Includes bibliographical references and index.

Razi's escape from taqlid in philosophy -- Razi's escape from taqlid in exegesis -- The Qurʼan's method -- Razi's engagement with the Muʻtazila -- The opponents of Muʻtazilite taʼwil -- Razi's critique of classical Ashʻarism -- Razi's integration of the Muʻtazilite interpretive method into Sunnism -- The epistemological criterion for taʼwil -- Razi's rationalist objection to scripture -- The priority of reason over scripture -- The rational justification for the Prophet's credibility -- Miracles and the boundaries of reason -- The reception of Razi's methodology in Islamic traditionalism: Ibn Taymiyya on Tazi -- Razi's appropriation of Avicenna's philosophical exegesis -- Razi's reception of Ghazali's interpretation of light -- Razi's divergences from Avicenna and Ghazali: light as the bestowal of knowledge -- Razi's exegesis on the soul (nafs) and spirit (ruḥ): structure and strategy -- The soul's quiddity (mahiyya) and its temporal origination (ḥuduth) -- The soul's relation to the body -- Razi's doctrine on the vital spirit (ruḥ) -- The soul's separability: sleep and death -- The Prophet's soul.

Print version record.

This study investigates the transformative contributions that Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī made to the Islamic intellectual tradition. It focuses on the ways that Rāzī exploited the rich heritage of ancient and Islamic philosophy to interpret the Qur'ān, and on the ways that he forged a methodology for Sunni orthodoxy by uniting reason with the Qur'ān and prophetic traditions (naql). The book proposes that Rāzī gave his intellectual agenda an indisputed authority in Sunni Islam by using the Qur'ān as a vehicle for his ideas.