Prophetic Niche in the Virtuous City: The Concept of "Ḥikmah" in Early Islamic Thought

Description

This book analyzes the concept of 'ḥikmah' in early Islamic texts within a network of multiple conceptual interrelationships in the cross-disciplinary context of Muslim works, roughly up to al-Ghazali's lifetime. The word 'ḥikmah' has a wide spectrum of connotations in these texts, because it basically contains all knowledge within human reach, and accordingly, received a range of diverse scholarly treatments. This work contextualizes 'ḥikmah' in a nuanced fashion in the collective usage of early Muslim authors, mainly by lexicographers, exegetes, philosophers, and Sufis. For the first time in the field of Arabic and Islamic Studies, particularly in Islamic Philosophy and Sufism, this study explores the concept of 'ḥikmah' in an all-embracing capacity. 'Ḥikmah' is a central concept of Islamic thinking, related to almost all intellectual disciplines of Muslim scholarly tradition, but it has been insufficiently underlined and treated in earlier western scholarship. Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 PART ONE. ḤIKMAH IN EARLY ARABIC LEXICOGRAPHY Chapter One: The Derivation of the Word Ḥikmah 13 The Root ḥ-k-m and its Primary Meanings in the Arabic Language 13 Ḥikmah, a Noun Derived from the Root ḥ-k-m 18 Other Derivatives of the Root ḥ-k-m 22 Chapter Two: Ḥikmah in Terminological Dictionaries 27 ʿUlūm al-Qurʾān Literature 27 Other Types of Dictionaries 32 Chapter Three: Contemporary Western Scholarship on the Meaning of Ḥikmah 41 PART TWO. ḤIKMAH IN EARLY MUSLIM EXEGETICAL LITERATURE Chapter Four: General Definitions in the Qurʾān 49 Ḥikmah as 'Much Good' 49 Ḥikmah as a Method of Calling to the Way of the Lord 58 Chapter Five: Ḥikmah and the Prophets 61 A Divine Blessing to Abraham’s Progeny 61 Authority: The Case of David 67 Thankfulness: The Case of Luqmān 72 A Criterion for Jesus 75 Heavenly Grace to the Unlettered People: The Case of Muḥammad 80 Chapter Six: Ḥikmah in Relation to Ḥakīm and Ḥukm 89 Ḥakīm 89 Ḥukm 91 Those Given Ḥukm 93 PART THREE. ḤIKMAH IN EARLY SUFI LITERATURE Chapter Seven: Ḥikmah and the Earliest Sufi Authorities 107 Al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī 107 Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq 109 Chapter Eight: Ḥikmah in the Context of Early Sufi Exegetical Works 119 Sufyān al-Thawrī 119 Sahl al-Tustarī 121 Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī 123 Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī 128 Abū Isḥāq al-Thaʿlabī 136 ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Qushayrī 137 Chapter Nine: Ḥikmah in Early Sufi Manuals and Treatises 143 Al-Ḥārith al-Muḥāsibī 144 Al-Junayd al-Baghdādī 147 Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Nūrī 150 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī 161 Chapter Ten: The Merit of Ḥikmah 185 PART FOUR. ḤIKMAH IN EARLY PHILOSOPHICAL LITERATURE Chapter Eleven: Ḥikmah in the Pre-Islamic Philosophical World 207 The “Five Pillars of Ḥikmah”: Ḥikmah in the Land of Greece 207 The Fountain of Ḥikmah: Hermes as the 'Father of the Ḥukamāʾ' 216 Chapter Twelve: Ḥikmah in the Islamic Philosophical World 221 Al-Kindī: The 'Philosopher of the Arabs' 221 Al-Fārābī: The 'Second Master' 235 Ibn Sīnā: The 'Headmaster' 252 Conclusion 269 Bibliography 273 Primary Sources 273 Secondary Sources 277 Index I: Names and Places 283 Index II: Subjects and Terms 291