THE TELEOLOGICAL ETHICS OF FAKHR AL-D^N AL-R$Z^ ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE Texts and Studies EDITED BY H. DAIBER and D. PINGREE VOLUME LXIV THE TELEOLOGICAL ETHICS OF FAKHR AL-D^N AL R$Z^ - BY AYMAN SHIHADEH BRILL LEIDEN•BOSTON 2006 This book is printed on acid-free paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISSN 0169-8729 ISBN 90 04 14991 0 © Copyright 2006 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill Academic Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands contents v CONTENTS Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 General Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Al-R§zÊ’s Biography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 The Development of al-R§zÊ’s Thought and the Chronology of his Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Chapter One. Al-R§zÊ’s Theory of Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 The Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 The Theory of Human Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Destiny . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 The Theme of the Creation of Human Acts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Chapter Two. Al-R§zÊ on the Ethics of Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 The Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Ethical Value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Revealed Law and Ethical Value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Moral Obligation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Objections to Mu#tazilÊ Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 God and Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Chapter Three. Al-R§zÊ’s Perfectionist Theory of Virtue . . . . . . 109 Perfectionism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Human Perfection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 Prophecy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Chapter Four. Al-R§zÊ’s Later Pessimism: Commentary on Ris§lat Dhamm al-ladhdh§t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 The Nature and Extent of Sensory Pleasure and Pain . . . . . . 156 Socio-Political Pessimism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 Epistemological Pessimism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 Appendix: Al-R§zÊ’sRis§lat Dhamm ladhdh§t al-duny§ . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 Index of Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277 Index of Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279 shihadeh_IPTS64_1b.indd v 2/1/2006 2:52:05PM vi contents shihadeh_IPTS64_1b.indd vi 1/30/2006 9:21:39AM contents vii PREFACE The present study aspires, first and foremost, to make a contribution to two main areas of interest in Islamic intellectual history, namely ethical philosophy and the thought of Fakhr al-DÊn al-R§zÊ. I hope to have demonstrated that al-R§zÊ is one of the most important ethicists in Muslim history, and to have produced some stimuli for further research on his thought, as he remains one of the most influential, yet sorely understudied, medieval thinkers. The present monograph is based, often remotely, on a doctoral thesis that I submitted in 2002 to the faculty of Oriental Studies, Oxford University, under the supervision of Professor Yahya Michot and Dr Fritz Zimmermann. I would like to express my gratitude to both my supervisors, from whom my research has benefited in numerous ways. I am indebted to Professor Michot for more recent exchanges of ideas, many of which are relevant to questions tackled in this thoroughly revised version. I would like also to extend my sincere thanks to Professor Wilferd Madelung, Professor Hans Daiber and Dr Tony Street, who provided me with valuable comments on this study, to Professor Yahya Ibn Junaid and Dr Nizam Yaquby, who both assisted me in acquiring copies of some manuscripts, and to Sobia Syyed for reading the monograph and suggesting some corrections in style. Needless to say, I alone am responsible for its present form. Finally, I am truly grateful to the following institutions: to the Muslim Academic Trust, Cambridge, for generously funding my graduate study; to Oxford University for funding provided during my doctoral study; to the British, Berlin State, Mar#ashÊ-NajafÊ and Princeton University Libraries, for facilitating access to manuscripts of Ris§lat Dhamm ladhdh§t al-duny§, allowing me to produce a critical edition thereof; and to Brill for undertaking this publication. shihadeh_IPTS64_1b.indd vii 1/30/2006 9:21:39AM viii contents shihadeh_IPTS64_1b.indd viii 1/30/2006 9:21:39AM introduction 1 INTRODUCTION General Introduction The first centuries of Islam witnessed the emergence of different traditions of ethical thinking, within which several distinct ethical theories were propounded. The most sophisticated philosophical theories were developed within the two largely independent tradi- tions of kal§m and falsafa, which clashed at the level of ethics and in other related areas, including metaphysics, cosmology, psychology and epistemology. The main ethical concern of the classical mutakallimån was to investigate the nature of God’s justice and the goodness of His acts generally, which they approached through analytical discussions of ethical language, metaphysics and epistemology. Similar discussions, likewise with an emphasis on action, can also be found in ußål al-fiqh, and concern the establishment of general normative principles for human conduct. The fal§sifa, on the other hand, were chiefly, but by no means solely, interested in the development of human character, primarily by engendering virtues, which are essentially dispositions internal to the individual. The gap separating the two traditions was initially so wide that many notions central to one tradition of ethical theory were completely alien to the other, in which they would normally be dismissed in toto, without engagement in any proper dialogue. Yet there then emerged signs of increasing, and more positive, interaction between kal§m and falsafa, culminating in the efforts of al-Ghaz§lÊ (d. 505/1111), who was both a severe critic of the fal§sifa and deeply influenced by them in many respects. A century later, Fakhr al-DÊn al-R§zÊ was to open the gates widely, allowing a more liberal exchange of ideas, a ‘synthesis’ even, between kal§m and falsafa. This feature manifests no less in his ethics than in other areas of his thought. The present study is thus, at once, both a comprehensive analysis of one major facet of al-R§zÊ’s thought, viz. his ethical theory, and an exploration of the main trends and debates in its wider intellectual background. It shows that he sets forth a sophisticated and original ethical theory, which is both eclectic and highly consistent internally. shihadeh_IPTS64_1b.indd 1 1/30/2006 9:21:40AM