Beyond Systemic Reason: Al-Jahiz and the Marginalization of Non-Systemic Reason in Islamic Philosophy

Abstract

This study addresses a central methodological problem in the writing of the history of Islamic philosophy, namely the restriction of philosophy to the model of systematic rationality grounded in abstraction, metaphysical construction, and comprehensive doctrinal systems. The article argues that this restrictive criterion has functioned not merely as a descriptive framework but as an exclusionary mechanism that marginalized alternative forms of rational inquiry active in the formative periods of Islamic thought. The research advances the hypothesis that the intellectual project of Al-Jahiz represents a paradigmatic case of non-systematic rationality: a mode of philosophical thinking that operates within language, lived experience, and social context, privileging critique, observation, and the deconstruction of assumptions over the construction of closed metaphysical systems. The marginalization of such a model, the study contends, does not result from a lack of philosophical depth but from the narrow definition of philosophy adopted by traditional historiography. Employing an analytical, critical, and synthetic methodology, the paper deconstructs dominant narratives of Islamic philosophy, critiques the criteria of inclusion and exclusion that shaped them, and highlights the epistemic and critical losses resulting from the neglect of non-systematic modes of reasoning. The study concludes that rewriting the history of Islamic philosophy requires not the mere addition of neglected figures, but a fundamental rethinking of philosophy itself as a historically situated and plural practice of rational inquiry. Such a perspective opens new research horizons for understanding Islamic intellectual heritage beyond the confines of systematic metaphysics