The Poison of Philosophy 275
be only mediocre thinkers,^92 thoroughly criticized – with purely ratio-
nalistic arguments – many metaphysical and physical tenets of prior
kalām theologians and falāsifa (especially Ibn Sīnā) in several of his
works. He does this in his commentary and his summary of Ibn Sīnā’s
Kitāb al-Ishārāt wal-tanbīhāt, for instance, and in his main theological
and philosophical book al-Mabāḥith al-mashriqiyya fī ʿilm al-ilāhiyyāt
wal-ṭabīʿiyyāt.^93 These three authors were clearly influenced by what
they refuted, by consciously or unconsciously adopting philosophical
concepts or using their opponents’ arguments while rejecting them.
Al-Shahrastānī and al-Rāzī, especially, were confronted with the
reproach that their teachings were deeply tainted with philosophy, and
apparently al-Rāzī even had to fear for his life.^94 It was not easy to
reject this charge in either case, since – in contrast to al-Ghazālī – they
did not charge the philosophers with unbelief, and while al-Shahrastānī
adopted Ismāʿīlī tenets in some of his writings,^95 al-Rāzī followed and
developed several of Ibn Sīnā’s and other philosopher’s theses.^96 In fact,
both expressed many of their ideas in philosophical terms. Al-Ghazālī
was regarded with suspicion in traditionalist circles, not least by Ibn
Taymiyya,^97 and there is no doubt that al-Ghazālī remained influenced
by philosophy even after his disillusion about its leading to truth.
92 Kraus, Paul: Les “Controverses” de Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī, in: Bulletin de l’Institut
d’Égypte 19 (1937), pp. 187–214, here 204–212.
93 At the end of his treatise Iʿtiqādāt firaq al-muslimīn wal-mushrikīn wa-maʿahu
baḥth fī al-ṣūfiyya wal-firaq al-islāmiyya li-Muṣṭafā Bek ʿAbd al-Rāzī, ed. by
ʿAlī Sāmī al-Nashshār, Cairo 1356/1938, pp. 91–92, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī enu-
merates nine writings he reckons as his refutations of the falāsifa, some of which
seem not to have survived. These and other of his works are nowadays less stud-
ied than those of al-Ghazālī and al-Shahrastānī; see Arnaldez, Roger: L’oeuvre
de Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī. Commentateur du Coran et philosophe, in: Cahiers de
Civilisation Médiévale Xe-XIIe siècles 3 (1960), pp. 307–323; Anawati, George
C.: Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, in: EI^2 , vol. 2 (1991), pp. 751–755; Gutas, The Heri-
tage of Avicenna, p. 89.
94 See al-Shahrastānī, Struggling with the Philosopher, pp. 2, 6; al-Rāzī, Iʿtiqādāt
firaq al-muslimīn wal-mushrikīn, p. 189.
95 Al-Shahrastānī, Struggling with the Philosopher, pp. 1–16 et passim.
96 Arnaldez, L’oeuvre de Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, pp. 316–318; Kraus, Les “Contro-
verses”, pp. 190, 203–205.
97 For Ibn Taymiyya’s critique of al-Ghazālī, see Ibn Taymiyya, Darʾ taʿāruḍ
al-ʿaql, vol. 11, s. v. “al-Ghazālī”. See also below, chapter 8.
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