The Philosophy Book

82

PHILOSOPHY AND

RELIGION ARE NOT

INCOMPATIBLE

AVERROES (1126–1198)

IN CONTEXT

BRANCH

Philosophy of religion

APPROACH

Arabic Aristotelian

BEFORE

1090s Abû Hâmid al-Ghazâlî

launches an attack on Islamic

Aristotelian philosophers.

1120s Ibn Bâjja (Avempace)

establishes Aristotelian

philosophy in Islamic Spain.

AFTER

1270 Thomas Aquinas

criticizes the Averroists for

accepting conflicting truths

from Christianity and

Aristotelian philosophy.

1340s Moses of Narbonne

publishes commentaries on

Averroes’ work.

1852 French philosopher

Ernest Renan publishes a

study of Averroes, on the

basis of which he becomes an

important influence on modern

Islamic political thought.

A

verroes worked in the legal

profession; he was a qâdî

(an Islamic judge) who

worked under the Almohads, one of

the strictest Islamic regimes in the

Middle Ages. Yet he spent his nights

writing commentaries on the work

of an ancient pagan philosopher,

Aristotle—and one of Averroes’ avid

readers was none other than the

Almohad ruler, Abû Yacqûb Yûsuf.

Averroes reconciles religion and

philosophy through a hierarchical

theory of society. He thinks that

only the educated elite are capable

of thinking philosophically, and

everyone else should be obliged to

accept the teaching of the Qur’an

literally. Averroes does not think

that the Qur’an provides a completely

accurate account of the universe if

read in this literal way, but says that

it is a poetic approximation of the

truth, and this is the most that the

uneducated can grasp.

However, Averroes believes that

educated people have a religious

obligation to use philosophical

reasoning. Whenever reasoning

shows the literal meaning of the

Qur’an to be false, Averroes says

that the text must be “interpreted”;

true.

The text is a poetic truth,

and must be interpreted using

philosophical reasoning.

But some parts of it are

demonstrably false.

Philosophy and

religion are not

incompatible.