Islamic Political Philosophy

Andrew F. March

By “political philosophy” we mean not all political thought or theory in the Islamic tradition, but the specific tradition formed by the translation of classical Greek philosophy into Arabic. The boundaries should not be drawn too sharply here (since philosophical methods and themes were also integrated into “orthodox” theology and law, and because many philosophers did see themselves as providing philosophical account of certain creedal commitments from Islamic and Jewish theology), but this entry focuses primarily on works recognizably within the “falsafa” tradition as understood in classical Islamic learning.