Welcome!

Western philosophy is often viewed as having very little consequence. If asked about the effect philosophy has on their lives, most Westerners, if they even knew what philosophy was, would probably answer that it affects them very little or not at all.

Why is this?

Well, philosophy and religion are the two vehicles through which humans attempt to discover what is true. And truths affect people when they are put into practice, usually through institutions like churches or governments. We would expect the greatest effect to be achieved when these institutions are most closely tied together. But in the West they are not tied at all. America has codified the separation of church and state, and its universities have largely secularized the study of philosophy. Even political philosophy has a negligible effect in a popular democracy. When philosophy has no dialogue with either church or state, its effect is vastly diminished.

What I find interesting about Islamic philosophy is the way in which it is tied into the fabric of society. Muslim governments are overtly religiously-influenced. This means that the way religion is interpreted has direct political effects. And in a society where religion is of such great importance, philosophy will tend to either explicitly or implicitly address religious questions. So one might say that in a certain sense all Islamic philosophy is political.

The way that actions in the Islamic community exemplify a philosophical position or the way in which philosophical arguments play out in the arena of human behavior is a very good reason to pay attention to Islamic philosophy and its history.