The Philosophy of Nature in Islam: Ikhwān al‐？afā School, Mashaih School, Avicenna

There are various approaches today, as to the content of philosophy, but broadly speaking philosophy is a generally accepted type of knowledge by common consent. Similar to other types of knowledge, philosophy is also cumulative in its branch. What sets it apart from other types of knowledge, particularly looking at difference from the scientific knowledge, is the fact that it is a type of knowledge gained through perception and reasoning. Philosophy developed in the Ancient Greek civilization, and later on, has come along in the middle ages, and then it was split into two strains in two different geographical locations, which are known as Medieval Christian philosophy and Islamic philosophy. Greek philosophers mainly strove to understand nature and existence, and to find the creative essence of matter. This began with the Milesian School and continued with Plato and Aristotle. In this regard, it would not be erroneous to suggest that Greek philosophy is rooted in the philosophy of nature. As concerns, Islamic philosophy, which developed during the middle ages, has also achieved its own roots owing to the philosophy of nature. Inevitably, this issue, as being identical to question the nature, was explained very well in the same route by Avicenna’s preliminary definition for philosophy, which was also one of the early predefinitions of a very famous Islamic philosophers in history. According to him, philosophy, naturally, means having knowledge about the “essences of matter”. There are, innately, similarities between Greek and Islamic philosophies, in addition to the fundamental differences. Looking at the differences, for example, unlike Milesian approach, Islamic philosophy blends the knowledge of God with the knowledge of Nature to form a natural philosophy. Hereby, this study aims to explore these differences as well as the predetermined analogies within the framework of various Islamic schools (Ikhwān al‐？afā, the Mashaih Schools) via the literature review