The Relation between religion and philosophy in Ibn Khaldun

The beginning of the relationship between religion and philosophy in Islam depends on the translations from the Greek philosophy, the Nestorian and the Jacobite schools that contributed to the transmission of scientific and cultural heritage, and the Ash'arite and Mutazilite schools that emerged as a result of the theological-political disputes. Like the Mutazilites, falasifa made theological sphere its subject of inquiry, and developed ideas in order to understand the world and to explain the connection between the world and Allah. Ibn Khaldun accepts the epistemology of falasifa, its theory of reason, and the abstractions made out of sensible things. He defends cause-effect relationship. Yet, he denies the right of reason to speak except in making analogies and relating specific cases to basic principles. Such a separation between the realms of aql and naql caused Ibn Khaldun to have been described as a follower of Ghazzali. However, although in certain points Ibn Khaldun reminds Ghazzali, he keeps a critical stance in general. He points out that the realms of philosophy and theology are different from each other. If these realms are conflated, both philosophy and religion will suffer. For Ibn Khaldun the solution is this: both philosophy and religion should stop intervening each other, and turn towards their distinctive subjects and problems. This will bring about the best consequence for the both.