Studies in Islamic Philosophy

The present work can, in a sense, be read as an enlargement and updating of M. M. Sharif’s earlier study A History of Muslim Philosophy (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 2 vols., 1966). It both introduces and contains select writings of such recent thinkers as Syed Murtada Mutahhari, [Ali Shari[ati, Sayyid Abul Ala Mawdudi, Fazlur Rahman and Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Essentially it is an anthology of post-Shah Waliullah Muslim philosophical writings, published in the eighteenth through to the twentieth centuries. Readers get an opportunity to gain or renew acquaintance with some of the eminent Muslim thinkers. Prefaced to the work is the editor’s extensive scholarly Introduction (pp. 1–30), which broaches the following topics: the spirit and relevance of Islamic philosophy, the place of reason in Islam, Muslims’ approaches to philosophy, especially their philosophic-scientific approach, and the faith–reason debate in our time. In this critique he pays a glowing tribute to Iqbal’s philosophical genius. Iqbal’s thought was inspired and shaped, in the main, by the Qur’an. Nonetheless, he drew also on the works of German philosophers, Bergson as well as existentialist philosophers.