Islamic Metaphysics, and the Myth of Western Universality.

The value of studying non-Western philosophy goes far beyond its usual framing as an optional add-on to the modern canon. This is a mistake: non-Western traditions have shaped Western thought itself. This essay focuses on Islamic philosophy, which offers a radically different metaphysical and epistemological framework — one that forces us to reconsider the philosophical enterprise.

Through a comparison of Ibn Sīnā and Aquinas, I will show how studying Islamic thought expands philosophy’s conceptual boundaries, challenges the supposed universality of reason, and reveals the global nature of metaphysical reflection.

Islamic Roots of Western Thought

British curricula tend to frame philosophy from Plato to Kant, sidelining its interconnected history. Islamic thinkers not only preserved Greek ideas but transformed them, inspiring figures like Aquinas. Islamic philosophy is not mere theology — it contains a rigorous metaphysics, a theory of selfhood, and an epistemology where reason, logic, and prophecy coexist.

Ibn Sīnā is often misinterpreted as merely an inheritor of Aristotle. Though inspired by Aristotle’s Metaphysics, he goes beyond transmission. He sought to create a coherent Islamic metaphysics in which the truths of reason, theology, and cosmology are harmonised.

Essence and Existence

His core distinction is between essence (māhiyya) — what something is (e.g. a triangle as a three-sided figure) — and existence (wujūd) — that it is. Most beings have an essence without necessitating existence; they are contingent. Only God is a being whose essence is to exist.

This idea prefigures ontological arguments but grounds them in realist metaphysics. It becomes foundational for Christian thinkers, especially Aquinas, yet originates in the Islamic world.

A Necessary God and the Chain of Being

Ibn Sīnā’s God is not the Qur’anic God who chooses to create, but a logical necessity. If anything exists, there must be a being that must exist. Creation flows via emanation: the Necessary Existent produces the first intellect, then the next, etc. The universe is eternal, ordered, and layered in a chain of being.

This Neoplatonic structure is metaphysically rigorous but diverges from Abrahamic voluntarism, cementing Ibn Sīnā as a philosopher, not a theologian.

The Floating Man and Rational Selfhood

He even employs a thought experiment: the Floating Man. Imagine a man created fully formed, suspended in air, with no sensory contact — yet still self-aware. This shows that self-awareness precedes sensory experience. It anticipates Descartes’ cogito by centuries, but in a different metaphysical system: the soul is not just a thinking substance, but a non-material essence known directly by the self.

Islamic thought anticipates rational psychology and a reflective, self-aware subject before Europe.

Prophecy, Intellect, and the Unity of Reason

Ibn Sīnā argues the cosmos flows from God in ordered layers, each corresponding to a level of intellect or soul. The universe is intelligible because it reflects the structure of the first cause. There is no room for divine whim — only structured necessity, a kind of metaphysical rebuttal to later “God of the gaps” thinking.

Crucially, he believed prophetic revelation arises from a perfected connection to the Active Intellect — the last emanated intellect closest to the human soul. Muhammad becomes a perfected philosopher — not opposed to reason, but its culmination. Thus, epistemology, psychology, and theology are unified into one intelligible system.

Aquinas: Christianizing the Framework

Aquinas is a crucial figure in Western philosophy, with major contributions to theology and metaphysics. He inherited key ideas from Islamic philosophy. Ibn Sīnā’s work was translated into Latin as Avicenna and formed a foundation for Christian metaphysical development.

Aquinas adopts the essence–existence distinction as central but integrates it into a Christian framework. Unlike Ibn Sīnā, Aquinas argues God’s essence is existence and that He chooses freely to create. For Ibn Sīnā, creation was necessary; for Aquinas, it is contingent and willed.

Ibn Sīnā’s God was metaphysically first, impersonal, abstract — the Necessary Existent. Aquinas reframes this as a personal God who acts with volition and love, more in line with Christian doctrine.

Diverging Worlds, Shared Structures

Their views on creation and cosmology mark a core divergence: metaphysics as logical structure (Ibn Sīnā) versus theology-informed metaphysics (Aquinas). Ibn Sīnā argued for eternal emanation; Aquinas insisted on creation ex nihilo — a temporal act in line with scripture.

This matters because studying Ibn Sīnā shows that Aquinas’s “universal truths” are culturally reframed. We see how philosophical tools migrate between traditions and shift meaning depending on theological assumptions.

Islamic philosophy becomes a mirror, revealing Western metaphysics not as self-contained but shaped by non-Western thought.

Conclusion: Rethinking Reason

The comparison between Ibn Sīnā and Aquinas shows that metaphysics is not fixed but contextual, evolving, and reframed by culture and theology. This challenges the idea that reason is a universal standard. Instead, we find multiple rationalities, each grounded in its worldview.

The value of non-Western philosophy lies not just in expanding the canon, but in destabilising the myth of Western philosophical autonomy.