Philosophers, Mystics, and Other Sages: Wisdom in Early Islamic Thought

The notion of wisdom in early Islamic culture was quite intricate. In order to bring out the major semantic shades that this notion took on during the ninth through eleventh centuries, three models will be discussed, each of which is representative of a different school or approach: (1) adab, the wisdom of society; (2) falsafa, the wisdom of natural reason; and (3) taṣawwuf, the wisdom of divine inspiration. These movements all share the emphasis—deeply rooted in Islamic thought due to the Qur'ān—on 'ilm (knowledge) as the core of wisdom, but they differ in their specific understanding of this notion, as well as the particular meaning they attribute to its counterpart, 'amal (action), and its relation to knowledge. It is somewhere at the crossroads of these divergent takes on 'ilm and its rapport with 'amal that the early Islamic concept of wisdom is located.