The Importance of Reason in Islamic Philosophy

For the 9th century Jews who first wrote about philosophy in the Islamic world, reason was embodied above all by non-Jewish traditions. We can see the impact of Hellenic philosophy most clearly in the output of a man named Isaac Israeli. His long life began in Egypt in the mid-ninth century and is said to have extended for about 100 years. The most famous of the Jewish Neo-Platonists is probably Ibn Gabirov, who lived in the 11th century.