They are unlikely to realize that there is an Arabic...

They are unlikely to realize that there is an Arabic background to the lengthy debates in metaphysics over causality, power and natural law that are carried on by Malebranche, Leibniz, and Hume, and that there are contrasts and comparisons to be made between Suhrawardi mysticism and that of the Latin writers.

(Indeed “difficult” aspect of 17th century European authors are sometimes referred simply to “mysticism,” or a “lapse into mysticism,” as though mysticism were an unpredictable affliction striking philosophers unpredictably rather than both a literary-philosophical tradition and a very widespread disposition of the human mind. But perhaps this ignorance is not only to be deplored but also explained.

What presents Western scholars with a research problem--too little material available and too little linguistic competence to be able to establish connections and make comparisons between early modern Christian and Islamic metaphysics-- is perhaps not an accident but the consequence of a much larger gulf in aims and understanding that opened between European philosophy and the rest of the world in the 17th century.

“Islamic philosophy,” Nasr says, “followed a different course from Western philosophy in nearly every domain despite their common roots and the considerable influence of Islamic philosophy upon Latin scholasticism.” Where Western philosophy came to be concerned with a “world of solidified objects,” Islamic philosophy still saw God as the ultimate reality.[^4] Historically, this gulf was perceived by Europeans in a self-serving way as the consequence of their having been so independent, hardworking, and fortunate as to have discovered the true sources of knowledge while the rest of the world carried on in its old way.

In this narrative, Enlightenment finally penetrated, more or less, and modern science and technology became ubiquitous, even where superstition, harmless and dangerous, continues to hold sway. This self-glorifying view, it is safe to say, is now reeling under postmodernist criticism that is highly critical of the ideological and moral basis of Western “scientism.” The history of philosophy has not been spared this critique.

It has been argued that, with Bacon (1561-1626 ) Descartes (1596-1650), European philosophy developed its uniquely destructive as well as productive, utilitarianism.