Introduction

Although of course a single reality in itself, Islamic philosophy nevertheless has had and continues to have several historical “embodiments” which are also reflected in how the subject is studied in both East and West. There is first of all the living and continuous tradition of Islamic philosophy in Persia and certain adjacent areas from Iraq to India. When one sits at the feet of a master of this discipline in Isfahan, Tehran or Qom one experiences a living tradition and an organic bond to figures such as Ibn Sīnā (the Latin Avicenna) and al-Fārābī who lived, visited or taught in those very cities or in cities nearby over a millennium ago. In this “embodiment” Islamic philosophy has had a continuous history going back to the earliest Islamic centuries and based not only on written texts but also on an oral tradition transmitted from master to disciple over numerous generations. Moreover, in this ambience Islamic philosophy, called falsafah and later ḥikmah, is an Islamic intellectual discipline in contention, debate, accord or opposition with other intellectual disciplines but in any case it was and remains a part and parcel of Islamic intellectual life despite the opposition of many jurists. One need only look at the number of students studying Islamic philosophy today in Qom in Iran, that is, in the premier centre of religious studies in that land, to realize how true is this assertion and how significant is Islamic philosophy even in comparison with jurisprudence, not to speak of kalām or theology which it overshadows in those intellectual circles in many ways.