This paper will examine the similarities and differences between Thomas Aquinas’ concept of the common good with a similar concept in Islamic law, namely: public welfare. The concept of public welfare was always been part of Islamic jurisprudential thought however it was developed and thoroughly researched by al-Shatibi. The fact that Thomas Aquinas was influenced by Maimonides ideas and also that Maimonides might have influenced al-Shatibi, could explain the resemblance between Thomas Aquinas’ “common good” and al-Shatibi’s “public welfare”. The ideological and theoretical connection thus has many implications because it sheds light on historically shared democratic values in the Western and the Muslim world.

The philosopher Shihab al-Din al-Suhrawardi (d. ca. 1191) is now best known for his brilliant allegories, mostly in Persian, and for a major Neoplatonic work expounding a metaphysics of light, The Philosophy of Illumination (PI), thus giving his school its name, “Illuminationism.” In the introduction to this last work he explains that it represents a break with his other philosophical works, which he describes as “Peripatetic,” because it uses a new method based on mystical intuition. It is, in fact, a characteristically Neoplatonic work, and Suhrawardi takes pain to situate himself in the Platonic tradition. He explains that his four mature Peripatetic works are a propaedeutic and sufficient for those who do not have the spiritual gifts to pursue the Illuminationist philosophy of mystical intuition. The tendency among modern scholars has been to focus on his allegories, for their literary qualities and supposed mystical depth, and on PI, because it presumably contains his real views. Nevertheless, the Peripatetic works should not be ignored; they contain the vast bulk of his philosophical writing, were in some cases written simultaneously with or even after PI, and were widely read and commented on by later Muslim philosophers. Moreover, PI was mostly commonly read through commentaries written in a Peripatetic style and drawing on the Peripatetic works. I will discuss the philosophical relations between PI and the Peripatetic works, concentrating on his most widely read Peripatetic work, The Intimations of Tablet and Throne and his collection of glosses on it, The Points at Issue, as well as the first commentary on The Intimations. PI contains a specific set of criticisms of Ibn Sina, including such doctrines as the nature of existence, the Platonic Forms, matter theory, and various technical points of logic. I will look at the extent to which these Illuminationist doctrines are discussed in his Peripatetic works, are tacitly passed over, or are contradicted. There are also points of tension among the Peripatetic works, with The Points at Issue, for example, correcting The Intimations. These works also give an indication of how we are to understand PI itself. It is clearly not meant to simply supplant the Peripatetic works, which therefore can shed light on the interpretation of its more ecstatic language. It will also give some indication of the real influence of Suhrawardi’s doctrines on later Islamic philosophy.

This paper explores the notion of intellect in the work of Abu al-‘Abbas al-Lawkari (d. after 503/1109), a second-generation disciple of Avicenna. The paper evaluates the contribution that Lawkari may have made to Avicennan psychological discussions in his Asrar-i al-Hikmat, an abridged pedagogical compendium that contains only important theses of the dominant philosophical tradition of the time in the Islamic East, and his Bayan al-Haqq, useful for a comparative study of his Arabic and Persian works that proves useful to corroborate data found in his Asrar-i al-Hikmat and help pass judgment on Lawkari’s contribution to Avicennan epistemology. The De anima of the Asrar-i al-Hikmat includes, for example, discussions on the rational soul as substance, the contingency of its existence, its individuality and relation to the body (mixture/temperament), and the relation of actives intelligences to the human rational soul. The paper focuses specifically on possible doctrinal innovations in his theory of the soul and theory of the intellect. The study shows how Lawkari believed that the intellective knowledge of posthumous souls was an important and neglected element on which he elaborated, that intellective knowledge that the soul possesses once separated from the body (at death) can only be universal and is at the heart of the human soul’s felicity, and that the role of intellectual intuition is of paramount importance, in light of the centrality of the intellective nature of human souls. In fact, Lawkari mentions intellectual intuition – the apex of the human intellect’s actualization in Avicenna’s epistemology – on numerous occasions and in different contexts. He discusses its role in the process of conjunction of human souls with the active intellect, the process at the heart of divine inspirations that prophets, eminent philosophers, friends of God, and saints are able to receive. He mentions its importance for the acquisition of both theoretical and practical knowledge, as well as ethical knowledge. All these elements allude to a resolutely intellectualist perspective, including in the eschatological realm, as acquisition of intellectual knowledge is crucial for the soul’s salvation in the afterlife.

Human works, like human beings, result from two factors: the influence of environment and the response of individuality. A balanced appreciation of both is key to understand cultural manifestations. An emblematic case is Ibn Rushd’s ‘rationalism’: the view that reason and critical thinking should define true religion (al-d?n al-qayyim). Ibn Rushd (d. 1198) advocated this view under the influence and patronage of the Almohad regime. His contribution is nonetheless intellectually independent as it serves Ibn Rushd’s own project. 1. Relevance: The investigation of Rushdian thought is highly significant. For one thing, it contributes a Maghrib?/Andalus? perspective to the debate over environment’s orienting intellectual endeavour. For another, it highlights the historical foundations of contemporary ‘Rushdiyya’ and Islamic reformism (Nah?a). Finally, it casts new light on Ibn Rushd viewed not merely as a scholar of Aristotle but as an all-round intellectual in Muslim Spain. 2. Thesis: Ibn Rushd’s thought is essentially rooted in the Almohad creed as defined by Ibn T?mart. For Ibn T?mart true faith revolves around intellectual endeavour (al-?ilm wa-l-?alab); for Ibn Rushd, similarly, faith results from the use of demonstrative reason (min qibal al-burh?n). At the same time, while serving the Almohad regime, Ibn Rushd creatively adapts Almohadism for his own project: founding society on philosophy. To this aim (i) he discards the authority of al-Ghaz?l? advocated by the Almohads (Ibn al-Qa???n 1990; al-Marr?kush? 1968; Ibn ?uml?s 2000); unlike early Almohadism, (ii) he invokes political power for 'fal?sifa' as a class separate and protected from the general public. 3. Structure: My paper consists of two parts. First I will analyse Ibn Rushd’s position relative to Almohadism. Subsequently I will identify its germ in the work of Ibn ?ufayl (d. 1185). Ibn ?ufayl represents an initial, hybrid stage of philosophers’ response to Almohadism. He gives literary flesh to “the official theology of the Almohad movement” (Montgomery Watt 1964). But against Almohadism he anticipates claim (ii) of Ibn Rushd -- though still rejecting claim (i). 4. Methodology: My inquiry relies on a comparative study, textual and doctrinal, of Arabic sources: Ibn T?mart’s ?Aq?da and his Murshidas; Ibn ?ufayl’s ?ayy b. Yaq??n; Ibn Rushd’s ?am?ma, Fa?l al-maq?l, Kashf man?hi? al-adilla, Tah?fut al-Tah?fut. It results in a balanced assessment of current scholarship, polarized between the opposite views of Ernest Renan (1852) and Dominique Urvoy (1990; 1998; 2005).

This paper explores how a Transoxanian Muslim scholar of the 6th century AH/12th century CE, Najm al-Din 'Umar al-Nasafi, constructed an Islamic theory of knowledge which gave theoretical grounding to the validity of the Qur'an as the word of God and statements from and about the Prophet Muhammad (the hadith). This epistemology is exemplified by the development of the theory of akhbar - or testimony - and in particular, the concept tawatur, or recurrent transmission. Combining evidence from al-Nasafi's well-known treatise of Islamic theology, al-Aqa'id al-Nasafiyya, with new material from his unstudied work of Islamic legal theory, Tahsil Usul al-Fiqh, I argue that the theory of akhbar articulated between these two works and two disciplines not only demonstrates the shared epistemology of these fields, but also reflects communitarian rather than individualistic epistemic commitments, highlighting the consequences of positing epistemology as a communal boundary. Tawatur is a concept which describes the transmission of a report by a sufficient number of agents over time and space so as to preclude error or agreement on a lie, and guarantees knowledge for the recipient of the report. Considering the relative dearth in scholarship on Islamic approaches to sources of knowledge such as testimony/tawatur, and the importance of introducing an unstudied work of Islamic legal theory by one of the most celebrated intellectuals of the Hanafi legal school, my paper aims to expand on a method for better understanding Islamic approaches to epistemology, while providing some sense of what the Tahsil brings to the field. As Martin Kusch has proposed in his theory of communitarian epistemology, communities generate knowledge through testimony, which is itself a social agreement that contributes to the constitution of social institutions. I have found a similar approach to testimony in the work of al-Nasafi, in that the knowledge arrived at by akhbar is generated, and through wide distribution and constant performance (that is, transmission), maintains certain social institutions such as the Qur'an and the hadith. This paper demonstrates that in al-Nasafi's theory, multiple, intersecting communities can participate in the maintenance of these social institutions through testimony, and that this multiplicity posed a significant challenge for Muslim scholars: that is, a general claim that the agreement of communities on a belief (through testimony) is dispositive would allow for the acceptance of otherwise false beliefs in Islamic epistemology.