Were Greek Philosophers Muslim?

[Paragon]

A doubt doesn't produce any needed knowledge my sister....

 

Sometimes, when someone might be or is on the verge of discovering new truths, old lies obstruct such a journey. Although what we have here is not necessarily something which can be classed as "a journey to new truths", research and discussion could yield to the discovery of something similar to the truth we seek to establish. So, walaalayaal amba Saaxiibayaal, shall we mistake the complexity or advancement of one's expressional lingo with one's true basic knowledge of a given subject?

[Medley of extemporanea]

I would think they were Materialists.

 

Check this site out:

http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/

[Paragon]

Haniif thank you for the link sxb...it is quite informative.

[sayfulaah-almasluul]

i think they were great men cuaght in the midlle of dark ages,in which only few were able to escape the darkness of atheism.i haven't read much of their work,i,however did read some qoutes of their work,and as far as i can say is that they spend great time of lives to reach the truth by logic,they layed the essence of philosphy that all benifited from,moslim scholars and philosophers like: alfarabi,alsheikh alghazali,ibnu Rushid,and ibnu sina did analysed the work of plato and other great greek philosophers,they sifted and preseved best of it for us the later generation.and were not the hard work of our sheikh and scholars these important information and art would have lost in miths.

[Vanquish_V12]

Remember just cause some1 writes few words that agree with Islamic creed doesnt mean they are muslim, u could argue democracy is somewhat related to islam and surely democry has its roots in greece, does that mean greeks were muslim, on the contrary far from it. as far as i know these philosophers are responsible for misleading many people, and as animal farm said, u should not indulge urself in reading their works unless u really want to confuse urself. i cant believe how much time we waste reading this crap, when we could be reading something more useful for us. in the second sura of the Quran Allah (swt) says in the second verse, " This is the book that has no doubt" meaning its all truth.

 

these philosophers were arguibly in search of the truth, and i say wat better way to know the truth than the book that has no doubt in it.

[sayfulaah-almasluul]

these philosophers were arguibly in search of the truth, and i say wat better way to know the truth than the book that has no doubt in it.

i believe all u said is completely true and fact,one thing has be rememered though,which we live im a world material defilement had deepen it's roots,a world that does not know holy quran and sunah as u mentioned, materialist,naturalist and thier alike will not be satified by qoute of hadith or quran,what will make them convert or relatively so is logic,and logic needs and requires much of philosophy.by the way if the philosophy means the love of wisdom or hikmah then it the hikmah is the believers lost and wherever he finds it it is his.God says in holy quran. and call (the people)the way of GOd with hikam and good preach.

 

 

 

s far as i know these philosophers are responsible for misleading many people, and

did they mislead people?

i thought they try to solve some diffcult issue.we can judge them as misleaders can we?i mean there is no fundemental evidence we possees which unanbigously shows their delabrate intention to mislead.what ever they were the layed groundstone for art and way of logic think,that considerin and bearing that they lived pre-islamic era(before last prophet mohamed (pbuh). but as i said before our scholar like ghazali,alfarabi, ibnu sina,and rushid did sifted for us and we really do not need to spend too much time revising plato word.

[Medley of extemporanea]

think_tank, you make a really good point. What you said is basically the ahlu-sunna refutation of the philosophers. The philosophers put reason above revelation, where as the Muslims believe revelation is the highest source of knowledge. Then they start talking about things they have no way of knowing.

 

Yet there is among men such a one as disputes about God, without Knowledge, without Guidance, and without a Book of Enlightenment. (alquran al kareem, suratul xaj ayat 8)

[Paragon]

Think_tank you wrote:

u should not indulge urself in reading their works unless u really want to confuse urself. i cant believe how much time we waste reading ,

this crap

, when we could be reading something more useful

for us

.

Well, my Nomad friend, the problem is you might see fit to discredit what others read as a source of confusion, but the beauty of being independent from each other's opinion is that nin weliba qumanihiisa ayaa qoorta oogu jira. It is really benefitting to have some differing opinions and interests. If that privilege didn't exist, then its predictably a dictatorship of opinion upon others, and we wouldn't like that to happen.

 

Again sxb,to you philosophy may seem 'crap' but to others it may seem a quality reading. The problem is that no one can surely define what 'to waste time' means if the basis for judging emanates from individual differentiation of likings, and as it stands, the act of 'wasting time' itself can vary. Hilter saw cricket as a 'waste' of time and banned it from Germany. On the other hand the English see it as a gentleman's game. So you see my friend, perceived definitions can sometimes fall short to engender a reasonable meaning to what is discussed.

 

And coming back to the topic at hand, if pholosophy was crap, many muslim philosophers wouldn't have 'wasted' their time translating it and later incorperate some elements of it into Muslim philosophy. Instead, their interest in it symbolised how unlikely it is for Greek philosophy to be considered a 'crap' thing to read. Moreover, it is worthwhile to exermine the historicity of Greek philosophy very carefully without dismissing it very easily, because there seem to be alittle mix-up of the historicity of Greek philosophy and opinions that descredit Greek pholosophy as not being a revelation. Ofcource, we cannot compare revelation to a fallible mind's reasoning.

 

Let me give you an example of what a 'mix-up' of historicity and revelation means. Brother/sister think-tank in his/her last comment, for example wrote: "these philosophers were arguibly in search of the truth, and i say wat better way to know the truth than the book that has no doubt in it." Well, what Think-tank doesnt seem to realise is that, some of the philosophers that are being discussed in this topic, all lived possibly before Prophet Mohamed's (PBUH) time and when the Quran was revealed to him. It is true to argue that it was the biblical times, but to dismiss these philosophers' works in the sense that they are full of confussion seems short of accuracy. Whatever it is that is content in these philosophers works, the basic truth is that they employed a God given ability to analyse burning issues of their times.

 

When someone reads their works, it doesn't necessarily suggest that one is agreeing with them, rather it could arise from a need to read extensively and understand one's moral groundings. If we read about the Greek cynics, it gives us a window with which we can see how humanity has the audacity to indulge in filth and moral degredation at its highest point. Anyone whom Allaah has given the ability to recognise the wrong from the right could learn not to go astray and not follow the path of the cynics.

 

The reason behind the question "Were Greek philosophers muslim?" was that in our Holy Qur'an, Allaah has revealed to us that before the ummah of Prophet Mohamed, 124,000 messengers were sent to different civilisations, each speaking the tongue of that civilisation. Of the 124, 000 messengers, only the names of 25 were given in the Qur'an. So chances remain that the Greek had their own Prophet since they were a civilization of its own. Socrates was thought to be a messenger, it could be argued that Plato fabricated most of his thoughts to create an illusion that simmulates some sort of a prophecy. So my dear Nomads, No one is intent to confuse him/herself while in the process of discussing or reading philosophy. This is just a bid to speculate what was, and not what is to become of us.

[Abdulladiif Al-Fiqih]

By Think Tank: "u should not indulge urself in reading their works unless u really want to confuse urself. i cant believe how much time we waste reading ,this crap, when we could be reading something more useful for us"

 

 

So true sxb. We have better thing to read, AL-QUR'AN.

[Vanquish_V12]

before i write my reply i want to clearify my intention. i am not intestested in endless arguiments that are both fruitless and pointless, rather i just want to make u see a new point of view more suited to a muslim.

 

humans by design are limited both by in physical ability and intellectual capacity. for example what is zero, or infinity for that matter, the human brain is unable to comprehend this values, or existence without end. thats why u cant prove or disprove but rather have FAITH. so, when these loonies go on journeys with their limited minds in territory that human reason could never concur, problems ought to arise.

 

there is only one truth and all u have to do is have faith and act according it, thats the message of islam.

 

no point of wasting ur time in waters ur brain was not suited to navigate.

 

i hope this clarifies my point

 

of course there are other types of philosophy for example ananlytical philosophy, which is actually what islamic scholars employed, but its quite different from what most of us know us philosophy.

[Paragon]

Think-tank, with all due respect, I personally think your comment has nothing to do with the topic discussed. Were they(PHILOSOPHERS) muslim or not. No one is saying Islam shouldn't be studied or the Qur'an shouldn't be read.

 

Can you prove whether Greek philosophers were non-muslim or muslim? If you can, then please lets hear it. Thats all the topic is interested. No need to argue think-tank . At the beggining of the topic I asked for opinions concerning this issue.

[Vanquish_V12]

ok u seem to have missed the link, fine lets go back let me break it down for u.

 

first of all nobody can prove whether they were muslim or not, however just from their work i can tell u thats does not seem the case. for example socrates was known to be a big accentric that refuted the so called truth provided by other philosophers they say he was cocky dimissive. at least unlike other philosophers he didnt not claim to have the solution. i mean i could go on and on about examples but that was not my point cuz in the end only Allah knows for certain. the point here is whether we should we be worried about if they were muslim or not but should we even bother reading their work, when we have something better.

for example even though descarte came later same arguiment can be applied, in his famoun meditation serious he tries to prove by reason alone how God exits. i mean dats a joke. same goes for plato, I dont know of any believing muslims that have to prove tothemselves logically that God exits.

 

i dont think they were muslim because muslims dont work to create doubt, and alternative systmes of governance other than that of Allah.

 

i hope this clearifies my point.

[Paragon]

"at least unlike other philosophers he didnt not claim to have the solution"

 

Exactly sxb. Many philosophers had been influenced by him although he insisted that he has no knowledge to teach others. And since he was such a humble man, some people may exergerate his humble-nature to the point of prophecy. It is for this reason that i asked whether he was a muslim prophet or not.

[LixAfar iyo Nus]

To focus on Aristotle, many of his works were considered highly controversial; one of those idea is his assertion that the world is internal. This idea is in contrast to the creation of the world by God that is held by Muslims. There could be Greek Philosophers that hold the same view, however, to conclude that they are Muslims is out of proportion. Even if they were Muslims , scholars of Islam and the Muslim thinkers that have studied and translated Greek philosophy would have informed the general public.

 

Although, there could be a link between Aristotle and Alexander the Great. Dhul-Qarnein who in Islamic mysticism is equated with Alexander the Great ("The Two horned One"), Aristotle was in fact for some time the teacher of Alexander the Great. In this case than if Alexander 'The Great' was truly 'Dhul Qarnian' than you can draw the link between Islam and the Greek philosophers at his time. Not to mention that Dhul Qarnian is projected in the Qur'an (Chapter 18) as a true Muslim and one that submitted to the will of Allah. Nonetheless, this issue is of a great debate among Muslims and Dhul Qarnian's identity is not a agreed upon matter among Quranic scholars and the Muslim thinkers.

[7_steps_2_Heaven]

how the hell would I know, if the Greeck philosophers were muslims.

 

1. am i intrested? NO