144 CHAPTER FIVE
approaches it. Then I proceeded to summarize the sheer ravings and the
pure obscenities^90 which this book contains, so that anyone infl icted with
my disease would be quickly healed from it, as I was.”^91 For al- Biruni,
then,hadhayan describes the kind of mythological tales that are con-
tained in the Manichean Book of Secrets and its mirage- like temptation
for the seekers of truth. He also associates it, like Maimonides, with Razi
in general and with his book on metaphysics in par ticular.
The same evaluation of Razi’s thought is expressed, in identical terms,
by Marzuqi (d. 1030), who lists four groups of people who believe in some
pre-eternal entity in addition to the Creator, and says: “The fourth group
is the one in which the physician (mutatabbib) Muhammad b. Zakariyya
is foremost; for he added the rational soul to the aforementioned Eternals,
and thus their number reached fi ve, according to his ravings (hadhayan).”^92
Marzuqi considers Razi’s ideas to be so revolting that he describes them
as myths (khurafat) that the hand cannot write, the tongue cannot ex-
press, and the heart cannot imagine.^93
Another Muslim writer, Ibn Hazm, offers the same evaluation of Razi’s
thought in different words belonging to the same semantic fi eld. He calls
Razi’s theory of metempsychosis “trickeries and myths which are not
based on any proof’ (daawin wa- khurafat bi- la dalil).^94 IbnHazm’s rea-
soning may be refl ected in the words of Ibn al- Jawzi, who often relies on
the former. In his criticism of the other foremost Muslim freethinker, Ibn
al-Rawandi, Ibn al- Jawzi says, “I have consulted [his] Book of the Emer-
ald (Kitab al- zumurrud) and I have found such senseless ravings there that
do not [even] have the pretense of a logical argument.”^95 For Ibn al- Jawzi
as for Ibn Hazm, the absence of any proof or of the pretense of a logical
(^90) “Al-hadhayan al- bakht wal-hujr al- mahd.”
(^91) Risalat al- Biruni fi fi hrist kutub Muhammad b. Zakariya al- Razi.Epitre de Biruni conte-
nant le répertoire des ouvrages de Muhammad b. Zakariya ar- Razi, ed. Paul Kraus (Paris,
1936), 3– 4.
(^92) Kitab al- Azmina wal-Amkina (Hyderabad- Deccan, AH 1332 [1914]), 1:144; quoted by
Kraus in Razi,Rasail falsafi yya, 197:1– 5.
(^93) Razi himself had used similar derogatory terms to describe the Muslim traditions. Ac-
cording to him, the Muslims “were deluded by the beards of the goats, who sit in ranks in
their councils, straining their throats in recounting lies, senseless myths (al-akadhib
wal-khurafat) and ‘so- and-so told us in the name of so- and so.’” See AbuHatim al- Razi,
Alam al- nubuwwa (The Peaks of Prophecy), ed. Salah al- Sawy (Tehran, 1977), 32;
Stroumsa,Freethinkers, chap. 3, apud note 72.
(^94) IbnHazm,Al-Fisal fil-milal wal-ahwa wal-nihal, ed. Muhammad Ibrahim Nasr and
Abd al- RahmanUmayra (Beirut, 1995), 75; quoted by Kraus in Razi,Rasail falsafi yya,
174.
(^95) “Al-hadhayan al- barid alladhi la yataallaqu bi- shubha”; see al-Muntazam fi tarikh al-
muluk wal-umam, ed. MuhammadAbd al- QadirAta and MustafaAbd al- QadirAta
(Beirut, 1992), 13: 110:8.