10 - Islamic Religious Epistemology

Summary

This chapter aims to lay out a map of the diverse epistemological perspectives within the Islamic theological tradition in the conceptual framework of contemporary analytic philosophy of religion. It seeks to consider the epistemological views in light of their historic context, while at the same time seeking to “translate” those broadly medieval perspectives in tandem with a set of contemporary positions in religious epistemology: theistic evidentialism, reformed epistemology, and fideism. The chapter is divided into two main sections designated for discussions of differing accounts found in distinct trends of the Islamic tradition, namely the Rationalist and Traditionalist trends within Islamic theology. The discussion within the Rationalist tradition focuses on the philosophical theologians (mutakallimūn), of the dominant Mu’tazilite (mu’tazila), Ash’arite (ash‘ariyya) and Maturidite schools (māturīdiyya). The section on Islamic Traditionalism focuses on the Atharite (atharī) scripturalism of Ibn Qudāma, and in suparticular the thought of Ibn Taymiyya.