The Science of Philosophy

and not for the hereafter, then you have tormented the beast and squandered the time. As for reward, despair of it; and do not count yourself safe from punishment save by repentance.(1)

( The Science of Philosophy (al-ḥikmah) )

Metaphysics (al-falsafah al-ilāhīyah): no man whose deliverance is to be hoped for looks into it, and no man whose salvation shows plain leans upon believing it. For this science is on one side and what the messengers brought is on another. Yet the straying of one who does not know, as he ought, what the messengers brought is by philosophy more evil than the straying of one who does know it. O for God's help! If those who were deputed to refute the philosophers have themselves been left bewildered, and an eclipse has overtaken them, then what is to be thought of the men they were refuting! And there is no remedy for these sciences, and for their savants and those who uphold them in learning and in reason, but the fire and blotting out of existence — for the religion went on being complete until these books were turned into Arabic and Muslims looked into them; so were they annihilated it would be a manifest victory.(1) As for mathematical philosophy, there is truth in it, out of geometrical natures and reckoning and the like; and there are falsehoods in it, out of astrology (al-tanjīm) and its like. So its false part injures a man in his religion and leads him astray, while its true part is a craft, a precision and an exactitude in which there is neither wage nor sin. As for natural philosophy, there is no harm in it, but it is no part of the sciences of religion, nor of what brings a man near to God Most High, nor of the provision for the return; rather it is a craft with neither reward nor punishment, so long as the man who has it is sound in creed, upright and good, as we have seen a number of them to be. And a man may be rewarded for learning it, by his intention, if God Most High so wills

— Notes —

[25] (1) The author is fair here after a fashion, measured against the opinions of a certain party concerning this science, and he did not say what al-Suyūṭī said in his commentary on his own ʻUqūd al-jumān: “We, the company of the People of the Sunnah, do not defile our writings with the filth of logic.” End. And it is a curious thing that when al-Muwaffaq al-Maqdisī composed Rawḍat al-nāẓir on the principles of jurisprudence, and abridged within it the whole of al-Ghazzālī's al-Mustaṣfá and followed its arrangement and its wording — as appears from an examination of the two books — he summarised its logical introduction and made it the introduction to his own book, and copies of the Rawḍah circulated in that form. Then when one of the ʻAlathīs of his own school came upon the book, he flared up in anger and reproached al-Muwaffaq bitterly for making logic a part of his book; so he yielded to him and took to leaving the introduction out whenever the book was read out to him, which is why you see the introduction in one copy and not in another. Al-Najm al-Ṭūfī said in his commentary on his own abridgement of the Rawḍah: “I have left the introduction out of my abridgement, because I do not master that science, nor did Shaykh al-Muwaffaq master it either; so had I abridged it, the strain upon it would have shown from both sides, and no real profit from it would come to the student, while it would eat up his time. So whoever wants that science, let him take it from its proper places, from its own masters and its own books.” End. And that is how a candid man is. But he who has no grasp of this science may contradict himself and not feel it, and flounder and not know what has happened, and remain a laughing-stock to men of intellect in speculative inquiries. It is therefore a science that preserves one from error in thinking, and in the view of the people of exacting scholarship no trust is placed in the learning of one who does not know it.

[26] (1) Has there come down concerning that any speaking scripture, or any decisive text from the Messenger, God bless him and grant him peace, that you should pass so severe a judgement! For God's sake, let the learned of the Muslims discharge their duty: guarding against what is harmful, taking what is beneficial, and taking their sought-for stray wherever they find it. Corruption has seeped into the affairs of the Muslims by reason of ignorance and idleness, not by reason of knowledge and work. True, a man of evil inner character is able to work with his knowledge such corruption as the ignorant man is not able to work; but the blame for that is not to be laid to knowledge, but upon nurture and training.