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philosophers did not believe that the life of the ruler embroiled in politics was worth living. They were convinced that, in gaining this world, the sovereign lost his soul. This sentiment was expressed, for ex ample, by SijistanI and his circle on a celebrated occasion when news reached them of cAc;lud al
main act of their public life and this worship was practiced through two basic elements of the religious life, i.e., dramas and sports. Greek poets including dramatists were highly respected whose role was to catch the reality and to mould into poems. According to M. Bowra, the Greek poetry was a
interval be too short, so that people have insufficient time to make a living''. Times had to be fixed which would be easily observable for high and low, for Arabs and non-Arabs. This is only feasible if a fourth part of a day, i.e. three hours, is taken as a basic unit" (H.B. I, rational soul and
life is revealed. The last section of Ibn Sinii's work deals with interpretation of dreams and is arranged according to the items seen while dreaming. This work, therefore, may also be classified as a work of ta'bir (= interpretation of dreams), of the kind mentioned later (§4.9). Despite the
demands of the modern Westernized world. Such an adjustment concerns all spheres of life, social, economic, cultural and spiritual.' This most for- midable challenge facing the Arab world is not new. As a matter offact, it came into existence at the end of the eighteenth century with Napoleon
, in a later ethical work, Ris§lat Dhamm ladhdh§t al-duny§ (Censure of the Pleasures of This World), written in 604/1208 towards the end of al-R§zÊ’s life, a very different stance emerges. This work (which is brought to attention and published for the first time in the present volume) consists of
completely in a special manner, and should contain new and high problems and fresh and charming terminology, and should be confirmed by Quranic verses and ~adi0 and revelations and proofs, and should cause the strengthening of the faith and motivate the sharpening of creed, and be reason for the wellfare
authority than he dares claim for himself. In fact in none of his writings does he lay claim to originality. He is in fact the exemplary 'iilim, one who does not set out to write masterpieces to immortalise his own name, but to continue a patient and continuing elaboration and distillation of a living
spare us this task. We will limit ourselves to referring briefly to some of the theoretical principles that will give us an insight into the spirit that motivated the Brethren of Purity to compile the Rasà"il and that gave these treatises a particular orientation, including their theories of existence
return to whatever he was reading. This was among the things that damaged his eyesight, together with his passionate craving for beans and his harmful addiction to them. 4 In the end he lost his eyesight, so as to become "blind in the here- after."5 At the end of his life he contracted a cataract in