In what follows, we offer the first comprehensive bibliography devoted to the great theologian and philosopher Fakhr al-DÄ«n al-RÄzÄ« (d. 606/1210). This annotated and indexed bibliography includes all relevant modern studies (monographs, journal articles, and book chapters) written in European languages, as well as in Arabic, Persian, Malay/Indonesian, Japanese, and Turkish. It covers the development of the secondary literature on RÄzÄ« from around 1900 up to the present day. The study of Arabic/Islamic intellectual history has witnessed a rapid growth of scholarship on post-classical thinkers, schools, and movements. Of these figures, RÄzÄ« is one of the most heavily referenced authorities in all the major intellectual disciplines of the post-classical period, be it philosophy, theology, medicine, QurʾÄnic exegesis, or jurisprudence. He is also at the center of ongoing research projects in Germany, Canada, England, the United States, Turkey, Jordan, Iran, and other countries. His towering place in this narrative is reinforced by his essential contributions to some of the major trends, theories, and literary genres that informed the later philosophical tradition in Islam and by the fact that his career and corpus are often credited with inaugurating the post-classical period. Despite his growing importance in contemporary research, there is presently a lack of methodological tools and reference works in RÄzian studies. The present book aims to fill this gap. It is intended as a counterpart to similar endeavors published on other major Arabic philosophers (most notably Jules L. Janssensâ An Annotated Bibliography on Ibn SÄ«nÄ, Leuven, 1991, and its subsequent supplements). In addition to its sheer scope (more than 1000 entries), the present bibliography also offers a substantial introduction that recaps the main findings in RÄzian studies and outlines future avenues of research, as well as annotations, tags, and indices to help students and researchers in their work.
We received help from many people during the course of this project and express our gratitude to all of them. We are particularly grateful to Yoones Dehghani Farsani for conducting research on the Persian sources, to Hanif Amin Beidokhti for his valuable insight regarding the Persian historiography on RÄzÄ«, to Merve Boz and Muhammet MaÅuk AktaÅ for their valuable help with the Turkish sources, and to Naser Dumairieh for his feedback regarding the Arabic literature on RÄzÄ«. Ayman Shihadeh greatly helped us to improve the bibliography by sharing numerous incisive and pertinent remarks. We are also deeply indebted to Frank Griffel, who provided valuable feedback on an earlier draft and who kindly accepted to write the foreword. Finally, we wish to thank Abdurraouf Oueslati and Carina van den Hoven at Brill for their unfaltering patience and support throughout the publication process.
Damien Janos
Muhammad Fariduddin Attar
Montreal and Tübingen, October 2022