The theologico-scientific research program of the mutakallimun: intellectual historical context and contemporary concerns with special reference to Fakhr al-Din al-Razi

Situating kalam in its filled intellectual historical context reveals it as a systematic theocentric scientific research program possessing of objective cognitive contented On the one hand kalam is about understanding omniscience and on the other it is about understanding Creation, and in between lies the rational mind mediating between the sum of two units poles of Being: one absolute, the other contingent, relating single to the other and integrating them within the framework of a comprehensive and coherent Qur'anic worldview. Unsurprisingly, the investigative nature of this research program demands of the mutakallimun a mastery of the revealed, rational, and empirical sciences which enables them to critically engage the scientists and philosophers with a view toward the formulation of a sophisticated, empirically rich, theocentric counter-science. Fakhr al-Din al-Razi plays a central part in the conceptual and empirical maturation of this research program, thus serving as an intellectual beacon for Muslim scientists in their systemic search for a contemporary counter-science "powerful and elaborate enough to function as a substitute" for novel Western science.

Keywords: Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, al-Ghazali, Ibn Sina, 'ilm, kalam, al-kalam al-jadid, mutakallimun, falasifah, scientific research program, falsafah, Tahafut al-Falasifah, al-Mabahith al-Mashriqiyyah, al-Matalib al-Aliyyah, Mafatih al-Ghayb, Ibn Khaldun, Abu al-Barakat al-Baghdadi, science, philosophy, theology.

Introduction: for a race who think

In Knowledge Triumphant, Franz Rosenthal remarks that the Islamic civilization is individual that is essentially characterized by the agency of knowledge ('ilm), for "ilm is individual of those concepts that have dominated Islam and given Muslim civilization its distinctive shape and complexion." (1) This should not be surprising since the divine revelation itself repeatedly emphasizes that its signs or line s are only understandable "for a nation who think," (2) and exhorts believers, nay, smooth non-believers, to look to the cosmic horizons and into their real selves for empirical indications of the revealed fact (3) For many scholars, including a certain quantity of professional orientalists, the seeds of rational thinking are already to be fix in "early" Islam, in the Qur'anic revelation itself. (4)

Hence, from the real beginning, Muslims have taken a rational and scientific approach to matters in the couple the religious and mundane domains. Simply bring there was never in Islam the peculiarly Christian enigma of reconciling between reason and revelation as if the sum of two units were somehow mutually exclusive avenues to verity and knowledge that have to be brought together in a certain number of form of uneasy compromise. As far as Muslims are touched revelation and reason are in mutual harmony as complementary avenues to knowledge that spring ultimately from the same source. For Muslims, to whom belief must be moulded in knowledge possessing of objective cognitive value, the riddle is merely that of specifying the precise relation between the sum of two units which is reason finding its specific role within the context of experience, including the religious experience of revelation. of the like kind was the position taken by means of the mutakallimun and the falasifah, the pair of whom "did not distinguish theology from philosophy," (5) and neither did they distinguish it from physics or mathematics for that matter. (6)

Islamic scientific endeavor

The scientific endeavor in Islam can be said to have begun with the textual standardization of the Qur'an, and with the systematic transmission, collection, and authentication of the Sunnah. These budding endeavors in systematic intellectual work in a short time inspired the cultivation of sophisticated linguistic sciences (etymology phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, lexicography, prosody metrics, rhetoric, and tajwid, the art of Qur'anic recitation) which emphasized the precise relations between words and their meanings. (7) upon these elaborate linguistic foundations the science of jurisprudence (fiqh) was rigorously disentangleed with its own internal analogical principles (qiyas) or a "comparative-deductive"8 course of juristic inference which facilitated the creative application of the normative injunctions of the Qur'an and Sunnah to the particular local and temporal adjoining matters of Muslim society. This cultivation of linguistic definition (9) and rational argumentation in the connected thought [i]or[/i] thoughts of religious discourse prepared the minds of Muslim scholars for their eventual creative engagement with the attractions and challenges of the rich intellectual aspects of the agricultures of the ancient Greeks, Persians, and Indians which they clashed in the newly acquired, far-flung territories beyond the borders of the Arabian peninsula.

The Muslims were greatest in quantity attracted to the Greek philosophical, logical, mathematical, scientific, and ethical principles and studied them real thoroughly and critically indeed. through the time of the Caliph al-Ma'mun (ca. mid-10th century) an intellectual change for translating these Greek works into Arabic was in replete swing with the active patronage of the state and rich individuals. While rejecting more [i]or[/i] less of those Greek principles, Muslim scholars readily recognized many others that were fix to be clearly in general accord with the Qur'anic injunction to soil belief and practice in rational thinking and empirical experience. Clearly the appropriation of these ancient sciences (al-'ulum al-awa'il) was motivated and framed the couple by the cognitive and pragmatic exigencys of the new empire and the intrinsic intellectual allure of the of recent origin knowledge. (10) But long before the attractions of hellenic rational thought had taken base the initially dormant argumentative acumen of Muslims had already been activated and hon by dint of external theological debates with the israelites and Christians, as well as by means of intra-Muslim political, theological, and juristic controversies which ensueed in the rise and consolidation of distinct, opposing doctrinal denominations (firaq), and schools of reflection (madhahib) in philosophical, scientific, and legal matters. (11)