Idealist Trends in Arab-Islamic Philosophy: Volume One

About this book

Behind every idea born in the heavens, a struggle seethes in the veins of the earth. Did Arab intellectual consciousness arise by chance, or was it born of the clash between axe and sword and the movement of herders along the outskirts of fortified cities? In this pioneering intellectual exploration, Abdulla Khalifa goes beyond the familiar retelling of philosophical history found in conventional reference works. Like an archaeologist of ideas, he delves into the ancient strata of Eastern memory, tracing the earliest roots that shaped the myth of human existence, from Mesopotamia and the Nile Valley to Mecca and the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula. The book takes readers on a compelling journey through the ways social movements, economies of irrigation and pastoralism, shifts in power, and the rise of social classes became highly abstract texts and philosophical reflections. Here, theories of idealism unfold alongside the emergence of the figures of god and king, the formation of major religious sects, the rebellion of reason, and the difficult transformation of a people from fragmentation and nomadism into a presence on the great stage of human history. In a measured literary style that combines the energy of a novelist's inquiry with the depth of philosophical and historical-materialist analysis, Khalifa takes apart intellectual masks to reveal how people fashioned ideas in order to live, and how battles for domination and freedom unfolded in the realm of the spirit as they did in the world of lived experience. The book offers more than a reading of the past. It holds up a revealing mirror to the questions of the present that remain unresolved in Arab intellectual life, inviting readers to look between the lines and beneath the structures of great ideas.