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Originally Posted by farhad
It was Islamic philosophy that had inspired John Locke.
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...I spent an entire University semester studying Locke quite extensively, and have literally never heard this? In fact, Locke was a firm advocate of Christianity, and was well documented as being against Muslims living in the West.
I personally am unconvinced about his own level of belief... I think he considered a religious population to be "key" to the functioning of his theories on social contracts, i.e. religious adherence is what would ensure that most people would consider the contract to be "binding" (someone is always watching, you can't break the contract just because no one else is around to see it, God will always see, etc etc) and more importantly he believed that the population would be best served by being under ONE religion, truth and freedom be damned. But anyway, I've gone off on a bit of a tangent.
It's seen as a major contradiction in his liberal philosophy, because he actually seems to suggest "keeping certain faiths out".
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[Islam] can have no right to be tolerated by the [government] which is constituted upon such a [foundation] that all those who enter into it do thereby ipso facto deliver themselves up to the protection and service of another prince [i.e. a foreign ruler]… It is ridiculous for any one to profess himself to be a Mahometan [a Muslim] only in his religion, but in everything else a faithful subject to a Christian government, whilst at the same time he acknowledges himself bound to yield blind obedience to the "Mufti of Constantinople", who himself is entirely obedient to the Caliph and frames the feigned oracles of that religion according to his pleasure. - John Locke
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...not that I agree with Locke - he also wasn't a big fan of Atheists, the big ol' hypocrite, he just liked Christians and was mostly OK with Jews.
Anyway, yeah, I don't know where you've read that John Locke was inspired by Islamic philosophy... it seems very unlikely, given his stance with Christianity. That said, having just written what I have above (regarding the "key" etc.), I can see a few parallels in the philosophy. I would imagine they are more coincidental than "inspired by", though. Social control via religion is a tale as old as time, not attributable to John Locke or Islam or even the most ancient written religions. It's been going on since we were raising our hands in appreciation to the Rain Gods, wailing in despair at the sound of thunder, and howling at the moon.