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University of Toronto This is an enchanting book on an enchanting topic: the ontological and epistemological status of the imagination (as distinct from the intellect and the soul) in medieval Islamicate philosophy. And, if there was ever an instance or context in which to try, yet again, to smuggle in Hodgson’s eminently apposite and useful (but somehow still rejected) terminology, it is surely here. Because to speak of "Islamic Philosophy" (rather than "islamicate") conjures up questions of nomos, praxis and normativeness that could be most distracting. And Hughes demonstrates (though hardly for the first time) that it was on the question of imagination that thinkers and philosophers working in a culture produced by the "venture of Islam" were to distinguish themselves from their predecessors (Christian, Greek, Zoroastrian, Persian, Indian and so on) in ways that help us to understand what is and what is not Islamic(ate). The main focus of the book is on a specific genre of literature and three of its examples. The genre is "the initiatic tale", the representatives are three distinct versions of the Hayy ibn Yaqzan miniature epic. This is of course the same story that was, in Ockley’s English translation, most probably one of the inspirations for Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. The three authors are the Iranian itinerant Avicenna (d.1037), the greatest Muslim philosopher and polymath; the prolific, influential and itinerant Spanish Jewish scholar Abraham bin Ezra (d.1164), and Ibn Tufayl (d.1186), the (less itinerant) Spanish Muslim religious scholar and protector of Ibn Rushd (d.1193) with whom, it has become fashionable if woefully mistaken to assert, that Islamic philosophy died. One stresses here itinerancy because the focus of the genre is on the journey, whether it be a philosphic or mystic or spiritual quest. No theme is more pervasive in the Qur’an and in Islamic religion and it is instructive to note how Jewish thinkers of the time were indebted to these distinctive Islamic themes and motifs in their elaboration of Judaism. The basic story is the "mystical" journey of the soul to its heavenly home, traversing various worlds through a hierarchy of creation reflecting a basically neoplatonic cosmology and guided in this by a mysterious stranger. Hughes rightly insists that the neoplatonic emanational "intertext" is crucial. Furthermore, he elucidates very nicely the important post-Axial Age shift manifest in the "apotheosis’ of the individual and the sacrament of reading. First brought to scholarly attention by W.C. Smith, the "reading as holy communion" topos may be thought another cultural form given life in a distinctively islamicate bibliocentric milieu. In the course of his rich and instructive discussion, Hughes covers a very wide range of problems: the status and function of the initiatory tale as such, text as encounter with the divine, the philosophic imagination, Avicennan logic, especially the poetic syllogism, and finally aesthetics as religious noetic. It is difficult to be too enthusiastic about this book for those who require an introduction to the basic issues and subjects covered. It is also timely in that it demonstrates the fruitfulness of the conversation across confessional lines so characteristic of high islamicate culture especially but not only in Spain when Jew, Christian and Muslim felt a certain Abrahamic kinship that enabled them to work together and learn from each other, at least for a while. One of the chief contributions here is the study of the Hay ben Meqitz of Ibn Ezra, completely translated into English for the first time since its composition sometime between 1140 and 1164 (se the Appendix, pp. 189-207). Its inclusion in the discussion is both appropriate and timely (maybe somewhat overdue). This will be much appreciated by scholars of the Hayy tradition. I do not think that Hughes gives enough credit to earlier studies of this and related topics. For example, his text is full of references to such contemporary colleagues as Wasserstrom, Heath, Conrad, Cornell, yet one waits in vain in various relevant sections for a mention in the body of the text to the work of Henry Corbin who is really the first person to take seriously the kind of Heidegerrian assumptions highlighted throughout in connection with Islamic Thought (he was after all his student and translator) and the first person to spend truly incredible amounts of time and effort in exploring the World of Images (‘álam al-mithál, mundus imaginalis) so central to the work at hand. Corbin is of course mentioned here and there (e.g. 32-34) but in a way which seems to betray a kind of conflict in the author’s approach. And, in any case the text is full of statements which could leave the uninitiated with the sense that Hughes and not Corbin is discovering the importance of the imaginal (e,g, p. 15). Also, one would have thought the excellent McGill thesis of Parvin Hasanali on Ibn Tufayl might have found a mention in the bibliography, perhaps it is absent because it remains, as far as I know, unpublished. However, the work of Maria Rosa Menocal is equally absent. But perhaps the greatest lacuna is that left by the omission of any treatment of the crucial life and work of Suhrawardi (d.1191), a critic of Ibn Sina vis-à-vis the nature of precisely "the journey" and true father of the mundus imaginalis in Islamic religious thought. The explanation for this absence in a brief footnote is not convincing. In sum however it must be said that this book sheds much light on a religio-philosophical topic of the first importance for the understanding of both Islam and Judaism in their various manifestations. It provides a reliable glimpse into the life of the medieval "islamicate" mind, says much that is new and instructive, and raises very important questions about the reception of the products of that mind in medieval Europe and the apparent disappearance (or at least transformation beyond recognition) of an entire genre from the literary canon of Islamicate culture. ● |
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