The Place of Politics in the Philosophy of Ibn Rushd

Extract

The significance of Political Philosophy for the philosophy of Islam and A Judaism in the Middle Ages has been recognized in recent years, and the importance of Plato's Republic and Laws together with Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics for the falāsifa is becoming increasingly evident. Attention has been drawn to Alfārabī's political treatises, to Ibn Bājja, to Averroes' Commentaries on Plato's Republic and on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, to Ibn al-Ṭiqṭaqa and to Ibn Khaldun. The reception of Platonic and Aristotelian political ideas conditions—in varying degrees—the attitude of the falāsifa to the State as such, to the Muslim State in particular, and therefore to the Sharī‘a of Islam and to Greek philosophy, both practical and theoretical. This is already clear from the writings of Alfārābī, but in his attempt at blending and harmonizing Greek-Hellenistic and Islamic conceptions no Alfarabian philosophy proper with distinct features of a definitive, authoritatively formulated synthesis emerges. It was left to Averroes—to use the name by which Ibn Rushd was generally known to the West—to work out a peculiarly Islamic religious philosophy. He establishes in unequivocal terms the supreme authority of the Sharī‘a and its identity of purpose with falsafa, religious philosophy in the Faṣl al-maqāl, the Manāhij, the Tahāfut al-tahāfut and his Commentary on Plato's Republic. The last named forms the main subject of the present article. In an earlier study it was considered in connexion with his Commentary on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics already, but not with his other treatises just mentioned. This is, however, necessary in order to gain a correct, balanced view of his philosophy, and especially of his political thought. It is equally important to see his political Commentaries against the background of his active life as qāḍī and of contemporary Muslim history in the Maghreb.