Table Of ContentTHE 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
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ISSN 0169-8729
ISBN 90 04 14991 0
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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
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.
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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
2 introduction
In this theory, he departs with classical Ash#arÊ voluntarism.
Al-R§zÊ is significant in this regard not as a moralist (al-Ghaz§lÊ
is evidently a more elaborate moralist than he is), but mainly as
an outstandingly analytical and thoroughgoing ethical philosopher.
In this respect, his discussions of certain ethical themes are among
the most penetrating in Islamic history and will easily match corre-
sponding discussions in any extant Mu#tazilÊ texts. This owes partly
to his firsthand familiarity and engagement with the writings of
the Mu#tazila, especially the school of Abå l-\usayn al-BaßrÊ (d.
436/1044), to an extent unprecedented among their earlier critics
(and which was apparently unsurpassed in later Sunni theology, to
which Mu#tazilism became less relevant). Al-R§zÊ also had a great
deal of influence on later ethical thought in Islam, especially in kal§m;
and his main work on the science of character, Kit§b fÊ #ilm al-akhl§q,
is listed by Ibn al-Akf§nÊ (d. 749/1348) as a major representative of
its genre (however, its circulation seems to have become limited in
later centuries).1
Al-R§zÊ develops a metaethical theory that underlies both his falsafÊ
ethics of character and his kal§m and juristic ethics of action.2 This
underlying theory manifests differently in these two different contexts:
as a consequentialism in relation to action, and as a perfectionism
in relation to character. Although at the level of normative ethics
his elaboration of the relation between his ethics of action and his
ethics of character remains in certain respects underdeveloped, the
relation between the two at the metaethical level is made clear:
consequentialism and perfectionism are two aspects of the same
teleological ethics, rather than separate ethical theories.3
These two areas of ethical enquiry are discussed separately in al-
1 Ibn al-Akf§nÊ,Irsh§d, 401. The two other representative works that he lists are
Ibn SÊn§’s Riߧla fÊ l-akhl§q and Miskawayh’s Al-Fawz al-aßghar.
2 Contemporary ethical philosophy is normally divided into the sub-fields of
metaethics and normative ethics. The distinction is not universally accepted, pri-
marily because the two fields are arguably not mutually exclusive. Metaethics, or
so-called ‘second order’ ethics, seeks to understand the nature and justification
of ethical judgement. Normative, ‘first order’ ethics denotes attempts to defend
or establish ethical judgements on specific types of human action, or norms and
principles to guide human action (cf. Sh. Kagan, Normative Ethics, esp. 1–6; articles
“Analytic ethics”, REP; “Metaethics”, EE).
3 These different types of ethical theory are defined p. 47–8 infra.
shihadeh_IPTS64_1b.indd 2 1/30/2006 9:21:40AM
introduction 3
R§zÊ’s writings for several reasons. First of all, the classical mutakal-
limån focused on action exclusively, as they were concerned with
investigating how God’s acts relate to His creatures. Al-R§zÊ, too,
discusses divine action, which he approaches on the basis of a thor-
ough analysis of human action. Moreover, in developing his ethical
theory, he works within separate established traditions, each having
its own scope and ethos. He does not attempt to produce a synthesis
between the science of character and jurisprudence. Yet he does
provide some general guidelines on how the ethics of action and the
ethics of character should be viewed in relation to each other.
The starting point for this study will be al-R§zÊ’s ethics of action
(Chapter II), for which first we will need to examine his theory of
action, which is central to his metaethics (Chapter I). Since he starts
as a classical Ash#arÊ theologian with little interest in the examination
of character, his interest in action will have chronological precedence
in his intellectual career. Even in his later thought, his analysis of
action does not presuppose a theory of character (which normally
would give moral primacy to character over action), although it will
be complemented by such a theory. Chapter III will then examine his
theory of virtue, including his ethics of character and the influence
of his theory of virtue on his later theory of prophecy.
Chapter IV will focus on the epistle entitled Dhamm ladhdh§t al-
duny§ (Censure of the Pleasures of This World), which is published here
and studied for the first time (a critical edition can be found as an
Appendix). In this immensely interesting short text, which al-R§zÊ
wrote towards the end of his life, he expresses pronounced moral
pessimism and intellectual scepticism. The background of this stance
in his writings more widely will also be explored.
The narrower theoretical themes covered in this study will be
introduced in their appropriate places in the following chapters.
First, however, we should provide a short biography of al-R§zÊ and
a brief descriptive bibliography of his main writings that are cited
in this study.
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