Epistemology has a distinguished history within Islamic philosophical and theological discourses. Muslim scholars sought to explain what knowledge was, where it came from, and how it could be justified. They were especially interested in religious knowledge and the core question of why human beings were justified in their belief in God and the Prophet Muhammad.
In this volume, editors Safaruk Chowdhury and Ramon Harvey, alongside fifteen contributing authors, put this vibrant tradition of thought into sustained dialogue with contemporary analytic philosophy of religion and clarify what is at stake in their mutual interaction. The text acts, therefore, as a founding document for the new subfield of analytic Islamic epistemology. By bringing together the insights of intellectual historians, comparative religionists, philosophers of religion and analytic epistemologists, this book maps historical articulations of Islamic epistemology, the ongoing conversation with Christian counterparts, the advancement of key existing debates, and proposals for the future.
Notes on Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction: From Islamic Theology to Analytic Philosophy Safaruk Chowdhury and Ramon Harvey Part I. Epistemology outside Kalām: Falsafa, Traditionalism and Sufism 1. A New Look at al-Fārābī on Philosophy versus Theology Anthony Robert Booth 2. God as an Empirical Entity: The Expanded Scope of Sense Perception in Sunnī Traditionalist Spatialism Jon Hoover 3. The Tripartite Division of Knowledge and Belief in al-Makkī’s Nourishment of the Hearts Harith Ramli Part II. Epistemological Sources in Kalām: Perception, Reason and Testimony 4. How to Know?: Justifying Experience in Classical Kalām Hannah C. Erlwein 5. Divine Freedom meets Logical Necessity: On the Relationship between Rational Speculation and Knowledge in Classical Ashʿarī Foundationalism Laura Hassan 6. Mass Transmission of Prophetic Miracles in the Contemplation and Proof of Core Creed Aaron Spevack Part III. Comparative Studies in Islamic and Christian Epistemology 7. The Epistemological Status of Causation within al-Ghazālī’s Cosmological Argument in Light of Reid’s Modest Foundationalism Ayşenur Ünügür-Tabur 8. ‘Is There any Doubt about God?’: Maktab-i Tafkīk’s Religious Epistemology in Comparison with Reformed Epistemology Amir Mohammad Emami 9. Knowing God Personally: Second-Person Knowledge in Christian and Islamic Analytic Theology David Worsley Part IV. Contemporary Debates on the Basicality of Islamic and Christian Belief 10. Fiṭra Foundationalism Jamie B. Turner 11. Dealing with Defeaters for Warranted Islamic Belief: A Reply to Turner Erik Baldwin 12. Creation, Sin and Salvation: Essential Categories for a Christian-Theistic Epistemology K. Scott Oliphint Part V. Islamic Epistemology Today: Disciplinary, Scriptural and Social Discourses 13. Advice for Muslim Epistemologists Kelly James Clark 14. Epistemological Foundations of Qur’anic Ethics: Understanding, Wisdom and Righteousness M. Ashraf Adeel 15. Individualism and Anti-individualism in Islamic Epistemology John Greco Afterword: Epistemological Themes Revisited Safaruk Chowdhury and Ramon Harvey Glossary of Arabic Terminology Glossary of Analytic Epistemological Terminology Index
Safaruk Chowdhury is a visiting lecturer at Cambridge Muslim College. He is the author of Islamic Theology and the Problem of Evil (The American University in Cairo Press, 2021) and A Ṣūfī Apologist of Nīshāpūr: The Life and Thought of Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī (Equinox, 2019). Ramon Harvey is Lecturer in Islamic Studies at Cambridge Muslim College. He is the author of Transcendent God, Rational World: A Māturīdī Theology (Edinburgh University Press, 2021) and The Qur'an and the Just Society (Edinburgh University Press, 2018).
Reviews for Analytic Islamic Epistemology: Critical Debates
An intriguing collection of articles that demonstrates the power of analytic philosophy to contribute to Islamic philosophy. There has been a trend recently to use that approach in the philosophy of religion but not so much until now in Islamic thought, so this is both innovative and a valuable addition to epistemology--Oliver Leaman, University of Kentucky This book will provide impetus for the integration of the Islamic tradition into the epistemology of religion, a field that has long been dominated by Christian perspectives. The contributors include some of the more promising younger scholars in the field and the papers cover a wide range of topics within Islamic philosophy and other relevant fields of Islamic culture.--Peter Adamson, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
