Islamic philosophy has often been treated as mainly of historical interest, belonging to the history of ideas rather than to philosophy. This volume challenges this belief. The Routledge History of Islamic Philosophy is made up entirely of new essays by a distinguished list of writers. They provide detailed discussions of the most important thinkers and the key concepts in Islamic philosophy, from earliest times right up to the present day, as well as a series of discussions of the cultural and religious background. Fifty authors from over sixteen different countries have contributed to this volume, and they were chosen not only for their particular expertise but also in order to allow a wide variety of views to be represented. No interpretation of Islamic philosophy has been excluded and an accurate indication of the state of the art is presented through the contributions of the authors as a whole. This is an unusually wide-ranging collection: it includes analysis of Arabic, Persian, Indian, Jewish, Turkish and South East Asian philosophy, together with extensive discussions of relevant areas of Greek and Western philosophy.
An important but so far little understood philosophical tradition is clearly and thoroughly explored in this volume. Islamic philosophy comes to be seen as a continuing and lively philosophical activity, one which is just as capable of asking relevant questions today as it was in the past.