PHILOSOPHERS from Iran

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Iranian Philosophers of all time. This list of famous Iranian Philosophers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Iranian Philosophers.

1. Al-Ghazali (1058 - 1111)

With an HPI of 81.96, Al-Ghazali is the most famous Iranian Philosopher.  His biography has been translated into 115 different languages on wikipedia.

Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭūsiyy al-Ghazali (Arabic: أَبُو حَامِد مُحَمَّد بْن مُحَمَّد ٱلطُّوسِيّ ٱلْغَزَّالِيّ), known commonly as Al-Ghazali (Arabic: ٱلْغَزَالِيُّ; UK: , US: ; c. 1058 – 19 December 1111), known in Medieval Europe by the Latinized Algazelus or Algazel, was a Persian Sunni Muslim polymath. He is known as one of the most prominent and influential jurisconsults, legal theoreticians, muftis, philosophers, theologians, logicians and mystics in Islamic history. He is considered to be the 11th century's mujaddid, a renewer of the faith, who, according to the prophetic hadith, appears once every 100 years to restore the faith of the Islamic community. Al-Ghazali's works were so highly acclaimed by his contemporaries that he was awarded the honorific title "Proof of Islam" (Ḥujjat al-Islām). Al-Ghazali was a prominent mujtahid in the Shafi'i school of law. Much of Al-Ghazali's work stemmed around his spiritual crises following his appointment as the head of the Nizzamiyya University in Baghdad - which was the most prestigious academic position in the Muslim world at the time. This led to his eventual disappearance from the Muslim world for over 10 years, realising he chose the path of status and ego over God. It was during this period where many of his great works were written. He believed that the Islamic spiritual tradition had become moribund and that the spiritual sciences taught by the first generation of Muslims had been forgotten. This belief led him to write his magnum opus entitled Iḥyā’ ‘ulūm ad-dīn ("The Revival of the Religious Sciences"). Among his other works, the Tahāfut al-Falāsifa ("Incoherence of the Philosophers") is a landmark in the history of philosophy, as it advances the critique of Aristotelian science developed later in 14th-century Europe. Al-Ghazali was born in c. 1058 in Tus, then part of the Seljuk Empire. He was a Muslim scholar, law specialist, rationalist, and spiritualist of Persian descent. He was born in Tabaran, a town in the district of Tus, Khorasan (now part of Iran), not long after Seljuks entered Baghdad and ended Shia Buyid Amir al-umaras. This marked the start of Seljuk influence over Caliphate. While the Seljuk dynasty's influence grew, Abu Suleiman Dawud Chaghri Beg married his daughter, Arslan Khatun Khadija to caliph al-Qa'im in 1056. A posthumous tradition, the authenticity of which has been questioned in recent scholarship, is that his father died in poverty and left the young al-Ghazali and his brother Ahmad to the care of a Sufi. Al-Ghazali's contemporary and first biographer, 'Abd al-Ghafir al-Farisi, records merely that al-Ghazali began to receive instruction in fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) from Ahmad al-Radhakani, a local teacher and Abu ali Farmadi, a Naqshbandi sufi from Tus.: 26–27  He later studied under al-Juwayni, the distinguished jurist and theologian and "the most outstanding Muslim scholar of his time," in Nishapur,: 292  perhaps after a period of study in Gurgan. After al-Juwayni's death in 1085, al-Ghazali departed from Nishapur and joined the court of Nizam al-Mulk, the powerful vizier of the Seljuk empire, which was likely centered in Isfahan. After bestowing upon him the titles of "Brilliance of the Religion" and "Eminence among the Religious Leaders", Nizam al-Mulk advanced al-Ghazali in July 1091 to the "most prestigious and most challenging" professorial position at the time: the Nizamiyya madrasa in Baghdad. He underwent a spiritual crisis in 1095, which some speculate was brought on by clinical hysteria, abandoned his career and left Baghdad on the pretext of going on pilgrimage to Mecca. Making arrangements for his family, he disposed of his wealth and adopted an ascetic lifestyle. According to biographer Duncan B. Macdonald, the purpose of abstaining from scholastic work was to confront the spiritual experience and more ordinary understanding of "the Word and the Traditions." After some time in Damascus and Jerusalem, with a visit to Medina and Mecca in 1096, he returned to Tus to spend the next several years in uzla (seclusion). The seclusion consisted in abstaining from teaching at state-sponsored institutions, but he continued to publish, receive visitors and teach in the zawiya (private madrasa) and khanqah (Sufi lodge) that he had built. Fakhr al-Mulk, grand vizier to Ahmad Sanjar, pressed al-Ghazali to return to the Nizamiyya in Nishapur. Al-Ghazali reluctantly capitulated in 1106, fearing rightly that he and his teachings would meet with resistance and controversy. He later returned to Tus and declined an invitation in 1110 from the grand vizier of the Seljuq Sultan Muhammad I to return to Baghdad. He died on 19 December 1111. According to 'Abd al-Ghafir al-Farisi, he had several daughters but no sons. Al-Ghazali contributed significantly to the development of a systematic view of Sufism and its integration and acceptance in mainstream Islam. As a scholar of Islam, he belonged to the Shafi'i school of Islamic jurisprudence and to the Asharite school of theology. Al-Ghazali received many titles such as Zayn al-Dīn (زين الدين) and Ḥujjat al-Islām (حجة الإسلام). He is viewed as the key member of the influential Asharite school of early Muslim philosophy and the most important refuter of the Mutazilites. However, he chose a slightly different position in comparison with the Asharites. His beliefs and thoughts differ in some aspects from the orthodox Asharite school. A total of about 70 works can be attributed to al-Ghazali. He is also known to have written a fatwa against the Taifa kings of al-Andalus, declaring them to be unprincipled, not fit to rule and that they should be removed from power. This fatwa was used by Yusuf ibn Tashfin to justify his conquest of al-Andalus. Al-Ghazali's 11th century book titled Tahāfut al-Falāsifa ("Incoherence of the Philosophers") marked a major turn in Islamic epistemology. The encounter with skepticism led al-Ghazali to investigate a form of theological occasionalism, or the belief that all causal events and interactions are not the product of material conjunctions but rather the immediate and present will of God. In the next century, Ibn Rushd (or Averroes) drafted a lengthy rebuttal of al-Ghazali's Incoherence entitled The Incoherence of the Incoherence; however, the epistemological course of Islamic thought had already been set. Al-Ghazali gave as an example of the illusion of independent laws of cause the fact that cotton burns when coming into contact with fire. While it might seem as though a natural law was at work, it happened each and every time only because God willed it to happen—the event was "a direct product of divine intervention as any more attention grabbing miracle". Averroes, by contrast insisted while God created the natural law, humans "could more usefully say that fire caused cotton to burn—because creation had a pattern that they could discern." The Incoherence also marked a turning point in Islamic philosophy in its vehement rejections of Aristotle and Plato. The book took aim at the Falāsifa, a loosely defined group of Islamic philosophers from the 8th through the 11th centuries (most notable among them Avicenna and al-Farabi) who drew intellectually upon the Ancient Greeks. The influence of Al-Ghazali's book is still debated. Professor of Arabic and Islamic Science George Saliba in 2007 argued that the decline of science in the 11th century has been overstated, pointing to continuing advances, particularly in astronomy, as late as the 14th century. Professor of Mathematics Nuh Aydin wrote in 2012 that one the most important reasons of the decline of science in the Islamic world has been Al-Ghazali's attack of philosophers (scientists, physicists, mathematicians, logicians). The attack peaked in his book Incoherence, whose central idea of theological occasionalism implies that philosophers cannot give rational explanations to either metaphysical or physical questions. The idea caught on and nullified the critical thinking in the Islamic world. On the other hand, author and journalist Hassan Hassan in 2012 argued that while indeed scientific thought in Islam was stifled in the 11th century, the person mostly to blame is not al-Ghazali but Nizam al-Mulk. Another of al-Ghazali's major works is Ihya' Ulum al-Din or Ihya'u Ulumiddin (The Revival of Religious Sciences). It covers almost all fields of Islamic sciences: fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), kalam (theology) and sufism. It contains four major sections: Acts of worship (Rub' al-'ibadat), Norms of Daily Life (Rub' al-'adatat), The ways to Perdition (Rub' al-muhlikat) and The Ways to Salvation (Rub' al-munjiyat). The Ihya became the most frequently recited Islamic text after the Qur'an and the hadith. Its great achievement was to bring orthodox Sunni theology and Sufi mysticism together in a useful, comprehensive guide to every aspect of Muslim life and death. The book was well received by Islamic scholars such as Nawawi who stated that: "Were the books of Islam all to be lost, excepting only the Ihya', it would suffice to replace them all." The Alchemy of Happiness is a rewritten version of The Revival of the Religious Sciences. After the existential crisis that caused him to completely re-examine his way of living and his approach to religion, al-Ghazali put together The Alchemy of Happiness. One of the key sections of Ghazali's Revival of the Religious Sciences is Disciplining the Soul, which focuses on the internal struggles that every Muslim will face over the course of his lifetime. The first chapter primarily focuses on how one can develop himself into a person with positive attributes and good personal characteristics . The second chapter has a more specific focus: sexual satisfaction and gluttony. Here, Ghazali states that indeed every man has these desires and needs, and that it is natural to want these things. However, the Prophet explicitly states that there must be a middle ground for man, in order to practice the tenets of Islam faithfully. The ultimate goal that Ghazali is presenting not only in these two chapters, but in the entirety of The Revival of the Religious Sciences, is that there must be moderation in every aspect of the soul of a man, an equilibrium. These two chapters were the 22nd and 23rd chapters, respectively, in Ghazali's Revival of the Religious Sciences. Al-Ghazali crafted his rebuttal of the Aristotelian viewpoint on the creation of the world in The Eternity of the World. Al-Ghazali essentially formulates two main arguments for what he views as a sacrilegious thought process. Central to the Aristotelian approach is the concept that motion will always precede motion, or in other words, a force will always create another force, and therefore for a force to be created, another force must act upon that force. This means that in essence time stretches infinitely both into the future and into the past, which therefore proves that God did not create the universe at one specific point in time. Al-Ghazali counters this by first stating that if the world was created with exact boundaries, then in its current form there would be no need for a time before the creation of the world by God. Al-Ghazali lays out in The Decisive Criterion for Distinguishing Islam from Clandestine Unbelief his approach to Muslim orthodoxy. Ghazali veers from the often hardline stance of many of his contemporaries during this time period and states that as long as one believes in the Prophet Muhammad and God himself, there are many different ways to practice Islam and that any of the many traditions practiced in good faith by believers should not be viewed as heretical by other Muslims. While Ghazali does state that any Muslim practicing Islam in good faith is not guilty of apostasy, he does outline in The Criterion that there is one standard of Islam that is more correct than the others, and that those practicing the faith incorrectly should be moved to change. In Ghazali's view, only the Prophet himself could deem a faithfully practicing Muslim an infidel, and his work was a reaction to the religious persecution and strife that occurred often during this time period between various Islamic sects. The autobiography al-Ghazali wrote towards the end of his life, Deliverance From Error (المنقذ من الضلال al-Munqidh min al-Dalal), is considered a work of major importance. In it, al-Ghazali recounts how, once a crisis of epistemological skepticism had been resolved by "a light which God Most High cast into my breast ... the key to most knowledge,": 66  he studied and mastered the arguments of kalam, Islamic philosophy, and Ismailism. Though appreciating what was valid in the first two of these, at least, he determined that all three approaches were inadequate and found ultimate value only in the mystical experience and insight he attained as a result of following Sufi practices. William James, in Varieties of Religious Experience, considered the autobiography an important document for "the purely literary student who would like to become acquainted with the inwardness of religions other than the Christian" because of the scarcity of recorded personal religious confessions and autobiographical literature from this period outside the Christian tradition.: 307  Al-Ghazali wrote most of his works in Persian and in Arabic. His most important Persian work is Kimiya-yi sa'adat (The Alchemy of Happiness). It is al-Ghazali's own Persian version of Ihya' 'ulum al-din (The Revival of Religious Sciences) in Arabic, but a shorter work. It is one of the outstanding works of 11th-century-Persian literature. The book was published several times in Tehran by the edition of Hussain Khadev-jam, a renowned Iranian scholar. It is translated to English, Arabic, Turkish, Urdu, Azerbaijani and other languages. Another authentic work of al-Ghazali is the so-called "first part" of the Nasihat al-muluk (Counsel for kings), addressed to the Saljuqid ruler of Khurasan Ahmad b. Malik-shah Sanjar (r. 490-552/1097-1157). The text was written after an official reception at his court in 503/1109 and upon his request. Al-Ghazali was summoned to Sanjar because of the intrigues of his opponents and their criticism of his student's compilation in Arabic, al-Mankhul min taʿliqat al-usul (The sifted notes on the fundamentals), in addition to his refusal to continue teaching at the Nizamiya of Nishapur. After the reception, al-Ghazali had, apparently, a private audience with Sanjar, during which he quoted a verse from the Quran 14:24: "Have you not seen how Allah sets forth a parable of a beautiful phrase (being) like a beautiful tree, whose roots are firm and whose branches are in Heaven." The genuine text of the Nasihat al-muluk, which is actually an official epistle with a short explanatory note on al-Manḵul added on its frontispiece. The majority of other Persian texts, ascribed to him with the use of his fame and authority, especially in the genre of Mirrors for Princes, are either deliberate forgeries fabricated with different purposes or compilations falsely attributed to him. The most famous among them is Ay farzand (O Child!). This is undoubtedly a literary forgery fabricated in Persian one or two generations after al-Ghazali's death. The sources used for the forgery consist of two genuine letters by al-Ghazali's (number 4, in part, and number 33, totally); both appear in the Fazaʾil al-anam. Another source is a letter known as ʿAyniya and written by Muhammad's younger brother Majd al-Din Ahmad al-Ghazali (d. 520/1126) to his famous disciple ʿAyn al-Quzat Hamadani (492-526/1098-1131); the letter was published in the Majmuʿa-yi athar-i farsi-yi Ahmad-i Ghazali (Collection of the Persian writings of Ahmad Ghazali). The other is ʿAyn al-Quzat's own letter, published in the Namaha-yi ʿAyn al-Quzat Hamadani (Letters by ʿAyn al-Quzat Hamadani). Later, Ay farzand was translated into Arabic and became famous as Ayyuha al-walad, the Arabic equivalent of the Persian title. The earliest manuscripts with the Arabic translation date from the second half of the 16th and most of the others from the 17th century. The earliest known secondary translation from Arabic into Ottoman Turkish was done in 983/1575. In modern times, the text was translated from Arabic into many European languages and published innumerable times in Turkey as Eyyühe'l-Veled or Ey Oğul. A less famous Pand-nama (Book of counsel) also written in the genre of advice literature is a very late compilatory letter of an unknown author formally addressed to some ruler and falsely attributed to al-Ghazali, obviously because it consists of many fragments borrowed mostly from various parts of the Kimiya-yi saʿadat. During his life, Al-Ghazali wrote over 70 books on science, Islamic reasoning and Sufism. Al-Ghazali played a major role in integrating Sufism with Shariah. He was also the first to present a formal description of Sufism in his works. His works also strengthened the status of Sunni Islam against other schools. The Batinite (Ismailism) had emerged in Persian territories and were gaining more and more power during al-Ghazali's period, as Nizam al-Mulk was assassinated by the members of Ismailis. In his Fada'ih al-Batiniyya (The Infamies of the Esotericists) al-Ghazali declared them unbelievers whose blood may be spilled. Al-Ghazali succeeded in gaining widespread acceptance for Sufism at the expense of philosophy. At the same time, in his refutation of philosophers he made use of their philosophical categories and thus helped to give them wider circulation. The staple of his religious philosophy was arguing that the creator was the center point of all human life that played a direct role in all world affairs. Al-Ghazali's influence was not limited to Islam, but in fact his works were widely circulated among Christian and Hebrew scholars and philosophers. Some of the more notable philosophers and scholars in the west include David Hume, Dante, and St. Thomas Aquinas. Moses Ben Maimon, a Jewish theologian was deeply interested and vested in the works of al-Ghazali. One of the more notable achievements of Ghazali were his writing and reform of education that laid the path of Islamic Education from the 12th to the 19th centuries. Al-Ghazali's works were heavily relied upon by Islamic mathematicians and astronomers such as At-Tusi. Al-Ghazali was by every indication of his writings a true mystic in the Persian sense. He believed himself to be more mystical or religious than he was philosophical however, he is more widely regarded by some scholars as a leading figure of Islamic philosophy and thought. He describes his philosophical approach as a seeker of true knowledge, a deeper understanding of the philosophical and scientific, and a better understanding of mysticism and cognition. The period following Ghazali "has tentatively been called the Golden Age of Arabic philosophy" initiated by Ghazali's successful integration of logic into the Islamic seminary Madrasah curriculum. Imam Al Ghazali mainly chose to keep his legacy in his books so he wrote more than 70 books in his career. It is said about his book "Ihya Ulum Uddin: The Revival of the Religious Sciences" that, if one has no Shaykh Then he has Ihya. Through his writing he still influences islamic scholars and community. Prominent scholars like Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, Shaykh Ibrahim Osi Efa, Dr. Abdul Hakim Murad (Timothy Winter) is greatly influenced by his teaching. People refer to him as the "Proof of Islam". Al-Ghazali mentioned the number of his works "more than 70" in one of his letters to Sultan Sanjar in the late years of his life. Some "five dozen" are plausibly identifiable, and several hundred attributed works, many of them duplicates because of varying titles, are doubtful or spurious. The tradition of falsely attributing works to al-Ghazali increased in the 13th century, after the dissemination of the large corpus of works by Ibn Arabi. Bibliographies have been published by William Montgomery Watt (The Works Attributed to Al-Ghazali), Maurice Bouyges (Essai de chronologie des oeuvres d'Al-Ghazali) and others. Al-Ghazali's economic philosophy was primarily influenced by his Islamic beliefs. He argued that the importance of economic activity lay both in its benefit to society, as well being necessary for salvation. He established three goals of economic activity that he believed were part of one's religious obligation: "achievement of self-sufficiency for one's survival; provision for the well-being of one's progeny; and provision for assisting those in economic need." He argued that subsistence living, or living in a way that provides the basic necessities for only one's family, would not be an acceptable practice to be held by the general population because of the detrimental results that he believed that would bring upon the economy, but he acknowledged that some people may choose to live the subsistence lifestyle at their own will for the sake of their personal religious journey. Conversely, he discouraged people from purchasing or possessing excessive material items, suggesting that any additional money earned could be given to provide for the poor. Al-Ghazali believed that the imposition of income equality in society should not be a necessity. Instead, he advocated for individuals to be guided by the "spirit of Islamic brotherhood," encouraging them to willingly share their wealth. However, he acknowledged that this ideal isn't universally practiced. According to him, earned wealth can serve two potential purposes. The first is for the good of oneself, which includes maintaining one's own health and that of their family, as well as extending care to others and engaging in actions beneficial to the Islamic community. The other is what al-Ghazali would consider misuse, spending it selfishly on extravagant or unnecessary material items. In terms of trade, al-Ghazali discussed the necessity of exchanging goods across close cities as well as larger borders because it allows more goods, which may be necessary and not yet available, to be accessible to more people in various locations. He recognized the necessity of trade and its overall beneficial effect on the economy, but making money in that way might not be considered the most virtuous in his beliefs. He did not support people taking "excessive" profits from their trade sales. According to William Montgomery Watt, al-Ghazali was considered to be the mujaddid ("Reviver") of his age. Many, perhaps most, later Muslims concurred and, according to Watt, some have even considered him to be the greatest Muslim after Muhammad. As an example, the Islamic scholar al-Safadi stated: Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad, the Proof of Islam, Ornament of the Faith, Abu Hamid al-Tusi (al-Ghazali) the Shafi'ite jurist, was in his later years without rival. and the jurist, al-Yafi'i stated: He was called The Proof of Islam and undoubtedly was worthy of the name, absolutely trustworthy (in respect of the Faith) How many an epitome (has he given) us setting forth the basic principles of religion: how much that was repetitive has he summarised, and epitomised what was lengthy. How many a simple explanation has he given us of what was hard to fathom, with brief elucidation and clear solution of knotty problems. He used moderation, being quiet but decisive in silencing an adversary, though his words were like a sharp sword-thrust in refuting a slanderer and protecting the high-road of guidance. The Shafi'i jurist al-Subki stated: "If there had been a prophet after Muhammad, al-Ghazali would have been the man". Also a widely considered Sunni scholar, al-Dhahabi, in his praise of al-Ghazali wrote: "Al-Ghazzaali, the imaam and shaykh, the prominent scholar, Hujjat al-Islam, the wonder of his time, Zayn al-Deen Abu Haamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Toosi al-Shaafa'i al-Ghazzaali, the author of many books and one possessed of utter intelligence. He studied fiqh in his own town, then he moved to Nisapur in the company of a group of students. He stayed with the Imaam al-Haramayn and gained a deep knowledge of fiqh within a short period. He became well-versed in 'ilm al-kalaam and debate, until he became the best of debater." Ibn Rushd (Averroes), a rationalist, famously responded that "to say that philosophers are incoherent is itself to make an incoherent statement." Rushd's book, The Incoherence of the Incoherence, attempted to refute al-Ghazali's views, but the work was not well received in the Muslim community. According to historian Firas Alkhateeb, "When one reads Imam al-Ghazali's works at a very superficial level, one can easily misunderstand what he is saying as anti-scientific in general. The truth, however, is that al-Ghazali's only warning to students is to not fully accept all the beliefs and ideas of a scholar simply because of his achievements in mathematics and science. By issuing such a warning, al-Ghazali is in fact protecting the scientific enterprise for future generations by insulating it from being mixed with theoretical philosophy that could eventually dilute science itself to a field based on conjecture and reasoning alone." Al-Ghazali has been seen by Orientalist scholars as causing a decline in scientific advancement in Islam, because of his refutation of the new philosophies of his time. He purportedly saw danger in the statements made by philosophers that suggested that God was not all-knowing or even non-existent, which strongly contradicted his conservative Islamic belief. This position has been challenged, however. The following statement made by al-Ghazali has been described as evidence that he was not against scientific advancement: "Great indeed is the crime against religion committed by anyone who supposes that Islam is to be championed by the denial of mathematical sciences." This sentence, the source of which is not indicated in the cited book, is taken from Deliverance from Error. Ghazali does not mean that neglecting the study of mathematics would be a crime against science or against reason, but that rejecting them is a crime against religion. Its aim is not to promote the study of mathematics: it is to condemn the attitude which consists in considering them as rivals of religion. For him, religion has nothing to fear from them, because they do not deal with the same subjects. To condemn the study of mathematics for fear that it endangers religion is to mistake the place of each of them. This is clarified by the sentence which immediately follows: "For the revealed Law nowhere undertakes to deny or affirm these sciences, and the latter nowhere address themselves to religious matters." A few pages later, he writes that the books of the philosophers must be banned - he defines philosophy as composed of six branches: mathematical, logical, physical, metaphysical, political, and morale. Al-Ghazali notably influenced Ibn Rushd, Ayn al-Quzat Hamadani, al-Nawawi, Ibn Tumart, Fakhruddin Razi, Suyuti, Tan Malaka, Thomas Aquinas, David Hume, Sayf al-Din al-Amidi, Asad Mayhani, Ali al-Qari, Muhammad Ibn Yahya al-Janzi. List of Ash'aris and Maturidis List of Muslim theologians List of Sufis Mujaddid Nasîhatnâme Translation of the Ihya ulum al-din (The Revival of Religious Sciences), Vol 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3, Vol.4 Griffel, Frank. "Al-Ghazali". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Full French text of the Deliverance from error, Préservatif contre l'erreur Al-Ghazali website Ghazali Series page at the Islamic Texts Society Ghazali Book Series from Fons Vitae non-profit publishers Works by Al-Ghazali at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) A detailed biography on Imam Ghazzali (450-505H) الغزَّالِي Archived 2020-09-02 at the Wayback Machine Works by or about Al-Ghazali at Internet Archive Ghazali and Islamic reform Ghazali and the Revival of Islamic Scholarship Full text of Incoherence of the Philosophers, from Al-Ghazali website Short commentary on The Alchemy of Happiness The Alchemy of Happiness, by Mohammed Al-Ghazzali, the Mohammedan Philosopher, trans. Henry A. Homes (Albany, N.Y.: Munsell, 1873). See original text in The Online Library of Liberty. "Al-Ghazali Contra Aristotle: An Unforeseen Overture to Science In Eleventh-Century Baghdad". Richard P. Aulie. PSCF 45. March 1994. pp. 26–46. Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali, in Intellectual Encounters (in French) Profession de Foi de l'Imam Al Ghazali

2. Al-Tabari (839 - 923)

With an HPI of 73.73, Al-Tabari is the 2nd most famous Iranian Philosopher.  His biography has been translated into 59 different languages.

Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Jarīr ibn Yazīd al-Ṭabarī (Arabic: أَبُو جَعْفَر مُحَمَّد بْن جَرِير بْن يَزِيد ٱلطَّبَرِيّ; 839–923 CE / 224–310 AH), commonly known as al-Ṭabarī (Arabic: ٱلطَّبَرِيّ), was a Sunni Muslim scholar, polymath, traditionalist, historian, exegete, jurist, and theologian from Amol, Tabaristan, present-day Iran. Among the most prominent figures of the Islamic Golden Age, al-Tabari is widely known for his historical works and expertise in Quranic exegesis, and has been described as "an impressively prolific polymath". He authored works on a diverse range of subjects, including world history, poetry, lexicography, grammar, ethics, mathematics, and medicine. Among his most famous and influential works are his Quranic commentary, Tafsir al-Tabari, and historical chronicle, Tarikh al-Tabari. Al-Tabari followed the Shafi'i school for nearly a decade before he developed his own interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence. His understanding of it was both sophisticated and remarkably fluid, and, as such, he continued to develop his ideas and thoughts on juristic matters right until the end of his life. Al-Tabari's school of jurisprudence "flourished among Sunni ulama for two centuries after his death", before it eventually became extinct. It was commonly designated as the Jariri school.

3. Bodhidharma (483 - 540)

With an HPI of 73.06, Bodhidharma is the 3rd most famous Iranian Philosopher.  His biography has been translated into 59 different languages.

Bodhidharma was a semi-legendary Buddhist monk who lived during the 5th or 6th century CE. He is traditionally credited as the transmitter of Chan Buddhism to China, and is regarded as its first Chinese patriarch. According to a 17th-century apocryphal story found in a manual called Yijin Jing, he began the physical training of the monks of Shaolin Monastery that led to the creation of Shaolin kungfu. He is known as Dámó in China and as Daruma in Japan. His name means "dharma of awakening (bodhi)" in Sanskrit. Little contemporary biographical information on Bodhidharma is extant, and subsequent accounts became layered with legend and unreliable details. According to the principal Chinese sources, Bodhidharma came from the Western Regions, which typically refers to Central Asia but can also include the Indian subcontinent, and is described as either a "Persian Central Asian" or a "South Indian [...] the third son of a great Indian king." Throughout Buddhist art, Bodhidharma is depicted as an ill-tempered, large-nosed, profusely-bearded, wide-eyed non-Chinese person. He is referred to as "The Blue-Eyed Barbarian" (Chinese: 碧眼胡; pinyin: Bìyǎnhú) in Chan texts. Aside from the Chinese accounts, several popular traditions also exist regarding Bodhidharma's origins. The accounts also differ on the date of his arrival, with one early account claiming that he arrived during the Liu Song dynasty (420–479 CE) and later accounts dating his arrival to the Liang dynasty (502–557 CE). Bodhidharma was primarily active in the territory of the Northern Wei (386–534 CE). Modern scholarship dates him to about the early 5th century CE. Bodhidharma's teachings and practice centered on meditation and the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra. The Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall (952) identifies Bodhidharma as the 28th Patriarch of Buddhism in an uninterrupted line that extends back to the Gautama Buddha himself.

4. Bayazid Bastami (804 - 874)

With an HPI of 67.07, Bayazid Bastami is the 4th most famous Iranian Philosopher.  His biography has been translated into 26 different languages.

Abū Yazīd Ṭayfūr bin ʿĪsā bin Surūshān al-Bisṭāmī (al-Basṭāmī) (d. 261/874–5 or 234/848–9), commonly known in the Iranian world as Bāyazīd Bisṭāmī (Persian: بایزید بسطامی), was a Persian Sufi from north-central Iran. Known to future Sufis as Sultān-ul-Ārifīn ("King of the Gnostics"), Bisṭāmī is considered to be one of the expositors of the state of fanā, the notion of dying in mystical union with Allah. Bastami was famous for "the boldness of his expression of the mystic’s complete absorption into the mysticism." Many "ecstatic utterances" (شطحات shatˤħāt) have been attributed to Bisṭāmī, which lead to him being known as the "drunken" or "ecstatic" (Arabic: سُكْر, sukr) school of Islamic mysticism. Such utterance may be argued as, Bisṭāmī died with mystical union and the deity is speaking through his tongue. Bisṭāmī also claimed to have ascended through the seven heavens in his dream. His journey, known as the Mi'raj of Bisṭāmī, is clearly patterned on the Mi'raj of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Bisṭāmī is characterized in three different ways: a free thinking radical, a pious Sufi who is deeply concerned with following the shari'a and engaging in "devotions beyond the obligatory," and a pious individual who is presented as having a dream similar to the Mi'raj of Muhammed. The Mi'raj of Bisṭāmī seems as if Bisṭāmī is going through a self journey; as he ascends through each heaven, Bisṭāmī is gaining knowledge in how he communicates with the angels (e.g. languages and gestures) and the number of angels he encounters increases. His grandfather Surūshān was born a Zoroastrian, an indication that Bastami had Persian heritage, despite the fact that his transmitted sayings are in Arabic. Very little is known about the life of Bastami, whose importance lies in his biographical tradition, since he left no written works. The early biographical reports portray him as a wanderer but also as the leader of teaching circles. The early biographers describe him as a mystic who dismissed excessive asceticism; but who was also scrupulous about ritual purity, to the point of washing his tongue before chanting God's names. He also appreciated the work of the great jurists. A measure that shows how influential his image remains in posterity is the fact that he is named in the lineage (silsila) of one of the largest Sufi brotherhoods today, the Naqshbandi order.

5. Miskawayh (932 - 1030)

With an HPI of 66.37, Miskawayh is the 5th most famous Iranian Philosopher.  His biography has been translated into 34 different languages.

Ibn Miskawayh (Persian: مُسْکُـوْيَه Muskūyah, 932–1030), (Arabic: مِسْكَوَيْه، أبو علي محمد بن أحمد بن يعقوب مسكويه الرازي) full name Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb Miskawayh al-Rāzī was a Persian chancery official of the Buyid era, and philosopher and historian from Parandak, Iran. As a Neoplatonist, his influence on Islamic philosophy is primarily in the area of ethics. He was the author of the first major Islamic work on philosophical ethics entitled the Refinement of Character (تهذيب الأخلاق Tahdhīb al-Akhlāq), focusing on practical ethics, conduct, and the refinement of character. He separated personal ethics from the public realm, and contrasted the liberating nature of reason with the deception and temptation of nature. Miskawayh was a prominent figure in the intellectual and cultural life of his time.

6. Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (1149 - 1209)

With an HPI of 65.55, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi is the 6th most famous Iranian Philosopher.  His biography has been translated into 32 different languages.

Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (Arabic: فخر الدين الرازي) or Fakhruddin Razi (Persian: فخر الدين رازی) (1149 or 1150 – 1209), often known by the sobriquet Sultan of the Theologians, was an influential Iranian and Muslim polymath, scientist and one of the pioneers of inductive logic. He wrote various works in the fields of medicine, chemistry, physics, astronomy, cosmology, literature, theology, ontology, philosophy, history and jurisprudence. He was one of the earliest proponents and skeptics that came up with the concept of multiverse, and compared it with the astronomical teachings of Quran. A rejector of the geocentric model and the Aristotelian notions of a single universe revolving around a single world, al-Razi argued about the existence of the outer space beyond the known world. Al-Razi was born in Ray, Iran, and died in Herat, Afghanistan. He left a very rich corpus of philosophical and theological works that reveals influence from the works of Avicenna, Abu'l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī and al-Ghazali. Two of his works titled Mabāhith al-mashriqiyya fī 'ilm al-ilāhiyyāt wa-'l-tabi'iyyāt المباحث المشرقية في علم الإلهيات و الطبيعيات (Eastern Studies in Metaphysics and Physics) and al-Matālib al-'Aliya المطالب العالية (The Higher Issues) are usually regarded as his most important philosophical works.

7. Mazdak (450 - 529)

With an HPI of 65.11, Mazdak is the 7th most famous Iranian Philosopher.  His biography has been translated into 38 different languages.

Mazdak (Persian: مزدک, Middle Persian: 𐭬𐭦𐭣𐭪, also Mazdak the Younger; died c. 524 or 528) was an Iranian Zoroastrian mobad (priest) and religious reformer who gained influence during the reign of the Sasanian emperor Kavadh I. He claimed to be a prophet of Ahura Mazda and instituted social welfare programs.

8. Shahab al-Din Yahya ibn Habash Suhrawardi (1155 - 1191)

With an HPI of 63.36, Shahab al-Din Yahya ibn Habash Suhrawardi is the 8th most famous Iranian Philosopher.  His biography has been translated into 32 different languages.

"Shihāb ad-Dīn" Yahya ibn Habash Suhrawardī (Persian: شهاب‌الدین سهروردی, also known as Sohrevardi) (1154–1191) was a Persian philosopher and founder of the Iranian school of Illuminationism, an important school in Islamic philosophy. The "light" in his "Philosophy of Illumination" is the source of knowledge. He is referred to by the honorific title Shaikh al-ʿIshraq "Master of Illumination" and Shaikh al-Maqtul "the Murdered Master", in reference to his execution for heresy. Mulla Sadra, the Persian sage of the Safavid era described Suhrawardi as the "Reviver of the Traces of the Pahlavi (Iranian) Sages", and Suhrawardi, in his magnum opus "The Philosophy of Illumination", thought of himself as a reviver or resuscitator of the ancient tradition of Persian wisdom. Suhrawardi provided a new Platonic critique of the peripatetic school of Avicenna that was dominant at his times, and that critique involved the fields of Logic, Physics, Epistemology, Psychology, and Metaphysics.

9. Haji Bektash Veli (1209 - 1271)

With an HPI of 63.10, Haji Bektash Veli is the 9th most famous Iranian Philosopher.  His biography has been translated into 25 different languages.

Haji Bektash Veli (Persian: حاجی بکتاش ولی, romanized: Ḥājī Baktāš Walī; Ottoman Turkish: حاجی بکتاش ولی, romanized: Hacı Bektaş-ı Veli; Albanian: Haxhi Bektash Veliu; c. 1209–1271) was an Islamic scholar, mystic, saint, sayyid, and philosopher from Khorasan who lived and taught in Anatolia. His original name was Sayyid Muhammad ibn Sayyid Ibrāhim Ātā. He is also referred to as the "Sultan of Hearts" and the "Dervish of the Dervishes". He is revered among Alevis for an Islamic understanding that is esoteric, rational and humanistic. Alevi and Bektashi Muslims believe the path of Bektash is the path of Haqq-Muhammad-Ali since they were the source of Bektash's teachings. He was one of the many figures who flourished in the Sultanate of Rum and had an important influence on the culture of Anatolian nomads of Asia Minor.

10. Mulla Sadra (1571 - 1636)

With an HPI of 61.94, Mulla Sadra is the 10th most famous Iranian Philosopher.  His biography has been translated into 31 different languages.

Ṣadr ad-Dīn Muḥammad Shīrāzī, more commonly known as Mullā Ṣadrā (Persian: ملا صدرا; Arabic: صدر المتألهین; c. 1571/2 – c. 1635/40 CE / 980 – 1050 AH), was a Persian Twelver Shi'i Islamic mystic, philosopher, theologian, and ‘Ālim who led the Iranian cultural renaissance in the 17th century. According to Oliver Leaman, Mulla Sadra is arguably the single most important and influential philosopher in the Muslim world in the last four hundred years. Though not its founder, he is considered the master of the Illuminationist (or, Ishraghi or Ishraqi) school of Philosophy, a seminal figure who synthesized the many tracts of the Islamic Golden Age philosophies into what he called the Transcendent Theosophy or al-hikmah al-muta’āliyah. Mulla Sadra brought "a new philosophical insight in dealing with the nature of reality" and created "a major transition from essentialism to existentialism" in Islamic philosophy, although his existentialism should not be too readily compared to Western existentialism. His was a question of existentialist cosmology as it pertained to God, and thus differs considerably from the individual, moral, and/or social, questions at the heart of Russian, French, German, or American Existentialism. Mulla Sadra's philosophy ambitiously synthesized Avicennism, Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi's Illuminationist philosophy, Ibn Arabi's Sufi metaphysics, and the theology of the Sunni Ash'ari school of Kalam into the framework of Twelver Shi'ism. His main work is The Transcendent Philosophy of the Four Journeys of the Intellect, or simply Four Journeys, In which he attempted to reach Sufism and prove the idea of Unity of Existence by offering a new intake and perspective on Peripatetic philosophy that was offered by Alpharabius and Avicenna in the Islamic world.