Fakhr al-Din al-Razi on the Soul (al-nafs) and Spirit (al-ruh): An Investigation into the Eclectic Ideas of Mafatih al-ghayb

This article aims to illustrate how al-Razi forges his doctrine on the soul in Mafatih al-ghayb. It investigates al-Razi's analysis of the soul's nature, its generation, and its attachment to the body by examining his exegesis of key Qur'anic verses. It analyses the ways that al-Razi interprets key cosmological terms from the Qur'an (including 'soul', 'vital spirit', 'God's command', and 'power'), and provides examples of his practical application of ta wil to key Qur'anic verses. The article argues that al-Razi moulds ideas from ancient Greek Stoicism and Mu(c)tazili theology into Mafatih al-ghayb. By doing so, it illustrates that the hermeneutical device of ta wil was instrumental to the process through which al-Razi assimilated eclectic ideas from non-canonical sources into the worldview of Sunnism.