Mohammedan Culture and Philosophy

The History of Western Philosophy
Bertrand Russell

Chapter X: Mohammedan Culture and Philosophy

The Hegira took place in 622. Syria was invaded and conquered by 636. By 650 Persia was conquered. India was invaded in 664. Egypt was conquered in 642. Carthage in 697. Spain was conquered by 712. But at the battle of Tours in 732 the Western expansion of Islam (outside of Sicily and Italy) was halted.

Islam began as a simple monotheism, a revival against graven images and a duty-bound ideal to conquer the world.

The various sects of Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians living under the conquest of the Arabs were free to practice their religion if they paid a fee. "The populations, moreover, in order to escape the tribute, very largely abandoned Christianity for Islam" (Russell, 421).

The Arabs were primarily concerned with conquest and plunder. Because wealth was their primary concern and not religion, they were able to rule a large territory of people that didn't share the same religion as their rulers. "The Persians, on the contrary, have been, from the earliest times, deeply religious and highly speculative. After their conversion, they made out of Islam something much more interesting, more religious, and more philosophical, than had been imagined by the Prophet and his kinsmen" (Russell, 421).

The Sunni and Shiah split right after the death of the Prophet. The Persians, who became Shiah, helped overthrow the first Islamic rulers, the Umayyad dynasty in the middle of the 8th century.

The Abbasids who replaced the Umayyads were much more fanatical in their adherence to doctrine.

Trade was essential in the Islamic world and the trader was venerated because Mohammed had been a trader.

"The distinctive culture of the Muslim world, though it began in Syria, soon came to flourish most
in the Eastern and Western extremities, Persia and Spain" (Russell, 423).

Kindi was the first to write philosophy in Arabic. The Persians were heavily influenced by India. Firdousi, (Ferdowsi) the author of Shahnama comes from this tradition and is regarded as to be the equal of Homer.

Avicenna (Ibn Sina) was born in Bukhara (Modern Uzbekistan) in 980 and lived until 1037. His philosophy is more Aristotelian and less Neoplatonic than his Muslim predecesssors.

Averroes (Ibn Rushd) was born in Cordova and lived from 1126-1198. Averroes was often seen as a heretic and after the Reconquista Islamic philosophy stopped being speculative. In Spain because of the Christian encroachment and in the rest of the Islamic world because a rigid orthodoxy became the norm.

"Averroes, like most of the later Mohammedan philosophers, though a believer, was not rigidly
orthodox. There was a sect of completely orthodox theologians, who objected to all philosophy as
deleterious to the faith. One of these, named Algazel, wrote a book called Destruction of the
Philosophers, pointing out that, since all necessary truth is in the Koran, there is no need of
speculation independent of revelation. Averroes replied by a book called Destruction of the
Destruction. The religious dogmas that Algazel specially upheld against the philosophers were the
creation of the world in time out of nothing, the reality of the divine attributes, and the
resurrection of the body. Averroes regards religion as containing philosophic truth in allegorical
form." (Russell, 426).

Maimonides, the important Spanish Jewish philosopher spent most of his life in Cairo. He reconciled Aristotle with Jewish theology and believed that "philosophy and revelation come together in the knowledge of God. The pursuit of truth is a religious duty" (Russell, 427).

The Jews considered Maimonides to be a heretic and even enlisted the Christian ecclesiastical apparatus to persecute him.