Research library

The Research Library is a working catalogue of scholars, texts, papers, articles, lectures, and resources relevant to Hikmah Islam, organised by field, subject, method, and rational entailment.

• Name / Work:
• Type: Academic / Book / Paper / Article / Lecture / Website / Dataset
• Field:
• Subject:
• Related entailments:
• Use for WikiHikmah:
• Status: To read / Read / Important / Cited / Questionable
• Notes:

Philosophy

Metaphysics

Persistence, time, and identity

Four-dimensionalism / perdurantism

Sider, Theodore. “Four Dimensionalism.” The Philosophical Review 106 (1997): 197–231.

• Perdurantism; B-theory of time; Eternalism; Ontological parsimony; Ontological priority

• Sider argues for four-dimensionalism using considerations from vagueness and mereological composition.

• Useful for developing the argument that objects persist through temporal parts rather than being wholly present at each moment. Relevant to the Hikmah account of time, temporal extension, identity, and the ontology of the block universe.

Islamic Studies

Shi'i Studies

Introductory doctrine and practical law

Islamic Teachings in Brief — Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i

Tabataba'i, Sayyid Muhammad Husayn. Islamic Teachings in Brief. Qum: Ansariyan Publications.

• Type: Book / Primary text / Introductory doctrinal survey
• Field: Shi'i studies; Islamic theology; ethics; jurisprudence; religious anthropology
• Subject: Religion; human nature; society; tawhid; divine attributes; prophethood; imamate; resurrection; ethics; worship; law; social duties
• Description: A relatively accessible and systematic introduction to Islam from a Twelver Shi'i perspective. The work arranges Islamic teaching around belief, ethics, and practical commandments, while also discussing the need for religion, the relationship between human beings and social regulation, the foundations of morality, the prophetic mission, imamate, resurrection, worship, and social conduct. It presents Islam as a connected intellectual, ethical, spiritual, and practical order rather than as a collection of isolated rituals.
• Related entailments: Sovereignty of Intellect; Self-Cultivation; Revelation as Movement; Wilayah; ethical order; social coordination; human perfectibility
• Use for WikiHikmah: Useful as a concise baseline account of the classical Twelver synthesis of metaphysics, theology, ethics, religious authority, and practical life. It can be used to identify the inherited conceptual structure from which Hikmah Islam develops, including the integration of belief, moral formation, law, society, prophethood, and imamate.
• Use for WikiHikmah: The text is particularly valuable for comparison between a conventional Shi'i presentation of Islam and Hikmah Islam's epistemic-led reconstruction. It helps distinguish propositions accepted because of confessional authority from propositions independently defended through rational entailment, philosophical analysis, historical inquiry, or empirical evidence.
• Status: Important / To read / Cited
• Notes: This is an internal and confessional presentation of Islamic teaching rather than a historical-critical study of Islamic origins. Its descriptions of revelation, scripture, prophethood, imamate, and law should therefore be classified according to domain: philosophical arguments may be assessed philosophically, historical claims historically, and theological interpretations comparatively.
• Online access: Read online / PDF edition

Taḥrīr al-Wasīlah — Ruhollah Khomeini

Khomeini, Ruhollah. Taḥrīr al-Wasīlah (Arabic: تحرير الوسيلة, “Clarification of the Means”). English translation in four volumes. Tehran: The Institute for Compilation and Publication of Imam Khomeini's Works.

• Alternative title: Islamic Laws / a comprehensive work of Shi'i jurisprudence or shari'ah
• Type: Book / Primary text / Jurisprudential manual / Legal reference work
• Field: Shi'i studies; Islamic jurisprudence; practical law; legal theory; political theology
• Subject: Taqlid; ritual purity; prayer; fasting; pilgrimage; almsgiving; commercial transactions; marriage; family law; adjudication; public law; religious authority; duties of the jurist
• Description: One of Khomeini's principal works of substantive Islamic jurisprudence. It presents his legal judgements across the established divisions of Twelver Shi'i fiqh, extending from ritual obligations and personal conduct to contracts, family relations, adjudication, public duties, and questions bearing upon collective order. It belongs to the tradition of advanced juristic manuals intended to state and organise the practical conclusions of legal reasoning.
• Related entailments: Sovereignty of Intellect; Noocracy; Wilayah; Wilayah al-Faqih; Revelation as Movement; legal order; social coordination; authority; governance
• Use for WikiHikmah: Useful for understanding the legal and institutional dimension of Khomeini's thought. Whereas works such as Forty Hadith disclose his ethical and mystical anthropology and Islamic Government articulates his political theory, Taḥrīr al-Wasīlah shows how religious authority becomes

History

Ancient Philosophy

Platonism and Neoplatonism

Lloyd P. Gerson

Gerson, Lloyd P. From Plato to Platonism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013.

Gerson, Lloyd P. Aristotle and Other Platonists. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005.

Gerson, Lloyd P. Platonism and Naturalism: The Possibility of Philosophy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2020.

Gerson, Lloyd P. Plato's Moral Realism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023.

• Type: Academic / Books / Secondary scholarship

• Field: Ancient philosophy; Platonism; metaphysics; ethics; philosophy of religion; history of philosophy

• Subject: Plato; Aristotle; Plotinus; Platonism; anti-naturalism; the Good; intelligible reality; metaphysical realism; moral realism

• Related entailments: Consciousness; Sovereignty of Intellect; Ontological priority; Noocracy; Self-Cultivation; Wilayah

• Use for WikiHikmah: Gerson is useful for treating Platonism not merely as the historical philosophy of Plato, but as a continuous metaphysical tradition concerned with intelligible reality, the Good, intellect, being, order, and normativity. His work is especially relevant where Hikmah Islam draws on the Platonic and Neoplatonic inheritance behind Islamic philosophy, illuminationism, metaphysical hierarchy, noetic governance, and the claim that ethics must be grounded in metaphysics rather than preference, convention, or naturalistic reduction.

• Status: Important / To read / Cited

• Notes: Especially useful for defending the continuity between Plato, Aristotle, and later Platonism; for resisting overly modern oppositions between Platonism and Aristotelianism; and for framing the Good as a metaphysical first principle rather than a merely moral ideal.

Scholars and thinkers

Ancient philosophy, Platonism, and metaphysics

Lloyd P. Gerson

Canadian philosopher and scholar of ancient Greek philosophy, especially Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Platonism, metaphysics, and moral realism. Relevant to Hikmah Islam as a major contemporary interpreter of Platonism as a living metaphysical tradition centred on intelligible reality, the Good, intellect, and the critique of naturalism.

Philosophy of mind, psychiatry, and consciousness

Iain McGilchrist

British psychiatrist and philosopher. Relevant to philosophy of mind, psychiatry, neuroscience, attention, consciousness, hemispheric cognition, imagination, and critiques of reductive rationality.