Two Ways of Classifying Science in the Light of the View of Ekhwan al-Saffa and Khollan al-wafa

Ekhwan al-Saffa and Khollan al-wafa are among the most important Muslim groups which considered the issue of the classification of the science. Ekhwan al-Saffa sought to make a fundamental ideological change in the society and pave the way for man’s felicity. This group has left more than fifty epistles about the different fields of knowledge and culture which is an indication of their important contribution to the prosperity of Islamic culture. The way of arranging the topics and the epistles which makes this work look very similar to a philosophical-scientific encyclopedia, is one of the most important sources of inferring higher classification according to Ekhwan al-Saffa. Besides this classification which is arranged according to the hierarchical nature of sciences, another classification which is greatly different from that of the epistles is mentioned in the seventh epistle of this set of epistles below the one entitled “On Scientific Industries and their Purpose”. This paper, describing these kinds of two classifications, seeks to explain Ekhwan al-Saffa’s view about and their role in the classification of Islamic sciences.