THE RISE OF ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY

Abstract

Greek philosophy is not found in Arabic dress before the first half of the ninth century, during the Califate of the Abbasids. The Abbasids had transferred the capital of the Muslim empire from Damascus to the newly founded city of Baghdad, and it was there that the two islamic philosophers with whom I propose here to deal spent the greater part of their lives, Yacqiib son of Ishaq aK i n d i and Abu Nasr a l-Fa r b . The former of these, who died shortly after A.D. 870, witnessed the reign of the great caliphs al-Ma'miun (813-833) and al-MuCtasim (833-842), a period marked both by the power of the Abbasid Caliphate in the realm of politics, which was then at its height, and by a vigorous artistic and intellectual life. He was thus an older contemporary of the Greek patriarch Photius, who once came as an ambassador to the border of the Muslim Empire 2, and of the Irish philosopher Eriugena (John the Scot), who was the first to introduce Neoplatonic thought into the far west 3. The schoolmen were acquainted with

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