The Islamic World

Michael Ruse

doi:10.1017/9781108562324.010

9 - The Islamic World

from Part II - Atheisms in History

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 September 2021

Edited by

Michael Ruse: Affiliation:
Florida State University
Stephen Bullivant: Affiliation:
St Mary's University, Twickenham, London

Book contents

Get access

Summary

This chapter surveys phenomena and trajectories related to atheism, doubt, and freethought in the medieval Islamic world. Since the existence of God was thought to be rationally proven by both Muslim philosophers and theologians alike, there were next to no Muslims that came to espouse atheism in the Middle Ages. However, there were a number of authors and scholars – some of them highly influential – who can be called freethinkers, though no such term existed in the Arabic or Persian of the time. Similar to their seventeenth-century European counterparts, the medieval Muslim freethinkers held that arguments and positions about truths should be based on reason and demonstrative argumentation rather than revelation and tradition. Some of them directed venomous criticism against prophecy and the Quran, which they all but rejected. Perhaps surprisingly, many of the works (or citations of them) of the medieval Muslim critics of religion have survived to this day.

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of Atheism , pp. 159 - 180

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108562324.010 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abdel Haleem, M. A. (transl.). 2004. The Qur’an. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Abū Ḥātim, al-Rāzī. 2003. Aʿlām al-Nubuwwa. Beirut: Dār al-Sāqī.Google Scholar

al-Aʿsam, ʿAbd al-Amīr. 2010. Taʾrīkh Ibn al-Rīwandī al-Mulḥid, vol. 1. Damascus: Dār al-Takwīn.Google Scholar

al-Ashʿarī, . 1929. Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn wa-Ikhtilāf al-Muṣallīn. 2 vols., ed. Ritter, Hellmut. Istanbul: Maṭbaʿat al-Dawla. Reprint 1963. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag.Google Scholar

Badran, Muhammad Abu al-Fadl. 1999. ‘“… denn die Vernunft ist ein Prophet” – Zweifel bei Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī’, in Niewöhner, Friedrich and Pluta, Olaf (eds.) Atheismus im Mittelalter und in der Renaissance. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 61–84.Google Scholar

Daga Portillo, Rocio. 2017. ‘Fiqh in its historical context: a question of blasphemy law?’, in Hämeen-Anttila, Jaakko, Koskikallio, Petteri, and Lindstedt, Ilkka (eds.) Contacts and Interaction: Proceedings of the 27^th Congress of the Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants, Helsinki 2014. Leuven: Peeters, 119–32.Google Scholar

Daiber, H. 1999. ‘Rebellion gegen Gott. Formen atheistischen Denkens im frühen Islam’, in Niewöhner, Friedrich and Pluta, Olaf (eds.) Atheismus im Mittelalter und in der Renaissance. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 23–44.Google Scholar

de Smet, Daniel. 1995. ‘Al-Muʾayyad fi d-Dīn aš-Šīrāzī et la polémique ismaélienne contre les ‘Brahmanes’ d’Ibn ar-Rāwandī’, in Vermeulen, Urbain and de Smet, Daniel (eds.) Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras. Leuven: Peeters, 85–98.Google Scholar

Donner, F. M. 1998. Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing. Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press.Google Scholar

Donner, F. M. 2002–2003. ‘From believers to Muslims: confessional self-identity in the early Islamic community’. Al-Abhath 50–51, 9–53.Google Scholar

Friedmann, Yohanan. 1979. ‘Literary and cultural aspects of the Luzūmiyyāt’, in Blau, Joshua, Pines, Shlomo, Kister, Meir Jacob, and Shaked, Shaul (eds.) Studia Orientalia: Memoriae D. H. Baneth dedicata. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 347–65.Google Scholar

Ghali, Elias Saad. 1981. ‘Le végétarisme et le doute chez Abu’l-‘Alā’ al-Ma‘arrī’. Bulletin d’études orientales 32–33, 100–12.Google Scholar

Gutas, D. 1998. Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early Abbasid Society (2nd–4th/8th–10th Centuries). London: Routledge.Google Scholar

Hegazi, M. 2017. ‘“Roads to Paradise” in Risālat al-ghufrān of the Arab Thinker al-Maʿarrī’, in Günther, Sebastian and Lawson, Todd (eds.) Roads to Paradise: Eschatology and Concepts of the Hereafter in Islam. Leiden: Brill, 850–7.Google Scholar

Ibn Ḥazm, . 1996. Al-Faṣl fī al-Milal wa-l-Ahwāʾ wa-l-Niḥal. 5 vols., ed. Ibrāhīm Naṣīr, Muḥammad and ʿUmayra, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān. Beirut: Dār al-Jīl.Google Scholar

Ibn al-Jawzī, . 1367 AH. Talbīs Iblīs. Cairo: Maktabat al-Mutanabbī.Google Scholar

Ibn al-Jawzī, . 2010. Al-Muntaẓam fī Tawārīkh al-Mulūk wa-l-Umam. 10 vols., ed. Zakkār, Suhayl. Beirut: Dār al-Fikr.Google Scholar

Ibn al-Nadīm, . 1870. Al-Fihrist, Ed. Flügel, Gustav. Leipzig: Verlag von F. C. W. Vogel.Google Scholar

Ibn al-Nadīm, . 1890. ‘Zum Kitâb al-Fihrist,’ ed. Houtsma, M. Th., Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 4, 217–35.Google Scholar

Ibn Ṭufayl, . 1972. Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān: A Philosophical Tale, trans. Lenn E. Goodman. New York: Twayne Publishers.Google Scholar

al-Jundī, Muḥammad Salīm. 1964. Al-Jāmiʿ fī Akhbār Abī al-ʿAlāʾ wa-Āthārih. 3 vols. Damascus: Dār Ṣādir.Google Scholar

al-Khayyāṭ, Abū l-Ḥusayn. 1957. Kitāb al-Intiṣār wa-l-Radd ʿalā Ibn al-Rawandī al-Mulḥid: Le livre du triomphe et de la réfutation d’Ibn Al Rawandi l’hérétique, ed. Nyberg, H. S., trans. Albert Nader. Beirut: Éditions les lettres orientales.Google Scholar

Kraus, Paul. 1934. ‘Beiträge zur islamischen Ketzergeschichte: Das Kitāb al-zumurrud des Ibn al-Rāwandī’. Rivista degli studi orientali 14, 93–129, 335–79.Google Scholar

Kraus, Paul. 1936. ‘Extraits du kitâb a‘lâm al-nubuwwa d’Abû Hâtim al-Râzî’. Orientalia Nova Series 5, 35–56, 358–78.Google Scholar

Kukkonen, T. 2014. Ibn Tufayl: Living the Life of Reason. London: Oneworld.Google Scholar

Lacey, R. K. 1995. ‘An 11th century Muslim’s syncretistic perspective of cosmology: Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī’s philosophical-poetic reflections in Luzūm mā lā Yalzam on make-up and dynamics of the universe’. The Muslim World 85, 122–46.Google Scholar

Lamptey, Jerusha Tanner. 2014. Never Wholly Other: A Muslima Theology of Religious Pluralism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Lindstedt, Ilkka. 2011. ‘Anti-religious views in the works of Ibn al-Rāwandī and Abū l-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī’. Studia Orientalia 111, 131–57.Google Scholar

al-Maʿarrī, . 1961. Luzūm mā lā Yalzam. 2 vols. Beirut: Dar Ṣādir.Google Scholar

al-Maʿarrī, . 2013–2014. The Epistle of Forgiveness. 2 vols., ed. and trans. Gelder, Geert van and Schoeler, Gregor. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar

al-Masʿūdī, . 1966–1979. Murūj al-Dhahab wa-Maʿādin al-Jawhar. 7 vols., ed. Pellat, Charles. Beirut: Publications de l’université libanaise.Google Scholar

al-Māturīdī, . 1970. Kitāb al-Tawhīd, ed. Khulayf, Fatḥallāh. Beirut: Dar el-Machreq.Google Scholar

Michot, Jean. 1987. La destinée de l’homme selon Avicenne: Le retour à Dieu (maʿâd) et l’imagination. Louvain: Peeters.Google Scholar

Nicholson, Reynold. 1921. ‘The meditations of Ma‘arrí’, in Studies in Islamic Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 43–289. Reprinted in 1969.Google Scholar

Peltz, Christian. 2013. Der Koran des Abū l-ʿAlāʾ. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar

al-Qifṭī, Jamāl al-Dīn. 1903. Ikhbār al-ʿUlamāʾ bi-Akhbār al-Ḥukamāʾ, ed. Lippert, Julius. Leipzig: Dieterichsche Verlagsbuchhandlung.Google Scholar

al-Rāzī, Abū Bakr. 1950. The Spiritual Physick of Rhazes, trans. Arthur J. Arberry. London: John Murray.Google Scholar

Ritter, H. 1931. ‘Philologika VI: Ibn al-Gauzīs Bericht über Ibn ar-Rewendī’. Der Islam 19, 1–7.Google Scholar

Rosenthal, F. 1983. Sweeter Than Hope: Complaint and Hope in Medieval Islam. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar

Saeed, Abdullah and Saeed, Hassan. 2004. Freedom of Religion, Apostasy and Islam. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar

Saleh, Moustapha. 1969. ‘Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī: Bibliographie critique’. Bulletin d’études orientales 22, 133–204.Google Scholar

Saleh, Moustapha. 1970. ‘Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī: Bibliographie critique: Études critiques modernes’. Bulletin d’études orientales 23, 197–309.Google Scholar

Scmidtke, Sabine (ed.). 2016. The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Sirry, Mun’im. 2014. Scriptural Polemics: The Qur’an and Other Religions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Smoor, P. 1985. Kings and Bedouins in the Palace of Aleppo as Reflected in Maʿarrī’s Works. Manchester: University of Manchester.Google Scholar

Stroumsa, S. 1999. Freethinkers of Medieval Islam: Ibn al-Rāwandī, Abū Bakr al-Rāzī, and Their Impact on Islamic Thought. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar

Urvoy, D. 1996. Les penseurs libres dans l’Islam classique. Paris: Éditions Albin Michel.Google Scholar

Vallat, P. 2015. ‘Can man assess God’s goodness? A controversy between Abū Bakr al-Rāzī (d. 925) and Muʿtazilī Theologians’. Mélanges de l’Institut Dominicaine des Etudes Orientales du Caire 31, 213–51.Google Scholar

van Ess, Josef. 1991–1995. Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra. Eine Geschichte des religiösen Denkens im frühen Islam. 6 vols. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar

von Kremer, Alfred. 1888. ‘Über die philosophischen Gedichte des Abul’alâ Ma‘arry’. Sitzungsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaft in Wien 117, 1–108.Google Scholar

Winter, T. (ed.). 2008. The Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Book contents

9 - The Islamic World

Summary

Access options

References

Save book to Kindle

Save book to Dropbox

Save book to Google Drive