A Doctor Who Questioned Everything: The Strange Philosophy of al-Rāzī

Imagine you’re a famous doctor in the 9th century. Patients come to you from all over. You run a hospital. You’ve written medical books that people will study for hundreds of years. You know more about the human body than almost anyone alive.

Now imagine that same doctor writing a book called Doubts about Galen — Galen being the most respected medical authority who ever lived, sort of like if a doctor today wrote a book called Doubts About All Modern Medicine. And imagine that same doctor also wrote books with titles like On the Tricks of Supposed Prophets. And imagine people accused him of believing that there are five eternal things that have always existed, not just God.

This is the philosopher al-Rāzī. He was born around 854 CE in the Persian city of Rayy, near modern-day Tehran. He was one of the most famous doctors in the Islamic world. He was also one of its most controversial thinkers.

The Problem of Suffering

Here’s a question that bothered al-Rāzī: if God is all-good and all-wise, why is the world so full of pain?

Not just the obvious stuff — disease, hunger, people dying. But also the smaller things. Why do babies have to be born through such a difficult and painful process? Why do we have to grow up slowly and painfully, instead of just appearing as adults? Why do we have to suffer at all?

If God is perfectly wise and good, wouldn’t He have made a world without suffering? And wouldn’t He have made it instantly, rather than through this long, messy process of development?

These are old questions. Philosophers call them “the problem of evil.” But al-Rāzī came up with a really unusual answer.

The Five Eternal Things

Al-Rāzī said that there are five things that have always existed. They didn’t get created. They were just always there:

God — the wise creator
Soul — the source of life and movement
Matter — the stuff everything is made of
Time — eternal duration
Place — infinite empty space (void)

This got him in trouble. Other Muslim thinkers said this was practically heresy. If you believe in one God, the creator of everything, how can there be four other eternal things?

Al-Rāzī had his reasons. Let’s walk through them.

Why Matter Must Be Eternal

First, al-Rāzī thought you can’t make something from nothing. Everywhere we look, things are produced through processes — seeds grow into plants, babies grow into adults, buildings get constructed slowly. If God could just make things appear from nothing, why would He bother with all this messy development?

His example: think about how painful childbirth is, and how long it takes for a human to grow up. If God could just snap His fingers and make a fully grown human appear, why wouldn’t He? The fact that He doesn’t suggests He can’t. There must already be some raw material to work with.

So matter — the basic stuff of the universe — must have always been there.

Why Time and Place Must Be Eternal

Similarly, creation had to happen at some time. But if time itself was created at the same moment, when did the creation happen? Before time existed? That doesn’t make sense. So time must have been there already, like an empty container waiting for events to fill it.

Same with place. If you’re going to put the universe somewhere, there needs to be a “where” to put it. Al-Rāzī asked people to imagine the universe being taken away. Wouldn’t its place still be there? (This is a thought experiment that still gets discussed by philosophers today.)

The Foolish Soul

So far we’ve got matter, time, and place as eternal. But what’s the Soul doing in this list? And why did the world get created at all, if God is perfectly good and wise?

Here’s al-Rāzī’s answer: the Soul is different from God. Where God is perfectly wise, the Soul is … well, not exactly evil, but kind of foolish. The Soul develops a passion — al-Rāzī uses the Arabic word ʿishq, which is like passionate love or desire — to be “mixed” with matter. This is a bad idea. Getting mixed with matter means getting trapped in bodies, which means suffering.

Think of it this way: imagine a smart, sensible parent and a reckless, impulsive kid. The kid really, really wants to go explore a dangerous forest. The parent knows this is a bad idea. But the parent also knows that sometimes you have to let kids learn from their own mistakes. So the parent lets the kid go — but gives the kid a wise guide to help.

In this story, God is the parent, the Soul is the kid, matter is the dangerous forest, and the wise guide is reason or intellect. God gives the Soul the gift of reason, which can help it realize that it should free itself from matter.

This explains suffering: it’s not that God wants us to suffer. It’s that suffering is a necessary side-effect of the Soul’s mistake, and God does His best to make the situation as good as possible.

What This Means for Us

If this is true, then the point of human life is pretty clear: we should use our reason to free ourselves from our attachment to material things. We should aim for “liberation” — escaping from the body and its concerns.

But here’s where al-Rāzī gets interesting. He wasn’t a fan of extreme asceticism (giving up everything and living like a monk). He wrote a whole book called The Philosophical Way of Life defending himself against accusations that he was a hypocrite for not living like Socrates, who was famous for being super-ascetic.

Al-Rāzī’s response? “Look, Socrates himself wasn’t actually that extreme. He adopted a moderate lifestyle as he got older. That’s what I’m doing.”

So his ethical advice is about moderation, not total rejection of pleasure. You can enjoy food, drink, and other pleasures — just don’t overdo it. Overdoing it leads to more pain in the long run. (He tells a story about scolding a man who wolfed down a plate of dates, warning him it would lead to stomachaches, bringing “many times more pain than the pleasure you have had.”)

But there’s also a higher level of ethics for people who are ready for it. This is the “philosophical way of life,” which involves imitating God through wisdom and justice. And here’s a remarkable detail: al-Rāzī said this justice extends to animals. You shouldn’t mistreat beasts of burden or other non-rational animals. This was an unusual position for his time.

Did He Reject Religion Entirely?

This part gets complicated, and nobody really knows for sure.

Some sources — especially al-Rāzī’s contemporary Abū Ḥātim, who debated with him — claim that al-Rāzī completely rejected prophecy and revelation. According to this account, al-Rāzī argued that God gives reason to everyone equally, so why would He single out certain people as prophets? Wouldn’t that be unfair? And wouldn’t the followers of different prophets just end up fighting with each other?

Other evidence suggests al-Rāzī wasn’t anti-religion at all, but was just a rationalist who thought that true religion would agree with reason. He might have been attacking a specific branch of Islam (Ismāʿīlism) that emphasized following religious leaders, rather than attacking all prophecy.

The debate among modern scholars is still alive. Some see al-Rāzī as a heroic “freethinker” who dared to question everything, including religion. Others see him as a more conventional philosopher who just had a very independent mind.

The Physics of Atoms

Al-Rāzī also had unusual ideas about what stuff is made of. Most philosophers in the Islamic world followed Aristotle, who thought matter could be divided infinitely. Al-Rāzī was an atomist: he believed there are tiny, indivisible particles that everything is made of.

The four elements (earth, air, fire, water) aren’t truly basic. They’re just the simplest combinations of atoms and empty space. Earth has very little empty space in it, which makes it dense, dark, and heavy. Fire has lots of empty space, which makes it light, hot, and bright.

This connects to his ideas about place and void. There’s empty space (void) both inside the universe — between atoms — and outside the universe — an infinite void that surrounds everything.

Why This Still Matters

Al-Rāzī’s ideas didn’t win many followers. Most later philosophers rejected his five eternal principles. The Ismāʿīlīs were especially hostile to him, writing books attacking his views.

But as a doctor, al-Rāzí was hugely influential. In Latin, he was known as “Rhazes.” His medical works were studied in European universities for centuries. He pioneered things like differential diagnosis (figuring out which disease a patient has by comparing symptoms) and using control groups to test whether drugs actually work.

Still, there’s something fascinating about al-Rāzī the philosopher. Here was a man who looked at the world and said: “Everyone thinks creation happened one way. What if it happened another way? What if suffering isn’t God’s fault, but the result of something else? What if reason is enough to guide us, without needing prophets?”

He didn’t just accept what authorities told him. He questioned Galen, the greatest medical authority. He questioned religious authorities. He questioned common assumptions about creation and suffering. And he came up with answers that were genuinely his own — strange, original, and still worth thinking about.

Key Terms

Term	What it does in this debate
Atomism	The view that everything is made of tiny, indivisible particles (atoms)
Eternal	Something that has always existed and never was created
Liberation	The goal of philosophy for al-Rāzī: freeing the soul from attachment to matter
Moderation	Al-Rāzī’s ethical ideal: enjoying pleasures without overdoing them
Theodicy	An attempt to explain why a good God allows suffering
Void	Empty space; al-Rāzī believed it exists both inside and outside the universe

Key People

Al-Rāzī (Abū Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyyāʾ al-Rāzī) — A famous 9th-century Persian doctor and philosopher, known for being extremely independent-minded and willing to question authorities.
Galen — The most respected medical authority of the ancient world (2nd century CE). Al-Rāzī wrote a book called Doubts about Galen critiquing his ideas.
Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī — A contemporary of al-Rāzī (no relation), who debated with him and wrote a book claiming al-Rāzī rejected all prophecy and religion.
Socrates — The ancient Greek philosopher famous for his rigorous, ascetic lifestyle. Al-Rāzī claimed to be following Socrates’ example, but in a moderate way.

Things to Think About

Al-Rāzī’s explanation for suffering is that a “foolish” Soul made a mistake, and God is just cleaning up the mess. Does this make God seem more or less powerful? Does it make the problem of suffering easier or harder to accept?
If reason is enough to guide us, what (if anything) do prophets add? Can you think of situations where having an expert to follow is actually a good thing, not just blind obedience?
Al-Rāzī says we should be moderate in our pleasures because overindulging causes more pain later. Is this really about enjoying life, or is it about avoiding pain? Does it matter?
The idea that matter, time, and place are eternal means the universe wasn’t created from nothing. What changes if you accept this? What stays the same?

Where This Shows Up

Medical ethics: Al-Rāzī’s approach of questioning authority and testing ideas through observation is a core part of modern science and medicine.
The problem of evil: His creative solution — blaming suffering on something other than God — is still discussed by philosophers today, even if few accept his specific version.
Atomism: The idea that everything is made of tiny particles turned out to be basically correct (though our understanding is much more sophisticated).
Religious pluralism: Debates about whether reason is sufficient without religion, and whether prophets are necessary, are still very much alive.