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Full Dissertation Draft THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO KNOWLEDGE AND FELICITY OF THE SOUL IN FAKHR AL-DĪN AL-RĀZĪ A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVINITY SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY BY NORA JACOBSEN BEN HAMMED CHICAGO, ILLINOIS AUGUST 2018 Table of Contents Acknowledgments.........................................................................................................................vii Abstract.........................................................................................................................................viii Transliteration Notes........................................................................................................................x Introduction......................................................................................................................................1 1. Rāzi’s Life and Influence.............................................................................................................4 2. Rāzī’s Works..............................................................................................................................12 3. Literature Review.......................................................................................................................19 4. Key Terms..................................................................................................................................24 5. Methodology..............................................................................................................................27 6. Objectives of the Study..............................................................................................................30 Chapter I: The Mystical and the Rationalist Paths: Miʿrāj of the Soul in Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī Introduction....................................................................................................................................33 1. On al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya..............................................................................................................34 2. The Two Paths: The Mystical and the Rationalist.....................................................................42 3. The Path to God in Sūrat al-Fātiḥa............................................................................................52 4. Miʿrāj Passages: The Conjunction of the Rational and the Mystical.........................................59 5. Rāzī and Sufism.........................................................................................................................64 6. The Influence of al-Ghazālī: Knowledge, Practice, and Felicity...............................................69 7. Ibn Sīnā and the Rationalist-Mystic Path...................................................................................77 ii Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….…………………86 Chapter II: The Rationalist Path: Axiomatic Truths and Syllogistic Reasoning Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………89 1. Rāzī on First Principles ……………………………………………………………………….90 2. Meno’s Paradox in the Greek and Arabic Philosophical Traditions.………………………….94 3. The Origin of Knowledge …………………………………………………………………….101 3.1 A Chain of Knowledge………………………………………………………….….103 3.2 Meno’s Paradox: Taṣawwur and Taṣdīq ……………………………………….…..104 3.3 The Impossibility of Creating Knowledge and Ignorance……….………...….........108 3.4 Final Demonstrations: On Human Intent and Scholarly Disagreement………….....109 4. On the Sources of Axiomatic Knowledge (al-badīhiyyāt)…………………………………..111 4.1 Axiomatic Knowledge and the Senses……………………………………………...111 4.2 Initial Concept Formation: Knowledge as Relational………………………............116 5. Implications, Practical and Holy……………………………………………………………..130 5.1 Implications for Methodology ………………………………………………….….130 5.2 Syllogistic Reasoning and Human Perfection………………………………………134 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………...140 Chapter III: Rāzī’s Cosmology and the Mystical Path Introduction………………………………………………………………………….……….…143 1. Terminology…………………………………………………………………………...….….146 2. Discussions of the Existence of Celestial Beings……..…………….…………………….....148 iii 2.1 Division of the Material and Spiritual Realms..........................................................148 2.2 The Spiritual Beings: Contingent and Non-Space-Occupying..................................154 2.3 The Spiritual Beings: Eternal or Temporal?………………………..………..……..158 3. The Universal Soul…………………………………………………………………………..165 3.1 The Maṭālib on Talismans…………………...……………………………………..165 3.2 The Maṭālib on the Soul of All….…………..……………………………...………167 3.3 The Kitāb al-Nafs wa-l-rūḥ on “the greatest soul”..…………………………..……168 4. The Spiritual Beings and the Human Being………………………………………………....169 4.1 Angels and the Hierarchy of Beings ……………………………….………………169 4.2 Angels and Human Action: Magic and Miracles …………….….…………………174 4.3 Types of Astral Magic …………………………….………….…………….……...176 4.4 Spiritual and Physical Prerequisites for Practice………….……….……………….179 4.5 Human Perfection and the Celestial World….……….……...…………….……….182 5. Sources and Influences………………………………….………….….…….………………188 5.1 The Falāsifa……………….……………...……….…….….……….……………...191 5.2 Al-Ghazālī and the Ashʿarite School………………….….………………………...203 5.3 Neoplatonism in Rāzī: Plotinus and pseudo-Empedocles…………...……….….…210 5.4 Hermeticism……………………….….…...…………….….……….……………...218 5.5 Hermetic Neoplatonists: The Ṣābiʾans and the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ…………………...224 5.5.a The Ṣābiʾans………………………………….………...….……………...224 5.5.b The Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ…………………………...……….….……………...228 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….….….……240 iv Chapter IV: Knowledge and the Soul Introduction………………………………………………………………………......................245 1. The Nature of the Soul……………………………………………………………………….247 1.1 The Soul is Non-Corporeal…………..……………………………………………248 1.2 The Soul is Singular and Unified…………….…….………………………….….257 1.3 The Soul Perceives Universals and Particulars….…………………………….….264 1.4 The Soul is Immortal……………………...……………………..…………….….270 2. Opposing Forces: The Body and the Intellect, the Lowly and the Lofty……….……………275 3. Knowledge and the Afterlife……………….….………………………………………….….287 4. Revelation and Knowledge…………………………………………………………………..296 4.1 Revelation in Rāzī’s Methodology………………………………………………....296 4.2 Prophecy and the Imamate: Perfect and Perfecting………………………….….….298 4.3 Reason and Revelation…...………………………………………………….…..….309 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………...317 Appendices. …………………………………………………………………………….………321 Appendix I: al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya, introductory section 1………….…………………….….….322 Appendix II: al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya, introductory section 2………..……………….…………....327 Appendix III: al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya, introductory section 3………...……………………….…..341 Appendix IV: al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya, VII.1.1………………………..………………………...…349 Appendix V: al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya, VII.1.2……………………….…………………………….354 Appendix VI: al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya, VII.2.6………………………..………………………...…366 Appendix VII: al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya, VII.3.19……………………..……………………………396 v Appendix VIII: al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya, VIII.2.1……………………..……………………..….…402 Appendix IX: al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya, VIII.3.4…………………………..……………….….……408 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………413 vi Acknowledgments I am grateful first and foremost to my parents, Lynn Novotnak and Dennis Jacobsen. They are the foundation of my success, and it is because of their love, support, and reassurances that any small failures have felt like trivial stumblings as I move forward in all things. I am also thankful for my husband, Mohamed Wajdi Ben Hammed, whose belief in me and my work has made all the difference in achievements great and small, and whose patience and constancy has pulled me through the most difficult stages of my doctorate. The friendship and encouragement particularly of Anna Woodard Harris, Catherine Ambler, and my sister, Reena Novotnak, has also sustained me throughout this work, and I am grateful for these friends and others, now and always. Finally, I wish to extend the deepest thanks to my advisors, Michael Sells and James Robinson, as well as to my committee members, Franklin Lewis and Frank Griffel. I am immensely grateful for the time that they have taken to read and respond to my work, and for their invaluable insights on each chapter. vii Abstract The dissertation posits that the late works of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210) portray knowledge as central both for the perfection of the soul and for the achievement of eternal felicity in the afterlife. To fully explore this thesis, the dissertation researches distinct topics as explored in Rāzī’s later corpus with a focus on Rāzī’s last work, al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya, including human epistemology, syllogistic reasoning, spiritual inspiration, magic and miracles, cosmology, the soul, and the afterlife. The first chapter explores the two primary paths to knowing as posited by Rāzī, namely, theoretical reasoning and spiritual striving (or, ideally, the combination of the two). Knowledge acquisition through theoretical reasoning is the subject of the second chapter, which discusses the process and importance of syllogistic reasoning in Rāzī’s later works. Given that the celestial realm is fundamental for the reception of knowledge as achieved through spiritual striving, the third chapter of the dissertation explores the structure and function of Rāzī’s cosmology particularly as it relates to divine inspiration, revelation, and human perfection. The topics treated in this chapter are the widest ranging of the dissertation, as the existence
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