Abu Bakr Al Razi

& Naturalism in islamic world

Muhammad Shareef
15285
History of Islamic Philosophy
 Who was Al Razi ?

Abu Bakr al-Razi was a Persian polymath who made significant contributions to
philosophy, medicine, alchemy, and other fields.
 Life

According to al-Biruni,1 Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya ibn Yahya al­-Razi was born in Rayy on
the first of Sha`ban in the year 251/865. In his early life, he was a jeweller , money-change or more
likely a lute-player who first left music for alchemy, and then at the age of thirty. after forty left
alchemy because his experiments in it gave him some eye disease which obliged him to search for
doctors and medicine. That was the reason, thus, he studied medicine.
Works
 AI-Razi's books are very numerous. He himself prepared a catalogue of his books,
reproduced by Ibn al-Nadim.40 Here we find: 118 books, 19 epistles, then 4 books, 6
epistles, and one maqalah, the total being 148 works.

 The books are classified as follows: (a) on medicine (1-56 books); (b) physics (57-89); (c)
logic (90-96); (d) mathematics and astronomy (97-106); (e) commentaries, abridgments,
and epitomes (107-13); (f) philosophy and hypothetical sciences (114-30); (g)
metaphysics (131-36); (h) theology (137-50); alchemy (151-72); (i) atheistic books (173-
74); (j) miscellaneous (175--84).
 Philosophy & his methods

 Al-Razi is a pure rationalist. He believes in reason, and in reason alone.

 In medicine, his clinical studies reveal a very solid method of investigation based on observation and
experimentation.
 In Kitab al-Faraj ba'd al-Shiddah by al-Tanukhi (d. 384/994) and Chahar Maqalah of Nizami `Arudi
Samar­qandi written about 550/1155.
 we find a lot of cases attributed to al-Razi where he shows an excellent method of clinical investigation.
ENTER TITLE

Metaphysics

 When one begins to expound al-Razi's metaphysics, one at first

comes across a small treatise attributed to him.
 Maqalah li Abi Bakr Muhammad Ibn Zakariya al-Razi fi ma ba`d
al-Tabi'ahr.
 It may contain only a systematic historical expose of other
people's ideas without reference to his own,48 or it may not be
by al-R azi at all.
Main points treated here are:
 (1) nature, (2) foetus, and (3) eternity of movement. The author
refutes the partisans of the idea of nature as principle of
movement, especially Aristotle and his commentators.
Five eternals
God
Soul
matter
Space
Time
ENTER TITLE

Theology
 Al-Razi was a theist, but he does not believe in revelation and
prophecy. We content ourselves with giving a summary of his
main ideas.
 Al-Razi contests prophecy on the following grounds:
 Reason is sufficient to distinguish. between good and evil, useful
and harmful. By reason alone we can know God, and organize
our lives in­the best way. Why then is there need for prophets?
ENTER TITLE

Theology & concepts

 There is no justification for privileging some men for guiding all men
because all men are born equal in intelligence; the differences are not be­
cause of natural dispositions, but because of development and
education.
 Prophets contradict one another. If they speak in the name of one and
the same God, why this contradiction?
 After denying prophecy, al-Razi goes on to criticize religions in general.
He expounds the contradictions of the Jews, the Christians, the
Manichaeans, and the Majusis. He gives the following reasons for the
attachment of men to religion:
 Imitation and tradition.
 Power of the clergy who are in the service of the State.
 External manifestations of religions, ceremonials and rituals, which
impose themselves upon the imagination of the simple and the
naive.
 He shows contradictions between religion and religion in detail.
 Naturalism in
Islamic World
ENTER TITLE

Naturalism of Al Razi
 Al-Razi's naturalism was based on his belief in the unity of nature. He argued
that all natural phenomena are interconnected and that there is no need to
invoke supernatural forces to explain them.
 Al-Razi's naturalism had a significant impact on the development of philosophy
in the Islamic world. It helped to pave the way for the rise of the Mu'tazilite
school of thought, which emphasized the importance of reason and free will.
 Al-Razi's ideas also influenced later philosophers, such as Ibn Rushd and
Averroes.
ENTER TITLE

Concepts of naturalism
 The natural world is all that exists and that there is no supernatural
realm.
 Human mind is capable of understanding the natural world through
reason and observation.
 Unity of nature and the interconnection of all natural phenomena.
 rejection of the idea of divine intervention in the natural world.
 Promotion of the use of reason and logic in philosophical inquiry.
 Al-Razi's naturalism was a significant departure from the prevailing view
in the Islamic world at the time, which was that the natural world was
governed by both natural and supernatural forces.
 His ideas helped to pave the way for the rise of a more naturalistic and
rationalistic approach to philosophy in the Islamic world.
 Conclusion
Al-Razi had no organized system of philosophy, but compared to his time he must be

reckoned as the most vigorous and liberal thinker in Islam and perhaps in the whole

history of human thought.

He was a pure rationalist, extremely confident in the power of reason, free from every kind

of prejudice, and very daring in the expression of- his ideas without reserve.

He believed in man, in progress, and in God the Wise, but in no religion whatever.
 Bibliography
 Ibn al-Nadim, Fihrist, ed. Flugel, pp. 299 et sqq. ;
 Sa'id al-Andalusi, Tabaqat al-Umam, p. 33;
 Ibn Juljul, Tabaqat al-Atibba' w-al-Hukama', ed. Fu'ad Sayyid,
Cairo, 1355/1936, pp. 77-78;
 Al-Biruni, Epitre de Beruni, contenant le repertoire des
ouvryesde Muhammad ibn Zakariya ar-Razi, publiee par P.
Kraus, Paris, 1936;
 A. Ranking, “The Life and Works of Rhazes,” in Proceedings of
the Seven­teenth International Congress of Medicine, London,
1913, pp. 237-68;
 The Spiritual Physick by Abu Bakr al-Razi, translated by William
A. Hinz (1973)
 The Philosophical Works of Abu Bakr al-Razi edited by M.
Mahdi (1977)
 Abu Bakr al-Razi: The Beginnings of Islamic Philosophy by
Henry Corbin (1990)
 Abu Bakr al-Razi: Religion and Philosophy in the Islamic
World by Wilferd
Thanks