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al-Tusi, Khwajah Nasir (1201-74)While philosophical activity in the Islamic west virtually ceased after Ibn Rushd at the close of the sixthcentury ah (twelfth century ad), it experienced renewed vigour in the east through the intellectual efforts andpolitical involvement of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi. Although primarily a reviver of the peripatetic tradition of IbnSina, he was also possibly influenced by the ideas of al-Suhrawardi. He defended Ibn Sina from thecriticisms levelled against him from the direction of theology, notably by Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, made asignificant contribution to the acceptance of metaphysical argumentation and terminology in Twelver Shi'itheology, brought the ethical tradition of Ibn Miskawayh and the philosophers into the centre of Islamicethical discourse, and had a lasting effect on the study of the exact sciences in Islam through both hisoriginal contributions to mathematics and astronomy and the observatory at Maraghah which the MongolKhan Hülegü established for him.

1. Intellectual development2. Logic, metaphysics and theology3. Ethics, mathematics and the natural sciences

1. Intellectual development

Al-Tusi's intellectual development cannot be divorced from the drama of his own life, and the catastropheof the Mongol invasion of the Islamic east. From his birth in Tus in Khurasan in northwest Iran in ah 597/ad1201 up to his middle or late twenties, al-Tusi lived in a Twelver Shi'i milieu, in a family whose idea oflearning was, according to his own account, the study of the religious law, and whose behaviour wasmeasured by its practice. His jurist father, however, was sufficiently broad-minded to encourage himbeyond scholastic studies to the philosophical and natural sciences, and to acquaint himself with thedoctrines of other schools and sects. To study philosophy, al-Tusi went to nearby Nishapur, where he wastaught by a scholar whose teaching lineage went back to Ibn Sina. Early in his career, as al-Tusi himselflater wrote, he was not convinced that the intellect could answer the ultimate metaphysical questions, sinceit would thereby be inquiring into its own origins, something of which it would be incapable. Perhaps as away out of his perplexity, and quite possibly as the result of sectarian connections through an uncle, heturned to the Isma'ilism of his day, which had been influenced by the Neoplatonic speculations of Isma'ilithinkers in the third and fourth centuries ah (ninth and tenth centuries ad). Isma'ili doctrine turned on theconcept of an infallible Imam, without whose guidance, it claimed, the unaided intellect was unable to reachthe truth.

From his late twenties or early thirties, al-Tusi was in the service of the local Isma'ili leaders of northernIran, writing a number of theological and philosophical works for them in both Persian and Arabic andbeginning his contribution to a major revival of Peripatetic philosophy in eastern Islamic lands. With theMongol invasion of Iran in the middle of the thirteenth century the Isma'ili strongholds were destroyed, andal-Tusi found himself involved in the negotiations leading to the surrender of the Grand Isma'ili Master tothe invaders. His efforts were appreciated by the Mongol conqueror Hülegü, who took him on as anadvisor, in which capacity he assisted at the sacking of Baghdad in ah 656/ad 1258. Later al-Tusi was put incharge of religious endowments and affairs. Hülegü also had the great observatory and library at Maraghahbuilt for al-Tusi, where he led a team of scientists and mathematicians from as far away as China. It is clearthat immense resources were put at his disposal for this project, where the teaching and study of philosophywent on hand in hand with that of the exact sciences.

The end of his Isma'ili period also marked al-Tusi's turn (or return) to Twelver Shi'ism, and the last periodof his life witnessed not only a remarkable output of scientific works but also a reformulation of Imamitheology in philosophical terms which was as influential in the Shi'i world as was that of Fakhr al-Din al-

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Razi in the Sunni. Al-Tusi died in ah 672/ad 1274 in Baghdad, in the same year as Thomas Aquinas. Hewas buried according to his last wishes beside the shrine of the seventh Twelver Imam, Musa ibn Ja'far, inKazimayn just outside Baghdad. Among his most remarkable students were the philosopher Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi (d. ah 710/ad 1310) and the Imami jurist and theologian, the 'Allamah al-Hilli (d. ah 726/ad 1325).

If in his early life al-Tusi believed in the need for reason to be sustained by a non-rational (or supra-rational)guarantor, his move to Twelver Shi'ism, with its doctrine of the hidden, inaccessible Imam, indicates agrowing strength in his convictions about the ability of the intellect. His sectarian shifts have given rise tomuch argument concerning his genuine doctrinal loyalties, but throughout his life there runs a consistentphilosophical thread whose main characteristic was the defence, rehabilitation and elaboration of Ibn Sina'smethod and theories. It is through his interpretations in texts, epitomes, commentaries and refutations thatsubsequent generations in the Islamic east have approached their understanding of Ibn Sina. His output asan author in both Arabic and Persian was prodigious, including lasting contributions to logic, metaphysics,ethics, mathematics and astronomy.

2. Logic, metaphysics and theology

Al-Tusi's main contribution to logic is contained in his Persian Asas al-iqtibas (The Ground for theAcquisition of Knowledge), written during his Isma'ili period. It is divided according to the habitual tensections of the organon of the Islamic world, and its discussion of substance has recently attracted attention(Morewedge 1975). It also stands as a testimony to al-Tusi's ability to write about technical subjects inPersian, by incorporating Arabic terminology into a fluent and graceful style. An Arabic manual of logic byal-Tusi, the Tajrid al-mantiq (Abstract of Logic), was commented on by his pupil the 'Allamah al-Hilli.

However, the major text on which al-Tusi's reputation as an interpreter of Ibn Sina's philosophy rests is hiscommentary on the Kitab al-Isharat (Remarks and Admonitions), written towards the end of his stay withthe Isma'ilis. Al-Tusi's work was in part, at least, intended as a response to the commentary of Fakhr al-Dinal-Razi on the same text. This work shows one of al-Tusi's continuing complaints, that those who attack IbnSina are generally ill-equipped as philosophers and that analysis can reveal their weaknesses. He is notaverse to the use of polemic himself, but his insistence that a philosopher be evaluated in terms of thesoundness of his argumentation and not according to preconceived ideas about conclusions demonstrateshis faithfulness to Ibn Sina's own method. Thus, although on the whole defending Ibn Sina's theories, hedisagrees with the latter when he sees fit. In his interpretation of emanation, for example, al-Tusi is partly inagreement with al-Suhrawardi concerning the nature of God's knowledge, although he does not entirelyreject Ibn Sina's theory of identity of form between knower and known as being applicable to otherexistents (see Ibn Sina). God's knowledge of the First Intellect, and consequently of the entire universe, isidentical with its existence through a kind of presential knowledge, while lower entities in the emanativechain derive their knowledge through forms and representations as well as through presence. Al-Tusi'scommentary is clear and systematic, and is still studied with the original text because of his lucidexplanations of Ibn Sina's often difficult and dense prose.

The texts discussed so far belong to al-Tusi's Isma'ili period, but the break with this past was decisivelyaccomplished in Masari' al-musari' (The Floorings of the Wrestler), a refutation of an Isma'ili Neoplatonictext by the crypto-Isma'ili al-Shahrastani (d. ah 548/ad 1153) which attacked Ibn Sina for deviating from'prophetic theology'. Al-Tusi's vehemently anti-Isma'ili defence of Ibn Sina is unreservedly polemical, usingthe same tactic of accusations of weak logic and feeble-mindedness which he had employed against al-Razi. Perhaps also a rejection of al-Tusi's own past, this text marks another stage in the development of hisconviction of the superiority of philosophical thinking over religious dialectics.

Al-Tusi made several contributions to the field of metaphysical theology. The first attempt in this directionwas an exposition of Isma'ili qiyama (resurrection) theology in his Rawdat al-taslim (The Garden of

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Submission), but of more enduring consequence was his later Twelver work, the Tajrid al-kalam (Abstractof Theology). This has been the subject of numerous commentaries down to the present century, the mostimportant of which is the 'Allamah al-Hilli's Kashf al-murad (Disclosing the Intention). After the Tajrid,practically all Imami theological works would be expressed in the terminology of metaphysics, with MullaSadra eventually achieving a comprehensive and lasting fusion.

3. Ethics, mathematics and the natural sciences

There are two main works in al-Tusi's ethical output, the Akhlaq-i Muhtashami (Muhtashamean Ethics) andthe Akhlaq-i Nasiri (The Nasirean Ethics), both written in Persian. The first of these was commissioned bythe Isma'ili ruler (muhtasham) of Quhistan, Nasir al-Din 'Abd al-Rahman, who provided the outline andapproved its contents but called in al-Tusi to do the major work because of the demands of his own politicalduties. This is scarcely more than a manual of ethical precepts, amply illustrated with quotations from theQur'an, the Shi'i Imams and Greek sources. The Akhlaq-i Nasiri, the first 'edition' of which was dedicatedto the same Nasir al-Din, is arranged as a work of philosophical ethics. Its divisions into three parts - ethics(akhlaq), domestic economics (tadbir-e manzil), politics (siyasat-e mudun) - set the pattern for subsequentworks on practical philosophy in the Islamic tradition (see al-Dawani).

The first part on ethics is modelled on Ibn Miskawayh's Tahdhib al-akhlaq (Cultivation of Morals), ofwhich the work was initially commissioned to be merely a Persian translation (see Ibn Miskawayh).However, al-Tusi expands on Ibn Miskawayh both in the initial section on principles, mainly a theoreticaltreatment of psychology (the soul), and in his subsequent treatment of character and the virtues. This firstpart finishes with the addition of a section on the treatment of the vices as sicknesses of the soul, and of thecures to remedy them. The sources of the second part on domestic economics are the Arabic translation ofBryson's Oikonomikos and a text by Ibn Sina, his Kitab al-siyasa (Book of Politics), while the third part, onpolitics, goes back to al-Farabi's Kitab al-siyasa al-madaniyya (The Political Regime) and Fusul al-madani(Aphorisms of the Statesman) (see al-Farabi). The last part contains an important section on the virtue oflove (mahabba) as the cement of societies.

After al-Tusi joined Hülegü, he changed the introduction and conclusion to this work, excusing hisprevious praise of the Isma'ili leadership as the product of exigency. Moreover, he added that this wasstrictly a work of philosophy which transcended sectarian differences and was available to all. The workmade available to Persian readers the Islamic ethical tradition taken from Greek philosophy but nowincorporating Qur'anic material alongside the opinions of Plato and Aristotle. Justice explicitly comes to thefore as the supreme virtue running through all three parts of the book, implicitly linking it with Shi'itheology and the priority given in the latter to justice among the divine attributes; and philosophical ethicsand the religious law are stated to be concerned with the same subject matter, thus affirming the intellect'scapacity to view normative values in a way which could only have been acceptable at that time within Shi'icircles (see Ethics in Islamic philosophy).

Throughout his life al-Tusi was a prolific writer in mathematics and the natural sciences, and madeadvances in trigonometry, mathematics and astronomy. This aspect of his intellectual endeavour waseventually rewarded with the foundation of the Maraghah observatory. The result of the astronomicalobservations and calculations made there was the famous tables of the Zij-e Ilkhani (in Persian, but alsotranslated into Arabic). Prior to Maraghah, the rational sciences had been cultivated by individuals with (orwithout) private patronage, the schools in Islam being devoted almost entirely to the law and dismissive of,if not actually hostile to philosophical activity. The setting up of the observatory and the institutionalizationof the rational sciences created a demand for teaching materials, and al-Tusi was himself the author of anumber of recensions (tahrir) of scientific texts as well as summaries and abridgements of theological,logical, and philosophical texts, clearly intended to supply this teaching need. Al-Tusi's lasting influencecan be seen in the subsequent surge of activity in the rational sciences in the Islamic east, as well as in their

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gradual absorption into religious education, which in turn affected the development of theology, particularlyamong Shi'i scholars (see Science in Islamic philosophy).

See also: Ibn Sina; al-Razi, Fakhr al-Din; Science in Islamic philosophy

JOHN COOPERCopyright © 1998, Routledge.

List of works

(1235, 1265) Akhlaq-i Nasiri (The Nasirean Ethics), trans. G.M. Wickens, London: George Allen &Unwin, 1964. (An excellent, meticulous translation of the Akhlaq-e Nasiri, with a brief introduction andnotes.)

(1242) Rawdat al-taslim (The Garden of Submission), trans. C. Jambet, La convocation d'Alamût: sommede philosophie ismaélienne (Radat al-taslîm: Le jardin de vraie foi), Lagrasse and Paris: Éditions Verdierand Éditions UNESCO, 1996. (A work of Isma'li theology.)

(1244-5) Asas al-iqtibas (The Ground for the Acquisition of Knowledge), ed. M. Radawi, Tehran: TehranUniversity Press, 1947. (Al-Tusi's major logical text, in Persian.)

(probably after 1246) Sayr wa suluk (Contemplation and Action), ed. and trans. S.J.H. Badakhchani,London: Institute for Ismaili Studies, 1997. (This is the autobiography which al-Tusi wrote during his staywith the Isma'ilis, and is untinged with the complaints which he later made of this period in his life.)

(before 1258) Sharh al-Isharat (Commentary on the Isharat), ed. S. Dunya in Ibn Sina, al-Isharat wa-'l-tanbihat, Cairo: Dar al-Ma'arif, 1957-60, 4 parts, 3 vols in 2; also in Ibn Sina, al-Isharat wa-'l-tanbihat,Tehran: Matba'at al-Haydari, 1957-9, 3 vols. (Both these editions contain al-Tusi's commentary as parts ofFakhr al-Din al-Razi's commentary, to which al-Tusi is responding. The Tehran edition also contains Qutbal-Din al-Razi's commentary, which sets out to adjudicate between al-Tusi and al-Razi.)

al-Tusi (probably before 1270-1) Tajrid al-kalam (Abstract of Theology). (The text of this, al-Tusi's majortheological work (also known as Tajrid al-'aqa'id and Tajrid al-i'tiqad), can be found in the commentary byhis pupil Hasan ibn Yusuf ibn al-Mutahhar al-Hilli, Kashf al-murad fi sharh tajrid al-i'tiqad, Qum: Jama'atal-Mudarrisin, no date.)

References and further reading

Dabashi, H. (1995) 'Khwajah Nasir al-Din al-Tusi: The Philosopher/Vizier and the Intellectual Climate ofHis Times', in S.H. Nasr and O. Leaman (eds) History of Islamic Philosophy, London: Routledge: 527-84.(Good introduction to al-Tusi, his work and his times.)

Ibn Sina (980-1037) Kitab al-isharat wa-'l-tanbihat (Remarks and Admonitions), trans. A.-M. Goichon,Livre des directives et remarques, Beirut: Commission Internationale pour la Traduction des Chefsd'Oeuvres, and Paris: Vrin, 1951. (A useful French translation of Ibn Sina's text with introduction and notesby the translator; also contains many of al-Tusi's explanations in the notes, as well as some of his criticismsof al-Razi.)

Madelung, W. (1985) 'Nasir al-Din Tusi's Ethics Between Philosophy, Shi'ism, and Sufism', in R.G.

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Hovannisian (ed.) Ethics in Islam, Malibu, CA: Undena, 85-101. (Discusses the developments of al-Tusi'sethical ideas in relation to his political involvement and religious allegiances.)

Morewedge, P. (1975) 'The Analysis of "Substance" in Tusi's Logic and in the Ibn Sinian tradition', in G.Hourani (ed.) Essays on Islamic philosophy and science, Albany, NY: State University of New YorkPress. (Morewedge is one of the few scholars to have made specific studies of al-Tusi's metaphysics, andthis article discusses substance in the Asas al-iqtibas.)

Mudarris Radawi, M.T. (1975) Ahwal wa athar-e... Abu Ja'far Muhammad... al-Tusi... (Life and Worksof... Abu Ja'far Muhammad... al-Tusi...), Tehran: Bunyad-e Farhang-e Iran. (In the absence of anycomprehensive work on al-Tusi in a European language, it is necessary to turn to this Persian work whichcontains a comprehensive inventory of al-Tusi's works.)

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