ABSTRACT
Animals feature prominently throughout the Islamic tradition. Remarks on animals in verses of the Qur’ān and in the sayings of the Prophet laid the foundation for critical reflection on animal lives in theology, philosophy, and jurisprudence. Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210), a prolific author and innovative thinker, was an Ashʿarī theologian and post-Avicennan philosopher. He discusses animal intelligence throughout his many works, using both philosophical analysis and religious proofs to argue that animals are, in fact, knowers in a rich way. In this contribution, I will trace al-Rāzī’s many discussions of animal knowing to highlight his particular solutions to the problem of shared knowledge among species. The various methodologies he employs reveal different modes of knowing, some that human beings and animals share and some that are proper to animals or to human beings alone. Central to his discussions of multispecies epistemology are the issues of agency and moral responsibility, since a basic impetus for al-Rāzī’s account lies in the multispecies world depicted in the Qur’ān. Altogether, his discussions form the basis for a complex moral epistemology across species.
