When we look into how the concept of wisdom is understood in Islamic thought, two meanings of the concept stand out. First, wisdom is that which prevents one from evil or leads one to the good. In this sense, wisdom is seen as a means. The second meaning is that wisdom is knowing the essence or truth of things within human capacity and doing what is necessary accordingly. While wisdom involves a process, it points to an ultimate goal that humans should achieve. Considering these two meanings of wisdom, one can say that it expresses both the means and the end on the path of understanding the essence of things and doing that which is right and necessary.
However, one frequently comes across the argument that wisdom is essentially a Qur’anic concept. Although there are traces of the rich heritage of ancient times in the Islamic thinkers’ understandings of wisdom, the real inspiration, it is claimed, is taken from the Quran and hadith. The use of different words in the Quran to refer to wisdom leads to different interpretations of the meaning of the word. While some commentators define the concept of wisdom in the Qur’an by taking into account the basic meanings of the root h-k-m from which this word is derived, others have given more specific meanings to this concept with an Islamic perspective. However, when the dictionary meaning of wisdom is examined, it is seen that it has a more comprehensive range of meanings.
Looking at Islamic thinkers’ understandings of wisdom, we immediately note that they approach the concept from different angles. It is possible to classify their perspectives in the order of their appearance. Wisdom, according to the respective Muslim thinkers, is:
- The metaphysics that takes as its subject such abstract notions as excellence. (Farabi, Ibn Sina)
- Knowing the truth of existence and fulfilling its requirements, that is, the correspondence between knowledge and action. (Gazali, Suhrawardi)
- Philosophy as an activity of using reason to reach the truth of things or being. (Ibn Rushd)
- A set of theoretical and practical knowledges about the truths of things or of existence for the purpose of self-discipline. (Tusi)
Muslim philosopher Farabi (d. 950) defines wisdom as the perfect knowledge attained by perfect beings. Similarly, for Ibn Sina (d.1037) wisdom is metaphysics. It is the achievement of excellence by means of the soul’s conception of universals and affirmation of theoretical and practical truths. By his account, wisdom is a metaphysics that bestows perfection.
When we turn to Ghazali (d.1111), wisdom becomes a special variety of knowledge/science. This special science is granted to the scholar who acts according to his knowledge and remembers God with purity of heart. By this account, wisdom is not something that is earned but rather something granted to one who exerts him/herself.
The connection between philosophical thinking and virtuous life was implicitly present in the approaches of the Muslim thinkers but with Suhrawardi (d.1191), according to Sayyid Hussain Nasr, this link becomes an explicit one. From that point onwards, the person with wisdom is no longer seen as someone who engages in abstract intellectual speculations but rather someone who leads an ethical life according to wisdom. Thus Suhrawardi is considered as a turning point in the history of Islamic philosophy.
Unlike Gazali and Suhrawardi, Ibn Rushd (d.1198) understands the notion of wisdom in a more strictly philosophical sense. Rather than a correspondence between theory and practice, wisdom simply means abstract contemplation as such is equivalent of philosophical thinking.
For Nasiruddin Tusi (d.1274), wisdom is no longer an amalgam of theory and practice but rather an umbrella concept encompassing two fully crystallized types of knowledge: Wisdom as knowledge and wisdom as practice. The former, the theoretical wisdom, refers to objective science and study of nature and objects. This domain of entities is independent of the human will. The latter type of wisdom, the practical wisdom, is tied to human will and is concerned with the turning of the potentialities into actualities. If the theoretical wisdom deals with natural sciences, mathmetics and philosophy, the practical wisdom is concerned with morality/ethics, economy, and politics.
The different meanings given to wisdom by Islamic thinkers show that the word remained a general concept and was shaped by the dominant intellectual, ethical and political influences of the time.
With Suhrawardi, the turn towards a more ethical understanding of wisdom becomes salient. Wisdom is understood, together with metaphysics and philosophy, as knowing the truths of beings and things, and doing what is necessary. In this sense, wisdom is an ultimate goal. Everything that brings people closer to this ultimate goal is included in the range of meaning of wisdom. There are many means and possibilities that carry people to wisdom, but they are typically expressed in two main ways: reason and revelation.
In Islamic thought, wisdom has been understood as a true inner enlightenment that occurs in human beings through reason or revelation, or both. This inner enlightenment, which comes with knowledge, prevents human beings from evil and directs them to behave correctly. In this respect, wisdom provides both a mental and practical transformation.
Hatice Fakioğlu Bağcı is a research assistant at Istanbul Medeniyet University’s Faculty of Educational Sciences. She was a visiting researcher at Columbia University’s Philosophy Department for a year before completing her dissertation, “A Philosophical Investigation of Dewey and Gadamer’s Understandings of ‘Experience’ in Terms of Religious Education.” Her research interests are theology, philosophy, and religious education.