72. Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī: The Lofty Pursuits
A Sourcebook in Global Philosophy - Mohammed Rustom
Nora Jacobsen Ben Hammed [+]
University of California, Berkeley
Description
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 1210 CE) is arguably the most important Islamic philosopher-theologian whose thought fundamentally developed in conversation with and in response to the dominating presence of Avicenna’s philosophy throughout the Islamic world. His influence extending beyond that of even the famous Ghazālī, Rāzī exercised a lasting imprint upon the traditions of Arabic logic, Islamic philosophy and theology, and Quranic exegesis, both directly through his writings and through his impact on further generations of scholars. The translated text is taken from Rāzī’s last magnum opus of philosophical theology, The Lofty Pursuits (al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya), a voluminous work that represents the fruition of a lifetime of wrestling with Islamic philosophy. In contrast to his earliest works of theology, and in what is arguably the most significant shift in Rāzī’s thinking, he here embraces the immaterial human soul and presents his readers with a series of arguments that prove its existence. Of particular note are arguments eight and ten in which Rāzī describes the soul’s influence as in opposition to that of the body. He argues that it is the immaterial soul that is the locus of human perfection and eternal felicity, a state ensured by self-purification, measured asceticism, and the pursuit of knowledge.