In this innovative work, Salman H. Bashier challenges traditional views of Islamic philosophy. While Islamic thought from the crucial medieval period is often depicted as a rationalistic elaboration on Aristotelian philosophy and an attempt to reconcile it with the Muslim religion, Bashier puts equal emphasis on the influence of Plato's philosophical mysticism. This shift encourages a new reading of Islamic intellectual tradition, one in which boundaries between philosophy, religion, mysticism, and myth are relaxed. Bashier shows the manner in which medieval Islamic philosophers reflected on the relation between philosophy and religion as a problem that is intrinsic to philosophy and shows how their deliberations had the effect of redefining the very limits of their philosophical thought. The problems of the origin of human beings, human language, and the world in Islamic philosophy are discussed. Bashier highlights the importance of Ibn ufayl's ayy ibn Yaq an, a landmark work often overlooked by scholars, and the thought of the great Sufi mystic Ibn al- Arabi to the mainstream of Islamic philosophy.

Salman H. Bashier is a Polonsky Postdoctoral Fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute in Israel. He is the author of Ibn al-Arabi's Barzakh: The Concept of the Limit and the Relationship between God and the World, also published by SUNY Press.

Introduction

1. The File of Illuminationist Philosophy and the Purpose of Writing Hayy

The Legend of Eastern Philosophy
Eastern and Western Schools of Philosophy
Plato and Aristotle: The Heart and the Voice of Islamic Philosophy
The Purpose of Writing Hayy

2. The Introduction

Mystical Expression and Experience: Fundamental Sufi Concepts
Knowledge1, Knowledge2, and Ghazali's Niche of Lights
Ibn Sina's Liminal Depiction of the Mystical Experience
Salaman and Absal: The Hermetistic Version
Ibn Sina's Version

3. The Naturalistic Account of Hayy's Birth

Ibn Tufayl's Method of Concealment
Spontaneous Generation
A Liminal Depiction of the Chain of Existents
In the Earth of Barzakh
Plato's Myth of Spontaneous Generation

4. The Traditionalistic Account from the End

Divine Origins and Illuminative Gradations
Imitation and Interpretation
Ibn ufayl's Liminal Declaration

5. The Origination of the World

Between Plato and Aristotle
Aristotle's Concept of the Infinite
Ibn Tufayl's Liminal Stand

6. The Shadow of Farabi

Philosophy's Ultimate Mission
The Origination of Language
The Quest for Unity
The Development of Meanings
Two Conceptions of Dialectic

7. The Shadow of Ibn Bajja

Ibn Bajja on the Chain of Existents and Self-Intellection
The Presence of the Parable of the Cave

8. The Traditionalistic Account from the Beginning

The Emphasis on Balance and Equilibrium
The Discovery of Fire
The Sleepers in the Cave
The Encounter Between Moses and al-Khadir
Moses in Fusus al-Hikam

9. Gilgamesh: The One Who Saw the Abyss

The Builder of the Great Walls and the Man-As-He-Was-In-the-Beginning
Intercourse as an Act of Writing
In Company with Gilgamesh
Enkidu's Death
The Quest for Eternal Life
The Encounter with Utnapishtim
In the Underworld

10. The Tale of Buluqiya Between Ibn al-'Arabi and Gilgamesh

The Tale of Hasib Karim al-Din
The Quest for the Plant of Life
The Mystical Dimension

Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography