Before diving into the discussion, John notes that Islamic Philosophy is philosophy developed under Muslim rule, not the philosophy of Islam. In other words, Islamic philosophy is a counterpart to Western philosophy, not Christian philosophy. With this clarification out of the way, Ken and John turn to guest Mashad Al-Allaf and begin exploring the effect of Islamic philosophy on Western philosophy.

Baghdad was a hotbed for Islamic philosophy in the 11th century, and during this time that Plato and Aristotle’s works were translated from Greek to Arabic. John asks Al-Allaf about the initial reaction of Islamic philosophers to Greek philosophies, what problems coalesced while Islamic philosophers were making sense of Plato and Aristotle?

阿尔-阿拉夫解释说，从8世纪到15世纪的哲学运动对翻译各种传统的文本明显持开放态度。巴格达的学者包括穆斯林、犹太人和基督徒，他们对翻译希腊作品持开放态度。肯提出了约翰的问题，为什么这个宗教传统觉得有必要翻译这些异教作者。Al-Allaf回答说，巴格达的思想家们热衷于追求知识，不管这些知识来自什么传统。《古兰经》教导人类质疑周围的环境——上帝通过启示赋予人类关于神性的知识，而人类必须使用理性来获得关于物质世界的知识。因为伊斯兰学者致力于寻求真理，所以希腊人是否是异教徒并不重要。

Next, Ken John and Al-Allaf examine the connections between Al-Ghazili, a key figure in Islamic philosophy, and two western figures: Aristotle and Hume. Al–Ghazli, made several critical attacks on Aristotle, challenging his idea that God only recognizes universals—such as ‘Human’—and not individual people, which contradicts Islamic teaching that God knows everything. He also challenged Aristotle’s belief that the universe is infinite, because if God created the universe than God is infinite and the universe must be finite. John notes that Christian philosophers felt compelled to combat Aristotle on these very same issues.

据阿拉夫说，休谟对因果关系的批判也是加扎利所预见的。在《哲学的不连贯》中，Al-Ghazali认为因果关系是一种假定的关系。人们观察到一个特定的动作之后，另一个动作，例如火被应用到棉花和棉花燃烧，然后他们认为是火导致棉花燃烧。Al-Ghazeli断言因果关系是不必要的，它只是我在我们的头脑中习惯性地建立起来的。因此，没有必要仅仅因为棉花在各种场合燃烧过就认为棉花将来会燃烧。大卫·休谟在18世纪对因果关系做出了类似的批评。

在本集的最后一部分，肯、约翰和阿拉夫深入探讨了一些当代伊斯兰思想。约翰指出，科学世俗主义的分支主导了现代西方和伊斯兰思想，并建议这种哲学共性可能有助于架起两种文化的桥梁。阿拉夫对这种情况有不同的看法。他认为，寻找神学或知识上的共同点不如寻找社会学上的共同点或建立社会联系并无视意识形态差异重要。

• Roving Philosophical Report(seek to 3:57) Polly Stryker speaks to UCLA professor of Islamic and Iranian studies Hossein Ziai about the Academy of Philosophy in Baghdad.

• Sixty-Second Philosopher(seek to 48: 24) Ian Shoales whips through the history of Islamic philosophy.