Surfing the web, I found this interesting site about Muslim/Islamic philosophy. It has a book “A History of Muslim Philosophy” edited by M.M. Sharif available online. I have just started reading it and would share the authors’ and my thoughts over time. It seems to cover Mutazlilism and Asharism and Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Al-Ghazali, Ibn Taimiyah, and Ibn Khaldun, etc. The multi-volume book (available in pdf files for each chapter in scanned, yikes, format) is a total of more than 1600 pages. I have not heard of the editor but am familiar with a few of the authors of individual chapters. They cover a somewhat wide range of opinion.
They also have a number of works of Averroes translated into English online. There is also a page on Ibn Taimiyah who is considered to have created the philosophical/theological foundations for Syed Qutb (see my post for links to Ideofact’s series on him) etc. Some of his works are also available in Arabic, French and English online.
That is a great site. I am constantly astonished at the wealth of material they have put online. The PDF files are huge though, especially for someone like me with a dial-up connection. But even without that, there is more than I ever have time to read.
A fast internet connection is one of the major reasons I live on-campus. But there’s a LOT of stuff there. It’ll take ages to read that.
Yeah, a fast internet connection would be great. But I need to finish school and get a good-paying job first :p
I was procrastinating by typing in all my ancestor’s name in google when I came across this website. Mian Mohammad Sharif was my great grand father who wrote the “History of Muslim Philosophy” and I’ve always wondered if there are any universities etc. where this book (or parts of it) are taught in any courses. If anyone knows please let me know.