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This study examines Fazlur Rahman's understanding of Islamic philosophy by analyzing his attitude towards the works of Muslim philosophers and his belief in the value of the Qur'an's precepts. It pays specific attention to the relationship between his understanding of philosophy and his method of interpreting the Qur'an, since in Rahman's understanding, this method is the only means to satisfy the changing needs of society. It explores Rahman's definition of Islamic philosophy, which is strongly characterized by three religious terms, iman, islam, and taqwa. / The thesis furthermore looks at the reasons why Rahman borrowed certain philosophical expressions of the Muslim philosophers in his works when, at first glance, their doctrines contradict Rahman's own position. Special attention is paid to his book Major Themes of the Qur'an, wherein Rahman discusses human existence and his final destiny through his interpretation of the Qur'an. The thesis concludes that Rahman's Islamic philosophy is a moral one, which is practically oriented and based on his understanding of the Qur'an.

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Suhrawardi's interpretation of Avicenna's philosophical anthropology greatly depends on the Peripatetic system, in spite of its novel light motif and the faculty of imagination's predominance. His definition of the soul does not depart significantly from Avicenna's: its definition as an entelechy and a substance, its incorporeality, its pre-existence, or the role of the vital spirits---pneumata. However, he criticizes the materialism implied in a number of Avicennan theses. At issue is the ontological unity of the soul that Suhrawardi perceives to be jeopardized by the localization in the body of the representative faculties---the active and passive imaginations and the estimation---and their objects. After criticizing the "extramissive" and the "intromissive" theories of vision, Suhrawardi introduces his own illuminative theory in an effort to simultaneously account for mystical vision. He also reduces Avicenna's faculties responsible for representation to a single faculty, focusing on the soul's role in perception. Suhrawardi analyses self-knowledge, discussing the primary awareness of one's own existence, self-identity, the unmediated character of this type of knowledge, and the issue of individuation. At the conceptual level, intellection is logically prior to imagination, while discussions about the active intelligence, its functions, and the conjunction of the rational soul---the Isfahbad-light---with the active intelligence---the light principle---still remain Avicennan. Epistemological concepts such as intuition and mystical contemplation become central in the debate over the primacy of mystical knowledge over philosophical knowledge. Suhrawardi's and Avicenna's discussions about the nature of prophetic knowledge are then contrasted with the nature of mystical knowledge by introducing the negative and positive functions of the faculty of imagination, namely, its role in the particularization of universal truths and its mimetic function. The survival of th

In this study, the relationship between medical thought and philosophy is investigated through the works of the famous Islamic thinker, Abu Bakr Muhammad b. Zakariya al-Razi (ca. 250-323/864-935). In one of the texts we shall be examining Razi thought that he could resolve the problem of the world's creation through allegory. Razi's interlocuter was concerned to defend the idea of epistemological "revelation." Although Razi agrees that the Intellect was sent by the Creator, he insists that this was done primarily for the benefit of the "self," which had become entangled in "material confusion." He is particularly concerned to counter the authoritarian implications of his opponent's epistemological position, which appears to emphasize doctrinal truth at the expense of all other considerations. These considerations are taken up by Razi in another work, the Kitab al-tibb al-ruhani. There, he draws on the science of medical treatment for application in ethics, but with some interesting implications for the problem of knowledge. The real object must be to bring man to his proper destination, and in this Razi's views coincide with the early mystical tradition in Islam, from al-Hujwiri to al-Ghazzali, where the problem essentially consists of existential realization rather than a merely abstract or intellectual process.

This dissertation deals with Ibn Taymiyya's theory of the unity of God and of creation, or, as Muslim philosophers have posited the question, the relation between the oneness of God and the diversity that has come out of it. Indeed, Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328) responded to the same ontological question that earlier Muslim philosophers were concerned to answer. Although Ibn Taymiyya was a theologian, he did not encounter quite the same questions as the early kalam theologian whose concern it was to prove the existence of God. The dissertation discusses the forms this question took. / The introduction reviews Ibn Taymiyya's life, works and historical circumstances. The first chapter deals with Ibn Taymiyya's concept of God which is that of a real and actual being. God, for him, is not abstract in the way some Muslim theologians, philosophers and mystics had affirmed. / The second chapter discusses two great Muslim thinkers: al-Ghazali, who attempted to reconcile kalam with Ibn Sina's philosophy, and Ibn Rushd, who criticized both al-Ghazali and Ibn Sina and established a new philosophical approach to the notion of God and the process of creation. In this chapter we touch on the later development of both kalam and philosophy in Islam and show how Ibn Taymiyya, while pursuing the same goal as al-Ghazali in reconciling kalam and philosophy, drew benefit from these developments. / The third chapter goes to the core of Ibn Taymiyya's theory of diversity issuing from the oneness of God. This chapter shows the bold notions that Ibn Taymiyya believed represent the only possible answers to the question of creation: the essence of God as a substrate of generation; the eternity of the world; and God's attributes as species and genera, actualized in our concrete world. / The conclusion illustrates the differences between Ibn Taymiyya and other Muslim philosophers and theologians, as well as his adoption of certain of their ideas.

Sadr al-Din Qunavi (605/1207-673AH/1274 CE)--stepson and pupil of Ibn $ rm sp{c}$Arabi (d. 638 AH/1240 CE)--played a pivotal role in the development of Islamic intellectual history. His contributions in the medieval period helped alter the course of mystico-philosophical tradition, which was then flourishing from Asia Minor and Persia to the major learning centers of the Arabic-speaking world. His importance was largely due to the complex mystical doctrine he expounded in the light of Ibn Sina's critique of knowledge. The age-old dilemma of knowledge was encapsulated in a famous declaration by Ibn Sina--the rationalist philosopher--who asserted that man is incapable of knowing intellectually "the realities of things," let alone the First Being. This did not imply that the realities were either unknowable in every sense, or that they did not exist. The question is in what sense and how are they knowable? It was Ibn Sina's special calling, Qunavi argued, to show the proper role and scope of reason in this quest. Philosophical knowledge may be represented chiefly through demonstrative logic, the only paradigm available to Ibn Sina. Qunavi on the other hand, set out to develop an exegetical grammar more suited to the movements of spiritual dialogue and paradox. For him, an intellectual knowledge of the "realities," in essence, rested on the relation between two distinct realities (subject and object). Yet all agreed that God's knowledge of Himself was the root of all knowledge. It had to transform utterly the distinction between the two realities. God's self-revelation is furthermore an unfolding book divulged through the infinite possibilities of linguistic construction. Mysticism's technical vocabulary had, therefore, to distinguish itself from, though without displacing, the bare skeleton of demonstrative logic.