LMU-OIB Workshop – “Avicennism(s) in Context: The Formation of Post-Classical Philosophy in Islam” – Beirut & Munich, 22-23 July 2022

The Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and Orient-Institut Beirut will jointly host a workshop to examine various themes of post-classical philosophy in Islam with a focus on the Avicennan tradition and the reception of Ibn Sīnā in post-classical Islamic world.

Recent scholarship has acknowledged the significance of post-classical philosophy in the Islamic world, both in its own right and in its engagement with and preservation of ancient and classical Islamic philosophy. An increasing number of contributions by researchers and historians of philosophy have challenged the so-called conventional position that considered the post-classical Islamic era as a sort of dark age, in which Islamic thought entered a long decline. However, post-classical period of philosophy in the Islamic world still needs to receive further attention from scholars, of the sort that will be included in this LMU-OIB Workshop. An essential question arises here of how to understand the post-Avicennan intertwined scheme of falsafa, kalām and ḥikma. What makes the post-classical Islamicate philosophers and theologians’ engagement with the tradition of Greek philosophy unique and what differentiates them from their predecessors of classical Islam in this sense? Through the study, contextualization, and treatment of major figures like Abū al-Barakāt al-Baghdādī (d. 1165), Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 1210), Shihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī (d. 1191), and Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 1274), in addition to others, the workshop will present an opportunity for discussing the nature of philosophy in the post-classical Islam. By giving room for upcoming findings on metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and philosophical theology, the workshop aims at a new assessment of the prevailing understanding of the relationship between philosophy and theology in the post-Avicennan period, while both challenging and taming the innovative debates on Islamicate intellectual history.

The workshop aims at offering a space to present new insightful research on history of philosophy in the Islamic-East that focuses on investigating post-Avicennan Islamic philosophy during the twelfth-thirteenth centuries. It is an opportunity where established and prospective scholars gather to shed the light on what was neglected by previous generations of scholars.

Speakers:

Peter Adamson (LMU München)
Hanif Amin Beidokhti (LMU München)
Muhammad Fariduddin Attar (McGill University)
Emma Gannagé (American University of Beirut)
Hussein Ibrahim (LMU München & Orient-Institut Beirut)
Dustin D. Klinger (LMU München)
Salimeh Maghsoudlou (McGill University)
Sajjad H. Rizvi (University of Exeter)
Jens Schmitt (LMU München)
Ayman Shihadeh (SOAS University of London)
Behnam Zolghadr (LMU München)