Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī

The intellectual life of Islam after the attacks of Ash‘arī and Ghazzālī upon nationalistic philosophy can be largely described as the gradual transition from the rationalism of Aristotelian philosophy toward the intuitive and illuminative wisdom of the ishrāqīs ¹ and Sufis. Although Islam began to weaken politically and culturally during the later part of the ‘Abbasid Caliphate, Muslim thought especially in the Shi‘ife world continued the process of divorcing itself from the categories of Peripatetic philosophy. One of the most influential and colourful figures in this movement, who played a major role in the attack against the rationalists, was Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī, who is considered to be the reviver of Islam in the sixth/twelfth century as Ghazzālī was in the fifth/eleventh. ² Rāzī is in many ways a second Ghazzālī; in fact, he may without exaggeration be considered to be one of the greatest Muslim theologians.