Miskawayh’s Apologia for Greek Philosophy

Abstract

In the East, Greek philosophy was studied as early as the fourth century, not however, by the Muslims but by the Arab Syrian Christians. It was Syrian Christians who brought wine, silk and other precious items to the West, but it was the Syrians also who cultivated Greek sciences for many centuries before they eventually transmitted them to the Muslim philosophers, especially in the tenth and eleventh century Baghdad. Miskawayh (d.1030), a great Muslim moralist, was among the philosophers who flourished in Baghdad at such times. He was well educated in Islamic studies as well as in philosophy, especially Greek philosophy. The many quotations from Greek sources which are found in Miskawayh’s works, especially in his major work on ethics, Tahdhib al-Akhlaq (The Refinement of Character), provide important evidence for this study to argue that they also have contributed to the formation of his moral philosophy. This paper thus, seeks to investigate Miskawayh’s own attraction to Greek ideas, which eventually led him towards the acceptance of Greek thought and also towards the need for an apologetic on behalf of philosophical study and on the relations between philosophy and the divine revelation.