Islamic philosophy online is the Premier Islamic Philosophy Site dedicated to the study of the philosophical output of the Muslim world.
History:
The website was started in July 2001 and since then we are still a major site dedicated to the study of Islamic Philosophy from Abbasid period to the present. Our definition what Islamic philosophy is very loose. Basically it is works on philosophy that came from the Muslim world, being lands where Muslims are a majority. This would include philosophy written in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Javanese, Swahili, Urdu, Bengali, Hindi, Malay and any other language that Muslim utilize. Studies and text have been published into Western languages such as Latin, French, German, Spanish and English.
Are all the philosophers Arab or Muslims? No, A majority of these philosophers are not of Arab origin or descent, for their ancestry is superfluous, but their main output (written corpus) is in Arabic. Since there is no Islamic orthodoxy the definition of who is a Muslim is a bit loose. As for religious affiliation, most were Muslims while others were not and a sizable number were freethinkers as there is no consensus on this issue. Some will declare them Muslims while others consider them heretics and apostates. While this makes for interesting research questions (more like coffee house chatter) it is not a major concern on this website. I am concerned with presenting that philosophical output without pre-judgment (I try) for what it is and nothing more. Sure we all have our biases but who doesn’t!
Should you have any concerns or suggestions I love to hear from you. Same goes if you do use this site or find it useful.
The site has over 2 Gigabytes of E-texts and graphics. The site has materials in Arabic, English, French, German and Latin.
We have separate sites for the following philosophers:
- Al-Ghazali
- Ibn Sina
- Ibn Rushd
- Ibn Taymiyah
- al-Kindi
- al-Farabi
- Muhammad Iqbal (yes, Macksood did this one!)
We have pages for:
- The translators
- Modern Philosophers
- Routledge’s Islamic Philosophy Entries
- Encyclopedia of Islam‘s Philosophical Articles.
We would like to see in the future sites for the following:
- al-Razi (Abu Bakr of course!)
- al-Mu’tazilah
- Ibn Hazm (some of his works are online!)
- Ibn Tufyal (his only extant work is online)
- Ibn Khaldun (he is famous for history, but was a philosopher nonetheless, not to mention his romantic flings with politics and diplomacy.) We have his works online.
Sites we could have had but they have been done already and we will not have to:
- Ibn Arabi
- Mulla Sadra
The site is also a home to sites for educators:
- Prof. Mashhad al-Allaf.
The site was also a home to the Journal of Islamic Philosophy. This is the first journal born online dedicated to the study of Islamic Philosophy. For more information see the Journal’s page and the call for papers.