ebook img

The Biographical Encyclopedia of Islamic Philosophy PDF

561 Pages·2015·2.83 MB·English
Save to my drive
Quick download
Download
Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.

Preview The Biographical Encyclopedia of Islamic Philosophy

i The Biographical Encyclopedia of Islamic Philosophy Also available from Bloomsbury Biographical Encyclopedia of British Idealism, edited by William Sweet Dictionary of Early American Philosophers, edited by John R. Shook Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century German Philosophers, edited by Heiner F. Klemme and Manfred Kuehn Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers, edited by John R. Shook Dictionary of Seventeenth-Century British Philosophers, edited by John W. Yolton, John Valdimir Price and John Stephens Dictionary of Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Dutch Philosophers, edited by Wiep van Bunge, Henri Krop, Bart Leeuwenburgh, Han van Ruler, Paul Schuurman, and Michiel Wielema Dictionary of Seventeenth-Century French Philosophers, edited by Luc Foisneau Encyclopedia of the American Enlightenment, edited by Mark G. Spencer The Bloomsbury Companion to Islamic Studies, edited by Clinton Bennett The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Utilitarianism, edited by James E. Crimmins The Qur’an: A Philosophical Guide, Oliver Leaman THE BIOGRAPHICAL EnCYCLOPEdIA OF ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY EdITEd BY Oliver Leaman Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc LONDON • NEW DELHI • NEW YORK • SYDNEY Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London new York WC1B 3dP nY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First Published in Paperback 2015 First published 2006 © Oliver Leaman and Contributors 2006, 2015 Oliver Leaman has asserted his right under the Copyright, designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editor of this work. All rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. no responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBn: PB: 978-1-4725-6944-8 ePdF: 978-1-4725-6945-5 ePub: 978-1-4725-6946-2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Typeset by deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India COnTEnTS Preface to the Paperback Edition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .vii Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .ix Islamic History Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xvii How to Use The Encyclopedia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xxiii General Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xxv List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xxxvii List of Biographical Entries and Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xli Entries A–Z . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503 v vi PREFACE TO THE PAPERBACK EdITIOn I was pleased when the publishers approached me about a paperback edition for this volume, since the first edition was well received but also very expensive, and so only limited to librar- ies and research institutes. now the book is available at a much more bearable price and so accessible more generally. The various authors have sought to bring out in their work the lives and works of the major thinkers in the Islamic philosophical world, broadly interpreted, and the paperback edition has presented me with the opportunity to add a new entry on Muhammad Arkoun, who alas has died in the interim and who could not have been dealt with in the first edition, since I decided not to include living thinkers. This is very much a book about books, the emphasis throughout is providing the reader with bibliographical resources to explore the topic more deeply. It has been possible to cor- rect some errors that existed in the first edition, but I am sure others exist, hopefully not too egregious ones. The contributors have also often moved on to other positions and this has been noted in the list of contributors where it has been possible to contact them and receive a reply. Oliver Leaman Lexington May 2014 vii viii IntRODUCtIOn It is the aim of this volume to include entries on Islamic philosophers and to constitute a comprehensive list of all those who could be given that description. Philosophy flourished in the Islamic world for many centuries, and continues to be a significant feature of cultural life today. The compilation of biographical dictionaries has long been a tradition within Islamic culture, and it would be helpful to have a modern version of such dictionaries. We are only including thinkers who are no longer alive. The issue of the definition of Islamic philosophy has been controversial, and it probably should be classified as an essentially contested concept. There is nothing specifically Islamic about this issue, it occurs in all systems of philosophy which are classified under the label of a particular religion. Religion is a matter of faith and often seems to be opposed to philosophy, which is a system of ideas built on a foundation of reason. Yet much of the work which goes on under the label of Islamic philosophy has nothing to do with religion at all, or at least makes no direct link with religion. One thinks in particular of logic here, and the other more technical aspects of philosophy. Then there is the fact that philosophy itself as a technical term had a range of meanings within the Islamic world. It is sometimes translated as falsafa, itself a neologism stemming from the Greek, where this term referred largely to philosophy within the Peripatetic tradition. Sometimes philosophy is translated as hikma, or more gener- ally wisdom, and that is the sense in which we are going to take it here, since this will include all kinds of theoretical enquiry which were in their time regarded as philosophy or philo- sophical. It was not only those who were formally philosophers who discussed philosophy, and scientists, theologians, jurisprudents, and physicians all made important contributions to the topic. Of course the idea of philosophy as a technical profession is quite modern and Socrates would himself have been horrified at the prospect of philosophers being paid for their ser- vices. He argued that the philosopher should be able to earn his living doing something else, thus leaving him free to say what he likes when doing philosophy. Most of the Islamic phi- losophers earned their livings doing a variety of occupations, and philosophy itself was often a sideline or minor interest in a far more extensive career as something else. nonetheless, the resulting work is often of major significance, and it will be represented here. So we are taking a wide notion of philosophy here, and we are regarding it as any intel- lectual enquiry which directly or indirectly raises issues of primary philosophical significance. So we shall include some of the major thinkers within the Islamic sciences, those who wrote on grammar, theology, law, and the Traditions of the Prophet, since these areas of work clearly came to form part of the context of the philosophical curriculum of the time. This is not to say that they were all philosophers or regarded themselves as philosophers, but their ideas and arguments became part and parcel of what philosophers worked on. On the other ix

Description:
represented the height of Peripatetic thought in al-Andalus, the Islamic empire in the Iberian. Peninsula. Ibn Rushd .. all of their own, since the aim was to ensure that the reports that were being relied on were indeed reliably linked ters, including Karbala and the tomb of the. Shi'ite Imam Rid
See more

The list of books you might like

Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.