The Phaedo

beatnik

I was reading an online book about the muslim philosopher Ibn Sina (also known as Avicenna), and the period he lived in. It was a very exciting time, there were muslims of many different races all living together and translating greek works, and one of them, The Phaedo was much respected by the muslims of this era, and so I decided to read it myself.

The Phaedo, written by Plato really blew me away, its about Socrates' last day before he died, and his conversations with his friends about life and death. After finishing the book, I could see why it was respected among muslims, because its themes and conclusions are very Islam friendly.

Here is a link to The Phaedo

Here is a brief summary

After you read it, you'll see alot of great insights that can be tied to Islam. The most obvious is Socrates (or specifically Plato's) justification of the soul, this is argued in a pretty great manner, his technique is masterful. He proves the existence of the soul and its immortality.

But what makes this read even more interesting, is when he talks about how the soul exists before the body, about how the soul learns all it can from the Forms, which are ideal and perfect things such as Good, Truth, Beauty, etc, and when we're born we forget all this, and so this means anytime we learn something new, we're actually recollecting it.

From this paragraph alone, I can see parallels to two important aspects of Islam.

Socrates's arguments of the soul before birth greatly reminds me of how when God asks everything in creation if they want free will, and only the human soul agrees. After this, God creates Adam and Eve, and he teaches them 'all the names', which may be what Socrates means when he says 'Forms'.
When we learn something, we're actually recollecting it. Immediately, I was reminded of verses in the Quran that say humans always forget, and not just normal things, but how we forgot things that happened before we were even born, such as the creation of the soul, and all the things that happened afterwards with Adam, etc. This also makes one of the purposes of the Quran, 'A reminder' even more powerful.

The Phaedo has many other important themes that are very interesting, but overall Socrates says that to learn more knowledge purifies our souls, puts us above ordinary men and women, and will make the hereafter much better, and the Quran more or less says the same thing, only through knowledge can we be enlightened.

There are some parts of The Phaedo I dont agree with, that tend to contradict Islam, but they are few and dont bring down this amazing piece of work. I love philosophy, and I think everyone here should read more of it, to not only learn (or recollect) more knowledge, but it can help them understand concepts in Islam at the same time too, in this thread I recommend a good site with many online books and links to muslim philosophy, there are many great thinkers to explore, such as Ibn Sina, Kindi, Farabi, Beruni, and while you're reading their works, you'll also discover more about the time they lived in, which will help us learn about the period just after when the Quran was delivered by Muhammad.

Debating amongst ourselves in this forum is good, but there is a wealth of knowledge out there that can help us open up our minds and maybe even quicken the learning process going on here, from reading a biography of Ibn Sina, I found myself learning more about Baghdad during the Abbasid period, and eventually found myself reading Plato, its very cool and unexpected.

So let me know what you think of the Islam parallells I found during this great read, and lets get some more philosphy in this forum.

unknownuser

Peace be u pon you,

If you like plato and socrates, you will love the Kemetic philosophy (ancient Egypt) that they studied.

I appreciate all of them though