esprit du contenu propositionnel -en particulier les propositions avec des termes sujets vides, hypothétiques ou impossibles -comme moyen de penser la réalité de manière générale, contrairement à l’accent mis par Avicenne sur le statut existentiel des termes et des essences. Notamment, l’analyse de la réalité indépendante de l’esprit est soutenue par une nouvelle sémantique des propositions catégoriques « réelles» (ḥaqīqī), qui évite les conditions d’existence externes et mentales d’Avicenne.

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In the End Will be Consciousness: Farghani on the Ontology of the Soul

By Rahim Acar and Hümeyra Karagözoğlu Özturan

If some historians have downplayed or sidestepped the identity of conscious- ness and being in Islamic philosophy, this may be because they have paid little attention to the literal meaning of the word wujūd, which is the standard Ara- bic term for being or existence. Dictionaries tell us that the verbal meaning of wujūd is to find, uncover, discover, and perceive, which are surely modes of con- sciousness. By settling on the word wujūd as the preferred term for being, the Muslim philosophers were recognizing that any existent thing must be found and perceived, which is to say that it must be the object of consci-ousness. In other words, they understood and often made explicit that wujūd in the sense of being cannot be separated from wujūd in the sense of consciousness.
s a graduate student in Tehran in the 1970s, I heard Seyyed Hossein Nasr say that the Vedantic triad sat-chit-ānanda can best be translated into Ara- bic and Persian as wujūd-wijdān-wajd—“being-consciousness-bliss.” This was many years before I came across Ibn ʿArabī’s statement at the beginning of Chapter 237 of the Futūḥāt, which is called “On wujūd”: “For the Tribe [qawm],” that is, the Sufi teachers, “Being is consciousness of the Real in bliss” (al-wujūd wijdān al-ḥaqq fī l-wajd). These three words—wujūd, wijdān, and wajd—are all derived from the root w-j-d. From early on in Arabic they were understood as variations on the meaning of finding, perceiving, and consciousness.

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Desire, Determination and Action in Hayākil al-Nūr: Exploring the Legacy of Suhrawardī in Mughal India (1526-1857)

This paper examines the influence of Suhrawardī’s thought on Mughal intellectual landscape through a case study of the debate on human voluntary actions in Mīr Zāhid’s (d. 1689) super-commentary on Suhrawardī’s (d. 1191) Hayākil al-nūr. Central to this analysis is the relationship between cognitions, desires, and their role in the formation of will. I argue that for Suhrawardī, and subsequently Dawānī (d. 1502), volition is nothing more than an intense desire that dominates the soul. In contrast, Mīr Zāhid differentiates between desire and volition, positing that desire targets the goal of an action (e.g., being nourished), while volition pertains to the act itself (e.g., eating). By situating Mīr Zāhid’s argument within the broader context of engagement with Suhrawardī’s works in Mughal India, this paper contends that the study of the “Ishrāqī” legacy should not be articulated and pursued in terms of full adherence to Suhrawardī’s worldview. Instead, it should focus on how intellectuals in Mughal India responded to his arguments.

Shihāb al-Dīn Yaḥyá ibn Ḥabash ibn Amīrak al-Suhrawardī1 holds a prominent place in the history of Islamic philosophy, and his innovative ideas have left an indelible mark on various facets of philosophical discourse across the Islamicate world, a fact which is underscored by the survival of more than thirty commentaries on his works from Turkey, Iran, and India.2 Within the scope of the present study, which centers on Mughal India (1526–1857), the significance of Suhrawardī’s ideas for understanding the Mughal intellectual landscape

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Attar Some Philosophical and Theological Passages from Fakhr al Din al Razi’s al Sirr al maktum By Muhammad Fariduddin Attar

 have transcribed some interesting passages in Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s work on astral magic, al-Sirr al-maktūm (The Hidden Secret) based on MS Majlis 6853, compared with some other MSS. These passages are taken from the philosophical and theological portions of the work. I also outline the Sirr’s content and method of inquiry. The transcribed passages are part of the core material of a forthcoming article on the place of al-Sirr al-maktūm in Fakhr al-Dīn’s early philosophical thought.

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“Sufism and the Anthropocosmic Self.” In I of the Heart: Texts and Studies in Honor of Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Islamic History and Civilization Series. Edited by M. Faruque, A. Khalil, and M. Rustom. Leiden: Brill, 2025, pp. 3–39.

It would not be an overstatement to say that the strand of thought now called Sufi metaphysics revolves around two interrelated doctrines, namely the oneness of being (waḥdat al-wujūd) and the perfect human (al-insān al-kāmil ). As is well-known, the expression waḥdat al-wujūd is controversial, which is composed of two words—waḥda and wujūd—both of which were important in the Islamic intellectual tradition since early days. The word “waḥda” means “unity or oneness,” and is of the same root as “tawḥīd,” which means “to affirm unity.” As for wujūd, which is from the root w-j-d, it is customary to translate it as Being, being or existence, but what is important to note is that in the Sufi context it is also understood as “to find” or “to experience.” For instance, Ibn ʿArabī (d. 638/1240) defines wujūd as “finding the Real in ecstasy” (wijdān al- ḥaqq fī l-wajd). Thus wujūd also has a mystical, first-person connotation, in addition to its regular ontological reference. In any event, waḥdat al-wujūd refers to the wujūd of the Real (al-ḥaqq), Who is self-evidently wāḥid (one), not to be denied by any Muslim. Hence there can only be one wujūd in reality. Understood thus, waḥdat al-wujūd implies that God or the Ultimate Reality is one, which is the essence of tawḥīd. But Sufi metaphysicians also discuss the complex nature of the muwaḥḥid (read “the perfect human”) or the affirmer of unity in the cosmic order. In doing so, they present a highly sophisticated analysis of the self, which is difficult to describe in simple terms. Building on the pioneering work of William Chittick, who uses the term “anthropocosmic vision” to describe the Islamic worldview, this study will explore the reality of the perfect human in terms of what it calls the “anthropocosmic self.” It will do so by principally drawing upon the School of Ibn ʿArabī and Sufi poets such as Rūmī (d. 672/1273) and Ḥāfiẓ (d. 791/1389).

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God as Absolute Existence in Ibn ʿArabī: al-Taftāzānī’s Refutations of Akbarian Metaphysics [in Persian]

Throughout Islamic intellectual history, a wide range of conceptions of God have been articulated, among which the problematic view of Ibn ʿArabī-identifying God with Absolute Existence (al-wujūd al-muṭlaq)-stands out. Numerous critiques have been leveled against this identification, but the objections of Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī are particularly notable for their originality, clarity, and lasting influence on post-classical Islamic thought. In his Sharḥ al-Maqāṣid, al-Taftāzānī formulates several arguments against Ibn ʿArabī’s conception of God, focusing on the philosophical notion of Existence. Al-Taftāzānī regards Absolute Existence as a maʿqūl thānī (secondary intelligible), a universal concept in the mind with no extra-mental reality, which is instantiated only through its particular instances in the external world. He contends that this notion of Absolute Existence cannot be identical with God (or Necessary Existence), since God is an actual entity (ḥaqīqat fī al-khārij) and not merely a mental concept. This article critically examines al-Taftāzānī’s objections, arguing that his reading is misleading and that his refutation is grounded in a conception of Absolute Existence that differs significantly from that held by Ibn ʿArabī and his followers. Having contextualized al-Taftāzānī’s objections, I have sought to reconsider and rearticulate Ibn ʿArabī’s conception of God.

Introduction

Conceptions of God remain an understudied topic in the Persian-language academic literature on Islamic philosophy. Prevailing discussions typically focus on the existence of God, rather than on the more fundamental question of what, or who, the God is whose existence is being proven. In addition to the well-known conception of God as wholly distinct from the world, Islamic intellectual history presents alternative conceptions. Among these, the view advanced by Ibn ʿArabī has proven particularly problematic and controversial. This paper explores Ibn ʿArabī’s conception of God and critically engages with Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī’s well-known refutations. The analysis is based on a close study of the primary works of both Ibn ʿArabī and al-Taftāzānī, without recourse to later interpretations or receptions of their positions. Al- Taftāzānī’s critiques of Ibn ʿArabī have become classical, forming the metaphysical foundation for much of the subsequent criticism of Akbarian thought. Prominent followers of Ibn ʿArabī— including ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī, Ḥamzah Fanārī, ʿAlī b. Aḥmad Mahāʾimī, Muḥammad b. Rasūl Barzanjī, Ibrāhīm Kūrānī, and others—considered these refutations serious enough to warrant extensive responses. This article offers a detailed study of al-Taftāzānī’s objections to Akbarian metaphysics in Persian scholarship.

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Intellectual Hijra: Thinking In and Out of the BurningHouse of the Western Academy

This essay, which is an amalgamation of two presentations given at roundtables held by the Constructive Muslim Thought Seminar at the American Academy of Religion in 2022 and 2023, attempts to describe “constructive Muslim thought” in contexts both classical and contemporary, but focuses on delineating the continuing colonial context of this academy in which we are attempting to conduct this work and the consequences thereof. I argue that contemporary constructive Muslim thought in the Euro- American Academy (and its outposts in other lands) has much to learn from the model of Black studies and argue for a model of intellectual hijra or fugitivity, in which we strive to make a home in but not of the “burning house” of our modern academy.

From one point of view, “constructive Muslim thought” is nothing new, it is as old as Islam itself, but what is new is the institutional, political, and epistemic contexts that make constructive Muslim thought emerge as such. It is this new context that has created the separation between the “constructive” and the “descriptive,” marked out the “Muslim” as other than the default, and defined the parameters of “thought.” In the Abbasid context or that of the Mali or Ottoman empires, “Constructive Muslim Thought,” in its various branches of falsafa (philosophy), adab (belles lettres), uṣūl al- fiqh (jurisprudence), history, kalām (theology), or taṣawwuf (Sufism) would simply be “thought,” or more accurately

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Philosophy of Religion in Islam: A Reader of Classical Sources

Short Biographies of the Authors of the Selected Texts

Abū Bakr al-Rāzī (Rhazes or Rhasis) (d. 313/925) was an Islamic thinker who, emulating the example of the Hellenistic physician and philosopher Galen (d. c. 216 CE), became competent first in medicine and then in philosophy to the extent that he earned the title “the Galen of the Arabs.” Like Galen, he reflected his experience in the experimental field to his views on metaphysics and natural philosophy and was therefore accused of deism (heresy). In his work al-Ṭibb al-rūḥānī (Spiritual Medicine), in which he interpreted ethics as “the treatment of the soul,” he presented an ethical thought that focused on the treatment of vices. His thoughts on the fear of death and grief in this work contain the manifestations of his Epicurean understanding of pleasure, and in this respect, it represents a different approach to the issue of death among the schools of Islamic thought.

Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī (d. 322/933–4) is one of the leading figures who systematized the theological views of the Ismāʿīlī branch of Shīʿism. He made great efforts to spread the Ismāʿīlī cause, especially through his activities in the region of Ray. In his work Aʿlām al-nubuwwa (Te Sings of Prophethood), he aimed to show the necessity of prophethood and the inadequacy of reason in obtaining the truth against the philosopher Abū Bakr al-Rāzī (d. 313/925).

Al-Ālūsī (d. 1270/1854) is an exegete known for his exegesis Rūḥ al-maʿānī (Te Spirit of Meanings). Although Rūḥ al-maʿānī is often perceived as one of the important texts of allusive (ishārī) exegesis, al-Ālūsī’s main contribution to the science of interpretation of the Qurʾān with this exegesis is his powerful summarization of the commentary-super commentary (sharḥ-ḥāshiya) literature. The issues that we encounter in approximately 80 super commentaries on al-Kashshāf (The Revealer) and 400 super commentaries on Anwār al-tanzīl (The Lights of Revelation), the majority of which were written during the Ottoman period, were largely revised by al-Ālūsī on the axis of rhetoric and subjected to a critical evaluation in accordance with his critical approach (taḥqīq).

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An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia, Volume 5: From the School of Shiraz to the Twentieth Century edited by S. H. Nasr and M. Aminrazavi

The volume under consideration is presented as the final element of the monumental series An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia, which started in 1999 with From Zoroaster to ʿUmar Khayyām (Vol. I, Oxford University Press; republished in 2007 by I. B. Tauris), and continued with Ismaili Thought in the Classical Age (Vol. 2, Oxford University Press, 2001; Suheyl Academy, 2005; I. B. Tauris and The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2008), Philosophical Theology in the Middle Ages and Beyond (Vol. 3, I. B. Tauris and The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2010), and From the School of Illumination to Philosophical Mysticism (Vol. 4, I. B. Tauris and The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2013). With the almost 600 pages of the present volume, a quarter of century of groundbreaking research and painstaking organizational efforts by the general editor, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, and his co-editor, Mehdi Aminrazavi, has come happily to an end. In bringing to completion this volume – and, with it, the colossal enterprise which it concludes – the two main editors have been assisted by a vast and qualified group of scholars, mainly but not exclusively Iranian, whose name are recorded in the List of Contributors (pp. xvii-xx) and who have mostly penned the English translations of the chosen texts.

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Reason and Revelation in Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and the Ashʿarī Tradition

What is the relation of reason to revelation? How do rational truths relate to truths in scripture? Does the Quran assert theological truths (“God exists”) in the same manner as it prescribes legal commands (“wine is forbidden”)? How do the texts of the Quran and Sunna convey such truths? This article reconsiders the status of reason and revelation in the Ashʿarī-Sunnī tradition, the prevailing school of theology in the premodern Islamicate world.1 The analysis focuses on what I term the “Ashʿarī theory of evidence” (dalīl) and its underlying epistemology, which, I argue, provides the operative definitions of reason and revelation for an influen- tial line of thinkers, from Bāqillānī (d. 1013) to Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 1210). Rāzī provides a systematic account of the Ashʿarī approach in two influential prin- ciples defining the relation of reason to revelation (labeled P1 and P2 below).2 Put concisely, Rāzī asserts that (P1) “scriptural texts do not impart certitude whatsoever”

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Islam and the Contemporary World: Interview with Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr

In 2009, I had the honour to interview Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr, who is a Professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University, Washington, DC, as part of the ‘Muslim Heritage Interview Series’. During the interview, Nasr touched on various topics related to Islam and modernity, Sufism, spirituality, consumerism and the environment. Thirteen years had elapsed since that interview and, with so many changes having taken place across the world in this intervening period, I was keen to speak to him again on some of the core themes we discussed then and to see how things have evolved in those areas over the years. The interview with Nasr covers some rare gems and insights from his illustrious career along with the following themes -Islamic Environmentalism, Trust, Resaclarization of the Sacred Tradition, Inspirational Scholars, The Concept of al-insān al-kāmil, Impact of Covid-19, Extremist Narratives, Globalization, Saudi 2030 Vision, Iran, Social and Geo-Political Trends, Traditionalism and Modernity. I conducted the interview with Nasr at George Washington University in December 2022. I do hope that the readers find the interview both enlightening and beneficial.

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