Customer Reviews

A History of Islamic Philosophy

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This is the best book I have seen on the subject, and I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in Islamic philosophy or Islamic cultural history. The reason for its success is that it not only covers the individual thinkers and their philosophical movements, it also places them in their historical and cultural contexts, spending a considerable amount of time tracing the sociology of ideas in the Middle East. Here's the contents:

1. The Legacy of Greece, Alexandria and the Orient 2. The Early Political and Religious Tensions 3. Beginnings of Systematic Philosophical Writing in the Ninth Century. 4. The Further Development of Islamic Neo-Platonism. 5. Neo-Pythagoreanism and the Popularization of the Philosophical Sciences 6. The Diffusion of Philosophical Culture in the 10th Century 7. Interaction of Philosophy and Dogma 8. Rise and Development of Islamic Mysticism 9. Arab-Spanish Interlude and the Revival of Peripateticism 10. Post-Avicennian Developmets 11. Theological Reaction and Reconstruction 12. Modern and Contemporary Trends

As you can tell from the contents, Fakhry focuses mostly on the famous medeival philosophers, but he situates them within the context of the political and religious movements in Islamic history. He does not spend much time on newer Islamic thinkers, but when he does it is done well. I would recommend this book over Oliver Leaman's introduction to Islamic philosophy. That book is a good, quick read, but it merely scratches the surface of a difficult subject.

Best for those with a good grounding in Greek philosophy and little knowledge of Islamic. At times it gets lost in the minutiae of an argument, but overall a good overview.

Although I do think that Fakhry gets a little out of hand with his "always" and "never" and "the last Islamic philosopher to X" statements, it is generally a sober and well conceived introduction to Islamic philosophy, if not very spicily written.