Falsafa versus arabiyya: Al-Razi

The falasifa did not remain as impartial as Goldziher would have them with regard to Shu'ubiyya. The physician and philosopher al-Razi (d. 932?), at l east, attacked its most genuinely Arabic nucleous when he polemicized again st 'arabiyya, adab, zarf, nahw and shi'r, and elevated the characteristical ly Hellenic philosophical sciences over Arabic philological sciences. In fa ct, one could consider al-Razi's attack as one chapter more of the polemic of Shu'ubiyya. Al-Razi expressed all of these sentiments in the fifth chapt er of his treatise Fi l-tibb al-ruhani, which is presented and translated h ere.