Al-'.Amiri’s concept of knowledge comprises traditional religious and philosophical sciences. The importance of the religious sciences lies in their being based on divine revelation. Thus, they are able to provide answers to questions which intellect alone cannot solve, for example, what kind of acts of devotions and religious observances should be performed. As to religious sciences, al-'jmirl distinguishes kalam which is attained by intellect, fiqh (law) which is perceived by intellect and sense perception, the science of hadifh which is grasped by sense perception alone and linguistics, which functions as a tool to the former three. Correspondingly, philosophy is divided into metaphysics, mathematics, natural sciences, and logic. Only a person who has mastered the latter three sciences and proceeded to metaphysical matters can be truly called a philosopher. The history and development of Greek philosophy as such, and metaphysics in particular, are closely tied to the Qur’anic revelation received by Luqman and Solomon. The former is taken to be the first sage who taught Empedocles his knowledge and the companions of the latter are said to have instructed Pythagoras in physical and metaphysical matters. al-'jAmiri’s own metaphysics is founded on the Neoplatonic hierarchy of being, which he either uses in its basic form (God - Universal Intellect - Universal Soul - Nature) or in a more detailed elaboration (God - Universal Forms and Intellect - Universal Soul and Sphere of the Sphere, which may correspond to Universal Nature - Spheres and Heavenly Bodies - Beings composed of the four elements). However, it is the dichotomy between the spiritual and the bodily world which is of crucial interest to al-'jAmiri’s thought. Man is understood as forming a link between these two worlds as he consists of a spiritual soul and a body which is composed of the four elements. In this world, man acts as God’s representative, and in the next one he may become an eternal adornment, if he succeeds in likening his soul to the divine by grasping the eternal intellectual forms. The human soul and body are understood as two separate substances, which are independent of each other. Therefore, each of them may overcome the other, and as well as the soul is able to prevent the body from giving in to its desires, the body can lead the soul astray and distract it from its ultimate goal, that is, its ascent to the spiritual world. Whereas the soul provides life to the body, the body enables the soul to experience good and evil and thus to discriminate between them by its own personal trial. This distinguishes men from the angels who have knowledge of the evil, but no experience of it. However, as the human body constitutes a liability to the soul, God has set up the religious law by which man is guided from the lower to the upper world. Therefore, al-'jAmiri describes man as being religious by nature. Religious belief may be caused by one of two different powers or faculties of the human soul, either the intellective or the imaginative one. If it is by the former, true belief results, and if it is by the latter, either true or false belief may result.
Within the scope of religious belief, the problem of predestination and free will falls, which was prominent in the kalam discussions of his time and which al-'jAmiri tackled in two of his extant writings, the Deliverance of Mankind from the Problem of Predestination and Free Will (Inqadh al-bashar min al-jabr wa-l-qadar) and the later Determination of the Various Aspects of Predestination (al-Taqrtr li-awjuh al-taqdlr). His approach is to determine four essential causes of any given existence, namely, the four Aristotelian causes (matter, agent, form, and end) and countless accidental causes. Furthermore, matter, agent, and form are distinguished into a proximate and a remote matter, agent, and form and are, thus, twofold causes. Hence, God may always be understood as the remote agent of any human action, whereas man is the proximate cause of his actions. Thus, al-'jAmirl’s position turns out to be a middle one between believing in predestination, which he explains as resulting from taking into consideration only the accidental causes and human deficiency and between believing in free will, which results from focusing solely on the essential causes and the generosity of God. As to heavenly influence, which is the mean by which divine predestination is communicated to the lower world, al-'jAmiri explains that man is subject to this influence due to his corporeal form, but may escape it with the help of his purified soul.
In addition to the configuration ofthe celestial spheres and bodies, magic, witchcraft, spells, talismans, and the evil eye may also have an impact on man, although they are rarely able to affect his rational soul. Contrarily, prayer may grant further reaching power over other bodies to saints and prophets, because prayer strengthens the soul’s spirituality, provides the help of the angels, and is only granted by God as a honor.
Al-'jAmirl’s philosophical thought does not seem to have had a strong impact on later generations. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that only six of his writings are known to be extant today: The Book on the Afterlife (K. al-Amad ‘ala l-abad) which is influenced by Plato’s Phaedo, the Chapters on Metaphysical Topics (K. al-FusUl al-Ma alim al-ilahiya) which are, in fact, a paraphrase of parts of Proclus’ Elements of Theology, the Deliverance of Mankind from the Problem ofPredestination and Free Will (Inqadh al-bashar min al-jabr wa-l-qadar) which also discusses several kalam positions on the topic, the Determination of the Various Aspects of Predestination (al-Taqrlr li-awjuh al-taqdlr) which draws on the Aristotelian model of the sublunar world, the Vision and the Visible (al-Ibsar wa-l-mubsar) on sense perception in the tradition of Aristotle’s De anima and An Exposition on the Merits of Islam (al-I‘lam bi-manaqib al-islam). Al-'jAmirl’s authorship of the Book on Happiness and its Creation in Human Life (K. al-Saada wa-l-isadfl l-sTra al-insantya), although often upheld, is far from being established for certain.
See also: > al-BalkhI, Abii Zayd > al-Kindl, Abii Yusuf Ya'qtib ibn Ishaq > Plato, Arabic > Proclus, Arabic > al-Tawlrldi, Abii Hayyan
World History
