Workshop: The Philosophy of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī

Description

Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (1150–1210) is one of the most influential authors In Islam, yet also still one of the most under-studied. When Western scholars, diplomats, and travelers collected Arabic manuscripts in the 18th, 19th, and the early 20th centuries, they had hardly heard his name and were ignorant of his importance. Hence, few works of his entered European and North American manuscript libraries. The earliest publications on him date to the first decades of the 20th century, and the first academic encyclopedia article only to 1941. The first monograph study on Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī in a Western language had to wait until 1996. Since then, however, his importance for a great number of fields of knowledge in Islam and numerous genres of Arabic and Islamic literature has become clearer with every publication that came out. By now Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī is acknowledged as the most important voice between the 12th and the 14th or 15th centuries in such fields as theology (kalām), philosophy (ḥikma), logic (manṭiq), Islamic law (fiqh), Qur’an commentary (tafsīr), as well as the occult sciences. His highly important role in these fields, however, is not well known outside a small group of experts in Islamic studies. The field still needs publications that will make Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s role and his contributions better known among an academic public of (general) historians of philosophy and scholars who work in Islamic studies, for instance. This workshop shall lead to the publication of such a book, tentatively titled Interpreting Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī. Critical Essays and co-edited by Peter Adamson (LMU Munich) and Damien Janos (CNRS Paris).