Abstract:

Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī is a thinker with original thoughts in various scholarly domains. He considered learning all kinds of knowledge as a must and hardly treated disciplines differently in this respect. He produced works in many fields. He used the knowledge obtained from different branches of science to explain the truth. Among the disciplines that al-Rāzī was heavily engaged in are kalām, philosophy and Sufism. He sometimes adopted a philosophical point of view, sometimes investigated philosophical issues as a theologian and at other times used Sufi terminology to explain what he meant. The evolution of his intellectual world was reflected in both his thoughts and works. This intellectual experienced by al-Rāzī is interpreted in different ways. Some consider it as a synthesis, while others think that it is a quest to discover the truth. In our study, al-Rāzī’s intellectual shifts were examined under three major headings. The first is al-Rāzī, as the theologian. The basic thoughts of this identity are based on his farther Ziya al-Din Umar, an Ashʿarite theologian, and the environment in which he lived. Introducing philosophical debates into kalām, al-Rāzī became a pioneer in the era of philosophical theology, thereby leading to the analysis of many theological issues through a philosophical lens. With his philosophical theology, al-Rāzī converged to philosophers with respect to issues in which al-mutaqaddimīn differed from the theologians. In our study, the theological identity of al-Rāzī was investigated under the title of al-Rāzī, the theologian. The second is al-Rāzī, as the philosopher. Al-Rāzī’s philosophy is a construct formed because of his intellectual contact with Avicenna and the peripatetic tradition. Although he criticized both the peripatetic philosophy and Avicenna, he was more deeply involved in philosophy than in theology. Using the arguments he borrowed from philosophy, he gave a philosophical identity to kalām. The philosophical aspects of al-Rāzī were addressed under the heading of al-Rāzī, the philosopher. The third is al-Rāzī, as the Sufi. It is hard to explain how al-Rāzī combined theology and Sufism, which are two areas distant from each other, in the same pot of thought. Al-Rāzī, made sure to benefit from the terminology of Sufism while seeking ground for some theological problems. The present study revealed that al-Rāzī, who changes, develops, and rises in one aspect in the eyes of researchers at each disciplinary stop, has an interdisciplinary identity.

Keywords: