Philosophy, Arabic

Abstract

In Islam, the revealed text reminds human beings of their need to know (Qurʾān, XVI, 78). Muslims embarked on an intellectual task, which was expressed in different discourses: theology, jurisprudence, mysticism, linguistics, history, and philosophy. The latter took shape when Islamic thought came into contact with Greek philosophy, giving rise to a movement called falsafa: philosophy. This movement continued and recreated Greek philosophical thought in the Islamic world. The great issues that interested philosophers were the relationship between philosophy and religion, the explanation for and conception of the universe and its origin, and human beings and their social and political conduct. Falsafa enjoyed productive expansion and diffusion throughout the Islamic world, first in the East and later in the West, where it exerted a powerful influence on the thought of Latinized areas: it contributed to the transmission of Greek philosophy to Europe and to new developments in the medieval philosophy of the Latin world.