Ethics, politics and free will in the Islamic world

This lesson asks you to describe the main areas of philosophy and to name the big questions that belong to each. The museum shows very little of this: one record names moral philosophy as Miskawayh's area but sets out no question he asked, and another gives Ahmad Amin's list of the questions of predestination and free will. It does not set out the other areas or their questions, so your class will bring them. ¹

Read the two records and ask which area of philosophy each one touches, and which of them names a question at all. Then ask what makes a question a big question and not an ordinary one.

Read one preface closely. In the preface to Tajarib al-umam, Miskawayh says he went through the histories of nations and the lives of kings and found in them matter for reflection: policies for making lands prosper, uniting the subjects and keeping the troops loyal, wars and stratagems, and the reasons some rose in the ruler's favour and others fell ^{2 3}. His reason is that "the affairs of the world are alike, and its conditions correspond": whoever retains such reports gains them as experiences of his own, as if he had lived through that time and handled those affairs himself ³. To follow the argument, separate the claim from the reason he gives for it, and ask whether the affairs of the world must really be alike for a report to become an experience.

The preface states a purpose. Miskawayh says he found this kind of report buried among tales that serve as night-time stories and fables, good only for bringing on sleep, so he compiled the book and named it "Tajarib al-umam" ⁴. Those who gain most from it, he says, are viziers, army commanders and governors of cities, and even those with least share can use it in running a household and in friendship ⁴. For his writing on ethics the records keep no such statement. They say that Tahdhib al-akhlaq is among his works, and that he was called "the Third Teacher", said to be for his part in rebuilding moral philosophy ^{5 6}.

The preface also says what he left out. He did not deal with the miracles of the prophets, because the people of his time draw no experience from them for what lies ahead, except "human management not joined to the miraculous" ^{4 7}. The editor notes that Miskawayh wrote another book on "the states of the sages and the qualities of the former prophets", and sees this as a reply to the orientalist Carra de Vaux's charge that he did not respect the Sunna ⁸. Two things stand side by side: Miskawayh's stated reason, and Carra de Vaux's charge as the editor reports it. The record does not say that the charge concerns the omission, gives the charge in this one clause, and offers no verdict.

Little is recorded of his life. The editor, Abu al-Qasim Imami, says the early sources give no detailed account, only scattered passages, and that al-Sijistani promised a treatise on his life that has not come down ⁹. On his birth, Margoliouth put it at 330 AH "or a little earlier", Izzat at 325 and Badawi at 320, while the editor holds 320 "most probably" ¹⁰. Where Miskawayh saw events himself he says so: most of what he relates after 340 AH is seen and witnessed, or verified reports from Ibn al-Amid and al-Muhallabi ¹¹. His history reaches 369 AH though he lived until 421 ¹¹. The record of ilm al-kalam gives only a general account of the external causes Ahmad Amin lists and says their detail needs a further source.

Miskawayh's reason for reading history is that "the affairs of the world are alike". Take a position on whether that claim holds for the events his book reports, and answer the strongest objection to your position: what can an eyewitness account of one court in one year teach a governor in another age?

• Miskawayh: his life, his titles, and the little the sources keep.
• Tajarib al-umam: the preface, the sources he used and the editor's assessment.
• Ilm al-kalam: Ahmad Amin's account of the questions of predestination and free will.

Read the record of ilm al-kalam. Write the big question about human choice that the words "predestination and free will" name, and name the area of philosophy it belongs to.