The Long-Term Dialogue
Between Arab and
Jewish Philosophers
Carlos Cardoso
Aveline
Moses Maimonides (left) and Averroes, or Ibn Rushd
The historical affinity
between the philosophies of Judaism and Islamism is an undisputed fact and a
potential key to the building of peace in the Middle East.
A common wisdom inspires peaceful coexistence among
nations. The highest point in the cooperation among philosophers of both
religions took place during the Middle Ages, and the 21st century might be a
nice occasion to regain that level of intercultural dialogue.
Life is cyclic: new times make old ones be born again.
The future policy regarding the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem, might be inspired by
the interreligious cooperation that existed during the lives of Averroes and
Maimonides.
As to peace between Israel and the Palestinians, the
traditional divide between “left” and “right” makes no sense any longer in
Western countries. It is impossible to reach peace through negotiations with
fanatics whose public aim is the destruction of Israel, and whose ideology
glorifies death. One also cannot win through military operations only, although
these need to be firm. Peace must begin as a cultural and grassroots process. It
has to start in the minds. Much has been done along this line that should be
better known and more powerfully stimulated.
The Middle East needs among other helping factors a
philosophy of peace, for this defeats religious fanaticism. And life is
paradoxical: side by side with building intercultural views of the world, effective
military measures should proceed and possibly get expanded.
The growth of Israel and the access of Jews to the
Temple Mount must take place hand in hand with building better cross-cultural
ties with Arabs. Both are
necessary. “Left” parties should realize
that a stronger Israel is needed so that a lasting peace can be
inaugurated. Military operations are
tactic, while the building of rightful relations between the Arab and Jewish worlds
is strategic and long term.
For peace to be attained, the ideological apparatus
now generating worldwide hatred against the Jews - be it from the media, from mosques
or the United Nations - must be unmasked and dismantled not only by Israel and
its friends, but by the friends of justice and common sense in general. The
industry of lies should be destroyed as the Arab-Israeli cooperation gets expanded
in a thousand ways.
Historical experience shows the potentialities of long-term
grassroots dialogue. The seeds of future can be found in the past, and the life
of Maimonides teaches lessons to the 21st century.
Averroes and Maimonides
In his classical essay “Averroès et L’Averroïsme”,
French philosopher Ernest Renan (1823-1892) examines the cooperation between
Muslim and Jewish philosophers during the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries.
On several countries and occasions, there was no separation
between Arab and Jewish schools of philosophy. In Spain, the Arabs had great
tolerance towards Jewish and Christian cultures. The Arabic was the common
language shared by Arabs, Christians and Jews alike. Spain constituted a
“second homeland” to the Jews.
Moses Maimonides, the celebrated Rabbi and
philosopher, expressed his personal gratitude to the Arab philosopher Averroes,
from whose writings he learned much.
Renan wrote that Jews took Arab philosophers more
seriously than the Islamic establishment itself. Many of the works of Arab
philosophers were only preserved from destruction thanks to their Hebrew
language versions.[2] In difficult times
of the Middle Ages, Arab philosophers were as persecuted as the Jews by Islamic
fanatics and authorities, and their works, destroyed. But a period of cultural
renaissance took place for a few centuries.
The Arab-Jewish Philosophy: Ninth and Tenth Centuries
Émile Bréhier writes in his book “La Philosophie Du
Moyen Age” that in the ninth and tenth centuries there was a renaissance of the
Jewish philosophy within Arab countries. The majority of the Jewish
philosophers wrote in Arabic. The influence of Hellenism inspired a harmonious
coexistence and dialogue among Muslims, Jews, Christians, and even atheists, in Bagdad during the 10th century.[3] Al-Hakam
II, or Hakam (915-976), the second caliph of Cordoba, in Andalusia, Spain, was
a scholar himself and stimulated the various sciences.
Renan writes:
“Even before Hakam the Arabs of Andalusia had a strong
interest in liberal studies, perhaps as an effect of the beautiful climate, or
because of their continuous contact with Jews and Christians. The efforts made
by Hakam, strengthened by such favourable conditions, unfolded as one of the
most brilliant literary movements of the Middle Ages. During the 10th century,
the taste for science and beauty had established, in this privileged corner of
the world, a level of tolerance of which there are scarce any examples in
modern times. Christians, Jews and Muslims talked the same language, sang the
same poems, took part in the same literary and scientific studies. All of the
barriers that separate men were destroyed; everyone worked in harmony for the
building of a common civilization. The mosques of Cordoba, where there were
thousands of students, became active centers of scientific and philosophical
studies. But religious fanaticism, the fatal cause that suffocated among the
Muslims the most beautiful germs of intellectual development, was preparing
already the ruin of Hakam’s work.”[4]
Émile Bréhier writes about the similarity of Muslim and
Jewish philosophies. One of the main Arab philosophers of all time, Al-Farabi (c.870-950),
is considered the “Father of Islamic Neoplatonism” and called the “second
master” of philosophy in the Arab world, after Aristotle.
Another great name of medieval philosophy is Solomon Ibn
Gabirol, or Gebirol (1021-1070?), the Jewish Neoplatonist who paves the way to
Rabbi Maimonides.
Helena Blavatsky said that many passages of the philosophy
of Ben Yehudah Ibn Gebirol “echo unmistakably not only the Zoharic but likewise
the Eastern esoteric teachings.”
She wrote in her 1889 article on the book “Qabbalah, the Philosophical Writings
of Ibn Gebirol, or Avicebron, Etc.”, by Isaac Myer [5]:
“Ibn Gebirol, of Cordova, the first so-called Arabian
philosopher in Europe who flourished in the 11th century, was also one of the
most eminent among the Jewish poets of the Middle Ages. His philosophical works
written in Arabic are plainly shown exonerating Moses de Leon (13th century),
accused of having forged the Zohar attributed
to R. Shimon ben-Yochai.”
Blavatsky adds:
“…Ibn Gebirol was a Spanish Jew, mistaken by most
writers in the subsequent centuries for an Arabian philosopher. Regarded as an
Aristotelian, many of his works were condemned by the University of Paris, and
his name remains to this day but very little known outside the circle of
learned Kabalists. Mr. Myer has undertaken to vindicate this mediaeval scholar,
poet, and mystic, and has fully succeeded in doing so. Identifying the lore
given out by this forgotten sage with the universal ‘Wisdom Religion’, our
author thus points out that the mystical theosophy and the disciplina arcana of the Hebrew Tannaïm has been found by the
latter in the schools of Babylon.” [6]
Rabbi Moses Maimonides
Born in the year 1135 in Córdoba, Spain, Rabbi Moses
Maimonides wrote “The Guide for the Perplexed”.
M. Friedlander describes the cooperation between Arabs
and Jews thinkers in his 1881 edition of “The Guide”:
“The Caliphs, mostly opulent, gave every encouragement
to philosophy and poetry; and, being generally liberal in sentiment, they
entertained kindly feelings towards their Jewish subjects. They were allowed to
compete for the acquisition of wealth and honour on equal terms with their
Mohammedan fellow-citizens. Philosophy and poetry were consequently cultivated
by the Jews with the same zest as by the Arabs. Ibn Gabirol, Ibn Hasdai, Judah
ha-levi, Hananel, Alfasi, the Ibn Ezras, and others who flourished in that
period were the ornament of their age, and the pride of the Jews at all times.
The same favourable condition was maintained during the reign of the Omeyades [Umayyad]; but when the Moravides and the
Almohades came into power, the horizon darkened once more, and misfortunes
threatened to destroy the fruit of several centuries. Amidst this gloom
appeared a brilliant luminary which sent forth rays of life and comfort: this
was Moses Maimonides.” [7]
Averroes: Twelfth Century
Avicenna (980-1036), and Al-Ghazali (1058-1111) combined
Neoplatonic and Aristotelian concepts and visions. Avicenna is said to have
influenced Maimonides.
The Platonist-Aristotelian thinker Shihab al-Din
al-Suhrawardi (1154–1191), of the Iluminationist (ishraqi) school, has only started to be known in the West in the
later part of the 20th century, thanks to the efforts developed by Henry
Corbin.
As to Averroes, or Ibn Rushd, Ernest Renan writes:
“The life of Averroes extends over most of the 12th
century, and is linked to all events of this decisive time for the history of
Muslim civilization. The 12th century saw in a definite way the defeat of the
attempt made by the Abbasid (Caliphate) in the East and the Umayyad (Caliphate)
in the West to create a rational and scientific development in Islam. When
Averroes died, in 1198, the Arab philosophy lost its last representative, and
the triumph of the Quran over free thought was assured for at least six hundred
years. (…) The Arab-Spanish philosophy had existed only for two centuries, when
it was suddenly stopped by religious fanaticism, political upheaval and foreign
invasion.” [8]
The wisdom of the past never dies and can regain force
any time if the proper conditions are created. In the 17th century, a Shia
Islamic philosopher in Persia, Mulla Sadra (c.1572
- 1640) led the Iranian cultural renaissance and inspired the creation of the
school of thought called “Transcendent Theosophy”.[9]
Sadra’s main work is “The Transcendent Theosophy in the Four Journeys of the Intellect”. On
the Jewish side, it is well-known that the Zohar is a Theosophical work, as
Gershom Scholem, for instance, states in his book “Major Trends in Jewish
Mysticism” [10].
These are a few evidences, among many, that an inner
wisdom exists which is common to Islamic and Jewish philosophers, not to speak
of other cultures.
Plato was a Pythagorean, and Neoplatonism is often
called Theosophy. Alexandria was the birth-place of the Eclectic or
Neoplatonist School of Theosophy,
which also inspires the modern esoteric philosophy of Helena Blavatsky.
What Israel Must Get Rid Of
In criticizing the cultural limitations of what he
called “Semitic race”, Ernest Renan was not singling out the Jews, in any way. He was referring to all nations whose
languages are Semitic [11], and this
includes the Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Tigrinya, Phoenician and Maltese
languages.
Writing from the point of view of the “intellectual
elites” of 19th Europe, Renan failed to understand the spiritual depth of
Judaism. He is sometimes inaccurate. Yet his love of mankind is universal. He
uses paradoxes and appeals to the mystical levels of his readers’ minds. In
writing about the mistakes of Semitic cultures, he acknowledges the origins of
Christianity as Semitic. His criticism remains valid, if addressed to a certain
narrow-mindedness which should be avoided in Jewish, Christian and Arab
cultures alike. Parts of Israeli society, in the “Left” as in the “Right”, must
get rid of dogmatic thinking. Renan speaks of (authoritarian) monotheisms as the
“religions of the desert”, and says:
“All the names which the Semitic race has given the
divinity, El, Eloh, Adon, Baal, Elion, Schaddai, Jehovah, Allah, even though they have different forms, imply in every case
the idea of a supreme and incommunicable power, of a perfect unity. Nature, on
the other hand, has little room in the Semitic religions: the desert is
monotheistic; sublime in its immense uniformity, it reveals to man from the
beginning the idea of infinity, but not the feeling of that ceaselessly
creative life which a more fertile nature has inspired other races with.” [12]
Renan defended the Hellenistic pantheism as an
alternative to monotheistic narrow-mindedness. He was partially right. Although he couldn’t look in a deeper way to
the Semitic nations or understand the depth of the Jewish theosophy, he did point to the right direction.
The Correct Time for Tikkun Olam
In fact, Israel has no desert-like mentality. The
“Neoplatonist pantheism” flourishes in the Jewish ability to turn a desert into
an oasis, as has been clearly taking place in Israeli soil since 1948.
Besides being valid in itself, Israel’s agricultural
victories are a metaphor and a symbol of Israel as a garden, a planetary garden whose diversity is
cultural, religious, philosophical and ecological.
For centuries, the diversity of views has been a
healthy hallmark of Jewishness, so that the danger of the “desert religion” is not
difficult to put aside. By accepting
diversity, nations attain unity, and this is something to do once and again.
The Ecclesiastes says:
“Only that shall happen which has happened, only that
occur, which has occurred.” [13]
The historical cooperation between Arab and Jewish
philosophers in the Middle Ages can inspire actions in several dimensions of
life during the next decades, so that peace may emerge in a lasting way.
Two quietly revolutionary steps in that direction are the
spread of the study of Arabic language in Jewish primary schools in Israel, and
the multiplication of bilingual schools.
[14] A third step is called “Bridges for Peace” and promotes friendship
between young Arabs and Jews.[15]
Other intercultural initiatives take place along the
same lines. The renewed spirit of such centuries-old dialogue can enlighten the
birth of a new policy towards the Temple Mount, which will be able to finally grant
Jews their right to the place.
Besides defeating terror, one needs to build peace. Tikkun Olam, the healing of the whole planet,
is part of the Jewish duty.
In Israel as in other nations, the grassroots Arab-Jewish
cooperation will eliminate the foundations of anti-Semitism, of anti-Zionism
and Islamic terror. It is going to silently destroy other forms of organized
ignorance. Israel is a land of tomorrow: its unlimited potentialities are unfolding
right now and helping the world already.
NOTES:
[1] “Averroès et L’Averroïsme”, Ernest Renan, Calmann-Lévy,
Éditeurs, Paris, 1866, 486 pp. see p. 180.
[2] “Averroès et L‘Averroïsme”,
Ernest Renan, op. cit. see p. 173.
[3] “La Philosophie Du Moyen
Age”, Émile Bréhier, Éditions Albin Michel, Paris, 1949, 470 pp., see pp.
101-102.
[4] “Averroès et L’Averroïsme”, op.
cit., pp. 4-5.
[5] “Qabbalah, The
Philosophical Writings of Ibn Gebirol, or Avicebron”, by Isaac Myer, 499 pp.,
Philadelphia, 1888. The book is available at our associated websites.
[6] “Collected Writings” of
Helena P. Blavatsky, TPH, Volume XI, p. 28.
[7] “The Guide for the Perplexed”, Moses Maimonides,
Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1956, 414 pp., see pp. XV-XVI.
[8] “Averroès et L’Averroïsme”, op. cit., pp. 1-2.
[9] See for instance the book “Sadr al-Din Shirazi and his Transcendent Theosophy”, by Seyyed
Hossein Nasr, Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy, Tehran, 1978, 108 pp.,
especially chapter five.
[10] “Major Trends in Jewish
Mysticism”, Gershom Scholem, Schocken Books, New York, copyright 1946, 1995
edition with 460 pp., see sixth lecture, “The Theosophic Doctrine of the
Zohar”, pp. 205-243.
[11] See for instance “Judaïsme
et Christianisme”, Ernest Renan, Éditions Copernic, Paris, 1977, 176 pp., see
pp. 37-54.
[12] “Judaïsme et Christianisme”,
Ernest Renan, Éditions Copernic, Paris, 1977, 176 pp., see p. 40.
[13] Ecclesiastes, 1: 9, see “Tanakh”,
The Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia, Jerusalem, 1985.
[14] See the 2016 “Jewish News
Online” article “Arabic to be mandatory in Israel’s Jewish primary schools”.
[15] Read the 2016 “Jerusalem
Post” article entitled “Hundreds of Arab, Israeli children building bridges to peace through tech”.
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The above article
was first published in 2016 in our blog at “The Times of Israel”.
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See in our
associated websites the article “The
Universality of Temple Mount”, by Carlos Cardoso Aveline.
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In September 2016, after a careful analysis of the state of the
esoteric movement worldwide, a group of students decided to form the Independent Lodge of Theosophists,
whose priorities include the building of a better future in the different
dimensions of life.
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