John Walbridge is a Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at Indiana University. He is the author of nine books on Islam and Arabic culture, including four books on Islamic philosophy, including The Wisdom of the Mystic East: Suhrawardi and Platonic Orientalism (2001) and Suhrawardi: The Philosophy of Illumination (with Hossein Ziai, 1999).

• 1. Introduction; Part I. The Formation of the Islamic Tradition of Reason: 2. The diversity of reason; 3. Empirical knowledge of the mind of God; 4. The failure of the Fārābian synthesis of religion and philosophy; 5. Mysticism, post-classical Islamic philosophy, and the rise and fall of Islamic science; Part II. Logic, Education, and Doubt: 6. Where is Islamic logic?: the triumph of scholastic rationalism in Islamic education; 7. The long afternoon of Islamic logic; 8. The institutionalization of disagreement; Part III. The Fall and the Future of Islamic Rationalism: 9. The decline and fall of scholastic reason in Islam; 10. A chaos of certitudes: the future of Islamic reason.

'This is a daring attempt to understand the role of reason in the Islamic intellectual tradition and to explain it in simple, lucid terms. Full of fresh insights.' Zafar Ishaq Ansari, International Islamic University