Kalam is “Islamic” Philosophy
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ The discipline of kalam is Islamic philosophy in that it takes the religious creeds brought by Islam as performing the function of first principles. Thus, it is a subsection of Islamic philosophy distinct from that postulated by such Arab and Muslim philosophers as Shaykh Abu Yusuf Ya’qub ibn ‘Isḥaq asw-Swabbaḥ al-Kindi ( r.a. ), Shaykh Abu Naswr Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Farabi ( r.a. ), and Imam Abu ‘Ali al-Husayn ibn ‘Abdullah ibn Sina ( r.a. ), who preferred a different method: taking as the point of departure the opinions of Greek philosophers and then seeking to develop Islamic critiques. Those philosophers aided the defense of Islam, in terms of creeds and schools and religions, by taking from philosophy and Greek logic the tools to defend them. That is, they departed from what was given in those creeds and schools, such as Greek philosophy and logic, in order to arrive at what was given for them, Islam. Dr. Zaynab ib...