Subproject 2

“Animals without Reason” (al-ḥayawān ghayr al-nāṭiq): Views of Animals between Greek and Islamic Neoplatonism and the Qur’an.

This project will explore nature perception in classical Islamic philosophy, especially the cognitive capacities of animals as contrasted with humans. The primary sources stem from the philosopher and physician Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Zakariyyāʾ al-Rāzī (d. c. 313/323/c. 925/932) and the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwān al-Safā’) (beginning of 10th century), a secret society of Muslim philosophers. Al-Rāzī and the Brethren argue that animals have the capacity for “cognition” (fikr) while a more contingent point is whether rationality (ʿaql) – a defining human trait – is likewise extended to animals. Al-Rāzī grants animals “deliberation” (rawiyya), and the Brethren offer a unique critique of anthropocentrism in their fable, The Case of Animals versus Man before the King of the Jinn (epistle 22), where a group of animals takes humans, who mistreat them, to court. This may indicate that animals are viewed as having a rational capacity. However, al-Rāzī describes animals as “without reason” and – in a Platonic fashion – as possessing the “animal soul” (ḥayawāniyya), creating an assumption that animals lack the higher, rational soul. If al-Rāzī’s philosophy implies an ethical responsibility towards animals, this may only be based on humans’ moral obligation to imitate God’s goodness, not because animals possess inherent worth. In the Brethren’s The Case of Animals, the court hearing takes a drastic turn when the humans win the case by referring to their alleged ontological superiority. Even if the fable can be viewed as an early form of animal ethics, it can be argued that Brethren’s philosophy leads to anthropocentric views. The alleged anthropocentrism of al-Rāzī and the Brethren is an area of dispute. I will argue that the anthropocentrism of al-Rāzī and the Brethren may be contested by analyzing and comparing their understanding of animals to the Qur’an and the influence of Greek philosophy.

 

Photo: Double-leaf frontispiece from the "Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity". Baghdad, 1287. Süleymaniye Library. Wikimedia Commons.