Voices of Islam (237 page)

Philosophy [without spiritual exercises] becomes sheer mental acrobatics and reason cut off from both intellect and revelation, nothing but a luciferan instrument leading to dispersion and ultimately dissolution. It must never be forgotten that according to the teachings of
sophia perennis
itself, the discovery of the Truth is essentially the discovery of one’s self and ultimately of the Self
...
and that is the role of philosophy.
30

Islam, in Nasr’s view, is an expression of perennial wisdom as it is essentially an association of theory and practice, truth and spiritual exercises, and
haqiqa
(truth) and
tariqa
(the way). So, according to Nasr, philosophy in the Islamic tradition becomes Islamic when it overcomes the Peripatetic pressures toward pure theory and recognizes the inseparability of truth and spiritual exercises. Nasr then connects Avicenna’s Eastern philosophy (
al-hikma al- mashriqiyya
) to the tradition inaugurated by Shihab al-Din al-Suhrawardi’s (d. 1191
CE
)
hikmat al-ishraq
(Philosophy of Illumination). In the latter, the cooperation between reason and spiritual practice is central and remains so in the later Islamic philosophical tradition mainly because of Suhrawardi’s influence.

Although I agree with Nasr that certain Islamic philosophical traditions (including Suhrawardi’s Illuminationism) were based on a rejection of aspects of Peripateticism, it is not correct to claim that the Peripatetics divorced theory from practice.
31
It is likely, as I mentioned earlier, that Aristotle’s emphasis on thought thinking itself as the highest activity occasions such a reading of his work and that of his successors. A good dose of Aristotelian ethics, however, can help overcome this reading, as it becomes

30
Voices of Change

apparent that for Aristotle—and the successors who took his texts seriously— the cultivation of the soul and its excellence is presupposed for the life of contemplation. In other words, it is not clear that Nasr appreciates Aristotle’s virtue ethics and its centrality in the latter’s philosophical heritage.
32
Once we allow Hadot’s thesis that all schools of ancient philosophy are focused on the practice of spiritual exercises and that philosophical discourse is only ancillary, then Nasr’s assumption that Islamic philosophy becomes Islamic only in establishing a necessary connection between asceticism and theory becomes suspect. My contention is that we have to be more precise and identify the particular
way
in which Islamic philosophers established the assumed connection between theory and spiritual exercises. In what follows, I argue that this connection is established by Islamic prophetology, and that the Islamic Peripatetics were the early proponents of this prophetology.
33

I submit that it is the prophetology advanced by Muslim philosophers that makes Islamic philosophy Islamic. By prophetology, I mean the philosophical inquiry into what constitutes a prophet as the paradigmatic wise person and man of God. Of course, Islamic prophetology is ‘‘philosophical’’ because it establishes relevant spiritual exercises for the transformation of the soul of the philosopher. However, Islamic philosophical prophetology,
pace
Nasr, is not restricted to the Shi‘a (whether Imami or Ismaili), Eastern (Oriental), Sufi, or the Illuminationist traditions; it is also present in the work of Alfarabi and the Peripatetic writings of Avicenna. Moreover, this Peripatetic prophetology is not just a theory. It has an ethical import (drawn from Aristotle’s work) that is essential to my point that Islamic prophetic philosophy (including the work of Muslim Peripatetics) is an
Islamization
of philosophy as the practice of spiritual exercises.

In
De Anima,
Aristotle puts forward the notion of a transcendent Active Intellect. He maintains that ‘‘mind, as we have described it, is what it is by virtue of becoming all things, while there is another which is what it is by virtue of making all things: this is the sort of positive state like light; for in a sense light makes potential colours into actual colours.’’
34
The Active Intellect or the productive mind (
nous poietikos
) is explained through the

contrast with the mind as passive (
pathetikos
), the conforming mind.
35
One

comes to the vicinity of the Active Intellect when the ordinary intellect— the conforming mind—is freed of interests and illusions veiling reality; this freedom comes through the acquisition of virtue through spiritual exercises.
36
Virtuous people do not impose contingent meanings upon the objects of cognition but experience them as they are necessarily in them- selves. So the conforming intellect in the attempt to approach the Active Intellect allows the potential intelligibles to become actualized. In a way, the Active Intellect produces things, as it shines like light on potential intelli- gibles and illuminates them. This notion of a separate Active Intellect

Is ‘‘Islamic’’ Philosophy Islamic?
31

becomes an important aspect of the psychology of the Peripatetic predeces- sors of Islamic philosophy.
37

Islamic Peripatetics supplement the account of the transcendent Active Intellect given by Aristotle and his Hellenic followers by embracing the Platonic view that what makes things intelligible, their forms, have a separate existence. Aristotle rejected Plato’s account of the existence of intelligible objects outside of the domain of the sensible objects of human experience, as well as Plato’s claim that knowledge is precisely the intellectual perception of transcendent objects. He maintained that forms do not exist independ- ently of sensible objects, but they can be separated from them in thought.
38
Mehdi Ha’eri Yazdi, in his insightful
The Principle of Epistemology in Islamic Philosophy,
claims that Islamic philosophers believe in the harmony between the views of Plato and Aristotle and, as a result, they argue ‘‘that the mind is constituted by its nature to function in different ways at the same time; being perceptive of intelligible substances on the one hand, and speculative about sensible objects on the other.’’
39
In other words, the Active Intellect is, for Islamic Peripatetics, not just a paradigm of clear thinking; it is also the Divine Being that infuses the sensible world with intelligibility; it is the giver of forms (
wahib al-suwar, dator formarum
) in the manner of Plato’s Demiurge in the
Timaeus
.
40
Therefore, intimacy with the Active Intellect not only means that one possesses a clear perception of sensible objects, but it also implies that one receives forms directly from the source rather than through the sensible intermediaries.

It is not too far-fetched to relate this synthetic (Aristotelian/Platonic) account of intimacy with the Active Intellect to the Islamic notion of prophetic inspiration. A central feature of the Islamic proclamation of faith is the belief in the prophecy of Muhammad. The Prophet Muhammad is a prophet because he was inspired by the Angel of Revelation, Gabriel, who made him recite the Qur’an in an interval of 23 years. These recitals contain the divine wisdom (
haqiqa
), the divine path (
tariqa
) to reach that wisdom, and the elements of the law (
Shari‘a
) for the community of Muslims, literally those who submit to the will of God and His wisdom. Alfarabi’s works re- present one of the earliest attempts to connect the Islamic notion of proph- ecy to the Peripatetic account of the perfect man as the intimate of the Active Intellect. In
al-Siyasa al-Madaniyya
(The Political State), Alfarabi identifi s the Active Intellect (
al-‘aql al-fa‘al
) with Islam’s Angel of Revelation.
41
Walzer, in his commentary on
al-Madina al-Fadila
(On the Perfect State), writes: ‘‘To know the true meaning of the Active Intellect is

...
essential, according to al-Farabi, to an adequate understanding of one of the most fundamental Muslim articles of faith, the transmission of eternal truth to mankind through a man of overwhelming mental power—a philosopher-prophet-lawgiver.’’
42

Alfarabi’s philosopher is one who has set his soul in order and has subjected his thinking to a rigorous examination of ideas (aided by the light

32
Voices of Change

of the Active Intellect). In a treatise titled
The Attainment of Happiness,

Alfarabi distinguishes between true philosophy and its counterfeit. He writes:

As for mutilated philosophy: the counterfeit philosopher, the vain philosopher, or the false philosopher is the one who sets out to study the theoretical sciences without being prepared for them. For he who sets out to inquire ought to be innately equipped for the theoretical sciences—that is, fulfi the conditions prescribed by Plato in the
Republic:
he should excel in comprehending and conceiving that which is essential.. .He should by natural disposition disdain the appetites, the dinar, and like. He should be high-minded and avoid what is disgraceful in people. He should be pious, yield easily to goodness and justice, and be stubborn in yielding to evil and injustice. And he should be strongly determined in favor of the right thing.
43

The cultivation and perfection of character, in a manner continuous with the ancient account of philosophy as the practice of spiritual exercises, constitutes the centerpiece of Alfarabi’s notion of true philosophy. For him, the acquisi- tion of justice, the perfection and balance of the soul, paves the way for the intellectual labors of theoretical inquiry. Such a preparation allows the individual to resist extraneous goals and distractions and attend to the problems of thought and action. Theoretical wisdom gets its start from this condition of the soul.

The just person upon engaging in contemplation comes nearer in status to the Active Intellect, the Angel of Revelation. If this nearness is accompanied by a perfected imagination, then the philosopher is also a prophet, a person whose perfected imagination is active and who receives forms from the Active Intellect, the giver of forms, and from the senses. The modifi tion of the imagination by the revelations of the active intellect allows for ‘‘prophecy of present and future events and ... prophecy of things divine.’’
44
This divine creativity has been acquired by transcending the limits of the human intellect, which is merely passive in relation to sensory objects. Furthermore, we should not overlook Alfarabi’s insistence that the philosopher-prophet is

also a lawgiver, a skillful orator, and knows how to guide people toward the achievement of happiness.
45
The Prophet of Islam, in Alfarabi’s account, would be one such person, that is, a philosopher–prophet–lawgiver, and the final one.

Avicenna adopts Alfarabi’s strategy of identifying the Active Intellect with Gabriel, the Angel of Revelation. However, he modifies some of the details of Alfarabi’s account of prophecy. For Avicenna’s philosopher, the acquisi- tion of a just and balanced soul must precede theoretical knowledge and the subsequent possibility of conjunction with and enlightenment by the Active Intellect. In the
Metaphysics of the
Healing (
al-Shifa
), Avicenna sets forth the conditions for the cultivation of the Peripatetic ideal of contemplative intimacy with the Active Intellect. He distinguishes between the rational,

Is ‘‘Islamic’’ Philosophy Islamic?
33

the irascible, and the appetitive parts of the soul and argues that justice, the balance of the various parts of the soul and the sum of their excellence, is the first step toward the achievement of personal perfection.

Since the Motivating Powers are three—the appetitive, the irascible, and the practical—the virtues consist of three things: (a) moderation in
.. .
the appe- tites
.. .
(b) moderation in all the irascible passions
...
(c) moderation in practical matters. At the head of these virtues stand temperance, courage, and practical wisdom; their sum is justice, which, however, is extraneous to theoretical virtue. But whoever combines theoretical wisdom with justice, is indeed a happy man.
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For Avicenna, the acquisition of justice, the excellence and balance of the soul, paves the way for the intellectual labors of theoretical inquiry. Such a preparation allows the individual to resist extraneous goals and distractions and attend to theoretical problems. Theoretical wisdom should get its start from this condition of the soul and its addition to justice culminates in happi- ness (
sa‘ada
). However, beyond the happiness in the coupling of justice and theoretical contemplation is that including the quality of prophecy, which is attained through conjunction with the Active Intellect.
47
The benefits of this conjunction include the acquisition of fi principles as well as visions brought about in the perfected imagination.

Avicenna also goes on to distinguish between the prophetic insights of the philosophers and those of the prophets. Prophets—God’s chosen Messengers—do not require the mediation of practical and theoretical perfection (as necessary in the case of the philosopher). Prophets receive this immediately from the Active Intellect: ‘‘That which becomes completely actual does so without mediation or through mediation, and the first is better. This is the one called prophet and in him degrees of excellence in the realm of material forms culminate.’’
48
The prophet is God’s deputy on earth and benefits from unmediated perfection, happiness, and illumination. Parviz Morewedge, in ‘‘The Logic of Emanationism and Sufi in the

Philosophy of Ibn Sina (Avicenna),’’ argues that Avicenna’s view of the relation between persons and God differs from that of the connectionists, including Aristotle and Alfarabi. The latter hold that a person can, at best, achieve a connection with God by engaging in the ‘‘divine-like’’ activity of contemplation.
49
Avicenna, however, espouses a different mystical position, according to which the soul, after the death of the body,
unites
with God.
50
Avicenna, as I understand, maintains the Aristotelian connectionist notion in order to account for the insights of philosophers and the revelations of prophets. The union of the person and God, if Morewedge is right, is a postmortem event. It does not confl with the idea of connection or conjunction (
ittisal
) with the Active Intellect as denoting the experiences of
living
persons. Of course, this is not to deny that the connectionist views (Avicenna’s included) do not differ in their details.