The Place of the Philosophy of Religion in the Tradition of Islamic Philosophy According to Avicenna

In general, what is considered to be a part of the "philosophies of…" – which is to say the different branches of philosophy like philosophy of law, philosophy of religion, moral philosophy, etc. - pertains to the late modern period in western philosophy and has not been tackled as such in classical philosophies such as Islamic philosophy. Of course, on a formal basis, this statement is true since, for instance, in classical Islamic philosophy, we cannot find a branch of philosophy called "philosophy of religion", even though its main issues are tackled in philosophy in the broad sense. However, within the tradition of the Islamic philosophy, a quite complete and coherent set of issues concerning philosophy of religion has been expressed in Avicenna's philosophical system. His view on the subject is presented in the tenth article of Avicenna's Metaphysics of Al-Shifa, which includes more or less the most important issues which must be dealt with in the philosophy of religion on the basis of an a priori approach of its subject – I said a priori because in general, actual books concerning philosophy of religion do not present any precise definition or criteria to delimitate the subject of this branch of philosophy, and each writer tends to present a series of issues which are in some sense linked to religion and especially to God's existence according to his personal taste.However, in a rational philosophy linked to the classical tradition - such as Avicenna's philosophy, the subject of which is being qua being and issues of which are the essential predicates of this subject -, the first question is that each new philosophical issue must be an essential predicate of absolute being or being qua being. Therefore, we ought to find a logical status in the system of absolute being for the "philosophy of religion" and all "philosophies of ". The main characteristic of Avicenna's philosophy of religion is the rationality of religion as well as its perfect correspondence to the a priori principles of the speculative intellect. While presenting the issue of justice as the criterion for the need for religion, his philosophy also benefits from the spirit of the Gnostic theory of the Perfect Man which reflects the characteristics of a Shiite philosophy of religion.