Averroes’ Defence of “Islamic” Philosophy by Sayyid Wajee ul-Hasan Shah

Averroes adopted a legal-centric epistemological framework in order  to prove #Philosophy as #Islamic. The main focus was to demonstrate to  what extent philosophy was Islamic using Averroes’ systematised  framework from his legal treatise, Kitāb faṣl al-maqāl as a rebuttal to  Muslim jurists who considered philosophy as anti-Islamic. Using  Averroes’ legal treatise, Sayyid Wajee showed how Averroes employs the  legal methodology and the principles adopted by Muslim jurists against  them, highlighting the compatibility between philosophy and Islam. Moreover, Averroes’ grounds his assertions of philosophy as an Islamic  endeavour by combining the technical jargon of the jurists with Qurʾānic  passages as a way of conclusively affirming the concept of ‘Islamic  philosophy’.

The presentation highlighted the negative attitude towards philosophy in the 12th century and this attitude persisting in the 21st century  in certain Islamic institutions. Sayyid Wajee emphasised on #Averroes  premise that the study of law which is widely accepted by Muslim  thinkers as an Islamic enterprise according to the jurists themselves,  the same sentiment should be afforded to Muslim philosophers