B4978 - INTRODUZIONE AL PENSIERO ISLAMICO

Learning outcomes

This course aims at providing the students with a chronological, historical and cultural frame that will allow them to understand and contextualise ideas and philosophical texts produced in the Islamic world. By the end of the course, students will learn the main trends of classical Islamic thought (theology and philosophy), and will be able to read–also autonomously–philosophical works produced in such context.

Course contents

The course offers a historical and critical introduction to Islamic thought, from the origins of Islām to the end of the Middle Ages. Its aim is to provide students with the essential tools needed to understand the plurality of speculative traditions that developed in the classical Islamic world: rational theology (kalām), philosophy in the Greek-Arabic tradition, reflection on nature and the sciences, metaphysics, philosophical psychology, Sufism, and late medieval syntheses.

Particular attention will be devoted to the relationship between reason and revelation, the reception of Greek philosophy, the problem of natural causation, the doctrine of the intellect, the theology of divine unity and the divine attributes, political philosophy, mysticism, and natural philosophy.

Prerequisites

No knowledge of Arabic is required. A general familiarity with the history of ancient and medieval philosophy is useful, but not essential. The fundamental concepts and technical terms will be introduced during the course.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

• place the principal currents of medieval Islamic thought in their historical context
• distinguish between kalām, falsafa, the religious sciences, rationalism, and Sufism
• identify the major authors of classical Islamic thought
• understand the role of the Greek tradition in the formation of Islamic philosophy
• analyse the relationship between philosophical reason and Qurʾānic revelation
• discuss the principal problems of Islamic metaphysics, theology, and natural philosophy
• understand the major medieval controversies concerning creation, causality, the soul, the intellect, and knowledge
• assess the legacy of medieval Islamic thought in the Latin and Jewish worlds.

The course is organised in ten modules:

Module I — Historical and Religious Introduction to Islam and the Formation of Islamic Civilisation

• Late Antique Arabia and the rise of Islām
• Muḥammad, the Qurʾān, and the first Muslim community
• Sunna, ḥadīth, sharīʿa
• The caliphate, authority, and legitimacy
• The Umayyads and the Abbasids
• Sunnism, Shiʿism, and Kharijism
  

Module II — Religious Sciences, Theological Controversies, and the Emergence of kalām

• Definition and method of kalām
• Muʿtazilism: divine unity and justice
• Ashʿarism: divine omnipotence, causality, and occasionalism
• Other theological currents in early Islam

Module III — Greek-Arabic Translations, falsafa, and al-Kindī

• Greek thought in Late Antiquity
• The translation movement under the Abbasids
• The Bayt al-Ḥikma and the transmission of knowledge
• Aristotle, Plato, and Neoplatonism in the Islamic world
• The Theology of Aristotle and the Liber de causis
• The philosophy of al-Kindī

Module IV — al-Fārābī: Logic, Classification of the Sciences, and Political Philosophy

• al-Fārābī and the systematisation of philosophy
• Logic and demonstration
• Classification of the sciences
• Philosophy and religion
• Prophecy and imagination
• The virtuous city; happiness, human perfection, and political order

Module V — The Epistles of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ: Neoplatonic Cosmology, Pythagorean Mathematical Thought, and Islamic Spirituality

• The Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ and the question of their identity
• The Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ as a philosophical and scientific encyclopaedia
• Philosophy, science, and the salvation of the soul
• Pythagoreanism, Neoplatonism, and Aristotelianism in the encyclopaedia
• Microcosm and macrocosm
• The hierarchy of beings

Module VI — Avicenna: Metaphysics, Psychology, and Natural Philosophy

• The doctrine of the soul
• The “Flying Man” thought experiment
• Self-awareness and the immateriality of the soul
• Intellect, knowledge, and immortality
• Medicine, the body, and philosophy
• Continuity between physics, psychology, and metaphysics

Module VII — Natural Philosophy, the Sciences, and the Debate on Causality

• The concept of nature in Islamic philosophy
• Aristotelianism and the natural sciences
• Astronomy, mathematics, and physics
• Medicine and philosophical knowledge
• Alchemy
• al-Rāzī, al-Bīrūnī, and Ibn al-Haytham
  

Module VIII — al-Ghazālī: Theology, Critique of Philosophy, and Sufism

• The life and intellectual context of al-Ghazālī
• The Aims of the Philosophers
• The Incoherence of the Philosophers
• The eternity of the world and divine knowledge of particulars
• The critique of causality
• al-Ghazālī and Sufism

Module IX — Sufism and Illuminationist Philosophy

• The origins and development of Sufism
• Asceticism, purification, and spiritual knowledge
• maʿrifa, fanāʾ, baqāʾ
• Practical and speculative Sufism
• waḥdat al-wujūd
• Suhrawardī and the philosophy of illumination

Module X — Islamic Philosophy in al-Andalus and Averroes

• The context of al-Andalus
• Ibn Bājja and Ibn Ṭufayl
• Averroes as a commentator on Aristotle
• The Decisive Treatise
• The Incoherence of the Incoherence
• Averroes in the Latin and Jewish worlds
• Course conclusions

 

 

 

Readings/Bibliography

Required readings:

• Massimo Campanini, Introduzione alla filosofia islamica, Laterza, Rome 2004
• Ulrich Rudolph, La filosofia islamica, Il Mulino, Bologna 2006
• A selection of chapters from Cristina D’Ancona (ed.), Storia della filosofia nell’Islam medievale, Einaudi, Turin 2005 (available on Virtuale)
• Essays and primary sources (in translation) provided by the instructor and uploaded to Virtuale

The two textbooks, the additional readings provided by the instructor, the lecture slides, and students’ own lecture notes are all considered examination material.

Optional readings:

• Cristina D’Ancona (ed.), Storia della filosofia nell’Islam medievale, 2 vols, Einaudi, Turin 2005
• Miguel Cruz Hernández, Storia del pensiero nel mondo islamico, ed. by B. Chiesa and R. Tottoli, 2 vols, Paideia, Brescia 1999

Useful websites:

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

https://plato.stanford.edu [https://plato.stanford.edu/]

Encyclopaedia of Islam Online — access via the University proxy:

https://referenceworks.brill.com/display/package/eio

Students not attending classes

Students not attending classes must study, in addition to the required readings listed above, one chapter of their choice from the volume edited by Cristina D’Ancona listed under 'Optional readings'. It is advisable that students not attending classes get in touch with the teacher via email in advance of the exam. 

Teaching methods

The course will consist of lectures, the reading and discussion of texts, collective discussion of the principal theoretical problems, and the reconstruction of their historical and doctrinal contexts. Each week will comprise three two-hour sessions, broadly structured as follows:

1. historical and conceptual introduction
2. analysis of the principal authors and texts
3. reading and discussion of primary sources.

Assessment methods

The final assessment will consist of an oral examination designed to evaluate the knowledge and the critical and methodological skills developed by students through the lectures, the bibliography, and the close reading and discussion of texts. A broad and systematic understanding of the topics covered in class and of the assigned readings, combined with the ability to discuss them critically and to use appropriate specialist terminology fluently, will be awarded marks of 28–30. Largely mnemonic knowledge of the subject, limited analytical and synthetic skills, and language that is correct but not always appropriate will result in marks of 23–27. Approximate knowledge, superficial understanding, weak analytical skills, and expression that is not always appropriate will result in marks of 18–22. Significant gaps in knowledge, inappropriate terminology, or an inability to navigate the assigned bibliography will result in a failing mark.

Examination dates
During the 2026/27 academic year, examination sessions are scheduled in December, January, March, May, June, July, and September.

Students with disabilities or specific learning disabilities (SLDs)
Students with disabilities or specific learning disabilities are entitled to appropriate accommodations in relation to their condition, following assessment by the University Service for Students with Disabilities and SLDs. Please do not contact the instructor directly; instead, contact the Service to arrange an appointment. The Service will determine which accommodations are appropriate. Further information is available at http://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/it/per-studenti. Students are strongly advised to contact the University office well in advance. Any accommodations must in any case be submitted to the instructor for approval at least 15 days in advance; their appropriateness will also be assessed in relation to the learning outcomes of the course.

Office hours

Please check Gabriele Ferrario's website:

https://www.unibo.it/sitoweb/gabriele.ferrario

Teaching tools

Digital presentations and multimedia materials will be used

Office hours

See the website of Gabriele Ferrario