TITLE:
Oneness of Knowledge in Islamic Philosophy
AUTHORS:
Hassan Ajami
KEYWORDS:
Al-Farabi, Plato and Aristotle
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.3 No.7,
July
8,
2016
ABSTRACT: Oneness of knowledge played a basic role in shaping many Islamic
philosophical theories. It led many Muslim philosophers to aim at unifying
different traditions of knowledge, paving the way for the development of their
unique philosophical accounts. Only through unifying diverse traditions of
knowledge and philosophy can one account for the oneness of knowledge, which
states that the seemingly competing disciplines of research and sources of
beliefs constitute one single and coherent set of knowledge. For example, the
philosopher Al-Farabi attempted to unify Plato’s idealism with Aristotle’s
realism. And the main reason behind his endeavor is to account for the belief
that apparently distinct philosophical systems of beliefs which are in fact
consistent and form a single body of knowledge. Similarly, one dominant school
of Sufism, i.e. Islamic mysticism, endorses
the idea of the oneness of the universe, which considers that all things are
just one single entity. And the basic reason behind maintaining that all
beings, including cultures and religions, are one is to express the belief that
all kinds of knowledge are one. When all things or entities are one, they will
provide a consistent set of beliefs, leading to the oneness of knowledge.