Al-Kindi defined philosophy as “the science of things in their true form,” and considered it “the art of crafts and the wisdom of judgment.” He strongly defended it against the narrow-minded jurists and clerics who excommunicated philosophers and accused them of heresy based on the false belief that religion does not permit rational thought. He described them as short-sighted, narrow-minded, and ignorant.

Al-Kindi’s defense of philosophy did not stop at merely approving it and urging its pursuit. Rather, he had to remove any suspicion of unbelief and heresy from it. This is what drove him to seek a reconciliation between philosophical and religious truths, thus becoming the first to delve into the great problem in the history of Islamic philosophy: the problem of the relationship between reason and tradition, or wisdom and Sharia according to the term later established by Ibn Rushd, as is well known.