An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines: Conceptions of Nature and Methods Used for Its Study by the Ikhwan Al-Safa, Al-Biruni, and Ibn Si
by Seyyed Hossein Nasr
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Book Summary Information
Author: Seyyed Hossein NasrEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1993-07
ISBN: 0791415163
Number of pages: 322
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Book Reviews of An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines: Conceptions of Nature and Methods Used for Its Study by the Ikhwan Al-Safa, Al-Biruni, and Ibn Si
Book Review: A Review By Titus Burckhardt:
Summary: 5 Stars
In his preface to this book Professor H. A. R. Gibb says that it puts forward a comparatively uninvestigated and hence unfamiliar view of Islam, about which a majority of modern Muslim rationalists would doubtless say that it is alien to the real Islam: but this is a mistaken view. In point of fact S. Hossein Nasr has successfully shown that the cosmological doctrines in question, which were developed during the period from the ninth to the eleventh centuries, are neither mere Hellenistic heirlooms outwardly adapted to the Islamic faith nor yet first gropings in the direction of the modern natural sciences and therefore now only fit to be dismissed as obsolete and decrepit. What chiefly comes to light in these doctrines is a spiritually based view of the Universe, one which always endeavours to see the whole in the part because from the point of view of these doctrines the Universe itself amounts ultimately to a reflection of the divine Unity. Cosmology in the true sense of the word moreover can only be that and nothing but that. When one comes to think of it, this is true of the real basis of every science, since even modern natural science, which considers itself to be agnostic, tacitly assumes the existence of a necessary relationship between the laws of the Spirit and those ruling over Nature, failing which there could be no such thing as truth at all. However, modern science takes no notice of this assumption, as if once and for all it had relieved the Cartesian division of reality into "spirit" and "matter" of any further concern for whatever goes beyond matter, whereas the Islamic as well as the Christian cosmology sees through the different levels of reality, as it were, with the result that the quantity of things matters less in its eyes than their quality; and likewise the actual course of natural events signifies less than their permanent archetypes. This also explains why the mode of expression in mediaeval cosmology often baffles the modern reader: he considers it "naive" when really it is profound in its preference for symbols over definitions, and bottomlessly "abstract" when it is merely indicating things which we cannot grasp with our two hands. Mediaeval cosmology can in fact sometimes be described as naive, for how can this be otherwise when it is a question of human thinking? It is never naive however in its essential features. S. Hossein Nasr develops all this exhaustively by means of three celebrated examples: firstly, the Ras?'il (epistles) of the Ikhw?n as-Saf?, the "Brethren of Purity," an encyclopedia which was published about the year 1,000 by a group of scholars from the region of Basra; secondly, the cosmographical works of al-B?r?n? (973-1051), the great Persian astronomer and indologist; thirdly, the cosmology of Ibn S?n? (980-1037), known as Avicenna in Latin, which was also of decisive importance for the development of Christian cosmology: one says "was," yet it could still have this importance to-day in the sense that even modern natural science could find invaluable suggestions within the scheme of ancient cosmology, wherever it is compelled to reach out beyond what can be weighed and counted, as for example in the sphere of psychology or psycho-somatic medicine.
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