Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy

Volume 17, 2018

Islamic Philosophy

A Summary of Proclus’ Lost First Argument On the Eternity of the World in al-Shahrastānī’s works

This paper aims at presenting a comparative study of a summary of Proclus’ first argument on the eternity of the world in two of al-Shahrastānī’s works. Proclus’ first argument does not survive in Greek, but we have two surviving Arabic versions, one in the translation of Isḥāq b. Hunayn (d. AD 910) and an earlier one by an anonymous translator. In this paper, I shall comment on some philological and philosophical points of al-Shahrastānī’s summary of Proclus’ first argument on the eternity of the world. Also, I shall briefly look into al-Shahrastānī’s sources and his argumentation against Proclus in the context of Muslim dialectical (kalām) discussions for the doctrine of the creation of the world.