These Celestial Souls
In the Golden Age of Islam, one twelfth-century philosopher seeks to reconcile pagan philosophy with the Quran. In this episode, we explore The Hidden Secret of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī. When polytheism meets the Abrahamic tradition, where is truth?
Researched, written, and produced by Corinne Wieben, with original music by Purple Planet.
Still curious? Check out Michael-Sebastian Noble’s Philosophising the Occult: Avicennan Psychology and ‘The Hidden Secret’ of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021).
Music
Purple Planet - Shifting Sands
Purple Planet - Etherial Eternity
Purple Planet - Chimera
Purple Planet - Sense of Loss
Purple Planet - Shadowlands
Sources
Primary
al-Rāzī, Fakhr al-Dīn Muhammad Ibn ‘Umar. Al-Mabahith al-mashriqiyyafi cilm al-ilahiyyat wa l-tabiciyyat. Haydarabad 1343 H. Cited and translated in Binyamin Abrahamov. “Fakhr Al-Dīn al-Rāzī on God’s Knowledge of the Particulars.” Oriens 33 (1992): 133-55.
al-Rāzī, Fakhr al-Dīn Muhammad Ibn ‘Umar. Al-Sirr al maktūm. Cairo: Mīrzā Muhammad Shīrazī lithograph, undated. Cited and translated in Michael-Sebastian Noble. Philosophising the Occult: Avicennan Psychology and ‘The Hidden Secret’ of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī. Studies in the History and Culture of the Middle East 35. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021.
Secondary
Abrahamov, Binyamin. “Fakhr Al-Dīn al-Rāzī on God’s Knowledge of the Particulars.” Oriens 33 (1992): 133-55
Bailey, Michael D. “Magic Contested and Condemned.” In Magic: The Basics, 59-84: New York: Routledge, 2018.
Basaran, Yasin R. “Avicenna on the Soul’s Power to Manipulate Material Objects.” Eskiyeni 30 (Spring 2015): 145-157.
Burnett, Charles. “Arabic Magic: The Impetus for Translating Texts and their Reception.” In The Routledge History of Medieval Magic, edited by Page, Sophie and Catherine Rider, 69-84. New York: Routledge, 2019.
Dallal, Ahmad. “Science and Religion.” In Islam, Science, and the Challenge of History, 110-48. Yale University Press, 2010.
Fahd, Toufic. “Magic: Magic in Islam.” In Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd ed., edited by Lindsay Jones, 5583-5587. Vol. 8. Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005.
Gabrieli, Giuseppe. “Fakhr-al-Din al-Rāzī.” Isis 7, no. 1 (1925): 9-13.
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Hammed, Nora Jacobsen Ben. “As Drops in their Sea: Angelology through Ontology in Faḫr Al-Dīn Al-rāzī’s Al-Maṭālib Al-῾āliya.” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy: A Historical Journal 29, no. 2 (2019): 185-206.
Kruk, Remke. “Harry Potter in the Gulf: Contemporary Islam and the Occult.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 32, no. 1 (2005): 47-73.
Langermann, Y. Tzvi. “Criticism of Authority in the Writings of Moses Maimonides and Fakhr Al-Dīn al-Rāzī.” Early Science and Medicine 7, no. 3 (2002): 255-75.
Ma’ṣūmī, M. Ṣaghīr Ḥasan. “Imām Fakhr Al-Dīn Al-Rāzī and His Critics.” Islamic Studies 6, no. 4 (1967): 355-74.
Marcus-Sells, Ariela. “Science, Sorcery, and Secrets in the Fawāʾid Nūrāniyya of Sīdi Muḥammad Al-Kuntī.” History of Religions 58, no. 4 (2019): 432-464.
Michot, Yahya. “Between Entertainment and Religion: Ibn Taymiyya’s Views on Superstition.” The Muslim World 99, no. 1 (2009): 1-20.
Noble, Michael-Sebastian. Philosophising the Occult: Avicennan Psychology and ‘The Hidden Secret’ of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī. Studies in the History and Culture of the Middle East 35. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021.
Setia, Adi. “Kalam Jadid, Islamizatiation, and the Worldview of Islam: Applying the Neo-Ghazalian, Attasian Vision.” Islam & Science 10, no. 1 (2012): 25.
Shihadeh, Ayman. “The Mystic and the Sceptic in Fakhr Al-Dīn al-Rāzī.” In Sufism and Theology, edited by Ayman Shihadeh, 101-22. Edinburgh University Press, 2007.
Stearns, Justin. “‘All Beneficial Knowledge Is Revealed’: The Rational Sciences in the Maghrib in the Age of al-Yūsī (d. 1102/1691).” Islamic Law and Society 21, no. 1/2 (2014): 49-80.
Zadeh, Travis. “Magic, Marvel, and Miracle in Early Islamic Thought.” In The Cambridge History of Magic and Witchcraft in the West: From Antiquity to the Present, edited by David J. Collins, S.J., 235-267. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
