Sophists and Muslim Sceptics

Scepticism was one of the most important products of a transition period which emerged in the world of Islam in the form of a philosophical movement called Sophism. According to a number of Muslim mutakallimun, including the “Inadiyyah”, “Indiyyah”, and “agnostics”, Muslim sceptics, led by a person called Salih Ibn ‘Abdulquddus, were a group who, similar to Greek and Indian sophists and sceptics, mainly appeared in the Islamic civilization as a philosophical movement or trend rather than a philosophical school. They denied the truth and originality of both “subject” and the “object”, and, in their view, everything merely enjoyed an imaginal, illusory, and conjectural existence. The vigorous confrontation of theologians, particularly, the Mu‘tazilite, natural and logical philosophers, and Sufist thinkers, such as Ghazzali, with this trend resulted in the quick annihilation of this group so that there has rarely remained any reference to the names of their advocates or their works in history. Of course, Muslim sceptics also played a role in undermining the teachings adopted from sense perception and rational sciences and, as a result, attracting the attention of Muslim thinkers to presential instead of acquired knowledge and persuading them to develop an interest in gnosis and Sufism instead of science and philosophy.