1 Islamic Philosophy and the Ethics of Belief Anthony Robert Booth Chapter 1: Falsafa as Ethics of Belief [1 st Draft. Please do not cite. Comments Welcome. a.r.booth@sussex.ac.uk] A Note on Translation, Transliteration, Dates, and References: Throughout this manuscript I have transliterated Arabic words into English, with the use of diacritical marks, and have put the words in italics. However, I used Anglicised versions of certain well-known Arabic words and names. For instance, I used ‘Koran’ instead of ‘Qur’ān’ or ‘Hadith’ instead of ‘Hādīth’, and the names ‘al-Kindi’, ‘al- Farabi’, ‘al-Ghazali’ instead of ‘al-Kindī’, ‘al-Farābī’, ‘al-Gḥazālī’. I used the Latinate names ‘Averroes’ for ‘Ibn Rushd’ and Avicenna for ‘Ibn Sīnā’. I used diacritical marks for the transliteration of less well-known (than the above) Islamic Philosophers, but did not use them for the word ‘Falasifa’ and its cognates, since I used it so often. When quoting and referencing works in Medieval Islamic Philosophy, I used the full name of the work in English translation, and in italics, followed by page numbers; for those referred to in the original Arabic, I have used the Arabic name of the work, also in italics, and with a footnote on the translation. All works, in translation or in the original, are referenced at the end of the book, before my list of “secondary” sources (by which I mean all non-Medieval works). All dates used refer to the Common Era calendar. 1. Knowledge in Islam. In his impressive book Knowledge Triumphant, the illustrious scholar of Islam - Franz Rosenthal - argues that the central leitmotif of the Islamic civilization is the concept of knowledge 1 . Understanding the Islamic notion of knowledge, according to Rosenthal, is necessary if one is to understand Islam, the civilisation it gave birth to, and the particular historical course it has taken. Indeed, according to Rosenthal, “Islam means Knowledge”. The position is at least prima facie defensible, as Rosenthal suggests, when one considers that the Koranic term for the time preceding the Koranic revelation is jāhilīyah, a term usually translated as ‘ignorance’ 2 – and this, naturally enough, seems to suggest that the key difference between the time preceding the Koranic revelation, and the time following it, is that the latter (and not the former) was a time when people in this world – through the instruments of 1 For a similar take cf. Bakar 1998. 2 Though Goldziher (1889) has – controversially – argued that it is better translated as “barbarity”. Jāhilīyah is the term that Sayyid Qutb describes the state of the West, and the US 2 Though Goldziher (1889) has – controversially – argued that it is better translated as “barbarity”. Jāhilīyah is the term that Sayyid Qutb describes the state of the West, and the US in particular, in the 20 th Century. Qutb – unfairly dubbed “the philosopher of terror” by certain US journalists – will be discussed in Chapter 3.