Abstract:
Sheikh Najm al-Din Razi (573-654 AH), alongside numerous works on mystical issues, has a treatise titled 'Love and Reason' or 'Mi'yar al-Sidq fi Misdaq al-'Ishq' in which he responds to questions from one of his friends. These three questions are: 1- Do love and reason conflict with each other when they reach their perfection or not? 2- Why is it that where reason is more abundant and noble, love is also more stable and subtle (with regard to the existence of the Master of the Universe)? 3- Can it be said that reason is not just one kind, but includes all beings and encompasses every kind of existence? After writing the subject of dispute and drawing attention to the common meanings of 'reason', the author defines the scope of its activities and introduces the realm of love far beyond the constraints of reason. Then, the relationship between more abundant reason and subtler love is addressed with a nod to the Holy Prophet (PBUH), and subsequently, the rational opposition to the theory of the unity of reason, the knower, and the known is discussed. In this treatise, he aims to debate in the capacity of rational discussion (regarding the subject in question) in the manner of theologians and philosophers, and in the capacity of intuitive perception and expressing revelations, like a mystic, he defends love by utilizing vocabulary full of metaphor, allusion, and parable. In this article, while conducting a complete examination of this treatise, Najm Razi's perspective is critically reviewed with consideration of his other works.
Machine summary:
As for the 'reason' which we call the opposite of love, we mean "human reason," which when nurtured reaches perfection in a human, it becomes the perceiver of the essence of things, and philosophers agree on this, because perception, according to them, is expressed as the attainment of a known essence in the world and the attainment of an intelligible essence in the knower.
The explanation of the numerous meanings of reason and the refinement of its basis was among the difficulties that other contemporaries of Najm al-Din Razī were also entangled with, as we observe the same effort in Suhrawardi's book "Awārif al-Ma'ārif" and consequently in its free translation, namely "Misbāh al-Hidāyah": And what is meant by knowledge is a light derived from the niche of prophethood, in the heart of the believing servant, through which he finds the way to God, or to the work of God, or to the command of God. And this knowledge is a special attribute of man, and his sensory and intellectual perceptions are outside of it.
' (Najm Razi: 5431, 47) One must ask whether the basis of the word 'reason' (aql) in the third question and in the discussion of the unity of the knower and the known is the same meaning that the author agrees upon at the beginning of the treatise 'Love and Reason'?
Najm al-Din Razi, like many mystics, maintains that one must first extract the meaning of the word 'reason' in opposition to love from among the other meanings of reason, so that a correct judgment can be made about each.
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