Imam al-Rāzī

His Life

Imam Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī raḥimahullāh was a leading mutakallim, uṣūlī, faqīh, mufassir, an ʿālim of polymathic range, and an eloquent orator. Born in Rayy in the month of Ramaḍān, and to a family of Arab origin whose lineage traces back to the ṣaḥābī and khalīfah, Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq (d. 13/634) raḍiyallāhu ʿanh, al-Rāzī was the younger of the two sons of Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn ʿUmar (d. 559/1163-4), the Khaṭīb of Rayy. Hence, al-Rāzī was famously given the title of Ibn al-Khaṭīb.

Al-Rāzī began his early education at the hands of his father, a senior scholar of his time. His father passed away before he reached the age of fourteen. Despite this loss, al-Rāzī continued his education in Nishapur under Kamāl al-Dīn al-Simnānī (d. 575/1179), a grand-student of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111). He returned to his hometown to study with Majd al-Dīn al-Jīlī (d. ?) after which he continued travelling in pursuit of ʿilm. It was under the guidance of such ʿulamāʾ that al-Rāzī became acquainted with Ashʿarī theology, philosophy, Shāfiʿī fiqh and uṣūl. Additionally, he studied Arabic sciences, the natural sciences, mathematics, ṭibb (medicine), and manṭiq (logic) excelling in many of these disciplines.

Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī lived in a period of the decline of the Seljuks. It was within his lifetime that the Seljuks lost Rayy, one of their last holdouts in Central Asia, to the Khwarazmian dynasty. Also active within that region was the short-lived Ghurid Sultanate. After completing his education around his mid-twenties, al-Rāzī came under the patronage of ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Tekish (d. 596/1200), the Khwārazm-Shāh, for around 20 years. He was one of the most important scholars at Tekish’s court and that of his eldest son, a governor in Khurasan. Around this time, he travelled to numerous cities in and around Khwarazm, Transoxiana and Khurasan, including Bukhara, Samarqand, Ghaznah and parts of India, teaching in various madrasahs along the way. Many of his travels were intermittent and he returned to Rayy on many occasions. He also authored, during this period, numerous works in various fields such as ʿilm al-kalām, fiqh and ṭibb (medicine). Some of the works he authored this early on in his life went on to become important textbooks in the madrasah curriculum within the next century. Much of this he accomplished by his mid-thirties.

In the 590s/1190s, al-Rāzī entered the services of the Ghurid dynasty. Despite some of the discontent with his appointment amongst the masses, he received state backing and was eventually settled in Herat wherein Sultan Ghiyāth al-Dīn Muḥammad (d. 599/1203) built a madrasah for him. He was also appointed Chief Religious Authority of the city earning the title Shaykh al-Islām. The reason for al-Rāzī’s shift from the Khwārazm-Shāh to the Ghurid Sultan is unclear, but it seems that a key factor was that the Sultan and the ruling family began to align with the Ashʿarī and Shāfiʿī schools in contrast to the local Karrāmī and Ḥanafī tendencies. Within this period, he also received support from the Ayyubid Sultan after dedicating a book to him.

Towards the end of his life, al-Rāzī once again returned to the Khwārazm-Shāh’s patronage, ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad (d. 617/1220)—the son of the previous Shāh and al-Rāzī’s former student—after the city of Herat finally fell to the Khwārazm-Shāh. The two had a close student-teacher relationship to the extent that the Khwārazm-Shāh gave him the governor’s palace as residence, and he was given a higher office than he previously held. Al-Rāzī’s daughter was also married to a high-ranking administrator of the Khwārazm-Shāh. It was his close ties with the elite that, Allah willing, provided a safe place for his family after the Mongol invasions in 616/1219.

During these later periods, al-Rāzī remained engaged in producing scholarship in various disciplines providing an original approach to the sciences that pushed the pre-existing boundaries, most notably, in his magnum opus, al-Tafsīr al-kabīr and his final philosophical work, al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliyah.

Al-Rāzī left an indelible impression on Islamic thought, during his lifetime and after. Apart from his works being part of the curricula, he left behind numerous students who took his ideas across the Islamic world many of whom became leading philosophers and theologians in their own right. During his intermittent travels, he engaged in debates with many leading scholars and towards the end of the sixth century AH, he wrote a book, al-Munāẓarāt, detailing some of the discourses he had against the Ḥanafīs and Māturīdīs of the Transoxiana, claiming that it resulted in his interlocuters acknowledging his superior arguments. He also engaged with other groups such as the Shīʿah, Karrāmīyyah and Muʿtazilah, and even some non-Muslims like the Christians. He was fluent in both Arabic and Persian and would often give public discourses in these languages.

In recent times, al-Rāzī has received considerable attention amongst Muslim and non-Muslim scholars with numerous books and papers being published in multiple languages focussing on the influence of his writings and ideas on various disciplines.

Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī passed away in Herat on the day of ʿīd al-fiṭr, 606/1210, after a prolonged illness. He was buried on a hilltop near the village of Muzdākhān. He was succeeded by two sons and a daughter.

His Works

Imam Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī was a prolific author and was such from a young age with as many as 193 works having been ascribed to him.[2] He authored numerous works in a broad range of disciplines including tafsīr, kalām, fiqh, ṭibb, lughah, falsafah, and taṣawwuf, many of these containing multiple volumes. Several of his works became part of the curricula in different madrasahs with the only major field lacking a contribution being ḥadīth. Ibn Khallikān (d. 681/1282) mentions: