Pessin, Sarah

English

San Jose State University

Comparative Philosophy 3.2 (2012)  PESSIN 
Comparative Philosophy Volume 3, No. 2 (2012): 41-46 
Open Access / ISSN 2151-6014 
www.comparativephilosophy.org 
 
 
CONSTRUCTIVE ENGAGEMENT DIALOGUE (2.5) 
 
 
THOUGHT-SPACES, SPIRITUAL PRACTICES AND  
THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF TA’WĪ L 
 
SARAH PESSIN 
 
 
In Reason Unbound, Mohammad Azadpur provides an engaging and thought-
provoking study of medieval Islamic philosophy, finding in the pages of such thinkers 
as Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes grounds for dissolving a number of problematic 
modern philosophical dualisms between intellect and imagination, imagination and 
spiritual practice, intellect and spiritual practice, and philosophy and mysticism. 
In reflecting on Azadpur’s project, I offer three considerations: 
First, I address Azadpur’s opening question of Orientialism, and ask us to put that 
into conversation with his closing consideration of Corbin’s critique of Aquinas’ 
critique of Avicenna. In particular, I ask us to consider the possibility that there is a 
tacit Christian (Thomist or other) orientation to the Western Academic “thought 
space” that can limit the way we read texts and tell the history of philosophy within 
the Western academy. Thinking more broadly about the question of limiting lenses, I 
also question the role of Heidegger in Azadpur’s project. 
Next, I examine Azadpur’s classification of spiritual practices throughout his 
project and I ask for clarification about the precise nature of and relationship between 
such practices in medieval Islamic philosophy. 
Lastly, I address a prima facie difference between Azadpur and Corbin on 
symbolic transformation’s relation to reason, highlighting what appear to be their two 
competing senses of ta’wīl (the interpretive act of “returning a text to its origin” 
which Azadpur addresses throughout his study). 
 
1. FROM ORIENTALISM TO AQUINAS?: APPROACHING ISLAMIC 
PHILOSOPHY FROM WITHIN THE WESTERN “THOUGHT SPACE” 
 
In the opening pages to his study, Azadpur reflects with Muhsin Mahdi and Edward 
Said on a problematic sense of Orientalism according to which Islam “has been 
fundamentally misrepresented in the West” (Said 1979, 272) itself as a result of  
________________________ 
 
PESSIN, SARAH: Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Denver, USA. Email: 
spessin@du.edu 
42 
 
 
Comparative Philosophy 3.2 (2012)  PESSIN 
…Orientalist discourse [being] the systematic academic discipline of dominating, 
controlling, and managing the so-called Orient for the sake of the Western 
imperial political agenda…. (Azadpur 2011, 1) 
 
Said goes on to describe: 
 
…a dynamic exchange between individual authors and the large political 
concerns shared by the three great empires—British, French, and American—in 
whose intellectual territory [various Islamic writings] were produced. (Said 1979, 
14-15) 
 
Along these lines, Azadpur highlights Mahdi’s further elaboration that 
 
Oriental studies of Islam and Islamic civilization have been founded on a mixed 
bag of religious, cultural, ideological, ethnic (in some cases even racist) and 
scientific prejudgments and practical political interests. (Mahdi 1990, 96) 
 
Azadpur adds Mahdi’s further sense that studies of Islam have been “guided by 
irrational motives and political interests” (Mahdi 1990, 96). 
It is partly in way of counteracting this kind of trend in the study of Islam that 
Azadpur puts forth his own study of medieval Islamic philosophy, in particular 
following through on Mahdi’s own hint that a close study of “pre-modern” Islamic 
rationalism can lead us to a more integrated and complete sense of “reason.”   
At the very end of his project, Azadpur turns to Corbin’s critique of Aquinas’ 
rejection of the Islamic philosophical theory of Active Intellect. Corbin reads 
Aquinas’ critique through a religious lens, unpacking Aquinas’ dissatisfaction with 
Avicenna in terms of Aquinas’ own tacit Christian sense that it is the church—not a 
cosmic separate intellect—which mediates between God and human being. Corbin in 
this way contrasts a personal sense of salvation at the (tacit) core of Avicenna’s 
Islamic theory of Active Intellect with a more social sense of salvation—rooted in 
Catholic views on the church—at the (tacit) core of Aquinas’ rejection of Avicenna’s 
theory of Active Intellect. 
While Azadpur does not overtly ask his reader to link together this closing 
consideration with his opening reflection on Orientalism, I wonder if there is an 
important link here worth considering. Leaving aside Mahdi’s and Said’s political 
approach (i.e. their sense that misreadings of Islam are rooted in political interests 
with political implications), here I ask us simply to consider the possibility that 
certain Christian conceptual schemata have (at least at times) exerted tacit influence 
over the way that many of us read texts within the Western academy, including the 
way that many of us read and interpret medieval Islamic philosophy. I have in mind a 
certain Thomist methodology (practiced tacitly—or overtly—by some scholars and 
students) according to which a text of Islamic philosophy is criticized (or, is 
approached in a negative critical spirit) simply because (a) it is a text that was 
critiqued by Aquinas, or even because (b) it is a text that is not identical to Thomas’ 
own writings. The worry here is not that some Thomists don’t like Avicenna as much 
43 
 
 
Comparative Philosophy 3.2 (2012)  PESSIN 
as they like Aquinas; the worry here is that sometimes these scholars wind up writing 
versions of the history of philosophy that are informed by such preferences (without 
expressly stating that they are informed by such preferences), and then the students 
and other scholars who read these materials wind up being tacitly disposed to 
approaching Avicenna with some general sense that his philosophy is wrong. In this 
way, a lens of failure is tacitly applied to a text of Islamic philosophy, making it 
impossible for neutral readings and interpretations of these texts to take place.  
Prompted by Azadpur’s bookending his Reason Unbound with critiques of 
Orientalism and Aquinas, we might ask: Is it possible that Islamic philosophical 
concepts are sometimes overlaid by Thomist intuitions? Is it possible that textual 
misreadings (leading to misrepresentations) can occur when scholars and students 
tacitly (or overtly) approach texts of Islamic metaphysics already convinced that 
Aquinas’ metaphysics are better? 
My concern about the possible interference of Western methodological lenses in 
the study of Islam also leads me to question Azadpur’s own recourse to Heidegger in 
the project: While the introduction of Heidegger allows Azadpur to engage readers of 
medieval Islamic philosophy with questions of human authenticity, it does seem—as 
seen even in Azadpur’s emphasis on Corbin’s own surpassing of Heidegger—that 
Heidegger is perhaps very much a lens that Islamic philosophy can do without. To be 
sure, Azadpur invokes Heidegger to help us approach Islamic philosophy: Azadpur 
uses Heidegger to help us focus on self’s authentic move away from the “them” to the 
space in which things reveal themselves, itself linked by Azadpur to phronesis in 
Islamic philosophy. That said, Azadpur also emphasizes that Corbin dramatically 
goes beyond (and in this sense, we may say, goes against) Heidegger in replacing the 
end term of “being towards death” with the end term of “being towards beyond 
death” (35-7). But after introducing Corbin’s own religious modification (and in some 
strong sense, rejection) of key elements of Heidegger, it seems that Azadpur might 
not even want to invoke Heideggerian ideas as any kinds of benchmarks against 
which to measure Islamic philosophy; for in the context of Corbin’s rejection of a key 
Heideggerian insight, it seems that to the extent that something is truly Heideggerian, 
it will be devoid of precisely the kind of religious spirit that Azadpur’s study is out to 
capture. In that light, perhaps it would be best for Azadpur to resist the Western 
academic temptation to use Heidegger at all in his project. Perhaps Azadpur’s picture 
of Islamic philosophy, as rationalism-with-spiritual-practice, is precisely a picture 
which does not shine brighter through Heideggerian analysis; perhaps Islamic 
philosophy has more to offer Heidegger than vice versa, in which case we must ask 
Azadpur: Why invoke Heidegger in this project at all? 
 
2. ON THE NATURE AND KINDS OF SPIRITUAL PRACTICE 
 
I turn next to Azadpur’s discussion of spiritual practices. One of the key goals of the 
project is to show the intimate link between philosophy (as an exercise of knowledge) 
and spiritual transformation. Extending Hadot’s reading of ancient philosophy into 
the Islamic philosophical realm, Azadpur argues for Islamic rationalism as more than 
44 
 
 
Comparative Philosophy 3.2 (2012)  PESSIN 
just narrow theory construction or dry, disembodied knowledge acquisition; rather, 
Azadpur shows how in the very contours of their acts of mind philosophers such as 
Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes are able to manifest a rich engagement with deep 
wisdom, and as such, deep theological devotion. 
Reading Reason Unbound, one can find at least five different senses of ‘spiritual 
practice’. It is worth thinking more about how these all work together for Azadpur, as 
it is worth thinking more about whether one (or more) is the more primary sense of 
‘spiritual practice’ that Azadpur has in mind.  
1) - 2) The first two senses of ‘spiritual practice’ are related to two different 
ethical points of emphasis, viz. (a) the importance of ethical training as preparatory 
for philosophizing, and (b) the Aristotelian notion of phronesis – a particularly 
context-sensitive (and as such, not simply theoretical) focus on ethics. Highlighting 
the first ethical emphasis, Azadpur notes: 
 
According to Avicenna, the ethical training of the philosopher provides a gateway to the 
intellectual fulfillment of the individual by curtailing the appetites and passions…. (59) 
 
Highlighting the second ethical emphasis, Azadpur goes on to explain that in so 
curtailing the appetites and passions, ethical training allows the soul 
 
to achieve practical wisdom (i.e., to recognize the objective good and act for the sake of 
it). The practically wise soul perceives the relevant moral intentions enmattered in a 
situation and engages in action for their sake, rather than for the sake of values imposed 
on one’s actions external to that situation. Therefore, practical wisdom results in actions 
that have as their ends the unconditional good perceived in that situation of action.… (59; 
see too 76) 
 
While Azadpur is clear on how the ethical training leads to the phronesis, I would 
ask him to clarify whether the initial training or the resulting phronesis is more 
properly illustrative of the spiritual practice that he has in mind when he emphasizes 
that Islamic rationalism is itself deeply tied up with spiritual practice.  
I would also ask Azadpur to clarify how the ethical training and phronesis connect 
up with Islamic Law. To the extent that this ethical training is linked to the guidelines 
for living prescribed by Islamic Law (as emphasized, for example, in his analysis of 
Averroes at page 92), does this not in some sense trump the Aristotelian emphasis on 
phronesis? In other words, if the source of the ethical training is itself a divinely 
revealed Islamic Law, does that not put a kind of Divine Command Theory at the 
foundation, and does such a foundation not risk overshadowing the fluidity of 
Aristotelian phronesis with a more rigid mode of “following God’s law”? How would 
Azadpur advise us to think of revealed Islamic Law in a way that avoids having it (a) 
overshadow the fluid sense of an “ethical spiritual practice” with a system of rule-
following, and (b) overshadow the very notion of rationalism with faithful devotion to 
a set of revealed guidelines? 
3) A third sense of ‘spiritual practice’ seems to emerge from the integration of 
imaginative and intellectual endeavors, a point highlighted throughout the project but 
45 
 
 
Comparative Philosophy 3.2 (2012)  PESSIN 
seen succinctly in Azadpur’s pointing to Mahdi’s identification of the “harmony of 
the rational and imaginative aspects of the human life” as having “spiritual 
dimensions” (4). If we focus on the integration of imaginative and intellectual 
endeavors (as Azadpur shows is the spirit of a range of Islamic rationalists), do we 
have the core of the spiritual exercise, or just a spiritual byproduct of the above 
ethical preparations and / or outcomes? In other words: Does Azadpur see the 
integration of imagination and intellect as the core of the spiritual practice in Islamic 
rationalism, or are one or more of the above ethical points of emphasis the crux of 
what makes an Islamic rationalist’s rationalism a spiritual practice (with the 
integration of imagination and intellect either as preparatory for one or more of the 
above ethical-as-spiritual modes of being, or perhaps as just an outcome of one or 
more of the above ethical-as-spiritual modes of being)? 
4) A fourth sense of ‘spiritual practice’ seems linked to the philosopher’s (or 
prophet’s) ability to come closer to God’s own reality through various activities of 
intellect and imagination. Is the capacity to draw nearer to God (or perhaps to God’s 
truth) the core of what, for Azadpur, makes the Islamic rationalist’s rationalism a 
spiritual practice, or is ethics (in one or both of the above mentioned senses) more 
primarily the marker of the spiritual practice? In other words, which is more 
foundationally a case in point of the kind of spiritual exercise that Azadpur has in 
mind: the phenomenology of experiencing God’s reality or the reality of being 
ethically engaged in the marketplace with other people? 
5) Lastly, a fifth sense of ‘spiritual practice’ seems linked to the exegetical 
activity of ta’wīl. I end with some further questions about ta’wīl below, but for here, I 
would ask how this exegetical activity fits in with the other elements already 
mentioned in connection with rationalism as spiritual practice: Is ta’wīl preparatory 
for and / or an end-product of one or more of the above spiritual practices?  
 
3. SYMBOLIC SPACES OF THE TA’WĪL: AZADPUR AND CORBIN ON 
TRANSFORMATION AND REASON 
 
Closing our reflections on Azadpur’s study, we turn to the ta’wīl, and in particular, to 
Corbin’s sense of that activity as a transformative opening to a renewed self. As 
Azadpur shows in his study, Corbin has a unique phenomenological and 
hermeneutical approach to human subjectivity. Along these very lines, Corbin (in his 
study of what he calls Avicenna’s “visionary recitals”) describes the hermeneutical 
possibilities in the very act of textual exegesis in terms of a reader being transformed 
through an encounter with the symbolic, mythic, imaginative space of a text (Corbin 
1960). Upholding this kind of “symbolic” (as opposed to allegorical) approach to 
Avicenna’s “recitals,” Corbin seems precisely to see Avicenna as moving beyond 
philosophical engagement to a spiritual self-awakening beyond intellect. In this spirit, 
Corbin classifies these works as Avicenna’s transformational-spiritual writings, and 
he explains how such writings employ image, imagination and symbol to open onto 
an experiential reorientation that goes beyond the confines of reason. Since, for 
Corbin, this transformation is precisely not a function of intellectually moving from 
46 
 
 
Comparative Philosophy 3.2 (2012)  PESSIN 
symbol to idea, and since, as such, for Corbin the ultimate spiritual transformation 
seems linked to a state of being beyond reason, I wonder if Azadpur’s own sense of 
Islamic-rationalism-as-spiritual-practice might have a more robust sense of intellect’s 
role (in harmony with imagination) than can be found in Corbin’s own analysis. 
 
 
REFERENCES 
 
Azadpur, Mohammad (2011), Reason Unbound: On Spiritual Practice in Islamic 
Peripatetic Philosophy (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press). 
Corbin, Henry (1960), Avicenna and the Visionary Recital, trans. Willard Trask 
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul). 
Mahdi, Muhsin (1990), “Orientalism and the Study of Islamic Philosophy”, Journal 
of Islamic Studies 1: 73-98. 
Said, Edward (1979), Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books). 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


(2.5) THOUGHT-SPACES, SPIRITUAL PRACTICES AND THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF TA\u27WIL

SJSU ScholarWorks

Comparative Philosophy 3.2 (2012)  PESSIN Comparative Philosophy Volume 3, No. 2 (2012): 41-46 Open Access / ISSN 2151-6014 www.comparativephilosophy.org   CONSTRUCTIVE ENGAGEMENT DIALOGUE (2.5)   THOUGHT-SPACES, SPIRITUAL PRACTICES AND  THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF TA’WĪ L  SARAH PESSIN   In Reason Unbound, Mohammad Azadpur provides an engaging and thought-provoking study of medieval Islamic philosophy, finding in the pages of such thinkers as Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes grounds for dissolving a number of problematic modern philosophical dualisms between intellect and imagination, imagination and spiritual practice, intellect and spiritual practice, and philosophy and mysticism. In reflecting on Azadpur’s project, I offer three considerations: First, I address Azadpur’s opening question of Orientialism, and ask us to put that into conversation with his closing consideration of Corbin’s critique of Aquinas’ critique of Avicenna. In particular, I ask us to consider the possibility that there is a tacit Christian (Thomist or other) orientation to the Western Academic “thought space” that can limit the way we read texts and tell the history of philosophy within the Western academy. Thinking more broadly about the question of limiting lenses, I also question the role of Heidegger in Azadpur’s project. Next, I examine Azadpur’s classification of spiritual practices throughout his project and I ask for clarification about the precise nature of and relationship between such practices in medieval Islamic philosophy. Lastly, I address a prima facie difference between Azadpur and Corbin on symbolic transformation’s relation to reason, highlighting what appear to be their two competing senses of ta’wīl (the interpretive act of “returning a text to its origin” which Azadpur addresses throughout his study).  1. FROM ORIENTALISM TO AQUINAS?: APPROACHING ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY FROM WITHIN THE WESTERN “THOUGHT SPACE”  In the opening pages to his study, Azadpur reflects with Muhsin Mahdi and Edward Said on a problematic sense of Orientalism according to which Islam “has been fundamentally misrepresented in the West” (Said 1979, 272) itself as a result of  ________________________  PESSIN, SARAH: Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Denver, USA. Email: spessin@du.edu 42   Comparative Philosophy 3.2 (2012)  PESSIN …Orientalist discourse [being] the systematic academic discipline of dominating, controlling, and managing the so-called Orient for the sake of the Western imperial political agenda…. (Azadpur 2011, 1)  Said goes on to describe:  …a dynamic exchange between individual authors and the large political concerns shared by the three great empires—British, French, and American—in whose intellectual territory [various Islamic writings] were produced. (Said 1979, 14-15)  Along these lines, Azadpur highlights Mahdi’s further elaboration that  Oriental studies of Islam and Islamic civilization have been founded on a mixed bag of religious, cultural, ideological, ethnic (in some cases even racist) and scientific prejudgments and practical political interests. (Mahdi 1990, 96)  Azadpur adds Mahdi’s further sense that studies of Islam have been “guided by irrational motives and political interests” (Mahdi 1990, 96). It is partly in way of counteracting this kind of trend in the study of Islam that Azadpur puts forth his own study of medieval Islamic philosophy, in particular following through on Mahdi’s own hint that a close study of “pre-modern” Islamic rationalism can lead us to a more integrated and complete sense of “reason.”   At the very end of his project, Azadpur turns to Corbin’s critique of Aquinas’ rejection of the Islamic philosophical theory of Active Intellect. Corbin reads Aquinas’ critique through a religious lens, unpacking Aquinas’ dissatisfaction with Avicenna in terms of Aquinas’ own tacit Christian sense that it is the church—not a cosmic separate intellect—which mediates between God and human being. Corbin in this way contrasts a personal sense of salvation at the (tacit) core of Avicenna’s Islamic theory of Active Intellect with a more social sense of salvation—rooted in Catholic views on the church—at the (tacit) core of Aquinas’ rejection of Avicenna’s theory of Active Intellect. While Azadpur does not overtly ask his reader to link together this closing consideration with his opening reflection on Orientalism, I wonder if there is an important link here worth considering. Leaving aside Mahdi’s and Said’s political approach (i.e. their sense that misreadings of Islam are rooted in political interests with political implications), here I ask us simply to consider the possibility that certain Christian conceptual schemata have (at least at times) exerted tacit influence over the way that many of us read texts within the Western academy, including the way that many of us read and interpret medieval Islamic philosophy. I have in mind a certain Thomist methodology (practiced tacitly—or overtly—by some scholars and students) according to which a text of Islamic philosophy is criticized (or, is approached in a negative critical spirit) simply because (a) it is a text that was critiqued by Aquinas, or even because (b) it is a text that is not identical to Thomas’ own writings. The worry here is not that some Thomists don’t like Avicenna as much 43   Comparative Philosophy 3.2 (2012)  PESSIN as they like Aquinas; the worry here is that sometimes these scholars wind up writing versions of the history of philosophy that are informed by such preferences (without expressly stating that they are informed by such preferences), and then the students and other scholars who read these materials wind up being tacitly disposed to approaching Avicenna with some general sense that his philosophy is wrong. In this way, a lens of failure is tacitly applied to a text of Islamic philosophy, making it impossible for neutral readings and interpretations of these texts to take place.  Prompted by Azadpur’s bookending his Reason Unbound with critiques of Orientalism and Aquinas, we might ask: Is it possible that Islamic philosophical concepts are sometimes overlaid by Thomist intuitions? Is it possible that textual misreadings (leading to misrepresentations) can occur when scholars and students tacitly (or overtly) approach texts of Islamic metaphysics already convinced that Aquinas’ metaphysics are better? My concern about the possible interference of Western methodological lenses in the study of Islam also leads me to question Azadpur’s own recourse to Heidegger in the project: While the introduction of Heidegger allows Azadpur to engage readers of medieval Islamic philosophy with questions of human authenticity, it does seem—as seen even in Azadpur’s emphasis on Corbin’s own surpassing of Heidegger—that Heidegger is perhaps very much a lens that Islamic philosophy can do without. To be sure, Azadpur invokes Heidegger to help us approach Islamic philosophy: Azadpur uses Heidegger to help us focus on self’s authentic move away from the “them” to the space in which things reveal themselves, itself linked by Azadpur to phronesis in Islamic philosophy. That said, Azadpur also emphasizes that Corbin dramatically goes beyond (and in this sense, we may say, goes against) Heidegger in replacing the end term of “being towards death” with the end term of “being towards beyond death” (35-7). But after introducing Corbin’s own religious modification (and in some strong sense, rejection) of key elements of Heidegger, it seems that Azadpur might not even want to invoke Heideggerian ideas as any kinds of benchmarks against which to measure Islamic philosophy; for in the context of Corbin’s rejection of a key Heideggerian insight, it seems that to the extent that something is truly Heideggerian, it will be devoid of precisely the kind of religious spirit that Azadpur’s study is out to capture. In that light, perhaps it would be best for Azadpur to resist the Western academic temptation to use Heidegger at all in his project. Perhaps Azadpur’s picture of Islamic philosophy, as rationalism-with-spiritual-practice, is precisely a picture which does not shine brighter through Heideggerian analysis; perhaps Islamic philosophy has more to offer Heidegger than vice versa, in which case we must ask Azadpur: Why invoke Heidegger in this project at all?  2. ON THE NATURE AND KINDS OF SPIRITUAL PRACTICE  I turn next to Azadpur’s discussion of spiritual practices. One of the key goals of the project is to show the intimate link between philosophy (as an exercise of knowledge) and spiritual transformation. Extending Hadot’s reading of ancient philosophy into the Islamic philosophical realm, Azadpur argues for Islamic rationalism as more than 44   Comparative Philosophy 3.2 (2012)  PESSIN just narrow theory construction or dry, disembodied knowledge acquisition; rather, Azadpur shows how in the very contours of their acts of mind philosophers such as Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes are able to manifest a rich engagement with deep wisdom, and as such, deep theological devotion. Reading Reason Unbound, one can find at least five different senses of ‘spiritual practice’. It is worth thinking more about how these all work together for Azadpur, as it is worth thinking more about whether one (or more) is the more primary sense of ‘spiritual practice’ that Azadpur has in mind.  1) - 2) The first two senses of ‘spiritual practice’ are related to two different ethical points of emphasis, viz. (a) the importance of ethical training as preparatory for philosophizing, and (b) the Aristotelian notion of phronesis – a particularly context-sensitive (and as such, not simply theoretical) focus on ethics. Highlighting the first ethical emphasis, Azadpur notes:  According to Avicenna, the ethical training of the philosopher provides a gateway to the intellectual fulfillment of the individual by curtailing the appetites and passions…. (59)  Highlighting the second ethical emphasis, Azadpur goes on to explain that in so curtailing the appetites and passions, ethical training allows the soul  to achieve practical wisdom (i.e., to recognize the objective good and act for the sake of it). The practically wise soul perceives the relevant moral intentions enmattered in a situation and engages in action for their sake, rather than for the sake of values imposed on one’s actions external to that situation. Therefore, practical wisdom results in actions that have as their ends the unconditional good perceived in that situation of action.… (59; see too 76)  While Azadpur is clear on how the ethical training leads to the phronesis, I would ask him to clarify whether the initial training or the resulting phronesis is more properly illustrative of the spiritual practice that he has in mind when he emphasizes that Islamic rationalism is itself deeply tied up with spiritual practice.  I would also ask Azadpur to clarify how the ethical training and phronesis connect up with Islamic Law. To the extent that this ethical training is linked to the guidelines for living prescribed by Islamic Law (as emphasized, for example, in his analysis of Averroes at page 92), does this not in some sense trump the Aristotelian emphasis on phronesis? In other words, if the source of the ethical training is itself a divinely revealed Islamic Law, does that not put a kind of Divine Command Theory at the foundation, and does such a foundation not risk overshadowing the fluidity of Aristotelian phronesis with a more rigid mode of “following God’s law”? How would Azadpur advise us to think of revealed Islamic Law in a way that avoids having it (a) overshadow the fluid sense of an “ethical spiritual practice” with a system of rule-following, and (b) overshadow the very notion of rationalism with faithful devotion to a set of revealed guidelines? 3) A third sense of ‘spiritual practice’ seems to emerge from the integration of imaginative and intellectual endeavors, a point highlighted throughout the project but 45   Comparative Philosophy 3.2 (2012)  PESSIN seen succinctly in Azadpur’s pointing to Mahdi’s identification of the “harmony of the rational and imaginative aspects of the human life” as having “spiritual dimensions” (4). If we focus on the integration of imaginative and intellectual endeavors (as Azadpur shows is the spirit of a range of Islamic rationalists), do we have the core of the spiritual exercise, or just a spiritual byproduct of the above ethical preparations and / or outcomes? In other words: Does Azadpur see the integration of imagination and intellect as the core of the spiritual practice in Islamic rationalism, or are one or more of the above ethical points of emphasis the crux of what makes an Islamic rationalist’s rationalism a spiritual practice (with the integration of imagination and intellect either as preparatory for one or more of the above ethical-as-spiritual modes of being, or perhaps as just an outcome of one or more of the above ethical-as-spiritual modes of being)? 4) A fourth sense of ‘spiritual practice’ seems linked to the philosopher’s (or prophet’s) ability to come closer to God’s own reality through various activities of intellect and imagination. Is the capacity to draw nearer to God (or perhaps to God’s truth) the core of what, for Azadpur, makes the Islamic rationalist’s rationalism a spiritual practice, or is ethics (in one or both of the above mentioned senses) more primarily the marker of the spiritual practice? In other words, which is more foundationally a case in point of the kind of spiritual exercise that Azadpur has in mind: the phenomenology of experiencing God’s reality or the reality of being ethically engaged in the marketplace with other people? 5) Lastly, a fifth sense of ‘spiritual practice’ seems linked to the exegetical activity of ta’wīl. I end with some further questions about ta’wīl below, but for here, I would ask how this exegetical activity fits in with the other elements already mentioned in connection with rationalism as spiritual practice: Is ta’wīl preparatory for and / or an end-product of one or more of the above spiritual practices?   3. SYMBOLIC SPACES OF THE TA’WĪL: AZADPUR AND CORBIN ON TRANSFORMATION AND REASON  Closing our reflections on Azadpur’s study, we turn to the ta’wīl, and in particular, to Corbin’s sense of that activity as a transformative opening to a renewed self. As Azadpur shows in his study, Corbin has a unique phenomenological and hermeneutical approach to human subjectivity. Along these very lines, Corbin (in his study of what he calls Avicenna’s “visionary recitals”) describes the hermeneutical possibilities in the very act of textual exegesis in terms of a reader being transformed through an encounter with the symbolic, mythic, imaginative space of a text (Corbin 1960). Upholding this kind of “symbolic” (as opposed to allegorical) approach to Avicenna’s “recitals,” Corbin seems precisely to see Avicenna as moving beyond philosophical engagement to a spiritual self-awakening beyond intellect. In this spirit, Corbin classifies these works as Avicenna’s transformational-spiritual writings, and he explains how such writings employ image, imagination and symbol to open onto an experiential reorientation that goes beyond the confines of reason. Since, for Corbin, this transformation is precisely not a function of intellectually moving from 46   Comparative Philosophy 3.2 (2012)  PESSIN symbol to idea, and since, as such, for Corbin the ultimate spiritual transformation seems linked to a state of being beyond reason, I wonder if Azadpur’s own sense of Islamic-rationalism-as-spiritual-practice might have a more robust sense of intellect’s role (in harmony with imagination) than can be found in Corbin’s own analysis.   REFERENCES  Azadpur, Mohammad (2011), Reason Unbound: On Spiritual Practice in Islamic Peripatetic Philosophy (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press). Corbin, Henry (1960), Avicenna and the Visionary Recital, trans. Willard Trask (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul). Mahdi, Muhsin (1990), “Orientalism and the Study of Islamic Philosophy”, Journal of Islamic Studies 1: 73-98. Said, Edward (1979), Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books).         

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(2.5) THOUGHT-SPACES, SPIRITUAL PRACTICES AND THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF TA\u27WIL

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