Quotes By Author: Robert R. Reilly

“Al-Ghazali immodestly claims that, to prepare for the enterprise, he mastered the sum total of relevant knowledge: “There is no philosopher whose system I have not fathomed, nor theologian the intricacies of whose doctrine I have not followed out. Sufism has no secrets into which I have not penetrated.” He is the master of all.”

“Those wishing to influence the Islamic world through public diplomacy and the media should take heed of Lawrence Freedman’s admonition: “Opinions are shaped not so much by the information received but the constructs through which that information is interpreted and understood.”30 Unless and until the Sunni world reembraces philosophy, it is difficult to imagine through what “constructs” it could receive the promotion of equal human rights in a favorable way.”

“What, then, of the achievements of Muslim philosophy in Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Ibn al-Haytham, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), al-Razi, al-Kindi, al- Khawarizmi, and al-Farabi? Reformist thinker Ibrahim Al-Buleihi, a current member of the Saudi Shura Council, responds, “These [achievements] are not of our own making, and those exceptional individuals were not the product of Arab culture, but rather Greek culture. They are outside our cultural mainstream and we treated them as though they were foreign elements. Therefore we don’t deserve to take pride in them since we rejected them and fought their ideas. Conversely, when Europe learned from them it benefited from a body of knowledge which was originally its own because they were an extension of Greek culture, which is the source of the whole of Western civilization.”21”