The Concept of Islamic Philosophy in Shahid Motahhari's Works

In recent decades, Muslim thinkers and scholars have paid great attention to “Islamic philosophy”. The question raised in this regard is the meaning of the term Islamic philosophy. The present paper tries to first sketch an outline of the Islamic philosophy with reference to the meaning of term “Islamic” and then to show the differences between the Islamic philosophy and the so-called “western philosophy” as a basis for an account of the distinctions which enable us to use the term Islamic philosophy. To this end, the article borrows from Shahid Motahhari’s works. From his perspective, the Islamic philosophy and the western philosophy have a lot of differences which can be classified into differences in questions, differences in answers, and differences in the (cultural) environment. In the context of Islamic philosophy, we confront novel questions and novel answers to old questions as a result of the cultural environment in which Islamic philosophy has grown. This environment includes specific cultural elements like the Quran, hadith and theology which have opened new horizon to Islamic philosophers.