title: Forgiveness

text: Both negative and positive affect play a role in forgiveness interventions. It is the general consensus across researchers in the field of psychology, that the overarching purpose of forgiveness interventions is to decrease overall negative affect associated with the stimulus and increase the individual's positive affect.


title: Forgiveness

text: The disease model has been mainly used in regards to therapy, however the incorporation of forgiveness into therapy has been lacking, and has been slowly gaining popularity in the last couple of decades. More recent research has shown how the growth of forgiveness in psychology has given rise to the study of forgiveness interventions.


title: Forgiveness

text: There are various forms of forgiveness interventions. One common adaptation used by researchers is where patients are forced to confront the entity preventing them from forgiving by using introspective techniques and expressing this to the therapist. Another popular forgiveness intervention is getting individual to try to see things from the offender's point of view. The end goal for this adaptation is getting the individual to perhaps understand the reasoning behind the offender's actions. If they are able to do this then they might be able to forgive the offender more easily.


title: Forgiveness

text: Over the past years, there have been researchers who have studied forgiveness interventions in relationships and whether or not prayer increases forgiveness. A study conducted in 2009 found that simply just by praying for a friend or thinking positive thoughts about that individual every day for four weeks demonstrates how prayer positively boosts the chances of forgiving a friend or partner which leads to a better relationship.


title: Forgiveness

text: Although research has taken into account the positive aspects of forgiveness interventions, there are also negative aspects that have been explored as well. Some researchers have taken a critical approach and have been less accepting of the forgiveness intervention approach to therapy.


title: Forgiveness

text: Critics have argued that forgiveness interventions may actually cause an increase in negative affect because it is trying to inhibit the individual's own personal feelings towards the offender. This can result in the individual feeling negatively towards themself. This approach is categorizing the individual's feelings by implying that the negative emotions the individual is feeling are unacceptable and feelings of forgiveness is the correct and acceptable way to feel. It might inadvertently promote feelings of shame and contrition within the individual.


title: Forgiveness

text: Wanda Malcolm, a registered psychologist, states: "that it is not a good idea to make forgiveness an a-priori goal of therapy". Steven Stosny, also adds, that you heal first then forgive (NOT forgive then heal); that fully acknowledging the grievance (both what actions were harmful, and naming the emotions the victim felt as a response to the offenders actions) is an essential first step, before forgiveness can occur.


title: Forgiveness

text: Some researchers also worry that forgiveness interventions will promote unhealthy relationships. They worry that individuals with toxic relationships will continue to forgive those who continuously commit wrong acts towards them when in fact they should be distancing themselves from these sorts of people.


title: Forgiveness

text: A number of studies showcase high effectiveness rates of forgiveness interventions when done continuously over a long period of time. Some researchers have found that these interventions have been proven ineffective when done over short spans of time.


title: Forgiveness

text: There has been some research within the last decade outlining some studies that have looked at the effectiveness of forgiveness interventions on young children. There have also been several studies done studying this cross culturally. One study that explored this relationship, was a study conducted in 2009 by Eadaoin Hui and Tat Sing Chau. In this study, Hui and Chau looked at the relationship between forgiveness interventions and Chinese children who were less likely to forgive those who had wronged them. The findings of this study showed that there was an effect of forgiveness interventions on the young Chinese children.


title: Forgiveness

text: Older adults that receive forgiveness interventions report higher levels of forgiveness than those that did not receive treatment. Furthermore, forgiveness treatments resulted in lower depression, stress and anger than no treatment conditions. Forgiveness interventions also enhance positive psychological aspects. The specific intervention model (Enright’s or Worthington’s proposal) and format (group or individual) are not associated with better outcomes.


title: Forgiveness

text: Survey data from 2000 showed that 61% of participants that were part of a small religious group reported that the group helped them be more forgiving. Individuals reported that their religion groups which promote forgiveness was related to self-reports of success in overcoming addictions, guilt, and perceiving encouragement when feeling discouraged.


title: Forgiveness

text: It is suggested that mindfulness plays a role in forgiveness and health. The forgiveness of others has a positive effect on physical health when it is combined with mindfulness but evidence shows that forgiveness only effects health as a function of mindfulness.


title: Forgiveness

text: A study from 2005 states that self-forgiveness is an important part of self-acceptance and mental health in later life. The inability to self-forgive can compromise mental health. For some elderly people, self-forgiveness requires reflecting on a transgression to avoid repeating wrongdoings, individuals seek to learn from these transgressions in order to improve their real self-schemas. When individuals are successful at learning from these transgressions, they may experience improved mental health.


title: Forgiveness

text: A study in 2015 looks at how self-forgiveness can reduce feelings of guilt and shame associated with hypersexual behavior. Hypersexual behaviour can have negative effects on individuals by causing distress and life problems. Self-forgiveness may be a component that can help individuals reduce hypersexual negative behaviours that cause problems.


title: Forgiveness

text: Evidence shows that self-forgiveness and procrastination may be associated; self-forgiveness allows the individual to overcome the negatives associated with an earlier behaviour and engage in approach-oriented behaviours on a similar task. Learning to forgive oneself for procrastination can be positive because it can promote self-worth and may cause positive mental health. Self-forgiveness for procrastination may also reduce procrastination.


title: Forgiveness

text: Everett Worthington, Loren Toussaint and David R. Williams, PhD, proclaimed to have enough research on the effects of forgiveness towards mental health and wrote the self-help book "Forgiveness and Health: Scientific Evidence and Theories Relating Forgiveness to Better Health" detailing the multiple benefits and psychological results of forgiveness to humans mentally and physically. Toussaint and Worthington claim that stress relief can be the chief factor that connects forgiveness and well-being. Toussaint also found that levels of stress went down when levels of forgiveness rose up, resulting in a decrease in mental health symptoms.


title: Forgiveness

text: Forgiveness gives people a sense that their burden being lifted because they are no longer feeling anger or hatred toward their transgressor. They even begin to understand their transgressor. Since negative emotions and stress are removed from the person seeking forgiveness, overall well-being is improved. They begin to have positive emotions and determinations in life.


title: Forgiveness

text: The correlation between forgiveness and physical health is a concept that has recently gained traction in research. Some studies claim that there is no correlation, either positive or negative between forgiveness and physical health, and others show a positive correlation.


title: Forgiveness

text: Individuals with forgiveness as a personality trait have been shown to have overall better physical health. In a study on relationships, regardless if someone was in a negative or positive relationship, their physical health seemed to be influenced at least partially by their level of forgiveness.


title: Forgiveness

text: Individuals who make a decision to genuinely forgive someone are also shown to have better physical health. This is due to the relationship between forgiveness and stress reduction. Forgiveness is seen as preventing poor physical health and managing good physical health.


title: Forgiveness

text: Specifically individuals who choose to forgive another after a transgression have lower blood pressure and lower cortisol levels than those who do not. This is theorized to be due to various direct and indirect influences of forgiveness, which point to forgiveness as an evolutionary trait. See Broaden and Build Theory.


title: Forgiveness

text: Direct influences include: Reducing hostility (which is inversely correlated with physical health), and the concept that unforgiveness may reduce the immune system because it puts stress on the individual. Indirect influences are more related to forgiveness as a personality trait and include: forgiving people may have more social support and less stressful marriages, and forgiveness may be related to personality traits that are correlated with physical health.


title: Forgiveness

text: Forgiveness may also be correlated with physical health because hostility is associated with poor coronary performance. Unforgiveness is as an act of hostility, and forgiveness as an act of letting go of hostility. Heart patients who are treated with therapy that includes forgiveness to reduce hostility have improved cardiac health compared to those who are treated with medicine alone.


title: Forgiveness

text: Forgiveness may also lead to better perceived physical health. This correlation applies to both self-forgiveness and other-forgiveness but is especially true of self-forgiveness. Individuals who are more capable of forgiving themselves have better perceived physical health.


title: Forgiveness

text: Individuals who partake in forgiving people can sometimes be benefited from the act. For example, people who are willing to forgive others can get healthier hearts, fewer depression symptoms, and less anxiety. Obviously, forgiveness can be seen as somewhat helpful towards mental health especially with people who have mental disorders. Forgiveness can also lead to specific people getting a better immune system.


title: Forgiveness

text: Forgiveness studies have been refuted by critics who claim that there is no direct correlation between forgiveness and physical health. Forgiveness, due to the reduction of directed anger, contributes to mental health and mental health contributes to physical health, but there is no evidence that forgiveness directly improves physical health. Most of the studies on forgiveness cannot isolate it as an independent variable in an individual's well-being, so it is difficult to prove causation. Further studies imply that while there is not enough research to directly relate forgiveness to physical health there are factors that can be implied. This relates more to physiological measures and what happens to a body during the stages of forgiveness in their daily life.


title: Forgiveness

text: Additionally, research into the correlation between physical health and forgiveness has been criticized for being too focused on unforgiveness. Research shows more about what hostility and unforgiveness contribute to poor health than it shows what forgiveness contributes to physical health. Additionally, research notes that unforgiving or holding grudges can contribute to adverse health outcomes by perpetuating anger and heightening SNS arousal and cardiovascular reactivity. Expression of anger has been strongly associated with chronically elevated blood pressure and with the aggregation of platelets, which may increase vulnerability for heart disease.


title: Forgiveness

text: Self-forgiveness happens in situations where an individual has done something that they perceive to be morally wrong and they consider themselves to be responsible for the wrongdoing. Self-forgiveness is the overcoming of negative emotions that the wrongdoer associates with the wrongful action. Negative emotions associated with wrongful action can include guilt, regret, remorse, blame, shame, self-hatred and/or self-contempt.


title: Forgiveness

text: Major life events that include trauma can cause individuals to experience feelings of guilt or self-hatred. Humans have the ability to reflect on their behaviours to determine if their actions are moral. In situations of trauma, humans can choose to self-forgive by allowing themselves to change and live a moral life. Self-forgiveness may be required in situations where the individual hurt themselves or in situations where they hurt others. Indeed, self-forgiveness has been shown to have a moderating effect between depression and suicidality: suggesting self-forgiveness (up-to a point) as not only a protective factor of suicide, but also hinting at possible prevention strategies.


title: Forgiveness

text: Individuals can unintentionally cause harm or offence to one another in everyday life. It is important for individuals to be able to recognize when this happens, and in the process of making amends, have the ability to self-forgive. Specific research suggests that the ability to genuinely forgive one's self can be significantly beneficial to an individual's emotional as well as mental well-being. The research indicates that the ability to forgive one's self for past offences can lead to decreased feelings of negative emotions such as shame and guilt, and can increase the use of more positive practices such as self-kindness and self-compassion. However, it has been indicated that it is possible for the process of self-forgiveness to be misinterpreted and therefore not accurately completed. This could potentially lead to increased feelings of regret or self-blame. In an attempt to avoid this, and increase the positive benefits associated with genuine self-forgiveness, a specific therapeutic model of self-forgiveness has been recommended, which can be used to encourage genuine self-forgiveness in offenders. The model that has been proposed has four key elements. These elements include responsibility, remorse, restoration and renewal.


title: Forgiveness

text: Despite the suggested model, research advises that the process of self-forgiveness is not always applicable for every individual. For example, individuals who have not actually caused others any harm or wrongdoing, but instead are suffering from negative emotions such as self-hatred or self-pity, such as victims of assault, might attempt self-forgiveness for their perceived offences. However, this would not be the process necessary for them to make their amends. Additionally, offenders who continue to offend others while attempting to forgive themselves for past offences demonstrate a reluctance to genuinely complete the four stages necessary for self-forgiveness. Research suggests that it is important to first gather exterior information about the individual's perceived offences as well as their needs and motivation for self-forgiveness.


title: Forgiveness

text: Being unapologetic is often something that humans come across at some point in their lives, and there has been much research on if a person refuses to apologize or even recognized the wrongdoings. This can then often lead into how one would go into forgiving the unapologetic party and "the relationship between apologies and the adjectives 'apologetic' and 'unapologetic' is not quite so straightforward." People struggle with forgiving people that have done wrongful actions. Causing a person to not forgive themselves or another. It relates to how people feel about the person who is asking for forgiveness. Choosing to forgive someone or not correlates to whether that person is truly sorry for their actions or not. Forgiving a person who does not seem remorseful for their actions can be difficult, but may loosen the grip the person has over you. Intrusive thoughts can cause the person who wants to forgive, to have feelings of low self-worth, and endure a traumatic phase due to that person's actions. Going through a negative experience in your life can cause long term trauma. It can stay in your memory just like a good one. A bad experience will be there too. Holding on to negative emotion is the driving fuel of why people may struggle to heal from their problems in their mind. Having thoughts of revenge may not help a person to heal from the past experience that led them to harbor those negative emotions. They may benefit from letting go and accepting what has happened. Letting go does not erase what the person did, but forgiveness can lead to inner-peace from the lack of negative emotion within. Despite the other person not apologizing sincerely, forgiving them may be the solution to problems and result in loving one's self.


title: Forgiveness

text: Jean Hampton sees the decision to forgive the unrepentant wrongdoer as expressing a commitment "to see a wrongdoer in a new, more favorable light" as one who is not completely rotten or morally dead.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Islamic philosophy is philosophy that emerges from the Islamic tradition. Two terms traditionally used in the Islamic world are sometimes translated as philosophy—falsafa (literally: "philosophy"), which refers to philosophy as well as logic, mathematics, and physics; and Kalam (literally "speech"), which refers to a rationalist form of Scholastic Islamic theology which includes the schools of Maturidiyah, Ashaira and Mu'tazila.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Early Islamic philosophy began with Al-Kindi in the 2nd century of the Islamic calendar (early 9th century CE) and ended with Averroes (Ibn Rushd) in the 6th century AH (late 12th century CE), broadly coinciding with the period known as the Golden Age of Islam. The death of Averroes effectively marked the end of a particular discipline of Islamic philosophy usually called the Peripatetic Islamic school, and philosophical activity declined significantly in Western Islamic countries such as Islamic Iberia and North Africa.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Islamic philosophy persisted for much longer in Muslim Eastern countries, in particular Safavid Persia, Ottoman, and Mughal Empires, where several schools of philosophy continued to flourish: Avicennism, Averroism, Illuminationist philosophy, Mystical philosophy, Transcendent theosophy, and Isfahan philosophy. Ibn Khaldun, in his Muqaddimah, made important contributions to the philosophy of history. Interest in Islamic philosophy revived during the Nahda ("Awakening") movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and continues to the present day.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Islamic philosophy had a major impact in Christian Europe, where translation of Arabic philosophical texts into Latin "led to the transformation of almost all philosophical disciplines in the medieval Latin world", with a particularly strong influence of Muslim philosophers being felt in natural philosophy, psychology and metaphysics.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Islamic philosophy refers to philosophy produced in an Islamic society. As it is not necessarily concerned with religious issues, nor exclusively produced by Muslims, many scholars prefer the term "Arabic philosophy."


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Islamic philosophy is a generic term that can be defined and used in different ways. In its broadest sense it means the world view of Islam, as derived from the Islamic texts concerning the creation of the universe and the will of the Creator. In another sense it refers to any of the schools of thought that flourished under the Islamic empire or in the shadow of the Arab-Islamic culture and Islamic civilization. In its narrowest sense it is a translation of "Falsafa", meaning those particular schools of thought that most reflect the influence of Greek systems of philosophy such as Neoplatonism and Aristotelianism.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Some schools of thought within Islam deny the usefulness or legitimacy of philosophical inquiry. Some argue that there is no indication that the limited knowledge and experience of humans can lead to truth. It is also important to observe that, while "reason" ("'aql") is sometimes recognised as a source of Islamic law, it has been claimed that this has a totally different meaning from "reason" in philosophy.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: The historiography of Islamic philosophy is marked by disputes as to how the subject should be properly interpreted. Some of the key issues involve the comparative importance of eastern intellectuals such as Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and of western thinkers such as Ibn Rushd, and also whether Islamic philosophy can be read at face value or should be interpreted in an esoteric fashion. Supporters of the latter thesis, like Leo Strauss, maintain that Islamic philosophers wrote so as to conceal their true meaning in order to avoid religious persecution, but scholars such as Oliver Leaman disagree.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: The main sources of classical or early Islamic philosophy are the religion of Islam itself (especially ideas derived and interpreted from the Quran) and Greek philosophy which the early Muslims inherited as a result of conquests, along with pre-Islamic Indian philosophy and Persian philosophy. Many of the early philosophical debates centered around reconciling religion and reason, the latter exemplified by Greek philosophy.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: In early Islamic thought, which refers to philosophy during the "Islamic Golden Age", traditionally dated between the 8th and 12th centuries, two main currents may be distinguished. The first is Kalam, which mainly dealt with Islamic theological questions, and the other is Falsafa, which was founded on interpretations of Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism. There were attempts by later philosopher-theologians at harmonizing both trends, notably by Ibn Sina (Avicenna) who founded the school of Avicennism, Ibn Rushd (Averroes) who founded the school of Averroism, and others such as Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) and Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: "ʿIlm al-Kalām" () is the philosophy that seeks Islamic theological principles through dialectic. In Arabic, the word literally means "speech".


title: Islamic philosophy

text: One of the first debates was that between partisans of the "Qadar" ( meaning "Fate"), who affirmed free will; and the "Jabarites" ( meaning "force", "constraint"), who believed in fatalism.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: At the 2nd century of the Hijra, a new movement arose in the theological school of Basra, Iraq. A pupil of Hasan of Basra, Wasil ibn Ata, left the group when he disagreed with his teacher on whether a Muslim who has committed a major sin invalidates his faith. He systematized the radical opinions of preceding sects, particularly those of the Qadarites and Jabarites. This new school was called "Mu'tazilite" (from "i'tazala", to separate oneself).


title: Islamic philosophy

text: The Mu'tazilites looked in towards a strict rationalism with which to interpret Islamic doctrine. Their attempt was one of the first to pursue a rational theology in Islam. They were however severely criticized by other Islamic philosophers, both Maturidis and Asharites. The great Asharite scholar Fakhr ad-Din ar-Razi wrote the work "Al-Mutakallimin fi 'Ilm al-Kalam" against the Mutazalites.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: In later times, "Kalam" was used to mean simply "theology", i.e. the "duties of the heart" as opposed to (or in conjunction with) fiqh" (jurisprudence), the "duties of the body".


title: Islamic philosophy

text: "Falsafa" is a Greek loanword meaning "philosophy" (the Greek pronunciation "philosophia" became "falsafa"). From the 9th century onward, due to Caliph al-Ma'mun and his successor, ancient Greek philosophy was introduced among the Arabs and the Peripatetic School began to find able representatives. Among them were Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi, Avicenna and Averroes. Another trend, represented by the Brethren of Purity, used Aristotelian language to expound a fundamentally Neoplatonic and Neopythagorean world view.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: During the Abbasid caliphate, a number of thinkers and scientists, some of them heterodox Muslims or non-Muslims, played a role in transmitting Greek, Hindu and other pre-Islamic knowledge to the Christian West. Three speculative thinkers, Al-Farabi, Avicenna and Al-Kindi, combined Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism with other ideas introduced through Islam.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: By the 12th century, "Kalam", attacked by both the philosophers and the orthodox, perished for lack of champions. At the same time, however, "Falsafa" came under serious critical scrutiny. The most devastating attack came from Al-Ghazali, whose work "Tahafut al-Falasifa" ("The Incoherence of the Philosophers") attacked the main arguments of the Peripatetic School.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Averroes, Maimonides' contemporary, was one of the last of the Islamic Peripatetics and set out to defend the views of the "Falsafa" against al-Ghazali's criticism. The theories of Ibn Rushd do not differ fundamentally from those of Ibn Bajjah and Ibn Tufail, who only follow the teachings of Avicenna and Al-Farabi. Like all Islamic Peripatetics, Averroes admits the hypothesis of the intelligence of the spheres and the hypothesis of universal emanation, through which motion is communicated from place to place to all parts of the universe as far as the supreme world—hypotheses which, in the mind of the Arabic philosophers, did away with the dualism involved in Aristotle's doctrine of pure energy and eternal matter.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: But while Al-Farabi, Avicenna, and other Persian and Muslim philosophers hurried, so to speak, over subjects that trenched on traditional beliefs, Ibn Rushd delighted in dwelling upon them with full particularity and stress. Thus he says, "Not only is matter eternal, but form is potentially inherent in matter; otherwise, it were a creation "ex nihilo"" (Munk, "Mélanges," p. 444). According to this theory, therefore, the existence of this world is not only a possibility, as Avicenna declared, but also a necessity.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: In early Islamic philosophy, logic played an important role. Sharia (Islamic law) placed importance on formulating standards of argument, which gave rise to a novel approach to logic in Kalam, but this approach was later displaced by ideas from Greek philosophy and Hellenistic philosophy with the rise of the Mu'tazili philosophers, who highly valued Aristotle's "Organon". The works of Hellenistic-influenced Islamic philosophers were crucial in the reception of Aristotelian logic in medieval Europe, along with the commentaries on the "Organon" by Averroes. The works of al-Farabi, Avicenna, al-Ghazali and other Muslim logicians who often criticized and corrected Aristotelian logic and introduced their own forms of logic, also played a central role in the subsequent development of European logic during the Renaissance.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Important developments made by Muslim logicians included the development of "Avicennian logic" as a replacement of Aristotelian logic. Avicenna's system of logic was responsible for the introduction of hypothetical syllogism, temporal modal logic and inductive logic. Other important developments in early Islamic philosophy include the development of a strict science of citation, the isnad or "backing", and the development of a method to disprove claims, the ijtihad, which was generally applied to many types of questions.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Early forms of analogical reasoning, inductive reasoning and categorical syllogism were introduced in Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), Sharia and Kalam (Islamic theology) from the 7th century with the process of "Qiyas", before the Arabic translations of Aristotle's works. Later, during the Islamic Golden Age, there was debate among Islamic philosophers, logicians and theologians over whether the term "Qiyas" refers to analogical reasoning, inductive reasoning or categorical syllogism. Some Islamic scholars argued that "Qiyas" refers to inductive reasoning. Ibn Hazm (994–1064) disagreed, arguing that "Qiyas" does not refer to inductive reasoning but to categorical syllogistic reasoning in a real sense and analogical reasoning in a metaphorical sense. On the other hand, al-Ghazali (1058–1111; and, in modern times, Abu Muhammad Asem al-Maqdisi) argued that "Qiyas" refers to analogical reasoning in a real sense and categorical syllogism in a metaphorical sense. Other Islamic scholars at the time, however, argued that the term "Qiyas" refers to both analogical reasoning and categorical syllogism in a real sense.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: The first original Arabic writings on logic were produced by al-Kindi (Alkindus) (805–873), who produced a summary on earlier logic up to his time. The first writings on logic with non-Aristotelian elements was produced by al-Farabi (Alfarabi) (873–950), who discussed the topics of future contingents, the number and relation of the categories, the relation between logic and grammar, and non-Aristotelian forms of inference. He is also credited for categorizing logic into two separate groups, the first being "idea" and the second being "proof".


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Averroes (1126–1198), author of the most elaborate commentaries on Aristotelian logic, was the last major logician from al-Andalus.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Avicenna (980–1037) developed his own system of logic known as "Avicennian logic" as an alternative to Aristotelian logic. By the 12th century, Avicennian logic had replaced Aristotelian logic as the dominant system of logic in the Islamic world.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: The first criticisms of Aristotelian logic were written by Avicenna (980–1037), who produced independent treatises on logic rather than commentaries. He criticized the logical school of Baghdad for their devotion to Aristotle at the time. He investigated the theory of definition and classification and the quantification of the predicates of categorical propositions, and developed an original theory on "temporal modal" syllogism. Its premises included modifiers such as "at all times", "at most times", and "at some time".


title: Islamic philosophy

text: While Avicenna (980–1037) often relied on deductive reasoning in philosophy, he used a different approach in medicine. Ibn Sina contributed inventively to the development of inductive logic, which he used to pioneer the idea of a syndrome. In his medical writings, Avicenna was the first to describe the methods of agreement, difference and concomitant variation which are critical to inductive logic and the scientific method.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Ibn Hazm (994–1064) wrote the "Scope of Logic", in which he stressed on the importance of sense perception as a source of knowledge. Al-Ghazali (Algazel) (1058–1111) had an important influence on the use of logic in theology, making use of Avicennian logic in Kalam.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (b. 1149) criticised Aristotle's "first figure" and developed a form of inductive logic, foreshadowing the system of inductive logic developed by John Stuart Mill (1806–1873). Systematic refutations of Greek logic were written by the Illuminationist school, founded by Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi (1155–1191), who developed the idea of "decisive necessity", an important innovation in the history of logical philosophical speculation, and in favour of inductive reasoning.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Avicenna's proof for the existence of God was the first ontological argument, which he proposed in the "Metaphysics" section of "The Book of Healing". This was the first attempt at using the method of a priori proof, which utilizes intuition and reason alone. Avicenna's proof of God's existence is unique in that it can be classified as both a cosmological argument and an ontological argument. "It is ontological insofar as ‘necessary existence’ in intellect is the first basis for arguing for a Necessary Existent". The proof is also "cosmological insofar as most of it is taken up with arguing that contingent existents cannot stand alone and must end up in a Necessary Existent."


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Islamic philosophy, imbued as it is with Islamic theology, distinguishes more clearly than Aristotelianism the difference between essence and existence. Whereas existence is the domain of the contingent and the accidental, essence endures within a being beyond the accidental. This was first described by Avicenna's works on metaphysics, who was himself influenced by al-Farabi.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Some orientalists (or those particularly influenced by Thomist scholarship) argued that Avicenna was the first to view existence ("wujud") as an accident that happens to the essence ("mahiyya"). However, this aspect of ontology is not the most central to the distinction that Avicenna established between essence and existence. One cannot therefore make the claim that Avicenna was the proponent of the concept of essentialism "per se", given that existence ("al-wujud") when thought of in terms of necessity would ontologically translate into a notion of the "Necessary-Existent-due-to-Itself" ("wajib al-wujud bi-dhatihi"), which is without description or definition and, in particular, without quiddity or essence ("la mahiyya lahu"). Consequently, Avicenna's ontology is 'existentialist' when accounting for being–"qua"–existence in terms of necessity ("wujub"), while it is essentialist in terms of thinking about being–"qua"–existence in terms of "contingency–"qua"–possibility" ("imkan" or "mumkin al-wujud", meaning "contingent being").


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Some argue that Avicenna anticipated Frege and Bertrand Russell in "holding that existence is an accident of accidents" and also anticipated Alexius Meinong's "view about nonexistent objects." He also provided early arguments for "a "necessary being" as cause of all other existents."


title: Islamic philosophy

text: The idea of "essence preced[ing] existence" is a concept which dates back to Avicenna and his school as well as Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi and his Illuminationist philosophy. "Existence preced[ing] essence", the opposite (existentialist) notion, was developed in the works of Averroes and Mulla Sadra's transcendent theosophy.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Ibn al-Nafis wrote the "Theologus Autodidactus" as a defense of "the system of Islam and the Muslims' doctrines on the missions of Prophets, the religious laws, the resurrection of the body, and the transitoriness of the world." The book presents rational arguments for bodily resurrection and the immortality of the human soul, using both demonstrative reasoning and material from the hadith corpus as forms of evidence. Later Islamic scholars viewed this work as a response to Avicenna's metaphysical argument on spiritual resurrection (as opposed to bodily resurrection), which was earlier criticized by al-Ghazali.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: The Muslim physician-philosophers, Avicenna and Ibn al-Nafis, developed their own theories on the soul. They both made a distinction between the soul and the spirit, and in particular, the Avicennian doctrine on the nature of the soul was influential among the Scholastics. Some of Avicenna's views on the soul included the idea that the immortality of the soul is a consequence of its nature, and not a purpose for it to fulfill. In his theory of "The Ten Intellects", he viewed the human soul as the tenth and final intellect.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Avicenna generally supported Aristotle's idea of the soul originating from the heart, whereas Ibn al-Nafis on the other hand rejected this idea and instead argued that the soul "is related to the entirety and not to one or a few organs." He further criticized Aristotle's idea that every unique soul requires the existence of a unique source, in this case the heart. Ibn al-Nafis concluded that "the soul is related primarily neither to the spirit nor to any organ, but rather to the entire matter whose temperament is prepared to receive that soul" and he defined the soul as nothing other than "what a human indicates by saying ‘I’."


title: Islamic philosophy

text: While he was imprisoned in the castle of Fardajan near Hamadhan, Avicenna wrote his "Floating Man" thought experiment to demonstrate human self-awareness and the substantiality of the soul. He referred to the living human intelligence, particularly the active intellect, which he believed to be the hypostasis by which God communicates truth to the human mind and imparts order and intelligibility to nature. His "Floating Man" thought experiment tells its readers to imagine themselves suspended in the air, isolated from all , which includes no sensory contact with even their own bodies. He argues that, in this scenario, one would still have self-consciousness. He thus concludes that the idea of the self is not logically dependent on any physical thing, and that the soul should not be seen in relative terms, but as a primary given, a substance.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: This argument was later refined and simplified by René Descartes in epistemic terms when he stated: "I can abstract from the supposition of all external things, but not from the supposition of my own consciousness."


title: Islamic philosophy

text: While ancient Greek philosophers believed that the universe had an infinite past with no beginning, early medieval philosophers and theologians developed the concept of the universe having a finite past with a beginning. This view was inspired by the creationism shared by Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The Christian philosopher John Philoponus presented a detailed argument against the ancient Greek notion of an infinite past. Muslim and Arab Jewish philosophers like Al-Kindi, Saadia Gaon, and Al-Ghazali developed further arguments, with most falling into two broad categories: assertions of the "impossibility of the existence of an actual infinite" and of the "impossibility of completing an actual infinite by successive addition".


title: Islamic philosophy

text: In his "Quodlibeta", Thomas Aquinas wrote a commentary on Avicenna's definition of truth in his "Metaphysics" and explained it as follows:


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Early Islamic political philosophy emphasized an inexorable link between science and religion and the process of ijtihad to find truth.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen) reasoned that to discover the truth about nature, it is necessary to eliminate human opinion and error, and allow the universe to speak for itself. In his "Aporias against Ptolemy", Ibn al-Haytham further wrote the following comments on truth:


title: Islamic philosophy

text: The issue of free will versus predestination issue is one of the "most contentious topics in classical Islamic thought." In accordance with the Islamic belief in predestination, or divine preordainment ("al-qadā wa'l-qadar"), God has full knowledge and control over all that occurs. This is explained in Qur'anic verses such as "Say: 'Nothing will happen to us except what Allah has decreed for us: He is our protector'..." For Muslims, everything in the world that occurs, good or bad, has been preordained and nothing can happen unless permitted by God. According to Muslim theologians, although events are pre-ordained, man possesses free will in that he or she has the faculty to choose between right and wrong, and is thus responsible for his actions. According to Islamic tradition, all that has been decreed by God is written in "al-Lawh al-Mahfūz", the "Preserved Tablet".


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Atomistic philosophies are found very early in Islamic philosophy, and represent a synthesis of the Greek and Indian ideas. Like both the Greek and Indian versions, Islamic atomism was a charged topic that had the potential for conflict with the prevalent religious orthodoxy. Yet it was such a fertile and flexible idea that, as in Greece and India, it flourished in some schools of Islamic thought.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: The most successful form of Islamic atomism was in the Asharite school of philosophy, most notably in the work of the philosopher al-Ghazali (1058–1111). In Asharite atomism, atoms are the only perpetual, material things in existence, and all else in the world is "accidental" meaning something that lasts for only an instant. Nothing accidental can be the cause of anything else, except perception, as it exists for a moment. Contingent events are not subject to natural physical causes, but are the direct result of God's constant intervention, without which nothing could happen. Thus nature is completely dependent on God, which meshes with other Asharite Islamic ideas on causation, or the lack thereof.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Other traditions in Islam rejected the atomism of the Asharites and expounded on many Greek texts, especially those of Aristotle. An active school of philosophers in Spain, including the noted commentator Averroes (1126-1198 AD) explicitly rejected the thought of al-Ghazali and turned to an extensive evaluation of the thought of Aristotle. Averroes commented in detail on most of the works of Aristotle and his commentaries did much to guide the interpretation of Aristotle in later Jewish and Christian scholastic thought.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: There are several cosmological verses in the Qur'an (610–632) which some modern writers have interpreted as foreshadowing the expansion of the universe and possibly even the Big Bang theory:


title: Islamic philosophy

text: In contrast to ancient Greek philosophers who believed that the universe had an infinite past with no beginning, medieval philosophers and theologians developed the concept of the universe having a finite past with a beginning. This view was inspired by the creation myth shared by the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The Christian philosopher, John Philoponus, presented the first such argument against the ancient Greek notion of an infinite past. His reasoning was adopted by many, most notably; Muslim philosopher, Al-Kindi (Alkindus); the Jewish philosopher, Saadia Gaon (Saadia ben Joseph); and the Muslim theologian, Al-Ghazali (Algazel). They used two logical arguments against an infinite past, the first being the "argument from the impossibility of the existence of an actual infinite", which states:


title: Islamic philosophy

text: The second argument, the "argument from the impossibility of completing an actual infinite by successive addition", states:


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Both arguments were adopted by later Christian philosophers and theologians, and the second argument in particular became famous after it was adopted by Immanuel Kant in his thesis of the first antimony concerning time.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: In the 10th century, the Brethren of Purity published the "Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity", in which a heliocentric view of the universe is expressed in a section on cosmology:


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Cosmological ideas maintained by scholars such as al-Farabi and Ibn Sina, have strong resemblance with the Neo-Platonistic emanation cosmology. They identified the different Intellects, dividing the cosmos into different spheres, as similar to the Islamic angels. However, Islamic scholars repeatedly insist that all heavenly spheres as a whole form a single body and are moved by God, in contrast to Aristotelian cosmology in which God only moves the outer sphere. According to ibn Sina, but differing from al-Farabi, God is not part of the scheme of emanation. God emanated things in accordance with his will. In his "Theologia Aristotelis" he shows that through the manifestation of God, the intellects are aware of God and their role in the universe. Further Ibn Sina seems to distinguishes between two types of angels: One completely unrelated to matter, and another one, which exists in form of a superior kind of matter. The latter ones can carry messages between the heavenly spheres and the sublunary world, appearing in visions. Therefore, the higher angels dwell in higher spheres, while their subordinate angels appear in an intermediary realm. Ibn Sina's explanation might imply an attempt to consider revelation as part of the natural world. Also Qazwini lists a lower type of angels; earthly angels as indwelling forces of nature, who keep the world in order and never deviate from their duty. Qazwini believed that the existence of these angels could be proved by reason and effects of these angels on their assigned object.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: The Mu'tazili scientist and philosopher al-Jahiz (c. 776–869) was the first of the Muslim biologists and philosophers to develop an early theory of evolution. He speculated on the influence of the environment on animals, considered the effects of the environment on the likelihood of an animal to survive, and first described the struggle for existence, a precursor to natural selection. Al-Jahiz's ideas on the struggle for existence in the "Book of Animals" have been summarized as follows:


title: Islamic philosophy

text: In Chapter 47 of "India", entitled "On Vasudeva and the Wars of the Bharata," Abu Rayhan Biruni attempted to give a naturalistic explanation as to why the struggles described in the "Mahabharata" "had to take place." He explains it using natural processes that include biological ideas related to evolution, which has led several scholars to compare his ideas to Darwinism and natural selection. This is due to Biruni describing the idea of artificial selection and then applying it to nature:


title: Islamic philosophy

text: In the 13th century, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi explains how the elements evolved into minerals, then plants, then animals, and then humans. Tusi then goes on to explain how hereditary variability was an important factor for biological evolution of living things:


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Al-Dinawari (828–896), considered the founder of Arabic botany for his "Book of Plants", discussed plant evolution from its birth to its death, describing the phases of plant growth and the production of flowers and fruit.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Ibn Miskawayh's "al-Fawz al-Asghar" and the Brethren of Purity's "Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity" ("The Epistles of Ikhwan al-Safa") developed theories on evolution that possibly had an influence on Charles Darwin and his inception of Darwinism, but has at one time been criticized as overenthusiastic.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: English translations of the "Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity" were available from 1812, while Arabic manuscripts of the "al-Fawz al-Asghar" and "The Epistles of Ikhwan al-Safa" were also available at the University of Cambridge by the 19th century. These works likely had an influence on 19th-century evolutionists, and possibly Charles Darwin.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: In the 14th century, Ibn Khaldun further developed the evolutionary ideas found in the "Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity". The following statements from his 1377 work, the "Muqaddimah", express evolutionary ideas:


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Numerous other Islamic scholars and scientists, including the polymaths Ibn al-Haytham and Al-Khazini, discussed and developed these ideas. Translated into Latin, these works began to appear in the West after the Renaissance and may have influenced Western philosophy and science.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: The polymath Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen) is considered a pioneer of phenomenology. He articulated a relationship between the physical and observable world and that of intuition, psychology and mental functions. His theories regarding knowledge and perception, linking the domains of science and religion, led to a philosophy of existence based on the direct observation of reality from the observer's point of view. Much of his thought on phenomenology was not further developed until the 20th century.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: The philosophy of mind was studied in medieval Islamic psychological thought, which refers to the study of the "nafs" (literally "self" or "psyche" in Arabic) in the Islamic world, particularly during the Islamic Golden Age (8th–15th centuries) as well as modern times (20th–21st centuries), and is related to psychology, psychiatry and the neurosciences.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: The Arab polymath al-Hasan Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen; died c. 1041) presented a thorough mathematical critique and refutation of Aristotle's conception of place ("topos") in his "Risala/Qawl fi’l-makan" ("Treatise/Discourse on Place").


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Aristotle's "Physics" (Book IV – "Delta") stated that the place of something is the two-dimensional boundary of the containing body that is at rest and is in contact with what it contains. Ibn al-Haytham disagreed with this definition and demonstrated that place ("al-makan") is the imagined (three-dimensional) void ("al-khala' al-mutakhayyal") between the inner surfaces of the containing body. He showed that place was akin to space, foreshadowing Descartes's notion of place as space qua "Extensio" or even Leibniz's "analysis situs". Ibn al-Haytham's mathematization of place rested on several geometric demonstrations, including his study on the sphere and other solids, which showed that the sphere ("al-kura") is the largest in magnitude (volumetric) with respect to other geometric solids that have equal surface areas. For instance, a sphere that has an equal surface area to that of a cylinder, would be larger in (volumetric) magnitude than the cylinder; hence, the sphere occupies a larger place than that occupied by the cylinder; unlike what is entailed by Aristotle's definition of place: that this sphere and that cylinder occupy places that are equal in magnitude. Ibn al-Haytham rejected Aristotle's philosophical concept of place on mathematical grounds. Later, the philosopher 'Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi (13th century) tried to defend the Aristotelian conception of place in a treatise titled: "Fi al-Radd ‘ala Ibn al-Haytham fi al-makan" ("A refutation of Ibn al-Haytham's place"), although his effort was admirable from a philosophical standpoint, it was unconvincing from the scientific and mathematical viewpoints.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Ibn al-Haytham also discussed space perception and its epistemological implications in his "Book of Optics" (1021). His experimental proof of the intromission model of vision led to changes in the way the visual perception of space was understood, contrary to the previous emission theory of vision supported by Euclid and Ptolemy. In "tying the visual perception of space to prior bodily experience, Alhacen unequivocally rejected the


title: Islamic philosophy

text: intuitiveness of spatial perception and, therefore, the autonomy of vision. Without tangible notions of distance and size for


title: Islamic philosophy

text: In the medieval Islamic world, an elementary school was known as a "maktab", which dates back to at least the 10th century. Like madrasahs (which referred to higher education), a maktab was often attached to a mosque. In the 11th century, Ibn Sina (known as "Avicenna" in the West), in one of his books, wrote a chapter dealing with the "maktab" entitled "The Role of the Teacher in the Training and Upbringing of Children", as a guide to teachers working at "maktab" schools. He wrote that children can learn better if taught in classes instead of individual tuition from private tutors, and he gave a number of reasons for why this is the case, citing the value of competition and emulation among pupils as well as the usefulness of group discussions and debates. Ibn Sina described the curriculum of a "maktab" school in some detail, describing the curricula for two stages of education in a "maktab" school.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Ibn Sina wrote that children should be sent to a "maktab" school from the age of 6 and be taught primary education until they reach the age of 14. During which time, he wrote that they should be taught the Qur'an, Islamic metaphysics, language, literature, Islamic ethics, and manual skills (which could refer to a variety of practical skills).


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Ibn Sina refers to the secondary education stage of "maktab" schooling as the period of specialization, when pupils should begin to acquire manual skills, regardless of their social status. He writes that children after the age of 14 should be given a choice to choose and specialize in subjects they have an interest in, whether it was reading, manual skills, literature, preaching, medicine, geometry, trade and commerce, craftsmanship, or any other subject or profession they would be interested in pursuing for a future career. He wrote that this was a transitional stage and that there needs to be flexibility regarding the age in which pupils graduate, as the student's emotional development and chosen subjects need to be taken into account.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: The pioneering development of the scientific method by the Arab Ash'ari polymath Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen) was an important contribution to the philosophy of science. In the "Book of Optics" (c. 1025 CE), his scientific method was very similar to the modern scientific method and consisted of the following procedures:


title: Islamic philosophy

text: In "The Model of the Motions", Ibn al-Haytham also describes an early version of Occam's razor, where he employs only minimal hypotheses regarding the properties that characterize astronomical motions, as he attempts to eliminate from his planetary model the cosmological hypotheses that cannot be observed from Earth.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: In "Aporias against Ptolemy", Ibn al-Haytham commented on the difficulty of attaining scientific knowledge:


title: Islamic philosophy

text: He held that the criticism of existing theories—which dominated this book—holds a special place in the growth of scientific knowledge:


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Ibn al-Haytham attributed his experimental scientific method and scientific skepticism to his Islamic faith. He believed that human beings are inherently flawed and that only God is perfect. He reasoned that to discover the truth about nature, it is necessary to eliminate human opinion and error, and allow the universe to speak for itself. In "The Winding Motion", Ibn al-Haytham further wrote that faith should only apply to prophets of Islam and not to any other authorities, in the following comparison between the Islamic prophetic tradition and the demonstrative sciences:


title: Islamic philosophy

text: His contemporary Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī also introduced an early scientific method in nearly every field of inquiry he studied. For example, in his treatise on mineralogy, "Kitab al-Jamahir" ("Book of Precious Stones"), he is "the most exact of experimental scientists", while in the introduction to his study of India, he declares that "to execute our project, it has not been possible to follow the geometric method" and develops comparative sociology as a scientific method in the field. He was also responsible for introducing the experimental method into mechanics, the first to conduct elaborate experiments related to astronomical phenomena, and a pioneer of experimental psychology.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Unlike his contemporary Avicenna's scientific method where "general and universal questions came first and led to experimental work", al-Biruni developed scientific methods where "universals came out of practical, experimental work" and "theories are formulated after discoveries." During his debate with Avicenna on natural philosophy, al-Biruni made the first real distinction between a scientist and a philosopher, referring to Avicenna as a philosopher and considering himself to be a mathematical scientist.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Al-Biruni's scientific method was similar to the modern scientific method in many ways, particularly his emphasis on repeated experimentation. Biruni was concerned with how to conceptualize and prevent both systematic errors and random errors, such as "errors caused by the use of small instruments and errors made by human observers." He argued that if instruments produce random errors because of their imperfections or idiosyncratic qualities, then multiple observations must be taken, analyzed qualitatively, and on this basis, arrive at a "common-sense single value for the constant sought", whether an arithmetic mean or a "reliable estimate."


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Avicenna (Ibn Sina) is considered the father of modern medicine, for his introduction of experimental medicine and clinical trials, the experimental use and testing of drugs, and a precise guide for practical experimentation in the process of discovering and proving the effectiveness of medical substances, in his medical encyclopedia, "The Canon of Medicine" (11th century), which was the first book dealing with experimental medicine. It laid out the following rules and principles for testing the effectiveness of new drugs or medications, which still form the basis of modern clinical trials:


title: Islamic philosophy

text: The first documented description of a peer review process is found in the "Ethics of the Physician" written by Ishaq bin Ali al-Rahwi (854–931) of al-Raha, Syria, who describes the first medical peer review process. His work, as well as later Arabic medical manuals, state that a visiting physician must always make duplicate notes of a patient's condition on every visit. When the patient was cured or had died, the notes of the physician were examined by a local medical council of other physicians, who would review the practising physician's notes to decide whether his/her performance have met the required standards of medical care. If their reviews were negative, the practicing physician could face a lawsuit from a maltreated patient.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Avicenna's most influential theory in epistemology is his theory of knowledge, in which he developed the concept of tabula rasa. He argued that the "human intellect at birth is rather like a tabula rasa, a pure potentiality that is actualized through education and comes to know" and that knowledge is attained through "empirical familiarity with objects in this world from which one abstracts universal concepts" which is developed through a "syllogistic method of reasoning; observations lead to prepositional statements, which when compounded lead to further abstract concepts."


title: Islamic philosophy

text: In the 12th century, Ibn Tufail further developed the concept of tabula rasa in his Arabic novel, "Hayy ibn Yaqzan", in which he depicted the development of the mind of a feral child "from a tabula rasa to that of an adult, in complete isolation from society" on a desert island. The Latin translation of his work, entitled "Philosophus Autodidactus", published by Edward Pococke the Younger in 1671, had an influence on John Locke's formulation of tabula rasa in "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding".


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Islamic eschatology is concerned with the "Qiyamah" (end of the world; Last Judgement) and the final judgement of humanity. Eschatology relates to one of the six articles of faith ("aqidah") of Islam. Like the other Abrahamic religions, Islam teaches the bodily resurrection of the dead, the fulfillment of a divine plan for creation, and the immortality of the human soul (though Jews do not necessarily view the soul as eternal); the righteous are rewarded with the pleasures of "Jannah" (Heaven), while the unrighteous are punished in "Jahannam" (Hell). A significant fraction (one third, in fact) of the Quran deals with these beliefs, with many "hadith" elaborating on the themes and details. Islamic apocalyptic literature describing the Armageddon is often known as "fitna" (a test) and "malahim" (or "ghayba" in the Shi'a tradition).


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Ibn al-Nafis dealt with Islamic eschatology in some depth in his "Theologus Autodidactus", where he rationalized the Islamic view of eschatology using reason and science to explain the events that would occur according to Islamic eschatology. He presented his rational and scientific arguments in the form of Arabic fiction, hence his "Theologus Autodidactus" may be considered the earliest science fiction work.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Sharia () refers to the body of Islamic law. The term means "way" or "path"; it is the legal framework within which public and some private aspects of life are regulated for those living in a legal system based on Islamic principles of jurisprudence. Fiqh is the term for Islamic jurisprudence, made up of the rulings of Islamic jurists. A component of Islamic studies, Fiqh expounds the methodology by which Islamic law is derived from primary and secondary sources.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Mainstream Islam distinguish "fiqh", which means understanding details and inferences drawn by scholars, from "sharia" that refers to principles that lie behind the fiqh. Scholars hope that "fiqh" and "sharia" are in harmony in any given case, but they cannot be sure.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: The Islamic philosophers, Ibn Tufail (Abubacer) and Ibn al-Nafis, were pioneers of the philosophical novel. Ibn Tufail wrote the first fictional Arabic novel "Hayy ibn Yaqdhan" ("Philosophus Autodidactus") as a response to al-Ghazali's "The Incoherence of the Philosophers", and then Ibn al-Nafis also wrote a fictional novel "Theologus Autodidactus" as a response to Ibn Tufail's "Philosophus Autodidactus". Both of these novels had protagonists (Hayy in "Philosophus Autodidactus" and Kamil in "Theologus Autodidactus") who were autodidactic individuals spontaneously generated in a cave and living in seclusion on a desert island, both being the earliest examples of a desert island story. However, while Hayy lives alone on the desert island for most of the story in "Philosophus Autodidactus", the story of Kamil extends beyond the desert island setting in "Theologus Autodidactus", developing into the first example of a science fiction novel.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Ibn al-Nafis described his book "Theologus Autodidactus" as a defense of "the system of Islam and the Muslims' doctrines on the missions of Prophets, the religious laws, the resurrection of the body, and the transitoriness of the world." He presents rational arguments for bodily resurrection and the immortality of the human soul, using both demonstrative reasoning and material from the hadith corpus to prove his case. Later Islamic scholars viewed this work as a response to the metaphysical claim of Avicenna and Ibn Tufail that bodily resurrection cannot be proven through reason, a view that was earlier criticized by al-Ghazali.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: A Latin translation of "Philosophus Autodidactus" was published in 1671, prepared by Edward Pococke the Younger. The first English translation by Simon Ockley was published in 1708, and German and Dutch translations were also published at the time. "Philosophus Autodidactus" went on to have a significant influence on European literature, and became an influential best-seller throughout Western Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. These translations later inspired Daniel Defoe to write "Robinson Crusoe", which also featured a desert island narrative and was regarded as the first novel in English.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: "Philosophus Autodidactus" also had a "profound influence" on modern Western philosophy. It became "one of the most important books that heralded the Scientific Revolution" and European Enlightenment, and the thoughts expressed in the novel can be found in "different variations and to different degrees in the books of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Isaac Newton, and Immanuel Kant." The novel inspired the concept of "tabula rasa" developed in "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" (1690) by Locke, who was a student of Pococke. "Philosophus Autodidactus" also developed the themes of empiricism, tabula rasa, nature versus nurture, condition of possibility, materialism, and Molyneux's Problem. The novel also inspired Robert Boyle, another acquaintance of Pococke, to write his own philosophical novel set on an island, "The Aspiring Naturalist". Other European scholars influenced by "Philosophus Autodidactus" include Gottfried Leibniz, Melchisédech Thévenot, John Wallis, Christiaan Huygens, George Keith, Robert Barclay, the Quakers, and Samuel Hartlib.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Early Islamic political philosophy emphasized an inexorable link between science and religion, and the process of ijtihad to find truth—in effect "all" philosophy was "political" as it had real implications for governance. This view was challenged by the Mutazilite philosophers, who held a more secular view and were supported by secular aristocracy who sought freedom of action independent of the Caliphate. The only Greek political treatise known to medieval Muslims at the time was Plato's "Republic" and the Laws. By the end of the Islamic Golden Age, however, the Asharite view of Islam had in general triumphed.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Islamic political philosophy, was, indeed, rooted in the very sources of Islam, i.e. the Qur'an and the Sunnah, the words and practices of Muhammad. However, in the Western thought, it is generally known that it was a specific area peculiar merely to the great philosophers of Islam: al-Kindi (Alkindus), al-Farabi (Alfarabi), İbn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn Bajjah (Avempace), Ibn Rushd (Averroes), and Ibn Khaldun. The political conceptions of Islam such as kudrah, sultan, ummah, cemaa -and even the "core" terms of the Qur'an, i.e. ibada, din, rab and ilah- is taken as the basis of an analysis. Hence, not only the ideas of the Muslim political philosophers but also many other jurists and ulama posed political ideas and theories. For example, the ideas of the Khawarij in the very early years of Islamic history on Khilafa and Ummah, or that of Shia Islam on the concept of Imamah are considered proofs of political thought. The clashes between the Ehl-i Sunna and Shia in the 7th and 8th centuries had a genuine political character.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: The 14th-century Arab scholar Ibn Khaldun is considered one of the greatest political theorists. The British philosopher-anthropologist Ernest Gellner considered Ibn Khaldun's definition of government, "an institution which prevents injustice other than such as it commits itself", the best in the history of political theory.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: The first detailed studies on the subject of historiography and the first critiques on historical methods appeared in the works of the Arab Ash'ari polymath Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406), who is regarded as the father of historiography, cultural history, and the philosophy of history, especially for his historiographical writings in the "Muqaddimah" (Latinized as "Prolegomena") and "Kitab al-Ibar" ("Book of Advice"). His "Muqaddimah" also laid the groundwork for the observation of the role of state, communication, propaganda and systematic bias in history, and he discussed the rise and fall of civilizations.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: There is an important question on the relation of religion and philosophy, reason and faith and so on. In one hand there is extraordinary importance attached to religion in Islamic civilization and in other hand they created certain doctrines in respect to reason and religion.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: The social philosopher and Ash'ari polymath Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) was the last major Islamic philosopher from Tunis, North Africa. In his "Muqaddimah", he developed the earliest theories on social philosophy, in formulating theories of social cohesion and social conflict. His "Muqaddimah" was also the introduction to a seven volume analysis of universal history.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Ibn Khaldun is considered the "father of sociology", "father of historiography", and "father of the philosophy of history" by some, for allegedly being the first to discuss the topics of sociology, historiography and the philosophy of history in detail.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Islamic philosophy found an audience with the Jews, to whom belongs the honor of having transmitted it to the Christian world. A series of eminent men—such as the Ibn Tibbons, Narboni, Gersonides—joined in translating the Arabic philosophical works into Hebrew and commenting upon them. The works of Ibn Rushd especially became the subject of their study, due in great measure to Maimonides, who, in a letter addressed to his pupil Joseph ben Judah, spoke in the highest terms of Ibn Rushd's commentary.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: The oldest Jewish religio-philosophical work preserved in Arabic is that of Saadia Gaon (892–942), "Emunot ve-Deot", "The Book of Beliefs and Opinions". In this work Saadia treats the questions that interested the Mutakallamin, such as the creation of matter, the unity of God, the divine attributes, the soul, etc. Saadia criticizes other philosophers severely. For Saadia there was no problem as to creation: God created the world "ex nihilo", just as the Bible attests; and he contests the theory of the Mutakallamin in reference to atoms, which theory, he declares, is just as contrary to reason and religion as the theory of the philosophers professing the eternity of matter.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: To prove the unity of God, Saadia uses the demonstrations of the Mutakallamin. Only the attributes of essence ("sifat al-dhatia") can be ascribed to God, but not the attributes of action ("sifat-al-fi'aliya"). The soul is a substance more delicate even than that of the celestial spheres. Here Saadia controverts the Mutakallamin, who considered the soul an "accident" "'arad" (compare Guide for the Perplexed i. 74), and employs the following one of their premises to justify his position: "Only a substance can be the substratum of an accident" (that is, of a non-essential property of things). Saadia argues: "If the soul be an accident only, it can itself have no such accidents as wisdom, joy, love," etc. Saadia was thus in every way a supporter of the Kalam; and if at times he deviated from its doctrines, it was owing to his religious views.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Since no idea and no literary or philosophical movement ever germinated on Persian or Arabian soil without leaving its impress on the Jews, Al Ghazali found an imitator in the person of Judah ha-Levi. This poet also took upon himself to free his religion from what he saw as the shackles of speculative philosophy, and to this end wrote the "Kuzari," in which he sought to discredit all schools of philosophy alike. He passes severe censure upon the Mutakallimun for seeking to support religion by philosophy. He says, "I consider him to have attained the highest degree of perfection who is convinced of religious truths without having scrutinized them and reasoned over them" ("Kuzari," v.). Then he reduced the chief propositions of the Mutakallamin, to prove the unity of God, to ten in number, describing them at length, and concluding in these terms: "Does the Kalam give us more information concerning God and His attributes than the prophet did?" (Ib. iii. and iv.) Aristotelianism finds no favor in Judah ha-Levi's eyes, for it is no less given to details and criticism; Neoplatonism alone suited him somewhat, owing to its appeal to his poetic temperament.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Similarly the reaction in favour of stricter Aristotelianism, as found in Averroes, had its Jewish counterpart in the work of Maimonides. Later Jewish philosophers, such as Gersonides and Elijah Delmedigo, followed the school of Averroes and played a part in transmitting Averroist thought to medieval Europe.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: In Spain and Italy, Jewish translators such as Abraham de Balmes and Jacob Mantino translated Arabic philosophic literature into Hebrew and Latin, contributing to the development of modern European philosophy.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: The death of Ibn Rushd (Averroës) effectively marks the end of a particular discipline of Islamic philosophy usually called the "Peripatetic Arabic School", and philosophical activity declined significantly in western Islamic countries, namely in Islamic Spain and North Africa, though it persisted for much longer in the Eastern countries, in particular Iran and India. Contrary to the traditional view, Dimitri Gutas and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy consider the period between the 11th and 14th centuries to be the true "Golden Age" of Arabic and Islamic philosophy, initiated by Al-Ghazali's successful integration of logic into the Madrasah curriculum and the subsequent rise of Avicennism.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Since the political power shift in Western Europe (Spain and Portugal) from Muslim to Christian control, the Muslims naturally did not practice philosophy in Western Europe. This also led to some loss of contact between the 'west' and the 'east' of the Islamic world. Muslims in the 'east' continued to do philosophy, as is evident from the works of Ottoman scholars and especially those living in Muslim kingdoms within the territories of present-day Iran and India, such as Shah Waliullah and Ahmad Sirhindi. This fact has escaped most pre-modern historians of Islamic (or Arabic) philosophy. In addition, logic has continued to be taught in religious seminaries up to modern times.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: After Ibn Rushd, there arose many later schools of Islamic Philosophy such as those founded by Ibn Arabi and Shi'ite Mulla Sadra. These new schools are of particular importance, as they are still active in the Islamic world. The most important among them are:


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Illuminationist philosophy was a school of Islamic philosophy founded by Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi in the 12th century. This school is a combination of Avicenna's philosophy and ancient Iranian philosophy, with many new innovative ideas of Suhrawardi. It is often described as having been influenced by Neoplatonism.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: In logic in Islamic philosophy, systematic refutations of Greek logic were written by the Illuminationist school, founded by Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi (1155–1191), who developed the idea of "decisive necessity", an important innovation in the history of logical philosophical speculation.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Transcendent theosophy is the school of Islamic philosophy founded by Mulla Sadra in the 17th century. His philosophy and ontology is considered to be just as important to Islamic philosophy as Martin Heidegger's philosophy later was to Western philosophy in the 20th century. Mulla Sadra bought "a new philosophical insight in dealing with the nature of reality" and created "a major transition from essentialism to existentialism" in Islamic philosophy, several centuries before this occurred in Western philosophy.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: The idea of "essence precedes existence" is a concept which dates back to Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and his school of Avicennism as well as Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi and his Illuminationist philosophy. The opposite idea of "Existence precedes essence" was thus developed in the works of Averroes and Mulla Sadra as a reaction to this idea and is a key foundational concept of existentialism.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: For Mulla Sadra, "existence precedes the essence and is thus principle since something has to exist first and then have an essence." This is primarily the argument that lies at the heart of Mulla Sadra's Transcendent Theosophy. Sayyid Jalal Ashtiyani later summarized Mulla Sadra's concept as follows:


title: Islamic philosophy

text: More careful approaches are needed in terms of thinking about philosophers (and theologians) in Islam in terms of phenomenological methods of investigation in ontology (or onto-theology), or by way of comparisons that are made with Heidegger's thought and his critique of the history of metaphysics.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: The tradition of Islamic philosophy is still very much alive today, particularly among followers of Suhrawardi's "Hikmat al-Ishraq" ("Illumination Philosophy") and Mulla Sadra's "Hikmat-e-Mota'aliye" ("Transcendent Theosophy"). Another figure is Muhammad Iqbal, who reshaped and revitalized Islamic philosophy among the Muslims of the Indian sub-continent in the early 20th century. His "The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam"  is a milestone in the modern political philosophy of Islam.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Philosophy has not been without criticism amongst Muslims, both contemporary and past. The imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, for whom the Hanbali school of thought is named, rebuked philosophical discussion, once telling proponents of it that he was secure in his religion, but that they were "in doubt, so go to a doubter and argue with him (instead)." Today, Islamic philosophical thought has also been criticized by scholars of the modern Salafi movement.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: There would be many Islamic thinkers who were not enthusiastic about the potential of philosophy, but it would be incorrect to assume that they opposed it simply because it was a "foreign science". Oliver Leaman, an expert on Islamic philosophy, points out that the objections of notable theologians are rarely directed at philosophy itself, but rather at the conclusions the philosophers arrived at. Even the 11th century al-Ghazali, known for his "Incoherence of the Philosophers" critique of philosophers, was himself an expert in philosophy and logic. His criticism was that they arrived at theologically erroneous conclusions. In his view the three most serious of these were believing in the co-eternity of the universe with God, denying the bodily resurrection, and asserting that God only has knowledge of abstract universals, not of particular things, though not all philosophers subscribed to these same views.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: In recent studies by Muslim contemporary thinkers that aim at "renewing the impetus of philosophical thinking in Islam," the philosopher and theorist Nader El-Bizri offers a critical analysis of the conventions that dominate mainstream academic and epistemic approaches in studying Islamic philosophy. These approaches, of methodology and historiography are looked at from archival standpoints within Oriental and Mediaevalist Studies, fail to recognize the fact that philosophy in Islam can still be a living intellectual tradition. He maintains that its renewal requires a radical reform in ontology and epistemology within Islamic thought. El-Bizri's interpretations of Avicenna (Ibn Sina) from the standpoint of Heidegger's critique of the history of metaphysics, and specifically against the background of the unfolding of the essence of technology, aim at finding new pathways in ontology that are not simply Avicennian nor Heideggerian, even though El-Bizri's approach in rethinking "falsafa" amounts to a "Neo-Avicennism" that carries resonances with novel modern philosophical ways of reading Aristotelianism and Thomism. El-Bizri engages contemporary issues in philosophy through a fundamental critical analytic of the evolution of key concepts in the history of ontology and epistemology. Nader El-Bizri is a modernist in outlook since he aims at bringing newness to the tradition rather than simply reproduce it or being in rupture with it.


title: Islamic philosophy

text: Maani’ Hammad al-Juhani, (a member of the Consultative Council and General Director, World Assembly of Muslim Youth)


title: Islamic philosophy

text: "philosophy, as defined by the philosophers, is one of the most dangerous falsehoods and most vicious in fighting faith and religion on the basis of logic, which it is very easy to use to confuse people in the name of reason, interpretation and metaphor that distort the religious texts".


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: Sérgio Vieira de Mello (; 15 March 1948 – 19 August 2003) was a Brazilian United Nations diplomat who worked on several UN humanitarian and political programs for over 34 years. The Government of Brazil posthumously awarded the Sergio Vieira de Mello Medal to honor his legacy in promoting sustainable peace, international security and better living conditions for individuals in situations of armed conflict, challenges to which Sérgio Vieira de Mello had dedicated his life and career.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: He was killed in the Canal Hotel bombing in Iraq along with 20 other members of his staff on 19 August 2003 while working as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, with the rank of Undersecretary General, and United Nations Special Representative for Iraq. Before his death, he was considered a likely candidate for UN Secretary-General.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: Vieira de Mello was born in Rio de Janeiro to the diplomat Arnaldo Vieira de Mello and his wife Gilda on 15 March 1948. He had an older sister, Sônia, who suffered schizophrenia throughout her adult life. The family followed Arnaldo's diplomatic postings, such that Sérgio spent his early years in Buenos Aires, Genoa, Milan, Beirut and Rome. In 1965, he was studying philosophy at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, but since classes were frequently disrupted by strikes, he opted to continue his education in Europe. He continued at the University of Paris, where he studied philosophy under Vladimir Jankélévitch. While there, he stayed at an apartment at the Maison de l’Argentine, the student housing at the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris dedicated to students with families from Latin America. He participated in the 1968 student riots in Paris against the Charles de Gaulle government, and was hit in the head by a police baton, causing a permanent disfigurement above his right eye. He also wrote a letter published in the French leftist journal "Combat" in support of the riots, which made his return to Brazil, at this stage a military dictatorship, potentially dangerous. Thus, after graduating from the Sorbonne in 1969, he moved to Geneva to stay with a family friend, and found his first job as an editor at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: From UNHCR, Vieira de Mello moved to the field in Bangladesh during its War of Independence in 1971, and Sudan in 1972 following the Addis Ababa agreement which ended the First Sudanese Civil War and allowed the return of some 650,000 Sudanese refugees and displaced persons, and Cyprus after the Turkish part of Cyprus in 1974. These early assignments were operational, rather than political; he was helping to organize food aid, shelter and other types of aid to refugees. Sergio remained in the field, with a posting in Mozambique to assist refugees fleeing white rule and civil war in Zimbabwe (at the time, still Rhodesia) where he was deputy head of the office. Due to the absence of his boss, he was effectively running the mission.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: Early in his career, he also completed an MA in moral philosophy and a PhD by correspondence from the Sorbonne. His doctorate thesis, submitted in 1974, was entitled "The Role of Philosophy in Contemporary Society". In 1985, he submitted a second "state" doctorate, the highest degree in the French education system, entitled "Civitas Maxima: Origins, Foundations and Philosophical and Political Significance of the Supranationality Concept". In addition to his native Portuguese, Vieira de Mello was fluent in English, Spanish, Italian and French, as well as some conversational Arabic and Tetum.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: Vieira de Mello spent three years in charge of UNHCR operations in Mozambique during the civil war that followed its independence from Portugal in 1975, and three more years in Peru. Vieira de Mello also served as Special Envoy for the UNHCR for Cambodia, being the first and only UN Representative to hold talks with the Khmer Rouge. He became senior political adviser to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon between 1981 and 1983. In 1985, he returned to Latin America to serve as head of the Argentina office in Buenos Aires.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: Sérgio spent the 1990s involved in the clearing of land mines in Cambodia, and then in Yugoslavia. After working on the refugee problem in central Africa, he was made Assistant High Commissioner for Refugees in 1996 and became UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator two years later. He would hold this position simultaneously with others until January 2001. He was a special UN envoy in Kosovo after the UN took control over the Serbian province in 1999.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: Vieira de Mello was instrumental in dealing with the issue of boat people in Hong Kong. In mid-2000, he visited Fiji together with Don McKinnon, the Commonwealth of Nations' Secretary-General, in an attempt to assist in finding a negotiated settlement to the hostage situation, in which Fiji's Prime Minister and other members of Parliament were kidnapped and held as hostages during the 2000 Fijian coup d'état.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: Before becoming the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2002, he was the UN Transitional Administrator in East Timor from December 1999 to May 2002, guiding the former Portuguese colony occupied by Indonesia to independence. He was also special representative in Kosovo for an initial period of two months and was the coordinator of humanitarian operations at UN Headquarters.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: In May 2003 Vieira de Mello was appointed as the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General to Iraq, an appointment initially intended to last for four months. According to "The New York Times Magazine" journalist James Traub in his book "The Best Intentions", Vieira de Mello turned down the appointment three times before Kofi Annan was pressured by US President George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice. According to Samantha Power in her book "Sérgio: One Man's Fight to Save the World", Vieira de Mello met Bush at a meeting in March 2003, at which the two men discussed the human rights situation in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, a controversial issue for the United States. In June 2003, Vieira de Mello was part of a team responsible for inspecting Abu Ghraib prison before it was rebuilt.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: Vieira de Mello was working as United Nations Special Representative for Iraq when he was killed in the Canal Hotel bombing. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a leader of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization, claimed responsibility for the blast. A communiqué from al-Qaeda said that de Mello was assassinated because he had helped East Timor become an independent state, thereby stealing territory from the Islamic Caliphate.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: He had been mentioned in some circles as a suitable candidate for UN Secretary-General. His death was widely mourned, largely on account of his reputation for effectively working to promote peace. Despite his stated wishes to be buried in Rio de Janeiro, his hometown, the place he lived for 34 years, and where he was given a state funeral with full military honors that was attended by president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and other international dignitaries, his body was taken away from Brazil and he was buried at the Cimetière des Rois in Geneva, Switzerland. He was survived by his two sons, Adrien and Laurent.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: In 1973, he met and married Annie Personnaz, a French staff member at UNHCR Headquarters in Geneva, with whom he had two sons, Laurent and Adrien. They lived in the French town of Thonon-les-bains, before moving a few years later to a permanent home in the French village of Massongy, near the Geneva border.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: Despite still being married, the couple was separated for years prior to Sérgio's death, with a divorce lawsuit on January 9, 2003. After an initial hearing in May, Sérgio was bound to pay alimony to his formal spouse, but he also accepted full responsibility for, among other things, assuming the entire expenses of his sons regarding maintenance and education.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: From 2000 onwards, he was in a relationship with , an Argentine economist who studied at Harvard University, whom he had met in East Timor where she worked as part of the General Service support staff of the UN mission.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: Sérgio and Carolina had a civil union that lasted until his death. The civil union was the result of a lawsuit won by Larriera against his estranged wife, heirs and the estate, and was granted by a panel of three magistrates led by Judge Regina Fábregas Ferreira of the Family Court of the Capital District, Judiciary, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, after a process of more than ten years.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: Vieira de Mello presented his partner as fiancée to many friends and colleagues. This included King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia, a friend from the period he worked in the country, after visiting him while touring through Asia. The couple traveled to Brazil and Argentina to meet Sergio's and Carolina's family and introduce them to one another, and it is suggested that Sergio wanted to marry Carolina as soon as he was officially divorced. They intended to return to Switzerland after the mission in Iraq – where he would be reinstalled as High Commissioner for Human Rights – and, from there, establish their home and family.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: Carolina was summoned by Sérgio to work alongside him in Iraq, and therefore was at the Canal Hotel on the day of the bombing. She witnessed first responders trying to save Vieira de Mello from the wreckage of the building and even managed to establish contact with him moments before his death.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: Though the relationship was very familiar to colleagues at the UN, the entity fails to recognize officially the civil union between Sergio and Carolina, even after its recognition by the Judiciary branch in Brazil. Carolina claims that she was excluded from the list of survivors of the Canal Hotel bombing, and her comments were not taken into account for the report regarding the attack. After his death, she was not invited to any of the United Nations celebrations of his life, while the ex-wife Annie was indicated by the UN as Sergio's widow.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: Annie still lives in France, and has co-founded a Swiss charity – the Sérgio Vieira de Mello Foundation – with his two sons and close friends and colleagues to honor his name and memory. Adrien and Laurent now have five children, Sérgio's grandchildren.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: Carolina was received by Sérgio's family back in Rio de Janeiro, where she now lives with her mother-in-law, Gilda Vieira de Mello.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: Vieira de Mello received a number of posthumous awards and honours, chief of which was the Legion d'honneur, France's highest honor, given to his widow and two sons in Geneva, he was also awarded the Order of Rio Branco, the highest honor from the Government of Brazil to be given to a citizen, the Pedro Ernesto Medal, the highest honor in his hometown of Rio de Janeiro, in 2003. In April 2004, Sérgio Vieira de Mello was posthumously awarded the "Statesman of the Year Award" by the EastWest Institute. Also in 2004, he received the Pax Christi International Peace Award.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: Following the initiative of the Villa Decius Association, the "Polish Prize of Sérgio Vieira de Mello" was established in the year 2003 with the aim to promote human rights, democracy and tolerance and had its first edition in 2004.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: The Sérgio Vieira de Mello Center was founded by his mother, Gilda Vieira de Mello, and Sergio's surviving spouse Carolina Larriera, also a former UN diplomat and Harvard trained professional, to honor his legacy, and works with a network of supporters out of Brazil, Sergio's country of nationality and Timor-Leste, the country he helped create – around the world.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: The Sérgio Vieira de Mello Center works through a nationwide network of universities specialized in international relations and the future generation of world ambassadors. Specifically, the Sérgio Vieira de Mello Center focuses on the use of technology, entrepreneurism, and networks to mobilize mentors and disciples and build a sustainable peace model that can be easily replicated. It engages Harvard and MIT engineers and education professionals to empower local communities and schools. The Center matches ivory tower professionals with base of the pyramid and disenfranchised youth, identifying easily obtained opportunities. With ANAPRI, the National Association of International Relations Professionals is mobilizing Congress for more resources for the professionalization of the sector.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: The Center engages and actively supports a network of more than one hundred schools and institutions bearing Sérgio's name in Brazil and abroad, and provides teaching tools and in-kind material. It also runs the Gilda Vieira de Mello for her Son Sergio Vieira de Mello awarded annually in Geneva.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: The Sergio Vieira de Mello Foundation was created in 2007 to honor his memory, pursue his ideals and continue his unfinished mission. The Foundation was established in Geneva, at the initiative of his two sons and his estranged wife, with some friends and colleagues. In 2008, Kofi Annan launched the first annual lecture, followed by Sadako Ogata in 2009, by Bernard Kouchner in 2010, by José Manuel Durão Barroso in 2011, and by Cornelio Sommaruga in 2012. Lectures take place at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, in Geneva.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: On 11 December 2008, the United Nations General Assembly made history when it adopted Swedish-sponsored GA Resolution A/63/L.49 on the Strengthening of the Coordination of Emergency Assistance of the United Nations, that amongst other important humanitarian decisions, decided to designate 19 August as the World Humanitarian Day (WHD). The Resolution gives for the first time, a special recognition to all humanitarian and United Nations and associated personnel who have worked in the promotion of the humanitarian cause and those who have died in the cause of duty and urges all Member States, entities of the United Nations within existing resources, as well as the other International Organizations and Non-Governmental Organizations to observe it annually in an appropriate way. As a background to this landmark resolution, the family of Sérgio Vieira de Mello resolved to work towards having 19 August recognized as a befitting tribute to all humanitarian personnel. Early April 2008 the Board of the Sérgio Vieira de Mello Foundation prepared a draft Resolution to be sponsored and adopted by the General Assembly designating 19 August as World Humanitarian Day. France, Switzerland, Japan and Brazil, contacted with the draft Resolution, agreed to co-sponsor it.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: Sergio Vieira de Mello founded two Human Rights Agencies: the United Nations Housing Rights Programme and United Nations Human Rights Educational Project (UNHREP). The former, currently a part of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, aims to "assist States and other stakeholders with the implementation of their commitments in the Habitat Agenda". UNHREP aims to be "an educational facility for teaching Human Rights from a variety of angles. ... [as well as, eventually] international relations, conflict resolution, diplomacy and diplomatic etiquette".


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: After his death, the Italian city of Bologna has dedicated to Sergio Vieira de Mello a square ("Piazza Sérgio Vieira de Mello") situated in a modern part of the central quartiere Navile.


title: Sérgio Vieira de Mello

text: Vieira de Mello's life was the subject of the 2020 biopic "Sergio", starring Wagner Moura in the title role.


title: Ë

text: Ë, ë (e-diaeresis) is a letter in the Albanian, Kashubian, Emilian-Romagnol, Ladin, and Lenape alphabets. As a variant of the letter "e", it also appears in Acehnese, Afrikaans, Breton, Dutch, English, Filipino, French, Luxembourgish, Piedmontese, Russian, the Abruzzese dialect of the Neapolitan language, and the Ascolano dialect. The letter is also used in Seneca, Taiwanese Hokkien, Turoyo, and Uyghur when written in Latin script.


title: Ë

text: In Afrikaans, the trema (Afrikaans: "deelteken", ) is used mostly to indicate that the vowel should not be diphthongised: "geër" ("giver") is pronounced , and "geer" (a wedge-shaped piece of fabric) is pronounced .


title: Ë

text: Sometimes, however, the "deelteken" does not change the pronunciation. For example, in "reën" ("rain"), which is pronounced . The nonexistent word "*reen" would have been pronounced identically, and the "deelteken" is only etymological since the archaic form of "reën" is "regen". The "deelteken" indicates the removal of "g", and some older people still pronounce "reën" in two syllables ().


title: Ë

text: The "deelteken" does exactly what it means in Afrikaans ("separation mark") by marking the beginning of a new syllable and by separating it from the previous one. For example, "voël" ("bird") is pronounced in two syllables. Without the "deelteken", the word would become "voel" ("feel"), which is pronounced in one syllable.


title: Ë

text: "Ë" is the 8th letter of the Albanian alphabet and represents the vowel . It is the fourth most commonly used letter of the language, comprising 7.74 percent of all writings.