Iqbals The Development of Metaphysics in Persia [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

xi

the Arab conquest,
however, we see pure Philosophy severed from religion by the Neo-Platonic
Aristotelians of Islam, but the severance was only a transient phenomenon. Greek
philosophy, though an exotic plant in the soil of Persia, eventually became an
integral part of Persian thought; and later thinkers, critics as well as
advocates of Greek wisdom, talked in the philosophical language of Aristotle and
Plato, and were mostly influenced by religious pre-suppositions. It is necessary
to bear this fact in mind in order to gain a thorough understanding of
post-Islamic Persian thought.

The object of this investigation is, as will appear, to prepare a
ground-work for a future history of Persian Metaphysics. Original thought cannot
be expected in a review, the object of which is purely historical; yet I venture
to claim some consideration for the following two points;-

(a) I have endeavoured to trace the logical continuity of Persia in
thought, which I have tried to interpret in the language of modern Philosophy.
This, as far as I know, has not yet been done.

(b) I have discussed the subject of Sufism in a more scientific manner,
and have attempted to bring out the intellectual conditions which necessitated
such a phenomenon. In opposition, therefore, to the generally accepted view I
have tried to maintain that Sufiism is a necessary product of the play of
various intellectual and moral forces which would necessarily awaken the
slumbering soul to a higher ideal of life.