New Territories of Islamic Philosophy

Abstract

The purpose of this presentation is to show the state of the study of Islamic philosophy in the English-language literature of the mid- to late-twentieth century, both in terms of content and form. The works of philosophers, which in earlier periods had been treated under the name of Islamic thought, mixed with fiqh, theology, and Sufism, and mostly from an anthropological point of view, were subjected to rigorous scrutiny by the scholars of this period and began to leave the framework of Orientalist studies.

The most prominent feature of this period is the recognition of the importance of Muslim philosophers and the classics of Islamic philosophy in the history of philosophy. Related to this, we can see that conceptual studies increased in this period, and that the issues in modern philosophy and Islam were discussed.

It has been observed that the problems in philosophy are studied in relation to each other. It is no coincidence that canonical translations of the most important classics of Islamic philosophy were made in this period. In my presentation, I briefly analyze the works in the literature under three headings. The first heading includes works that point to the place of Muslim philosophers and classical works in the history of philosophy in general, the second heading includes works that try to clarify the conceptual framework of Islamic philosophy, and the third heading includes canonical translations made during this period.