Ibn al-Rawandi’s Followers (13)

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Medieval Skeptics of Islam - المتشككون في العصور الوسطى للإسلام

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Ibn al-Rawandi

Born

in Tahirid dynasty, Iran

December 10, 0826

Died

August 15, 0911

Website

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-Rawandi

Genre

Philosophy, Skepticism

Influences

Muhammad al Warraq, Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi ...more

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Abu al-Hasan Ahmad ibn Yahya ibn Ishaq al-Rawandi (Persian: ابو الحسن احمد بن یحیی بن اسحاق راوندی‎, Arabic: أبو الحسن أحمد بن يحيى بن إسحاق الراوندي‎), commonly known as Ibn al-Rawandi (Persian: ابن راوندی‎; born 827 CE–died 911 CE), was an early skeptic of Islam and a critic of religion in general. In his early days he was a Mutazilite scholar, but after rejecting the Mutazilite doctrine he adhered to Shia Islam for a brief period and later became a freethinker who repudiated Islam and reviled religion. Though none of his works survived, his opinions had been preserved through his critics, and the surviving books that answered him. The book with the most preserved fragments (through an Ismaili book refuting Al-Rawandi's ideology), is the Abu al-Hasan Ahmad ibn Yahya ibn Ishaq al-Rawandi (Persian: ابو الحسن احمد بن یحیی بن اسحاق راوندی‎, Arabic: أبو الحسن أحمد بن يحيى بن إسحاق الراوندي‎), commonly known as Ibn al-Rawandi (Persian: ابن راوندی‎; born 827 CE–died 911 CE), was an early skeptic of Islam and a critic of religion in general. In his early days he was a Mutazilite scholar, but after rejecting the Mutazilite doctrine he adhered to Shia Islam for a brief period and later became a freethinker who repudiated Islam and reviled religion. Though none of his works survived, his opinions had been preserved through his critics, and the surviving books that answered him. The book with the most preserved fragments (through an Ismaili book refuting Al-Rawandi's ideology), is the Kitab al-Zumurrud (The Book of the Emerald).

Abu al-Husayn Ahmad bin Yahya ben Isaac al-Rawandi was born in Rawand in Kashan, today located in Central Iran or some say in Marv-rud in Greater Khorasan, today located in northwest Afghanistan, about the year 815 CE. According to the Egyptian scholar Abdur Rahman Badawi, Al-Rawandi was born in Basra at the time of the Abbassid Caliph Al-Mamoun. His father, Yahya, was a Jewish scholar and convert to Islam, who schooled Muslims in how to refute the Talmud. Al-Rawandi abandoned Islam for atheism and used his knowledge of Islam, learned from his father, to refute the Quran.

He joined the Mu'tazili of Baghdad, and gained prominence among them. He then became a follower of Muhammad al Warraq in which he wrote several books that criticized revealed religion.

It is generally agreed among Muslims that Ibn al-Rawandi was indeed a heretic, but there is no agreement as to the nature of his heresy. Some look for the roots of his heresy in his connections with Shi'ism, and depict him as a Mu'tazilite gone wild. Some regard him as an Aristotelian philosopher, while others see him as a radical atheist, and some stress the political challenge he presented to the Islamic polity.

He rejected the authority of any scriptural or revealed religion. This is borne out by citations from his other writings, besides the Kitab al-Zumurrud and The Futility of (Divine) Wisdom (Abath al-hikma). ...more