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Non-Western Philosophy

Mostafa Mohaghegh Damad

Mostafa Mohaghegh Damad interviewed by AmirAli Maleki

Mostafa Mohaghegh Damad, lawyer and theologian, is well-known in Iran for bringing religion closer to the people, AmirAli Maleki asks him about Islam and philosophy.

What is Islamic philosophy?

What is called Islamic philosophy today is a science whose basic principles undoubtedly entered Islamic civilization from the ancient Greeks in the second century of Hijri (750 CE+). And like a living cell in the face of nutrients: the Muslims neither simply rejected nor absorbed it, rather, they digested it – which means that they presented or incorporated the imported materials with the principles and teachings of the Qur’an and the Sunnah [the official interpretation of Islamic practices and traditions]. Then they put ‘wisdom’ (‘ Hekmat’) on it.

What does ‘Hekmat’ mean?

The word ‘wisdom’ – Hekmat – appears sixteen times in the Qur’an, and in several verses it clearly states that wisdom was taught by God to certain people directly, and through them to the wider public.

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