Islam, Causality, and Freedom: From the Medieval to the Modern Era
Cambridge University Press, 6/11/2020
EAN 9781108496346, ISBN10: 1108496342
Hardcover, 296 pages, 23.1 x 16.2 x 2.2 cm
Language: English
In this volume, Ozgur Koca offers a comprehensive survey of Islamic accounts of causality and freedom from the medieval to the modern era, as well as contemporary relevance. His book is an invitation for Muslims and non-Muslims to explore a rich, but largely forgotten, aspect of Islamic intellectual history. Here, he examines how key Muslim thinkers, such as Ibn Sina, Ghazali, Ibn Rushd, Ibn Arabi, Suhrawardi, Jurjani, Mulla Sadra and Nursi, among others, conceptualized freedom in the created order as an extension of their perception of causality. Based on this examination, Koca identifies and explores some of the major currents in the debate on causality and freedom. He also discusses the possible implications of Muslim perspectives on causality for contemporary debates over religion and science.
1. Causality in the early period
Muʿtazilites and the birth of Ashʿarite occasionalism
2. Towards a synthesis of Aristotelian and Neo-Platonic understandings of causality
the case of Ibn SÄ«nÄÂ
3. Occasionalism in the middle period
the cases of GhazÄÂlÄ« and RÄÂzÄ«
4. The first as pure act and causality
the case of Ibn Rushd
5. Light, existence, and causality
the Illimunationist School and the case of Suhrawardī
6. The world as a theophany and causality
Sufi metaphysics and the case of Ibn ʿArabī
7. Continuities and developments in Sufi metaphysics
the cases of Qūnawī and Qayṣarī
8. Towards an occasionalist philosophy of science
the case of JurjÄÂnÄ«
9. Causality and freedom in later Islamic philosophy
the case of MullÄ á¹¢adrÄÂ
10. Occasionalism in the modern context
the case of Said Nursi
11. A discussion on Islamic theories of causality in the modern context.