Al-Razi (Rhazes)

Al-Razi (Rhazes)

Al-Razi (Persian: رازی), or by his full name Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakariyyā al-Rāzī (865, Rayy – 925, Rayy), was a Persian alchemist, physician and philosopher. In his youth he took an interest in literature and music and earned his living as a goldsmith. After receiving an education in philosophy, mathematics, natural sciences and astronomy in his native city of Rayy, al-Razi completed his studies in Baghdad and other Islamic cities. He then studied medicine. Almost all of the works of al-Razi, who served as chief physician in the hospitals of Rayy and Baghdad, were translated into Latin. His medical encyclopedia titled al-Ḥāwī was the most important reference work in its field until the 17th century. One of al-Razi's most important contributions to medical science was that he was the first to place chemistry in the service of medicine.

His life

Al-Razi made extremely important contributions in the fields of pharmacy, alchemy, music and philosophy. He has about 200 books and articles on various subjects. He is known as the father of pediatrics. He is also considered an authority on ophthalmology. He was the first to discover alcohol and kerosene and the first to discover that smallpox is different from measles. According to the British orientalist Edward Granville Browne, he is one of the most competent scientists of all time. He is best known for his success in the field of medicine and pharmacy. After the year 750 CE, with the participation of Turkic and Persian cultures, Islamic civilization took on a cosmopolitan character and began to make progress in every field. In this period great libraries were established in many Islamic cities. These were at the same time research centers.

His personality and achievements

Many books of antiquity were translated. After the natural philosophy that began with Thales and developed in antiquity was interrupted by the burning of the Library of Alexandria, its rebirth within Islamic civilization came with Abū Bakr al-Razi. Besides him, we may count among the important figures al-Farabi, a follower of Aristotle and the philosophy of idealism, and Avicenna, who tried to combine idealism and natural philosophy. Abū Bakr al-Razi entered into conflict with the important currents within Islam and could not establish a Thales-like tradition within Islamic civilization. Later, as a result of the Mongol invasion and the Crusades, this development came to a halt. The Mongol invasion in particular dealt a great blow to the advances that had been achieved. In the burning of the Sivas Library alone, 250,000 books were destroyed.

His views on religion

Many contradictory statements about religion are attributed to al-Razi. According to the book Bibliography of al-Razi (Risāla fī Fihrist Kutub al-Rāzī) written by al-Biruni, al-Razi wrote two "heretical books": "Fī al-Nubuwwāt" (On Prophecies) and "Fī Ḥiyal al-Mutanabbīn" (On the Tricks of False Prophets). The first of these, according to al-Biruni, "was claimed to be against religions," and the second "was claimed to attack the necessity of prophets." In his treatise, al-Biruni criticizes al-Razi's religious views and says that he approaches his ideas with caution, and even claims that al-Razi was inspired by Manichaeism. Nevertheless, al-Biruni also listed under the heading "religious sciences," among his studies, other books of al-Razi on religion, including Fī Wujūb Daʿwat al-Nabī ʿalā Man Nakara bi al-Nubuwwāt (On the Obligation of Spreading the Teachings of the Prophet against Those Who Deny Prophecies) and Fī anna li al-Insān Khāliqan Mutqinan Ḥakīman (That Man Has an Intelligent and Perfect Creator). Al-Razi's fundamental view on religion is Islam.

Many of the views and quotations attributed to al-Razi come not from al-Razi's surviving works but from a book titled Aʿlām al-nubuwwa, originally written by Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī. Abū Ḥātim was an Ismaili missionary and used to hold debates with al-Razi; however, whether this missionary reliably recorded al-Razi's views is still debated. The old historian al-Shahrastani claimed that "such accusations should generally be approached with suspicion, because the accusations were made by the Ismailis, who were sharply attacked by Muḥammad ibn Zakariyyā al-Razi." But as is understood from his books translated today, al-Razi was a Muslim who believed in a single God, the hereafter, the Prophet and the Book.

His death

A compassionate, generous and diligent man, al-Razi spent the time when he was not tending to his students and patients always reading and writing. Probably as a result of his intense working performance, toward the end of his life he developed Parkinson's disease and cataracts descended over his eyes. Because of his illnesses he died in 925 in Rayy, his birthplace. (Kaya, 2007: 479)

In this period the most important achievement of Islamic civilization was the development of analytic geometry and algebra by synthesizing the numerals they took from the Buddhists with the geometry they obtained from the works of antiquity. The translation into Latin — especially of the works of Averroes and other scientists — through the Andalusian civilization in Spain was, in Bertrand Russell's phrase, the birth of European civilization. Because of the cataracts that descended over his eyes, al-Razi did not accept his students' proposal to treat them with surgery, saying, "It is too late now; I have already seen enough of the world!"

His works

Al-Razi, as he himself stated, wrote more than two hundred works. However, only 59 of these have survived. A few of them are:

Al-Ḥāwī (20 volumes), 907 (translated into 11 languages, chiefly Latin. It is the most detailed and informative textbook of its period in the field of medicine.)

Kitāb sirr ṣināʿat al-ṭibb

Al-Ḥāwī, or al-Jāmiʿ al-kabīr

Akhlāq al-ṭabīb (Mahmut Kaya translated and published it into Turkish under the title "Ünlü Hekim Filozof Ebû Bekir er-Râzî ve Hekimlik Ahlakı ile ilgili Bir Risâlesi" [The Famous Physician-Philosopher Abū Bakr al-Razi and a Treatise of His on Medical Ethics].)

Maqāla fī amārāt al-iqbāl wa al-dawla (Mahmut Kaya translated and published it into Turkish under the title "İkbâl ve Devlete Kavuşmanın Belirtileri" [The Signs of Attaining Fortune and Rank]. Felsefe Metinleri from the Islamic Philosophers. (Istanbul 2003, pp. 101–103))

Maqāla fīmā baʿd al-ṭabīʿa

Al-Ṭibb al-rūḥānī (Hüseyin Karaman translated it into Turkish under the title Ruh Sağlığı [Spiritual Health]. (Istanbul 2004))

Al-Sīra al-falsafiyya (Mahmut Kaya translated it into Turkish under the title "Filozofça Yaşama" [The Philosophic Way of Life]. Felsefe Arşivi, no. 27, (Istanbul 1991, pp. 91–201))

Sources

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