The shortest argument for the existence of God in Islamic philosophy

Abstract

The first cognitive frameworks of the undoubtedly most famous argument for the existence of God in Islamic philosophy were set by the notable Ibn Sina. Having proved the existence of God by considering existence itself, in his famous philosophical book al-Isharat he wrote that in that way he offered the 'argument of the veracious'. In the following stages of the development of this argument this syntagm will become one of the most popular scientific names in the history of philosophical and rational thought in Muslims. Numerous representatives of various schools of philosophy, dogmatic theology and doctrinal gnosis in Islam thoroughly analyzed the text of this part of the al-Isharat book and sometimes formulated new versions of the 'argument of the veracious'. In this paper we will focus on the basic cognitive milestones in the development of this argument and with a view to acquiring this we will use the method of detailed content analysis of the works of those Muslim philosophers who contributed significantly to that intellectual process. Given that scientific destiny of the 'argument of the veracious' quite attractively illustrates the various stages of the development of entire Islamic philosophy, we will try to show that in each new period Islamic philosophical heritage grew a more vital and dominant scientific discipline. On the other hand, we will conclude that throughout history Islamic philosophy and 'arguments of the veracious' have become more reminiscent of subtle intuition of Muslim gnostics and innermost spheres of the original understanding of the sacred Islamic texts and traditions.

Keywords

• Islamic philosophy
• the existence of God
• argument of the veracious
• Ibn Sina
• Mulla Sadra
• peripatetic philosophy
• transcendental philosophy