The Existence of Arguments in Classical Islamic Thought: Reply to Hannah Erlwein

In recent years, there has been notable interest in Islamic philosophy and theology from an analytic and not merely historical perspective. One important area of research that has garnered a great deal of research is the arguments for the existence of God. Recent work by Hannah Erlwein seeks to argue that this research has been in vain, for there are no arguments for the existence of God in classical Islamic thought. This paper analyzes Erlwein’s strategies in justifying this position, revealing that her research ignores an enormous amount of evidence that runs contrary to her thesis, in addition to demonstrating many of the errors and shortcomings in her work. Most disturbingly, the book seeks to present the Islamic philosophical tradition as fideistic and unintellectual based on a series of contrived interpretations of rather clear texts. In response, this paper demonstrates the importance of independent inquiry in the Islamic tradition by looking at a wide range of different relevant texts.