Practitioners of falsafa (Arabic word derived from the Greek philosophia). Falsafa was sometimes identified with the Arabic ḥikma (wisdom), a term found in the Qur’an. The most common usage refers to the Muslim authors who were the inheritors and successors of Greek thinkers. Their technical vocabulary was based on translations or adaptations of Greek terminology. They pursued the study of logic, the natural sciences, metaphysics and the nature of the human mind or soul. They were influenced in various degrees by Neoplatonism and the falāsifa in general endeavoured to establish an ultimate harmony between philosophy and religion. They looked upon philosophy (demonstrative reason) as superior to religion. However, they also recognised that the exacting method of philosophy (or science) can be pursued only by a few. Thus they saw religion as a set of doctrines, narratives and moral and legal injunctions through which the higher truths grasped rationally by the intelligentsia, were made accessible to the broad masses, enabling them to attain happiness in this world and the next. Principal figures include al-Kindī (d. 866), Abū Bakr al-Rāzī (d. ca. 925), al-Fārābī (d. ca. 950), Ibn Sina (d. 1037) and Ibn Rushd (d. 1198).
