A Dictionary of Islam Being a cyclopedia of the...

“Avicenna (Abu Ali Al Hosain Abdallah Ibn Sina) was born at Afsenna, in the province of Bokhara, in the year 980. His mind was early developed by the study of theology, philosophy, and medicine, and in his youth he had already written a scientific encyclopedia. He taught medicine and philosophy in Ispahan. He died at Hamadan in the fifty-eighth year of his life. His medical Canon was employed for centuries as the basis of instruction. In philosophy he set out from the doctrines of Alfarabi, but modified them by omitting many Neo-Platonic theorems and approximating more nearly to the real doctrine of Aristotle. The principle on which his logic was founded, and which Averroës adopted and Albertus Magnus often cites, was destined to exert a great influence. It was worded thus: Intellectus in formis agit universalitatem (Alb., De Prædicab., ii. 3 and 6). The genus, as also the species, the differentia, the accidens, and the proprium, are in themselves neither universal nor singular. But the thinking mind, by comparing the similar forms, forms the genus logicum, which answers to the definition of the genus, viz.: that it is predicated of many objects specifically different, and answers the question, ‘What is it?’ (tells the quidditas). It is the genus naturale which furnishes the basis of comparison. When the mind adds to the generic and specific the individual accidents, the singular is formed (Avic., Log., Venice edition, 1508, f. 12, ap. Prantl, Geschichte der Logik, ii. 347 seq.).

Only figuratively, according to Avicenna, can the genus be called matter and the specific difference form; such phraseology (frequent in Aristotle) is not strictly correct. Avicenna distinguishes several modes of generic existence, viz.: ante res, in rebus, and post res. Genera are ante res in the mind of God; for all that exists is related to God as a work of art is related to an artist; it existed in his wisdom and will before its entrance into the world of manifold existence; in this sense, and only in this sense, is the universal before the individual. Realized with its accidents in matter, the genus constitutes the natural thing, res naturalis, in which the universal essence is immanent. The third mode of the existence of the genus is that which it has in being conceived by the human intellect; when the latter abstracts the form and then compares it again with the individual objects to which by one and the same definition it belongs, in this comparison (respectus) is contained the universal (Avic., Log., f. 12; Metaph., v. 1, 2, f. 87, in Prantl, ii. p. 349). Our thought, which is directed to things, contains nevertheless dispositions which are peculiar to itself; when things are thought, there is added in thought something which does not exist outside of thought. Thus universality as such, the generic concept and the specific difference, the subject and predicate, and other similar elements, belong only to thought.

Now it is possible to direct the attention, not merely to things, but also to the dispositions which are peculiar to thought, and this takes place in logic (Metaph., i. 2; iii. 10, in Prantl, ii. p. 320 seq.). On this is based the distinction of ‘first’ and ‘second intentions.’ The direction of attention to things is the first intention (intentio prima); the second intention (intentio secunda) is directed to the dispositions which are peculiar to our thinking concerning things. Since the universal as such belongs not to things, but to thought, it belongs to the second intention. The principle of individual plurality, according to Avicenna, is matter, which he regards, not with Alfarabi as an emanation from the Cosmical Soul, but with Aristotle as eternal and uncreated; all potentiality is grounded in it, as actuality is in God. Nothing changeable can come forth directly from the unchangeable first cause. His first and only direct product is the intelligentia prima (the νοῦς of Plotinus, as with Alfarabi); from it the chain of emanations extends through the various celestial spheres down to our earth. But the issuing of the lower from the higher is to be conceived, not as a single, temporal act, but as an eternal act, in which cause and effect are synchronous. The cause which gave to things their existence must continually maintain them in existence; it is an error to imagine that things once brought into existence continue therein of themselves. Notwithstanding its dependence on God, the world has existed from eternity. Time and motion always were (Avic.

Metaph., vi. 2, et al.; cf. the account in the Tractatus de Erroribus, ap. Hauréau, Ph. Sc., i. p. 368). Avicenna distinguishes a two-fold development of our potential understanding into actuality, the one common, depending on instruction, the other rare, and dependent on immediate divine illumination. According to a report transmitted to us by Averroës, Avicenna, in his Philosophia Orientalis, which has not come down to us, contradicted his Aristotelian principles, and conceived God as a heavenly body.

“Algazel (Abu Hamed Mohammed Ibn Achmed Al-Ghazzâli), born A.D. 1059 at Ghazzâlah in Khorasan, taught first at Bagdad, and afterwards, having become a Sûfi, resided in Syria. He died A.D. 1111 at Tus. He was a sceptic in philosophy, but only that his faith might be all the stronger in the doctrines of theology. His course in this respect marked a reaction of the exclusively religious principle of Mohammedanism against philosophical speculation—which in spite of all accommodation had not made itself fully orthodox—and particularly against Aristotelianism; between the mysticism of the Neo-Platonists, on the contrary, and the Sûfism of Algazel, there existed an essential affinity. In his Makacid al filasifa (Maqāṣidu ʾl-Falāsifah), ‘The Aims of the Philosophers,’ Algazel sets forth the doctrines of philosophy following essentially Alfarabi and particularly Avicenna. These doctrines are then subjected by him to a hostile criticism in his Tehafot al filasifa (Tahāfutu ʾl-Falāsifah), ‘Against the Philosophers,’ while in his ‘Fundamental Principles of Faith,’ he presents positively his own views. Averroës wrote by way of rejoinder his Destructio Destructionis Philosophorum. Algazel exerted himself especially to excite a fear of the chastisements of God, since in his opinion the men of his times were living in too great assurance.

Against the philosophers he defended particularly the religious dogmas of the creation of the world in time and out of nothing, the reality of the divine attributes, and the resurrection of the body, as also the power of God to work miracles, in opposition to the supposed law of cause and effect. In the Middle Ages, his exposition of logic, metaphysics, and physics, as given in the Makacid, was much read.

“The result of the scepticism of Algazel was in the East the triumph of an unphilosophical orthodoxy; after him there arose in that quarter no philosopher worthy of mention. On the other hand, the Arabian philosophy began to flourish in Spain, where a succession of thinkers cultivated its various branches.

“Avempace (Abu Bekr Mohammed ben Jahja Ibn Badja), born at Saragossa near the end of the eleventh century, was celebrated as a physician, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher. About 1118 he wrote, at Seville, a number of logical treatises. At a later period he lived in Granada, and afterwards also in Africa. He died at a not very advanced age in 1138, without having completed any extensive works; yet he wrote several smaller (mostly lost) treatises, among which, according to Munk (Mélanges, p. 386), were Logical Tractates (still existing, according to Casiri, Biblioth. Arabico-Hisp. Escurialensis, i. p. 179, in the library of the Escurial), a work on the soul, another on the conduct of the solitary (régime du solitaire), also on the union of the universal intellect with man, and a farewell letter; to these may be added commentaries on the Physics, Meteorology, and other works of Aristotle relating to physical science. Munk gives the substance of the ‘Conduct of the Solitary,’ as reported by a Jewish philosopher of the fourteenth century, Moses of Narbonne (Mél., pp. 389–409). This work treats of the degrees by which the soul rises from that instinctive life which it shares with the lower animals, through gradual emancipation from materiality and potentiality to the acquired intellect (intellectus acquisitus) which is an emanation from the active intellect or Deity. Avempace seems (according to Averroës, De Anima, fol. 168A) to have identified the intellectus materialis with the imaginative faculty.

“Abubacer (Abu Bakr Mohammed ben Abd al Malic Ibn Tophail al Keisi) was born in about the year 1100, at Wadi-Asch (Guadix), in Andalusia, and died in 1185, in Morocco. He was celebrated as a physician, mathematician, philosopher, and poet, and pursued still further the path of speculation opened up by Ibn Badja. His chief work, that has come down to us, is entitled Haji Ibn Jakdhan (Ḥaiyu bnu Yaqz̤ān), i.e. the Living One, the Son of the Waking One. The fundamental idea is the same as in Ibn Badja’s ‘Conduct of the Solitary’; it is an exposition of the gradual development of the capacities of man to the point where his intellect becomes one with the Divine. But Ibn Tophail goes considerably farther than his predecessor in maintaining the independence of man in opposition to the institutions and opinions of human society. In his theory he represents the individual as developing himself without external aid. That independence of thought and will, which man now owes to the whole course of the previous history of the human race, is regarded by him as existing in the natural man, out of whom he makes an extra historical ideal (like Rousseau in the eighteenth century). Ibn Tophail regards positive religion, with its law founded on reward and punishment, as only a necessary means of discipline for the multitude; religious conceptions are in his view only types or envelopes of that truth to the logical comprehension of which the philosopher gradually approaches.

“Averroës (Abul Walid Mohammed Ibn Achmed Ibn Roschd), born A.D. 1126, at Cordova, where his grandfather and father filled high judicial offices, studied first positive theology and jurisprudence, and then medicine, mathematics, and philosophy. He obtained subsequently the office of judge at Seville, and afterwards at Cordova. He was a junior contemporary and friend of Ibn Tophail, who presented him to Calif Abu Jacub Jusuf, soon after the latter’s ascent of the throne (1163), and recommended him, in place of himself, for the work of preparing an analysis of the works of Aristotle. Ibn Roschd won the favour of this prince, who was quite familiar with the problems of philosophy, and at a later epoch he became his physician in ordinary (1182). For a time also he was in favour with a son of the prince, Jacub Almansur, who succeeded to his father’s rule in 1184, and he was still honoured by him in 1195. But soon after this date he was accused of cultivating the philosophy and science of antiquity to the prejudice of the Mohammedan religion, and was robbed by Almansur of his dignities and banished to Elisana (Lucena) near Cordova; he was afterwards tolerated in Morocco. A strict prohibition was issued against the study of Greek philosophy, and whatever works on logic and metaphysics were discovered were delivered to the flames. Averroës died in 1198, in his seventy-third year. Soon after, the rule of the Moors in Spain came to an end. The Arabian philosophy was extinguished, and liberal culture sunk under the exclusive rule of the Koran and of dogmatics.

“Averroës shows for Aristotle the most unconditional reverence, going in this respect much farther than Avicenna; he considers him, as the founders of religion are wont to be considered, as the man whom alone, among all men, God permitted to reach the highest summit of perfection. Aristotle was, in his opinion, the founder and perfecter of scientific knowledge. In logic, Averroës everywhere limits himself to merely annotating Aristotle. The principle of Avicenna: intellectus in formis agit universalitatem, is also his (Averr., De An., i. 8., cf. Alb. M., De Prædicab., ii. ch. 6). Science treats not of universal things, but of individuals under their universal aspect, which the understanding recognises after making abstraction of their common nature. (Destr. destr. fol. 17: Scientia autem non est scientia rei universalis, sed est scientia particularium modo universali, quem facit intellectus in particularibus, quum abstrahit ab iis naturam unam communem, quæ divisa est in materiis.) The forms, which are developed through the influence of higher forms, and in the last resort through the influence of Deity, are contained embryonically in matter.

“The most noticeable thing in his psychology is the explanation which he gives of the Aristotelian distinction between the active and the passive intellect (νοῦς παθητικός and ποιητικός). Thomas Aquinas, who opposes the explanation, gives it in these words: Intellectum substantiam esse omnino ab anima separatam, esseque unum in omnibus hominibus;—nec Deum facere posse quod sint plures intellectus; but, he says, Averroës added: per rationem concludo de necessitate quod intellectus est unus numero, firmiter tamen teneo oppositum per fidem. In his commentary to the twelfth book of the Metaphysics, Averroës compares the relation of the active reason to man with that of the sun to vision; as the sun, by its light, brings about the act of seeing, so the active reason enables us to know; hereby the rational capacity in man is developed into actual reason, which is one with the active reason. Averroës attempts to recognise two opinions, the one of which he ascribes to Alexander of Aphrodisias, and the other to Themistius and the other commentators. Alexander, he says, had held the passive intellect (νοῦς παθητικός) to be a mere ‘disposition’ connected with the animal faculties, and, in order that it might be able perfectly to receive all forms, absolutely formless; this disposition was in us, but the active intellect (νοῦς ποιητικός), was without us; after our death our individual intellects no longer existed.

Themistius, on the contrary, and the other commentators, had regarded the passive intellect not as a mere disposition connected with the lower psychical powers, but as inhering in the same substratum to which the active intellect belonged; this substratum, according to them, was distinct from those animal powers of the soul which depend on material organs, and as it was immaterial, immortality was to be predicated of the individual intellect inhering in it. Averroës, on the other hand, held that the passive intellect (νοῦς παθητικός) was, indeed, more than a mere disposition, and assumed (with Themistius and most of the other Commentators, except Alexander) that the same substance was passive and active intellect (namely, the former in so far as it received forms, the latter in so far as it constructed forms); but he denied that the same substance in itself and in its individual existence was both passive and active, assuming (with Alexander) that there existed only one active intellect in the world, and that man had only the ‘disposition’ in virtue of which he could be affected by the active intellect; when the active intellect came in contact with this disposition there arose in us the passive or material intellect, the one active intellect becoming on its entrance into the plurality of souls particularized in them, just as light is decomposed into the different colours in bodies.

The passive intellect was (according to Munk’s translation): ‘Une chose composée de la disposition qui existe en nous et d’un intellect qui se joint à cette disposition, et qui, en tant qu’il y est joint, est un intellect prédisposé (en puissance) et non pas un intellect en acte, mais qui est intellect en acte en tant qu’il n’est plus joint à la disposition’ (from the Commentaire moyen sur le traité de l’Âme, in Munk’s Mél., p. 447); the active intellect worked first upon the passive, so as to develop it into actual and acquired intellect, and then on this latter, which it absorbed into itself, so that after our death it could be said that our νοῦς, mind, continued to exist—though not as an individual substance, but only as an element of the universal mind. But Averroës did not identify this universal mind (as Alexander of Aphrodisias identified the νοῦς ποιητικός) with the Deity himself, but conceived it (following in this the earlier Arabian commentators and directly the Neo-Platonists) as an emanation from the Deity, and as the mover of the lowest of the celestial circles, i.e. the sphere of the moon. This doctrine was developed by Averroës, particularly in his commentaries on the De Anima, whereas, in the Paraphrase (written earlier) he had expressed himself in a more individualistic sense (Averr., ap. Munk, Mélanges, p. 442 seq.).

The psychological teaching of Averroës resembled, therefore, in the character of its definitions, that of Themistius, but in its real content that of Alexander Aphrodisiensis, since both Averroës and Alexander limited the individual existence of the human intellect (νοῦς) to the period preceding death, and recognized the eternity only of the one universal active intellect (νοῦς ποιητικός). For this reason the doctrine of the Alexandrists and of the Averroists were both condemned by the Catholic Church.

“Averroës professed himself in no sense hostile to religion, least of all to Mohammedanism, which he regarded as the most perfect of all religions. He demanded in the philosopher a grateful adherence to the religion of his people, the religion in which he was educated. But by this ‘adherence’ he meant only a skilful accommodation of his views and life to the requirements of positive religion—a course which could not but fail to satisfy the real defenders of the religious principle. Averroës considered religion as containing philosophical truth under the veil of figurative representation; by allegorical interpretation one might advance to purer knowledge, while the masses held to the literal sense. The highest grade of intelligence was philosophical knowledge; the peculiar religion of the philosopher consisted in the deepening of his knowledge; for man could offer to God no worthier cultus than that of the knowledge of his works, through which we attain to the knowledge of God himself in the fulness of His essence. (Averroës in the larger Commentary on the Metaph., ap. Munk, Mélanges, p. 455 seq.)”

Dr. Marcus Dods remarks that “in philosophy the attainments of the Arabians have probably been overrated (see Lit. Hist. of Middle Ages, by Berrington, p. 445) rather than depreciated. As middle-men or transmitters, indeed, their importance can scarcely be too highly estimated. They were keen students of Aristotle when the very language in which he wrote was unknown in Roman Christendom: and the commentaries of Averroës on the most exact of Greek philosophers are said to be worthy of the text. It was at the Mohammedan university in his native city of Cordova, and from Arabian teachers, that this precursor of Spinoza derived those germs of thought whose fruit may be seen in the whole history of scholastic theology. And just before Averroës entered these learned halls, a young man passed from them, equipped with the same learning, and gifted with genius and penetration of judgment which have made his opinions final wherever the name of Memonides is known. Undoubtedly these two fellow-citizens—the Mohammedan Arab and the Arabic-speaking Jew—have left their mark deep on all subsequent Jewish and Christian learning. And even though it be doubted whether their influence has been wholly beneficial, they may well be claimed as instances of the intellectual ardour which Mohammedan learning could inspire or awaken.

A recent writer of great promise in the philosophy of religion has assigned to the Arab thinkers the honourable function of creating modern philosophy. ‘Theology and philosophy became in the hands of the Moors fused and blended; the Greek scientific theory as to the origin of things interwound with the Hebrew faith in a Creator. And so speculation became in a new and higher sense theistic; and the interpretation of the universe, the explication of God’s relation to it and its relation to God.’ (Fairbairn’s Studies, p. 398.) But speculation had become theistic long before there was an Arab philosophy. The same questions which form the staple of modern philosophy were discussed at Alexandria three centuries before Mohammed; and there is scarcely a Christian thinker of the third or fourth century who does not write in presence of the great problem of God’s connection with the world, the relation of the Infinite to the finite, of the unseen intangible Spirit to the crass material universe. What we have here to do with, however, is not to ascertain whether modern philosophy be truly the offspring of the unexpected marriage of Aristotle and the Koran, but whether the religion promulgated in the latter is or is not obstructive of intellectual effort and enlightenment.

And enough has been said to show that there is nothing in the religion which necessarily and directly tends to obstruct either philosophy or science; though when we consider the history and achievements of that race which has for six centuries been the leading representative of Islam, we are inclined to add that there is nothing in the religion which necessarily leads on the mind to the highest intellectual effort. Voltaire, in his own nervous way, exclaims, ‘I detest the Turks, as the tyrants of their wives and the enemies of the arts.’ And the religion has shown an affinity for such uncivilised races. It has not taken captive any race which possesses a rich literature, nor has it given birth to any work of which the world demands a translation; and precisely in so far as individuals have shown themselves possessed of great speculative and creative genius, have they departed from the rigid orthodoxy of the Koran. We should conclude, therefore, that the outburst of literary and scientific enthusiasm in the eighth century was due, not directly to the influence of the Mohammedan religion, but to the mental awakening and exultant consciousness of power and widened horizon that came to the conquering Saracens. At first their newly-awakened energy found scope in other fields than that of philosophy. ‘Marte undique obstrepenti, musis vix erat locus.’ But when the din of war died down, the voice of the Muses was heard, and the same fervour which had made the Saracen arms irresistible, was spent now in the acquirement of knowledge.”—Mohammed, Buddha, and Christ, p. 113.

Sūrah viii. 127–135: “Already had we chastised the people of Pharaoh with dearth and scarcity of fruits, that haply they might take warning: and when good fell to their lot they said, ‘This is our due.’ But if ill befell them, they regarded Moses and his partizans as (the birds) of ill omen. Yet, was not their evil omen from God? But most of them knew it not. And they said, ‘Whatever sign thou bring us for our enchantment, we will not believe on thee.’ And we sent upon them the flood and the locusts and the qummal (lice) and the frogs and the blood,—clear signs—but they behaved proudly, and were a sinful people. And when any plague fell upon them, they said, ‘O Moses! pray for us to thy Lord, according to that which he hath covenanted with thee: Truly if thou take off the plague from us, we will surely believe thee, and will surely send the children of Israel with thee.’ But when we had taken off the plague from them, and the time which God had granted them had expired, behold! they broke their promise. Therefore we took vengeance on them and drowned them in the sea, because they treated our signs as falsehoods and were heedless of them. And we gave to the people who had been brought so low, the eastern and the western lands, which we had blessed as an heritage: and the good word of thy Lord was fulfilled on the children of Israel because they had borne up with patience: and we destroyed the works and the structures of Pharaoh and his people: And we brought the children of Israel across the sea, and they came to a people who gave themselves up to their idols.

Mr. Sale, translating from the Jalālān and al-Baiẓāwī, says: “These were, the changing his rod into a serpent, the making his hand white and shining, the producing locusts, lice, frogs, and blood, the dividing of the Red Sea, the bringing water out of the rock, and the shaking of Mount Sinai over the children of Israel. In lieu of the three last, some reckon the inundation of the Nile, the blasting of the corn and scarcity of the fruits of the earth. These words, however, are interpreted by others not of nine miracles, but of nine commandments, which Moses gave his people, and were thus numbered up by Muhammad himself to a Jew, who asked him the question, viz. That they should not be guilty of idolatry, nor steal, nor commit adultery or murder, nor practise sorcery or usury, nor accuse an innocent man to take away his life, or a modest woman of whoredom, nor desert the army, to which he added the observing of the Sabbath as a tenth commandment, but which peculiarly regarded the Jews, upon which answer, it is said, the Jew kissed the Prophet’s hand and feet.”

PLANETS. Arabic as-sayyārah (السيارة). According to Arabic writers, there are seven planets, called an-Najūmu ʾs-Sayyārāt (النجوم السيارات), or, collectively, as-Sayyārah, the wandering stars, as distinguished from fixed stars, or an-Najūmu ʾs̤-s̤awābit (النجوم الثوابت). These planets are said to be situated in the seven firmaments in the following order: (1) Al-Qamar, Moon; (2) ʿUt̤ārid, Mercury; (3) Zuhrah, Venus; (4) ash-Shams, Sun; (5) al-Mirrīk͟h, Mars; (6) al-Mushtarī, Jupiter; (7) Zuḥal, Saturn. (Vide Kashshāf-i-Iṣt̤ilaḥāt, in loco.)

It will be seen that the Arabian arrangement of the planets is that of Ptolemy, who placed the earth in the centre of the universe, and nearest to it the moon, whose synodic revolution is the shortest of all, being performed in 29½ days. Next to the moon he placed Mercury, who returns to his conjunctions in 116 days. After Mercury followed Venus, whose periodic time is 584 days. Beyond Venus he placed the Sun, then Mars, next Jupiter, and lastly Saturn, beyond which are the fixed stars.

PLUNDER. Arabic g͟hanīmah (غنيمة), fayʾ (فىء). If the Imām, or leader of the Muslim army, conquer a country by force of arms, he is at liberty to leave the land in possession of the original proprietors, provided they pay tribute, or he may divide it amongst the Muslims; but with regard to movable property, it is unlawful for him to leave it in possession of the infidels, but he must bring it away with the army and divide it amongst the soldiers. Four-fifths of the spoils belong to the troops, and the remaining one-fifth must be divided into three equal portions for the relief of orphans, the feeding of the poor, and the entertainment of travellers. Captives form part of the plunder. All cattle and baggage which cannot be carried away upon a retreat, must be destroyed. (Hidāyah, vol. ii. p.159; Mishkāt, book xvii. ch. viii. pt. 1.)

The Qurʾān being in manifest rhythm, and in some places actual poetry, the declaration of the Prophet, that he was not a poet has much perplexed the commentators. But the Imām Fak͟hru ʾd Dīn ar-Rāzī, has hit upon the following clever explanation of the difficulty. He says, that in order to be a poet it is absolutely necessary that the poems should not be impromptu verses, but deliberately framed, and that, therefore, although the Qurʾān contains poetry (for example, in Sūrah xciv., which begins thus:—