The Rejected Heritage: Islamic Philosophy

Dear Readers:

In our daily lives, we often repeat and frequently use the phrase, "time passes quickly." If we were to speak not of human life, but of human history, then we would have to say, "centuries pass quickly."

Indeed, centuries pass quickly; great Islamic philosophers who once illuminated the world are forgotten and cast into dark pits. The bitter truth is that those who reject this magnificent heritage are the spiritual heirs of these great sages and brilliant minds who once "shed light" on humanity.

I grew up as a child of the Republic Era. In the schools I attended, I never read a single line about the following Islamic philosophers and scholars:

• Ziryab 789-857
• Al-Kindi 801-873
• Al-Farabi (Latin: Alpharabius) 872-950
• Al-Biruni 973-1048
• Ibn Sina (Latin: Avicenna) 980-1037
• Al-Ghazali 1053-1111
• Abu'l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī 1080-1165
• Ibn Bajjah (Latin: Avempace) 1085-1138
• Ibn Tufayl 1106-1186
• Ibn Rushd (Latin: Averroes) 1126-1198
• Suhrawardi 1154-1191
• Ibn Khaldun 1332-1406

These great philosophers, who left their mark on the Golden Age of Islam, were forever erased from our culture and minds.

On March 3, 1924, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey passed the Tevhid-i Tedrisat (Law on the Unification of Education), closing the madrasas. All schools were brought under the Ministry of National Education. This was initially seen as a "progressive" step. With the closure of the madrasas, Ottoman and Islamic history were, in a sense, "closed down" as well.

In philosophy, sociology, biology, literature, and physics classes, I encountered names like Durkheim, Darwin, Freud, Daniel Defoe (author of Robinson Crusoe), Rousseau, Leibniz, Newton, John Locke, and David Hume, and August Comte. Our admiration for the West knew no bounds. The Republic had turned its face towards the West. It had pushed aside Arabic script, and the Ottoman and Islamic heritage.

When the Republic rejected the spiritual heritage of Islamic philosophers, to fill the resulting void, the "Sun Language Theory" was put forward in the 1930s, claiming that Turkish was the first language in the world. This theory, supported by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, was not accepted by linguists and quickly lost its importance. This time, attention turned to Central Asian Turkic history. However, there was nothing there beyond the Orkhon Inscriptions and the Ergenekon Legend.

Thus, taking refuge in the West was the only solution. And so it happened. In 1940, at the initiative of Minister of National Education Hasan Âli Yücel, Western Classics were translated into Turkish. Curricula were based on Western culture. I, too, grew up in these conditions, as a child of a generation enamored with the West.

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In the 1980s, while researching Ziryab in Spain, I first encountered the names of Andalusian Islamic philosophers:

• Ziryab 789-857
• Ibn Bajjah (Latin: Avempace) 1085-1138
• Ibn Tufayl 1106-1186
• Ibn Arabi 1165-1240
• Ibn Rushd (Latin: Averroes) 1126-1198
• Ibn Khaldun (from an Andalusian family) 1332-1406

I published my work on Ziryab as a book titled "Andalusian Sun: Ziryab."

Ibn Tufayl

Ibn Tufayl was born in 1106 in Guadix (Wadi'l-Ash / Ash Valley), 60 km northeast of Granada (Southern Spain / Al-Andalus). Ibn Tufayl's Latin name is Abubacer.

Ibn Tufayl studied under Ibn Bajjah. He is the third brilliant sage and Islamic thinker produced by Al-Andalus after Ziryab and Ibn Bajjah. He was multi-talented. He received education in philosophy, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, and literature. He gained fame as a physician, jurist, philosopher, astronomer, and religious scholar. Ibn Tufayl was the first to propose systematic autopsies on cadavers to advance medical knowledge. He also served as a Vizier. Most importantly, he authored Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, considered the first philosophical novel in human history.

In Ibn Tufayl's time, the Almohad Caliphate (a Berber Muslim empire) ruled North Africa and Southern Spain.

In his youth, Ibn Tufayl served as a secretary to rulers, first in Granada and then in the cities of Ceuta and Tangier in northern Morocco. He became both the Vizier and personal physician to the Almohad Caliph Abu Yaqub Yusuf. During these years, he perhaps tutored Ibn Rushd (Averroes), one of the greatest Islamic philosophers, and took him under his protection.

Encouraged by Ibn Tufayl, Ibn Rushd studied Aristotelian philosophy. He produced the most comprehensive analysis of Aristotle in human history. With this work, Ibn Rushd went down in history as the philosopher who introduced Aristotle to Europe.

Ibn Rushd wrote in his memoirs how Ibn Tufayl influenced him:

"One day, Ibn Tufayl called me to him. He said that the Caliph was disturbed by the inconsistent information circulating about Aristotle's ideas. Then he added that perhaps translation errors were the cause of this situation, and he asked me to address this issue, to study Aristotle, to understand him, and then to write about him. I hesitated. Studying Aristotle was not an easy task. Ibn Tufayl must have understood this, for he immediately added: 'If you have the energy and the desire, go into this work! But I am sure you can do it, because I have witnessed many times the subtlety of your intellect and your determination to dedicate yourself to a subject. Only you can understand Aristotle. I am old now. Moreover, due to the duties I have undertaken, I no longer have time for such a study; but you can do it.' After these words from Ibn Tufayl, I began to study Aristotle."

Ibn Rushd's study of Aristotle is the most comprehensive of all time. Thomas Aquinas, one of the founders of Western philosophy, based his Scholastic worldview on Ibn Rushd's work.

Ibn Tufayl's Book: "Hayy ibn Yaqdhan"

Ibn Tufayl's Hayy ibn Yaqdhan (translated into Turkish as The Awakening of the Soul / In Pursuit of Truth, etc.) had a profound impact on European literature. In this book, considered the world's first philosophical novel, Ibn Tufayl describes the spiritual and intellectual development of a human being experiencing life alone on a deserted island, in an untouched natural environment, far from socio-cultural conditioning.

The plot of the novel is briefly as follows:

Hayy, who spent his entire life on a deserted island, was nurtured and raised by a gazelle. He is a recluse with no social ties. For fifty years, he observes the universe. Through experimentation, comparison, and reasoning, he unravels the mystery of the universe, comprehends the reason for existence, its meaning, and its connection to God.

Hayy ibn Yaqdhan became one of the best-selling books in Western Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. It left a profound impact on Western philosophy. The book, in a sense, heralded the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment. The ideas presented by Ibn Tufayl in this book found their place, to some extent, in the works of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Isaac Newton, and Immanuel Kant.

The work was translated into Hebrew in the 14th century. Its first Latin translation was made by the Italian philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola in the 15th century, and its second translation, titled "Philosophus Autodidactus," was published by Edward Pococke in 1671. The first English translation was done by Simon Ockley and met readers in 1708.

Daniel Defoe was influenced by this book and wrote his book titled Robinson Crusoe. He almost directly adapted Ibn Tufayl's novel.

Ibn Tufayl's book, in turn, had a profound impact on the famous philosopher John Locke, a student of Edward Pococke. John Locke was influenced by the novel's protagonist, Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, living in the wilderness away from people and social prejudices. In his philosophical book published in 1690, he proposed the concept of "tabula rasa," or "blank slate," for the human mind.

According to this, there are no innate ideas in our minds. Ibn Tufayl's book thus laid the foundations of empirical, or experimental, philosophy. In later years, it deeply influenced David Hume and George Berkeley.

There is little difference between Ibn Tufayl's thoughts on materialism and Karl Marx's definition of historical materialism. Among those influenced by Ibn Tufayl's book, one can count names such as Gottfried Leibniz, Melchisédech Thévenot, John Wallis, Christiaan Huygens, George Keith, Robert Barclay, the Quakers, Samuel Hartlib, and Voltaire. Jean Jacques Rousseau, also influenced by Ibn Tufayl, wrote his famous work "Emile."

In short, with this work, Ibn Tufayl defined the essence of Enlightenment philosophy centuries before the Age of Enlightenment, which left its mark on Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. He argued that humanity would reach truth after stages of curiosity, discovery, comprehension, and wisdom; and that the existence of God could be proven both intellectually and emotionally at this point.

While Ibn Tufayl's work found readers in Europe starting from the 15th century, its first translation into Ottoman Turkish was made by Babanzade Reşid in 1923. Its first translation into modern Turkish was made in 1977 and published in a series of children's books.

So, we met Ibn Tufayl 500 years after Europe, and as a children's book at that!

CONCLUSION

During my university years, while reading the classics of socialism, Karl Marx had a book titled "The Poverty of Philosophy," which we never put down. Proudhon, advocating anarchist views, wrote a book titled "The Philosophy of Poverty" in 1846. Marx responded to this book a year later with "The Poverty of Philosophy."

However, such polemics had occurred centuries earlier in Islamic philosophy. Al-Ghazali wrote a book in the 11th century titled "Tahāfut al-Falāsifa," meaning "The Incoherence of the Philosophers." 100 years later, the Andalusian philosopher Ibn Rushd responded to Al-Ghazali with a book titled "Tahāfut al-Tahāfut," meaning "The Incoherence of the Incoherence." The polemical writings between the two Islamic philosophers are comprehensive and impressive enough to far surpass Karl Marx and Proudhon.

Our detachment from our own past and values is a bitter reality. Our admiration for the Western world, which inherited our rejected legacy and rose upon these values, and our raising of a generation in this direction, will, I believe, go down in history as a cautionary tale.