Abstract

This article on Islamic philosophical theology discusses the following topics: peripateticism, mysticism, illuminationism, ethics, politics, the soul, logic, the double-truth issue, Qur'anic logic, and the significance of following tradition or taqlid. One way in which different theorists in Islam are often characterized is in terms of their being either rationalists or traditionalists or something else, but in fact it goes with the commitment to theory which one uses reason to try to make clear how one is resolving problems and why that way of doing it is the right way. Islamic philosophical theology has always in the past been a lively arena for rational discussion and controversy, and there is every sign that it will continue to have the same sort of character in the future.