Philosophy in the Islamic World: A history of philosophy without any gaps, Volume 3

Outstanding book. Reflects deep appreciation of the continuum of philosophical development in the Islamic world, and the competing ideas over time. The detailed analysis of Ibn Sina's contribution alone is worth the price of the book. It is amazing that Ibn Sina found time to make seminal contributions in Philosophy while being distracted by his modest side project ... a text that gave the word Canon to the English language, and was the authoritative text in Medicine in Europe and Asia for almost seven centuries.I wish Dr Adamson had spent a little less time on some of the Jewish scholars and more the contributions of Imam al Haramain (who was such a purist that he refused to accept anything without going back to first principles, including his treatment on the Existence of God)) and Imam al Ashari. More detailed treatment of some contemporary writers such as wahdatul wajood (Syed Naqib ul Attas is the first name that comes to mind), al Ghazali fans such as Hamza Yusuf, and proponents of various Salafi strains would have rounded things of nicely.But no big deal. Still a wonderful read, so I gave it 5 stars.Omar Hasan, PhD

This is a great series as I have said for the others.Well written and very detailed and full of insights. Lame jokes seem to be mercifully diminishing in frequency. But so many individuals and schools are covered I wonder how much I am even going to remember.I guess the takeaway is awareness of a long series of ardent thinkers, wiseacreing about God, the Absolute, essences and existence, ultimate causes. Blah blah blah.Mostly court pets who knew their place and what boats not to rock.Some were supposedly experts in real subjects such as astronomy and logic.But it is always useful to keep in mind that the sum total of their knowledge in these areas was far less than that of a bright first year undergraduate today.They also studied astrology, many of them taking it quite seriously !!!

While I haven’t finished this book as of yet, I wanted to go ahead and give a big thumbs up to the material. Peter Adamson does a marvelous job of making both his books and his wonderful podcast series, The History of Philosophy without Any Gaps, engaging for the active student and just entertaining enough to add a punch of fun for the general reader. I’m glad to have all the books in this series.

Discusses history in a way that provides far more detail than the propaganda "bullets" about Islamic subjects which are too popular now. It is well worth the time to read this book.

Unfortunately, I received this book and immediately had to put it aside for a month. When I went to read it, I opened it and discovered that the first chapter (literally) is missing. The binding and construction of the book looks fine; however, the first page is the opening of chapter 2 rather than of chapter 1. Sadly, it appears that since the month passed, I cannot return it.

Excellent. Follows the podcast pretty closely, but has some extra bells and whistles as well.

wonderful copy and book

Great book, great podcasts as well. Book came in excellent condition, cover has a nice feel to it

Excellent book but disappointingly poor quality book production – printed on very low quality papers unsuitable for a quality book.Shame, a famed publisher like OUP would go so low on quality despite charging premium price for the book.

A well written and accessible analysis of a very difficult subject.

1. You get to know the famous philosophers of the formative period - Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi, Avicenna,..2. There is a big section about philosophy in Anadalusia with Averroes, Ibn Tufayl among others - even Ibn Arabi is presented. The author calls his work "philosophical sufism".3. Very, very important: It is clearly stated and shown and explained that the time after the formative period was not a time of decline: page 293: "Rather than offering an explanation of this decline, I am going to tell you that there is no decline to explain,..." This section is great: it is very interesting to get to know the philosophers of this period - by the way including Ibn Taymiyya4. You get to know the essence and existence of Hiawatha the giraffe

I'm sorry, but if you can't publish kindle books properly, then don't. When I started using a kindle I was conned into buying books that did not work properly for kindle. At the time the availability of a refund was not widely advertised and I consider that money stolen by major publishers who could not be bothered to do the work. Time has moved on and a publisher like OUP should absolutely not be free-riding like this.The problem is that if you have maps, tables and other material that is fixed sized, it will be unreadable on most readers (kindle, tablet etc). Some publishers seem to manage to publish usable ebooks with complex material (eg mathematics, maps, tables) in it. If you can't be bothered to do that, you should no longer be in the business of selling ebooks. You just waste customers time and for those who don't get around to getting a refund in time, steal their money. Shame on you.The book may or may not be good in content, but I haven't been able to tell.