Islam

1. Islam

2. Sources Asian Philosophies, 6th Edition, John M. Koller (hereafter “Koller”); read pp142-147 in Koller online reading The World’s Religions, 50th Anniversary Edition, Huston Smith (hereafter “Smith”); read p221-267 in Smith

3. Islam • ‘Islam’ means both ‘peace’ and ‘submission’; the peace that comes from submission to God • Like Buddhism being named for ‘budh’, awakening, Islam gets its name from the attribute it seeks to cultivate –Smith, p222 • Not Muhammadanism • Muslims say Muhammad did not create the religion; God did • While Christians think Christ was God, Muslims believe Muhammad was merely a prophet (though the final and most important prophet)

4. Commonalities with Judaism and Christianity • Muslims accept the New Testament of the Christian bible, and the Hebrew Scriptures, though not completely as they believe there are serious transmission errors (additions and or deletions of uninspired scribes) • God created the world • God created human beings (Adam & Eve) • Adam & Eve’s descendants led to Noah • Noah had a son, Shem … the source of ‘Semitic’ peoples (Jews and Arabs) • Shem’s descendants lead to Abraham • Abraham’s submission to God in willingness to sacrifice his son on an alter gives Islam its name: submission

5. Commonalities with Judaism and Christianity • Abraham married Sarah, but she was barren and too old to have children. • Sarah suggested Abraham take Hagar, her Egyptian handmaid, for a second wife. • Hagar had Ishmael. • Sarah, surprise, gets pregnant, has Isaac. • Sarah demands that Abraham send Hagar and Ishmael away. • Isaac’s descendants are Jews. • Ishmael’s descendants are Arabs.

6. Departure from Judaism and Christianity In Genesis, Hagar and Ishmael are made to leave and they go to live in Beersheba, which, at the time, was the southern most part of Israel. In the Koran, Ishmael goes on farther south to live in the area of Saudi Arabia that will later hold the city of Mecca.

7. Muhammad Under the title, “The Seal of the Prophets,” Smith, p223, tells us Muslims believe Muhammad was the final prophet through whom God speaks. • born, 570 CE, into a world of violence and crime • a member of the leading tribe in Mecca (the Koreish / Quraysh) • ‘Mohammad’ means ‘highly praised’, and is now the most common male name in the world • father died a few days before his birth, mother when 6, grandfather when 8 • raised by his uncle, well-loved and accepted in his family • at 25 began a caravan business, worked for Khadija, a wealthy widow 15 years his senior, whom he later married

8. Muhammad (cont.) • became frustrated with wickedness in his world and began frequenting a cave on Mt. Hira for solitude • while most Meccans were polytheistic and animistic, some, the hanifs, worshipped one god exclusively, ‘Allah’ • became convinced while meditating in his cave that Allah was the only God, The God • on the Night of Power, the angel Gabriel appears to Muhammad in human form and urges him to ‘proclaim’ • this is the beginning of the writing of the Koran

9. Muhammad’s Ministry For twenty three years, Muhammad writes the Koran as it is transmitted by God As he preaches, he and his followers are endangered as they make enemies of the polytheists who • earn a living maintaining the 360 shrines to various gods around Mecca • enjoy, as Smith says, ‘licentiousness’ • maintain class distinctions Muhammad rejects Converts from Yathrib (280 miles north; later called Medina) invited Muhammad to be their leader and escape the dangers in Mecca His migration to Yathrib, in 622 CE, is called the Hijra, and is the turning point in world history for Muslims, who date their calendar from that year (using A. H., After Hijra, for subsequent years)

10. Muhammad’s Ministry In Medina, Muhammad is pressed into the role of judge, general, and teacher He lives frugally, though … • living in a clay house • milking his own goats • mending his own clothes, and • advising the humblest visitors personally His role as a general emerges as he leads the Medinese against the Meccans • first battle his forces win a great victory over a much larger Meccan force • second battle he is injured and Medinese lose • finally, after exhausting themselves laying siege to Medina, the Meccans retreat and are later finally conquered Always merciful in victory, Muhammad accepts the Meccan’s conversion to Islam

11. The Koran (Qur’an) • ‘al-Qur’an’ in Arabic means ‘a recitation’ (see Smith, p231) • Written over 23 years, Smith emphasizes that Muhammad considered it the only “miracle” associated with himself. • Illiterate as far as formal education, Muhammad wrote down the Koran in fits and spurts, describing the experience of inspiration as hearing “the reverberating of bells.” Smith, p232 • The Koran is composed of 114 chapters, called Surahs (Sura, Surat, Sewar), arranged in order longest to shortest. • Muslims believe there are, in a sense, two Korans—an uncreated, eternal Koran, and an instantiation of it, the written Koran. • Smith, p232: “If Christ is God incarnate, the Koran is God inlibriate.” • As literature, Arabic speakers Smith mentions find the Koran poetic and beautiful; English writers like Carlisle and Gibbon consider it, in translation of course, “wearisome,” “crude,” “a jumble.” • See an example of devotion to reading it perfectly, in Arabic. (Begin at the 40:00 minute mark to experience a bit of the competition)

12. 4 Basic Concepts of the Koran • God • Creation • Human self • Day of Judgment In Islam God is an immaterial being. Smith, p236, considers analogies to invisible things that Arabs at the time had no trouble believing in (eg, wind). Islam’s … “innovation was to remove idols from the religious scene and focus the divine in a single invisible God for everyone. It is in this sense that the indelible contribution of Islam to Arabic religion was monotheism.” –Smith, p236

13. 4 Basic Concepts of the Koran (1. God) Jews have monotheism, but it isn’t unambiguously worldwide: “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” –Deut. 6:4 Christians have worldwide monotheism, but they have the Trinity: “They say the God of mercy has begotten a son. Now have you uttered a grievous thing … It is not proper for God to have children.” (Koran, 3:78, 19:93) Islam eschews all “parental images” of God. They make God too human; they are anthropomorphic. –Smith, p236 Are ‘Son of God’ and ‘God the Son’ equivalent? __________

14. 4 Basic Concepts of the Koran (1. God) On page 237 Smith discusses the Muslim conception of God as God’s awesomeness in terms of power and enforcer (and creator?) of morality. Still, Allah’s compassion and mercy are mentioned 192 times in the Koran, wrath and vengeance 17. What do you think of Smith’s argument, p237, mid-page: “Mistakes could be disastrous. Koranic images of heaven and hell are pressed into service here; but once we come to terms with the fear that life’s inbuilt precariousness inspires, other lesser fears subside. The second, supporting root of the word islam is peace.” What kind of peace is this? __________________________ (Yes, I’m asking a serious question )

15. 4 Basic Concepts of the Koran (2. Creation) Rather than emanating from the divine as in Hinduism, or from the Form of The Good (Goodness itself), as the Neo-Platonists held, nature exists because of “a deliberate act of Allah’s will.” –Smith, p238 Does Allah have to continue willing existence to all other things to sustain them? ______________ Smith notes two consequences of this view: • The world is both real and important • Being the handiwork of Allah, who is both perfectly good and perfectly powerful, the world must be good. Islamic thinkers were the first Western scientists

16. 4 Basic Concepts of the Koran (2. Creation) • Being the handiwork of Allah, who is both perfectly good and perfectly powerful, the world must be good. “You do not see in the creation of the All-merciful any imperfection. Return your gaze … It comes back to you dazzled” (Koran, 67:4) –Smith, p238 Smith takes this statement to be an endorsement of “confidence in the material aspects of life”; notes that Christians and Jews share that confidence. What does that mean? __________________________ Are nature’s imperfections ignored? _______________ Recall Tennyson’s “Nature, red in tooth and claw.”

17. 4 Basic Concepts of the Koran (2. Creation) • Being the handiwork of Allah, who is both perfectly good and perfectly powerful, the world must be good. Regarding the creation of the human self or soul, Smith extends the commitment to such being created ‘good’. This could have been inferred, given its Maker, but the Koran states it explicitly: “Surely we have created humanity of the best stature” (Koran, 95:4) …The closest Islam comes to the Christian concept of original sin is in its concept of ghaflah, or forgetting. People do forget their divine origin, and this mistake needs repeatedly to be corrected…. With life acknowledge as a gift from its Creator, we can turn to its obligations, which are two. The first of these is gratitude for the life that has been received. The Arabic word “infidel” is actually shaded more toward “one who lacks thankfulness” than one who disbelieves. The second standing obligation [is surrender … total commitment to God] –Smith, p238-239 (my brackets) 1 2

18. Gratitude Argument The two obligations Smith identifies, • the duty to be grateful, and • the duty to surrender and be committed to God are based on the “gift of life.” In creating humans (out of nothing?), God has given us a great gift, and at the same time acquired a sort of ownership of us. (See Smith’s reference to Islam’s language of being a “slave to Allah,” p240.) (Ownership is traditionally determined by labor or work: if you did the work or made the effort to create something, you own it.) Response: God can’t own our lives because we own them … we create ourselves … we • feed ourselves • clothe ourselves • educate ourselves • etc. It’s all work and working for something (labor) is the standard basis of ownership. We are self-made and so own ourselves. On the contrary: God gives us life in the sense of existence and continued existence, the pre-conditions for all other goods, including our ability to shape our own character; those form His basis for ownership.

19. Gratitude Argument Reply: It is wrong to give people things that • they didn’t ask for, and (say, a diamond) • are hard for them to return (say, a huge fish tank) and at the same time demand something in return, like gratitude and or surrender / commitment. That sort of giving creates • no duty of gratitude, • no duty to return what’s given, • no duty to treat what was given according to the wishes of the giver So, if God exists and provides us with existence and or continued existence, we would have no duty to be grateful to God for it. Is this reply right? _______________ Is the gratitude argument in the Koran? __________ What can be said in reply? _____________ Consider the common theatre device of the starlet pursued by the admirer bearing gifts

20. 4 Basic Concepts of the Koran (3. Human Self) Smith explains the human self or soul in Islam by contrasting it with the ‘no self’ of Buddhism and the ‘ecological’ self of Confucianism. Why not compare it to the ‘ultimate self’ of Hinduism? Recall the question of whether, on dying, the soul becomes one with Brahman or retains a bit of individuality so as to “taste honey, not be honey”? Smith calls the Muslim self an “inexplicable center of experience that is the fundamental fact of the universe,” (p240) and so it is clearly not the empirical self. Nonetheless, Smith rejects the comparison, apparently, because, In India the all-pervading cosmic spirit comes close to swallowing the individual self. –Smith, p240 The Muslim soul retains its absolute individuality after death.

21. 4 Basic Concepts of the Koran (4. Judgment Day) The total individuality of the soul leads to its complete responsibility for its choices. Whoever gets to himself a sin, gets it solely on his own responsibility … Whoever goes astray, he himself bears the whole responsibility of wandering. (4:111, 10:103) –Smith, p241 Islam then provides a complementary picture of the afterlife. When life is over, souls are judged by Allah … When the sun shall be folded up, and the stars shall fall, and when the mountains shall be set in motion … and the seas shall boil … Then shall every soul know what it has done. (81, passim) –Smith, p241

22. 4 Basic Concepts of the Koran (4. Judgment Day) The imagery in the Koran of the afterlife … of heavens and hells … is extremely sensuous. Lots of sex in the heavens for the virtuous … men and women … though, mostly men; for the wicked, the hells present “burning garments, molten drinks, maces of iron, and fire that splits rocks into fragments.” –Smith, p241 Do all Muslims accept this as a literal depiction of heaven. The Koran itself says: Some of the signs are firm—these are the basis of the book—others are figurative. (3:5) –Smith, p242 So, no, some Muslims think the imagery is sensuous in order to be compelling, but is literally false.

23. See Koller, p143; Smith, p242-248 5 Pillars of Islam • Faith. The Shahada: “There is no god but God, and Muhammad is His Prophet.” This is to be recited at least once by all Muslims “slowly, thoughtfully, aloud, with full understanding and with heart-felt conviction.” –Smith, p244 • Prayer. “Be Constant” … in prayer. Muslims pray 5 times a day, facing Mecca. Read the story of how this injunction began with God’s requirement of prayer 50 times a day. See Smith, p245 • Charity. Muslims are required to share a portion of their income and savings with the poor, according to their need. • Fasting. During the month of Ramadan, Muslims are required to neither eat nor drink (no smoking or sex, either) while the sun is up. • Pilgrimage. Muslims, if at all possible, must travel to Mecca once in their lifetime.

24. Ockham Al-Farabi Avicenna Averroes Anselm 1287-1347 AD 870-950 CE 980-1037 CE 1126-1198 CE 1038-1109 AD 900 1300 Al- Kindi Al-Ghazali Aquinas Maimonides 801-873 CE 1058-1111 CE 1225-1274 AD 1138-1204 AD *All images link to scholarly articles

25. God, Creation, and Faith vs. Reason in Islam Soon after the death of Muhammad, a series of influential thinkers arose to answer questions about the nature of God, creation, and the roles reason and faith play in Islam. The following slides give a brief description of these main characters and bits of their positions on those questions. All of the following philosophers can be considered philosophical theologians, but because they all wrote about science, medicine, astronomy, etc., they are often referred to as polymaths.

26. Al-Kindi on Science & Reason Read about Al-Kindi as one of the earliest ‘modern’ scientists • distilling alcohol from wine • extracting scents from flowers (essential oils), and • creating inexpensive versions of expensive medicines (the first generic drugs?) Al-Kindi General Hospital, a teaching hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, is named for him (he taught in Baghdad; was born just south of Baghdad in Kufa, Iraq). From the Stanford website article on him… On First Philosophy … is a particularly good example of how al-Kindi combines Neoplatonic and Aristotelian ideas in his vision of a coherent philosophy derived from the Greeks. … [I]n the first section of On First Philosophy, al-Kindi unleashes a torrent of abuse against unnamed contemporaries who criticize the use of Greek ideas: We must not be ashamed to admire the truth or to acquire it, from wherever it comes. Even if it should come from far-flung nations and foreign peoples, there is for the student of truth nothing more important than the truth, nor is the truth demeaned or diminished by the one who states or conveys it; no one is demeaned by the truth, rather all are ennobled by it. –al-Kindi

27. Al-Kindi on God Al-Kindi, believes that God is simple. Not just a single entity, but utterly simple. Composed of no parts whatsoever … animal is one genus, but it is made up of a multiplicity of species; human is one species but is made up of many individuals; and a single human is one individual but made up of many bodily parts. Finally, al-Kindi seeks an explanation for the association of unity and multiplicity in all these things. He argues that the association cannot be merely the product of chance; nor can it be caused by any part of the set of things that are both one and many. So there must be some external cause for the association of unity and multiplicity. This cause will be exclusively one, entirely free of multiplicity: al-Kindi expresses this by saying that it is “essentially” one, whereas the other things are “accidentally” one. He also speaks of it as “one in truth,” whereas other things are one “metaphorically. –Peter Adamson “… the true One possesses no matter, form, quantity, quality, or relation. And is not described by any of the other terms: it has no genus, no specific difference, no individual, no proper accident, and no common accident. It does not move, and is not described through anything that is denied to be one in truth. It is therefore only pure unity, I mean nothing other than unity. And every unity other than it is multiple.” –al-Kindi (from the Adamson article) How does this relate to the Ship of Theseus?

28. Al-Kindi on Creation As you might expect, al-Kindi defends the Koran’s view that God created the universe ex nihilo, out of nothing. We say that the true, first act is the bringing-to-be of beings from non-being. It is clear that this act is proper to God, the exalted, who is the end of every cause. For the bringing-to-be of beings from non-being belongs to no other. And this act is a proper characteristic [called] by the name “origination.” (Abu Rida 1950, 182–4) –Peter Adamson If ‘from nothing, nothing comes’, can an all-powerful being force something to arise from nothing? ___________ Is the idea of God creating the universe ex nihilo, out of nothing, a violation of the Principle of Sufficient Reason? __________ If God is eternal, and the world had a beginning, how did God decide it was time to create? ____________

29. Al-Farabi on God and Creation Al-Farabi: a Persian (from modern Kazakhstan or perhaps Afghanistan) who lived and worked in Baghdad (Iraq), and Damascus and Allepo (Syria). Like al-Kindi before him, al-Farabi was both a Neo-Platonist and an Aristotelian. Since Aristotle and Plato disagreed about many things, trying to harmonize their views, and also make them fit with Islam, was a daunting task. In trying to understand creation as a Muslim, al-Farabi accepted Neo-Platonic emanation from ‘the First’: al-Farabi tried to demonstrate the basic agreement between Aristotle and Plato on such matters as the creation of the world, the survival of the soul and reward and punishment in the afterlife. In al-Farabi's conception of God, essence and existence [a distinction of Aristotle’s] fuse absolutely with no possible separation between the two … we see the Neoplatonic element most of all in the doctrine of emanation as it is deployed in al-Farabi's hierarchy of being. (my brackets) –Richard Netton

30. Al-Farabi on God and Creation At the top of this hierarchy is the Divine Being whom al-Farabi characterizes as 'the First'. From this emanates a second being which is the First Intellect. (This is termed, logically, 'the Second', that is, the Second Being). Like God, this being is an immaterial substance. A total of ten intellects emanate from the First Being. … In Farabian metaphysics, then, the concept of Neoplatonic emanation replaces that of Qur'anic creation ex nihilo. –Richard Netton Does al-Farabi solve a puzzle for al-Kindi by making the First Intellect at least something immaterial, like God … an extension of his own existence, perhaps? __________

31. Avicenna (Ibn-Sina) Avicenna is a Persian from Afshana, a village northeast of Iran in what is now Uzbekistan. Avicenna’s Neo-Platonism, as described by Koller, sees a return to Plato’s own emphasis on the emotional aspect of goodness (recall a mention of jealousy?): God, the ultimate reality, is eternal beauty, according to Ibn Sina, …. It is the very nature of beauty to be self-expressive, he says, and nature is simply the self-expression of God. In God, this self-expression, not different from His being, is the supreme love, for love is nothing other than the expression and appreciation of perfect beauty. …. [B]eauty is the ultimate being of the universe, and love is its ultimate energy, causing all beings to seek their original perfection. But being and energy are simply different aspects of the same reality. –Koller, p146

32. Avicenna (Ibn-Sina) Avicenna could not make sense of the notion that Allah made the universe out of nothing. Ibn Sina … taught that the world was uncreated, existing eternally, because although the scriptures taught that the world was created by God out of nothing, reason can make no sense out of something being created out of nothing. … creation was really a transformation of something existing previously. Even though it might be a radical transformation, it was not creation out of nothing. –Koller, p145 (This is certainly the view of Aristotle, however, Avicenna seems to have a more subtle view: see Paul Spade’s discussion of an “efficient cause,” [search the .pdf file for ‘efficient cause’ or ‘making cause’] as a concept invented by Avicenna specifically to strike a balance between creation ex nihilo and creation as mere modification of pre-existing stuff) … for great similar downloadable files from Professor Spade, click the ‘Things to download’ link in the Table of Contents. About knowledge, recall that for Plato, knowledge is only of the eternal, unchanging Forms. Avicenna agreed. He carried his agreement so far as to refuse the notion that God knows all the details of the material world. Knowledge is strictly limited to the Forms, for everyone, including God.

33. Avicenna (Ibn-Sina) Knowledge continued … Ibn Sina claimed that, since the soul is the knowing part of a person, and since knowledge is only of forms, therefore, the soul itself is a form. If the nature of the soul were different from that of knowledge, knowledge would be impossible. –Koller, p146 Also … if the soul is a form, then it is universal and indestructible. The body, on the other hand, is naturally destructible. … it follows … that there can be no eternal resurrection of the body—a conclusion that contradicts the Qur’anic teaching of the eternal resurrection of the body after the Last Judgment. –Koller, p146 From Avicenna, then, Islam is confronted with reason saying ‘No’ to creation ex nihilo, ‘No’ to God’s omniscience, and ‘No’ to God’s method of rewarding and punishing eternally. Philosophy had begun to seriously crowd faith.

34. Al-Ghazali Al-Ghazali is another Persian from Tous, in the Khorisan province of northeastern Iran. He studied philosophy and became a professor in Baghdad, Iraq. In a widely praised work, The Nonsense of Philosophers (often ‘The Incoherence of the Philosophers’), al-Ghazali attacks the views of Avicenna and others who place reason as the final arbiter of truth. Al-Ghazali is no ‘Koran thumper’. His strategy in Nonsense is to show that reason can show seemingly rational positions to be confused just as easily as it can the revealed truths of scripture. He is sometimes said to argue against Aristotle and Plato, but he was a committed Aristotelian in many respects.

35. Al-Ghazali al-Ghazali’s response to Avicenna’s commitment to the causal necessity of emanation was to move causal responsibility on him. He argues for a view called ‘Occasionalism’. Occasionalism =df The doctrine that God is the sole causal actor and that all events are merely occasions on which God brings about what are normally thought of as their effects. -Free Online Dictionary Nothing in our experience shows us any necessity between one event thought to cause another event. There is merely an association of one with another, even if the association is unfailingly regular. Read about the Occasionalism of al-Ghazali here. Note: unlike David Hume’s rejection of any necessary connection between cause and effect, the Occasionalism here, since it posits God as the true and only causally effective agent, is not in itself a rejection of the Principle of Sufficient Reason … all events require causes; the cause, though, need not be what we typically think the cause is … like fire causing something to burn. Instead, God does the burning when the fire is near.

36. Al-Ghazali What difference does Occasionalism make? Avicenna had denied the possibility of miracles, of human freedom (which would interfere with God’s omnipotence, on Avicenna’s view), among other Koranic commitments. By creating combustion every time fire touches cotton, God follows a certain custom (‘âda). In real terms, however, combustion occurs only concomitantly when fire touches cotton and is not connected to this event. [al-Ghazali] maintains that causal processes may simply be the result of God's habit and that He creates what we consider a cause and its effect individually and immediately. When God wishes to perform a miracle and confirm the mission of one of His prophets, he suspends His habit and omits to create the effect He usually does according to His habit. –Frank Griffel As it happens, however, Griffel notes (last paragraph, section 7.4) that al-Ghazali’s ultimate position is that God never departs from his habits, and so science can count on events following the lawful pattern they do; prophet’s miracles are built into the lawful pattern. The point, though, against Avicenna stands: there is no necessity that interferes with these commitments of the Koran.

37. Averroes (Ibn-Rushd) Averroes, born in Cordova, Spain, is famous for writing a response to al-Ghazali entitled, The Nonsense of Nonsense (or, The Incoherence of the Incoherence). Regarding Occasionalism … Ibn Rushd, the consummate Aristotelian, … insists that Ghazzali’s view would be counter-productive to scientific knowledge and contrary to common-sense. The universe, according to the human mind, works along certain causal principles and the beings existing within the universe contain particular natures that define their existence; if these natures, principles and characteristics were not definitive, then this would lead to nihilism (i.e. the atheistic materialists found in the Greek and Arab worlds). –Chad Hillier Does this sound fair to al-Ghazali? _____________ Did al-Ghazali deny the total reliability of lawful regularities in nature? ______________

38. Averroes (Ibn-Rushd) Regarding Creation … Ghazzali perceived that the philosophers had misunderstood the relationship between God and the world, especially since the Qur’an is clear on divine creation. Ghazzali, sustaining the Asharite emphasis on divine power, questioned why God, being the ultimate agent, could not simply create the world ex nihilo and then destroy it in some future point in time? Why did there need to be some obstacle to explain a delay in God’s creative action? Ibn Rushd … replied that the eternal works differently than the temporal. As humans, we can willfully decide to perform some action and then wait a period of time before completing it. For God, on the other hand, there can be no gap between decision and action; for what differentiates one time from another in God’s mind? Also, what physical limits can restrict God from acting? –Chad Hillier Does this response work? __________ Averroes seems to say God is perfectly efficient. Is efficiency an essential feature of a perfect being? _____________

39. Maimonides & Aquinas The events surrounding Ibn Rushd towards the end of his life, including his banishment, signaled a broader cultural shift in the Islamic world. …As interest in philosophy waned in the Muslim world after Ibn Rushd, his writings found new existence and intellectual vigor in the work of Christian and Jewish philosophers. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw an intellectual revival in the Latin West, with the first great universities being established in Italy, France and England. Within the walls of the University of Paris, a group of philosophers came to identify themselves with the Aristotelian philosophy presented by Ibn Rushd, particularly certain elements of its relation to religion. Later known as the “Averroists,” these Christian philosophers sparked a controversy within the Roman Catholic Church about the involvement of philosophy with theology. –Chad Hillier

40. Maimonides & Aquinas Among Jewish thinkers, however, Ibn Rushd had a more positive impact. His thoughts on Aristotle and the relationship between philosophy and religion, particularly revelation, inspired a renewed interest in the interpretation of scripture and the Jewish religion. Key Jewish philosophers, such as Maimonides, Moses Narboni and Abraham ibn Ezra, became associated with Ibn Rushd in the West, even though they took Ibn Rushd’s doctrines into novel directions. … without the work of the Spanish-Muslim philosopher, much of what occurred in medieval philosophy would have not existed. He became an example of how religions are dynamic and evolving traditions, often shaped by epistemological influences from other traditions. –Chad Hillier This is a good place to quit. You are in a good position to pick up the study of Western philosophy starting with Anselm and Aquinas, if you’re interested. Good luck!

41. A painting by Giovanni de Paolo (1403 – 1482), entitled, “St. Thomas Aquinas Confounding Averroes” Averroes looks pretty good for a dead guy. 

42. Images All images are taken from Wikimedia Commons. They are Public Domain images requiring no attribution for use.