Could there be an Islamic philosophy of religion?

A university program in the study of Islam and Muslim cultures will inevitably be an interdisciplinary or (if you prefer) multidisciplinary affair. It will draw upon the expertise of scholars in many fields of inquiry such as history, sociology, psychology and philology. Among the disciplines that could contribute to such a program is philosophy. This may seem a surprising suggestion. As far as I am aware, few programs in Islamic studies have a philosophical component. But despite a certain ambivalence among traditionalists toward philosophical reflection, there was a time when Muslim philosophers were among the world's most influential thinkers. The medieval Christian theologian, Thomas Aquinas (1225–74), for example, seems to have drawn his arguments for the existence of God from Abu Nasr Muhammad al-Farabi (872–950) by way of the latter's disciple ibn Sina (Avicenna: 980–1037). ¹ And since the philosophy of religion is among the more lively fields of current philosophical debate, it would be surprising if it had nothing to contribute to the study of Islam.