Muhammad al-razi biography

In metaphysics, the field of study of religion and material things, he believed that it stood on five rules God, soul, matter, time, and space. However, his religious views were rejected by al-Biruniwho was the Muslim philosopher of his time and wrote a book on his life. He also researched human eyes to find out internal workings and diseases.

Al-Razi suffered from blindness in the last years of his life. The blindness was caused by the damage in his optical nerve to the Brain which sends signals from eye to brain. Abu al-Wafa. Abu Al-Raghib, Ali —. Abu al-Qasim ibn Muhammad al Junayd. Abu al-Hasan Ali al-Masudi. Abu al-Hasan Ali al-Ashari. Abu al-Fida'. Abu al-Fida. Abu Al-Fat.

Abu al-Faraj Ali of Esfahan. Abu al-Faraj. Abu al-Ala al-Maarri. Abu al-Abbas as-Saffah. Abu Dis. Abu Dulaf al-Khazraji. Abu El-Haj, Nadia —. Abu Ghayth, Sulayman —. Physician, philosopher, alchemist, musician, and mathematician, born in Rayy, Persia ; called Rhazes in the West. He was born in the year in the Persian city of Rayy, near present-day Tehranand died in the same town about Before learning medicine, he studied philosophy, alchemy, and music.

At an early age he gained eminence as an expert in medicine and alchemy, and patients and students flocked to him from distant parts of Asia. He was first placed in charge of the first Royal Hospital at Rayy, from muhammad al-razi biography he soon moved to a similar position in Baghdad and became head of its famous Muqtadari Hospital. He moved from time to time to various cities, especially between Rayy and Baghdad, but finally returned to Rayy, where he died around C.

He died there in or Several manuscripts exist of the work entitled Doubts Concerning Galenwhich deals with philosophical as well as with medical questions. With regard to some of these questions the judgment of simple unsophisticated people may be more valuable than that of the learned, who are befogged by erudite quibblings and subtleties. According to him, men, being naturally equal, did not need, in order to manage their affairs, the discipline imposed by religious leaders, who deceived them.

The miracles supposed to have been worked by the prophets of the three monotheistic religions as well as by Mani were tricks. Men of science like Euclid and Hippocrates were much more useful than the prophets. In fact, religion was definitely harmful, for fanaticism engendered hatred and religious wars. He may have followed a suggestion found in Plato in stating that society originated because of the need for a division of labor.

Thus he wrote a treatise still unpublished on properties, which contains a jumble of miscellaneous information concerning bizarre phenomena, some of them of magical nature. In fact, they are constantly observing phenomena similar to those the truth of which they deny. Yet, if someone claimed that there exists a stone attracting copper or glass, they would be quick to give him the lie.

This open-minded attitude is somewhat reminiscent of that shown by Francis Bacon when discussing magic. Both of them appear to feel that all recorded facts, however strange and inexplicable, should be taken into consideration, because all may be of scientific interest. The writings in question contain precise classification of various substances and precise accounts of the methods he follows in this science.

Thus the fact that everyone all men having a share of reason has unless his judgment has been warped by the discussions of Schoolmen an immediate certainty that a tridimensional space would exist even if all the bodies were to disappear, and that this space has no boundaries, demonstrates by itself the truth of these conceptions and suffices to refute the Aristotelian theories and arguments.

Muhammad al-razi biography

This space extends beyond the limits of the world, is infinite. As in the case of space. Analogies to them may also be found in Greek philosophy, in a passage attributed to Cicero De natura deorum1. Anton and G. Kustas, eds. For material, in contradistinction to geometrical, bodies are not divisible ad infinitum. On the other hand, if the visible material bodies were not composed of atoms, it would be necessary to suppose that the world was not created in time.

Having been mixed according to various proportions with particles of vacuum, the atoms produced the five elements, namely, earth, water, air, elemental fire, and the heavenly element. All the qualities of the elements, such as lightness and heaviness, opacity and transparence, and so forth, are determined by the quantity of matter, as compared with the particles of vacuum, which is found in them.

The dense elements, namely earth and water, tend to move toward the center of the earth, while air and fire, in which the particles of vacuum are predominant, move upward. The heavenly element, in which there is an equilibrium between matter and the particles of vacuum, has circular motion. The latter claim probably refers in the first place to some Hellenistic interpretation of the Timaeus.

Corbin, ed.