The Culmination of the Philosophical Networks:
Ibn Sina and al-Ghazali
If the Brethren of Purity were an unsophisticated and popularistic synthesis,
Ibn Sina in the next generation was a sophisticated one, the height of philoso-
phy in the Islamic East. One can see in Figure 8.2 how networks of significant
intellectuals simplified in his time, and even more so in the generation of
al-Ghazali: the Baghdad base began to be deserted; the Basra intellectuals were
no more. In the background, geopolitical and political shifts were pressing on
the bases of intellectual life. The Buwayhid sultans could not hold the remain-
ing empire together. On the periphery in inner Asia and Afghanistan, conquer-
ing states expanded, the Ghaznavid Turks expanded from Transoxiana (south
of the Aral Sea) into Persia; by 1055 they would conquer Baghdad and impose
a puritanical Sunnism against the ShiÀites. The MuÀtazilites were already being
persecuted in Iraq; their survivors spread east into Persia, and the more
moderate AshÀarites also shifted their main base to Nishapur in eastern Persia.
The Ghaznavids caught doctrinal deviants in the other arm of a vise, burning
books and killing the IsmaÀilis and other rebellious ShiÀite sects and the MuÀtaz-
ilites (Afnan, 1958: 73–74). Strict Sunni orthodoxy, starting from Baghdad,
had spread east by 1000.
Christianity and Judaism too were being squeezed out, along with the
Zoroastrians. The Sufis, now spreading among the people rather than among
the intellectuals, acted as missionaries in Persia and inner Asia. There was a
reversal of the earlier Muslim tolerance of the other religions of the “peoples
of the book.” Previously, Islam was regarded as a privilege of the Arabs. This
elitism declined as warfare and the destruction of the older conquering clans
rearranged the class structure; we find now a combination of status-striving
on the part of non-Arabs, forced conversion by Muslim militants, and mis-
sionary zeal. By 1000, Islam had become a majority religion in Iran and Iraq,
eliminating most rival religionists. The network of falasifa, once primarily
Christian and Sabian, had been turned over to Muslim followers such as
al-Sijistani, Ibn Miskawayh, and al-Biruni.
Ibn Sina appeared in the generation when the Christians were disappearing
and the intellectuals were migrating away from Baghdad. He was the son of
a provincial official at the very edge of the Muslim world, in the region of the
Aral Sea. Largely self-educated because of lack of accomplished teachers, he
acquired his comprehensive knowledge through access to the library of the
sultan of Bukhara. How could someone like this become the greatest Muslim
philosopher? In part because the old networks were now migrating for patron-
age toward the new geopolitical powers on the periphery. Although Ibn Sina
was connected to none of the significant philosophers, he did encounter a
Tensions of Ideas: Islam, Judaism, Christendom^ •^417