DEFENDERS OF REASON IN ISLAM –

THE CASE OF AVERROES (1126-1198 AD)

 

 

Section 1      Introduction

 

 

 

Since September 11,   there has been a renewed interest in the nature of Islamic doctrine and thought.   Many commentators have pointed to the fact that fundamentalism is only one aspect of Muslim thought,  albeit presently a powerful and influential strand.  However,  despite such qualifications,  little attention has been paid to the historical basis of this claim  i.e. the presence of a rationalist tradition in Islam.  In this paper,  I will look at a paradigmatic example of such Islamic reason,  the philosophy of Averroes.  As we will see,  Averroes’ radical application of rationalistic methods to the analysis of the Koran was severely opposed by the more traditionalist wing of Islamic philosophy as well as by more conservative Muslim theologians. Nonetheless, he was far from being an isolated figure and his thought can be seen as the logical extension of more moderate rationalism in earlier Islamic philosophy and the rationalist Mu’tazila school of theological interpretation (the question of what happened to such rationalism after the breakup of the Islamic empire will be returned to in conclusion).  

 

I will also highlight the significance of Averroes (and wider Islamic thought) for the development of rationalism within the Christian tradition,  a factor which has been a major influence on the development of the West as such.  At this point, most especially in the Islamic kingdom of Spain but also in the East, Islamic culture was by and large tolerant and affirmative of religious diversity within its own boundaries. This made for a rather impressive inter-cultural intellectual milieu, where Islamic philosophers and theologians discussed and clarified their faith alongside similar representations from Christian and Judaic thinkers.  Cordoba in southern Spain, the then capital of the Moorish empire, is perhaps the most impressive example of such inter-cultural diversity. Here, Muslim translations and commentaries on Aristotle from Greek into Arabic were translated by Jewish scholars into Hebrew and by Christian scholars from Hebrew into Latin.  As we will see, this led to an extraordinary degree of mutual dependence and influence between the three religious traditions, and by today’s standards, a surprising level of respect and friendship between Islamic philosophers and their counter-religionists. Thus, for example, the formidable Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides declared himself a disciple of the Muslim Averroes while an influential (although heretical) grouping called the Christian Averroists also sprung up in Paris, declaring their debt to the Master.  No less a figure than Thomas Aquinas also owed a huge debt to Averroes, although this debt was not always so explicitly acknowledged.

 

Having analysed some of the main aspects of this medieval context of philosophical and theological discussion,  I will in conclusion look at how the medieval debate between theological traditionalism and theological rationalism, a debate or conflict which took place not simply in Islam but also in Christianity and Judaism, can shed light on the current problems surrounding fundamentalism and its opponents (most especially as this relates to so-called Islamic fundamentalism).

 

Section 2 -   Philosophy East and West

 

Before looking at Islamic philosophy more specifically, I will first attempt to give some historical context to the conditions which brought about such a unique and fertile mix of philosophical and theological cultures in the medieval period.   The origins of philosophy were in Greece in 500BC but by 300BC Athens was already being rivaled by Alexandria in Egypt as the cultural center of the ancient world.  The great leader of Neo-Platonism, Plotinus, although often viewed as a Greek philosopher, was actually an Egyptian. The eclipse of Greek philosophy however began with the closing of the School of Athens by the Byzantine Emperor, Justinian, which heralded an eastern migration of Greek thought to Persia, which was more sympathetic to philosophers at this time (Fakhry, p. ix).  This heralded a period of great ignorance of Greek philosophy in the West, with Plato’s Timaeus and Aristotle’s logical treatise, alongside the work of neo-platonism being the only extant works of the original masters. This loss of the original Greek texts is the real source of the term ‘the dark ages’ and not, as is often suggested, the fact that philosophy became more linked to theology at this time.

 

The next historic period of philosophy which concerns us here is the so-called Arab-Islamic period, which began in 750 (and lasted until 1258), when Baghdad inherited from Alexandria and Athens the title of cultural center of the world.  Through Baghdad in the East and the western capital of the Islamic empire, Cordoba in southern Spain, Islamic thought was to exert a massive and determining influence on the history of civilization.

 

Section 3  -     Medieval Islamic Philosophy Before Averroes

 

Any analysis of Medieval Philosophy must take account of the extraordinary relationship which existed between philosophy and theology during this entire period.  Although standard interpretations present Christianity as the dominant theological influence in this context, a fairer analysis must point to the constant inter-relationship and co-dependence which existed between the respective theological traditions of Islam,  Judaism and Christianity.  Moreover,  this strong influence did not lead to philosophy becoming the "handmaiden" of theology,  as many critics claim.  In many instances,  to the contrary,  the philosophical tendencies of medieval thinkers led them to interpret their own theological beliefs in specific ways.  The initial fusion between philosophical and theological elements in the medieval period takes place most especially through Early Christianity (although another powerful example is Philo of Alexandria’s Jewish philosophical theology). Augustine is here the major figure of note but it is worth pointing out that his more sympathetic attitude to philosophical influence is countered by a more fundamentalist strain within Christianity (which foreshadows the more well-known Islamic fundamentalism and also remains a source for some contemporary examples of Christian fundamentalism, a point I will return to in conclusion). The most vehement example of such a Christian fundamentalism or traditionalism is Tertullian, who refused any attempt to rationalise or explain theological faith, declaring “I believe in Christ because it is absurd”.

 

With Augustine however one gets a very different approach, schooled in the pagan philosophy which Augustine once adhered to (having converted only at age 33) of neo-Platonism, Manicheanism and Stoicism. Thus, for example,  the influence of Plato's philosophical criticisms of art can be seen at work in Augustine's view of the imagination as profane.  Additionally,  one can wonder as to whether Augustine's view of original sin would have been so negative if he had not imbibed the Platonic conception of the Fall of the soul.  The fusion of Hellenic and Biblical elements made Christian philosophy,  particularly in its Augustinian guise, a subtle and influential metaphysic both in the medieval period and well beyond (for example, both Calvin and Luther were to cite Augustine as a major precursor).  However,  it is an undeniable fact that the most profound development of Christian philosophy took place under an external influence,  that of medieval Islamic thought.

 

Whereas Early Christianity was primarily Platonic in orientation (under the influence of both Plato's works and those of his neo-Platonic disciple, Plotinus),  later medieval thinking began to look to Plato's successor,  Aristotle,  for philosophical guidance.  Centres of Greek learning in Mesopotamia,  Syria and Egypt were responsible for the survival of Aristotle's works in the West during this time.  Most texts were translated from the original Greek into an intermediate Syriac version and then into Arabic.  When later,  many of the original Greek texts were lost,  it was these Arabic translations which were to provide the foundation for re-translation back into late medieval Latin.  When one considers the immense influence of Aristotelianism on later medieval Christianity and Judaism,  and indeed succeeding Western history,  it is instructive to remember this historical debt to the East.  But the real intellectual contribution of medieval Islam to Western culture is less in terms of translation and more in terms of independent philosophical analysis.

 

There are three great Islamic philosophers before Averroes;  Alfarabi (870-930),  Avicenna (980-1037) and Algazali (1058-1111).  Alfarabi is the least important of these,  primarily significant because he is a pioneer in the invocation of Aristotle as a philosophical authority (thus paving the way for the Golden Age of Muslim Aristotelianism). He is said to have believed in the unity of the thought of Plato and Aristotle and his work shows a confluence of their theories  e.g. in his claim that God is simultaneously identical with the neo-Platonic One and Aristotle's Self-Thinking Thought.  With Avicenna however,  one has the development of a Muslim philosophy more independent of theological constraints and an Aristotelianism less apologetic to Platonic doctrine.  Thus,  Avicenna rejects the conception of a divine creation of the world in time (God is contemporaneous with the world) and follows Aristotle in considering the primary aim of philosophy to be the study of being qua being.

 

Algazali, writing at the end of the eleventh century, represents a critical backlash against the Aristotelianism of Avicenna,  within the Islamic tradition.  In his famous The Incoherence of the Philosophers,  he attacks the inconsistency of the philosophical positions of Alfarabi and Avicenna with orthodox Koranic interpretation.  What makes this work philosophically significant is that it does not rule out the possibility of philosophy de jure,  but rather points to the misuse of philosophy by both of his predecessors. In particular,  he was concerned with the philosophical theories of the eternity of the world and the denial of bodily resurrection,  theories which he regarded not simply as theologically heterodox but as the result of a misapplication of Aristotelian logical methods.  For reasons which are more political however, to do with power struggles between various Islamic sects, Al-ghazali’s defence of theological orthodoxy was to become associated with a form of theological traditionalism, which refused to enter into dialogue with theological or philosophical rationalism. Thus,  Al-Ghazali’s philosophy and theology are an important influence on the movement which will later be termed Islamic fundamentalism.   It can also be said that the upshot of Al-Ghazali’s and his followers’ influence in Baghdad was the virtual death of philosophy in the East,  although it was soon to receive a new lease of life in the Western part of the Islamic kingdom. This was to be through the work of Averroes primarily.

 

 

 

 

Section 4 -    Averroes and Philosophy

 

Averroes (1126-1198) is generally regarded as the greatest of the Islamic philosophers of the Medieval period and one of the greatest philosophers of the Medieval period as such.  Nicknamed "The Commentator" (because of his incisive commentaries on Aristotle),  Averroes' thought has two main strands.  On the one side, he seeks to rid Islamic Aristotelianism of what he reads as a neo-Platonic bias which conflates the very different philosophies of Plato and Aristotle.  Here,  he is critical of both Alfarabi and Avicenna.   It is important to note here in sympathy to these early Islamic philosophers that part of their difficulty in interpreting Aristotle correctly lay in the incorrect attribution of some neo-Platonic texts to Aristotle; thus works of both Plotinus and Proclus became known as works of Aristotle and thus led to a misconception of his thought as inconsistent. It is also worth noting here however that Averroes was the first philosopher to point out that these texts were wrongly ascribed to Aristotle, given their inconsistency with his general thinking.

 

Averroes is however not simply in conflict with preceding Islamic philosophy but also with a kind of theological traditionalism present in Al-Ghazali’s criticisms of Aristotelianism, which Averroes seeks to undermine.  In his ironically titled (but nonetheless intently serious) response to Algazali,  The Incoherence of the Incoherence (a direct response to Al Ghazali’s Incoherence of the Philosophers)  Averroes seeks to philosophically defend a consistent Aristotelianism,  freed from Neo-platonic residue and theological prejudice.  In so doing,  he creates a complicated relation between his philosophy and his religious tradition.

 

In defending a consistent Aristotelianism,  Averroes is critical of philosophical compromises made in the name of theological orthodoxy.  What is most significant about this defence of philosophy is that Averroes defends it through recourse to the Koran.   The study of philosophy Averroes argues is imperative according to Islamic doctrine. He begins by defining philosophy as “the investigation of existing entities insofar as they point to the Maker, I mean insofar as they are made, since existing entities exhibit the Maker” (Fakhry, p. 2). He then cites two passages from the Koran, verse 59:2, which urges “people of understanding to reflect” and verse 7:184 which asks “ have they not considered the kingdom of the heavens and the earth and all the things God has created?” (Fakhry Intro to Abrah, . 2).  He also importantly distinguishes between two different kinds of passage in scripture; those which the Koran refers to as “unambiguous” (which must be interpreted literally) and those which are “ambiguous” (Fakhry, p. 3), which must be reflected on and interpreted. The Koran refers to the interpretation of ambiguity as “imperative” and also clarifies that this interpretation can be done by  “only God and those well-grounded in knowledge” (p. 3). This phrase allows Averroes to introduce his very important distinction between different discourses on truth and interpretation, his so-called three-tiered conception of truth.  This privileges what he terms "demonstrative truth" (i.e. philosophical truth) over what he terms "dialectical" and "rhetorical" truth (both the latter being under the province of theology).  Simply described, it is only philosophical or demonstrative discourse which proceeds from first principles; theological or dialectical discourse proceeds from assumptions; while rhetorical discourse refers to the use of allegory or narrative to make difficult truths palatable to the public at large.  Here Averroes again resorts to the Koran for justification, citing verse 16:125, “call to the way of your Lord with wisdom and mild exhortation and argue with them in the best manner” (Fakhry, p. 7).  It is also worth noting here that this threefold division of discourses is a development of Aristotle’s own classification of discourses and truths in the Topics and the Rhetoric.

 

With regard to Algazali,  the latter for Averroes confuses the category of religious or even rhetorical truth with that of philosophical truth,  seeking to subordinate the category of reason to the category of revelation.  But this is simply to repeat the dogmas of Islamic theology,  with little philosophical relevance. For example, Averroes rejects Al Ghazali’s defence of a divine creation of the universe in time. Allthough many Koranic verses seem to suggest the creation in time, here according to Averroes Scripture has resorted to what he terms “ sensuous representation”, that is the third category of rhetorical discourse which frames truths in terms palatable to the many (in this context, rhetorical embellishment is required because the idea of creation ex nihilo or out of nothing is an idea which common people are unable to grasp according to Averroes). Similarly, Averroes rejects Al Ghazali’s orthodox claim of the personal immortality of the soul after death, again arguing that the philosophical truth consists in impersonal immortality, but this has to be made more bearable for the common people who find it difficult to accept that their individuality doesn’t survive death.  Averroes in both these cases is defending Aristotle’s claims; both that the universe is eternal and not created in time and also that the soul is only impersonally immortal, but also significantly claiming that these views are compatible with Islamic orthodoxy insofar as the real truth of the Koran lies not in theological embellishment but philosophical rationalization (we will see below how these views also bring Averroes into conflict with Aquinas in the context of Christian orthodoxy and its relation to Aristotle’s thought).

 

In contrast to Al Ghazali’s work, the work of Alfarabi and Avicenna lays claim to philosophical relevance and seeks to distance itself from the mere repetition of theological orthodoxy.  Nonetheless,  according to Averroes,  the philosophical systems of Alfarabi and Avicenna both fall into the category of theological rather than philosophical truth. This is perhaps more clearly the case with Alfarabi,  whose work shows a certain caution in its attempt to be consistent with Islamic orthodoxy (this is most notable in Alfarabi's defence of the doctrine of creation of the world in time).  However,  Avicenna had already begun to distance himself from these theological residues and,  for example,  is explicit in his avowal of the Aristotelian theory of the eternity of the world.

 

Despite this apparent philosophical progression,  Averroes remains critical of what he sees as implicit deferral to orthodoxy on crucial philosophical points.  Thus,  he censures Avicenna's theory that essence precedes existence.  Rather,  for Averroes,  existence precedes essence.  He is also critical of Avicenna's proofs of the existence of God from the relation of necessity to contingency, as this argument imports too much metaphysical baggage for Averroes' liking.  Rather,  any proofs of God's existence must avoid metaphysics de jure and rely on physical causation alone.  In both these cases,  it is arguable that Avicenna is in fact closer to the literal meaning of Aristotle's original texts than Averroes and that Averroes is already moving beyond mere commentary on Aristotle,  to something approaching an independent philosophical system.

 

Whatever the truth of this hypothesis,  it is undeniable that Averroes has certainly succeeded in releasing Islamic philosophy from the fetters of Islamic theological dogma.  In this context,  it is perhaps not surprising to find that Averroes did not find too many disciples within Islam itself.  In fact in later life he was accused of ‘irreligion’ and temporarily exiled from Morocco where he had gone to live and sent back to Spain. However this was less the result of intolerance of philosophy and more the result of in-fighting between Islamic tribal factions. Averroes was eventually pardoned although in the meantime his books had been burned and his exile used as an excuse to ban the study of Aristotle. In general, however, he was allowed to express his views freely and with influence. In the immediate future his influence was nonetheless to be greater beyond  the boundaries of his own culture than within it, in particular as it influenced the later development of Christian philosophy and it is to this influence on Christianity that I now turn.  I will return in conclusion to his influence on later and contemporary Islamic thought.

 

Section 5 -    Averroes and Christianity

 

In hindsight,  it is clear that Averroes was too radical a figure to be compatible with any of the religious orthodoxies of the medieval period.  His work,  which privileges philosophical reason (what he terms "demonstrative truth") over theological revelation ("dialectical" and "rhetorical" truth),  looks forward to the modern paradigm of an independent rational enquiry; that is, for Averroes, reason is superior to faith, although in principle they should always reach compatible conclusions.  Nonetheless,  the influence of his work was powerfully felt in the later medieval period,  albeit rather negatively.  An understanding of this negative reaction is crucial to an understanding not simply of the development of later medieval thought (in particular, that of Christianity),  but to an understanding of the formation of the modern Western identity.

 

The crucial figure in understanding Averroes in the context of later medieval thought is Siger of Brabant (1240-1284).  Siger is referred to as a "Christian Averroist",  a phrase which perfectly captures the assimilation of Islamic thought into Later Christianity.  The Christian Averroists represented the most radical assimilation of Muslim Aristotelianism,  adhering to Averroes' supremacy of reason over revelation and the theory of the eternity of the world.  Such heterodox views brought Siger and the Averroists into conflict with the Established Church and many of their propositions were rejected in The Condemnation of 1277.

 

What is doubly significant is that several of the theories of the more orthodox (and historically influential) Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) were also condemned in 1277.  The condemned Thomistic propositions were exclusively those which Thomas himself had assimilated from Islamic thought,  in particular the view that individuation depended on matter rather than form.  Apart from the explicitly condemned propositions however,  it is clear that the 1277 Condemnation is an admission of the extraordinary "contamination" of pure Christian dogma by Christian philosophy (under the influence of Islamic thought).  Without Islamic Aristotelianism there would certainly be no Christian Aristotelianism,  and although the 1277 Condemnation is an attempt to reinforce the Augustinianism of earlier Christianity,  it is the Aristotelianism of Thomas Aquinas which eventually wins the day (being today for example the orthodox Catholic philosophy). I think it is interesting to thus look at some of the points of affinity and disaffinity between Averroes and Aquinas.  It is clear for example that Aquinas was very critical of the Christian Averroists, but it is also clear that they represented a radicalization if not a distortion of Averroes’ original thinking. For example, the Christian Averroists affirmed the theory of the “double truth” (which was also condemned in 1277), the view that one view could be held in philosophy while simultaneously holding to its contradiction in theology e.g. that philosophically one could hold to the eternity of the world thesis while theologically one could hold simultaneously to the view that the universe was created by God in time. The Averroists claimed to derive this view from Averroes’ own three-tiered conception of truth, but it is clear that this represents a distortion of his original meaning.  Averroes rather claimed that if ‘creation in time’ was a theological claim (for example in the Koran) that this could not be true but rather was an attempt to make a rather difficult philosophical conception of eternity more acceptable to the general population. This is not a double-truth theory; there is only one truth for Averroes – that the world is eternal.

 

Thomas Aquinas, as the other great interpreter of Aristotle in the medieval period, also faced difficulties reconciling Aristotelian philosophy with his own, in this case, Christian orthodoxy.  The influence of Averroes on Aquinas’s own rationalism is clear.  As Etienne Gilson has observed, “rationalism was born in Spain in the mind of an Arabian philosopher, as a conscious reaction against the theologism of the Arabian divines…he bequeathed to his successors the ideal of a purely rational philosophy, an ideal whose influence was to be such that, by it even the evolution of Christian philosophy was to be deeply modified” (quoted Fakhry, p. 6 Averroes). Indeed Ernest Renan in his pivotal text Averroes et l’averroesisme goes as far as to refer to Aquinas as the first authentic disciple of Averroes.

 

This is in my view to go too far but the important influence is nonetheless undeniable.  The two areas where Aquinas and Averroes differ most are in relation to the ‘creation in time’ principle and the conception of intellect, Aquinas arguing for the notion of creation as against eternity, and arguing for the individuality of each intellect and thus personal immortality.  But on the positive side, Aquinas’ thesis of the compatibility of theological and religious truth owes a large debt to Averroes’ three tiered conception of truth. Averroes’ philosophical defence of the idea that God knows each individual is also adopted wholesale by Aquinas as is Averroes’ defence of an immanent causality in the world and his conception that ‘being is to essence as actuality is to potentiality’ (Fakhry, p. 142).

 

The influence of Averroes (and also of Avicenna) on the development of Later Medieval Christian thought therefore is unequivocal.  But this intellectual debt to Islam is very rarely mentioned in our times.  When one considers the further development of the modern West,  based on a paradigm of rational enquiry,  it is Averroes who seems to best anticipate this model within the medieval epoch.  On both these counts,  it seems clear that Averroes truly was a philosophical visionary,  anticipating and also influencing progressive developments far beyond his own milieu.

 

Section 6  -  The Contemporary Debate on Islamic ‘Fundamentalism’

 

This brings me on to the final question of how the medieval debate between theological traditionalism and theological rationalism, a debate or conflict which took place not simply in Islam but also in Christianity and Judaism, can shed light on the current problems surrounding fundamentalism and its opponents (most especially as this relates to so-called Islamic fundamentalism).  Here, much depends upon how we interpret the very nature of ‘fundamentalism’.  One recent definition of fundamentalism states that the latter refers to a “religious idealism….in which the transcendent realm of the divine,  as revealed and made normative for the religious community, alone provides an irreducible basis for communal and personal identity” (Fundamentalism Project, American Academy of Arts and Sciences).  This definition is however interpreted differently by the two main schools in this debate. In the one case, fundamentalism is interpreted as a recent phenomenon,  developing out of a reaction against modernity; so for example Bruce Lawrence interprets fundamentalism as based on a “hatred, which is also a fear of modernism, rationalism and the Enlightenment” (quoted Martin p. 6).  What this account fails to recognize however, when for example applied to Islamic fundamentalism, is the tradition of ‘theological rationalism’ which existed well before the Enlightenment or so-called ‘modernist’ period.  Our analysis of Averroes has shown at the very least that a rationalist tradition in Islam predates the modern Enlightenment. Indeed, as for example Gilson has argued, Averroes’ philosophy can be seen as a great influence on the Enlightenment and modern reason. But if this is the case,  where does this leave the debate on Islamic fundamentalism?

 

It is clear that the above definition of fundamentalism as a theological idealism makes fundamentalism indistinguishable from theological traditionalism, exemplified in Islam by for example the work of Al Ghazali.  Just as the rational philosophy of Averroes seems to suggest that modernity does not have a monopoly on rationalism, so too the existence of theologians such as Al Ghazali (and indeed the more conservative wing of medieval Islamic theology per se) suggests that fundamentalism is not a new phenomenon.  This has led some philosophers of religion to offer a different definition of fundamentalism.  Richard Martin for example has claimed that fundamentalism belongs to a wider and older discourse than simply the discourse of modernity: “it necessarily follows that the historical nature of the theological discourse of which fundamentalism is a part must be re-asserted” (Martin, p. 7).

 

It seems to me that this conception of fundamentalism is more historically accurate and I am thinking here particularly of Islamic fundamentalism but also of for example Christian fundamentalism as represented by a thinker such as Tertullian in the early period AD. Fundamentalism is as old as theology, and indeed philosophy. But historical accuracy is not the only advantage that such a reading of fundamentalism allows us.  It also allows one to demystify the idea that fundamentalism is some kind of strange contemporary ‘evil’, explicable only in terms of some bizarre backwardness of Islamic culture.  Rather ‘fundamentalism’ is merely a hyberbolic term for a form of theological traditionalism which has existed and continues to exist in every theological culture.

 

Once such a concession is allowed, one can start to address questions concerning the particular virulence and ubiquity of such fundamentalism in contemporary Islamic cultures. My analysis of Averroes has sought amongst other things to discredit the idea that there is something intrinsic to Islam or the Koran, which would make for more extreme and darker forms of fundamentalism. It seems to me that the explanation for such trends would require more than merely one kind of answer; here philosophical considerations would have to be accompanied by a socio-political and historical analysis, and Western colonization of the Arab-Islamic world since 1800 would be one major factor. It is in the final analysis dreadfully ironic that such colonization took place under the arrogant banner of Western Enlightenment, an enlightenment which itself owed so much to the rediscovery of Aristotle and the tradition of rationalist Islam.