During the Middle Ages, the Muslim world helped to keep Greek philosophy alive. In the wake of the Roman Empire’s fall in the fifth century, the West was rapidly forgetting Greek learning. In particular, the works of Aristotle were temporarily lost in the West. But in the Middle East, they were kept alive in Arabic translation, long before the West would rediscover their original Greek during the Renaissance.
The Early Middle Ages are today remembered in the West as the “Dark Ages.” But they are remembered in the Middle East as the “Islamic Golden Age.” During this time, there were several Muslim interpreters of Aristotle. One of them was Avicenna, who is the main subject of this audiobook. But there are others that this audiobook comments on, before it concludes after its three hours of runtime. Among these Muslim interpreters was Al-Farabi, one of the greatest influences on Avicenna himself. Al-Farabi was among those who helped to preserve Aristotle’s works in Arabic translation. Avicenna himself would later identify Aristotle as the “First Teacher,” and Al-Farabi as the “Second Teacher.” Others in the Islamic world have since followed his lead in this regard.
Al-Farabi
This audiobook spends the greatest part of its time on Avicenna himself. Indeed, this is what you would expect in an audiobook calling itself “Avicenna and Medieval Muslim Philosophy.” But “Medieval Muslim Philosophy” is a much broader topic than just Avicenna, or any other Muslim philosopher. Thus, they also spend some time on a few other Muslim philosophers that came after him. Specifically, they talk about Al-Ghazali, one of Avicenna’s greatest critics amongst his fellow Muslims. They talk about Averroes, who defended Avicenna against some of the attacks by Al-Ghazali – although Averroes also disagreed with Avicenna on some other issues.
Portrait of Avicenna on an Iranian postage stamp
Thus, Islamic philosophy and Western philosophy have at least one thing in common, which is the bitter disagreement among themselves on certain issues. But that’s not the only thing that these two traditions have in common. They both explored the relationship between faith and reason. Specifically, they debated the relative importance of each in their respective belief systems. Today, Muslims use the word “philosophy” to describe those studies based on reason, and use the word “theology” to describe those studies based on faith – or rather, they use the local equivalents of these words in their own languages. They don’t always agree about which of these is the most important, but most of them would agree that there is a place for each of these things in their belief system. Most of them also share some common beliefs about the nature of God – or “Allah,” as He is known to Muslims. These are the kinds of issues debated by the four primary figures of this audiobook – who (again) are Al-Farabi, Avicenna, Al-Ghazali, and Averroes.
Statue of Averroes
One of the points made by this audiobook is that Islamic philosophy would continue long after the “Islamic Golden Age” had passed. After the Middle Ages, Islamic philosophy no longer enjoyed much influence in the West, which may explain why later Islamic philosophy is so unknown in the West today. Nonetheless, the philosophical endeavor continues strongly there, as people continue to debate the same kinds of issues that stimulated the early Muslim philosophers. Many of these debates also played out in the Western world at that time, and continue to be important there today. Westerners, too, struggle with the relationship between faith and reason – and have opinions all over the map about which one is the most important.
Averroes in a 14th-century painting by Andrea di Bonaiuto
I do not pretend to be settling these controversies today. But suffice it to say that this audiobook gives some good coverage of these issues, and how they were addressed in the Muslim world. They also show that good ideas have been found in many different cultures, and that Islamic and Western traditions have each had a massive influence on each other throughout the centuries.
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Part of an audiobook series
The World of Philosophy
Avicenna and Medieval Muslim Philosophy
Others to be covered later
See also the audiobook series
Religions, Scriptures, and Spirituality
Others to be covered later
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