PAIG͟HĀMBAR (پيغامبر‎). The Persian and Hindustānī translation of the Arabic Rasūl (رسول‎), and Nabī (نبى‎). [PROPHET.]

PARACLETE. [FARAQLIT.]

PARADISE. The Muḥammadan Paradise is called al-Jannah (الجنة‎), “the garden,” pl. jannāt, in Arabic; and Bihisht (بهشت‎), in Persian; the word al-Firdaus (الفردوس‎), or Paradise, being restricted to one region in the celestial abodes of bliss. There are eight heavens or paradises mentioned in the Qurʾān, and although they appear to be but eight different names for the place of bliss, Muḥammadan divines have held them to be eight different stages.

They are as follows (see G͟hiyās̤u ʾl-Lug͟hah):—

1. Jannatu ʾl-K͟huld (Sūratu ʾl-Furqān, xxv. 16), The Garden of Eternity.

2. Dāru ʾs-Salām (Sūratu ʾl-Anʿām, vi. 127), The Dwelling of Peace.

3. Dāru ʾl-Qarār (Sūratu ʾl-Muʾmin, xl. 42), The Dwelling which abideth.

4. Jannātu ʾl-ʿAdn (Sūratu ʾl-Barāʾah, ix. 73), The Gardens of Eden.

5. Jannātu ʾl-Maʾwā (Sūratu ʾs-Sajdah, xxxii. 19), The Gardens of Refuge.

6. Jannātu ʾn-Naʿīm (Sūratu ʾl-Māʾidah, v. 70), The Gardens of Delight.

7. ʿIllīyūn (Sūratu ʾt-Tat̤fīf, lxxxiii. 18).

8. Jannātu ʾl-Firdaus (Sūratu ʾl-Kahf, xviii. 107), The Gardens of Paradise.

These eight stages are spoken of as eight doors in the Mishkāt, book ii. ch. i.

The sensual delights of Muḥammad’s Paradise are proverbial, and they must have exercised a considerable influence upon the minds of the people to whom he made known his mission. There are frequent allusions to them in the Qurʾān. The following are specimen passages:—

Sūratu ʾl-Insān (lxxvi.), 12–22:—“God hath rewarded their constancy, with Paradise, and silken robes, reclining therein on bridal couches; nought shall they know of sun or piercing cold: its shades shall close over them, and low shall its fruits hang down: and vessels of silver and goblets like flagons shall be borne round among them: flagons of silver whose measure themselves shall mete. And there shall they be given to drink of the cup tempered with zanjabīl (ginger) from the fount therein whose name is Salsabīl (i.e. the softly flowing). Blooming youths go round among them. When thou lookest at them, thou wouldst deem them scattered pearls; and when thou seest this, thou wilt see delights and a vast kingdom; their clothing green silk robes and rich brocade: with silver bracelets shall they be adorned; and drink of a pure beverage shall their Lord give them. This shall be your recompense.”

Sūratu ʾl-Wāqiʿah (lvi.), 12–39: “In gardens of delight, a crowd of the former and a few of the later generations; on inwrought couches reclining on them face to face, blooming youths go round about them with goblets and ewers and a cup of flowing wine; their brows ache not from it, nor fails the sense: and with such fruits as shall please them best, and with flesh of such birds as they shall long for; and theirs shall be the Houris (Arabic ḥūr), with large dark eyes, like pearls hidden in their shells, in recompense for their labours past. No vain discourse shall they hear therein, nor charge of sin, but only cry ‘Peace! Peace!’… Unfailing, unforbidden, and on lofty couches and of a rare creation have we made the Houris, and we have made them ever virgins, dear to their spouses and of equal age, for the people of the right hand, a crowd of the former, and a crowd of the later generations.”

Sūratu ʾr-Raḥmān (lv.), 54–56: “On couches with linings of brocade shall they recline, and the fruit of the two gardens shall be within their easy reach.… Therein shall be the damsels with retiring glances, whom neither man nor jinn hath touched before them.”

Sūratu ʾl-Muḥammad (xlvii.), 16, 17: “Therein are rivers of water which corrupt not: rivers of milk, whose taste changeth not: and rivers of wine, delicious to those who quaff it; and rivers of clarified honey: and therein are all kinds of fruit for them from their Lord.”

The descriptions of the celestial regions and the enjoyments promised to the faithful are still more minutely given in the traditional sayings of the Prophet; see the Mishkāt, book xxiii. ch. xiii.

Abū Mūsā relates that “the Apostle of God said, Verily there is a tent for every Muslim in Paradise, it is made of one pearl, its interior empty, its breadth 60 kos, and in every corner of it will be his wives: and they shall not see one another. The Muslim shall love them alternately,” &c.

Abū Saʿīd relates that “the Apostle of God said, ‘He who is least amongst the people of Paradise, shall have eighty thousand slaves, and seventy-two women, and has a tent pitched for him of pearls, rubies, and emeralds.… Those who die in the world, young or old, are made of thirty years of age, and not more, when they enter Paradise.’ ”

Abū Saʿīd also relates that “the Apostle of God said, ‘Verily a man in Paradise reclines upon seventy cushions, before he turns on his other side. Then a woman of Paradise comes to him and pats him on the shoulder, and the man sees his face in her cheek, which is brighter than a looking-glass, and verily her most inferior pearl brightens the east and west. Then the woman makes a salām to him, which he returns; and the man says, “Who are you?” and she replies, “I am of the number promised of God for the virtuous.” And verily she will have seventy garments, and the man’s eyes will be fixed on them, till he will see the marrow of the bones of her legs through the calves of them, and she will have crowns on her head, the meanest pearl of which would give light between the east and west.’ ”

One of the attractions of Paradise is the river Kaus̤ar. [KAUSAR.] According to Anas, “the Apostle of God said, it is a river which God has given me in Paradise, its water is whiter than milk, and sweeter than honey, and on its waters are birds whose necks are like the necks of camel.”

The following is an instance of the way in which the Prophet endeavoured to suit his paradise to the tastes of the people:—

Abū Aiyūb says, “An Arab came to the Prophet and said, ‘O Apostle of God! I am fond of horses; are there any in Paradise?’ The Prophet replied, ‘If you are taken into Paradise, you will get a ruby horse, with two wings, and you will mount him, and he will carry you wherever you wish.’ ”

Abū Hurairah said, “Verily the Apostle of God said, when an Arab was sitting near him, that a man of the people of Paradise will ask permission of his Lord to cultivate land, and God will say, ‘Have you not everything you could wish for? What will you cultivate?’ The man will say, ‘Yes, everything is present, but I am fond of cultivating.’ Then he will be permitted to cultivate, and he will sow, and, quicker than the twinkling of an eye, it will grow, become ripe, and be reaped, and it will stand in sheaves like mountains.”

The apologists for Islām, Carlyle for example, have suggested that the sensual delights of Muḥammad’s paradise may, after all, be taken in a figurative sense, as the Revelation of St. John or the Song of Solomon. It is quite true that such an interpretation is hinted at in the Ak͟hlāq-i-Jalālī (Thompson’s translation, p. 102), and Mr. Lane in his Egyptians (vol. i. p. 84) says that a Muslim of some learning considered the descriptions of Paradise figurative, but such is not the view held by Muḥammadan doctors, whether Sunnī, Shīʿah, or Wahhābī. They are all agreed as to the literal interpretation of the sensual enjoyments of the Muslim paradise, and very many are the books written giving minute particulars of the joys in store for the faithful.

Islām, true to its anti-Christian character, preaches a sensual abode of bliss, in opposition to the express teaching of our Lord in Matt. xxii. 30: “They neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.”

Were proof needed, to show that the Prophet taught a real and literal interpretation of the sensual delights of the abodes of bliss, a tradition of high authority is found in the Ṣaḥīḥu Muslim (p. 379), vide also Mishkāt, book xxiii. ch. 13, in which the Prophet goes to some trouble to explain the sanitary laws of the heavenly kingdom, in the most literal manner possible.

Sir William Muir says: “It is remarkable that the notices in the Corân of this voluptuous Paradise are almost entirely confined to a time when, whatever the tendency of his desires, Mahomet was living chaste and temperate with a single wife of threescore years of age. Gibbon characteristically observes that ‘Mahomet has not specified the male companions of the female elect, lest he should either alarm the jealousy of the former husbands, or disturb their felicity by the suspicion of an everlasting marriage.’ The remark, made in raillery, is pregnant with reason, and aims a fatal blow at the Paradise of Islām. Faithful women will renew their youth in heaven as well as faithful men: why should not their good works merit an equal and analogous reward? But Mahomet shrank from this legitimate conclusion. It is noteworthy that in the Medîna Suras—that is in all the voluminous revelations of the ten years following the Hegira—women are only twice referred to as one of the delights of Paradise; and on both occasions in these simple words:—‘and to them (believers) there shall be therein pure wives.’ (Sūrah ii. 23, Sūrah iv. 60.) Was it that satiety had then left no longings unfulfilled; or that a closer contact with Judaism had repressed the budding pruriency of his revelation, and covered with confusion the picture of a sensual Paradise which had been drawn at Mecca?” (Life of Mahomet, new ed. p. 82 and note.)

Sir W. Muir has omitted a third passage, Sūrah iii. 13, where “women of stainless purity” are spoken of, but it is remarkable how much more restrained are the Prophet’s descriptions of Paradise in his later revelations. For example, Sūrah xiii. 23, 24, 35:—“Gardens of Eden—into which they shall enter together with the just of their fathers, and their wives and their descendants, and the angels shall go in unto them at every portal: Peace be with you, say they, because ye have endured all things.… The rivers flow beneath its bowers; its food and its shades are perpetual.”

PARDON FOR SIN. The words used to express pardon for sins on the part of the Almighty, are ʿAfw (عفو‎), Mag͟hfirah (مغفرة‎), and G͟hufrān (غفران‎). The act of seeking pardon is Istig͟hfār (استغفار‎).

The following is the teaching of the Qurʾān on the subject:—

Sūrah liii. 32, 33: “God’s is what is in the heavens and what is in the earth, that He may reward those who do evil with evil, and those who do good with good. Those who shun great sins and iniquities—all but venial sins,—verily thy Lord is of ample forgiveness.

Sūrah lxvii. 12: “Verily those who fear their Lord in secret, for them is forgiveness and a great reward.”

Sūrah xxxiii. 71: “He (God) will correct you for your works and pardon you for your sins; for he who obeys God and His Apostle has attained a mighty happiness.”

Sūrah xxxv. 8: “Those who believe and do right, for them is forgiveness.”

Sūrah viii. 29: “O ye who believe! if ye fear God, He will make for you a discrimination, and will cover your offences and will forgive you; for God is the Lord of mighty grace.”

Repentance is expressed in the Qurʾān by the word Taubah (توبة‎), which the Imām an-Nawawī says means “turning the heart from sin.” (Commentary on Ṣaḥīḥu Muslim, vol. ii. p. 354.) The word frequently occurs in the Qurʾān. For example:—

Sūrah iv. 20: “If they repent and amend, then let them be. Verily God relenteth. He is merciful.”

Sūrah xxv. 71: “Whoso hath repented and hath done what is right, verily it is he who turneth to God with a true conversion” (matāb).

The teaching of the traditions on the subject of repentance and pardon for sin is in some places exceedingly wild, as will be seen from the following selections taken from the sayings of the Prophet given in the Mishkāt, book x. ch. iii:—

“There was a man of the children of Israel, who killed ninety-nine people, after which he came out, asking if his repentance would be accepted; and having met a monk, he asked him, ‘Is there acceptance for my repentance?’ The monk said, ‘No.’ Then the man killed the monk, and stood asking people about the approval of his repentance. And a man said to him, ‘Come to such a village.’ Then the signs of immediate death were upon him, and he tried to reach the village upon his knees, and died on the way. Then the angels of mercy and punishment disputed about him. Then God ordered the village towards which the man had attempted to go to be near to the corpse; and the village which he had fled from to be far away from him. Then God said to the angels, ‘Compute, and measure the distance between the two villages.’ And it was found that the village towards which he was going was nearer to him by one span. And he was pardoned.”

“An incessant sinner has not sinned that has asked pardon, although he may have sinned seventy times a day, because asking pardon is the coverer of sin.”

“God has said, ‘Verily if you come before Me with sins equal to the dust of the earth, and then come before Me without associating anything with Me, verily I will come before you with the pardon equal to the dust of the earth.’”

“Verily God accepts of the repentance of His servant as long as his soul does not come into his throat.”

“I swear by God that verily I ask pardon of God and repent before Him more than seventy times daily.”

“Verily my heart is veiled with melancholy, and verily I ask pardon of God one hundred times a day.”

“Verily, when a true believer commits a sin, a black spot is created in his heart; and if he repents and asks pardon of God, the black spot is rubbed off his heart; but if he increases his sins, the black spot increases, so that it takes hold of the whole heart. Then this spot is a rust which God has mentioned in the Qurʾān, ‘their hearts became rusty from their works.’ ”

“Verily there were two men of the children of Israel who had a friendship for each other. One of them was a worshipper of God, and the other a sinner. The worshipper of God said to the sinner, ‘Give up sinning.’ He said, ‘Leave me to my Lord.’ At length he found him committing a very great sin, and said, ‘Give up sinning.’ The sinner said, ‘Leave me to my Lord. Were you sent as a guard over me?’ The worshipper said, ‘I swear by God He will not always forgive your sins, nor will He bring you into Paradise.’ Then God sent an angel to them, who took both their souls, and they both appeared before God together. And God said to the sinner, ‘Come into Paradise.’ And he said to the other: ‘What, can you prevent My compassion on my servant?’ He said, ‘I cannot, O my Lord.’ And God said to the angels, ‘Carry him to the fire.’ ”

PARENTAGE. The periods of six months and of two years are fixed as the shortest and longest periods of pregnancy, and consequently any child born within those periods is assumed to be the child of the woman’s husband, even though she be either a widow or divorced. This strange ruling of Muslim law is founded on a declaration of ʿĀyishah, who is related to have said, “The child does not remain in the womb of the mother beyond two years.”

The Imām ash-Shāfiʿī has said the longest period of pregnancy extends to four years. (Hamilton’s Hidāyah, vol. i. p. 383.)

If a person acknowledge the parentage of a child who is able to give an account of himself, and the ages of the parties are such as to admit of the one being the child of the other, and the parentage of the child be not well known to any person, and the child himself verify the statement, the parentage is established. (Ibid., vol. iii. p. 169.)

PARENTS, Duty to, is frequently enjoined in the Qurʾān; for example, Sūrah xvii. 24, 25: “Thy Lord hath decreed that ye shall not serve other than Him, and that ye shall be kind to your parents, whether one or both of them reach old age with thee; and ye must not say, ‘Fie!’ (Uff) nor grumble at them, but speak to them a generous speech. And lower to them the wing of humility out of compassion, and say, ‘O Lord! have compassion on them, as they brought me up when I was little!’ ”

PARISH. In connection with the mosques of cities and villages there are appointed districts not unlike English parishes. Within these districts the Imām of the mosque is hold responsible for the marriages and burials of the people, and his services can be claimed for these ceremonies, for which he receives customary fees. Any other Maulawī performing marriages or burials, is expected to obtain the permission of the Imām of the parish. In fact, the position of the Imām of a mosque is similar to that of a beneficed clergyman. He receives the marriage and burial fees, fees at the ceremony of circumcision, thank offerings on the birth of a child, or on recovery from sickness, presents on the festival days, &c., as well as the waqf, or endowment, of the mosque.

PARSĪ. [MAJUS.]

PARTURITION. [NIFAS.]

PATIENCE. Arabic ṣabr (صبر‎), is frequently enjoined in the Qurʾān, e.g. Sūrah ii. 148: “O ye who believe! seek help through patience and prayer; verily God is with the patient.”

PAWNING. [RAHN.]

PEN, The, of Fate. [QALAM.]

PENTATEUCH. [TAURAT.]

PESTILENCE. Arabic t̤āʿūn (طاعون‎), wabāʾ (وباء‎). According to the teaching of Muḥammad in the traditions, a pestilence is a punishment sent by God, it is also an occasion of martyrdom, and that Muslim who abides in the place where he is at the time of a pestilence, and dies of it, is admitted to the rank of a martyr. It is also enjoined that Musalmāns shall not enter a place where there is a pestilence raging, but remain where they are until it is passed. (Mishkāt, book v. ch. 1.)

PHARAOH. Arabic Firʿaun (فرعون‎). Heb. ‏פַּרְעֹה‎. The King of Egypt in the time of Moses. Considered by all Muḥammadans to be the very personification of wickedness.

Al-Baiẓāwī says Firʿaun was the common title of the kings of Egypt, just as Cæsar was that of the Roman Emperors, and that the name of Pharaoh, according to some, was al-Walīd ibn Muṣʿab, and according to others Muṣʿab ibn Raiyām, and according to others Qābūs, and that he lived 620 years. Abū ʾl-Fidāʾ says that Muṣʿab being 170 years old, and having no child, whilst he kept his herds, he saw a cow calf, and heard her say at the same time, “O Muṣʿab, be not grieved, thou shalt have a son, a wicked son, who shall be cast into hell,” and that this son was the wicked Firʿaun of the time of Moses.

In the Qurʾān, Sūrah xxxviii. 11, he is surnamed Firʿaun Ẕū ʾl-Autād, or “Pharaoh the master of the Stakes, who called the Apostles liars.” Some say the stakes refer to the strength of his kingdom, others that they were instruments of torture and death which he used.

Pharaoh was drowned in the Red Sea, and the commentators say that Gabriel would not let his body sink, but that it floated as a sign and a warning to the children of Israel. (See Qurʾān, Sūrah x. 90–92.)

A further account of Pharaoh, as given in the Qurʾān, will be found in the article on Moses. The Pharaoh of Joseph’s time is said to be Raiyān ibn al-Walīd al-ʿAmlīqī, the ancestor of the renowned Pharaoh in the time of Moses. [MOSES.]

PHILOSOPHY, MUSLIM. Arabic falsafah (فلسفة‎), or ʿilmu ʾl-ḥikmah (علم الحكمة‎). The following account of Arabian philosophy is taken with permission from Professor Ueberweg’s History of Philosophy, translated by G. S. Morris, M.A. (Hodder and Stoughton), vol. i. p. 405:—

“The whole philosophy of the Arabians was only a form of Aristotelianism, tempered more or less with Neo-Platonic conceptions. The medical and physical science of the Greeks and Greek philosophy became known to the Arabs especially under the rule of the Abassidæ (from A.D. 750 on), when medical, and afterwards (from the time of the reign of Almamun, in the first half of the ninth century) philosophical works were translated from Greek into Syriac and Arabic by Syriac Christians. The tradition of Greek philosophy was associated with that combination of Platonism and Aristotelianism which prevailed among the last philosophers of antiquity, and with the study by Christian theologians of the Aristotelian logic as a formal organon of dogmatics; but in view of the rigid monotheism of the Mohammedan religion, it was necessary that the Aristotelian metaphysics, and especially the Aristotelian theology, should be more fully adopted among the Arabs than among the Neo-Platonists and Christians, and that in consequence of the union among the former of philosophical with medical studies, the works of Aristotle on natural science should be studied by them with especial zeal.

“Of the Arabian philosophers in the East, the most important were Alkendi (al-Kindī), who was still more renowned as a mathematician and astrologer; Alfarabi (al-Fārābī), who adopted the Neo-Platonic doctrine of emanation; Avicenna (Abū Sīnā), the representative of a purer Aristotelianism and a man who for centuries, even among the Christian scholars of the later mediæval centuries, stood in the highest consideration as a philosopher, and, still more, as a teacher of medicine; and, finally, Algazel (al-G͟hazzālī), who maintained a philosophical skepticism in the interest of theological orthodoxy.

“The most important Arabian philosophers in the West were Avempace (Ibn Badja), Abubacer (Abū Bakr Ibn T̤ufail), and Averroës (Ibn Rashīd). Avempace and Abubacer dwell in their works on the idea of the independent and gradual development of man. Abubacer (in his ‘Natural Man’) develops this idea in a spirit of opposition to positive religion, although he affirms that positive religion and philosophical doctrine pursue the same end, namely, the union of the human intellect with the divine. Averroës, the celebrated commentator of Aristotle, interprets the doctrine of the latter respecting the active and the passive intellect in a sense which is nearly pantheistic and which excludes the idea of individual immortality. He admits the existence of only one active intellect, and affirms that this belongs in common to the whole human race, that it becomes temporarily particularized in individuals, but that each of its emanations becomes finally reabsorbed in the original whole, in which alone, therefore, they possess immortality.

“The acquaintance of the Mohammedan Arabs with the writings of Aristotle was brought about through the agency of Syrian Christians. Before the time of Mohammed, many Nestorian Syrians lived among the Arabs as physicians. Mohammed also had intercourse with Nestorian monks. Hareth Ibn Calda, the friend and physician of the Prophet, was a Nestorian. It was not, however, until after the extension of the Mohammedan rule over Syria and Persia, and chiefly after the Abassidæ had commenced to reign (A.D. 750), that foreign learning, especially in medicine and philosophy, became generally known among the Arabs. Philosophy had already been cultivated in those countries during the last days of Neo-Platonism, by David the Armenian (about 500 A.D.; his Prolog. to Philos. and to the Isagoge, and his commentary on the Categ, in Brandis’ Collection of Scholia to Arist.; his works, Venice, 1823; on him cf. C. F. Neumann, Paris, 1829) and afterwards by the Syrians, especially Christian Syrians, translated Greek authors, particularly medical, but afterward philosophical authors also, first into Syriac, and then from Syriac into Arabic (or they, perhaps, made use also of earlier Syriac translations some of which are to-day extant).

“During the reign and at the instance of Almamun (A.D. 813–833), the first translations of works of Aristotle into Arabic were made, under the direction of Johannes Ibn-al-Batrik (i.e. the son of the Patriarch, who, according to Renan [l.l., p. 57], is to be distinguished from Johannes Mesue, the physician), these translations, in part still extant, were regarded (according to Abulfaragius, Histor. Dynast., p. 153 et al.) as faithful but inelegant.

“A man more worthy of mention is Honein Ibn Ishak (Johannitius), a Nestorian, who flourished under Motewakkel, and died in 876. Acquainted with the Syriac, Arabic, and Greek languages, he was at the head of a school of interpreters at Bagdad, to which his son Ishak Ben Honein and his nephew Hobeisch-el-Asam also belonged. The works not only of Aristotle himself, but also of several ancient Aristotelians (Alexander Aphrodisiensis, Themistius, and also Neo-Platonic exegetes, such as Porphyry and Ammonius), and of Galenus and others, were translated into (Syriac and) Arabic. Of these translations, also, some of those in Arabic are still existing, but the Syriac translations are all lost. (Honein’s Arabic translation of the Categories has been edited by Jul. Theod. Zenker, Leips. 1846.) In the tenth century new translations, not only of the works of Aristotle, but also of Theophrastus, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Theomistius, Syrianus, Ammonius, etc., were produced by Syrian Christians, of whom the most important were the Nestorians, Abu Baschar Mata and Jahja ben Adi, the Tagritan, as also Isa Ben Zaraa. The Syriac translations (or revisions of earlier translations) by these men have been lost, but the Arabic translations were widely circulated and have in large measure been preserved; they were used by Alfarabi, Avicenna, Averroës, and the other Arabian philosophers. The Republic, Timæus, and Laws of Plato, were also translated into Arabic. Averroës (in Spain, about 1150) possessed and paraphrased the Rep., but he did not the Politics of Aristotle; the book existing in MS. at Paris, entitled Siaset (Siyāsah), i.e. Politica, is the spurious work De Regimine Principum s. Secretum Secretorum; the Politics of Aristotle is not known to exist in Arabic. Farther, extracts from the Neo-Platonists, especially from Proclus, were translated into Arabic. The Syrians were led, especially in consequence of their contact with the Arabs, to extend their studies beyond the Organon; they began to cultivate in the Arabic language all the branches of philosophy on the basis of Aristotle’s works, and in this they were afterwards followed by the Arabs themselves, who soon surpassed their Syrian teachers. Alfarabi and Avicenna were the scholars of Syrian and Christian physicians. The later Syrian philosophy bears the type of the Arabian philosophy. The most important representative of the former was Gregorius Barhebræus or Abulfaragius, the Jacobite, who lived in the thirteenth century, and was descended from Jewish parents, and whose compendium of the Peripatetic philosophy (Butyrum Sapientiæ) is still of great authority among the Syrians.

“Alkendi (Abu Jusuf Jacub Ibn Eshak al Kendi, i.e. the father of Joseph, Jacob, son of Isaac, the Kendæan, of the district of Kendah) was born at Busra on the Persian Gulf, where later, in the tenth century, the ‘Brothers of Purity’ or the ‘Sincere Brethren,’ who collected in an Encyclopedia the learning then acceptable to the Arabians, were located. He lived during and after the first half of the ninth century, dying about 870. He was renowned as a mathematician, astrologer, physician, and philosopher. He composed commentaries on the logical writings of Aristotle, and wrote also on metaphysical problems. In theology he was a rationalist. His astrology was founded on the hypothesis that all things are so bound together by harmonious causal relations, that each, when completely conceived, must represent as in a mirror the whole universe.

“Alfarabi (Abu Nasr Mohammed ben Mohammed ben Tarkhan of Farab), born near the end of the ninth century, received his philosophical training mainly at Bagdad, where he also began to teach. Attached to the mystical sect of the Sûfi, which Said Abul Chair had founded about A.D. 820 (under the unmistakable influence of Buddhism, although Tholuck [“Ssufismus.” Berlin, 1821, and Blüthensammlung aus der Morgenländ. Mystik, Berlin, 1825] assigns to it a purely Mohammedan origin), Alfarabi went at a later epoch to Aleppo and Damascus, where he died A.D. 950. In logic Alfarabi follows Aristotle almost without exception. Whether logic is to be regarded as a part of philosophy or not, depends, according to Alfarabi, on the greater or less extension given to the conception of philosophy, and is therefore a useless question. Argumentation is the instrument by which to develop the unknown from the known; it is employed by the utens logicus; logica docens is the theory which relates to this instrument, argumentation, or which treats of it as its subject (subjectum). Yet logic also treats of single concepts (incomplexa) as elements of judgments and argumentations (according to Alfarabi, as reported by Albertus M., De Prædicabil. i. 2 seq., cf. Prantl, Gesch. der Log., ii. p. 302 seq.). Alfarabi defines the universal (see Alb. M., De Praed., ii. 5) as the unum de multis et in multis, which definition is followed immediately by the inference that the universal has no existence apart from the individual (non habet esse separatum a multis). It is worthy of notice that Alfarabi does not admit in its absolute sense the aphorism: singulare sentitur, universale intelligitur, but teaches that the singular, although in its material aspect an object of sensible perception, exists in its formal aspect in the intellect, and, on the other hand, that the universal, although as such belonging to the intellect, exists also in sensu, in so far as it exists blended with the individual (Alb., An. post. i. l, 3). Among the contents of the Metaphysics of Alfarabi, mention should be made of his proof of the existence of God, which was employed by Albertus Magnus and later philosophers. This proof is founded on Plat., Tim., p. 28: τῷ γενομένῳ φαμὲν ὑπ’ αἰτίου τινὸς ἀνάγκην εἶναι γενέσθαι, and Arist., Metaph., xii. 7: ἐστι τοίνυν τι καὶ ὁ κινεῖ, etc., or on the principle that all change and all development must have a cause. Alfarabi distinguishes (Fontes Quæstionum, ch. 3 seq., in Schmölders’ Doc. Phil. Ar., p. 44), between that which has a possible and that which has a necessary existence, just as Plato and Aristotle distinguish between the changeable and the eternal. If the possible is to exist in reality, a cause is necessary thereto. The world is composite, hence it had a beginning or was caused (ch. 2). But the series of causes and effects can neither recede in infinitum, nor return like a circle into itself: it must, therefore, depend upon some necessary link, and this link is the first being (ens primum). This first being exists necessarily; the supposition of its non-existence involves a contradiction. It is uncaused, and needs in order to its existence no cause external to itself. It is the cause of all that exists. Its eternity implies its perfection. It is free from all accidents. It is simple and unchangeable. As the absolutely Good it is at once absolute thought, absolute object of thought, and absolute thinking being (intelligentia, intelligible, intelligens). It has wisdom, life, insight, might, and will, beauty, excellence, brightness; it enjoys the highest happiness, is the first willing being and the first object of will (desire). In the knowledge of this being, Alfarabi (De rebus studio Arist. phil. præmitt. Comm., ch. 4, ap. Schmölders, Doc. ph. Arab., p. 22), sees the end of philosophy, and he defines the practical duty of man as consisting in rising, so far as human force permits it, into likeness with God. In his teachings respecting that which is caused by or derived from God (Fontes Quæst., ch. 6 seq.), Alfarabi follows the Neo-Platonists. His fundamental conception is expressed by the word emanation. The first created thing was the Intellect, which came forth from the first being (the Νοῦς of Plotinus; this doctrine was logically consistent only for Plotinus, not for Alfarabi, since the former represented his One as superior to all predicates, while Alfarabi, in agreement with Aristotle and with religious dogmatics, recognized in his first being intelligence). From this intellect flowed forth, as a new emanation, the Cosmical Soul, in the complication and combination of whose ideas the basis of corporeality is to be found. Emanation proceeds from the higher or outer spheres to the lower or inner ones. In bodies, matter and form are necessarily combined with each other. Terrestrial bodies are composed of the four elements. The lower physical powers, up to the potential intellect, are dependent on matter. The potential intellect, through the operation (in-beaming) of the active divine intellect, is made actual (intellectus in actu or in effectu), and this actual intellect, as resulting from development, may be called acquired intellect (intellectus acquisitus, after the doctrine of Alexander of Aphrodisias, concerning the νοῦς ἐπίκτητος). The actual human intellect is free from matter, and is a simple substance, which alone survives the death of the body and remains indestructible. Evil is a necessary condition of good in a finite world. All things are under divine guidance and are good, since all was created by God. Between the human understanding and the things which it seeks to know there exists (as Alfarabi teaches, De Intellecto et Intellectu, p. 48 seq.) a similarity of form, which arises from their having both been formed by the same first being, and which makes knowledge possible.

“Avicenna (Abu Ali Al Hosain Abdallah Ibn Sina) was born at Afsenna, in the province of Bokhara, in the year 980. His mind was early developed by the study of theology, philosophy, and medicine, and in his youth he had already written a scientific encyclopedia. He taught medicine and philosophy in Ispahan. He died at Hamadan in the fifty-eighth year of his life. His medical Canon was employed for centuries as the basis of instruction. In philosophy he set out from the doctrines of Alfarabi, but modified them by omitting many Neo-Platonic theorems and approximating more nearly to the real doctrine of Aristotle. The principle on which his logic was founded, and which Averroës adopted and Albertus Magnus often cites, was destined to exert a great influence. It was worded thus: Intellectus in formis agit universalitatem (Alb., De Prædicab., ii. 3 and 6). The genus, as also the species, the differentia, the accidens, and the proprium, are in themselves neither universal nor singular. But the thinking mind, by comparing the similar forms, forms the genus logicum, which answers to the definition of the genus, viz.: that it is predicated of many objects specifically different, and answers the question, ‘What is it?’ (tells the quidditas). It is the genus naturale which furnishes the basis of comparison. When the mind adds to the generic and specific the individual accidents, the singular is formed (Avic., Log., Venice edition, 1508, f. 12, ap. Prantl, Geschichte der Logik, ii. 347 seq.). Only figuratively, according to Avicenna, can the genus be called matter and the specific difference form; such phraseology (frequent in Aristotle) is not strictly correct. Avicenna distinguishes several modes of generic existence, viz.: ante res, in rebus, and post res. Genera are ante res in the mind of God; for all that exists is related to God as a work of art is related to an artist; it existed in his wisdom and will before its entrance into the world of manifold existence; in this sense, and only in this sense, is the universal before the individual. Realized with its accidents in matter, the genus constitutes the natural thing, res naturalis, in which the universal essence is immanent. The third mode of the existence of the genus is that which it has in being conceived by the human intellect; when the latter abstracts the form and then compares it again with the individual objects to which by one and the same definition it belongs, in this comparison (respectus) is contained the universal (Avic., Log., f. 12; Metaph., v. 1, 2, f. 87, in Prantl, ii. p. 349). Our thought, which is directed to things, contains nevertheless dispositions which are peculiar to itself; when things are thought, there is added in thought something which does not exist outside of thought. Thus universality as such, the generic concept and the specific difference, the subject and predicate, and other similar elements, belong only to thought. Now it is possible to direct the attention, not merely to things, but also to the dispositions which are peculiar to thought, and this takes place in logic (Metaph., i. 2; iii. 10, in Prantl, ii. p. 320 seq.). On this is based the distinction of ‘first’ and ‘second intentions.’ The direction of attention to things is the first intention (intentio prima); the second intention (intentio secunda) is directed to the dispositions which are peculiar to our thinking concerning things. Since the universal as such belongs not to things, but to thought, it belongs to the second intention. The principle of individual plurality, according to Avicenna, is matter, which he regards, not with Alfarabi as an emanation from the Cosmical Soul, but with Aristotle as eternal and uncreated; all potentiality is grounded in it, as actuality is in God. Nothing changeable can come forth directly from the unchangeable first cause. His first and only direct product is the intelligentia prima (the νοῦς of Plotinus, as with Alfarabi); from it the chain of emanations extends through the various celestial spheres down to our earth. But the issuing of the lower from the higher is to be conceived, not as a single, temporal act, but as an eternal act, in which cause and effect are synchronous. The cause which gave to things their existence must continually maintain them in existence; it is an error to imagine that things once brought into existence continue therein of themselves. Notwithstanding its dependence on God, the world has existed from eternity. Time and motion always were (Avic. Metaph., vi. 2, et al.; cf. the account in the Tractatus de Erroribus, ap. Hauréau, Ph. Sc., i. p. 368). Avicenna distinguishes a two-fold development of our potential understanding into actuality, the one common, depending on instruction, the other rare, and dependent on immediate divine illumination. According to a report transmitted to us by Averroës, Avicenna, in his Philosophia Orientalis, which has not come down to us, contradicted his Aristotelian principles, and conceived God as a heavenly body.

“Algazel (Abu Hamed Mohammed Ibn Achmed Al-Ghazzâli), born A.D. 1059 at Ghazzâlah in Khorasan, taught first at Bagdad, and afterwards, having become a Sûfi, resided in Syria. He died A.D. 1111 at Tus. He was a sceptic in philosophy, but only that his faith might be all the stronger in the doctrines of theology. His course in this respect marked a reaction of the exclusively religious principle of Mohammedanism against philosophical speculation—which in spite of all accommodation had not made itself fully orthodox—and particularly against Aristotelianism; between the mysticism of the Neo-Platonists, on the contrary, and the Sûfism of Algazel, there existed an essential affinity. In his Makacid al filasifa (Maqāṣidu ʾl-Falāsifah), ‘The Aims of the Philosophers,’ Algazel sets forth the doctrines of philosophy following essentially Alfarabi and particularly Avicenna. These doctrines are then subjected by him to a hostile criticism in his Tehafot al filasifa (Tahāfutu ʾl-Falāsifah), ‘Against the Philosophers,’ while in his ‘Fundamental Principles of Faith,’ he presents positively his own views. Averroës wrote by way of rejoinder his Destructio Destructionis Philosophorum. Algazel exerted himself especially to excite a fear of the chastisements of God, since in his opinion the men of his times were living in too great assurance. Against the philosophers he defended particularly the religious dogmas of the creation of the world in time and out of nothing, the reality of the divine attributes, and the resurrection of the body, as also the power of God to work miracles, in opposition to the supposed law of cause and effect. In the Middle Ages, his exposition of logic, metaphysics, and physics, as given in the Makacid, was much read.

“The result of the scepticism of Algazel was in the East the triumph of an unphilosophical orthodoxy; after him there arose in that quarter no philosopher worthy of mention. On the other hand, the Arabian philosophy began to flourish in Spain, where a succession of thinkers cultivated its various branches.

“Avempace (Abu Bekr Mohammed ben Jahja Ibn Badja), born at Saragossa near the end of the eleventh century, was celebrated as a physician, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher. About 1118 he wrote, at Seville, a number of logical treatises. At a later period he lived in Granada, and afterwards also in Africa. He died at a not very advanced age in 1138, without having completed any extensive works; yet he wrote several smaller (mostly lost) treatises, among which, according to Munk (Mélanges, p. 386), were Logical Tractates (still existing, according to Casiri, Biblioth. Arabico-Hisp. Escurialensis, i. p. 179, in the library of the Escurial), a work on the soul, another on the conduct of the solitary (régime du solitaire), also on the union of the universal intellect with man, and a farewell letter; to these may be added commentaries on the Physics, Meteorology, and other works of Aristotle relating to physical science. Munk gives the substance of the ‘Conduct of the Solitary,’ as reported by a Jewish philosopher of the fourteenth century, Moses of Narbonne (Mél., pp. 389–409). This work treats of the degrees by which the soul rises from that instinctive life which it shares with the lower animals, through gradual emancipation from materiality and potentiality to the acquired intellect (intellectus acquisitus) which is an emanation from the active intellect or Deity. Avempace seems (according to Averroës, De Anima, fol. 168A) to have identified the intellectus materialis with the imaginative faculty. In the highest grade of knowledge (in self-consciousness) thought is identical with its object.

“Abubacer (Abu Bakr Mohammed ben Abd al Malic Ibn Tophail al Keisi) was born in about the year 1100, at Wadi-Asch (Guadix), in Andalusia, and died in 1185, in Morocco. He was celebrated as a physician, mathematician, philosopher, and poet, and pursued still further the path of speculation opened up by Ibn Badja. His chief work, that has come down to us, is entitled Haji Ibn Jakdhan (Ḥaiyu bnu Yaqz̤ān), i.e. the Living One, the Son of the Waking One. The fundamental idea is the same as in Ibn Badja’s ‘Conduct of the Solitary’; it is an exposition of the gradual development of the capacities of man to the point where his intellect becomes one with the Divine. But Ibn Tophail goes considerably farther than his predecessor in maintaining the independence of man in opposition to the institutions and opinions of human society. In his theory he represents the individual as developing himself without external aid. That independence of thought and will, which man now owes to the whole course of the previous history of the human race, is regarded by him as existing in the natural man, out of whom he makes an extra historical ideal (like Rousseau in the eighteenth century). Ibn Tophail regards positive religion, with its law founded on reward and punishment, as only a necessary means of discipline for the multitude; religious conceptions are in his view only types or envelopes of that truth to the logical comprehension of which the philosopher gradually approaches.

“Averroës (Abul Walid Mohammed Ibn Achmed Ibn Roschd), born A.D. 1126, at Cordova, where his grandfather and father filled high judicial offices, studied first positive theology and jurisprudence, and then medicine, mathematics, and philosophy. He obtained subsequently the office of judge at Seville, and afterwards at Cordova. He was a junior contemporary and friend of Ibn Tophail, who presented him to Calif Abu Jacub Jusuf, soon after the latter’s ascent of the throne (1163), and recommended him, in place of himself, for the work of preparing an analysis of the works of Aristotle. Ibn Roschd won the favour of this prince, who was quite familiar with the problems of philosophy, and at a later epoch he became his physician in ordinary (1182). For a time also he was in favour with a son of the prince, Jacub Almansur, who succeeded to his father’s rule in 1184, and he was still honoured by him in 1195. But soon after this date he was accused of cultivating the philosophy and science of antiquity to the prejudice of the Mohammedan religion, and was robbed by Almansur of his dignities and banished to Elisana (Lucena) near Cordova; he was afterwards tolerated in Morocco. A strict prohibition was issued against the study of Greek philosophy, and whatever works on logic and metaphysics were discovered were delivered to the flames. Averroës died in 1198, in his seventy-third year. Soon after, the rule of the Moors in Spain came to an end. The Arabian philosophy was extinguished, and liberal culture sunk under the exclusive rule of the Koran and of dogmatics.

“Averroës shows for Aristotle the most unconditional reverence, going in this respect much farther than Avicenna; he considers him, as the founders of religion are wont to be considered, as the man whom alone, among all men, God permitted to reach the highest summit of perfection. Aristotle was, in his opinion, the founder and perfecter of scientific knowledge. In logic, Averroës everywhere limits himself to merely annotating Aristotle. The principle of Avicenna: intellectus in formis agit universalitatem, is also his (Averr., De An., i. 8., cf. Alb. M., De Prædicab., ii. ch. 6). Science treats not of universal things, but of individuals under their universal aspect, which the understanding recognises after making abstraction of their common nature. (Destr. destr. fol. 17: Scientia autem non est scientia rei universalis, sed est scientia particularium modo universali, quem facit intellectus in particularibus, quum abstrahit ab iis naturam unam communem, quæ divisa est in materiis.) The forms, which are developed through the influence of higher forms, and in the last resort through the influence of Deity, are contained embryonically in matter.

“The most noticeable thing in his psychology is the explanation which he gives of the Aristotelian distinction between the active and the passive intellect (νοῦς παθητικός and ποιητικός). Thomas Aquinas, who opposes the explanation, gives it in these words: Intellectum substantiam esse omnino ab anima separatam, esseque unum in omnibus hominibus;—nec Deum facere posse quod sint plures intellectus; but, he says, Averroës added: per rationem concludo de necessitate quod intellectus est unus numero, firmiter tamen teneo oppositum per fidem. In his commentary to the twelfth book of the Metaphysics, Averroës compares the relation of the active reason to man with that of the sun to vision; as the sun, by its light, brings about the act of seeing, so the active reason enables us to know; hereby the rational capacity in man is developed into actual reason, which is one with the active reason. Averroës attempts to recognise two opinions, the one of which he ascribes to Alexander of Aphrodisias, and the other to Themistius and the other commentators. Alexander, he says, had held the passive intellect (νοῦς παθητικός) to be a mere ‘disposition’ connected with the animal faculties, and, in order that it might be able perfectly to receive all forms, absolutely formless; this disposition was in us, but the active intellect (νοῦς ποιητικός), was without us; after our death our individual intellects no longer existed. Themistius, on the contrary, and the other commentators, had regarded the passive intellect not as a mere disposition connected with the lower psychical powers, but as inhering in the same substratum to which the active intellect belonged; this substratum, according to them, was distinct from those animal powers of the soul which depend on material organs, and as it was immaterial, immortality was to be predicated of the individual intellect inhering in it. Averroës, on the other hand, held that the passive intellect (νοῦς παθητικός) was, indeed, more than a mere disposition, and assumed (with Themistius and most of the other Commentators, except Alexander) that the same substance was passive and active intellect (namely, the former in so far as it received forms, the latter in so far as it constructed forms); but he denied that the same substance in itself and in its individual existence was both passive and active, assuming (with Alexander) that there existed only one active intellect in the world, and that man had only the ‘disposition’ in virtue of which he could be affected by the active intellect; when the active intellect came in contact with this disposition there arose in us the passive or material intellect, the one active intellect becoming on its entrance into the plurality of souls particularized in them, just as light is decomposed into the different colours in bodies. The passive intellect was (according to Munk’s translation): ‘Une chose composée de la disposition qui existe en nous et d’un intellect qui se joint à cette disposition, et qui, en tant qu’il y est joint, est un intellect prédisposé (en puissance) et non pas un intellect en acte, mais qui est intellect en acte en tant qu’il n’est plus joint à la disposition’ (from the Commentaire moyen sur le traité de l’Âme, in Munk’s Mél., p. 447); the active intellect worked first upon the passive, so as to develop it into actual and acquired intellect, and then on this latter, which it absorbed into itself, so that after our death it could be said that our νοῦς, mind, continued to exist—though not as an individual substance, but only as an element of the universal mind. But Averroës did not identify this universal mind (as Alexander of Aphrodisias identified the νοῦς ποιητικός) with the Deity himself, but conceived it (following in this the earlier Arabian commentators and directly the Neo-Platonists) as an emanation from the Deity, and as the mover of the lowest of the celestial circles, i.e. the sphere of the moon. This doctrine was developed by Averroës, particularly in his commentaries on the De Anima, whereas, in the Paraphrase (written earlier) he had expressed himself in a more individualistic sense (Averr., ap. Munk, Mélanges, p. 442 seq.). The psychological teaching of Averroës resembled, therefore, in the character of its definitions, that of Themistius, but in its real content that of Alexander Aphrodisiensis, since both Averroës and Alexander limited the individual existence of the human intellect (νοῦς) to the period preceding death, and recognized the eternity only of the one universal active intellect (νοῦς ποιητικός). For this reason the doctrine of the Alexandrists and of the Averroists were both condemned by the Catholic Church.

“Averroës professed himself in no sense hostile to religion, least of all to Mohammedanism, which he regarded as the most perfect of all religions. He demanded in the philosopher a grateful adherence to the religion of his people, the religion in which he was educated. But by this ‘adherence’ he meant only a skilful accommodation of his views and life to the requirements of positive religion—a course which could not but fail to satisfy the real defenders of the religious principle. Averroës considered religion as containing philosophical truth under the veil of figurative representation; by allegorical interpretation one might advance to purer knowledge, while the masses held to the literal sense. The highest grade of intelligence was philosophical knowledge; the peculiar religion of the philosopher consisted in the deepening of his knowledge; for man could offer to God no worthier cultus than that of the knowledge of his works, through which we attain to the knowledge of God himself in the fulness of His essence. (Averroës in the larger Commentary on the Metaph., ap. Munk, Mélanges, p. 455 seq.)”

Dr. Marcus Dods remarks that “in philosophy the attainments of the Arabians have probably been overrated (see Lit. Hist. of Middle Ages, by Berrington, p. 445) rather than depreciated. As middle-men or transmitters, indeed, their importance can scarcely be too highly estimated. They were keen students of Aristotle when the very language in which he wrote was unknown in Roman Christendom: and the commentaries of Averroës on the most exact of Greek philosophers are said to be worthy of the text. It was at the Mohammedan university in his native city of Cordova, and from Arabian teachers, that this precursor of Spinoza derived those germs of thought whose fruit may be seen in the whole history of scholastic theology. And just before Averroës entered these learned halls, a young man passed from them, equipped with the same learning, and gifted with genius and penetration of judgment which have made his opinions final wherever the name of Memonides is known. Undoubtedly these two fellow-citizens—the Mohammedan Arab and the Arabic-speaking Jew—have left their mark deep on all subsequent Jewish and Christian learning. And even though it be doubted whether their influence has been wholly beneficial, they may well be claimed as instances of the intellectual ardour which Mohammedan learning could inspire or awaken. A recent writer of great promise in the philosophy of religion has assigned to the Arab thinkers the honourable function of creating modern philosophy. ‘Theology and philosophy became in the hands of the Moors fused and blended; the Greek scientific theory as to the origin of things interwound with the Hebrew faith in a Creator. And so speculation became in a new and higher sense theistic; and the interpretation of the universe, the explication of God’s relation to it and its relation to God.’ (Fairbairn’s Studies, p. 398.) But speculation had become theistic long before there was an Arab philosophy. The same questions which form the staple of modern philosophy were discussed at Alexandria three centuries before Mohammed; and there is scarcely a Christian thinker of the third or fourth century who does not write in presence of the great problem of God’s connection with the world, the relation of the Infinite to the finite, of the unseen intangible Spirit to the crass material universe. What we have here to do with, however, is not to ascertain whether modern philosophy be truly the offspring of the unexpected marriage of Aristotle and the Koran, but whether the religion promulgated in the latter is or is not obstructive of intellectual effort and enlightenment. And enough has been said to show that there is nothing in the religion which necessarily and directly tends to obstruct either philosophy or science; though when we consider the history and achievements of that race which has for six centuries been the leading representative of Islam, we are inclined to add that there is nothing in the religion which necessarily leads on the mind to the highest intellectual effort. Voltaire, in his own nervous way, exclaims, ‘I detest the Turks, as the tyrants of their wives and the enemies of the arts.’ And the religion has shown an affinity for such uncivilised races. It has not taken captive any race which possesses a rich literature, nor has it given birth to any work of which the world demands a translation; and precisely in so far as individuals have shown themselves possessed of great speculative and creative genius, have they departed from the rigid orthodoxy of the Koran. We should conclude, therefore, that the outburst of literary and scientific enthusiasm in the eighth century was due, not directly to the influence of the Mohammedan religion, but to the mental awakening and exultant consciousness of power and widened horizon that came to the conquering Saracens. At first their newly-awakened energy found scope in other fields than that of philosophy. ‘Marte undique obstrepenti, musis vix erat locus.’ But when the din of war died down, the voice of the Muses was heard, and the same fervour which had made the Saracen arms irresistible, was spent now in the acquirement of knowledge.”—Mohammed, Buddha, and Christ, p. 113.