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Rabi‘a al-‘Adawiyya (Rābiʻa al-ʻAdawiyya al-Qaysiyya) (Rābiʻa al-Basrī) (713/717-801). Mystic and saint of Basra. She gathered round her many disciples, and many miracles were attributed to Rabia al-Adawiyya
Rābiʻa al-ʻAdawiyya al-Qaysiyya was a female Muslim Sufi saint who is highly regarded and has been conferred the status of Half-Qalander.
She was born in Basra, Iraq. Much of her early life is narrated by Farid al-Din Attar, a later Sufi saint and poet, who used earlier sources. Rabia herself did not leave any written works.
Apart from tradition, all we know is that Rabi'a lived in Basra, Iraq, in the second half of the 700s (the second Islamic century), that she was probably a freed slave, and that she is considered one of the first of the Sufis (from the Arabic for "mystic"), those Muslims who emphasize an intensely personal relationship with Allah.
According to tradition, Rabi'a was born free, but sold into slavery at her parents' death. She was freed by a miracle, and, except for at least one pilgrimage to Mecca, lived all of her life in Basra as a celibate ascetic who debated with and taught the major religious figures of her time. We have descriptions of Rabi'a from scholars of the 800s and 900s, but most of the stories of her come down to us from the writings of Farid al-Din 'Attar (d. c.1230). It is through 'Attar that we have Rabi'a's words; she herself left no written documents.
Basra, near the Persian Gulf, was an important military and trading site, both for sea trade and for overland routes from the Arabian peninsula. From its foundation in the mid-600s, it was a center of Islamic religious and intellectual thought. Hasan al-Basri (d.728) was the city's first major ascetic figure; since he was probably dead before Rabi'a reached adulthood, the anecdotes about their meetings may reflect conflict between their respective disciples. Rabi'a represents those who, while never going outside the bounds of Muslim orthodoxy, moved from an emphasis on ritual to a total concentration on Allah and identification with his will.
Rabi'a began her ascetic life in a small desert cell near Basra, where she lost herself in prayer and went straight to God for teaching. As far as is known, she never studied under any master or spiritual director. She was one of the first of the Sufis to teach that Love alone was the guide on the mystic path. A later Sufi taught that there were two classes of "true believers": one class sought a master as an intermediary between them and God -- unless they could see the footsteps of the Prophet on the path before them, they would not accept the path as valid. The second class “...did not look before them for the footprint of any of God's creatures, for they had removed all thought of what He had created from their hearts, and concerned themselves solely with God.
Rabi'a was of this second kind. She felt no reverence even for the House of God in Mecca: "It is the Lord of the house Whom I need; what have I to do with the house?" One lovely spring morning a friend asked her to come outside to see the works of God. She replied, "Come you inside that you may behold their Maker. Contemplation of the Maker has turned me aside from what He has made". During an illness, a friend asked this woman if she desired anything.
"...[H]ow can you ask me such a question as 'What do I desire?' I swear by the glory of God that for twelve years I have desired fresh dates, and you know that in Basra dates are plentiful, and I have not yet tasted them. I am a servant (of God), and what has a servant to do with desire?"
When a male friend once suggested she should pray for relief from a debilitating illness, she said,
"O Sufyan, do you not know Who it is that wills this suffering for me? Is it not God Who wills it? When you know this, why do you bid me ask for what is contrary to His will? It is not well to oppose one's Beloved."
She was an ascetic. It was her custom to pray all night, sleep briefly just before dawn, and then rise again just as dawn "tinged the sky with gold". She lived in celibacy and poverty, having renounced the world. A friend visited her in old age and found that all she owned were a reed mat, screen, a pottery jug, and a bed of felt which doubled as her prayer-rug, for where she prayed all night, she also slept briefly in the pre-dawn chill. Once her friends offered to get her a servant; she replied,
"I should be ashamed to ask for the things of this world from Him to Whom the world belongs, and how should I ask for them from those to whom it does not belong?"
A wealthy merchant once wanted to give her a purse of gold. She refused it, saying that God, who sustains even those who dishonor Him, would surely sustain her, "whose soul is overflowing with love" for Him. And she added an ethical concern as well:
"...How should I take the wealth of someone of whom I do not know whether he acquired it lawfully or not?"
She taught that repentance was a gift from God because no one could repent unless God had already accepted him and given him this gift of repentance. She taught that sinners must fear the punishment they deserved for their sins, but she also offered such sinners far more hope of Paradise than most other ascetics did. For herself, she held to a higher ideal, worshipping God neither from fear of Hell nor from hope of Paradise, for she saw such self-interest as unworthy of God's servants. Emotions like fear and hope were like veils -- i.e., hindrances to the vision of God Himself. The story is told that once a number of Sufis saw her hurrying on her way with water in one hand and a burning torch in the other. When they asked her to explain, she said:
"I am going to light a fire in Paradise and to pour water on to Hell, so that both veils may vanish altogether from before the pilgrims and their purpose may be sure..."
She was once asked where she came from. "From that other world," she said. "And where are you going?" she was asked. "To that other world," she replied. She taught that the spirit originated with God in "that other world" and had to return to Him in the end. Yet if the soul were sufficiently purified, even on earth, it could look upon God unveiled in all God's glory and unite with him in love. In this quest, logic and reason were powerless. Instead, she speaks of the "eye" of her heart which alone could apprehend God and God's mysteries.
Above all, she was a lover. Her hours of prayer were not so much devoted to intercession as to communion with her Beloved. Through this communion, she could discover God's will for her. Many of her prayers have come down to us:
"I have made Thee the Companion of my heart,
But my body is available for those who seek its company,
And my body is friendly towards its guests,
But the Beloved of my heart is the Guest of my soul." [224]
Another:
"O my Joy and my Desire, my Life and my Friend. If Thou art satisfied with me, then, O Desire of my heart, my happiness is attained."
She was asked once if she hated Satan.
"My love to God has so possessed me that no place remains for loving or hating any save Him."
To such lovers, she taught, God unveiled himself in all his beauty and revealed the Beatific Vision. For this vision, she willingly gave up all lesser joys.
"O my Lord," she prayed, "if I worship Thee from fear of Hell, burn me in Hell, and if I worship Thee in hope of Paradise, exclude me thence, but if I worship Thee for Thine own sake, then withhold not from me Thine Eternal Beauty."
Rabi'a was in her early to mid eighties when she died, having followed the mystic Way to the end. By then, she was continually united with her Beloved. As she told her Sufi friends, "My Beloved is always with me"
Rabi‘a’s role in the development of Sufi thought is highlighted by numerous anecdotes concerning her relationship with Hasan of Basra (d. 728). Hasan was the most famous religious authority of his time, an expert of hadith (traditions of the Prophet) and an acquaintance with many of the Prophet’s companions. He was one of the first advocates of ascetic piety in Islam and at the same time one of the first critical investigators into the issue of divine pre-determination and human free will. Indeed, Hasan is considered by many to be the founder of both Sufism and Islamic scholastic theology (kalam).
If, as the anecdotes suggest, Rabi‘a knew Hasan, he must have been very old at the time, and she very young. The crucial point in the Hasan and Rabi‘a stories is not their objective historicity, however, but the key Sufi concepts that are built upon the medieval Sufi convention of the spiritual contest in which two sages compete verbally with one another, one of them coming out as the wiser or more sincere. The humble former slave Rabi‘a continually wins in her jousts with Hasan, the most famous religious and intellectual figure of his time. What binds these stories together, and what links them with other anecdotes and sayings, is Rabi‘a’s ability to synthesize ascetic piety with theological concerns (two areas that seemed to remain compartmentalized with Hasan) into a new way of thinking that was to become the ground of Sufism.
This synthesis combined the Qur’anic doctrine of the unity of God (tawhid) with ascetic impulses and a continuing investigation of the issue of human free will and divind predetermination. For Rabi‘a, affirmation of one God was not a matter of mere verbal correctness. Divine unity could be authentically affirmed only by turning one’s entire life and consciousness toward that one deity. To consider anything else was, in effect, a form of idolatry. She constantly criticized Hasan and other spiritual leaders for becoming attached to the ascetic piety and treating it as an end in and of itself. Rabi‘a offered a devastating critique of those claiming to despise the world for the sake of God. She opined that if those who despised the world had truly achieved an affirmation of one God, they would not by paying enough attention to anything else, including the world, to bother despising it.
Thus, the doctrinal affirmation of one God as a theistic principle was combined with a spiritual quest in which only one thing could be the object of one’s concern. This combination led to Rabi‘a’s celebrated notion of sincerity (sidq), or sincere love. For Rabi‘a, sincerity is not compatible with acting out of hope for reward or fear of punishment.
The passages in the Qur’an on the day of judgment or moment of truth are among the most compelling and most beautiful examples of prophetic discourse. They are open to many interpretations. Yet by Rabi‘a’s time, it is clear that they had become associated in the popular mind with a complex topography of Heaven and Hell (with seven levels in each and various descriptions of the joys and torments of the inhabitants) and with a psychology of reward and punishment. Hasan of Basra was famous for his continual intensification of fear of Hell in meditation as a way of motivating and overcoming the appetites of the carnal self.
Rabi‘a rejected the entire edifice of reward and punishment. In numerous prayers, she is quoted as asking the Deity to deny her Paradise if she desires or worships out of hope for Paradise, and to condemn her to Hell if she worships out of fear of Hell. The most famous anecdote represents Rabi‘a as running down the path with fire in the one hand and water in the other. When asked what she was doing, Rabi‘a responded that she wished to burn Paradise and douse the fires of Hell, so that no one will ever love God except out of pure love, devoid considerations of reward and punishment. To be concerned with anything (even Heaven and Hell) beside the one God is in effect to affirm something else as God.
Rabi‘a was implacably consistent in her articulation of this notion of sincere love. When asked if she hated Satan, she responded no, she was too busy loving God to think about Satan. When asked if she loved the Prophet Muhammad, she said no, with the most profound respect to the Prophet, she had room for only One Beloved. To love another would be to take another being as one’s God.
Connected with this conception of sincerity was Rabi‘a’s rigorous understanding of the virtue of trust-in-God (tawakkul). In numerous anecdotes, Rabi‘a is depicted as not only refusing to plan for the future, but even to consider it. To make plans for the future, hoard up supplies, or build up furnishings is to fail to put one’s full trust in the Deity. It is also a contradiction of the rigorous affirmation of one God; to put one’s trust in one’s own plan is to make of that plan one’s God.
The resultant way of life and thought can be characterized as one of active acceptance (rida), that is, absolute acceptance of the infinite divine will. It is crucial to distinguish between Rabi‘a’s active notion of acceptance and passive resignation or fatalism. In several anecdotes, Rabi ‘a’ refuses to ask anything of any human creature, because to do so would violate the principle of trust-in-God and the unity of God. She goes on to refuse to ask the Deity for anything, on the grounds that the Deity knows her condition already, and has forewilled it. Such petition then would violate the principle of acceptance. Rather than leading to passivity or fatalism, this absolute acceptance is viewed as the key to authentic action. In the anecdotes about Rabi‘a it is this active acceptance that is the proof of her authenticity to those around her.
The depth of Rabi‘a’s sincerity acted as a protection for her in an often insecure world; as a freed woman she had more prerogatives for refusing marriage than other women, but she could not have led the public and vocal life she lived had she not been, in the words of ‘Attar, veiled by the veil of sincerity.
Ultimately, the major concepts of Rabi‘a’s thought are tied together in the ultimate intellectual and spiritual goal: extinction (fana’) of the ego-self in union with the Divine Beloved. It is only in such extinction that the extreme versions of trust, active acceptance, sincerity beyond hope for reward and fear of punishment, and true affirmation of divine unity can be attained. In such extinction, the Deity works in and through the human in the state of the annihilation of the ego-self.
The concept of the annihilation of the self in mystical union, central for all subsequent Sufi philosophy, would be further developed by the other major thinkers of early Sufism: Junayd (d. 910), Bistami (d. c. 875), Tustari (d. 896), and Hallaj (d. 922). Later Sufis such as Qushayri would go on to place concepts of trust, sincerity, acceptance, poverty, and divine unity into complex categories of “stations” (maqamat) and momentary states (ahwal), but the essential configuration is, according to the biographers of Rabi‘a’, the great achievement of this self-educated former slave girl of Basra. Ultimately, Rabi‘a ‘al-Adawiyya is recognized by Sufi tradition as central in forging the new synthesis of theology and ascesis that would come to be known as Sufism
Rābiʻa al-ʻAdawiyya al-Qaysiyya see Rabi‘a al-‘Adawiyya
Rābiʻa al-Basrī see Rabi‘a al-‘Adawiyya
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Razi, Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya’ al-
Razi, Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya’ al- (Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya’ al-Razi) (Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya ar-Razi) (Rhazes) (Muhammad ibn Zakariyā Rāzī) (Mohammad-e Zakariā-ye Rāzi) (Rasis) (August 26, 865, Rey – 925, Rey). Greatest physician of Islam, and a noted alchemist and philosopher. A number of his works, among them his large medical encyclopedia in Arabic, called al-Hawi, were translated into Latin. Indeed, al-Hawi was commonly used in Europe and up to the seventeenth century al-Razi’s medical authority was undisputed.
In chemistry, al-Razi rejected all occult and symbolical explanations of natural phenomena. Of his metaphysical works only a few fragments have been preserved in later authors. He was an opponent of the Aristotelians and relied on the authority of Plato and the pre-Socratic philosophers. He had a critical attitude to established religion, refuted the Mu‘tazila, the extreme Shi‘a and the Manichaeans, and denied the possibility of a reconciliation between philosophy and religion. One of his writings was read among the Carmathians, and seems to have influenced the famous theme of the “De Tribus Impostoribus.”
Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya’ al-Razi was born in Rayy in what is now Iraq. He lived in Baghdad in his early thirties and again from about 901 to 907, while the Abbasid caliph al-Muktafi was in office. Just as earlier, so later, he returned to Rayy as soon as possible, and it was there that he died. A man of imposing stature, al-Razi was predominantly a physician and teacher of medicine, but he also served as a sometime adviser to various rulers and was a prolific author. Indeed, his writings include over 200 treatises, pamphlets, and books. Though his writing apparently led to a paralysis of the hand and impaired eyesight, he nonetheless continued with the help of secretaries and scribes.
It is said that early in his life Ar-Razi was interested in singing and music besides other professions. Because of his eagerness for knowledge, he became more interested in the study of alchemy and chemistry, philosophy, logic, mathematics and physics. It was in the field of medicine that he spent most of his life, practicing it, studying and writing about it. Due to his fame in medicine, Ar-Razi was appointed head of the physicians of the Rayy Hospital, and later put in charge of the Baghdad main Hospital during the reign of the Adud-Dawla.
An interesting episode of Ar-Razi’s remarkable method of choosing the right spot for the Baghdad main hospital is described as follows: When Adud-Dawla asked Ar-Razi to build a hospital, he had pieces of fresh meat placed at various parts of the city of Baghdad. Some time later, he checked each piece to find out which one was less rotten than the others, and he chose the spot of the least rotten pieces of meat a site for the hospital.
Ar-Razi was a pioneer in many areas of medicine and treatment and in the health sciences in general. In particular, he was a pioneer in the fields of pediatrics, obstetrics and ophthalmology. In medicine, his contribution was so significant that it can only be compared to that of Ibn Sina (Avicenna). Some of his works in medicine, e.g., Kitab al-Mansoori; Al-Hawi; Kitab al-Mulooki and Kitab al-Judari wa al-Hasabah earned everlasting fame. A special feature of his medical system was that he greatly favored cures through correct and regulated food. This was combined with his emphasis on the influence of psychological factors on health. He also tried proposed remedies first on animals in order to evaluate in their effects and side effects. Ar-Razi was the first person to introduce the use of alcohol (in Arabic, al-kuhl) for medicinal purposes. He was also an expert surgeon and was the first to use opium for anesthesia.
Ar-Razi was the first to give an account of the operation for the extraction of a cataract and also the first scientist to discuss the pupillary reaction or the widening and narrowing of the pupil of the eye. He explained that the reaction was due to the presence of small muscles which act according to the intensity of light.
The greatest medical work of Ar-Razi (Rhazes) and perhaps the most extensive ever written by a medical man, is al-Hawi, i.e., the Comprehensive Book, which includes indeed Greek, Syrian, and early Arabic medical knowledge in their entirety. Throughout his life, Ar-Razi must have collected extracts from all the books available to him on medicine. In his last years, he combined these with his medical experience into an enormous twenty volume medical encyclopedia. Al-Hawi was the largest medical encyclopedia composed by then. It was translated into Latin under the auspices of Charles I of Anjou by the Sicilian Jewish physician, Faraj ibn Salim (Farragut) in 1279 and was repeatedly printed from 1488 onwards. Al-Hawi was known as Continens in its Latin translation. By 1542, five editions of Continens had appeared, while parts of it were more publicly availaable than the five editions might suggest. Another scholar points out that Ar-Razi’s al-Hawi was one of the nine volumes constituting the whole library of the Paris Faculty of Medicine in 1395.
Ar-Razi’s Kitab al-Mansoori, which was translated into Latin (and is known by the title Liber Almansoris) in the 1480s in Milan, comprised ten volumes and dealt exhaustively with Greco-Arab medicine. Some of its volumes have been published separately into German and French. The ninth volume of the translation made by Gerard of Cremona -- the Nonus al-Mansuri was a popular text in Europe until the sixteenth century. Ar-Razi in al-Mansoori devoted a whole chapter on anatomy. In it Ar-Razi has presented a detailed description of the various organs of the human body, and sensory and motor parts. He has also given elaborate descriptions of the intervertebral foramina and spinal chord, and correctly asserted that an injury either to the brain or spinal chord would lead to paralysis of the parts of the organs whose nerve supply was damaged or destroyed.
Ar-Razi’s al-Judari wa al-Hasabah was the first treatise on smallpox and chickenpox, and is largely based on Ar-Razi’s original contribution. It was first translated into Latin in 1565 and later into several European languages and went into forty editions between 1498 and 1866. It was translated into English by William Greenhill of London in 1848. Through his treatise Ar-Razi became the first to draw clear comparisons between smallpox and chickenpox.
Ar-Razi gave many valuable pieces of advice to practicing physicians:
A physician should not forget to ask his patient all sorts of questions pertaining to the possible causes of his illness, both internal and external. ...
If a physician can treat a patient through nutrition rather than medicine he has done the best thing.
A physician should always try to convince his patient of improvement and hope in the effectiveness of treatment, for the psychological state of the patient has a great effect on his physical condition.
Whoever seeks treatment with too many physicians might suffer the risk of the faults of each of them. A patient should restrict consultation to one trustworthy physician.
Ar-Razi also compounded medicines and took keen interest in experimental and theoretical sciences. It is conjectured that he developed his chemistry independently of Jabir ibn Hayyan (Geber). He has discussed several chemical reactions and also given full descriptions of and designs for about twenty instruments used in chemical investigations. His description of chemical knowledge is in plain and plausible language. One of his books Kitab-al-Asrar deals with the preparation of chemical materials and their utilization. Another one was translated into Latin under the name Liber Experimentorium. He went beyond his predecessors in dividing substances into plants, animals and minerals, thus in a way opening the way for inorganic and organic chemistry. By and large, this classification still holds. As a chemist, Ar-Razi was the first to produce sulfuric acid together with some other acids, and he also prepared alcohol by fermenting sweet potatoes.
Ar-Razi’s contribution as a philosopher is also well-known. The basic elements in his philosophical system are the creator, spirit, matter, space and time. He discusses their characteristics in detail and his concepts of space and time as constituting a continuum is well ahead of his time.
Ar-Razi was a prolific author, who has left monumental treatises on numerous subjects. He has more than two hundred outstanding scientific contributions to his credit, out of which about half deal with medicine and twenty-one on alchemy. He also wrote on physics, mathematics, astronomy and optics, but these writings could not be preserved. A number of his other books, including Jami-fi-al-Tib, Maqalah fi al-Hasat fi Kuli wa al-Mathana, Kitab al-Qalb, Kitab al-Mafasil, Kitab al-‘Ilaj al-Ghoraba, Bar al-Sa’ah, and al-Taqseem wa al-Takhsir, have been published in various European languages. About 40 of his manuscripts are still extant in the museums and libraries of Iran, Paris, Great Britain, and Rampur (India). His contribution has greatly influenced the development of science, in general, and medicine in particular.
In recognition of his great contributions to science and, especially to medicine, Ar-Razi’s portrait adorns the great hall of the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Paris.
Al-Razi was also a major contributor to philosophy. The two major philosophical works of al-Razi are the Book of the Philosophic Life and Book of Spiritual Medicine. In his Book of the Philosophic Life, al-Razi focuses on the life of Socrates. The Book of Spiritual Medicine describes (1) how we can rid ourselves of bad moral habits and (2) the extent to which someone aspiring to be philosophical may concern himself with the gaining of a livelihood, acquisition, expenditure and the seeking of rulership. For al-Razi, philosophy consists of three basic concerns: moral virtue or ethics, household management or economics, and political rule. As al-Razi notes almost in passing, it is perfectly justifiable to distinguish between human beings in terms of how essential they are to the well-being of the community.
Such reflections allow al-Razi to defend himself against the calumnies of his nameless critics. The defense goes beyond mere exculpation to an explanation of philosophy itself. Thus, as part of his final self-justification, al-Razi asserts that philosophy consists of two parts, knowledge and practice, and that anyone who fails to achieve both cannot be called a philosopher.
Al-Razi is considered to be the most original thinker and the keenest clinical observer of all the medieval Muslim physicians, al-Razi produced the first clinical account of smallpox and measles, a twenty-four volume compendium of medical knowledge, and set new standards for medical ethics, the clinical observation of disease, and the testing of medical treatment.
There is little authentic information about the life of al-Razi. He was born around 864 in Rayy, a few miles from modern Tehran, administered a hospital in that town as well as in Baghdad, and died in his hometown about 925. In his youth, music was his chief interest. He played the lute and studied voice. Upon reaching adulthood, he rejected this pursuit, however, asserting that music produced by grown men lacked charm. He then turned to the study of philosophy, a lifelong interest, and developed decidedly egalitarian views, a keen interest in ethics, and a profoundly questioning stance toward received dogmas, both religious and scientific. In his thirties, he began to pursue medical studies and a career as a physician.
His interest in medicine reportedly arose after a visit to a sick home in Baghdad, where he was so moved by the suffering of the sick and maimed patients that he determined to devote the rest of his life to alleviating human misery through the practice of medicine. Exactly where he acquired his medical training is unknown, although it was most likely in Baghdad, where he lived from 902 to 907. At that time, the city was the leading center of learning in the Middle East and contained fully equipped hospitals, well-stocked libraries, and a sound tradition of research. Successive ‘Abbasid caliphs, from al-Mansur (754-775) and Harun al-Rashid (786-809) to al-Ma’mun (813-833), had generously endowed institutes for the study of ancient Greek arts and sciences as well as those of Persia and India. Some scholars suggest that al-Razi, who spent most of his life in Iran, probably studied medicine at the University of Jondisabur, a Sassanid-founded institution, which remained a major medical center in the medieval Muslim East.
Al-Razi, an outstanding clinician and a brilliant diagnostician and medical practitioner, was probably the most learned and original of all the medieval Muslim physicians. His scientific and philosophical writings total some 113 major and twenty-eight minor works, of which twelve discuss alchemy. While chief physician and master teacher of the hospital in Rayy, he produced the ten-volume encyclopedia Kitab al-tibb al-Mansuri (c. 915), named for his patron Mansur ibn Ishaq al-Samani of Sijistan: a Latin translation, Liber Almansoris, was first published in Milan in the 1580's. Al-Razi was invariably described as a generous and gracious man wiht a large head, full beard, and imposing presence. His lectures, which attracted full-capacity crowds of students, were organized so that his senior students handled all questions they could answer, deferring to him only those issues beyond their knowledge.
Early in his career he earned a reputation as an effective and compassionate healer, which resulted in his appointment in 918 by the ‘Abbasid caliph al-Muqtadir as physician in chief of the great hospital at Baghdad. In choosing a new site for this main hospital, al-Razi is said to have had pieces of meat hung in different quarters of Baghdad, finally selecting the spot where the meat was slowest to decompose, which he deemed the area with the healthiest air. As a result of his compassion for the sick and his contributions to medical ethics, al-Razi is justifiably compared to Hippocrates. In his Baghdad hospital, he provided patients with music, storytelling, recitations of the Qur’an, and separate convalescent quarters. He not only treated poor patients free of charge but also supported them with his own funds during their convalescence at home. He emphasized a holistic approach to treating illness -- that the mind as well as the body must be treated -- but above all insisted that the art of healing must rest on a scientific basis. In his treatise on medical ethics, Upon the Circumstances Which Turn the Head of Most Men from the Reputable Physician (c. 919), al-Razi warns physicians that laymen think doctors know all and can diagnose a problem with a simple examination. He laments that frustrated patients turn to quacks who may alleviate some symptoms but not effect a cure. Al-Razi advises reputable physicians not to despair or promise cures but to use their critical judgment, apply tested treatments to appropriate cases, and be thoroughly familiar with the available medical literature.
Al-Razi, like Hippocrates, based his diagnoses on observation of the course of a disease. In administering treatments, he paid serious attention to dietetics and hygienic measures in conjunction with the use of closely monitored drug therapy. His fine powers of observation and detailed clinical descriptions are evident in his best known monograph, al-Judari w-al-hasbah (A Treatise on the Smallpox and Measles -- c. 922), which is the first clinical account of smallpox. In this work, he describes the types of human bodies most susceptible to each disease, the season in which each disease most often occurs, and the varied symptoms indicating the approaching eruption of smallpox and measles. These symptoms included fever, back pain, nausea, anxiety, itching in the nose, and nightmares. Since al-Razi believed that these diseases were caused by fermentation of the blood, his remedy was purification of the blood. The therapeutic measures he employed were based upon his readings of the ancient Greeks and his own clinical trials. He devised two different approaches to treatment: to counteract the disease with antidotes such as camphor mixtures, purgatives, bloodletting, and cooling with cold sponges or baths; and to effect a cure with heat, especially steam, to stimulate the eruption of pustules and hasten healing. The choice of treatment depended on the degree of fever and the patient’s general condition. Bloodletting, which was a common practice, he recommended using with caution and not on the very young, the very old, or those with a weak constitution. Al-Razi also developed detailed measures for preventing secondary effects from these diseases, such as damage to the eyes, ears, and throat and scarring of the skin.
Possessing an extensive knowledge of pharmacology and therapeutics, al-Razi claimed to have acquired much valuable information from women healers and herbalists in his own country and from his travels to Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Muslim Spain. Other medieval physicians added little to his vast knowledge of drugs. His drug therapy was similar to contemporary practice in that dosage was based on age and weight. Drugs with which he was acquainted included nux vomica, senna, camphor, cardamom, salammoniac, and arrack as well as other alcoholic drinks. He used oils, powders, infusions, syrups, liniments, plasters, suppositories, compresses, and fumigations. His diligent search for drugs of therapeutic value and his methods of clinical observation laid the foundation on which future physicians would build.
Al-Razi’s extensive medical and pharmacological knowledge is contained in his most important work, al-Kitab al-hawi fi’il tibb (The Comprehensive Book -- c. 930), a twenty-four volume encyclopedia which summarized the medical knowledge of the time, that is, the knowledge of the Greeks, Persians, Indians, and Arabs. It was completed posthumously by his students. First translated into Latin in 1279, it was repeatedly printed from 1486 onward under the title Continens Medicinae and exercised considerable influence in the Latin West. Medieval Muslim knowledge of anatomy and physiology was limited by the Qur’anic prohibition against dissection of the human body. Thus, most information on anatomy and surgery in al-Kitab al-hawi fi’l tibb was drawn from Greeks such as Galen and Hippocrates. Al-Razi provided numerous descriptions of his own surgical procedures, however, including those for intestinal obstructions, various forms of hernia, vesical calculi, tracheotomy, and cancer. In treating cancer, he stressed that there should be no surgical removal of cancerous tissue unless the entire cancer could be removed.
Much of al-Razi’s philosophical thinking can be gleaned from two of his treatises on ethics: Kitab al-tibb al-ruhani (The Book of Spiritual Physick -- c. 920) and Sirat al-faylasuf (The Philosopher’s Way of Life -- c. 920). He propounded egalitarian views, rejecting a contemporary argument that humans can be stratified according to innate abilities. Rather, he believed that all people possess the capacity to reason and do not need the discipline imposed by religious leaders. The latter he accused of deception, and the miracles of prophets he regarded as trickery. His critical attitude toward religious authority carried over to the established dogmas of science. Only by questioning and testing received knowledge, he argued, could there be continuing progress in science.
Al-Razi asserted that he did not accept Aristotle’s philosophy and that he was a disciple of Plato, with whom he shared certain ideas on matter. His egalitarianism, however, was anti-thetical to Plato’s political ideas. Al-Razi’s attitude toward animals was also part of his ethics. He believed that only carnivores and noxious animals such as snakes should be killed, for he endorsed the doctrine of transmigration, according to which a soul may pass from an animal to a person. Killing an animal set the soul on a path of liberation, while al-Razi maintained that only souls occupying human bodies should be liberated. Toward the end of his life, al-Razi became blind from cataracts. He reportedly rejected surgery, remarking that he had seen too much of the world already. Some biographers have argued that his interest in alchemy contributed to his blindness. Others ascribed it to his excessive consumption of beans. He died around 925 in abject poverty, having given all of his wealth to his impoverished patients.
Al-Razi’s anti-religious attitude and his interest in alchemy caused other Muslim intellectuals to criticize his work and question his medical competence. To his credit, his principal work on alchemy, Kitab al-asrar wa-sirr al asrra (The Book of Secrets -- c. 916), which was translated into Latin in 1187 (De spiritibus et corporibus), was a chief source of chemical knowledge through the fourteenth century. Later, more talented medieval physicians such as Moses Maimonides found fault with his philosophy but not with his medicine. As Aristotelians they were intolerant of his disavowal of Aristotle and his readiness to accept empirical evidence that upset established doctrines. It was in his insistence on rigorous scientific research and valid evidence, however, that al-Razi anticipated the position of modern medicine. Moreover, as a conscientious practitioner who stressed qualitative medicine -- devising the best therapy, based on an evaluation of the patient’s physical and mental condition -- he set high standards for physicians and paved the way for modern medical practice.
As a result of his many achievements -- the application of chemistry to medical treatment, the earliest study of smallpox and other epidemiological studies, the elaboration of medical ethics and scientific trials, the invention of the seton for surgery -- al-Razi secured the historical reputation of the medieval Muslim Arab world as the primary center of science and medicine. His Muslim predecessors introduced clinics, hospitals, and pharmacies, but al-Razi established more rigorous ethical, clinical and scientific standards, free from dogmatic prejudices, which foreshadowed those of modern science. For that reason, al-Razi’s portrait is one of only two portraits of Muslim physicians (the other being that of Avicenna) which were hung long ago in the great hall of the School of Medicine at the University of Paris as permanent testimony to the West’s debt to the science of medieval Islam.
Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya’ al-Razi see Razi, Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya’ al-
Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya ar-Razi see Razi, Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya’ al-
Rhazes see Razi, Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya’ al-
Muhammad ibn Zakariyā Rāzī see Razi, Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya’ al-
Mohammad-e Zakariā-ye Rāzi see Razi, Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya’ al-
Rasis see Razi, Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya’ al-
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Razi, Fakhr al-Din al-
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (Fakhruddin Razi) (1149 or 1150 – 1209) often known by the sobriquet "Sultan of the Theologians", was a Persian polymath, an influential Islamic scholar and one of the pioneers of inductive logic. He wrote various works in the fields of medicine, chemistry, physics, astronomy, cosmology, literature, theology, ontology, philosophy, history, and jurisprudence. He was one of the earliest proponents and skeptics that came up with the concept of the Multiverse, and compared it with the astronomical teachings of Qur'an. An ardent opponent to the geocentric model and the Aristotelian notions of a single universe revolving around a single world, Al-Razi argued for the existence of an outer space beyond the known world.
Al-Razi was born in Ray, Iran, and died in Herat, Afghanistan. He left a very rich corpus of philosophical and theological works that reveals influences from the works of Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Abu'l-Baralat al-Baghdadi, and al-Ghazali. Two of his works titled Mabāhith al-mashriqiyya fī ‘ilm al-ilāhiyyāt wa-'l-tabi‘iyyāt (Eastern Studies in Metaphysics and Physics) and al-Matālib al-‘Aliya (The Higher Issues) are usually regarded as his most important works.
Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, whose full name was Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar ibn al-Ḥusayn, was born in 1149 or 1150 CC (543 or 544 AH) in Ray (close to modern day Tehran), whence his nisba (an adjective indicating the person's place of origin, tribal affiliation, or ancestry), "al-Razi". According to Ibn al-Sha' 'ar al-Mawsili (died 1256), one of al-Razi's earliest biographers, al-Razi's great-grandfather had been a rich merchant in Mecca. Either his great-grandfather or his grandfather migrated from Mecca to Tabaristan (a mountainous region located on the Caspian Sea coast of northern Iran) in the 11th century of the Christian calendar, and some time after that the family settled in Ray. Having been born into a family of Meccan origin, al-Razi claimed descent from the first caliph Abu Bakr (c. 573–634 CC), and was known by medieval biographers as al-Qurashī (a member of the Quraysh, the tribe of the prophet Muhammad to which also Abu Bakr belonged). However, it is not clear from which precise lines of descent al-Razi envisioned his purported ties with Abu Bakr, and the poet Ibn 'Unayn (d. 1233 CC) actually praised al-Razi for being a descendant of the second caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab (d. 644 CC).
Fakhr al-Din first studied with his father, Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn al-Makkī, himself a scholar of some repute who wrote a magnum opus in Kalam (Islamic scholastic theology). Al-Razi later studied at Merv and Maragheh, where he was one of the pupils of Majd al-Din al-Jili, who in turn had been a disciple of al-Ghazali.
Fakhr al-Din became a leading proponent of the Ash'ari school of theology. His commentary on the Qur'an was the most-varied and many-sided of all extant works of the kind, comprising most of the material of importance that had previously appeared. He devoted himself to a wide range of studies and is said to have expended a large fortune on experiments in alchemy. He taught at Ray (Central Iran) and Ghazni (eastern Afghanhistan), and became head of the university founded by Mohammed ibn Tukush at Herat (western Afghanistan).
In his later years, Fakhr al-Din also showed interest in mysticism, although this never formed a significant part of his scholastic work. He died in Herat (Afghanistan) in 1209 CC (606 AH), where his tomb is still venerated today.
One of al-Razi's outstanding achievements was his unique interpretive work on the Qur'an called Mafātiḥ al-Ghayb (Keys to the Unseen) and later nicknamed Tafsīr al-Kabīr (The Great Commentary). It was called Tafsir al-Kabir because it was 32 volumes in length. This work contains much of philosophical interest. One of al-Razi's major concerns was the self-sufficiency of the intellect. His acknowledgment of the primacy of the Qur'an grew with his years. Al-Razi's rationalism -- his epistemological view the regarded reason as the chief source and test of knowledge -- undoubtedly held an important place in the debate in the Islamic tradition on the harmonization of reason and revelation.
Al-Razi's development of Kalam (Islamic scholastic theology) led to the evolution and flourishing of theology among Muslims. Al-Razi experienced different periods in his thinking, affected by the Ash'ari school of thought and later by al-Ghazali. Al-Razi tried to make use of elements of Mu tazila and Falsafah, and although he had some criticisms of Ibn Sina (Avicenna), al-Razi was, nevertheless, greatly affected by him. The most important instance showing the synthesis of al-Razi's thought may be the problem of the eternity of the world and its relation to God. He tried to reorganize the arguments of theologians and philosophers on this subject, collected and critically examined the arguments of both sides. He considered, for the most part, the philosophers' argument for the world's eternity stronger than the theologians' position of putting emphasis on the temporal nature of the world. It is perhaps best to view al-Razi's theoretical life as a journey from a young dialectician -- a young philosopher who views the world in terms of complementary opposites -- to a more religious condition. Indeed, it appears that al-Razi came to present different thoughts of diverse schools, such as those of Mutazilite and Asharite, in his exegesis, The Great Commentary.
Al-Razi, in dealing with his conception of physics and the physical world in his Matalib al-‘Aliya, criticizes the idea of the geocentric model within the universe and explores the notion of the existence of a multiverse in the context of his commentary on the Quranic verse, "All praise belongs to God, Lord of the Worlds." Al-Razi raises the question of whether the term "Worlds" in this verse refers to multiple worlds within this single universe or cosmos, or to many other universes or a multiverse beyond this known universe.
Al-Razi states:
Al-Razi rejected the Aristotelian and Avicennian notions of a single universe revolving around a single world. He describes their main arguments against the existence of multiple worlds or universes, pointing out their weaknesses and refuting them. This rejection arose from his affirmation of atomism -- the natural philosophy proposing that the physical universe is composed of fundamental indivisible components known as atoms -- as advocated by the Ash'ari school of Islamic theology. Atomism proposes the existence of vacant space in which the atoms move, combine and separate. Al-Razi discussed more on the issue of the void – the empty spaces between stars and constellations in the universe, that contain few or no stars – in greater detail in volume 5 of the Matalib. There he argued that there exists an infinite outer space beyond the known world, and that God has the power to fill the vacuum with an infinite number of universes.
Al-Razi had written over a hundred works on a wide variety of subjects. His major works include:
- Tafsir al-Kabir (The Great Commentary) (also known as Mafatih al-Ghayb)
- Asraar at-Tanzeel wa Anwaar at-Ta'weel (The Secrets of Revelation & The Lights of Interpretation). Tafsir of selected verses from the Qur'an
(Note: This work should not be confused with the book of Tafsir by Nasir al-Din al-Baydawi called: Anwaar at-Tanzeel wa Asraar at-Ta'weel (The Lights of Revelation and The Secrets of Interpretation) or more commonly Tafsir al-Baydawi.)
- Asas al-Taqdis (The Foundation of Declaring Allah's Transcendence) -- A refutation of Ibn Khuzayma, the Karramite, and the Anthropomorphists.
- ‘Aja’ib al-Qur’an (The Mysteries of the Qur'an)
- Al-Bayan wa al-Burhan fi al-Radd ‘ala Ahl al-Zaygh wa al-Tughyan
- Al-Mahsul fi ‘Ilm al-Usul
- Al-Muwakif fi ‘Ilm al-Kalam
- ‘Ilm al-Akhlaq (Science of Ethics)
- Kitab al-Firasa (Book on Firasa)
- Kitab al-Mantiq al-Kabir (Major Book on Logic)
- Kitab al-nafs wa’l-ruh wa sharh quwa-huma (Book on the Soul and the Spirit and their Faculties)
- Mabahith al-mashriqiyya fi ‘ilm al-ilahiyyat wa-’l-tabi‘iyyat (Eastern Studies in Metaphysics and Physics)
- Al-Matālib al-‘Āliyyah min al- 'ilm al-ilahī (The Higher Issues) – his last work. Al-Razi wrote al-Matālib during his writing of al-Tafsir and he died before completing both works.
- Muḥaṣṣal Afkār al-Mutaqaddimīn wal-Muta'akhkhirīn (The Harvest/Compendium of the Thought of the Ancients and Moderns)
- Nihayat al ‘Uqul fi Dirayat al-Usul
- Risala al-Huduth
- Sharh al-Isharat (Commentary on the al-Isharat wa-al-Tanbihat of Ibn Sina)
- Sharh Asma' Allah al-Husna (Commentary on Asma' Allah al-Husna)
- Sharh Kulliyyat al-Qanun fi al-Tibb (Commentary on Canon of Medicine)
- Sharh Nisf al-Wajiz li'l-Ghazali (Commentary on Nisf al-Wajiz of Al-Ghazali )
- Sharh Uyun al-Hikmah (Commentary on Uyun al-Hikmah)
- Kitāb al-Arba'īn Fī Uṣūl al-Dīn'
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Rumi, Jalal al-Din
Rumi, Jalal ad-Din (Jalal ad-Din Rumi) (Jalal al-Din Rumi) (Mawlana) (Jelaluddin Balkhi) (Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī) (Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī) (Mowlānā) (b. c. September 30, 1207, Balkh [now in Afghanistan] — d. December 17, 1273). Paramount mystical poet of Islam in the Persian language and the founder of the Mevlevi Order (the “Dancing Dervishes” or the “Whirling Dervishes”).Persians and Afghanis call Rumi “Jelaluddin Balkhi.” He was born on September 30, 1207, in Balkh, in north Afghanistan, which was then part of the Persian Empire. The name Rumi means “from Roman Anatolia.” He was not known by that name, of course, until after his family, fleeing the threat of the invading Mongol armies, emigrated to Konya, Turkey, sometime between 1215 and 1220. His father, Bahauddin Walad, was a theologian and jurist and a mystic of uncertain lineage. Bahauddin Walad’s Maarif, a collection of notes, diarylike remarks, sermons, and strange accounts of visionary experiences, has shocked most of the conventional scholars who have tried to understand them. He shows a startlingly sensual freedom in stating his union with God. Rumi was instructed in his father’s secret inner life by a former student of his father, Burhanuddin Mahaqqiq. Burhan and Rumi also studied Sanai and Attar. At his father’s death, Rumi took over the position of sheikh in the dervish learning community in Konya.
Jalal ad-Din, who had been partially trained in mystical and traditional scholarship by his father, succeeded Baha ad-Din and remained at Konya, except for one brief journey, until his own death.
The life of Jalal ad-Din turns on a dramatic meeting in 1244 with the itinerant Dervish Shams ad-Din Tabrizi (Shams al-Din of Tabriz). Shams moved into Rumi’s home and so dominated his life and thought that many of his writings, including a vast collection of poems, were dedicated to Shams and written under the pen name Shams. Shams disappeared from Rumi’s life in 1248 as mysteriously as he had entered it, but, by that time, Rumi had begun an irreversible spiritual odyssey.
With regards to the initial meeting with Shams, Rumi’s life seems to have been a fairly normal one for a religious scholar -- teaching, meditating, helping the poor -- until in the late fall of 1244 when he met a stranger who put a question to him. That stranger was the wandering dervish, Shams of Tabriz, who had traveled throughout the Middle East searching and praying for someone who could “endure my company.” A voice came, “What will you give in return?” “My head!” “The one you seek is Jelaluddin of Konya.”
The question Shams spoke made the learned professor faint to the ground. We cannot be entirely certain of the question, but according to the most reliable account Shams asked who was greater, Muhammad or Bestami, for Bestami had said, “How great is my glory,” whereas Muhammad had acknowledged in his prayer to God, “We do not know You as we should.”
Rumi heard the depth out of which the question came and fell to the ground. He was finally able to answer that Muhammad was greater, because Bestami had taken one gulp of the divine and stopped there, whereas for Muhammad the way was always unfolding. There are various versions of this encounter, but whatever the facts, Shams and Rumi became inseparable. Their friendship is one of the mysteries. They spent months together without any human needs, transported into a region of pure conversation. This ecstatic connection caused difficulties in the religious community. Rumi’s students felt neglected. Sensing the trouble, Shams disappeared as suddenly as he had appeared.
Word came that Shams was in Damascus. Rumi sent his son, Sultan Velad, to Syria to bring his friend back to Konya. When Rumi and Shams met for the second time, they fell at each other’s feet, so that “no one knew who was lover and who the beloved.” Shams stayed in Rumi’s home and was married to a young girl who had been brought up in the family. Again the long mystical conversation (sohbet) began, and again the jealousies grew.
On the night of December 5, 1248, as Rumi and Shams were talking, Shams was called to the back door. He went out, never to be seen again. Most likely, he was murdered with the connivance of Rumi’s son, Allaedin. If so, Shams indeed gave his head for the privilege of this mystical friendship.
The mystery of the Friend’s absence covered Rumi’s world. He himself went out searching for Shams and journeyed again to Damascus. It was there that he realized, Why should I seek? I am the same as he. His essence speaks through me.
I have been looking for myself?
The union became complete. There was full fana, annihilation in the Friend. Rumi’s devotion to Shams unleashed a torrent of rapturous lyric poems, many written in the name of the vanished dervish, with whom, as the “mirror” reflecting the Godhead, Rumi had come to identify himself. Indeed, Rumi called the huge collection of his odes and quatrains Divani-i Shams-i Tabriz -- The Works of Shams of Tabriz. After Sham’s death and Rumi’s merging with him, another companion was found, Saladin Zarkub, the goldsmith. Saladin the Friend to whom Rumi addressed his poems, not so fierily as to Shams, but with quiet tenderness. When Saladin died, Husam Chelebi, Rumi’s scribe and favorite student, assumed this role. Rumi claimed that Husam was the source, the one who understood the vast secret order of the Mathnawi, that great work that shifts so fantastically from theory to folklore to jokes to ecstative poetry. For the last twelve years of his life, Rumi dictated the six volumes of this masterwork to Husam. Comprising six books and some 27,000 couplets, the Mathnavi (Mathnawi-i Ma‘nawi) sets forth loosely connected themes, often narrated as parables or anecdotes in picturesque, highly alliterative verse. Among mystically minded Muslims, the Mathnavi is known as “the Qur’an in Persian.” Commentaries on it, imitations of it, works relating to it or inspired by it abound in various languages throughout the Muslim world.
Rumi also inspired an independent Sufi order (a tariqa), the Mawlawiya (Mevlevi), named after the respectful
Jalal ad-Din Rumi died on December 17, 1273. He was buried beside his father at Konya. His shrine, around which the Mevlevi (Mawlawi) conventicle grew up, remains, even under the secular Turkish republic, a revered place of pilgrimage.
Rumi see Rumi, Jalal ad-Din
Jalal ad-Din Rumi see Rumi, Jalal ad-Din
Jalal al-Din Rumi see Rumi, Jalal ad-Din
Mawlana see Rumi, Jalal ad-Din
Jelaluddin Balkhi see Rumi, Jalal ad-Din
Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī see Rumi, Jalal ad-Din
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