al-Tusi, Khwajah Nasir

« al-Tusi's Isma‘ili period, but the break with this past was decisively accomplished in Masari‘ al-musari‘ (The Floorings of the Wrestler) , a refutation of an Isma‘ili Neoplatonic text by the crypto-Isma‘ili al-Shahrastani (d.

AH 548/AD 1153) which attacked Ibn Sina for deviating from ‘prophetic theology'.

Al-Tusi's vehemently anti-Isma‘ili defence ofIbn Sina is unreservedly polemical, using the same tactic of accusations of weak logic and feeble-mindedness whichhe had employed against al-Razi.

Perhaps also a rejection of al-Tusi's own past, this text marks another stage inthe development of his conviction of the superiority of philosophical thinking over religious dialectics.

Al-Tusi madeseveral contributions to the field of metaphysical theology.

The first attempt in this direction was an exposition ofIsma‘ili qiyama (resurrection) theology in his Rawdat al-taslim (The Garden of Submission) , but of more enduring consequence was his later Twelver work, the Tajrid al-kalam (Abstract of Theology) .

This has been the subject of numerous commentaries down to the present century, the most important of which is the ‘Allamah al-Hilli's Kashf al- murad (Disclosing the Intention) .

After the Tajrid , practically all Imami theological works would be expressed in the terminology of metaphysics, with Mulla Sadra eventually achieving a comprehensive and lasting fusion.

3 Ethics, mathematics and the natural sciences There are two main works in al-Tusi's ethical output, the Akhlaq-i Muhtashami (Muhtashamean Ethics) and the Akhlaq-i Nasiri (The Nasirean Ethics) , both written in Persian.

The first of these was commissioned by the Isma‘ili ruler ( muhtasham ) of Quhistan, Nasir al-Din ‘Abd al-Rahman, who provided the outline and approved its contents but called in al-Tusi to do the major work because of the demandsof his own political duties.

This is scarcely more than a manual of ethical precepts, amply illustrated with quotationsfrom the Qur'an, the Shi‘i Imams and Greek sources.

The Akhlaq-i Nasiri , the first ‘edition' of which was dedicated to the same Nasir al-Din, is arranged as a work of philosophical ethics.

Its divisions into three parts - ethics ( akhlaq ), domestic economics ( tadbir-e manzil ), politics ( siyasat-e mudun ) - set the pattern for subsequent works on practical philosophy in the Islamic tradition (see al-Dawani ).

The first part on ethics is modelled on Ibn Miskawayh's Tahdhib al-akhlaq (Cultivation of Morals) , of which the work was initially commissioned to be merely a Persian translation (see Ibn Miskawayh ).

However, al-Tusi expands on Ibn Miskawayh both in the initial section on principles, mainly a theoretical treatment of psychology (the soul), and in his subsequent treatment of characterand the virtues.

This first part finishes with the addition of a section on the treatment of the vices as sicknesses ofthe soul, and of the cures to remedy them.

The sources of the second part on domestic economics are the Arabictranslation of Bryson's Oikonomikos and a text by Ibn Sina, his Kitab al-siyasa (Book of Politics) , while the third part, on politics, goes back to al-Farabi's Kitab al-siyasa al-madaniyya (The Political Regime) and Fusul al-madani (Aphorisms of the Statesman) (see al-Farabi ).

The last part contains an important section on the virtue of love (mahabba ) as the cement of societies.

After al-Tusi joined Hülegü, he changed the introduction and conclusion to this work, excusing his previous praise of the Isma‘ili leadership as the product of exigency.

Moreover, he addedthat this was strictly a work of philosophy which transcended sectarian differences and was available to all.

Thework made available to Persian readers the Islamic ethical tradition taken from Greek philosophy but nowincorporating Qur'anic material alongside the opinions of Plato and Aristotle.

Justice explicitly comes to the fore asthe supreme virtue running through all three parts of the book, implicitly linking it with Shi‘i theology and the prioritygiven in the latter to justice among the divine attributes; and philosophical ethics and the religious law are statedto be concerned with the same subject matter, thus affirming the intellect's capacity to view normative values in away which could only have been acceptable at that time within Shi‘i circles (see Ethics in Islamic philosophy ). Throughout his life al-Tusi was a prolific writer in mathematics and the natural sciences, and made advances intrigonometry, mathematics and astronomy.

This aspect of his intellectual endeavour was eventually rewarded withthe foundation of the Maraghah observatory.

The result of the astronomical observations and calculations madethere was the famous tables of the Zij-e Ilkhani (in Persian, but also translated into Arabic).

Prior to Maraghah, the rational sciences had been cultivated by individuals with (or without) private patronage, the schools in Islam beingdevoted almost entirely to the law and dismissive of, if not actually hostile to philosophical activity.

The setting upof the observatory and the institutionalization of the rational sciences created a demand for teaching materials, andal-Tusi was himself the author of a number of recensions ( tahrir ) of scientific texts as well as summaries and abridgements of theological, logical, and philosophical texts, clearly intended to supply this teaching need.

Al-Tusi'slasting influence can be seen in the subsequent surge of activity in the rational sciences in the Islamic east, as wellas in their gradual absorption into religious education, which in turn affected the development of theology, particularly among Shi‘i scholars (see Science in Islamic philosophy ).. »