# Miscellaneous philosophy topics

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: John Walbridge, Miscellaneous philosophy topics, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> Miscellaneous philosophy topics
> 
> John Walbridge
> published in Essays and Notes on Babi and Bahá'í History
> 
> 2002
> 
> Philosophy
> 
> Philosophy (Ar. and Pers. falsafah, from Gr. philosophia, "love of wisdom"; hikmat,
> 
> lit. "wisdom.") is the investigation of the underlying principles of reality
> and knowledge by rational means. Philosophy is distinguished from religion by its reliance on rational
> investigation rather than revelation. Traditionally, the natural sciences were considered part of philosophy,
> but modern thought now confines philosophy to those subjects that cannot be
> investigated by empirical experiment.
> 
> The history of philosophy
> is complex, and it is not possible to explain here even the various conceptions
> of the meaning and content of philosophy. Moreover, little research has been done into the philosophical aspects
> and antecedants of Bahá'í thought, and almost nothing has been done to integrate
> the ideas of the Bahá'í writings with modern philosophy. Therefore, this article will mainly discuss
> philosophy as part of the historical background of Bahá'í thought and the
> references to philosophy in the Bahá'í writings.
> 
> Islamic philosophy as background to Bahá'í thought
> 
> History
> of Islamic philosophy. Philosophy
> reached the Islamic world in the eighth century through the translation of a
> large number of Greek philosophic, scientific, and medical works. The Greek philosophical corpus in Arabic
> eventually included most of the works of Aristotle, extracts or summaries of
> the works of Plato, and various treatises and commentaries of later Hellenistic
> philosophers, physicians, and scientists. By the ninth century there was an indigenous school of Islamic
> philosophy, the most important representatives of which were al-Kindi (9th
> cent.), al-Farabi (d. 950), and Ibn-Sina (980–1037), known in the West as
> Avicenna. These early Islamic
> philosophers expounded a system in which Aristotle's logic, physics,
> psychology, and ontology were combined with a neoplatonic metaphysics of
> emanation. Though later philosophers
> made many modifications, this system remains the basis of the Islamic tradition
> of philosophy up to the present. Thus,
> the reader should be aware that `philosophy' in Islam refers primarily to the
> Greek tradition of philosophy, although some strains of Islamic mystical
> theology came to be included in the philosophical curriculum. Other kinds of Islamic thought, notably
> dogmatic theology, might also be included as `Islamic philosophy', but
> following tradition they are not discussed here.
> 
> Philosophy, however, never completely
> overcame opposition from Islamic theologians and jurists who held that certain
> doctrines of philosophical metaphysics were contrary to Islam. As a result, many of the distinctive
> features of Islamic philosophy resulted from the philosophers' attempts to
> reconcile Greek philosophy with revealed religion and specifically Islam. Al-Farabi, the first great Islamic
> philosopher, taught that the doctrines of prophetic religion—particularly
> concepts such as heaven and hell that were most disputed between philosophers
> and theologians—were expressions of philosophical truths in language suitable
> for the masses of people incapable of grasping literal philosophic truth. Since both philosophers of the Platonic
> tradition and Muslim scholars considered religions to be primarily legal
> systems, religion thus became a branch of political philosophy. Philosophy and religion expressed the same
> truths on different levels. Al-Farabi's
> approach was carried on by Spanish Arab philosophers such as Ibn-Rushd (the
> Latin Averroes, 1126–1198) and greatly influenced both Jewish and Christian
> philosophy in the Middle Ages. In
> Islam, however, this approach to reconciling religion and philosophy died out
> after Ibn-Rushd.
> 
> In the eastern lands of Islam Ibn-Sina was
> more influential. In contrast to
> al-Farabi, who like Plato made political philosophy central to his system,
> Ibn-Sina mainly confined himself to abstract issues and began to explore the
> philosophical implications of mysticism. As-Suhrawardi (1154–91) systematically integrated mysticism and
> philosophy, producing a system reinterpreting Ibn-Sina's system on the basis of
> the concept of divine light.
> 
> The great mystical theologian Ibn-`Arabi
> (1165–1240) produced a wonderfully complex system of mystical theology that
> came to be called "the Unity of Being" (wahdat
> al-wujud). In his system all the
> creatures of the universe are the self-manifestations of God. His works encompassed all the lore of
> Islamic thought and mysticism and burst on the Islamic world like a
> bombshell. Even among thinkers bitterly
> opposed to him, his system was immensely influential.
> 
> Islamic philosophy reached its greatest
> heights in seventeenth century Iran in the so-called "School of Isfahan," whose
> greatest representative was Mulla Sadra. In Sadra's system the rationalism of Ibn-Sina and the mysticism of
> as-Suhrawardi and Ibn-`Arabi were combined. Although philosophy was still a matter of suspicion to most Islamic clerics,
> a continuous tradition of philosophy has survived carried on by Shi`i clergy
> from Mulla Sadra and the School of Isfahan down to the present.
> 
> The Shaykhis were the most recent
> distinctive school to arise in Islamic philosophy. Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa'i, a Shi`i Arab from eastern Arabia,
> propounded an elaborate system in which an extreme reverence for the imams was
> combined with a philosophical system owing much to Mulla Sadra. His most distinctive contribution was the
> elaboration of an older idea in which a world of immaterial images intermediate
> between the physical world and the world of pure spirit served as the locale
> for heaven, hell, and the miraculous events of the last judgment. Like many Islamic philosophers before him,
> Shaykh Ahmad was bitterly attacked by orthodox clergy. After the death of his successor, Sayyid
> Kazim Rashti, a large number of his followers became Babis. The remaining Shaykhis broke into several
> factions and emphasized the Shi`i orthodoxy of their views, modifying or concealing
> their most distinctive doctrines.
> 
> The philosophical tradition deriving from
> Ibn-Sina and Mulla Sadra has continued in the theological seminaries of Iran up
> to the present. Although it has never
> ceased to be viewed with suspicion by some of the clergy, in recent decades it
> has attracted considerable interest and respect in the West. A number of prominent figures in the 1979
> Islamic revolution in Iran were philosophers of this tradition, including
> Khomeini himself.
> 
> Doctrines
> of Islamic philosophy. Though
> naturally there is immense variation in the views and approaches of Islamic
> philosophers over the last twelve centuries, some useful generalizations can be
> made. Islamic philosophy is based for
> the most part on the works of Aristotle, which Islamic philosophers understood
> as a systematic treatmentment of philosophy and science. Where appropriate works of Aristotle were
> not available, other classical works filled the gap, notably the substitution
> of Platonic works of political philosophy for the untranslated Politics of Aristotle and the addition
> of a late textbook of Neoplatonic metaphysics, misattributed in translation
> under the title of The Theology of
> Aristotle. After al-Farabi's
> abortive attempt to organize philosophy on the basis of Platonic political
> philosophy, almost every Islamic philosoper organized his works on the basis of
> some variation of a systematic division of the sciences worked out by Ibn-Sina:
> 
> Theoretical
> 
> Logic
> 
> Mathematics
> 
> Physics (natural science)
> 
> Metaphysics
> 
> First philosophy
> (ontology)
> 
> Theology
> 
> Practical
> 
> Ethics
> 
> Economics (household management)
> 
> Politics
> 
> While logic, the sciences, and even ethics
> eventually were accepted as useful tools even in Islamic jurisprudence,
> metaphysical doctrines came into direct conflict with Islamic dogmatic
> theology. While there are innumerable
> variations, Islamic philosophers generally shared a view of the universe
> something like the following:
> 
> God is that one being whose existence is
> necessary in itself. God in His essence
> is absolutely one and simple. Since an
> absolutely simple cause cannot be the direct cause of the complexity of the
> world, God in His simplicity cannot be the direct cause of all the particulars
> of the world, so that the traditional Judeo-Christian-Islamic account of God
> creating the world by simple fiat cannot be accepted. Instead, God creates directly one other being—an immaterial
> intellect or mind variously known as the primal intellect, the primal will, the
> first angel, and the proximate light. This
> immaterial intellect creates another, which in turn creates another of still
> lower rank. The Islamic philosophers
> accepted the Ptolemaic astronomy, in which the earth was at the center of a set
> of concentric spheres, each associated with a planet and each moved by an
> immaterial intellect. It is the very
> complex interrelationships among the planets and their motions that account for
> the complexities of the sublunar world in which we live. The world itself is eternal, without
> beginning or end in time.
> 
> This metaphysical system came into conflict
> with Islamic theology and its representatives on several grounds. First was the question of authority. The philosophers claimed to derive doctrines
> about God, the universe, and the soul from pure reason. Islamic philosophers worked prophecy into
> their systems and were for the most part sincere Muslims, but it was clear that
> prophecy was subordinate to philosophy. Second, there were several fundamental philosophical doctrines that
> directly conflicted with the usual interpretation of Islam: God did not create the universe from nothing
> at a particular moment of time. It was
> difficult to explain how God could know particulars or how His providence could
> care for the individual person. The
> night-journey of Muhammad, heaven and hell, and the last judgment could not be
> taken literally. Philosophers were
> accused of denying the immortality of the individual soul.
> 
> Earlier Islamic philosophers had attempted
> to defuse these criticisms, explaining prophecy and its symbolic elements by
> subsuming prophecy under political philosophy and explaining the contradictions
> between philosophy and religion in terms of the rhetorical difficulties of
> conveying philosophical truths to ordinary people. Later Islamic philosophy drew on mysticism and theories about the
> imagination to solve such difficulties. As it had in later Greek philosophy, philosophy became an ethical and
> mystical pursuit for the individual, not simply a subject of intellectual
> investigation. Thus, philosophical investigation
> was to some extent protected by the prestige of mysticism.
> 
> In
> addition, new attempts were made explain religion in terms of philosophy. The most interesting was the doctrine of the
> World of Image. In the material world
> an image is normally a form subsisting in matter. The divine world of the intellects had no images, only pure
> intellect. The later philosophers,
> following Ibn-`Arabi—posited a world in which images could exist without
> matter. This explained a whole range of
> phenomena ranging from the images in mirrors, imagination, and dreams to the
> visions of mystics, heaven and hell, and the last judgment. The Shaykhis developed this idea to its highest degree, arguing that men lived
> both in this world and several levels of the world of image. The material body, for example, dies in this
> world but the image body in the world of image is resurrected as promised in
> the Qur'an.
> 
> The Bab and philosophy
> 
> The Bab in the Bayan
> prohibited the study of philosophy (qawa'id-i hikmiya), along with the study of
> logic, religious law and legal theory, philology, and grammar, except insofar
> as these disciplines might be necessary for reading his works. He did allow the study of dogmatic theology ('ilm-i
> kalam). The volume of his writings
> and the fact that he Himself was devoid of these sciences made their study
> unnecessary (Persian Bayan 4:10). Though the Bab condemned the study of abstract sciences, many of his
> most influential followers were drawn from the Shaykhis and may be presumed to
> have had philosophical training and interests. However, in the few disturbed years before the suppression of the Babis,
> it is not likely that any of them had much time for philosophical reflection. The Bab's writings show some trace of
> Shaykhi philosophy and certainly presuppose issues dealt with in Shaykhi and
> Islamic philosophy, but they do not deal directly with philosophical
> issues. The relationship of the thought
> of the Bab and his followers to Islamic philosophy needs much more study.
> 
> Bahaullah and philosophy
> 
> Though Bahaullah
> condemned "such sciences as begin in mere words and end in mere words," he did
> not renew the Bab's explicit condemnation of philosophy. He is not known to have made any particular
> study of philosophy, but his writings show an easy familiarity with the
> concepts and main issues of Islamic philosophy. Though none of his writings can be said to be philosophical in a
> technical sense, he often uses philosophical terminology and sometimes treats
> specifically philosophical questions. An example is the Tablet of Wisdom (or "of philosophy":`Lawh-i Hikmat'),
> written in reply to questions about the eternity of the universe submitted by
> the prominent Bahá'í philosopher Aqa Muhammad Qa'ini, Nabil-i Akbar. In this tablet Bahaullah answers this classical
> philosophical question, though in a way that indicates that much of the dispute
> about it derives from the limitations of men's minds. He goes on to summarize the history of the ancient philosophers,
> citing the common Islamic belief that the Greek philosophers were in contact
> with the prophets of Israel as evidence that the deistic philosophers drew
> their fundamental inspiration from prophetic religion. `Abd al-Baha's Secret of Divine Civilization, written about the same time, also
> gives this account of the history of philosophy.
> 
> It should be noted that philosophers were
> one of the groups addressed in the Suriy-i Muluk.
> 
> `Abd al-Baha and philosophy
> 
> `Abd al-Baha's writings
> also show familiarity with Islamic philosophy, in addition to those ideas of
> European philosophy and science that were becoming known in the Middle
> East. His earliest major work, the
> commentary on the famous Islamic tradition "I was a hidden treasure," is a
> philosophical and mystical refutation of Ibn-`Arabi's doctrine of the unity of
> being. The Secret of Divine Civilization touches many of the themes
> relating to philosophy that characterize `Abd al-Baha's later references to the
> subject: philosophy as a sign of civilization, that the fundamentals of
> philosophy derive from the prophets, the praise of the great ancient
> philosophers, and the comparison of the early believers in each religion to
> philosophers. These themes are expanded
> in `Abd al-Baha's talks in Europe and America, where he also criticizes modern
> materialistic philosophy, by which he means a naive faith in the universal
> applicability of the methods of physical science. This he distinguishes from the deistic philosophy of the ancients
> and of more reflective moderns.
> 
> In such works as Some Answered Questions, `Abd al-Baha frequently uses the concepts
> and arguments of Islamic philosophy when he discusses scientific,
> methaphysical, and theological topics. Often he cites the views of the ancient philosophers in confirmation of
> his own views. Among the philosophical
> subjects specifically addressed by `Abd al-Baha in his writings and talks are
> proofs for the existence of God, personal eschatology, epistemology, free will,
> the nature of religion and evil, and substantial motion. Insofar as they assume a philosophy, the
> writings of Bahaullah and `Abd al-Baha employ the late Avicennan philosophy of
> illumination current in nineteenth century Iran. Whether this philosophy is integrally connected with the Bahá'í
> teachings or whether it is a rhetorical device sometimes useful for conveying
> them is a matter of current Bahá'í theological debate.
> 
> Shoghi Effendi and philosophy
> 
> Shoghi Effendi, who was
> educated in Western schools and had studied political economy and philosophy in
> college, showed little direct interest in philosophy in his writings. Though he permitted the study of philosophy,
> he generally encouraged Bahá'ís to pursue more practical interests during his
> time. He makes little reference to contemporary
> philosophical schools other than to reiterate `Abd al-Baha's criticism of
> "materialistic philosophers" and to comment that this sort of philosophy was an
> intellectual fad that would one day pass. His most specific comment on philosophy is his sharp criticism of the
> contemporary schools of Hegelian political philosophy, particularly Communism,
> nationalism, and fascism.
> 
> Current Bahá'í law allowing the study of
> philosophy is based on several interpretations of Shoghi Effendi in which he
> distinguished between "fruitless excursions into metaphysical hairsplitting"
> and "a sound branch of learning like philosophy" (Shoghi Effendi, Unfolding 445).
> 
> Philosophical writings by Bahá'ís
> 
> Among the numerous clerics
> who became Bahá'ís during the lifetimes of the Bab and Bahaullah were a number
> of men trained in philosophy. In
> addition to the many former Shaykhis who may be presumed to have a greater or
> lesser training in philosophy, we may include Wahid, Sayyid Yahya Darabi, the
> Babi leader of Yazd and Nayriz, whose father was a well-known philosopher. A number of prominent Bahá'ís of the time of
> Bahaullah were also trained as philosophers, the most notable being Aqa Muhammad
> Qa'ini, known as Nabil-i Akbar, and Mirza Abu al-Fadl Gulpaygani. Though both these men wrote on Bahá'í
> subjects, not surprisingly they dealt mostly with theological subjects and the
> defense of their new religion.
> 
> It is interesting that the two greatest
> modern Iranian Bahá'í scholars, Fadil Mazandarani and `Abd al-Hamid
> Ishraq-Khavari, were both former `ulama trained in philosophy. Though both wrote mainly on historical and
> theological topics, Mazandarani's great compilation of Bahá'í writings, Amr va-Khalq, shows his knowledge of
> philosophical issues.
> 
> Three other recent Bahá'í authors have
> written specifically on philosophy. `Azizu'llah Sulaymani, better known for his Bahá'í biographical
> dictionary, prepared a textbook of traditional Islamic philosophy for the use
> of Bahá'í students. This work, Rashahat-i Hikmat, is intended to
> familiarize the students with traditional philosophy for use in understanding
> Bahá'í scripture and for teaching their faith to those trained in this
> philosophy. It makes no attempt to
> integrate modern Western philosophy or science. Dr. `Ali-Murad Davudi was chairman of the philosophy department
> at Tehran University until his disappearance shortly after the Islamic
> Revolution. He wrote a number of works
> on the history of Greek and Islamic philosophy, in addition to articles on
> Bahá'í philosophical and theological themes. Ruhi Afnan, a cousin of Shoghi Effendi expelled as a covenant-breaker,
> wrote several works on the history of philosophy and its interrelationship with
> religion. These include an ambitious
> attempt to correlate Babi and Bahá'í thought with the rationalist philosophies
> of Descartes and Spinoza.
> 
> Only recently have Western Bahá'ís begun to
> write on philosophical themes. Some
> examples are listed among the sources mentioned below.
> 
> The Greek philosophers and the Jews
> 
> Bahaullah and `Abd al-Baha praise the
> "deistic" (ilahi, muta'allih) philosophers of the Greeks. In a famous tablet to the Swiss scientist A.
> H. Forel, `Abd al-Baha writes:
> 
> As to deistic
> philosophers, such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, they are indeed worthy of
> esteem and of the highest praise, for they have rendered distinguished services
> to mankind. (Bahá'í World 15:37.)
> 
> Aristotle (384-322
> B.C.E.), for example, is mentioned a number of times, usually favorably. Aristotle's works had been the primary
> influence on Islamic philosophy. Islamic philosophers defended Aristotle and the other pagan philosophers
> as sages of antiquity who through reason and mystical insight or through
> contact with the Hebrew prophets had attained knowledge of the unity of
> God. Various wise sayings were
> attributed to him. Bahaullah's
> reference to him in the Tablet of Wisdom (para. 47/Bahaullah, Tablets, 147) and many of `Abd al-Baha's
> references to him reflect this view of Aristotle. `Abd al-Baha thus contrasts him with the modern materialist
> philosophers and scientists (`Abd al-Baha, Promulgation
> 
> 327, 356-57/`Abd al-Baha, Khitabat 2:299,
> Bahá'í World 15:37) and compares the
> continued fame of his learning with the oblivion of the empires of his day
> (`Abd al-Baha, Promulgation 348/`Abd
> al-Baha, Khitabat 2:268). On the other hand, his learning was limited
> compared to that of the Prophets and of God (`Abd al-Baha, Paris 19, `Abd al-Baha, Some
> 
> 5:para. 6/p. 15). `Abd al-Baha
> attributes a type of pantheism to him (`Abd al-Baha, Some 82: para. 2/p. 290).
> 
> There has been considerable confusion about
> Bahaullah's account of the Greek philosophers, as elaborated by `Abd
> al-Baha. In his Tablet of Wisdom,
> Bahaullah had praised Hippocrates, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Apollonius of
> Tyana, and Hermes Trismegistus. Empedocles, he said, had been a contemporary of David and Pythagoras a
> contemporary of Solomon. Thus, "the
> essence and fundamentals of philosophy have emanated from the Prophets"
> (Bahaullah, Tablets, 9, para. 26, pp.
> 145). Socrates is praised for having
> taught monotheism, an offence for which the ignorant put him to death.
> 
> With the circulation of Bahá'í writings in
> the West further questions arose. Western Bahá'ís questioned why the chronology implicit in the Tablet of
> Wisdom differed from the Western histories. Forel had evidently written to question `Abd al-Baha's criticism of
> "materialist" philosophers. Other
> questions might have been asked had the Western Bahá'ís of `Abd al-Baha's time
> known more of classical history: why was Empedocles placed before
> Pythagoras? Why did Bahaullah seemingly
> accept the historicity of Hermes Trismegistus, given that Western scholars had
> known for three hundred years that the works attributed to him were
> spurious? Explaining that Bahaullah's
> "Tablet of Wisdom was written in accordance with certain histories of the
> East," `Abd al-Baha states that histories from the period before Alexander the
> Great had many discrepancies and that such discrepancies were to be found even
> in the various versions of the Bible (Research Department, p. 2). To Forel he explained that there had been
> two schools of ancient philosophers, one deistic and one materialistic. His condemnation of philosophers had applied
> only to the materialists (Bahá'í World
> 
> 15:40). The explanation for Socrates'
> monotheism is that he studied in the Holy Land, for the Greeks were polytheists
> and so Socrates' monotheism must have had another source. Hippocrates had also lived in Syria, in the
> city of Tyre (`Abd al-Baha, Some
> 14–15, 25.55; `Abd al-Baha, Secret
> 77; `Abd al-Baha, Promulgation
> 362–63, 406).
> 
> The difficulty with `Abd al-Baha's account
> is that it is not in accordance with what is known about the lives of Greek
> philosophers. Empedocles and Pythagoras
> were not contemporaries of David and Solomon. There is no evidence that Socrates went to Syria. Socrates did not teach monotheism. So why did `Abd al-Baha say and write these
> things? There are two kinds of answers:
> theological and historical.
> 
> The theological answer is simpler. In the time of `Abd al-Baha, Western
> science, and increasingly Western philosophy, were thoroughly positivistic,
> sometimes in a very simplistic way. `Abd al-Baha, as had many religious thinkers before him, cited the
> religiously-oriented Greek philosophers as evidence that reason did not
> necessarily imply irreligion. Pythagoras and Plato are thus old allies of monotheistic religion. Such statements are additional examples of
> Bahaullah's and `Abd al-Baha's habit of using their thorough command of high
> Islamic culture to explicate Bahá'í teachings. But what were the materials that they drew on?
> 
> The key to understanding the historical
> origins of `Abd al-Baha's account is found in his statement that "the Tablet of
> Wisdom was written in accordance with certain histories of the East." The pre-modern Islamic world had a very
> imperfect knowledge of the history of Greece in general and of Greek philosophy
> in particular. `Abd al-Baha's account
> can be explained by his reliance on the Islamic accounts of the Greek
> philosophers. The details of his
> account can be explained in three stages:
> 
> 1.
> The two schools of Greek philosophy. On this point `Abd al-Baha is on solid ground. The later Greek historians of philosophy were fond of arranging
> philosophers in "schools" or "successions." Diogenes Leartius, the author of the most comprehensive surviving
> classical history of Greek philosophy, divides the philosophers into the
> Ionians and the Italians. The Ionians
> were the pre-Socratic physicists, or as it might be translated,
> "materialists." This succession
> included the atomists and those pre-Socratics who attempted to find a physical
> first principle of being. The Italians
> were the Pythagoreans and Empedocleans, whose interests were more theological and
> religious (Diogenes Laertius 1.13–14). The same notion is found in pseudo-Plutarch (Aetius), De placita philosophorum (1.3). Here we find Pythagoras, Empedocles,
> Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle listed among the Italians. This work was translated into Arabic, and
> this chapter was incorporated into various well known Arabic histories of
> philosophy (e.g., Shahrazuri [13th cent.], Nuzhat
> al-Arwah, ed. Ahmed [Haidarabad: Da'iratu'l-Ma'arifi'l-Osmania, 1396/1976],
> 1:20). The Italian school acquired
> added importance when it was identified by the Illuminationist school of
> Islamic philosophers with the "divine sages" of the Greeks. The Ionians physicists were mostly forgotten
> by the Muslims. Thus to later Iranian
> intellectuals familiar with philosophy, the Greek philosophers of importance
> were the "divine" or "deistic" philosophers of the Italian school: Pythagoras,
> Empedocles, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. This was a tradition that both Bahaullah and `Abd al-Baha know and cite.
> 
> 2.
> "Those properly called wise." Medieval Muslim scholars attempting to
> understand the history of Greek thought were confronted by a variety of
> fragmentary accounts, none of which was sufficiently detailed to serve as the
> basis of a coherent and comprehensive history. As a result a variety of independent short accounts were transmitted,
> most of which eventually dropped out of circulation. The most persistent such tradition, found in works written from
> the tenth century on, was a list of "those properly called wise": Luqman, Empedocles,
> Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Accounts influenced by it can be recognized by the error of placing
> Empedocles before Pythagoras. According
> to this account, Luqman, a sage mentioned in the Qur'an and not otherwise
> known, lived in Syria at the time of David and was the first to be called
> "wise" (or "a sage" or philosopher, hakim). Empedocles came to Syria and studied
> with Luqman. Pythagoras went to
> Egypt,where he studied with the disciples of Solomon. Socrates was a follower of Pythagoras, who was put to death for
> refuting polytheism with rational arguments. Finally, there was Plato, who was Socrates' student. This tradition would have been known to any
> well-educated nineteenth century Iranian.
> 
> This account can be traced back as far as
> the tenth century philosopher al-'Amiri and probably derives in whole or part
> from some Christian source. It was
> common for early Christian theologians to trace the origins of Greek philosophy
> to Jewish sources. They found it a
> useful strategy for undermining their most formidable pagan opponents, the
> Neoplatonic philosophers. Needless to
> say, there is no evidence of intellectual contact between the Greeks and Jews
> before the conquests of Alexander and little evidence of significant
> intellectual contact until even later. The identification of the Jews as the original source of philosophy was
> useful for medieval Muslims as well, since the Islamic version of the theory of
> progressive revelation did not provide an obvious explanation for pagan
> philosophy. That this particular
> account is the origin of Bahaullah's and `Abd al-Baha's versions of the history
> of Greek philosophy is obvious from a variety of large and small features.
> 
> 3.
> Oral simplification and quoting from memory. There is one major remaining incongruity: `Abd al-Baha's
> statement that Socrates studied in Syria. No such statement is known either in Greek or Islamic sources—or for
> that matter, in Bahaullah's writings. `Abd al-Baha writes the following:
> 
> It is recorded in
> eastern histories that Socrates journeyed to Palestine and Syria and there,
> from men learned in the things of God, acquired certain spiritual truths; that
> when he returned to Greece, he promulgated two beliefs: one, the unity of God, and the other, the
> immortality of the soul after its separation from the body; that these
> concepts, so foreign to their thought, raised a great commotion among the
> Greeks, until in the end they gave him poison and killed him. . . .Eastern
> histories also state that Hippocrates sojourned for a long time in the town of
> Tyre, and this is a city in Syria. (`Abd al-Baha, Selections 25, p. 55)
> 
> This passage
> attributes two innovations to Socrates: the unity of God and the immortality of
> the soul. In the Islamic versions of
> the tradition we have been discussing, these doctrinal innovations are
> attributed to Empedocles, not Socrates. Hippocrates is not said to have lived in Tyre; Pythagoras was. In each of these cases a less familiar name
> in the Islamic tradition—Empedocles and Pythagoras—has been replaced by a more
> familiar name—Socrates and Hippocrates. In the absence of a textual source embodying the confusion, the probable
> explanation is simply that `Abd al-Baha read the story in some history and
> later retold it several times, and that either he or his secretary confused
> Socrates with Empedocles.
> 
> As for the larger question of whether the
> early Greek philosophers could have been influenced by Judaism, the answer is
> no. There is no surviving reference in
> Greek to the Jews dating earlier than the conquests of Alexander, which took
> place in Aristotle's lifetime. It is
> also quite certain that no such references were known in the first century
> C.E., since had they existed Jewish apologists such as Philo and Josephus would
> certainly have eagerly cited them, as would slightly later Christian
> writers. The reason why there was no
> such contact is simple enough; the Greeks and Jews had no common language. The Jews of that time used Aramaic as a
> lingua franca; the Greeks used Greek. There would have been nowhere they would have met with a common
> language. Plausible arguments can be
> made for a Zoroastrian influence, or even an Egyptian influence, on early Greek
> philosophy, but not for a Jewish influence.
> 
> Sources:
> The principle Bahá'í scriptures dealing with philosophical subjects are the
> Tablet of Wisdom (Bahaullah, Tablets,
> 9:137–52), `Abd al-Baha, Some
> (especially parts 4 and 5), `Abd al-Baha, Promulgation
> 
> (20–22, 87–91, 253–55, 326–27, 355–61), and Tablet to Dr. Forel (Bahá'í World Faith 336–48). Bahá'í writers on philosophy have include
> `A. M. Davudi, Insan dar A'yin-i Bahá'í and Uluhiyat va Mazhariyat;
> William Hatcher, Logic and Logos; Julio
> Savi, The Eternal Quest for God; John
> Hatcher, The Purpose of Physical Reality;
> 
> B. Hoff Conow, The Bahá'í Teachings; Udo Schaefer, The Imperishable Dominion; M. Momen,
> "Relativism: a Basis for Bahá'í Metaphysics," in SBBR 5:185–217; Robert Parry,
> "Philosophical Theology in Bahá'í Scholarship," BSB Oct. 1992, 6/4–7/2:
> 66–91. Ruhi Afnan, the
> Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh and the Bab: Book 1: Descartes' Theory of Knowledge (New York:
> Philosophical Library, 1970); idem, Bahá'u'lláh
> and the Bab Confront Modern Thinkers: Book 2: Spinoza: Concerning God (New
> York: Philosophical Library, 1977). The
> text of the tradition of "the five properly called wise" is found, with
> thorough commentary, in Everett K. Rowson, A
> Muslim Philosopher on the Soul and its Fate (American Oriental Series 70;
> New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1988), 70–89, 203–63. I have discussed various aspects of this
> tradition and related material in two books: The Leaven of the Ancients: Suhrawardi and the Heritage of the Greeks,
> esp. ch. 4–8, and The Wisdom of the
> Mystic East: Suhrawardi and Platonic Orientalism, esp. ch. 2. On
> Socrates in Islamic sources, see Ilai Alon, Socrates
> in Mediaeval Arabic Literature (Islamic Philosophy, Theology, and Science,
> Texts and Studies X; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991). On texts relating to Socrates in the Bahá'í writings, see Research
> Department, Bahá'í World Center, Memorandum to Universal House of Justice, 22
> October 1995, which was kindly shared with me by Robert Johnston. On the history of Greek philosophy in the
> Tablet of Wisdom, see Juan R. I. Cole, "Problems of chronology." Introductions to Islamic philosophy include
> Majid Fakhry, A History of Islamic
> Philosophy, Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman, eds., History of Islamic Philosophy, and M. M. Sharif, A History of Muslim Philosophy, though none are totally
> satisfactory.
> 
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